EDIT: I have updated the Hex Epic 40,000 rules, and have now put them here:
https://sites.google.com/site/skinneran ... pic-40-000

andy

Here are my adjustments so far. I admit that these tweaks are half necessary tweaks to move to hexes, and half my own preferences. Sorry, this would have been a more pure approach if I'd just hexed the rules. The document is a bunch of notes to go with the rule book, not an alternate rule book.

I used 4" hexes. I originally started with 6" hexes, because applying a hex grid is time-consuming, and 6" would take much less. But the granularity hurt, and I can draw hexes on a mat so that I've got a big head start. 2" hexes would allow you to match 5cm resolution and make less tweaks, but that is less what I'm looking for.

My personal preferences showed up in how I resolved ranges and movements. Ranges converted a bit longer than movements, because it worked out better.

I still have to do Flyers. I want to import just enough from Epic A to make flyers more interesting.

These rules do have the effect that I want of just picking up figures and putting them down. It feels more like playing with cool toys, and that's what I'm after. Still have decisions to make.

I'd love feedback. I'm bad at recognizing when I've written something only I could understand. Do I need more diagrams? I made some in MATLAB, and could make more.

Also, I intend to use these with Firepower 1 rules and The Titan Project: viewtopic.php?f=12&t=30467


andy

I guess I could give you my other documents.

Attached is my Unit Summaries doc, which is how I converted the Marines and Eldar. I'll do Orks as I need them. They are pretty straight conversions, though, mostly.

I do have my alternative opinion of how a Wave Serpent should be (armor 5+ and Save) as a separate listing. And I list flak versions of the Whirlwind and SM support weapon from a Firepower article.

There is also a Detachments sheet. It has been locked with no password so you can fill in the entries without messing up the form. You have to unlock it to add more pages. It is in the Review section of Word. The spaces are small, so I've been filling them in and printing them out.

andy

cool i look forward to reading this!

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Thanks for all this Andy I look forward to reading it.

Cheers

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Any feedback? I know it isn't a pretty document, but I wasn't trying to replace the Epic 40K rules.

What about some of the design decisions? For example, having to change the balance of firing ranges and speed, because they have different step sizes? The 1 hex assault / firefight range but 15cm range is 2 hexes? (I like this a lot in theory, but need to see if unbalancing.)

I'm not fond of the E40K rules that allows infantry to double speed in Assault phase if they get into contact. I'd hoped that being able to move completely through and into hexes would be sufficient for making sure infantry didn't fall short. But I did feel the Assault Marines in last game weren't able to get far enough. For most infantry in E40K, this is a 10cm or 15cm move bonus in the Assault phase. For jump packs, this could be a 20 or 30 cm move bonus, for 40 or 60 cm move total! I have been trying to port over the rules as written, but I can't resist making some tweaks. Would I really want to double move in Assault phase? I could use a 1 or 2 hex bonus instead. I think the main purpose is to make sure you don't have infantry that can't get into close assault without being almost at snap fire distance in the move phase. Again, I think the hexes make it easier to not fall short by just a bit. Maybe a hex bonus for infantry in assault would be fine. How important is this move to you in regular E40K?

What about the times when actual miniatures placement still matters? Blast markers, placing hits front to back, etc.

I haven't been enthusiastic about the net Epic 40K attempts, because of so many changes where people want to (as I see it) change the game. Yet here, where I'm trying to just translate the game to hexes, I can't help making tweaks along the way. We all like to fiddle with stuff.

thanks
andy

Andy I will give you some feedback once i've had a chance to read the doc properly. It does look like you had many of the same ideas for the same reasons as I did when first thinking of a hex adaption.

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Initial thoughts, interesting idea with the + movement should work ok.
The new ranges are a good idea but is there any reason you didn't want to go up in increments of one hex, why 2, 4, 6 etc?

2 hex command radius should work but may be a little tight for large formations such as ork warbands maybe nobs can be used to extend the radius, same for guard infantry too, you've been playtesting with small marine and eldar forces but don't forget some armies can potentially have huge formations which would need to really clump together with a two hex command radius making them extremely vunerable to a barrage.

Would also introduce a zone of control which means that no unit may enter a hex adjacent to an enemy unit unless making an assault move.

Firefights, well I won't comment on this as I personally feel the firefight phase is not needed at all, all close combat and short range shooting actions from a single detachment in the assault phase should be resolved as one action.

Barrage, for a regular barrage i'd just say choose a single target hex and anything in it takes a hit as normal no templates needed. For a heavy barrage use a three hex area of effect with the centre of the barrage at the point the three hexes join.

The rest of the doc seems clear enough.

One other major tweak me and yorkie wanted to do when we started a re write was to make all the phases as interactive as the shooting phase were each player alternates shooting with a detachment. We were going to translate this alternating idea to the movement and assault phases too. This would have given a more consistent set up for each phase as each player alternated moving their detachment's in the movement phase, alternated shooting with their detachment's in the shooting phase and alternated assaulting with their detachments in the assault phase.

All this alternating in each phase meant that both players were fully engaged throughout each phase in a more interactive fashion and it made for a more consistent rules set as all phase's worked the same way.

I could throw a lot more ideas at you but obviously this is not what your looking for here.

One day i'll get back to that re write of my own.

Cheers

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Ranges: I was trying to keep the regular progression of ranges. If I'd shut them down to 1,2,3, they would have gotten much shorter, and they already look far too short to me. I could have just rounded them off one way or the other, so 15 becomes 1 or 2, 30 is 3, 45 is 4 or 5. But I didn't like 1 hex increment for some range bands and 2 for others.

Yeah, I may just be inexperienced with the regular 30cm command range. I always wondered why it was so large. A 2 hex range is actually about 25cm if the command unit is in the center of its hex, so covers 5 hex and 50cm diameter. 3 hex command range covers 7 hexes, or 70cm. I am not reluctant to use 3 hex command range.

I'm trying not to change central parts of the rules like firefights and alternating activations as part of this project. I really like the phase system, though not the close combat system. That's just independent of what I'm doing here.

Yes, this uses a zone of control instead of snap fire. Snap fire depended on making a measurement guess mistake, I guess, and that's just not available here.

I tried to use a hex for barrages, but a 10cm diameter barrage is much bigger than a barrage template. I had some rules to reduce that, but they were starting to get a bit messy. And the megacannon and similar got tricky.

Thanks for comments!

andy

Interesting that you were happy to increase weapon ranges quite a bit but not happy about increasing the area of effect of a barrage ie 1 whole hex. If you stick a template in a hex there really is not that much difference really.

Anyway keep us in the loop on this hex project pleaae i'd be interested to hear more.

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My thinking was that increasing weapon range kept weapons at same relative strength, though it does change range vs movement and close assault. I would have kept the ranges the same if they had fit more smoothly. My first pass used 6" hexes, and I did just convert 15cm to one hex for that, but it made the movement system too complex.

But increasing the barrage area would effectively increase the firepower of barrage weapons relative to other weapons. I had ways of trying to deal with that, but what convinced me to go back to templates was the megacannon and similar. I just couldn't find a satisfying way to remove the template.

So are the sizes that similar? Let's see. I saw a note that the template has diameter 7.4 cm. That would be 2.9 inches. The hexes have a diameter of 4" from flat to flat, which is 4.6 inches across diameters. Area of the hexagon is 13.9 in^2. Area of the template is 6.7 in^2. I think you could put a lot more figures into a hex than under a template, even though the diameters aren't that different. I could easily see this doubling the firepower of barrages. That is what led me to experimenting with rules like using half the number of figures in a hex (round up), or smaller of 1d6 or number of figures, etc. I suppose I could go back to using this approach for most barrages and come up with something different for megacannons, which are supposed to put the hurt on a specific selection of figures, instead of just adding to the total firepower.

Thanks for asking about it. It is one of the areas I've struggled with a lot, and tried to both make easy and fun (my main goals) while not changing relative strengths much. I was hoping to get rid of the barrage templates, but I was mostly happy to get rid of the ruler.

As for future efforts, I'm going to do flyers next, and while I'm trying to just port Epic 40K in general, I feel I have to bring over a minimum of changes from Epic A to make them more interesting. But it should be able to port pretty well, maybe changing some angles. And then there will be just more games played. That is my goal.

Thanks again,
andy

One other option if you use a hex as the area of effect is to adjust the points value of barrage weapons to counter the potential extra firepower.

I suppose part of the problem was that with the two hex command radius you have your troops bunch closer together hence more models in a single hex when a barrage attack comes in. A larger command radius would negate that some what as figures could be spread further apart. Still it's all down to individual taste really we all have our own ideas for these games.

Cheers John

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While I think that's a good point, I don't know if it is a big effect. As I have it now, I have a 50cm diameter circle for command range. The official rules are 60cm diameter. If I went up to 3 hexes, I'd have a 70cm diameter for the detachment to fit into. I don't think the models will be huddled together in any of those settings.

I really would like to use the hex for barrages, but the combination of having to tweak the firepower and not working well for megacannon and vortex missile is what threw me off.

If I used half the units in a hex rounded up, it would be pretty close.

thanks
andy

I was just reading through this and what about Blast = 1 Hex and Barrage = 1 Hex + 1 (or 2, depending on how it works) adjoining Hexs. have the +1 randomized (good old scatter dice)

I'm not sure I'm following. Are you thinking of the regular barrage vs the heavy barrage?

andy

Attached is a picture of command radii. The hexes with dots are covered with 2 hex command radius. The gray hexes are covered with 3 hex command radius. And the blue circle is 30cm assuming that the command unit is in the center of the central hex. The point I was trying to make is that the diameter of 3 hex, at 70cm, is too much by the same amount that the diameter of 2 hexes is too little. This picture shows that I'm wrong. The blue circle is closer to the outline of the 3 radius hexes. They do go further, but only n the 6 extreme corners.

So I will change the command range to 3 hexes. I have trouble seeing why this is needed, to be honest, but I concede that I'm used to smaller detachments. When you take advantage of 30cm ranges, are you typically grouped up, or stretched in a line? I want to make sure I can distinguish which units belong to which detachments.

I will also look to see whether visualization changes my mind about ranges.

andy