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Hey dakka, It's late where I am and i've just had an interesting thought I'd like to get some input on.

After playing a couple games of Battletech, and looking at getting into Heroscape, is it feasible to convert WH40K into a hex-based game using heroscape terrain/battletech maps? I'm not 100% on the measurements but making a hex count as 1" or 2" after building a full table (something very hard to do unless a player has been heroscaping for quite a long time and has lots of terrain, but no more expensive than a realm of battle board) There would be far fewer arguments on "close" ranges for assaults or shooting attacks because you could count definite hexes rather than holding a tape measure over the board. It would in a way allow for 'premeasurement' in games but I feel 40K would benefit from such a rule anyhow.

So, dakkaites, has anybody tried this and liked it enough to make it a true game variant? Does the idea of hex-measuring put you off, or do you think the fewer arguments over range and LOS are worth it? Does the heroscape terrain look good when mixed with miniatures from the grimdark future?

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Due to the nature of the game mechanics relying so heavily on the footprints of the models (read: bases, hulls, weapon barrels, etc.) a hex-based system just wouldn't work.

Hex-based games fell out of favor for a reason. They're just not flexible enough. They work fine for the games that were designed for them, but there's a reason you don't see games designed that way anymore. They work well enough with super generic, abstract board games like Axis & Allies minis, but even that plays so much better as a free-form system.



King Ghidorah

To change WH/40K to hexes does have the core difficulty Ghidorah pointed out that you need to find a way to accommodate base sizes from 25mm up to Trygon, not to mention vehicles.

Hex free is not inherently superior. Non-hex figure wargames suffer from a variety of problems with measuring range, movement and LoS, all of which can be avoided by using hexes.

Hex based board wargames fell out of favour because they are much easier to do on computer, and they do not present the same emotional/tactile appeal that figure wargames have. That said, there is still a specialist market for hex wargames.

Battletech works well on hexes, so do many space games. There are also some historical figure wargames that use either hexes or another kind of area movement. Also see Super Dungeon Explore, and RPG based games like D&D.

Hexes are superior for definition but inferior for visual appeal. That is the main reason why non-hex is preferred.

And terrain is a Pita. I still remember ordering a couple thousand dollars of geohex terrain with hexes all over it for our battletech group a couple of decades ago. Great stuff, as long as we were doing BT, useless for anything else.

You could play another hex based game on it, like OGRE.

I made my own terrain for Battle Tech, coz I'm cheap like that.