house rules when you know the chances of you playing in a tournement are slim?

[SON OF ROMULOUS]

okay so after playing 6th as is since its release the gaming group, well at least some of us anyway. Have begun to toss around different options to fix perceived issues that we have with the game. i was just wondering if you all had any experience in doing so successfully.

basically the 2 biggest areas we wished to fix consist of how charging works and how hull points and glances work in game. we are all veteran players and honestly its almost a consensus that assault didn't need to be as badly beaten down as it was and that the total nerf to hull points via glances removing them automatically is just unneeded.

[Aspire to Glory]

Do it. Anything that makes the game more fun for you guys should be encouraged.

[SON OF ROMULOUS]

ya we have one buddy who absolutely loves this edition... lets just say he plays tau. the rest of us play mixed armies everything from marines to guard to orks to dark eldar. and its just one of those things where we look at the totality of how the rules effect every army and woudl just like to tweak a few things... like assault and hull points... those 2 things along drives us all insane except for the tau gunline lol... wonder why....

[Wolfshade]

I think house rules are great, or at least they are when they work to everyone's concensus.

The important things is to make sure that you apply them when it is to your advantage and when it is not.

[Learn2Eel]

If everyone in your gaming group agrees to them, go for it. Try to make sure everyone is having fun with the rules, including that Tau player you mentioned.

[DarkLink]

The addition of Hull Points is the single best thing that happened in 6th edition. Without hull points, light vehicle spam will rule the day again, just like it did in 5th. And Wave Serpents will be utterly broken thanks to the Serpent Shield. It's really, really good now, but if you remove hull points, all I need to do is spam Wave Serpents and it'll be like 4th ed Eldar with Holofield Falcons.

[Mr Mystery]

All you need to do is write them down!.

From there, you can refine them as you go. And yes, consensus is everything.

Remember, although only one person might object, it's entirely possible your group is their best chance at regular games. If a rule seriously affects their army more than others (say suddenly increasing cover saves, or making assault more deadly, and they play Tau) then you need to weight the response accordingly!

[SON OF ROMULOUS]

@ Darklink no hull points were not the greatest thing they ever did... hull points and having them removed by a glance was the stupidest thing they did in this edition... not to mention the horrible implementation of them.... oh wait you mean i can kill tanks and i never have to even pen them? wahoo... and this is from some one who has orks... so i pop tanks with a powerclaw... glances are so over the top in this edition its one of our biggest gripe. 2- 4 hull points being the max knowing that you can strip them with a glance is pathetic.

so hull points need to be fixed of what will happen is the group i play will do the same things we did with fantasy this edition... sit it in a corner cover it up and pretend it doesn't exist.


as to our issues with assault... its the whole everyone screaming how amazing it is that you can get a 12 inch charge but forgetting to mention that you are just as likely to roll a 2. the whole you average a 7.... ya anyone who was dumb enough to fall for that never went to Vegas.... this whole edition took assault armies and punched them in the face and pretty much said here you go gun line have at it we will make sure the rules protect you as much as we possibly can... i much rather preferred to face a parking lot... not only did they completely take out the whole prepared charges and turn it over to randomness... which if one more person tries to tell me makes it a more tactical game... no it makes more random stupid dice rolling. then they introduce over watch.... which happens weather or not you actually manage to get the charge off.. oh and did i forget to mention the way casualties go you literally can be shot out of charge range.... so ya I'm pretty sure fixing a nerf that was unneeded will certainly bring back the balance to this edition instead of GW's typical tactic of oh this was broke or op so lets make is so that it doesn't work instead of simply balancing the rules.... ala what they did to the leman russ battle tank... oh ya wait it had rules it paid for but oh well screw that we will simply eratta it so that you ignore its rule.... same goes for the poor Dark eldar flier oh you have it in your rules that you can fire all your missiles in one turn.. oh we don't like that here you can fire 2 or drop one bomb.... cheers.....


So yes all in favor of fixing the complete lack of balance that they made this into... i really don't want to play an entire edition of line up and shoot... might as well pull out nepolianics at least that would actually make since....

[Aegwymourn]

I started to read you response and got lost without any punctuation besides "..."

I'm with Darklink that hull points are incredibly good for the health of the game. About the only one I think that doesn't have enough hull points to justify cost is maybe the Land Raider.

[daboarder]

@ Darklink no hull points were not the greatest thing they ever did... hull points and having them removed by a glance was the stupidest thing they did in this edition... not to mention the horrible implementation of them.... oh wait you mean i can kill tanks and i never have to even pen them? wahoo... and this is from some one who has orks... so i pop tanks with a powerclaw... glances are so over the top in this edition its one of our biggest gripe. 2- 4 hull points being the max knowing that you can strip them with a glance is pathetic.

so hull points need to be fixed of what will happen is the group i play will do the same things we did with fantasy this edition... sit it in a corner cover it up and pretend it doesn't exist.



See this right here, is why house rules of this type are a bad thing, they are usually one or two extremely vocal players forcing their own opinion on the rest of the group.

Darklink made two very good points, 1 that vehicle spam of 5th is boring as frak to play with or against. And two that certain units such as wave serpents become ungodly good when you destroy the core mechanics they are built around.

Instead of providing a rational argument you went full rabid.

[Gleipnir]

Hull points are great, but current glancing mechanic is silly. You need only look to most the new large walkers being typed as Monstrous Creatures or having some form of hull point repair to see that even the developers recognize the new toys would be too fragile otherwise. My gaming group just adds the option of an armor save based on AP of weapon landing the glancing shot.(only one save allowed so if you want that cover save that's all you get)

AP 1 = no armor save
AP 2 = 6+
AP 3 = 5+
AP 4 = 4+
AP 5 = 3+
AP 6 or less = 2+

[DarkLink]

Flyers get real stupid, too, since basically everything with Skyfire is relatively low strength, and most of the good flyers are AV12.

Anyways, both my points still stand. Without Hull Points, Chimeras, Rhinos and Razorbacks are so cheap that parking lot armies will dominate everything except Flyers and Wave Serpents, both of which will become effectively unkillable because Flyers are so difficult to land a penetrating hit on, and Wave Serpents can downgrade pens to glances. What you end up with is a meta even more poorly balanced than the one at the end of 5th edition.

With Hull Points, which are an exceptionally simple and elegant solution to the vast majority of balance problems that plagued 5th edition,you end up with vehicles that are useful, but not overpowered. Transports are still effective, for the extra protection and speed they grant their passengers, but it's also a perfectly viable option to go foot and save those points for more infantry models.

No single other change in 6th edition has had such a positive effect on the game overall.

Edit: I actually don't see why they don't take it to the next logical step and just go to Toughness values and Wounds for vehicles. A Rhino is basically T8 with no armor save and 3 wounds.

[nurglez]

You could kill vehicles via glancing back in 5th, just wasn't as sure fire as it is in 6th (or as easy as it was in 4th).

Pesonally, I like hull points, however as mentioned above what works for your group works. We play this game to have fun and anything that helps that is a good thing :D

[Gleipnir]

I think removing vehicles being able to contest objectives and embarked units being unable to hold or contest objectives did as much to remove the parking lot feel of 5th, more so than hull points

[daboarder]

Edit: I actually don't see why they don't take it to the next logical step and just go to Toughness values and Wounds for vehicles. A Rhino is basically T8 with no armor save and 3 wounds.

I think they want to keep a bit of a distinction between vehicles and multi-wound models, a Librarian FW'ing a rhino to death is a bit odd.


I think removing vehicles being able to contest objectives and embarked units being unable to hold or contest objectives did as much to remove the parking lot feel of 5th, more so than hull points

Hardly, without a reliable means to kill transports you'd just sit your infantry behind the AV12 wall and still score.

[DarkLink]

I'd imagine they'd have Eternal Warrior. GW just has a lot of unnecessary, overwrought mechanics that bog the game and rulebook down more than they bring any special benefit. I think it would be great if they legitimately went back to the drawing board and rewrote the rules. There are a lot of areas where they could remove a lot of unnecessary complexity and add a lot of tactical depth.

[daboarder]

but if they had EW then a lascannon could never 1 shot them

[SON OF ROMULOUS]

really now so you think its balancing that main line battle tanks are destroyed with out them ever having to be penetrated? a glancing hit is to represent rounds hitting a tank but failing to penetrate the hull. think iraq war.. abram's tanks penetrated their armour easily and killed armour... iraqi tanks.... ya not so much.. when rounds don't actually penetrate the Armour they don't result in a dead tank.... yet in this edition that's what everyone does its i no longer focus on killing tanks because my weapon pens said tank and blows it up. no now its oh i need to cause 4 glances and you die that's easy enough.

funny how if you look at all the new shiny monstrous creatures none of them were given an Armour value... no they were given wounds and an Armour save... i wonder why the designers did that... oh thats right they realized if you take your riptides your eldar walker your grey knights dead knight and actually could glance them to death that no one would play them... wonder why you no longer see dreads and tanks disappeared. I can tell you why because they made them ridiculously fragile for no reason. you already pay a premium for them so what did they do made them have hull points that you can kill with a glance.... okay here let me punch you in the arm three-4 times i wont even make true contact i'm going GLANCE your arm and as a result your arm will be destroyed. Now does that make any sense to anyone?

here is an even better one hmm bolter fire 2 glances and you just managed to kill a land speeder. hmm that dread of yours we can kill that with out even having to penetrate it. hmm oh you have a vindicator or even better yet here take dark eldar.... ya their mech was so broken in the last edition i mean they didnt just die to str 5 back then either... and now they really just die.. ork trucks hmmm i'm sorry i think i just sneezed and blew apart your entire battle formation oops...

If hull points were so good and such a balancing feature of this edition then why... why do none of the new shiny kits have an armour value.... thats what i thought because if they did then they would die a horrible death via glancing and no one would ever buy them or use them.

You want to talk about balance... why not make it so that glances dont strip a hull point? make them actually roll on the table. oh and did i forget to mention that most things have an ap or 1-2 that are doing alot of damage... so a they still reliably kill armour... infact they actually do what they are suposed to do. but oh silly me i'm forgetting that whole ap1-2 adds to the damage chart... ya so it takes what a 3+ to kill a tank on a pen chart.... ya thats so so very hard to kill mech. instead of making mech a gamble you made mech near suicidal... yay bring back the tin coffin that was 4th edition....

[daboarder]

really now so you think its balancing that main line battle tanks are destroyed with out them ever having to be penetrated? a glancing hit is to represent rounds hitting a tank but failing to penetrate the hull. think iraq war.. abram's tanks penetrated their armour easily and killed armour... iraqi tanks.... ya not so much.. when rounds don't actually penetrate the Armour they don't result in a dead tank.... yet in this edition that's what everyone does its i no longer focus on killing tanks because my weapon pens said tank and blows it up. no now its oh i need to cause 4 glances and you die that's easy enough.

funny how if you look at all the new shiny monstrous creatures none of them were given an Armour value... no they were given wounds and an Armour save... i wonder why the designers did that... oh thats right they realized if you take your riptides your eldar walker your grey knights dead knight and actually could glance them to death that no one would play them... wonder why you no longer see dreads and tanks disappeared. I can tell you why because they made them ridiculously fragile for no reason. you already pay a premium for them so what did they do made them have hull points that you can kill with a glance.... okay here let me punch you in the arm three-4 times i wont even make true contact i'm going GLANCE your arm and as a result your arm will be destroyed. Now does that make any sense to anyone?

here is an even better one hmm bolter fire 2 glances and you just managed to kill a land speeder. hmm that dread of yours we can kill that with out even having to penetrate it. hmm oh you have a vindicator or even better yet here take dark eldar.... ya their mech was so broken in the last edition i mean they didnt just die to str 5 back then either... and now they really just die.. ork trucks hmmm i'm sorry i think i just sneezed and blew apart your entire battle formation oops...

If hull points were so good and such a balancing feature of this edition then why... why do none of the new shiny kits have an armour value.... thats what i thought because if they did then they would die a horrible death via glancing and no one would ever buy them or use them.

You want to talk about balance... why not make it so that glances dont strip a hull point? make them actually roll on the table. oh and did i forget to mention that most things have an ap or 1-2 that are doing alot of damage... so a they still reliably kill armour... infact they actually do what they are suposed to do. but oh silly me i'm forgetting that whole ap1-2 adds to the damage chart... ya so it takes what a 3+ to kill a tank on a pen chart.... ya thats so so very hard to kill mech. instead of making mech a gamble you made mech near suicidal... yay bring back the tin coffin that was 4th edition....

See this is my point. Youve got a chip on your shoulder and your not going to admit you might be wrong

MBTs bave higher armkur making a glance harder to get. And some of them also have more HPs.

The new kits were made MCs because those rules suit them both better than the walker rules would have.

Harden up princess

[DarkLink]

Actually, it's significantly easier to kill a Dreadknight than, say, a Wave Serpent, at least by hull points/wounds. Dreadknights are quite a bit more vulnerable to stuff like Plasma and Rending. And, sadly, Wave Serpents probably do more damage shooting than a Dreadknight, and they're a transport, and they're like a hundred points cheaper.

[Cactus]

Our group of friends does this on a regular basis, but we all kind of know the rules... no named characters, allies, forgeworld, etc. We try to keep our games more of a low-level troop fight because we don't care for "hero hammer" but that's just the gentlemanly way we play each other. In tourneys, all bets are off.

[daboarder]

Our group of friends does this on a regular basis, but we all kind of know the rules... no named characters, allies, forgeworld, etc. We try to keep our games more of a low-level troop fight because we don't care for "hero hammer" but that's just the gentlemanly way we play each other. In tourneys, all bets are off.

So deathwing and ravenwing armies get the shaft?

Or sanguinary gaurd armies,

Chaos chosen lists,

Paladin lists.....

you've just gutted the playing styles of a number of armies, nice job!

No chaos IG, no eldar compacts, no allies of any kind....What a BORING way to play!

[SON OF ROMULOUS]

Um no they dont..... funny that forgeworld and all their new kits work just fine as walkers.... funny how warwalkers for eldar stayed as walkers... its your opinion that those same said rules reflect their background better. if thats the case and fluff wise they are so rare why 0-3 and not 0-1?

Funny thing if you look at how fragile mech had to be beaten down to... fix what a parking lost mentality? congrats you replaced it with castling tau. you also replaced it with things like the aegis defense line... funny thing about that its got a toughness.... thats odd.. oh wait nevermind now i remembered why because if it had an armour value it would get killed way too fast.

So congrats you managed to get rid of the parking lost list to replace it with msu flyer spam and castling.... i thought this was the most awesome edition ever? if that were the case then shouldn't all list be created equally? shouldn't you see just as many horde lists as you do mech or hybrid? that would be a balanced edition and not this.

don't even let me get started on how pathetic assault has been beaten down... hmm let's think to help shooting armies what did they do.... oh thats right they changed cover rules, introduced, overwatch, random charge range, and not to be forgotten they adjusted how you actually take casualties... yes lets make that 6 inch move disappear as you mow down the front ranks. and lets speak of this fabled 7inch charge average.... you have just as much of a chance of rolling something thats not a 7.... so yes please lets make this game even more random so that people don't have to actually plan their moves plan charges. lets just make the whole game random.. why not have random movements random stats i mean yay.....


could this be why players leave 40k and fantasy and play other games... hmm flames of war... rules that make sense... hmm warmachines... infinity... random everything was not the way to go with this edition... here let me roll a d6 and decide whether or not a pull you over tonight.... maybe i'll roll a d6 to determine if i write a citation tonight for every person i encounter.... i'm sure my sgt would love me.

[daboarder]

....what the heck are you refering to mate?

Throw in a quote at least.

oh you mean the MC's in tau and eldar...

well for starters, wraith constructs have since 3rd been MC's....considering the knight is a giant construct wounds make more sense than an armour value.

and the riptide is a gian suit, as such they again went with wound/toughness over AV, all makes perfect sense. Its also easier to integrate their speed by making them MC's than walkers, we had enough trouble with sanguinary winging dreadnoughts....

[GrauGeist]

Actually, it's significantly easier to kill a Dreadknight than, say, a Wave Serpent,

A couple squads of Eldar Guardians will drop a Wraithknight a lot easier than a Wave Serpent...

[SON OF ROMULOUS]

I believe the biggest issue is GW and a lack of consistency from codex to codex. anyone who doesn't already see that the 6th ed codicies aren't balanced isn't thinking. Tau had the drawback of being uber squishy when they were caught up in combat. so what did they do make it so that charges as random you will face shooting to get to them then shooting to simply assault them. strange that eldar didn't get any thing similar to that. look at what they did to banshees? i know what i'm talking already and it ain't them.

did anyone even think of how easy it is to blow up things like ork trucks or how easy it is to kill kans and dreads? what about Dark eldar? thier mostly av10 and 2 hull points maybe 3 if some one was feeling charitable.


There is just so many inconsistencies that don't make any sense. okay look at the russ. if you don't think they didn't pay for lumbering behemoth then you're kidding yourself. what did GW do? they tell you to ignore their rules same as they do for the dark eldar fliers and their missiles. Yes i understand in 5th mech was king but seriously you can balance things without Gw's typical over reactionary approach where they make what ever was good so bad that no one wants to take them or tha their simply unusable.

[daboarder]

I believe the biggest issue is GW and a lack of consistency from codex to codex. anyone who doesn't already see that the 6th ed codicies aren't balanced isn't thinking. Tau had the drawback of being uber squishy when they were caught up in combat. so what did they do make it so that charges as random you will face shooting to get to them then shooting to simply assault them. strange that eldar didn't get any thing similar to that. look at what they did to banshees? i know what i'm talking already and it ain't them.

did anyone even think of how easy it is to blow up things like ork trucks or how easy it is to kill kans and dreads? what about Dark eldar? thier mostly av10 and 2 hull points maybe 3 if some one was feeling charitable.


There is just so many inconsistencies that don't make any sense. okay look at the russ. if you don't think they didn't pay for lumbering behemoth then you're kidding yourself. what did GW do? they tell you to ignore their rules same as they do for the dark eldar fliers and their missiles. Yes i understand in 5th mech was king but seriously you can balance things without Gw's typical over reactionary approach where they make what ever was good so bad that no one wants to take them or tha their simply unusable.

Are you done whinging? do you want to throw your toys out of the sandpit or do you want to take that concrete pill and harden up?

no game is ever balanced, particularly no GW game, they write their rules mostly from background inspiration. Accept it and move on or don't, either way huffing and puffing about it isn't going to change anything. there is plenty of nasty in all the 6th ed codexes, from the hellturkey, to the daemon circus, the eldar serpent of doom
or the unkillable missile battery.

learn how to deal with these units when they show up.

edit: Oh your a GUARD player, I see now, sorry yeah no sympathy here, wait till you get your codex in a few months, hopefully there will be price increase mostly across the board.

[DarkLink]

Hah, a Guard player? No wonder.

[SON OF ROMULOUS]

oh ya im such a child when so far i have yet to call you a name and you've already resorted to pretty much saying im a what was it a princess then a whiner then something about throwing away all my toys... ya real nice.


and haha unlike you i actually have several armies i've been in this game for a while kid. so unlike you i don't suffer from grey mini syndrome or the new flavor of the month...


and i hope the new guard/marine codocies makes ppl like you nerd rage and scream cheese

and right now i'm actually using my world eaters.... so ya havent even touched my guard in this edition.... so maybe get your head our of your arse and ask before you make an assumption. but then again i guess if you remove some letters from assumption you get you.

i can actually say i play more than one army thus my points are towards balance... not some little power gamer like you...


lets see i have templars wolves my own hom brewed chapter imperial fists guard chaos death guard and world eaters a small eldar force and orks even have grey knights.... so yes let me tell you i'm going to take all my toys and throw them away.... not to mention super heavies.... so ya i'm pretty sure the titans alone are more of an investment in this game then you've probably ever spent....should have expected this place to have the same trolls as warseer...

[daboarder]

oh ya im such a child when so far i have yet to call you a name and you've already resorted to pretty much saying im a what was it a princess then a whiner then something about throwing away all my toys... ya real nice.


and haha unlike you i actually have several armies i've been in this game for a while kid. so unlike you i don't suffer from grey mini syndrome or the new flavor of the month...


and i hope the new guard/marine codocies makes ppl like you nerd rage and scream cheese

and right now i'm actually using my world eaters.... so ya havent even touched my guard in this edition.... so maybe get your head our of your arse and ask before you make an assumption. but then again i guess if you remove some letters from assumption you get you.

i can actually say i play more than one army thus my points are towards balance... not some little power gamer like you...


lets see i have templars wolves my own hom brewed chapter imperial fists guard chaos death guard and world eaters a small eldar force and orks even have grey knights.... so yes let me tell you i'm going to take all my toys and throw them away.... not to mention super heavies.... so ya i'm pretty sure the titans alone are more of an investment in this game then you've probably ever spent....should have expected this place to have the same trolls as warseer...
Such a stereotype.

Your attempt at starting a 40k dick waving competition further reinforces your immaturity

[SON OF ROMULOUS]

Funny thing when that fits you to a t....
glad you dont play any where around here your personality is so wonderful you would be a real pleasure to play against...

and its never a contest against some one like you. when you have some one who paints collects and plays as opposed to the typical brat who gets in buys the flavor of the month only to hop onto the next shiny thing faster then sally slides down her pole on a friday night.


When you've actually played through several editions and play other games then just 40k put on you big boy pants and you can come back to the adults table and talk about a balanced gaming system.

[Wolfshade]

...if you remove some letters from assumption you get you....

sum?
ion?

[SON OF ROMULOUS]

House rules are meant to fix errors found with in the game or with in the codex themselves. take dark eldar none of their hq's can take a jet bike. if we house rule it to allow them to take a jet bike does that suddenly break the game?
example 2 space marine command squad doesnt come with the option for jump packs? yet you have a jumppack captin... does that break the game if your opponent suddenly has jumppacks on his command squad?
take the new faq for the DKOK if you treat the hades like a drop pod or treat it like a mawloc does that suddenly make the game so unfun for you that you dont want to play because the designers got something wrong?
I'll bet you were one of the dbags who was screaming that typhus couldnt expand zombie units because of some wierd typo/misprint in the codex even though everyone knew kelly wanted typhus to be able to make swarms of zombies but the rules lawyers and RAI crowd surges forth because if they loose it has to be because you cheated and because you broke the rules... no its called you lost because you either messed up on you own or you just suck as a player... the guy beat you he was better his dice were hot get over it. the book sums it up itself several times.. the point is for everyone to have fun not just for you to have fun.. you play your way we play ours.

I already know the majority of my gaming circle is okay changing and tweaking the rules. we have one vocal hold out thats it. so democracy wins this isnt the will of the minority rules the majority its the majority says this goes and the minority can either play with the majority or they can go play by themselves.

[LordGrise]

Ho-kay, gents, both 'a yez back it down a notch, hanh? The subject is house rules. Can we get back on point?

I haven't been playing all that much thanks to work and an every-other-week game of Champions (superhero RP game) but I agree that glances are too much right now. We haven't addressed it in the group I run with, because most of the regular players are rather conservative about such things. But I like that AP save chart - I would play with that. It could also be based on the AV of the armor instead; we could kick that around a bit.

I play Tau pretty much exclusively. A thought I had a long time ago was that the mechanics of the game, particularly table size, kind of set the Tau up for failure; if you really want to see how the Tau ought to be playing, one would need to simulate that 'Russian Defense' thing they always emphasize in the fluff: that the Tau hardly ever hold their ground to the bitter end. You can't do that with the standard rules; it's easy, particularly with high-model-count armies like the Orcs to pin me against the table edge and force melee. But what if the Tau could voluntarily go off the table edge and into reserves? Let the flaming begin anew...

[Cactus]

So deathwing and ravenwing armies get the shaft? Nope, no shaft given! DAs can play very well without special characters; just like we all do.


Or sanguinary gaurd armies, No, not really. Blood Angels are great and don't need a special character to be fun.


Chaos chosen lists, Chaos is nasty and competitive, even without the bonus rules for named models.


Paladin lists..... Paladins and termies don't require Drago to kick *** with silver boots!


you've just gutted the playing styles of a number of armies, nice job! Sarcasm noted and appreciated! I think you missed the point of my friends and I "not" enjoying hero hammer. We didn't do that to shaft anyone, that's the way we like to play.


No chaos IG, no eldar compacts, no allies of any kind....What a BORING way to play! That's your opinion. We think allies take away from good army construction and generalship. It doesn't take a smart player to just cork a hole in your army with bits from another army. Plus, we enjoy the fluff of the game and most of us feel that allies don't fit the rest of the 40k universe. "Suffer not the alien to live."

Like I said before; this is the way we like to play. Since we all play by the same rules, no one is really "shafted," "gutted," or otherwise left feeling that they have played a boring. Clumsy insults with bad grammar from a guy on the internet isn't going change that.

[DarkLink]

Any list with more than a single unit of Paladins requires Draigo to be competitive, and even with just one unit Draigo is still pretty important.


oh ya im such a child when so far i have yet to call you a name and you've already resorted to pretty much saying im a what was it a princess then a whiner then something about throwing away all my toys... ya real nice.

While daboarder did call you a whiner, because of the whining and ranting you've been doing, no one has called you a child, no one has referred to our mutual hobby of war barbies as toys, and no one has told you to throw them away.



and haha unlike you i actually have several armies i've been in this game for a while kid. so unlike you i don't suffer from grey mini syndrome or the new flavor of the month...

When have either of us stated what armies we play? You're jumping to conclusions with absolutely no evidence. That is a sign of either trolldom or intellectual immaturity.

However, if you go back and look through my post history, it would be pretty readily apparent that I play Grey Knights. I've played them for... 6 years now, I think? Long before they were C:GK, back when they were C: Daemonhunters and were tied with Necrons for the weakest army in the game. Most of my Terminators, Purifiers, and about half of my Strike Squad models are old metal models.

I also have a Sisters of Battle army that I used to ally in from the Witchhunters codex. With 6th, I've picked up some Space Marines for allies. And I've had about 2000-2500pts of Mechdar for several years now as a secondary army, though I rarely play them and I'm pretty much waiting to figure out what paint scheme I want before I really start playing them.


but then again i guess if you remove some letters from assumption you get you.

I hate to break it to you, but 'you' is nowhere in assumption. Assumption doesn't even have a Y in it.



i can actually say i play more than one army thus my points are towards balance...

How many armies you personally play is fairly irrelevant to your demonstrated lack of understanding of the balance of the competitive metagame.



not some little power gamer like you...

If we're power gamers, then you're a scrub. Not that you have the slightest clue whether or not we're power gamers, but whatever.



lets see i have templars wolves my own hom brewed chapter imperial fists guard chaos death guard and world eaters a small eldar force and orks even have grey knights.... so yes let me tell you i'm going to take all my toys and throw them away.... not to mention super heavies.... so ya i'm pretty sure the titans alone are more of an investment in this game then you've probably ever spent....

I recall a quote from Crossfit founder Greg Glassman, paraphrased; "a fitness contest without a repeatable, accurate, and precise means of measuring fitness is like having a dick-measuring contest where everyone's wearing a heavy, buttoned up coat and no one brought a ruler".



should have expected this place to have the same trolls as warseer...

You're from warseer? That explains even more.

Also, capitalization, complete sentences, and proper use of ellipses. Which is mildly ironic given that that statement there wasn't a complete sentence, but whatever. Point is, ellipses are not a substitute for normal periods/full stops, and at least the illusion of literacy makes your arguments quite a bit more persuasive.

[magickbk]

I am relatively opposed to house rules as a way to 'fix' perceived issues in the game for a few reasons.

For starters, people who have played as long as I have, yet play as infrequently as I am able, have enough trouble as it is keeping old rules from coming into play. I played in a new store for the first time against someone who plays there all the time, and we both almost made some mistakes pulling up old rules.

Secondly, when you play against someone new, or someone new joins your group, it can be difficult to either remember to stop using your house rules, or to expect someone new to pick them all up in a reasonable amount of time.

Also, it can be very difficult to come up with a 'rules fix' that equally benefits all players. Something that you perceive as a weakness for your army may be there by design, and tweaking the rules set alters the way the entire game flows. In this sense, once you start tweaking rules too much, you are no longer playing Warhammer 40,000. When I was a kid playing early 2nd edition, we tried to tweak the rules to accommodate for scratch-built vehicles we created (in those days, most vehicles in the rules didn't have models). These things we built may have looked neat to us, but they were absurdly unbalanced. The same thing can happen any time you tweak a rule, it will make some units stronger and other units weaker. That is what you are trying to do, but it is a complicated task, which is why GW's designers have difficulty getting it consistent.

That being said, I do believe there are a number of situations where house rules are very useful, and should be encouraged. The designers frequently refer to using house rules to sort out a few situations like these.

Terrain: it is impossible for the rules to compensate for every crazy piece of terrain you might create, and you might need house rules to explain how certain pieces work.

Campaigns: You may choose to alter rules for the duration of a campaign to represent the warzone, supply shortages, or modify the allies matrix to represent the story.

Apocalypse or Planetstrike: They are outside the normal scope of the rules, and suggest going crazy with stuff.

Game setup: This is basically the only one I use sometimes, which is to set up an even battlefield that makes sense in layout before rolling missions or deployment, and then tweaking some positioning afterwards if needed.

It is ultimately up to each group to decide what to do, but in the interests of being able to play against anyone anywhere whether or not they even speak your language, keeping one set of rules is an important asset to the hobby.

[Cactus]

I think some people have valid arguments, but it's still "house rules."

When you and your opponent agree to rules, that's your prerogative and no one can stop you. If someone else finds your rules overpowered, boring, cheesy, or broken, they don't have to play that way.

Heck, every tournament I've been to has some form of house rules like, scenarios, terrain, deployment, limiting challenges the first turn, a rules quiz, painting requirements, sportsmanship scores... There's a lot of things out that that are "house rules."

[daboarder]

Nope, no shaft given! DAs can play very well without special characters; just like we all do.

No, not really. Blood Angels are great and don't need a special character to be fun.

Chaos is nasty and competitive, even without the bonus rules for named models.

Paladins and termies don't require Drago to kick *** with silver boots!

Sarcasm noted and appreciated! I think you missed the point of my friends and I "not" enjoying hero hammer. We didn't do that to shaft anyone, that's the way we like to play.

That's your opinion. We think allies take away from good army construction and generalship. It doesn't take a smart player to just cork a hole in your army with bits from another army. Plus, we enjoy the fluff of the game and most of us feel that allies don't fit the rest of the 40k universe. "Suffer not the alien to live."

Like I said before; this is the way we like to play. Since we all play by the same rules, no one is really "shafted," "gutted," or otherwise left feeling that they have played a boring. Clumsy insults with bad grammar from a guy on the internet isn't going change that.

No I think you missed the point.....without special characters those types of armies DO NOT EXIST!

Youve just removed about a 3rd or so of potential armies.

What a silly way to play, hello 6th ed calling. What happens if a new guy who wants to play deathwing shows up? I suppose you just gang up on the bloke and brow beat him out of it dont you? Nevermind that such a list has been around for longer thab the sc required to unlock it.

[DarkLink]

The single best thing about the Grey Knight codex is that it has very good internal balance. Aside from Psyrifle Dreads being about 15-20pts too cheap, you can mix and match units randomly to your hearts desire and come out with a pretty solid list with very little fine tuning. Special characters are vital to this. Without Draigo, Coteaz, or Crowe, Paladins, Purifiers, and Henchmen bands would be very rare, because Grey Knights are too expensive to be able to take both a bunch of elite/FA/HS and fit enough scoring units to have a good army. FOC swaps are vital to the balance there. And it's not like the special characters themselves are broken. Except Coteaz, but he's more underpriced than broken, and even then compared to, say, an Eldar Farseer he's not that terrible. He should probably be like 130pts or so. But Draigo is stupidly expensive and footslogging, and Crowe is just terrible at everything except suiciding an enemy HQ or getting another Cleansing Flame in your list.

[chicop76]

Did you say Grey Knights have good eternal balance? If you say so.

Examples:

1. How much is a marine assault cannon around 30 points right. What assault cannons can be mounted on mainly vehicles and terminators. However you have this balanced army on average pay 1/3 the cost and can put them on troops. Not only that instead of snap firing when they move the weapon can be assault 2. Wonder why no biomancy for this army. Ohh I forgot these assault cannons are +1 strength and you can have a 10 man squad take up to 4 of them in a squad. Yeah ok.

2. If my memeory servies me right they all have power weapons that can be at + 1 strength or cause instant death. Not to mention gear that can lower toughness or powers that can raise strength again.

3. Best grenades in the game

4. Vehicles are immune to shaken and stun if I remember correctly.

5. Have a flying instant death monsterous creature that on turn one can possibly assault you. Heck the grey knight fast attack squads can posibly assault turn one.

I can probably go down a long list. I can go over a long list how they got nerfed as well vs Daemons and horde armies. They did pick up a lot of shooting though. Anyway the army speak for itself.

I really don't like house rules. It's good if you go to one store all the time, but is annoying if you travel a lot and go to many stores. It pisses off new cutomer base and out of towners since they have to learn house rules which are not told until you are half way in the game. Heck I know a few stores I stopped going to do to house rules.

Also it messes up people who are trying to learn the game and it hurts you when you play at another store. Honestly it's only really good within a gaming club and used amost members in that club.

The thing I hate if you are visiting and they demand you to play house rules. I simply pack up my things and tell them sorry I guess I was going to buy x at another store and play at another store.

In my situation I can think of over 10 stores in a month time I can possibly play at. Some see me often, some see me like once a month, and some see me like several months apart. However I drop anywhere from 5 dollars to several hundred dollars at a time. I go to the store I like rather than jut go to any store.

[Nabterayl]

Did you say Grey Knights have good eternal balance? If you say so.

Examples:

1. How much is a marine assault cannon around 30 points right. What assault cannons can be mounted on mainly vehicles and terminators. However you have this balanced army on average pay 1/3 the cost and can put them on troops. Not only that instead of snap firing when they move the weapon can be assault 2. Wonder why no biomancy for this army. Ohh I forgot these assault cannons are +1 strength and you can have a 10 man squad take up to 4 of them in a squad. Yeah ok.

2. If my memeory servies me right they all have power weapons that can be at + 1 strength or cause instant death. Not to mention gear that can lower toughness or powers that can raise strength again.

3. Best grenades in the game

4. Vehicles are immune to shaken and stun if I remember correctly.

5. Have a flying instant death monsterous creature that on turn one can possibly assault you. Heck the grey knight fast attack squads can posibly assault turn one.

I can probably go down a long list. I can go over a long list how they got nerfed as well vs Daemons and horde armies. They did pick up a lot of shooting though. Anyway the army speak for itself.
Uh, "good internal balance" doesn't mean the same thing as "good external balance." He said the internal, not external.

[chicop76]

Uh, "good internal balance" doesn't mean the same thing as "good external balance." He said the internal, not external.

I only half read what he wrote lol. I figured people here do that a lot so why I should I bother reading everything. Not emplying Darklink does that, he actually read most of people's post before he responds to it. Anyway I say Greyknight and did the OMG GreyKnight reaction so typical of most gamers of today.

[DarkLink]

Yeah, internal balance is how the units in the codex compare to each other. Matt Ward tends to write books with very good internal balance. You can take any unit and make it work, and there aren't too many obvious choices. Grey Knights were a top tier army at the end of 5th, but there were a half dozen different competitive GK builds, and about the only thing any of them had in common was Psyrifle Dreads. Compare to Phil Kelly, where certain units *coughLongFangscough* are clearly better than basically any of the other HS options. Or CSM, where Heldrakes are by far the best thing in the entire codex by a pretty big margin. SWs have poor internal balance, GKs have very good internal balance.

That's very different from external balance, that is, how an army stacks up against other codices.

Now, I've always though that GKs were a little bit overrated as far as the idea that they were OP. They were certainly a top tier army, and they were certainly a pain to play against, but if you knew how they worked and knew how to counter them then they certainly weren't impossible to beat, they were just really good, but not so good as to be alone at the top. And while they were very popular, they didn't actually win an inordinate number of tournaments beyond their sheer popularity.

In 6th, the meta, core rules, and new codices have changed such that if you're still having problems with GKs, that's pretty much your fault. There are still a few bad matchups (GKs with lots of Psyrifle Dreadnoughts absolutely slaughter Dark Eldar), but now a lot of armies like Tau are really tough for Grey Knights to deal with.

[Cactus]

No I think you missed the point.....without special characters those types of armies DO NOT EXIST!

Youve just removed about a 3rd or so of potential armies.

What a silly way to play, hello 6th ed calling. What happens if a new guy who wants to play deathwing shows up? I suppose you just gang up on the bloke and brow beat him out of it dont you? Nevermind that such a list has been around for longer thab the sc required to unlock it.


1/3 of potential armies? I'm not into math-hammer either but that seems to be an overstatement. It's just our mindset that SC aren't needed to play and/or win games. We've also been playing long enough to know when someone has won because they were able to buy a certain model for their army, or if they've played a solid tactical game, or if someone's dice were hot.

No, we don't beat up the new guy. Where in the world did I give the impression that we'd pick on any player? Like I said, we play with our house rules amongst our friends, that's all. There's nothing in the rules that says you have to play a SC, so we don't. It's not like I said we can't play with "hq" choices...

[daboarder]

No, we don't beat up the new guy. Where in the world did I give the impression that we'd pick on any player? Like I said, we play with our house rules amongst our friends, that's all. There's nothing in the rules that says you have to play a SC, so we don't. It's not like I said we can't play with "hq" choices...


I would have said the fact that you tell him no he cannot play a deathwing army was basically the same.

so lists that require SC's

Sanguinary wing
Deathwing
ravenwing
palladin's
henchmen
hellion lists
Chaos Chosen lists


out of 15 basic lists you've just cut out the ones that rely on a SC to unlock different troops choices because you afraid of something you on't even have experience with, thats is just shortsighted and silly.

[SON OF ROMULOUS]

Funny how no one complained when they house rules how warhammer handles the magic phase. Maybe it was because a lot of players realized just how broken it was. Odd how you never hear anyone complaining about how they limited that. There is a reason you change things. Whether its because the game designers or their playtesters simply failed to see. It happens they are human. Its only logical to change something that is perceived to be wrong or its interpretation doesn't follow its intentions. if what you are saying is true and i'm whining and ranting about how this and that is broken and needs changed then how about ever time you play you only use your codex and the rule book. youre not allowed to use and faq's eratta's nothing you play verbatum for every misprint or irregularity or use every vague rules that they had to clarify.

Ya pretty much thought so... There is a reason they do those things they change the rules unit entries or even how things function. why do they do that because they got something wrong or there was a clarification. without changing the rules try running plague zombies with typhus. max you will ever get is 60 mini's on the table playing RAW before they faq'd it. funny how your not complaining when they release a new faq and errata. Yet when someone attempts to change or tweak the rules that they play with in their own group you pitch a fit because there has to be a cheesy or whiny reason behind why they want to change them. maybe its because we've played the game long enough and have a strong enough grasp of how other games play and wish to incorporate more streamlined rules. No one complained when they dumbed down fantasy.. If my group decides to tweak game mechanics then why the hell shouldn't we... its our game our mini's and our time and money thats invested not yours. are Gw lawyers going to come kicking down the door and arrest us for changing their game? No...No they really won't. maybe if you would get your head out of your arse for a minute you'd ask what changes we proposed or how those changes tweaked the game. Was it a success a failure or a mixed bag? Nope you didn't instead in your closed narrow minded simplistic approach you went all i like this game and i don't wanna change a thing. Who's the immature one now? that would be you. we've played 6th edition as is no changes since it was released every week varying point levels. And The majority of us want to see changes. The best part is you cant even claim that were picking on the tau player.. He still lost Fyi even as things stand.

[DarkLink]

Nothing in 40k is as broken as I understand half of Fantasy to be. Not that I play Fantasy, so I'm no expert, but aside from issues with Flyers, all the balance problems with 40k only require minor tweaks, and overall 6th is pretty well balanced.

[daboarder]

Romulous Are you still here? damn.

look I think this thread is pretty much the best answer to the question you can get, what we have here is a bunch of people condemning the rules and those who follow them with all the insults typically used in the game for WAAC players and cheaters, no contemplation that we could LIKE the rules the way they are, no we only wish to play them because we are apparently cheesey gits.

you both have chips on your shoulder and in my experience such chips arise from reading about warhmmer on the internet far more than actually playing the game.

[magickbk]

Nothing in 40k is as broken as I understand half of Fantasy to be. Not that I play Fantasy, so I'm no expert, but aside from issues with Flyers, all the balance problems with 40k only require minor tweaks, and overall 6th is pretty well balanced.

The amazing thing is that Fantasy WAS waaaaay more balanced than 40K a few years ago, and they went crazy with it.

Also, I find it amusing that people are defending the rules for a change.

[HsojVvad]

Wow, just WOW! A thread asking about if using house rules is ok, and now here we are bickering around about real life mechanics and penetration vs glancing tanks to death. You know guys you are arguing about a plastic toy soldier game right? Instead of arguing why not "debate" instead?

A few good points were made, and NONE OF THEM, were said to be good or bad. All is going on is people opinions a "I am right, you are wrong" mentality going on, and then talking about peoples character if not agreeing with said opinion. Come on guys GROW UP. We are all nerds and geeks playing with plastic toy soldiers, stop pretending you are JOCKS and better than others.

You want to "discuss", then counter point with what someone said by quoting them. I thought there was a good fix about "glancing hits" and giving them an armour save, but it was never debated if it was good or not and why it was good or not. Instead we still have, "you are beneath us, good thing you don't play here" and "I am right you are wrong no matter what you say".

Listen to what people are saying. I thought all this high school stuff is done with. Now all I read is people bullying others because they think they are better than someone else because of an opinion? Some of you people are worse than the bullies at school. At least they had some other issues, all we have is plastic toy soldiers.

Shamefull, very shamefull. Maybe it's not a good time to have come back to the community I once so loved.

[Cactus]

out of 15 basic lists you've just cut out the ones that rely on a SC to unlock different troops choices because you afraid of something you on't even have experience with, thats is just shortsighted and silly.

I'm not afraid of any of those lists and I do have experience both playing and playing against lists with SCs. You keep projecting some sort of bias on my playing level, how I treat other players, and my understanding of the rules based on the statement - my friends and I don't play special characters against each other. That is shortsighted and silly.

I haven't even said anything bad about people who like playing special characters or people who want to play those lists. All I've said is that my friends and I play without them at what we feel is a more fundamental game.

If you feel you need a special character to have fun, go for it. If you feel that playing with Loganwing is just as challenging as playing with a regular force-org Space Wolf list, that's your opinion. Until now, I've never seen the argument that Sangwing is just as balanced as regular Blood Angel list.

We asked ourselves: Is it a balanced game to play a special character against an army that doesn't have a special character? We don't think so. So, we don't use them.

You are more than free to field whatever else you want that is in your army book. Lots of armies change their force-org without SCs. Like Orks taking Nobs, then getting a battlewagon as troops and a troop transport and that's fine. If you want to play herohammer and need a special character to win, go for it! I just won't be playing one against you.

[magickbk]

It's interesting as far as SCs are concerned, since they once required opponent's permission to use, and had point level restrictions on when you could take them. However, what if one of your players builds a codex legal army, and then in the next version of the Codex, the army requires a SC to play. Does that player have to stop using that army, and purchase other units from the Codex instead of the way their army used to work, or do you allow them to field that force with a generic HQ?

[chicop76]

Funny how no one complained when they house rules how warhammer handles the magic phase. Maybe it was because a lot of players realized just how broken it was. Odd how you never hear anyone complaining about how they limited that. There is a reason you change things. Whether its because the game designers or their playtesters simply failed to see. It happens they are human. Its only logical to change something that is perceived to be wrong or its interpretation doesn't follow its intentions. if what you are saying is true and i'm whining and ranting about how this and that is broken and needs changed then how about ever time you play you only use your codex and the rule book. youre not allowed to use and faq's eratta's nothing you play verbatum for every misprint or irregularity or use every vague rules that they had to clarify.

Ya pretty much thought so... There is a reason they do those things they change the rules unit entries or even how things function. why do they do that because they got something wrong or there was a clarification. without changing the rules try running plague zombies with typhus. max you will ever get is 60 mini's on the table playing RAW before they faq'd it. funny how your not complaining when they release a new faq and errata. Yet when someone attempts to change or tweak the rules that they play with in their own group you pitch a fit because there has to be a cheesy or whiny reason behind why they want to change them. maybe its because we've played the game long enough and have a strong enough grasp of how other games play and wish to incorporate more streamlined rules. No one complained when they dumbed down fantasy.. If my group decides to tweak game mechanics then why the hell shouldn't we... its our game our mini's and our time and money thats invested not yours. are Gw lawyers going to come kicking down the door and arrest us for changing their game? No...No they really won't. maybe if you would get your head out of your arse for a minute you'd ask what changes we proposed or how those changes tweaked the game. Was it a success a failure or a mixed bag? Nope you didn't instead in your closed narrow minded simplistic approach you went all i like this game and i don't wanna change a thing. Who's the immature one now? that would be you. we've played 6th edition as is no changes since it was released every week varying point levels. And The majority of us want to see changes. The best part is you cant even claim that were picking on the tau player.. He still lost Fyi even as things stand.



My issue with the whole matter is unless the house rules is with members who play all the time with the same people. People have enough problems following the normal rules as is. I find house rules can be really offensive to new commers and peoplewho visit out of town.

I am one of those out of town gamers and it's really annoying if I go to a store and feel like I am forced to play with a house rule or rules set in place at the store. What's worse is said rules are not known before you even play and come up mid game. The experance comes out as down right cheating against the out of towner, wich in turn I don't go to stores like that, funny the stores that uses home brew rules are the ones who went out of bussiness.

What"s worse is I know players who think the home brew rules are the actual rules. Also keep in mind it messes up people who decide to play tournaments. I did poorly in my first tournament due to not correcting mistakes in one game prior and just taking someones word.

I am at a point where I feel just play by the rules. It doesn't cause problems.

When I do role playing games like Rifts I do modify the rules a lot, but I tell people what I am doing before I do it. I am use to so many powergamers I have to do things like change weakness on monsters with new weakness, unless you play in character and actually know x weakness.

An example is if you are fighting vampires in today's time line I will give you the tradition.al weakness since most people today know them, if it is the actually weakness of said vampire. Like sunlight is assumed, but the vampire can be possibly immun.e for example.

In rifts unless you are from an area plagued by vampires you will not know how to deal with them. Funny thing is most people don't pick up that most rifts character's can't read nor write. Also media is very differant, etc. It is possible that most of the people will not know what a vampire is, so if party x decides to go to town x to kill something they don't know about and carry weapons galore to kill x problem which in game they don't know. Than I have to change the mechanics s, so they have to actually role play to figure out how to deal with x problem. I tell you before hand and if you don't like it tough.

40k is a bit differant since you are playing many differant games instead of one campain. Also yu will more than likely be playing with many differant people than with the same people. Which at that point it is simpliar to play by the rules.

[Gleipnir]

Chicop76, believe they are refering to house rules among a core group of same folks from all the posts, not a store or tournament setting.

Though regarding special characters, I don't know that I would want to eliminate any players options for list building, but if for fluff purposes your group enjoys it, well fun is what matters not the rules.

[chicop76]

I'm not afraid of any of those lists and I do have experience both playing and playing against lists with SCs. You keep projecting some sort of bias on my playing level, how I treat other players, and my understanding of the rules based on the statement - my friends and I don't play special characters against each other. That is shortsighted and silly.

I haven't even said anything bad about people who like playing special characters or people who want to play those lists. All I've said is that my friends and I play without them at what we feel is a more fundamental game.

If you feel you need a special character to have fun, go for it. If you feel that playing with Loganwing is just as challenging as playing with a regular force-org Space Wolf list, that's your opinion. Until now, I've never seen the argument that Sangwing is just as balanced as regular Blood Angel list.

We asked ourselves: Is it a balanced game to play a special character against an army that doesn't have a special character? We don't think so. So, we don't use them.

You are more than free to field whatever else you want that is in your army book. Lots of armies change their force-org without SCs. Like Orks taking Nobs, then getting a battlewagon as troops and a troop transport and that's fine. If you want to play herohammer and need a special character to win, go for it! I just won't be playing one against you.


I agree with the special character stance. In 3rd and 4th I use to have that stance and you came across as a power gamer using a special character.

That being said 5th and 6th is a bit differant. Some armies are fine without them while others seem forced upon them.

Dark Angels is a prime example. You feel forced to take a special character to play Dark Angels. You either play Dark Angels for the terminators or the bikes and if you want them as troops you ove to take at least one of three characters to do that. Of course you don't have to, but you start thinking you could had simply just played another army like marines if you do not take a special. It's one of those amries which I think you are forced to run a special or take allies.

However taking a special is very expensive and feels like it limits your army, you notice it at low point cost. You basically have to pay 200 point to do what you want. With 2/3 choices being ok.

Tau, Eldar, and Chaos Space Marines I can say you can pretty much not play special characters and still do well with those armies. However I think CSM forces you to use special characters if you build theme armies like plague marines in the past. If you went Nurgle Marines in the past the 6th edition gives you the option of buying over a hundred dollars of additional models to keep playing your army, or buy Typhus.

Daemons is another one I can say can get away without specials. Especially when the normal models tend to do better or be better than the special ones. Fateweaver is differant due how he works with the army. Mostly people who felt the weaver was forced upon them last edition uses him in this edition. That bing said you don't feel forced to use him in this edition like in the last.

Space Marines is an exception due to the chapters. For example if you want to play salamanders than you have to take Vulcan. In my opinion in this case it is exceptable since it's the only way to play that army. I say that since the other 4 marine armies still can be played without special characters and still have what makes them special. In this case non vanilla ultramarine armies are forced to take special characters.

Space wolves I like since it seems they want you to custum make your own HQ and you don't feel like you hve to take a special.

Black Templar I have no clue, wait you have to take the Champion, I think it is the one army codex out there you have no real choice, but to play a special character. No special characters no Black Templar.

Blood Angels they have nice specials, but you don't need them.

Grey Knights the problem here is if you played an Inquisitorial force in the last codex you are almost forced to play Cortez. Other than that you do not need to play specials. Unless you want x person to buy more grey knight models due to running inquisitorial storm troopers and inquisitor hench men in the last codex.

Sisters of Battle need to play their special characters. The once good Cannoness really blows chuncks. They don't have too, but to do well against everyone else I feel they are forced to take one.

Nids in 6th are fine without one, unless they are playing to win. Since the 5th edition codex I been playing specials with them since than. Before 5th I wasn't using any special characters from their book.

Orc are fine without it. One of the or some of the most op specials abuse here.

Necrons don't need them.

Dark Eldar and Eldar can do fine without special characters, although Dark Eldar's hugy boost their army a lot.

Imperial Guard another who doesn't need specials to run, but like Dark Eldar it's nice to have them.

For the most part a lot of armies don't need them, but a few armies have to play them. I am at a point it really depends on what you are doing.

[DarkLink]

Also, I find it amusing that people are defending the rules for a change.

There are a lot of 40k rules I would like to rewrite, just not necessarily for balance reasons.

[SON OF ROMULOUS]

@CHICOP for the most part its a group of regular gamers who occasionally get the tournament bug but mainly we regularly game together and have been doing so for years. pretty open group and we have played the rules and have tweaked them when necessary.
We all had done a big fantasy campaign before the new edition and since it went from a balanced game to the broken debauchery it has become we've pretty much shelved are armies. There was a brief period were mordenheim was played. which oddly enough was much better than the current edition of fantasy.

And honestly the tweaks we wanted to do in regards to glances and assaults have been well thought out and went into dealing with all codices as opposed to the assumption that we play netlists or powergame... Hell i use shooty yes tactical terminators in my marine chapter.. and my buddy regularly uses mandrakes. we also toss around i know these might sound like crazy ideas... but the concept of moving the land speeder storm to a dedicated scout transport. or the idea of making it so that dark eldar characters could take things like jetbike upgrades... or making our own special characters which strangely enough hasn't suddenly broken the game or made x and y units completely over powered.

When all is said and done making home brewed rules or tweaking rules to make your games enjoyable is easy enough to do. we don't make changes without a majority of us agreeing to the change and no new unit or rule is used without a consensus. its like using forge world we ask.. hell one of the guys i play with has a unit or boar boys. should he be penalized since there are no rules to use said unit any longer? We didn't think so.. it just comes down to playtesting and a lot of debate.

As for making internal and external balance thats what the designers strive for when they make books and the rules for the edition and guess what the same thign happens every edition the first 2-3 codices are balanced and then from there the power creep begins. it's really a shame there is no reason why all books in an edition shouldn't be able to compete against each other and actually have it come down to luck and player skill instead of who's book is the newest and most broken.

[Dave Mcturk]

some ppl love to go off on one !
our simple house rules to change four areas

charges
fleet units add 2" to all charges to maximum 12' [may still re-roll as per rules]
ld9 add 1" ld 10 add 2 "
again all to maximum 12"
troops on bikes/jetpacks etc also add 2" but no maximum [ie could be up to 19' ]
iniative 5 or higher troops also add 1"

no more failed bike charges at 3" ....

any unit within 6" can be 'charged' even if 'unseen' ... but all bonuses above are lost !


overwatch
overwatch is a factor of leadership/training/iniative/bs
overwatch unit must pass leadership or may only fire the number of figures nearest to chargers equal to units highest initiative [normally 2 to 7]
pinned or gtg units are -1 to leadership
bs5 or higher hit on 5 or 6, bs 4 or below hit on 6
flamers wishing to fire use template from actual position and hit nearest d3 chargers
flamer template cannot cover own unit / friendly units as per rules

glances
all glancing hits are discounted as 'ineffective' by the following table - after armour or cover saves are taken...
AP 1 always counts as glance
AP2/3 discounted on a 4+
AP4 or weaker discounted on a 3+

to follow

[chicop76]

I can see why. For charges some units with like leadership 10, fleet, I 5 can get +5 inches on the charge. With average rolling of 7 that's 12" on average rolling, especially if you are re rolling the dice.

I can see you giving minimums to charging rather than adding inches. Like 6+d6 or 2d6 with a minimum of 4. The other way is toomuch in some cases, or better yet the inches do not stack and you go by the highest.

That being said I play shooty and assault armies. If the unit has fleet it usually is able to assault unless you are assaulting like 11 inches out. Also the re rolling is actually better than last edition. Avergae fleet and assault rolls in the open was 9 inches and with re rolling is about 9" as well. The differance is you can now easily get higher results than last edition due to re rolling. While last edition you was stuck with the d6 run if you roll a one. Also keep in mind you can now shoot and assault with the run roll included.

I personally think overwatch is fine as is. By your rules Tau suits will easily get bs 4 for overwatch. They can take an ugrade which gives them bs 2 and now thanks to marker lights they can have a higher bs. Now I think about it in a way they will get a+2 bs if they can hit 5.

I disagree with the flamers a bit since you can argue the models could move to allow the flamers to roast people assaulting the unit.

Vehicles are much easier to kill than last edition. Getting a glance can't take out a vehicle now, but the vehicle can still get glanced death. After playing Necrons and Eldar I am glad we are not playing 5th edition vehicle rules.

[SON OF ROMULOUS]

Alot of the issues boil down to how much of the games tactical applications have been replaced with complete random events. i love rolling dice but this edition makes it so that you rolling dice 2x as often and in most cases in unneeded and insane amounts. when it feels like you have to roll dice every turn just to see what happens thats when you know you've added too many elements of pure random chaos.

[Pendragon38]

Alot of the issues boil down to how much of the games tactical applications have been replaced with complete random events. i love rolling dice but this edition makes it so that you rolling dice 2x as often and in most cases in unneeded and insane amounts. when it feels like you have to roll dice every turn just to see what happens thats when you know you've added too many elements of pure random chaos.
Then you would of hated 2nd ed. Im happy that they brought back some of 2nds randomness it makes the game way more fun to play.