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Low Gravity World

Low gravity worlds are smaller than your average planet-some are moons, some are large asteroids, but all have a gravity less than half that of Holy Terra. Units find themselves more easily able to move around, though unless used to the gravity, they may often find themselves tripping or falling into dangerous situations.

Movement Phase

Any model may choose to move up to twice its normal movement. (Infantry may move 12", bikes 24", etc.) Any model that does so, though, must take a dangerous terrain test.

Shooting Phase

Any model that runs may roll twice the number of dice and keep twice the normal number of dice for movement, but must take a dangerous terrain test if it does so. (For instance, a model with Crusader would roll four dice and take the best two.) Any model that turboboosts or moves Flat Out may move up to twice the regular distance, but must take a dangerous terrain test even if it moves its normal distance or less.

Assault Phase

Any model may choose to roll and keep twice the number of dice when charging. If they do so, though, they must take a dangerous terrain test if they choose to do so (regardless of if the charge succeeds), and the charge is a disordered charge.

Hailfire World

Hailfire Worlds are worlds surrounded by unstably orbiting debris. This often comes crashing down, causing massive destruction on the planet below.

At The Start Of Each Game Turn

Roll on the following table for size of the debris.

Size
1-2: Small Blast
3-5: Large Blast
6: Massive Blast

Then, roll 2d6 for the Strength of the debris, and 1d6 for the AP.

Once that has been determined, place the blast marker in the center of one quadrant of the battlefield (determine which one randomly). Scatter it, using 3d6, three times. Any models under (including fliers) underneath the blast marker suffer a hit at the rolled Strength and AP. Vehicles are struck on their rear armor.

Magmatically Unstable Planet

Magmatically unstable planets are young, with the crust not yet fully cooled. Magma spurts often rise to the surface, creating pockets of molten ground.

At The Start Of Each Game Turn

Place three large blast markers in the center of the of the game table. Scatter each one three times, using three dice. Leave each blast marker there-it is considered difficult and dangerous terrain. The center is exceptionally dangerous-any model that begins or ends its move on the center of the blast marker must take a dangerous terrain test with no armor saves allowed. At the start of the next game turn, these pockets cool, becoming merely difficult terrain, and after the second game turn they are placed, remove the blast marker-the land has settled, and the terrain is no longer melty.

In addition, if two blast markers overlap, the magma becomes exceptionally unstable. If they are both treated as dangerous terrain, no armor saves are allowed against the dangerous terrain tests from overlapping sections, and if they are both difficult terrain, you roll one less die for move through cover.

These sound fun. I'll give them a try.

It's a good idea. If you're open to suggestions though, instead of always starting the hailfire world blasts in the center of the board, maybe have 1 blast per quadrant of the board centered in the middle of the quadrant? This way you don't have the blasts all trending toward the very middle of the board and they'll be much more spread out. You could also add in that if any of the blasts scatter off the board, reroll them until they don't.

For the Low Gravity worlds, I imagine charges becoming disordered pretty quickly with everyone jumping around dodging terrain. I would make it so that if a unit ops to use the extra charge distance/reroll or what have you, that their charge becomes disordered automatically as they're too focus on not tripping over themselves.

Otherwise I really like these ideas.

 chrispy1991 wrote:
It's a good idea. If you're open to suggestions though, instead of always starting the hailfire world blasts in the center of the board, maybe have 1 blast per quadrant of the board centered in the middle of the quadrant? This way you don't have the blasts all trending toward the very middle of the board and they'll be much more spread out. You could also add in that if any of the blasts scatter off the board, reroll them until they don't.

For the Low Gravity worlds, I imagine charges becoming disordered pretty quickly with everyone jumping around dodging terrain. I would make it so that if a unit ops to use the extra charge distance/reroll or what have you, that their charge becomes disordered automatically as they're too focus on not tripping over themselves.

Otherwise I really like these ideas.

GAH! I even thought of that while I was at work, but just forgot to put it in! (The LG Disordered Charge bit.)

Thanks for bringing that up.

I love these ideas! If I might point out a couple things though...

Low gravity worlds give my swooping hawks a 36" move range and a relatively reliable maximum assault range of 48". My hawks are probably using haywire grenades, so they won't care much about disordered charges.

Thunderwolves hit much harder than my hawks, don't care too terribly much about disordered charges, and a relatively reliable (fleet plus assault dice rules) 36" maximum charge range.

That's a pretty scary boost to melee forces.

Hailfire Worlds: Do the quadrants thing. Otherwise you unintentionally punish melee armies that are trying to cross the board while gunlines sit back and take pot shots.

Magmatically Unstable: I'd get rid of the turn-after difficult terrain thing. I don't feel it adds a lot, and it's potentially a bit of pain to keep track of.

Really neat stuff though! I've been brainstorming my own terrain effects for future campaign purposes!

This all sounds fun, another way of going about it would be to allow the armies/even units themselves to be acclimatised, or planet conditioned. ie most factions draw their armies from a wide plethora of planets, each with it's own unique qualities.
But this would possibly be overly complicated compared to your set up.

A few more ideas....

VACUUM
Fighting in the airless void, all units are assumed to have been issued some sort of protection against the harshness of space. However, firefights in such conditions can be dangerous to those whose protective gear is breeched...

Special Rules
Deadly Vacuum: All Weapons gain Rending.
No Air: Flamers have no effect in areas of Vacuum

TOXIC ATMOSPHERE
Deathworlds try to eat you. But on some worlds the very air is poison to those who visit. While units are equipped breath masks and other gear to resist the poison gases, one mistake or stray bullet can result in a slow, choking death.

Special Rules
Toxic Fumes: At the start of the game, place 1D3+1 "clouds" on the board, represented by Large or Small blast templates (green ones would be very appropriate...). At the start of each turn, scatter the toxic clouds 2d6". Any model moving through or standing within the cloud suffers a Poisoned(4+) attack.

LANDQUAKES
It is entirely possible that this planet is unstable....

Special Rules
Land Quake!: At the start of each turn, roll a D6. On a roll of 1, a severe shock rolls through the landscape. Each unit must make an Initiative check (roll equal to or under Initiative on D6) or suffer a -2 WS/BS for the turn. For vehicles, roll on the Vehicle Damage table and apply any Crew Stunned or Crew Shakened result (ignore all other results). Skimmers are only affected on a 4+ on D6 (roll on Vehicle Damage table as indicated previously). Flyers are unaffected.
Shifting Terrain: At the start of each turn, both players designate one piece of terrain on the board. Roll for scatter on 2d6" to move the terrain. Any model on or in the path of the moving terrain suffers a S4 AP - hit. Do not move the affected models with the terrain, leave them behind.

FOG-SHROUDED WORLD
Heavy, pea-soup thick mist covers the ground and obscures units from one another. Half-glimpsed flashes of movement put troops on edge, causing them to hesitate or risk firing on their fellows.

Special Rules:
Fog Banks: At the star of the game, add 1D3+1 Blast Markers to the board to represent fog banks (White templates or cotton looks best). Fog Banks are considered Area Terrain with a 5+ Cover save.
Shrouding Mists: Units 12" or more away gain the benefit of Shrouded.
Whose There?: Before firing Overwatch, make a Leadership test. If the test is failed, no Overwatch may be fired. On a natural roll of 12, your opponent may select a friendly unit more than 6" away and perform Overwatch attacks against it.

 Huron black heart wrote:
This all sounds fun, another way of going about it would be to allow the armies/even units themselves to be acclimatised, or planet conditioned. ie most factions draw their armies from a wide plethora of planets, each with it's own unique qualities.
But this would possibly be overly complicated compared to your set up.

That would probably get way too complicated too fast for a tabletop game, but I think it would be fun to allow units to ignore certain planetary rules by spending X points per unit. This would represent natural tolerance for the condition (like valhallans enduring the cold) or specialized gear put on vehicles (snow tires/snow tracks) or even some sort of biomorph or spell. Planetary rules that could be ignored could be marked with an asterisk or something. Obviously some effects are harder to just "deal with" than others. A valhallan might stand up to the cold pretty well, but even he isn't going to shrug off plunging into arctic water, for instance.

For a large campaign type game, where you run multiple battles on multiple planet types, I think it'd be cool to have acclimatization be free, but have penalties on normal worlds.

For instance, Low Gravity people have -2" to all movement on normal gravity worlds.

 Stormonu wrote:
A few more ideas....

VACUUM
Fighting in the airless void, all units are assumed to have been issued some sort of protection against the harshness of space. However, firefights in such conditions can be dangerous to those whose protective gear is breeched...

Special Rules
Deadly Vacuum: All Weapons gain the Instant Death rule on a natural To Hit roll of 6.
No Air: Flamers have no effect in areas of Vacuum

TOXIC ATMOSPHERE
Deathworlds try to eat you. But on some worlds the very air is poison to those who visit. While units are equipped breath masks and other gear to resist the poison gases, one mistake or stray bullet can result in a slow, choking death.

Special Rules
Toxic Fumes: At the start of the game, place 1D3+1 "clouds" on the board, represented by Large or Small blast templates (green ones would be very appropriate...). At the start of each turn, scatter the toxic clouds 2d6". Any model moving through or standing within the cloud suffers a Poisoned(4+) attack.

LANDQUAKES
It is entirely possible that this planet is unstable....

Special Rules
Land Quake!: At the start of each turn, roll a D6. On a roll of 1, a severe shock rolls through the landscape. Each unit must make an Initiative check (roll equal to or under Initiative on D6) or suffer a -2 WS/BS for the turn. For vehicles, roll on the Vehicle Damage table and apply any Crew Stunned or Crew Shakened result (ignore all other results). Skimmers are only affected on a 4+ on D6 (roll on Vehicle Damage table as indicated previously). Flyers are unaffected.
Shifting Terrain: At the start of each turn, both players designate one piece of terrain on the board. Roll for scatter on 2d6" to move the terrain. Any model on or in the path of the moving terrain suffers a S4 AP - hit. Do not move the affected models with the terrain, leave them behind.

FOG-SHROUDED WORLD
Heavy, pea-soup thick mist covers the ground and obscures units from one another. Half-glimpsed flashes of movement put troops on edge, causing them to hesitate or risk firing on their fellows.

Special Rules:
Fog Banks: At the star of the game, add 1D3+1 Blast Markers to the board to represent fog banks (White templates or cotton looks best). Fog Banks are considered Area Terrain with a 5+ Cover save.
Shrouding Mists: Units 12" or more away gain the benefit of Shrouded.
Whose There?: Before firing Overwatch, make a Leadership test. If the test is failed, no Overwatch may be fired. On a natural roll of 12, your opponent may select a friendly unit more than 6" away and perform Overwatch attacks against it.

I like these. A few thoughts though...

Vacuum: Maybe make Deadly Vacuum trigger on to-wound rolls instead of to-hit rolls? That way, it makes the effect slightly less potent, and you also don't have to sort out your dice into ID and non-ID piles while resolving your attacks. I'd also maybe consider making MCs immune to this as this gets very punishing very fast for armies like tyranids. Unless tyranids got some sort of free pool of bonus points to spend on adapting their units against environmental effects representing their natural ability to... *ahem*... Sorry. Getting off-topic.

Land Quake!: For the sake of reducing book keeping and calculating to-hit rolls with modified WS/BS, perhaps consider changing the effect on infantry to something like, "Non-vehicle models affected by Land Quake may not move or charge and may only snapshoot until the end of the turn" So pinning without being gone to ground (to avoid headaches with fearless and similar rules). I'd also get rid of the shifting terrain part. It's cool, but there's a lot of scattering markers in these rules already. Plus, you already have Land Quake! to keep track of in this planetary type.

Magnetically Unstable Planet

The planet's magnetic field is highly unpredictable, causing incredible fluctuations that fling men and machine across the battlefield.

At the beginning of each turn the players roll off to decide whose units will be affected. The affected player will choose a unit at random (roll x amount of D6 depending on the number of units, however many are needed to get the matching value of the player's units on the board). Any unit other than vehicles, monstrous creatures, flying monstrous, etc. scatters 3d6 and behaves as though it hand arrived via Deep Strike that turn, suffering mishaps only if they scatter off the board. Vehicles and Monstrous creatures scatter 2d6 and suffer a crew stunned result, suffering mishaps if they scatter off the board.

A neat little thing to add, but the only thing that bothers me able it, more freaking rules.

Made a Google Doc.

Only included some of the worlds-some things, like Vacuum, don't feel very balanced. If anyone wants to refine them and make them more balanced, I'll slap 'em onto the Google Doc.

Wyldhunt wrote:


Vacuum: Maybe make Deadly Vacuum trigger on to-wound rolls instead of to-hit rolls? That way, it makes the effect slightly less potent, and you also don't have to sort out your dice into ID and non-ID piles while resolving your attacks. I'd also maybe consider making MCs immune to this as this gets very punishing very fast for armies like tyranids. Unless tyranids got some sort of free pool of bonus points to spend on adapting their units against environmental effects representing their natural ability to... *ahem*... Sorry. Getting off-topic.

Oh, yuck - didn't consider what that would do to MC's. I think the better alternative is to give weapons Rending, so they auto-wound on a 6. That makes it a little less deadly to the big guys. Wish vehicles had an armor roll, though cuz it will be even easier to glance them out.

 Stormonu wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:


Vacuum: Maybe make Deadly Vacuum trigger on to-wound rolls instead of to-hit rolls? That way, it makes the effect slightly less potent, and you also don't have to sort out your dice into ID and non-ID piles while resolving your attacks. I'd also maybe consider making MCs immune to this as this gets very punishing very fast for armies like tyranids. Unless tyranids got some sort of free pool of bonus points to spend on adapting their units against environmental effects representing their natural ability to... *ahem*... Sorry. Getting off-topic.

Oh, yuck - didn't consider what that would do to MC's. I think the better alternative is to give weapons Rending, so they auto-wound on a 6. That makes it a little less deadly to the big guys. Wish vehicles had an armor roll, though cuz it will be even easier to glance them out.

Rending seems like a pretty good fit. That's what vacuums and poisonous atmospheres do in Zone Mortalis. You can take void hardened armor to prevent it and everything. It's neat. Though rending is still pretty nasty against MCs. If you thought shuriken catapults made life tough for a carnifex, just wait until you see what First Rank Fire Second Rank Fire lasguns to him. ;D