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

Part two – Guns and swords

Two things to look at today, one is how melee weapons work and the other is worked out ranged combat.

We have developed some basic statlines for models from our previous post, and here they are.

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

Let’s keep these stats in mind when calculating relevant weapon strengths and special abilities as we want survivability to be comparable, and we want the weapons to “feel right”. Now they won’t translate over perfectly, but that’s ok, as long as they “feel right” it works for me.

Close Combat Weapons – Guns for show, knives for a pro

Most close combat weapons in WM range from strength 2 for a small knife, through to strength 8 for a giant two handed magical axe of doom.  Strength 5-6 seems normal for a standard dedicated melee weapon.  It’s also worth noting that every nearly figure has a close combat weapon of some type, even if it’s a boot knife for a guardsman.

There are also a lot of “special abilities” we can use, like grievous wounds (ignores tough), Weapon master (additional damage), Armour piercing (halves armour), Critical brutal (extra damage on critical hits) and many others.

So, let’s throw together a table of sample melee weapons, we will ignore pistols for now and do them later.

Weapon	Strength	Special abilities
Boot knife/bayonet (Guard)	3	None
Combat Knife (Marine)	4	None
Chainsword	5	Reach
Power Sword	4	Weapon Master, Reach
Power Fist	6	Armour Piercing, Cumbersome (can only attack with this weapon)
Thunder Hammer	6	Armour Piercing, Critical Knockdown, Cumbersome
Lightning Claws	4	Weapon Master, Grievous wounds
Rending claw	5	Critical Brutal
Choppa	4
Big Choppa	6

Ok, some basic ideas there. A guard with a knife has a very small change of killing a marine without a charge, and no chance against a terminator. I’m fine with that. Weapon master for power weapons is probably a better way of representing how good they are, overgiving them pure “armour cracking”. It means they are great weapons, and very good at chopping up power armour infantry. But not quite as brutal against very heavily armoured targets.

Power fists and Thunder hammers need something to represent the “go last” rule in 40k. 

Cumbersome works, it takes away their pistol attack after the charge round, reducing overall attack power. But when they do hit, things go smoosh.  A regular marine has zero chance of surviving a direct power fist hit, but as most marine models already have 2 attacks in 40k, and have given one up in this system, so that sounds fair to me.

Ranged weapons – Don’t bring a knife to a gunfight

First of all, the big elephant in the room is range. Very few weapons in WM have a range of over 15”, most basic infantry weapons in 40k have 24” range.

My solution is to keep the 40k weapons at their current maximum ranges. A lascannon should be able to hit something across the table. The change will be in introducing range bands.

We will break most ranged weapons ranges into 3 bands, short, medium and long. At short range, there is no RAT penalty, at medium it becomes -2 and at long range it is -4. Standard guns like lasguns and Bolters will only have short and medium ranges, we will reserve long range for heavy support type weapons.

Now with higher defences and cover out there, you will be unlikely to snipe out a guardsman in cover at max range with your lascannon. But you will probably still hit a tank out in the open. Standing still and aiming will still give you the normal +2 to hit which will mitigate some of this.

Assuming a tank will be Def 10, a guardsmen aiming at long range with a lascannon will hit on 7+ on 2d6. About as often as they hit anything now. The same shot against a guardsman in the open would be 10+ and against a guard in cover, a natural 12.

The basic weapon strength will be 7+40k weapon strength. This will make the weapons slightly more deadly than 40k, but you are hitting less often so it should work out.

Weapon categories

Pistol – Can be used in close combat and with other melee weapons, does not get charging bonus on damage.

Rapid fire – Can be fired twice in one activation, at -2 Rat for both shots. It becomes a tactical decision to fire twice rapidly, or once for accuracy. I quite like this idea.

Heavy – Cannot move and fire weapon, but can rotate on the spot (I dislike that rule in WM and I think a man portable lascannon should be able to turn and still be accurate)

Assault – Can use the “assault” rule and fire at its charge target before melee.

Standard – Functions like a normal gun in WM, some “assault” weapons in 40k would be broken in WM rules if you could charge with them. Flamers to be precise.

Weapon	Class	Short	Medium	Long	Strength	Specials
Lasgun	Rapid	12	24	-	10
Bolter	Rapid	12	24	-	11
Bolt Pistol	Pistol	6	12	-	11
Heavy Bolter	Heavy	12	24	36	12	Autofire (3)
Flamer	Standard	Sp8	-	-	11
Heavy Flamer	Standard	Sp10	-	-	12
Plasma Pistol	Pistol	6	12	-	14	Critical “Get’s hot”, Grievous Wounds
Plasma Gun	Rapid	12	24	-	14	Critical “Get’s hot”, Grievous Wounds
Heavy Plasma	Heavy	12	24	36	14	Critical “Get’s hot”, Grievous Wounds
Lascannon	Heavy	12	24	48	15	Anti-tank
Autocannon	Heavy	12	24	48	14	Autofire (2)
Assault Cannon	Heavy	12	24	-	13	Autofire (4), Critical Brutal
Melta Gun	Assault	6	12	-	11	Armour Piercing, Critical damage at short range
Multi Melta	Heavy	12	24	-	11	Armour Piercing, Critical damage at short range
Missile (frag)	Heavy	12	24	48	12	Blast 4”
Missile (Krak)	Heavy	12	24	48	10	Armour Piercing

• Get’s hot works as a critical effect, when you roll a double on your to hit roll, roll damage at strength 11 instead of the weapons strength against yourself. 
• Autofire means how many shots you get from one activation. All ranged weapons, unless mentioned otherwise can be activated only once.
• Anti-tank is a new special rule that gives the weapon +2 to hit and +2 damage against vehicles.

Conclusion

A handful of special rules added in, but not much.  Next up I’ll be looking at building hero characters and then doing a “bare bones” space marine list, without vehicles to start playtesting.