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I've been playing around with the idea of taking 40k, burning the whole thing, and starting the rules over again for years, but recently sat down and actually finished writing it up. My revised version has a two-phase turn with alternating activations (based on Kill-Team), USRs, and has culled a lot of the endless proliferation of constraints and unique special rules in favour of trying to standardize how and why the rules work.

Core rules: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zXHLmrG-Vgh9wlus4PGFjWckhf744xdnOMUMata-AkU/edit?usp=sharing

A selection of armies: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10HNFV8d_0RVT2Z3D9DmzUQlPWIrre8kOKb7sMmLaHHc/edit?usp=sharing

Status: Marines, Guard, Mechanicum, CSM, Corsairs, Orks, Necrons, Tyranids, and Tau have a basic selection of units and statblocks with approximate points values.

Plans:
--Ongoing: Rebalance, fiddle, and adjust numbers.
--Phase 2: Extending existing forces to include heavier armour (up to Knight-sized baby superheavies), aircraft, and more specialized units. Creating a sub-faction structure.
--Phase 3: Extending forces to include Custodes, a general Militia/Gangs/Cults force, Inquisition, Ecclesiarchy/Sororitas, Daemons, Craftworlds, Dark Eldar definite. May add Squats, Kroot, Rogue Traders, and others depending on time.
--Phase 4: Defining a broader array of specialized alternate Detachments. Extending the scale of the game to allow for full-size superheavies (Baneblade and up).

FAQ:

Q: What happened to the Primaris Marines? A: I've attempted to reduce redundancy by interpreting Primaris models as resculpts of classic models rather than entirely new units with different statlines. The skimmers will be their own datasheets but the characters and the infantry are going to stay consolidated into the same datasheets as the normal non-Primaris units. If there's too much confusion as to what's supposed to represent what I will go back and write in modelling suggestions in the unit entries.

Q: Where's (unit X)/(army Y)? A: The spreadsheet at the moment has a representative sample of units rather than a comprehensive list of all datasheets. You'll notice that there's nothing bigger than T8 medium-heavy tanks (Russes, Doomsday Arks, Battlewaggons, and the like) and there are no Flyers, there will be when I'm done but there aren't for initial testing. Similarly I tried to set up a distribution of armies that gave me a good spread of stuff rather than representing everything right away, which is why the Eldar are Corsairs (they let me test a lot of Craftworld and Dark Eldar chassis and weapons without needing to go in depth about the Kabal/Coven/Cult distinctions or defining all the Aspects), there's no Inquisition (they're a mixture of Guard stuff and Marine stuff, I'd like to test the constituent elements independently first), and no Daemons/Custodes (both are going to be weird to write and don't have a lot of stuff that gets translated across armies).

Q: Where are Chapter Tactics? A: I dislike 8e's interpretation of the concept and am working on my own, but at this time it isn't complete or represented in the rules. Expect something more like 4e's Chapter Tactics (where the rules aren't specifically and explicitly linked to your background) in order to avoid making people paint their armies a colour they don't like to get the rules they like.

Q: I don't understand vehicle facings/the cover rules? A: I've been told they make sense when you see them on the table but I haven't explained them very well, will be drawing diagrams at some point.

Q: I don't understand the statline? A: Move is walk rate/run rate, DR is intended to bring back the idea of vehicle armour facings and is front/sides/rear (at the moment everything attacks into the facings they're actually in with ranged attacks and melee attacks hit the rear facing), and Save is armour/invulnerable. The rest should be self-explanatory.

Q: I noticed a typo... A: Good! Let me know and I'll see what I can do about it.

Q: I think I found a way to get a 2+ Invulnerable save? A: Crap. I thought I'd managed to not do that. Where is it? I need to nerf something.

Just clicked onto here-haven't read it yet.

But I do normally like your work, so I look forward to observing this!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Okay, reading now.

Why Height? Why not Size? I feel like Size would be better.

Assault Weapons replacing one attack feels REALLY powerful. Also, clean up the wording to make it clear whether you can only use it ONCE per phase, or if you have three attacks, you can fire with your weapon three times. (I'd recommend the former. A lot.)

Indirect feels overly weakened. -1 To-Hit and no/half AP is brutal.

Does Rapid apply to EVERY attack allocated with the weapon, or only once?

Engineer shouldn't just reference Medic-it should state what it does.

Incinerate is very rarely gonna be better than Smite. One S4 AP-1 D1 shot is unlikely to kill, meaning you don't get the Blast.

Codecs are a little tough to read.

Keep in mind that Assault under these rules corresponds more closely to the Pistol or Grenade type in current 40k. Under the statblocks I've written right now there are very few Assault 2 weapons and no Assault 3 weapons, but I will go back and clarify you can only do it once per phase, good catch.

My goal with the nerfs to indirect fire is to make the turn one alpha-strike saturation bombardment worse; Spotters down in the unit keywords lets you make other units use indirect-fire weapons as if they could see what you can see.

Rapid is intended to trigger once when the model attacks, not once per attack; I've revised it to clarify.

Blast also lets you ignore the to-hit penalty for cover, but I've checked back and decided to bump up the cost of Smite to reflect how much better it is than the other two attack powers.

Correction: As I tweak unit stats it turns out there is one Assault 3 weapon, but it's a Tau Battlesuit system and somehow I'm okay with the Tau having a strong close-quarters option on Crisis suits.

Army book formatting: Hard to read how? I can set the datasheets up over in a Docs file rather than a Sheets file but the nature of statblocks means it's still probably going to be a lot of tables...

Hi AnomanderRake.
This may be a bit late, but I have some questions.

Why did you keep the stat line and basic resolution methods from 40k?
They work great for standard infantry in the open. But tend to rely on over complicated special rules for most of the remaining game interactions.

Would you consider using a universal stat line to cover all units in game?(Eg infantry,mounted infantry , monstrous creatures, vehicles, artillery, use the same characteristics .)
This coupled with comparing opposed stats to give more granular results, would deliver more intuitive game play ,with fewer special rules.( As found in many modern war games).

If you are doing a ''complete 40k re write'' , why keep so many of the restrictive elements of the 40k rules?

You seem to have lots of good ideas, but seem to be keeping GWs bad ''rules to sell minatures '', rather than developing new ''rules to define game play''.IMO

I am quite happy to discus alternative ideas if you want.
(I am aware to get traction with 40k players you want familiarity.But how much of the 40k vibe is the minatures . and how much is the rules?)

I used current rules as a starting point because it made it faster for me to write; as the testing proceeds I'm becoming increasingly disillusioned with three/four rolls (hit-wound-save-damage). Pulling the rerolls from the 8e resolution mechanics just seems to end up making everything too random again and make volume too important.

This project has been put on the back burner a bit because my group's been moving in different directions, I've got some notes on alternative mechanisms I'm working on.

I can totally understand why you wanted to keep the familiar rules .

However , I believe that to fix the core issues with 40k you need to fix the root of the issues.
Eg A more interactive game turn, (as you suggested.)And using stats to define all units in the same way.

Having multiple methods of resolving the same basic processes, (To hit , armour save and wound.)Makes the game needlessly complicated.

Having a common stat line, along with one resolution table with granular results.Should reduce complication, while adding diversity of results.

Eg
If all weapons have a Shooting (S) value and/ or Melee value.(M)And all models have a Size,(S) and a Defence Value (D). (Roll to hit)

If all weapons have an Armour Piercing rating AP.(1 to 20) And all models have an amour rating AR(1 to 20).(Roll to save)

If all models have Resilience (R) and all weapons have Damage (D)(Roll to wound)

If all models have hit points (H), and all weapons have Attacks (A)(Number of dice rolled , how much damage the model can take.)

The simple comparison between these values can give varied and proportional results.

Using full range of values 1 to 10 or 1 to 20 in one resolution chart Like the old roll to wound chart from 2nd ed.Allows for variety with out so many special rules.

Even adding a few modifiers does not slow the game down as much as ''core rule breaking special rules'' .(I am comparing 40k rules to modern battle rule sets .)