Some Balance Focussed House-Rules I'm Thinking About

[The Unseen]

Just some theorycrafting house-rules to help out some struggling weapons, mechanics, and strategies. The biggest 3 IMO that I'm fiddling with here are the lackluster nature of old Template/Blast weapons (I think a primary reason horde units are so ridiculously good right now), the difficulties in characters with aura buffs keeping up with combat focused units compared to the ease in which they can keep the buffs on ranged units, and how the "Fall Back" rules heavily punish combat units with little counterplay involved.

 

So first, the wordiest of them all.

 

The "Heroic Intervention" rules, included here for reference purposes only.

 

“After the enemy has completed all of their charge moves, any of your CHARACTERS that are within 3" of an enemy unit may perform a Heroic Intervention. Any that do so can move up to 3", so long as they end the move closer to the nearest enemy model.”

Addendum to Heroic Intervention:

{

In addition, anytime you declare a charge for one of your INFANTRY, CAVALRY, or BIKER units that does not have the CHARACTER keyword (Hereafter referred to as the accompanying unit), you may select a single CHARACTER unit, with the INFANTRY, CAVALRY, or BIKER keyword and with fewer than 10 wounds, within 3” of said unit. Said CHARACTER may perform a “Heroic Intervention” as well.

 

In this case, any CHARACTER unit that does so may charge with the accompanying non-CHARACTER unit, when the unit attempts a charge. The CHARACTER does not make a separate charge attempt; instead the CHARACTER uses the charge distance rolled by the accompanying unit as their own charge distance. A failed charge (defined as a charge in which the accompanying unit fails to make it within 1” of an enemy unit) for the accompanying unit is a failed charge for the CHARACTER; and therefore the CHARACTER unit will not move. A successful charge for the unit (a charge that brings the accompanying unit within 1” of an enemy unit) counts as a successful charge for the CHARACTER if the charge distance rolled is enough to bring the CHARACTER unit within 1” of a friendly model that is within 1” of an enemy model. The CHARACTER in this case is treated has having successfully charged any enemy unit the accompanying unit successfully charged.

 

If the charge distance rolled is a success for the accompanying unit, but is insufficient for the CHARACTER unit to make it within 1” of a friendly model within 1” of an enemy model, the CHARACTER unit may move the charge distance rolled but will not count as having made a successful charge. The CHARACTER unit in either case is moved immediately after the accompanying unit finishes its charge move. The CHARACTER must remain within 3” of the accompanying unit after all charge moves are completed regardless of the attempts success or failure.

}

 

Really wordy, and I'm working on shortening it down, but I wanted to make sure you couldn't "conga chain" characters, couldn't have characters who are vehicles trigger, or have vehicles bring characters along for the ride, and wouldn't let you run characters into other units or bypass Overwatch using rubber banded characters or the like.

 

It should work that squads of infantry, cavalry, or bikers can sorta "drag" a single character along with them if they make a successful charge, hopefully bringing said character into the combat and not requiring you to daisy chain a few models in the back to keep them within the characters aura range, and also prevent a character from making it into combat alone to get beat on by an entire enemy unit when his (or her) backup fails their charge instead.

 

Let me know what you guys think.

 

 

Now onto the weapons. Ohh how far you have fallen ohh flamers of old. Went from gutting squads of bunched up horde units with a single shot, to barely killing a single lonely t3 5+ save model; while also almost doubling in cost. For shame. Anyway, heres my fix. I haven't spent the time to go through every armies entire armory to figure out exactly which weapons with variable shot numbers used to be blast/template weapons, but I think it is almost all of them, and I can't think of any random shot weapons that are currently dominating.

 

{

Replace all D6 values for random number of shots with the equivalent in D3's instead. So for example the Flamer would go from D6 auto-hits, to 2D3 auto-hits, the mighty Volcano Cannons 2D6 shots become 4d3 instead, etc etc. This makes the next part much much easier, and smooths out those weapons damage curves a lot as a secondary bonus.

 

Secondly, any weapon that fires a random number of shots or a random number of autohits, gets this added to its special rules.

"For every 10 models in the target unit beyond the first 5, add a single D3 to this weapons number of attacks, capping at an additional number of D3's equal to the base weapons number of D3 shots."

}

 

So with this, a Flamer for example, would cause

2D3 hits on a unit with 1-5 models in it

3D3 against 6-15 models

4D3 vs 16+ models, capping there.

 

A Thunderfire Cannon on the other hand, would do

4D3 vs 1-5

5D3 vs 6-15

6D3 vs 16-25

7D3 vs 26-35

and 8D3 vs units of 36 or more

 

If anyone knows of any weapon that shouldn't be included in this (Other than the obvious Grav Flux Bombard that gets a better version to begin with) let me know. AKA any random shot weapon that is already amazingly good now, probably doesn't need it, but I can't think of any off hand that are actually even in the "good" category of weapon when compared to their set number of shots counterpart, except maybe the Predator Autocannon, and since the only types of predators I see are the ones who are tank killers, giving the Destructor pattern of Autocannon+Heavy Bolters extra horde killing power doesn't seem gamebreaking.

 

Edit: Almost forgot Primaris Units, would definitely leave off the plasma equivalents that Inceptors use that fire 2d3 plasma shots each, that'd probably be a bit insane. (Why GW didn't just have them fire 2 shots per gun I'll never understand) I feel Plasma Cannons and the Plasma Destructer on the Relic Predator/Leman russ are fine with the rule, their really not all that great right now, their very expensive to be firing at chaff infantry, and if you overcharge, rolling more shots means more chances to roll 1's.

 

Finally, the Fall Back rules. How does this sound like for a small helping hand to units that are left out in the open when an enemy unit runs away.

 

{

Universal Stratagem "Regroup"- 2 CP*

Activate this stratagem at the end of your opponents movement phase during which a unit has used the "Fall Back" movement ability. Select a single friendly unit that was within 1" of an enemy unit at the start of the movement phase but is not currently within 1" of any enemy units. That unit may make an immediate move as if it was your movement phase, following all the normal rules for movement during the movement phase. (Maintaining unit coherency, remaining more than 1" away from enemy units, etc) The unit may Advance as part of this move. You may use this Stratagem any number of times during your opponents movement phase, but each unit may only activate in this manner once per turn, and it costs 2 CP per use.

}

 

It's a bit situational, but potentially very powerful, letting you move your melee unit potentially into cover or even LoS blocking terrain, or out of rapid fire range of a counter-strike unit, etc, and I feel like you should be able to use it more than once, in case you need to move both a unit and a character from the same previous combat, etc.

 

Feedback and such is welcome, hopefully will be getting a game in tomorrow evening Stateside to try out some of them.

Edited December 23, 2017 by The Unseen