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Honestly alternating activations is how AOS should have been done from the start, given it was a brand new game. But they went with the old standard.

And hey, if they did alternating activations they could make tokens and sell them at an inflated cost, so make even more money!

We alternate by phase (two combat phases) for our FFA games and people really like it. The unit-by-unit activation was brought up early on but no one was interested. I think doing it where a unit activates then does a whole turn, then the next, etc, would change the dynamic and gameplay tremendously. To the point where a large chunk of warscrolls would need to be changed to work correctly. Alternate by phase needs little to no changes, and would preserve the feel and play style of the current. So I think by phase would be in the realm of possibility.

We didn't need to rework warscrolls for unit by unit activation.

However it does change gameplay quite a bit and if someone went out and bought an army for a synergy bonus, that would not necessarily be there anymore so i can see why they wouldnt' want to do that.

One of our stormcast players did not like it because he couldn't teleport and charge without a reaction like in the normal game. He would teleport in and then the opposing player could move the unit out of charge range so no alpha strike, which annoyed the stormcast player who said stormcast warscrolls are built around being able to do that.

(p.s the stormcast player still won the game he just couldn't do it via alpha strike with no response)

Sounds like one of your typical players, auticus. Waah waah, it's not fair my OP army can't beat an enemy without them being able to do anything.

Well I think thats a bit harsh. He bought and painted an army that would do well within the confines of the AOS rules and I changed the rules for that event so that his army wasn't as powerful (inadvertently by making alt activation a thing, you remove alpha strike, and he was built around alpha strike)

Like it or not AOS does draw peoples' interests in regards to alpha striking and combo striking and wombo-combo, so when you buy a force for that and an event removes wombo-combo alpha strike, some people may get legit bitter. In the end after the campaign he said he liked the alt acitvation rules though he'd have used a different army.

I prefer alternating phases to alternating activations. It just feels more organic to me. The biggest problem is that it effectively nerfs melee, but you can fix that by just having two combat phases like Ninth mentioned. It also allows for you to keep the initiative roll, but nerfs the double turn.

Yeah. the two combat phases is the trickiest part. We kept it at one for simplicity but the games were still pretty deadly.

However that comes down to taste. I don't feel strongly one way or the other other than it nerfs the double turn, which is a huge positive in my book.