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Some of these are 'General' rules, some of them are things that only apply to specific armies or factions that I play. (Because I'm most familiar with those factions, mostly.) Nothing here is supposed to be vastly game-changing, it's all just there to add minor tweaks and balance some things that I don't really enjoy having to deal with. If something would require extra rebalancing, I'll make a note of this.

As far as general rules:
Modifiers are applied before re-rolls, instead of after. (Anyone who gives a 'Re-roll all to-hits, to-wounds, etc,' ability should receive a small points bump. Dunno what to do about Space Marine Captains, but 3 CPs for something you could just get from a named character for free already seems fair to me even with this in mind.)
Abilities which proc on specific to-hit or to-wound rolls are based on the unmodified roll. If you get hot on 1s, you always just get hot on 1s, and if you generate bonus attacks on 6s, it's always going to be on 6s.
If an Infantry unit is completely inside a terrain feature, they may choose to Go to Ground. If they do so, they get +2 to their save instead of +1, but cannot move, advance, use Psychic Powers, shoot, or fire overwatch until the end of the controlling player's next turn. Additionally, if they have an Aura ability, that ability ceases to function until end of the controlling player's next turn. Models cannot go to ground during the charge sub-phase.
If a unit is 75% obscured by terrain or intervening models, they gain the benefits of cover, regardless of whether they are in terrain or not.


Army/Unit specific rules:
Increase the cost of Plasma Guns and Combi-Plasmas by 2 points.
Change the 'Gets hot' rule on all Plasma weapons to inflict 3 wounds with no armor or invulnerable saves allowed instead of removing the model from play. (This will still kill pretty much any infantry model, even if they are multi-wound like Interceptors and/or have a FNP save like Iron Hands, but won't instagib characters or vehicles from full health.)
Change Roboutte Guilliman's Wounds characteristic to '10'.
Give Roboutte Guilliman 5+ FNP against Mortal Wounds.


Give Wolf Guard the 'Bodyguard' rule that is given to Honor Guard and Company Veterans.


Major change to Sisters of Battle - Instead of getting a single Act of Faith on a 2+ every turn, you roll a single dice for each [Chapter] on the board, adding +1 if the unit rolling is a Troops Choice or HQ choice and +2 if the unit is carrying a Simalcrum Imperialis. On each result of a '6', you may use a single Act of Faith for any unit on the board on that turn. (This replaces the normal effect of the Simalcrum Imperialis.) (Celestine's effect still works as normal.)

Feel free to suggest other changes. Most of these are just minor balance fixes to either nerf overpowered choices (Guilliman, Plasma,) fix confusing/weird balance issues (Wolf Guard not being bodyguards, weird re-rolling shenanigans,) and bring back a couple things from previous editions that I enjoyed. Sisters of Battle are the only army I heavily changed, to try and make Battle Sisters more appealing and to make a single unit of Sisters of Battle less cheesy compared to a full detachment of them.

Nice list.
Do you have anything to fix vehicles?

 jeff white wrote:
Nice list.
Do you have anything to fix vehicles?

What specific problem with vehicles do you have?

Shooting from cover, no facings, but mostly tanks trapped by grots.

 jeff white wrote:
Shooting from cover, no facings, but mostly tanks trapped by grots.

Those things are harder to fix without major changes to the way 8th works. I'd love to reintroduce flamers and blasts and armor facings, but it's clear that this edition was designed to deemphasize model placement with greater emphasis on units lined up in formations around buffmanders.

Tanks trapped by grots should be handled by the player, properly screening against assaults. It COULD be fixed by some kind of rule that allows for falling back with a penalty to-hit, (maybe a -1,) but penalties to hit generally seem imbalanced from where I'm standing. Low-BS armies are hit way harder, and if you fell back with Orks and tried to use Heavy Weapons you'd find yourself unable to hit.

Size stat.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Size stat.

Ooh, if we're going to introduce a Size Stat, I also want to fix Grav Guns.
For reference:
Size 1, Infantry-sized stuff. Anything that takes up 1 space in a vehicle.
Size 2, Terminators, 2-space units in vehicles, Jump Packs, etc.
Size 3, Bikes, Very Large infantry
Size 4, Small vehicles, mid-sized Monstrous Creatures, Dreadnoughts, etc
Size 5, Large vehicles, large monstrous creatures, super-heavy units


Grav-guns and Grav-pistols keep their current Rate of Fire, Grav Cannons go back up to 5 shots. Instead of wounding normally, they wound on a 7+, but get a +1 for the units size. (So Size 1 would be +1, for a total of 6+, size 3 would be +3, for a total of 4+, etc.)
Grav-amps also add +1 to the to-wound roll.

AP can stay as it is, I'm thinking that damage should always be 1, though I could be convinced that it would work better with the current system of boosted damage against good armor saves.

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/734305.page

I didn't think to do anything for Grav there, but this is what I did.

Waaaghpower wrote:

 jeff white wrote:
Shooting from cover, no facings, but mostly tanks trapped by grots.

Those things are harder to fix without major changes to the way 8th works. I'd love to reintroduce flamers and blasts and armor facings, but it's clear that this edition was designed to deemphasize model placement with greater emphasis on units lined up in formations around buffmanders.

Tanks trapped by grots should be handled by the player, properly screening against assaults. It COULD be fixed by some kind of rule that allows for falling back with a penalty to-hit, (maybe a -1,) but penalties to hit generally seem imbalanced from where I'm standing. Low-BS armies are hit way harder, and if you fell back with Orks and tried to use Heavy Weapons you'd find yourself unable to hit.

A better fix would be to bring "defensive weapons" as a concept back, let tanks shoot pintle-mounted stuff while in melee (since that is sort of the point of pintle-mounted weapons...). That and expanding Steel Behemoth (the Baneblade/Spartan superheavy shoot-while-in-combat rule) to more types of tanks.

Waaaghpower wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Size stat.

Ooh, if we're going to introduce a Size Stat, I also want to fix Grav Guns.
For reference:
Size 1, Infantry-sized stuff. Anything that takes up 1 space in a vehicle.
Size 2, Terminators, 2-space units in vehicles, Jump Packs, etc.
Size 3, Bikes, Very Large infantry
Size 4, Small vehicles, mid-sized Monstrous Creatures, Dreadnoughts, etc
Size 5, Large vehicles, large monstrous creatures, super-heavy units


Grav-guns and Grav-pistols keep their current Rate of Fire, Grav Cannons go back up to 5 shots. Instead of wounding normally, they wound on a 7+, but get a +1 for the units size. (So Size 1 would be +1, for a total of 6+, size 3 would be +3, for a total of 4+, etc.)
Grav-amps also add +1 to the to-wound roll.

AP can stay as it is, I'm thinking that damage should always be 1, though I could be convinced that it would work better with the current system of boosted damage against good armor saves.

Size would be helpful, but in most cases, could use just wounds.

How about:

MOVEMENT: A model may Advance through enemy models if the moving model has two or more starting wounds than the enemy model(s).
(Optional). Move the enemy models the minimum distance to one side to be out of the path of the moving model. If the enemy model cannot be moved, it suffers a mortal wound.