Glad to see this is still being developed. It's a very well made fan codex.
Thoughts:
1) Special Rules
Ancestral Hatred - Manifests as
Preferred Enemy against Tyranids but as
Furious Charge against Orks? Seems a little bizzare - not least because your units all have Furious Charge anyway!
Possibly the simplest way to do this would be - as with thousand sons and space wolves - to have mutual
Preferred Enemy. Essentially ratchets the slaughter up a notch without favouring either side; exactly what a specific-to-a-single-opponent rule should do.
Bezerker -
Furious Charge is nice and simple, and at I2 it's only really the strength bonus that matters (unless you're being charged by a Warlord, but then you should be screwed anyway...)
Superior Technology Good. Note: Clarify that it does not work (at least I assume it does not work) for plasma pistols and plasma cannon carried by Commissar Advisors and Tech-Priests, since their guns would have 'come from home'.
Brothers in Arms Effectively an
And They Shall Know No Fear equivalent, helping keep the troops in line as long as the battle line stays together. Reference to Last Man Standing tests can be removed.
Fat of Foot Elegant. The previous edition's problem with slowing them down was adding random movement to the entire army, which feels a bit odd. This is exactly the reverse....
To be honest I was surprised that this wasn't a condition of
Slow and Purposeful.
Advisors The current 'medic' types in Codex: Space Marines and Codex: Orks just give the squad
Feel No Pain without conditions. I'm generally a fan of simpler special rules, and 'grants universal special rule X' is about as simple as it gets. Also notice that the conditions for medic and standard bearer don't match; the medic stops working if pinned, the standard doesn't..........but the medic works when fleeing and the standard doesn't. Similar rules with slight differences create situations where people can't remember which way round the rule works, and have to hunt through the codex...something to avoid if possible.
Heavy Charge Is that on top of or instead of the +1S and +1I for
Furious Charge gained using
Bezerker?
Vindicator - no special rules here, but note that the demolisher cannon does not have a 'high arced trajectory'. Anyone claiming the space marine vindicator's demolisher cannon can fire indirectly is knowingly exploiting a typo....
Deep Strike A bit too good, maybe. Yes, the 'surfacing explosion' is nasty but the machine has no weapons after this, but it's armour 13 and not open-topped, which makes killing it substaintially harder than the 'free kill point' that is the drop pod.
The 'surfacing explosion' could do with simplifying; why is there a significantly different rule for vehicles? At 6" range, the effect is a handful of thrown loose rock; if it's strength 5, it's strength 5 and it shouldn't be able to hurt a Land Raider. Equally, the 'roll two dice and pick the lowest' can be ignored - realistically Strength 5 will only ever glance things anyway.
I think it'd probably work out, though, cost-wise IF it didn't have the rule "If this movement takes it into impassible terrain
or off the board, reduce scatter by the minimum needed to prevent this". Drop pods can't do this and neither should termites. You can't see "the edge of the board" to tunnel round (like, say, a hill), nor does it move to get out of your way (like an enemy unit). Being able to aim at the corner and hence ignore 75% of scatter results is too good. Also, you need to add "or an enemy unit".
Lastly, it doesn't matter (since the termite has no shooting weapon) but it should be BS4 to be consistant with the STC vehicles. Apparently a cowboy hat adds +1 BS to a squat....
Inspiring Fair enough. A bubble of Ld 10 is very nice....
Tinkering Skills Seems a bit cheap for a techmarine-but-better, but then I suppose he doesn't have the same fighting power. The techmarine gets a power fist attack and artificer armour, so fair enough.
Domination A unit under synapse cover IS immune to pinning. I'd remove that from the list unless you want it to affect fearless troops as well, which clearly (to me) you don't given the last sentance.
Force Dome I realise you got there first, but there is now an 'official' power with the same name but a different effect. Not a great situation.... A focused 4++ rather than an area 5++ seems sensible and works quite well.
Hammer of Fury Nice! With only a 9" range and a shooting power it's very situational but it can potentially destroy an entire squad. I'd be tempted to drop it still further to 6" but then I'm leery of uber-psyker powers (yes, I know how nasty they used to be - that's WHY I'm cautious of them!). At 150 points you have a model that can obliterate an entire ork mob - hitting everything within 9" automatically gives you an 18" diameter blast, and the guy can be tooling around in the sidecar of a bike (not to mention that he's T6 when he does so). Note that I'm not objecting - yes, he should be that hard. But Hammer of Fury itself devastates too large an area if facing a light infantry army to be only a 10 point upgrade on "one squad takes a pinning test".
Advisor-Veterans - a generic command squad/command HQ/retinue equivalent. Note that plasma guns have gone up in price for a reason (the reduced chance of overheating). Given the
Superior Technology rule and the Advisor-Veterans' BS4 they should definitely be more than 10 points here. In a regular combat-squad
Superior Technology and the lower BS probably cancel out.
Hearthguard - 6 points for a power weapon for what resembles a Vanguard Veteran with
Furious Charge? 10, Maybe, more like 15. These guys get 4 strength 5 attacks each on the charge, remember (because why would you ever not use
Bezerker when all you give up is a laspistol shot?)
Ratlings, Commissars, Techpriests - Imperial Guard units. Not for commenting on here, except that (a) a Commissar doesn't have a transport option, and (b) a Commissar is NOT worth his standard points cost without the
Summary Execution rule, since that includes his +1Ld boost (which squats don't need anyway since both the Warlord and Living Ancestor can project Ld10 across swathes of the battlefield). Something more like 20 points is appropriate given his reduced utility.
Combat-Squad - Personally I think those heavy weapons are horrendously cheap (
especially the lascannon) and availible in far too high a number, but then I've not played against the army, so it's not my place to comment. The veteran upgrade is too expensive given that it's just an extra attack and no skills or leadership boosts.
Assault-Squad -
Countercharge is '5 points a model' for veteran advisors, but a flat fee of 10 points for an assault-squad regardless of size? Even if the price varies, I advise consistency in the
way the price is charged.
Support-Squad - Heavy weapon numbers is something you've playtested, but prices still low. 10 points to give (potentially) half a dozen lascannons
Tank Hunter - when those lascannons are only 15 points each - verges on imbalanced. I know you have to take a Combat-Squad first, but they are hardly poor units themselves...
Guild Bikers - Fair enough
Guild Weapon Teams - it's been mentioned before that there are official equivalents of some of these, but you've already commented that you prefer your own versions. Fair enough. My only complaint is the Mole Mortar's auto-glance: other 'drilling' weapons, and minefields, automatically hit the rear armour. This seems sensible and I'd prefer it to automatically hurting even a land raider with what is basically a whirlwind shell. Other than that, I like them all.