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Davor wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
If I base my strategy on the assumption that I will get a double turn, then 50℅ of the time I get a massive advantage. The other 50℅ of the time there is little if any penalty to making that gamble. The risk is small, the reward is large, and the game is decided by a single d6 roll. It's hardly underhanded, it's just good tactics. Sure I could handicap myself by using bad tactics but then what's the point? I think some players see random initiative as some sort of evening factor because they can win against a stronger opponent they would normally lose to, but really a win because of a double turn is hardly much of anything because of the advantage it offers, and that's why I dislike it so much; too many times have I been left with a hollow victory because of random initiative. And at my flgs I've found that's the case with others; the players who dislike random initiative the most are also those the best at using it to their advantage.

The same argument can be said for the IGOUGO system as well.

You can't get a double turn when initiative is fixed, so the argument I made inherently cannot apply.

Well NinthMusketeer in the IGOUGO system a single d6 can decide a game. You can also handicap yourself in an IGOUGO system but what would be the point? Perfect example is 40K. Go first and you can end up winning the game depending on the army you play.

I am not saying you are wrong Ninth, just the negatives you say for the rolling for initiative each turn is minor and the rewards of having more interactive between players and not having to do anything for 15-30 minutes of doing nothing but removing minis makes the game more fun.

The IGOUGO method is not that much fun. That said, since it's the only game to have it's better than I don't go and do nothing so I swallow it, but when there is an option, like Age of Sigmar has now (wished people would play LotR ) it's an option for me to have more fun in games now and I buy more AoS product now than I do for 40K.

If you remove the initiative roll, you have to add some other sort of mechanic to limit first turn advantage, even 40k has seize.
If you don't then as people get better, going first will get stronger and stronger. For example, a Stormcast army with aethetstrike can get do 2-3 drops pretty easily and if that army gets to go first with the shenanigans it can do and not have to worry about the double turn, you'll lose half your army just trying to catch them.

Death would also be in a terrible design space if there was 0% chance they could go 2 player turns without regenerating.

If you have strict player turn alternation, then only truly viable (i.e. "fair") solution is to cripple the first player turn (e.g. "play or draw"). E.g. units may not run, and player must re-roll all successful attacks. This way, the first player basically gets a half turn, before players take full turns. This isn't going to give perfect tempo parity, but it'd be close.

The other option is to always have double turns, where the initiative automatically reverses.

Notation-wise, basic Igo-Ugo looks like this:
AB-AB-AB-AB-AB-AB
A has a half tempo advantage that is never mitigated.

"Play or draw" Igo-Ugo looks like this:
aB-AB-AB-AB-AB-AB
The crippled first turn (for player A, only) balances the tempo advantage.

Constant initiative looks like this:
AB-BA-AB-BA-AB-BA
This is a lot fairer, although A technically has a very slight tempo advantage due to going first in rounds 3 & 5, in addition to 1.

To completely remove the tempo advantage, it would have to work like this:
AB-BA-BA-AB-BA-AB
This is Thue-Morse balanced alteration, and is "fair".

For the purposes of AoS, I have elsewhere proposed to fix the first two rounds:
AB-BA
And then randomize, with tiebreakers going toward whichever player went second in the previous round.

I don't see the issue with first turns being OP, and if it was then it would still be so using rolled initiative so I don't understand the counter-argument there either. Anything that is theoretically game-breaking like Stormcast deep-striking (nerfed due to the Azyros change anyways) will be more game breaking on a double turn, putting even more emphasis on that initiative roll determining the game. More importantly, unlike 40k the units that can deal meaningful damage first turn are a tiny minority of those available overall. Hell I play alternating most of my games and I have chosen to go second.

Is the white player in chess considered to have an overwhelming advantage?

White wins roughly 55%-45%, so it's a pretty significant advantage.

Also, anecdotally, it appears that your local playgroup is weak / non-competitive. Being the big fish in a small pond is fine, but it's not really conclusive from a design / analysis standpoint.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
White wins roughly 55%-45%, so it's a pretty significant advantage.

I would gladly take that over random initiative. From what I've seen and played a round 1-2 double turn player wins upwards of 75% of the time.



Edit: To be clear again (this isn't to anyone in particular), I don't advocate for a change of rolled initiative in the AoS rules; I only want to see it changed to fixed in Matched Play because it's about trying to gauge one player's skill verses the other on as even a playing field as reasonably possible. I feel like in open/narrative/path to glory rolled initiative is an asset, because the purpose is not about having the most balanced matchup and may even be specifically about not having that at all.

Except say in Take and Hold and Blood and Glory (where a Battleround 2-3 double turn is considered the most powerful), it's generally accepted that a Battleround 1-2 double turn is the most powerful double turn in the game. I definitely wouldn't want to make it certain. I think that would be a very bad idea.

I like the iniative roll and think it shines most in scenarios like Border War where there is also a big advantage in going first (because you score 3 of the 4 objectives straight away). I think Ninth would probably agree that even if he feels a fixed IGOUGO plays better for him that it must be particualry hard in that scenario to go second without the possibility of getting a double turn to even up the scores.

So in my opinion the only thing I would like to see improved are a few more advantages for the player going first across the scenarios. I would also like for battalions to be deployed piecemeal to add more strategy into managing the amount of drops your army is (as that dictates first turn choice). Otherwise I like the iniative roll and think it should be kept as it is.

TLR, so apologies if old ground....

But I hope they keep tinkering with the scenarios and their victory conditions.

No better way to keep the tournament scene on it's toes if you ask me, and so much easier than re-writing Battletomes to keep armies competitive.

 Bottle wrote:
Except say in Take and Hold and Blood and Glory (where a Battleround 2-3 double turn is considered the most powerful), it's generally accepted that a Battleround 1-2 double turn is the most powerful double turn in the game. I definitely wouldn't want to make it certain. I think that would be a very bad idea.

I like the iniative roll and think it shines most in scenarios like Border War where there is also a big advantage in going first (because you score 3 of the 4 objectives straight away). I think Ninth would probably agree that even if he feels a fixed IGOUGO plays better for him that it must be particualry hard in that scenario to go second without the possibility of getting a double turn to even up the scores.

So in my opinion the only thing I would like to see improved are a few more advantages for the player going first across the scenarios. I would also like for battalions to be deployed piecemeal to add more strategy into managing the amount of drops your army is (as that dictates first turn choice). Otherwise I like the iniative roll and think it should be kept as it is.

That does raise a good point; if they went to fixed initiative they should also change it so objectives are counted at the end of the round instead of each player's turn. It would strongly counteract first-turn advantage if the second player got the 'last laugh' so to speak.

JohnHwangDD wrote:If you have strict player turn alternation, then only truly viable (i.e. "fair") solution is to cripple the first player turn (e.g. "play or draw"). E.g. units may not run, and player must re-roll all successful attacks. This way, the first player basically gets a half turn, before players take full turns. This isn't going to give perfect tempo parity, but it'd be close.

The other option is to always have double turns, where the initiative automatically reverses.

Notation-wise, basic Igo-Ugo looks like this:
AB-AB-AB-AB-AB-AB
A has a half tempo advantage that is never mitigated.

"Play or draw" Igo-Ugo looks like this:
aB-AB-AB-AB-AB-AB
The crippled first turn (for player A, only) balances the tempo advantage.

Constant initiative looks like this:
AB-BA-AB-BA-AB-BA
This is a lot fairer, although A technically has a very slight tempo advantage due to going first in rounds 3 & 5, in addition to 1.

To completely remove the tempo advantage, it would have to work like this:
AB-BA-BA-AB-BA-AB
This is Thue-Morse balanced alteration, and is "fair".

For the purposes of AoS, I have elsewhere proposed to fix the first two rounds:
AB-BA
And then randomize, with tiebreakers going toward whichever player went second in the previous round.

So how about something like X-wing then? Everyone moves at initiative order for shooting and moving. So no turn advantages for anyone? Not saying this is the way, just showing another alternative to what you said so well.

Sorry, I was just focused on A/B alternation mechanics, whether Igo-Ugo or unit alternation.

Stepwise initiative is completely different, as is bag/card.

I haven't read the entire discussion but has anyone brought up about single model units and battleshock? I think it would be cool for at least some units to have abilities that battleshock impact those models.

Yeah. Often the bravery stat on a character is meaningless since it does nothing for them.

There are a number of abilities that 'attack' a target's bravery though, like a Terrorgheist's death shriek.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
There are a number of abilities that 'attack' a target's bravery though, like a Terrorgheist's death shriek.

Thank you, NM. I didn't know they were using those sort of special rules already.
We typically play with just the starter set forces so hadn't run into Death creatures.
Very cool.

Hopefully, they'll be more special rules for units that do stuff like cause retreat moves and what-not.

 privateer4hire wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
There are a number of abilities that 'attack' a target's bravery though, like a Terrorgheist's death shriek.

Thank you, NM. I didn't know they were using those sort of special rules already.
We typically play with just the starter set forces so hadn't run into Death creatures.
Very cool.

Hopefully, they'll be more special rules for units that do stuff like cause retreat moves and what-not.

Some units can already kind of do this, although in this case its Skaven and they can voluntarily retreat and then charge another unit. Its not forcing another unit to do it but mechanically its sound, and funnily enough if it did exist Skaven would be unaffected!

 generalchaos34 wrote:

 privateer4hire wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
There are a number of abilities that 'attack' a target's bravery though, like a Terrorgheist's death shriek.

Thank you, NM. I didn't know they were using those sort of special rules already.
We typically play with just the starter set forces so hadn't run into Death creatures.
Very cool.

Hopefully, they'll be more special rules for units that do stuff like cause retreat moves and what-not.

Some units can already kind of do this, although in this case its Skaven and they can voluntarily retreat and then charge another unit. Its not forcing another unit to do it but mechanically its sound, and funnily enough if it did exist Skaven would be unaffected!

There is one mechanism for forcing retreat--the Stormcast Lords of the Storm battalion.

Make a Greenskinz Warboss cheaper. That's all I want right now, itching at 140pts. it hurts.

I'm now wondering if Forgeworld is gonna update their list about the same time.

Everyone by now has listed the "please nerf" offenders we all know about, so I will just say I sincerely hope Dwarf/Duardin/Dispossessed see almost across-the-board price drops, and significant ones at that.

They're my much loved, for-fun, army, but I feel like they're constantly fighting at a deficit with a desire to field good supporting infantry of several kinds, and in decent numbers, but they cost so, so very much more than they should.

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:
Everyone by now has listed the "please nerf" offenders we all know about, so I will just say I sincerely hope Dwarf/Duardin/Dispossessed see almost across-the-board price drops, and significant ones at that.

They're my much loved, for-fun, army, but I feel like they're constantly fighting at a deficit with a desire to field good supporting infantry of several kinds, and in decent numbers, but they cost so, so very much more than they should.

I remember when the GHB came out thinking 'oh those poor Dwarf players...'

In a game where mobility is proving to be THE decisive strategy/tactic/asset, Dwarves are comically under-achieving. Outside of Bugman's Rangers (who then have abysmal output AND cost too much), you're forced to turtle up with artillery, and hope your opponent misplays.

They're awful, if i'm being honest. :-p

I'd like to see some new matched play scenarios that would cater to the more defensive armies. I don't see how a low-mobility army like Duardin are supposed to cap objectives against Stormcasts and Sylvaneth.

We don't want defensive scenarios, especially with random initiative, because they cater to gun-line armies. The problem with Duradin isn't mobility (Nurgle does fine after all) it's that their infantry (the mainstay of the army) simply cost too much in an environment where infantry are already sub-par.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
We don't want defensive scenarios, especially with random initiative, because they cater to gun-line armies. The problem with Duradin isn't mobility (Nurgle does fine after all) it's that their infantry (the mainstay of the army) simply cost too much in an environment where infantry are already sub-par.

This. If you could clog your deployment with a slow-moving, but reasonably reliable wall of models, you could "push" forward, in proper Dwarfy fashion. As it stands, that infantry is slow as mud AND costs almost twice as much as I believe it should.

Yep I agree. The infantry in a lot of forces are a bit too expensive. I don't think thats intentional (its a by product of the formulas used) but it definitely is a factor for the regular forces we see on a regular basis (though a lot of people also think that this is an intentional design decision as many people simply don't want to buy and paint a lot of models and want to have as small a force as possible... but there is nothing to support this claim)

Yeah, my poor dwarves. Destruction really does show the vast issue with the Dwarven pricing. Even without Battalions it's crazy.

Destruction - 100-120pt generally gets you a 5+ save, 20 wounds (10-20 actual models), 5" moveand abilities that scale up with unit size fairly well.

Compared to 100pts in Dwarves which gets you....10 models with a 5+ save, 4" move, and some defensive rules with comparable bravery.

Dwarves need around a 30-40% price break on basic squads. Don't get me started on their elites in comparison. Anyone wanna compare Brutes with 15 wounds for 180 against Ironbreakers/Hammerers/Longbeards? HA!

Longbeards... in theory should have value as a force-multiplier... but who the hell is fielding Dwarf close-combat infantry to benefit?

Yeah, Ironbreakers, Hammerers, Longbeards, and Irondrakes are on my short list of worst-priced units in the entirety of Age of Sigmar at the moment. I suspect they'll see price-drops, but I worry GW will be afraid to go as far as they need to to make them even remotely competitive. I don't even mean GOOD... I just mean not terrible. :-p

Oh and forget how salty I am over things like Thunderers. If you're going to force an army into one play-style, IE shooting... how about making their core shooter at least as good, and with as much access to super buffs as the simple Freeguild Pistolier.... in all their broken gun-line-iness. :-p

I'd rather nothing be broken. I'm really tired of broken and exploiting broken things.