Flesh Tearer House Rules

[Xenocidal Maniac]

Hey guys. I was thinking about running my Flesh Tearers with special chapter rules ala old White Dwarf or Index Astartes lists. Just for fun games with friends who allow it, of course. Wanted to brain storm with you all and see what you think.

 

For those who don't know, the Flesh Tearers are infamous for being particularly susceptible to the rage. The chapter is slowly dying as more and more brothers fall to it. They have a lot of Death Company marines, few heavy vehicles, and are just all around nuts. They've been known to remove their helmets so they can rip Ork throats out with their bare teeth. They're also known for massacring allies after being whipped into a blood lust. They've gone head to head with Space Wolves and destroyed entire planetary militias.

 

Here is kind of what I was thinking along the lines of:

 

One 5-man Death Company Squad lead by a Reclusiarch or Lemartes (counts-as) is mandatory in a FT list.

Flesh Tearers may take an unlimited number of Death Company

Flesh Tearers fall to The Red Thirst on a roll of 1-3

Heavy Support choices are limited to 0-1

A Flesh Tearer unit which has fallen to The Red Thirst must immediately take an Ld check anytime it wins a round of close combat. If the unit fails the Ld check, it is subject to Rage for the rest of the game.

Any Flesh Tearer unit subject to Rage treats any non-Flesh Tearer unit on the table as an enemy (even allies!)

 

Other ideas:

 

Flesh Tearer units that have fallen to The Red Thirst must roll at the start of each of their own movement phase. On a 1, the unit is subject to Rage for that turn (I like this idea, but it might slow the game down)

Flesh Tearer units that have fallen to The Red Thirst may not sweeping advance as they stop to hack and cannibalize their victims (might gimp the army too much)

 

My goal is to make it fun and fluffy, not gain some kind of advantage for myself. What do you guys think? Throw your ideas out there!

[SamaNagol]

Around the time when the fake codex was leaked, there was rumour that taking Seth in your list would give your army the 1-3 Red Thirst roll rather than Astorath. That was something I was hoping for personally.

 

Having an obligatory Reclusiarch is too much. Make it an obligatory Chaplain or Reclusiarch. That's a lot of points. 230pts base out of a 1500pt list is a very large chunk.

 

You can mitigate most of the drawbacks in your rules by running Mech which is fine. Only having 1 of each heavy support entry makes sense too.

 

Overall I have no problem with your proposals.

[AngelOfDeathXIII]

Sounds like good rules to represent the Flesh Tearers. A squad of Vanguard Veterans has been waiting to get painted in those colours so I might hijack some of your rules : D

[Xenocidal Maniac]

Awesome. Any other ideas?

[Brother Chris]

First off would be those buzz-saws as an upgrade for chainswords. A rending weapon, I suppose. Don't the orks have that sort of thing? The Dreadnoughts should have them too.

 

Khârn the Betrayer has rules for madly hitting his own side. Carnarvon or the Corbulo equivalent could have the same rule.

 

If I were running Flesh Tearers I would mount the 'bikers' on Cold one dinosaurs, perhaps subsituting an additional 'Master-crafted' melee attack from the animal instead of the twin linked shooting attack from the bolters.

[prenelf]

Why not keep it simple something like

 

-1 bs but all infantry have rending.

 

On the first turn of assault you may chose to reroll fails to hit but all rolls of one hit your side.

 

Infantry fight to keep their tanks safe all infantry within 6 inches of a tank become stubborn.

 

Gabriel seths body guard: if seth is taking he may take a death company as his personal guard these have the same stats and equipment options as normal death company but are not subject to rage, also if seth is attached to the unit they have counter attack.

[PD78]

Go with the old 4ed rage rules (roll a 1 and the entire unit moves 1d6" toward the nearest enemy - I don't remember it bogging down games that much).

 

Give the 1-3 to Gabriel Seth in addition to Astorath. In fact, give it to all of the HQ choices.

 

I like the idea of only allowing 1 heavy choice, but make it no more than 1 vehicle for the entire list (so no baal preds as fast attack, no bikes or dedicated transports, etc). In exchange for only allowing one vehicle in the entire army, jump packs are free on all troop choices (HQ still has to pay separately for them though).

 

Instead of taking an unlimited number of death company models, allow them to be taken as troop choices more than once, with a max squad size of 10 (just like "normal" marines). Sort of like Dante and "glitter boy" armies with Blood Angels.

 

If you're looking for "fluffy", then yeah - sweeping advances should be disallowed, since it makes sense that they'd stop to gnaw on the fallen victims instead of chasing the live ones. Exceptions would be things like tau crisis suits or necrons - anything that's organic gets chewed on, anything inorganic gets chased down. As a bonus, anything inorganic gets automatically destroyed if it breaks and runs from close combat. Assume that the Flesh Tearers are enraged that there's no bodies left to eat.

 

Give them furious charge as a base ability, instead of linking it to the red thirst, and allow running during the shooting phase to move a full 6 inches every time, instead of 1d6 inches. If they fail their rage check (or win it, as the case may be), they're forced to run instead of shoot - so an automatic 6" move (12" with jump packs), then 6" in the shooting phase, and allow their jump packs to give 6" moves during the assult phase, like jet packs.

 

Edit to add: I like these ideas:

-1 bs but all infantry have rending.

 

On the first turn of assault you may chose to reroll fails to hit but all rolls of one hit your side.

 

But I wouldn't allow rerolls unless there's a chaplain or sanguinary priest attached. Just all rolls of 1 in close combat hit your own side.

 

Also, I don't think the black rage should function differently than it does already - that would be a MAJOR change in the fluff. The death company is completely uncontrollable; if a character is attached to it, they have to move with it sort of like flotsam on a black tide.

[Cpt. Blood Donator]

A part of the flesh tearer fluff is that they ride to battle in rhinos rather than on jump packs.

[PD78]

Rhinos it is, then. The only thing I know about FT is that they're really hurting on vehicles, assumed that to include transports etc as well.

[Frater Uriah]

They don't have any shortage of Rhinos or Razorbacks. Flesh Tearers have a marked preference for these, and have a lot of them as compared to other vehicles in their inventory (like Land Raiders and Storm Ravens). I assume it's because Rhinos are easy to maintain and repair.

 

That said, I roll a Storm Raven and a Redeemer for my Flesh Tearers. I have one assault squad with jump packs, and everybody else runs in Rhinos.