Heroic 40K - Sentries

I've decided that I'll blog away on rules as they coalesce in my head. 

Today's topic is sentries.  Every army has them and posts them to guard barracks, outposts, ammo and fuel depots, prisoners, etc.  You name it, some dude or grot is tasked with protecting something which superiors deem important.  Of course, the sentry doesn't and would rather be thinking about girls, beer, synth-smokes, or whatever else is more thought provoking than standing around guarding some dumb thing while his buddies are off having a great time.

These rules are a blend of old GW and my own.


Each sentry on sentry duty will, in his turn, potentially move.

• Roll a D6.
• 1-3 - The sentry player may move the model D6 inches in any direction and place it in any facing.
• 4-5 - Random.  Roll the scatter dice.  If a hit shows, the model doesn't move, but merely turns to face in the direction of the little arrow on the hit.  Something has caught his attention like a rock, shiny bit, a critter moving around, etc.   If the arrows show, move the model D6 inches in that direction and facing that direction.
• 6 - The infiltrator/enemy player may move the model D6 inches in any direction and place it in any facing.

Sentries may spot Infiltrator/enemy models up to double their Initiative. An infiltrator/enemy is spotted when it is in the 90 degree front facing of the Sentry model.  GM's may change this amount depending on weather, visibility (night, chem waste clouds, drunk, etc), abilities (model attributes, equipment, etc), etc. Infiltrators may be harder to spot due to skills and abilities (scouts/assassins), or special equipment (chameoline cloak) - again, its a GM decision.

If any infiltrator/enemy model is spotted, both players roll a dice and add their Initiative and the highest score wins. If the sentry's score is higher, the alarm has been sounded. 

If the infiltrator has the higher score, he may try to react to eliminate the enemy model before it gets a chance to sound the alarm.  Move the infiltrator in base to base contact and fight a round of hand to hand combat.  If the sentry is still alive after a round, the alarm is sounded. If the sentry has been eliminated, then the infiltration continues to go unnoticed.

Infiltrators can attempt to silence the sentries by taking them by suprise by moving into base to base contact with the sentry.  The infiltrator will strike first and will receive a +1 to hit and a +1 to wound and the sentry will receive a -1 to his armor roll. 

That's sentries and infiltrators for the moment.

Heroic 40K

Heroic 40K!  What's that?  It a little project that I'm working on to bring more life into my 40K hobby.

When I first started playing 40K in the Rogue Trader days, the games we played were all oriented around small unit actions with a very developed scenario run by a game master.   The GM would set the stage and we'd begin gaming.  This was a lot of fun back then and when 2nd edition came along, those types of games fell be the wayside with the introduction of scenarios in the game.   Now, GW scenarios and tournament style scenarios are the standard and you won't find many people making an effort to try something different. 

I like competitive 40K tournament play, but I've found myself wanting more from my hobby. For quite some time I've wanted to do some small scale skirmish battles in both 40K, WFB, and historical settings.  Imagine a game with 30 Vikings landing ashore in North America fighting back against the Skraelings (American Indians) or a Space Marine night assault against an Ork settlement on Armageddon.  That's what I'm aiming to do.

I'm sure most folks have read at least one Black Library novel (with the exception of Patrick), and imagined how games would be different if the game was more like the background.   That's part of the inspiration in Heroic 40K.

So my storyline for next week involves about 20 Space Marines vs. 80+ Orks.  The SM players can pick their weapon load-outs for the action and will be accompanied by 2 scouts armed with sniper rifles.    It will be up to the players to decide how they are going to destroy all the Orks.  Additionally, some of the players will be playing the Orks and will have their own objectives.

The game will be a blend of 40K (all editions), Inquisitor, and Necromunda rules and will have substantially more depth and decision making within the game.  I won't be writing a set of rules for the game, but modifying the existing rules and I expect that they'll morph as we go. 

Here are some of the rules changes for the Ft. Buyaki Friday night game.

• Marine squad coherency is set at 6".  Each model may choose to move, fire, run, assault as if they were a seperate unit as long as they maintain their unit coherency.  This means that each model may shoot at a different target and a single model may assault without the rest of the unit. 
• Story driven.  Players can attempt to try things that regular 40K rules don't allow for.  The GM decides the difficulty of such feats and gives players a chance on a die roll to attempt it.
• Additional abilities on both side making some of the models in the game very unique, ie, sharpshooters, combat masters, beserkers, tough ol' sonuva guns, etc.  These unique effects will only be shared with individual players and will bring some surprises to the players in the game.  
• Anything goes.  Imagination is the limit!
• Points don't exist here, neither do fair and balanced scenarios.
• I will most likely have a semi-simultaneous turn, similar to old Space Marine Epic rules.

As I create my documents for these games, I will post them here so you may have a go as well.  I will take pictures and write up a battle report for the game and share with you.