Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_Yea4gOiZwIbxsPgHb8g00x5CxF4AQwsqUgODn5yakc/edit?usp=sharing

This is a set of quick house rules to make smaller point games a bit longer-lasting/more interesting, adding back in some of the various rules from previous editions of the game and adapting them towards the current game framework, with a tilt towards reducing lethality somewhat and reducing common pitfalls of small point value games.

Quick summary:

-remove AIRCRAFT and LORD OF WAR models from smaller games, which can be difficult to interact with. Also, introduced caps on how many VEHICLE/MONSTER and CHARACTER keyword units can be included as a percentage of your army.

-Since small point value games will usually include more minimum-size units which often nearly completely ignore morale, reworked morale back into an unmodified 2d6 roll. Also, re-introduced the state of 'pinned' and moved morale tests back towards an old school style, where the units run away from their current position rather than simply losing models as casualties.

-increased the cap on modifiers to include +1/-1 from rules applying to the attacker, and +1/-1 from rules applying to the defender, meaning it's possible to have a -2 to hit if your target is hiding in dense cover, and you are moving/firing a heavy weapon.

-Added a vehicle/monster random damage table that the controlling player can choose to roll on to avoid damage to the abstracted 'hit points' of the model.

-Added an abstracted, quick version of the old 'flanking bonus' when targeting vehicle/monster models, to further help avoid the common problem in low points games of facing off against a large unit that few of your weapons can efficiently harm.

I'm wary that these rules primarily reduce damage taken from ranged attacks, and melee is generally unaffected. in order to keep melee from reigning supreme, I'm considering adding in the option to fall back 3" from an oncoming charger that exists in Kill Team. Possibly as a 0CP universal stratagem, and also making Overwatch a 0CP stratagem?

-Changed Long Range to all attacks over 18" range, no longer 1/2 range

-Changed arm/weapon destroyed to allow opponent to choose 1 weapon, rather than randomly determining.

-Changed Go to Ground to when targeted.

-Added clause to pinning section clarifying that if the unit is prevented from moving for any reason, they just become Pinned after failing morale.

-Changed rally tests to only occur in the controlling player's turn. Kept them as 1d6+casualties the unit took in the previous opposing player's turn - if we can track that in full scale 40k, I think it's fair to track that in these smaller size games.

-Added clarifiation that when attacking monsters/vehicles, rather than fully resolving attacks one at a time, damage to be taken should be tracked on a die or similar method and then once all attacks have been completed, either taken all at once or the player opts for using the critical damage table.

-personally, I like the distinctions between the monster table and vehicle table. Monsters typically being more oriented toward melee as opposed to vehicles being more typically oriented towards ranged combat means I want to generally tilt the results of the table towards penalizing those things - the 1 result totally immobilizes a monster, but does not affect shooting and only halves the movement of a vehicle but applies a -1 to hit, for example.

I know there are a few shootier monsters like the exocrine and obviously tau stuff, and a few melee-oriented vehicles like Dreadnoughts, but i think it still provides some value to divide them when looking at the general category.