I
really like Warhammer 40k, and I have never played it. This riddle is unraveled as follows: the setting and miniatures of the game are simply unparalleled, but the rules are cumbersome, uninspiring, and intimidating. There's such an enormous barrier to entry, that it just never ends up happening. I read about the competitive field of the game all the time, I collect and paint the miniatures, but gearing up for a multiple-hour game of clunky rules just never seems to be in the cards.
So then, recently I had the thought -- I like thinking about games; I've even designed some before. Why couldn't I make my own completely homebrew-style of Warhammer, that my friends and I might actually enjoy sitting down to play? So I sat down for a couple days and wrote some rules. It's been a lovely exercise. I'm trying to free myself from the structure of the 40k rules (which again, I have to stress, kind of suck), but I still want to maintain the flavor of the setting. That means keeping in both melee and ranged units, offering choices of customization, having big bad leaders, and suchlike. But really, my goal has been to make something simple, that nonetheless contains depth. We'll see how I did, when I bring the game around to my brother and it gets some real playtesting; but early reports from my own self-play are not bad actually! I think there might be something cool here.
The game hinges on having your army's "morale" act as both the player's health, and an expendable resource. The tactics that come into play involve a sort of "pushing and pulling" of space control that I actually find quite pleasing, and the difficult decisions and calculated risks come often. It's a neat little game, and it scratched a little itch for me to write up. Maybe something will come of it.