The title says it all, I have hoped and wanted this since 8th came out.
The streamlined rules of 8th are smart and require a lot less cross referencing between data sheets & codices than 7th used to.
So with this in mind I went looking for the set I heard that someone else converted. When I say I went looking I typed 30k in 8th and its the top hit...
Now full credit to the people behind this, its done a lot of the work already, but when I began reading through the Primarch rules I ran into a few problems (in my head at least).
The Primarchs all seem to have pretty much the same benefit, as they have replicated existing rules where they appear in 8th edition.
This means rules like Guillimans rerolls to Hit & Wound are in place for Guilliman and other Primarchs.
However this just doesnt quite feel right (and I swear its not just down to the growing hatred I have of re-roll bubbles in 8th Ed).
With that in mind, I thought I'd have a look at how I would approach at porting the Heresy rules into 8th.
I have read a lot of hate for 8th, mainly that it loses some of the tactical flexibility / challenge that 7th had. I don't think this is the case, and I think a lot of the rules for 30k currently will port over with minimal fuss.
Realistically I dont want to introduce power level into HH, I want to use the pre-agreed points for all the models that we have.
Where a data sheet exists in 40k, we use it in 30k (much like the approach taken by the original creators of this ruleset).
However I think we can probably get away with some easier translations of rules.
For example, rending used to be no save if you roll a 6 to wound, the equivalent in 40k is -3 to your save on a 6 to wound, and -1 most of the time. That doesnt appear to exist.
So some initial principles:
What did we lose in 7th to 8th?
Stats:
The WS chart - not a bad loss here, although this missing out probably means that WS8 or higher characters are a little bit too easy to wound for a normal marine hitting on 3+. Although to be fair nothing to say that it can't be kept as all the units in the game currently have a WS of the score to hit, this can easily be tweaked back to their 30k WS.
The BS chart - not really an event as the new 8th ed approach is just smarter
Initiative - This could be fun as its obviously designed to allow certain units to fight before other ones. I think some simple rules are order of resolution in the combat phase will help (i.e Chargers / Always Strike Firsters > Primarchs > Everyone else) means you still have some decisions to make but keeps it very close to the 8th Ed rules --- something to consider. This rule can easily be included in the Primarch data sheet as well for Primarch on Primarch action.
For the rest of the stats we can just use (as has already been done) the basic templates of stats that are taken from 8th Edition rules for things like movement.
Basic Rules:
Pinning Checks - Not a biggy, everything still has a LD value, so testing for pinning on 2D6 compared to your leadership shouldn't cause a big issue. The pinning rule itself doesnt really need much of a rework either - you can't move, assault and your BS is changed to a 6+ while pinned.
Assault Results
So I don't think we need these, but if you were meant to get a bonus to your assault results that can easily be replicated by saying you reduce the opponents LD when they test for Morale if they took any casualties in the combat phase (and the combatant was involved). it means bigger units of Marines carry a different risk to the one that they currently have in 30k.
Special Rules:
This is probably where the most work is required both for Special characters & standard units and standard special rules (like rending).
For the most part I think an updated glossary will cover it, things like Furious Charge or Acute Sense can be tweaked and updated.
Night Fighting itself is an easy rule to keep in for missions, and then suddenly thinks like Acute Senses work again.
Outflanking - that can continue to work exactly as it does now, it might need monitoring, but you know where the enemy is coming on, so you can do something to adjust for the risk of enemies turning up and charging.
And plenty of other examples and rules to look at!
Command Points
Do we need command points & stratagems? Umm initially I dont think so, I think there are ways to make this work without needing to use or track command points, but this is something I will need to check as I go through it.
Things that I have seen them used for in this ruleset, don't look to be things that you need to spend command points on.
Next Steps:
So I am working on a tweaked set of rules for the Ultramarines, Salamanders & Imperial Fists for myself and a couple of friends to try it out and see if it works or if we should just swap back to playing it in 7th... by the end of this I will know the rules well enough to do this anyway!
Might look at posting some tweaks and updates on this with some examples of how the rules set works as I go through it, assuming it holds water in our test games.
If you are interested in helping out and I will see what the options are to do that.
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