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 MagicJuggler wrote:
Merging the results of Critical Damage with Destroyer is also on the list of things to test out too.

How so? like D weapons always do Critical Damage a la 5th ed? Or like a modified deal where critical damage causes more damage per wound?

The initial thought was something along the lines of:
-A weapon with the Destroyer Special Rule modifies Invulnerable Saves by -2, and automatically inflicts an additional D3 hits/wounds upon a successful wound/penetration roll. Were the attack able to inflict Critical Damage through another means (Rolling a 7+ on the vehicle damage table, doubling out the target's toughness, being a Force weapon, etc), it deals an additional D3 wounds/HP on top of that.
-Some weapons *might* trigger Destroyer on a roll of 6 (or 5+?) to-wound or to-penetrate. Generally it would only be things like Vanquisher Shells, Railgun Solid Shot, or Bastion Breachers. This may bear testing.
-In general, most vehicles will have an extra HP for every 4 HP (round down) they originally had. MC will gain extra HP in a similar manner.

One thing I am contemplating about the Psychic Phenomena is the whole "Tokens Leftover From Phenomena." Wardwarp, Soul Blaze, Warp Vigour, and Fatewalker are all rather book-keeperish. I'm thinking of making Fate Tokens the only token leftover, as they can be used for non-psyker elements too (Fateweaver, Corbulo's All-Seeing Eye, Orikan the Diviner, etc). What would be good "secondary" phenomenae?
For Biomancy, I'm interested in nixing Life Leech and making "Heal a model by one wound" the phenomena effect. What would be a good replacement power?
For Pyromancy, replacing Soul Blaze with some "a nearby model with a Flame weapon may make a *free* attack" trick might be cute.
For Theosophamy, some 'effects are doubled against Daemons' trick may be situationally cute. Make Null Zone a -1 to Invulnerable Saves by default.
Finally, Whiplash may be a bit crazy. Making it so a single friendly model can make a 4" move without changing facing (no models may make more than one Whiplash move/turn) may be easier to pull off. We can't have a Telekinetic going super-fast around the map like that

Lemee know yer thoughts.

 MagicJuggler wrote:
The initial thought was something along the lines of:
-A weapon with the Destroyer Special Rule modifies Invulnerable Saves by -2, and automatically inflicts an additional D3 hits/wounds upon a successful wound/penetration roll. Were the attack able to inflict Critical Damage through another means (Rolling a 7+ on the vehicle damage table, doubling out the target's toughness, being a Force weapon, etc), it deals an additional D3 wounds/HP on top of that.
-Some weapons *might* trigger Destroyer on a roll of 6 (or 5+?) to-wound or to-penetrate. Generally it would only be things like Vanquisher Shells, Railgun Solid Shot, or Bastion Breachers. This may bear testing.
-In general, most vehicles will have an extra HP for every 4 HP (round down) they originally had. MC will gain extra HP in a similar manner.

One thing I am contemplating about the Psychic Phenomena is the whole "Tokens Leftover From Phenomena." Wardwarp, Soul Blaze, Warp Vigour, and Fatewalker are all rather book-keeperish. I'm thinking of making Fate Tokens the only token leftover, as they can be used for non-psyker elements too (Fateweaver, Corbulo's All-Seeing Eye, Orikan the Diviner, etc). What would be good "secondary" phenomenae?
For Biomancy, I'm interested in nixing Life Leech and making "Heal a model by one wound" the phenomena effect. What would be a good replacement power?
For Pyromancy, replacing Soul Blaze with some "a nearby model with a Flame weapon may make a *free* attack" trick might be cute.
For Theosophamy, some 'effects are doubled against Daemons' trick may be situationally cute. Make Null Zone a -1 to Invulnerable Saves by default.
Finally, Whiplash may be a bit crazy. Making it so a single friendly model can make a 4" move without changing facing (no models may make more than one Whiplash move/turn) may be easier to pull off. We can't have a Telekinetic going super-fast around the map like that

Lemee know yer thoughts.

I could get behind that take on D weapons, I suppose. What is theosphamy, now? your alternative to daemonology?

The part about vehicles having more hull points is interesting. Is this to tone down critical damage and destroyer weapons across the board?


In my own game, I pulled back allies to 6th ed stuff where you needed one CAD and could only take an allied detachment for allies. But your auxiliaries system looks interesting. How will that look in practice? will units in one codex be tagged "auxiliary" and only those can be taken by other armies? Will army list wargear options have tags on them to indicate that auxiliaries can take that option?

 Powerfisting wrote:

I could get behind that take on D weapons, I suppose. What is theosphamy, now? your alternative to daemonology?

Truth be told, the differences between Sanctic Daemonology and Theosophamy are pretty hazy. Theosophamy was created back in ye olde days of Inquisitor (from the Thorians Sourcebook) and was included in Rogue Trader, and it basically deals with nullifying Warp effects, preventing incursions, etc. I removed Mirrorcurse as it was way too convoluted, and replaced it with Seal Warp Breach.

 Powerfisting wrote:

The part about vehicles having more hull points is interesting. Is this to tone down critical damage and destroyer weapons across the board?

Partially it's to address the fact that mid-strength multishot weapons like Hi-Yield Missile Pods, Scatter Lasers, etc, are just plain better for anti-tank purpose compared to stuff like, say, Lascannons.

 Powerfisting wrote:

In my own game, I pulled back allies to 6th ed stuff where you needed one CAD and could only take an allied detachment for allies. But your auxiliaries system looks interesting. How will that look in practice? will units in one codex be tagged "auxiliary" and only those can be taken by other armies? Will army list wargear options have tags on them to indicate that auxiliaries can take that option?

It's still very WIP-ish and something to mostly work on after, well, everything else, but the idea is:
-Some *codex* units are Irregulars; the main examples would be Eldar Rangers, Triarch Praetorians, etc. They have their own agendas, independent of their main factions. They can be taken unmodified in their main army, and fulfill army FoC requirements. They can alternately be taken in a mercenary army.
-Mercenary units may be used as part of a mercenary army, or may be included in a codex army. They may *not* be used to satisfy core FoC requirements for a codex army.
-Some codex armies will have special rules for including mercenaries. Chaos may Mark their mercenaries, the Dark Eldar have the option to use them as Test Subjects (so you can play out the infamous Dark Eldar/Tau "Cultural Exchange"), etc. Marines can only take Imperial Agents, unless they are Renegade, etc.
-Some mercenaries will have special rules for being included in other armies. For example, Desperadoes may take a Dedicated Transport from the codex they're included for (so Desperadoes taken in a Tau army may take a Devilfish, to mech up your Gue'Vesa'La), or a Kroot Shaper may take a Special Weapon as payment for services rendered.

 MagicJuggler wrote:

 Powerfisting wrote:

In my own game, I pulled back allies to 6th ed stuff where you needed one CAD and could only take an allied detachment for allies. But your auxiliaries system looks interesting. How will that look in practice? will units in one codex be tagged "auxiliary" and only those can be taken by other armies? Will army list wargear options have tags on them to indicate that auxiliaries can take that option?

It's still very WIP-ish and something to mostly work on after, well, everything else, but the idea is:
-Some *codex* units are Irregulars; the main examples would be Eldar Rangers, Triarch Praetorians, etc. They have their own agendas, independent of their main factions. They can be taken unmodified in their main army, and fulfill army FoC requirements. They can alternately be taken in a mercenary army.
-Mercenary units may be used as part of a mercenary army, or may be included in a codex army. They may *not* be used to satisfy core FoC requirements for a codex army.
-Some codex armies will have special rules for including mercenaries. Chaos may Mark their mercenaries, the Dark Eldar have the option to use them as Test Subjects (so you can play out the infamous Dark Eldar/Tau "Cultural Exchange"), etc. Marines can only take Imperial Agents, unless they are Renegade, etc.
-Some mercenaries will have special rules for being included in other armies. For example, Desperadoes may take a Dedicated Transport from the codex they're included for (so Desperadoes taken in a Tau army may take a Devilfish, to mech up your Gue'Vesa'La), or a Kroot Shaper may take a Special Weapon as payment for services rendered.

That is definitely a different take on the whole thing. What inspired that? And then how should army lists work out point costs etc. for irregulars? will there be foot notes on the last couple pages broadly about how that works?

 Powerfisting wrote:
That is definitely a different take on the whole thing. What inspired that? And then how should army lists work out point costs etc. for irregulars? will there be foot notes on the last couple pages broadly about how that works?

Since the main thing is a massive WIP, I'm still feeling around tbh. The armywide special rule that Chaos gets is called Slaves To Darkness, and lets each non-Daemon Chaos unit either take an Alignment for free (Chaos Marines cost and are equipped the same as Chapter Marines, but don't get ATSKNF or Chapter Tactics), or take up to 20 points of Wargear at no cost (or make it "By one, get one free" or something like that; mostly handy for stuff like Rhinos getting free Dozer Blades/etc), and *any* Mercenaries in a Chaos Army get Slaves To Darkness.

Renamed Critical Damage to Overkill, because Critical is now a term for abilities that are "Trigger on 6 to roll." Sustained attacks, Rending, free attacks on rolls of 6 to save armor, etc. So Critical Critical Damage would be silly, Critical Overkill makes more sense.

The Weapon Skill chart has been reworked too.

 MagicJuggler wrote:

 Powerfisting wrote:
That is definitely a different take on the whole thing. What inspired that? And then how should army lists work out point costs etc. for irregulars? will there be foot notes on the last couple pages broadly about how that works?

Since the main thing is a massive WIP, I'm still feeling around tbh. The armywide special rule that Chaos gets is called Slaves To Darkness, and lets each non-Daemon Chaos unit either take an Alignment for free (Chaos Marines cost and are equipped the same as Chapter Marines, but don't get ATSKNF or Chapter Tactics), or take up to 20 points of Wargear at no cost (or make it "By one, get one free" or something like that; mostly handy for stuff like Rhinos getting free Dozer Blades/etc), and *any* Mercenaries in a Chaos Army get Slaves To Darkness.

Renamed Critical Damage to Overkill, because Critical is now a term for abilities that are "Trigger on 6 to roll." Sustained attacks, Rending, free attacks on rolls of 6 to save armor, etc. So Critical Critical Damage would be silly, Critical Overkill makes more sense.

The Weapon Skill chart has been reworked too.

Would you look at that! In my own homebrew, I had a USR called Critical, so when I went to appropriate your critical damage mechanic, I named it Overkill!

Most weapon stats are up and others are pending. Besides statlines, each weapon has been tweaked for a mix of fluff justification ("Bolters do terrible things when they explode", "Lasguns are super-reliable"), streamlining ("Did Assault Cannons Rend?" "No, that was Autocannons...wait a sec"), and gameplay purposes ("Shotguns are useful for objective capping or solo-hunting", "Tactical Marines should be cost effective against light infantry", etc).

Generally speaking, melee weapons fall into 5 categories:
Swords have a level of Sustained Attack due to ability to rapidly follow up with more attacks. These are best for fighting rank-and-file infantry.
Axes have +1 Strength and -1 AP relative to other weapons, and Armorbane (may tweak the 2nd d6 to be a d3 instead?). They're what you use for carving through bulkheads and heavy troops.
Lances get +1 Strength and -1 AP on the charge.
Mauls get +1 Strength and +1 AP relative to other weapons, and Smash (Smash no longer guarantees AP 2, lets the user trade extra attacks for extra strength). Concussive is no longer a rule, but Thunder Hammers can now Smash things.
Flails get Scourge (Ignore Shields/close order drills), and probably some form of swiftstrike.
Most weapons have a two-handed version that does +1 Strength/-1 AP. Ergo, a Necron Warscythe is effectively a Power Greataxe.

Chain weapons have a level of Shred. Notably, the Chainfist does not get Armorbane anymore.

Ranged Weapons fall into different categories, and each category has at least one defining trait:
-All Las Weapons (Laspistols, Lasguns, Multilasers, Lascannons, etc) have 1 level of Guided; the Lasgun is *the* weapon of the 41st Millenium, renowned for its reliability and ease of use. How to represent Hotshot weapons is up for grabs.
-All Auto Weapons (Autopistols, Autoguns, Heavy Stubbers, Assault Cannons, Autocannons, etc. This probabily includes Ork dakka too) have 1 level of Sustained Attack. Spray and pray. Note that the Assault Cannon no longer gets Rending.
-All Bolt Weapons (Bolt Pistols, Bolters, Storm Bolters, Heavy Bolters, and Avenger Boltcannons) have 1 level of Shred; if the Bolt doesn't get you, the explosion will. Note that Special Issue rounds may sacrifice Shred for something else.
-Shotguns (Combat Shotguns, Astartes Shotguns, etc) can be fired as close combat attacks on the first round of a close combat at their listed profile; the details I am working on but the rules should also allow things like the old Ork Psycho Dakka rules to come back. Flush your opponent out of the trenches.
-All Shuriken Weapons get Rend (Rolls of 6 to-wound/penetrate are AP 1). All Splinter Weapons get a Poisoned(1). Shuriken and Splinter Weapons will be *very* similar statwise otherwise.
-All Monofilament weapons roll to-wound based off Initiative. Slice slow enemies to shreds.
-All Tesla Weapons get Sustained Attack(2).
-All Rad Weapons get Poisoned(2)
-All Sonic Weapons have Ignore Cover. I'm going to remove Cacophony as a thing.
-Pulse Weapons get Scourge; if anything, the Tau welcome an enemy that makes themselves such a bunched-up target.
-All Ion Weapons are S7 and can overcharge for a S8 small blast.
-All Rail Weapons are AP 1. Armor may well not exist.

I've updated the Dawn Striders Ruleset, and would like some feedback on balance before hitting the point scaling. Also, I would love to see some of this in action. Once the core rules are ready to playtest, any chance we see some battle reports with the rules found here? I'd certainly be up for some test games, at the very least

Hey Swampmist, A first draft of assorted chapter traits is up. Personally, the way I view it is that Sternguard in 7th already get access to mass combi-weapons, because that's their schtick; not only would a Chapter Tactic letting any model take combis make Sternguard more redundant, but would combo quite dangerously with a Troop Focused army running mass Pods. Drop in, flame a unit, die, drop back in, rinse and repeat. The "Free Round" of firing the combi-weapons is also rather nutty.

Granted, the Marine Player would need to find creative ways to ensure the Pods get killed first (casting stuff like Diverted Fate or tossing Molten Gaze a bit carelessly might help).

I've been aiming to adhere to a principle called a "Rule of Three." Basically, each army should have at least 3 distinct choices for each slot. For some (Admech, Sisters, etc) this is easier said than done. However, a general theme will be for Troops to have:
-A Line Infantry
-Shock Unit (not always necessarily infantry)
-A "cheap" unit.

I just had an idea actually that every Troop Unit (in theory it could be for every unit, but that could get overcomplicated) would choose one out of three free unit options. This is a *very* early idea, mind you; most of the bonuses would be pretty WYSIWYG-y for obvious reasons. If this were done, then the Troop Focus would allow you to select two options instead.
-Assault Squads are 75 points for 5, plus 15 points per additional model, and get a Bolt Pistol, Chainsword, Frag & Krak Grenades. Assault Squads can either be Jumpers (Jump Packs), Breachers (Gain Siege Shields and Close Order Drill), or Demolishers (Get Demolition Charges).
-Tactical Squads are 75 points for 5, plus 15 points per additional model, and get a Bolter, Bolt Pistol, Chainsword, Frag & Krak Grenades. They may either be Grenadiers (May make Grenade Attacks from 8" away, gain a level of Grenadier), Seekers (The Tactical Squad may use Special Issue Ammo if they treat their Bolters as Heavy 1), or Sentries (Entrenchment Tools and Snare Mines).
-Scout Squads are 50 points per 5, plus 10 points per additional model, and get Grenades, a Combat Knife, and a choice of Bolter, Shotgun, or Bolt Pistol. They can either be Skirmishers (Chameloline Cloaks, for +1 Shrouded), Designators (The unit collectively counts as having an Auspex and Locator Beacon), or Pioneers (May set up free tank traps/wire/mines when they infiltrate).

Similar things could be done with other units too. Stormtrooper Special Missions, Possessed Traits, Wych Drugs, Ork oddboy specializations (Stikkbommas, Ard Boyz, etc). In *theory*, if every unit could have 3 Specializations, then the entire FoC focus could be cleaned up with: "Units in a Focus can have two specialization." To eliminate the whole "Sideboarding" debate of game design, the "mandatory" units could select their specializations before the game starts.

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Hey Swampmist, A first draft of assorted chapter traits is up. Personally, the way I view it is that Sternguard in 7th already get access to mass combi-weapons, because that's their schtick; not only would a Chapter Tactic letting any model take combis make Sternguard more redundant, but would combo quite dangerously with a Troop Focused army running mass Pods. Drop in, flame a unit, die, drop back in, rinse and repeat. The "Free Round" of firing the combi-weapons is also rather nutty.

Granted, the Marine Player would need to find creative ways to ensure the Pods get killed first (casting stuff like Diverted Fate or tossing Molten Gaze a bit carelessly might help).

I'd actually suggest addressing this in general, because you can already take combi-weapons on sergeants and do the same thing on a lesser scale. I'd actually go as far as to say if a unit is placed into ongoing reserves through the FoC Troop Specialization Rules, they do not get to use their combi-weapon again. Also, I will add the addendum that, at least for the Dawn Striders, their combi-weapons do not reactivate from the Troop rule, although the sarg will get to fire his again anyway. What do you suggest I do about the "Free Round"? I want to incentivise the liberal use of combi-weapons in the army because of how I'm writing them, as well as emphasize how powerful they are when deepstriking, but I don't want them to be too powerful, and I also don't want sergeants to be disincentivized. I'm also not overly worried about sternguard, not only because they have special ammo and better special\heavy weapons, but because they don't really fit the Dawn Strider lore over-much anyway, especially without drop pods .

About the movement: do you have a suspicion that 4" may be too slow or will you definitely stick with it? I remember the change from 2nd edition to 3rd and while I first thought it odd that models didn't have individual movement characteristics (now I find it perfectly logical), I really liked the change from 4" to 6" movement.

Movement and how fast you move is so important when we're talking tactics and I just think that if units are too slow, a battle will become too stale as you better know where the enemy will be the slower the units are.

Maybe others could answer this as well or maybe a new thread about it, should be made: do you guys think that the current 6" (and for some units 12" and more) is too much movement? Does it seem wrong when playing?

Chaospling wrote:
About the movement: do you have a suspicion that 4" may be too slow or will you definitely stick with it? I remember the change from 2nd edition to 3rd and while I first thought it odd that models didn't have individual movement characteristics (now I find it perfectly logical), I really liked the change from 4" to 6" movement.

Movement and how fast you move is so important when we're talking tactics and I just think that if units are too slow, a battle will become too stale as you better know where the enemy will be the slower the units are.

Maybe others could answer this as well or maybe a new thread about it, should be made: do you guys think that the current 6" (and for some units 12" and more) is too much movement? Does it seem wrong when playing?

For me personally, its not much of an issue whether or not things are broadly too slow or too fast. I would like to see variation between lots of units. Its more dynamic and fun (IMO) when some units (terminators, centurions, obliterators) are super slow and other units are super fast. This requires a lot of things to be working together to work, though. Currently, really fast units are far too common and far too desirable for taking slow, but otherwise powerful units to be a viable strategy unless you want to combine them with other powers that mitigate those problems into irrelevance (ie cent stars) rather than take them for their own merits. So, we could rebalance a lot of stuff and have some really slow units (3 or 4" per turn move), some nominally fast units (6-8" per turn) and some really fast units (12" or more per turn) and all of those types (obviously they would have other characteristics) could be viable on their own merits.

Chaospling wrote:
About the movement: do you have a suspicion that 4" may be too slow or will you definitely stick with it? I remember the change from 2nd edition to 3rd and while I first thought it odd that models didn't have individual movement characteristics (now I find it perfectly logical), I really liked the change from 4" to 6" movement.

Movement and how fast you move is so important when we're talking tactics and I just think that if units are too slow, a battle will become too stale as you better know where the enemy will be the slower the units are.

Maybe others could answer this as well or maybe a new thread about it, should be made: do you guys think that the current 6" (and for some units 12" and more) is too much movement? Does it seem wrong when playing?

I had another thread going on earlier, but the initial thought went along the lines of: everything (except Scatters, flame templates, and deployment zones) had a 33% range reduction, both movement *and* shooting.
However, all D6-based moves (Runs, assaults, etc) were to have any D6 replaced with D3+1, so rather than all move ranges being multiples of 1"-6", they would have been for 2"-4".

I still need to sit down and actually get some real testing in (I feel that more than anything else, getting Movement and the Assault Phase right can make or break this game), but I feel that by replacing *most* random movement and consolidating the various "bonus" moves into "Double Time", the rules there should be more streamlined and 'less' dice-dependent.

Regarding things like CentStars or BikeStars, hopefully the alternating phase system should help mute their ability to nuke two units a turn without effective countermeasures, jump out of an assault, nuke two units a turn...Gate may be a bit too powerful in its current form, so the implementation will take some tweaking; Denial is generally easier to pull off in this system however, at least if powers originate or end up in a denying model's influence.

Updates are inbound; Shield and Close Order Drill will be consolidated into each other, and Orks are getting some love today.

I cleaned up the Changelog; am at a point where I am looking for playtesters. Late night EST usually works for me; PM me if interested in setting up something.

I'm planning to create separate topics for individual armies, just because the initial page has become overcrowded as is. Will update accordingly.