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With the release of 10th and my dissappointment in it, I have finally decided to try and create my own ruleset based on ideas I've had floating in my head literally for years.

The primary purpose of this would to try to create a ruleset that is as close to an accurate representation to the lore of 40k while still being fun and feasible. I would love any feedback!

A basic run down of the primary differences would be as follows;

1. The first and most important thing that has bothered me about 40k since I started in 2007 has been the turn system. One player doing everything with their army and then the other player doing the same has always seemed so inefficient.
- How units are activated would be entirely based on initiative. Models would be assigned an Initiative value 1-20. 1 being the slowest elements of an army like a Great Unclean One and 20 would be the fastest like a Drukhari Void Raven
- Yes, this does mean that fast armies like a Saim-Hann army could potentially have all if it's models activate before any enemy models, but this high initiative would also BE FACTORED INTO A MODELS POINTS COST, meaning that Aeldari army would be fast, but few in number
- Units would have the option to "ready" which would either give them a higher intiative value in their next turn or give them access to more reactionary actions
- If both players have units with the same initiative value, they would dice off to see who gets to activate

2. All models would have a number of Action Points, similar to how Kill Team works now
- Actions would include normal things like moving, shooting, charging, fight in close combat etc.
- More elite models, like a Primaris Marine, would have more action points to do more in a single turn, within reason, but would again, be more expensive because of this

3. Using a dice system of D20s, D12s and D10s to more accurately represent differences in models
- There are plenty of free, ad free dice rolling apps for all models of smart phone that allow you to enter the number and type of dice and give you the results clearly quickly
- D6 dice would still have their place as using them to mark wounds for models like, Astartes, Necron Immortals, etc

4. A shooting system that actually takes into account range, movement and the size of the target
- Right now, a Aeldari Fire Dragon will miss a Necron Monolith that hasn't moved that it is 2 inches away from 1/3rd of the time. This would be virtually impossible in this ruleset
- Bonuses for firing at models that are large, close or even very close or have not moved
- Penalties for firing at models that are small, distant or have moved fast or even very fast
- Cover would be a minus to hit system, as the whole point of being behind cover is that an enemy hits whatever you are taking cover behind, not you, IE....they missed

5. A leadership system that is must more robust and akin to reality
- Bringing back leadership hits like Fear and Terror
- Squad and army leaders would need to be well placed to maintain discipline in some armies like Astra Militarum or Orks when facing terrifying foes like Demons
- The death of enemy leaders or destruction of enemy war machines raises morale amoung friendly troops, but the reverse is also possible

6. Vehicles would return to the old armor value rules but wouldn't be limited to just 10-14
- As they are in reality, vehicles would be able to cause immense damage but would be vulnerable to being overwhelmed by infantry if not escorted
- One shotting vehicles(destroying them with one hit) would be possible, the difficulty of which obviously depends on the weapon
- Allowing "called shots" on vehicles. For a significant "to hit" penalty a model could specifically aim at a weapon, track, sensor etc or go for a kill shot with an even higher penalty "to hit"

7. The return of Strategy Ratings
- Every army would have a basic strategy rating assigned to it, representing many factors such as prior recon, military intelligence, the tactical savvy of an armies individual commanders etc.
- Some examples of this would be that Orks would probably be on the lower end, whilst armies like Aeldari would be at the higher end
- The higher an armies strategy rating is over it's opponent allows that army to choose certain battlefield advantages, such as the deployment type or mission type to name a few
- This is a way to show that armies like Aeldari or Drukhari rarely fight on anything else other than on their own terms BUT, once again this would be factored into an armies points cost, making that Aeldari army smaller and that Ork army bigger
- Certain leaders would increase this value for your army, some models could even reduce it for the enemy to represent counter intelligence or guerilla units operating behind enemy lines

8. Off map assets like artillery, bombing runs, anti-aircraft
- I fully admit, this would be hard to implement correctly but I have had some ideas, such as off map artillery is fired but doesn't land until the next turn, bombing runs don't hit home for 2-3 turns etc.

Sorry for the wall of text, but I would absolutely love any feedback!

Why would a Great Unclean One, a general of Daemonic Forces, a vastly capable warrior, and a being of stupendous Warp power have initiative 1?
For reference, the last time they had an Initiative value, it was 4. Same as a Space Marine-and Initiative then was just how fast you struck in combat, not how quick-witted a model is.

And here's the thing-you've set out a lot of goals and some decent ideas. But it'd be a TON of work to actually make those ideas see fruition.
You also say you want to make it accurate to the lore-which is an issue. The lore isn't even accurate to ITSELF, let alone trying to convert it to a solid game. Sometimes, a single Custodian Guard can take on a hundred CSM and win. Other times, a single Khorne Berserker can crump his way through a dozen Custodes. Yes, different people, different times, but that's a variance of around a thousandfold. That does not lend itself to a ruleset.

I was only stating the the Great Unclean One is slow, in truth he probably wouldn't be Initiative 1. This thread was more to talk about the basics of making this ruleset, not the specifics of each army

What you said about the lore often not being true to itself has definitely occured to me. Some armies almost never seem to lose in the lore. So, the challenge would be to make the representation accurate within reason

There are a couple of realism things I always want to see peoples solutions to.

One is that the armies appear to be fighting over an area the size of a few city blocks and to have somehow appeared within less than two blocks away from each other. Besides not being realistic it exacerbates other problems like transports being a bit superfluous.

Another is the sort of common situation of melee army vs gunline. The melee army tries to cross the table, the gun line rolls dice, and it’s a binary question of whether the melee army reaches the other side in large enough numbers. To some extent it’s a question of whose stats are better, moreso than other matchups.

For a skilled trooper to be better at staying alive, it arbitrarily has to be given an invulnerable save, like aspect warriors are. This is strange. In both flames of war and bolt action, the main influence on the hit roll is whether the target unit is conscripted, ordinary, or veteran.

The differences between infantry and tanks IRL are their awareness and ability to react. I’m not sure if this would reflect in actions, action points, initiative, or not at all. It seems like there are many moving parts.

Do any of those seem like realism problems to you? When I see commercial games or home brew ones I always check if they have solutions for any of these.

first of all you would need to think about what level of game you want before you ask about realism

what is realistic and what matters depends on the level you are looking at
a Team game with a total of 10-20 models needs different granularity for realism than a Platoon level game, a Brigade or Division level game

for a team or platoon level game, heavy artillery should not be on the table, brigade level is something different

Also the turn system is different, for a team level, having alternating model activation is "realistic", for a platoon you would alternate units, for a division or army scale game alternating turns are much more realistic than having alternating units

so before you go into details on how it should be, you must be clear what is the smallest tactical unit and the size of the game
and this is were GW actually fails with 40k, because the never are clear about that and have a small level skirmish game were the individual model matters, use the amount of models for a platoon/battalion level game with the command elements of a division level game
so you get the mix of each model needs to check for LOS and move individually, but use with alternate turns and strategic resources

How big is the table? How many models are in the game? How many of those will be infantry, tanks, knights, titans?

Giving up an entire turn to act faster in the next turn might be a little used mechanic, especially if some enemy units still get to act before your unit that waited an entire turn to act. Perhaps units could get to Overwatch/Charge in the enemy turn as a reaction instead.

Do you want tokens on the board to represent things being on fire and having taken their action, etc, etc?

Will there be any resources to manage? What will the missions in the game be about? How much randomness will be involved at the start of the game and during the game? Usually more randomness = more casual.

How much will armies be allowed to cheat the rules of the system? Like Morale, you want it, but you also want thematic rules, does that mean 1/10 or 1/2 armies in the game gets to ignore it like in some 40k editions?

Will you be using GW names? Will you copy GW rules text where it fits what you are going for? Will you try to imitate the writing style of any specific 40k edition? Where will you host your rules and how will you share them and with who will you share them?

What is your timeline for the production of the rules? Do you expect to finish the product in your lifetime or tinker with the project and get theoretical feedback from Dakka on whether the parts of your system you have written could work without finishing it?

How will you layout your rules and what level of polish will you attempt to make on the looks of the rules? Will you get help with parts of the project? What is your prior experience and would you make a good team leader? How much are you willing to bend your whims to feedback you get? I recommend you never change the layout of your rules after deciding it, it's all down to taste anyways, rewriting things to fit with a new style will not be the fun part of this project.

How will you balance things? PL, pts, unique army hashes that automatically balance against other army hashes and changes the dynamics of the battle to favour the otherwise weaker list? Mathhammer or dart board? Highlander list playtests or try to break the game with every datasheet entry in the game?

Yeah, I would also like to know, what content in their codex is IP protected, like Lasgun is generic. So it's not protected? What about the name volkite weapons? etc etc

First thing first, 40k has never been a realistic ruleset so you are better starting from scratch.

Second thing, scope?

Is this going to be a company or platoon scale game? 40k's focus on model scale rules when there can be hundreds of models on the table is stupid.

I don't have any particular feedback, but I would ask, "how many alternative rulesets have you read"?

Before embarking on a journey to fix what is perceived to be broken it might be worthwhile to see how other writers have approached building a more realistic sci-fi ruleset.

I recommend reading:
Stargrunt II (available for free from GZG website)

Tomorow's War. An adaptation of the Ambush Alley modern system. Can be hard to find and the layout isn't great, but it's a really up-to-date look at near future combat on the crunchier end of the spectrum.

Grimdark Future. Another free ruleset. An example of a very streamlined, 40k style game. Might not be what you're looking for, but worth reading for it's approach to bare-bones gameplay.

5150. One of the pinnacles of "reaction" based gaming. Originally by THW, now by Rebel Minis. About as far from traditional 40k as you can get, but may have some interesting ideas regarding the reactions and command of various qualities of troops.
https://rebelminis.com/scifirulesets.html

Lastly, if you want to see a really clever dice mechanic that uses pairs of polyhedrals to produce very even result curves, I recommend reading "Space wierdos" it's more of a warband game, but it's only a few bucks and is a revelation of gaming maths within a system that manages to avoid over-complexity. A buddy of mine did a review of the mechanics.
https://www.chicagoskirmishwargames.com/blog/2023/02/space-weirdos-review-and-number-crunching/

All this to say, if you're a budding game designer, it's worth it to examine examples of the genre outside the bubble of GW'isms. All the best with your project!