House rules to fix an unfair game

[Isaac Gutierrez]

In my local store in mexico we will have an event this saturday with the new tyranid, and have been playtesting a little change to balance the game a bit more. We use a variation of the fleet rule, in adition to the normal rule, a unit with fleet may run in the shooting phase and charge in the assault phase.

We decided this after playtesting the new nids, and the improvement has been noticiable. They are not broken this way, just better. Also we playtested against rough riders, chaos spawns, daemons beasts and chavalry, and other units with fleet and it helps them a lot, specialy chavalry, which seems to be a bit over priced, seems to have an improvement, but without breaking the game, just better. (Spawns with juggernaut lords seem overpowered as well as blood hounds with herald in jgg, the rest seems pretty good)

Two questions, what do you folks think of this kind of changes? What other general rules could have an "improvement" to help balance the game?

[Wolfshade]

Game balance is a nightmare, generally.

What one group of play testers might considered balanced another would say that it isn't. This has a lot to do with the local meta and how local armies are picked and how they fight.

Consider all the mods that are out there for various video games that are there to "re-balance", I had one which tweaked down a rifle because it was "over powered" and then another gave that weapon a massive boost to make it "useful". My own opion was that I didn't know becuase I didn't use it as it didn't fit into my playstyle.

More generally, any house rules that enable you to play the game how you want and enjoy it must be a good thing.

[daboarder]

And then consider the necromunda community edition rulebook.

[Wolfshade]

I am sure that there are people who criticise that too.

[daboarder]

probably but not many, that thing is an amazing example of what a community can do when it pulls its finger out.

[Anggul]

If you regularly play with a group of people, house ruling is the best way to go. As long as you can all agree on what you feel is fair, then you're all going to be happier playing the game. Such things are only a problem when you go around playing other groups, and at tournaments especially, where you need an easily recognisable standard. It's nice when tourney organisers come up with their own stuff though. There are some units that everyone knows suck, so I think people would be pretty accepting of a tourney organiser changing the rules for those units in their tournament and posting a list of said changes with the rules pack.

[Wolfshade]

but then there are not many necromunda players...
And yes I am sure it is, like BB's living rule book.

[TimmyPowerGamer]

Sounds pretty sweet for Eldar players; being able to shoot, run and charge in the same turn.

[Isaac Gutierrez]

The way we play it, if you run and shoot, you can't charge. It just makes sense.

[Lord Aaron]

like 3rd edition?