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The conversations on here have been really stimulating my creative juices. Back during 4th I had been looking at how I could bring the 2nd ed rules into a more modern looking game, especially making BS an opposed roll. My original thought had been to us initiative.

Fast forward and 8th has removed opposed rolls entirely, but many people including myself like the concept.

So what I've produced here is kind of an amalgamation of that original 2nd ed redesign, 8th ed and the some of the conversations we've had here.

You'll note that the pdf is designed to mimic the 8th ed book (I used all the digital assets in the pdf) partly because I wanted to see if I could keep it concise.

I haven't put statsblocks in as the tables to build those are more complicated than this basic layout. I'll update it when I've managed a satisfactory one.

However the assumption is that units would have virtually the same stats as they did in 2nd ed. So a marine would look like this:

M4" WS4 BS4 S4 T4 W1 I4 A1 Ld6* Sv3+**

*Lower Ld due to changed morale mechanics
**Sv becomes a stat value

The fallback i would advise putting at the morale phase, instead of more dice micro management.

Did you remove pile in and consolidate? (id love to see pile in die, its makes it so overly complex)

 Brutallica wrote:
The fallback i would advise putting at the morale phase, instead of more dice micro management.

Did you remove pile in and consolidate? (id love to see pile in die, its makes it so overly complex)

My intention for Assault and consolidate/pile in is that you only move during your activation. So a unit is left in place until it's time to activate. Melee assault is supposed to allow further movement of a unit into melee if they weren't all there to begin with. Your opponent can do the same, using the move component of MA to get into BTB. So there's no pile in, just 'activate and execute order and use the movement component how you see fit, but here are consequences'.

The consequences being the armour saves if you decide to leave the combat. Fall back isn't fall back, it's just the consequence of moving a unit out of BtB contact with an enemy unit as part of your activation. Morale is more about suppression than it is about fear etc. So units can still be in melee if they want., they're just worse off. Unless they've been pinned in which case their activation forces them to leave melee and get struck as they retreat to terrain.

Yeah with free fallback move, and 1d6 saves dosent help anything, elite melee armies specially (Space Wolves, World Eaters, Khorne Daemons) are still gonna get wrecked hardcore, just alternating it instead. Then id rather have 8th, atleast the foregone conclusion against hardcore shooty lists is over quickly. However i do like the whole movement budget that you can spend as you see fit during engagement phase, that makes things more simple yet more flexible.

 Brutallica wrote:
Yeah with free fallback move, and 1d6 saves dosent help anything, elite melee armies specially (Space Wolves, World Eaters, Khorne Daemons) are still gonna get wrecked hardcore, just alternating it instead. Then id rather have 8th, atleast the foregone conclusion against hardcore shooty lists is over quickly. However i do like the whole movement budget that you can spend as you see fit during engagement phase, that makes things more simple yet more flexible.

Are your concerns that elite melee armies will be killed leaving combat, or that shooty armies will just leave combat with them and shoot them, risking the casualties?

As much as I don't like the current 8th ed's heavy bias towards shooting, I'm not a fan of people being 'locked' in combat either. I'm happy to look at how the consequences of leaving combat might change, but I'm not a fan of controlling your opponent's units by assaulting them.

Another option might be something like - if you are in base contact or within 1" of an enemy model and move away, you immediate suffer one level of morale. Unaffected units become suppressed while suppressed units become pinned.

That would give you a negative to your attacks and limit your ability to manoeuvre but it wouldn't stop you leaving.

Hellebore wrote:
Are your concerns that elite melee armies will be killed leaving combat, or that shooty armies will just leave combat with them and shoot them, risking the casualties?

As much as I don't like the current 8th ed's heavy bias towards shooting, I'm not a fan of people being 'locked' in combat either. I'm happy to look at how the consequences of leaving combat might change, but I'm not a fan of controlling your opponent's units by assaulting them.

Another option might be something like - if you are in base contact or within 1" of an enemy model and move away, you immediate suffer one level of morale. Unaffected units become suppressed while suppressed units become pinned.

That would give you a negative to your attacks and limit your ability to manoeuvre but it wouldn't stop you leaving.

Disengaging from a melee should be extremely costly for the side trying to run. You can't just turn and run from a person who's trying to kill you with a chainsword.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

Hellebore wrote:
Are your concerns that elite melee armies will be killed leaving combat, or that shooty armies will just leave combat with them and shoot them, risking the casualties?

As much as I don't like the current 8th ed's heavy bias towards shooting, I'm not a fan of people being 'locked' in combat either. I'm happy to look at how the consequences of leaving combat might change, but I'm not a fan of controlling your opponent's units by assaulting them.

Another option might be something like - if you are in base contact or within 1" of an enemy model and move away, you immediate suffer one level of morale. Unaffected units become suppressed while suppressed units become pinned.

That would give you a negative to your attacks and limit your ability to manoeuvre but it wouldn't stop you leaving.

Disengaging from a melee should be extremely costly for the side trying to run. You can't just turn and run from a person who's trying to kill you with a chainsword.

The rule currently stands that a unit leaving melee range must make 1D6 armour saves, modified by how outnumbered they are. Brutallica was concerned about this but I'm not sure what aspect.

So 9th is coming out and they're still using IGOUGO.

However, I think they could still easily transition a lot of these concepts.

IMO splitting AP into a couple of scale bands would make it easier to balance titans vs grots in the same rules set.

Forgot about this.

To use these rules I would do the following:

Use 7th Ed codexes with 8th Ed weapon profiles (combine initiative and ap mods)

As a blanket rule, the ap designations apply like so:

Titan killer weapons are only mounted on Super heavy and gargantuan units

Anti materiel weapons are mounted on vehicles and monsters

Anti infantry weapons are mounted on infantry. Heavy and special weapons are anti materiel if that's their purpose (ie missile launcher plasma and melta).

Only melee weapons like power fists and chainfists are anti materiel. Every other weapon is anti infantry.