Our grey beard group has done a lot of things. Here is just a few off the top of my head:

o Leadership test when hit with flamer. This works great especially against hordes of cultists and the occasional tyranid army. We really enjoy this one as flamers and heavy flamers can cause “panic” in our games and force squads to fall back.

o Using jam dice/rapid fire for weapons such as Heavy Bolters and Autocannons. We love this rule as it gives the possibility of a large number of hits, but after the first turn (we exempt the jam) it is very possible to have a jam that renders the weapon useless until a 4+ is rolled.

o Chain weapons re-roll wounds. This has been a wonderful addition to our grey beard games and gives some variety to different weaponry.

o Parry. The ability by a leader or unit champion to have a “hit” rerolled by the opponent. This has saved a few leaders during a game and gives a little “role play” feel.

o Alternate movement. One squad or vehcile per side moves. We think this adds a lot to the game.

o Multiple saves. While it adds to dice rolling, we like the idea of an armor save and then the possibility of a cover save or invincible save. We prefer this as we find gamers don’t like to stand out in the open much.

o Gifts of the God. For chaos, if you have a mini who rolls “6″ to hit multiple times or “1″s, there is a chance of being turned into a spawn. Either a “reward” or a “curse”. This has been a lot of fun with the youngsters.

o Snap fire. Allowing defenders to get a shot off at a -1 penalty. Heavy weapons cannot shoot (to cumbersome). This has been great at representing the lost moment a defender has to shoot before being assaulted. Usually doesn’t cause that many casualties, but every once in a while the assualter fails a morale check and runs before getting in to hand-to-hand. We allow only one shot per weapon as there is not enough time for rapid fire.

o Hitching a ride. Allow a squad of lesser armored (those with 5+ saves) to ride on the outside of vehicles for rapid deployment. While vulnerable to fire while riding, the troops can get into combat quickly and we allow for extra movement…..

o Because we allowed running or walking. While 5th edition chose to allow this in the shooting phase, we chose to have 4″ walking or 8″ running in the movement phase.

o Necron move 4″. We loved the notion that the Necrons moved slowly and deliberately. Keeping them slow moving made them seem more “machine like”.

o We experimented with allowing Apothecaries to eliminate the first wound even in hand-to-hand. We weren’t always happy with the result, but we also wanted to encourage folks to take Apothecaries.

We’ve got all sorts of rules, but I can’t quite remember them all at the moment. Hopefully, the above will illustrate some ideas that gamers can use.

Hope some of these are appealing to you fellow gamers.

Erik

The lack of Tau would be one of the best aspects of retro-40k.

I don’t currently play 40k or any variation on it, but the profiles have remained the same. It doesn’t seem like there would be that many special rules to adapt new models into older formats. Maybe this just shows how little I know about modern 40k.

There’s some brilliant ideas here already and the threads so young.

While I personally play 40k vanilla rules for the most part we add in additional subplots/events in a similar vein to the way Rogue Trader was built with all the random tables at the back. So I guess we make it a little more scenario driven than current 40k although 5th is rumoured to have an emphasis on objectives which sounds interesting. Particularly for playing smaller games.

Because I mainly play 400-500pt games it adds an extra bit of depth to the games instead of being a straight fight to the death.

We also don’t have a problem playing games that ignore army lists and just include things we think would be cool to play with so that we can play ‘what if? type match-ups’ which aren’t ‘legal’ from a codex perspective. E.G. you’re supposed to buy units of a particular minimum size, say 10, and we have only three models of that sort so we’ll throw three on (their comrades must have already died) and perhaps attach them to seven men from another unit to see how they get on or leave them on their own depending on how resilient the pieces are.

You can make some cool IG desperado units using this technique. A bit like during the real WWs when units were put together as casualties mounted up. 1 ogryn with ripper gun, a couple of storm troopers and the rest guardsmen was one of my favourite looking units. It just oozed ‘combat vets’ character.

Kill Team had some interesting ideas that we’ve modded for these smaller games too.

actually i’m adaptating my karmans to WH40K. Background, list and rules.

WH40K is OUR game, and just a game. It’s not something rigid like texas poker or chess. :) i love this chaos thing, even the guru of GW agree with us on the rulebook :)

Thousand Hats, I like the remaining veteran troops from different units idea, m`mm gives me some cool ideas.

Sarutobi45 good for you, the rigid must use GW minis or be flayed to death is one of the many things that annoy me about 40K as it is now. So get those Karmans on the table and kick some imperial butt LOL!

Thorbjorn, like the blips idea I may have to pinch it. I already have the green Litko blips and would only need to number them. As a bonus this would also give a new use to the various scanning items in RT result!

Gitteau forget about current 40K there is more fun at the retro end of the scale.

John has this little lot started the minds creative juices flowing, if you have the RT books there is no stopping you. Even 2nd edition will do I suppose, or Space Hulk oh yes!

Have fun all

SW

Its given me some stuff to ponder and I do like the blips idea - seems like the fairest way to do hidden or unidentified units Ive seen in a while. Right now I am waiting to see how 5th is along with the upcoming space marine codex and if BoLS updates thier 30k codex so i can use it for my Pre Heresy Luna Wolves, which are primarily RT era minis converted to the different marks of armor (WIP)

Then I have the task of adapting RT to suit what I need, including some army lists for Tau and either convince a buddys wife to let me borrow him once in a while or convert some 40k gamers at the FLGS to try my rules…