Woah. What if we used WM rules.. and 40k models...?

[DrBored]

Like, seriously.

Everyone thinks of Warmahordes having better rules.
Yet people seem really attached to Warhammer 40k models and fluff.

What if we just... used Warhammer 40k models... with Warmahordes rules?

Think about it.

Warjacks? Dreadnoughts. All those different dreadnoughts that nobody uses? Suddenly usable. Pretty clear which way is front, too.

What do you think? What armies would fit well? What could we substitute for Retribution? Eldar? How about Khador? Space Marines?

What if we, as hobbyists, just hijacked both systems and did what we wanted because it's our money and 'Murica and all that?

[Cutter]

Like, seriously.

Everyone thinks of Warmahordes having better rules.
Yet people seem really attached to Warhammer 40k models and fluff.

What if we just... used Warhammer 40k models... with Warmahordes rules?

Think about it.

Warjacks? Dreadnoughts. All those different dreadnoughts that nobody uses? Suddenly usable. Pretty clear which way is front, too.

What do you think? What armies would fit well? What could we substitute for Retribution? Eldar? How about Khador? Space Marines?

What if we, as hobbyists, just hijacked both systems and did what we wanted because it's our money and 'Murica and all that?

Dood, where's your car?

[Mr Mystery]

All those infantry models. Resolving their attack one at a time by necessity of having to use 2d6...... Not for me.

But otherwise, bugger all stopping anyone.

[Erik Setzer]

All those infantry models. Resolving their attack one at a time by necessity of having to use 2d6...... Not for me.

But otherwise, bugger all stopping anyone.

Eh... IIRC, in Mordheim you had to resolve one-by-one because of different weapon options. 40K2 might have been similar, but that's been ages and I don't want to see if I have a scanned copy of the rulebook (really bummed all my old books are gone).

If you were doing 40K with WM rules, you'd be wanting to do a smaller scale 40K, like back in RT and 2nd edition, or like how Warhammer Skirmish was designed. Or Necromunda. It'd be a skirmish-level game, not the sweeping grand 28mm Epic games we have now. And if you want to do skirmish, then one at a time isn't bad. But if you want Epic-at-28mm, then yeah, doesn't work as well.

[Mr Mystery]

That was a skirmish game, as is Warmahordes.

Individual rolling works well at that scale. At the average 40k scale (1,500 these days I think) not so much.

Imagine an Ork army rolling separately for every bit of Dakkas.....

[Auticus]

No thanks. Warmahordes may have decent rules but they are rules that I really have no interest in. The scale of the game, the kill the king mechanics, the focus of the game - all things that turn me off and have no interest.

[ReveredChaplainDrake]

That was a skirmish game, as is Warmahordes.
Just to point this out, but in WMH, 50 models is a stupidly large amount of models, and is usually vulnerable to heavier units because boosted POW12 doth not a can opener make (unless thou art Cryx and hath Dark Shroud on half thy models and Parasite on half thy casters). But that's not the problem.

The problem is Focus / Fury. PP did a good job of actually weaving their narrative into their mechanics in such a way that Warmahordes as it is generally known would not function without warnouns. The way 40k does things (at least in theory) is to have various units in your army come pre-baked with a suite of special rules of their own, rather than having one big leader piece confer out abilities to largely vanilla units and even conferring action points to large units. 40k would make very little sense under WMH rules because very few things in the game actually do what WMH would call allocating focus. Librarians and Dreadnoughts don't even come close. Spiritseers and Wraith-stuff, maybe. Tyranids kinda'-sorta' allocate focus with synapse creatures directing the lesser hordes. The fact that Tyranids are completely unique in this respect is essentially their racial penalty.

The other problem is that special abilities are scattered between things mere bog standard humans can do (Kovnik Joe's inspirational speeches, Butcher channeling his anger) and things that can only be the result of sorcery (Haley's time magic, Sorscha's ice magic, the Harbinger), while these are incredibly large and important distinctions in the 40k universe. The 40k universe as we know it would not be as it is without threats from the warp causing problems, and would wind up losing a lot in transition.

So yeah, 40k doesn't need Warmahordes' rules. What 40k needs are good rules that reflect its own lore. (And while whoever is at it, probably rewrite the lore to emphasize the perpetual galactic stalemate. Just in case some fanboy idiot thinks "reflects the lore" means "Space Marines always win".)

[Erik Setzer]

That was a skirmish game, as is Warmahordes.

Individual rolling works well at that scale. At the average 40k scale (1,500 these days I think) not so much.

Imagine an Ork army rolling separately for every bit of Dakkas.....

Kind of my point. If 40K was done with WM rules, it'd be skirmish level. If you don't like Skirmish level, yeah, that'd annoy you.

And the only reason I won't roll separate for each model in an Ork army is because I can bloody well fit 100+ dice in my hands and, by Gork, I will roll 100+ dice at once if you give me an excuse to!

I, uh... might have a dice addiction.

[Charistoph]

That was a skirmish game, as is Warmahordes.

Individual rolling works well at that scale. At the average 40k scale (1,500 these days I think) not so much.

Imagine an Ork army rolling separately for every bit of Dakkas.....

Indeed. We actually have something akin to this level, at the moment, called Kill Team. True, it doesn't completely match WarmaHordes, but it does run at the same levels.

But also agreed that the game size just doesn't work. Also think about how WarmaHordes would actually work at the same model number as even a 1000 point game, much less the 1500, 1850, and 2000 point levels some go at. I'm talking more of a Space Marine number instead of an Imperial Guard/Tyranid group or a Grey Knight group (which actually isn't that bad).

One word, unwieldy. If you think Apocalypse would be bad if no one brought Super-Heavies, and everyone brought hordes, yeah, something like that.



The problem is Focus / Fury. PP did a good job of actually weaving their narrative into their mechanics in such a way that Warmahordes as it is generally known would not function without warnouns. The way 40k does things (at least in theory) is to have various units in your army come pre-baked with a suite of special rules of their own, rather than having one big leader piece confer out abilities to largely vanilla units and even conferring action points to large units. 40k would make very little sense under WMH rules because very few things in the game actually do what WMH would call allocating focus. Librarians and Dreadnoughts don't even come close. Spiritseers and Wraith-stuff, maybe. Tyranids kinda'-sorta' allocate focus with synapse creatures directing the lesser hordes. The fact that Tyranids are completely unique in this respect is essentially their racial penalty.

That isn't really an issue. "Magic" is still available in 40K. The difference in WarmaHordes (besides just scale) is that all the leadership in the game are the equivalent of Psykers. There is literally no Necrons, Tau, Dark Eldar, or Black Templars in this game. Yes, there are similar races, but none of them have given up on that energy resources, at least that can be played as well.


So yeah, 40k doesn't need Warmahordes' rules. What 40k needs are good rules that reflect its own lore. (And while whoever is at it, probably rewrite the lore to emphasize the perpetual galactic stalemate. Just in case some fanboy idiot thinks "reflects the lore" means "Space Marines always win".)

Well, that and rules consistency. PP at least TRIES to map out the interactions with their rules while GW just doesn't even try.

40K CAN be done in WarmaHordes rules, but they wouldn't be compatible playing against WarmaHordes armies since their is no WarmaHordes "Warlord" mechanic that can be drawn upon to work with. The conversions would also drive a small part of you mad, too.

[Lexington]

There's a lot of problems with the idea, but I think the one that kills it in the crib is the fact that WM/Hordes ranged weaponry is purposefully neutered in a way that would make 40K almost impossible to convert in a satisfying manner. Heavy weaponry would either have to be hilariously short-ranged, or the game would have to give up close combat even more thoroughly than 6th/7th already has.

A better candidate for skirmish-type 40K conversion would be something like VOR: The Maelstrom.

[Path Walker]

Since when did everyone agree that warmahordes has better rules? I've only played a few times but it was pretty boring/bland

[Cutter]

Since when did everyone agree that warmahordes has better rules? I've only played a few times but it was pretty boring/bland

Since DrBored became DrStoned.

[Cactus]

Warmachine always felt like I was playing a set of rules instead of a game.

In 40k I feel like I understand how a ork has extra attacks because he's dumb, angry and likes to chop things. In Warmahorades, I feel like I'm micro-managing numbers to make sure that a figure is close enough to another model to maintain game mechanics - for reasons of game mechanics.

[Path Walker]

But hey, rules obsesses weirdos say it's got a better system and even though the models are ****e, it's still overtaken 40k, because rules are what matters most for a tabletop game, right?

[HsojVvad]

Forget Warmahorde rules. Use Lord of the Ring/The Hobbit rules. I started using those rules for 40K and it got my son interested in playing 40K again. Want a great rules set. Use LotR. Works great for 40K.

[Auticus]

To some people, indeed - rules are what matter most. Those type of players will unsurprisingly play games where the rules matter most as well.

They are often just as happy to play with wooden pogs or cardboard cut outs so long as the rules are good to them.

[Mr Mystery]

My main criticism of Warmahordes is the Feat Mechanic.

If you can pull off your Feat, you pretty much win the game. If you botch it, you're stuffed.

I found it made every game quite predictable, particularly as each Warcaster has a single, set Feat. Now, if they had three open to them, but still only able to perform one per game - that might shake things up. Strategy games should have an element of guessing involved. Magic The Gathering has that - I can't see your cards and have no idea what's in your deck, let alone how you might combine that. GW has that thanks to scenarios and different disciplines of Magic/Psychics keeping your opponent guessing.

Warmahordes? None of it. You can take one look at the Warcaster, know which Feat they'll be trying, and at the rest of the tiny forces, and spot exactly how they hope to do it.

Fun for some, and I'm not saying it's flawed - but not for I, ta.

[Arkhan Land]

I like both these game systems, but seeing as Ive been with the 40k system for whats coming up on two decades now I cant say ide want to switch and use the WaHo rules for 40k.

[Cutter]

To some people, indeed - rules are what matter most. Those type of players will unsurprisingly play games where the rules matter most as well.

They are often just as happy to play with wooden pogs or cardboard cut outs so long as the rules are good to them.

Damn straight.

[odinsgrandson]

To some people, indeed - rules are what matter most. Those type of players will unsurprisingly play games where the rules matter most as well.

They are often just as happy to play with wooden pogs or cardboard cut outs so long as the rules are good to them.

This does not accurately describe the Warmachine/Hordes players that I know. Most of them would argue that the Privateer Press minis are better than the GW ones (and it's not like they don't make any good points).

And let's be honest, we can find some excellent minis in both ranges, and we can find some true stinkers in both ranges (GW has come out with some poor ones recently, but they do still have some minis that I first disliked twenty years ago).

But WarmaHordes definitely has some really cool minis that are loads of fun to paint (I'm particularly fond of the sculpts by Jason Hendricks, Felix Paniagua and Werner Klocke).

[Auticus]

Its hard to prove an opinion so I will not try (my opinion is PP models are largely inferior though there are a few models that look pretty cool - other than my dislike of the rules - the miniatures never did anything for me personally)

However I will note that if someone likes the system, then they will accept and even defend the models of that range. Mantic models are largely considered by many people to be utter crap in terms of quality but the guys that love mantic games will often say how they prefer them.

In many cases I feel they could be little molded logs of feces with googly eyes and the models would still be defended if the system is preferred.

[odinsgrandson]

Ok, I can understand that idea (it's human nature to defend our opinions as the one right choice) but the same is true for people who want to defend their refusal to try out a system.

I mean, we're kind of like Xbox and Playstation fans- Gamers have made a choice between these two systems, and decided that there's a need to defend those choices TO THE DEATH! And in the end, we agree on things at the most basic level.

I know plenty of people who got into WarmaHordes because they loved the minis- and I can tell you that there is plenty to love.

Personally, I paint way more than I play anyway, and I get to paint great minis from every line, and I have loads of opinions on every line of minis.

[Mr Mystery]

There's much, much more to a game than the basic rules mechanics.

Warmahordes works because it's all variation on a single theme. Great if you like that theme......

GW games have gone with a much wider scope, probably because it started out as a rules set to unify disparate collections into a single game - their own specific model range then grew out of that.

There are few play styles not covered by GW's rules. Even Warmahordes focus type stuff is kind of covered off by Tau and their accursed Markerlights - those who really know how to work that ticket will be noticable!

No matter your preferred play style, GW will have something to offer you. It is by no means the case that each is the single best example of it's style on the market, but it's competent enough. GW are the Ford Focus of gaming. Other cars might offer better tech, more leg room, biggerer engine, gofasta stripes, and a turbo respectively, but the Ford Focus is a glorious 'catch-all' model, hence it's popularity.

[odinsgrandson]

Oh- and back on topic:

I think, in order to do Space Marines, you'd need to really run an elite, heavily armored force that has guns. That's probably going to be Khadoran Man-O-Wars. I think that will make Khador more of a general Imperium force (with Winterguard played by Imperial Guar-oops, Astra Militarum). And since you need to lead using a Warcaster, I think he'd need to be an Inquisitor or Librarian. Doom Reavers could be played by Arco Flaggellents- that'd be pretty cool.

But I could definitely see a Butcher Force played by Space Wolves.