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So I like to know what are your favourite alternative rulesets to GW's official 9th edition? With alternative I mean that it is clearly meant to be used with 40k models. One example would be the 40k version from One Page Rules.

What is the name of the ruleset?
Where / How is it available?
What do you like about it?
What do you dislike about it?

I'm using Grimdark Future from One Page Rules, as you mentioned.
It's available from their website as a free download.

I like:
- The representation of factions. All 40K factions are represented, plus some Warpath factions like Space Dwarves and so on. I really like this, it fits well with the fictional universe I want to play in.
- Easy to teach. 2 stats plus limited exceptions which tend to be consistent across armies makes the game really easy to teach to new players. I've gotten my wife to play this and I don't think she'd be interested in playing a more fiddly wargame but she enjoyed GDF enough to play more than once. Huge win for me. Also I'm introducing non-wargamers to the game and having a really simple to grasp system makes that much easier.
- Alternating activation. I think this works better for games with a large amount of lethal ranged firepower. It also plays into the "easy to teach" thing above, because each turn a new player just has to pick one unit at a time to think about.
- It's complete. If you go and download all the PDFs right now you get a complete game, with fleet level and kill team level games available. Updated lists for all factions that are all based on the same 2.0 rules. You can fit the entire game in a small binder, with all factions and rules.
- It's fast and fun to play, and it still gives units the right "feel". The special rules are just enough to make units feel different and the game plays very fluidly and quickly.
- Model agnostic. I can use whatever models and base sizes I want, and whatever scale I want as well. This means I can use my entire collection without much worry and I don't have to rebase stuff.

Things I don't like:
- Balance can be off for some lists. Some are obviously more powerful than others and it'd be easy to build skew lists with maximally efficient units.
- Sometimes special rules need to be more bespoke. Having special rules that are always the same can be a problem - for example Ambush is a lot less useful on units with Slow, but it is costed like it's not less useful.
- Limited structure on forces. I'd like some sort of FOC for the game to put some sort of structure on the armies. But I suppose that's not a big deal to do myself.
- Terrain rules. I don't think the terrain rules are very good, and I'd port in some stuff from older 40K editions like area terrain blocking line of sight to units on the other side and stuff because I think the flat -1 doesn't do enough.
- Quality does too much. I think this is ultimately not solveable while keeping the advantages above, but the Quality stat does a lot, and it makes differentiating between units a bit difficult at times.

WH40k 8th edition
WH40k 7th edition
WH40k 6th edition
WH40k 5th edition
WH40k 4th edition
WH40k 3rd edition
WH40k 2nd edition
WH40k Rogue Trader

The 3rd/4th/5th edition era of 40k for more granular games (4th being my favorite, but each edition has its pros and cons), and the new Apocalypse for quicker, alternating activation games. Both sets are "closed" rulesets (i.e. no new books, errata, or FAQs being published) and the rulebooks/codexes for both can be found cheap on ebay. Don't assume you need massive armies to play the new Apocalypse; it can still work great for normal-sized armies (ex. 1500-2000 point armies).

Honorable mention to 2nd edition, the era in which I started 40k. But even with rose-tinted glasses I find 2nd edition to be too cumbersome to play again (additional rules, cards/tokens, melee, etc.)

Homebrew, named Grim Darkness. Started as a clean-up to 6E.

Uses alternate activation and D8's. Roll to Wound/Armor saves are combined into one roll called Defense.

Also have used Boltgun Action; it's a modification to Gates of Antares with 40K units.

Mezmorki has Prohammer rules here on Dakka somewhere…

Someday, I will re collect all those old editions from RT to 4th at least.

 Stormonu wrote:
Homebrew, named Grim Darkness. Started as a clean-up to 6E.

Uses alternate activation and D8's. Roll to Wound/Armor saves are combined into one roll called Defense.

Also have used Boltgun Action; it's a modification to Gates of Antares with 40K units.

 jeff white wrote:
Mezmorki has Prohammer rules here on Dakka somewhere…

Someday, I will re collect all those old editions from RT to 4th at least.

Could you please elaborate what you like and dislike about these rulesets? (At least the non private one's )

I like regular old 4th edition, available secondhand for cheap or electronically for free.

I enjoy that it makes me feel like I am fighting an actual battle in the 41st millennium (or at least a good approximation of one) with clear narrative threads and whatnot.

I dislike how hard it can be to find opponents, though I have one regular and plenty more showing increasing interest...

ProHammer author here.

Our group has been playing and refining ProHammer for over a year at this point. We just weren't interested in sticking with 9th edition and playing the whole GW-codex release, power-creep, treadmill game anymore. Enough said about that....

We looked back at what we wanted and the overall sense was that every "classic" (3rd through 7th) edition had it's pro's and con's, but that we had the most fun playing 4th and 5th. We often thought, "This edition would be perfect, if only GW would fix XYZ." GW would push out a new version that might fix XYZ but would then break ABC. We just wanted one edition that worked. One edition that focused on tabletop tactics, and positioning, and maneuver above all else.

So that was the impetus for making ProHammer. As to what ProHammer does...

We started with the 5th ed rulebook (although at this point it has lot of 4th ed feels to it as well). We "fixed" the stuff that we didn't like (wound allocation rules, the ways LoS was handled). We pulled in rules from other editions that we DID like (e.g. there's a much toned down "reactive fire" rule inspired by 6th edition, a true overwatch rule from 2nd edition). We also establish some parameters for how codexes from across the "classic" editions could be used alongside each other. Mostly this meant restricting the use of formations and wonky detachment stuff from 7th edition in favor of standard force org charts. We've also been writing (slowly) a whole new set of highly customizable/variable missions, again pulling designs from across editions.

We've played dozens of games at this point, and it's holding up well. We love that players can pick whatever codex book is their favorite and play it against another edition's codex. We have had some really epic games of 3rd edition feral orks playing against 7th edition Tau, for example, and it all worked out just fine.

Anyway - check the link in my signature below for the ProHammer thread. The post links to the rules but also provides a much lengthier breakdown of the major gameplay changes.

Nothing at the moment but apparently Xenos Rampant is due for release in 2022. Sounds like it could be a good, casual alternative to 40K...

I tried starbreach with 40k models, it's more like a substitute for kill team. But honestly i did not like it all that much. Too slow playing and fiddly whrn you have to track up towards 10 wounds /model

I honestly -don't- mind 9th if I just say. "Hey I left my notebook at home, let's play without secondaries." But as of late. I've been pushing my friends to play some 5th ed 40k. It's what I started with and to me feels like peak 40k.

I played my first game of Grimdark Future from One Page Rules today. My Necrons (a lot of Warriors and Immortals, a C'tan, and a Monolith) versus a bunch of Primaris Space Marines; 2500 points each side (probably about 1500-2000 points in 9th edition points).

I liked it. Alternating activations was nice as well as rolling much fewer dice. As both armies were more "elite," morale was pretty much a non-issue but I could see it really impacting factions like Imperial Guard and Orks. Best of all it played very fast; I think we were done in about an hour, not counting setup time. I want to try out some other factions, but so far I'd definitely recommend it as a quick alternative to 9th edition.