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We're looking to upgrade our playgroup's rules from the super stripped down version I've been playing with for a while.

We're sticking with Combat Patrol size boards an games (no mini boards), as that's a level of play we can afford to slowly grow for our entire group.

But, the **HUGE** layers of rules is just too much. So, Ive been able to get all the 8th indexes, except the IA ones, which is suuuuuuper frustrating.

If there's Legend rules, the obviously take precedence.
We've been collecting the datacards, and got Open War, which is a great way to customize the battle to fit the narrative being told, using it more as a toolbox than a pattern for play.

I had the assumption that the datacards would also have one of each unit, ala the starter set stripped down sheets. Would the datacards be useful to add to indexes/Legends?

Looking for guidance, key things:
- simple gameplay is key
- still no CPs or strats (might be convinced, but it'd be THE change)

I really wouldn't suggest playing index 40k. Those books were an absolute mess. Yeah, they were simple, but they also had a bunch of poorly written and poorly balanced rules because GW had no idea what they were doing with the game at that point. They were a necessary evil at the time but it's not an era that is worth revisiting. If cost is an issue a printed copy of the rules from wahapedia will be way more useful than any of the index stuff.

 Blndmage wrote:
Would the datacards be useful to add to indexes/Legends?

Definitely not. I genuinely have no idea why anyone ever buys those cards, most of them are out of date within a few weeks at best and if you're paying money for rules you might as well just buy the codex instead.

If there's Legend rules, the obviously take precedence.

I would advise against this. Legends rules are badly written (both in terms of balance and functionality) but they still benefit from a lot of power creep since the indices were written. You don't want to create perverse incentives where the best units are the ones with hard to find and expensive OOP models while the commonly available plastic kits are all burdened with weak index rules. If you're going to play index 40k then everything should use the index rules (and IIRC everything in legends was still in the original index books).

For example, the Macharius Omega has the same stats in both cases but the legends version costs 18 points vs. 22 points for the index version. A Destroyer tank hunter's gun in legends is Heavy 2/R72"/S12/AP-4/DD3+3, vs. Heavy D3/R60"/S9/AP-3/DD6. But despite having the better gun the legends version costs 8 points vs. 12 points for the index version. They're just not even close to being the same game.

- still no CPs or strats (might be convinced, but it'd be THE change)

If you really don't want complexity the best solution is to require each player to choose their stratagem pool when they make their list. Pick X stratagems (about 5 is probably a good number, maybe 10 at most) and those are the only ones you can use. You can use them however you like within the once-per-phase and CP cost limits but once you pick them that's it. That way you don't have the problem of non-functional units that depend on stratagems to work but you significantly narrow down the scope of stuff to keep track of.

Just play normal 40k but agree to not use strats, secondaries, warlord traits, relics, battleforge rules, faction rules etc. Basically if its not printed on the scenario rules or unit entry don't use it.

 Blndmage wrote:
We're looking to upgrade our playgroup's rules from the super stripped down version I've been playing with for a while.

We're sticking with Combat Patrol size boards an games (no mini boards), as that's a level of play we can afford to slowly grow for our entire group.

But, the **HUGE** layers of rules is just too much. So, Ive been able to get all the 8th indexes, except the IA ones, which is suuuuuuper frustrating.

If there's Legend rules, the obviously take precedence.
We've been collecting the datacards, and got Open War, which is a great way to customize the battle to fit the narrative being told, using it more as a toolbox than a pattern for play.

I had the assumption that the datacards would also have one of each unit, ala the starter set stripped down sheets. Would the datacards be useful to add to indexes/Legends?

Looking for guidance, key things:
- simple gameplay is key
- still no CPs or strats (might be convinced, but it'd be THE change)

Keep in mind that index 40k wasn't as great as many people make it out to be. Sure, it was clean and simple, but for some armies the gaming experience with their index was just flat out horrible.
I have never tried it myself, but one-page rules 40k has a lot of non-fanatic supporters which is usually a good sign. Maybe give that a try?

IIRC legends was created for the units dropped going from indexes to codices, so maybe there is not much point in bothering with indexes?

That said, if you want to stay with GW-40k, I would invest a bit more effort up front to have a better game later. 9th edition did a lot to make small games more playable than previous editions, and from what I gathered in other threads, you are almost exclusively playing short games due to health issues. In essence, almost all of the bloat and issues with 9th stem from the codices, not the core rules.
Sticking with 9th also opens up the option to play crusade, which is a great format for small games and GW has released literally piles of resources with narrative rules, cool missions and an actual functional campaign system. If you think open war is great toolbox, you'd find the campaign books and crusade packs to be treasure troves.

What I would do is take the time to shave off the extra layers from each codex. Identify the "one cool thing" for that army and just drop all the other army rules, detachment rules, sub-factions, stratagems and whatnots. For orks this would be the Waaagh!, for DG the contagions, for drukhari their power from pain rules, chapter tactics for marines, crossfire for GSC and so on. Essentially you want to return to having just the datasheet and one extra rule to keep in mind.
Decide whether you want relics and warlord traits in your game or not. "Not" would definitely remove another layer, but you'd also lose the ability to customize characters.
I'd also suggest keeping the basic stratagems around, I feel like the game would be worse off without stratagems like counter-attack, emergency disembark or overwatch.
Some armies like necrons or admech will still have a lot of interlocking mechanics, but due to the size of your games, it will rarely cause any head-aches. Most of your games will be run with just 4-5 units anyways.

As for the data cards - those are mostly just stratagems, psychic power and mission objectives, you definitely don't need those.

 Sim-Life wrote:
Just play normal 40k but agree to not use strats, secondaries, warlord traits, relics, battleforge rules, faction rules etc. Basically if its not printed on the scenario rules or unit entry don't use it.

This is probably the best approach. The layers-upon-layers of additional rules and abilities are what makes 40k so annoyingly complex but it's fairly easy to strip out entire sections of the rules as suggested above.

Slipspace wrote:
This is probably the best approach. The layers-upon-layers of additional rules and abilities are what makes 40k so annoyingly complex but it's fairly easy to strip out entire sections of the rules as suggested above.

OTOH with the way GW keeps taking stuff off datasheets and making it a stratagem you'll be missing a lot of the game. And TBH datasheets-only 40k is way too shallow to be interesting. Stratagems are a terrible mechanic but when the core rules have been stripped down to nothing it's the best you have for making the game more than "line up in the middle and exchange dice until someone runs out of models".

CadianSgtBob wrote:

Slipspace wrote:
This is probably the best approach. The layers-upon-layers of additional rules and abilities are what makes 40k so annoyingly complex but it's fairly easy to strip out entire sections of the rules as suggested above.

OTOH with the way GW keeps taking stuff off datasheets and making it a stratagem you'll be missing a lot of the game. And TBH datasheets-only 40k is way too shallow to be interesting. Stratagems are a terrible mechanic but when the core rules have been stripped down to nothing it's the best you have for making the game more than "line up in the middle and exchange dice until someone runs out of models".

I agree with you, but the OP did say simple gameplay was key. It's not a game I'd ever want to play, but it fits with what the OP is looking for and I suspect may be better than Index hammer.

 Blndmage wrote:

I had the assumption that the datacards would also have one of each unit, ala the starter set stripped down sheets. Would the datacards be useful to add to indexes/Legends?

The data cards weren't unit stats on cards. They were things like psychic powers, army traits, orders, strats, WL traits, relics,etc. Varied by what each faction had.

If you want to try strats, stick with just the basic ones listed in the rulebook. I doubt your games will be overwhelmed by Spend 1 CP to re-roll a ____, Spend CP to auto-pass a morale test, Spend 1 CP to fire Overwatch, etc.

Other than that? Give 8e Index Hammer a try & see how it goes. (it should work fairly well given what you've said about how you play)

Ok, y'all have made a good case for the rulebook strats.

Honestly, I'd forgotten they existed, as my Matched Play games focused on my Necron strats.

Adding in BATTLEFORGED is gonna be something we work on adding.

I'm basically the rule person.
We sit down with the codex, or rules and talk about the reasons for the battle, and both players build armies together, with me guiding any rules things, hence it being Open Play.

I basically am the rulebook for them. Kinda DM like, but I also get to play.

I'm considering things like, I bring 50PL and 2 players get 25PL each, and can play the same faction, basically them being detachments.

Codex+the last version of the rules updates for it. In case of stuff like marines or people using campaign books they need to bring those two. Technicaly you can bring the core rule book, for speed of access. But A few people it. B the store has one C its weights a lot on top of the other stuff.

Karol wrote:
Codex+the last version of the rules updates for it. In case of stuff like marines or people using campaign books they need to bring those two. Technicaly you can bring the core rule book, for speed of access. But A few people it. B the store has one C its weights a lot on top of the other stuff.

These are games being played on my bed, because I have ever increasing numbers of days when it hurts to much to get out of bed.

Very not competitive.
The opposite. They play to spend time with me because I'm dying.
I could switch to the literally basic wargame I designed, and I don't think they'd really care that much.

They love the lore, we all learn about armies together.

As in, we go through the lore in a codex, the player using it reads it out and we roundtable discuss the lore and how to fit it to the overarching story.

One of the players has a playbook and takes highlight notes and then describes the battle like it's a lore point, fitting it in.

The Warhammer 40k hobby is actually helping us all deal with this. If we're not playing, we're talking over lore, or who wants to play next, etc, or we hang out and watch Emperors text to speech and smoke because I'm having a really bad pain day.

40K is a massive and complex game and I can understand not wanting to use of invest in all the miriad of rule books and supplements.

The problem is that its all interactive, its hard to use one thing and not another if you want any semblance of balance.

I would suggest either using the most upto date pts and datasheets from Wahapeedia and just not using CP and Strats or to just play Grimdark Future from OPR.

Grimdark is a very simple rules set, (fits on a single page of A4) designed to be 40K light. The free rules cover more or less all models and factions plus the game is fast, fun and balanced.
I play it with some friends who have given up on main 40K due to the rules bloat and its great fun.

I personally still say stick with Indexes, and you'll realise if certain things are too powerful.

I also suggest, if you're going to use stratagems, create a small pool of Command Points by which to spend them, with everyone having the same amount, and then using a very small list of the most thematic strategems to use. For example, EVERYONE gets the generic strats, and then maybe two or three faction unique strats which really sum up their faction. It's what I did when I ran for my old group - everyone had I think about 3 command points, and then had the generic strats, and one or two from their specific faction.

Basically, Index plus a small amount of thematic stratagems worked well for me. If things need tweaking, you'll know it when you see it.

 WisdomLS wrote:
40K is a massive and complex game and I can understand not wanting to use of invest in all the miriad of rule books and supplements.

The problem is that its all interactive, its hard to use one thing and not another if you want any semblance of balance.

I would suggest either using the most upto date pts and datasheets from Wahapeedia and just not using CP and Strats or to just play Grimdark Future from OPR.

Grimdark is a very simple rules set, (fits on a single page of A4) designed to be 40K light. The free rules cover more or less all models and factions plus the game is fast, fun and balanced.
I play it with some friends who have given up on main 40K due to the rules bloat and its great fun.

+1 for OPR, such a fun way to play without my brain wanting to explode from remembering all the crap 40k has

 Blndmage wrote:
I could switch to the literally basic wargame I designed, and I don't think they'd really care that much.

Why not switch then? As I've said before, the whole thing you're doing with 40k seems like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Instead of trying to turn a convoluted mess of a game into something simple why not play a game that was designed from the beginning to be simple? It seems like you're wasting a lot of time and energy on trying to justify what you're doing as Official™ Warhammer™ 40k™ instead of asking honest questions about what you need from a game.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 WisdomLS wrote:
40K is a massive and complex game and I can understand not wanting to use of invest in all the miriad of rule books and supplements.

The problem is that its all interactive, its hard to use one thing and not another if you want any semblance of balance.

I would suggest either using the most upto date pts and datasheets from Wahapeedia and just not using CP and Strats or to just play Grimdark Future from OPR.

Grimdark is a very simple rules set, (fits on a single page of A4) designed to be 40K light. The free rules cover more or less all models and factions plus the game is fast, fun and balanced.
I play it with some friends who have given up on main 40K due to the rules bloat and its great fun.

+1 for OPR, such a fun way to play without my brain wanting to explode from remembering all the crap 40k has

Most importantly, I feel, OPR is designed to work with this stripped-down style of play. You can have only a handful of units on the table and still get an engaging experience from the interplay of the activation system and morale. The few times I've done 'datasheets-only' 40K it's been pretty bland because so much of the game is now wrapped up in army-wide rules, stratagems, and combos.

Index 40k was the most miserable experince I've ever had with 40k. I enjoyed 7th much more, and I played orks.

I'd recommend playing One Page Rules, as already suggested. It's a much better (also simpler) version of the indexes era.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 Blndmage wrote:
I could switch to the literally basic wargame I designed, and I don't think they'd really care that much.

Why not switch then? As I've said before, the whole thing you're doing with 40k seems like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Instead of trying to turn a convoluted mess of a game into something simple why not play a game that was designed from the beginning to be simple? It seems like you're wasting a lot of time and energy on trying to justify what you're doing as Official™ Warhammer™ 40k™ instead of asking honest questions about what you need from a game.

Because a lot of people have no interest in tabletop games unless its Warhammer and Games Workshop with models and dice and measuring etc with the official rules. I've tried to get friends to play games in the 40k setting, with 40k models that are better gameplay and rules-wise but because its not PROPER 40k with GW-Dudes and army lists and bloat they just have no interest. Its honestly kind of weird. Even specialist games published by GW set in 40k like Aeronautica, Kill Team, Titanicus, Blackstone etc will just not gain any traction with some people because it's not specifically Warhammer 40,000 Current Edition.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 Blndmage wrote:
I could switch to the literally basic wargame I designed, and I don't think they'd really care that much.

Why not switch then? As I've said before, the whole thing you're doing with 40k seems like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Instead of trying to turn a convoluted mess of a game into something simple why not play a game that was designed from the beginning to be simple? It seems like you're wasting a lot of time and energy on trying to justify what you're doing as Official™ Warhammer™ 40k™ instead of asking honest questions about what you need from a game.

Because 40k *does* work as a simple and basic ruleset. Is it the best? No, I doubt it is, but then, neither is mainline 40k in what it's trying to be.
If the attitude of "if it's not the best, bin it" isn't exactly very productive, especially in this context.

OP, I personally think that IndexHammer is fine enough, and if you want to supplement that with some minor use of stratagems, that could be fun! Again, you and your group will ultimately be the best arbiter of what ends up working and what doesn't!

This might be helpful to watch when thinking about how to simplify 40K

 Sim-Life wrote:


Because a lot of people have no interest in tabletop games unless its Warhammer and Games Workshop with models and dice and measuring etc with the official rules. I've tried to get friends to play games in the 40k setting, with 40k models that are better gameplay and rules-wise but because its not PROPER 40k with GW-Dudes and army lists and bloat they just have no interest. Its honestly kind of weird. Even specialist games published by GW set in 40k like Aeronautica, Kill Team, Titanicus, Blackstone etc will just not gain any traction with some people because it's not specifically Warhammer 40,000 Current Edition.

Have you considered that those other games, especially the other GW ones you've listed, just don't interest them style/type wise?
Just because you enjoy putting a 40k army on the table doesn't mean you'll get the same enjoyment out of playing a game focused on 1 squad (KT), some sort of boardgame (BSF), or moving little spaceships about. Not even if it's all set in the same universe ip wise.

ccs wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:


Because a lot of people have no interest in tabletop games unless its Warhammer and Games Workshop with models and dice and measuring etc with the official rules. I've tried to get friends to play games in the 40k setting, with 40k models that are better gameplay and rules-wise but because its not PROPER 40k with GW-Dudes and army lists and bloat they just have no interest. Its honestly kind of weird. Even specialist games published by GW set in 40k like Aeronautica, Kill Team, Titanicus, Blackstone etc will just not gain any traction with some people because it's not specifically Warhammer 40,000 Current Edition.

Have you considered that those other games, especially the other GW ones you've listed, just don't interest them style/type wise?
Just because you enjoy putting a 40k army on the table doesn't mean you'll get the same enjoyment out of playing a game focused on 1 squad (KT), some sort of boardgame (BSF), or moving little spaceships about. Not even if it's all set in the same universe ip wise.

No, because they won't play other, non-GW games of the same type either. Its 40k or nothing. Several of them actually own Aeronautica, Titanicus etc but they never play them.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
[Because 40k *does* work as a simple and basic ruleset. Is it the best? No, I doubt it is, but then, neither is mainline 40k in what it's trying to be.
If the attitude of "if it's not the best, bin it" isn't exactly very productive, especially in this context.

It's absolutely productive because it's the correct answer. OP is stuck in cult of officialness nonsense and keeps trying to force 40k to be a game it isn't intended to be. The rules are never going to work well and it's always going to be extra work trying to get things to work even close to how OP wants to play. So why keep trying when better alternatives exist? Why does the Official™ Warhammer™ 40k™ Game™ label matter?

OP, I personally think that IndexHammer is fine enough, and if you want to supplement that with some minor use of stratagems, that could be fun! Again, you and your group will ultimately be the best arbiter of what ends up working and what doesn't!

Which army did you play in the index era? Because as a guard player IndexHammer wasn't fine. It was a miserable experience with a completely broken index. All of the vehicles sucked and were useless paperweights, but conscript blobs with complete immunity to morale (the thing that was supposed to be their one drawback) were overpowered enough to get an emergency nerf followed by additional nerfs in the codex era just to make 100% sure the list was dead. There was very little middle ground to make a list which had a decent chance to win but wasn't overpowered and not fun at all for your opponent.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
[Because 40k *does* work as a simple and basic ruleset. Is it the best? No, I doubt it is, but then, neither is mainline 40k in what it's trying to be.
If the attitude of "if it's not the best, bin it" isn't exactly very productive, especially in this context.

It's absolutely productive because it's the correct answer.

There isn't a correct answer. For someone berating someone for needing an "official" response, you do seem obsessed with an idea of "correctness".

Live and let live. It doesn't affect you what other people do in their own group. We're just trying to provide advice within the parameters OP has provided. Can't do that, don't respond. After all, why did you come into a thread clearly marked at discussion 40k and try talking about other games?

Which army did you play in the index era?

Space Marines (both Firstborn and Primaris), Guard, Scions, AdMech, Grey Knights, Imperial Knights, occasionally Tau.

Because as a guard player IndexHammer wasn't fine.

It was fine for me and my group.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 Blndmage wrote:
I could switch to the literally basic wargame I designed, and I don't think they'd really care that much.

Why not switch then? As I've said before, the whole thing you're doing with 40k seems like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Instead of trying to turn a convoluted mess of a game into something simple why not play a game that was designed from the beginning to be simple? It seems like you're wasting a lot of time and energy on trying to justify what you're doing as Official™ Warhammer™ 40k™ instead of asking honest questions about what you need from a game.

Since you seemed to skip this entire post, which answers the "why not switch systems?".

These are games being played on my bed, because I have ever increasing numbers of days when it hurts to much to get out of bed.

Very not competitive.
The opposite. They play to spend time with me because I'm dying.
I could switch to the literally basic wargame I designed, and I don't think they'd really care that much.

They love the lore, we all learn about armies together.

As in, we go through the lore in a codex, the player using it reads it out and we roundtable discuss the lore and how to fit it to the overarching story.

One of the players has a playbook and takes highlight notes and then describes the battle like it's a lore point, fitting it in.

The Warhammer 40k hobby is actually helping us all deal with this. If we're not playing, we're talking over lore, or who wants to play next, etc, or we hang out and watch Emperors text to speech and smoke because I'm having a really bad pain day.

Sorry, hold on, you had to have read this. Did you just ignore the entire post to pull out that one line?

 Blndmage wrote:

Sorry, hold on, you had to have read this. Did you just ignore the entire post to pull out that one line?

Lore does not have to be tied with the rules.

You can switch systems while still using the lore to backup your game's narrative

She's given her reason, and has made it pretty clear that "just play a different game" isn't a productive answer in this thread or context. That's what matters here.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Blndmage wrote:

Sorry, hold on, you had to have read this. Did you just ignore the entire post to pull out that one line?

Lore does not have to be tied with the rules.

You can switch systems while still using the lore to backup your game's narrative

As I've said multiple times now.
Its not just the game system but the WARHAMMER 40K HOBBY that is enjoyed by everyone.

Obviously my posts here get nothing but CSB rants and people picking apart why we enjoy the hobby.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Im remembering why I dropped the hobby.

I can't ask for guidance or help without all this fething bs.

 Blndmage wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Blndmage wrote:

Sorry, hold on, you had to have read this. Did you just ignore the entire post to pull out that one line?

Lore does not have to be tied with the rules.

You can switch systems while still using the lore to backup your game's narrative

As I've said multiple times now.
Its not just the game system but the WARHAMMER 40K HOBBY that is enjoyed by everyone.

Obviously my posts here get nothing but CSB rants and people picking apart why we enjoy the hobby.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Im remembering why I dropped the hobby.

I can't ask for guidance or help without all this fething bs.

Look, don't lash out at me, you asked for a simplified version of the game, we provided one that was litterally designed to work with 40k minis in a way that is more balanced/enjoyable than indexhammer.

If you don't want people's opinion, don't ask for it?

 Blndmage wrote:
As I've said multiple times now.
Its not just the game system but the WARHAMMER 40K HOBBY that is enjoyed by everyone.

But why do you need to have an Official™ Warhammer™ 40k™ Game™ to enjoy the 40k hobby? Does the GW fun police break down your door and seize your books if you try to discuss the lore while playing a game with third-party rules for your models? Does the paint refuse to stick to models that have been tainted by being used with non-GW rules?