STOLEN: weather rules stolen from whinseer

[General Biakal]

these were posted on Whineseer by Carlos... i thought they were ok...


Treacherous Skies
The 41st Millennium is host to never ending war across a million worlds. Until now all of your games have assumed that these worlds were wonderfully sunny or all you looked upon at night was a starry sky but this could not be further from the truth. Battles wage across zero-G asteroid bases, industrial wastelands and on worlds contained in the warp where it rains tanks and battle fields are flooded with ice-cream and the soldiers that fight these wars have to put up with these conditions on a daily basis. These rules are meant to represent the conditions your soldiers might find themselves in and are to be taken as a bit of fun.

Disclaimer
All the rules within this post are only to be used to the consent of an opponent or for special scenarios. Carlos takes no responsibility for any arguments that may arise when the character you just spent all night painting ends up being killed by a rogue meteor.

Choosing Conditions
Roll 2D6 at the start of the battle to find out what weather conditions have befallen you:

2 - Electrical Storm
3 - Asteroid Shower
4 - Sandstorm
5 - Meteor Shower
6 - Blizzard
7 - Torrential Rain
8 - Grey Skies
9 - High Winds
10 - Acid Rain
11 - Warp Swarms
12 - Rogue Comet

Electrical Storm
One of the side effects of stormy weather is also atmospheric electrical discharge, patricularly if the weather has been very hot recently. The risk of being hit by bolts of electricity make it difficult to execute landings and air missions due to the risk to aircraft.

The electrical storm follows all the rules for torrential rain with the following additions: Roll a D6 for any models deep striking. On a 1-2 it been struck by lightening on its way down and has been destroyed. The unit is treated as casualties from now on. It is not a good idea to initiate a planetstrike in such conditions but be my guest! This does not effect daemons or necrons as they use more esoteric methods of arrival but it does affect teleporters (such as terminators and warp spiders)
Swooping Hawks may not use their skyleap move due to the weather risks and all jetbikes, jump infantry and skimmers treat all movement as difficult terrain as they are higher and therefore at risk of being struck. Jet Pack models do not fly particularly high and so ignore this rule.
Ork Stormboyz ignore this and instead treat it as dangerous terrain. Since when did they let a little storm put them off getting to grips with the enemy?
All models in a Necron army ignore these rules completely and instead are all at +1S as their bodies are highly conductive and can channel this energy in their attacks, although they do get bogged down in the rain as normal.

Roll a D6 at the start of each turn after the 3rd: on a 6 the storm dissipates. Carry the battle on with the torrential rain rules alone.

Asteroid Shower
Its all very well having small rocks fall from space but sometimes there are bigger things out there that pack a lot more punch!

At the start of every turn roll a D6: on a 1-2 get a handful of small stones (5-6 pieces of gravel) to represent the Asteroid shower and throw it over the battlefield. Where each stone lands place a small blast marker. Any models touched by the template take a S5 hit at AP3 with the Melta rule that ignores cover. Hiding behind a big wall is no protection from a firey ball of rock falling from the sky! If you have them place a crater where the asteroid landed for cover.

Sandstorm
In a similar way to a blizzard affecting cold regions (and your cold regions) so to does the wind conjure up swirling dust devils that block weapons, tear off skin and get in your pants.

At the start of the battle take it in turns to place D6+2 3” diameter circles (the size of the small blast) anywhere on the battlefield outside of deployment zones. At the start of every turn roll scatter dice and a D6 for each marker to represent the swirling dust devils. The arrow and number indicate where and how far it moves. Any model touched by the template as it moves with a save worse than 3+ takes a S3 hot from the swirling sand. Open topped vehicles take a glancing hit as the sand clogs systems up. If you ever roll an odd number and a HIT the marker is removed as the dust devil dissipates.
If the marker rests on an unit it must move as far away from the marker as it can.

Meteor Shower
Some planets have little by way of atmosphere and it becomes easy for space-born debris to be pulled in and bombard a battlefield. It becomes a difficult to task to keep an eye on the enemy but also to make sure you don’t get hit on the head by a subsonic rock.

At the end of a movement phase every unit not inside a transport or building or under some sort of terrain canopy suffer D6 S2 hits as it gets bombarded by small rocks from space. Any unit suffering casualties from meteor hits must take a pinning test.

Blizzard
Although you expect snow in polar area it can happen anywhere, even in a desert! A bit of sleet ever hurt anyone but a driving blizzard creates all sorts of problems with shooting, scanning and astartes standard wargear doesn’t include thermal underwear.
Movement during a blizzard is not impaired but models find it very difficult to shoot through as the cold and snow make it difficult to aim straight. All models fighting in a blizzard, regardless of type are treated as having the stealth USR. A carnifex might not seem stealthy but its hard to see it when you have snow clogging your vision. If they already have this rule there is no additional bonus.
Daemon and Necron Armies do not count their opponents as having Stealth as their ethereal vision is not compromised by such trivialities as weather.

Torrential Rain
Every habitable world in the galaxy has a water cycle and this is no different. However, your weather augur’s/divination/channel 6 girl failed to predict the hideous downpour your armies now find themselves in. As water falls from the sky it creates marshy areas of the battlefield and makes walking across flat land and uphill very different unless troops are equipped for it (no, umbrellas and wellies are not 1pt per model.)

The falling rain has no effect on shooting but makes traversing the battlefield difficult for heavier units as they become bogged down in wet ground. All models with a save of 3+ or better as well as vehicles classed as tanks treat all open and uphill ground as difficult terrain and any bodies of water as dangerous terrain if they weren’t already.
Jump Infantry, skimmers and jetbikes ignore these rules as they move by esoteric means and do not have to tread through the muddy plains.

Grey Skies
The Skies are overcast but that twitch in old skithsian's leg means bad weather will probably follow.

Grey Skies have no overall effect on a battle, however there is always the risk a storm might start. Roll a 2D6 at the start of every turn. On a 2 torrential rain takes effect, on a 12 an electrical storm hits.

High Winds
Winds effect nearly every battlefield known the the myriad races of the galaxy, because if it's not the fart of nurgle blowing through the eye of terror its solar winds buffeting an asteroid mining base.

High Winds have no effect on moving or shooting but should a model attempt to deep strike it scatters an additional D6" due to high winds. Yes this means there is more chance of rolling a double 1 and yes, this bypasses 'Descent of Angels'. This does not effect models in terminator armour who teleport nor does it effect daemon or necron armies who use more esoteric methods.

Acid Rain
The imperium is full of polluted industrial worlds and fighting in open wasteland is frought with difficulties, one of which is acidic rain falling from the sky.

An Acid Rain storm is treated as Torrential Rain and a Meteor Shower.

Warp Swarms
Legend has it that it can not only rain frogs but also larger animals as well. This was explained long ago by winds sweeping up the creatures into clouds but the 41st millennium is a weird and wonderful place and you can bet there are more than just frogs out there....

At the start of turn each player takes it in turn to deep strike D3 nurgling bases (from the daemon codex) anywhere he likes on the battlefield. These bases may assault on the turn they arrive. Each base is a seperate unit and take their turn after each player turn, moving as fast as they can towards the nearest unit and assaulting if it can.

If one player in the battle is playing as daemons or chaos marines he/she instead deep strikes D3 nurgling bases at the start of every player turn and these are added to the daemon player's army as a unit they control in their own turn. They award kill-points to the opponent as normal.

If one player is Tyranid replace the above with ripper swarms and if one player is necrons replace them with scarab swarms. If both players are Daemon/Tyranid/Necron work something out yourselves as my brain hurts.

Rogue Comet
Once in a while your general gets out of bed thinking it is going to be a great day. Sadly, he was sorely mistaken.....

Roll a D6 at the start of every turn. on a 1 a rogue comet comes burning through the atmosphere and lands right on your battle. Suffice to say you should have stayed in bed! Randomise one quarter of the battlefield. Everything that was in this quarter is removed as a casualty as it is vapourised by the falling comet. In addition this quarter is removed from the battle altogether. Any objectives within are now lost. This works better with a citadel/homemade battlefield where you can just remove a quarter of the table altogether!

The aftermath of the comet hitting means the battle now suffers from torrential rain, a blizzard and a meteor shower and all surviving models are automatically pinned as they dive for cover from the blast.

This can happen more than once per game.....

[MortiS-the-Lost]

Nice find, I particularly like the Warp Swarms, I think I might adapt some of these for use with Warhammer Fantasy (I think some one did something similar for Mordheim a while back too)