[Veterinari]

Hello there!

Me and a friend have been toying around with some Homebrewed rules for a while now, and after having talked about them earlier today I felt like sharing.

New Universal Special Rules
First there are two Universal Special Rules, regarding Big Things and close combat;​

Towering. This model towers over it's friends and foes and isn't pressingly concearned by the threat of lesser enemies. The downside is that it's a lot easier for the enemy to get a clear fireing line to the model. A model with the Towering rule never counts as engaged in combat for the purposes of shooting unless engaged by another model with the Towering rule. As a result a Towering model can shoot or be shot at while in combat as long as it is not engaged by other Towering Models. All vehicles and Monstrous Creatures are Towering.

Comment: This rule was made simply because it made sense that a Defiler would still try to get some Battlecannon shots of even while Engaged, Dreads would shoot their flamers in close combat, and the melta specialist standing next to the fighting would still take a shot at either of the above. Granted, it's a pretty big rule change, but after testing it we've agreed that it adds a lot of fun and is more balanced than appears at first glance.

Stomp! When engaged by multiple foes a large model may forsake it's usual weaponry and stomp the ground and hurt it's enemies with a thundering shock and flying debris. Any Walker or Monstrous Creature may choose to forfeit it's regular close combat attacks to Stomp! When Stomping, resolve a hit with the below profile, centered on the Stomper. After Stomping, a model may not do a Sweeping Advance for the rest of the player turn.

Weapon: Stomp! Strength: X* AP:- Type: Large Blast, No Cover Saves
*) The strength of the attack is equal to half of the base Strength of the Stomper, rounded down.

Comment: This rule was made to avoid the tedious "Tie the Dread up with Cannon Fodder" effect that comes from having a very powerful model with few attacks being tied up a whole game by weak enemies that it should be able to walk all over and that most of the time can't even damage it.

New optional Rules​

Secondly there are a couple of more tounge-in-cheek optional rules.​

Pushback. When hit by a Template or Blast attack a model can be pushed aside by the sheer force. A model is moved a distance in inches equal to 1D6", but it can never move more than the Strength of the attack minus it's own Toughness. Roll only once for each blast or template. The direction the model is moved is either directly away from the centre of the Blast marker, or from the narrow end of the Flamer template. If the model is in the middle of the Blast marker or the Flamer Template the direction is determined by the roll of a scatter dice. During this move the model moves as if being Jump Infantry.

Comment: While the first two rules are at least somewhat balanced, as far as we can tell, this one is just for fun and not balanced at all. For the most part it doesn't go beyond being an amusing gimmick, but occasionally there are some tactical applications, like trying to blast someone off an objective or into dangerous terrain or just to open up a charge line to a more important target.

Stray Shots. If a model recives a cover save due to being behind another unit and makes the save the screening unit is hit instead. Resolve the attack just as if the attack had been aimed at that model.

Comment: Again, this rule is mostly for flavor, but it does encourage keeing fireing lines free from your own models while making you more keen on gunning for important targets 'cause you could walk away with a consolation price of dead cannon fodder, at least.
It does cause a bit of iffyness when the targeted model has a better armour or invul save, but then we usually just take the cover save first and then the better save afterwards should the cover save fail.

Please let me know what you think!

 

[oblivion8]

sounds like fun! But I think that my carnifex's and hivetyrants would be ganked by that towering rule (oh look! my devestator squad can now open up fire on your trygon in cc! woohoo xD) But overall they look like fun ways to try the game good job

 

[Veterinari]

Acctually, it's not too bad on that front, seeing as how the Hive Tyrant and Carnifex would be able to shoot the devestators too, before fighting in the assault phase. Also you still get coversaves for intervening models. Of course, if you use Pure CC towering models these only get the downside of the Towering rule. That's kinda there to balance the Stomp too, though.

When playing with these rules, though, we've tended to always have at least a flamer on our dreadnoughts or something like that. The dual-purpose Towering model is really the big winner here.

If you have a suggestion on a change or something, though, I'd be happy to hear it.

 

[oblivion8]

lol, have you seen the trygon model? I dont think I would get a cover save due to 50% being hidden xD
I see what you mean, but For my army escpecially, I would prefer to have the immunity of cc from shooting with my hive tyrant, then being able to shoot with my heavy venom cannon to be honest, not really a fair tradeoff imo.
If I was to change it... I dunno, I might try to go with the fact that towering creatures might be able to leave combat with anything save another towering creature like a vehicle can. That would be a pretty sweet way of getting rid of the tied down problem you said you had. And maybe something like, they can "tank shock" when they move, causing all models in the path to take half strength no armour save hits. so A rampaging hive tyrant would mover through say, 5 or 6 models and cause 5-6 S3 AP2 hits to the squad(s), while a rampaging carnifex would cause 5-6 strength 4 hits (rounding down), or maybe even S5 hits if it has furious charge?

I dunno just some ideas you guys could maybe implement.

 

[Veterinari]

lol, have you seen the trygon model? I dont think I would get a cover save due to 50% being hidden xD

True, but then the question is really how much sense it really makes that it can't get shot at.

We usually just say that if you have to draw line of sight through a unit you get the save, 50% or no. I don't know if that's a correct rules interpetation or not, but in playing with us you'd get your save anyway.

If I was to change it... I dunno, I might try to go with the fact that towering creatures might be able to leave combat with anything save another towering creature like a vehicle can. That would be a pretty sweet way of getting rid of the tied down problem you said you had.

Heh, funny you should mention that, 'cause that's pretty much exactly how we used to have it. Essentially the rule originally was "Towering Models only count as engaged by other Towering Models for the purposes of shooting and movement". It worked, but it created a few oddeties("well, I know I'm in base to base, but I don't count as engaged, so can I charge these guys to get an extra attack?" and stuff like that) and in the end I guess we streamlined it simply 'cause none of us really did the whole "Big Pure Assault Model" thing. I have a Khorne-marked Deamon Prince, and that's about it. I simply protected that model by playing it a tad defensively (ie not giving Devestator equivalents a free shot) until I could eliminate immideate threats. Which I'm a lot more able to do now that my defiler can shoot at other stuff with it's battle cannon.

And maybe something like, they can "tank shock" when they move, causing all models in the path to take half strength no armour save hits. so A rampaging hive tyrant would mover through say, 5 or 6 models and cause 5-6 S3 AP2 hits to the squad(s), while a rampaging carnifex would cause 5-6 strength 4 hits (rounding down), or maybe even S5 hits if it has furious charge?

We thought about giving them just regular ol' tank-shock, acctually, 'cause a big issiue with the above mentioned movement rule was that after a pile-in most towering models couldn't get out without moving enemy models or flying.

It would be fun to have something along the line of Warmachine's Trample rules, which is basically what you're suggesting, but AP2 seems a bit too good for a free ability. AP- would probably make a bit more sense, making those hits more of a nice bonus against most enemies rather than a primary weapon.

Thanks for the feedback.

 

[oblivion8]

We thought about giving them just regular ol' tank-shock, acctually, 'cause a big issiue with the above mentioned movement rule was that after a pile-in most towering models couldn't get out without moving enemy models or flying.

It would be fun to have something along the line of Warmachine's Trample rules, which is basically what you're suggesting, but AP2 seems a bit too good for a free ability. AP- would probably make a bit more sense, making those hits more of a nice bonus against most enemies rather than a primary weapon.

Ya, I just said Ap 2 because I wanted to go with your theme of realism a little more (rampaging carnifex and all) but I see the cheese in it i guess. you could alternativly say its the S of the creature and AP - perhaps.
And the trample move would be used TO get out of the pile in thing you mentioned before, however if the creature still managed to be in base contact, then the unit would still be attacking it in combat.