Houserule experiments

[Atrus]

Am curious as to what house rules people like to run in their games or have experimented with, and how those rules have turned out in their games?

 

Houserule we often use round here is if you roll a dice and it goes off the table, that dice result is an automatic fail/bad result. Exception if you catch it before it hits the ground.

 

I've been thinking recently of toying with the idea of suggesting invo saves as an AP modifier. So 6++ degrades ap by 1 (so ap -2 becomes ap-1); 5++ degrades by 2; 4++ by 3 and 3++ by 4.

In my head it sounds interesting. Not favourable for armies like daemons but there's no daemon players in my area.

[Marshal Rohr]

Centurion List, no special characters, homebrew units, force organization modification, uneven match ups

[Cpt_Reaper]

I'd like to see more homebrew units fielded and I have been working on an alternative Detachment system I need to test.

[Marshal Rohr]

I haven’t tried it yet but I’m conceptualizing a system based of selecting armies by platoon level instead of squad

[Rogue]

Not very dramatic, but at mine the rule is that deployment maps are randomised rather than chosen.

[chapter master 454]

All ruins ground floor (or first floor whichever definition you use) count as obstructing line of sight regardless of how it is modelled UNLESS there is specific holes such as open doorways WITHOUT doors, gaps from blasts that are serious damage (basically there is no sill for a window, it is effectively a "open doorway"). It sounds convoluted until you put it into practice, the idea is to make it so infantry can actually hide in ruins and is to represent that the models aren't always standing (and if someone is taken from at the back then they didn't watch the window).

Forest tiles block LoS unless on it but can be seen into and out of freely. Actually helps create heavy LoS blocking terrain without needing Movement blocking LoS. Adds nice dynamics with moving into it and through it.

 

There is also some minor details that apply in fringe cases, such as the need for needing to consult with the opponent if I bring a Rhino Primaris and if it is ok to rule that its twin-linked plasma gun only inflicts mortal wounds per 1 rolled when overcharged or if we go hard rules as written. (yes, for any of my brothers out there, go look at the rhino primaris entry with it being the only unit having a twin-linked plasmagun I believe in the entire index and yet by rules as written if you overcharge and roll a 1, it straight up dies).

[Closet Skeleton]

Not very dramatic, but at mine the rule is that deployment maps are randomised rather than chosen.

 

They are. This is a commonly misunderstood and badly written part of the mission sheets. Only the sides are chosen by the winner of the role off, the deployment map is 'determined' by them which according to the deployment map page of the rulebook means 'rolled for' not 'chosen',

[MARK0SIAN]

We use the League of Knights house rules for our knight fights. It’s basically alternate activations with a few other tweaks to the rules.

 

We’ve also tried to recreate challenges from previous editions. At the start of the game the two champions are nominated. Those two units cannot attack or be attacked by anyone other than the opposition champion until one of them is slain. The Champions must move in the movement phase and the move must end closer to the enemy champion that where it began.

 

I’ve also tried playing that a 6 is always a hit but to be honest it didn’t really make an impact on the games as no one was really spamming hit modifiers.

[Trevak Dal]

I saw a miniwargaming battle report where they played all space Marines as lieutenants (or maybe captain statlines?) and paid for all weapons and upgrades as usual and didn't use the character rule except for the warlord. The "story" was a crashed Thunderhawk with 20-25 space marine survivors being attacked by a chaos horde of cultists, the Forgeworld Chaos guard stuff (name escapes me) with few Chaos Marines but they too had the statlines of exhalted champions/Lords (again I forget exactly, but they weren't all carrying around power swords and plasma guns).

 

It was a pretty close thing and the space Marines felt like space Marines. I'd like to play a game like that against guard or something with my Zerkers.

 

I like the idea of set "maps" in the vein of Coagulation and Beaver Creek from Halo 2. I've done that before...kinda.

[Panzer]

The only two houserules we use are that ground floor in ruins block LoS and that when we play maelstrom missions we automatically discard a tactical objective we can't possibly do (like killing a psyker against T'au etc) and then draw a new one.

[Rogue]

 

 

Not very dramatic, but at mine the rule is that deployment maps are randomised rather than chosen.

They are. This is a commonly misunderstood and badly written part of the mission sheets. Only the sides are chosen by the winner of the role off, the deployment map is 'determined' by them which according to the deployment map page of the rulebook means 'rolled for' not 'chosen',

Oh. Well, hurrah for inadvertently getting it right all along.

[Maschinenpriester]

We play a similar house rule, that units cant shoot through a building, but units can shoot out or into buildings if there is los. Also we changed the cover mechanic to 7th edition, so that units have to be obscured and don't have to be standing on terrain features.

[Trevak Dal]

It would be neat to be able to destroy terrain features (ruins, etc) like if somebody was camping you could target the ruins and blast them apart.

[Panzer]

Even more use for all the anti-tank weaponry and an even harder time for infantry and for models who badly need terrain features to hide from said anti-tank? Thanks but no thanks.

[Endova]

Unfortunately, most of the groups in my area treat GW rules as the gospel, and as such are less than open-minded when it comes to house rules.

 

Still, in addition to many of the excellent house rules in this thread, there are many I would be okay with, because I fundamentally hold the belief that GW writes rules primarily for profit over balance.

 

Some of my favorites to whinge about:

 

• The transport rules for Primaris Marines make no damned sense, and are as they are solely to get players to buy the new, more expensive Repulsor tanks.
• I once calculated the cost of Gravis armor over regular Mk. X armor, and I'd be fine with people paying that cost for Gravis Chaplains or Librarians and other special characters.
• Similarly, Primaris options in general are mostly limited by GW's "No-model-no-rules" policy, so I'm really okay with Primaris characters taking a number of standard Astartes wargear options, so long as they player actually puts effort into the conversion.