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I participate in a lot of "proposed rules" threads here on dakka, but I really can't grasp exactly how many modifications in those discussions are purely "Theoryhammer" or "Wishhammer". How often people actually modify 40K to suit their needs/tastes or how much they stick to official rules/popular tournament formats. Hence this small poll, to help me establish some wider context of such discussions in the future.

I have tried to construct this poll as much as a "scale of customisation" as possible, but this is obviously limited by linear nature of scales (and I wanted to avoid multiple choice poll or dozens of possible options). So please try to place yourself on an this imaginary spectrum with some dose of good will [I promise, I will not invoke any "significant minorities" that may arise here in any of my future debates ]. If this list lack your true option badly, please describe it in a comment.

One important clarification: what I'm interested in the most, is how "unofficial" are the games you most commonly participate in, not how experimental "one offs" you have played. And, for the sake of any usefulness of this, please, skip this poll if you do not play often (around once a month in the past year should be a minimum).

As for myself: I play "Myhammer" almost exclusively and the list of customisations include custom mission format and objectives; custom warlord traits tables; custom psychic disciplines; many core rule changes including run distances, terrain influence and AP/rend mechanics; many custom rules or rules adapted from previous editions; statline changes, point cost adjustments, custom units and FOC/formations. It is a constatly evolving process of refinement/customization over about 100 games played to date. It is still strongly anchored in official rules/dexes/statlines and utilizes post 3.5ed core concepts, so it is not "reinvented from scratch" and strenghts/weaknesses/purposes of units (and main bulk of statlines) are preserved, but is far, far from RAW.

I play with a few house rules but not a lot. I play it a house rule for impossible tactical objectives get rerolled. Invisibility and summoning daemons(for non daemon players) are not used in friendly games.

We dropped the wound allocation all together, and let the owner pick casualties.

The way my group plays it is mostly RAW with ample use of spirit of the game and common sense being applied whenever in doubt. We also use 1 minor houserule which is to redraw 100% impossible to achieve maelstrom cards, but even then apply some RAW.

Like say you get psychological warfare against a army that is comprised of 100% fearless units. Why at face value its impossible to achieve due to fearless, but RAW they do take morale tests they just auto pass them. Now if the enemy army was 100% vehicles then yeah you redraw the card.

The only "house rules" I generally use are ad hoc stipulation of terrain rules. "This piece of terrain shall count as 5+ cover and is dangerous."

I currently play RAI leaning heavily towards RAW atm. But my play tests have been very promising and I can see myself going almost entirely "Ruleset totally reinvented from scratch." in a matter of months.

- unachievable maelstrom cards (in the entire game, not just that turn) are discarded and the player can get a new card for each one discarded
- no flyers under 1000p; no SHV/GC/D-weapons under 2000p (tournaments are excepted)
- gentlemen's agreement: no gladius, riptide wing, zounds of wraithknights - unless for testing purposes
- draft faqs are in play
- proxy for rules is ok (our resident AM miniatures have been already everything in this game)

mostly those

A few house rules.

- Like Vector Strike's group: unachievable maelstrom cards (in the entire game, not just that turn.) are discarded and the player can get a new card for each one discarded

- If you choose to roll your warlord trait in the big rule book, roll and then choose which table to apply the result. If you choose your codex's warlord trait, you get what you get. Rerolls for your CAD or whatever still apply.

- We don't play with super heavies unless someone wants a one-off scenario.

Redraw unacheivable Maelstrom, "be reasonable" on Flyers/superheavies/D-weapons in pick-up games (which typically means 'ask first'), mix of draft FAQ/ITC rules. Hard terrain definitions, loose proxy restrictions, homebrew army books if someone (usually me) wants to.

To the letter with RAI all the way.

I've tried games against 'fan-dex' armies and the like and they're such bull gak I can't stand it. All of them.

The 'social contract' is such that we're to play a game and the fundamental understanding of the definition of what 'game' means is Warhammer 40,000 by Games Workshop + its associated game publications by the same publishing entity.

ITC in one club, RAI in the other.

The new group I'm playing with is in the "As above and/or minor point tweaks, FOC restrictions but with official units/stats only (e.g no LOW units under 2000pts, 1-per-3 scatterbikes etc)" category.

If it used to be in apocalypse, its banned under 2k. The "don't be a @$#" rule is in effect for other things like super friends and the like, where unless you and another guy agree to it, leave it at home.

We mostly play kill team though, so the majority of the house rules consider it. For example, we pick warlord traits at the start of the game. The kill team traits vary wildly in usefulness for different kill teams so we didn't feel it was fair that an IG player could roll "slay warlord in a challenge" against a khorne player who gets zealot on his bezerker. We're also testing out rules that let players attack buildings at will to bring them down, since 80% of our terrain is buildings, to help tone down cover save armies (its not uncommon to see +2 cover saves every game)

Rule change #1: 2nd edition. This fixes like 80% of issues.

Then whole bunch of changes to fix up minor annoyances and to make game more akin to our vision. Reduce stay-effects, quicken up hand to hand by simple d6+modifiers to get number of hits, bunch of weapon stats modified(we have been especially heavy on armour save modifiers to make non-terminator/non-inv saves to actually matter something) and some wargear/unit selection rules changed(for example remove pricey HQ's as requirements to lead to allow for smaller 750 pts armies to work etc).

Also whole scenario/army building is basically "screw it". Rather than making lists to equal point values we make up custom scenarios based on campaign which includes army lists themselves. This way we have nice variance on army lists rather than same units fighting it out and creates nice narrative for our games.

 Crimson Devil wrote:
We dropped the wound allocation all together, and let the owner pick casualties.

This is the only good way to play 40k.

The only house rules my FLGS uses are:

Dice that hit the floor are automatic fails, because they failed to hit the table.

In case of a draw, the better painted army wins.

SJ

Assault 6"+D6, -2 for charging through terrain.
Difficult terrain=1/2 movement.
Can assault out of a stationary vehicle.

ITC FAQ. Sometimes mission format.

Discard unachievable Maelstrom cards.

And... Um... I think that's it. Other than that, general stuff about sportsmanship, like asking to bring Knights in lower point games, but no real rule changes.

I house rule that Dark Angels, Blood Angels, and Space Wolves have access to the betrayal at calith models.

Are you telling me that your goofy nonsense made-up chapter has contemptors but my founding legion doesn't? Get out of here.

I might have to try out the 'owner picks casualties' rule. It seems to work out great in Sigmar tbh and I hated the change when it first happpened in 40k.

Our only house rules are that no models on the table is not an auto-lose as long as you have something in reserve, unless you have nothing on the table at the end of game turn 1 in which case you forfeit. Generally though the only rule is "it's fine as long as your opponent agrees". Also if you don't "WAAGH!" properly when using the WAAGH! special rule it doesn't count - that's non-negotiable.

We use a few:

Impossible Maelstrom cards can freely be tossed and redrawn, to include those that become impossible during play. (For example, I have Big Game Hunter, but my opponent's only MC/Vehicle dies to Perils of the Warp before I can kill it - toss, redraw, even though it's still his turn).

No "true Titans" below 3k (Revenant, Phantom, Warhound, Reaver, Warlord, Ta'Unar, Hierophant, Gargants and that sort. We generally permit Wraithknights, Knights, Baneblades, etc within reason above 1500 or so).

FAQ notwithstanding, enemy models can stand on or move over drop pod doors, provided they stay 1" from the hull and are otherwise moving legally. (IOW, this doesn't let you move in any way you normally can't, you just pretend drop pod doors don't exist.)

FAQ notwithstanding, Preferred Enemy, BS6+ and similar effects do allow a re-roll of Gets Hot on blast weapons.

Dice that fall off the table get re-rolled and that reroll doesn't count (so if it's for a twin-linked shot, say, you can still use that).

Actual no-op warlord traits can be rerolled, but they have to literally be useless, not just bad. For example, Fear on a guy that has Fear already, or +1 Initiative on a Keeper of Secrets or some kind of thing like that, where the Warlord Trait actually does nothing. But, Stubborn on a guy who's Ld 10 and Fearless already? Keep it. It's not actually a no-op. (or of course re-roll if you normally could.)

Thank you all for voting! Hundred votes is enough to draw some conclusions from this.

First of all, it really suprises me, that ITC/ETC isn't more popular - from all that competetive focus in various threads I expected it to be one of the most dominant options. I assume, that some of you who voted for "RAI" or "Some minor houserules" play in fact a lot of tournament preparation games, just not enough to be the first choice (in other words, "ITC/ETC" votes are "canibalised" by just being "next best option").

What was to be expected is that "common sense" (options "RAI" and "Some minor houserues") is significantly more prevalent that "usual forum rants and flamewars" would indicate. People generally content with any given subject are less likely to be vocal about it. Also, as some responses in this thread indicate, those options are the best "safe ground" for people who might want to see a lot of official changes in 40K but are tired of rule lawyering or bad houserules and want to simply play a game...

Oddly enough, there seems to be some sort of balance in number of people who favor "creative expansion" and those who modify the game only by imposing significant restrictions.

But what this poll (and thread "testimonies") really show, is that if there is no "official body" to support it, most "proposed rules" discussed on dakka do not stick outside of small, closed groups.

10% ITC seems about right. The competitive players are loud, but not that numerous. And GW knows it, which is why they focus on the 90% casual crowd.

As far as "house rules" go, there are 2 that stick:
1. ignore "impossible" Maelstrom objectives
2. owner determines wounds and casualties

Ruins get often house ruled to they work like they did in 6th


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Doors are not solid walls, but openings.




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All 40k cool terrain is just terrain that doesnt have all those strange IoM buffing abilities, crates do not have those insane rules as suggested.

Oh, yeah, I forgot about "mysterious terrain" and "mysterious objectives". We basically never use those.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
10% ITC seems about right. The competitive players are loud, but not that numerous. And GW knows it, which is why they focus on the 90% casual crowd.

As far as "house rules" go, there are 2 that stick:
1. ignore "impossible" Maelstrom objectives
2. owner determines wounds and casualties

I was expecting that most folks will be casual/by the book, but exact figures closer to 25% for "standard formats" and 75% for various flavours of casual crowd.

Impossible maelstrom (game, not turn) may be discarded.
The drop pod door rules in the FAQ/Errata are also ignored because they're insane.
Other than that, RAW with a touch of RAI as required with a dice off to settle the matter if an agreement can't be reached.

I play a heavily modified 4th edition rule set with modified 5th ed or under codexs to match the rule set and our own percieved level of balance.

So yeah, house rules out the wazooo. But I am having fun again with this game, so its all good.

My group uses the following house rules.

1: No Allies

2: 40% Troops minimum - you can use Formations and Detachments, but you're still required to get your 40% Troops from somewhere. Our Eldar players don't spam Scatbikes, so that hasn't been a problem needing addressing.

3: Psykers can only use their own power dice and those generated by the Harness the Warp roll at the beginning of the psychic phase. No giving each other power dice.

These three rules have given us a fabulous, relaxed environment that has also resulted in some very exciting tight games. Generally speaking, most of our games have been close. Only very rarely has there been a blowout.

For random wounds for things like a transport exploding, the owner just picks the mooks that have to make the saving throws. Random wounds are a pain in the ass.