I think this is one of the biggest problems in today's 40k metagame. Shorter play time is better of course, but not because the game is all but decided on the first turn!

For matched play games:
- The player who gets the first turn is always randomly determined, which encourages players to deploy as if they won't get the first turn, because they might not
- No strategems, no allies, no Lords of War (see https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/774725.page)
- All deployment zone distances from the center are lengthened by 6", so both armies start out on average an additional 12" farther apart from one another. This balances out how fast virtually all units are today (with higher movement values, advancing, and 2D6" charge distances), and brings back an element of maneuver warfare, rather than just trying for a first-turn charge. Also encourages the use of transports more.

For all games:
- Area terrain like forests block line of sight to everything behind it (except TITANIC models)
- Models only partially visible due to intervening non-area-terrain that they are behind but not in gain the benefits of cover
- Models out of line of sight may not be taken as casualties if their visible squadmates come under fire during the shooting phase
- Units in open-topped transports can disembark and act normally after the transport has moved. If it also advanced, each model dies on a 4+


As a result of these changes, we could expect players to deploy their units in or behind cover far away from the enemy, and spend one or two turns maneuvering them into position before the big fight begins. The impact of first-turn shooting should be substantially blunted, and we won't see so many desperate attempts at first-turn charges, which as I recall, were the bane of 3rd edition. Everything old is new again...

Pointed Stick wrote:
I think this is one of the biggest problems in today's 40k metagame. Shorter play time is better of course, but not because the game is all but decided on the first turn!

For matched play games:
- The player who gets the first turn is always randomly determined, which encourages players to deploy as if they won't get the first turn, because they might not
- No strategems, no allies, no Lords of War (see https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/774725.page)
- All deployment zone distances from the center are lengthened by 6", so both armies start out on average an additional 12" farther apart from one another. This balances out how fast virtually all units are today (with higher movement values, advancing, and 2D6" charge distances), and brings back an element of maneuver warfare, rather than just trying for a first-turn charge. Also encourages the use of transports more.

For all games:
- Area terrain like forests block line of sight to everything behind it (except TITANIC models)
- Models only partially visible due to intervening non-area-terrain that they are behind but not in gain the benefits of cover
- Models out of line of sight may not be taken as casualties if their visible squadmates come under fire during the shooting phase
- Units in open-topped transports can disembark and act normally after the transport has moved. If it also advanced, each model dies on a 4+


As a result of these changes, we could expect players to deploy their units in or behind cover far away from the enemy, and spend one or two turns maneuvering them into position before the big fight begins. The impact of first-turn shooting should be substantially blunted, and we won't see so many desperate attempts at first-turn charges, which as I recall, were the bane of 3rd edition. Everything old is new again...

So, screw melee armies, right? Bork'an, with their 36" Pulse Rifles, still hit me just fine, but my Nurgle Daemons now get a 7" charge turn two... Assuming they roll sixes to advance on both turns AND have Slimux drop a tree near them turn to to allow them to advance and charge AND have a Scrivener with them the whole time AND get an instrument AND the enemy never just backs up.

There's more to getting into the fight than rushing as fast as possible through open ground. The idea is to restore the element of strategic maneuver that (IMO) has been lost with 8th edition.

I've been playing Orks for 16 years, and for most of that time I've had no difficulty getting into close combat due to the ability to actually hide units behind terrain, hide vehicles behind other vehicles, and charge from open-topped transport vehicles after they've moved. I almost never got a first-turn charge; I would set my army up for devastating second or third turn charges, after softening the enemy up with shooting and maneuvering the assaulters into the perfect position in the preceding turns.

Only in 8th did those strategies stop working. Now I, like all other melee army players, have to rely on deep strike, gimmicky strategems, and deploying as close as possible and hoping for the first turn. It all just feels wrong.

None of that addresses the actual root problem. It just attempts to place band aids over specific symptoms to try to mitigate their impact while creating new issues.

What would you say is the actual root problem?

Pointed Stick wrote:

- The player who gets the first turn is always randomly determined, which encourages players to deploy as if they won't get the first turn, because they might not

This is not a solution, the player who deploys first always has the first turn, so that the other one can deploy according to that

- No strategems, no allies, no Lords of War

stratagems are an essential part of 8th. remove them and the game lost the last bit of tactical depth that was there
Allies and LoW just shift the meta, nothing more

an alternative would be to limit the amount of CP an army can spend on stratagems in a game so that "farming" won't help

- All deployment zone distances from the center are lengthened by 6", so both armies start out on average an additional 12" farther apart from one another.

This would help, but the tables are already too small for the armies you can bring in.

I would say, you could also decrease the point value of standard games to 1500 too add more "empty" space on the table

Area terrain like forests block line of sight to everything behind it (except TITANIC models)
- Models only partially visible due to intervening non-area-terrain that they are behind but not in gain the benefits of cover
- Models out of line of sight may not be taken as casualties if their visible squadmates come under fire during the shooting phase
- Units in open-topped transports can disembark and act normally after the transport has moved. If it also advanced, each model dies on a 4+

More LOS blocking terrain would help, but than I would skip the whole TLOS thing and go with a more complex rules

Pointed Stick wrote:
What would you say is the actual root problem?

The turn structure. IGOUGO is horrible if everything hits hard or sweeping maneuvers block most of the table unopposed. In alternating activations all players get to contribute equally and target priorities also care about timing, bringing more depth.

I play 40k with alternating activations, it works very well. Using Cities of Death rules for obscuration, hard cover and whatnots also helps immensely in having an actual game of war.

Pointed Stick wrote:
What would you say is the actual root problem?

IGOUGO creates the first-turn advantage by allowing one player to act with their entire army, followed by the other player acting with much less of their now-battered army. This advantage then snowballs into later turns.

The clear supremacy of the Shooting phase over the Fight phase aggravates that advantage further, by making armies already well-disposed to taking advantage of the first turn even more able to do so.

The increased lethality of the game, thanks to easier wounds from massed shooting, granular Armor Penetration, weakened cover/line of sight, and the kill-doubling Morale phase, make the first-turn alpha strike even more important and effective.

The frontloaded nature of the Command Point pool also makes it even easier to launch an alpha strike, by allowing players to burn through their entire stock of CP in that first, vital turn.

We address it using tokenhammer, which ignores the IGOUGO system altogether. Works pretty well.

I would also ignore trying to balance all-melee armies with normal armies. Bringing an all-melee army is a poor choice in 40K and should be extremely difficult to do.

 Elbows wrote:
We address it using tokenhammer, which ignores the IGOUGO system altogether. Works pretty well.

I would also ignore trying to balance all-melee armies with normal armies. Bringing an all-melee army is a poor choice in 40K and should be extremely difficult to do.

Then add shooting to Daemons outside of tzeentch.

Pointed Stick wrote:
What would you say is the actual root problem?

The root problem is players take turns acting with their entire army. If each player has 2k points of units and all things being equal a 2k force is capable of removing 400 points worth of models then on turn 1 player 1 removes 400 points from player 2. Player 2 in turn is capable of removing 320 points. then player 1 removes 336. then player 2 removes 252.8. Turn 3, player 1 removes 285.44 and player 2 removes 195.712 ... and so on (exponentially widening the gap between what player 1 and player 2 is capable of) and at the end of turn 3 player 1 still has 1231.488 points remaining and player 2 has 978.56). First turn advantage is a direct result of each players turn amounting to a single large activation with the opponent having almost no chance for recourse (and whatever chance they have comes from melee (often attacking second after losses or based on a limited currency in the form of stratagems).

Imagine chess, except each side gets to move every piece at once before the other player gets to move any pieces.

If you break up the game into individual unit activations with each side getting to do a small activation and the other side getting to respond then each activation is greatly diminished in effect and player choice in what they activate and when and to what effect starts to mean significantly more than who gets to act first.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Elbows wrote:
We address it using tokenhammer, which ignores the IGOUGO system altogether. Works pretty well.

I would also ignore trying to balance all-melee armies with normal armies. Bringing an all-melee army is a poor choice in 40K and should be extremely difficult to do.

Then add shooting to Daemons outside of tzeentch.

Or don't fall for the sales gimmick that is an all-daemon army in 40K? It's just GW double-dipping on the models.

There are more types of Daemons in the lore than there are marines in your average chapter.

Why the hell shouldn’t I be able to play a daemon army?

 Lance845 wrote:

Pointed Stick wrote:
What would you say is the actual root problem?

The root problem is players take turns acting with their entire army. If each player has 2k points of units and all things being equal a 2k force is capable of removing 400 points worth of models then on turn 1 player 1 removes 400 points from player 2. Player 2 in turn is capable of removing 320 points. then player 1 removes 336. then player 2 removes 252.8. Turn 3, player 1 removes 285.44 and player 2 removes 195.712 ... and so on (exponentially widening the gap between what player 1 and player 2 is capable of)

I get what you're saying, and this makes a lot of sense given the rest of the game. In fact, it's a well-studied phenomenon discovered by naval strategists before and during the era of battleship combat: the first side to attack and score hits has an advantage in subsequent exchanges of fire proportional to the effectiveness of their initial bombardment, thereby spawning the naval maxim, "attack effectively first." For more on this, see https://www.usni.org/press/books/fleet-tactics-and-naval-operations-third-edition.

However, in real life this phenomenon is only pronounced in naval combat, where there is no cover or defensive positions. By contrast, forces on land take advantage of cover, concealment, defensive positions, and the generally shorter range of enemy firepower to neutralize most of the first strike advantage. If we don't see the same thing in 40k, I would suggest that the root cause is actually poor terrain and cover rules that make it impossible to adequately hide your units behind or in terrain. In prior editions of 40k, I had great success deploying almost entirely behind line-of-sight blocking terrain or my heaviest vehicles. I found it quite common to take no damage in my opponent's first turn, and then my fast vehicles would flit from cover to cover to close the distance unless the opposing forces maneuvered to get better shots.

I'm not finding that any of that works in this edition, because now area terrain like forests doesn't block line of sight, cover doesn't provide much of a defensive benefit for low-save models, vehicles are targetable if even a little bit of antenna is visible, and there are no target priority rules (other than the shooting at characters limitation). So now shooty units can see almost everything no matter what, given the typical terrain in a gaming store (some low ruins and forests). All a shooting army has to do is deploy its heaviest hitters in a commanding position with screens to prevent deep-strike charges, go first, and then pour CPs into them to double or triple their offensive output and maul as much as possible of the enemy army before it can even do anything. I think if long range guns had fewer ready targets all the time, then the IGOUGO might not be so bad, as it never was for most of my time playing 40k (I left for a few years during the dark years of 6th and 7th editions).

Pointed Stick wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

Pointed Stick wrote:
What would you say is the actual root problem?

The root problem is players take turns acting with their entire army. If each player has 2k points of units and all things being equal a 2k force is capable of removing 400 points worth of models then on turn 1 player 1 removes 400 points from player 2. Player 2 in turn is capable of removing 320 points. then player 1 removes 336. then player 2 removes 252.8. Turn 3, player 1 removes 285.44 and player 2 removes 195.712 ... and so on (exponentially widening the gap between what player 1 and player 2 is capable of)

I get what you're saying, and this makes a lot of sense given the rest of the game. In fact, it's a well-studied phenomenon discovered by naval strategists before and during the era of battleship combat: the first side to attack and score hits has an advantage in subsequent exchanges of fire proportional to the effectiveness of their initial bombardment, thereby spawning the naval maxim, "attack effectively first." For more on this, see https://www.usni.org/press/books/fleet-tactics-and-naval-operations-third-edition.

However, in real life this phenomenon is only pronounced in naval combat, where there is no cover or defensive positions. By contrast, forces on land take advantage of cover, concealment, defensive positions, and the generally shorter range of enemy firepower to neutralize most of the first strike advantage.

Real life doesn't matter. This is a game. Not real life. But if you want to debate this real life crap then there is this. In real life one side does not sit there idly waiting to take losses for their chance to shoot back. But that is exactly what happens in 40k.

If we don't see the same thing in 40k, I would suggest that the root cause is actually poor terrain and cover rules that make it impossible to adequately hide your units behind or in terrain.

You suggest wrong. Poor terrain rules are a thing. But even with terrain both sides still take turns trading blows and IGOUGO is still a problem. No terrain advantage you implement will apply only to one army. Both armys, with good terrain and cover rules, will still be trading blows.

In prior editions of 40k, I had great success deploying almost entirely behind line-of-sight blocking terrain or my heaviest vehicles. I found it quite common to take no damage in my opponent's first turn, and then my fast vehicles would flit from cover to cover to close the distance unless the opposing forces maneuvered to get better shots.

Great. So you took advantage of the terrain and then on YOUR turn you initiated the same problem. Now that you have come out of cover and done your shots THEY have less points and YOU have "first turn advantage". The inherent problem continues to be inherent.

I'm not finding that any of that works in this edition, because now area terrain like forests doesn't block line of sight, cover doesn't provide much of a defensive benefit for low-save models, vehicles are targetable if even a little bit of antenna is visible, and there are no target priority rules (other than the shooting at characters limitation). So now shooty units can see almost everything no matter what, given the typical terrain in a gaming store (some low ruins and forests). All a shooting army has to do is deploy its heaviest hitters in a commanding position with screens to prevent deep-strike charges, go first, and then pour CPs into them to double or triple their offensive output and maul as much as possible of the enemy army before it can even do anything. I think if long range guns had fewer ready targets all the time, then the IGOUGO might not be so bad, as it never was for most of my time playing 40k (I left for a few years during the dark years of 6th and 7th editions).

Well again, you're wrong. Because IGOUGO is not a symptom of terrain. Maybe you played back during that edition where everyone was 2 gunlines sitting across the table from each other waiting for one side to feth up so they could decimate the other. Thats not a good game either AND it has the same IGOUGO issue. It just doesn't happen for the first player on the first turn. But it STILL makes the first player to grab the advantage be the primary deciding factor in the game.

You wanna fix terrain?

Here.



You want to fix first turn advantage? Change the turn structure.

RevlidRas wrote:

Pointed Stick wrote:
What would you say is the actual root problem?

IGOUGO creates the first-turn advantage by allowing one player to act with their entire army, followed by the other player acting with much less of their now-battered army. This advantage then snowballs into later turns.

The clear supremacy of the Shooting phase over the Fight phase aggravates that advantage further, by making armies already well-disposed to taking advantage of the first turn even more able to do so.

The increased lethality of the game, thanks to easier wounds from massed shooting, granular Armor Penetration, weakened cover/line of sight, and the kill-doubling Morale phase, make the first-turn alpha strike even more important and effective.

The frontloaded nature of the Command Point pool also makes it even easier to launch an alpha strike, by allowing players to burn through their entire stock of CP in that first, vital turn.

If you want to mitigate first turn advantage without removing IGOUGO, you have to handle these other points, basically. Shooting needs to be less supreme, the game needs to be less immediately and extremely lethal, and

If the "standard" range for guns is 18" rather than 24", for example, things immediately change. You have to move forward before firing, bringing you into the danger zone for countercharge and lowering the shots you can potential get off. If cover offers greater protection or outright immunity, it immediately helps to avoid that first turn blitz. If it goes back to being harder to score individual wounds, the snowball effect is greatly lessened. If CP are generated per turn instead of per game, you can't dump then on all the first turn. And so on.

RevlidRas wrote:

RevlidRas wrote:

Pointed Stick wrote:
What would you say is the actual root problem?

IGOUGO creates the first-turn advantage by allowing one player to act with their entire army, followed by the other player acting with much less of their now-battered army. This advantage then snowballs into later turns.

The clear supremacy of the Shooting phase over the Fight phase aggravates that advantage further, by making armies already well-disposed to taking advantage of the first turn even more able to do so.

The increased lethality of the game, thanks to easier wounds from massed shooting, granular Armor Penetration, weakened cover/line of sight, and the kill-doubling Morale phase, make the first-turn alpha strike even more important and effective.

The frontloaded nature of the Command Point pool also makes it even easier to launch an alpha strike, by allowing players to burn through their entire stock of CP in that first, vital turn.

If you want to mitigate first turn advantage without removing IGOUGO, you have to handle these other points, basically. Shooting needs to be less supreme, the game needs to be less immediately and extremely lethal, and

If the "standard" range for guns is 18" rather than 24", for example, things immediately change. You have to move forward before firing, bringing you into the danger zone for countercharge and lowering the shots you can potential get off. If cover offers greater protection or outright immunity, it immediately helps to avoid that first turn blitz. If it goes back to being harder to score individual wounds, the snowball effect is greatly lessened. If CP are generated per turn instead of per game, you can't dump then on all the first turn. And so on.

ehhhh... ish?

The issue here is you just increase the value of other things. Lets pretend we reduce ranges by 6". Sure. K. So any gun with a (adjusted) 24+ range is now incredibly more valuable and armies will start being built with as many of those guns as possible (I.e. Tau just got a HUGE buff).

As an example, when everything in the Nid dex sucked but flyrants all you faced was as many flyrants as possible. This isn't so simple a fix that it just solves the problem. It just shifts the meta and makes the game about something else without actually resolving the issue. I agree with the command point bit though. Just as a general thing. As much as people seem to like command points and stratagems I think they are actually a toxic mechanic and they are bad for the game.

RevlidRas wrote:
IGOUGO creates the first-turn advantage by allowing one player to act with their entire army, followed by the other player acting with much less of their now-battered army. This advantage then snowballs into later turns.

The clear supremacy of the Shooting phase over the Fight phase aggravates that advantage further, by making armies already well-disposed to taking advantage of the first turn even more able to do so.

The increased lethality of the game, thanks to easier wounds from massed shooting, granular Armor Penetration, weakened cover/line of sight, and the kill-doubling Morale phase, make the first-turn alpha strike even more important and effective.

The frontloaded nature of the Command Point pool also makes it even easier to launch an alpha strike, by allowing players to burn through their entire stock of CP in that first, vital turn. If you want to mitigate first turn advantage without removing IGOUGO, you have to handle these other points, basically. Shooting needs to be less supreme, the game needs to be less immediately and extremely lethal

That's basically what I was thinking, yeah. Though I can see how removing IGOUGO is also another way of fixing the problem.

We've been playing on terrain heavy tables, using the ITC LoS First floor rules and have stopped having problems with Alpha Strikes in my local area.

Not only do the tables look better, but it is much harder to get a good, clear line of sight to shoot every gun or unit you have.

We also crafted our own terrain rule. In order to get the +X cover save, a unit need only have a minimum of 1 model within 2" of a terrain feature.

it seems to work pretty good.

 Lance845 wrote:
ehhhh... ish?

The issue here is you just increase the value of other things. Lets pretend we reduce ranges by 6". Sure. K. So any gun with a (adjusted) 24+ range is now incredibly more valuable and armies will start being built with as many of those guns as possible (I.e. Tau just got a HUGE buff).

As an example, when everything in the Nid dex sucked but flyrants all you faced was as many flyrants as possible. This isn't so simple a fix that it just solves the problem. It just shifts the meta and makes the game about something else without actually resolving the issue. I agree with the command point bit though. Just as a general thing. As much as people seem to like command points and stratagems I think they are actually a toxic mechanic and they are bad for the game.

Yes, I didn't mean literally just shrinking all ranges by a standard amount. Rather, taking steps to weaken shooting (or increase the danger of retaliation) across the gameline is a general principle that will lessen the impact of first-turn massed fire. So would removing Morale in the first round, for example.

Command Points are an excellent idea that's arguably become toxic. In theory, they offer a flexible range of flavorful army-wide abilities that reward diverse/robust force organization via the Detachment system. In practice, they're incredibly frontloaded, have come to gobble up more and more concept-space, and reward hordes that can spam the two big Detachments for CP generation.

I think that IGOUGO is far to engrained in the way 40k works to be removed. Auras and psychic powers would become nearly useless if it went over to AA - a complete rewrite of most special abilities would be needed.

There are other ways to limit the first-turn death dealing; one is to reduce the damage output in general for shooting - it is a lot easier to make armour to defend against bullets than to defend against a monster swinging an axe the size of your body at you. The energy delivered from a bullet can be stopped with modern tech - there's not a lot of armour, even now, which can stop an axe swung with gusto. so, realistically, CC should be higher damage than shooting, which will balance it's limited range.

If you also reduce charge movement potential, along with reducing gun ranges, what you essentially are doing is increasing the size of the board, and adding manoeuvring (back) into the game. but I digress.

Another option to reduce turn 1 destruction is actually available to you already, but people seldom use it - reserves. Don't want it getting shot up turn 1? hold it back, move on in your own turn and immediately attack. If you put this as a requirement, then you will get very different games. Try a game where 50% of your army must be off the board. Player 1 gets to attack with 50% of his army, at 50% of your army. Then you attack back, but 25% of your army (half your reserves) come on - now you are more powerful than him, so you have the advantage. Then 25% of his army comes on, and he's probably as powerful as you, and so on.

let's try this mechanic:

The root problem is players take turns acting with their entire army. If each player has 2k points of units and all things being equal a 2k force is capable of removing 400 points worth of models then on turn 1 player 1 removes 400 points from player 2. Player 2 in turn is capable of removing 320 points. then player 1 removes 336. then player 2 removes 252.8. Turn 3, player 1 removes 285.44 and player 2 removes 195.712 ... and so on (exponentially widening the gap between what player 1 and player 2 is capable of) and at the end of turn 3 player 1 still has 1231.488 points remaining and player 2 has 978.56). First turn advantage is a direct result of each players turn amounting to a single large activation with the opponent having almost no chance for recourse (and whatever chance they have comes from melee (often attacking second after losses or based on a limited currency in the form of stratagems).

2k causes 400pts, so you're going for 20% damage output.

player 1 (1k) does 200pts of damage
player 2 (1k + 500 - 200 = 1300pts) does 260pts of damage
player 1 (1k + 500 - 260 = 1240pts) does 248pts of damage
player 2 (1300 + 500 - 248 = 1552pts) does 310.4pts damage
player 1 (1240 + 500 - 310 = 1430pts) does 286pts of damage
Player 2(1552pts - 286 = 1266pts) does 253.2pts of damage

End of turn 3, Player 1 has (1430 - 253) = 1177pts left on the board. Player 2 has 1266pts left on the board.

I think that, with the existing system, ranges etc, by doing this you can easily make the game still anybody's by turn 3. I think there's enough variation to say that an 89pt gap in the assumed remnants is likely to vary enough with tactics, cover etc. to make this fair.

It also serves the "realistic" crowd, which I include myself in, that 2 armies won't line up, allowing each other to pick their preferred fighting position, 100 yards apart, and then all start fighting when the whistle blows. you'll have a forward force, and then more army coming to support.

Ruleswise, I would simply state that you must deploy between 25% and 50% of your army, by points. Then, starting from player 2's first turn, they can bring in up to 25% of their army. on player 2's second turn, and player 1's 3rd, they must bring in all of their remaining forces.

From what I’ve seen, first turn alpha strikes tend to rely on the front loading of command points to make use of stratagem shenanigans. So changing the CP and stratagem system is where I’d look first when trying to curb first turn alpha strikes.

Maybe have CPs generate each turn so they can’t all be used in turn one to enable an alpha strike. I’d also make the first turn a straight roll-off, not depending on deployment or number of drops or anything like that. Possibly allow the players to apply modifiers to the first turn roll off by spending CPs. It is a strategic decision to go first after all. Again this would limit the number of CPs in turn one.

Alternatively, simply don’t allow stratagems to be used in turn one, with one or two exceptions this might work quite nicely.

Aash wrote:
From what I’ve seen, first turn alpha strikes tend to rely on the front loading of command points to make use of stratagem shenanigans. So changing the CP and stratagem system is where I’d look first when trying to curb first turn alpha strikes.

Maybe have CPs generate each turn so they can’t all be used in turn one to enable an alpha strike.

RevlidRas wrote:
Tactical Points
When you build a Battle-forged army, it generates a number of Tactical Points (or TP) at start of each of your turns. These can be spent to utilise Stratagems – each of which represents a strategic or tactical asset available to your army. Any unspent Tactical Points are lost at the start of your turn – the tides of war shift constantly. Some abilities allow your army to generate additional Tactical Points during the game, or refund the Tactical Points you spent on a Stratagem. You can only gain (or regain) Tactical Points from one such rule each battle round, regardless of the source. This restriction does not apply to Stratagems that specifically supply or refund Tactical Points.

Calculate the number of Tactical Points your army generates each round as follows:

Your army is Battle-forged: +1 TP

Your Warlord is on the battlefield: +1 TP

Your army roster includes a Battalion: +1 TP per Battalion Detachment

Your army roster includes a Brigade Detachment: +2 TP per Brigade Detachment

Your army roster includes a Vanguard, Spearhead, Outrider, Air Wing, or Supreme Command Detachment: +1 TP per three Detachments of these types

Then Raiding Force becomes "you can treat Patrol Detachments as Outrider Detachments for the purposes of generating Tactical Points", and Raiders from the Maelstrom becomes "you can treat Detachments that include three or more units with this trait as Outrider Detachments for the purposes of generating Tactical Points. If these units are CHAOS SPACE MARINES, the Detachment instead generates +1 TP each round". Warlord Traits/Special Character abilities that give flat extra TP (like Abaddon's The Warmaster) are reduced, or become discounts or random TP.


This would have the following effects:

More even CP usage. It becomes impossible to splurge all your CP in one vital turn, because the maximum CP available to you at any given time is more limited. On the other hand, there is no CP drought where a player runs out and has to sit on their hands.

Lower CP modifiers. The numbers used to modify CP pools become smaller and less complex, because they apply every turn rather than once per game. On the other hand, CP pool modifiers become less granular.

More dynamic CP generation. Abilities and Stratagems that generate CP become less of a concern. You still want to look carefully at them, but the extra CP vanishes at the end of your turn.

Yeah, something along those lines or similar would go a long way to mitigating the alpha strikes and games being decided in the first turn.

I've said something similar before too:

Aash wrote:
I’m definitely in favour of changing command points and stratagems.

I like the idea of regenerating command points each turn, of tying the number of CPs to points too, as it would scale well. And linking CP regeneration to the warlord is something I hadn’t considered, I like it.

I’d propose the following:

The majority of stratagems would be removed as I think most of them work better as special rules for units, I’d keep a few faction specific ones and the generic ones from the rulebook though.

If most stratagems are changed to special rules, then the game would work well with fewer CPs in total. I’d suggest 2 Cps per 500pts, or 1 CP per 250pt for better granularity.

On top of this, generation of one CP at the start of each turn provided your Warlord is on the table. (So 2 per battle round).

I’d like to see CPs as a limited resource where each use has to be carefully considered, but I dislike the idea of allowing any sort of farming, I think the system only works well if the CPs stay a limited resource.

When it comes to army building, I’d charge a CP cost for any detachment that isn’t the same faction as your Warlord. So multiple factions of the same faction wouldn’t cost anything, but if you wanted to have an imperial knight to support your Custodes for instance, it would cost a CP.

I’d also change the way first turn is determined. First turn would be determined by a roll off, but the dice roll is modified by each player, each +1 modifier would cost 1 CP. I like the fact that going first is not a strategic decision you have to weigh up against keeping back some CPs to spend when the game starts. I’d consider making the players pay for the CP modifier before rolling, or even make it a blind bid so that each player writes down how many CPs they will spend to modify the roll-off for first turn and their opponent doesn’t know. Not sure what would work best here, would need play-testing.

Also I’d add a new generic stratagem, the opposite of the Command re-roll. Maybe call it “strategic interference” or something like that: you can force your opponent to re-roll a single dice roll. The same limitations would apply, you can’t re-roll a re-roll and I’d probably cost it higher that the command re-roll, maybe 2 CPs, maybe 3 CPs.

I like the idea of Command Points and Startegens, I just think it isn’t working well and the whole system needs to be overhauled.

Command points and stratagems have inflated the issue but the issue still existed in 7th and 6th before CP existed.

Curbing their impact goes a long way towards returning everything to just as bad as it was when we were all using indexes. Which is still a gak show.

 some bloke wrote:
I think that IGOUGO is far to engrained in the way 40k works to be removed. Auras and psychic powers would become nearly useless if it went over to AA - a complete rewrite of most special abilities would be needed.

It's not. Auras, buffs, orders and whatevers work just fine in AA. It doesn't have to go one unit at the time, either: our house rules use a varying amount of units that take their whole turn at a time (usually 1-4, because damn Guard has units on the table). Psychic powers last until the end of the round, so if you want good buffs you better use your early activations on some witchcraft. Or you could wait to see what the opposition does.
Auras are the same, except you have to think about placement and movement more than just plopping down everything where you want it.

Tactics, that.

 some bloke wrote:
I think that IGOUGO is far to engrained in the way 40k works to be removed. Auras and psychic powers would become nearly useless if it went over to AA - a complete rewrite of most special abilities would be needed.

Not if you adopt the Kill Team method, where one player moves/charges, the other player moves/charges, and then alternating activations kicks in.

Or do it by Detachment. Fiddle with Command Benefits and maximum Detachment numbers, and make it so that one player acts with all the models in one Detachment, then another player acts with all the models in one of their Detachments, and so on.

Or just expand the heroic intervention rule.

If you activate a unit within 3" of a character you can activate 1 character unit that is within range as well. If you activate a unit that is within 3" of a unit that is capable of protecting that unit you may activate 1 Protector unit that is within range as well. Add PROTECTOR keyword to lychguard, drones etc etc...

Now you can activate a unit of necron warrior, a cryptek, and the lychguard protecting said cryptek.

Or a hive tyrant and it's tyrant guard.

Or Tau firewarriors, the cadre fireblade, and the accelerator drone that were buffing them.

It's easy enough.

 Sherrypie wrote:

 some bloke wrote:
I think that IGOUGO is far to engrained in the way 40k works to be removed. Auras and psychic powers would become nearly useless if it went over to AA - a complete rewrite of most special abilities would be needed.

It's not. Auras, buffs, orders and whatevers work just fine in AA. It doesn't have to go one unit at the time, either: our house rules use a varying amount of units that take their whole turn at a time (usually 1-4, because damn Guard has units on the table). Psychic powers last until the end of the round, so if you want good buffs you better use your early activations on some witchcraft. Or you could wait to see what the opposition does.
Auras are the same, except you have to think about placement and movement more than just plopping down everything where you want it.

Tactics, that.

I can see it working if you can move multiple units - I was thinking of one unit at a time, where you can either move a unit out of buff range, or move a character to the front - neither of which are a good idea!

rewrites and AA and command point caps etc aside, I did mathematically prove above that, by not allowing either side their full force for turn 1, you can actually balance out the first-turn advantage quite well, within the scope of the game - it would only take a small addition to the matched play rules to change it to only allow you 1/2 of your army on deployment, and start bringing quarters of your army on from player 2 turn 1.

Whilst putting in AA and capping CP to eliminate soup (which GW views as "making people buy less models, books etc.) is all good wishlisting, it's not going to happen in reality. GW just won't do it. Making reinforcements compulsory, perhaps even for a set of 6 missions you can choose to use for more balanced play, leaving the existing ones be, is actually a possibility. it would also make different units more viable, so would make people buy more models, which is the only incentive GW will listen to.

Lets be honest. Nothing in the proposed rule section is anything GW is ever going to do.

You don't come here looking for solutions to become official rules. You come here to suggest and refine house rules to enhance your own playtime. Thats it.

 some bloke wrote:


Whilst putting in AA and capping CP to eliminate soup (which GW views as "making people buy less models, books etc.) is all good wishlisting, it's not going to happen in reality. GW just won't do it. Making reinforcements compulsory, perhaps even for a set of 6 missions you can choose to use for more balanced play, leaving the existing ones be, is actually a possibility. it would also make different units more viable, so would make people buy more models, which is the only incentive GW will listen to.

Well, GW has been getting on the alternating actions train for quite some time in the recent years so it's not that far fetched. Titanicus, Necromunda, Kill Team... I would not actually be terribly surprised if they at some point encouraged folks to try the KT style of turn structure with 40k proper as an alternate way of playing, a White Dwarf article or something for fun. Of course I'm not expecting this, but it's not outside the realms of possibility. Robin Cruddace is very much aware of the possibility, even if his comment was "it currently doesn't feel right for 40k".

Escalation missions, sure, such could very much come in within the current paradigm, but if we're looking at gameplay changes that aren't tied to capitalism and significantly improve the situation, we have to alter the turn structure that is the very core of this problem.

Also robin cruddace is single handedly resposible for some of the worst design choices in codex and gameplay over the last 3 editions. His word is gak for whats good for the game.


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Edit: thats not quite fair. Hes ALMOST single handedly responsible.

How about.... -1 penalty to shooting for going first on the first turn (subject to a 6+ always hits)? That's easily handled through an FAQ or Chapter Approved. With that in place, being devastated isn't too likely if you don't get to go first.

Often suggested. You just moved the goal posts. Now when tau go second and orks go first the same problem happens.

You cant put a band aid on the symptom to fix the disease.

limiting the power of shooting for turn 1 is not a good way to go - in some scenarios, armies rely on their first turn of shooting to set their game. I imagine Tau pay enough for their longer ranged weapons. They can set up further away than most armies and remain as effective.

AA is all well and good but one activation does not equal another. A knight player vs an ork player will never be a fair match. You'll end up with 1 or 2 ork vehicles rushing forwards in exchange for a lot of their other stuff dying, and then the orks get to finish their turn.

AA by points (or power level) could be a way to go - if the player activates X points worth of knight, the opponent gets to activate X points worth of everything else to compensate for it. not sure how this would escalate though... or where to draw the line, how to decide if an expensive unit can be picked after a cheap one... could be difficult.

giving people access to limited amounts of their whole army at a time is a viable way to work around this whole issue. an easy way to limit the firepower turn 1 and the potential losses turn 1 is to not have all of your army there on turn 1. forcing people to hold half their army in reinforcements, and giving the second player access to it first, offsets the turn 1 advantage almost completely.

You wanted a solution, and I have presented one mathematically, which can easily be introduced to any game of 40k without needing to explain AA to someone or tell them that their army is nerfed because turn 1 is too powerful. This house rule can easily be injected into pick-up games at the local GW. It could easily be written into tournament rules and anyone who plays the game can work out how to play like this. AA is great but it doesn't work outside your gaming group.

summary:

AA is probably the best way to fix this issue
Staggered Deployment & forced reserves works with the current system, and is probably the simplest way to fix this issue.

I would like to see shooting characteristics hampered for player who gets first turn. (or maybe both players first round.) This could be shooting range , BS characteristic, AP. Thematically this could simulate the fog of war, when forces first engage that they do not have a complete grasp of enemy positions, etc.

This would promote more tactical maneuvering on the battlefield. The most boring games for me are facing parking lots of shooting units like Tau. If their range was Halved, outside of 24" on the first turn, then that would force them to sacrifice points if they want to stay put, or move out of their damn fortress.

To those that say this would hurt how such armies play, I can't imagine many opponents of these armies agree it's a fun playstyle to play against so maybe it SHOULD be changed. It might force Tau for example to play closer to the enemy, but spend more points on chaff to ensure extra rounds of shooting before facing melee.

Alpha Strike wasn't a huge problem in 5th except for a few very specialized lists in certain matchups (leaf blower.) And that also had all the IGOUGO problems.

What used to happen in 5th if you ran a pure gunline? You did a bunch of damage turn 1 and maybe 2, and then the rest of the game consisted of being murdered in close combat because a few good CC units could take on an entire army worth of gunline due to locking things in combat and sweeping advances.

So gunlines had to bring melee deterrent or counter charge units, which reduced their alpha strike potential. Which generally meant they had to drop the alpha strike entirely and bring a more well rounded list.

In other words, generalist lists with a good mix of shooting and melee potential could generally deal with alpha strike because units were more durable (old cover system, old ap system) and shooting was less powerful (no auras, no strats) and melee was a hard enough counter (fully locking things in CC, sweeping advance.)

The reason alpha strike and gunlines are such a problem is because offensive buffs are out of control, and melee has lost its proper role.

Switching away from IGOUGO would fix things, but that's essentially a total redesign of the game at this point. Instead we should be looking to earlier editions that didn't have this problem.

 Drudge Dreadnought wrote:

The reason alpha strike and gunlines are such a problem is because offensive buffs are out of control, and melee has lost its proper role.

Switching away from IGOUGO would fix things, but that's essentially a total redesign of the game at this point. Instead we should be looking to earlier editions that didn't have this problem.

This strikes me as the crux of the issue, yeah.

Pointed Stick wrote:

 Drudge Dreadnought wrote:

The reason alpha strike and gunlines are such a problem is because offensive buffs are out of control, and melee has lost its proper role.

Switching away from IGOUGO would fix things, but that's essentially a total redesign of the game at this point. Instead we should be looking to earlier editions that didn't have this problem.

This strikes me as the crux of the issue, yeah.

Its also sort of untrue. The old lead designer of 40k left over creative differences and made bolt action and beyond the gates of antares. Both games have super obvious 40m roots in their core mechanics. Both are aa. And players have been making bolt hammer homebrew rule sets for a long long time. You can mostly JUST play 40k 8th directly ported to bolthammer. Or beyond the gates of 40k (search that on these forums and you will find a d10 a d6 and a simplified d10 version that all work with the codexes as is.)

 Lance845 wrote:

Pointed Stick wrote:

 Drudge Dreadnought wrote:

The reason alpha strike and gunlines are such a problem is because offensive buffs are out of control, and melee has lost its proper role.

Switching away from IGOUGO would fix things, but that's essentially a total redesign of the game at this point. Instead we should be looking to earlier editions that didn't have this problem.

This strikes me as the crux of the issue, yeah.

Its also sort of untrue. The old lead designer of 40k left over creative differences and made bolt action and beyond the gates of antares. Both games have super obvious 40m roots in their core mechanics. Both are aa. And players have been making bolt hammer homebrew rule sets for a long long time. You can mostly JUST play 40k 8th directly ported to bolthammer. Or beyond the gates of 40k (search that on these forums and you will find a d10 a d6 and a simplified d10 version that all work with the codexes as is.)

In fairness though ,whether the old lead designer left and made AA games isn't relevant. The fact is that the older editions didn't suffer from this, meaning that 40k can exist without the alpha strike issue. The old rules, as stated above, rewarded you for making it to melee. a good melee could actually tip the game. Now it's a one-off chance to inflict melee damage before the opponent walks away. it has no more committal than shooting now, and that's wrong.

Even the idea of moving fall back to your charge phase would drastically shift the power of CC in the game. once you've gone to the effort of slogging across the board and making it to combat, the reward should be comparable to those of someone who stood shooting for the first 2 turns. IE CC should be twice as powerful as shooting, to make it balanced.

The reason turn 1 is so important is that damage output only decreases through the game. It used to be turn 1 was alright, turn 2 and 3 were the big explosion of damage, and then it was getting into positions to try and win the game. Now, turn 1 is the highest damage output of the game, and it goes downhill from there. it used to pick up again when you got to combat, it wasn't just like having 1" range guns.

I agree with some bloke in that. Making Falling Back a smidge slower or more punishing, either by moving it to the Charge phase or giving the other side free attacks as you do so would somewhat improve the viability of mixed forces. There should be a role that fast bully units, like assault marines, could fill without having to utterly destroy their target in one go.

The AA bit is still somewhat relevant, as it allows for better counterplay in rougly every instance and makes the game more about situational control than pressure-free combo flaunting.

 some bloke wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

Pointed Stick wrote:

 Drudge Dreadnought wrote:

The reason alpha strike and gunlines are such a problem is because offensive buffs are out of control, and melee has lost its proper role.

Switching away from IGOUGO would fix things, but that's essentially a total redesign of the game at this point. Instead we should be looking to earlier editions that didn't have this problem.

This strikes me as the crux of the issue, yeah.

Its also sort of untrue. The old lead designer of 40k left over creative differences and made bolt action and beyond the gates of antares. Both games have super obvious 40m roots in their core mechanics. Both are aa. And players have been making bolt hammer homebrew rule sets for a long long time. You can mostly JUST play 40k 8th directly ported to bolthammer. Or beyond the gates of 40k (search that on these forums and you will find a d10 a d6 and a simplified d10 version that all work with the codexes as is.)

In fairness though ,whether the old lead designer left and made AA games isn't relevant. The fact is that the older editions didn't suffer from this, meaning that 40k can exist without the alpha strike issue. The old rules, as stated above, rewarded you for making it to melee. a good melee could actually tip the game. Now it's a one-off chance to inflict melee damage before the opponent walks away. it has no more committal than shooting now, and that's wrong.

Those older editions had 2 things happening.

1) sweeping advances were a binary, wipes the unit entirely mechanic. And I will ague that mechanic is terrible. 2) 5 and earlier editions didn't see the advent of the super heavy and all the massive guns that came with them both on those things and to deal with those things. The game just got way more killy since then. We are not going to go back. Together you have a situation where you see "Alpha strike wasn't a big deal back then" to which I would say it still happened, it just wasn't as pronounced because of those other factors not existing yet.

Even the idea of moving fall back to your charge phase would drastically shift the power of CC in the game. once you've gone to the effort of slogging across the board and making it to combat, the reward should be comparable to those of someone who stood shooting for the first 2 turns. IE CC should be twice as powerful as shooting, to make it balanced.

I agree that melee has problems. I think falling back should have some kind of a risk involved.

The reason turn 1 is so important is that damage output only decreases through the game. It used to be turn 1 was alright, turn 2 and 3 were the big explosion of damage, and then it was getting into positions to try and win the game. Now, turn 1 is the highest damage output of the game, and it goes downhill from there. it used to pick up again when you got to combat, it wasn't just like having 1" range guns.

See above. The cats out of the bag. It's not going to get put back in.

 Lance845 wrote:

 some bloke wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

Pointed Stick wrote:

 Drudge Dreadnought wrote:

The reason alpha strike and gunlines are such a problem is because offensive buffs are out of control, and melee has lost its proper role.

Switching away from IGOUGO would fix things, but that's essentially a total redesign of the game at this point. Instead we should be looking to earlier editions that didn't have this problem.

This strikes me as the crux of the issue, yeah.

Its also sort of untrue. The old lead designer of 40k left over creative differences and made bolt action and beyond the gates of antares. Both games have super obvious 40m roots in their core mechanics. Both are aa. And players have been making bolt hammer homebrew rule sets for a long long time. You can mostly JUST play 40k 8th directly ported to bolthammer. Or beyond the gates of 40k (search that on these forums and you will find a d10 a d6 and a simplified d10 version that all work with the codexes as is.)

In fairness though ,whether the old lead designer left and made AA games isn't relevant. The fact is that the older editions didn't suffer from this, meaning that 40k can exist without the alpha strike issue. The old rules, as stated above, rewarded you for making it to melee. a good melee could actually tip the game. Now it's a one-off chance to inflict melee damage before the opponent walks away. it has no more committal than shooting now, and that's wrong.

Those older editions had 2 things happening.

1) sweeping advances were a binary, wipes the unit entirely mechanic. And I will ague that mechanic is terrible. 2) 5 and earlier editions didn't see the advent of the super heavy and all the massive guns that came with them both on those things and to deal with those things. The game just got way more killy since then. We are not going to go back. Together you have a situation where you see "Alpha strike wasn't a big deal back then" to which I would say it still happened, it just wasn't as pronounced because of those other factors not existing yet.

Even the idea of moving fall back to your charge phase would drastically shift the power of CC in the game. once you've gone to the effort of slogging across the board and making it to combat, the reward should be comparable to those of someone who stood shooting for the first 2 turns. IE CC should be twice as powerful as shooting, to make it balanced.

I agree that melee has problems. I think falling back should have some kind of a risk involved.

The reason turn 1 is so important is that damage output only decreases through the game. It used to be turn 1 was alright, turn 2 and 3 were the big explosion of damage, and then it was getting into positions to try and win the game. Now, turn 1 is the highest damage output of the game, and it goes downhill from there. it used to pick up again when you got to combat, it wasn't just like having 1" range guns.

See above. The cats out of the bag. It's not going to get put back in.

I agree that the old sweeping advance rule was too much. I think that a viable option is to try and escape instead of attack - fall back as an alternative to fighting. Then, sweeping advance should be done to allow the other player to try to catch them. If they catch them, they don't get destroyed, but they don't get away either, and the advancing unit can still attack. I would give units that charged a bonus to sweeping advance (making it difficult to get away in the opponents turn, having just been charged, but not impossible). so if it's a straight roll off, then chargers roll 2D6 and pick the highest. Or get +3 to their roll. D6 + move would be too good for bikes, though it would be realistic. you're unlikely to succeed running after a motorbike!

Superheavies and big guns have increased the damage output of the shooting phase. If GW can push the "monsters" side of things, they can get some gargantuan creatures to tip the scale the other way. Everything should have a counter, and I think high wound models with good CC capabilities are a gap in the design at the moment. giving them shields which absorb a few hits before dying, or reduce damage at longer ranges, would help them survive turn 1 (and as they want to close the gap, reducing damage outside of 18" wouldn't be too OP, as that gap will close on turn 1!)

Yes, shooting very powerful, but the issue is that shooting became more powerful whilst CC became less powerful. if a superheavy can wipe out a unit in one phase, an elite (or huge) CC unit should be able to do the same.

I'm not suggesting that shooting goes away (though I do feel that they need to bring back LOS for vehicles, the arse of a baneblade firing everything round a corner is too abstract for my tastes). I just think they need to make CC keep up. Alpha-striking with shooting isn't such an issue if you can kill a 2k list with 1k of CC units. Or at the least, cripple it by hiding your army in combat. The game doesn't have to revolve around killing absolutely everything - killing isn't a tactic, it's just part of the game. when, where and how you kill is the tactics. "just make units more powerful" is the mentality of a 12 year old. At least GW knows their demographic.

Disagree with your end point.

We have 2 distinct problems. Igougo and its impact on gameplay including first turn advantage.

Cc hasnt kept up with shooting and its general mechnics dont help.


Fixing cc might mitigate igougos impact on the game over the course of the game but it doesnt actually adress the problems. It just makes them leas pronounced (in theory).

Fix both problems.

I think falling back during the charge phase is the simplest change that seems to make a dent in the problem.

Allow fly units to be able to shoot while in combat but at a penalty (i'd rather them not be able to shoot at all but I think a lot of point costs and army design would need to be re-examined.)

Would necessitate having some sort of anti-assault get the hell off of me units which could reduce the amount of T1 shooting.

That and allowing the person who goes second to DS on the bottom half of T1. Enduring 2 rounds of shooting before you can bring DS units in is really tough (I tried DS nearly half of my army one tournament and had 2 games where bottom of T2 I was down to a handful of models and almost swept off the table). While given how lethal 8th is anything that starts on the board has a good chance of coming off of it T1.

Give player 2 a strat (1cp per unit?) where they can DS any infantry using regular DS rules or any vehicle/monster w/in their movement range from their board edge (up to half their army).

The mobility of models, long shooting range, wide deployment zones and true LOS makes it really hard to hide anything out of LOS. The corners deployment map has proven to give me the best chance to hide out of LOS while either of the one's with the 60" deployment zones makes keeping out of LOS a problem (combined with knights and others moving 12ish" to get that LOS, unless all my army starts in an enclosed building keeping out of LOS is next to impossible).

 Lance845 wrote:
Disagree with your end point.

We have 2 distinct problems. Igougo and its impact on gameplay including first turn advantage.

Cc hasnt kept up with shooting and its general mechnics dont help.


Fixing cc might mitigate igougos impact on the game over the course of the game but it doesnt actually adress the problems. It just makes them leas pronounced (in theory).

Fix both problems.

I am inclined to agree with you. The issues are, as you state, that IGOUGO doesn't work with the way that 40k works, from a balancing point of view.

CC also is exceedingly "meh" compared with shooting, and a dedicated CC army almost always falls to a dedicated shooting army.


The second problem can be corrected by holding units in CC through the shooting phase - mitigating the "fall back and open fire" mechanic they gifted to the armies who have already opened fire every turn leading up to this, and then opened fire in overwatch. yeah, they needed more damage output... [/sarcasm]

The first problem could be solved with AA, with a good deal of rewriting and rebalancing, or it could be corrected by forcing players to have reserves. Reserves is almost like AA for the opening turns, as it prevents you using your whole army for turn 1. It's also a lot more familiar for most players than AA, and eliminates the (albeit limited) bookkeeping of AA (tracking who's done what, particularly with people charging & fighting during the turn). An escalation-style game is still my preferred option for this, and I think is a lot easier to explain to and get an agreement to use with a drop-in player.

I definitely don't think that nerfing turn 1's shooting is a good way to go, as it just moves it to turn 2. Increasing the amount of cover and LOS blocking terrain on the board will also help mitigate the power of the first turn. having the firing lines go across between the armies instead of from one to the other (IE if you line up on the long edges, don't allow anyone on one side to see anyone on the other side, but make it so you can see one short edge from the other) will almost eliminate the first turn shooting output, without allowing the charging forward armies to get a clean run up. turn 1 becomes about positioning, and turn 2 becomes about damage. The difference is that your positioning can have an effect on the damage output. you actually have a say in the matter!

The main problem with Alpha Strike is that just one person is playing the game while the other one watches and remove stuff without actively doing anything

Alternate Activation solves this problem as both players will take part of the game and play.

But it does not solve the Alpha Strike problem as a list that will wipe out the opponent turn 1 will still do so and the end of the turn.
For the very simple reason as most Alpha Strike lists also have a lot of units and the list with more activations has the advantage within an AA system.

So Elite armies or pure melee armies will need something to compensate, eg melee need to be stronger and elite armies need something to kill lot of cheap models without being able to kill the expensive stuff equal fast.

Without rebalancing the game AA won't help much but it will be a better experience for both players.

If you rebalance the game, IGoUGo will work too

 kodos wrote:
The main problem with Alpha Strike is that just one person is playing the game while the other one watches and remove stuff without actively doing anything

Alternate Activation solves this problem as both players will take part of the game and play.

But it does not solve the Alpha Strike problem as a list that will wipe out the opponent turn 1 will still do so and the end of the turn.
For the very simple reason as most Alpha Strike lists also have a lot of units and the list with more activations has the advantage within an AA system.

So Elite armies or pure melee armies will need something to compensate, eg melee need to be stronger and elite armies need something to kill lot of cheap models without being able to kill the expensive stuff equal fast.

Without rebalancing the game AA won't help much but it will be a better experience for both players.

If you rebalance the game, IGoUGo will work too

Unless things happen simultaenously, it's another IGOUGO at a more segmented level. Any form of turn based game is an IGOUGO.

40K is not an action shooter. It's a board game.

 kodos wrote:
The main problem with Alpha Strike is that just one person is playing the game while the other one watches and remove stuff without actively doing anything

Alternate Activation solves this problem as both players will take part of the game and play.

But it does not solve the Alpha Strike problem as a list that will wipe out the opponent turn 1 will still do so and the end of the turn.
For the very simple reason as most Alpha Strike lists also have a lot of units and the list with more activations has the advantage within an AA system.

So Elite armies or pure melee armies will need something to compensate, eg melee need to be stronger and elite armies need something to kill lot of cheap models without being able to kill the expensive stuff equal fast.

Without rebalancing the game AA won't help much but it will be a better experience for both players.

If you rebalance the game, IGoUGo will work too

AA doesn't have to work with a one to one ratio in activations either. Currently I prefer our Bolt Action~ish way, where at the start of the round all players count the number of their units and put as many counters (like coloured dice) in a bag and then draw them blindly until you get a different one. In the long run this gives pretty even series of draws, with some nice unpredictability baked in, as the player whose chits are drawn then does a whole turn sequence with as many units as they drew their tokens. Say, if usually my Death Guard has maybe 7-9 units and my Imperial Guard opponent has maybe 15, usually he draws 2-3 for each one I get while I too occasionally get a larger group to spend on some more coordinated assault or whatever I've been planning on. That cuts down most of the "time wasting" skip-activations you sometimes see in AA games that are straight single activations at a time. We also represent the starting roll bonus via an extra token for the side that "should have" began the game. It has been a blast thus far when appliedto 8th edition.

There's also always the fact that you can interact better with your opponent's battleplan when your target choices actually affect their ability to activate and time their moves

The bolt Action system fits Bolt Action in Army size and who deadly the system is.
And it works up to a point with 40k, but not with the current state of the game

But the system struggles if the game gets bigger will have troubles with 8th style games unless you scale it back to 1000 points.

I also can see the old Warpath system working, were players alternate 1-3 units (the first activation is free, next is 3+, third is 5+, than the opponent can make his activations)

For larger games, the current version of Warpath works quiet well and would also work with the Apocalypse style game 40k has become but it is not the Skrimish style game people want 40k to be.

From my point of view it would be the best to keep the turn based interaction and balance shooting vs melee

Thats just not true. Search beyond the gates of 40k. Its bolthammer in 8th and just works. All the up to 2500 that i have played.

Don't personally see that as a problem, as 40k is at its core a platoon level game that has bloated towards something else over many years. If anything, the "normal" game size should anyway be reduced more towards the 1200-1700 points range as changing the turn structure already does away with the "oh but you HAVE to have 2000 points of stuff on the field to survive first turn!" nonsense that only keeps the spiral of misery going

The initiative system from Epic Armageddon could also be interesting, which is very close to that of Warpath except armies have different values for getting that second activation. Trying to take more and failing in it also creates problems, so it's a nice minigame of its own to ponder when you actually want to do so.

 Lance845 wrote:
Thats just not true. Search beyond the gates of 40k. Its bolthammer in 8th and just works. All the up to 2500 that i have played.

Yeah, but this changes a lot more than just replacing alternating player turns with alternating activation

And I would like to see how Orks perform against 2.5k points of Knights

It really doesnt change very much from any codex.

It changes the turn structure and clarifies rules.


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Oh, and fixes terrain and los.

I'm not convinced that IGOUGO is the source of the whole problem because, as said before, we had previous editions where alpha strikes weren't breaking the game (they did exist and were a viable style of army, which is fine. They just need to not break things.) However, for the sake of moving the conversation along, I'll just take everyone's word for it that it is the problem.

Okay. Now, also for the sake of moving on, yall need to admit that GW isn't ever going to change the whole turn structure of the game without at least a new edition, and probably never at all. So let's get back to the point worth talking about: what could change to get things to be more like they used to, where alpha strike shooting didn't have the critical mass to break the enemy's back on turn 1 like it can now.

Offense has increased. I see people claiming that it's because of super heavies, but this is simply false. Super heavies tend to have less firepower per point than non-super heavy options. Compare a Knight to an equivalent amount of points of Russes, for example. The exception to this is probably a Cawl's wrath castellan, but that's an outlier, not the rule. And its strength wasn't so much its raw firepower per point, but it's ability to sustain it by being tough to take down, and having an anti-degredation mechanic. But the Castellan has been hit pretty hard now, so its likely not even going to be an outlier anymore.

It is simply ridiculous to say that "We can't go back" to how things used to be while at the same time claiming that the fix is a massive scale change to the whole game that they will never do. We can "go back", and by go back I mean adjust the ratio of offense to defense and restore melee to its proper role. In fact, we've already starting doing it with the introduction of the turn 1 everyone gets cover stratagem. That wasn't enough on its own, but if we got a couple more mechanics like that, a lot of this problem goes away.

The useful discussions to have on this topic are
1) What other mechanics could be added to mitigate turn 1 alpha strike
2) What can be done to give melee a proper role again

Discussing converting the game to an alternating activation system isn't even wishlisting, it's just outside the realm of possibility. If you like this other system so much, go play it. If we can get enough of a community around it and it is better, I'd be happy to come along. But for now, let's see what could actually be implemented to help the current system.

 Drudge Dreadnought wrote:
I'm not convinced that IGOUGO is the source of the whole problem because, as said before, we had previous editions where alpha strikes weren't breaking the game...
...Discussing converting the game to an alternating activation system isn't even wishlisting, it's just outside the realm of possibility. If you like this other system so much, go play it. If we can get enough of a community around it and it is better, I'd be happy to come along. But for now, let's see what could actually be implemented to help the current system.

I couldn't agree more. Switching the game from IGOUGO to AA, whilst it may work, is a massive change to the game, and isn't likely to happen. It also still has its alpha-strike problems (3 massively powerful units vs 30 small units, you're back to IGOUGO, more or less) and, with the 40k mentality, you would end up with deathstars coming back so people get the most damage output from each of their units. It also prevents MSU (EG trukkboys, my favourite list in 7th) from using their weight of numbers, especially against deathstars. example: 5 units of trukkboys, vs a deathstar, assuming there are other units for both sides to activate:
turn 1, ork trukkers unit 1 charge deathstar, get overwatched, then die in combat. deathstar player activates a different unit.
turn 1, ork trukkers unit 2 charge deathstar, get overwatched, then die in combat. deathstar player activates a different unit.
turn 1, ork trukkers unit 3 charge deathstar, get overwatched, then die in combat. deathstar player activates a different unit.
turn 1, ork trukkers unit 4 charge deathstar, get overwatched, then die in combat. deathstar player activates a different unit.
turn 1, ork trukkers unit 5 charge deathstar, get overwatched, then die in combat. deathstar player now activates the deathstar and kills some more units.

Deathstar just killed 5+ units in one turn. multi-charges are needed for MSU.

Without also having to change the CC rules, you will end up with one massively powerful unit with MSU backing being quite high in the meta. I remember deathstars, and I don't want to go back to that.

I think a lot can be affected by the table. if you can't see the enemy deployment zone, turn 1 becomes about positioning, setting up crossfires, etc. add more LOS blocking terrain, I suspect this will improve the game.

Just making vehicles stay on the table if they don't explode, as LOS blocking terrain, would be an easily implemented rule and make the table look cooler as the game goes on as well. I enjoyed having trashed vehicles scattered across the board. everything just vaporises now, it's not as immersive.

*gets out the charge more for special weapons drum*

If you actually had to pay for the ability to reliably destroy enemy units we wouldn't have this issue. The requirement of massive amounts of death to keep the game playable is actually a symptom of scale creep more than bad design. Bump up points across the board, double unit costs and triple weapon costs(actual cost not the differential cost listed on the points sheets) and you will see a wildly different game. One that actually plays reasonably.

Or just play a 1000 point game with goals centered around holding or taking points and you're mostly there already. If someone takes their death star they can't really win unless they table you, and that's why those acceptable casualty rules where introduced in CA 2018. Those missions are wonderful for breaking the maximum killy meta at lower point values.

But I suppose that asks the question, just how long should it take the average blob of points to kill a similarly sized blob of points?

Pointed Stick wrote:

- All deployment zone distances from the center are lengthened by 6", so both armies start out on average an additional 12" farther apart from one another. This balances out how fast virtually all units are today (with higher movement values, advancing, and 2D6" charge distances), and brings back an element of maneuver warfare, rather than just trying for a first-turn charge. Also encourages the use of transports more.

Good. We just need foot wider tables. Who has 5' wide tables?

As is 6" deployment zones just aren't feasible for some armies. And makes 1st turn charges(which many still exists...) even more powerful.

 some bloke wrote:

I couldn't agree more. Switching the game from IGOUGO to AA, whilst it may work, is a massive change to the game, and isn't likely to happen. It also still has its alpha-strike problems (3 massively powerful units vs 30 small units, you're back to IGOUGO, more or less) and, with the 40k mentality, you would end up with deathstars coming back so people get the most damage output from each of their units. It also prevents MSU (EG trukkboys, my favourite list in 7th) from using their weight of numbers, especially against deathstars. example: 5 units of trukkboys, vs a deathstar, assuming there are other units for both sides to activate:
turn 1, ork trukkers unit 1 charge deathstar, get overwatched, then die in combat. deathstar player activates a different unit.
turn 1, ork trukkers unit 2 charge deathstar, get overwatched, then die in combat. deathstar player activates a different unit.
turn 1, ork trukkers unit 3 charge deathstar, get overwatched, then die in combat. deathstar player activates a different unit.
turn 1, ork trukkers unit 4 charge deathstar, get overwatched, then die in combat. deathstar player activates a different unit.
turn 1, ork trukkers unit 5 charge deathstar, get overwatched, then die in combat. deathstar player now activates the deathstar and kills some more units.

Deathstar just killed 5+ units in one turn. multi-charges are needed for MSU.

ok, this is likely how AA will work if GW does it, but doing it like most other games:

turn 1, ork trukkers unit 1 charge deathstar, get overwatched, then die in combat. deathstar player activates a different unit.
turn 1, ork trukkers unit 2 charge deathstar deathstar player cannot overwatch or strike back in combat as the DS unit already used its activation, activates a different unit.
turn 1, ork trukkers unit 3 charge deathstar deathstar player cannot overwatch or strike back in combat as the DS unit already used its activation, activates a different unit.

With some variation like either there is no overwatch at all but striking back in combat with have of the attacks for an activated unit or similar

 some bloke wrote:

 Drudge Dreadnought wrote:
I'm not convinced that IGOUGO is the source of the whole problem because, as said before, we had previous editions where alpha strikes weren't breaking the game...
...Discussing converting the game to an alternating activation system isn't even wishlisting, it's just outside the realm of possibility. If you like this other system so much, go play it. If we can get enough of a community around it and it is better, I'd be happy to come along. But for now, let's see what could actually be implemented to help the current system.

I couldn't agree more. Switching the game from IGOUGO to AA, whilst it may work, is a massive change to the game, and isn't likely to happen. It also still has its alpha-strike problems (3 massively powerful units vs 30 small units, you're back to IGOUGO, more or less) and, with the 40k mentality, you would end up with deathstars coming back so people get the most damage output from each of their units. It also prevents MSU (EG trukkboys, my favourite list in 7th) from using their weight of numbers, especially against deathstars. example: 5 units of trukkboys, vs a deathstar, assuming there are other units for both sides to activate:
turn 1, ork trukkers unit 1 charge deathstar, get overwatched, then die in combat. deathstar player activates a different unit.
turn 1, ork trukkers unit 2 charge deathstar, get overwatched, then die in combat. deathstar player activates a different unit.
turn 1, ork trukkers unit 3 charge deathstar, get overwatched, then die in combat. deathstar player activates a different unit.
turn 1, ork trukkers unit 4 charge deathstar, get overwatched, then die in combat. deathstar player activates a different unit.
turn 1, ork trukkers unit 5 charge deathstar, get overwatched, then die in combat. deathstar player now activates the deathstar and kills some more units.

Deathstar just killed 5+ units in one turn. multi-charges are needed for MSU.

Without also having to change the CC rules, you will end up with one massively powerful unit with MSU backing being quite high in the meta. I remember deathstars, and I don't want to go back to that.

I think a lot can be affected by the table. if you can't see the enemy deployment zone, turn 1 becomes about positioning, setting up crossfires, etc. add more LOS blocking terrain, I suspect this will improve the game.

Just making vehicles stay on the table if they don't explode, as LOS blocking terrain, would be an easily implemented rule and make the table look cooler as the game goes on as well. I enjoyed having trashed vehicles scattered across the board. everything just vaporises now, it's not as immersive.

First of all, unlikely to happen is the name of the game of the proposed rules forum. Nothing we talk about here is going to happen. Ever. Get used to the idea of that.

2) you make some wild ass assumptions about AA. Play some games first instead of just speculating.

3) There tends to be 2 arguments from people who don't understand how AA works that unsurprisingly are contradictions. The first is that "We will just get 3 deathstars and then all the deathstars will win!" and the other is "It will all be MSU with dinky little activations because more activations is so much more powerful then less activations!"

Both are wrong in practice with the second being CLOSER to being right but not really.

3 "large (like imperial knight)" activation start their turn early and get out maneuvered. They loose every tactical edge when they blow it all away early. Or they miss out on opportunities in a random grab bag style AA when they don't get picked to go next. And the smaller activations while getting to run circles around the enemy don't have much of any impact and can't actually influence the field meaningfully when they do activate. So they are mostly a waste. A good list in AA either has a solid mix of both or a lot of middle ground or you are going to get trounced. The 3 knights will get crippled but their inability to keep up. The MSU will bleed activations early on and loose any advantage it might have had by the mid game.

4) I have never seen anyone suggest the overwatch mechanic stays in tact in a AA game. Overwatch generally becomes a tactical choice where a unit forgoes shooting on it's activation to interrupt the enemies turn to shoot on theirs. Generally with some kind of restriction like half range or some such. Point being they get to shoot once. Not 5 times. It lets you be tactical with units providing cover fire (or you know... OVERWATCH) for other units and potentially a form of area denial.

5) the CC rules would change. Because the CC rules are part of the turn structure which we are talking about changing. You fight on your units activation, not at the end of every activation.


As above, you described how an idiot would implement AA. Not any functional system that has been used.

OK, assuming the game is "decided on the first turn" is a fact and an actual problem:
- 6-7 edition tried to address it so that melee and auto-hit weapons could not happen on the first turn, some of those rules could be brought back.
- It is a HUGE advantage for an entire army to move, shoot and assault all together before the opponent has a chance to reply (that is why instant assault deep strikes were stopped as well, to allow opponent reaction). unit activation takes some of that pain away, this is why I play Bolt Action a fair bit for this very reason.
- Some mention needs to be made about how basic the terrain rules are and that increased ability to block line of sight to mitigate initial shooting would help.

I have played 40k since Rogue Trader and that I go / you go method of play has always bugged me from the standpoint of chess or battles in general: it just does not happen anywhere close to that way, it is something of an immersion breaker.
Not sure I am a fan of pure alternating squad activation, the little bit of random pulling from a bag has been a nail biter for some games.

Since terrain rules are often mentioned here are some. Simple to use, highly impactful on the game. Even on a flat featureless rectangle. Not that anyone should be playing that way.

 Lance845 wrote:
So this was originaly part of the Beyond the Gate of 40k project (Located here https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/733472.page ). I have had a few games that have utilized this recently and it works great so it should also work well in normal 40k. A lot of this is ripped from Beyond the Gates of Antares and then adapted to fit within the context of 8th 40k.


Line of Sight Rules

You can trace Line of Sight from any part of your model to any part of the target unit. For the purpose of targeting I recommend using 7ths targeting rules (I.E. wings, antennae, banners) do not count as a part of the model, meaning you cannot draw los from or too these bits. That is just my personal preference, do what you want.

Targeting Occupied Terrain Occupied Terrain is any terrain that has a unit within the terrain feature. Units that occupy a Terrain feature can see and be seen through it. Units that Occupy Terrain gain Cover from the terrain. A unit is considered to be occupying the terrain if all of it's models bases are at least partially within the terrain or meet it's other requirements. Models that do not have a base must be at least 50% within the terrain to be considered to Occupy it.

Intervening Terrain Intervening terrain is any terrain that sits between you and the target unit but is not occupied by the target unit. You can trace LoS over a single piece of Light terrain. A second piece of Light terrain and/or Dense terrain will block LoS normally. Targeting a unit over intervening Terrain confers a -1 to hit penalty.

High Ground If your unit is on a piece of raised terrain they may have high ground. A unit with high ground can ignore all terrain and los blocking terrain features when targeting units on a lower level so long as they can still actually trace line of sight to the unit. To repeat, you still need to be able to trace line of sight, but the target unit would gain no benefit from any intervening terrain. I personally use a lot of the Mantic Battlezones. So each layer up in my terrain is 3". So we use that 3" marker to determine height. Again, do what you want.

Intervening Units If you cannot trace LoS to your target unit without tracing a line through an enemy unit the intervening unit counts as Light Terrain. That means if your target unit is behind both an enemy unit and a piece of Light terrain that unit is untargetable because your LoS is blocked (just like 2 pieces of light terrain). For this you are counting the entire unit and the spaces between models as 1 object. You cannot trace LoS between models in the same unit to get around this. You would need to actually be able to trace LoS around the entire unit to not be effected by the unit.

Monsters, Vehicles, and Titanic When targeting any unit with the MONSTER or VEHICLE Keyword you ignore any intervening units when tracing Line of Sight treating them as Open Ground. When targeting any unit with the TITANIC keyword you ignore all intervening units and Light Terrain treating them as Open Ground. In addition treat all Dense Terrain as Light Terrain for the purpose of tracing LoS on TITANIC units.

Flier Units with the Flier battlefield role can be targeted freely treating all terrain and intervening units as Open Ground so long as you can still trace Line of Sight. Do the same for any LoW with the FLY Keyword.

Terrain

All terrain has 3 features.

1) Line of Sight
2) Cover
3) Difficulty

1] Line of Sight

There are 3 degrees of effect terrain has on LoS.

-Open Ground: No effect on LoS. This terrain piece can be shot over as though it was not there. Example: A water pool or river.

-Light: Blocks LoS to some extent. You can draw Line of Sight over a single piece of light terrain. A unit cannot draw LoS over 2 pieces of light terrain. Barricades, grassy hills, light copse of trees, smaller ruins/

-Dense: Dense Terrain blocks LoS entirely. Dense cops of trees, ruined whole buildings.

2) Cover

All terrain has a cover value that is a bonus to your Sv roll (Ex. +1). This bonus is granted to any unit entirely within or meets the requirements of the terrain feature.

3) Difficulty

All terrain has a difficulty value. This value is a penalty to the Movement Value of any unit that enters or attempts to move through the terrain. It is possible the Difficulty of the terrain is a 0 meaning it does not impact movement at all. They may also have special considerations such as "Impassible to VEHICLES".


So for example, the baricades that make of a Aegis Defense Line and thus AGLs themselves would be

LoS: Light
Cover: +1 - The unit must be within 1" or within 1" of a model from their unit that is within 1" of the terrain to occupy the terrain. This unit only gains the benefit of cover from units targeting them from the opposite side of the terrain.
Difficulty: 1

Thus tracing LoS over these baracades would impose a -1 to hit to any unit that is not occupying it. Provides a +1 Sv bonus to any unit that is occupying it, and eat up 1" of Movement to cross over it.

Ruined Building could be.

LoS: Dense
Cover: +1
Difficulty: 1 non-INFANTRY

You could not target units on the other side of the building even if you could trace LoS. Units that occupy the terrain gain a +1 SV bonus and any noninfantry would loose 1" of movement by entering or trying to pass through the terrain. Driving some bikes over the rough surface of the ruins is hard on them and the ruins make navigating the landscape difficult for anything that is too big and/or lacking the dexterity that Infantry have.

In addition. I propose that Character Targeting is changed to make it so a character cannot be targeted with shooting if the character is not the closest visible unit and within 3" of another visible friendly unit. This way they need to maintain a semi unit coherency to keep their protection AND a closer unit behind some LoS blocking terrain won't save them.

Any unit with Sniper Weapon/rules will also ignore intervening units when tracing LoS.

Stuff is too killy. TTK should be lowered for pretty much everything, or defenses should be raised across the board... it should be perfectly possible to end a game on turn 6 with half of your army still on the table.

Lowering killyness would mean that first turn charges no longer become "necessary" to make melee armies remotely viable, and removes the whole issue of "my super awesome model always gets deleted on turn 1 every game before it gets the chance to even fire".

stuff is too killy. Too many reroll's, double shooting actions, increased damage on plasma type things.


Too be fair, models have greatly enhanced mobility this edition as well. Doesn't completely save melee armies, but it does mean shooting heavy armies typically only have 2 turns before they get jumped on.


Just bring back night fight on the first turn.

Night Fighting: On the first battle round of a game roll a D6. On a 3+ night fighting is in effect. On a 1-2 night fighting takes place on the 5th and onward until the game is finished. During Night Fighting, you may only target units that are within 30" in the shooting phase unless you have the Sniper rule. If you have the sniper rule you roll 2d6 and may target units that many inch's further than 30".




This makes the first turn less killy for BOTH players and makes jockeying for position far more important on the first player turn, making the game more tactical and making parking lot shooting galleries basically useless on turn 1.

I for one LOVE the idea of Chess style turns. You get one unit per turn, and in that turn you can do X. Shoot/Fight, move, or Psychic. Then you can decide if you want to charge. If you charge successfully, you can fight.

I think the Army per turn is killing this game. Half my army is dead by the time I get to do anything.

Dissenting opinion here.

If a game can be decided first turn, there's no point dragging it out over several turns.

The mechanical changes we've seen - adding Prepared Positions, delaying deep strike, removing proper infiltration, etc - rarely affect outcomes and only satisfy a desire to increase the length of the game. First turn still gives an advantage, it just doesn't kick in as soon as it did before.

The real problem is the underlying mechanics of 8th edition - defense is overvalued, offense is undervalued, and 'heavy' just means more wounds. For many units - like Terminators - the cost per model is about twice that of normal infantry but both die the same way to low S, volume of fire assaults. For many weapons, the difference between wounding a tank and wounding infantry is 1 pip on the dice. This narrow defensive 'spectrum' often means target priority goes to anything in range instead of some optimal target.

Instead of these mechanical changes, maybe a way to address first turn advantage would be to focus on the wound chart. This ratio between S and T is very broad. Maybe you wound on 5s if the target's toughness is up to +2 of the weapon's S, otherwise it's 6s. That would instantly increase the durability of tougher units and make a disastrous alpha strike less common.

Another way to accomplish something similar would be to roll invulnerable saves on 2 dice, or make them re-rollable. Suddenly, there's this whole class of units that's more resistant to fire than the rest of the army, your opponent is going to have to think about whether to concentrate fire on them or just shoot at the softer targets.

That's my $0.02. More defensive variety is needed, not more rules.

I always felt GW was more "invested" in D6 mechanics so I rarely take a run at that, but it was a good point raised.
I have always been a fan of D10 just for the percentage and simple math that represents.
The extra granularity from a 16.67% chance for any given side result to a 10% helps a bit.

We are right now faced with a rather drastic wounding result with 8th edition: if you are +1 or -1 in the strength or toughness you can go from 2+ to 5+ very quickly.
Remember how it needed to be more a shift of 2 get one pip improvement?
Heavy bolters were "OK" but not great in prior editions, I find I like to use them much more for the capability to cost ratio in 8th, it seems silly otherwise.
This is why Autocannons were awesome before, they are good now but HB's compete much more for my points.
Equal strength / toughness seems more situational.
Double strength / toughness really is in the realm of you have nothing better to hit or for giggles.

The game IS more deadly so the first turn becomes all the more important to mitigate because it truly snowballs after that first round of shooting and assaults.

I agree that the to wound chart is an issue. High toughness (or the armor system of being a vehicle) is much less protection (bolters can wound most vehicles on a 5+, when previously they couldn't at all, just for one example) and in the same vein, low strength can easily be compensated with volume of shots.

I personally don't think that a D10 system is feasible. 40k is built for big-ish to big armies. You just have to roll a lot of dice (even if you would reduce the number of dice to roll from the current ridiculous to something more reasonable). D10 is fine for small systems that care about granularity and actually have the required balance. When you roll 30+ dice a turn, D6 are much less trouble.

I also see another point why first turn is such a big issue: The table size. Basically, from the start of the game, every unit is within range of everything (often even in charge range). Increasing the table size would force players to move before they shoot/get shot, giving players control over when it happens and what shoots at them/what they can shoot at.

This would naturally require changing the prize ratio between melee units and ranged units and/or improving melee mechanics.


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PS: Please don't call me out about increased table size breaking the (non-existent) balance. Of course it does. But as I see it, the required rebalancing would be worth the result (no first turn wipe and higher impact of correct maneuvering).

Rolling 30d10 is no more or less a hassle then rolling 30d6. Its exatcly the same.

The table size has a different issue. 4ft wide is as wide as you can get so an average adult can reach center table to move models without reaching, knocking gak over, and otherwise fething with terrain that may or may not be there.

Any further growth of the table makes it harder and harder for both player comfort and practicality for play. Its the rules that have to change. Not table size.

1.) alternate unit activation.

2.) models don't die until end of battle round to represent units are acting simultaneously in battle not taking turns killing each other.

OKorVesah wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:
PS: Please don't call me out about increased table size breaking the (non-existent) balance. Of course it does. But as I see it, the required rebalancing would be worth the result (no first turn wipe and higher impact of correct maneuvering).

Going to kind of call it out anyway. My main concern with a larger table size is that armies who have to cross the table to do work (khorne, many orks, many 'nids, daemons in general) would potentially spend even more time being out of their effective range. using a larger table with sufficient terrain might keep me from defanging my opponent's melee-heavy army on turn 1, but is it really that much of an improvement if it takes 3 turns of shooting without him charging instead of 1?


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blaktoof wrote:
1.) alternate unit activation.

2.) models don't die until end of battle round to represent units are acting simultaneously in battle not taking turns killing each other.

I'm in favor of both of those things in theory, but isn't #2 a little redundant with #1? Also, not being able to avoid relaliation by positioning at the edge of an enemy's unit range and then unloading into it is unfavorable for armies like drukhari. Their gimmick is basically all about playing cagey to kill a thing before it can retaliate efficiently.

Not really. There are rules for historicals that use alternate activations and end of battle round results.


For a SciFi game this can be a nice addition as all kind of Victory Points (killing units, scenario, cards, whatever) are counted at the end of the game turn and you need to think different as a "suicide" move of one unit to prevent others from further damage won't work.

Although for 40k, with melee heavy armies, it would work best being alternating phases, with a combined close combat phase at the end and a combined "moral" phase were points are counted and losses removed.

This would also not change too much from the classic rules.

 Lance845 wrote:
Rolling 30d10 is no more or less a hassle then rolling 30d6. Its exatcly the same.

The table size has a different issue. 4ft wide is as wide as you can get so an average adult can reach center table to move models without reaching, knocking gak over, and otherwise fething with terrain that may or may not be there.

Any further growth of the table makes it harder and harder for both player comfort and practicality for play. Its the rules that have to change. Not table size.

I agree on the table size, any larger than current becomes impractical.

Disagree on the 30D10 = 30D6 - purely because the top face of a D6 is proportionally larger than a D10, so it will take a slightly longer time to read a bucketful of D10's (thinking full orks squad charging). It could become a bit tiresome with rolling to hit, to wound, saves, and fnp.

I like the idea of increasing survivability. Finding a change to the rules which would allow it would bring back the use for transports to keep your army alive until it gets there. Hordes (nids) could be cheaper to reflect their dying-in-droves-ness.

I might suggest a table which goes through:

S<T/2 is 6+, target rerolls successful saves
S><T-1 is 6+
S=T-1 is 5+
S=T is 4+
S=T+1 is 3+
S>T+1 is 2+
S=>Tx2 is 2+, target rerolls successful saves

Maybe even just chuck a flat +1T on every unit, and +1S on all units strength (not guns). CC stays the same, and shooting becomes less powerful.

Or, add rules which reduce strength of guns over half range. Turn 1 becomes less powerful. some guns will need range increases.

As a curious tidbit, the teaser article on the upcoming Apocalypse system mentions taking casualties from units / formations simultaneously at the end of the round. The idea certainly isn't unthinkable for GW, now to wait and see did they revamp the whole game to just be Epic with bigger models or what

 kodos wrote:

Although for 40k, with melee heavy armies, it would work best being alternating phases, with a combined close combat phase at the end and a combined "moral" phase were points are counted and losses removed.

This would also not change too much from the classic rules.

No. Absolutely not. The WORST idea. Worse than IGOUGO.

Orks vs Tau orks go first in movement. Orks move into position to change, Tau move back so they can't. Any ork unit in even remotely close to range to charge gets decimated by tau shooting. Any orks that survive to try to charge have a worse chance to be successful (because tau stepped back) and get shot AGAIN in overwatch.

Alternating phases would decimate any chance a melee army has.

So I would think the biggest change he could make to address alpha strike would be introducing alternative activation and perhaps going to a d10 system. However, outside of an edition change this will not happen.

What I think could be changed in the current edition though is:
-cover. Atm it is to simplistic and I think certain type of cover should add more of a buff. So light cover could be classed as just cover from view so it just provides a -1 to hit. Heavy cover provides both cover from view and cover from fire granting -1 to hit and +1 to save etc. Something along these lines could be used to add more survivability to armies.

-Los. I do think this needs further depth added. At the moment being able to hit a unit because you can see the slightest mm of gun barrel makes it very difficult to hide a unit.

-falling out of combat. I feel sorry for melee armies they get all that way into combat and the unit they charge just falls back and they are left open or they kill the unit and they are left open. There needs to be more of a punishment for falling out of combat. Also maybe a -1 to hit for the melee unit that charged to represent the confusion of the two sides disengaging.

-turn order. If you roll off before deployment, the player with the least amount of units gets a plus one. The attacker then deploys first and then the defender deploys after. Then you can roll to seize. This might give the defender a bit of a better chance to hide units and avoid first turn alpha.

I like the stratagem that provides cover on T1 for the player going second. I'd be inclined to extend that, and give the player going second +2 cover by default, and the player going first could have +1 cover. No stratagem required. Essentially a return to night fighting that is always in effect on T1

Alternatively minus to hit modifiers. Either way the first turn's shooting will be less lethal, and slightly help the player who goes second

Fightingfirst wrote:So I would think the biggest change he could make to address alpha strike would be introducing alternative activation and perhaps going to a d10 system. However, outside of an edition change this will not happen.

What do you think is happening here? Do you think anything suggested on this forum is going to get introduced to the game officially?

Snake Tortoise wrote:I like the stratagem that provides cover on T1 for the player going second. I'd be inclined to extend that, and give the player going second +2 cover by default, and the player going first could have +1 cover. No stratagem required. Essentially a return to night fighting that is always in effect on T1

Alternatively minus to hit modifiers. Either way the first turn's shooting will be less lethal, and slightly help the player who goes second

Anything like that applied to the first player or the first turn only moves the goal posts. the first unrestricted turn becomes the turn with the advantage instead.

Play games at 1750 points and use solid LOS terrain that blocks important units such as Pask, with Prepared positions on your infantry that's enough to keep your losses acceptable and move your opponents out of their LOS blocking terrain so that you can shoot them turn 1 if you go second.

 Lance845 wrote:

Fightingfirst wrote:So I would think the biggest change he could make to address alpha strike would be introducing alternative activation and perhaps going to a d10 system. However, outside of an edition change this will not happen.

What do you think is happening here? Do you think anything suggested on this forum is going to get introduced to the game officially?

We're trying to come up with the best ways to fix the issue, but also within the confines of the game itself. IE, if someone's solution was to just play bolt action, or change every aspect of the game to bolt action, it's not really fixing the game - it's playing a different one. Some of us like to try and devise systems which, if presented well, could in fact have a chance of getting into 40k. Even if we know it will never happen, it's a challenge within itself to produce the desired effects with minimal disruption to the game.

EG: transferring the game to a D10 based AA system without overwatch is basically rewriting the game - if you took the rules in isolation, without the 40k fluff, it wouldn't be distinguishable as 40k.
Taking the existing game and adding a rule that the armies must have 1/2 their points in reserves, bringing 1/4 of them on from player 2 turn 1, remains 40k. it also, mathematically, leaves the game balanced at turn 3. This isn't "Shifting the goalposts", as by turn 3, you will have selected targets, moved your models, positioned things - it could be anyone's game by then. if you're both still sat where you started, you're playing a boring game.

I'm not belittling your suggestions - I do agree that a D10 based AA game will have better balance than IGOUGO 40k. But, I also think that A) it wouldn't feel like 40k, and B) it would never have a chance of getting included in 40k, as the accessibility of D6 is a deciding factor, and there is so much work involved in (what is essentially) making a new game.

to put this in other terms: I want advice on fitting more luggage on a motorbike. Some people suggest panniers, or a luggage rack. Other suggest driving a car.

I genuinely believe that, if it was presented to the right people, a set of missions designed to use 40k as it is but to eliminate the turn 1 damage output would be included. I do not think, however you presented it, they would suddenly jump to D10 and AA.

 some bloke wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

Fightingfirst wrote:So I would think the biggest change he could make to address alpha strike would be introducing alternative activation and perhaps going to a d10 system. However, outside of an edition change this will not happen.

What do you think is happening here? Do you think anything suggested on this forum is going to get introduced to the game officially?

We're trying to come up with the best ways to fix the issue, but also within the confines of the game itself. IE, if someone's solution was to just play bolt action, or change every aspect of the game to bolt action, it's not really fixing the game - it's playing a different one. Some of us like to try and devise systems which, if presented well, could in fact have a chance of getting into 40k. Even if we know it will never happen, it's a challenge within itself to produce the desired effects with minimal disruption to the game.

EG: transferring the game to a D10 based AA system without overwatch is basically rewriting the game - if you took the rules in isolation, without the 40k fluff, it wouldn't be distinguishable as 40k.
Taking the existing game and adding a rule that the armies must have 1/2 their points in reserves, bringing 1/4 of them on from player 2 turn 1, remains 40k. it also, mathematically, leaves the game balanced at turn 3. This isn't "Shifting the goalposts", as by turn 3, you will have selected targets, moved your models, positioned things - it could be anyone's game by then. if you're both still sat where you started, you're playing a boring game.

I'm not belittling your suggestions - I do agree that a D10 based AA game will have better balance than IGOUGO 40k. But, I also think that A) it wouldn't feel like 40k, and B) it would never have a chance of getting included in 40k, as the accessibility of D6 is a deciding factor, and there is so much work involved in (what is essentially) making a new game.

to put this in other terms: I want advice on fitting more luggage on a motorbike. Some people suggest panniers, or a luggage rack. Other suggest driving a car.

I genuinely believe that, if it was presented to the right people, a set of missions designed to use 40k as it is but to eliminate the turn 1 damage output would be included. I do not think, however you presented it, they would suddenly jump to D10 and AA.

Ok, so first, the point of my question is that Fightingfirst used the argument that "outside of a new edition that will not happen." That implies to me that s/he thinks that what we are doing here is coming up with ideas for actual publication by GW. Maybe I read it wrong. Hence the question/comment.

Second, if you want the least disruptive solution then keep brain storming. I have never seen any band aid patch over the actual problem that didn't create a cascade of other problems. You are welcome to them. I would be really interested to see some innovative ideas that might not create as many or (I don't think it's possible but I could be wrong) any problems. But there is a solution on the table now that just works. And it's AA.

I don't need it to be d10, or d12, or d6. There are 3 versions of the version of the game I play that used all 3 sizes of dice. mini d10s are easily available. ALMOST as easily available as d6s. d10s are crazy plentiful in all kinds of colors and sizes. 12s are harder but translate better from basic d6s. I have 100 mini d12 in 3 colors for my own games. But again, 10s and 6s are plentiful.

My suggestion is you stop theory crafting a lot of these ideas and start playing them. I have spent the last couple years creating, helping to create, and just looking for, and then testing all kinds of versions of 40k in all kinds of turn structures with all kinds of solutions to first turn issues. I am not speaking from a theory point of view. I am speaking from experience that comes from hundreds of hours of play test over that span. -1 to hit "night fighting" rules. Holding back reserves. You dilute or shift the problem but you don't eliminate it. You can make it more manageable but it's still there. You lesson it's impact so others don't notice as much or you just hand the advantage to player 2. Anyone "good" at the game will look at the mechanical structure, find the weakest points to exploit for the biggest advantages, and will capitalize on them. Some will argue that it's poor sportsmanship and others will say it's simply working within the confines of the rules you gave them and playing intelligently. Doesn't matter. If you provide the tools someone will use them.

Simple step in the right direction is to make 1st turn fully random.

 Lance845 wrote:

Fightingfirst wrote:So I would think the biggest change he could make to address alpha strike would be introducing alternative activation and perhaps going to a d10 system. However, outside of an edition change this will not happen.

What do you think is happening here? Do you think anything suggested on this forum is going to get introduced to the game officially?

Erm I am replying back to the thread title by putting forward my ideas that I think will fix first turn syndrome. You got a problem or something because you seem to be acting quite dickish towards me for no particular reason now this may have just been lost in translation. Or am I not allowed to state my view. I am under no illusion GW wont read this.

Fightingfirst wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

Fightingfirst wrote:So I would think the biggest change he could make to address alpha strike would be introducing alternative activation and perhaps going to a d10 system. However, outside of an edition change this will not happen.

What do you think is happening here? Do you think anything suggested on this forum is going to get introduced to the game officially?

Erm I am replying back to the thread title by putting forward my ideas that I think will fix first turn syndrome. You got a problem or something because you seem to be acting quite dickish towards me for no particular reason now this may have just been lost in translation. Or am I not allowed to state my view. I am under no illusion GW wont read this.

Lost in translation. Your statement included "outside of an edition change this will not happen" which i took to mean you thought any of this would see official rules or production. I was asking for clarity because that will NEVER happen.

And now with that clarity i dont see what difference it makes wether it takes an edition change or not. If the intent is to change whatever to whatever makes for the best most fun game then why not do that?

Just mulling it over in my head and thought about a change to deployment. If you roll off to see who goes first, whoever does so deploys their entire army first. Then once they've deployed, whoever goes second can then deploy their whole army.
That could help to mitigate alpha strike somewhat, and also give pause to anyone thinking of taking turn one as their would be a definite, strategic advantage to deploying second, seeing what your opponent is upto, then deploying to your best advantage.

 Lance845 wrote:

Snake Tortoise wrote:I like the stratagem that provides cover on T1 for the player going second. I'd be inclined to extend that, and give the player going second +2 cover by default, and the player going first could have +1 cover. No stratagem required. Essentially a return to night fighting that is always in effect on T1

Alternatively minus to hit modifiers. Either way the first turn's shooting will be less lethal, and slightly help the player who goes second

Anything like that applied to the first player or the first turn only moves the goal posts. the first unrestricted turn becomes the turn with the advantage instead.

The first unrestricted turn is then the second turn. By which time the player going second can have done slightly more shooting damage on turn 1 and moved their assault/close range shooting elements nearer the opponent with fewer casualties. A little of help for the person starting second can have a cascade effect for the rest of the game. Moving the goal posts is the intention

 Lance845 wrote:

 kodos wrote:

Although for 40k, with melee heavy armies, it would work best being alternating phases, with a combined close combat phase at the end and a combined "moral" phase were points are counted and losses removed.

This would also not change too much from the classic rules.

No. Absolutely not. The WORST idea. Worse than IGOUGO.

Orks vs Tau orks go first in movement. Orks move into position to change, Tau move back so they can't. Any ork unit in even remotely close to range to charge gets decimated by tau shooting. Any orks that survive to try to charge have a worse chance to be successful (because tau stepped back) and get shot AGAIN in overwatch.

Alternating phases would decimate any chance a melee army has.

Taking that example, it will be always this way no matter if you alternate activations, alternate phases or alternate turns

One player moves, the other one shoots and if too many die no model will be there to charge in the next turn.

There is no way any kind of system can change this as long as the shooting army can shoot with everything at the melee army from turn 1.
This also means lack of LOS blocking Terrain and pure movement from the Orc player.


But you need to explain how this can be worse than alternating turns.

As the Tau Player moves everything, shoot with everything, and than the Orc player moves, shoots, is out of charge range and the Tau player moves+shoots again.
Or the Orc player goes first, moves, shoots, is out of Charge range, than the Tau Player moves, shoots and so on

VS

The Tau player moves, the Orc player moves out of LOS, into Cover, Tau player shoots, Orc player shoots.

If the Orc player moves first, going into the open hoping that the Tau player is stupid enough to stay exactly were he is or moves even closer, I don't know if this is an argument against alternating phases but such tactical challenging rules are not working for 40k

Kodos, the problem they are talking about is the negation of the normal double move with charges.

If you alternate whole activations, the orc player gets to move, shoot and charge with one or more units. If you alternate phases, the orcs move and then the tau move before charges happen, thus hurting melee armies disproportionately unless they have the numbers and means to always trap and surround the other force completely. We've seen how GW changed charging in Kill Team for this exact reason.

My point is, solving melee is not related to solving Alpha Strike

Solving one can help the other but both have unique problems that have not 1 combined solution.

As changing how charge and overwatch work will help melee, as will increase CC mortality.

But this does not change Alpha Strike and need to happen independent from solving that problem

Solving melee matters. As of now, I usually have 1 to 2 turns, before my opponent gets into melee, one more if I get first turn.

That means with first turn, I get about 50% more shots in, than without, which makes first turn (alpha strike) very important.

Given that I have so few turns to annihilate my opponent, (with a shooty army you basically (should have) lost, if a non-negligible army gets into CC) this requires ridiculous shooting power to even give me a chance. One turn more or less with that ridiculous shooting power makes a large difference.

 kodos wrote:
My point is, solving melee is not related to solving Alpha Strike

Solving one can help the other but both have unique problems that have not 1 combined solution.

As changing how charge and overwatch work will help melee, as will increase CC mortality.

But this does not change Alpha Strike and need to happen independent from solving that problem

And my point was that solving "alpha strike" by introducing a turn structure that creates a slew of new balance issues doesnt help. The point of changing the turn structure to fix alpha strike is to change it to something that creates a inherently even playing field. Alternating phases does not have a inherently even playing field. Its has a inherently biased playing field in ways that are actually worse than igougo.

Yes. Cc has other issues that need to be addressed separately. But THIS alternating phases suggestion is a fething mess.

I'm wholly within the "alternating phases is a bad idea" business. if you can't punish your opponent for bad positioning, it's a bad thing. The only way it could work is to punish shooting armies for moving - EG you can move away, but only hit on 6's. I'd happily play a game where I herd an ineffective shooting army into a corner and then krump 'em.

 Lance845 wrote:
I have spent the last couple years creating, helping to create, and just looking for, and then testing all kinds of versions of 40k in all kinds of turn structures with all kinds of solutions to first turn issues. I am not speaking from a theory point of view. I am speaking from experience that comes from hundreds of hours of play test over that span. -1 to hit "night fighting" rules. Holding back reserves. You dilute or shift the problem but you don't eliminate it. You can make it more manageable but it's still there. You lesson it's impact so others don't notice as much or you just hand the advantage to player 2. Anyone "good" at the game will look at the mechanical structure, find the weakest points to exploit for the biggest advantages, and will capitalize on them. Some will argue that it's poor sportsmanship and others will say it's simply working within the confines of the rules you gave them and playing intelligently. Doesn't matter. If you provide the tools someone will use them.

That's a fair point, all of my suggestions are just theories at the moment. Can I ask (genuinely, this isn't sarcasm, I'm after your experience in this) what the downsides were to holding back reserves? Mathematically, it seems like it will fix the issue, and by the time both sides have their whole force, they should have repositioned to gain their own advantage. Also, by turn 3, I would expect to start to see a leader and an underdog. I can only imagine that it would improve the balance of the game by mid-game.

Given that I have so few turns to annihilate my opponent, (with a shooty army you basically (should have) lost, if a non-negligible army gets into CC) this requires ridiculous shooting power to even give me a chance. One turn more or less with that ridiculous shooting power makes a large difference.

I think this is the issue. in previous editions, you had to kill a CC army before it got to you or you died. When CC got nerfed, shooting just got better - there's less cover, terrible LOS rules, and better AP. we've inherited this powerful shooting, but the reason it needed to be powerful has been removed.

 some bloke wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
I have spent the last couple years creating, helping to create, and just looking for, and then testing all kinds of versions of 40k in all kinds of turn structures with all kinds of solutions to first turn issues. I am not speaking from a theory point of view. I am speaking from experience that comes from hundreds of hours of play test over that span. -1 to hit "night fighting" rules. Holding back reserves. You dilute or shift the problem but you don't eliminate it. You can make it more manageable but it's still there. You lesson it's impact so others don't notice as much or you just hand the advantage to player 2. Anyone "good" at the game will look at the mechanical structure, find the weakest points to exploit for the biggest advantages, and will capitalize on them. Some will argue that it's poor sportsmanship and others will say it's simply working within the confines of the rules you gave them and playing intelligently. Doesn't matter. If you provide the tools someone will use them.

That's a fair point, all of my suggestions are just theories at the moment. Can I ask (genuinely, this isn't sarcasm, I'm after your experience in this) what the downsides were to holding back reserves? Mathematically, it seems like it will fix the issue, and by the time both sides have their whole force, they should have repositioned to gain their own advantage. Also, by turn 3, I would expect to start to see a leader and an underdog. I can only imagine that it would improve the balance of the game by mid-game.

There are a few things. Some of what I am going to say is going to be objective cause and effect for what it mechanically does to the game. Some people might like that effect. Some of it could be "bad". Some of it boils down to my personal preference.

So lets assume that anyone can do that with even points. SO that in a 2k game you are only allowed to deploy 1k points and 1k has to be in reserves with 500 entering on turn 2 and 500 entering on turn 3.

So before I get into that theoretical example lets divert to practical reality, a knight army can't do that. Many armies can't. And even when they can the synergy of their units starts getting broken up into distinct little chunks that are no longer on the table at the same time to synergize. The opponent will prioritize the weakened unsynergized components that are available for them to kill so that when the "other half" arrives a turn or 2 latter they never get to act in full capacity. You now have to build your army with delivery methods for bringing on these chunks. For example, as a Nid player I either have to play Jormungdr and deploy each of these little chunks with enough mawlock, raveners, and or trygons or 115 point tyrannoctyes that can carry 1 unit of 20 models OR 1 monster to put them on the table turn 2 and 3 where they will be useful or else (I assume) I would have to bring them on from my table edge and spend the next few turns running them up the table so that MAYBE they do things by the end of the game. Space marines would need to invest in drop pods or air ships. Again, what do knights invest in? What do Tau invest in for fire warriors? What can orks buy to deliver their dudes up the table? Necrons? There are logistical issues for armies that relate to telling them when and how they can bring their guys onto the table. By turn 3 their positioning will matter a lot. These issues get more pronounced the lower the points. How does this work at 1500 point games? 1250? 1000? And things become more manageable the higher you go, 3k, 4k.

Back to the theoretical - turn 1 is exactly the game as it is now except you have 2 1k armies instead of 2k armies. Then player 1 gets an injection of reserve units increasing their starting value to 150% which they immediately turn on player 2 (who presumably moved on their turn to try to do damage to player 1... so LOS blocking terrain isn't an excuse here). Then player 2 gets his injection of points. Now these 500 are unharmed, but they get added to the greatly diminished 1k he started with, both suffering more losses on turn 1 then player 1 did (on average) and THEN suffering even more losses on turn 2. Repeat for turn turn 3.

This is one of those cases where it appears diminished so people are less likely to notice it's impact, but you haven't actually removed it. The sudden injection of a bonus 500 points of dudes makes you feel like you gained, especially because it's unlikely that in turn 1 or 2 that you are loosing 500 points of models but player 1 still has the inherent 1rst turn advantage and is still removing more from 2 on each turn because of it.

Now some people may really like the idea of building their armies with reserves in mind. They might like how that adds a level of planning to army composition that is only optional now but would be forced under these rules. But I personally hate the idea of making that a forced thing.

These are my general observations. I think it makes for an interesting SCENARIO especially under narrative play. But I don't think it balances out 1rst turn advantage at all and it punishes some armies, while forcing others to incorporate models, strats, and whatever else just to function under the new set up.

 Lance845 wrote:

 some bloke wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
I have spent the last couple years creating, helping to create, and just looking for, and then testing all kinds of versions of 40k in all kinds of turn structures with all kinds of solutions to first turn issues. I am not speaking from a theory point of view. I am speaking from experience that comes from hundreds of hours of play test over that span. -1 to hit "night fighting" rules. Holding back reserves. You dilute or shift the problem but you don't eliminate it. You can make it more manageable but it's still there. You lesson it's impact so others don't notice as much or you just hand the advantage to player 2. Anyone "good" at the game will look at the mechanical structure, find the weakest points to exploit for the biggest advantages, and will capitalize on them. Some will argue that it's poor sportsmanship and others will say it's simply working within the confines of the rules you gave them and playing intelligently. Doesn't matter. If you provide the tools someone will use them.

That's a fair point, all of my suggestions are just theories at the moment. Can I ask (genuinely, this isn't sarcasm, I'm after your experience in this) what the downsides were to holding back reserves? Mathematically, it seems like it will fix the issue, and by the time both sides have their whole force, they should have repositioned to gain their own advantage. Also, by turn 3, I would expect to start to see a leader and an underdog. I can only imagine that it would improve the balance of the game by mid-game.

There are a few things. Some of what I am going to say is going to be objective cause and effect for what it mechanically does to the game. Some people might like that effect. Some of it could be "bad". Some of it boils down to my personal preference.

So lets assume that anyone can do that with even points. SO that in a 2k game you are only allowed to deploy 1k points and 1k has to be in reserves with 500 entering on turn 2 and 500 entering on turn 3.

So before I get into that theoretical example lets divert to practical reality, a knight army can't do that. Many armies can't. And even when they can the synergy of their units starts getting broken up into distinct little chunks that are no longer on the table at the same time to synergize. The opponent will prioritize the weakened unsynergized components that are available for them to kill so that when the "other half" arrives a turn or 2 latter they never get to act in full capacity. You now have to build your army with delivery methods for bringing on these chunks. For example, as a Nid player I either have to play Jormungdr and deploy each of these little chunks with enough mawlock, raveners, and or trygons or 115 point tyrannoctyes that can carry 1 unit of 20 models OR 1 monster to put them on the table turn 2 and 3 where they will be useful or else (I assume) I would have to bring them on from my table edge and spend the next few turns running them up the table so that MAYBE they do things by the end of the game. Space marines would need to invest in drop pods or air ships. Again, what do knights invest in? What do Tau invest in for fire warriors? What can orks buy to deliver their dudes up the table? Necrons? There are logistical issues for armies that relate to telling them when and how they can bring their guys onto the table. By turn 3 their positioning will matter a lot. These issues get more pronounced the lower the points. How does this work at 1500 point games? 1250? 1000? And things become more manageable the higher you go, 3k, 4k.

Back to the theoretical - turn 1 is exactly the game as it is now except you have 2 1k armies instead of 2k armies. Then player 1 gets an injection of reserve units increasing their starting value to 150% which they immediately turn on player 2 (who presumably moved on their turn to try to do damage to player 1... so LOS blocking terrain isn't an excuse here). Then player 2 gets his injection of points. Now these 500 are unharmed, but they get added to the greatly diminished 1k he started with, both suffering more losses on turn 1 then player 1 did (on average) and THEN suffering even more losses on turn 2. Repeat for turn turn 3.

This is one of those cases where it appears diminished so people are less likely to notice it's impact, but you haven't actually removed it. The sudden injection of a bonus 500 points of dudes makes you feel like you gained, especially because it's unlikely that in turn 1 or 2 that you are loosing 500 points of models but player 1 still has the inherent 1rst turn advantage and is still removing more from 2 on each turn because of it.

Now some people may really like the idea of building their armies with reserves in mind. They might like how that adds a level of planning to army composition that is only optional now but would be forced under these rules. But I personally hate the idea of making that a forced thing.

These are my general observations. I think it makes for an interesting SCENARIO especially under narrative play. But I don't think it balances out 1rst turn advantage at all and it punishes some armies, while forcing others to incorporate models, strats, and whatever else just to function under the new set up.

I agree that, if both players get reinforcements on their second turn onwards, the advantage lies with player 1 every time.

My suggestion was for player 2 to get their reinforcements on their turn 1. essentially, player 1 gets the advantage of the opening salvo of fire, player 2 gets the advantage of a reinforced army. the basic maths I provided backs up that, in a theoretical sense, 2 armies who destroy (I think it was) 20% of their own points worth a turn, with this method, are still roughly tied by turn 3.

This idea can be adjusted accordingly, but I would suspect it to be:
Deploy up to 1/2 the points of your army, in whole units
first wave (player 2 turn 1, player 1 turn 2) deploy up to half of your remaining points
second wave (player 2 turn 2, player 1 turn 3) deploy the remainder of your points

Knights might have a bit of a disadvantage, or an advantage, depending on how it plays out. Assuming (I don't know knights points) you have 3 Knights over 500pts each and some chaff to fill the gaps. you would deploy 1 knight and the chaff, then get no reinforcements in wave 1, then get 2 knights in wave 2. Or, you make a special caveat that if a single unit is more points than you are allowed, they may be deployed. no other units may be deployed at this time.

That would allow 3 knights to start with 1, then get another, then get another. Orks could start with 1k on the board, then have a stompa arrive, then have the dregs turn up on their second wave. From what I gather, single powerful units have a disadvantage to MSU this edition, as people just focus them to death with high damage weapons, so allowing a knight to arrive a little early might offset the fact that they have only got 3 models + chaff.

Have you ever playtested this "unbalanced" reinforcement system? If not, would you be willing to? I've not a lot of free time so seldom have the chance to play any more.

What if Prepared Positions stratagem, functioning similar to the previous "nightfighting" was a built in feature and not a CP spender?

Ah. Okay.

Im bout to start work il give a full response tonight.

How do you propose first player is chosen? When? Before deployment or after?

Il do math and mull it over.

 Lance845 wrote:
Ah. Okay.

Im bout to start work il give a full response tonight.

How do you propose first player is chosen? When? Before deployment or after?

Il do math and mull it over.

sure thing, I'll pick it up tomorrow morning.

I was thinking along the lines of players roll off, highest roll chooses to go first or second, who goes first deploys first. It could be trialled by having player 1 deploy first or second, depending where the advantage appears to lie during playtesting.

An alternative system might be to allow player 2 to deploy 3/4 of their army and player 1 to deploy 1/2 of their army, then player 1 leads with the reinforcements on their turn 2. it would present player 1 with more targets, and might mitigate any advantage player 2 has from the increased army size, as they won't guarantee 1/4 of their army to be unscathed on their first turn.

turn structure would be:
turn 1:
player 1 (1/2 army)
player 2 (3/4 army - losses)
turn 2:
player 1 (1/2 army - losses + 1/4 army)
player 2 (3/4 army - losses + 1/4 army)
turn 3:
player 1 (3/4 army - losses + 1/4 army)
player 2 (whole army - losses)

player 1 (whole army - losses)
player 2 (whole army - losses)

etc.

might be necessary, might not be - just glancing at it suggests that the player 1 would have some advantage in choosing their targets on turn 1. though this may be needed. only way to tell is to test, after all!


this actually has some nice implications, thinking on it - if you have the extremes of a CC horde vs a gunline, who do you want to go first?

if the gunline goes first, they get the opening salvo, but the horde has more bodies further up the field at the end of their first turn...
if the horde goes first, they get to move first and avoid the firing lines of your gunline, but there's less of them...

the deployment could always be adjusted to number of units instead of value of them, to avoid the maths. Transports count as 1 unit plus all the units embarked, and titanic units count as 3 units. ergo, a knight army with 3 knights and 4 units of chaff would have 13 units, so can deploy 6 units, followed by 3 and then 4. this might be a simpler alternative to points values or power levels.

So something I saw related to the new Apocalypse GW is coming out with was, if my memory serves correctly, the notion that casualties are removed at the end of the game turn or somesuch. It seems like a really simple solution.

 Nurglitch wrote:
So something I saw related to the new Apocalypse GW is coming out with was, if my memory serves correctly, the notion that casualties are removed at the end of the game turn or somesuch. It seems like a really simple solution.

Its a LOT of book keeping and would slow 8th 40k down drastically. It really depends on how Apoc does it and everything else for its viability.

some bloke wrote:
My suggestion was for player 2 to get their reinforcements on their turn 1. essentially, player 1 gets the advantage of the opening salvo of fire, player 2 gets the advantage of a reinforced army. the basic maths I provided backs up that, in a theoretical sense, 2 armies who destroy (I think it was) 20% of their own points worth a turn, with this method, are still roughly tied by turn 3.

This idea can be adjusted accordingly, but I would suspect it to be:
Deploy up to 1/2 the points of your army, in whole units
first wave (player 2 turn 1, player 1 turn 2) deploy up to half of your remaining points
second wave (player 2 turn 2, player 1 turn 3) deploy the remainder of your points

Knights might have a bit of a disadvantage, or an advantage, depending on how it plays out. Assuming (I don't know knights points) you have 3 Knights over 500pts each and some chaff to fill the gaps. you would deploy 1 knight and the chaff, then get no reinforcements in wave 1, then get 2 knights in wave 2. Or, you make a special caveat that if a single unit is more points than you are allowed, they may be deployed. no other units may be deployed at this time.

That would allow 3 knights to start with 1, then get another, then get another. Orks could start with 1k on the board, then have a stompa arrive, then have the dregs turn up on their second wave. From what I gather, single powerful units have a disadvantage to MSU this edition, as people just focus them to death with high damage weapons, so allowing a knight to arrive a little early might offset the fact that they have only got 3 models + chaff.

Have you ever playtested this "unbalanced" reinforcement system? If not, would you be willing to? I've not a lot of free time so seldom have the chance to play any more.

some bloke wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
Ah. Okay.

Im bout to start work il give a full response tonight.

How do you propose first player is chosen? When? Before deployment or after?

Il do math and mull it over.

sure thing, I'll pick it up tomorrow morning.

I was thinking along the lines of players roll off, highest roll chooses to go first or second, who goes first deploys first. It could be trialled by having player 1 deploy first or second, depending where the advantage appears to lie during playtesting.

An alternative system might be to allow player 2 to deploy 3/4 of their army and player 1 to deploy 1/2 of their army, then player 1 leads with the reinforcements on their turn 2. it would present player 1 with more targets, and might mitigate any advantage player 2 has from the increased army size, as they won't guarantee 1/4 of their army to be unscathed on their first turn.

turn structure would be:
turn 1:
player 1 (1/2 army)
player 2 (3/4 army - losses)
turn 2:
player 1 (1/2 army - losses + 1/4 army)
player 2 (3/4 army - losses + 1/4 army)
turn 3:
player 1 (3/4 army - losses + 1/4 army)
player 2 (whole army - losses)

player 1 (whole army - losses)
player 2 (whole army - losses)

etc.

might be necessary, might not be - just glancing at it suggests that the player 1 would have some advantage in choosing their targets on turn 1. though this may be needed. only way to tell is to test, after all!


this actually has some nice implications, thinking on it - if you have the extremes of a CC horde vs a gunline, who do you want to go first?

if the gunline goes first, they get the opening salvo, but the horde has more bodies further up the field at the end of their first turn...
if the horde goes first, they get to move first and avoid the firing lines of your gunline, but there's less of them...

the deployment could always be adjusted to number of units instead of value of them, to avoid the maths. Transports count as 1 unit plus all the units embarked, and titanic units count as 3 units. ergo, a knight army with 3 knights and 4 units of chaff would have 13 units, so can deploy 6 units, followed by 3 and then 4. this might be a simpler alternative to points values or power levels.

Okay, so when I do these I tend to like to start by thinking of the worst case scenario. It's great when everything works in optimum conditions but you will almost never see optimum conditions (which is why I use the Tau vs Orks with Tau moving second scenario for alternating phases) and you gain so much more information about whats happening under the opposite conditions.

So who would suffer the worst under your proposal? I think it's necrons as the second player. They have almost no units that can start in reserves and when they can (outside of deathmarks) they can only deploy via vehicles (monoliths and nightsythes) and only one unit at a time. They also have the slowest general infantry movement speed at 5" so if they were capable of deploying onto your table edge it would more of less cripple them. And further they have no transports outside of warriors in Arks (and then only 10 of them with no character support).

In the math theoretical area you are basically right. It evens out a bit because player 2 gets reserves first on first turn. But that only matters when there ARE reserves and those reserves have delivery methods that matter.

So a few questions.

1) Should everyone be forced to have reserves? - This is central to your proposal. If the answer is no then your method stops working the moment somebody doesn't.

2) Do all armies have equal access to reserves? - Necrons prove they don't. When that comes into play your system stops working.

3) Is it in everyones best interest to deploy their reserves ASAP? - The advantage of deploying earlier for the second player is only an advantage if deploying early IS an advantage. Since 8th started I have never once played a game where I had units in reserves where I deployed ALL of them before my opponent did all of theirs. I always held SOMETHING back. This was often easy to accomplish, they jumped the gun and dumped their guys onto the field ASAP. But I refused to remove all the tricks I had up my sleeves until I knew the total layout of the battlefield and could deploy those deepstrikers in the most optimal positions without having to worry about counter deepstrikes. It has won me game after game after game (granted this was mostly when everyone could deploy on turn 1). Deploying reserves early lets you pack a punch. But holding those reserves to deploy them in key weak enemy positions and disrupt their battle plans has been a massive boon. So is player 2 giving away all their reserves on turn 1 the real big advantage it would need to be for your method to actually fix first turn advantage?

Your method works on a basic theoretical math level when all things are equal and 2 sides are just removing numbers of points at an equal pacing. But I don't think it holds up in practical conditions where armies are not equal, do not have access to equal amounts of or useful uses for reserves, and where none of us should HAVE to have reserves just for the game to balance. When those conditions go sub optimal it just becomes the game we have now and nothing changes.

Good job working through the deployment scenarios and thinking of where each side could steal a mechanical advantage. Thats the kind of thinking that needs to go into these types of things. Always think who would suffer the most and who could capitalize the most, pit them in best/worst case situations, and then think to the root of why each side is taking the advantage/hit. If the advantage is purely strategic/tactical then good! It should be. But if it's built into the core mechanics where even if the other person plays the best game anyone has ever played they are still fighting uphill against the games mechanics instead of the other player, well.. then the issue is the games systems. Whatever deployment/first player method you pick SOMEONE is going to math out under what circumstances the optimum advantage will be and do that. And once someone figures it out it gets spread and then that is all anyone will do.

 Lance845 wrote:

Okay, so when I do these I tend to like to start by thinking of the worst case scenario. It's great when everything works in optimum conditions but you will almost never see optimum conditions (which is why I use the Tau vs Orks with Tau moving second scenario for alternating phases) and you gain so much more information about whats happening under the opposite conditions.

So who would suffer the worst under your proposal? I think it's necrons as the second player. They have almost no units that can start in reserves and when they can (outside of deathmarks) they can only deploy via vehicles (monoliths and nightsythes) and only one unit at a time. They also have the slowest general infantry movement speed at 5" so if they were capable of deploying onto your table edge it would more of less cripple them. And further they have no transports outside of warriors in Arks (and then only 10 of them with no character support).

I hadn't realised that Necrons couldn't hold units in reserves, I assumed that all armies could hold units back and have them deploy from their board edge. I'm not familiar with the newcrons (I played them back when they were still sinister. technically they were "new" back then...) but do they not have sufficient fast units to hold in reserves, and then have their main infantry bulk on the board at the start? I agree that an army of slow infantry (EG shooty ork green tide) might lose out a bit if their deployment is staggered. Perhaps this could be solved by having board halves instead of board edges - essentially allowing you to walk in from your board edge, and your half of the side edges. This would make the deployment more flexible, and make people more hesitant about all-out rushing forward turn 1, as they might get surrounded. more tactical thinking is always welcomed. on diagonal deployment, you each get a long and a short edge.

If we did this, and allowed necrons to walk on like anyone else (or use their tricks, if they want to) it would mitigate the speed issue somewhat.

 Lance845 wrote:

In the math theoretical area you are basically right. It evens out a bit because player 2 gets reserves first on first turn. But that only matters when there ARE reserves and those reserves have delivery methods that matter.

So a few questions.

1) Should everyone be forced to have reserves? - This is central to your proposal. If the answer is no then your method stops working the moment somebody doesn't.

Yes, I propose that everyone has to deploy between 1/4 and 1/2 of their units on turn 1 (or between 1/2 and 3/4 for player 2, if this method is used). Then they get up to 1/2 of their reserves on turn 1 or 2, and the rest on turn 2 or 3. Mathematically, you get less units if you deploy less, so there's no advantage to deploying less on turn 1, unles you want a big wave to come in turn 3.

 Lance845 wrote:

2) Do all armies have equal access to reserves? - Necrons prove they don't. When that comes into play your system stops working.

I think all armies should be able to hold units in reserve to walk/drive onto the field - some armies are better at deepstriking, but that's just their thing. I think my proposed "1/2 the table" deployment would make things very interesting.

 Lance845 wrote:

3) Is it in everyones best interest to deploy their reserves ASAP? - The advantage of deploying earlier for the second player is only an advantage if deploying early IS an advantage. Since 8th started I have never once played a game where I had units in reserves where I deployed ALL of them before my opponent did all of theirs. I always held SOMETHING back. This was often easy to accomplish, they jumped the gun and dumped their guys onto the field ASAP. But I refused to remove all the tricks I had up my sleeves until I knew the total layout of the battlefield and could deploy those deepstrikers in the most optimal positions without having to worry about counter deepstrikes. It has won me game after game after game (granted this was mostly when everyone could deploy on turn 1). Deploying reserves early lets you pack a punch. But holding those reserves to deploy them in key weak enemy positions and disrupt their battle plans has been a massive boon. So is player 2 giving away all their reserves on turn 1 the real big advantage it would need to be for your method to actually fix first turn advantage?

I would classify this one as tactics. some armies will want the units ASAP, others will want them to hold back. some might deploy 1/4 of their army, bring in 1 unit on their second turn, then bring in a massive wave of everything that's left. This could mean that one player is forced to deploy all of their stuff before the enemy does theirs, which could be a major disadvantage, but it will have to be tested to find out - the finer details of what can and cannot break the system are best tested rather than assumed, I suppose.

 Lance845 wrote:

Your method works on a basic theoretical math level when all things are equal and 2 sides are just removing numbers of points at an equal pacing. But I don't think it holds up in practical conditions where armies are not equal, do not have access to equal amounts of or useful uses for reserves, and where none of us should HAVE to have reserves just for the game to balance. When those conditions go sub optimal it just becomes the game we have now and nothing changes.

I don't think that these rules should be a concrete "only way to play", but I do believe that they could be introduced as a set of missions which detail the deployment, and offer a more balanced approach than "everyone line up and let's play quickdraw".

 Lance845 wrote:

Good job working through the deployment scenarios and thinking of where each side could steal a mechanical advantage. Thats the kind of thinking that needs to go into these types of things. Always think who would suffer the most and who could capitalize the most, pit them in best/worst case situations, and then think to the root of why each side is taking the advantage/hit. If the advantage is purely strategic/tactical then good! It should be. But if it's built into the core mechanics where even if the other person plays the best game anyone has ever played they are still fighting uphill against the games mechanics instead of the other player, well.. then the issue is the games systems. Whatever deployment/first player method you pick SOMEONE is going to math out under what circumstances the optimum advantage will be and do that. And once someone figures it out it gets spread and then that is all anyone will do.

Thankyou, I'm aspiring to go towards game design, so it's good to know I'm picking up some good habits!

I think as a series of missions it works really well to mix things up. It should get some play test (again try to test it with necrons going second to see how their options effect them).

My degree is in game design.

It's a lot of critical thinking in the planning and test stages (the earlier you catch potential problems and fix them the less expensive and time consuming it is to repair them). But it's also a LOT of psychology. Understanding why the players do what they do so you can predict WHAT they will do and so you can build your mechanics to encourage them to do what YOU want them to do while making sure that it's fun.

So I'm gonna give a real unpopular opinion on this.

You can't fix it, no matter what you do, so long as super heavies, meaningless cover save rules, the sheer amount of AP on the field, and the current wounding system

Super heavies are a problem because of the fire power they bring in a single unit. Since almost every list is running them, the player that looses theirs first pretty much is done wince they most likely have no way to remove their opponants.

Cover saves are pointless at this point since cover is so annoying to get, and the 50% rule is no longer a thing

The AP in the game is way to outta control there is to much of it making saves not nearly as important. In past edditons everything was balanced around the marine stat line, with that 3+ save almost always turning into a 4 or 5+ save with the amount of AP on the board, saves unless invulves are pointless. Just as a through experiment. Next time you play notice how many times you end up just taking your invul because it's either better or the same

Then you have the wounding system. Because it was changed, the new hotness is now T8, t7 is pretty much the same as a t6 getting wounded on 4 vs 3 makes all the difference.

Tl;Dr remove super heavies from standard games, go back to the old to wound system, cut back on the AP on the field.

Just migrate super heavies to the upcoming Apocalypse.

When fliers were first introduced in 40k it was wonky but manageable. When heldrake came out the game broke (in attempt to fix the mess it brought with). When baneblade got merged into 40k, that's when the apocalypse happened.

 skchsan wrote:
Just migrate super heavies to the upcoming Apocalypse.

When fliers were first introduced in 40k it was wonky but manageable. When heldrake came out the game broke (in attempt to fix the mess it brought with). When baneblade got merged into 40k, that's when the apocalypse happened.

Managable is an interesting way to put it considering necron airforce was dominating all.

That said I would not really compare them because GW innall their infinite wisdom, put out flyers with no way to shoot them down unless you had other flyers. Reminder they put out flakk rockets but did not give them a point cost so no one could legally take them

Let's be honest here - there has not been a single edition in which something wasn't broken. Back when I started using Orks in 4th, through to 7th, we had deathstar units which were nigh-on untouchable. Then fliers arrived, and they became the new hotness. Eldar had their silly shields that made their tanks impossible to shoot off the table. wraithknights were immune to small arms fire. Now, people rely on their single biggest unit and cry when it's removed? In a meta where everyone is bringing high damage anti-tank, counter it with infantry. Most armies have anti-tank weapons to go on single wound models. some better than others, EG guardsmen with meltaguns vs orks with rokkits, but orks need to use their powerklaws anyway.

If you go back to the old wounding system, tanks will be immune to small arms fire again. This used to be balanced because their rear armour was weak so they were weak to CC, now if a unit is T8, it's T8 in CC as well. using old wounding, S4 can't hurt it.

I think that superheavies aren't the whole problem in the game. Perhaps by making the superheavy detachment cost CP to take will balance their excessive shootiness somewhat.

Superheavies and flyers are definitely part of the problem, as are the new wound chart and AP system which buff the power of low strength weapons and reduce the utility of armor. These push people towards low-model-count superheavy vehicle/monster armies or huge hordes.

But I still think the ultimate problem here is the line of sight, cover, and deployment mechanics. The killyness and rock-paper-scissors-ism of 40K's weapons matter most when everything can see and shoot and kill everything else from turn 1. In this environment, you need to achieve perfect balance; if you don't, someone gets shot off the table before they can act, and if they don't, they kill the other army on turn 2.

If it was much more possible to deploy a substantial fraction or even all of your army out of line of sight, then this effect is substantially diminished. Same if armies are required to start farther apart (via shorter deployment zones rather than a bigger table, due to the obvious anatomy of the human arm). Likewise, things get better if models in cover get a better save, or if it's not possible to kill every model in a squad if one of them has a gun barrel visible, or if area terrain blocked line of sight.

Making the first turn random, in conjunction with different deployment mechanics would help too. When you can't be sure you'll go first, you're less likely to risk it all deploying everything out in the open with commanding lines of fire.

Yes, all of this would require rebalancing and updated points costs. That's inevitable no matter what's changed (including nothing; things are hardly balanced right now). But I think it would all help, because it would re-introduce maneuver warfare into the first and second turns, and reduce the impact of the much more dangerous weapons because they're not all firing every turn at hapless, defenseless targets.

I fondly remember older editions where the terrain and cover allowed for much more hiding and maneuvering. In 8th edition, even though most models are much faster than they ever were in prior editions, there's not much of an aspect of maneuver warfare because tanks no longer have different facings and everything can see and shoot everything else for the most part. Armies just line up and shoot or charge towards each other.

Pointed Stick wrote:

I fondly remember older editions where the terrain and cover allowed for much more hiding and maneuvering. In 8th edition, even though most models are much faster than they ever were in prior editions, there's not much of an aspect of maneuver warfare because tanks no longer have different facings and everything can see and shoot everything else for the most part. Armies just line up and shoot or charge towards each other.

I definitely think you've found a key point here. The previous editions could cope with high firepower because vehicles could take a lot more of a hit from the front. Turn 1 was almost entirely aimed at front armour, and so there was some chance of doing damage but it usually increased after a turn or 2 of manoeuvring. Landraiders and monoliths could wade into the thick of it with less concern, as they had AV14 on all faces.

Now, there is no benefit to moving. a unit has cover from all directions if it is in cover. a vehicle is as hard to hurt firing a gun at it's heavily-armoured bulldozer front as it is shooting its lesser armoured fuel-storage rear. if you can see, and are in range, there is no point in moving, it's never going to be a better shot. Drop pods used to be used because getting behind the enemy tank with a meltagun could be gamechanging. Now, it has the same effect as walking up to it's front, but walking is cheaper.

I do think that a lot of evils could be countered by going back to having armour facings on vehicles. I really liked it when damaging a vehicle was different to damaging a person. It could even be a direct substitute for the "to wound" mechanism, and keep the wounds and saves in play, though the wound count and saves may need to be nerfed a little. most weapons which will get through the armour will get rid of the saves anyway. Make it so that a glancing hit will only ever do one damage. Or half damage, rounding up.

As a buff to terminators, (complete side-thought here) they could go back to their oooooold rules of having an armour value. Just against shooting, maybe, to stop them being too scary. AV10, meaning S3 doesn't touch a terminator.

I wouldn't mind seeing armor facings return in some fashion, but I wouldn't want to go back to the old vehicle rules. They were super complicated and vehicles were much weaker to anti-tank weapons; single high-strength shot could destroy any vehicle with a single hit with enough luck (though honestly maybe that was a good thing as It doesn't sit quite right with me that Lasguns and Bolters can now destroy Land Raiders). And it was always total nonsense that you could destroy the heaviest vehicle with a single lucky shot, but any multi-wound T6 creature required at least two.

Adding damage bonuses or positive modifiers to wound when shooting at certain models' sides or rears might be a nice tactical improvement, but only as long as they stayed within the current wound-based system which has greatly simplified the core rules and I think it a good thing overall.

I also very strongly believe that making area terrain block line of sight again would have a huge positive effect of making units need to maneuver more to get a good shot. As you say, right now there is no benefit to moving if you can already see your target, and with the current rules you can almost always can.

Facings is a incredible drag on the game. If it's something like X-Wing where the vehicles arks are clearly defined by it's base and the model itself has no impact on the rules then everything is fine. Where it's 40k and facings can become unclear or a point of contention it's not just odd measurements it's total nonsense. Sure, a rhino is a box and it's corners are clearly defined. What about a Ghost Ark? What about a Night Scythe? Imperial Knight? None of them have clearly defined rears and some of them can be modeled in ways that can make the rear/side harder to define. What if the knights torso is rotated for a dynamic pose? What if it's off center from it's base?

40ks rules are gak because they are so loose. Facings is more loose problems waiting to happen.

 Lance845 wrote:
Facings is a incredible drag on the game. If it's something like X-Wing where the vehicles arks are clearly defined by it's base and the model itself has no impact on the rules then everything is fine. Where it's 40k and facings can become unclear or a point of contention it's not just odd measurements it's total nonsense. Sure, a rhino is a box and it's corners are clearly defined. What about a Ghost Ark? What about a Night Scythe? Imperial Knight? None of them have clearly defined rears and some of them can be modeled in ways that can make the rear/side harder to define. What if the knights torso is rotated for a dynamic pose? What if it's off center from it's base?

40ks rules are gak because they are so loose. Facings is more loose problems waiting to happen.

Facings weren’t that bad if you weren’t playing with scrubs who tried to game them.

The point is if they were clearly defined you wouldn't be able to game them at all.

The same thing went for templates and scatter dice. Trying to get a accurate birds eye view of the center of the table to count models while attempting to hand trace a straight line over models to move a disk up to 12"...

It's all ill defined nonsense that causes problems.

No game should open the door to that kind of crap. Those scrubs could just as easily be trying to play the game correctly as twist it for an advantage and end up in exactly the same boat.

 Lance845 wrote:
The point is if they were clearly defined you wouldn't be able to game them at all.

The same thing went for templates and scatter dice. Trying to get a accurate birds eye view of the center of the table to count models while attempting to hand trace a straight line over models to move a disk up to 12"...

It's all ill defined nonsense that causes problems.

No game should open the door to that kind of crap. Those scrubs could just as easily be trying to play the game correctly as twist it for an advantage and end up in exactly the same boat.

Buddy I hated facings too lol, I just meant if you played someone reasonable back then it made it easier

An easy thing to do would be “Fog of War” the person who gets first turn has a -1 to hit modifier because the battle is just starting and they haven’t gotten clear shots on the approaching enemy. This makes it harder to a shooty alpha strike army to cripple you on turn one

warpedpig wrote:
An easy thing to do would be “Fog of War” the person who gets first turn has a -1 to hit modifier because the battle is just starting and they haven’t gotten clear shots on the approaching enemy. This makes it harder to a shooty alpha strike army to cripple you on turn one

This was discussed, but it only moves the goalposts - player 2 now has the advantage. there have been a few ideas thrown around in this thread, and some are more effective than others.

They need enhanced rules for cover and concealment as well. It should be very hard to dislodge infantry in buildings and ruins. Assault troops should excel at clearing things out from cover.

One idea is that the guy who gets 2nd to go is allowed to overwatch any enemy unit that moves into range with -2 to hit. This offsets the benefit of going first and alpha striking. And encourages more terrain and cover. This would also tie into more rules for moving and shooting

You may choose to not move or shoot a unit on your turn to overwatch with normal BS on your enemies turn.
You may use half movement and overwatch at -2 on enemies turn
Or move and shoot as normal with no overwatch

Armies that go second are assumed to be carefully moving up to the battlefield and as the enemy begins to engage them they are returning fire and the battle begins.

I'd say that adopting the Damage phase from Apocaylpse could pay dividends here.

When you look at it, Alpha Strike armies and tactics depend on being able to take out high priority targets before they've done anything beyond deployment.

Such targets could be elements which, when deleted, break synergy, direct 'hard counter' units to your own strategy, or just plain old high points cost stuff.

Once destroyed, your stuff has a far easier time of it, and that's an upperhand that can be tricky for your foe to deal with.

Apocaylpse however doesn't remove models until the end of the Game Round. Adopted into 40k, it would mean Alpha Strikes are of broadly lesser value - because whatever you've marked for death will still have some say in the battle - and may well kill whatever just did for them.

The net result, in theory is that Going First simply means you can better dictate the flow of the battle, without outright dominating it. You still have the advantage of forcing your opponents target selection to some degree, and they still have the 'last laugh' advantage of being able to scrabble for objectives when you've used your last player turn.

Moreover, to me it makes for a more nailbiting game. In that final turn, did I do enough damage to shoo off an objective? Will I have the higher number of models?

Sure, it's not perfect. But it is better. At least in my opinion

warpedpig wrote:
One idea is that the guy who gets 2nd to go is allowed to overwatch any enemy unit that moves into range with -2 to hit. This offsets the benefit of going first and alpha striking. And encourages more terrain and cover. This would also tie into more rules for moving and shooting

You may choose to not move or shoot a unit on your turn to overwatch with normal BS on your enemies turn.
You may use half movement and overwatch at -2 on enemies turn
Or move and shoot as normal with no overwatch

Armies that go second are assumed to be carefully moving up to the battlefield and as the enemy begins to engage them they are returning fire and the battle begins.

Okay. Tau vs Orks. Tau go first. What has changed with these rules?

Tau vs Ork Tau go second, what has changed with these rules?

You can't fix the underlying problem by putting bandaids on the second players turn or the first players turn. Your just move the goalposts at best for when the brutal alpha strikes happen and doing nothing at all at worst. The problem is attacking with your entire army all at once. Fix that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I'd say that adopting the Damage phase from Apocaylpse could pay dividends here.

When you look at it, Alpha Strike armies and tactics depend on being able to take out high priority targets before they've done anything beyond deployment.

Such targets could be elements which, when deleted, break synergy, direct 'hard counter' units to your own strategy, or just plain old high points cost stuff.

Once destroyed, your stuff has a far easier time of it, and that's an upperhand that can be tricky for your foe to deal with.

Apocaylpse however doesn't remove models until the end of the Game Round. Adopted into 40k, it would mean Alpha Strikes are of broadly lesser value - because whatever you've marked for death will still have some say in the battle - and may well kill whatever just did for them.

The net result, in theory is that Going First simply means you can better dictate the flow of the battle, without outright dominating it. You still have the advantage of forcing your opponents target selection to some degree, and they still have the 'last laugh' advantage of being able to scrabble for objectives when you've used your last player turn.

Moreover, to me it makes for a more nailbiting game. In that final turn, did I do enough damage to shoo off an objective? Will I have the higher number of models?

Sure, it's not perfect. But it is better. At least in my opinion

In order for that to be feasible you have to adopt the damage and number of shots of apoc also. 1 unit of termagants can roll 90 shots. 180 with a stratagem. Rerolling 1s. Assuming only half get through you need 90 tokens to be placed next to units after I shot a single units attacks. The book keeping would be insanity.

An easy fix that I am still shocked GW hasn't implemented is to adjust the Tactical Reserves restriction.

Instead of disallowing both players from bringing in Reinforcements on Turn 1, it should only apply to the player who goes first.
That way the player who goes second doesn't have the disadvantage of having to weather TWO turns of the opponent, including their Reinforcements before being able to bring in their own.

It would make "Beta-striking" a valid option.
Player 1 gets to go first (with no Reinforcements) and pew-pew at least half of Player 2's forces (because you still have to deploy up to half your army)
Then Player 2 gets to respond WITH Reinforcements to "shore-up" anything lost in Player 1's opening turn.
Then on Turn 2, Player 1 can bring in Reinforcements

It just makes the most sense and it continues to boggle my mind that GW has not made this the "official" way to do this.

Other than that, Apocs "Damage phase" could be a way to go. Remove casualties at the end of each Battle Round after both player turns have resolved

-

And the only way that fixes anything is if the meta shifts so that everyone always brings reserves (and preferably the maximum amount of them).

So, do you think the game should be defined by deep striking and reserves?

 Lance845 wrote:
And the only way that fixes anything is if the meta shifts so that everyone always brings reserves (and preferably the maximum amount of them).

So, do you think the game should be defined by deep striking and reserves?

Absolutely not, but in my experience, most players put SOMETHING in Reserves. Tons of units have the option and if you could bring them in on Turn 1 (because you went 2nd) than you would see more use out of them.
The point would be that the player who goes 2nd isn't forced to sit through 2 whole opponent turns before being able to react to them.

-

 Galef wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
And the only way that fixes anything is if the meta shifts so that everyone always brings reserves (and preferably the maximum amount of them).

So, do you think the game should be defined by deep striking and reserves?

Absolutely not, but in my experience, most players put SOMETHING in Reserves. Tons of units have the option and if you could bring them in on Turn 1 (because you went 2nd) than you would see more use out of them.
The point would be that the player who goes 2nd isn't forced to sit through 2 whole opponent turns before being able to react to them.

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The point would be that the player who goes 2nd isn't forced to sit through 2 whole opponent turns before being able to react to them, IF they commit to reserves AND they still can't really react to them. It's still 2 players taking turns swinging clubs at each others. Just player 2 and player 1 get to protect a portion of their club in reserves and player 2 gets to get a jump on deploying them IF they commit to that strategy.

Again, this doesn't actually fix the underlying issue. In the worst/best case scenario it makes it so player 1 is now the person being alpha struck upon.

I play nids, and mostly Jormungandr. I would LOVE to go second. Deploy like... 7-10 units from deepstrike. Cover the table in places so your deepstrikes cannot even fit besides inside your own deployment area and then blast your on the table force to pieces in a massive volly of deathspitters and venom canons. Without sarcasm that sounds miserable. The alpha strike didn't go away. It just became mine.

The big things that really help make other games like k47 feel more fair to both players was reaction abilitys and the semi alternating activations. imho those would be pretty good to have in some shape or another. also the pinning mechanic.

some one started shooting at you? reaction if you are close is to start a fire fight, if you are far away run for cover. fast vehicles usually have Recce, allow you to react in different ways from other vehicles.

doing this stuff pulls their activation in general so you at least get to use them. but allows for "tactical" choices

Pinning makes leadership matter as every shot that at least hits isnt wasted doing nothing.

the random activation does feel kinda meh at times but straight alternating activation could help significantly imho.

How do?

So I’ve been having a good old ponder about damage in Apocalypse, and damage in 40k.

I’m a prospective fan of how Apocalypse applies damage as a separate phase, at the end of the Game Round. I’m sure you can see the appeal, both as someone who hates to see expensive (cash and points wise) models removed too early, as a tabletop strategist.

At first, I thought this could translate neatly into 40k. But someone (sorry, can’t remember your name!) mentioned that due to higher rates of fire in 40k, we’d need loads of wound markers/book keeping (damage is greatly simplified in Apocalypse).

So how else, what else might we be able to do to shake things up? After a good, hard ponder (chin scratching included!) it occurred to me....You Declare All Targets Before Resolving Any Attacks.

See, this somewhat balances out sheer jammy rolling, and rewards a more strategic level of effort beyond ‘shoot it until it’s gone, then move on’. It introduces the risk of one targeted unit being wiped out whilst still having further shots assigned, and the flip side of the risk of not assigning enough to get the job done. It’s also arguably more realistic.

Heck, one could even include having to declare Stratagems as you go, further adding risk balancing to our strategic thinking, and again helping to reduce the impact of incredibly lucky rolling.

Good luck remembering every single unit you declared This would be a massive pain too if you just didn’t even get to shoot a unit because the target died already.

That’s.....kinda the point.

The risk between Making It Ded, and wasting firepower.

As for remembering what’s declared? Simple tokens would suffice, or just a die next to each that’s declared. Not difficult at all.

I agree the Apoc style Damage phase could be brought to 40K. It's not really all that different to how Necron players play their units; keeping track of how many models "died" per unit until their turn to roll RPs.

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 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
That’s.....kinda the point.

The risk between Making It Ded, and wasting firepower.

As for remembering what’s declared? Simple tokens would suffice, or just a die next to each that’s declared. Not difficult at all.

Those tokens could add up pretty quickly though. My drukhari often field a bunch of basic troops inside of transports. It's not uncommon for me to shoot most of the squad at one target, the special weapon at another, and maybe the sergeant at a third target (if I gave them a weird weapon). It wouldn't be difficult for me to end up with a couple of dozen target markers for a given shooting phase. And then I either need to have markers unique enough to remember which type of shooting they each represent or else I have to double the number of markers involved by putting a matching marker next to each shooter.


Here's a weird, ham-fisted, probably bad idea: what if you just put a cap on how much damage a unit could take on the first turn? Say, for the sake of discussion, that a given unit couldn't lose more than half of its starting number of models and that single-model units with more than 5 wounds can't lose their last wound or can't be reduced below 3/4ths of their starting wounds or whatever.

The idea there would be that you could still reduce your opponent's overall offense by diminishing squad sizes and knocking vehicles/MC's down a health bracket, but both players would still get to use all of their units at least once. A diminished form of alpha striking would still be possible, but the player who got alpha struck would theoretically retain more of their offense than normal. Plus, wounding but not finishing enemy units off on turn 1 would mean that the alpha struck player's lower priority (read: less killy) units would just have to finish some weakened vehicles off on turn 2 onward rather than dealing with a bunch of fresh enemy units.

Justify it as the cinematic logic driving the battle requiring the action ramp up rather than being a one-sided anticlimax. Maybe add a universal stratagem that lets you finish a single enemy unit off on the first turn. Thoughts?

If you can engage the enemy army with so much firepower in turn 1 that is ends the game then you’ve both failed at deploying behind cover and using terrain. People don’t put enough terrain down. It’s really weird people just line up armies across an empty table and exchange volleys. We can also give bonuses to vehicles for taking frontal damage. +1 to save. And reward flanking with -1 to save. Infantry get great cover saves because of their class. All that would help lower the damage of turn 1. My new rules are gonna cover a bunch of simple things like that to make the game better for those wanting some actual strategy

Unit classes. I’m trying to create a new system where each class of unit has specific battlefield purposes. The battlefield itself is n integral part of the game And how it is played. Every class of unit has qualities that allow it to function effectively in certain battlefield environments. Infantry are cheap and survivable if they make it to cover. Heavy infantry is more expensive but is highly effective at clearing light infantry units out. Walkers and heavy assault infantry are excellent at killing other heavy infantry. Ordnance weapons can negate the cover offered by ruins and buildings and kills infantry of all kinds. But ordnance is easily destroyed by tanks. Terrain becomes important. Unit choice and balance becomes important. Positioning and strategy becomes much more important. It isn’t a matter of just rolling a hundred dice and having good luck.

HQ units provide leadership and special bonuses to units.

Light Infantry - guardians, guardsman. T3 units (saves on D6)

Light infantry is mobile ground troops that is intended to hold territory. Their protection is from being able to take cover inside buildings or the environment. They are very effective and slowing down armored units by hiding in buildings and utilizing anti tank rockets, melta guns, or mortars.
-2 to hit while in cover ( cover saves do not stack)
-1 to hit from Medium weapons
-2 to hit from heavy weapons
+1 to hit vehicles

Heavy infantry - T4 and T5 (space marine power armor) save on D6. Terminator and equivalent on D8
Heavy infantry are shock troops that can survive the extreme dangers of close quarters fighting with other infantry units. Their armor easily protects against most man portable type weapons and their firepower makes quick work of light infantry
+1 save against light infantry weapons
-1 to hit while in cover
-1 to hit from heavy weapons
+1 to hit vehicles

Light vehicles / Open topped T6
+1 to hit from light infantry
+1 to save from anti personnel weapons
-1 to hit from Heavy weapons

Artillery/Ordnance- these weapons are designed to pummel buildings and destroy troop formations. They ignore cover saves for infantry. (Whirl winds, night spinner, earth shaker artillery)

Air defenses - Air defense units may choose to not shoot during their turn and go into overwatch. Any enemy air craft entering their firing range during the opponents movement phase may then be fired upon on that opponents turn

Walkers - a class of walking machines designed to operate in difficult terrain such as hills and debris filled ruins.
Ignores movement penalties for difficult terrain that wheeled or tracked vehicles suffer. Excellent for supporting infantry in rough terrain.

Weapon classes
Anti personnel- Lasguns, Bolters. Shuriken. S3/4

Special weapons - These weapons are intended to give infantry the capability to deal with special threats or situations.

flame thrower - flaming napalm spray for quickly clearing building and bunkers or enemy troops or hosing down hordes of infantry in the open. Ineffective against enclosed targets like terminators or tanks
Ignores cover saves. Wounds light infantry on 2+

Meltagun - high energy weapon intended to melt through the heaviest armor. This gives infantry the ability to destroy heavily armored targets like walkers and tanks at close city fighting ranges (keeps same profile)

Plasma rifle - an intermediate range energy weapon that gives infantry some standoff distance to deal with heavy infantry and light armor threats. (Same profile)

Anti light vehicle / Heavy infantry - scatter lasers. Heavy bolters S5/6

Heavy (anti tank) - lascannon. Missile launcher. Multi Melta. S7/8/9

Flyers.

Primaris Space marine example profile
Heavy Infantry
M8 BS3+ WS3+ S4 T4 W2 A2 SV 3+
+1 save against light infantry weapons
-1 to hit while in cover
-1 to hit from heavy weapons
+1 to hit vehicles

Armed with Bolter
Range 24” Type Heavy Rifle S4 AP-1 D3 Damage
Rapid Fire (all infantry rifles have rapid fire except special or heavy weapons)
Options. Take armor piercing ammo for 3 points per model. -2AP version.
Special rule -mass reactive warhead- any target suffering an unsaved wound suffers D3 damage

Combat knife
Type edged weapon S4
Wounds on 2+ against light infantry

Space Marine Terminator
Heavy Infantry
M8 BS2+ WS2+ S5 T5 W3 A2 SV2+ (D8)
+1 to hit tanks

Weapons
Storm Bolter

Range 24” Type Heavy Rifle S4 AP-1 D3 Damage
Rapid Fire (all infantry rifles have rapid fire except special or heavy weapons)
Options. Take armor piercing ammo for 3 points per model. -2AP version.
Special rule -mass reactive warhead- any target suffering an unsaved wound takes D3 damage

Power fist - a energized combat gauntlet worn by terminator units to smash through bulkheads and tanks.
S10 -4AP 3+D3 damage
Special rule - Make a hole. Terminators May move though buildings as if they were not there, smashing through walls with ease and then using storm bolters and power fists to kill everyone inside

Assault cannon
Firing a torrent of small light armor piercing ammunition, the assault cannon is intended to clear large numbers of lightly armored troops.

Range 24 Assault 6 S4 AP-1 D1
Rapid fire

Imperial guardsman
His best offense is sheer numbers. His best defense is excellent use of cover and being the smallest and toughest thing to hit on the battlefield.
Type Light Infantry
M8 WS 4+ BS4+ S3 T3 A1 SV5+
+2 cover save when in ruins, buildings, rocks
-1 to hit from Medium weapons
-2 to hit from heavy weapons
+1 to hit vehicles

Lasgun
Range 24. S3 AP0
Rapid fire
Upgrade options.
Hot-shot power cell and barrel upgrade
-1 AP for 2points per model. The Hot-Shot weapons package allows the standard lasgun to have the punch needed to pierce heavy infantry armor with some luck and volume of fire.

Command points. Every army starts with 5 command points. From that point the army gains command points each turn by holding objectives and killing enemy units. Each objective held generates 1 command point per turn and wiping out an enemy unit completely also generates command points. 1 point per 100 points destroyed. Rounded up. So 55 point unit killed will generate 1 command point. A 340 point shining spear unit killed will generate 3 command points.

Moving - movement range is indicated by the movement value of each unit. Units moving faster than 12 or more inches per turn have a -1 to hit. Assault troops with jump packs. Flyers. Bikers. These units all move so rapidly it is difficult to score hits.

battlefield terrain can affect the ability of units to move. Deep water, sheer cliffs, are all impossible to cross unless the unit flys. Rocky terrain, steep inclines, bombed out buildings with rubble are all treacherous terrain for infantry and vehicles to attempt to pass. Movement is cut in half to reflect the difficulty of navigating through this terrain. Roll a d6 for tracked or wheeled vehicles moving through such terrain. On a 6 the unit is stuck until the next turn. Walkers, anti grav and flyers all ignore difficult terrain.

Shooting - declare the target. Take into account all to hit modifiers. Roll to hit.

Charging- failed charged because you rolled double 1’s? That’s absolute nonsense. All charges are 6+d6 inches.

Assault troops ignore overwatch. Howling banshees. Genestealers. Assault marines. By using technology like banshee masks, lightning fast bounding leaps, or high angles of attack, or flash bang grenades, assault troops negate overwatch. They also have +1 strength on the charge.

Cover and saves.

Terrain and it’s importance. The battlefield determines the strategy, tactics, and units to be used. An open battlefield is heaven for tank heavy armies while an urban battlefield is perfect for infantry equipped with short range firepower to bust tanks open in the alleys.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
These are just some ideas. And notes

Thanks for all who posted to this thread. I would love to play 40k but hate the rules. If only I could get the 40k guys in my club to give some of this a shot, they love Bolt Action so there is some hope.