Warmachine 40000 – Could you play 40k with WM rules? Part one

Ok, this is going to be a bit of a thought exercise and is not intended as a serious product or anything more than kicking around an idea.  Also, I frankly don’t care if you think 40k is a superior system and that this idea is entirely invalid, this is my playpen and I’ll write what I want to. 

I love the 40k world, love it to bits, but I find 40k a dull game these days. I really like Warmachine (WM)  as a game, and while the world is ok, it’s not quite as cool. In a perfect world, I would be able to play with Space Marines in a better game system, WM is a great game system.  So what would WM 40,000 look like?

Setting boundaries and guidelines

You can’t just pick up 40k stuff and drop it into WM, it wouldn’t work. The settings are a little different and the expectations of what a game feels like are different. Space Marine heroes assigning focus points to a group of Dreadnaughts doesn’t really fit with how we see 40k. So let’s set some basic ground rules.

•          If in doubt, don’t adjust the WM rules. The core rules are fine, minimal tweaks the better
•          Keep the WM stat lines (Spd, Mat, Rat, S, Def, Arm, CMD)
•          40k guns have better ranges and there is a general emphasis on big guns as a staple in the game. But don’t let a “gunwall” dominate.
•          40k has variety in its squad builds, don’t lose the “customization” approach.
•          40k probably has too much variety in its builds, so don’t be afraid to streamline it.
•          Make 40k heroes heroic, without having to have the “character only” aspect of WM.
•         Focus on infantry first, then figure out how to do vehicles/transport/etc.
•          Use spells and bonuses from WM, but consider toning them down first and making them “feel right” for the setting. 
•          Look at Warcasters and think how that system could be used to represent 40k character heroes, without them feeling like Warcasters.
•         Start with Space Marines, as they are the most popular army, the 40k models I own, and some WM 30k could result from just looking at one army.
•          Most of my codexes and rules are an edition behind the current play. So if I mention a unit and it’s wrong, that’s why.

Basic Statistics

Ok, here are two traditional stat lines from 40k that every player with recognize.

WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	LD
3	3	3	3	1	3	1	7
4	4	4	4	1	4	1	8

Yep, the human standard stat line at the top and the “Marine” stat line at the bottom. Now lets think how these stats can port over to WM.

Weapon Skill --- Melee Attack

In WM, models have a MAT score of 2-9, with 2 being a cowardly gobber mechanic with no military training, and 9 being a handful of elite characters. 40k has WS from 1-10, although I can’t remember any models with WS 1.

Now, you might think that you could swap the number over and it might work, but the way MAT works, it would be more appropriate to make Mat scores more median.

Looking across MAT stats for models, 4 represent a standard human with moderate martial training. So would be a good number for WS 3. MAT 6 represents a normal frontline fighter, so would be good for WS 4. Then place the other numbers on a bell curve. Sure, it might mean that two characters with WS 8 & 9 both end up with a MAT of 8. 5 could be reserved for models with WS 3 that should be considered a little better than most WS 3 models in a fight in the fluff, say scouts in a condex where they are WS 3 for example.

So, lets use this table as a starter, I’ve added MAT 10 because “Bloodthirster”. I don’t’ mind that thing having a better MAT than anything in WM.

WS	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
MAT	2-3	4-5	6	7	8	8	9	9	10

Ballistic skill ---- Ranged Attack

This one is even more straight forward as most models in 40k go from bs 2 – bs 5 with a few exceptional models above that. However, bs 6+ isn’t a massive improvement on BS 5. So we can compress the top band easier.

Rat 5 represents a basic human shot in WM, so let’s set that as BS 3.

BS	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
RAT	4	5	6	7	7	8	8	9	9

Strength

Ok, here we have a like for like stat that represents the same thing. The big difference is that Strength in WM only determines part of your melee strength, the other part is the weapon.

Discounting Collosals, 12 strength is the upper limit for normal figures, and that’s for a heavy Warjack. Here we may have to expand the bell curve. 

Strength for human models is pretty much 5-6, with 6 being a “knight” or “warrior” model. Strength 5-6 should be the human norm, so we may have to fiddle with each figure to be appropriate, but we will go with marines as having Strength 7. The affor mentioned “gobber” has strength 4, and as they are indistinguishable from grots. That works for Strength 2.

S 40k	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
S WM	4	5-6	7	8	9	10	10	11	12

Speed

Every standard model in 40k moves 6” unless otherwise mentioned. But I think that’s a good example of where WM can make some tweaks.

Speed 5 is standard in WM, so let’s set each models speed to that as a starter. Units with “fleet”, high initiative scores, or who just look a bit faster (Howling Banshees) should go up to 6. And slow and purposeful units, and other heavy gear should drop to 4.

No hard and fast rules on this one, but I feel a Genestealer should win a leg race with a Terminator.

Defence and armour

Now this is where things get tricky.

40k has the following process, roll to hit based on BS, roll to wound with Strength vs Toughness,  check armour penetration and make armour save or invulnerable save to live.

WM has a to-hit roll based on Rat/Mat vs Def and then a damage roll against armour. In general, you miss a lot more in WM than in 40k, but hits are more likely to kill.

Ideally, we want models to have comparable survivability and flavour to how they appear in 40k.  

Looking at stats we see Wounds, toughness, armour save and invulnerable saves that need to be factored in to the units survivability. But most of those feel like “armour” rather than defence.

Another big factor in a units survivability in melee is its initiative. And when you look at high initiative models like Genstealers, Exarchs and Incubi, you feel they should be “hard to hit” figures that have good defences. So we should factor that in when calculating their defensive stats.

Wounds will translate into hit boxes and very heavy armour may translate into hit boxes as well. Traits like tough can also be used to represent tough models.  

So let’s make them a shared stat pool from initiative, toughness and armour saves and allocate Def/Arm in a way that seems logical.

Def 13 is human normal, Def 12 normal for a big guy like a troll or ogre, and Def 16+ reserved for absolute ninja characters.

Arm 11 seems normal for an unarmoured character, with Arm 20+ being reserved for very heavily armoured units. Now, I expect more armour penetrating weapons in 40k and less armour buffing effects and spells, so base armours will probably be higher across the board than standard WM.

The formula for Def/Arm

Total Def/arm = 20+ Toughness + Initiative + save points (6+ = 1 point, 5+ = 2 points etc)

Cap ARM value at 20 for 2+ models, 18 for 3+ models and so on.  Have defence at roughly 10 + initiative. High armour models should be vulnerable to armour piercing weapons. Invulnerable saves should translate into special abilities that resist armour piercing attacks, rather than boosting overall armour values.

So, A marine gets 20+ 4 toughness + 4 initiative + 4 save points for a total pool of 32 points. We could go with Def 14 and Armour 18, but I think Def 13, Arm 18 and tough is a better statline.

Again, use the formula to create a statline, and then play around with it a little to make it fit. This is as much art as science.

Attacks

Multiple attacks in WM for standard troopers are pretty uncommon, and usually come from paired weapons. One rules change would be to give each model “gunfighter” and “virtuoso” so they can use the traditional “pistol and chainsword” in combat together.

However, a base 2^nd attack is a little overpowered for basic troops, so I’d recommend taking that extra attack and adding it’s point to Strength, MAT or both as makes sense.

An attack score of 3 or higher will give the model bonus attacks equal to their Attack score -1. Or, possibly "rage/focus" style points that can be used for boosts. 

Wounds

All upgraded sergeant type models will get 5 hit boxes. Models with Armour/Def scores that are too high to fit properly can also get 5-10 boxes.

Roughly, each wound after the first should equal about 5 hit boxes. All "superheavy infantry" should have a few boxes as well. 

Leadership

A straight stat swap, no reason to change this as they use the virtual the same system. Although “know no fear” may have to be changed to “fearless”, which is ok as Leadership has more uses in the WM rules including unit coherency.

Rules tweaks so far

•       Gunfighter and virtuoso as standard, to represent 40ks pistols in melee action
•       Infantry models with 18+ ARM to get the key word “armoured” which allows Armour piercing weapons to work on them.

Sample stat lines

	Speed	MAT	RAT	ST	Def	Arm	LD	Hits	Special
Guard	5	5	5	5	13	15	7	1
Marine	5	6	6	7	13	18	8	1	Tough, Armoured
Terminator	5	7	6	8	13	20	9	5	Tough, Armoured, Reflector field

Conclusion

A fun little exercise, next time I’ll talk about weapons and how to make 40k shooting and melee feel right in the WM rules.

I plan to mock up a Simple Space Marine army list and do some testing as well.