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So I have recently played the new apocalypse ruleset and found it quite interesting how they have streamlined the process. Making it so that certain things we expect to see in normal games of 40k become an oddity in this.

With this in mind, i have though of a theory of how 40k can be better off as a game if these mechanics were modified and added to the base game of 40k. for a more streamlined and more tactical approach to the game.

Damage for all units applies at the end of the battle round. This one would probably be the most impactful as making this ensures that your strategy that you planned was not completely destroyed when you opponent had taken out either one of your clutch units or had taken out a unit that was providing a great distraction to your enemy. This change means that focus firing on one thing might actually be counter productive. The only problem i can see with this implementation would be how dmg and saves have to be re done to fit this system. Luckily apocalypse solved this through the implementation of small and large blast markers. In 40k this could be represented through the use of dmg being the amount of saves needed for a unit, while FNP abilities give an additional save above this, much like Ignore damage (X).

Command Stratagems become card based instead with generation being dependent on HQ units. This would stop the so called "Stratagem points Spam" That plagues 40k by making the tactics card based, again this is based of apocalypse.
A 20 card deck could be used(and modified) to suit the person's play style but also means that tactics actually have more meaning to them over the "Spam the same ability for a turn" that current 40k is implementing.
The HQ aspect of generating cards could even be changed as needed if armies could not provide an adequate amount of HQ units due to limits placed in game modes (Such as matched play).

YGIG vs Alternative activation. This one i would say modify it to alternative, but not for the reasons you think. This change would be more for the engagement aspect. As you do not want much downtime per person and the game runs much more smooth if every unit goes individually. There might be some aspects that would need changing. (Charge would probably need to be considered along with movement) but overall this would work.

These are my thoughts

Apoc seems like a well-designed rules set that accomplishes a lot of the goals it presumably set for itself. I'm excited to try it out. However, I'm not sure the concepts you've mentioned would translate smoothly.

Applying damage at the end of the battle round is interesting. It kind of solves the issue of alpha striking. It ensures you'll get at least one turn to use your units in some way.

However, some armies strongly rely on offense as a form of defense. Drukhari, for instance, are notoriously fragile. Their playstyle is all about leveraging their mobility to get the jump on the enemy and take it down before it can hurt them back. For instance, your gun boats might hide behind a building or out of range on turn 1, then fly forward to kill off the anti-gunboat unit your opponent brought, thus killing it before it could shoot at its preferred target. By waiting until the end of the round to remove casualties, this same tactic would result in the anti-gunboat tank downing some of the units that would normally have murdered it without retaliation.

My concern is that this would end up rewarding armies/units that trade well in a straight up fight (thinks that are tanky enough to soak up or survive a turn of fire while returning their own fire). So if my drukhari and your death gaurd (for the sake of discussion) get into a fire fight, I'll probably die because that's what drukhari do when they're shot at. But your death guard might manage to stick around for an extra turn thus giving you the edge.

Any idea how Apoc gets around this? Does it get around this?

There's definitely a form of card-based strats that would work perfectly well. I'm just not sure the apoc system is the best fit for 40k. In apoc, drawing additional cards creates a value in drawing many cards (to help ensure you get a card that will be valuable that turn instead of being stuck with a less useful card). This in turn makes characters useful (because they generate the cards). In 40k, there's no need to encourage the inclusion of characters the way there is in Apoc. Characters in 40k are already useful.

Plus, many 40k strats are either very situational or critical to a unit's function. A unit of wraith guard slogging across the table on foot is very different from that same unit being deepstruck via the webway strat. Crucible of Malediction (a short-ranged "nova" effect that targets psykers in range of a specific type of drukhari character) is a very niche strat. You might use it when the opportunity arises, but that opportunity doesn't arise very often. Making access to the strat random/unreliable makes it the stratagem that much less useful because you both need the niche situation in which the strat is useful to arise AND you need to actually have the card in your hand at that moment. If there's the potential to exclude cards from your stratagem deck, then niche strats like Crucibal would basically become non-options rather than niche options; you'd remove it from your deck every time.

Alternative activation is a good idea that has been discussed over and over again and recently on these forums.

Apoc has significantly less wounds on everything but everything is also rolling significantly less dice.

Interactions are purely on a unit to unit basis instead of a model to unit basis.

It doesn't matter if you have 30 termagants with devourers. You don't roll 90 dice. 10 termagant have attacks 1 and 2 wounds. 30 gants have 3 attacks and 6 wounds. Being equiped with devourers is attacks x3 (9 dice).

If I land 2 wounds on your unit the first one gets placed as a small blast (your save is rolled on a d12) and the second one upgrades it to a large blast (your save is rolled on a d6). That means in order to wipe out my Gants in 1 turn you need to successfully wound me 11 times to place 5 large blasts and 1 small and I would need to fail every one of those saves. It takes serious concentrated fire to bring down full units.

Damage does not remove models. If I am taken down to less than 1/2 wounds the units attacks are cut in half. (my 9 shots becomes 5 (I THINK it's rounded up)).

The unit of Gants gets to reroll 1s to hit when there are 30 models in the unit. Since models never get removed they will keep that power until they are fully destroyed.


Glass cannon units in Apoc just keep on trucking till they die. And killing them just isn't that easy.