With the dust warfare world championship offering a chance to help create a unit I thought why not ask what ideas you all had if you won or just wanted to showcase an idea. I was thinking up some kind of stealth unit.

Work in progress- Stealth: this unit gains the benefit of soft cover in open terrain and hard cover in soft cover.

I tried thinking if adding some benefit when in hard cover would be too much but can't think of anything else aside from hard cover granting no line of sight. That'd be too much I believe. Call the unit something like the Vanguards, infantry 3 for 35 points. Thoughts?

As a final question what do you all think of Badass vs black ops? Which do you prefer? I think there's only one unit with black ops currently.

At first I thought "why not have the stealth rule just give the unit the effects of the camoflage rule. Then I thought, "what good is that? If the scenario doesn't use fortifications you have a single unit in camo that everyone will know are the "vanguards""… then I thought about it some more and I think it could still be alright as then the only way the unit gets revealed if they choose to lie in wait and not act themselves is for the enemy to get within 12" of them where they become suceptible to reactions or by shooting at them. Except that when they attack them all that happens is they give up their attacks to roll one die and and on a hit the unit gets revealed. So then they waste an attack to have a one in three chance of discovering the unit so that they can shoot at them with someone else. Since, by rule, the camo unit will be in cover, when they are revealed the next unit will be able to shoot at them but they have cover so thats two different units that must use actions and likely not do much to them. Of course, burst and spray weapons reveal automatically but then most of those are close range anyway. So while you move in within 12" to try to discover me, I reveal myself by reacting to you with bullets in the teeth…. Its actually not that bad… its obviously better when more than one unit has camo, but with even one unit it can useful. As with all homebrew rules, the tough part is how to cost such a unit, especially when if priced incorrectly, they can cause a major imbalance to the game… so you almost have to overprice them… of course then they are overpriced and so lose their value… Its the biggest problem with making your own rules. You have to make them good enough to make worth using but not too good or you break the game. In 40k it works a little better because the only place where making your own units is acceptable is in apocalypse and in apocalypse, everything is broken. Thats why apocalypse works, because everything is broken so nothing is broken. Plus, when you overprice a homebrew unit/rule in apoc its ok because you are playing the game with soo many points anyway that you won't really miss the extra points you are paying for your homemade unit. Plus, you are willing to throw some points away just so you can see your scratch-built model on the table. If you throw away a few points to do it, who cares, one shot from a vortex missile launcher and a 10" pie plate of doom that auto removes everything underneath and those points you threw away on some other part of the table don't seem to matter as much…. And then you charge the deathstrike at a bunch of terminators just so that they can destroy it for you and you can use your "replacements" asset to bring it back next turn loaded up with a fresh new vortex missile and drop another 10" plate of death!

Hang on a second… did I just talk myself into loving 40k again? well, to be fair, I hate playing 40k but I absolutely love playing Apoc… I always have loved Apoc better than 40k… they did bring in some of the flyer rules into basic 40k this edition but its not enough… Apoc is about soo much more than flyers, plus flyers are still cooler in Apoc and you still can't use a super heavy flyer like the Thunderhawk in 40k… so no, I didn't talk myself back into liking 40k again, I simply reminded myself how much I miss playing Apoc. I may have to play in the 40k "Cataclysm" tourny thing at the LGS in September. Its not quite Apoc, but it has no points limit and if you totally max out one FOC than on the second one you can bring super-heavies and though its not Apoc so I can't use the deathstrike vortex missile launcher, I can bust out my Baneblade and Shadowsword super heavy tanks again and dust off the 10" pie plate templates. I knew there was a reason that I kept all that Imperial Guard stuff when I sold off all my other warhammer and 40k armies (and I had a lot of them)… never could part with those Super-heavies or my Catachans though… now I may find a use for the jungle boys yet again…

Did I just go on and on about 40k like it was a few years ago? Err, ummm… I guess I did…. wow.

I think Stealth would work better if only units within a certain range can shoot it, bumping up the cover save like it's been done in 6th edition 40k is nice, but it doesn't feel right for a unit that uses stealth to advance up the field, as they can still be targeted artillery and 36" range weapons.

As for boiling the choice down to Badass or Black Ops, I'd say the later is more useful and in theme with a stealth unit. Badass is something a tough-as-nails infantry unit uses to stubbornly move up the field despite the fire it's coming under.

I'd want Axis Monkey "Caesar". He would have Blutkreuz Ape, Reserved, Damage Resilient. He would have 1 wound and no weapons.

I just something else to add to my Ape Platoon.

LOL, "Gorilla Caesar"… don't forget that if he is attacked from behind that he doesn't get an armour save, lol.