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Hi everyone!

So the more I read about the general principles behind the rules for 30k I cannot help but feel that it just plain makes for a better game then 40k but I feel like 40k has the more interesting variety of armies. What I really want is to play 40k but bring the most interesting aspects of 30k to the game. So after much consideration these are things I think sit at the core of what makes 30ks rules great.

1) 30k Force Organization charts: This includes all the restrictions. 1 "master of legion" per 1000 points. LoW only in games of 2k points or more and at a value of no more then 25% of your army.

2) Rites of War: These are awesome. Formations are crap compared to the incredible stuff that comes out of RoW. I want zero formations. Zero decurions. RoW all the way.

3) Unit costs built to bring discounts to building up the units you have instead of more MSU. A unit that costs 125 for 5 models should not cost 25 for each additional model. It should costs like... 17 with unit wide upgrades having a flat cost instead of per model cost. MSU has tactical advantages, but you get more bang for your point buck when units are costed this way. I feel it's a much more interesting practice.

4) Finally a removal of army wide special rules that negate core mechanics. I'm looking at you And They Shall Know No Fear. I am also looking at synapse offering Fearless. I have some ideas on how to adjust some of the 40 rules for some of these.

Is there anything else anyone thinks helps define 30k from 40k? I would love to know everyone's thoughts on that.

Has anyone else had any thoughts on this? Thought of converting 40k Codexes into 30k rules conventions?




Here are some ideas I have been knocking around for changing Tyranids to work with 30k rules.

Special Rules:

Synapse Creature: A model with this rule has a synapse range of 12" and a 5+ invulnerable save (Originally a 5+fnp, but what nids really needs is some more survivability on their synapse units and FNP would be negated by anything s8 or higher anyway on the majority of their units. In particular the warriors and their variants that really should be the nids bread and butter) . Models and their units even partially within synapse range have Driven By The Hive Mind and Feel No Pain (6+)

Driven By The Hive Mind: Models with this special rule make all leadership and moral checks using the unmodified leadership value of the nearest Synapse Creature.

Shadow In the Warp: Enemy models even partially within synapse range have a -2 penalty to leadership and any enemy model or unit that is at least partially in synapse range and attempts to manifest psychic powers suffer a -1 penalty to dice rolls to harness warp charges.


Hive Tyrants: The Great Devourer Incarnate (Tyranids version of Master of Legion) This means 1 HT for every 1000 points in the army.
I have other ideas for balancing them. Including...

Drop their price by 30 points. Wings now replace a pair of scything talons. Walkrants get cheaper and flyrants loose some dakka.

Swarmlord is LoW option equivalent to "chapter masters" (40k Primarchs... not as powerful as primarchs obviously but with some universal baselines EW being one) gaining Eternal Warrior and The Great Devourer Incarnate. and get beefed up in some other ways I haven't fully fleshed out or balanced yet.

Tyranid Prime: The Prime should be similar to the way it is now, but have some options to be specialized similar to the Consul. To that end, It should have some base line options with small adjustments for being a warrior Prime, a Shriek Prime or a Ravener Prime, adjusting it's unit type accordingly (Shriek Prime is jump infantry, Ravener Prime is a deep striking beast) Depending on which type it is it can purchase a unit of the accompanying type to join it without taking up a foc slot.

Trygon: Trygon's ability to burrow would have ability where they can automatically deepstrike on any turn from turn 2 forward. Allowing the ability to actually be useful since any unit that gets to deepstrike after then can start making use of the tunnels instead of the crap shoot for whether or not it will be used at all that it is now.

The Sporecyst would be a Fortification option for Tyranids. 1-3 for the FoC slot.

RoW could include...

Skyblight Swarm

Hive Tyrant is compulsory HQ and must have wings.
Gargoyles and shrieks are troops and one of each must be your compulsory troops.
Any non jump or non flying creatures must come in Tyrannocytes (drop pods).

Terror from the Deep.

Trygon Prime is compulsory HQ
Raveners are troops and must be taken as compulsory.
No jump, flying, or drop pods allowed.


There are some other adjustments to units to create more synergy and more adaptive flexibility but I think that gives the gist of the general direction I think this kind of thing could go in.

Any thoughts?

Not a bad idea, and I'd like to bring some Xenos armies into my local 30k scene (particularly the ones that were actually around back then, like Orks), but the biggest problem is that would require mega-re-balancing to do all the 40k dexes.

The two biggest issues I feel are:

Eldar. Get rid of formations, limit their lords of war. They're still insanely OP. You'd have to rework the entire dex.

Armor. Armored vehicles are actually durable in 30k. It's nice. The reason they're not in 40k is almost every race can spam some sort of attack that negates armor values (eldar D spam, marine grav spam, skitarii and dark eldar haywire spam, necron anything spam). Introducing these races into 30k would massively alter the effectiveness of the huge tough armored vehicles that are a large part of what 30k is known for.

Personally, I think it's a lost cause, sorry to say :/


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'll likely be running a 30k campaign in the Chicago area this winter, and I feel like I'll probably end up allowing no 40k armies, or maybe Orks / cult mechanicus / skitarii and THAT'S IT.

All fair enough. I do think the dexes need major rebalances. And vehicles have their own problems that need addressing.

Even if it was not playing 30k legions against 40k armies but instead just playing 40k using 30k rules I feel like it would be so much better of a game. A LOT of work for sure. And I am only really familiar with about 3-4 dexes. Would need others help to convert the other armies.