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How does the alter system work when one side has significantly more units than another?

FUBAR has an interesting activation system.

Green Troops activate on a roll of 5+
Regular 4+
Veteran 3+
Elite 2+

Of course there are modifiers based on wounds and suppressions. If a squad fails an activation you pass the turn. Any squad that fails can only perform 2 of 8 or so actions. (Sorry, trying to go off memory) There's obviously more to the rule system but it's an interesting concept.

Heroscape also had an interesting system. You assigned order markers to models/units. The model/unit with a one went first, then your opponent activated their one. Your Two, then their Two. Three then three. The interesting part was you only had four markers and one was a bluff. If you had more than three models/units then you had to prioritize what you were going to activate that turn and which model/unit had the bluff. If you had three or less models/units on the board you're opponent knew what you were activating, just not the order in which it was activated.

You could up the token count to 5 or so with a 6th one to bluff. Poker chips would come in handy for this.

Havent played 40k like this but just some food for thought.

I like the alternating system. WHFB uses the alternating deployment rule already and that makes perfect sense.

And I was thinking a long the lines of initiative stats to determine who goes first, instead of it being random. Or at least rolliing a die and adding your initiative to it.

Although two space marine armies playing eachother would take the initiative aspect out of it and it would just become random.

Yet another idea would be to activate units in certain areas of the board before others. So there are 6 2x2 squares. randomly determine which square will be activated first and then continue until all squares have gone. Probably not the best idea, but hey, still an idea.

Either way I think an alternating system would do nothing but provide a benefit to the system.

Also, I too live in Illinois, Peoria. And I know someone who played in the quad cities quite a bit. I meant to go up there a few years ago when he was playing there but I never made it. Peoria has a pretty solid group though.

Lots of things will break with alternate activation.

Assaults with more than one unit.

Psychic phase and Denials.

Units embarking / disembarking from Transports.

ICs joining / leaving Units.

Units with abilities that are supposed to synergize with others (e.g. Khorne Skull Cannon allowing others Daemons without Grenades to Charge without Init penalty or Deathmarks Deep Striking when an opponent DS'es, etc.)

Units that need to stay within a certain range of other Units for some benefit (e.g. Synapse, Ld Aura, Tau Supporting Fire, etc.)

 KiloFiX wrote:
Lots of things will break with alternate activation.

Assaults with more than one unit.

Psychic phase and Denials.

Units embarking / disembarking from Transports.

ICs joining / leaving Units.

Units with abilities that are supposed to synergize with others (e.g. Khorne Skull Cannon allowing others Daemons without Grenades to Charge without Init penalty or Deathmarks Deep Striking when an opponent DS'es, etc.)

Units that need to stay within a certain range of other Units for some benefit (e.g. Synapse, Ld Aura, Tau Supporting Fire, etc.)

1) no, because a unit that hasn't moved yet stands there. you're thinking with full round logic when you think that is the case.
2) no, for the same reason. Cast a spell. See if it's denied. Done.
3) no, you embark when it's your turn. Your transport has its own turn. Did it already use it this round? then it can't move. Hasn't it used it? then it can transport the people that just walked in.
4) no, they'll just have to converge at a point further ahead. Walk the IC up to where you want him to get into the group. Then walk the unit up to join him when it's their turn. Boom, unit joined.
5) Why would that matter? All that can be done.
6) They lose that until the other unit is moved in.

Your problem is that you can't think in alternating logic. You think only in full turns. Everything except joining/leaving units can to some extent be related to Malifaux, where all of it works just fine.

Quad cities, Peoria, and I'm stuck here in Galesburg

I have been thinking about how an alternating system would work. Dropzone has a pretty simple system, and I've never played Bolt Action. I would love to try it out, but I've been busy teaching new players and don't want to confuse them more with homebrew rules.

Assaults with multiple units would not work at all. Multiple targets and initiatives alone make it gross.


The inherent issues is that alternating activations work in skirmish games because the activation disparity is typically much smaller. You could MSU cheap units so hard, you'd cripple some armies because they get out activated. You'll have to overcommit to killing these "+1 activation units" to stand a chance and that'll sap two to three turns. Tactically, WHFB has this issue with cheap units, like rat darts, that are specifically there to go down one at a time to drain your opponents deployment pool so you can effectively counter units in the deployment phase.

The fundamental issue is GW has skirmish level rules on a battle level game. That problem should be addressed prior to worrying about activation/turn concepts.

 Purifier wrote:

 KiloFiX wrote:
Lots of things will break with alternate activation.

Assaults with more than one unit.

Psychic phase and Denials.

Units embarking / disembarking from Transports.

ICs joining / leaving Units.

Units with abilities that are supposed to synergize with others (e.g. Khorne Skull Cannon allowing others Daemons without Grenades to Charge without Init penalty or Deathmarks Deep Striking when an opponent DS'es, etc.)

Units that need to stay within a certain range of other Units for some benefit (e.g. Synapse, Ld Aura, Tau Supporting Fire, etc.)

1) no, because a unit that hasn't moved yet stands there. you're thinking with full round logic when you think that is the case.
2) no, for the same reason. Cast a spell. See if it's denied. Done.
3) no, you embark when it's your turn. Your transport has its own turn. Did it already use it this round? then it can't move. Hasn't it used it? then it can transport the people that just walked in.
4) no, they'll just have to converge at a point further ahead. Walk the IC up to where you want him to get into the group. Then walk the unit up to join him when it's their turn. Boom, unit joined.
5) Why would that matter? All that can be done.
6) They lose that until the other unit is moved in.

Your problem is that you can't think in alternating logic. You think only in full turns. Everything except joining/leaving units can to some extent be related to Malifaux, where all of it works just fine.

With assaults let's say Side A - Unit 1 attacks Side B - Unit 5. Ok, they both fight. Then later Side A - Unit 2 also attacks Side B - Unit 5. Does Side B - Unit 5 get to hit back? If yes, it makes it more difficult for Side A to overwhelm Side B with more units of the former attacking the latter. Basically, Side B - Unit 5 gets a free set of attacks each time any other unit attacks it. If no, then in which cases does Side B get to attack back? Only the first time? That makes it easy to shield low Initiative Units from being hit in what should be a simultaneous TURN of close combat.

With things that depend on being in a certain range - like Tyranid Synaps, you're saying that if someone has a Unit at maximum Synaps range, and they move it 6" beyond, it will lose Synaps and go out of control, during all the turns (including alternating opponent turns) before they can also move the Synaps unit 6" to catch up? So if keeping units at max range, they'll lose Skitarii Onager Shield buffs most of the time, and lose Decurion Warlord buffs most of the time, and Aegis Hood buffs, most of the time, etc.?

Edit - for the record, My group has actually tried playing alternate activation on many occasions. It is always a headache. We end up making up more rules to compensate than playing. Or, we end up playing very nonsensical lists - like 20 man Chaos Squads or 35 man Zombie Squads.

My son and i used to play Heroscape and that had an alternating turn mechanic and it is something I really miss from that game when i play 40K.

The way it worked was each game round each player had 3 activations. The players would pick which units they were going to activate and put a marker on it numbered 1,2, or 3 indicating the activation order of the units. There was also an "x" activation marker that was used as somewhat of a decoy to make your opponent think twice about the placement of their markers. Then once the markers were placed a d20 was polled to see who would start their activations. Then activations would alternate 1 then 1, 2 then 2, etc... It was possible to choose to activate 1 unit a number of times if you liked and often times you would have more units than activations so units would go totally un-used in a game round.

This made the play go much faster, it felt more like decisions you made on what to activate and what to attack were more tactical and affected the outcome of the game. Armies that were smaller and could use activation to synergize and work together had advantages over the "kitchen sink" type of armies that had everythign but not enough activations to use them all. over all i thought that mechanic just made the game so much better from a play standpoint as compared to the monlithic IGYO system 40k uses. 40K seems a lot more like getting to go first makes a big difference and turns feel more like just rolling a lot of dice to see the outcome rather than the choices i make having some real impact.

I would love to see something like this introduced to 40k but it is probably pretty unlikly.

 KiloFiX wrote:

 Purifier wrote:

 KiloFiX wrote:
Lots of things will break with alternate activation.

Assaults with more than one unit.

Psychic phase and Denials.

Units embarking / disembarking from Transports.

ICs joining / leaving Units.

Units with abilities that are supposed to synergize with others (e.g. Khorne Skull Cannon allowing others Daemons without Grenades to Charge without Init penalty or Deathmarks Deep Striking when an opponent DS'es, etc.)

Units that need to stay within a certain range of other Units for some benefit (e.g. Synapse, Ld Aura, Tau Supporting Fire, etc.)

1) no, because a unit that hasn't moved yet stands there. you're thinking with full round logic when you think that is the case.
2) no, for the same reason. Cast a spell. See if it's denied. Done.
3) no, you embark when it's your turn. Your transport has its own turn. Did it already use it this round? then it can't move. Hasn't it used it? then it can transport the people that just walked in.
4) no, they'll just have to converge at a point further ahead. Walk the IC up to where you want him to get into the group. Then walk the unit up to join him when it's their turn. Boom, unit joined.
5) Why would that matter? All that can be done.
6) They lose that until the other unit is moved in.

Your problem is that you can't think in alternating logic. You think only in full turns. Everything except joining/leaving units can to some extent be related to Malifaux, where all of it works just fine.

With assaults let's say Side A - Unit 1 attacks Side B - Unit 5. Ok, they both fight. Then later Side A - Unit 2 also attacks Side B - Unit 5. Does Side B - Unit 5 get to hit back? If yes, it makes it more difficult for Side A to overwhelm Side B with more units of the former attacking the latter. Basically, Side B - Unit 5 gets a free set of attacks each time any other unit attacks it. If no, then in which cases does Side B get to attack back? Only the first time? That makes it easy to shield low Initiative Units from being hit in what should be a simultaneous TURN of close combat.

With things that depend on being in a certain range - like Tyranid Synaps, you're saying that if someone has a Unit at maximum Synaps range, and they move it 6" beyond, it will lose Synaps and go out of control, during all the turns (including alternating opponent turns) before they can also move the Synaps unit 6" to catch up? So if keeping units at max range, they'll lose Skitarii Onager Shield buffs most of the time, and lose Decurion Warlord buffs most of the time, and Aegis Hood buffs, most of the time, etc.?

Edit - for the record, My group has actually tried playing alternate activation on many occasions. It is always a headache. We end up making up more rules to compensate than playing. Or, we end up playing very nonsensical lists - like 20 man Chaos Squads or 35 man Zombie Squads.

You've just blurred two phases together though, the assault phase, and the combat phase. In the alternating activation system you would go through all units for each phase. So you would go through and do all charges alternating units. THEN you would go through and resolve all close combat. So in your example the following would happen

Side A - Unit 1 Charges Side B - Unit 5. Since Side B - Unit 5 was charged, they dont get a chance to declare a charge, they will just have to wait for the combat phase. Then Side A - Unit 2 charges and joins the fray.
NEXT PHASE - Combat. Now combat works just as it always had, based on initiative.

Alternating activation has always seemed gimmicky to me. Alot of the situations and actions that arise out of it are very mechanical and game-y, and not at all intuitive or fluffy.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Alternating activation has always seemed gimmicky to me. Alot of the situations and actions that arise out of it are very mechanical and game-y, and not at all intuitive or fluffy.

Well...it is a game.

To be fair....a lot of the problems that arise from YGIG are very mechanical and game-y and not at intuitive or fluffy


Just giving you a hard time....I agree with the fellow who laid out some things that he didn't think would work. I just don't think all of them are game breaking, because as another gent pointed out....Malifaux. (Another fun game, BTW) My biggest issue with YGIG......the sheer weight of fire people are putting out now. Ranges are too long, movement is too slow (for the avg infantry guy)....40k may have evolved into something more than Skirmish.....but as lately I've been hitting Battletech, Bolt Action and Savage Worlds RPG battles really hard, I'd love to see some really basic changes....hell, reworking how cover works (having it effect the to hit roll and not be a save...debatable if it is worth anything, but that just seems intuitive to me) and -1 BS for shooting at anything past 1/2 your weapons range....two small tweaks would to me....make the game more enjoyable, but then I think the game needs to give CC back some of its teeth. Just my feelings those. Keeping it simple now...can't wait to play test this idea fr alternating activation.


Good discussion here though, I really appreciate it. To the fellow over in Galesburg....we never houserule anything around new players either....glad you have some guys learning the game with you. Funny thing, I've been over at the Bolt Action forums, just kind of browsing for fun and it is so funny to me to see people complain about virtually the same things people gripe about here. Codex Creep, OP units, Rules that seem more "Casual" than competitive....first world problems....all our games aren't perfect. LOL. Though they do all agree, GW is Satan and 40k is AIDs.


Cheers guys!

Its light, a bit more intuitive (Cover system I like more, I've always felt cover should alter the to hit roll, not replace a save, it makes armies more meaty, but we'll stay away from anything that alters a core rule like cover right now),

No surprise that Bolt Action had influence from the guy who wrote the original 40K rule system.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Alternating activation has always seemed gimmicky to me. Alot of the situations and actions that arise out of it are very mechanical and game-y, and not at all intuitive or fluffy.

And that makes them different from IGoUGo... how?

I mean, after all, it's a... game.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Alternating activation has always seemed gimmicky to me. Alot of the situations and actions that arise out of it are very mechanical and game-y, and not at all intuitive or fluffy.

I hope you feel the same about IGOUGO mechanics that 40k currently uses.

 Blacksails wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Alternating activation has always seemed gimmicky to me. Alot of the situations and actions that arise out of it are very mechanical and game-y, and not at all intuitive or fluffy.

I hope you feel the same about IGOUGO mechanics that 40k currently uses.

I do.

I love that, in either system, antitank gunners obligingly wait for tanks to pivot their front armor towards the enemy to fire. I also love that infantry miraculously crawl all over tanks (or their in-universe equivalent) with practical impunity.

Just a couple of flaws in both systems.

I would rather see a more intuitive system arrive, than simply moving from one flawed one to another.

That will have nothing to do with activation, and everything to do with a better Overwatch mechanic.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
That will have nothing to do with activation, and everything to do with a better Overwatch mechanic.

In my specific examples, perhaps. But I just mean that both systems suffer from flaws, and there really isn't a convincing argument why one set of flaws is better than the other set of flaws.

I would love a Bolt Action 40k rule set. I was about to put in the time and effort to make it, but I simply dont have the time. It would be easy too.

Bolt action, I find is a superior 40k in every way.

 Saevus wrote:
hell, reworking how cover works (having it effect the to hit roll and not be a save...debatable if it is worth anything, but that just seems intuitive to me) and -1 BS for shooting at anything past 1/2 your weapons range....two small tweaks would to me....make the game more enjoyable

This stuck out to me because 2nd edition 40k had exactly this. Have you played it? You might like it. Soft/hard cover modified your hit roll instead of being a flat save, and there were range brackets and associated modifiers. Saves were also modified by weapon strength instead of the current AP system. They even had the idea of reactive fire through Overwatch (same name, different approach from 6th). But these rules were eventually dropped in 3rd in an effort to streamline.

Anyway after passively sitting for 30-45 minutes while your enemy rips you apart we've definitely talked about alternating activations. The problem is I don't think it's as simple as saying "We should just alternate!". 40k is deeply built around UGO-IGO (from assault to deep strike to army size [80 Tyranids vs 10 Grey Knights]), so our final verdict was to move to a different activation system would require deep rework/ripping out the guts. I'd love to see a working system where someone DID rebuild everything, but so far fan efforts haven't been up to snuff.
I mean in the same way I'd love to see the shooting system reworked, and then close combat done in a consistent way (instead of the statline clearly being built for fantasy combat with a bunch more stats for melee). I'd love to see assault not provide an invulnerability bubble against shooting. And so on and so forth.

Saves were also modified by weapon strength instead of the current AP system

I've experimented with a combination of the two. Have a "slashed" system, where something would be, for example, AP: 5/-1 So it would automatically defeat a 5+ save, and be a -1 against anything tougher. That would create a bit of wiggle room where weapons didn't need to be an "all or nothing".

I mean, that's basically what makes a lot of weapons considered useless. There's a magical threshold where they aren't useful at all. Which would be fine if the system was "like vs like" as you'd see in a historicals game where personal armor was irrelevant like Bolt Action. But there's a large disparity in armor protection.

2nd Edition's AP system was a good idea, but it was too harsh on armored targets, who paid for their saves in points values, but then saw them diminished by just about everything in the game.

Switching the shooting (range mods), cover (modifier), and AP mechanics would certainly go a long way to erase some of the power creep that has marginalized armored troops like SM/CSM.

 bosky wrote:

 Saevus wrote:
hell, reworking how cover works (having it effect the to hit roll and not be a save...debatable if it is worth anything, but that just seems intuitive to me) and -1 BS for shooting at anything past 1/2 your weapons range....two small tweaks would to me....make the game more enjoyable

This stuck out to me because 2nd edition 40k had exactly this. Have you played it? You might like it. Soft/hard cover modified your hit roll instead of being a flat save, and there were range brackets and associated modifiers. Saves were also modified by weapon strength instead of the current AP system. They even had the idea of reactive fire through Overwatch (same name, different approach from 6th). But these rules were eventually dropped in 3rd in an effort to streamline.

Its funny you mention that....I started my tabletop career with Battletech so many years ago, then we moved into Warhammer games, I remember playing through 2nd edition, but....I could never remember if something was different, because quite honestly I don't have the memory for the details of all the games we played as a kid, but when I got back into 40k hardcore in 6th (I had continued collecting books and a model here and there but wasn't really playing due to life) I was really confused by the overwatch and cover mechanics because they weren't what I remembered at all. To this day, cover not effecting the to hit roll is the most confusing mechanic ever (Playing Orks though, I just count cover as my only form of armor, my personal table in my gaming room looks like Vietnam it has so much cover on it)

Talking with my gaming buddies this whole week, I think we hit on 3 things from Warhammer that trying out Bolt action has really got us thinking about....1) Activation, 2) Cover, 3) Overwatch. In a couple paper battles, just mathammering and theory crafting, I don't see any playstyle that is crushed in 40k by alternating action. Two things that get brought up a lot is MSU armies vs Not MSU armies and Multiple Assaults. I think that the MSU issue is basically a meta shift. You want to play 3 Knights and some Minimum CAD? That's your choice, but you know going in that going for sledgehammer means the enemy will act before you most times....basically...its not much different to going second. But more importantly, it's almost a kind of balance relief valve. (By that i mean, it encourages you to get a few more units in there, maybe leave 2 knights at home and field some more troops, type of choice) One huge problem I have with that though, is that the pts cost in the codex are pretty much random. A game like bolt action gets away with this because most of the units are functionally the same. 40k has a lot of really fun unique units, but I think we can mostly agree that 500pts of sone army isn't always a match for 500pts of another army. Troops to Troops its not too bad, but really its things like say a Wraithknight vs a Gorkanaught.....the big fancy units balance based on pts is horrible. (To varying degrees this happens across characters, elites a lot of times)

The other issue of multi-assaults. Just don't see how it is a problem, but gonna set up some plastic on the table tonight with a friend and attack each other a few times to muddle through it.



Cheers!

 TheKbob wrote:
Assaults with multiple units would not work at all. Multiple targets and initiatives alone make it gross.


The inherent issues is that alternating activations work in skirmish games because the activation disparity is typically much smaller. You could MSU cheap units so hard, you'd cripple some armies because they get out activated. You'll have to overcommit to killing these "+1 activation units" to stand a chance and that'll sap two to three turns. Tactically, WHFB has this issue with cheap units, like rat darts, that are specifically there to go down one at a time to drain your opponents deployment pool so you can effectively counter units in the deployment phase.

The fundamental issue is GW has skirmish level rules on a battle level game. That problem should be addressed prior to worrying about activation/turn concepts.

That is not true. It works the same as it does without alternate activation.
Let's say player A has army of 10 units and player B has 30 units. With normal turns, player A first moves his 10 units, and after that player B moves 30 units (or whatever is left). Then turns start again and Player A moves again.
With alternate activation, Player A moves 10 units while Player B moves his 30 units. At some point, Player A will be out of units to activate, at which point things proceed pretty much like a regular 40k turn (with only player B moving). After Player B is finished, a new turn starts and both players can activate their units again. The previous cycle repeats.
In both cases, player A moves 10 units in one turn while player B moves 30 in one turn. Nothing changes in that regard.

I have been reading this thread and thinking about this for a few days now. I think I have a list of actual rules that would work and address the psychic phase (the only think that really needs to be retooled a little bit). I will try to write it up and post it tonight or tomorrow depending on how my job goes. This seems like it could be realm simple and fun if done right.

Certainly have :-)
Just google Cosmic Dust game rules, and download it off Boardgamegeek.
It's a cracker! (totally objective, non-biased opinion obviously)

OK. So this is how I think this would work best.

Game Round and Player Turns:

Game set up is all as normal up to and including deciding who goes fist and attempting to steal initiative.

There is the game round and then individual player turns.

The game round encompasses everything that it does currently, each player getting to do all their things.

At the beginning of each game round the first player rolls 2d6 to generate warp charges. The result, plus total mastery levels of units is all the warp charges you get for the entire game round, both for casting powers and to deny the witch. (I THINK this would be enough to slightly reduce the number of powers cast but make the choice of spending charges more tactical. Also when and which psychic units you activate. (probably the part that needs testing the most along with assault combat below.))

The player turn encompasses activating a single unit.

A unit activation follows these steps.

1) Move (as per normal)

2) Shoot (as per normal)

3) Assault (declaring charges and such as per normal. The actual combat changes coming up)

If a unit is capable of casting psychic powers they can do so at any time during their activation unless they would otherwise not be able to in the normal rules (cannot fire witch fires while in assault).

Assaults: This part probably needs some tweaks as well. But I think this should work out fine.

Assault combat goes just like it does now with the exception that each time a unit participates in an assault in a single game round you reduce it's number of attacks by 2 to a minimum of 1.

What this means is on your turn you assault me and get 6 total attacks on the charge. I get whatever I get. In retaliation I charge in a second unit. My first unit does not participate in this part of the assault. Just the second unit and your first. I attack with full number of attacks (because it is the first assault this round) You now get 3 attacks (you are no longer charging -2).

What I think this will do is actually boost assault based units quite a bit. They can do more over all attacks each round without going completely ballistic on every unit that comes in contact with them. And whether or not they get those extra attacks is based on the opponent trying to charge in there to wipe it out or not. Granted, the damage that unit can do is diminished with each subsequent assault, but assault based units tend to have a high number of attacks to begin with and high chances to deal their damage.

Each player takes turns activating units until all units have been activated. If one player runs out of units to activate before the other then the other continues to activate his units until he runs out.

When the round is over initiative passes to the next player. That player then gets to roll for warp charges and activate his unit first.

Optional changes: These are things I have seen mentioned on the forums a few times which I think fit in well with these rules.

Over watch: Instead of over watch being a normal reaction to a charge only hitting on 6s over watch would instead be a choice you make when activating a unit.

1) All units that are capable of over watch are considered to be in over watch at the beginning of round 1.

2) When a unit is activated, after movement, it can choose to enter over watch.

Entering over watch means it cannot shoot or assault on it's activation.

3) When an enemy unit moves within half range of a unit on over watch that unit may fire on the enemy at full BS.

4) Only one unit may over watch an enemy per activation. And each unit on over watch may only fire over watch once a game round.

Charging turn 1 and such: With all that in mind, units should be able to assault the round 1 and on the turn they come in from reserves.

Shooting into assault: Finally, I think it should be fine to shoot at units in assault with the additional rule of any roll of 1 is an automatic hit on the friendly unit instead of the enemies. Twin linked would not let you reroll these ones (they are hits not misses. Just not hits where you wanted them).

Criticisms? Anyone wanna play test this?