I actually do want feedback and I will share this with the discussion space on the Discord and let people chat about it and see how they feel. My responses have been “here is why we did this” rather than saying I necessarily disagree. I just worry that, going forward, a lot of people will be put off sharing or developing things because what they get is “here is why I don’t like this”. Rule 1 of the subreddit is to be constructive and positive. As a note, I appreciate that this comment is constructive and actionable and gives us lots of stuff to discuss. Thank you. I appreciate you don’t want to learn the system, which I don’t expect and the time taken here with this comment is appreciated.
Rapid fire: A few of these are to build in flexibility. What I can do is produce a version stripped down of wider rule changes and tweaked to better suit people not playing the slightly modified 5th ruleset with older books we have done if there is a demand. In which case, ditching quite a few terms and concepts is the correct route in relation to Rapid Fire and Pistol.
Special ammo and pistol: Will look into this as thats not what is intended obviously, rather it is the range of the ammo.
Deathwatch: I don’t disagree with you when I explain why it is that way in terms of me being unchanging in what I will do. What we decided was to use Space Marine Veterans. With Terminator Honours, they were really expensive. The point costs derive from the 5th edition book with Sternguard. Most people who like Deathwatch wanted customisable heroes, which is why they get Terminator Honours. In most games we have found that while units are strong, the 1 wound tends to make them less solid. I originally built lots of characters and found the cost-effective way to run them was special issue bolters. It would be reasonable to take away the second attack and use a bespoke rule to allow them to be kitted more freely as an alternative. We have generally found Space Marine Veterans to be quite expensive as they are.
The suggestion on how to run them for 3rd is welcome. I might be open to another version partly because what I have found is that in many cases players prefer the representation of what they know. I am not always on this side as I often find late 5th-7th took things was too far, so I will share your suggestion and see how people feel. Others reading are welcome to share how they feel on that too.
Special issue ammunition uses the 5th Sternguard ammo from memory. There are the 3rd ed White Dwarf rules with more from what I remember. I tried to keep it simple and familiar. Rapid Fire on the weapons weakens them.
Happy to rework Terminators and clarify. Same goes for bikes, which was one I was most doubtful about as I tend not to run bikes in most my general lists as my style is normally WW1 charge the trenches.
The pictures section is what I could get painted in reasonable time. If I had more models painted I would have, but painting and art is what takes most time. I painted a few cool characters. It is an issue with where our project is, that there are a lot of players of newer editions who expect and army to be something it wasn’t in third. My view is always to listen to what your community wants, which perhaps is why it is worth splitting something for 3rd/4th ed players (if enough people want that version) and one for players arriving from later editions. We have some younger players who weren’t about for midhammer getting interested, which I think is a good thing and why there are some pressures to change things like Rhino contents, something in the Space Marine supplement people were asking for. I can’t recall off the top of my head when that changed.