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The one thing I've been kind of wondering on is the best way to rejigger Imperial Guard orders to work in AA. Most buffs are easy - if you activate unit and end up under aura, you have the buff, or if you need to use psychic power, activate psyker first. How does one do orders though? Currently you use them in the shooting phase and it lets other units do a thing. Best I could think of is activate leader first and you select X units that receive orders on their turn, or popping an order allows you to activate X units out of sequence who then get their turn / order. Are there other, more elegant fixes out there?

 kurhanik wrote:
The one thing I've been kind of wondering on is the best way to rejigger Imperial Guard orders to work in AA. Most buffs are easy - if you activate unit and end up under aura, you have the buff, or if you need to use psychic power, activate psyker first. How does one do orders though? Currently you use them in the shooting phase and it lets other units do a thing. Best I could think of is activate leader first and you select X units that receive orders on their turn, or popping an order allows you to activate X units out of sequence who then get their turn / order. Are there other, more elegant fixes out there?

Depending on the AA format used, some sort of command phase could be preserved. Orders and other similar buffs could be issued at this point.

If you did a "chunked" AA (each player divides their army as equally as possible into an equal number of chunks, then alternates activating those) making the Guard officers issue orders to their own chunk is fairly trivial.

The exact solution depends on what system of AA you choose and any other changes you make to rules.
For example, you could say that when a character activates they can activate alongside 1-2 other units within 6" as part of a single activation, just tie orders into this.
I actually think something like this is necessary if you continue to count characters as entirely separate units to the rank and file.

What's the problem with Guard orders? In the BA style tokenhammer we usually play them like any other buff spells or powers that can be thrown around. When the officer activates, they throw the order on a unit. When the unit activates, it executes the order in the appropriate phase as normal.

Nothing about this is complicated in practice.

 Sherrypie wrote:
What's the problem with Guard orders? In the BA style tokenhammer we usually play them like any other buff spells or powers that can be thrown around. When the officer activates, they throw the order on a unit. When the unit activates, it executes the order in the appropriate phase as normal.

Nothing about this is complicated in practice.

I was guessing something along those lines. I was just kind of curious how people implemented them since it takes place specifically in the shooting phase and is in default terms automatically has the unit ordered do its thing. Like I said, most other buffs are immediately self explanatory to me since it is "are you in buff radius" or "did you activate psychic power on unit" or the like, orders just seemed slightly different and I was curious what the easiest, or best work around was for them.

 Sherrypie wrote:
What's the problem with Guard orders? In the BA style tokenhammer we usually play them like any other buff spells or powers that can be thrown around. When the officer activates, they throw the order on a unit. When the unit activates, it executes the order in the appropriate phase as normal.

Nothing about this is complicated in practice.

When you use this Bolt Action system, do you use any mechanics to allow Characters to bring units along with them?
Without it, I can see it being all but impossible to manoeuvre with characters as they'll just get caught out of "Look Out Sir" and killed.

 kurhanik wrote:
The one thing I've been kind of wondering on is the best way to rejigger Imperial Guard orders to work in AA. Most buffs are easy - if you activate unit and end up under aura, you have the buff, or if you need to use psychic power, activate psyker first. How does one do orders though? Currently you use them in the shooting phase and it lets other units do a thing. Best I could think of is activate leader first and you select X units that receive orders on their turn, or popping an order allows you to activate X units out of sequence who then get their turn / order. Are there other, more elegant fixes out there?

Is there really much need to rejigger Imperial Guard Orders? Only two of the 15 orders require immediate action upon being assigned (Move! Move! Move! and Fix Bayonets!), the rest giving an effect "until the end of the phase". The question is do Officers issue orders when they activate or are all orders issued at the beginning of the Shooting Phase before any shooting is performed? If the former, let those two orders be resolved immediately. Otherwise, change them to be when the ordered unit is selected to shoot, instead do X.

 kirotheavenger wrote:

 Sherrypie wrote:
What's the problem with Guard orders? In the BA style tokenhammer we usually play them like any other buff spells or powers that can be thrown around. When the officer activates, they throw the order on a unit. When the unit activates, it executes the order in the appropriate phase as normal.

Nothing about this is complicated in practice.

When you use this Bolt Action system, do you use any mechanics to allow Characters to bring units along with them?
Without it, I can see it being all but impossible to manoeuvre with characters as they'll just get caught out of "Look Out Sir" and killed.

Just activate your other units in a way that your character won't be too far from them. Or use terrain to your advantage.
SW Legion has no character protection and they work just fine.

I don't know much about Star Wars Legion to comment, but what about jump pack units in 40k?
Especially now that Look Out Sir requires you to be within 3", the only way my jump pack units can continue to protect a character during a movement is if they string out in a ridiculous line, and with new coherency rules even that's not so viable. TBH it's already incredibly difficult to protect your characters just from charging, let alone the movement as well.
Or if you move the character first, he can't move up to where his unit is going to be because that'll put him way out in the front.
The problem is significant even with a 6" move, with a 12"+charge it's horrific.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
I don't know much about Star Wars Legion to comment, but what about jump pack units in 40k?
Especially now that Look Out Sir requires you to be within 3", the only way my jump pack units can continue to protect a character during a movement is if they string out in a ridiculous line, and with new coherency rules even that's not so viable. TBH it's already incredibly difficult to protect your characters just from charging, let alone the movement as well.
Or if you move the character first, he can't move up to where his unit is going to be because that'll put him way out in the front.
The problem is significant even with a 6" move, with a 12"+charge it's horrific.

GW had a fairly easy answer to your problem in the past. Characters could join units and the wound allocation system prevented the sniping of your heroes. The only way to remove the character from play was to drown his corresponding unit in fire.

 Strg Alt wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:
I don't know much about Star Wars Legion to comment, but what about jump pack units in 40k?
Especially now that Look Out Sir requires you to be within 3", the only way my jump pack units can continue to protect a character during a movement is if they string out in a ridiculous line, and with new coherency rules even that's not so viable. TBH it's already incredibly difficult to protect your characters just from charging, let alone the movement as well.
Or if you move the character first, he can't move up to where his unit is going to be because that'll put him way out in the front.
The problem is significant even with a 6" move, with a 12"+charge it's horrific.

GW had a fairly easy answer to your problem in the past. Characters could join units and the wound allocation system prevented the sniping of your heroes. The only way to remove the character from play was to drown his corresponding unit in fire.

Oh definitely, and I wish we could return to that system.
Although you'd need to be careful to avoid the whole Smashfether gimmick again, but that shouldn't be too hard (putting Look Out Sir before any saves would be a good start or dropping it entirely).
It's how Grimdark Future does it too.

My question/concern was specifically regarding just dropping Bolt Action's AA system into 40k as-is.

Again, expand heroic intervention to function as part of activations. You activate a unit you can activate a character within 3" along with that unit. Now the cryptek comes with the warriors. The fireblade stays with his firewarriors. The Prime stays with his warriors. And so on.

 kirotheavenger wrote:

 Sherrypie wrote:
What's the problem with Guard orders? In the BA style tokenhammer we usually play them like any other buff spells or powers that can be thrown around. When the officer activates, they throw the order on a unit. When the unit activates, it executes the order in the appropriate phase as normal.

Nothing about this is complicated in practice.

When you use this Bolt Action system, do you use any mechanics to allow Characters to bring units along with them?
Without it, I can see it being all but impossible to manoeuvre with characters as they'll just get caught out of "Look Out Sir" and killed.

Yes, there's a mechanic in Order Dice games, usually called "Snap To" or "Follow". It allows an officer/character to activate, and then draw dice for a number of units in a certain command radius to activate them as well. In BA, for example, a 2nd Lieutenant can draw 1 die for a unit within 6", while a Captain can draw 3 dice to give to units within 12".

 kirotheavenger wrote:

 Strg Alt wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:
I don't know much about Star Wars Legion to comment, but what about jump pack units in 40k?
Especially now that Look Out Sir requires you to be within 3", the only way my jump pack units can continue to protect a character during a movement is if they string out in a ridiculous line, and with new coherency rules even that's not so viable. TBH it's already incredibly difficult to protect your characters just from charging, let alone the movement as well.
Or if you move the character first, he can't move up to where his unit is going to be because that'll put him way out in the front.
The problem is significant even with a 6" move, with a 12"+charge it's horrific.

GW had a fairly easy answer to your problem in the past. Characters could join units and the wound allocation system prevented the sniping of your heroes. The only way to remove the character from play was to drown his corresponding unit in fire.

Oh definitely, and I wish we could return to that system.
Although you'd need to be careful to avoid the whole Smashfether gimmick again, but that shouldn't be too hard (putting Look Out Sir before any saves would be a good start or dropping it entirely).
It's how Grimdark Future does it too.

My question/concern was specifically regarding just dropping Bolt Action's AA system into 40k as-is.

GW wouldn't need help from Bolt Action. I just implemented the AA system from SPACE MARINE (90s tabletop game) along with it's order system (First Fire, Advance & Charge) into my 40K games. Just a little bit of homebrew rules were added to that mix and voila, a very satisfying gaming experience could be accomplished.

Have you checked out my BatRep by now?

I have, but it didn't seem to talk about the actual mechanics of the system that you used much.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
I have, but it didn't seem to talk about the actual mechanics of the system that you used much.

Well, you need to understand that I won't write down the entire ruleset which I used because they were already included in the Rulebooks from 3rd-6th. However if you want to copy specific rules in your games (e. g. Order system, Overwatch, Actions, Suppression) you could message me in those BatRep threads.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
I don't know much about Star Wars Legion to comment, but what about jump pack units in 40k?
Especially now that Look Out Sir requires you to be within 3", the only way my jump pack units can continue to protect a character during a movement is if they string out in a ridiculous line, and with new coherency rules even that's not so viable. TBH it's already incredibly difficult to protect your characters just from charging, let alone the movement as well.
Or if you move the character first, he can't move up to where his unit is going to be because that'll put him way out in the front.
The problem is significant even with a 6" move, with a 12"+charge it's horrific.

SW Legion uses a movement system based on articulated rulers, with 3 different sizes. The fastest one (size 3) is more or less 9"; however, in SW Legion the base is added to the movement - thus, as most infantry units is on 27mm bases, those using size 3 movement rulers (generally, jump pack units) will move almost as far as 12".

 Vector Strike wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:
I don't know much about Star Wars Legion to comment, but what about jump pack units in 40k?
Especially now that Look Out Sir requires you to be within 3", the only way my jump pack units can continue to protect a character during a movement is if they string out in a ridiculous line, and with new coherency rules even that's not so viable. TBH it's already incredibly difficult to protect your characters just from charging, let alone the movement as well.
Or if you move the character first, he can't move up to where his unit is going to be because that'll put him way out in the front.
The problem is significant even with a 6" move, with a 12"+charge it's horrific.

SW Legion uses a movement system based on articulated rulers, with 3 different sizes. The fastest one (size 3) is more or less 9"; however, in SW Legion the base is added to the movement - thus, as most infantry units is on 27mm bases, those using size 3 movement rulers (generally, jump pack units) will move almost as far as 12".

Wouldn't that be 9" move + 1.06" base = 10.06" total movement? Or am I misunderstanding how it works?

RE: Characters moving with units, I agree with the suggestion for Heroic Intervention to be reworked into allowing you to activate when a nearby unit is activated. Meshes well with the existing rules, allows character protection to exist.

 Vector Strike wrote:

SW Legion has no character protection and they work just fine.

Actually, Star Wars Legions does have a bodyguard rule, known as Guardian. Characters with a command slot can take this upgrade, some units also have it as well.

As for my thoughts on AA, I really do love it. It offers counterplay and it makes the game far more interesting. I am not waiting who knows how long for my opponent to finish their turn. The whole game I am interacting. I have gotten some of my 40k friends to play Legion and they fell in love with the basic rules. We are now trying to come up with a way to use the Legion AA rules in 40k.