Greetings in the name of the Emperor! We have come a long ways from humble origins and have recently got a bunch of new followers and members on social media. I have also had a lot of people asking questions about what Alternate 40k Rules is and what it offers compared to official editions, both current and older. I have a video of this embedded on our homepage from the YouTube channel, but not everyone wants to listen to me ramble. For those of you interested in a brief overview of mechanics that makes Alternate 40k Rules special, keep on reading!
First off we are coming up on 3 years of intensive play testing. We started with a core group of 3 players (myself and 2 incredibly awesome supportive friends who I will be forever grateful for getting to know) and grown to a core group of 5 play testers. Their insights have been invaluable, lending to our total invested man hours of about 3900! Everything was rebuilt from scratch, including the point formula, and then carefully reconstructed to have a 5-7th edition general feel. We have gone as far back as Rogue Trader, other games, and games/house rules of our own making! I am currently rebuilding the Core Rule Book for clarity, and would greatly appreciate questions and feedback to make it as comprehensive as possible!
1) Alternate 40k Rules brings back Codexes having large amounts of army formations whenever possible! None of this one or two army abilities that you find commonly in a lot of editions, including some classier ones. Some armies like Custodies are still limited in this function, but as more lore becomes available and models get added to the range we will add them!
2) Army structure is widely open, but just limited enough to try and keep the game balanced. You can bring a large amount of tanks or monsters to a game, but as only Infantry and select exceptions can Claim or Contest Objective Markers you will find it hard to be able to win even if you have a strong killing list!
3) Randomized Objectives. Like in 6-7th edition, Objectives cannot be chosen a head of time. This highly encourages a flexible army that makes the game experience better for everyone. This also means that there are two sides to the game; Objectives and Fighting. If you are having a bad dice day on one of these sides, you most likely can still get satisfaction from the aspect of the game and not feel like you time and money in the hobby was frustratingly wasted.
4) Destructible and Customizable Terrain. In A4R, you can destroy Terrain, leave vehicle wreckage as Terrain, and even alter the battlefield pre-deployment with unspent unit Slots! The concept has been massively simplified compared to 6-7th edition for sake of speed and enjoyment. This allows you personal game to be highly adaptable and narrative driven, allowing in large games for hyper elite armies like Space Marines to not fall behind in the large buckets of dice being rolled each turn. This is critically important outside of regular tournament sized games (2500 points) to keep the game fair and enjoyable. There is such a thing as overwhelming amounts of lasguns, and it really takes its toll in giant games. This also allows for greater tactical flexibility, letting you crush buildings beneath your Titanic models and shoot out strategic structures from underneath the defender’s feet!
5) A very rigorous point system. I rebuilt the point system from scratch. It took 200 man hours of just me running reverse engineering on just about every edition until I found a balance I wanted (and proving the lack of formula for other editions). I then integrated a variety of editions together for a more seamless and familiar feel with modern and legacy editions. Each rendition of this consisted of a massive list of basic units from each codex. I would run 1000 points including decimals against each other’s statline and weapons (pre rules) and then got them all to be within a .003 percent variance! After that, I included anticipated rules and ran them all over again. The end result is a very robust point system that only requires testing of units to ensure unforeseen combinations are not broken. The fact that GW thought to skip this at one point still blows my mind to this day.
6) A classic Psychic Phase has been restored, with a simpler Perils of the Warp. Perils of the Warp that just does 1 Mortal Wound for each 1 To Cast out of 2d6+Psychic Mastery Level #. So long as the caster achieves the Cast#+ it is a success! Double 1s always fail, and result in a very painful 2 Mortal Wounds! To Deny the Witch, once per enemy Psychic Phase a model with Psychic Mastery Level # or an ability that lets it do so like Collars of Khorne can attempt to counter it with a similar roll. So long as the Defender (The one Denying the Witch) ties, the spell is countered!
7) Duels can be fought once again thanks to Challenges! Characters like the humble Sergeant all the way to Independent Characters like Angron or bigger can fight duels to the death in Melee! The grisly spectacle can tip the scales of Combat Resolution drastically or be used in an attempt to save a unit by sacrificing an important model in a brave attempt to by time. Losing Challenges was a major blow to the narrative driven game, and it has been very satisfying to restore! We fixed a lot of bugs with the previous versions of this from legacy rules for a more solid game!
8) All Datasheets that ever existed, that I can find or have been provided to me anyways, all have rules! In fact, many models that did not get a Datasheet but should have thanks to established lore in books have received one as well! Any model that has ever been capable of being fielded should be able to. It gets a bit gray in the Rogue Trader datasheets, but I have been doing everything I can there to keep them available in some capacity to play. There was a major shift in lore as the game went from a skirmish scale to full scale battles in 2nd edition, and 98% of these changes were necessary.
8a) First Born Space Marines and Primaris Space Marines are both excellent choices now for example! First Born bring 10,000+ years of Geneseed battle experience to the field. Their tactical flexibility is unparalleled, and even the most basic Tactical Marine comes in at 34 points compared to the humble 6 point Guardsmen! Whereas First Born are highly adaptable, Primaris are harder to kill and back a bit more punch. They make excellent front line troops and when supported by First Born Marines they are an incredibly potent force!
9) Non-profit Effort. A4R is of course not able to make any profits of any kind. Because we do not have a monetary agenda or share holders to appease (something my own LLC for original games will not be subject to), A4R will always be about fair balance, enjoyable game experiences, and be driven by my weaponized autism to ensure these two points will always be the priority. A4R is fully IP compliant per GW’s rules posted on their website.
10) Feedback is always welcome! While not every request can be made to alter the rules of units or the core game, we still want to hear back about things you feel the game might be missing. I bring a strong logic solution to the game, Alex brings a strong emphasis on how the game feels, and Jordan bridges the two of us when we get stuck. Travis and Charles have also been instrumental in helping turn around ideas we were searching for, and you can too! Even if you just want to share your point jobs, artwork, battle reports, or more we will always love to hear from you! I try to personally respond to each and every one of you and apologize if I ever miss a social reach out.
I hope this gives you all wishing for times of yore that include modern unit releases something to get excited about again. A lot of work has been put into it, and only 5 Codexes and 1 major supplement are left to get fully tested (Adeptus Mechanicus, Squats aka Leagues of Votann, Sisters of Battle, Imperial Knights, Inquisition, and Chaos Knights). Light changes will still happen from time to time as we spot further potential for improvement, new (or old forgotten) units get added by GW, or just general fixes we may have missed in the first place.
We always need feedback regarding potential typos or errors in Datasheets as well, so please reach out! As afore mentioned, I am rebuilding the Core Rule Book to be cleaner and more up to date. Errata, Designer Notes, and Advanced (optional) Rules are being added and colour coded as I go. Recaps of each section are included at the end of the relevant section as well so you can just skim read the relevant notes instead of taking a deep dive when trying to locate a particular rule.
We hope you enjoy your wargaming and hope to see you on the battlefield!
Alternate 40k Rules 