Via Games Workshop
-Woehammer 40,000-
I'm a big fan of Warhammer 40,000 lore, and I'd love to play more 40k ttrpgs but there's unfortunately not a lot to choose from. Well, not really a lot for me. Mostly because the amount of 40k games you can play is dependent on the faction you want to play. If you want to play imperium, there's like, a bunch. If you want to play chaos, there's a few. If you want to play Orks, there's maybe one or two. If you want to play Tau, you're fucked.
This is because, although there’s a good amount of them, most 40k RPGs focus on single factions at a time. Dark Heresy focuses on chaos troopers. Black crusade focuses on chaos space marines. Deathwatch focuses on normal space marines. Only war focuses on imperial guard, etc, etc. This is neat for its own reasons, but personally I wish they had used their unified d100 skills & talents system to represent a more generalist experience first.
Unfortunately, the license shifted hands, and the only 40k rpgs currently in development are Wrath and Glory and Imperium Maledictum.
Wrath and glory is *almost* there in terms of flexibility, but it still misses the mark for me. The corebook only shows imperium, Eldar, and three Ork classes. The chaos options are just reskinned imperium options. Anything else has been up to fans to create. And Imperium Maledictum snuck by in complete unremarkable silence, so that one’s right out.
I want it to be better, but it isn't. I want there to be more independent games for this universe, but there aren’t really any I can easily find. So what to do?
-Circumstances-
I had a really bad week recently, and couldn't focus on prepping for a big DND game I was gonna run. But I didn't want to leave my players without a game that week. So I wanted to run something that was low prep, low rules, low complexity. Additionally, I wanted to run something in the 40k universe. Two of the friends at the table are huge fans of the universe, two more are interested, and I've been dying to run one for a long time, so I wanted to run a one-off in that.
But we run back into the issue of selecting a system. Teaching my players a system like black crusade would be impossible in so short a time, and while they did have experience with wrath and glory, the system still wasn’t the level of itch.io rules-nothing indie weirdness bullshit that I was in the mood to run.
So instead of playing a Warhammer 40k ttrpg, I played Warhammer 40k, as a ttrpg.
-Ok, What is this shit-
This rules hack for Warhammer 40k 9th/8th edition trashes the phases and units of the original game and puts you under control of an individual badass. Currently under the name D4K (Duff's rules 4 Killing,) This is a high strength power fantasy game to match the feel of main characters in warhammer novels/video games.
Via rob_kmiec.artstation.com - A fair fight in D4K
The focus isn’t so much on rolling for non-combat situations. Usually, anything a player wants to do outside of murder is successful. The GM may assign a price for success, if an action is risky. Alternatively if there are too many factors to account for/no conditional successes, they determine a chance of success on a die of their choice and roll.
But now for the meat. Most of this game is used to represent combat, so let's get our character's combat stats. To create characters, players select a datasheet from 40k, such as an ork boy, and make some adjustments to their stats:
- If there's a sergeant/nob/leader role as part of that unit, use their profile.(You’ll want the extra wounds/attacks)
- Double the maximum amount of wounds they start with for extra durability
- Select any weapons available to that model (or similar models)
- finally, most importantly, players begin rolling d12s instead of d6s for all attacks, wound rolls, and saves.
In this instance, ork boy players would steal the stats from the Boss Nob, double the wounds, and then choose their loadout from ork boyz (or pretty much any ork infantry datasheet’s) weapons.
The dice is the biggest change. Most rolls that have a 50% chance of success now have a 75% chance of success. You start extremely strong, capable of facing off against plentiful foes and larger monsters. But as you take wounds (50% of your maximum), you begin to lose effectiveness (roll d10s instead.) If you reach 0 wounds remaining, you're rolling D8s, and take a lasting injury such as a broken arm or a pierced organ. If you reach negative hit points equalling your toughness score, you are dead.
These changes turn models that could normally only survive a few engagements and take out a couple models on their own into powerhouses of destruction that can face down elite foes and legions of troops. Under these rules, it's much more likely to land hits, confirm wounds, and make saving throws. An elite character stands a significant chance of destroying a whole tank over a span of a few rounds.
That’s pretty much the end of where shit changes globally, but depending on what kind of character you run you may run into rules you’ll have to nudge one way or another.
As an example of rules that have to be smoothed into working, things like 6s exploding into additional hits or rolls (such as the Ork Goff’s ability.) That, I’ve ruled to be the top two faces of your current die. This makes the odds the same on starting characters (1 in 6), and acts as a catchup mechanic for wounded models. A Khorne Berzerkers’ blood surge ability can be changed to charging and attacking whatever shoots at them after their attacks are resolved. Basically I’ve been changing anything that relies on d6s or phases, or things that don’t really make sense from an individual character perspective. I’ll probably make a more in depth procedure for this in the future, but at the moment I’m operating purely on vibes.
Speaking of vibes, let’s talk Psykers. Players that can use sorcery or psychic powers still roll 2d12, giving them a much higher than normal chance of succeeding. A basic power is basically guaranteed to manifest, and allows players to play around with even stronger powers without overwhelming fear of failure. But in the continued mindset of “Fuck it, we ball,” and because a lot of powers are difficult to easily translate into this new system, I’m using freeform magic. Basically, the player determines an effect, the Gm determines a score required to manifest it (8-10 being average,) and then the player rolls. You can obviously work out the effect of stuff like Smite or Fury of the Ancients RAW, but if you want to get weird with your magic the only limit is your imagination (and luck) in this ruleset.
Finally, all players get something called Fate Points. Essentially, you can spend one at any time to make something cool happen. Powerful support from allies, finding powerful weapons, landing devastating blows, or just preventing a character from dying horribly.
Players start with 3, but I’ve allowed characters to trade Fate Points to be stronger units. A player being a stronger Terminator or Daemon starts with 2 instead. A player starting as a dreadnought or huge monster starts with 1.
There’s a few things so far that I’m figuring out, such as allowing multiple actions in a player turn, or allowing excess damage to spill over into adjacent opponents, or allowing troop players to call in support squads. But that’s still in the testing phase.
And those last details are pretty much the end of what I have, written or unwritten, about this janky duct tape heroic combat system. So instead of speculating much further, I thought an example of play might be interesting to include.
-----THE STORY-----
In this instance, our players are fighting for the forces of chaos. They are part of a heretical warband traveling towards forge world Drakos. Their target? A warlord titan, nearly fully repaired from a battle with Ork Stompas.
The player characters:
Archon, a renegade Skitarii.
Cortisolus, a Khornate Berzerker.
Noxis, a Nurgle Terminator.
Zagon Mensis, a Tzeentch Daemon Psyker.
Azil, a Slaanesh Noise Dreadnought.
Of note, the berzerker has a large bandana clasped around his neck, the Dreadnought is bedazzled, and the Daemon has the appearance of an Eldar with its brain exposed.
They receive mission briefing, dictating their target and their plan to take it: Deploy a parasitic core in the cockpit of the Titan, infesting it with fleshy tendrils that will turn it into a massive half-meat, half-metal Daemon. Everybody asks to lick the Parasite Capsule.
After briefing, everyone drops in via Drop Pod (or gunship, in Archon’s case.) Vicious combat with Skitarii and Servitors ensues. First out of the gate are Cortisolus and Noxis, ripping and tearing with Chainaxe and Manreaper. Archon led a strafing run in the gunship, and commandeered a Skitarii Skorpius Disintegrator. Zagon outright drove swaths of men to madness and autocannibalism through potent Psychic manipulation. One ranger got off a good shot on Azil with an arc weapon, only barely managing to wound the machine.
He promptly picked up the soldier in his powerfist, shouted “THAT WAS GREAT!” and bass-ed the poor soul into oblivion with a heavy sonic blaster.
A look at the inside of Azil’s Dreadnought Chassis
With the landing zone soon cleared out, more chaos soldiers drop, and swiftly form a war camp. The army musters to assault the prime Manufactorum, where the titan is housed. The player team is selected to transport the parasite capsule by a high-ranking heretical Techpriest, H4-43D, who was part of the team overseeing the whole attack. The party is offered a choice of approach. Join the frontal assault and crash into the enemy head on, or flank via subway tunnels or sewers. They elect to flank the opposing defense lines via the chemical spillways underground.
The sewer pipes open up into a wide area of discarded servitors, and just in general smells like rancid chemicals. All of a sudden, the berzerker Cortisolus is dragged beneath the foul water, and the party is swarmed by rotting feral Servitors like hydraulic zombies. Without much trouble, the party mulches them. Most of the fighting is close quarters combat, save for the magic of Zagon and a flamer unit taken by Archon.
Eventually the party reaches a sewer entry hatch, positioned directly above them. Archon stood on Azil's shoulders to peek out of the hatch, where they saw a defensive line of Guard and Skitarii defending against an army of chaos marines and cultists. They can ambush them, but there’s a small snag in the plan. Everyone at the table asked "How are we getting our Dreadnought up there?" to which I said "I dunno, how do you do it?"
Azil dug their massive power fist into the wall, already beginning to climb up. The terminator and the berzerker quickly positioned themselves against either leg of the dreadnought, but it was apparent that this was getting them nowhere fast.
Cue Psyker.
Zagon weaved a powerful spell, manipulating Azil’s strength to frightening levels, and forming an anti-gravitic field around their chassis. With their weight significantly diminished, the squad was capable of elevating the dreadnought towards the entrance hatch with little issue, allowing Azil to conduct a sneak attack.
Imagine, if you will, being a guardsman in this situation. Barely holding the line against charging chaos space marines, cultists, and beastmen. Numbers dwindling, but still holding fast, when all of a sudden a huge manhole cover begins rattling behind you. You, and a dozen or so others, train your lasguns on the hatch, waiting for what chaotic beast lurks below to launch its ambush. Then, with a heavy metal SLAM, you are the subject of a sneak attack from a fucking walking TANK.
Things did not go well for the guard.
The dread has enhanced strength. I ask if they wanna punch a tank. Azil wants to pick up the tank and use it as a weapon. Oh my god. The dreadnought swings a Leman Russ Battle Tank as a fucking club, mulching a couple dozen guardsmen. At the apex of the swing, they allow it to fly across the battlefield and detonate among two basilisk artillery emplacements.
We’re having a lot of fun at this point.
The rest of Strike Team Parasite leap from the sewers. Of note in this combat, Noxis threw a virulent plague grenade into a mass of guardsmen, mutating them into a new squad of Poxwalkers to tear through the ranks of the guard. Azil scooped up five guardsmen in their fist and crushed them all. Zagon cut out the rebreathers of the humans on this smog-filled planet, hindering them severely, and boiled the blood of several others. Archon snapped down sergeants and commissars with their rifle, but ALSO detonated the tank on a thrown flamer, burning alive a dozen more men. Two guardsmen try to blast Azil with plasma guns, overload them, and explode in a white hot ball of light. And Cortisolus...Let's talk about Cortisolus.
As combat begins, the berserker cuts out the audio feed to his helm, and draws the bandanna around his eyes. Through the vibrations of his bolter, his eviscerator chainaxe, and the chaos of combat, he navigates the battlefield blind like a coked up zatoichi. Already supernaturally deadly, this blind monster, butcher’s nails ticking, is enhanced by the Psyker Zagon to move twice as fast. To attack twice as much. Tearing down ten men in a round already, shots plink off his armor to call attention to another squad of poor suckers, which he surges towards and cuts down just as easily.
The front line is decimated, the remaining guard and armor units are disorganized, and a pathway to the prime Manufactorum is all but clear. So our Terminator Noxis begins to run. An absolute unstoppable force, using his scythe or sheer weight of armor to cut and pulp guardsmen with ease. A hundred shots come in. Through disgusting resilience and terminator bulk, he sprints on, though wounded.
The great Manufactorum doors are in sight. The party surges forth. The Terminator nearly cuts down an entire tank, never slowing in his charge. The dreadnought begins slamming an entrance open while the berserker does battle with an entire squad of Bullgryn.
As the doors open just enough to allow a space marine inside, Noxis and Azil remain outside, demolishing the grand stairway to the Manufactorum and gunning down any that would seek to hinder their allies. Inside, Zagon, Cortisolus, and Archon, with the Warlord in sight, contend with one last obstacle - a squad of Kastelan Robots.
As poxwalkers rush through the gate to deal with any Manufactorum guards, the trio engage and barely survive. After a devastating opening strike that leaves two robots bisected at the hands of the Khornate berserker, they narrowly avoid death by heavy blaster fire. A retaliatory strike leaves the remaining automaton barely standing, and in response, a heavy metal fist punches Cortisolus' arm clean off. But a powerful final strike, blessed by the blood god, leaves the warrior triumphant over the robot.
The squad cuts down the mortal defenders that remain on their warpath to the Warlord titan. They take the massive machine, deploying the capsule in the cockpit. As tendrils begin to spill out over the metal plates of the command deck, one of them must remain behind, acting as a sacrificial pilot of the great machine. Archon, the heretical Skitarii ranger, volunteers, and is interred in the fleshy command throne of the newly christened Decimatus Rex.
And as the machine awakens, it kicks open the Manufactorum doors. Macro cannons and plasma annihilators spool into destructive life. It gazes on the defenders of its world with disdain, and with a foundation shaking war horn, the battle is won. The Titan is taken.
____
And the session was over. A good time was had by all. Moments of laughter and sick stunts, near death experiences, and a lot of high-powered heroism. It wasn't a realistic representation of what would happen in the world of 40k, but as a main character power fantasy simulator I'd call it a total success.
This was a fun experiment in how little I could write in terms of rules and how fun it could still be to play. I'm sure it'd probably be a better ruleset for one shots, but it wasn't really intended for campaign play anyway. maybe I could figure that out at a later date, but for now I'm just satisfied that everybody could pick it up and have fun.
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