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Hello again, Dakka, I'd like to ask opinions on these homebrew(?) rules for my own Chapter, the Krakens of Shada.
I originally was going to change a few things, but it quickly evolved into a (nearly) full-blown creation of new units and extra bits and pieces. Normally I write mission rules with fun, interesting and silly rules designed to keep all players enjoying themselves.
If posting this breaks any rules (for whatever reason, though I can't see how it would), please alert the mods to modify this thread.
I would appreciate all feedback, and I will answer all questions (I did try to set this around the fluff of my chapter, less so the game play, but without making my army die on the first turn)

TL;DR: Seriously? I have it posted just below... That is a much longer read.

A few notes:
- Bikes are included in their profile, just like in Codex: Space Marines
- The "relics" with the points cost cannot be purchased, it is there to show how much I "pointed" the weapon at. This price is included in the wielder's profile.
- In Death I Serve: (I am considering removing this, however it fits my fluff as we have a number of Dreadnoughts...)

Version update:


V7:
- Skipped over V6 (I forgot to update here, though it was a short-lived version)
- Re-named the supplement (it's somewhat amusing to me)
- Added Psychic powers! (I know that 6 on Technomancy is similar to Endurance from the rulebook)
- Changed the Warlord Traits slightly, may change +1 attack back to +1 Toughness, but I felt it was better and less overwhelming if it managed to get paired with 1 from Technomancy)
- Added a Sternguard Variant! (Unique!)
- Added a detachment of their own.
- Added the "My Brother's Keeper" formation. This uses the rules for Abel and Cain, they no longer have them outside of the detachment.
- Changed the Wargear and costs of a few characters (Gadreel, Azrael, Cain, maybe some others)

Coming soon:
- Balancing.
- Nothing else, unless I get more ideas.

Instead of the wall of text, I will upload the file.

Priority for balancing (no particular order):
- Points costs (duh!)
- Warlord Traits
- Warp Charge and/or effect of Psychic powers
- "My Brother's Keeper" Formation (Considering adding a few more points, as it comes to the total of Abel and Cain at the moment)
- Suggestions for "Helios' Vanguard" detachment. This is a very, very rough and jagged start on the detachment. I wanted something different to the CAD gak that is everywhere, so started with this. The special rules from it I would like to keep.

I have kept most of the fluff separate from this supplement, as I like to keep it as small as possible for my iPod (it can't handle many pages), just for those of you wondering where the fluff went, or what the fluff is behind certain things.

There are a lot of questionable or outright overpowered things in here. I will do my best to explain it all, but yeah, there needs to be some serious retuning going on before I'd call this stable and balanced against other Marines, or 40k in general.

Troops-choice Dreadnoughts. All of the benefits of an Unbound list, and Battle-forged. This can completely invalidate your opponent, especially once you start chaining together the other rules here such as the cheap ways to improve armor facings (20 points is a STEAL for that kind of power). Plus with OS, they get even stronger. This has got to go right out. It is against the balance, and the fluff as Dreadnoughts are revered and allowed to rest, being frontline troops goes hard against this ideal.

"Unit may remove bolt pistol" - straight up no on this. It has no purpose but a clever way to get more out of your army that no other army can do.

"Enhanced cybernetics" - It is costed okay, I think. But it does not need to be specifically labeled a 5+ FNP as all FNP is 5+ by default.

"Increase wounds by 1" - 5 points per model? Seriously? That's not even close to a balanced cost for that kind of AMAZING upgrade. Compare a Grey Knight Terminator to a Paladin, identical stats save for 2 wounds. That benefit adds 15 points to the model, not 5.

Gadreel confuses me. Is he base T5, and by being on a bike become T6? And correct my rules if I'm wrong, but does the chain from IH give all of those rules? Alone, he seems okay, but his Guard are absolutely silly overpowered. Like, they are "I win everything ever" overpowered with their stats, gear and cost. Plus, they are exceptionally confusing with their "they count as bikes except when they don't" rule. I'd completely axe these and start over.

Little side note here, Azrael, Sammael, Ezeikiel and Asmodai are all Dark Angels characters. Might want to change their names. Now as for those characters themselves...

Azrael - Fine until you get to his staff, why does it have a points cost? Can someone else buy it? (Note: I read further down and I understand. No way. Do not make your special character's weapons come out on loan like that. It completely robs the special character of anything that makes them special).

Asmodai - Huh? He has his own points cost...but costs and works the same as Azreal? This seems really silly.

Ezikiel - I do not like him having a Storm Shield. Librarians everywhere else do not get them, and it makes him such a superior choice to any other character. Actually, this applies to any of your libarian characters. Why do they all get storm shields?

Warlord Traits - Steel Over Flesh is insanely overpowered for a warlord trait.

 curran12 wrote:
Troops-choice Dreadnoughts. All of the benefits of an Unbound list, and Battle-forged. This can completely invalidate your opponent, especially once you start chaining together the other rules here such as the cheap ways to improve armor facings (20 points is a STEAL for that kind of power). Plus with OS, they get even stronger. This has got to go right out. It is against the balance, and the fluff as Dreadnoughts are revered and allowed to rest, being frontline troops goes hard against this ideal.

That's fair enough, I had planned to remove Objective Secured from Dreads, and honestly thought I'd put that in already.
I'll up the price for their armour facings, and remove them as troops.

"Unit may remove bolt pistol" - straight up no on this. It has no purpose but a clever way to get more out of your army that no other army can do.

Alright, removing this.

"Increase wounds by 1" - 5 points per model? Seriously? That's not even close to a balanced cost for that kind of AMAZING upgrade. Compare a Grey Knight Terminator to a Paladin, identical stats save for 2 wounds. That benefit adds 15 points to the model, not 5.

I'll up the cost on this upgrade.

Gadreel confuses me. Is he base T5, and by being on a bike become T6? And correct my rules if I'm wrong, but does the chain from IH give all of those rules? Alone, he seems okay, but his Guard are absolutely silly overpowered. Like, they are "I win everything ever" overpowered with their stats, gear and cost. Plus, they are exceptionally confusing with their "they count as bikes except when they don't" rule. I'd completely axe these and start over.

He is T5. I tried to follow the Codex with the whole "His Wargear lists a bike, the T upgrade is included", all of the guys on bikes are like this.
I'll scrap the "bikes when they're not" thing. I didn't intend to make them ridiculous or anything. They're supposed to be tougher than a standard Marine, slower, too. Not an easy kill, but not a hard one either. Any recommendations to price or their stats?

Edit: Just saw the bit about the chain: The chain only gives him Eternal Warrior, +1 to his FNP rolls and a 3+ Invulnerable.

Little side note here, Azrael, Sammael, Ezeikiel and Asmodai are all Dark Angels characters. Might want to change their names. Now as for those characters themselves...

Really?
I'll get around to renaming those.

Azrael - Fine until you get to his staff, why does it have a points cost? Can someone else buy it? (Note: I read further down and I understand. No way. Do not make your special character's weapons come out on loan like that. It completely robs the special character of anything that makes them special).

Sorry, nobody else can buy it. It was there to reference how much it "cost" him, or how much I added to his final points value for that weapon, if that makes sense?

Asmodai - Huh? He has his own points cost...but costs and works the same as Asmodeus? This seems really silly.

The idea was they are twins, they are identical in every way. I wanted to reflect that with them knowing the same powers, having the same things. Gameplay wise, this also sticks you with sucky powers if you roll sucky ones. I can change it, of course.

Ezikiel - I do not like him having a Storm Shield. Librarians everywhere else do not get them, and it makes him such a superior choice to any other character. Actually, this applies to any of your libarian characters. Why do they all get storm shields?

Storm Shields are an upgrade for Space Marine Librarians in Terminator Armour, I didn't see why they wouldn't get one.

Warlord Traits - Steel Over Flesh is insanely overpowered for a warlord trait.

I changed it to +1 Toughness.

I'll edit my main post to reflect these changes.

Ah, I missed that upgrade for SM Librarians. Nevermind then, consider me corrected and sorry! Will look over the changes later in more detail.

 curran12 wrote:
Ah, I missed that upgrade for SM Librarians. Nevermind then, consider me corrected and sorry! Will look over the changes later in more detail.

Alrighty.
Thank you for taking the time to read these rules by the way, it's much appreciated.
I modified Gadreel's Guard so they weren't as bad (I summarised it just before the spoiler tags to make it easier)

Edit: I may have just realised why you thought the relics were purchaseable besides the points shown, I left some of the original fluff in there for one of them. I'm now removing it.
(Sadly I don't retcon my fluff as well as Matt Ward, the difference being mine was a last minute change before "publishing")

Okay, I got some time and will give this another read.

Still do not like the idea of troop-choice Dreadnoughts. It really does not fit the fluff at all for Dreadnoughts. Remember that Dreads are both venerated and rare. They should not be the go-to regular soldiers for any Space Marine force, as that goes against the respect they have for them. If you want a dread heavy force, make it so that they can be taken as Elites and Heavies. I strongly recommend against using them as Troops.

Gadreel's guard still have some overpowering rules inconsistencies. This is in the form of a two-handed weapon and a storm shield, how do they possibly use those all together? I get the idea of a durable beatstick unit, but as it stands they are better than normal Honor Guard, better equipped than Honor Guard. Their costing is weird, as they are extremely cheap to grow the unit, far better than Honor Guard but the same cost. They need considerable re-working from the ground up if they are going to stay. Drop the additional toughness, drop the storm shields (sorry, but this unit still screams "I win all the time at everything and never lose ever" overpowered) and keep the swords and we might have something usable.

And now on to your four psyker characters. It took me a few readings to figure it out, but there was something that was bothering me about them. What it is is that they are, essentially, the same character. They are all level 2 extra durable psykers with a weapon, and one is by your rules a clone of the other. This is a whole lot of redundancy and it makes them all exceptionally uninteresting to think about. The fact that there is 4 of them really hammers that home, they are so unnecessary. I would scrap 3 of them and focus on making one really good one. Maybe to guide you, take a look at the Blood Angels codex rules for Librarian dreadnoughts.

 curran12 wrote:
Okay, I got some time and will give this another read.

Still do not like the idea of troop-choice Dreadnoughts. It really does not fit the fluff at all for Dreadnoughts. Remember that Dreads are both venerated and rare. They should not be the go-to regular soldiers for any Space Marine force, as that goes against the respect they have for them. If you want a dread heavy force, make it so that they can be taken as Elites and Heavies. I strongly recommend against using them as Troops.

What if I made it so only 1 could be taken as a troop? I am interested in fielding one or two more without breaking fluff and having to bring a whole lot more for it. Failing that, I may do the Heavies and Elites thing.
Although, as a side note, I never knew that dreads were a rare thing. Are they Terminator Armour rare, or not as/more rare? (I'm not too well-versed in Dreadnought background)

Gadreel's guard still have some overpowering rules inconsistencies. This is in the form of a two-handed weapon and a storm shield, how do they possibly use those all together? I get the idea of a durable beatstick unit, but as it stands they are better than normal Honor Guard, better equipped than Honor Guard. They need considerable re-working from the ground up if they are going to stay. Drop the additional toughness, drop the storm shields (sorry, but this unit still screams "I win all the time at everything and never lose ever" overpowered) and keep the swords and we might have something usable.

That's fair enough. I have been (over the last few hours or so) tweaking these still. I'll update the main post after I've eaten (which will be after this reply)
I did rework it so they had a 3+ without the shield (to make a two handed weapon make sense), but it does seem OP still.
I have been considering making it a lesser invulnerable, as they do squish relatively easy. (without invulnerables, I mean). I'll remove the invul if absolutely necessary. As for the T5, I have noticed it did more than I actually anticipated it to, so I did plan on changing it.

And now on to your four psyker characters. It took me a few readings to figure it out, but there was something that was bothering me about them. What it is is that they are, essentially, the same character. They are all level 2 extra durable psykers with a weapon, and one is by your rules a clone of the other. This is a whole lot of redundancy and it makes them all exceptionally uninteresting to think about. The fact that there is 4 of them really hammers that home, they are so unnecessary. I would scrap 3 of them and focus on making one really good one. Maybe to guide you, take a look at the Blood Angels codex rules for Librarian dreadnoughts.

I will take a look at that, thank you.
I'll scrap some of the Librarians and re-write them as something else.

Thanks again for the feedback.

No problem.

As far as the Dreadnought lore goes, the jist of it is that they are fallen heroes, which is a real source of the rarity. I would not say that they are extremely rare, but they are definitely not common. The biggest thing is that Dreadnoughts are only activated in times of crisis or for major battles, and all other times they are powered down and disconnected, so that the entombed Marine may rest. By making them Troops, it says that "these are our main guys who come out for everything" which goes against that veneration and respect for the Dreadnought's rest that is in the fluff. I mean, would you ask the fallen hero of a thousand battles to wake up and handle the routine patrol or scouting mission?

That said, I think you are on to something with going for 1 as Troops. That makes a lot more sense to me than a blanket allowance for all Dreadnoughts. That seems a better way to show that your chapter is big into Dreadnoughts without it being silly.

 curran12 wrote:
No problem.

As far as the Dreadnought lore goes, the jist of it is that they are fallen heroes, which is a real source of the rarity. I would not say that they are extremely rare, but they are definitely not common. The biggest thing is that Dreadnoughts are only activated in times of crisis or for major battles, and all other times they are powered down and disconnected, so that the entombed Marine may rest. By making them Troops, it says that "these are our main guys who come out for everything" which goes against that veneration and respect for the Dreadnought's rest that is in the fluff. I mean, would you ask the fallen hero of a thousand battles to wake up and handle the routine patrol or scouting mission?

That said, I think you are on to something with going for 1 as Troops. That makes a lot more sense to me than a blanket allowance for all Dreadnoughts. That seems a better way to show that your chapter is big into Dreadnoughts without it being silly.

Alright, I'll limit it to 1 for now, see what people think. If I get too much negative feedback I'll just scrap that bit.

About the Psyker redundancy; what would you recommend I do for the twin Librarians? Just have them fluffed that way and make them normal Librarians in terms of gameplay, or something else? I had planned on really fleshing out their back story at some point, explaining why they have such a good relationship, why they refuse to go without the other, etc. and I would like to make them a unit.

Edit: This may seem a bit over the top, and I am ."err-ing" on this, but would there be a fluff reason that Dreadnoughts (more than likely of the same type, such as two Ironclads) couldn't be in a "squad" of 1-2 Dreads? (Maybe 3, but I feel that would be really pushing it. This would not extend to the troops choice if it did get implemented.)
I get that they're ancient heroes, but *when* they do get deployed, why not have eachother's back?
It sounds more and more silly as I think about it, but I would like an opinion.

What I would do is make them two interesting Librarians, give them something special (but also something different from one another) to make them more than a regular Librarian, but then add rules if they are in the same force.

Actually, if you'll hear out my brainstorm that just hit, maybe have their effectiveness increase as their proximity increases. For example:

Army with just 1 of them - He acts as a normal Libby
Army has both of them - They generate an additional warp charge die
They are in the same unit - +1 to cast/dispel

 curran12 wrote:
What I would do is make them two interesting Librarians, give them something special (but also something different from one another) to make them more than a regular Librarian, but then add rules if they are in the same force.

Actually, if you'll hear out my brainstorm that just hit, maybe have their effectiveness increase as their proximity increases. For example:

Army with just 1 of them - He acts as a normal Libby
Army has both of them - They generate an additional warp charge die
They are in the same unit - +1 to cast/dispel

I quite like the sound of this.
I'm going to borrow that idea and get back to you on that.

I'm about to update the main post with Gadreel's Guard.
As they stand at the minute, they are "worse" stat-wise (and kind of in terms of Wargear - dropped boltguns and grenades) compared to regular Honour Guard, but have an invulnerable to make them a little less squishy.
It's 4+ now, but if you think it's too much, I'll drop it to 5+ and reduce them by 5 points. (The blades are now just Power Axes, this way they're "different" (name and look) but are a weapon they have access to for free as normal Honour Guard, it makes it easier to price)

I've priced them in the following way:
25pts basic (with their statline, dropped grenades, dropped Boltguns and added Enhanced Cybernetics)
+10 for their 4+ invul, making them 35pt/model.

The Champion is 25pts (Again with dropped grenades and Boltgun, added enhanced cybernetics)
+1 wound for 10pts (I feel like this is okay on just one model, as opposed to a whole bunch)
Thunder Hammer for 15pts
4+ Invulnerable for 10pts
60pts overall.

Give it about 5 minutes to show up, I'll add the summary to my first post again.

There's no foc manipulation in 7-th. Only war supplements.

Ability to increase armor is not really great from a game's ballance perspective. Av13 wall is quite annoying to face. Av 12 is fine cause the opponent might at least have krak nades. You might look at an ork walker spam as an analogue.

 koooaei wrote:
There's no foc manipulation in 7-th. Only war supplements.

Ability to increase armor is not really great from a game's ballance perspective. Av13 wall is quite annoying to face. Av 12 is fine cause the opponent might at least have krak nades. You might look at an ork walker spam as an analogue.

Well, this has turned from my initial idea of only a model or two with additional rules into a fullblown mini-supplement. Close enough, right?

See, balance from the game as a whole is somewhat difficult for me to achieve when I write rules since the guys in my locale use only certain armies (granted it is almost all of them, but they all build in a certain way), which is why I bring it here. The idea of increased armour came for a reason; why would they [Space Marines] let an ancient hero be destroyed as easily as they are? It, to me, doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I'm not trying to make them "auto-anything" or OP as all hell. I didn't think about the fact that one could easily spam them... I may restrict the amount of times the upgrade may be taken per army or detachment.

One part of design, unfortunately, is that you have to occasionally need to put yourself into the mind of the guy who will abuse any rule or new thing to its absolute limit to win the cheapest ways possible.

 curran12 wrote:
One part of design, unfortunately, is that you have to occasionally need to put yourself into the mind of the guy who will abuse any rule or new thing to its absolute limit to win the cheapest ways possible.

Yeah, I do understand.
That's another reason I come to Dakka, and I don't mean that in a bad way. I figure you guys might be able to spot bits like that that I don't see. I also ask some of the guys in my local area since they know how to break things in 40K (they don't do it to play with, they just do it to show you how broken bits are).

Edit: Okay, I've updated the first post (I did a while ago, I just thought I'd mention it here).
Release notes are under V5.
Thanks to all who are reading, and thank you everyone who's given feedback.