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Hello everyone!

Like many, I've been feeling increasingly dissatisfied with the state of Warhammer 40K over the years, and found myself writing my own rules for the game so that I could have fun with my models again.

So I'd like to present Wasteland tactics, and humbly request feedback.

https://github.com/Pointedstick/wasteland-tactics/releases/latest/download/Rules.pdf

The rules originated in a skirmish-scale wargame I designed for a small dev team a few years ago whose product never got off the ground. They gave me permission to use the rules for whatever I want, and I found myself adapting them to be able to play 40k. My goal was to preserve the essence of what I love about 40K, but in a game that feels like a classical military wargame, and avoids excessive detail and complexity. Among its features are:

* Simple basic rules that combine in complex ways
* Meaningful choices rather than just endless sterile die rolling
* Alternating unit activation
* Reactions
* Suppression-based morale system
* Leadership and Orders
* Missions with complex, real world style objectives
* Tanks that feel like tanks
* No units that are inappropriate for the scale (aircraft, super-heavy tanks, etc)

Inspirations in no particular order are: 4th edition 40K, GrimDark Future, Dust Warfare, Beyond the Gates of Antares, and Bolt Action.

So far I've written army rules for the Planetary Defense Force (IG/AM) and Orc Raiders (Orks) factions and am working on Gothic Legion (Space Marine) rules.

Development happens at https://github.com/Pointedstick/wasteland-tactics. The project is open-source, licensed using the GPLv3 license. All documents are laid out using the LaTeX typesetting system. Contributions are welcome!

It is definitely an early Alpha, lacking rules for most factions, and with no meaningful art in the rule pamphlet. Those are planned.

Any and all feedback is appreciated! Even harsh, brutal feedback.

Nate

Lots to like, here. Main thing that leapt out at me that could do with some attention is a clear explanation of what happens if one side runs out of units to activate before the other. Does the one with more units just keep activating until they're finished? Or are their not-yet-activated units just ignored this turn?

I assume the former, but it's not explicitly stated in the text that I could spot.

I think, if I were minded to play a 40k-like battle game I'd prefer this over 40k, for sure. But there are still a couple of design features I'd encourage you to think about.

The first is unit coherency. I just think it's a very low-brow approach to the issue that could be handled better than just forcing an artificially tight coherency.

The second is absolute weapon ranges. It always annoys me when a model ha a 50% chance of hitting something at 32", but a 0% chance of hitting something at 32.5".

I like your approach to the rules orders. Putting missions right up at the start is unconventional but makes sense - it helps players to visualize the game more quickly and to begin applying the subsequent rules to the plans for missions straight away.

It's an approach I'll borrow if I have the chance in the future, I think,

Thanks so much for the feedback!


You're absolutely right about the "running out of units to activate" thing. I try to make the rules super explicit and I missed that. Right now it's implicit that the larger battle group just keeps activating units until it runs out, but I'll make it explicit, pending any changes to the way that works, of course.

I'm open to suggestions regarding how to improve unit coherency. I agree that the current rule is rather crude.

Regarding weapon ranges, I don't disagree. One thing I really want to do with these rules is give players meaningful choices that come with real consequences. So for example if I said that you can exceed your weapons' range by 50% with a -4 Shoot penalty, I'd want for there to be some additional disadvantage to doing so, or else players would just always do it. Maybe something like if you want to exceed your weapons' ranges (with Shoot penalty), you need to make a Will roll, and if you fail, the Shoot action fails entirely due to the unit's disorganization and confusion.

I'm glad you liked the mission positioning. That was definitely deliberate, for exactly the reason you said.

I re-did the formatting in the Shoot action slightly to re-categorize existing options to split fire or shoot at distant targets under the umbrella of a new "Advanced Shooting Task" category. Each one you want to perform requires a separate Will roll, and each failed Will roll imposes an additional -1 Shoot penalty for the rest of the action. So doing fancy shooting is now riskier.

With this as a base framework, in https://github.com/Pointedstick/wasteland-tactics/commit/64fe1ae2c109de8bec8dc7a8ac7d95e8fd5bae91 I added a new Advanced Shooting Task to allow a unit to extend their weapons' ranges by 5" at the cost of a -3 Shoot Penalty. It fit in quite nicely.

With unit coherency, I would be inclined to suggest starting by using a carrot approach rather than a stick. If you incentivize players to keep their squads coherent, it will have the same effect whilst opening up new tactical options.

For example, close coherency might allow a bonus for firepower, representing focused fire. Or improved communications, which might improve defence or allow access to special options.

I suppose you also have to think about ground scale and the purpose of the game. As a sci-fi game, in open terrain squads are more likely to want to spread out, as long as they don't overlap with each other (which would cause tactical confusion). But in close terrain, they will want to stay closer to each other for mutual support.

If you think in these terms, hopefully the narrative will suggest rules that could replicate and emphasize these ideas.

That's an interesting idea.

However I don't want to overwhelm the player with bookkeeping by asking them to apply bonuses or penalties based on the distances between models. The best way to do it without bookkeeping would be to apply a bonus when all models are in base contact with another model in the unit.

This would work out great in a system with blast and flamer templates, where there's a natural penalty for bunching up that complements any advantage it might provide. IIRC the 4th edition 40K IG codex did this, allowing you to take a "Close order drill" WS bonus when all models were in base contact, or something like that. You could mimic it in a system with abstract area effect weapons by making those weapons get extra hits when all models are in base contact.

However a bonus for having all models in base contact is separate from how you prevent models from being 5" away from other models in the unit, which is what the unit coherently guidelines are trying to prevent.

But I see your point that the current approach of forcing coherency is not very player friendly.