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Having a background making ammunition, training with firearms, and studying many topics from psychology, human physiology, and gunshot wounding pathology, I have all the knowledge required to create profiles for weapons and armor and rules for using them to reflect a realistic combat engagement.

The traditional method of working out shooting, wounding, and armor saves has been unrealistic for the sake of saving game time or out of pure ignorance.

The process of shooting, and being shot and killed has more to it than you would think. A soldier of any race has a psychological profile, a unit and weapons training he relies on, armor, eyes and ears or integrated sensor suites utilizing advanced technologies for enhancing situational awareness while cutting down severe blast concussions or choking smoke.

To illustrate the example. An imperial guard soldier has his eyes and ears. A flak jacket. And a trusty las gun flashlight.

A chaos space marine is seven feet tall. Warped with power and evil. Armored with ceramic plates and fully enclosed from the environment. Augmented senses. And a rifle that fires mini rockets that can penetrate a flak jacket and body and then explode inside ripping a man to shreds and showering his comrades with blood.

An overlooked difference here is that the psychological profiles of these two are absolutely a world apart. A squad of chaos marines could take fire from a squad of IG and not even flinch. Their armor and physiology is so superior to the incoming fire that they can run forward confidently blasting away. Knowing that their armor will easily absorb a las bolt and even if it penetrated a weak point their superhuman body could shrug off the damage long enough to finish the battle before requiring medical attention.

The IG soldier on the other hand would see his buddy get turned into a cloud of red mist from one Bolter shell and instantly lose his courage to advance. He would dive for cover and be shaken with fear. He might still return fire. But would absolutely not move from it.

So to accurately create a rule set to give a proper feel of realism to the table top requires both a psychological profile and a weapon/armor system.

I will begin work on this alternate rule set and be posting here in the future to update and edit it.

More details to follow....

Are you familiar with the psychology of 40k?

Refer to the humble Commissar. You're cowering? BLAM! Not doing as you're told? BLAM! Boots not tied in Munitorium approved fashion? BLAM for you and BLAM for your next of kin.

Commissars have to kill a friend to become Commissars. Human life has no value in the Grim Dark. The psychology of that universe is not the same as ours.

You’re absolutely wrong. The immediate threat of an enemy blowing people to pieces is going to give any sane person pause. Regardless of commissar or not. That being said you will have special rules about the If how and when a commissar actually can keep his men in line. Some situations will make a commissar irrelevant. How far is a soldier from the commissar. How large and horrifying is the threat. How horrifying is the weapon effect. It’s not black and white like you think. Sorry if you read some 40k fluff and think it means people will not being human beings and be stupidly brave. But people will run from a flame thrower, 30 foot tall alien, etc unless there is some extremely compelling reason not to.

Not to mention a commissar that is smart will not spend the lives of his men needlessly. Sending light infantry unsupported against elite marines or huge space aliens. Men are trained to take cover to save their lives and fight smart. There is a difference between preserving your life to fight smart and pure cowardice.

Like being BLAM-ED? Specifically while within 6"?

You realize the 40k universe is about heroism in the face of insurmountable odds? I mean, will 'Zerkers start running away from Guardsmen with a few Plasma guns because the suddenly realize they're mortal and the Skull God will just be cool with that?

You're not recognizing the setting of the story.

Would a commissar shoot a man for falling back from certain death to a better position to keep fighting? Doubtful. Dead men are useless. Smart men who run from certain death will be around to fight again. Tactical repositioning to avoid certain death is not cowardice A dead man has no use And even if a commissar was gonna shoot you. Unless he was right on top of you with a gun to your head you’re going to run away from the most immediate threat to your life. A commissar might get you into action. But depending how dangerous to life that situation is. The troops may still run. Many things in the universe are worse than a commissar with a pistol.

40k is not realistic. I am all for a cool new war game that’s realistic... but 40k is not that game.

Yes, that's exactly what a Commissar would do. Exactly.

Ever see the movie Enemy at the Gates? When the Comissariat machine gun down men that retreat from a hopeless charge? That happened in our history, and the setting cranks the insanity to 11, then shoots the insanity and raises the spirit as a daemon that exists only to crank the insanity to 111.

By all means, a modern era war game with psychology as a major mechanic could be fun, Brian t not 40k.

If this thread isn’t for you. Then by all means you don’t need to look at it. Thanks for you’re input

Yes he would. The commisars throw away mens lives into a meat grinder. The ig runs are sheer numbers.

Further 40k runs on anything but realism.

You failed before you even started on that alone.

Another troll. Awesome. Loads of you guys. Hey really people if you aren’t interested in this then just don’t comment. Move on to another thread.

While a bit chest-thumping in the way you posted, I don't think many people disagree with you - however, the game of 40K has never once represented reality, or even the actual fluff/lore/novels. It can't, or it wouldn't sell models. You "should" be playing one tactical squad of Space Marines vs. 200-300 Orks, etc. That doesn't sell models. The game mechanics are nothing like a proper historic wargame, and again...it's because of selling models and making the game a very simple vague approximation of combat.

Having had plenty of real-world time carrying a gun myself, I understand this is not "that game", and I'm fine with it. Would I hate if someone did a really good version of 40K which was more realistic? Not at all, I think it would be cool. However, you won't succeed by re-writing some profiles and special rules and cramming them into Warhammer 40K, 8th edition.

You need only read some of the Warhammer 40K novels to note the tremendous gap between book/literature and the way it plays with toy soldiers on a table. It's just about selling a product.

Modern era, you have suicide bombers and the like. The Imperial Guard isn't filled with people that are willing to die because they "hope" their soul will go someplace good when they die.

They are religious zealots that KNOW their soul will be saved by a tangible, knowable, provable God. All they need to do is exactly as they're told by their CO or Commissar and they get a get out of warp-hell free card.

The psychology of the setting is not the same as modern infantry face. You have Billions of madmen with faith stronger than we can imagine not only willing but glad to serve and die for their deity that has proven existence.

Again, we have analogues in our modern history that the setting cranks to 11.

Not gonna argue about it. If you wanna play the normal rules great. If you want an alternative then stay posted.

 Elbows wrote:
You "should" be playing one tactical squad of Space Marines vs. 200-300 Orks, etc..

Depends on the book, in Helsreach, Marines killing 9 Orks before dying is noted as something worth remembering.

It's not a troll to participate in the discussion.

If all your looking for is a bunch of people to sing your praises and tell your your ideas are the best ideas in the world then don't post them on the internet.

This is a forum for discussion and sometimes discussion includes disagreement.

Lance if you have nothing better to do. Then feel free I guess. But if you wanna win an argument with someone on a forum over something that won’t affect you in any way shape or form. Maybe find something else to do?

Hey man, we're just offering advice. Free to take or leave as you see fit. The gist of what we're getting at is the idea you have is interesting, but doesn't seem to fit the fluff of the background material.

It would probably feel much more at home in a different fictional universe. Have fun, I'm interested in the ideas you have.

Should this be a realistic 40k inside the 40k universe with 40k laws of physic etc?
Or a realistic modern combat game with real live physics and 40k army lists?

Just make it clear from the beginning as people would expect different things from it (for a realistic 40k, I woukd expect that an 2k SM Army just consistent of 10-20 models and has no problems to win against 100 Orks)

It is going to be as realistic as I can make it without breaking the game. Total realism would be one space marine killing a hundred imperial guard. But that would break the game. I haven’t figured it all out yet but each weapon will have different characteristics for damage like penetration, thermal, blast/concussion. There will be different classes of armor with different protective values. There will be psychological effects caused by certain units and weapons. And each unit will have a psychological profile which determines how it will function on the battlefield under different situations Of course it will be refined over time

I've questioned some specific WH40K rules on here since getting back into 8th Edition (supercharged plasma hit modifiers, vehicle close combat rules, etc.) but a lot of the time realism is sacrificed to make the game more streamlined, more balanced and more inclusive to different army types. In short, more fun. More realistic rules would require totally different points costs across the factions to what we have now too.

I will already admit this. It will add realism and TIME to your games. Not a lot of time. But I think it will make the game more fun and engaging.

8th edition could use a little bit more realism. Vehicle guns would need LoS. Hitting a tank from the rear should do more damage. You shouldnt be able to kill models out of LoS or out of range.

Lol. That’s such an obviously broken rule I wouldn’t have even thought to fix it. You can’t kill units you don’t have line of sight on.

I agree with this need for psychology. For example, a space marine squad charging at an IG missile launcher team should take a casualty (remember, this is the realism edition, so the krak missile's guidance computer allows it to hit on a 2+ regardless of the shooting unit's BS and a hit automatically kills any infantry model) and immediately fall back. No conceivable objective on the battlefield is worth the loss of one of the precious few space marines ever to exist, so the presence of heavy weapons capable of killing them should force an immediate retreat. And there should be lots of those heavy weapons. Because this is the realism edition a typical game should be between ~3000 points of IG and a single 5-man tactical squad.

warpedpig wrote:
You can’t kill units you don’t have line of sight on.

Im not talking about units. Im talking about models. Only one model needs to be in range, and visible, to get targeted in the shooting phase. If you inflict enough wounds you can wipe out the entire unit, even if if all other models are out of sight and out of range.

warpedpig wrote:You’re absolutely wrong.

warpedpig wrote:If this thread isn’t for you. Then by all means you don’t need to look at it. Thanks for you’re input

warpedpig wrote:Another troll. Awesome. Loads of you guys. Hey really people if you aren’t interested in this then just don’t comment. Move on to another thread.

warpedpig wrote:Not gonna argue about it. If you wanna play the normal rules great. If you want an alternative then stay posted.

warpedpig wrote:Lance if you have nothing better to do. Then feel free I guess. But if you wanna win an argument with someone on a forum over something that won’t affect you in any way shape or form. Maybe find something else to do?

You're on a rules proposal forum. You're going to get feedback and in almost all cases, not 100% of the feedback will be positive. Accept it. If you're going to dismiss anything critical as "Don't comment if you don't like it", then best to come back when you can handle it.


Rules wise, it's unnecessary. There are far more unrealistic things in 40k than psychological profiles, and in an edition with a distinct focus on simplicity, this adds more unnecessary steps with little change.

Also makes no sense from a thematic perspective. Yes, it's an 8' tall monster that's just turned your buddy into jam, but as said previously, not all the IG armies are the same as 20th Century forces. Some may be filled with an incorruptible faith as mentioned before. The IG could be drugged-up psychos with no comprehension of fear, they could be lobotomised, may be on an utterly desperate last stand. Claiming to know human psychology doesn't make any difference, there's just so many thematic explanations.

Valkyrie. Ah of course. A Brit from London here to lecture. Thanks for the wisdom oh great one. Again a waste of a post.

warpedpig wrote:
Valkyrie. Ah of course. A Brit from London here to lecture. Thanks for the wisdom oh great one. Again a waste of a post.

Sarcastic and racist all in one package?

This thread is going to be pretty fantastic if this keeps up. I gave genuine feedback in my first response, but now I'm just here to watch. (pops popcorn)

Lmao. Racist? Cmon everyone knows the British have the stiff upper lip “we are superior” attitude. I used to live in Britain. Always lecturing to people. Always talking crap about Americans. Please just save it. I haven’t even posted the alternate rules yet and I have a bunch of people trying to lecture to me about how it is a bad idea and the 40k universe runs on another set of rules.

If you don’t like the idea. Good for you. Go away then. This thread is for people who want the option of another rule set. Maybe you have some deep need to be validated on the internet by winning arguments about what the 40k universe should be like or whatever. Really man get a life. Find someplace else to post.