Warhammer 40K Custom Special Rules and Missions: At Any Cost

I've always been a fan of house rules and missions. Some balance out or mix up the meta, some are just amusing and others come from the "what would happen if...". I've always been annoyed with the idea that you could never shoot into a close combat "for fear of hitting friendly models". In earlier editions, this was to avoid the problems of assigning hits and taking saves so it made sense to just bypass the option all together. Now, in 6th Edition, hits are assigned to the models closest to the firer until they are removed as a casualty then on to the next closest and so on until all models are removed or all hits have been resolved.  This is cool in that it encourages you to consider from which direction you want to fire as well as taking full advantage of the skirmish style formation.

Based on this mechanic, I've come up with the CSR:  

At Any Cost

Any scoring unit accompanied by an Independent Character may use this special rule at the start of its Shooting Phase.  This unit selects a Close Combat and targets it for shooting. The shooting unit takes a Leadership Test based on the IC's Leadership.  The IC's Leadership suffers a -1 modifier for every friendly model in the close combat.  If the test is failed, the shooting unit does not get to shoot at all this turn, including Overwatch and any other Snap Shots it may have been able to perform, and is immediately PINNED. If the test is passed, the shooting unit conducts it shooting as if the targeted close combat were all one unit of enemy models. This means that the opposing player rolls saves for all models in the Close Combat that have been assigned a hit.  Models in the affected close combat may not perform any LOOK OUT SIR.  Wounds from this shooting attack do not count towards the close combat results. Regardless if the shooting unit passes or fails the leadership test, it is no longer considered a scoring or denying unit.


Well, there you have it.  Based on my understanding of the rules, it should be fairly hole free. I can think of a few armies that might want to use this.  Give it try and tell me what happened.

In the meantime, enjoy!

Blood Angels vs Imperial Guard at 1250

I had a fun game the other day playing against Imperial Guard as lead by my brother, Marc.  We played Big Guns Never Tire (3 objectives) with Vanguard Strike.  I ran a Librarian Terminator (Blood Lance and Wings), Sanguinary Priest(Plasma and Claw), three full Assault Marine units as combat squads with three in reserve (split a melta between the squads; sarge sporting a Claw) along with the fully kitted Stormraven.  I know a few players out there will drop jaws, cry foul or otherwise have fits about the points sink, but with very little else to deal with fliers, the Stormraven is a good choice and has so far succeeded in it's role more times than it has failed.  Marc castled up behind his Aegis with a Manticore, Command Platoon and Vets with his two Vendettas waiting for turn two. I focused on keeping my Marines out of line of sight as much as possible in deployment and turn one, which was Night Fighting, relying on my reserve units to make the dash for objective denial since Marc placed two of the three objectives in his deployment zone.  The whole of the game played very tactically with the only casualties being a Vendetta, due to the Stormraven and a unit of Marines that got too close to the Manticore.Neither the Librarian nor the four IG Psychers got a chance to duke it out, but I feel the threats were played very well.  Here's some highlights:

Blood Angel deployment and turn two disposition except for the preist...

...who took up position between the two combat squads.

Turn two and the arrival of the fliers!

IG deployment and disposition until turn four.

Turn three the Blood Angels begin advancing on the IG strong point and pay for their arrogance on turn four.

Turn three and four...taking fire!

"EVASIVE!!!"

A little off the track...

Okay, so these aren't directly related to miniatures battle games, but have been a significant influence in my enjoyment of the hobby. These paintings are on their way to a local doughnut shop called Doughbot Donuts who makes the most epic donuts this gamer could ever want. It's a shame I don't live closer 'cause these would rock during a game of Warhammer 40,000. My current favorite is the Bacon Chocolate!

If you ever get into Downtown Sac in the early part of the day, stop by their shop and try them out.  Pure AWESOME awaits!

 Necron99, later known as Peace, is my favorite character from the classic animated story Wizards. Shortly after seeing this film, courtesy of VHS, I converted a Guardsman to look like Peace and used it as a character mini in many a game. I'm tinkering with the idea of doing an allied detachment consisting of a platoon of Necron99 Guardsmen lead by a  Commissar called Blackwolf, though I'll most likely take the concept to a unit of Blood Angels Scouts or maybe some Storm Boys.

Gojira!  Godzilla to us westerners.  Who can deny that the awesome, often stunningly detailed miniature sets featured in the TOHO films hadn't inspired the would be terrain maker in all of us.  For a few of us, the great old monster has become synonymous with the armies we play.