Thoughts on Fan Codices

There seems to be a lot of hate for fan made codices on the net. Apparently they are all overpowered, cheesy and no fun to play against. Well there is some truth to this, but there are plenty of well balanced gems amidst the rough. Fan codices are a great addition to the hobby and help to bring to life whole armies in the 40k fluff that GW has given the short straw. Here in Australia it is common for some of the more well known to be allowed at tournaments - for example the Kroot and Genestealer Cult codices.

As a bit of an amateur game developer I have a habit of writing my own codex when GW fail to provide. I am looking forward to sharing them with you here. Sadly with the amount of free time I have it is difficult to perform extensive playtesting, so if you do decide to take a codex of mine for a spin please post your experiences as a comment on the post. It will help me and others to learn and improve their unsanctioned 40k gaming experience! I really hope that some of you will. If I get enough feedback then it will be worth my while to format these up into a PDF.

I had a very clear set of goals in my mind when I go about these projects. Let me document the goals that I will always be striving for whenever I publish alternative 40k rules:

1. Fluff - produce a list that mirrors the latest published fluff for that army.
2. Reuse - reuse existing units and conventions where possible, except where these are stupid or inconsistent
3. Simplicity - don't over design, produce the minimum list of units and options that fulfill the other requirements
4. Moderate Power - aim to produce army lists that would not produce top tier armies.
5. Modern - follow the design approach of the latest codices, such adding options to a unit entry rather than a wargear section, and using characters to provide army-wide abilities.

So there are plenty of fan codices already out there. What am I contributing by adding another unofficial work to those already on the internet? Well what I can guarantee is that I will adhere to the tenets I enumerated above. Especially important to me is keeping things as simple as possible, and erring on the side of a higher points cost. I just want to be able to play with the army in question, not beat Space Wolves! So if this sounds ideal to you then you might find a use for my produce.

Coming up... Codex Death Guard