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I really, really like the sound of the ruleset for Shadow War (and Necromunda), but one thing I've never really liked much was the restrictions on what you can field. Now, I know why they're there (to give people new to the universe a feel for what each faction is like), but I'd really like a game utilising the Shadow War ruleset (as it seems like an easier pick-up than Necromunda), but with more of a free-form warband creation.

Shadow War seems to have an excellent ruleset, which is slightly simpler to pick up than Necromunda. However, it's fantastically restrictive in what you're able to field.
Necromunda is really cool in the level of detail you can go into making your gang, but it's limited to human gangers.
Inquisimunda is better in that it's greatly expanded to allow for xenos and other such gribblies (and it's usually amenable to houseruling), but it's still reliant on spec sheets with which to create your warband.

What I'd like, is a game where it assumes you already know enough about the 40k universe to make a fluffy fighting force, and then lets you go nuts with customisation of Your Dudes

So, the idea was to come up with a points costing architecture that basically allows you to generate a points value for (pretty much) whatever it is you want to come up with. My thought was to make something that calculates a points value for the raw stats of a model, assigns a points value for any special rules, assigns a points value for armour, weapons and wargear, and allows you to mix everything up to make whatever it is you fancy making

Here's the basic method I had for coming up with points values based on stats (example stats are a mix of 40k stats and Inquisimunda stats, whatever I've felt fits the fluff best):



This seems to scale pretty well with the points values for Shadow War combatants, after you take into account the fact they don't have any wargear or special rules.

The next step would be to cost out all of the special rules, weapons and wargear which is a bit of a mammoth task, but wouldn't be too tricky once 8th comes out and we can compare weapon statlines to Shadow War costings. I've lent on Necromunda for the cost of armour, and wargear and special rules I'm still working on. For now, I've had a go at costing out a few models who I have basic wargear options for from Shadow War:



What I need some help with is sorting the balance of points values. It seems at least moderately balanced to me based on what I've played around with so far, but can anyone see any glaring issues?

The idea with this is to allow people to play with some really cool little narrative plots. Things like 'I've just converted up a Zoat survivor for an Ordo Xenos band', or 'my Marines' fortress has been attacked, and a load of aspirants midway through their implant process have been pressed into action, having a statline somewhere between a regular human and a Marine'. Another hopeful result is to allow people the freedom to construct their warbands however they see fit. Basically allowing anything to be taken with anything, relying on the (hopefully mature) players to keep it fluffy

Of course, there do need to be some restrictions or else people would be walking around with Wraithknight-stat units in an infantry-level skirmish game. So, based on the stats of sergeants and special units I came up with some suggested limits that races' unaugmented biology can reach (with a load of WIP Necromunda-style bionic enhancements and mutations to take things further). I also ported across the Inquisimunda limits for stats, and added some minimums.




I've got some other ideas for neat stuff, like making force fields work like they do in Necromunda as strength or To-Hit modifiers which always felt a little Dune-like to me which is cool, and an expanded and hopefully fun set of combat drugs for most races I'll expand on that later, but I'd like to see what people think of the core idea and get some feedback on the method of costing things up

Oh, another thing. I'd like to keep everything as compatible as possible with regular 40k when it comes to weapons and statlines suchlike, which should work as a bit of future-proofing so the ruleset can be adapted easily for any new models or changes to existing models.

Everything's WIP at the moment, so I'd love to hear some feedback.

First of all, you seem really excited about this, and that's great to see. Second, it's a big galaxy, and I would love to see what people come up with with a system like this. Small-scale exodite stats? Archaeotech ship AIs uploaded into human hosts? Black ship escapees? Yes please!

Now, to dig into your proposed rules themselves, I think you have a pretty solid starting point, but I'd like to give you a couple things to keep in mind.

1. Some stats are simply better than others. For instance, giving myself a bunch of extra wounds only costs as much as a boost to weapon skill or initiative and will likely serve me much better. Especially if I'm building the model around not being especially assaulty. Meanwhile, increasing my movement enough to be significant can get very expensive very fast. Maybe have a universal chart that indicates the cost of a given stat at a certain value? So you could have movement cost 1 point per inch or 1 point per 3" or something but then have wounds be 5 points apiece or what have you. This also ties in to my next point.

2. Increasing a stat to X might be better than increasing a stat to Y. BS is a great example of this. BS 5 is kind of the sweet spot. You almost always hit. But going from BS 5 to BS 6 is way less useful. Increasing your stat to anything below 6 means you'll hit about 17 more shots for every 100 shots you take. Going from 5 to 6 means you'll hit about 3 more shots for every 100 (because of the reroll mechanic for BS6+).

Other stats have similar issues. I haven't played enough Shadow War to really remember how WS works, but I'm pretty sure going from 3 to 4 or 4 to 5 is more useful than hitting WS 6 or 7 because you're already outclassing most enemies you're likely to run up against. And who really cares about being strength 9 instead of strength 8?

If you utilize a chart similar to the one proposed in my first point, you can identify which stat values are less useful than others and price them accordingly. BS, for instance, might cost 3 points per increase until you hit BS5. Then, it might go down in price to 1 point per additional increase up to BS 10.

3. Synergies are a thing. If you've heard of "Min Maxing," then you're familiar with some forms of this. If I know I'm going to build a Tau-esque unit that is good at dakka but not so good at choppa, I can keep my melee-related stats dirt cheap in favor of upping my BS and taking better guns. Or alternatively, I might decide my melee units don't really need any points in BS as I plan on never shooting them anyway. So if you're building something like a hormagaunt, you might opt not to pay a couple points for BS3 and instead go BS0. Which might seem appealing, but it makes it tougher to balance their cost against less specialized models. A dire avenger, after all, still theoretically pays points for his WS and initiative even though he really doesn't want to be in melee most of the time.

Synergies can be hard to balance things around, but you could try adding "cost modifiers" to some options if other options are taken. For instance, you might make a gun cost more for a model with a higher BS. Probably as percentage cost multiplier. So if you want to take a really powerful gun, you either pay a ton of points for it (think crisis suits), or else you keep your BS low to keep that modifier down (think lootas). Similarly, melee weapons might have higher costs depending on the wielder's strength, initiative, and attacks.

4. Weaknesses are a thing. Potentially a really fun thing even! It would be neat to see a system for working drawbacks into the cost of your units. So a gun that fires d3 shots (think lootas again) instead of a flat 3 might cost slightly less than an assault gun. A heavy weapon might reduce the cost of the weapon by X or by Y% because it restricts the wielder's mobility. Certain weapon types might count as high-impact against my units. Think flamers versus tree people or sonic weapons versus crystaline creature.

5. Special rules might also be a thing. I know Shadow War doesn't go crazy with special rules, but having a list of common special abilities (or even just a rough guideline for creation of the same) might allow people to field some interesting options. The "tech savy" special ability might let you open and close doors at a distance, for instance, or a "blood golem" might regain a wound after killing an enemy.

6. Shadow War has "specialists." Consider having guidelines for when a model crosses the line from "rank and file" to "specialist." This might be tough to do in an intentionally toolboxy system, it could also give people a strong reason to make "reasonable" troops instead of a whole army of special snowflakes.

Thanks for the feedback dude that's brilliantly helpful. Those are some fantastic ideas for warbands that would be really hard to make in current rulesets, but are absolutely fascinating particularly fond of 'archaeotech AIs uploaded into human hosts'

A lot of the points are things I already had some sort of inkling might not be quite right, which is reassuring

Wyldhunt wrote:
Some stats are simply better than others.

That's the biggest issue I saw with my method for points costing. 1 wound is a heck of a lot more valuable than 1WS. Really, I'd absolutely love to have a points cost for each trait based on its mathematical worth compared to the other stats within Shadow War's ruleset. I would like to do a little balancing of close combat with shooting, but I feel that can be sorted with wargear options* so I'm happy to leave those the same. Plus, from what I understand of the ruleset of Shadow War the less desirable characteristics like weapon skill have a bit of an uptick in usefulness (WS is combined with a dice roll for combat, with the difference in scores being the number of times the loser is hit, meaning a high WS can generate more wounds in close combat).

I've reached out to the Variance Hammer guy who does statistical analysis on 40k stats and stuff for a bit of mathematical help, but I don't know how often he checks the comments on his articles. If anyone else can come up with at least a halfway decent points cost for 1 point in each stat that'd be really helpful

Wyldhunt wrote:
Increasing a stat to X might be better than increasing a stat to Y.

The fact that each point changes worth as you get higher up the scale is a little bit of a dilemma. I sort of want to leave WS/BS6+ as costed the same as below as a bit of a disincentive to make a team full of Mary Sues

Wyldhunt wrote:
Min-Maxing

Yeah this one's going to be irritating to minimise. Relying on people to play in non-broken ways isn't quite good enough. One of the things I thought after I posted this up initially was that it would be a good idea to change the minimum stats to 2s across the board (aside from things like wounds and attacks of 1, and leadership of 5).

I'd like to steer away from variable costs based on statistics, simply because it adds complication. If I ever want to stand a hope of this actually gaining some traction (even if it's just with people I want to play myself, rather than the community), it needs to be really simple to pick up with a bit of experience of Shadow War/Necromunda. One massive spreadsheet with the stats and flat points cost for each piece of equipment would go a long way to it being dead easy to pick up

Saying that, I did have a similar idea with armour saves, and implementing that sort of costing across the board would be a neat experiment. I'm thinking something like a Meltagun costs X% of a model's base cost, rounded up. Can't tell whether that would be even more abusable though with people just having a hoard of Grots with plasma guns...

Wyldhunt wrote:
Weaknesses are a thing.

I really like the idea of having some models have weaknesses and things like that, but I'm a fan of keeping the special rules minimal and as familiar to 40k as possible so people recognise stuff.

I'll definitely pick up the idea of costing wargear based on its capabilities Lootas firing d3 shots will absolutely cost less than a weapon that fires a straight 3 and I was thinking of picking up the Necromunda-style 'heavy weapons are move-or-fire' thing, but work that into the weapons cost

Wyldhunt wrote:
Shadow War has "specialists."

I think you're absolutely right that it'd be tricky to implement fluffy warband restrictions in an intentionally toolboxy ruleset, but I think I've come up with a potential solution.

Much like the 40k rulebook and other game supplements have a little list of 'suggested games' at the end, I could write up some 'suggested fluffy warbands' options with voluntary restrictions on who you can take and what they can be armed with etc.

I'd definitely like to steer people towards making more 'rank and file' warbands than Mary Sues in termie armour though. I'd hope that the stat limits combined with the slight inefficiency of WS/BS6+ would help with trimming off a lot of the ceiling, and pricing wargear accordingly for stuff like 2+ armour might help. The other option would be to ever so slightly skew the scenarios in favour of more numerous warbands (or at least away from 2-man termie armour T6 monsters).

Hmmm, one idea I did play with was having the upper reaches of the stat table come with drawbacks. WS/BS is fine, but Strength and Toughness above T5 coming with a penalty to Initiative/Leadership/Mobility would be neat enforcing 'tough but slow' and 'fragile but fast' archetypes would probably be a restriction no-one would ever notice who isn't powergaming...

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*I've got some really neat ideas for invulnerable saves based on the old Necromunda method of them. Basically a force field doesn't provide a dedicated saving throw, but provides a strength modifier to incoming shooting. For instance, a basic force field provides -1S from incoming shots. Also, by having variable effects from each type of force field, you can get some really cool variety between the factions based on their technology rather than just a boring unmodifiable armour save analogue.

Here's a first cut of the ideas. It's basically the Inquisimunda force fields expanded to a lot of the new stuff and fluff for other force fields in fun ways plus, the stackable modifiers that only work against shooting and not close combat (a la Dune) will help to address the imbalance between the two



What I'd like to do is have two different core ideas for this little fan rule expansion. The first is a method of costing and weapons/equipment stats for directly porting over any model you want to Shadow War. The second is a set of little rules expansions to make it feel a little more like Necromunda/Inquisimunda, and address some balance issues. If anyone is actually interested in playing with it other than myself they'd be free to choose which ruleset they want to play

Might as well share the ideas for combat drugs too I wanted them to be pretty gnarly, but come with a high risk of screwing you up. I also wanted them to be available to more people than just Dark Eldar, Emperor's Children and Hive Scum




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Oh, the other thing I noticed is that it might be slightly broken making models with stats lower than a Guardsman (for instance, it's able to get negative points values).

The ideal way of fixing that is with each stat having a points value for increases and then just adding them up, scrapping the comparison to a Guardsman's statline.

The other idea was to base it all on a points variance from the minimum statline (M3 WS2 BS2 S2 T2 W1 I2 A1 Ld5). That would give you a points value for the bare minimum of a model, and anything above that is costed relative to other models, if that makes sense...

I like the idea, I don't have time to go into full detail right now but at first glance uniform stat weighting worries me a bit. In SWA an additional point of WS doesn't mean that much, but additional Toughness or Wounds could be pretty massive.

I'd suggest weighting different stat points differently (e.g. +1WS might be worth 2pts, but +1 T might be worth 5pts or more); I recognize that this is an approximation and people trying to make up min/maxxed aliens (as written at the moment if you were to make an army with M4/WS3/BS0/S3/T6/W1/I3/A1/Ld7 they'd be the same price as Guardsmen, for T6 models, which just doesn't seem sensible) are sort of missing the point, but assigning different values to different stats should still get you a fairer approximation than making them all 3pts does.

So, a space marine is paying 8 pts to get his ws, bs up by 1.

Regular marine with ws bs 4 and all the equipment costs 188 pts there. A super-marine with all the same gear with ws bs 5 costs 196 pts.

He's firing at a running enemy behind heavy cover. Regular marine hits on 6-s, super marine hits on 5-s.

That's 100% more killiness for 4% price increase.

The flat point cost calculation for stats and weapons is not a balanced approach for 40k. Simply because the effectiveness depends on so many things it's impossible to calculate. Sure, you can assume that if you increase, say, bs by 1, the model becomes shootier by some margin and should therefore cost more. But the exact margin by which it becomes more effective is not something you can effectively calculate. Because your fighter might only have access to ranged weapons like grot blastas. It doesn't seem fair to increase grot's point cost at the same rate as a human's point cost for being upgraded from bs2 to bs3. Simply because a human can shoot a lazgun whereas a grot is limited to crude grot blastas. Another thing is ld, movement, toughness and most importantly, the tactial role this exact fighter gets to perform. The grot doesn't really get the benefit of his bs simply because he most often just runs forward to get in the way and eat bullets while orks advance. Or scores points and does other things not directly connected to fighting and killing stuff. Thus his bs increase is not going to affect him as much as a guardsman't bs increase over a conscript. Cause a guardsman is going to actually shoot his lazgun.

tldr: don't try to make a formula for stats and weapon costs. Just assume how much they could cost and than playtest and adjust.

Firstly wowza. The amount of work you're putting in already is the stuff great games are made of. But I can see it getting complicated to the point of perplexity which is real fun killer. So here's my suggestion for a simpler foot up.
I'll speak to the Necromunda of it all seeing as I've not had a chance to get into SWA at all.

Now it seems to me that if you look at finding a Necromunda points:creds ratio that works then the entire 2nd Ed. 40k library of Codex publications and rule books is open to buy. The costing works itself out in terms of points per 1000creds to recruit (or whatever limit you set) and then whatever house rules you impose -no named special characters, or no monstrous creatures or whatever is up to you.

So say you compare a 2nd ed. guardsman and a similarly armed Necromunda ganger, then have your 40k points value and your Necromunda creds cost right there to make a ratio. You can work out how many points 1000creds can buy and that's your warband limit. Then you can go shoping in any codex for your warband.

Then you can get fluffy with each faction for advances and skills and watch your little monsters grow like Rita out of Power Rangers!

Now granted this pulls you back a good 20 years in terms of GrimDark developments but it'd be a basis to start from for a lot of your own ideas. See 2nd ed. was a rule set meant to be played small, that's why Necromunda works so well. So you'd not be shoehorning a points system into a rule set that doesn't really support it.
Just a thought. Basically I'm suggesting you play 2nd Ed. 40k with a seriously fluffy mindset. Just use it as a starting point and develop from there.

Thanks for all the feedback guys! It's all really helpful stuff

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@Anomander Yeah different points-weightings for different stats is absolutely the way to go. I'm working at the moment to try and find a relationship between how useful each stat is and a points cost that's at least somewhat representative of that.

Doing that would also be really helpful as it'll let me price up a load of things like bionic enhancements and mutations that affect stats in a way that synergises with the stat manipulation. For instance, I don't want a Bionic Arm that provides +1S to cost more than just increasing S by 1.

Any input on that from experienced Shadow War/Necromunda players is especially useful

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@koooaei Not quite 100% more killiness from BS4 to BS5. There's a mathematical relationship between the killiness increase based on the probability of the dice roll. A 6+ has a 16.7% chance of hitting. A 5+ has a 33.3% chance of hitting, so is twice as killy (or, 16.7% more killy for each uptick in BS). That's what I want to tap into somewhat with the pricing of each trait, and the thing that I'll have to do some work on.

It strikes me now, that that's probably what you mean. If it's a 16.7% chance to hit, and a 5+ is 16.7% more then it's 100% more of the original chance. That's true, but it's just not quite how probabilities are represented.

It doesn't need to be absolutely mathematically perfect. As you very rightly point out there's far too many variable to control for to have a simplistic system. A Grot with a Blasta is going to get a lot less mileage out of his BS3 than a Grot with a Heavy Stubber.

For weapons as stuff, I wouldn't be looking for a formula as that's too dependent on the wielder's traits. Those would be priced relative to each other and then playtested for balance, but having the starting price determined by, say, mathematically how much killier a weapon is compared to a Lasgun against a number of targets gives you a solid basis from which to start the balancing process.

Part of the issue with humans getting more mileage out of their statline than grots because they have access to better weapons is alleviated by the fact that there will be very few weapons restrictions. If you want to give your Grot a meltagun, go ahead. If you want to give your Guarsman a Grot Blasta, feel free. That's something that wouldn't need to be balanced for, outside of making sure that each faction's armoury is comparably effective (given that it costs more to have your dude be as effective with an unfamiliar weapon).

What would need to be balanced for is the ability to carry certain weapons. Strength 2 would not be able to carry Heavy Weapons, but S3 would (or can carry more standard weapons). Either that needs to be factored into the cost of a S increase, or more simply, into the cost of Heavy Weapons.

The other thing is that this being a homebrew game idea, it'd be tricky to get a really solid number of playtesters to use that as an iterative method for balancing. I'd love if that were the case, but I'm just being pragmatic :S

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@theCrowe Thanks dude! Still a long way to go, but I'm keen to have something playable even if it's just the basic points-costing method that allows people to port models over to Shadow War.

I'm absolutely committed to keeping it as simple and easy to pick up as possible. That's part of the reason I'm keen on having a flat cost for a 1pt increase in a given stat, rather than a formula which might be ultimately more balanced. It needs to be a dirt-simple method, working through a tick-list of attributes which at the end will sum into the points cost of a model. That's also part of the reason I went with an expansion of the Shadow War ruleset. It feels Necromunda/2nd ed-y, but feels a little simpler to pick up.

2nd ed. does sound a little like what I'm aiming for, but it's the fact that it's missing so much of the development since 2nd ed. which will need to be houseruled in that makes it not such an ideal solution. If I want to play a Kataphron Breacher, I'd have to look through the rules for something that's as close as possible, decide on which rules to modify slightly, and then agree all those little changes with the other player. Not really a problem a lot of the time with the right opponents, but open to abuse from both sides.

However, if there's an agreed framework/toolkit for pricing all of your models that allows the level of customisation necessary to represent, say, 80% of the entire 40k universe (it's unlikely to be suitable for things like big tanks or GMCs), you don't have to agree on each houserule in turn. If the framework is balanced (hopefully, with input from players, better than 40k!), then it's just the one easy decision each player can make which opens the floodgates to a level of Your Dudes customisation I haven't found in any other ruleset

Pitching it as a Shadow War fan supplement is primarily because I think it's a bit of a popularity sweet-spot. It's modern, so a lot of the newer players will be happier to give it a try (plus, it incorporates a lot of the latest developments in 40k fluff). However, it feels very Necromunda-y which appeals to a whole lot of other Necromunda/INQ28 fans.

I'm definitely being realistic that there's a significant chance I'll put a hell of a lot of work into this and it'll just disappear into the ether and no-one will be interested, but by basing it on a game that's got a wide audience it stands a chance of being played

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So, what we're looking for now is some sort of mathematical basis on which to start to look at a balanced cost for each stat. I'm not necessarily concerned overly with how it scales to the extremes of each stat, given that there will be upper and lower limits to preserve the scale of the game.

As a starting point, it would probably be useful to understand how useful each stat is compared to the other stats (in Shadow War of course, where things like WS and I function slightly differently).

So, in Shadow War, which are the most important stats?

Ballistic Skill is usually pretty important, so I'd rank that highly. Even after some mitigations from wargear changes to balance stuff out, it's still going to be a top-tier stat.
Toughness is another pretty important stat, so I'd rank that highly too.
Movement is very important, as the differences are magnified by charge/run distances.
Leadership seems pretty important, given that it's the difference between being able to do something after you're shot at or not.
Wounds? Is it me or are wounds slightly less important in SW than 40k? Even if you're wounded, you've still got an injury roll.
Strength? Important in close combat, and determines how many weapons you can carry.
Weapon Skill? More useful in SW than 40k as it sort of doubles as attacks in close combat
Attacks? Pretty useful. Acts sort of like Melta, but for CC.
Initiative seems to be the least important to me. Is its only function as a tie-breaker in CC?

If Initiative is 1pt-per, how much would you cost the others?

Edit: Oh, the other thing I'd do is put together a little calculator tool for pricing up units that'd be the most useful thing really. Basically play Shadow War completely as-is, but to form your warbands just run your dudes through this calculator. Input your stat values, dropdowns for wargear and special rules and hey presto a points value! Little tally table to add all of them up and you're away

Could even make an app if I could figure out how

I could probably make you an excel spreadsheet to calculate points cost based on a stat line that you enter.

You'd just have to give me the base line and the points you'd charge for each stat level increase. I could plug in the formulae so all you'd have to do is drop in your stats and it generates the points cost for that stat line.

That'd be an easy "App" unless someone reading this is a total App wiz and wants to take the job.

@YnneadwraithMade : If you want i can send you my first work for extented list, this game has a lot of potential.

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
Thanks for all the feedback guys! It's all really helpful stuff

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@Anomander Yeah different points-weightings for different stats is absolutely the way to go. I'm working at the moment to try and find a relationship between how useful each stat is and a points cost that's at least somewhat representative of that.

Doing that would also be really helpful as it'll let me price up a load of things like bionic enhancements and mutations that affect stats in a way that synergises with the stat manipulation. For instance, I don't want a Bionic Arm that provides +1S to cost more than just increasing S by 1.

Any input on that from experienced Shadow War/Necromunda players is especially useful

Bionics and other components could have other benefits that could affect cost, especially when you factor in Permanent Wounds, for example. Losing a leg vs. repairing a broken bionic leg could be easier, for example.

Also, you could put in place "Racial" maximums that stats can only "naturally" be increased so far - hard or soft limits, perhaps with a price break point at some level. If you want to go above that, you need some sort of augmentation, drugs, bionics, alien tech or such. These augmentations could be cheaper but have some sort of drawback (say, like an ammo roll, but on a 1 - indicating a possible feedback or some other issue).

@theCrowe Thanks man! I've got an excel spreadsheet with a little calculator already for my '3pts away from a Guardsman' formula, so updating that would be dead simple As soon as we've got something that's roughly balanced I'll share it for people to test if they're interested

@CATACHANTV Glad to hear people might like it if you've already got some things worked up that'd be dead useful. I'll PM you my email

@Stormonu I was thinking exactly the same thing I was thinking that for Bionic Arms for instance, you can add an 'implant weapon' which doesn't count towards your strength-based weapon limit. We could either lift how implant weapons work directly from Necromunda, or make them function like combi-weapons as single use.

Absolutely with you on racial limits to stats. While I really want to make it toolboxy, I do want to add things to keep stuff feeling right.

This is what I came up with for the major players:



You can go past these limits with bionic enhancements, genetic engineering and mutations. If you really wanted to make an Ork with BS5 you could either make a whole new model with stats from scratch, or pump him up with bionics, so you're still able to do what you want, but it sort of steers people in the right direction.

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Speaking of ammo rolls, how do people feel about them?

Basically, not having them simplifies the costing of weapons, and makes it easier to port them over from 40k. However, if they're a fun little mechanic then I'll make the effort to factor them into costs.

Y'know, thinking about it, it would make sense for some melee weapons to make "ammo" rolls - chain and power weapons (possibly even Tyranid bone swords) need some sort of power after all.

Overall, the ammo rules are fluffy, but I'm not sure how annoyide other folks get when the rule adversely affects them. Me, I think its fine, and shouldn't lower a weapon's cost by a point or three.

Hmmm, it's more the added layer of gameplay complexity that I felt might work against it. Having to roll a dice each time you shoot. I suppose it's not overly onerous for warbands of 10 models max, although it will make balancing weapons more complicated.

I suppose it'd be best to get the points costings for stats nailed first, and then we can start costing weapons. I don't want a massive mismatch between the two, for instance it being more points-efficient to have 5 pistol dudes than one dude with a bolter.

I'll get back to people on that after looking at the Shadow War rules a bit closer for mathematical relationships between stats.

I'll talk about ammo rolls from a Necromunda perspective if you like. Just to give you a feel of what I think they add to the game.

I like ammo rolls. And that's coming from a guy who uses as many Bolters and bolt Pistols as his Necromuda gang can afford. Sure they have an ammo roll of 6+ (fluff says because proper bolter ammo is hard to get and cheap knock offs are prone to failure) but you only roll that after you hit (ie when you roll a 6 on your "to hit" roll) and chances are at S4 (in a game where the vast majority of targets are T3) whoever you've hit is about to be wounded or at the vey least pinned. So failing that ammo roll doesn't necessarily leave you high and dry.

Its for a similar reason I'll always chose an Auto pistol over a laspistol for a Juve. They cost the same and have very similar stats but the autopistol is +1 to hit at short range whereas the laspistol isn't and a laspistol has 2+ ammo roll compared to the Autopistol's 4+
So technically the laspistol is more reliable but a Juve (and a ganger for that matter) needs every advantage to hit he can get so the +1 to hit is much more valuable to him, especially as he's unlikely to survive long enough in any given game to get a second chance to use his weapon, lets be honest.

On the other hand a guy who I intend to just camp on overwatch covering my advance needs to be able to fire every turn. A Bolter is not the ideal weapon for this only because of the 6+ ammo roll. I'll want a lasgun for its 2+

It gives a distinct character to each weapon which isn't really needed at the 40k army level, but when it comes down to the nitty gritty it starts to show. Like the same way that injury rolls come in at this level. Its fluffy, both injury and ammo rolls are fluffy but more than that they add a dynamic that really makes a difference to the game and enhances the story you're playing a great deal.

Ok here endeth my ammo roll apologist rant.

I like ammo rolls. Shooting should not be that reliable. It's allready a more stable and safer way of dealing with your opponent than mellee.

Gotcha. Ammo rolls stay more work balancing weapons costs, but worth it. It does mean I can do some more direct porting of weapons costs from Shadow War though.

Still working on the stats values, but I'll post them up as soon as I have something

Right, I've trialled a points cost architecture and done a little testing on some sample. Here's the costs I've come up with:

M: 3pts
WS: 2pts
BS: 3pts
S: 3pts
T: 4pts
W: 5pts
I: 1pt
A: 2pts
Ld: 3pts

The idea behind that is that stuff that is important both in close combat and in shooting is worth more than stuff that is just useful in close combat, with things like wounds and toughness being the most valuable, and initiative being the least valuable. The only difference to the 'just add it up' methodology is for Leadership, where you minus 5 from the leadership and then times the difference (as Ld works slightly differently from the other stats).

I've priced some statlines ripped from Shadow War based solely on those costs and come up with this:



Again, that's raw statline, excluding any wargear or special rules, and seems pretty balanced to my amateur eyes. A Guardsman is roughly equal to an Ork Boy. An Astartes is roughly 25% more expensive than both. A Dire Avenger is the same as an Astartes, trading strength and toughness for speed and Ld. And an Ogryn is slightly more than an Astartes, trading BS and leadership for more toughness.

I've added very basic wargear (guns and armour, no special rules) to them which should help visualise the difference between basic soldiers you'd actually see on the table. Guns are costed as per Shadow War. Armour is costed as per my idea with 6+ being 5pts, 5+ being 10pts, 4+ being 20pts and 3+ being 40pts. Here's what that looks like:



Again, seems pretty balanced. Astartes is roughly 50% more expensive than a Guardsman with a S4 gun and 3+ armour vs a S3 gun and 5+ armour. A Guardsman is still roughly equal to an Ork Boy, and a Dire Avenger is a tad cheaper than an Astartes. The Ogryn might be slightly skewed as I've gone for the Inquisimunda cost of a Ripper Gun, and their weapons prices seem to be slightly cheaper than Shadow War's like-for-like.

The other difference is I've priced armour saves using the method of 'each save costs twice the save below it', which helps keep 2+ armour expensive. However, by comparing Sisters to Guardsmen, and Dire Avengers to Guardians, it seems to be that Shadow War prices each armour save at 10pts more than the previous one. So 6+ = 10pts, 5+ = 20pts, 4+ = 30pts and 3+ = 40pts.

My method of pricing is probably better for the old AP system, where each uptick in armour was vastly better than the previous one, and 5+ armour was practically useless against the majority of weapons. Pricing armour using the Shadow War method, which seems to me to scale better with AP being an armour modifier, gets this:



To me, that feels more wrong, but I think that's just hold-over from the old AP system. I think it's actually more accurate to how effective armour is in Shadow War/8th.

I'm starting to feel we're getting somewhere with stat costings. They do seem to scale roughly with both Shadow War and 40k. In Shadow War, a tooled up (Chaos) Astartes is roughly twice the cost of a Guardsman, and the same is the case in 40k. Add in the price of a Bolt Pistol (25pts) and ATSKNF (25pts?) to our Astartes and you're about there.

Next up is to pore through the 8th datasheets for weapons data, port them across to Shadow War's format as best I can, and work on costing them

Any ideas or feedback on the current points costing method? If people are happy with it I'll write up a quick guide and make a start on a little calculator tool

Right, I've done some mathhammering of showdowns between two gunlines of a couple of different dudes. I've compared Guardsmen, Marines, Sisters and Guardsmen with Hotshot Lasguns just standing there shooting at each other. What I've found is quite interesting. There appears to be a sweet-spot of relative balance using the above stat methodology, Shadow War's weapons cost architecture, and my armour costing methodology. It reaches the point where it's pretty close at 1500pts per side.

Here's what it looks like:



What we're looking at is the number of dudes (and dudettes) for 1500pts. The number of enemies each dude(tte) kills per turn, and an iterative process of shooting at each other.

So, Marines wipe out Guardsmen by ~T5, but are wiped out by Scions by T6. Sisters wipe out Guardsmen by ~T6, fight Marines and Scions to a standstill. What I've missed off here is that Guardsmen wipe out Scions by T4.

However, I haven't factored in here anything about leadership related things, or the benefits larger warbands have for objective hunting. Still, it seems about as balanced as I can get at the moment so I'll write up a quick calculator in excel and stick it up here

If anyone would like to help me with a quick playtested game I'd be very grateful! I'll probably need to do some costings for wargear first, but I'll be on that pronto

Right! I'm making headway with the armoury. I've done all basic weapons and pistols bar a few Tyranid ones which I'll do tomorrow. I've sort of worked out that Shadow War values each stat increase (+1 To-Hit/+1S/-1AP) at 5 points for each deviation from a Bolter/Bolt Pistol. So, I've based all my points values on that ammo rolls are sometimes 5pts sometimes nothing, so I've gone with my guy as to whether a weapon's overpriced or underpriced before taking into account points cost for ammo roll changes.

I've also tried to even out some of the points disparities. For instance, Necron weaponry is massively overpriced for its stat values and special rules, probably to make up for the fact that it's attached to such resilient soldiers. My philosophy is to price the weapons accordingly, and then balance the cost of the resilience

Here's what I've come up with:



Just trying to work out what on earth they're playing at with special and heavy weapons points and then cost stuff up based on that once that's done it's onto wargear options and special rules costs and then I'll publish what I've got in a neat format

I'd absolutely love if someone's interested enough to give it a playtest, but I understand that might be a bit optimistic!

Initiative is pretty damn important in swa. Even more so than toughness in some cases. It just caps at 5. And there's no much use of having more than 3 attacks.

Interesting...

What are the uses for Initiative? I thought it was only for solving ties in combat resolution, which is pretty situational. If it's used for more I'll up the price!

Interesting about 3 attacks being the useful limit. What's the reason for that? Is it that once you get to 3D6 for attack rolls each successive die doesn't statistically alter the chances of winning as much?

3d6 is where it starts tapering off. I had someone run the math-your odds do go up as you get more dice, but only by a small amount.

Gotcha so 2 points still feels pretty right to me for a value for attacks, given that up to 3 is still useful.

Do we reckon Initiative should be priced higher?

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
Interesting...

What are the uses for Initiative? I thought it was only for solving ties in combat resolution, which is pretty situational. If it's used for more I'll up the price!

Interesting about 3 attacks being the useful limit. What's the reason for that? Is it that once you get to 3D6 for attack rolls each successive die doesn't statistically alter the chances of winning as much?

Initiative is used to stand up after being pinned, to not fall from edges when pinned, to not fall when jumping, to see better at night and to fire overwatch at an opponent that's running from blos to blos.

It's extremely important. It just usually caps at 5 (or 6 if you have negative ini modifications from armor, for example). Cause you still fail ini tests on a 6 - no matter how high it is.

An army with low ini can be easilly shut down with pinning - no matter how high it's toughness and armor is.

Aaah, my mistake. Not sure how, but I misread that Leadership is used to stand up after pinning. Absolutely Initiative should be valued higher.

So, Initiative at 3 points? As valuable as Movement and Ballistic Skill?

Should Leadership be downgraded to 2pts in that case, or is that fine at 3pts too?

Leadership of a leader is very important. >2/3 games end with a failed bottle test. Leadership of regular dudes is not as important and depends on an army. If you rely on a blob of soldiers banding around leaders, than the dudes might as well be ld1 - it won't matter. If you rely on single models operating independently far away from each other, ld of non-leaders only matters vs fear and terror. If you rely on multiple small groups, ld is quite important cause whenever someone within 3' is going down, the rest might get frightened and fall back to cover.

Also, it very strongly depends on the overall model's cost. It won't matter if a couple cheap dudes fall back. But more expensive ones need ld to be more reliable.

Gotcha based on that I'm happy for Ld to stay at 3pts per uptick. There's a minimum of Ld5 on the scale, and it only starts to cost if you increase it above that, so it's not as abusable as having on Ld10 guy surrounded by a load of Ld1 dudes.

So, is that stat costs pretty much sorted now? Unless there's anything else egregious people can see.

I've also had a first stab at Close Combat weapons for the armoury. Seem reasonable?



Basically each CCW is purchased individually, even ones like Demiklaives and Transonic Blades that are normally bought in pairs. You can purchase a second version of the same weapon for 10pts which affords you a to-wound re-roll in addition to the extra attack (provided it's one-handed). Two mismatched CCWs allow you to choose which profile to attack with, and afford you +1A (again, provided they're one-handed).

Provided that checks out, it's just special/heavy weapons and wargear left then I can make it pretty, publish a draft and see if I can rope in some playtesters

Here's something I've just spotted (must learn to read better).

Strength confers an armour modifier in close combat. Should we increase the cost of a strength point to 4pts (same as Toughness) or just leave as-is at 3pts?

You might want to check the old Chapter Approved: Creature Feature article that GW put out during 3rd edition. It had rules for designing your own xenos flora and fauna. Here is a version that was updated for 7th edition: url]https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Warhammer_40,000/Chapter_Approved/Creature_Feature#Creature_Generator[/url].Hope this helps. Additionally, are you going to add rules for building your own weapons? It would be shame to be limited to only the weapons in the book.