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*Newest version of rules in a later post*

Hi all, I'm playing a game of Zone Mortalis with a friend tomorrow and wanted to refine a good set of rules for using it in 8th edition. I want them to be reasonably light so as not to add too much extra to the ruleset and also watched to keep it with the feel of 8th edition. Alot of this is taken from a thread here on Dakka that I participated in discussing updating the ZM rules so full credit to the OP there who came up with alot of the basis of this.

Let me know what you think and if you see any glaring holes.

Zone Mortalis Rules – 8th Edition

Army Selection

ZM forces are selected using detachments as normal but you can only select from the following detachments: Close Contact, Patrol, Auxiliary Support & Super Heavy Auxiliary.

Close Contact Detachment
HQ: 1-2
Troops: 1-3
Elites: 2-4
Fast Attack: 0-2
Heavy: 0-1
Restrictions: All must be from the same faction.
Command Benefits: +2 Command Points.

Models that would not fit in a ZM should not be taken, in general this includes most non-walker vehicles, models with the airborne special rule and some larger monstrous creatures. Models on 80mm base and smaller should be fine, with the largest of those only able to move through certain parts of the ZM. It is up to the players to use common sense about what would fit and which spaces those models can move through, discuss with your opponent if you are unsure.

Doors

Doors have four states - open, closed, locked (a locked door is also closed), destroyed (a destroyed door is also open).

A door which is not destroyed or locked may be opened or closed in the movement phase by a model that is within 1" of the door. It costs 2” of a models movement to do this. If a door is opened remove the door but make where it was on the board, if a door is closed replace the door.

A closed door may be destroyed by shooting or melee attacks. Doors have T8 W3 Sv 3+ (when attacking a door your opponent will roll the saves). If a door is destroyed remove the door but not the door frame from the board.
Do not roll to hit against the door in melee combat, all attacks hit automatically. Roll to wound and save as normal.
When attacking a door in melee the unit may disengage simply by moving away from the door, falling back is not required.


Measuring / Targetting

Measurements may not be made that cross a wall or closed door. If a measurement between two units/models/etc. must cross a wall or closed door then it will be considered to be out of range. (Note, this means that a model with intervening walls or doors is ignored when determining the closest model/unit)

Weapons, special rules and psychic powers that target enemy units always require LoS regardless of special rules to the contrary.


Tactical Reserves

All units that are able to be setup after the game has started have the following rule added to their deployment rules.

Dangerous Arrival: If this unit isn't deployed wthin your own deployment zone or within 3" of one of your other units roll a D6.
On a roll of 5+ the deploying unit suffers D3 mortal wounds.
If the unit consists of a single model minus -1 from the roll, for every 5 models in the unit add +1 to the roll. If the unit consists of 10 or more models increase the damage to D6.

Movement

Models may not move through a gap smaller than themselves if both players agree that they would be able to squeeze through if they tried. Squeezing costs 2” of a models movement. Players common sense must be used.

Confined Space: Units containing models which move more than 9" in a phase must roll a D6.
On a roll of 6 that unit takes D3 mortal wounds.
Add +1 to the roll if the unit contains models that move more than 12”, add an additional +1 if the unit contains models that move more than 15” and add a further +1 if it contains models that move more than 18”. If the unit contains 10 or more models increase the damage to D6.

Walls and closed doors may not be climbed, moved over or moved through under any circumstances regardless of special rules to the contrary.

Terrain

Any model 50% obscured by terrain (not ZM walls) from any models in the firing unit gain the benefits of being in cover.
Moving through terrain costs 2” of a models movement.

Shooting

Shooting weapons with a minimum range may not be used and weapons that ignore LOS do not do so.
Firestorm & Shrapnel: When a unit makes a shooting attack with a weapon that has a random number of shots they may choose to re-roll the number of shots.

Melee

Reaction Fire: Overwatch shooting that does not hit automatically hits on a 5+ instead of the usual 6+.
Models that did not fire overwatch due to being unable to see the assaulting unit when the assault was declared but can see them when the assaulting unit has finished its assault move may make an overwatch attack at that time but only hit on 6+ and halve the number of hits that weapons that hit automatically do.




ZM Stratagems

Homing Beacon – 1CP: Use when deploying a unit from Tactical reserve. That unit ignores the Dangerous Arrival rule.

Watch Your Corners – 2CP: Use before making overwatch attacks for a unit. Add +1 to hit rolls for that unit’s overwatch attacks this turn.

Breaching Charges – 1CP: Use when one of your models is within 1” of a door. Destroy that door.

Cut them down - 2CP: Use when an enemy unit falls back from one of your units. Any models in your unit able to do so may resolve close combat attacks against the enemy unit except that a 6 is always required to hit regardless of any modifiers or the attacking models WS.

This looks like a fantastic start. Some thoughts:

 WisdomLS wrote:


ZM forces are selected using detachments as normal but you can only select from the following detachments: Close Contact, Patrol, Auxiliary Support & Super Heavy Auxiliary.

Close Contact Detachment
HQ: 1-2
Troops: 1-3
Elites: 2-4
Fast Attack: 0-2
Heavy: 0-1
Restrictions: All must be from the same faction.
Command Benefits: +2 Command Points.

Is there a reason to include a super heavy option? What would you even legally field that "fits" in ZM? Also, I'm not sure it's necessary to ban vanguards or possibly outriders. An all-terminators boarding action would be very fluffy, but you'd currently be required to drag a troop choice along thus breaking the hypothetical fluffy theme. Similarly, an all pathfinders or dark eldar beasts or all scarabs list could be cool but isn't really doable without an outrider.

Do not roll to hit against the door in melee combat, all attacks hit automatically. Roll to wound and save as normal.

I'd like to propose allowing ranged attacks to automatically hit as well for a couple of reasons.
A.) It's embarrassing when marines and aspect warriors can't hit a large stationary target a couple of inches away.
B.) When playing ZM in the past, I've encountered awkward moments where my shooting doesn't open a door and I'm thus stuck choosing between charging and attacking the door and then standing around awkwardly while whatever was on the other side lights me up, or not charging the door and standing around for a turn while I hope my opponent can't open the door himself and light me up anyway. And then if you fail to shoot the door a second time...

Auto-hitting with a meltagun or what have you means that you can relatively reliably count on shooting through the door with another squad rather than awkwardly painting a target on yourself.

Also, how would you feel about allowing psychic powers to target doors at the caster's discretion? It would be nice to be able to smite a door open.

Dangerous Arrival: If this unit isn't deployed wthin your own deployment zone or within 3" of one of your other units roll a D6.
On a roll of 5+ the deploying unit suffers D3 mortal wounds.
If the unit consists of a single model minus -1 from the roll, for every 5 models in the unit add +1 to the roll. If the unit consists of 10 or more models increase the damage to D6.

This seems fine, but why not streamline it to something like an old-fashioned dangerous terrain test? Something like...

"When a unit is deployed outside of the deployment phase, the controlling player rolls a d6 for each model in the unit. For each 1 rolled, the unit suffers a mortal wound."

So instead of applying a bunch of modifiers and rolling dice multiple times, you just roll a single pool of dice without modifiers. The chances of losing someone innately scales with the size of the unit, and you don't have to worry about accidentally one-shotting characters as they come in from reserves.

Also, are you intentionally leaving out the rule about disallowing units from deepstriking if they do so via flight? I understand that it's a pretty subjective rule, but it's also kind of a fluffy one .

Confined Space: Units containing models which move more than 9" in a phase must roll a D6.
On a roll of 6 that unit takes D3 mortal wounds.
Add +1 to the roll if the unit contains models that move more than 12”, add an additional +1 if the unit contains models that move more than 15” and add a further +1 if it contains models that move more than 18”. If the unit contains 10 or more models increase the damage to D6.

Walls and closed doors may not be climbed, moved over or moved through under any circumstances regardless of special rules to the contrary.

As above, I'd propose streamlining this. Instead of multiple rolls with modifiers, why not just a d6 per model that moved over X"? Possibly make it trigger on a 5+ instead of 6+ if the unit advanced or something as advancing generally indicates a relatively reckless form of movement rather than the default "combat aware" form of movement.

Also, I'd probably limit this to bikes and models with Fly or the Jump/Jet key words only. My howling banshees move 8" innately. This rule would automatically cause me to risk losing half my squad any time I opted to have them run forward. Most eldar only need to roll a 3 to hit 10" of movement for a turn, and this rule actively punishes them for using their faction rule, battle focus. Plenty of tyranid models (genestealers and hormagaunts come to mind) would be similarly affected.

Infantry are supposed to be good at maneuvering through confined spaces. It's why they get to Koolaid Man their way through ruins in normal 40k. Monsters and vehicles are generally too large to be fielded anyway. So maybe just limit this to units with the bike, jump, and jet keywords? (Beasts and swarms seem like they should be unaffected.)

Reaction Fire: Overwatch shooting that does not hit automatically hits on a 5+ instead of the usual 6+.
Models that did not fire overwatch due to being unable to see the assaulting unit when the assault was declared but can see them when the assaulting unit has finished its assault move may make an overwatch attack at that time but only hit on 6+ and halve the number of hits that weapons that hit automatically do.

That last part feels slightly clunky. Would it be reasonable to streamline this as...

"In games of Zone Mortalis, overwatch shots hit on a 5+ instead of a 6+. Models that cannot see the charging unit may still opt to overwatch but hit on 6s rather than 5s. "

So instead of resolving overwatch twice and dealing with shenanigans where inferno pistols that were previously out of overwatch range can suddenly reach, you just resolve it a single time but at a penalty.

Also, something I heard on a podcast recently was that they only granted the improved overwatch to units that succesfully won a leadership roll off. I think I might prefer your method, but it's something to mull over.

ZM Stratagems

Homing Beacon – 1CP: Use when deploying a unit from Tactical reserve. That unit ignores the Dangerous Arrival rule.

Watch Your Corners – 2CP: Use before making overwatch attacks for a unit. Add +1 to hit rolls for that unit’s overwatch attacks this turn.

Breaching Charges – 1CP: Use when one of your models is within 1” of a door. Destroy that door.

Cut them down - 2CP: Use when an enemy unit falls back from one of your units. Any models in your unit able to do so may resolve close combat attacks against the enemy unit except that a 6 is always required to hit regardless of any modifiers or the attacking models WS.

I like these a lot, though Cut Them Down feels out of place as a ZM-specific rule. Is the idea to make up for it being difficult to surround enemies in hallways? 2CP also seems very expensive to only hit with 1 out of 6 of your attacks. What's the goal here? Maybe there's a better way to represent it? Perhaps something like the wyches' No Escape rule or an opposed leadership roll off is required to fall back? Those might work as universal ZM rules rather than stratagems. Something to balance out the improved overwatch and the rerolls for number of shots on blasts/flamers.

Aside from all that, have you considered banning non-ZM stratagems? Deepstriking a squad of blood letters in and going for a turn 1 charge is much more devastating when your army is 400 points instead of 2,000. Especially considering smaller deployment zones can lead to more tightly deployed armies. Similarly, anything that lets you bring a nearly dead unit back to life, swing with a dying unit, or gain additional actions may be a bit too good in smaller games.

Thanks for the well thought out comments Wyldhunt, really appreciated. I'll go through and give my answers a a few comments from the experience of our first game using the rules at the weekend.

Detachments - Firstly your completely right about the Vanguard detachment, will add that in. Not sure about the outrider, the reason fr the restricted detachments was to try and keep the forces reasonably fluffy and fast attack and especially heavy options don't really fit.
The Superheavy Detachment was mainly in there to let people have an option to take Bobby G, he fits nicely in the ZM and him leading a boarding action would be pretty cool.

Door - I'd agree, after playing my first game with the doors they really improved the ZM experience and automatically hitting them at range would be fine, I'll add it in. Whilst Im talking about doors one thing that came up in our game at the weekend was that charging doors kinda breaks the movement in the game. We had quite alot of doors so decided that units could attack a door in close combat if they were within 1" but didn't get to assault move towards them or consolidate or anything. Worked well, and seemed more thematic as well, what do you think.

Deepstrike - The dangerous arrival rule is only one dice per unit, it was an attempt to get away from the rolling for each model. This was done to cut down on dice rolling and because 8th edition doesn't do the per model rolls much anymore. I'll try to neaten up the modifiers a little so they seem more streamlined.
I did think about the flight rule and to be honest just decided to not go into making various exceptions for a couple of reasons. Firstly those models have paid for those abilities, denying them makes people not want to use them. It's pretty easy to fluff away "my jump pack squad uses a teleporter this mission" and also I didn't want to try to make a list of things that can and can't deepstrike into a ZM as something would always get missed out.

Movement - this was similarly done with a single dice roll in mind and not having to roll per model but I realise now I completely forgot that keywords exist, Doh! I shall go back and alter it so that its there to punish bikes and models with fly which is the real reason the rule exists. I'm glad you noticed this as the rule was bugging me but I could see why.

Overwatch - That was my original idea, just have it as a 5+ and a 6+ if you couldn't see but it lead to weird situations. The rule is there to give some protection against things running at you from around corners but allowing all models that can't see the charger to fire lets whole units shoot at things they can't see at any point. The current wording is clunky with two sets of shots but also protects hidden chargers who don't make the charge. It works well for what I want it to do but could be clearer, again I'll try to clean it up.

Stats - Banning other stats is an interesting idea, something to discuss further as I don't forsee the full implications of it at this moment.
The Cut them down is kind of there to replace the old no retreat rule that made it harder to run away, perhaps reducing it to 1CP as we didn't use it in our game. A general no retreat wyches style rule would be cool but would counter lots of unit special rules to have as a standard blanket rule I think.

Thanks again, I'll repost some reworded rules when I get the time.

 WisdomLS wrote:
Thanks for the well thought out comments Wyldhunt, really appreciated. I'll go through and give my answers a a few comments from the experience of our first game using the rules at the weekend.

Detachments - Firstly your completely right about the Vanguard detachment, will add that in. Not sure about the outrider, the reason fr the restricted detachments was to try and keep the forces reasonably fluffy and fast attack and especially heavy options don't really fit.
The Superheavy Detachment was mainly in there to let people have an option to take Bobby G, he fits nicely in the ZM and him leading a boarding action would be pretty cool.

I would strongly suggest not going out of your way to make one of the most notoriously OP models in the game available in small points games where he's generally untargetable due to both his allied models and the prevalence of line of sight blocking walls. He's physically an okay size for ZM, and yes, the thought of him leading a boarding party is cool, but in practice, he'll be basically unkillable unless your opponent brought nothing but multi-damage weapons. And even then, they'll have to kill him twice before he starts insta-gibbing them in melee.

Door - I'd agree, after playing my first game with the doors they really improved the ZM experience and automatically hitting them at range would be fine, I'll add it in. Whilst Im talking about doors one thing that came up in our game at the weekend was that charging doors kinda breaks the movement in the game. We had quite alot of doors so decided that units could attack a door in close combat if they were within 1" but didn't get to assault move towards them or consolidate or anything. Worked well, and seemed more thematic as well, what do you think.

That seems like a solid way of handling doors to me.

Deepstrike - The dangerous arrival rule is only one dice per unit, it was an attempt to get away from the rolling for each model. This was done to cut down on dice rolling and because 8th edition doesn't do the per model rolls much anymore. I'll try to neaten up the modifiers a little so they seem more streamlined.
I did think about the flight rule and to be honest just decided to not go into making various exceptions for a couple of reasons. Firstly those models have paid for those abilities, denying them makes people not want to use them. It's pretty easy to fluff away "my jump pack squad uses a teleporter this mission" and also I didn't want to try to make a list of things that can and can't deepstrike into a ZM as something would always get missed out.

Number of Dice: Personally, I've found that people are more frustrated by the number of pools of dice they roll than by the number of dice rolled (so long as that number isn't high enough to make collecting the dice together time consuming.) Rolling 1d6 per model all at once is probably more straightforward than rolling a d6 to see if stuff happens, applying modifiers (after recalling what those modifiers all), roll number of mortal wounds, and then rolling FNP. But this is a nitpick, and I think either approach works. For the record, I liken my suggestion of 1d6 per model removing models on 1s to be basically the same as the mechanic for losing passengers when a transport is destroyed, so there is precedent for a similar mechanic.

No Deepstriking Flyers: That's perfectly reasonable. In my own experience, I've found that essentially discouraging certain units over others can be a good excuse to break out less popular choices. Sure, you could bring Death Company, but if you want deepstrikers, maybe you go for assault terminators instead. From a fluff perspective, not being able to deepstrike guys with jump packs kind of reinforces the flavor of being inside an enemy ship, a tunnel network, or what have you. So there are actually some benefits to restricting options. Perhaps some missions should have an "open air" rule indicating that you're fighting in trenches or an open-roofed maze or something that allows flying deepstriking to deepstrike while preventing it on other maps? Again, your approach is perfectly reasonable. I"m just playing daemon's advocate.

One note regarding the "units have paid for those abilities" point. Keep in mind that this is a game type that punishes units for moving too quickly and generally doesn't reward having more than X" of range on a weapon (where X is the average length of your ZM hallway.) Sure, ZM doesn't outright take those advantages away (you can still move fast if you don't mind losing some bodies, and you might occassionally have a table set up where your long range is useful), but ZM is simply a game that rewards some abilities over others. Which I view as part of its charm. Instead of swooping hawks, maybe I look at warp spiders or striking scorpions. Instead of strike teams, maybe I look at breacher teams. Instead of plasma, maybe I give meltaguns another look as they're better at clearing doors and allow me to advance around a corner before firing them. ZM is a game about considering options that you might disfavor in 40k.

Movement - this was similarly done with a single dice roll in mind and not having to roll per model but I realise now I completely forgot that keywords exist, Doh! I shall go back and alter it so that its there to punish bikes and models with fly which is the real reason the rule exists. I'm glad you noticed this as the rule was bugging me but I could see why.

Glad I could help!

Overwatch - That was my original idea, just have it as a 5+ and a 6+ if you couldn't see but it lead to weird situations. The rule is there to give some protection against things running at you from around corners but allowing all models that can't see the charger to fire lets whole units shoot at things they can't see at any point. The current wording is clunky with two sets of shots but also protects hidden chargers who don't make the charge. It works well for what I want it to do but could be clearer, again I'll try to clean it up.

Hmm. How would you feel about resolving overwatch only after a successful charge? It eliminates the need for multiple overwatches and protects units that didn't manage to make their charge.

Stats - Banning other stats is an interesting idea, something to discuss further as I don't forsee the full implications of it at this moment.
The Cut them down is kind of there to replace the old no retreat rule that made it harder to run away, perhaps reducing it to 1CP as we didn't use it in our game. A general no retreat wyches style rule would be cool but would counter lots of unit special rules to have as a standard blanket rule I think.

Again, I'm picturing things like infiltrating berzerkers, bloodletter bombs, quickened wraithguard with d-scythes, etc. Something to watch out for.

Thanks again, I'll repost some reworded rules when I get the time.

Thanks for updating one of my favorite rules sets. I'll likely be stealing this for my own purposes.

I've updated some of the wording below and added in some of the things we discussed.

The roll to damage units that deepstrike and move fast does what I want it to do thematically and mechanically and I have tried to clean it up a little, if anyone has a suggestion to word it better or perhaps have a small table please let me know.

The other issue that I'm still considering is overwatch, again it does what I want it to do but in a messy way - ideas welcome. Edit: I've changed it to a choice to overwatch before chargers move with a 5+ or after they move with a 6+.

Lastly I'm still tossing around ideas for codex stratagems - do we need to limit them in some way? I haven't spent long deciding which could break the ZM but I'm sure some could.

All feedback very welcome :-)

Zone Mortalis Rules – 8th Edition

Army Selection
ZM forces are selected using detachments as normal but you can only select from the following detachments: Close Contact, Patrol, Auxiliary Support & Vanguard.
Close Contact Detachment
HQ: 1-2
Troops: 1-3
Elites: 2-4
Fast Attack: 0-2
Heavy: 0-1
Restrictions: All units must be from the same faction.
Command Benefits: +2 Command Points.

Models that would not fit in a ZM should not be taken, in general this includes most non-walker vehicles, models with the airborne special rule and some larger monstrous creatures. Models on 80mm base and smaller should be fine, with the largest of those only able to move through certain parts of the ZM. It is up to the players to use common sense about what would fit and which spaces those models can move through, discuss with your opponent if you are unsure.

Doors 
Doors have four states - open, closed, locked (a locked door is also closed), destroyed (a destroyed door is also open). 

A door which is not destroyed or locked may be opened or closed in the movement phase by a model that is within 1" of the door. It costs 2” of a models movement to do this. If a door is opened remove the door but mark where it was on the board, if a door is closed replace it. 

A closed door may be tageted by ranged weapons in the shooting phase and at the start of the fight phase models within 1” may resolve close combat attacks against them. Doors have T8 W3 Sv 3+ (or 2+ for heavy blast doors) when attacking a door your opponent will roll the saves. If a door is destroyed remove the door but not the door frame from the board. 
All attacks automatically hit doors (they are notoriously bad at dodging). Roll to wound and save as normal. 

Measuring / Targetting 
Measurements may not be made that cross a wall or closed door. If a measurement between two units/models/etc. must cross a wall or closed door then it will be considered to be out of range. (Note, this means that a model with intervening walls or doors is ignored when determining the closest model/unit) 

Weapons, special rules and psychic powers that target enemy units always require LoS regardless of special rules to the contrary. 

Tactical Reserves 
Depending on the nature of the ZM game you are playing you may wish to restrict certain units from using there special deployment rules, typically units with the FLY keyword.
All units that are able to be setup after the game has started (including those that do so because of a stratagem) have the following rule added to their deployment rules.

Dangerous Arrival: If this unit isn't deployed wthin your own deployment zone or within 3" of one of your other units roll a D6.
On a roll of 5+ the deploying unit suffers D3 mortal wounds or D6 if it contains 10+ models or 2D6 if it contains 20+ models. .
If the unit consists of a single model minus -1 from the roll, for every 5 models in the unit add +1 to the roll.

Movement 
Models may move through a gap smaller than themselves if both players agree that they would be able to squeeze through if they tried. Squeezing costs 2” of a models movement. Players common sense must be used.
Walls and closed doors may not be climbed, moved over or moved through under any circumstances regardless of special rules to the contrary. 

Confined Space: Units containing models with the FLY, BIKER or VEHICLE keywords which move more than 8" in the movement phase must roll a D6 adding +1 for each 4” further than that the fastest model in the unit moves.
On a roll of 6 that unit takes D3 mortal wounds or D6 if it contains more than 10 models.

Terrain
Any model 50% obscured by terrain (not ZM walls) from any models in the firing unit gain the benefits of being in cover.
Moving through terrain costs 2” of a models movement.

Shooting 
Shooting weapons with a minimum range may not be used and weapons that ignore LOS do not do so.
Firestorm & Shrapnel: When a unit makes a shooting attack with a weapon that has a random number of shots they may choose to re-roll the number of shots.

Melee 
Reaction Fire: Reaction Fire: When a charge is declared against a unit the target unit has two choices for firing overwatch.
- They can fire overwatch at the charging unit before they make their charge move but always hit on a 5+ instead of the usual 6+.
- Or they can fire overwatch after the charging unit has made their charge move, always hitting on 6+ and not benefiting from the Firestorm & Shrapnel rule.
(these attacks can be made by and against models within 1” of an enemy model but remember line of sight is still needed in all cases).

ZM Stratagems 

Homing Beacon – 1CP (2CP if the unit contains 10 or more models): Use when deploying a unit from Tactical reserve. That unit ignores the Dangerous Arrival rule.

Watch Your Corners – 2CP: Use before making overwatch attacks for a unit. Add +1 to hit rolls for that unit’s overwatch attacks this turn. (This can modify overwatch hit rolls!)

Breaching Charges – 1CP: Use at the beginning or the end of the movement phase when one of your models is within 1” of a door. Destroy that door.

Cut them down - 1CP: Use when an enemy unit falls back from one of your units. Any models in your unit able to do so may resolve close combat attacks against the enemy unit except that a 6 is always required to hit regardless of any modifiers or the attacking models WS.