"The 40k patch" Topic

The best written, playtested, and produced rules right now are what I'm calling the triumverate of Mongoose Publishing: Starship Troopers, Battlefield Evolution and Gangs of Mega-City One. You got your sci-fi system, your near-future system, and your skirmish system all with the same rules. Plus they're providing new pre-painted plastics. Andy Chambers helped design them, and he's more or less stated that they are what 40K's latest edition should've been.

We'd already toyed around with playing 40K with Starship Troopers, and not even really making up new rules – just using what was there with substitutions for the actual figs and retaining all the fluff. In the end, the fluff was annoying too so now I'm selling my 40K stuff on ebay for lots and lots.

Anyway, go check out mongoosepublishing.com and free yourself! We did.

As for 5150, my friend tried their 'Nam set, and he felt that the rules were badly written and playtested. He asked for help at their chat group and the two writers gave different answers so he bagged it. That's all I know.

Good luck! And welcome to the "Post-GW recovery program!"

venusboys3 23 Apr 2007 3:08 p.m. PST

"I disagree…"

I would be surprised if you didn't do that once a thread (-;)

"The best thing about 40K has always been the background and the minis…"

I OTOH was talking about the rules mechanics since the topic at that point seemed have a subtrend about finding another game that plays like Wh40k. Obviously there is absolutely no reason to use the background or the minis with any generic game you want.

>As for 5150, my friend tried their 'Nam set, and he felt that the rules were badly written and playtested.

Oddly enough I've found THW products to generally be well conceived.

>He asked for help at their chat group and the two writers gave different answers so he bagged it.

His loss. There's only one official responder on the site and he generally does so quite rapidly. Your friends loss…

5150 allows you to use what ever mini's you have. I will never again buy a game that restricts you to using "their" mini's and their defined armies.
5150 is an excellent game. I have been playing Two Hour Wargames for several years now and have found the group at Yahoo very friendly and helpful.
Do not overlook this game because it doesn't cost you $50 USD to buy the rules and $2,000 to buy an army.

Well, I must say I don't play 40K anymore. I have so many other games to patch the place left after 40K

And among my favorites are many games from THW, whose 5150 reflects 40K much better than I expected. No more static shootouts, no more nonsense charges across the board, taking all the lead without even blinking of eyes.

I even started a project of converting 40k armies/units to 5150 rules at 4dkay.chestofcolors.com and had lots of fun trying to make the stuff more faithful to the fluff than in the original game.

I have just finished a comparing of 40K and 5150 by replaying the same scenario in these two rulesets. Imperial Guard platoon trying to capture crossroads held by Space Marines. The game played with 40K was pretty bland and boring. Too static and 'artificial' for my taste. It ended with the IG surrounding the SM and forcing them to surrender (trying to fall back). On the other hand the game played with 5150 (with the 4Dkay mod) was vicious, dynamic, full of exchanges of fire, troopers hitting the ground to avoid enemy fire, being forced to duck back into craters left after some initial bombardment (I used the same terrain for both games, with craters to imitate effects of bombardment of the crossroads). Troopers rejecting to leave cover under fire, and eventually 2 Imperial Guardsmen managing to leave the board, with their wounded comrade on their shoulders, while some 20 casualties and 3 POWs remained on the SM controlled board.

Totally different experience for me! And highly recommended…

Phoenikuz – You're right. 5150 is nothing like 40K. I Don't want to hijack a thread just wanted to let the poster know NOT to look at 5150 if he likes 40K mechanics.

As for examples – 5150 has a four page sample battle using all the rules as well as starting with how to generate your troops.It is on page 55 and often gets overlooked and not read.

TIRED OF MODERN TOURNEMENT PLAY 40K RULES, BUT STILL WANT TO USE THE TOYS YOU HAVE INVESTED A FORTUNE IN?

MY suggestions for alternative rules are:

a. 40K:RT would be the route to go to continue using 40K fluff, but with a lot more meat.

b. i highly recommend THWG's sci fi rules 5150 as a replacement for 40K as these rules would allow you to use to play with everything you have_now_ without having to buy anything other than the 5150 rules. a word of warning, though; these rules (as are _ALL_ THWG rules) are completely different than any other rules that y'all or y'all's friends have played to date. these rules are most deffo not for any wargamer control freak! if y'all read and then play the rules, y'all will discover that they work and work very well! again, highly recommended, FUN, sci fi rules!

c. SHOCKFORCE would be another suggestion as an alternative to 40K gaming. very good rules, very open ended, and a lot of fun.

d. STARGUARD, arereally ancient (1974 or 1975!) set of sci fi skirmish rules that has its own miniatures and universe, but, can be used with other miniatures and background with a bit of effort on your part. you 40K stuff wil dwarf any of the toys made for the STARGUARD universe.

e. GOTO the freewargames rules www site and have a look-see! might find something there to make y'all happy, for free, except for printer ink, paper and time. i highly recommend this place,too.

i cannot comment on any of the other rules mentioned other than WARZONE, VOR, SG II, AND SST. in _my_ opinion, none of these would work for you for various reasons. the main reason is these are all too rigidly structured for their official universes, and most "as is" refugees from 40K just do not seem to be up to adapting them to covering "un-official troop types/races".

as far as SG II goes, the size of 40K toys does not "feel right" when used with SGII (to me); this is a game best played in 15mm or 20mm as far as i am concerned. the fluff is sooooo different from 40K, that i think this will provide problems for some 40K gamers.

i do not play 40K, VOR, WZ, SG II, SHOCKFORCE, anymore, of any version, rarely play STARGRUNT, and i am moving away from SST except for using the toys made by MONGOOSE.

i use 5150 for sci fi gaming, and i am very happy!

DAWGIE

Hello!

I'm also trying to move some friends away from 40K and into some new games. I've already readed the rules of 5150, SG2, FAD, Aetherverse and No limits. I think all of them would be a good choice, but I need to make some conversions. I still have to place my eyes on Shockforce. I know of the 4Dkay project and I think it's very good. No Limits has some conversions also, but I need conversions for SG2 and FAD (mainly Eldar and Dark Angels) if someone can help me (Jem Kilty, please help me with SG2) I would be very happy.
I've already tryed Aetherverse with the DA army guy, but he didn't like it, because the fluff, because the army abilities, because all miniatures are equal, etc. all kind of complaints.
You can write me to my email recrispi01_AT_thefreesite_DOT_com
Thanks.

I would also add "No Limits" as something to look at;

wargamesunlimited.com

Rules for Fantasy, Spaceships and Sci-Fi. They are free and you can use any figure, based any way you have them. However, they look more to me (IMHO) to be more WFB/40K in flavor than 5150.

Larry

"the size of 40K toys does not "feel right" when used with SGII (to me)"

Taking the logic in a bit of a different direction, if you use marines up against 15mm models, the height is more in line with 40k's fluff.

We use 5150 with the 40k stuff no one plays 40k with anymore – whether they are better rules is very subjective and who am I to say they are, but we have better fun and better games using 5150 which is why I play any game. As the Dawgie says they are very different, sometimes hard to get your head round if you come from the standard ugo igo roll to hit, roll to save games … but after a game or two they are intuitive and easy to play. We tend to think that they play more like you THINK the troops should play than in 40k … ask on the yahoo group and I am sure someone can give you ideas to convert the stats.

There's a 40K conversion in the files section of the Two Hour Wargames Yahoo Group.

>I know a lot of people like 5150 but I would suggest No Limits over it simply because 5150 is, in my impression, not really well written and in a serious need of editing.

>Which is a really shame because it really is an interesting system that has some unique concepts in it. I'd be quite happy to use it if it was given a good working over by a professional editor.

Well I am a professional editor and I see very little I'd change in the content of 5150. It's well written, but is completely different in perspective to any of the other rules sets out there. (And hopefully there will be a newer, better layout soon that shows the rules off in their best light.)

And here's the current 40K conversions for 5150:

link

Just chime in to say, If you're going to try another ruleset, 5150 or otherwise, DON'T try to convert it to 40K – At least not to start with! The mechanics will be different, so get to know the mechanics at the core level with a couple of games using the troops in the books (Still use your 40K minis to represent them).

THEN, when you've got the core gameplay to the point where the game flows nicely, it's time throw the conversions to use 40k armies on top of it…

Just my $.02.

some folks already know this, but others do not; i have my own yahoo group called BADDAWGS_LANDING.

all skirmish rules sets, from any genre, played in any scale, and RPGing are welcome at my place. i do not purge lurkers for lurking, but, the place is only as busy as the gamers make it.

lots of folks who have played lots of different rules can be found there. i am sure that y'all can get some more feedback there on this topic. there are also a lot of game scenarios written by me and others in the files if you are looking for something different. from tournement style 40K scenarios.

a lot of my scenarios have been played over a period of time using different rules sets, including various 40K sets, so are relatively easy to convert to wotever rules y'all are using for games.

another thing to get a real feel for 5150 that i would suggest would be to play the same scenario with the same toys using 5150 and 40K . as MAHON says, i think the result would be eye opening for y'all or anyone else.

DAWGIE

I haven't played RT in a long tim, but I just found my copy…what makes it so much better than the new rules for you guys? Just curious.

I haven't played RT in a long tim, but I just found my copy…what makes it so much better than the new rules for you guys? Just curious.

I would 2nd that question to this very old thread. I played RT when it first came out, liked it alot, but at that time, just out of College, no money to buy figs, it faded from our mostly D&D gaming group. So what makes it so good?

I know what I don't like about 40k, IGOUGO and the OVER emphasis on Melee.

Cheers, Xin

RT is a roleplay/skirmish system, and allows a lot more freedom for individual players.
It is also not designed for tournament play, working well with friendly competitors who have agreed on rule interpretations or "house rules", and working best with a GM acting as referee (or as "bad guy").

Have you guys triewd Rezolution? It's a very fast-paced cinematic skirmish system (not great for big 40k style battles) in a Bladerunnerish world – I highly recommend.

Only thing I would say to those considering switching from 40K to 5150 is that 5150 is not a true point based system. It only covers gear and not any kind of special abilities. Its great for running scenarios with set troops, but their is no way to have an open scenario with a set point cost and have everyone just bring even armies.