Ok so the rumors about 10th ed coming out next summer keep circulating. Don't know if there is anything to them, but if they are true I just wish for GW to get rid of the fight firsr/last system. The system doesn't make 9th melee combat unplayable right now, but I hate it with a flaming passion for its clunkyness and idiotic implementation.

I mean the whole premise of these rules was to "streamline" the game back when 8th came out. And fair enough, the old initiative system was not without problems, but nobody in their right mind can tell me that the current fight first/last system is less complicated or more intuitive. I mean they had to release a dedicated article on warhammer community with a designers commentary to clarify the interactions for Pete's sake and still just unnecessarily complicated.

Maybe it's a fools hope, but they could just bring back initiative in 10th. Not exactly like it was in earlier editions, but use it as a building block to improve on the old system. Not only is it more easily understandable, but it could also be used in balancing and bringing back more granularity between units and factions (classic fast but weaker elves and strong but slower orks).
The game would of course also have to be less lethal to properly implement that, because with the current lethality levels, fast units would have too much of an advantage.
But the issue of general arms race between new and old codices and ever increasing lethality over the course of an edition is another topic entirely.....

There are some things I'll wax nostalgic about from older editions, but the Initiative stat isn't one of them. As useful as it was to certain armies, like Eldar being able to rely on offense as their best defense by usually hitting first, it was also frustrating for armies like Orks that ought to be melee-focused but got crippled by striking last. It was one of those things that was frustrating to play with, because it applied to your whole army, with limited means to overcome.

The current system is fairly straightforward at its core, but GW has in typical GW fashion made it drastically overcomplicated by piling bespoke special mechanics onto a core one, rather than building the mechanic from the outset to support those special cases. I think you could marginally rewrite it to be more intuitive without drastically changing how it works.

Something like:
-Any unit which charges receives an Initiative token.
-Any unit which is in Engagement Range at the start of the Fight phase receives an Initiative token.
-Any unit with a 'Fight First' ability adds an Initiative token.
-Any unit with a 'Enemy Fights Last' ability removes an Initiative token from the appropriate unit.

And then you fight in order of initiative tokens, units with the most to units with the least. Within each 'step', alternate back and forth as in the current system. You could add in more effects that add or take away initiative, like cover or grenades or whatever, since now they're just straightforward +1s and -1s rather than exception cases that need to be resolved by canceling out with existing effects.

I prefer the AoS system.

After I’ve completed my charges, I get to choose one unit to fight with. Then my opponent, then me, until all of our units have fought.

Some armies have special rules here, such as the Hyshian Elves, who get to pick two units at a time,

This makes combat quite thorny. You can find yourself overcommitting, and getting squished even when you’ve charged.

Though there is something, and I know it’s in an existing game but I’m buggered if I can remember what it is, where casualties are removed at the end of the Game Turn.

So even if you have a truly stonking first turn and butter my army, I at least get a shot at some retribution,

Yes it’s a bit book keepy, but I think it’s something people would rapidly adapt to, and perhaps even welcome as whilst First Turn remains advantageous as you get to dictate the flow of the battle, it’s not as one sided as I hear it is now.

From what I understand GK would often always go first, thanks to the fact that in older editions their weapons gave them a buff, which made them go first. I am all in favour of removing fight first/last, and just giving my termintors those old rules back.

Units in melee should be fighting at the same time unless one charged or one has a special rule.

Karol wrote:
From what I understand GK would often always go first, thanks to the fact that in older editions their weapons gave them a buff, which made them go first. I am all in favour of removing fight first/last, and just giving my termintors those old rules back.

It was the Halberds that gave them.. Either +1 or +2 initiative. One of the very few weapons that did so in that time, which gave them a massive advantage on everyone except Eldar in melee with their mass of power weaponry.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
It was the Halberds that gave them.. Either +1 or +2 initiative. One of the very few weapons that did so in that time, which gave them a massive advantage on everyone except Eldar in melee with their mass of power weaponry.

LOL no. 1 attack S4 power weapon scared no one (except for idiot 4chan clowns screeching about Ward books). Orks didn't care one bit, neither did any massed army with 5/6/- saves because said power weapons made GK extremely inefficient against them. Neither did anything with ++ saves. Or any proper assault troops because GK were extremely squishy with barely any access to ++ themselves. Or monsters with high T laughing at said S4. All the power weapons did was countering FNP spam, letting GK take on durable shooty armies to give them counter strategy to them, and reducing the importance of multiple wounds death star spam in the meta due to force rule. There was a lot of play, counterplay, and strategy involved, exactly as you'd expect from a competent rules writer.

There is a reason why GK players spammed Purifiers even despite Crowe tax (ability to counter chaff and medium melee units) or Paladins (despite massive Draigo tax - actual melee ability and durability). Thankfully either approach had a trade off in much smaller army, again leading to counterplays unlike 7th and 9th editions where spamming far more broken units is actually cheap. Did I say competent rules writer yet?

 Irbis wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
It was the Halberds that gave them.. Either +1 or +2 initiative. One of the very few weapons that did so in that time, which gave them a massive advantage on everyone except Eldar in melee with their mass of power weaponry.

LOL no. 1 attack S4 power weapon scared no one (except for idiot 4chan clowns screeching about Ward books). Orks didn't care one bit, neither did any massed army with 5/6/- saves because said power weapons made GK extremely inefficient against them. Neither did anything with ++ saves. Or any proper assault troops because GK were extremely squishy with barely any access to ++ themselves. Or monsters with high T laughing at said S4. All the power weapons did was countering FNP spam, letting GK take on durable shooty armies to give them counter strategy to them, and reducing the importance of multiple wounds death star spam in the meta due to force rule. There was a lot of play, counterplay, and strategy involved, exactly as you'd expect from a competent rules writer.

There is a reason why GK players spammed Purifiers even despite Crowe tax (ability to counter chaff and medium melee units) or Paladins (despite massive Draigo tax - actual melee ability and durability). Thankfully either approach had a trade off in much smaller army, again leading to counterplays unlike 7th and 9th editions where spamming far more broken units is actually cheap. Did I say competent rules writer yet?

Once again you manage to miss the point in a spectacular fashion...

I agree with the idea that both sides fight before casualties are removed. Unless there is some special reason or rule, having a squad wiped out in melee while they just stand there has always sucked.

30k does it pretty well, but still has some issuses.

I've really been enjoying the return to Initiative since moving to 30k. It's vastly simpler and more intuitive than the fights first/last mess in current 40k. But if it was brought back to 40k I'd like to see a re-balancing of Initiative across factions. There's no reason that fighty Ork units should be "slow", for example. They should have the same Initiative as marines, IMO.

 catbarf wrote:
There are some things I'll wax nostalgic about from older editions, but the Initiative stat isn't one of them. As useful as it was to certain armies, like Eldar being able to rely on offense as their best defense by usually hitting first, it was also frustrating for armies like Orks that ought to be melee-focused but got crippled by striking last. It was one of those things that was frustrating to play with, because it applied to your whole army, with limited means to overcome.

That, to me, seems like a failure of execution, not of the concept itself.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
That, to me, seems like a failure of execution, not of the concept itself.

I think it's very similar to the issues faced with Ballistic Skill and to-hit penalties. Without much in the way to boost the relevant stat, it means you can get army-wide matchups where there is no way to strike first or hit on better than 6+, and since there's no real counterplay it just isn't fun.

And the other issue with Initiative is that it was all-or-nothing. You often had situations where a unit paid for high initiative that was wasted, or you could get a bonus to your Initiative but it still didn't matter if the enemy's was high enough.

So I could see Initiative being redeemed if two things were addressed- having more ways to modify it, and giving it a less black-and-white effect than 'whoever has a higher stat makes all their attacks before the enemy swings at all'. Give different weapons and circumstances modifiers to Initiative, and maybe use something like a comparison table, where the higher your I over the enemy, the more of your attacks you get to make before the remainder are resolved simultaneously with the opponent's.

But at that point it's been changed so much that it doesn't bear all that much relevance to the original mechanic- and I'm not sure the gameplay effects are worth the complexity over a simpler model. As a stat it feels more appropriate to me for a skirmish game than a mass-battle wargame, to be honest.

The problem of Initiative was the classic GW problem of creating a system with strong breakpoints and then proceeding to place entire factions at different sides of the breakpoints with little logic or reason.

Having units fight as a whole, instead of having to fight multiple times each phase to get through different weapons is simpler.
@catbarf I think the easiest thing would just be to have high initiative normal initiative and low initiative. Charging and certain rules makes you fight at high initiative. Then instead of having abilities that make you fight at a lower initiative they just put you at low initiative no matter what. The text could be very clear, regardless of what initiative that unit fights at it's fighting at low initiative this turn, end of story. No cancelling out positives and negatives. Just yes, nothing or no. No beats yes. First activation at high initiative being the turn player's and first activation of normal initiative being the opponent's should also be normalised, one or the other, keep it simple.

Tiberias wrote:
Maybe it's a fools hope, but they could just bring back initiative in 10th. Not exactly like it was in earlier editions, but use it as a building block to improve on the old system. Not only is it more easily understandable, but it could also be used in balancing and bringing back more granularity between units and factions (classic fast but weaker elves and strong but slower orks).

"Sorry Blood Angels you've been doing a little too well in the past 3 months, chill out, your initiative is down by 1." I hate initiative and I hate your philosophy of things that should be dictated by fluff being dictated by balance.

EviscerationPlague wrote:
Units in melee should be fighting at the same time unless one charged or one has a special rule.

Shooting units get to wipe out their opponent without taking damage, I think it's fair that melee units get a chance to do the same. The ability to fight back at all is already pushing the game into favouring shooting.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
I've really been enjoying the return to Initiative since moving to 30k. It's vastly simpler and more intuitive than the fights first/last mess in current 40k. But if it was brought back to 40k I'd like to see a re-balancing of Initiative across factions. There's no reason that fighty Ork units should be "slow", for example. They should have the same Initiative as marines, IMO.

It makes some sense with Orks being less intelligent than Marines and Necrons being very deliberate and not having lightning fast reactions, it was just frustrating, especially with remove from the front and sweeping advance in the game.

Racerguy180 wrote:
30k does it pretty well, but still has some issuses.

Of course there's largely same initiave as units are often same.

Not like entire army is relegated to never getting to strike before opponent gets to strike.

And with current lethality if you always strike last you always get killed before you get to strike...So basically army like orks would just forget melee as they go to melee, then they die.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 vict0988 wrote:
Having units fight as a whole, instead of having to fight multiple times each phase to get through different weapons is simpler.
@catbarf I think the easiest thing would just be to have high initiative normal initiative and low initiative. Charging and certain rules makes you fight at high initiative. Then instead of having abilities that make you fight at a lower initiative they just put you at low initiative no matter what. The text could be very clear, regardless of what initiative that unit fights at it's fighting at low initiative this turn, end of story. No cancelling out positives and negatives. Just yes, nothing or no. No beats yes. First activation at high initiative being the turn player's and first activation of normal initiative being the opponent's should also be normalised, one or the other, keep it simple.

Eh that's basically always strike first(high initiave), always strike last(low initiave)...

 LesPaul wrote:
I agree with the idea that both sides fight before casualties are removed. Unless there is some special reason or rule, having a squad wiped out in melee while they just stand there has always sucked.

This idea seems good on paper, particularly when you look at durable units like marines or orks fighting each other. It's certainly likely to work well for something like HH where opposing sides are broadly similar.

However in practice it would break a lot of the 'glass cannon' melee specialists like aspect warriors or GSC acolytes. I'm not sure how they would ever be viable without some kind of 'fights first' rule, and then we'd end up circling back around to the original issue.

I feel as covered, the problem of initiative was just that its very difficult to please all sides.

Going "Eldar/Tyranids fight first, Orks fight last, the end" isn't much fun for the Orks. But equally "Elves and gribblies fight first, unless they step on rocks, in which case they are initiative 1 like everyone else would be, unless they have grenades. But we aren't giving them grenades, because if everyone with high initiative gets grenades why have this rule reducing initiative to 1?" prompts "Why indeed GW, why indeed?"

It feels to me like chargers should strike first - because they've got across the table and had to make a successful charge roll. But the system of fights last/interrupts was meant to stop "I make 3 successful charges, I kill everything I touch, that's a huge number of points gone, gg no re".

We also already see that fights on death is incredibly powerful - if not broken - so making this a gamewide rule without a major rewrite of stats seems likely to skew the game.

You could re-write 40k entirely so everyone fights at the same time - and if you shoot a unit, it gets to shoot back at you. But I can't see them doing it.

xttz wrote:However in practice it would break a lot of the 'glass cannon' melee specialists like aspect warriors or GSC acolytes. I'm not sure how they would ever be viable without some kind of 'fights first' rule, and then we'd end up circling back around to the original issue.

Both units would be destroyed, GSC acolytes would have their points adjusted down and they'd be fine. They get destroyed when they get charged or shot right now, it wouldn't be the end of the world. However giving them Initiative 1 because of saws or whatever would truly be a death sentence against killy melee units.

tneva82 wrote:

Racerguy180 wrote:
30k does it pretty well, but still has some issuses.

Of course there's largely same initiave as units are often same.

Not like entire army is relegated to never getting to strike before opponent gets to strike.

And with current lethality if you always strike last you always get killed before you get to strike...So basically army like orks would just forget melee as they go to melee, then they die.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 vict0988 wrote:
Having units fight as a whole, instead of having to fight multiple times each phase to get through different weapons is simpler.
@catbarf I think the easiest thing would just be to have high initiative normal initiative and low initiative. Charging and certain rules makes you fight at high initiative. Then instead of having abilities that make you fight at a lower initiative they just put you at low initiative no matter what. The text could be very clear, regardless of what initiative that unit fights at it's fighting at low initiative this turn, end of story. No cancelling out positives and negatives. Just yes, nothing or no. No beats yes. First activation at high initiative being the turn player's and first activation of normal initiative being the opponent's should also be normalised, one or the other, keep it simple.

Eh that's basically always strike first(high initiave), always strike last(low initiave)...

The problem is when I have an ability that says "At the start of the Fight phase, if a unit with this Obsession is within Engagement Range of any enemy units, it can fight first that phase." and you have an ability that says "At the start of the Fight phase, you can select one enemy unit within 3" of the bearer. That unit is not eligible to fight this phase until after all eligible units from your army have done so." what happens isn't clear from the rules so we need designer's commentary. I actually believe that in-eligible to fight is different from fight last, making things unnecessarily complicated. Imagine the core rules explaining the three initiative steps, all working the exact same way with the active player going first and then back and forth. Now the rules of the previously mentioned rules could be changed to "At the start of the Fight phase, if a unit with this Obsession is within Engagement Range of any enemy units, it fights at high initiative that phase." and "At the start of the Fight phase, you can select one enemy unit within 3" of the bearer. That unit fights at low initiative even if another rule would make it fight at high initiative."

Always preferred a more 'dynamic' fighting system than 'taking turns'.

2nd ed/oldcromunda's system is fun, but sadly unworkable for a mass battle game.

Love the lotr games approach of 'all fighters roll a d6, highest wins' (with caveats) and the winner rolls damage.

Kill team's approach od rolling attacks and alternatively declaring 'strikes' or 'parries' with rhe successful hits is also something me and my group really enjoys.

Initiative waa one of those things that caused as many problems as it supposedly solved.

 vict0988 wrote:

xttz wrote:However in practice it would break a lot of the 'glass cannon' melee specialists like aspect warriors or GSC acolytes. I'm not sure how they would ever be viable without some kind of 'fights first' rule, and then we'd end up circling back around to the original issue.

Both units would be destroyed, GSC acolytes would have their points adjusted down and they'd be fine. They get destroyed when they get charged or shot right now, it wouldn't be the end of the world. However giving them Initiative 1 because of saws or whatever would truly be a death sentence against killy melee units.

It's not a great argument to say that these units are vulnerable if they don't get in combat first, so let's increase their vulnerability in the only situation they're currently 'safe'. Right now if Acolytes (or say Banshees) make a charge against a suitable target they can probably wipe it and continue to hold objectives or threaten other units. An opponent has to make a decision to address that, which may be to shoot the Acolytes instead of another threat, charge them, etc. If the Acolytes are already mostly dead for 'free', then an opponent is under less pressure. By forcing units like this into what's basically now a suicide role, it just encourages players with squishy melee options to stick with more durable melee or shooting instead.

I disagree that this can be addressed with points changes. A common issue in 8th was units having datasheets that were basically ineffective at their intended role, and then only seeing play if their points were cut low enough that spamming the unit became worthwhile. That leads to T3 model spam skew lists like we saw in early 8th, which aren't great fun to play with or against. That would be the only situation where suicide melee units would be fielded over better options.

 xttz wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

xttz wrote:However in practice it would break a lot of the 'glass cannon' melee specialists like aspect warriors or GSC acolytes. I'm not sure how they would ever be viable without some kind of 'fights first' rule, and then we'd end up circling back around to the original issue.

Both units would be destroyed, GSC acolytes would have their points adjusted down and they'd be fine. They get destroyed when they get charged or shot right now, it wouldn't be the end of the world. However giving them Initiative 1 because of saws or whatever would truly be a death sentence against killy melee units.

It's not a great argument to say that these units are vulnerable if they don't get in combat first, so let's increase their vulnerability in the only situation they're currently 'safe'. Right now if Acolytes (or say Banshees) make a charge against a suitable target they can probably wipe it and continue to hold objectives or threaten other units. An opponent has to make a decision to address that, which may be to shoot the Acolytes instead of another threat, charge them, etc. If the Acolytes are already mostly dead for 'free', then an opponent is under less pressure. By forcing units like this into what's basically now a suicide role, it just encourages players with squishy melee options to stick with more durable melee or shooting instead.

I disagree that this can be addressed with points changes. A common issue in 8th was units having datasheets that were basically ineffective at their intended role, and then only seeing play if their points were cut low enough that spamming the unit became worthwhile. That leads to T3 model spam skew lists like we saw in early 8th, which aren't great fun to play with or against. That would be the only situation where suicide melee units would be fielded over better options.

The question was one of viability, not whether the game would be more fun. Don't forget that they'd be a lot more killy if they received a charge as well, so it'd be a bittersweet change for Acolytes, not just a nerf. Every unit can be made viable when it is cheap enough and I think we can agree that Acolytes should be on the cheaper end of the spectrum so saying "just lower their points" makes more sense for Acolytes than Howling Banshees.

 vict0988 wrote:
Having units fight as a whole, instead of having to fight multiple times each phase to get through different weapons is simpler.

I would argue that resolving each combat separately is simpler, rather than one combat magically affecting another combat on the other side of the table.

^^^^^And I would second that argument.

 vipoid wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:
Having units fight as a whole, instead of having to fight multiple times each phase to get through different weapons is simpler.

I would argue that resolving each combat separately is simpler, rather than one combat magically affecting another combat on the other side of the table.

Good point, but you could resolve battles individually without Initiative and you could go back and forth in a system with initiative. I think battles across the table affecting each other is interesting and adds enough depth to the game that it's worth keeping. Do you dislike the mechanic? Is it just that it makes the game less simple or is it the lack of a story for why we're going back and forth? Adding back initiative would add complexity without much depth and it would be annoying, that's why I am not in favour.

Would you remove the Movement characteristic or keep both?

 vict0988 wrote:
I think battles across the table affecting each other is interesting and adds enough depth to the game that it's worth keeping. Do you dislike the mechanic?

i think i'm missing something, what do you mean they affect each other?

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:
I think battles across the table affecting each other is interesting and adds enough depth to the game that it's worth keeping. Do you dislike the mechanic?

i think i'm missing something, what do you mean they affect each other?

Whether I choose to fight with my Lychguard against your Meganobz or with my Flayed Ones against your Boyz impacts both fights, even if they are 30" apart. In 7th edition it wouldn't matter, because if I fought with my Flayed Ones first my Lychguard would still go before the Meganobz because their Initiative 2 was higher than the Initiative 1 of the Meganobz and if I fought with my Lychguard first the Flayed Ones would still strike at the same time because their Initiative was the same as that of the Boyz. So the question is about whether this mechanic of going back and forth with different units across the table takes you out of the game and/or is too complex or if it is an interesting challenge.

 vict0988 wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:
I think battles across the table affecting each other is interesting and adds enough depth to the game that it's worth keeping. Do you dislike the mechanic?

i think i'm missing something, what do you mean they affect each other?

Whether I choose to fight with my Lychguard against your Meganobz or with my Flayed Ones against your Boyz impacts both fights, even if they are 30" apart. In 7th edition it wouldn't matter, because if I fought with my Flayed Ones first my Lychguard would still go before the Meganobz because their Initiative 2 was higher than the Initiative 1 of the Meganobz and if I fought with my Lychguard first the Flayed Ones would still strike at the same time because their Initiative was the same as that of the Boyz. So the question is about whether this mechanic of going back and forth with different units across the table takes you out of the game and/or is too complex or if it is an interesting challenge.

oh, i get what you mean. At first i thought you meant like actually killing stuff or something.

Yeah, just make all damage resolve at the end of the turn (for shooting AND for melee) if you want to stay in an IGOUGO system (let's not start that debate again tho)

My biggest gripe about the current system is that no matter how many pluses you get (fight first, charge, spec strategem) if there is one minus it cancels out all of the pluses (if you get hit by fight last then everything that is to your advantage is ignored). To me that makes little gaming sense. If I can amass bonii then one penalty, equal in scale to any one of my bonii, shouldn't mean that all bonii are lost.

If I have fight first and charge you I shouldn't be fighting you at the same initiative level simply because you have me fight last. If it were just one bonus to one penalty then I can see it but not one penalty wiping out multiple bonii.

 vict0988 wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:
Having units fight as a whole, instead of having to fight multiple times each phase to get through different weapons is simpler.

I would argue that resolving each combat separately is simpler, rather than one combat magically affecting another combat on the other side of the table.

Good point, but you could resolve battles individually without Initiative and you could go back and forth in a system with initiative. I think battles across the table affecting each other is interesting and adds enough depth to the game that it's worth keeping.

Hard disagree. While I like the idea that battles on one side of the table can effect the overall battle elsewhere, I find this particular mechanic to be a very artificial way to achieve it.

Now if we're talking killing a psyker on one side of the table meaning that your psychic phase overall is weakened (a la 2nd edition), then that's something. Or killing a character that provides an army-wide buff (such as Captains in 4th edition) then that's something. But just arbitrarily "these guys fight a round of combat against random joe's over here and that has an immediate effect 1 km away", or whatever, feels pretty dumb.

 catbarf wrote:
There are some things I'll wax nostalgic about from older editions, but the Initiative stat isn't one of them. As useful as it was to certain armies, like Eldar being able to rely on offense as their best defense by usually hitting first, it was also frustrating for armies like Orks that ought to be melee-focused but got crippled by striking last. It was one of those things that was frustrating to play with, because it applied to your whole army, with limited means to overcome.

Ooh I have a hard time seeing eye to eye on that one. I thought the Orks did a really good job of dealing with this (3rd-4th, don't recall 5th-onward) with their Assault rules where they would take a Mob Check and if passed, doubled their initiative for charging. They'd strike at I4 for their first round of combat, and then drop back to 2 for subsequent rounds. I also played Necrons back in those days and their army was interesting in that they had an array of Initiative stats, from 2-6, with I4 being reserved for Flayed Ones and I6 for Wraiths. It was a very meaningful distinction for those units, and at the same time I never felt like I was being "robbed" for having Warriors stuck at I2.

And then on top of that of course you had the rules for modifying your Initiative by being in cover, or throwing Frags. And Eldar had the Plasma Grenades which effectively negated all bonuses and left them striking first at their natural Initiative. I thought all that stuff was pretty good.

I wonder if classic 40k would have benefited from a +2 to initiative for charging instead of or even in addition to the +1 additional attack.

 Insectum7 wrote:

And then on top of that of course you had the rules for modifying your Initiative by being in cover, or throwing Frags. And Eldar had the Plasma Grenades which effectively negated all bonuses and left them striking first at their natural Initiative. I thought all that stuff was pretty good.

The problem being that those rules were very binary with cover dropped you to initiative 1 or otherwise ignored by frags, and then the execution made it even worse by failing to give frag to many assault factions in the game while Marines didn't even need to pay for it.

The discussion seems to get bogged down on whether the old initiative was good or bad in earlier editions even though I explicitly said that I wouldn't want them to bring this exact system back, but rather improve on the concept.

Units could get +d3 on initiative when they charge or make an heroic interventions, and gw could implement break points better like they should have done with the old weapon skill (almost everything was WS 4 or 5, extremely few units were above 7,which didn't even matter in most cases since you couldn't even hit on 2s)
My main point is that improving the old system and distribution of the initiative stat would have been better than what we ended up with when they started "streamlining"

 Tyran wrote:
I wonder if classic 40k would have benefited from a +2 to initiative for charging instead of or even in addition to the +1 additional attack.

 Insectum7 wrote:

And then on top of that of course you had the rules for modifying your Initiative by being in cover, or throwing Frags. And Eldar had the Plasma Grenades which effectively negated all bonuses and left them striking first at their natural Initiative. I thought all that stuff was pretty good.

The problem being that those rules were very binary with cover dropped you to initiative 1 or otherwise ignored by frags, and then the execution made it even worse by failing to give frag to many assault factions in the game while Marines didn't even need to pay for it.

Depends on the edition. Marines got Frags for free starting in 5th iirc, but in 3-4 they were a ppm upgrade.

But I agree that using modifiers rather than the binary flip could have been better.


@Tiberias: Agreed

We still use the Initiative stat for two reasons: resolving combat in order of initiative and for movement, whereas a model's standard move is its initiative + its armor save.

In combat, we still grant a bonus attack if the charging unit doesn't charge through cover, isn't thwarted by defensive grenades or has frag grenades to cancel the cover advantage. Any bonus charging attacks go first, so an ork mob will get its bonus attacks before say an Eldar Striking Scorpion squad receiving the attack. Then the Eldar would go and finally the normal remaining ork attacks. We also still use the old Furious Charge for orks, granting them a +1 initiative on the charge.

I mainly play eldar/dark eldar/harlies, so I definitely felt it when they dropped initiative in 8th. After thinking about it for a bit, I realized that the thing that bugged me wasn't going second; what bugged me was that my lightning-fast harlequins just stood there getting punched on my opponent's turn or when my opponent spent CP to interrupt.

I like the idea of a system like the one catbarf suggested as a baseline:

Something like:
-Any unit which charges receives an Initiative token.
-Any unit which is in Engagement Range at the start of the Fight phase receives an Initiative token.
-Any unit with a 'Fight First' ability adds an Initiative token.
-Any unit with a 'Enemy Fights Last' ability removes an Initiative token from the appropriate unit.

Although I'd be tempted to just have units on the same initiative strike simultaneously. But then on top of that, I like the idea of giving some units the "stabby" or "extra stabby" keywords. Stabby models killed by enemies without either keyword get to swing at their initiative before being removed. Extra stabby models get to swing unless they were killed by extra stabby enemies.

The idea being that melee *is* a meat grinder, but your harlequins and ork nobz and chaos chosen and so forth are going to put up a fight before they die.

So your termagants or sisters can charge my harlequins and maybe even swing first (I could see harlies having a +1 initiative token rule), but my clowns aren't going to just stand there and politely allow themselves to get wiped out without retaliation.

If only the first-normal-last system could be represented numerically!

 amanita wrote:
We still use the Initiative stat for two reasons: resolving combat in order of initiative and for movement, whereas a model's standard move is its initiative + its armor save.

Whoah, that's cool. I don't know if that's ideal, but a cool take regardless.

That combined with I think a former post of yours featuring simultaneous movement mechanics (iirc?) gives me admiration for your player group and it's willingness to experiment.

Insectum7 wrote:Ooh I have a hard time seeing eye to eye on that one. I thought the Orks did a really good job of dealing with this (3rd-4th, don't recall 5th-onward) with their Assault rules where they would take a Mob Check and if passed, doubled their initiative for charging. They'd strike at I4 for their first round of combat, and then drop back to 2 for subsequent rounds. I also played Necrons back in those days and their army was interesting in that they had an array of Initiative stats, from 2-6, with I4 being reserved for Flayed Ones and I6 for Wraiths. It was a very meaningful distinction for those units, and at the same time I never felt like I was being "robbed" for having Warriors stuck at I2.

And then on top of that of course you had the rules for modifying your Initiative by being in cover, or throwing Frags. And Eldar had the Plasma Grenades which effectively negated all bonuses and left them striking first at their natural Initiative. I thought all that stuff was pretty good.

I get where you're coming from, but I felt that it was way too all-or-nothing. You're right that Orks did have ways around it in some editions- though if you failed that Ld check, sucks to suck- but it never sat right to me that all of your models would be hitting last or all of them would be hitting first, and then as mentioned before grenades and cover similarly provided guarantees.

At a fundamental level, I don't quite understand the Initiative stat. I mean, obviously it's to give glass hammer units the ability to take the enemy out before they get slapped, and to add a coherent downside to power fists in a more elegant manner than the current special rule soup, but it's weird to me for a mass battle game to basically say 'you're humans and they're Orks, so by racial default every single member of your squad gets to make all their attacks and resolve every casualty before the enemy can lift a finger'. You could theoretically be so quick and agile (high I) that you always get the first strike in a blink of an eye, but still suck at it (low WS), or be slow as molasses (low I), and yet a skilled melee combatant (high WS). That doesn't sit right with me, as I'd expect these to be go more hand-in-hand- quick reflexes and hand-to-hand proficiency aren't exactly unrelated.

Obviously having the side that charged automatically go first isn't exactly simulationist either, but there it's easier for me to see the intent, and it isn't trying to model a characteristic of the combatants themselves. It's just rewarding aggressiveness in a different way than the old +1A.

I think the underlying issue is that, as with shooting, the game didn't support speed/agility as defense in melee. So Initiative functioned as essentially a kludge to let fragile melee units hit first and either knock out the opposition or die horribly. I think I'd have rather had HH2.0's opposed WS chart, where differences in WS are more impactful, with speed/reflexes/agility rolled into the WS stat. Then resolve activation order differently.

Wyldhunt wrote:Although I'd be tempted to just have units on the same initiative strike simultaneously.

I wouldn't be opposed to that either.

My only concern with simultaneous resolution- and doubly so for 'remove casualties at the end of the turn' proposals- is that it adds more bookkeeping and/or cognitive load over who's actually dead but being left in position to resolve their attacks, or removed but actually still on the board and able to fight.

Initiative stats work in a unit per unit basis. Then you have a game of trying to use your higher initiative units agaisnt the slower units of your opponent.

GW did it pseudo RPG like with fixed initiative stats for whole races/armies. And that made it a uninteractive mechanic that just made armies have advantage over others without any kind of counterplay. As Insectium7 said, maybe it worked in Necrons... exactly because you had different Initiative values for different units.

@Catbarf: ^I can agree that it may have been too all-or nothing. Happy to look at alternatives

As for it's place in a "mass battle" context, I can definitely hear your point. I felt it had a good function for distinguishing units, but at the same time you're really just trying to quickly get to a meaningful result in CC without too much complication. There were definitely fiddly parts of CC operation in 3rd-4th that one could game for advantage, but at the same time were unnecessary side effects of Initiative activation. Simple and clean is good, but I also think unit distinction is good. How to elegantly achieve both is an interesting conundrum.

OPR really surprised me with it's "Quality" stat. Just mashing it all together. It's refreshing, but I think I only half-like it. (Haven't played enough to really say yet)



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Galas wrote:
Initiative stats work in a unit per unit basis. Then you have a game of trying to use your higher initiative units agaisnt the slower units of your opponent.

GW did it pseudo RPG like with fixed initiative stats for whole races/armies. And that made it a uninteractive mechanic that just made armies have advantage over others without any kind of counterplay. As Insectium7 said, maybe it worked in Necrons... exactly because you had different Initiative values for different units.

It seems intuitive to make a Suppression mechanic that effects Initiative, ya? Suddenly that seems sorta obvious.

 vict0988 wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:
Having units fight as a whole, instead of having to fight multiple times each phase to get through different weapons is simpler.

I would argue that resolving each combat separately is simpler, rather than one combat magically affecting another combat on the other side of the table.

Good point, but you could resolve battles individually without Initiative and you could go back and forth in a system with initiative. I think battles across the table affecting each other is interesting and adds enough depth to the game that it's worth keeping. Do you dislike the mechanic? Is it just that it makes the game less simple or is it the lack of a story for why we're going back and forth? Adding back initiative would add complexity without much depth and it would be annoying, that's why I am not in favour.

TO answer your question, I don't like the gamey-ness of the current mechanic. For all the faults of the initiative system, at least it actually tried to represent something.

We've now got a system where units are arbitrarily selected to fight. By some means that GW doesn't even try to explain, selecting a unit to fight makes your other units fight more slowly.

I'm not saying that bringing back initiative is the only way to solve this issue, just that I would really like to see it fixed by some means.

 vict0988 wrote:
Would you remove the Movement characteristic or keep both?

I hadn't thought about removing movement (it's a can of worms in and of itself, albeit in a largely-unrelated way). In theory, I can understand wanting to merge the two. However, when you look at the move speed of vehicles, as compared with infantry (even infantry that are meant to be very fast/agile) I think it's fair to say that it doesn't necessarily represent the same sort of speed.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 catbarf wrote:
There are some things I'll wax nostalgic about from older editions, but the Initiative stat isn't one of them. As useful as it was to certain armies, like Eldar being able to rely on offense as their best defense by usually hitting first, it was also frustrating for armies like Orks that ought to be melee-focused but got crippled by striking last. It was one of those things that was frustrating to play with, because it applied to your whole army, with limited means to overcome.

Ooh I have a hard time seeing eye to eye on that one. I thought the Orks did a really good job of dealing with this (3rd-4th, don't recall 5th-onward) with their Assault rules where they would take a Mob Check and if passed, doubled their initiative for charging. They'd strike at I4 for their first round of combat, and then drop back to 2 for subsequent rounds. I also played Necrons back in those days and their army was interesting in that they had an array of Initiative stats, from 2-6, with I4 being reserved for Flayed Ones and I6 for Wraiths. It was a very meaningful distinction for those units, and at the same time I never felt like I was being "robbed" for having Warriors stuck at I2.

And then on top of that of course you had the rules for modifying your Initiative by being in cover, or throwing Frags. And Eldar had the Plasma Grenades which effectively negated all bonuses and left them striking first at their natural Initiative. I thought all that stuff was pretty good.

By 7th all the different Initiative values Necrons had were all turned down to 2. If you want units that are good at different things you might as well give them a special rule that makes it clear what the goal is. Want something that is good against more elite units? Make it so it can't be hit on better than 4+. Want something that is hard to hit in melee? -1 to hit. Want something that gets to slay before it gets hit? Give it a fight last application ability. When someone says "it's tactically interesting to match up high or low initiative units with each other" that's exactly what abilities like what the Death Guard flamer dude does with making his buddies strike first and just generally choosing who to strike with first to play around the fight interruption Stratagem feels like to me. When a unit has WS 5 and I 5 what did that say in 7th? It told me it was an Eldar melee unit, not what role it was supposed to perform or how I was supposed to counterplay it. All my units were hitting it on 4+, same as hitting pretty much everything else in the game, all my units would fight after that unit fought, same as pretty much everything else in the game.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
If only the first-normal-last system could be represented numerically!

If you are thinking 0-1-2, It can be!

If you are thinking 1-10 with some models in a unit having a different numbers than others, that is a whole different kettle of fish.

I would honestly prefer to see initiative coming back than continue with fight first/last. Those mechanics could literally just become initiative modifiers.

 alextroy wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
If only the first-normal-last system could be represented numerically!

If you are thinking 0-1-2, It can be!

If you are thinking 1-10 with some models in a unit having a different numbers than others, that is a whole different kettle of fish.

Why? Dude with highest I goes first, then the dudes with the second highest I etc. Where would be the problem in that?

Karol wrote:
Why? Dude with highest I goes first, then the dudes with the second highest I etc. Where would be the problem in that?

Because it was stupid? Take chaos for example, Khorne is supposed to be the best in melee but in practice that was Slaanesh, because +1I made them disproportionately good versus all other Space Marines - but it did absolutely nothing when fighting everything else making the bonus either mandatory or useless, thus impossible to balance or price. Then you had Salamanders, where rules writer stupidly tried to give them 'small' drawback settling on -1I that made all other SM stomp them with comically unfluffy ease.

Oh, and your I usually didn't matter if enemy was behind a bush - unless you had grenades. Unless they had better grenades (which, due to USR stupidity, in some editions almost no one had, but in others, they were common as dirt on some armies shutting all assaults down). Binary much? Oh, orks, supposedly scary melee army? LOL, I2, even IG conscripts moved them down with ease before they even twitched. Ditto for necrons, elite assault units of both races were nearly useless thanks to low I, but perversely enough, normally crippling I debuffs did nothing to either because they fought last anyway.

Etc, etc, it was comical system that was way too easy to abuse and produced stupid and highly illogical results. Last/first fight might not be perfect, but it's much better in practice (and I like the token improvement idea). Much simpler and you don't need to constantly page flip to compare I numbers, especially if the combat involves elites and/or characters (but only some of them, because for some dumb reason half of characters didn't get I boosts - and that funnily enough included most of champion/duelist types, which should be first kind of model to get one)

So much incorrect information right there I cannot even begin to pick it apart...

I like the idea that Conscripts tore Orks apart because they swung first. That's a good one.

Conscripts weren't generally accomplishing much, but I do remember my truk rush ork buddy basically having to plan around losing several models *in melee* before he was allowed to swing even on turns when he charged. Which is understandably a bit demoralizing. Having to lose 10% or 20% of your truk boyz every time they participate in a fight phase seems pretty annoying.

Heck, even those lowly conscripts were doing something like... 30 bodies = 30 attacks = 15 hits = 5 wounds = 4 or 5 dead ork boyz before the orks swing. Which, given that truks had a transport capacity of 10 meant you were likely losing about half your squad. The remaining boys would absolutely win the fight, but still.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Conscripts weren't generally accomplishing much, but I do remember my truk rush ork buddy basically having to plan around losing several models *in melee* before he was allowed to swing even on turns when he charged. Which is understandably a bit demoralizing. Having to lose 10% or 20% of your truk boyz every time they participate in a fight phase seems pretty annoying.

Heck, even those lowly conscripts were doing something like... 30 bodies = 30 attacks = 15 hits = 5 wounds = 4 or 5 dead ork boyz before the orks swing. Which, given that truks had a transport capacity of 10 meant you were likely losing about half your squad. The remaining boys would absolutely win the fight, but still.

I can understand this.

At the same time, it seems equally demoralising when Eldar lose their reflexes, foresight, and even basic vision if anyone charges at them.

"Oh no, the orks we've known about since the beginning of the battle are charging at us across open ground! Truly there is nothing we can do but shrug our shoulders and let them split our fragile skulls. How did our Farseers fail us so?"

 vict0988 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 catbarf wrote:
There are some things I'll wax nostalgic about from older editions, but the Initiative stat isn't one of them. As useful as it was to certain armies, like Eldar being able to rely on offense as their best defense by usually hitting first, it was also frustrating for armies like Orks that ought to be melee-focused but got crippled by striking last. It was one of those things that was frustrating to play with, because it applied to your whole army, with limited means to overcome.

Ooh I have a hard time seeing eye to eye on that one. I thought the Orks did a really good job of dealing with this (3rd-4th, don't recall 5th-onward) with their Assault rules where they would take a Mob Check and if passed, doubled their initiative for charging. They'd strike at I4 for their first round of combat, and then drop back to 2 for subsequent rounds. I also played Necrons back in those days and their army was interesting in that they had an array of Initiative stats, from 2-6, with I4 being reserved for Flayed Ones and I6 for Wraiths. It was a very meaningful distinction for those units, and at the same time I never felt like I was being "robbed" for having Warriors stuck at I2.

And then on top of that of course you had the rules for modifying your Initiative by being in cover, or throwing Frags. And Eldar had the Plasma Grenades which effectively negated all bonuses and left them striking first at their natural Initiative. I thought all that stuff was pretty good.

By 7th all the different Initiative values Necrons had were all turned down to 2.

Hot take, 3rd and 4th edition were better than 7th.

 vict0988 wrote:
If you want units that are good at different things you might as well give them a special rule that makes it clear what the goal is. Want something that is good against more elite units? Make it so it can't be hit on better than 4+. Want something that is hard to hit in melee? -1 to hit. Want something that gets to slay before it gets hit? Give it a fight last application ability. When someone says "it's tactically interesting to match up high or low initiative units with each other" that's exactly what abilities like what the Death Guard flamer dude does with making his buddies strike first and just generally choosing who to strike with first to play around the fight interruption Stratagem feels like to me. When a unit has WS 5 and I 5 what did that say in 7th? It told me it was an Eldar melee unit, not what role it was supposed to perform or how I was supposed to counterplay it. All my units were hitting it on 4+, same as hitting pretty much everything else in the game, all my units would fight after that unit fought, same as pretty much everything else in the game.

Tbh that sounds like a formula for adding a lot of special rules, rather than just quantifying some sort of troop quality with a simple stat. I don't see a particular reason to go with one way over the other, although is sure seems like with an Initiative value you get to act on more of a sliding scale where greater range of different comparative values can potentially be meaningful.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Conscripts weren't generally accomplishing much, but I do remember my truk rush ork buddy basically having to plan around losing several models *in melee* before he was allowed to swing even on turns when he charged. Which is understandably a bit demoralizing. Having to lose 10% or 20% of your truk boyz every time they participate in a fight phase seems pretty annoying.

Heck, even those lowly conscripts were doing something like... 30 bodies = 30 attacks = 15 hits = 5 wounds = 4 or 5 dead ork boyz before the orks swing. Which, given that truks had a transport capacity of 10 meant you were likely losing about half your squad. The remaining boys would absolutely win the fight, but still.

Genuinely that seems like a non issue, because what you're trying to determine in a combat with Initiative is some amount of advantage of one side over the other, and the net result of the advantage then translates to more casualties on one side over the other. It seems like the mechanic was working exactly how it should be working, based on the outcome.

I think there's still an argument to be made that the mechanic was too binary, especially when we're talking about very lethal units who can wipe out an opponent before they get a chance to swing. But when we're talking about a scenario in which 4 Orks were killed because they fought second, rather than just 2 Orks being killed had they fought first . . . I sorta just think the "bad feels" are just like, not important? Troop X is quicker than Troop Y, expect a few more casualties, duh?

Karol wrote:

 alextroy wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
If only the first-normal-last system could be represented numerically!

If you are thinking 0-1-2, It can be!

If you are thinking 1-10 with some models in a unit having a different numbers than others, that is a whole different kettle of fish.

Why? Dude with highest I goes first, then the dudes with the second highest I etc. Where would be the problem in that?

Others have given good answers, but at the most basic, it made the close combat phase a confusing and time-consuming slog. It was easy for a single fight to have 4+ Initiative values along with matching values on both sides of the battle. That meant you needed to carefully select which models go to fight and hope your low Initiative models didn't die before they got to do something.

I'll take alternating unit attacks with Fast & Slow attacking units any day of the week over that. That really all GW needs to do.

Charging units are Fast attackers. All Fight First rules or Fight as if they Charged rules are changed to make that unit a Fast attacker.

All other units are Normal attackers unless under the effects of a rule that make them Slow attackers. Any rule that would delay when a unit can attack are changed to making the designated units Slow attackers.

Units Each instance of a rule that make a unit a Slow attacker negates one instance of a rule that make a unit a Fast attacker.

Players alternate attacking with units, starting with the player whose turn it is. No player may select a Normal or Slow attacker while either player has a Fast attacker unit that has not fought, nor may a player may select a Slow attacker unit while either player has a Normal attacker unit that has not fought.

There. I've cleaned up the mess that is Fight First, Fight Last in 9th Edition in easy rules that fit in the Core Rules section.

 vipoid wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Conscripts weren't generally accomplishing much, but I do remember my truk rush ork buddy basically having to plan around losing several models *in melee* before he was allowed to swing even on turns when he charged. Which is understandably a bit demoralizing. Having to lose 10% or 20% of your truk boyz every time they participate in a fight phase seems pretty annoying.

Heck, even those lowly conscripts were doing something like... 30 bodies = 30 attacks = 15 hits = 5 wounds = 4 or 5 dead ork boyz before the orks swing. Which, given that truks had a transport capacity of 10 meant you were likely losing about half your squad. The remaining boys would absolutely win the fight, but still.

I can understand this.

At the same time, it seems equally demoralising when Eldar lose their reflexes, foresight, and even basic vision if anyone charges at them.

"Oh no, the orks we've known about since the beginning of the battle are charging at us across open ground! Truly there is nothing we can do but shrug our shoulders and let them split our fragile skulls. How did our Farseers fail us so?"

That's partly why I like my "stabby/extra stabby" pitch. As an eldar player, I'm not all that bothered when a squad of charging orks gets to swing before my guardians. They went to the trouble of crossing the table and getting into melee. Good on them for getting to enjoy swinging first. It's when the orks managing to wipe out a squad of banshees or incubi or harlequins and suffer zero casualties in return that it bugs me. I feel like, regardless of who has the faster reflexes, two squads of melee specialists clashing together should result in at least a little damage on both sides.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Conscripts weren't generally accomplishing much, but I do remember my truk rush ork buddy basically having to plan around losing several models *in melee* before he was allowed to swing even on turns when he charged. Which is understandably a bit demoralizing. Having to lose 10% or 20% of your truk boyz every time they participate in a fight phase seems pretty annoying.

Heck, even those lowly conscripts were doing something like... 30 bodies = 30 attacks = 15 hits = 5 wounds = 4 or 5 dead ork boyz before the orks swing. Which, given that truks had a transport capacity of 10 meant you were likely losing about half your squad. The remaining boys would absolutely win the fight, but still.

Genuinely that seems like a non issue, because what you're trying to determine in a combat with Initiative is some amount of advantage of one side over the other, and the net result of the advantage then translates to more casualties on one side over the other. It seems like the mechanic was working exactly how it should be working, based on the outcome.

I think there's still an argument to be made that the mechanic was too binary, especially when we're talking about very lethal units who can wipe out an opponent before they get a chance to swing. But when we're talking about a scenario in which 4 Orks were killed because they fought second, rather than just 2 Orks being killed had they fought first . . . I sorta just think the "bad feels" are just like, not important? Troop X is quicker than Troop Y, expect a few more casualties, duh?

Well, for a more extreme example, consider that same squad of ork boyz charging something like a squad of incubi and getting wiped out before they swing. See above about how both sides should probably be scathed at the end of that clash. And again, conscripts are a pretty weedy example, yet they managed to take out about half an ork squad (albeit only where there 30 of them) before that squad got to swing. I'm not really an ork player, but I imagine having to pay a casualty tax every fight phase would be pretty annoying. Plus, I'd argue that bad feels do matter in gaming as our goal is entertainment. You don't want to come away from your hobby time feeling bad.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 alextroy wrote:

I'll take alternating unit attacks with Fast & Slow attacking units any day of the week over that. That really all GW needs to do.

Charging units are Fast attackers. All Fight First rules or Fight as if they Charged rules are changed to make that unit a Fast attacker.

All other units are Normal attackers unless under the effects of a rule that make them Slow attackers. Any rule that would delay when a unit can attack are changed to making the designated units Slow attackers.

Units Each instance of a rule that make a unit a Slow attacker negates one instance of a rule that make a unit a Fast attacker.

Players alternate attacking with units, starting with the player whose turn it is. No player may select a Normal or Slow attacker while either player has a Fast attacker unit that has not fought, nor may a player may select a Slow attacker unit while either player has a Normal attacker unit that has not fought.

There. I've cleaned up the mess that is Fight First, Fight Last in 9th Edition in easy rules that fit in the Core Rules section.

Well, that still wouldn't address my personal pet peeve with the current system. That is, I charge two squads of harlequins into two squads of enemies. Said enemies either have a fights first rule or use the interrupt stratagem or whatever. My first harlequin unit activates as normal, but then the second unit gets torn apart before it can swing. The current initiative system discourages me from charging with more than one fragile unit per turn, and that's kind of weird.

In WHFB 6th, it had Initiative, Fight First/Last, and fighting first on a Charge.

If you charge, you hit first. If you have a Great Weapon, you fight last, unless you charged, iirc. If you have specific magic items, you can fight first. But, after charges and items were taken into consideration, if the battle remained, it was done by initiative. So Orcs charging Skaven would fight first, but if the Skaven stayed, they'd fight first in the next melee.

It does also help that Initiative isn't purely racial.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Conscripts weren't generally accomplishing much, but I do remember my truk rush ork buddy basically having to plan around losing several models *in melee* before he was allowed to swing even on turns when he charged. Which is understandably a bit demoralizing. Having to lose 10% or 20% of your truk boyz every time they participate in a fight phase seems pretty annoying.

Heck, even those lowly conscripts were doing something like... 30 bodies = 30 attacks = 15 hits = 5 wounds = 4 or 5 dead ork boyz before the orks swing. Which, given that truks had a transport capacity of 10 meant you were likely losing about half your squad. The remaining boys would absolutely win the fight, but still.

Genuinely that seems like a non issue, because what you're trying to determine in a combat with Initiative is some amount of advantage of one side over the other, and the net result of the advantage then translates to more casualties on one side over the other. It seems like the mechanic was working exactly how it should be working, based on the outcome.

I think there's still an argument to be made that the mechanic was too binary, especially when we're talking about very lethal units who can wipe out an opponent before they get a chance to swing. But when we're talking about a scenario in which 4 Orks were killed because they fought second, rather than just 2 Orks being killed had they fought first . . . I sorta just think the "bad feels" are just like, not important? Troop X is quicker than Troop Y, expect a few more casualties, duh?

Well, for a more extreme example, consider that same squad of ork boyz charging something like a squad of incubi and getting wiped out before they swing. See above about how both sides should probably be scathed at the end of that clash. And again, conscripts are a pretty weedy example, yet they managed to take out about half an ork squad (albeit only where there 30 of them) before that squad got to swing. I'm not really an ork player, but I imagine having to pay a casualty tax every fight phase would be pretty annoying. Plus, I'd argue that bad feels do matter in gaming as our goal is entertainment. You don't want to come away from your hobby time feeling bad.

Well I did say that the more lethal encounters may have come out being too severe. Not being able to swing at all is probably too harsh. However when it comes to bad feels, there's a lot of room there. Sometimes one persons bad feels is the others good feels, the reward for paying extra points for your models, or using a specialist that shines at their assigned specialty. If I spend 40ppm on Lightning Claw Terminators and they aren't mulching 6pt Boyz, that's just another potential FeelsBadMan in the opposite direction.

My memory in 3rd 4th was that the balance between Marine and Ork was overall good. 10 Marines might strike first, but not kill too many, while the Ork counterattack was lethal enough to make CC still the right place to be for the Orks. I don't know what the Conscript scenario was. Can't comment.

 Insectum7 wrote:

Well I did say that the more lethal encounters may have come out being too severe. Not being able to swing at all is probably too harsh.
...
My memory in 3rd 4th was that the balance between Marine and Ork was overall good. 10 Marines might strike first, but not kill too many, while the Ork counterattack was lethal enough to make CC still the right place to be for the Orks. I don't know what the Conscript scenario was. Can't comment.

That's fair. I think we agree more than we disagree here. I was mostly just pointing out that low initiative melee units, after going to the trouble of crossing the table and get a charge off, could still end up losing bodies (or the entire unit) before they even swing. Which I imagine is a rather unpleasant experience. Of course, orks could absorb those losses a bit better than many armies. Something like a marine assault squad charging a squad of incubi or a particularly sassy warp spider exarch could end up even worse off.

However when it comes to bad feels, there's a lot of room there. Sometimes one persons bad feels is the others good feels, the reward for paying extra points for your models, or using a specialist that shines at their assigned specialty. If I spend 40ppm on Lightning Claw Terminators and they aren't mulching 6pt Boyz, that's just another potential FeelsBadMan in the opposite direction.

In general, my preference is to let both players feel that they've benefitted form their investments wherever possible. Your terminators invested in ork-killing-claws, but the ork nob invested in a power claw to kill terminators. Initiative can mean that you potentially kill the klaw nob off before he gets to use his investment. Something like my stabby/extra stabby (not a great name) pitch would mean that you'd get the benefits of your lightning claws (you'd get to blend a bunch of orks), but the charging orks would also get to use their power klaw and swing with all their bodies.

I'd like to at least try the old initiative system with more sensible modifiers.
Something like, highest to lowest, +2 for charging, active player wins ties. Throw in a cover bonus if you like. Get rid of the old grenade rules in favour of the current grenade rules.
Tweak unit stats as required.

Ok since some of the discussion is still stuck with the benefits or downfalls of the old initiative system I'm going to reiterate once more.

If GW were to bring back initiative I wouldn't want them to just copy the old system, but improve on it while at the same time toning down the lethality of the game (which is frankly ridiculous at this point) so that it's not mostly like "oops, I managed to charge you with my buffed repentia...might as well just pick up your stuff"

Giving Boni to initiative for charging units seems like good idea to not make the system completely predetermined by the stat itself. And with decreased lethality prolonged combat might actually happen on a more regular basis, which is where the raw initiative value could determine which unit fights first.

To ensure that this also improves granularity between factions and units within factions you would have to distribute the stat properly.
For example if charging units get +d3 to their initiative and baseline space marines were to be initiative 5, a baseline eldar were to be initiative 6, then it would be a bad idea to give orks initiative 3 or 2. But if baseline orks and nobz were to be I 4 and meganobz I 3 then they could still fight before a space marine on the charge depending on their roll.

This is were a good bit of balancing can come into play. Let's say certain melee weapons like thunder hammers give -X to initiative, but meganobz ignore all such penalties because of their brutish strength, which would help them in prolonged fights especially.

My point is that the initiative stat provides all those little levers you could adjust and turn when designing a codex and balancing it with other codices which the current system does not provide.

Edit: the best way to decrease lethality (specifically in melee) imo is to significantly reduce the amount of re-rolls and re introduce Weapon Skill comparison similar to the new horus heresy edition, but with a wider distribution of the statrange across factions. If the Meganobz from our earlier example were to have WS6, it would not matter THAT much that they are slower than most units, because most units would have trouble hitting them, except for other dedicated melee units like for example howling banshees, who if balanced properly should hit before the meganobz most of the time, but have more trouble getting damage through.

Boni and bonii are not a thing.

WS comparisons in 30k are stupid. Space Marines should not get -1 to hit in melee faction-wide. There are tonnes of melee units that don't need the nerf to their damage output.

If you used all WS stats from 1-10 it might work. But the simplicity of using the same stat for most of an army, except for fluffy exceptions is much easier to keep track than a system where you have 5 different WS values in your list of and doesn't have the downside of some factions being -1 to hit. Melee damage output would not be insane if not for stat creep and you can still stat creep in 30k's system so saying it'd reduce lethality is a terrible argument.

My point is that the initiative stat provides all those little levers you could adjust and turn when designing a codex and balancing it with other codices which the current system does not provide.

Stats are not a balancing lever, they are a there to make units fluffy. Otherwise we could all just use our Xenos to proxy Space Marines.

I think the problem with multiple stats is always the wastage. I.E. being initiative 5 if you are fighting initiative 2 stuff. Surely you are paying over being initiative 3 or 4, but deriving no benefit. Its hard to balance that gap with points.

My memory is that old boyz were just a PK-armed nob delivery system, so taking some punches in the face produced a whatever response.

 vict0988 wrote:
Boni and bonii are not a thing.

WS comparisons in 30k are stupid. Space Marines should not get -1 to hit in melee faction-wide. There are tonnes of melee units that don't need the nerf to their damage output.

If you used all WS stats from 1-10 it might work. But the simplicity of using the same stat for most of an army, except for fluffy exceptions is much easier to keep track than a system where you have 5 different WS values in your list of and doesn't have the downside of some factions being -1 to hit. Melee damage output would not be insane if not for stat creep and you can still stat creep in 30k's system so saying it'd reduce lethality is a terrible argument.

My point is that the initiative stat provides all those little levers you could adjust and turn when designing a codex and balancing it with other codices which the current system does not provide.

Stats are not a balancing lever, they are a there to make units fluffy. Otherwise we could all just use our Xenos to proxy Space Marines.

What are you talking about? My argument was precisely that gw should in fact utilize a wider range of WS to make such a system work. Reintroducing it would absolutely decrease lethality in melee (if you also reduce the amount of re rolls, which was part of the argument I made) because it would simply reduce the number of successful hits in almost all instances.

Stats are there to make units fluffy and that is important like you said, but they are also absolutely a balancing lever.
Not one that should be turned and adjusted during an edition a la "this unit performs too well, let's reduce it's toughness or initiative" that would be stupid. They are balancing levers when designing and writing the codex, that should preferably also at least partly represent the factions fluff.

Having 5 different WS stats increases mental load too much for what it adds to the game. Lethality might be pushed back one step, but when GW is taking two steps every 3 years it's pointless to force them back one step and instead the goal should be to make the lethality stand still instead of constantly advancing.

Stats are there to make units fluffy and that is important like you said, but they are also absolutely a balancing lever.
Not one that should be turned and adjusted during an edition a la "this unit performs too well, let's reduce it's toughness or initiative" that would be stupid.

Forgive me for thinking that is what people want when they say stuff like this, after all it's what GW has done with Flayed Ones, Gretchin, HotE and AoC. Instead of calling it a balancing lever I would call it a way to express fluff.

Balance always comes down to pts-efficiency and pts is where to fix it if it's broken, because it's easier to calculate what effect changing Boys from 9 to 8 pts than changing them from T4 to T5 or giving them a new ability or Stratagem.

I think it'd be easier to have abilities to represent edge cases for extremely agile or extremely slow fighters instead of giving every unit in the game a stat for it. Having a tight core rule set is good in my book, I understand hating the bloat in Codexes, but I think it can be curtailed without the core rules bloating back up.

Tyel wrote:
I think the problem with multiple stats is always the wastage. I.E. being initiative 5 if you are fighting initiative 2 stuff. Surely you are paying over being initiative 3 or 4, but deriving no benefit. Its hard to balance that gap with points.

There were other benefits - better chance of catching/evading the enemy during a sweeping advance; better chance of passing initiative tests, better chance of performing hit and run (I think?)

Having 'unused' initiative is little different to having unused AP, or unused toughness, or night vision etc. etc. which aren't used in every matchup/situation.

 vict0988 wrote:
Having 5 different WS stats increases mental load too much for what it adds to the game. Lethality might be pushed back one step, but when GW is taking two steps every 3 years it's pointless to force them back one step and instead the goal should be to make the lethality stand still instead of constantly advancing.

I disagree that different WS stats and a comparison chart increase mental load too much. If you already partly can differentiate units by WS you don't need a myriad of special rules like we have now. You can still give out special abilities in addition, but you don't need as freaking many.

A comparison chart only seems daunting at first glance because the system behind is the same every combat.

Your point on lethality I agree with, but that was one of my premises, that GW watches lethality more carefully (specifically the proliferation of re rolls) if they don't then the premise is moot of course. I want to force them back one step like you said and keep it there. WS comparison can achieve that (in melee at least) IF you have an improved comparison chart and a wider distribution of WS like we established. Initiative of course plays into these considerations when designing a codex that way.

I'm not saying GW is going to this, I'm just saying that it can absolutely be done and imo it would be an improvement.

Tiberias wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:
Having 5 different WS stats increases mental load too much for what it adds to the game. Lethality might be pushed back one step, but when GW is taking two steps every 3 years it's pointless to force them back one step and instead the goal should be to make the lethality stand still instead of constantly advancing.

I disagree that different WS stats and a comparison chart increase mental load too much. If you already partly can differentiate units by WS you don't need a myriad of special rules like we have now. You can still give out special abilities in addition, but you don't need as freaking many.

We can get rid of most abilities without bringing back WS. Which Necrons abilities are you getting rid of by having 10 different WS stats in the codex instead of 3?

Flayed Ones Flesh Hunger giving them extra hits against non-vehicles. It doesn't need to exist anyway and replacing it with WS doesn't carry the same meaning since some vehicles would have high WS and others would have low WS.

Destroyers Hardwired for Destruction ability to re-roll 1s to hit can be removed without consequence or replaced with WS 2+, if Custodes can have WS2+ why not Destroyers?

Ophydian Destroyers Whipcoil Bodies that makes them -1 to hit in melee could be replaced, but guess what? It's already a stupid ability for them and I have no idea what their job is supposed to be, they need some kind of ability that sets them apart from the rest of Necrons melee units, giving them an even more generic bonus of higher WS wouldn't leave them any special role in the faction.

Remaining abilities also work against shooting, so now you need a dodge stat as well as some posters have suggested, it's starting to turn into an RPG instead of a battle game with so many stats. What about a scariness stat that every unit can have and will never be relevant because most units will ignore it? /sarcasm

A comparison chart only seems daunting at first glance because the system behind is the same every combat.

I think comparison charts are stupid and the mechanic behind the old chart were bad. It should just follow the same rules as for wound rolls. But you can't really argue with a static hit roll being the simplest option of them all. Most factions having only 2 different values makes it much easier as well.

How about rather than the all or nothing approach to initiative the following is implemented? Each unit is assigned an initiative value (the higher the better). Say it is a 1-10 spread like normal stats. When you enter melee each player does damage as normal. Then you compare initiatives. The unit with the highest Initiative does full damage. If the opponent's initiative is 1-2 less then it does 3/4 of the damage it rolled (round up for -1, down for -2). If the I is 3-4 less then it does 1/2 damage (round up for -3, down for -4). If the I is down 5-6 then 1/4 (rounding as above). If the I is down 7+ no damage is awarded as the unit is too slow to react.

You could then add modifiers for weapons, terrain and/or, charging. Yes, there's math involved but a slower unit charging/being charged by a faster unit still could get some licks in before it dies.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
How about rather than the all or nothing approach to initiative the following is implemented? Each unit is assigned an initiative value (the higher the better). Say it is a 1-10 spread like normal stats. When you enter melee each player does damage as normal. Then you compare initiatives. The unit with the highest Initiative does full damage. If the opponent's initiative is 1-2 less then it does 3/4 of the damage it rolled (round up for -1, down for -2). If the I is 3-4 less then it does 1/2 damage (round up for -3, down for -4). If the I is down 5-6 then 1/4 (rounding as above). If the I is down 7+ no damage is awarded as the unit is too slow to react.

You could then add modifiers for weapons, terrain and/or, charging. Yes, there's math involved but a slower unit charging/being charged by a faster unit still could get some licks in before it dies.

nah, thats way too complex (and poorly applicable)

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
How about rather than the all or nothing approach to initiative the following is implemented? Each unit is assigned an initiative value (the higher the better). Say it is a 1-10 spread like normal stats. When you enter melee each player does damage as normal. Then you compare initiatives. The unit with the highest Initiative does full damage. If the opponent's initiative is 1-2 less then it does 3/4 of the damage it rolled (round up for -1, down for -2). If the I is 3-4 less then it does 1/2 damage (round up for -3, down for -4). If the I is down 5-6 then 1/4 (rounding as above). If the I is down 7+ no damage is awarded as the unit is too slow to react.

You could then add modifiers for weapons, terrain and/or, charging. Yes, there's math involved but a slower unit charging/being charged by a faster unit still could get some licks in before it dies.

nah, thats way too complex (and poorly applicable)

Especially since if there's an Initiative difference of 7+, you just... Never do damage.
Hell, an I1 model (Powerfist or other Unwieldy Weapon) just straight-up wouldn't be able to touch a Daemon Prince, if they retain their I8 stat, unless the Prince charges through terrain (dropping them to I1).

 vict0988 wrote:

Tiberias wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:
Having 5 different WS stats increases mental load too much for what it adds to the game. Lethality might be pushed back one step, but when GW is taking two steps every 3 years it's pointless to force them back one step and instead the goal should be to make the lethality stand still instead of constantly advancing.

I disagree that different WS stats and a comparison chart increase mental load too much. If you already partly can differentiate units by WS you don't need a myriad of special rules like we have now. You can still give out special abilities in addition, but you don't need as freaking many.

We can get rid of most abilities without bringing back WS. Which Necrons abilities are you getting rid of by having 10 different WS stats in the codex instead of 3?

Flayed Ones Flesh Hunger giving them extra hits against non-vehicles. It doesn't need to exist anyway and replacing it with WS doesn't carry the same meaning since some vehicles would have high WS and others would have low WS.

Destroyers Hardwired for Destruction ability to re-roll 1s to hit can be removed without consequence or replaced with WS 2+, if Custodes can have WS2+ why not Destroyers?

Ophydian Destroyers Whipcoil Bodies that makes them -1 to hit in melee could be replaced, but guess what? It's already a stupid ability for them and I have no idea what their job is supposed to be, they need some kind of ability that sets them apart from the rest of Necrons melee units, giving them an even more generic bonus of higher WS wouldn't leave them any special role in the faction.

Remaining abilities also work against shooting, so now you need a dodge stat as well as some posters have suggested, it's starting to turn into an RPG instead of a battle game with so many stats. What about a scariness stat that every unit can have and will never be relevant because most units will ignore it? /sarcasm

A comparison chart only seems daunting at first glance because the system behind is the same every combat.

I think comparison charts are stupid and the mechanic behind the old chart were bad. It should just follow the same rules as for wound rolls. But you can't really argue with a static hit roll being the simplest option of them all. Most factions having only 2 different values makes it much easier as well.

A lot of assumptions here honestly, who said you need 10 different WS stats across all necron datasheets?
You say comparison charts are stupid and you didn't like the old one but you don't even give a reason why or address that you could expand on the old chart to allow for 2+ and 6+ to hit depending on how far apart the comparing WS are.

Of course a static hit roll is simpler, I just think it also comes with a lot of drawbacks, chief among them the extreme lethality when you also introduce a lot of re-rolls....its also kinda dumb that an ork hits a space marine and a bloodthirster on the same static value but maybe that's just me.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
How about rather than the all or nothing approach to initiative the following is implemented? Each unit is assigned an initiative value (the higher the better). Say it is a 1-10 spread like normal stats. When you enter melee each player does damage as normal. Then you compare initiatives. The unit with the highest Initiative does full damage. If the opponent's initiative is 1-2 less then it does 3/4 of the damage it rolled (round up for -1, down for -2). If the I is 3-4 less then it does 1/2 damage (round up for -3, down for -4). If the I is down 5-6 then 1/4 (rounding as above). If the I is down 7+ no damage is awarded as the unit is too slow to react.

You could then add modifiers for weapons, terrain and/or, charging. Yes, there's math involved but a slower unit charging/being charged by a faster unit still could get some licks in before it dies.

nah, thats way too complex (and poorly applicable)

Especially since if there's an Initiative difference of 7+, you just... Never do damage.
Hell, an I1 model (Powerfist or other Unwieldy Weapon) just straight-up wouldn't be able to touch a Daemon Prince, if they retain their I8 stat, unless the Prince charges through terrain (dropping them to I1).

You say that like it is a bad thing.

 AtoMaki wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
How about rather than the all or nothing approach to initiative the following is implemented? Each unit is assigned an initiative value (the higher the better). Say it is a 1-10 spread like normal stats. When you enter melee each player does damage as normal. Then you compare initiatives. The unit with the highest Initiative does full damage. If the opponent's initiative is 1-2 less then it does 3/4 of the damage it rolled (round up for -1, down for -2). If the I is 3-4 less then it does 1/2 damage (round up for -3, down for -4). If the I is down 5-6 then 1/4 (rounding as above). If the I is down 7+ no damage is awarded as the unit is too slow to react.

You could then add modifiers for weapons, terrain and/or, charging. Yes, there's math involved but a slower unit charging/being charged by a faster unit still could get some licks in before it dies.

nah, thats way too complex (and poorly applicable)

Especially since if there's an Initiative difference of 7+, you just... Never do damage.
Hell, an I1 model (Powerfist or other Unwieldy Weapon) just straight-up wouldn't be able to touch a Daemon Prince, if they retain their I8 stat, unless the Prince charges through terrain (dropping them to I1).

You say that like it is a bad thing.

Also why are we still comparing this to the old system (auto I1 on power fists, I1 when charging though terrain)? Unwieldy weapons could just be a flat -1 on your initiative depending on how the stat distribution is set up. I'm not saying thats exactly what they should be if they were to improve the initiative system, but comparing it to the old system makes no sense when literally nobody in this thread wants the old initiative system back exactly like it was.

Thank you Tiberius. That's what I was about to point out. I wasn't saying that weapons would give you an "I" rating, rather I was thinking that weapons would modify that rating. For instance I can see a polearm like weapon giving a bonus to your initiative in the first round of fighting but a penalty or no bonus in later rounds.

As to the problem of slower models not damaging faster models I would say that if you are that much slower than your opponent then you probably aren't hitting them in the first place let alone damaging them (7 is a big difference on a 10 point scale). I will admit that there would be a small chance of hitting/damaging a target that is almost literally able to run rings around you but, for the sake of the game, that chance is so small that I would ignore it.

IMHO that should be represented as part of the WS comparison in which a big enough difference in WS means you are hitting in 6s, initiative is just to binary. (And to arbitrary, I still do not understand why orks are slower than basic humans).

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

.

Though there is something, and I know it’s in an existing game but I’m buggered if I can remember what it is, where casualties are removed at the end of the Game Turn.

So even if you have a truly stonking first turn and butter my army, I at least get a shot at some retribution,

Yes it’s a bit book keepy, but I think it’s something people would rapidly adapt to, and perhaps even welcome as whilst First Turn remains advantageous as you get to dictate the flow of the battle, it’s not as one sided as I hear it is now.

Apocalypse. Attacks apply blast markers but you don't make saving throws until the end of the turn. It also adds a bit of risk management as you can't be SURE that dreadnought is dead, no matter how much fire you put into it.....so at what point will you take the risk and move on to other targets? 50% sure? 90% sure? 99% sure? 99.9% sure?

 Tyran wrote:
IMHO that should be represented as part of the WS comparison in which a big enough difference in WS means you are hitting in 6s, initiative is just to binary. (And to arbitrary, I still do not understand why orks are slower than basic humans).

But that could be alleviated by a better distribution of the initiative stat.

Lets say a baseline space marine is I5 representing a superhuman soldier

Let's say a normal human and orks are I4

Meganobs are I3 and would gain other benefits to make up for that disadvantage like being able to use unwieldy weapons without penalty (whatever the exact penalty might be in our system)

On the other end of the spectrum you could make baseline eldar I5, with aspect warriors being I6 and howling banshees and harlequins beeing an exception with I7 since those are units specifically known for their acrobatics.

If you introduce a +d3 bonus for charging, alongside some penalties for unwieldy weapons you end up with a system that is not solely determined by the initiative Stat on the unit datasheet.
In prolonged combats the raw initiative value of the unit would play the main role in determining who goes first, which is why the introduction of WS comparison is crucial to even enable such prolonged combats due to reduced lethality.

Tyel wrote:
I think the problem with multiple stats is always the wastage. I.E. being initiative 5 if you are fighting initiative 2 stuff. Surely you are paying over being initiative 3 or 4, but deriving no benefit. Its hard to balance that gap with points.

But surely this applies to *all* stats to a lesser or greater extent? S9+ (whether on a gun or a melee model) is pointless against T4, compared to S8. S6-7 is likewise pointless compared to S5. S4 is pointless against T5, compared to S3. etc.

In the past, AP4 was pointless against models with a 3+ (or better) save, AP3 was pointless against models with a 2+ save, etc. Even with the new system, AP-4 is wasted over AP-2 if a model only has a 5+ save to begin with, or if its armour is just 2 points better than its invulnerable save. AP-1 is pointless against Marines because of their special rule.

By the same measure (as has been discussed repeatedly on these forums), a good armour save doesn't matter if your opponent has a lot of high-AP weapons in his arsenal.

Hell, even the movement stat can be overkill for a lot of units. There's literally a threat right now discussing DE Scourges - which have had at least 12" movement since their inception, whilst carrying weapons that require them to remain stationary.

My point is, arguing that initiative was bad because it was sometimes higher than it needed to be (or average-high but not enough to matter) seems ridiculous as the same argument could be applied to virtually any stat.

This isn't to say that initiative should be brought back, just that this isn't a reasonable reason not to bring it back.

If you want to add some spice, and complexity, to initiative then you could have a variable die roll added to initiative as well as weapon/terrain/charging penalties and bonii. So your charging (+2) pole arm wielding (+2) I 3 Orks have a chance against those drattingly fast I 8 Harlies. Each side gets to add a d3 to their total to see who strikes when.

Obviously the numbers are just made up but you get the point.

 vipoid wrote:

Tyel wrote:
I think the problem with multiple stats is always the wastage. I.E. being initiative 5 if you are fighting initiative 2 stuff. Surely you are paying over being initiative 3 or 4, but deriving no benefit. Its hard to balance that gap with points.

But surely this applies to *all* stats to a lesser or greater extent? S9+ (whether on a gun or a melee model) is pointless against T4, compared to S8. S6-7 is likewise pointless compared to S5. S4 is pointless against T5, compared to S3. etc.

In the past, AP4 was pointless against models with a 3+ (or better) save, AP3 was pointless against models with a 2+ save, etc. Even with the new system, AP-4 is wasted over AP-2 if a model only has a 5+ save to begin with, or if its armour is just 2 points better than its invulnerable save. AP-1 is pointless against Marines because of their special rule.

By the same measure (as has been discussed repeatedly on these forums), a good armour save doesn't matter if your opponent has a lot of high-AP weapons in his arsenal.

Hell, even the movement stat can be overkill for a lot of units. There's literally a threat right now discussing DE Scourges - which have had at least 12" movement since their inception, whilst carrying weapons that require them to remain stationary.

My point is, arguing that initiative was bad because it was sometimes higher than it needed to be (or average-high but not enough to matter) seems ridiculous as the same argument could be applied to virtually any stat.

This isn't to say that initiative should be brought back, just that this isn't a reasonable reason not to bring it back.

The issue is variety. If you've got T3/4 infantry up to T8 vehicles, I can find something for my high-S gun to shoot at. If you have anything at all in your army with a 3+ save and no invuln, I have a use for AP-4. Although ironically, the fact that most things with good saves also have invulns is precisely why AP-2 is the magic breakpoint and AP-4 is less valuable.

Meanwhile with Initiative, chances are that both of our armies are going to have pretty consistent values across all units. If I have I4 and I5 and you only have I2 and I3, my higher Initiative is completely wasted. And unlike, say, bringing a lascannon against an all-infantry army, that's not a skew list or edge case- my faction just wastes stat potential against your faction.

If the game had more mechanics that altered Initiative, then it could work better. If having super high Initiative meant you might strike simultaneously with an enemy in cover, or could take a heavy (Initiative-reducing) weapon while still hitting first, then there'd be utility to having high Initiative. But GW didn't do that; they just used strikes-first and strikes-last effects that negated all benefits of high Initiative. And similarly, if significantly exceeding the enemy's Initiative had some effect, then having 'excess' Initative would still be useful- you're right that S6-7 doesn't get you anything over S5 when shooting at T4, but at least if you hit the S8 breakpoint you wound on 2s.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
If you want to add some spice, and complexity, to initiative then you could have a variable die roll added to initiative as well as weapon/terrain/charging penalties and bonii. So your charging (+2) pole arm wielding (+2) I 3 Orks have a chance against those drattingly fast I 8 Harlies. Each side gets to add a d3 to their total to see who strikes when.

Though having said the above, this brings me back to wondering why Initiative is such a binary mechanic. If there's potential for either the Orks or the Harlequins to get the first blow in, why is it going to be all of one unit or the other hitting first? I guess the chance for them to strike simultaneously evens it out a bit, but it still feels weird to me.

While I agree with you that, in reality, the whole unit wouldn't strike first/last. In reality the whole unit wouldn't share the exact same stats. Some members wouldn't be as strong/tough/fast as others. It's a game and as such reality has to be put aside for game mechanics.

I actually quite like how Battletech Alpha Strike does combat.

Movement is alternating

All attacks (there isn't a shooting and a melee phase, just an attack phase) happen during simultaneously. The player who has priority that turn will attack with all of their units, then the next player will attack with all of theirs. After all attacks have been resolved, casualties are removed.

It really makes it feel like a battle is going on and a lot less like I just have to wait one hour while my opponent removes half my army, either by shooting or melee.

Tiberias wrote:
A lot of assumptions here honestly, who said you need 10 different WS stats across all necron datasheets?
You say comparison charts are stupid and you didn't like the old one but you don't even give a reason why or address that you could expand on the old chart to allow for 2+ and 6+ to hit depending on how far apart the comparing WS are.

Of course a static hit roll is simpler, I just think it also comes with a lot of drawbacks, chief among them the extreme lethality when you also introduce a lot of re-rolls....its also kinda dumb that an ork hits a space marine and a bloodthirster on the same static value but maybe that's just me.

We agreed that you'd need a bigger spread of WS stats if WS was going to be something other than a set number. You mentioned WS 6 Meganobz as an example. I don't understand what wrong assumption I am making here. If Orks are going to range from WS 2 to WS 7, then Necrons would be the same right? Most Necron armies have 2 WS/BS stats, then there is a separate class of units with a different WS/BS stat, but it's all very easy to remember. If Wraiths are going to have a different WS than Scarabs and Ophydian Destroyers and Skorpekh Destroyers are going to have another 2 different WS stats you've already got more different stats and less formulaic stat distributions, which might give the units more different strengths and weaknesses and more interesting gameplay, but it would increase mental load.

I think the breakpoints for the old hit and wound system were unintuitive. I think the new systems are intuitive, I'm not sure how we could convince each other if you disagree with me. I think making hits on 2+ against units with half WS, 3+ against units with less WS, 4+ against units with equal WS, 5+ against units with more WS and 6+ against units with twice as much WS would keep things simple. Alternatively have both hit and wound rolls be automatic against things with 3 less, 2+ against things with 2 less, 3+ against things with 1 less, 4+ against things with the same, 5+ against things with 1 more, 6+ against things with 2 more and impossible against things with 3 more could work. The ability to wound on 6s against things with 3 more Toughness than your Strength did not make sense to me. In both cases you'd have to change stats to fit. I think going back to 8th edition Index characteristics for around half the units that have been stat-creeped is the best option.

A bolter hits a Bloodthirster and an Ork on the same value, Orks hitting Marines and Bloodthirsters on the same value should in theory make balancing things easier. GW's sole method of balancing things by listening to tournament data and community sentiment every 6 months to fix the mistakes made by their dartboard balancing while writing makes my point pretty weak, but I'd like GW to do more thorough reading and testing before they release stuff. I make very realistic demands of what I want GW to do with regards to balance and design.
*Keep it fluffy. Don't make lasguns more effective against vehicles than bolters.
*Make things that are inarguably better cost more pts than the alternative. A bolt pistol should cost more than a las pistol.
*Get an Indian on Fiverr to do a spreadsheet for weapon and datasheet pts-efficiency to get a range of acceptably balanced pts values for each option in the game. Anti-tank units should be pts-effective against most tanks and anti-infantry units should be effective against most infantry. Every unit should have losing match-ups.
*Have volunteers test 10-15 army lists for each faction that each spam 2-3 units in the faction that the list author thinks would well together theoretically using a sub-faction that seems optimal for the units. Have the volunteers compile data on which combos seem OP to determine whether initial costs based on spreadsheet numbers need to be adjusted up or down before release.

 vict0988 wrote:

Tiberias wrote:
A lot of assumptions here honestly, who said you need 10 different WS stats across all necron datasheets?
You say comparison charts are stupid and you didn't like the old one but you don't even give a reason why or address that you could expand on the old chart to allow for 2+ and 6+ to hit depending on how far apart the comparing WS are.

Of course a static hit roll is simpler, I just think it also comes with a lot of drawbacks, chief among them the extreme lethality when you also introduce a lot of re-rolls....its also kinda dumb that an ork hits a space marine and a bloodthirster on the same static value but maybe that's just me.

We agreed that you'd need a bigger spread of WS stats if WS was going to be something other than a set number. You mentioned WS 6 Meganobz as an example. I don't understand what wrong assumption I am making here. If Orks are going to range from WS 2 to WS 7, then Necrons would be the same right? Most Necron armies have 2 WS/BS stats, then there is a separate class of units with a different WS/BS stat, but it's all very easy to remember. If Wraiths are going to have a different WS than Scarabs and Ophydian Destroyers and Skorpekh Destroyers are going to have another 2 different WS stats you've already got more different stats and less formulaic stat distributions, which might give the units more different strengths and weaknesses and more interesting gameplay, but it would increase mental load.

I think the breakpoints for the old hit and wound system were unintuitive. I think the new systems are intuitive, I'm not sure how we could convince each other if you disagree with me. I think making hits on 2+ against units with half WS, 3+ against units with less WS, 4+ against units with equal WS, 5+ against units with more WS and 6+ against units with twice as much WS would keep things simple. Alternatively have both hit and wound rolls be automatic against things with 3 less, 2+ against things with 2 less, 3+ against things with 1 less, 4+ against things with the same, 5+ against things with 1 more, 6+ against things with 2 more and impossible against things with 3 more could work. The ability to wound on 6s against things with 3 more Toughness than your Strength did not make sense to me. In both cases you'd have to change stats to fit. I think going back to 8th edition Index characteristics for around half the units that have been stat-creeped is the best option.

In this particular instance I feel we are arguing semantics, of course you would have multiple values across a codex, but in all likelihood not 10 different WS values in one book. Of course I grant that the current system is the simpler option, but I don't think having different WS values would be a problem even if you apply them in a bigger spread. I like this conversation so let's play it out.

-Space Marines are always the benchmark to measure most things against in this setting so for this example let's give a baseline space marine WS 5 thus representing the baseline superhuman soldier
-Space Marine captains are WS 6 and super special characters like Ragnar Blackmane are WS 7
Thats space marines done. You can create exceptions like giving wulfen WS 6 for being crazed dedicated melee monsters for example.

-baseline guardsmen would be WS 3 across the board representing the standard human soldier
-there you can create exceptions like giving Sororitas, Scions and Catachan WS4 thus representing the pinnacle human soldiers that are not transhuman.

-orks are rather straight forward also imo: grots getting WS 2, ork boys WS 4, Ork nobs WS5 (thus being in line with a space marine), meganobz at WS6 (but probably at lower initiative, thus balancing out their good stats somewhat)

-Necrons I'd do like this
Scarabs at WS 2 but they get +1 to hit if 3 or more bases are in combat because they...well, swarm you
Necron warriors at WS 4
Flayed ones at WS 4, but with a million attacks at higher initiative than other necrons
melee focused Destroyers at WS 5
Lychguard and Praetorians at WS 6

-Eldar
Baseline guardian at WS 5
Aspect warriors at WS 6 (the more shooting focused like dark reapers could also be WS 5 with other buffs to their ranged abilities)
Banshees and harlequins at WS 7
Avatar of khaine at WS 9

Just also throwing in the bloodthister at WS 10, as an example of the classic pinnacle of that particular stat-hierarchy.

That's just throwing ideas around, but that's not that many different values per faction.

Also I made an improved WS comparison chart (well, improved according to my view) a while back, I'll try to find it and post it since it rather fits the discussion and provides a visual example of how a wider spread of WS distribution would work in practice.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
If you want to add some spice, and complexity, to initiative then you could have a variable die roll added to initiative as well as weapon/terrain/charging penalties and bonii. So your charging (+2) pole arm wielding (+2) I 3 Orks have a chance against those drattingly fast I 8 Harlies. Each side gets to add a d3 to their total to see who strikes when.

Obviously the numbers are just made up but you get the point.

Thinking about it, I feel like a system with lots of initiative modifiers where higher initiatives still swing first would just give us all the same problems of the old and/or new system but with extra steps. You'd still end up with orks frequently having to pay a casualty tax even if they charged, and my harlequins would still sometimes get wiped out by charging enemies without getting to make a single attack in retaliation. All those modifiers and extra dice rolls would make the frustrating moments less common, but they'd still be there. (With the exact frequency of the frustrating moments depending on the exact numbers you used.) So I'm not sure a more complicated version of the all-or-nothing system would really be an improvement.

The more I think about it, what I miss about my space elves having high initiative wasn't that they struck first; it's that they almost always got to strike at all. Your death company charge my harlequins and wipe them out? Fair enough. Good for you. But surely my harlequins are going to drag some marines down with them. Related to this is the change from compared WS stats to flat to-hit values. If your ork boyz killed my harlequins, it was satisfying to know that they "earned it" despite hitting less often than they would have against, say, some WS3 guardsmen. Compared WS stats was essentially a -1 to hit for high-WS units.

So it's not that I miss attacking first. It's that I miss attacking at all and feeling like my unit's skill and reflexes were being factored into the result. If we're overhauling the initiative system, those are the things I'd like to see brought back. I'm not sure I actually care all that much who literally rolls their dice first.

 catbarf wrote:

The issue is variety. If you've got T3/4 infantry up to T8 vehicles, I can find something for my high-S gun to shoot at. If you have anything at all in your army with a 3+ save and no invuln, I have a use for AP-4. Although ironically, the fact that most things with good saves also have invulns is precisely why AP-2 is the magic breakpoint and AP-4 is less valuable.

I get what you're saying, but at the same time we literally have armies where every model has an invulnerable save, or a super-invulnerable save, or where every model is T7+ or where every model ignores AP-1.

 catbarf wrote:

Meanwhile with Initiative, chances are that both of our armies are going to have pretty consistent values across all units. If I have I4 and I5 and you only have I2 and I3, my higher Initiative is completely wasted. And unlike, say, bringing a lascannon against an all-infantry army, that's not a skew list or edge case- my faction just wastes stat potential against your faction.

If the game had more mechanics that altered Initiative, then it could work better. If having super high Initiative meant you might strike simultaneously with an enemy in cover, or could take a heavy (Initiative-reducing) weapon while still hitting first, then there'd be utility to having high Initiative. But GW didn't do that; they just used strikes-first and strikes-last effects that negated all benefits of high Initiative. And similarly, if significantly exceeding the enemy's Initiative had some effect, then having 'excess' Initative would still be useful- you're right that S6-7 doesn't get you anything over S5 when shooting at T4, but at least if you hit the S8 breakpoint you wound on 2s.

I mean, I certainly wouldn't object to having the old system but with more ways to vary initiative. Even at the time, I repeatedly argued that the old cover mechanics were bonked (since, apart from anything else, not all models had high initiative to begin with). More of an aside at this point, but IMO charging through cover should have stripped your unit of the extra attack you used to get from charging, rather than stripping you of initiative. That would have been a relatively even bonus across all armies.

Anyway, even if a given army doesn't have much variance in base initiative values, there's no reason why it couldn't have wargear/relics, psychic powers etc. to add bonuses to the initiative values of units or reduce the initiative of enemy models. Plus you could get circumstantial bonuses, like +1I for charging.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Thinking about it, I feel like a system with lots of initiative modifiers where higher initiatives still swing first would just give us all the same problems of the old and/or new system but with extra steps. You'd still end up with orks frequently having to pay a casualty tax even if they charged, and my harlequins would still sometimes get wiped out by charging enemies without getting to make a single attack in retaliation.

I don't think there is any system that can prevent one of these problems from existing. GW does that now by giving Harlequins some of the best defensive rules in the game (4+ Invulnerable Save and -1 to Hit time with Melee attacks), but that doesn't matter much when far too many attacks are being tossed around by any dedicated Close Combat unit.

For many editions now, I've felt that binary rules (fight first/last, eternal warrior, instant death as examples) are bad for the game. That's why I'm in favour of restoring the initiative stay. I agree the old numbers would need altering for some armies and units, but I'm convinced the old numbers could be close to ok if the two extra factors come into play.
Factor 1, charging improves your initiative.
Factor 2, when models on opposite sides have the same initiative value, the active player goes first. Given 9th edition's change to ongoing combat, that could be the non-active player wins ties.

I'd be interested in an apocalypse style both sides fight at full strength, then remove casualties at the end, but I feel that kind of change should be a whole of battle round change, not specific to combat.

The idea above for +d3 initiative for charging is intriguing. I could see that working. Similarly, I'd like to try altering the charge rules in line with this. No more failed charges leaving you standing in the open. Instead a failed charge roll removes your initiative bonus or permits overwatch.

Zustiur wrote:
For many editions now, I've felt that binary rules (fight first/last, eternal warrior, instant death as examples) are bad for the game. That's why I'm in favour of restoring the initiative stay. I agree the old numbers would need altering for some armies and units, but I'm convinced the old numbers could be close to ok if the two extra factors come into play.
Factor 1, charging improves your initiative.
Factor 2, when models on opposite sides have the same initiative value, the active player goes first. Given 9th edition's change to ongoing combat, that could be the non-active player wins ties.

I'd be interested in an apocalypse style both sides fight at full strength, then remove casualties at the end, but I feel that kind of change should be a whole of battle round change, not specific to combat.

The idea above for +d3 initiative for charging is intriguing. I could see that working. Similarly, I'd like to try altering the charge rules in line with this. No more failed charges leaving you standing in the open. Instead a failed charge roll removes your initiative bonus or permits overwatch.

I agree with this sentiment. I think the "fight first, fight last, chargers, non-chargers, interrupts" system is crazy convoluted. Initiative being added back feels like could reduce more rules bloat than it adds.

Zustiur wrote:
For many editions now, I've felt that binary rules (fight first/last, eternal warrior, instant death as examples) are bad for the game. That's why I'm in favour of restoring the initiative stay. I agree the old numbers would need altering for some armies and units, but I'm convinced the old numbers could be close to ok if the two extra factors come into play.
Factor 1, charging improves your initiative.
Factor 2, when models on opposite sides have the same initiative value, the active player goes first. Given 9th edition's change to ongoing combat, that could be the non-active player wins ties.

I'd be interested in an apocalypse style both sides fight at full strength, then remove casualties at the end, but I feel that kind of change should be a whole of battle round change, not specific to combat.

The idea above for +d3 initiative for charging is intriguing. I could see that working. Similarly, I'd like to try altering the charge rules in line with this. No more failed charges leaving you standing in the open. Instead a failed charge roll removes your initiative bonus or permits overwatch.

I think the system feels very binary because it is mostly static, and does not involve much player choice. My proposed fix would be something like:

- remove the artificial limitation on the stat itself, i.e. allow it to go over 10 for all intents and purposes
- no arbitrary ruling like always strike first or alway strike last
- increase base initiative a lot accross the board, i.e. have it be 7 or 8 for baseline troops and in the 14+ range for renowned specialists and characters
- add stuff that allows/includes boni and mali to initiative, i.e. shooting from overwatch reduces your own initiative if you're getting charged, shooting before charging reduces the attackers initiative and so on. Give large modifiers for stuff like defended obstacles, +3 I for the defender or such
- due to the larger granularity that was achieved by ''freeing'' the range of the stat, you can now have wargear or skills that come with slight, but not overwhelming bonuses. Have webguns influence initiative if fired from defense, have different types of grenades be better at suppressing the receivers of a charge, hell, bring back fear and terror or other psychological factors. Make stuff like shooting, throwing suppressive grenades or charging straight on actual decisions with up- and downsides. Dito for firing on overwatch, countercharging or defending obstacles.
-then, with all these mods, you can have ''higher Initiative strikes first''.

It's all about opening up decisions and interactions - do you use you chaff unit to charge first and tie the defenders up, to prevent them from shooting your elite squad on the charge? Do you want to risk a countercharge, putting your elites out of range themselves? Is shooting the squad behind the barricade worth striking after them, or do you want to throw grenades instead and strike first? Oh crap, three of your dudes got hit by the Webgun and strike after them anyway! Have stuff like certain artillery or support weapons have a suppressing quality, so you can have synergy between different units - the mortars keep the enemies heads down so your rough riders strike first on the charge, and so on.

After that, you can introduce all kinds of special rules for combat specialist, fire on the charge without penalty for Terminators, improved countercharge with orders for guard, being even better at defending that wall if you happen to be an Imperial Fist, and so on.

I don't really see the need to go over 10 when most of the initiative values were between 1 and 6. If nothing else I believe that this is a system that needs to be condensed because of how inherently binary it is.

 Tyran wrote:
I don't really see the need to go over 10 when most of the initiative values were between 1 and 6. If nothing else I believe that this is a system that needs to be condensed because of how inherently binary it is.

I agree, you don't need a range above 10 for initiative.

With WS, strength and toughness it could be worth a consideration because the comparison is different. For example I've never understood why GW was so afraid to go above T8 for such a long time.
But even within a range from 1-10 there is a lot of room to play with, you just actually have to utilize it.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:While I agree with you that, in reality, the whole unit wouldn't strike first/last. In reality the whole unit wouldn't share the exact same stats. Some members wouldn't be as strong/tough/fast as others. It's a game and as such reality has to be put aside for game mechanics.

I don't think anyone minds a mass battle game giving every member of a unit an averaged BS instead of individually varying accuracy. But the idea of rolling to see if the entire unit gets to strike before or after the entire enemy unit seems to me like starting a shooting attack by making a single roll to see if everyone in the squad hits or everyone in the squad misses. Whether a combatant gets a swing in before their opponent seems like something that ought to be either resolved individually (in an RPG or skirmish game) or abstracted out (in a mass battle game). Especially in a game where melee attacks are very abstracted to begin with and we don't pair off combatants like in 2nd Ed.

Like I said before, part of the reason the Initiative stat hung around so long is because it was used to represent the combat force-multiplier of agility in a system that otherwise doesn't model speed as a defense. In LotR, you don't need an Initiative stat because having a high Fight stat is both an offensive and defensive bonus, and lets elves go toe-to-toe with Uruk-Hai without feeling like glass cannons.

vipoid wrote:I get what you're saying, but at the same time we literally have armies where every model has an invulnerable save, or a super-invulnerable save, or where every model is T7+ or where every model ignores AP-1.

I would also consider those problems, particularly with 40K's paradigm of building your list in a vacuum with no idea of what you're up against, and would prefer not to propagate what I would consider poor design.

vipoid wrote:I mean, I certainly wouldn't object to having the old system but with more ways to vary initiative. Even at the time, I repeatedly argued that the old cover mechanics were bonked (since, apart from anything else, not all models had high initiative to begin with). More of an aside at this point, but IMO charging through cover should have stripped your unit of the extra attack you used to get from charging, rather than stripping you of initiative. That would have been a relatively even bonus across all armies.

Anyway, even if a given army doesn't have much variance in base initiative values, there's no reason why it couldn't have wargear/relics, psychic powers etc. to add bonuses to the initiative values of units or reduce the initiative of enemy models. Plus you could get circumstantial bonuses, like +1I for charging.

I agree with all of that, especially changing cover to just deny the bonus normally afforded by charging. I don't think the Initiative stat was awful, but without many ways to vary it and with basically all the exception cases rendering it irrelevant, it could have been handled better. And I'm just not convinced that it's an optimal solution to any particular design problem.

 Tyran wrote:
I don't really see the need to go over 10 when most of the initiative values were between 1 and 6. If nothing else I believe that this is a system that needs to be condensed because of how inherently binary it is.

I do think that we need at least an increase across the board to have room especially downwards, or else any reductions at all would lead to the everything clustering at I 1 in practice anyway, or conversely clustering at I 10 with bonuses. Granted, it may not be necessary to go out of the 1-10 range if a lot of the boosts and reductions would cancel each other out in sum, but i have a gut feeling that more granularity would actually be good in this case, to not make e.g. +2 be that much better than +1. But that's a question of detail anyway.

I like the concept of Initiative, but it often just got to the boring one army always being able to strike before the other. I am unsure on the optimal solution to make it actually function in a way that makes both players happy.

As some have said, glass cannon units used to depend on striking first as otherwise they would melt instantly. Even holding off on casualties till the end of the phase would mean the enemy could strike and blend them. The only thing off the top of my head that can alleviate that somewhat is to actually make initiative add bonus to saves on the first round of combat - like getting 1 point better save per point of I difference. After the first round, if both units are still stuck in instead of dead or falling back, that bonus goes away as it turns into just a melee.

Alternatively, opposed initiative checks (die+I stat), but on a d6 that sounds kind of like a raw deal - something with I2 or I1 would still go last more than half the time it rolled a 6 vs something I4. Going the D&D route and chucking d20s to determine initiative might work - the higher I unit is still more likely to go first, but there is enough variability that lower I units can pull some surprises. Combine with some simple modifiers (+2 for charging, or +2 for a unit declared to be braced for charge, +2 for high ground) and there could be some nice variance.

I suppose another option is active player always goes first in combat, but in a pure IGOUGO system that would be a mess. But in a system with alternating activations, or group activations, or reaction actions, so that the opposing player can then react more on the fly to an assault, it could go okish. Been a few months since I played so might be misremembering, but I'm pretty sure OPR does that - charger goes first, defender can choose to fight or not fight, then if the defender is still alive the attacker falls back 3". Yeah that one unit got its big assault off, but now it might be out of position for the opponent to push a unit to counter it, etc.

Still not a great system, but a bit better than fight first/fight last rules.

I'd like to see all the granularity that is feasible with initiative and WS and all their implications, but to mitigate the resulting inherent (dis-)advantages by giving each faction certain "battle plans". Think Mont'ka and Kau'yon as they are described in universe: strategies that determine the general approach to battle determined by the player, depending on which faction they are facing.

Let's assume orks have a bad match-up against eldar in general, because eldar are faster, highly skilled and high-damage, so orks pretty much always get killed before they can retaliate, or lack the comparative WS/BS to get enough hits in when they manage to hit them. Knowing that they will be up against eldar, the ork player then might choose the battle plan "swamp em", which lowers initiative and/or WS values for outnumbered opponents in the vicinity. Now, Eldar cannot reliably blend ork boys to the same extent and need to take an approach that does not play as much into their faction-inherent advantage over orks on a conceptual level.

While I acknowledge that doing this across all the factions is a pretty big ask, it might be a way of addressing balance on a macro-level, with the actual units being the place where the fine-tuning is done.

 kurhanik wrote:

Alternatively, opposed initiative checks (die+I stat), but on a d6 that sounds kind of like a raw deal - something with I2 or I1 would still go last more than half the time it rolled a 6 vs something I4. Going the D&D route and chucking d20s to determine initiative might work - the higher I unit is still more likely to go first, but there is enough variability that lower I units can pull some surprises. Combine with some simple modifiers (+2 for charging, or +2 for a unit declared to be braced for charge, +2 for high ground) and there could be some nice variance.

See, I have to disagree on this point. I think the absolute worst thing you could do would be to have a system where the active player doesn't know whether or not the units he charges into combat will actually get to strike first. At least if your initiative is lower, you can plan for the fact that your unit will be taking some hits before it gets to swing. However, if initiative is rolled, then any fast, glass-cannon units will have a reasonable chance of losing their arbitrarily losing their central bonus and getting creamed before they get to strike.

 catbarf wrote:

I would also consider those problems, particularly with 40K's paradigm of building your list in a vacuum with no idea of what you're up against, and would prefer not to propagate what I would consider poor design.

That's fair.

 catbarf wrote:

I agree with all of that, especially changing cover to just deny the bonus normally afforded by charging. I don't think the Initiative stat was awful, but without many ways to vary it and with basically all the exception cases rendering it irrelevant, it could have been handled better. And I'm just not convinced that it's an optimal solution to any particular design problem.

I can understand that.

Tbh, 40k's combat is kinda weird in general, in that it basically takes place in a different timeframe, relative to everything else. In other games, the charging models get to strike first because they're the active models. Then surviving enemy models can strike in the enemy turn (or when individually activated in an AA game). 40k, though, allows an out-of-sequence retaliation before the enemy turn, which I think is the main reason this sort of thing becomes an issue.

 BertBert wrote:
I'd like to see all the granularity that is feasible with initiative and WS and all their implications, but to mitigate the resulting inherent (dis-)advantages by giving each faction certain "battle plans". Think Mont'ka and Kau'yon as they are described in universe: strategies that determine the general approach to battle determined by the player, depending on which faction they are facing.

Let's assume orks have a bad match-up against eldar in general, because eldar are faster, highly skilled and high-damage, so orks pretty much always get killed before they can retaliate, or lack the comparative WS/BS to get enough hits in when they manage to hit them. Knowing that they will be up against eldar, the ork player then might choose the battle plan "swamp em", which lowers initiative and/or WS values for outnumbered opponents in the vicinity. Now, Eldar cannot reliably blend ork boys to the same extent and need to take an approach that does not play as much into their faction-inherent advantage over orks on a conceptual level.

Just make custom missions, these mechanics might be neat instead of balance nightmares.

While I acknowledge that doing this across all the factions is a pretty big ask, it might be a way of addressing balance on a macro-level, with the actual units being the place where the fine-tuning is done.

You could address balance by having every model channel CP on a 6+ each turn and some models channeling more than once, but it'd be really silly to not just adjust pts.

I suppose an out there alternative suggestion to initiative and fight first/last is:
You only fight on your own turn.

Quicker fight phases with less rolling.
Simpler fight phases with less forgetting (common one is forgetting to fight back).
Fight phase units would no longer do double the "actions" compared to shooting phase units.

You could also streamline and eliminate the Pile In and Consolidate moves down to probably just a single move.

I'm sure GW would find a way to make it a bloated confused mess by half way through 10th, but worth a shot?

EightFoldPath wrote:
I suppose an out there alternative suggestion to initiative and fight first/last is:
You only fight on your own turn.

Absolutely not. You just made the IGOUGO paradigm even WORSE.

 vipoid wrote:

Tbh, 40k's combat is kinda weird in general, in that it basically takes place in a different timeframe, relative to everything else. In other games, the charging models get to strike first because they're the active models. Then surviving enemy models can strike in the enemy turn (or when individually activated in an AA game). 40k, though, allows an out-of-sequence retaliation before the enemy turn, which I think is the main reason this sort of thing becomes an issue.

I think that's because a close combat is designed to potentially resolve itself in one round, and you want the 'reciever' to get a chance to strike before resolution.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

EightFoldPath wrote:
I suppose an out there alternative suggestion to initiative and fight first/last is:
You only fight on your own turn.

Absolutely not. You just made the IGOUGO paradigm even WORSE.

I agree. The shooting phase is already quite uninteractive, not letting combatants hit back in melee sounds like a bad idea in general.

Tiberias wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

EightFoldPath wrote:
I suppose an out there alternative suggestion to initiative and fight first/last is:
You only fight on your own turn.

Absolutely not. You just made the IGOUGO paradigm even WORSE.

I agree. The shooting phase is already quite uninteractive, not letting combatants hit back in melee sounds like a bad idea in general.

TBH, a firing back mechanic like in melee a fighting back mechanic, would probably do wonders for the game since it would make positioning matter even more nvm fire concentration and coordination.

Not Online!!! wrote:

Tiberias wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

EightFoldPath wrote:
I suppose an out there alternative suggestion to initiative and fight first/last is:
You only fight on your own turn.

Absolutely not. You just made the IGOUGO paradigm even WORSE.

I agree. The shooting phase is already quite uninteractive, not letting combatants hit back in melee sounds like a bad idea in general.

TBH, a firing back mechanic like in melee a fighting back mechanic, would probably do wonders for the game since it would make positioning matter even more nvm fire concentration and coordination.

See, this exists in HH 2.0 right now with the reactions, and all it does in my experience is force you to sacrifice units to eat the return fire then hit them with what you actually what to hit them with. Similar situation with Overwatch in the Assault phase making it difficult to charge anything without eating an entire shooting attack, which really hurts. It doesn't help that 2 out of the three basic warlord traits gives an extra use of one of these two reactions, depending on which one you take.

A proper return-fire mechanic really needs a type-of-unit limitation or some other way to prevent over-use. As it makes it difficult to deal with units that possess good shooting, especially at long-range. Especially if you want Overwatch in the same game.

 ProfSrlojohn wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

Tiberias wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

EightFoldPath wrote:
I suppose an out there alternative suggestion to initiative and fight first/last is:
You only fight on your own turn.

Absolutely not. You just made the IGOUGO paradigm even WORSE.

I agree. The shooting phase is already quite uninteractive, not letting combatants hit back in melee sounds like a bad idea in general.

TBH, a firing back mechanic like in melee a fighting back mechanic, would probably do wonders for the game since it would make positioning matter even more nvm fire concentration and coordination.

See, this exists in HH 2.0 right now with the reactions, and all it does in my experience is force you to sacrifice units to eat the return fire then hit them with what you actually what to hit them with. Similar situation with Overwatch in the Assault phase making it difficult to charge anything without eating an entire shooting attack, which really hurts. It doesn't help that 2 out of the three basic warlord traits gives an extra use of one of these two reactions, depending on which one you take.

A proper return-fire mechanic really needs a type-of-unit limitation or some other way to prevent over-use. As it makes it difficult to deal with units that possess good shooting, especially at long-range. Especially if you want Overwatch in the same game.

In my experience it does exactly what Not Online said. I pay considerable attention to what I'm shooting, with what I'm shooting it with, and the positioning involved (mostly taking into account range + cover). Also the sequencing of the shooting (usually the Pinning stuff goes first). And I definitely don't do what you described. Shooting a "lesser" unit first in hopes that your opponent wastes their Reaction so that you can freely shoot with the unit "you actually want to hit them with" only works if your opponent isn't smart enough to realize that's what you're doing. Otherwise, they'll just hold the Reaction for the "better" unit.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 ProfSrlojohn wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

Tiberias wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

EightFoldPath wrote:
I suppose an out there alternative suggestion to initiative and fight first/last is:
You only fight on your own turn.

Absolutely not. You just made the IGOUGO paradigm even WORSE.

I agree. The shooting phase is already quite uninteractive, not letting combatants hit back in melee sounds like a bad idea in general.

TBH, a firing back mechanic like in melee a fighting back mechanic, would probably do wonders for the game since it would make positioning matter even more nvm fire concentration and coordination.

See, this exists in HH 2.0 right now with the reactions, and all it does in my experience is force you to sacrifice units to eat the return fire then hit them with what you actually what to hit them with. Similar situation with Overwatch in the Assault phase making it difficult to charge anything without eating an entire shooting attack, which really hurts. It doesn't help that 2 out of the three basic warlord traits gives an extra use of one of these two reactions, depending on which one you take.

A proper return-fire mechanic really needs a type-of-unit limitation or some other way to prevent over-use. As it makes it difficult to deal with units that possess good shooting, especially at long-range. Especially if you want Overwatch in the same game.

In my experience it does exactly what Not Online said. I pay considerable attention to what I'm shooting, with what I'm shooting it with, and the positioning involved (mostly taking into account range + cover). Also the sequencing of the shooting (usually the Pinning stuff goes first). And I definitely don't do what you described. Shooting a "lesser" unit first in hopes that your opponent wastes their Reaction so that you can freely shoot with the unit "you actually want to hit them with" only works if your opponent isn't smart enough to realize that's what you're doing. Otherwise, they'll just hold the Reaction for the "better" unit.

TBH, my experience about the reactions so far is that A: certain weapons are too cheap and the corresponding returnfire too plentifull, i thnk there should be a bonus for an attacker just like in melee, in thise case one could add a supression effect light f.e. and lower the return firing unit's bs by 1. B: reactions being this limited don't successfully break up the IGOUGO structure enough.

Why not alternating phases?

 Blndmage wrote:
Why not alternating phases?

Mostly if you have melee units vs melee units you can not charge units in even numbers or they essensially charge you. Happened all the time in 8th edtion when my genstealers charge my opponent orks. I essentually payed a premium to be fast and engage and just threw them away for free once I tryed top charge 2 things in one turn.

Just bring back initiative, there can then be rules that buff or debuff a unit’s initiative.


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 catbarf wrote:
There are some things I'll wax nostalgic about from older editions, but the Initiative stat isn't one of them. As useful as it was to certain armies, like Eldar being able to rely on offense as their best defense by usually hitting first, it was also frustrating for armies like Orks that ought to be melee-focused but got crippled by striking last. It was one of those things that was frustrating to play with, because it applied to your whole army, with limited means to overcome.

The current system is fairly straightforward at its core, but GW has in typical GW fashion made it drastically overcomplicated by piling bespoke special mechanics onto a core one, rather than building the mechanic from the outset to support those special cases. I think you could marginally rewrite it to be more intuitive without drastically changing how it works.

Something like:
-Any unit which charges receives an Initiative token.
-Any unit which is in Engagement Range at the start of the Fight phase receives an Initiative token.
-Any unit with a 'Fight First' ability adds an Initiative token.
-Any unit with a 'Enemy Fights Last' ability removes an Initiative token from the appropriate unit.

And then you fight in order of initiative tokens, units with the most to units with the least. Within each 'step', alternate back and forth as in the current system. You could add in more effects that add or take away initiative, like cover or grenades or whatever, since now they're just straightforward +1s and -1s rather than exception cases that need to be resolved by canceling out with existing effects.

Orks aren’t a melee army. Their a weight of attack army. Are they better than guard and tau at melee? Sure but that’s not saying much.
Guard are supposed to be a shooting army but only have a 50% hit rate, that hurts what guard is supposed to be! That makes me mad!

Initiative is a perfectly good method of doing combat.

I don't see a reason why in combat all attacks shouldn't be resolved at the same time, forgoing ugoigo. Roll up all hits (hopefully based on WSvsWS) wounds (SvsT) and wait for your opponent to do the same before saves are thrown. Then remove models at the same time and pile in.

 Gibblets wrote:
I don't see a reason why in combat all attacks shouldn't be resolved at the same time, forgoing ugoigo. Roll up all hits (hopefully based on WSvsWS) wounds (SvsT) and wait for your opponent to do the same before saves are thrown. Then remove models at the same time and pile in.

Because a lot of melee units are designed with the assumption that they'll strike before their opponent.

It would also make "glass hammer" units exceptionally unattractive. If there's no chance they can cause damage to the enemy (thereby lessening the return attacks) then why bring them over tougher choices?

 Gibblets wrote:
I don't see a reason why in combat all attacks shouldn't be resolved at the same time, forgoing ugoigo. Roll up all hits (hopefully based on WSvsWS) wounds (SvsT) and wait for your opponent to do the same before saves are thrown. Then remove models at the same time and pile in.

Ditto for shooting then. It doesn't make sense to have the damage phases resolved drastically different.

Charging units should get some bonus in melee. Target units should be able to overwatch. Melee should be simultaneous. That said, it should be a good-on-good series of attacks. Where there are different S, T, Saves, AP, etc. Assign highest S attacks to highest T defenders. I need to think that process through a bit, but that would be my concept.

ArmyC83 wrote:
Charging units should get some bonus in melee. Target units should be able to overwatch. Melee should be simultaneous.

So if I'm playing Dark Elday - an army that relies on speed and on striking before the enemy - the opponent first gets free shooting at my fragile troops and then also gets to strike simultaneously with them.

Why would I ever bother?

johnpjones1775 wrote:

Orks aren’t a melee army. Their a weight of attack army. Are they better than guard and tau at melee? Sure but that’s not saying much.
Guard are supposed to be a shooting army but only have a 50% hit rate, that hurts what guard is supposed to be! That makes me mad!

Initiative is a perfectly good method of doing combat.

Correct, Orkz are not a melee army. You are incorrect though that they are a "Weight of attack" army. Orkz used to be the "Horde" army, and then they became the "Melee" army, then in 8th they became a shooting only army before holding the line a bit with a horde build designed to hold objectives and not much else, in 9th they became a shooting/vehicle army before going back to Melee.

Basically Orkz are whatever the muppet designing them at GW decides they are that edition/period of time.

But in 9th, the one thing they will never be without a drastic rule change is a Weight of attack army. GW hamstrung horde armies entirely, GW then went on to screw over most core mechanics of the Ork army. At the moment a unit of 10 boyz isn't even really playable, and they are one of the few units with a decent # of attacks for their points value. ATM my standout unit in CC with a good # of attacks is Kommandos and on a WAAAGH turn they each get 4 attacks. While that isn't bad, its definitely not like the old days where a unit of 30 ork boyz could get up to 5-6 attacks each with +1 to hit and fight twice.

As far as Initiative goes...no thanks, that rule sucked horribly and just made the game easier for power armored factions and a few outliers. If my glass cannon Orkz get into CC on a charge, I shouldn't lose half them before they get to swing.

10 boyz vs 10 Marines currently. If orkz charge they get 30 attacks, 20 hits, 10 wounds and do 3.33dmg for 1.6 dead Marines.
Using Initiative: Those 10 Marines get 20 attacks, 14 hits(ish) 7 wounds and 6 dead Orkz, orkz swing back on their charge phase and do 12 attacks, 8 hits, 4 wounds and 1.33dmg. So a CC oriented unit charges a utility unit and loses 60% before getting to swing...no thanks.

I mean, do you remember the Feth show that was "Duels"? where a Sgt could challenge another Sgt or equivalent character to a duel in the middle of a fight and if they refused they couldn't attack? That boiled down to every faction getting to kill the Ork nob before the Nob could do anything because the Nob always had to fight last.

 vipoid wrote:

ArmyC83 wrote:
Charging units should get some bonus in melee. Target units should be able to overwatch. Melee should be simultaneous.

So if I'm playing Dark Elday - an army that relies on speed and on striking before the enemy - the opponent first gets free shooting at my fragile troops and then also gets to strike simultaneously with them.

Why would I ever bother?

Dark Eldar have vehicles and coven units to soak up overwatch, so that can be mitigated. As for the simultaneous melee, I'm also heavily against it as it negates an entire tactical dimension.

I can just imagine all the whining if they brought back initiative… especially newer players that never used it.