Saturday, December 7, 2019

40K variant for Chain of Command


I have plenty of 40k figures but I'm not particularly fond of GW rules.  I've tried my hand at writing rules but I've never been entirely satisfied with the results.  I had head that there was a 40K mod for Chain of command(ww2) but all the links i find are broken.  also, the discussions draw attention of the one element that i really like about CoC: the platoon lists.

Example of a Tau platoon list, complete with custom header


So I decided to develop my own variant.  I don't think it would take a lot to modify CoC.  so I bragged a copy of the CoCulator, which is a formula for getting  platoon and support ratings, and I went to work.

I decided early on 1 major change:  armour saves.  these are really the defining characteristic in modern sci-fi games.  I decided to lessen them a bit.  So I grouped armour saves into 4 groups.  saves of 5+ or worse get no armour saves. the armour will save your life, but leave you incapacitated, much like modern body armour.  Carapace armour gets you a 5+ save.  Marine equivalent armour gets you a 4+ and terminator-equivalent armour. when you make an armour save, it converts a kill result into a shock result.    there would be no armour saves in close combat though, as i wanted this to remain bloody.  In relation to the CoCulator,  I count 5+ save as +1 point per model,  4+ save as +2 pts per model, and a 3+ save as +3 points per model.

Another rules change I decided to make was a change to Infantry Antitank weapons. In the rules, you get a -1 for each range pas the first.  I have made extensive use of this class of weapons for things like Melta and Plasma guns.  I modified both the range bands to better reflect ranges in the 40K rules, and i made one more change.   On the army specific Infantry anti tank weapon chart,  grey-range bands and white range bands. Grey range bands get no modifier.  For every range band past the last grey range band,  the rules for firing infantry anti tank weapons apply as normal.



Not everyone will agree with my platoon lists.  40k has left some huge holes in the orders of battle.  many forces don't really have a platoon structure. They go down to company level and then just don't go any further. others  like the Imperial guard, go right down to platoon level, but their theoretical maximum sized platoon IS a company by any other name, with 5 infantry squads, 5 heavy weapons squads, 3 special weapon squads, and 1 30 man conscript squad! I've had to adapt some platoon structures to something playable, while with others wholly inventing a platoon structure that makes as much sense as I can make given the information in the codexes.

I've played the Imperial Guard  Type 1(5 squads) platoon versus a Tau Fire warrior Demi Cadre(3 squads of 12 with 2 drones each)  and it seemed fairly balanced.

the rest have not been tested yet. I've also made custom headers for each race I've worked on so far.


Here is a link to my google drive folder for the PDFs I have thus far set up. I have a few more but they need at least one more pass before I consider posting them.

Steve's 40k CoC Google Drive folder


I hope you enjoy!