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Link to old thread on this topic, from 9th Edition.

Suppressed
A Suppressed unit cannot use Stratagems, or has their OC reduced by 1 (to a minimum of 0), controlling player's choice.

Shocked
A Shocked unit worsens their Ballistic Skill by 1, though never worse than 6+, and rolls one additional die when making a Charge or Advance Roll, then discards one of their opponent's choice. Their OC is set to 0. They cannot use Stratagems.

Broken
A Broken unit worsens their Ballistic Skill by 2 and Weapon Skill by 1, though never worse than 6+. (This is not cumulative with the Shocked penalties.) They cannot Charge or Advance, and if they are within Engagement Range of an enemy unit during the Movement Phase, they MUST attempt to Fall Back. Their OC is set to 0. They cannot use Stratagems or make us of any abilities from an attached Leader.

Tests are taken as follows:

-During your Command Phase, any unit below Starting Strength must take a Leadership check. Unless the unit is at Half Strength or less, this cannot cause them to become worse than Suppressed.
-The first time a unit is reduced to Half Strength, it must take a Leadership check at the end of the phase.
-If a unit loses any wounds due to a weapon with the Blast or Torrent rule, it must take a Leadership check at the end of the phase.
-If a unit loses any wounds due to a melee attack, it must make a Leadership check at the end of the phase.

If a unit has to take a Leadership check for multiple reasons (reduced to Half Strength and lost one or more wounds to a Blast or Torrent weapon, for example) each additional check past the first instead confers a -1 penalty to the roll. This stacks.

Whenever a Leadership check is made for Morale, a failure increase the level of Morale penalties. The order is Suppressed->Shocked->Broken.
During your Command Phase, a successful Leadership check reduces the level of Morale penalties by one. Tests taken at other times do not lessen Morale penalties, by default.

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For current rules, things that force Battleshock due to hitting with an attack should instead force one at the end of the phase. [Example: Infernus Marines hitting with their weapon would force a test at the end of the phase automatically upon hitting an Infantry unit at -1. If any wounds are lost, because they were lost from a Torrent weapon, they must take another test, for another -1 to their roll.]
Anything that works when a unit is Battleshocked works only on a Morale check or condition of Shocked or worse-merely being Suppressed does not qualify. [Example: Daemonic Terror would not do Mortal Wounds when an enemy unit fails a Leadership check that merely Suppresses them.]

Hmm. Broadly, I like it but wouldn't want to use it.

Things I like:
* Fluctuating levels of debuffs that you can recover from steadily over time. And on the flip side, the ability for opponents to intentionally force lots of tests so that they can potentially do crowd control via morale.

* The debuffs generally feel fluffy. I can see these debuffs making sense for marines and guardsmen alike. They focus more on losing your ability to respond with flashy maneuvers (and then with basic maneuvers) rather than taking you out of the game completely.

Things I Don't Like:
* I feel like the amount of bookkeeping could stack up kind of quickly in a 2,000 point game. In a Combat Patrol or 1k game, the number of tokens and battleshock tests and so forth would probably be about right.

* Potentially losing access to strats right off the bat seems like it might be a bummer for people excited to try out a certain maneuver with a certain unit. But then again, I guess you can just give up that unit's ability to score, so maybe this concern isn't a big deal after all.

* While part of me likes the idea of being able to lean into morale tests for crowd control, it feels like this system would make it kind of easy to force a *bunch* of tests in a single turn. A 6+ Ld test isn't *that* hard to fail. Most units in your army will be making at least one test a turn for most of the game (very easy to be below starting strength). Sprinkling blasts around your army isn't a big ask, nor is getting some units into melee. I feel like half my army will be shocked by turn 3.

At the risk of adding even more complexity, I feel like that last point might be remedied somewhat if there were more ways to actively improve your chances of passing morale tests or recovering from failed ones.

Note that you do need to lose a wound to a Blast, Torrent, or melee weapon to force a test. Shooting a single Flamer at a Terminator Squad only has maybe a one in five chance of actually forcing a test.

That said, I do see your concerns. Any thoughts on how to improve it?

As for ways to improve Morale, that is definitely something that would be handy in this modification, but I'm struggling to think of any universal mechanics for that.

Hmm. Nothing is jumping to mind. You could *maybe* do something with like, proximity to character models or models with a certain keyword? But that risks creating "aura clumping" issues. I'd kind of be tempted to turn it into a bit of a minigame with certain units handing out bonuses to the morale tests as an opposite to the enemy handing out penalties (via the multiple test rule). So a commissar or a swooping hawk unit with their shiny wings "inspire" nearby units at the start of the command phase or whatever.

But I feel like that takes an already slightly complicated system and makes it more complicated.

A more involved version of this (complicated on the front end, but simpler in use) might be something like this:

* Units get a "Cool" stat. Could possibly be Ld-related/derived. Not sure.
* Instead of morale tests, units get stress points slapped on them by various effects. Weapon rules. Special abilities. Suffering too many casualties. Casualties in melee. Etc.
* At the start of your command phase, units lose X stress. Probably a random amount. Like, d3-ish.
* Then, the remaining stress is compared to your Cool threshold to see how freaked out you are.

Stress = Cool means you're Suppressed.
Stress = 3 + Cool means you're Shocked.
Stress = 6 + Cool means you're Broken.

So a Cool 2 guard unit would start getting disorganized pretty easily. Cool 4 marines would need 7 points of stress versus the guardsmens' 5 to become Shocked. Both would be losing about d3 points of stress a turn, so your opponent would have to consistently keep up the pressure to keep the debuffs going, BUT opponents would also be able to intentionally and proactively keep that pressure up without necessarily relying on inflicting mass casualties to do so.

You'd end up with about the same amount of bookkeeping (a die next to a unit to indicate the current stress instead of a die to indicate the current number of stacking Ld penalties), but that marker stress marker would now double as a reminder of whether each unit is suppressed/shocked/broken.

And obviously you could interact with this further by having chaplain types reduce extra stress or increase their unit's Cool. You could also probably go the other direction and have units gain stress to power up a mechanic. So Death Company gaining Stress to activate a melee buff, for instance.