Woah. What if we used WM rules.. and 40k models...?

[DrBored]

Like, seriously.

Everyone thinks of Warmahordes having better rules.
Yet people seem really attached to Warhammer 40k models and fluff.

What if we just... used Warhammer 40k models... with Warmahordes rules?

Think about it.

Warjacks? Dreadnoughts. All those different dreadnoughts that nobody uses? Suddenly usable. Pretty clear which way is front, too.

What do you think? What armies would fit well? What could we substitute for Retribution? Eldar? How about Khador? Space Marines?

What if we, as hobbyists, just hijacked both systems and did what we wanted because it's our money and 'Murica and all that?

[Cutter]

Like, seriously.

Everyone thinks of Warmahordes having better rules.
Yet people seem really attached to Warhammer 40k models and fluff.

What if we just... used Warhammer 40k models... with Warmahordes rules?

Think about it.

Warjacks? Dreadnoughts. All those different dreadnoughts that nobody uses? Suddenly usable. Pretty clear which way is front, too.

What do you think? What armies would fit well? What could we substitute for Retribution? Eldar? How about Khador? Space Marines?

What if we, as hobbyists, just hijacked both systems and did what we wanted because it's our money and 'Murica and all that?

Dood, where's your car?

[Mr Mystery]

All those infantry models. Resolving their attack one at a time by necessity of having to use 2d6...... Not for me.

But otherwise, bugger all stopping anyone.

[Erik Setzer]

All those infantry models. Resolving their attack one at a time by necessity of having to use 2d6...... Not for me.

But otherwise, bugger all stopping anyone.

Eh... IIRC, in Mordheim you had to resolve one-by-one because of different weapon options. 40K2 might have been similar, but that's been ages and I don't want to see if I have a scanned copy of the rulebook (really bummed all my old books are gone).

If you were doing 40K with WM rules, you'd be wanting to do a smaller scale 40K, like back in RT and 2nd edition, or like how Warhammer Skirmish was designed. Or Necromunda. It'd be a skirmish-level game, not the sweeping grand 28mm Epic games we have now. And if you want to do skirmish, then one at a time isn't bad. But if you want Epic-at-28mm, then yeah, doesn't work as well.

[Mr Mystery]

That was a skirmish game, as is Warmahordes.

Individual rolling works well at that scale. At the average 40k scale (1,500 these days I think) not so much.

Imagine an Ork army rolling separately for every bit of Dakkas.....

[Auticus]

No thanks. Warmahordes may have decent rules but they are rules that I really have no interest in. The scale of the game, the kill the king mechanics, the focus of the game - all things that turn me off and have no interest.

[ReveredChaplainDrake]

That was a skirmish game, as is Warmahordes.

Just to point this out, but in WMH, 50 models is a stupidly large amount of models, and is usually vulnerable to heavier units because boosted POW12 doth not a can opener make (unless thou art Cryx and hath Dark Shroud on half thy models and Parasite on half thy casters). But that's not the problem.

The problem is Focus / Fury. PP did a good job of actually weaving their narrative into their mechanics in such a way that Warmahordes as it is generally known would not function without warnouns. The way 40k does things (at least in theory) is to have various units in your army come pre-baked with a suite of special rules of their own, rather than having one big leader piece confer out abilities to largely vanilla units and even conferring action points to large units. 40k would make very little sense under WMH rules because very few things in the game actually do what WMH would call allocating focus. Librarians and Dreadnoughts don't even come close. Spiritseers and Wraith-stuff, maybe. Tyranids kinda'-sorta' allocate focus with synapse creatures directing the lesser hordes. The fact that Tyranids are completely unique in this respect is essentially their racial penalty.

The other problem is that special abilities are scattered between things mere bog standard humans can do (Kovnik Joe's inspirational speeches, Butcher channeling his anger) and things that can only be the result of sorcery (Haley's time magic, Sorscha's ice magic, the Harbinger), while these are incredibly large and important distinctions in the 40k universe. The 40k universe as we know it would not be as it is without threats from the warp causing problems, and would wind up losing a lot in transition.

So yeah, 40k doesn't need Warmahordes' rules. What 40k needs are good rules that reflect its own lore. (And while whoever is at it, probably rewrite the lore to emphasize the perpetual galactic stalemate. Just in case some fanboy idiot thinks "reflects the lore" means "Space Marines always win".)

[Erik Setzer]

That was a skirmish game, as is Warmahordes.

Individual rolling works well at that scale. At the average 40k scale (1,500 these days I think) not so much.

Imagine an Ork army rolling separately for every bit of Dakkas.....

Kind of my point. If 40K was done with WM rules, it'd be skirmish level. If you don't like Skirmish level, yeah, that'd annoy you.

And the only reason I won't roll separate for each model in an Ork army is because I can bloody well fit 100+ dice in my hands and, by Gork, I will roll 100+ dice at once if you give me an excuse to!

I, uh... might have a dice addiction.

[Charistoph]

That was a skirmish game, as is Warmahordes.

Individual rolling works well at that scale. At the average 40k scale (1,500 these days I think) not so much.

Imagine an Ork army rolling separately for every bit of Dakkas.....

Indeed. We actually have something akin to this level, at the moment, called Kill Team. True, it doesn't completely match WarmaHordes, but it does run at the same levels.

But also agreed that the game size just doesn't work. Also think about how WarmaHordes would actually work at the same model number as even a 1000 point game, much less the 1500, 1850, and 2000 point levels some go at. I'm talking more of a Space Marine number instead of an Imperial Guard/Tyranid group or a Grey Knight group (which actually isn't that bad).

One word, unwieldy. If you think Apocalypse would be bad if no one brought Super-Heavies, and everyone brought hordes, yeah, something like that.

The problem is Focus / Fury. PP did a good job of actually weaving their narrative into their mechanics in such a way that Warmahordes as it is generally known would not function without warnouns. The way 40k does things (at least in theory) is to have various units in your army come pre-baked with a suite of special rules of their own, rather than having one big leader piece confer out abilities to largely vanilla units and even conferring action points to large units. 40k would make very little sense under WMH rules because very few things in the game actually do what WMH would call allocating focus. Librarians and Dreadnoughts don't even come close. Spiritseers and Wraith-stuff, maybe. Tyranids kinda'-sorta' allocate focus with synapse creatures directing the lesser hordes. The fact that Tyranids are completely unique in this respect is essentially their racial penalty.

That isn't really an issue. "Magic" is still available in 40K. The difference in WarmaHordes (besides just scale) is that all the leadership in the game are the equivalent of Psykers. There is literally no Necrons, Tau, Dark Eldar, or Black Templars in this game. Yes, there are similar races, but none of them have given up on that energy resources, at least that can be played as well.

So yeah, 40k doesn't need Warmahordes' rules. What 40k needs are good rules that reflect its own lore. (And while whoever is at it, probably rewrite the lore to emphasize the perpetual galactic stalemate. Just in case some fanboy idiot thinks "reflects the lore" means "Space Marines always win".)

Well, that and rules consistency. PP at least TRIES to map out the interactions with their rules while GW just doesn't even try.

40K CAN be done in WarmaHordes rules, but they wouldn't be compatible playing against WarmaHordes armies since their is no WarmaHordes "Warlord" mechanic that can be drawn upon to work with. The conversions would also drive a small part of you mad, too.

[Lexington]

There's a lot of problems with the idea, but I think the one that kills it in the crib is the fact that WM/Hordes ranged weaponry is purposefully neutered in a way that would make 40K almost impossible to convert in a satisfying manner. Heavy weaponry would either have to be hilariously short-ranged, or the game would have to give up close combat even more thoroughly than 6th/7th already has.

A better candidate for skirmish-type 40K conversion would be something like VOR: The Maelstrom.