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Inspired by a post on remaking Rogue Trader about a week ago I've pulled a set of skirmish rules I'd started putting together a few years back out and started editing it for upload. The basic idea is to expand/extend N17 to cover 40k stuff, Kill Team's always been too focused on making sure everything corresponds 1:1 to full-size 40k (loadout restrictions, stats, etc.) and Necromunda's a narrow game stuck into a very restrictive framework. My goal is to build a framework robust enough that I can start doing weird scenarios, PvE missions, elaborate campaign rules with actual stat growth (not just "roll on this 1d6 table of how much cooler your squad is!"), and all kinds of stuff that would never work properly at 40k's usual scale.

Core rules are up at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1g8tojedk5nGka2m4g0fotKYDBA6woofS7bzS5mDMxpk/edit?usp=sharing.

Arsenal (weapons and equipment) are up at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1K4-KMGumfQXmXtDfK9hHG0bY2fu5Qf0YxQbxmDAF6Gc/edit?usp=sharing. The arsenal document contains stuff for everyone so I could check it against comparable equipment in one place rather than needing to cross-reference a bunch of different documents, unfortunately this does mean there are some very warband-specific things there (particularly for the Tau). Note also that I've tried to consolidate it as best I could, so there may be items that have a warband-specific name in some places that I've rolled into one profile (ex. "airbursting frag projector" = "grenade launcher", which has the added bonus of letting the Tau get different grenade ammo if they want to).

Warbands! https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zectwCjI1wtQfMldvUJ97_O2nvEuHY5s5cYElm1iDBo/edit?usp=sharing has basic statlines and warband rules for Space Marines, Imperial Guard, Mechanicum, mortal Chaos, Eldar Corsairs, the Tau Fire Caste, and Necrons.

Campaign document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jUtvZqDVOTcVNeNAmgfqqBv_5AxHi-Gm7u5mGcCQOVA/edit?usp=sharing. Contains some simple scenarios, the basic injury tables, and the rules for XP advances, the skill lists, and the equipment points costs.

Mistaken Target
Maybe require a test?

Rapid Fire
Unclear. Really unclear. Give an example?

Indirect Fire
By "always misses" you mean always scatters the d6", yes?

Overall
Looks dope. But incomplete. Looking forward to the more completed project.

Mistaken Target is an attempt to simplify play; it replaces a "must shoot closest target" restriction, which I find makes it harder to gauge by eye what's going on and slows the game down with arguing. I'm hesitant to require a roll because I didn't think Look Out, Sir! added much to 6th/7th.

Rapid Fire procedure:
A Krieger team with a twin heavy stubber (Rapid Fire 3) picks a Chaos Space Marine as their target. Their weapon has an accuracy type of None and gives them no accuracy modifiers at any range, the target is behind light cover, with their BS4 they're hitting on a 4+. They roll one to-hit die and choose to roll all three ammo dice to maximize the number of possible hits. The to-hit die rolls a 5 so the burst has hit, and the ammo dice roll 1, 3, and 6. The 1 and the 3 generate one hit each, the 6 generates 3 hits, so they hit a total of five times. The Chaos Space Marine has two other friendly models within 3", one is in hard cover and one is in the open. The Krieg player cannot allocate hits to the model in hard cover since the to-hit roll against him would have been worse than the original shot, so he chooses to allocate three hits to the initial target and two to the target in the open. Each hit now proceeds independently through the Pinning and the Damage steps. Since the Kriegers have rolled a 1 on an ammo die their weapon is Out of Ammo and they need to spend an action to reload before they can shoot again.

Does that help? It is one of the more unnecessarily complicated bits of the game right now, but I like the Necromunda/2e sustained fire since you don't get to make a huge number of hit rolls to fish for high dice rolls with the way you would in normal 40k. It makes high-ROF less effective shooting into cover, so they don't compete as directly with blasts (that can still hit people even when they "miss").

Indirect Fire: Yup. Blasts scatter d6" on a miss, so a blast weapon that always misses always scatters.

Okay. That clears it up.

Arsenal document posted, with some explanation of what's in it and what's not. Campaign rules/missions and preliminary warband rules still to come, should have those working and edited this weekend.

Arsenal
Concussion-applies even if they save?
Disarm-why not to 0? Seems reasonable to me.
Mindshock-typo. Should be "wounded and not killed", not or.
Thunderhammer-one handed?
Armour-just make it X+. I'm not seeing any reason to NOT do that.

Concussion: Yup, it just needs to wound.

Disarm: Arbitrary, could be either. I haven't used it enough to have a good sense of it.

Mindshock: Good catch, thanks.

Thunderhammer: That one is. The two-handed thunderhammer is on the next page clustered with the great weapons.

Armour: I'm sort of waffling on this one; the save stat as target number is familiar, yes, but using the same stat test architecture as the rest of the statline makes it a lot less awkward if I find I need something with armour better than 2+. In old WHFB you could get models with a 1+ or 0+ save (super-heavy plate (4+), +2 for barded mount, +1 for shield, +1 for a magic item). You'd still fail the save on a roll of 1 but you'd ignore the first point or two of AP, so the difference between 2+/1+/0+ still mattered, and it looked ugly and irritating to me.

But it’s more intuitive, at least to me.

Maybe include an explanation about how armor works in the system, but still include the X+ writing?

Check the "stat tests" heading on page 3. At time of writing tests against WS/BS (to-hit rolls), Strength tests, Toughness tests, and Initiative tests work exactly the same way as armour/invul/psychic saves.

Right, I know-but it’s easier for less mechanically inclined folk to see “X+” rather than just remembering 7 as the target.

It’s definitely a MINOR thing, but I think it’d be better if you plan for others to ply it.

Oh, definitely, it's the limiting factor of trying to be creative with a 30+-year-old UI. I'll go back over it, maybe see if I can fit a reminder text version (Armour 4 (3+), WS 4 (3+)) in without making too much of a mess.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Oh, definitely, it's the limiting factor of trying to be creative with a 30+-year-old UI. I'll go back over it, maybe see if I can fit a reminder text version (Armour 4 (3+), WS 4 (3+)) in without making too much of a mess.

Garch.

Looking forward to more of this project!

Update: Some basic warband rules posted! Costs are very rough ballpark, stats have a bit more thought and logic behind them, and the special rules/warband variants have been worked over and edited the most. Team weapons have also been written into the core rules as a unit type; I was writing them into the Guard warband and then decided that maybe Chaos Cultists and Grots need team weapon rules too.

Okay, Warbands.

First off... Formatting is pretty awful. Lots of the tables are on page breaks, making them hard to read.

Also, what do the Skill Tables reference? Is that in a document not up yet?

Overall, still WIP, but looking good.

Skill tables reference the campaign document, which is posted now. Will go back and fix some formatting later.

I hate to be "almost playable" yet again, but equipment points costs and some reorganization of the arsenal document are still pending.

The heroic overkill (roll three dice on the d66) needs clarification.

It does, doesn't it. Changed to roll d66 twice and keep the lowest.

Just waiting on some points costs, and then I think I'll try to test it out. At least theorycraft some lists, if not play some Tabletop Simulator games with it.

Points costs tables for Astartes and Humans (including a supplemental Mechanicum table) posted in the "Campaigns" document for use; the first four warbands should be all the way playable now. Xenos tables should go faster (there's less on them). I had intended to go back and split up the Armoury by faction, but that proved harder than I'd thought. Points are all very, very approximate right now (I gave myself high/low ranges for different models and different types of equipment based on prices in N17, then eyeballed it); I have not taken the time to go back and work out what a warband looks like under these prices.

Once all the trade tables for existing content are up I'll go back and finish up starting-point Ork and Tyranid warbands, expand the equipment content some with Gifts of Chaos and some wacky archaeotech stuff, then start expanding mission content (right now the "bonus to Tech checks to interact with scenario elements" abilities don't have scenario elements to interact with) and getting some basic vehicle chassis written down.

Hrm. The Kataphron are missing points costs.
I guess I have to build a Skitarii team.

Cavalry is listed as "(Robo)Horse" in the costs table, but as "Light/Medium/Heavy Cavalry" in the wargear document.

How do Bikes interact with Relentless Advance?

Rotor Cannon is not listed in the Wargear table.

What's the recommended points size for a game?

Basic Team
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dbeXHFOVBljGnNwih221EJBPnOT4wQgU8UorGxxotHA/edit?usp=sharing

Edit: Your Mounts reference W, as in Wounds.
You used H, as in Health.

Whoops, looks like I skipped a few steps putting points into the warband document, should all be fixed now. Also added Sicaran profiles, I'd intended to do them as an equipment upgrade to Skitarii but sticking in a profile with +1M/T/Sz is a working stopgap for now.

Typos fixed, Relentless Advance clarified (it does work with alternate move modes granted by equipment, it's supposed to represent skill/training moving methodically rather than anything specific about the model's legs/feet). Rotor cannon added.

Campaign warband is supposed to be 1,000pts to start off, I need to do some experimenting to work out if there are practical minimum/maximum limits to recommend.

Your sample warband's got folks taking an ammo feed and dirtbikes, you're not supposed to be able to take a backpack (the ammo feed is supposed to represent the heavy weapon backpacks you see on SM/Sororitas heavy weapons and MT/Stormtrooper hellguns) and a mount (Warbands page 1, second bullet point under "Equipping Models"), otherwise looks fine.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Whoops, looks like I skipped a few steps putting points into the warband document, should all be fixed now. Also added Sicaran profiles, I'd intended to do them as an equipment upgrade to Skitarii but sticking in a profile with +1M/T/Sz is a working stopgap for now.

Typos fixed, Relentless Advance clarified (it does work with alternate move modes granted by equipment, it's supposed to represent skill/training moving methodically rather than anything specific about the model's legs/feet). Rotor cannon added.

Campaign warband is supposed to be 1,000pts to start off.

Your sample warband's got folks taking an ammo feed and dirtbikes, you're not supposed to be able to take a backpack (the ammo feed is supposed to represent the heavy weapon backpacks you see on SM heavy weapons and MT/Stormtrooper hellguns) and a mount (Warbands page 1, second bullet point under "Equipping Models"), otherwise looks fine.

Hm... That kinda puts a crimp in the plan.

I'll go back to the drawing board, then! Soon-but not now. For now, I'm lazy.

Question, Anomander! Do you have TableTop Simulator?

I do, but not much experience using it.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I do, but not much experience using it.

Same. But I don't think any of my local friends have it, so...

Update: Eldar, Necron, and Tau equipment price lists added (complete with a couple of extra weapons). Still working on the "Forbidden Techno-Arcana" (warp-tech for Dark Mechanicum/CSM) table and some basic Gifts of Chaos, but the basics are ready to go for the starting seven. Bikes have also been updated to specify the weapon loadout in the trade tables rather than in their equipment description, and I've updated the "twin-mount weapon" prices to 1.5x the base price rather than just double.

Going to figure out some stuff to do for a basic Daemons list while I'm doing the Chaos stuff, then start working on Tyranids and Orks. I'll look at reorganizing the warbands/armoury/trade tables to sort them by faction once I've got the basic structure down.

New roster!

Interesting - I'll take a peek, thanks!

Any progress on adding Daemons to Meridian?

Some. There's a lot of conceptual overlap with the Tyranids, almost to the point that the biomorphs and the daemonic shooting weapons need to be different names for the same stuff. Given that the Tyranids/Daemons are almost completely independent of the standard armoury I'm going to try using them to do a format test on the idea of putting a warband, their arsenal, and their cost table in one warband-specific document, see what it looks like. Should have something to post tomorrow.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Some. There's a lot of conceptual overlap with the Tyranids, almost to the point that the biomorphs and the daemonic shooting weapons need to be different names for the same stuff. Given that the Tyranids/Daemons are almost completely independent of the standard armoury I'm going to try using them to do a format test on the idea of putting a warband, their arsenal, and their cost table in one warband-specific document, see what it looks like. Should have something to post tomorrow.

Yay! Me happy.