40K House Rules

Here’s where we can keep track of the house rules we have to come up with as we play – with the thinking that these are considered ‘official’ for us until they are FAQ’d and explained, or we decide to change them, etc.

So to start with:

  1. A Bit More Paint, Game by Game. We all want to play with fully painted armies, on a fully detailed battle scene, right? It’s even better when your opponent’s army is fully painted also! So let’s see some progress in your army each time you play! If you’re not adding to it, get something fully assembled, primed or painted when you’re not playing. Basically, we want to encourage everyone to paint up their guys so eventually we ALL have sweet, fully painted armies.
  2. Sound Effects are Encouraged! Let’s hear some swooshing engine, gun and laser noises! We ARE playing with space man barbies on a massive dollhouse, after all!
  3. Time Limit: on work nights, we’ll need to make sure we’re wrapped up with the game by 10 PM, so that means starting no later than 7 I think. As we get to about 9:30 we’ll have to look at where the game is and maybe decide to call the game for time at 10, to allow time to pack up, put the table away, etc.

Now for actual in-game rules we’ve started using:

  1. The Roll-Off for deciding Table Sides is done after the terrain is laid out (if laid out by a 3rd party not playing the game), mission is decided and deployment style (long/short/diagonal table edges). AFTER these are set, then the 2 combatants roll-off to decide who picks their side first, then the players roll-off to determine who chooses to deploy first.
  2. If you have an army with a newer codex and thus a unique Warlord Trait table, you can pick to roll from your codex table or do the 3 rolls in the general Warlord Trait table in the BRB (Big Red Book)
  3. If you roll Warlord Traits from the BRB, you can roll on each Warlord Trait Table and pick the one that’s best for you – this helps make it more relevant. You still have a chance of getting a useless one, but it’s much less likely now!
  4. Drop Pods: when these open, the 6″ move starts from the doorway of the Drop Pod, not the edge of the ramp

Here are some proposed rules we can try as people get more varied models/units:

  1. Grounding Tests: only threatened by weapons that are Strength 7 or higher (or: 6 or higher – this makes it so Tau Pulse weapons can’t force tests, but it’s low enough for things like Multi-Lasers and Scatter Cannons to force tests). Small arms fire and Tau Markerlights cause Grounding Tests, which is a bit silly really. A more realistic rule would be the weapon must have a Strength higher than the Tougness of the Flying Monstrous Creature to cause a Grounding Test.

As for food, Frank will supply the drinks (usually non-alcoholic, unless there’s a fresh brew of beer, cider or wine), you just bring whatever food you want to have for the evening.

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