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I've never Played Warmachine or Hordes, but apparently their rules set was similar enough you could play one game against the other. I think there was something similar with the old Mongoose Publishing Starship Troopers game. It used the same rules set as their modern combat game and their Medieval times combat game. (Want to play Arachnids vs. Knights of the Round Table, you can).

With that in mind, would anyone be interested if one day Age of Sigmar and 40k had rules so similar that doing cross-game matches? It would allow more playing opportunities and allow AoS players and 40K players to intermingle, possibly making 40k players look into AoS.

Tzeentch opens a large portal that sucks AoS into wh40k. A realm where a commissor rides a baneblade into battle to hit it with his sword.

The Orks of AoS would fit right into 40k...

That would be very nice. Back in the day, my local store used to do 40k vs. Fantasy events, 40k vs. AoS would be cool.

As long as they're designed to be roughly balanced, mechanics-wise, I would forge the hell outta that narrative.

I've actually been thinking about this kind of concept since the 3rd edition Necron codex came out. In one section they suggested there was a way to play 40k necron against Fantasy Lizardmen.

Hell no. Fluff-wise it's just plain stupid, an AoS army with 100x the point value should still lose every single game. AoS weapons shouldn't be capable of damaging 40k power armor or vehicles (and would be marginal at best against even flak armor), while 40k weapons should mow down AoS models by the handful. And that doesn't lead to a game that is worth playing.

I'd be all for it but until one of those games actually has a well balanced core ruleset I'm in no rush to press the matter.

 Peregrine wrote:
Hell no. Fluff-wise it's just plain stupid, an AoS army with 100x the point value should still lose every single game. AoS weapons shouldn't be capable of damaging 40k power armor or vehicles (and would be marginal at best against even flak armor), while 40k weapons should mow down AoS models by the handful. And that doesn't lead to a game that is worth playing.

I respectfully disagree. The humble Chaos Cultist in 40K is armed with broken bits of pipe , hammers and the occasional knife and I still kill the occasional power armoured troop with them.

Not to mention Plague Zombies, Guardsmen with bayonets fixed and the occasional epileptic Grot managing a lucky 6.

These things -already- exist in 40K. At least in Age of Sigmar, most of the weapons are enchanted in some way. Or wielded by 1 ton slabs of pure inhuman muscle, like Lizardmen, Orcs(Not Orks) or the like.

If you want to complain about the narrative, those things that shouldn't kill marines already exist in vast numbers in the 40K universe.

Sure. Just for the ridiculous mental image of my Glade Guard bringing down a Storm Raven with bow fire.

I am not as strongly against it as Peregrine (actually I am, I am just going to be less blunt about it), but I don't think it is a good idea.

Age of Sigmar and Warhammer 40K should, in theory, have different design goals in mind for the style of combat the rules are trying to recreate. AoS should be focused on melee combat as a pre-industrial revolution fantasy setting. It has ranged combat, but that should not be considered the common method of engaging the enemy. Even though it is a skirmish (in the standard war meaning of the word, not miniatures gaming sense) scope of combat, I think keeping lines of close order formations should still feature heavily since cannons and area of effect magics would be on the more uncommon side. The import tactic is to get as many of your close combat weapons onto the opposing unit.

Where with Warhammer 40K this is primarily the opposite. Being a science-fantasy setting, the focus should be on ranged, particularly automatic/beam fire, which should reduce the number of troops in a unit as well as change from largely a line formation more to a blob that is kept more in a open order formation with the increase in area of attack weapons. Sure, 40K heavily features close quarters fighting, but I believe that should not be the most common style of war in the 41st millennium even if their are entire faction that is actually how they fight.

The TL;DR of it is, I when I think of Age of Sigmar, I think D&D, pre-industrial revolution warfare. When I think 40K I would like to think sci-fi verision at least WWII or modern style fighting featuring close combat (I know the truth of the matter is 40K is more WWI style fighting especially at high point totals). I think using a universal system for both is a bad idea as the game is going to favor one universe over the other. Both are very likely to not feel much like the combat you are trying to recreate with a generic system.

And that's even before you get into the the fluff reasons. Which is really about the only thing I think 40K has going for it beyond a shrinking "anywhere you go, you can get in a game of 40K" thing.

This is not a new concept and was already possible in 2nd but in a limited kind of way. The Chaos Codex at the time included three separate lists :

1. Chaos Space Marines
This classic list included Chaos Space Marines and vehicles.

2. Chaos Cult
This list included only Cultists and Beastmen.

3. Daemon World
This list included Daemons and their mortal followers. The latter consisted of Chaos Magi, Chaos Warriors, Mounted Chaos Warriors, Beastmen, Trolls, Minotaurs and Chaos Hounds. This force could be your corresponding Fantasy army for use in 40K because their units were also available in older Chaos army books.

Daemons
Daemon units for lists 1 & 2 had to be summoned. This was no easy task and required the Chaos Player to earn summoning points during the battle. Daemons for List 3 didn´t have to be summoned and started the game as usual right away in your deployment zone.



Fielding Fantasy armies in 40K
Well, there are some criteria which make the notion of fielding Fantasy armies in 40K quite problematic. These Fantasy armies are by their very nature low-tech. You would really struggle to damage vehicles without the use of modern heavy weapons. Suitable options would only be Large Monsters, Artillery, Doomsday Magic and brutes with two-handed/magic weapons. Another problem would be the relation of modern units to archaic units.



Damaging vehicles with Low Tech and lack of heavy weapons

1. Large Monsters
The Monster in question should be winged to cross the battlefield quickly, tough enough to survive a hailstorm of enemy fire and be strong enough to open up armoured hulls. Prospective candidates for this job would be Dragons, Manticores, Greater Daemons, etc. Some would be quite useless like weak Pegasi or Treemen with their Flammable disadvantage.

Your winged crittters are often ridden by your General himself . So you risk your General in suicide missions hunting down the likes of LRBTs, Predators and Dreadnoughts. The latter also come in numbers while Fantasy armies can only field a limited amount of these Monsters. This basically means that you are nearly every time outnumbered and outgunned. The phrase "Bringing a knife to a gunfight" comes immediately to mind.


2. Artillery
Sorry, but I can only envision damaging lightly armoured vehicles like Sentinels or Buggies with archaic Bolt Throwers and Cannons.


3. Doomsday Magic
The power level of magic spells is always very susceptible to edition change. They might be strong in one and considerably weaker in the following edition of the game. But you really need nuke spells to even consider removing battlefield terrors like Monoliths or Land Raiders from the board. The wording and rules of the spells have also to be crystal clear regarding the interaction with vehicles.

[b4. ]Brutes with two-handed/magic weapons[/b]
Brutes are formidable fighters like Chaos Warrior Lords (S5). Though they would/should be toned down a bit, if included in a 40K game (see Relation of modern units to archaic units). These models equipped with two-handed weapons (ST 7) could theoretically destroy a Rhino in 2nd of 40K but their chances were very slim. In 3rd+ the Autocannon (ST 7) is a good tool for wrecking light and medium armoured vehicles. How AoS would handle vehicles is anyone´s guess. These guys also need a fast delivery system to their target which was already mentioned under Large Monsters above.



Relation of modern units to archaic units
40K is a science fiction setting in which routinely genetically improved supersoldiers equipped with High-Tech duke it out. I know, a lot of people think/claim that it is Fantasy in Space. That´s fine but the emphasis is clearly on guns and not cudgels.
2nd 40K and 4th Fantasy coexisted at the same time. Chaos Warriors and CSM had S4 &T4 in their respective system. So would this be applicable too, if you decide that these two factions should square off on the battlefield? The answer to this is a clear NO. Chaos Warriors in 2nd 40K Chaos Codex were given S3 &T3 to underline the inherent differences towards CSM. The former is just a warp-tainted fighter and the latter a warp-tainted soldier improved with Bio-Tech.
This example shows that your regular Fantasy badasses (Chaos Warriors, etc.) would pale in comparison to the more modern units.

Another factor which should be addressed is equipment. Archaic equipment is at an inherent disadvantage to modern wargear. Let us compare the Crossbow (S4) with the Boltgun (S4) in 2nd 40K to drive home the point. Both have S4 and are therefore on par with another, right? WRONG.
The Crossbow displays a severe disadvantage because every 40K armour with a 4+ save or better gains a +2 bonus to it´s save vs. Crossbow bolts. That means a Terminator with his 3+ save on 2D6 becomes invulnerable (save changed to 1+ on 2D6) to a Crossbow bolt. Apparently even the wearer of Power armour (3+ save) becomes invulnerable because armour rolls of 1 were not automatic failures in this edition according to the Battle Bible Version 1.5.1. In conclusion, you would need to rewrite all rules for archaic equipment, if they should coexist with their modern versions on the battlefield.
Fun fact at the end: The Crossbow has a range of 32´´ and the Boltgun shoots only a measly 24´´. Some 40K rules never cease to amaze me. Sad but true, 40K is occasionally Fantasy in Space.

At first I thought this would be a joke when I was thinking of this a few years ago. How can you have something like Lord of the Rings vs Star Wars/Trek? After seeing how Warmahordes does this, it could be possible.

Fluff wise how would something from Age of Sigmar deal with bolter fire I can't figure out, but then again anything 40K doesn't make much sense really anyways. So in the name of fun, I can't see why not? I would like to see it. As long as there is some believability to it I say why not? After all it's for fun and we are already suspending our disbelief that Guardsmen with T-shirts have better armour saves than Tyranid gaunts with chintin armour, Age of Sigmar should be possible as well.