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Author Topic: Horus Heresy 30K BFG - Legion Traits  (Read 6339 times)

Offline Dono1979

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Horus Heresy 30K BFG - Legion Traits
« on: July 25, 2014, 02:29:54 AM »
Hello all, trying to get some advice from those much more experience than myself. I am arranging a number of 30K events in my local area (Canberra, Australia) and would really love to include BFG in them, however I would like to try and make them closer to 30K if possible.

I am not trying to rewrite the rules or incorporate heaps of new options/special rules etc, probably just include Legion Traits and have some fleet lists. I have zero experience with BFG, though am now intending on jumping neck deep, so I really do need some community input with this one to make sure I dont inadvertantly make things brokens OP or UP etc.

I also apologise to those people who are on the forums I may have already posted this to, just trying to get a nice wide audience commentary on it.


First up the Legion Traits, parts in red are suggested modifications from others:

Imperial Fists: May conduct teleport attacks against ships whose shields are still up.

Iron Hands: Can operate normally after Brace for Impact

Ultramarines: Reroll Failed Command Checks

Dark Angels: +1 Ld to all ships when making command checks

Raven Guard: Can shoot normally after Come to New Heading Some sort of Stealth

White Scars: +5cm Movement
+10 cm Movement?

Space Wolves: +10cm Movement for Boarding torpedoes

Salamanders: Ships can automatically put out 1 fire per turn in addition to rolling to repair damage normally. In addition gain +2 Assault while assaulting ships on fire.

Blood Angels: May reroll all critical hit results with a -2 penlaty to the second roll




Sons of Horus: Reroll all misses from Bombard Cannons

Night Lords: Void Scream, enemy ships within 15cm suffer -1LD.

World Eaters: Auto Pass All Ahead Full orders and LD tests for Raming

Alpha Legion: Enemy shots take a column shift to the right when shooting at you Redeploy some ships (1D3+1?)

Iron Warriors: Auto Pass (Reroll?) Reload Ordnance Orders

Word Bearers; Roll 3 dice for Command tests, and choose the two lowest when enemies are within 15cm

Emperors Children: Auto Pass (Reroll?) Lock On orders

Death Guard: Requires 1 less Cruiser to take a battleship

Thousand Sons: Squadrons may be up to 25 cm apart instead of the usual 15cm


The second aspect was the fleet lists, I was going to go through the list from Imperial Navy, Astartes and Chaos and try and merge them into a single Legion Crusade list, dropping the more modern version and renaming them where appropriate (using HH Book III as a bit of reference). Additionally would the Mechanicus list be ok to simply port straight across without modifications?

Thank you to everyone who contributes!
« Last Edit: August 05, 2014, 01:16:50 AM by Dono1979 »

Offline Jimmy Zimms

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Re: Horus Heresy 30K BFG
« Reply #1 on: July 25, 2014, 04:37:26 AM »
I like the concept. I'd not play around with ship speed for the White Scars. I'd give them some bonus to hit and run attacks.like maybe a +1 or reroll. For the Alpha Legion maybe something similar to how the DE Mimic drive rules work?
As we Imperials say, "The Emperor [class battleship] Protects..."

Offline AndrewChristlieb

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Re: Horus Heresy 30K BFG
« Reply #2 on: July 25, 2014, 04:55:50 AM »
First up the Legion Traits, parts in red are suggested modifications from others:

Imperial Fists: May conduct teleport attacks against ships whose shields are still up.

I'm not too sure about being able to transport through shields. Being really experienced at using teleport attacks doesn't really overcome the ummm physics? of ya...

Iron Hands: Can operate normally after Brace for Impact

This is really powerful, I would limit the reduction to weapons strength to 25% instead of removing it altogether.

Ultramarines: Reroll Failed Command Checks

Command checks for what? All command checks? That's really crazy good, maybe give them a free re-roll plus whatever others they purchase?

Dark Angels: +1 Ld to all ships when making command checks

See above.

Raven Guard: Can shoot normally after Come to New Heading

As with the Iron Hands and BFI I don't think the penalty for CtNH should be any less then a 25% reduction.

White Scars: +5cm Movement
+10 cm Movement?

On all ships?  :o Some less extreme possibilities might be automatic AAF successes or +1D6 AAF

Space Wolves: +10cm Movement for Boarding torpedoes

Depending on which ships you're using you might want to make sure they have boarding torpedoes to begin with. Other then that will this work like standard Shortburn torps (40cm move, D6 roll after each movement and a roll of 6 replaces them with a blast marker)?

Salamanders: Ships can automatically put out 1 fire per turn in addition to rolling to repair damage normally. In addition gain +2 Assault while assaulting ships on fire.

Blood Angels: May reroll all critical hit results with a -2 penlaty to the second roll




Sons of Horus: Reroll all misses from Bombard Cannons

Night Lords: Void Scream, enemy ships within 15cm suffer -1LD.

World Eaters: Auto Pass All Ahead Full orders and LD tests for Raming

Alpha Legion: Enemy shots take a column shift to the right when shooting at you Redeploy some ships (1D3+1?)

Iron Warriors: Auto Pass (Reroll?) Reload Ordnance Orders

This one is potentially really powerful, especially given the power of ordinance.

Word Bearers; Roll 3 dice for Command tests, and choose the two lowest when enemies are within 15cm

Emperors Children: Auto Pass (Reroll?) Lock On orders

Just like reload this is really powerful...

Death Guard: Requires 1 less Cruiser to take a battleship

Thousand Sons: Squadrons may be up to 25 cm apart instead of the usual 15cm

Compared to most of these this one is pretty 'meh', I have rarely seen ships end up outside of command distance anyway.

I've seen a few attempts to make 30k lists around so I would do a search for that to start. For the most part once you start mixing and matching lists it can get a bit hairy but the main thing is limiting the proliferation of nova cannons. Mixing and matching chaos/ imperial/ marine ships should be fine for the most part but I would steer clear of mechanus for ease and since they're supposed to represent the most current designs of their time much less 10k earlier. 
I don't make the rules, I just think them up and write them down.

Offline Dono1979

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Re: Horus Heresy 30K BFG
« Reply #3 on: July 25, 2014, 05:46:36 AM »
Thanks for the reply guys, appreciate the feedback.

To clarify/expand, the main aim of the traits is to try and add character to the Legions fleets, similar to what the Horus Heresy series from Forge World is doing with the 28mm format, but probably on even a lower scale. Just a small little quirk which makes the fleet Legion based so to speak.

So certainly if there are some which are considered quite potent rather than just a novelty, please let me know and if possible throw some suggestions out there? I am rapidly trying to learn the rules so am a little clueless at this point in time and am basically compiling other peoples suggestions and opinions, so dont know if things are being skewed because they want Alpha Legion to be ubre powerful etc.

Offline blekinge

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Re: Horus Heresy 30K BFG
« Reply #4 on: July 25, 2014, 02:33:53 PM »
First up the Legion Traits, parts in red are suggested modifications from others:

Imperial Fists: May conduct teleport attacks against ships whose shields are still up.
When I worked on a similar project, this was the Legion Trait I wanted for the Word Bearers. It is basically what they did with teleporting daemons aboard ultramarine vessels in the battle for Calth.

Iron Hands: Can operate normally after Brace for Impact
This is really powerful. Perhaps, can operate normally, but still cannot go on another special order.

Ultramarines: Reroll Failed Command Checks
Reroll one failed command check per round

Dark Angels: +1 Ld to all ships when making command checks


Raven Guard: Can shoot normally after Come to New Heading
Reflex Shields: Raven Guard Vessels can choose this special order. While under the order, they cannot shoot or launch ordnance. While under the order, they will never count as the closest ship, so the enemy will always have to take a LD test to target them.

White Scars: +5cm Movement
+10 cm Movement?

Space Wolves: +10cm Movement for Boarding torpedoes
Weak. But I have no good idea

Salamanders: Ships can automatically put out 1 fire per turn in addition to rolling to repair damage normally. In addition gain +2 Assault while assaulting ships on fire.
Hit and Run attacks from Salamanders can choose to automatically cause a Fire! critital hit instead of rolling on the critical hits table

Blood Angels: May reroll all critical hit results with a -2 penlaty to the second roll




Sons of Horus: Reroll all misses from Bombard Cannons

Night Lords: Void Scream, enemy ships within 15cm suffer -1LD.
Good


World Eaters: Auto Pass All Ahead Full orders and LD tests for Raming
Not a great bonus, as marines have high LD anyway. Perhaps something like this taken from the BFG:Revised Orks. It would fit the harpoon cannons on the Conquerer

Traktors are unaffected by special orders of any kind but cannot
be used by capital ships if they are crippled. Any time the ship
equipped with Kustom Traktors moves in base contact with any one
enemy ship during the movement phase, it may immediately stop
its movement. If it does, it must attempt to board it this turn.


Alpha Legion: Enemy shots take a column shift to the right when shooting at you Redeploy some ships (1D3+1?)
I like the redeploy better.

Iron Warriors: Auto Pass (Reroll?) Reload Ordnance Orders
Perhaps add in Brace For Impact and Bonuses when defending against boarding

Word Bearers; Roll 3 dice for Command tests, and choose the two lowest when enemies are within 15cm
15cm is to restrictive. Some other criteria

Emperors Children: Auto Pass (Reroll?) Lock On orders
-5 cm minimum move. This that their ships can make much sharper turns.

Death Guard: Requires 1 less Cruiser to take a battleship
Perhaps Virus Torpedoes
Virus: Each hit from a Virus Torpedo does not damage right away. Instead place a virus counter for each virus torpedo that hit. In either players end phase, each ship with virus counters must make a LD test for each counter. If they pass the test, remove the counter. If they fail the test, they take on hit and the counter remains.


Thousand Sons: Squadrons may be up to 25 cm apart instead of the usual 15cm
Cheaper rerolls. They know your fate

Thank you to everyone who contributes!
[/quote]

Offline AndrewChristlieb

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Re: Horus Heresy 30K BFG
« Reply #5 on: July 26, 2014, 05:31:37 AM »
blekinge your virus torpedo idea could be easily streamlined as causing an automatic fire critical* instead of a hit. I like this one but its maybe a bit in the same boat as the Spess Puppies boarding torpedoes. I suppose a lot of this will depend on how the lists look and what options there are for taking torpedoes.

*(representing the virus running rampant through the crew).
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Offline Malika

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Re: Horus Heresy 30K BFG
« Reply #6 on: July 26, 2014, 07:26:08 PM »
By the way, we've been toying here with some ideas as well. Maybe they'll inspire you!
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Offline AndrewChristlieb

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Re: Horus Heresy 30K BFG
« Reply #7 on: July 27, 2014, 02:52:40 AM »
Quote from: Malika
By the way, how accurate is this?

Eh... Most of the ships have only limited references as to their start and end date so this is probably as good as we'll get.

I don't make the rules, I just think them up and write them down.

Offline Dono1979

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Re: Horus Heresy 30K BFG
« Reply #8 on: July 28, 2014, 02:25:51 AM »
Thanks guys, appreciate the references, they will be a huge help. More opinions are always good to try and get a nice canvas of the community.

I think the key to this is keeping it really simple and change the rules as little as possible to help with a transition. I like the idea (in the 1st Exp thread) about having a single list of Ships and then upgrading those ships to Legion Crewed which (imo) would then give that ship the Legion Trait.

Offline Dono1979

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Re: Horus Heresy 30K BFG - Legion Traits
« Reply #9 on: August 05, 2014, 01:14:07 AM »
An interesting tidbit from Ahriman's Aide over on First Expedition which is quite relevant to the Legion Traits I think:

There's a passage in the latest part of Scars which is very interesting in the variations between the various Legion Fleets, which gives further reasoning as to why Legion traits for the Crusade fleet list should be added in.

'Every primarch asserted various preferences during construction: Corax had worked obsessively to make his vessels as stealthy as possible, Vulkan to make them durable and Fulgrim to make them beautiful. Primarchs had ways of circumventing standard Imperial command structures – they could bend rules, uncover hidden datacores and suborn Mechanicum magi. So it was, as the Great Crusade progressed, that each Legion fleet slowly took on the character of its master through an endless programme of refits, retrofits and base modifications.
In the case of the White Scars, only one change was ever requested and only one metric was ever improved upon.
Speed.
V Legion Techmarines spent decades boosting reactor power-feeds and finding ways to hone manoeuvrability far beyond the tolerances that each standard ship class had been designed for. The endless pursuit of velocity came with its costs: gunnery captains had been heard to complain of reduced lance range, and it was well known that a White Scars ship would not carry as many troops or drop-ships as the equivalent vessel in a standard fleet, but such factors carried little weight in a Legion drenched in the wild-riding tradition of the Chogorian plains.'