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.

*edit: adjusted after all your opinions! Thank you very much!

Greetings,

I first theorized about how cool it would be if you could actually utilize all saves that are available. For instance a Space Marine Terminator with Storm Shield in heavy cover would technically have 3 independent saves. The only problem is that this would mean that models with more than 1 save, in general, should receive a point increase, and I found that to be a little tricky to mess with. So later I came up with the following.


0 BS
I'm seriously considering to make this a thing. If your BS is reduced to 0, you simply can't get a proper glimps of the enemy to fire, or they are simply moving to fast, or a combination of both.

COVER
There are only 2 cover types, hard and soft –cover.
• Hardcover (buildings etc) = -2 BS
• Softcover (plants, crates etc) = -1 BS
Stealth provides -1 BS and Shrouded and Jinking provides -2 BS and is cumulative.

OVERWATCH
Instead of firing your weapons during your own shooting phase you can decide to go into overwatch mode which enables you to fire during the consequent turn of your opponent in their movement phase. Shooting at units that remain stationary does not receive a BS penalty. Shooting at units that moved gives you a penalty of -1 BS. Shooting at units that run or charge gives you a penalty of -2 BS. Shooting at fast vehicles or jump infantry also gives you a penalty of -2 BS. Shooting at flyers gives you a -3 BS.

Considering these rules heavily emphasize the usage of cover, overwatch might mostly be used to shoot on enemy units when running from cover to cover, which will allow you to shoot them while they are "out of cover" running towards the next piece of cover. Let's put this into perspective, Space Marines are firing on Orks in cover. Orks decide to run in hopes of getting closer to the Space Marines for a change in their next turn. Normally the Space Marines would fire on them with a -2 BS, but the Orks are moving through Heavy Cover adding another -2 BS effectively rendering the Space Marines shooting capabilities useless for that turn.

STATIONARY
Remaining stationary and shooting allows you to shoot at +1 BS. If you didn't shoot during your shooting phase.
Assault Weapons, Pistols and Grenades always count as if remained stationary, even after moving.

ASSAULT
Simple addition, when you roll 2D6 to assault, you can decide to move this range, regardless of actually getting into combat with the squad you were charging at. It just leaves you out in the open, vulnerable to your enemies shooting phase, so you might want to think through if you really want to charge out of your cover.

SHOOTING UNITS IN COMBAT
Just roll to hit as your would normally (including BS modifiers. A roll of 1 always completely misses everything. A regular miss, but not a roll of 1, hits one of your friendly models. So a Space Marine firing with BS 4, hitting on 3's, rolls a 2 and accidentally shoots one of his brothers.

Modifiers in play are:

When allies are outnumbered you receive +1 BS
When allies are evenly matched you shoot at normal BS
When the enemy is outnumbered you shoot at -1 BS

Kills from friendly fire count as double for combat resolution.

Template and Blast weapons cannot be fired into melee combat as the chances of killing allies are too high.


SHOOTING UNITS BEHIND OTHER UNITS
The Haemonculus hiding behind the Raider normally would get a cover save. So in this case, the Raider provides a cover save of -2 BS. Keep in mind a roll of 1 always misses. A Space Marine with BS 4 fires at the Haemonculus. The Raider makes this shot being fired at BS 2, which means the Haemonculus gets shot on a roll of 5+. The Raider gets hit on a roll of between 2+ and 4+. A roll of 1 misses both the Raider and the Haemonculus.

This basically is a lookout sir-ish rule, so the Raider could not Jink to save itself if the Space Marine accidentally missed the Haemonculus

RUNNING
Just like with charging, you get to roll 2D6 and move up to 12" if you roll double 6.
You can still shoot after running, but at -2 BS. Assault Weapons, Pistols and Grenades can be used with the normal BS.

SNAPSHOT
Shooting from (or with) a vehicle that moved at combat speed normally would make you snapshoot certain weapons, but now it just gives you a -1 to hit on your BS. A vehicle that moved at cruising speed gives you a -2 BS. Same goes for Heavy weapons on normal models.. If you moved, you aren't firing at BS1, you simply deduct a -1 from your BS. Template can be fired for D3 hits after Cruising Speed. Blast markers throw 2D6 for Scattering, and you`ll simply get to detract less points from the total outcome since you're shooting at reduced BS.
All non flyers, shooting flyers have a -3 BS modifier (shooting at supersonic flyers has a -4 BS modifier), just as you have in the Overwatch phase, because flyers are always moving.

FLAT OUT
You can still shoot after moving Flat Out, but with a -3 BS modifier. Blast weapons now throw 3D6 and Templates only have 1 hit.

RANGE BS MODIFIERS
50% of maximum range = +1 BS
Over 100% of maximum range (up to a maximum of 200%) = -1 BS and -1 Weapon Strength
With the 2nd rule you can shoot up to twice as far, but at a cost of accuracy and power.


GRENADES
Not one, but all models from a unit may throw grenades. The range of the grenades, like with the old rules, is determined by the Strength of the models that throws it and multiply it by 2. So a Space Marine would be able to throw a grenade up to 8".

NIGHT FIGHTING
Instead of only rolling once for the first turn if you are Fighting during the Night, you have to roll for each turn, until you fail. So if the first round was Night Fighting you get to roll again for the 2nd turn and if this turn you you rollled succesful, you also get to roll for the third turn after that. But if the first turn wasn't Night Fighting, you won't be rolling for the other turns and obviously if the first turn was night fighting, but you failed to roll for night fighting in the second turn, you won't be rolling in the third. From the second turn on, Night Fighting stays in play on a 5+

HIGHER GROUND
If you're on Higher Ground you will receive a +1 BS. You're on Higher Ground when you are at least 3" higher than the enemy unit you are shooting at. This also counts for skimmers and flyers.

DEEP STRIKE
You can still charge directly after Deep Striking, but the enemy unit being charged gets an (extra) overwatch on your unit. If the unit being charged is already in overwatch, it gets to fire with -1 BS instead of -2 BS on a charging unit.

MARKERS
A logical advise would be to construct markers to more easily keep track of the status of this new rules.


Now I know how people work and not everybody will agree with these rules. Some people will think they are great and others will think they are downright stupid. What I would like to ask if you is reply with constructive criticism. Help me make this work. I want these rules to work and in my brain it seems like a very reasonable concept, but I might be overlooking something and favoring certain types of armies over others, if that is the case, please give me your alternative idea, without too much breaking my idea if possible.

Thank you in advance!

ps. I'd also just appreciate it if you like the rules and reply simply stating that you like em and wouldn't change anything I came up with

It's always great to see someone passionate about a batch of homebrew rules.

That said, I think you have some pretty serious issues to consider here. ^_^;

Cover: The whole cover-as-BS-reduction thing has been discussed a lot lately, and the consensus seems to be that if you're going to use it, keep the modifiers small. Ruins are the most common type of terrain at my FLGS (and pretty common most places from what I can tell) meaning models will frequently be firing at -3 BS. So essentially marines and guardsmen alike will be firing all snapshot equivalents all the time.

Overwatch: Your version is a neat idea, but it might help to clean up the wording just a bit.

Stationary: This helps to offset your extreme BS penalties somewhat, but strongly favors sit-and-shoot armies. So you're basically punishing everything other than IG and arguably Tau.

Assault: If assault were dominating the game right now, I'd probably like this rule. As it is, however, you're essentially punishing assault armies (who are already punished for being assault armies) for failing to make a random charge. "Oh hi ork mob. Thanks for slogging across the table to reach my unit. Now just make that charge roll, and-Oh! You rolled snake eyes? Man, you're pretty screwed huh? Tell you what. Instead of actually getting to hurt me after walking all the way over here, how about about you just move out of that cover a bit more and walk into range of more of my rapid fire weapons so I can hold still and get bonuses when I shoot you?"

Snapshot: I like the -1 BS rather than flat BS 1 idea. Keeping track of every X" for a flatout vehicle seems like an annoyance even if it is moot for most armies (as you're already lowering marine BS to 1 if you flatout at least 3"). 5th edition's version of vehicle cover saves and melee to-hit modifiers was about as much book keeping as I'd want to do there.

Night Fighting: I like this. With Night Fighting as toned down as it is, I'd like my dark eldar to actually be able to launch a raid in the middle of the night instead of at dawn.

Higher Ground: Mostly rewards armies that set up shop in tall buildings and stay there all game, especially combined with standing still.

So looking at your rules, it seems to me that you've skewed them very heavily for very specific playstyles while making it pretty much impossible to kill anything in most matchups. A competitive player would, I imagine, play a shooty army, set up shop in the tallest buildings they can find, and then spend the game essentially firing at normal ballistic skill as they offset the cover their opponent is walking through.

Assault armies seem like they should come out ahead from all this except that smart opponents will offset their BS penalties from cover by being up high (where they're harder to assault) and standing still. Then the ork players don't get saves of any sort because of their T-shirt saves. Heavily armored assault armies might come out better, but then it's still basically a game of the shooty player not using his movement phase at all while plinking away at semi-invisible terminators or something. "No you can't move away from my assault units. Not if you want to have any chance of hitting them."

Mobile shooty armies are simply not a thing. Looking at dark eldar, they'd be heavily penalized for utilizing their mobility. They'd be getting a nice defensive boost from moving so fast, but that's offset by opponents simply being up high and holding still. If being in a skimmer counts as being elevated 3", these penalties are offset somewhat, but then they can't shoot anything in cover. Things like assault armies or that gunline you've put in tall buildings.

A fight between multiple mobile armies (say various flavors of eldar) is basically a slap fight where both sides only ever hit things on a 6.

So the way I see it, mobile shooting might as well not bother coming out to play. Assault armies that can utilize cover are actually probably too good against most armies unless that army can sit and shoot. In which case sitting and shooting wins. Sitting and shooting beats everything else because you're reducing enemy BS by 3 consistently, you're firing at a higher BS than other people because of elevation and holding still, and you're doing damage turn 1 (while assault armies have to slog through your fire to try and get close enough to hurt you.

There's probably an argument to be made for an extreme shift in meta using these rules that wouldsomehow balance it all out. Maybe eldar stop using battle focus ever, for instance, and just become an army of stationary guardian platforms and dark reapers, for instance. Maybe marines start spamming various terminators so that they can deepstrike them into cover near the enemy, effectively making the enemy snap shoot them before dealing with their 2+ saves, then go for the assault so that they don't have to content with to-hit modifiers.

I imagine daemons would do extremely well under your rules as they benefit strongly from all the the BS penalties their enemies will suffer and have almost no guns of their own that use BS.

Thank you for pointing out this flaw. Somehow I failed to see this error. I hope I can correct this with the following:

I think it would be best to remove the -1 BS reduction from moving and shooting and just keep that for the Heavy Weapons.

Remaining stationary from the start is +1 BS. Not shooting during overwatch and remaining stationary for the 2nd time gives you a +2.

Assault weapons and pistols always receive a +1 BS as if remained stationary. These weapons will also receive a +2 BS if they decided not to shoot during overwatch and move + fire in the next round.

Another idea would be to increase BS depending on how close you are the enemy unit. For instance, a Splinter Rifle has a range of 24". If you shoot at enemies within 12" you get +1 BS and if they are within 6" you get +2 BS.

I'd also replace the rule of 1 grenade toss per unit to all models may toss a grenade, which negates cover which would come in handy in my rules.

Last but not least, I added 2D6 for running instead of the normal 1D6.

Also, units that didn't make their charge range, automatically GO TO GROUND for extra protection.

And made some other edits. If you will, please read through it all

What do you think of this? Does this balance things out again?

Ps.

I also play Dark Eldar (haemonculus coven) so I'm not trying to favor a particular playstyle like Tau or anything).

I love the every one throwing a grenade idea. I normally run with 50 IG conscripts, and they all come with frags. Means gakky bs 2 is negligible and its better than a flashlight at close range.

 HANZERtank wrote:
I love the every one throwing a grenade idea. I normally run with 50 IG conscripts, and they all come with frags. Means gakky bs 2 is negligible and its better than a flashlight at close range.

do you also like it in combination with the rest of the rules?

Since cover plays quite a major roll this way, it should have some way to be negated, which is where the grenades come in and they also receive a +1 as they will also count as a weapon used as if remained stationary and it benefits the +1 or even +2 on BS depending on how close you are to your target. Average grenade range is 8" so if you're within 2" before throwing the grenade, you get a +2 BS. Combine that with the +1 you already get because this weapon will receive a +1 as if you remained stationary and you'd effectively be ignoring the -3 BS from cover.

omkara wrote:
Thank you for pointing out this flaw. Somehow I failed to see this error. I hope I can correct this with the following:

I think it would be best to remove the -1 BS reduction from moving and shooting and just keep that for the Heavy Weapons.

Remaining stationary from the start is +1 BS. Not shooting during overwatch and remaining stationary for the 2nd time gives you a +2.

Assault weapons and pistols always receive a +1 BS as if remained stationary. These weapons will also receive a +2 BS if they decided not to shoot during overwatch and move + fire in the next round.

Another idea would be to increase BS depending on how close you are the enemy unit. For instance, a Splinter Rifle has a range of 24". If you shoot at enemies within 12" you get +1 BS and if they are within 6" you get +2 BS.

I'd also replace the rule of 1 grenade toss per unit to all models may toss a grenade, which negates cover which would come in handy in my rules.

Last but not least, I added 2D6 for running instead of the normal 1D6.

Also, units that didn't make their charge range, automatically GO TO GROUND for extra protection.

And made some other edits. If you will, please read through it all

What do you think of this? Does this balance things out again?

Ps.

I also play Dark Eldar (haemonculus coven) so I'm not trying to favor a particular playstyle like Tau or anything).

Some good ideas in there, but some problems as well.

+1 BS to assault weapons means all assault weapon guys are essentially 1 BS higher when not contending with cover. So pretty much all eldar are now BS5 default if not firing into cover.

BS modifiers for being close to the enemy is another thing that has been discussed in the past. It seems like a pretty reasonable idea to me, but then you have to worry about things like scatter lasers getting unforeseen BS buffs. War walkers could easily be hitting on 2s with scatter lasers, for instance.

Letting everyone in the unit lob a grenade was a thing in 6th iirc. It lead to things like krak grenade overwatch volleys. That also means that swooping hawks and fire warriors are hands down the best anti-tank in the game as they can fire a grenade per person that glances a vehicle on a 2+. Monstrous creatures will take a bit more abuse as they get krak'd in overwatch as well as the fight subphase. Ignoring cover adds to these concerns.

When you say 2d6 for running, I assume you mean take the highest right? Otherwise you're potentially running 12" even though you can only move 6" in the movement phase. Or is that intentional? In either case, how would these changes interact with the fleet rule?

Automatically going to ground if you fail a charge isn't really helpful. You can already elect to go to ground when the enemy shoots at you on their following turn. I guess it maybe helps against vector strikes and such? Also, Fearless units can't go to ground, so they'd be ignoring a chunk of that change. I'm not really sure why you want to force things to move their assault distance if they fail a charge. I know it's a thing in Fantasy, but that's a very different game. Shooting already has the edge over melee in both regular 40k and your rules. Making an assault unit risk stumbling out into the open as punishment for failing a random charge is kicking them in the balls while they're down. Failing that charge already means they're going to be exposed to an extra round of shooting and potentially some overwatch on top of it.

Shooting into combat is a neat idea. A couple thoughts though: I'd make 1s cause hits to allies rather than regular misses. Even in the chaos of melee, you're still aiming in the general direction of your target and trying to track him. With these rules, you're more likely to hit an ally than simply miss, and with all your penalties to BS, it's easy to skew that so that you're actually far more likely to hit an ally than an enemy. Shooting into combat seems like it also probably favors certain armies pretty heavily. Imagine tarpitting the enemy with some expendable-but-fearless termagants while you unload into the foe with high-quality fire. Or the same idea but with terminators to shake off bolter wounds. How about chaos termies or cultists that have thousand sons shooting into the enemy? Necron wraiths with warrior blobs shooting into the melee? Also, how does this work with blast weapons and templates? How about Gets Hot?

A lot of these changes are good steps for balancing out your initial idea, but there are still a lot of things to think about. Also, you're kind of risking getting into 4th edition d&d turf with all these floating modifiers. 40k is already a slow game. Now imagine stopping before you shoot to go, "Okay, my target is behind a raider, but he's also in cover, and it's night-fighting, but I moved, but I also jumped up 2 stories onto this building, but my weapon gives me a -1 for moving, but I get a +1 from this support unit nearby, and I get to reroll that if I miss... Wait, what number am I trying to roll again?" Using counters would help, but with enough modifiers and units, keeping track of counters potentially becomes its own problem.

Some of these rules kind of make me think of Infinity. Which, disclaimer, I'm not very familiar with. It's a game with fewer models but a little more complexity when it comes to modifiers and taking actions/reactions. The fact that there are fewer models makes it easier to use detailed action systems.

Wyldhunt wrote:


Some good ideas in there, but some problems as well.

+1 BS to assault weapons means all assault weapon guys are essentially 1 BS higher when not contending with cover. So pretty much all eldar are now BS5 default if not firing into cover.

BS modifiers for being close to the enemy is another thing that has been discussed in the past. It seems like a pretty reasonable idea to me, but then you have to worry about things like scatter lasers getting unforeseen BS buffs. War walkers could easily be hitting on 2s with scatter lasers, for instance.

Letting everyone in the unit lob a grenade was a thing in 6th iirc. It lead to things like krak grenade overwatch volleys. That also means that swooping hawks and fire warriors are hands down the best anti-tank in the game as they can fire a grenade per person that glances a vehicle on a 2+. Monstrous creatures will take a bit more abuse as they get krak'd in overwatch as well as the fight subphase. Ignoring cover adds to these concerns.

When you say 2d6 for running, I assume you mean take the highest right? Otherwise you're potentially running 12" even though you can only move 6" in the movement phase. Or is that intentional? In either case, how would these changes interact with the fleet rule?

Automatically going to ground if you fail a charge isn't really helpful. You can already elect to go to ground when the enemy shoots at you on their following turn. I guess it maybe helps against vector strikes and such? Also, Fearless units can't go to ground, so they'd be ignoring a chunk of that change. I'm not really sure why you want to force things to move their assault distance if they fail a charge. I know it's a thing in Fantasy, but that's a very different game. Shooting already has the edge over melee in both regular 40k and your rules. Making an assault unit risk stumbling out into the open as punishment for failing a random charge is kicking them in the balls while they're down. Failing that charge already means they're going to be exposed to an extra round of shooting and potentially some overwatch on top of it.

Shooting into combat is a neat idea. A couple thoughts though: I'd make 1s cause hits to allies rather than regular misses. Even in the chaos of melee, you're still aiming in the general direction of your target and trying to track him. With these rules, you're more likely to hit an ally than simply miss, and with all your penalties to BS, it's easy to skew that so that you're actually far more likely to hit an ally than an enemy. Shooting into combat seems like it also probably favors certain armies pretty heavily. Imagine tarpitting the enemy with some expendable-but-fearless termagants while you unload into the foe with high-quality fire. Or the same idea but with terminators to shake off bolter wounds. How about chaos termies or cultists that have thousand sons shooting into the enemy? Necron wraiths with warrior blobs shooting into the melee? Also, how does this work with blast weapons and templates? How about Gets Hot?

A lot of these changes are good steps for balancing out your initial idea, but there are still a lot of things to think about. Also, you're kind of risking getting into 4th edition d&d turf with all these floating modifiers. 40k is already a slow game. Now imagine stopping before you shoot to go, "Okay, my target is behind a raider, but he's also in cover, and it's night-fighting, but I moved, but I also jumped up 2 stories onto this building, but my weapon gives me a -1 for moving, but I get a +1 from this support unit nearby, and I get to reroll that if I miss... Wait, what number am I trying to roll again?" Using counters would help, but with enough modifiers and units, keeping track of counters potentially becomes its own problem.

Some of these rules kind of make me think of Infinity. Which, disclaimer, I'm not very familiar with. It's a game with fewer models but a little more complexity when it comes to modifiers and taking actions/reactions. The fact that there are fewer models makes it easier to use detailed action systems.

The part on the Eldar is indeed true, but I think with rules regarding cover like this, you'd probably want to hug cover as much as possible or even using other vehicles to directly block line of sight to troops that need to press on through terrain without cover.

Could you explain what you mean with unforseen buffs on the scatter laser? Because it just looks like an ordinary 36" weapon which would get +2 BS when the enemy is within 9". It's a Heavy weapon, so it receives -1 BS for shooting after moving. It doesn't negate cover and with these rules you'd again want as much cover as possible, so you'd most of the time be in cover of 4+ or effectively -3 BS.

Lobbing volley's of krak grenades is no longer really that much of an issue vs those that assault. You can no longer just overwatch, you`ll have to think if you want to either shoot or overwatch as you can't do both. Charging a unit that clearly stated that is in overwatch might be a less smart thing to do if they wield krak grenades. So I think this actually adds new tactical depth.

Also krak grenades do not negate cover, so if your vehicle is in cover the swooping hawks, despite the +1 BS for grenades and throwing distance BS increase, would also suffer the -3 BS for targeting a vehicle in cover. I'm not directly seeing a very big issue with this to be entirely honest.
Do you have an alternative option perhaps?

The 2D6 running is indeed to give you the option to potentially run 12". Why would you be able to move 6" and then charge 12" but not move 6" and run 12". So that's the reason why I would change that and especially for assault armies that need to cover ground, but don't dare charging the nearest unit, so they opt to move through cover for the time being untill their chances are higher to charge a unit. But it's also convenient for mid-range shooty armies.

About the going to ground rule I did not know you can always opt to go to ground if you're being shot at, so I'm going to revise this rule. You can throw dice for the charge range and you can decide yourself if you want to move this range or not. Especially since you're no longer getting auto overwatch fire from the start that you declare this charge.

I agree with your thoughts on the rolls of 1 hitting allies! Gonna change that! As for blast weapons and templates, first place the template or blast marker to see how many you hit and then you'd throw a dice to see how many models of the enemy are hit. If 5 enemies are hit, you'd throw a D5. Say you throw a 3, that means 3 enemy hits and 2 ally hits. Sounds reasonable?

That last sentence made me laugh out loud. Yeah it seems insane, but I like it. I like it when things are complicated. We're all smart people, otherwise we wouldn't be playing this game right. We're basically nerds, but really cool ones.

And for this, we can just keep counters. +1 , +2, +3, +4 BS putting them next to your unit to constantly remind you of what the status is.

Wyldhunt wrote:

Shooting into combat is a neat idea. A couple thoughts though: I'd make 1s cause hits to allies rather than regular misses. Even in the chaos of melee, you're still aiming in the general direction of your target and trying to track him. With these rules, you're more likely to hit an ally than simply miss, and with all your penalties to BS, it's easy to skew that so that you're actually far more likely to hit an ally than an enemy.

This is basically the only way to balance shooting into combat; making it super risky. It benefits shooting armies immeasurably and pretty much only hurts assault armies.. Who are already suffering.. And as mentioned would essentially lose any benefit of cover against a stand-and-shoot army under this ruleset.

An IG, Tau, or even SM player really doesn't give a crap about hitting his own guys when dakkaing into a a close combat between 10 tacs / guardsmen / firewarriors against 30 orks. The only way to make it carry any consequence is to make it super easy to hit your own lads.

 morganfreeman wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:

Shooting into combat is a neat idea. A couple thoughts though: I'd make 1s cause hits to allies rather than regular misses. Even in the chaos of melee, you're still aiming in the general direction of your target and trying to track him. With these rules, you're more likely to hit an ally than simply miss, and with all your penalties to BS, it's easy to skew that so that you're actually far more likely to hit an ally than an enemy.

This is basically the only way to balance shooting into combat; making it super risky. It benefits shooting armies immeasurably and pretty much only hurts assault armies.. Who are already suffering.. And as mentioned would essentially lose any benefit of cover against a stand-and-shoot army under this ruleset.

An IG, Tau, or even SM player really doesn't give a crap about hitting his own guys when dakkaing into a a close combat between 10 tacs / guardsmen / firewarriors against 30 orks. The only way to make it carry any consequence is to make it super easy to hit your own lads.

You do pose a valid argument there. Perhaps I`ll leave it as it is and have the rolls of 1 miss everything entirely and the other "misses" just hit your own.

The one problem I see with the shooting into combat is number and sizes. Say I have two grots in combat with 50 conscripts and as orks I fire into the combat. At bs 2 somehow im half as likely to hit the people not only outnumbered 25 to 1, but also half the size? Just one of the things I see as a potential argument point.

 HANZERtank wrote:
The one problem I see with the shooting into combat is number and sizes. Say I have two grots in combat with 50 conscripts and as orks I fire into the combat. At bs 2 somehow im half as likely to hit the people not only outnumbered 25 to 1, but also half the size? Just one of the things I see as a potential argument point.

Good point. The solution would probably be something along the lines of +1 BS modifiers counted as, when 66% of the total model count in assault combat is of your opponent, you will receive +1 BS. If 75% is enemy you receive +2 BS and when 90% is the enemy you'd receive +3 BS.

How's that?

Then again, this all might overc omplicate things too much and perhaps the roll of 1 should hit your allies, while a normal miss, is simply just that, a miss.

omkara wrote:

 HANZERtank wrote:
The one problem I see with the shooting into combat is number and sizes. Say I have two grots in combat with 50 conscripts and as orks I fire into the combat. At bs 2 somehow im half as likely to hit the people not only outnumbered 25 to 1, but also half the size? Just one of the things I see as a potential argument point.

Good point. The solution would probably be something along the lines of +1 BS modifiers counted as, when 66% of the total model count in assault combat is of your opponent, you will receive +1 BS. If 75% is enemy you receive +2 BS and when 90% is the enemy you'd receive +3 BS.

How's that?

Then again, this all might overc omplicate things too much and perhaps the roll of 1 should hit your allies, while a normal miss, is simply just that, a miss.

I'm personally against any rule that requires you stop to calculate the percentage of models in a given combat.

Even if non-rolls-of-1 misses make you hit your own guys in melee, there are still definitely ways to abuse it. As pointed out, marines shooting bolters at marines isn't nearly as lethal as shooting, say, ork boyz. So you can still tarpit a mob of boyz pretty reliably, and then spend all game thinning them out with supporting bolter fire. It seems to me that this sort of thing would work better as a faction-specific thing. Like, let chaos marines fire into squads of cultists if they pay for the "zealous unto death" upgrade or something. It's one of those things that you're going to have problems with either due to fluff, mechanics, or level of complication.

Having hugging cover be an important part of the game is certainly an interesting way to go, and it makes a lot of sense for, say, a World War 2 game. I feel it may not be the way to go in a game about power armored giants and psychic ninja space elves though. Marines benefit from their armor out in the open, sure, but do you really want to make adeptus have as much trouble hitting cultists as they do airplanes just because those cultists are hiding behind chest-high cover? Actually, they have an easier time shooting planes out of the sky because you've got snap shots only being a -1 to BS. So a marine is better at plucking a Crimson Hunter out of the air with a well-timed melta shot or grenade toss than he is at shooting up a squad of civillian rabble. As I mentioned previously, most discussions of cover-as-BS-penalty seem to wind up more or less agreeing that modifiers should be relatively small. I mean this in a not-at-all-dickish way, but have you considered making a new game from the ground up to avoid complications created by the existing content and assumptions of 40k?

Fair point regarding grenades.

The 2d6 running is an interesting idea, and I wouldn't mind seeing it playtested in an otherwise unmodified version of 40k just to see what sort of difference it makes.

I like the adjustment to the failed charge movement. That way, you can still move forward even if you fail a charge (if you want to), but you aren't required to essentially give your opponent +3 BS as a result of failing the charge.

Blasting and templating close combat still has some issues. What happens if you flamer more than six enemies at a time? Would you have to do the random allocation thing where you split the possible casualties up into groups and roll for them from there? Sounds time consuming. Keep in mind that sniping a guy out of melee with a bolter is one thing. Expertly engulfing him in flame with a flamer or placing a rocket just so is another. It's not unreasonable to say that templates and blasts are simply too inaccurate to fire into melee.

Using +1, +2, etc. counters is a good idea, but you still have to stop and calculate your modifiers for each shot and fiddle with those counters accordingly. "Let's see. Hand me a pile of counters. Okay, I moved, but I'm assault, so +1, he's behind a raider, so -2 is -3, he's in cover, so -3 is -6, I'm within 6", so +1 is -5..." etc. Keep in mind that the modifiers might change on a shot-by-shot basis too. The guy hidden behind a raider for one squad might be in clear view for another. It's not that we can't all do basic math to figure out the appropriate modifier; it's that an already long game might take considerably longer. ^_^;

Sorry for the scattered nature of my post. Considering the massive changes you'd need to make to a lot of rules with these changes, and considering what a heavy impact those changes would have on list creation and how the game plays, are you sure you want to label it as a mod of 40k? Maybe consider cutting back on the extent of the changes or else creating a new system entirely? Again, I don't mean this in a mean way.

Also, consider looking at your various penalties again. It's pretty easy to incur a -5 or worse penalty. Buffs to shooting are relatively few and far between. It seems like it would be easy for non-stationary shooting to turn into a matter of getting as much twin-linkage as possible and fishing for 6s on your to-hit rolls. Also, even if you're assuming things are spending a lot of time in cover, keep in mind that this isn't always the case. A squad of guardsmen standing still in the vicinity of a squad of ork boyz that had to break cover to assault their target can pretty easily get a +2 to +3 BS modifier against the orkz who now no longer have a cover penalty to hide behind. Think lasguns aren't scary? How about when the blob of guys firing them are BS 5?

I like any ruleset that adds a bit more depth to the shooting phase. What I don't like is the previously mentioned issue of static gunlines, but also that prevalence of "fishing for 6's" that a huge amount of BS penalties + a minimum 1 BS would promote - whenever I write homerules I try to *remove* the number of such dice rolls not emphasize them.

Your OP is a bit hard to respond to due to size and quantity of rules, so I'll do so in an abridged form here;

Cover Reducing BS
I would suggest that you ignore 6+ cover saves in this equation and make 4+ become a -2 and 5+ become a -1. These are easily the most common saves, and I think it would be a bad idea to make them that much more powerful because of a useless 6+ that sometimes happens.

Minimum BS 1
Is this necessary? Fishing for 6 with handfuls of dice is a lot of time and hassle for little effect. Consider the effect of the game without this rule - Guardsmen, with a BS of 3, could be effectively "outranged" by better BS Space Marines and forced to move up and engage at closer range for a chance to fight back. I think that would be a better mechanic than having the two armies tolls 6s at each other until the smaller, more elite army inevitably succumbs to weight of dice.

Minimum BS pt2
A base increase on the hit chance of all units would not go amiss in a ruleset like this. If you've ever seen like, actual guns and gak, they're rather accurate and hitting a guy out in the open is not all that hard.

Overwatch
For starters, the rules here are a bit ambiguous as to one thing. Can you shoot then forfeit your assault phase for overwatch next turn? I'm pointing to the text "you can trade in your shooting (running or assault) phase for an overwatch..."

Reaction Fire is a good idea that has been used a lot in other games. Someone mentioned Infinity and I have played that a ton so I know how effective these rules can be. What I would suggest is that you give the other player an ability to negate, control or dictate your overwatch - my main issue being with the ability to target anything at anytime. This leads to the ability to perfectly allocate firepower much as the current shooting rules already allow, and that does not lead to tactical play. You should also restrict overwatch to one particular time - such as during the movement phase. Needing to constantly go "I do this, do you overwatch" leads to lots of messing around and is a poor way to implement the rule.

My suggestion would be to make overwatch declarations occur as the opponent moves a unit. When I move unit A, you must declare any of your overwatch troops that are going to target it. If a unit moves out of sight of the overwatching unit then the overwatch cannot occur and has been wasted. This way, by moving my units in a certain order, I can now interact with your overwatch "phase" by trying to bait out units waiting to fire. Do you fire on my first unit to move, or allow them to escape? You've waited with five overwatch guys for my tank to move - but I just leave it there and so you don't get to fire. Stuff like that.

Overwatch pt2 - movement BS penalties

Basing reactive fire upon enemy movement is a nice idea, but I would keep it at "moved or not moved" rather than all those degrees of movement. A rule that makes you track the specific movement of every unit just in case they decide to overwatch it later is a bad rule.

Stationary BS modifiers
I strongly, strongly oppose the ability to 'stack' two turns of doing nothing for more BS. Thats just more bookwork and bookwork = bad rules.

Assault
I approve of this rule. For a lot of assault armies the extra movement is worth losing cover, being overwatched etc.

Shooting into Combat
I strongly disapprove of this rule. This rule makes me think you've written this ruleset as a way to crap all over melee troops. A Space Marine firing into a unit in combat and only hitting allies on a "2" is flat out nonsense and I would refuse to play against this rule.

If you want to keep something like this; shooting into combat is a -2 penalty, with an additional -1 if you outnumber the opponent. Misses hit your own guys. Kills from friendly fire count as double for combat resolution.

Shooting Through Units
This rule is extremely fiddly and overall I disapprove of it wholeheartedly. Make it cover and call it a day.

Higher Ground
Would suggest "if you are higher get +1BS" and leave it at that. Any rule making you count and measure constantly is a bad rule.

I think the concepts outlined by the OP are pretty good.
However,the problems are more complicated by the complicated rules 40k has been lumbered with.

But a quick run through /summary.

Shooting, using modifiers.

Change cover saves to
-1 BS for light cover.(Cover that just make the target harder to hit.Eg log grass smoke chain fence etc.)
-2 BS for hard cover, things that may deflect incoming shots. Eg rubble, bunkers , substantial buildings etc.)

As they used to be, as everyone seems to have proposed and agrees to in lots of threads over the years. .

I would also suggest range modifiers based on fixed distances rather than separate BS modifiers for separate weapon ranges.
EG
-1 to BS if target is over 30" away.(To cut down on unrealistic sniping with long ranged heavy weapons.)

+1 to BS if target is within 8"(May make close range shooting too powerful?Needs to be play tested.)

Over-watch.
I would prefer to use something simple and more of a tactical choice.

If a unit remains stationary and does NOT make any attacks in their game turn.
The unit may shoot at the start of the opponents shooting phase.(Eg after all enemy movement has been carried out , but before enemy shooting starts.)

The bonus for remaining stationary is being able to fire to full effect.(Use heavy/ordnance weapons, bonus range for rapid fire.*) Or to go into over watch,
I do not think additional stacking BS modifiers are warranted,

I am not a fan of modifiers for higher ground,as players can try to argue this to the extreme , unless you add lots of clarification which leads to lots of complication for very little gain.IMO.

Dakkamite, has covered the rest in the way I was going to respond .

Thank you all for your very constructive criticism. I've altered the rules accordingly in my initial post. I think I'm getting much closer to some very very usable new rules here.

I wouldn't want to start from scratch because, who knows, maybe these rules manage to strike a right chord with people and GW adopts them for a 8th edition.