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Hey folks.

One of the things I really dislike about Warhammer is how you spend half of the game doing nothing but saves (assault is another matter, of course). I really like the way Pathfinder combat works, so I was thinking about an alternate turn structure for 40K. I think it's greatly simplified, but I'd like to get other folk's take on it:

Firstly, player turns and game turns are now one and the same. - action will alternate between players many times throughout a turn.

After deployment, the players roll off for unit initiative (*note: this is the hardest part of this, I think. Needs the most work)
for each unit you have, roll d6 and add initiative. keep track of which unit scores what.
Every unit then takes it's turn in initiative order. If multiple units have rolled the same initiative, units with the highest initiative in their profile go first. If further ties exist, roll off to determine order.
One thing I thought would reduce handing these ties is to use a d20 or 2d6 for initiative. d20 is nice because it's a uniform distribution, but everyone already has 2d6 to play 40k.

A units turn proceeds like this:
each unit has a standard action and a move action OR a full-round action.

Move actions include:
Moving normal speed (6", generally, unless it's jump infantry etc)
Deep Striking
Disembarking from a vehicle
Embarking from a vehicle

Standard actions include:
Shooting
Running

Full round actions include:
Charging
Standing up
Firing heavy weapons at full BS
Falling Back
Fighting in Close Combat

This needs a lot of work. It's just a loose idea in my head right now, but comments and (constructive) criticism are welcome. Also, if anyone has tried to come up with a system like this before, please link me to that effort so I may learn from those who came before.

Another note I should add is that I played more in 5e than 6e, so I'm much more influenced by that ruleset.

Thanks!

It seems like that would really nerf assault if you could only assault and not move and assault, or shoot and assault.

Initiative is not designed for such rolls. You'll need another characteristic for this.

 herpguy wrote:
It seems like that would really nerf assault if you could only assault and not move and assault, or shoot and assault.

Not quite.

You have 3 options (OP only listed 2)

Full-Round
Move + Standard
Move + Move

So an Infantry unit could elect to Move and Run, Move and Assault, Move and Shoot, or fire Heavy Weapons at full BS.

Of course Special rules would have to be changed. For example Relentless - A model with this rule can fire a Heavy Weapon at full BS as a Standard action instead of a full-round action.

 koooaei wrote:
Initiative is not designed for such rolls. You'll need another characteristic for this.

Agreed, Initiative is budgeted in a units cost, if the characteristic suddenly gives you another advantage then it flavors high Initiative units. One of the advantages of alternate activation (the thing I think your trying to re-invent) is that you get to both play at the same time. If it is necrons vs eldar it becomes a standard game of 40k.

I recommend:
1. Add a stat awareness - or something and budget it independently of the Initiative characteristic
2. Calculate awareness totals for each unit (D6 + awareness) as you describe
3. Player with highest awareness (player 1) activates his highest awareness unit
4. Player 2 activates his highest awareness unit
5. If player Player 1 has any units with equal to or high awareness to the unit Player 2 activated he can choose one and activate it
6. Otherwise Player 1 activates his next highest awareness unit
7. Proceed in the same manner as steps 5/6 for the other player

This means that the high awareness guys go first but the other player gets a chance to respond. The first player then likely has the option of picking which of his high awareness units is best equipped to counter that move (giving a benefit to having high awareness but still maintaining turn about play).

I kind of wish we did it a bit like DH.
Ballistic Skill, Weapon Skill, Strength, Toughness, Agility (I for running, jumping ect), intelligence, Perception (I pr Ld for noticing things), Will Power (Ld for psycic powers), and Fellowship (Ld for anything else).

It seems like that would really nerf assault if you could only assault and not move and assault, or shoot and assault.

I think that could be handled by 2 things: 1 - a charge would consist of a 6" + 2d6 movement, and you may fire assault weapons as part of a charge. Possibly you could fire those weapons at any point in your charge. Overwatch could happen at the same time as that, maybe?

Initiative is not designed for such rolls. You'll need another characteristic for this.

This is true. I think that using a bigger die roll than d6 would mitigate this somewhat (2d6 or d20) - that way it's not that big of a modifier unless you have insane initiative. I want to avoid changing statlines if i can - the idea is this is a sort of a rules plug-in that works with existing codexes. One 'blanket change' that could make that work better is declare that everything referencing "movement phase" is changed to reference "move action" and "shooting phase" or "assault phase" references the Standard action or the full-round action.

I did forget to mention that Standard actions can be exchanged for a move action as well - though that makes running useless, so maybe it would have to be move + standard only.

The Awareness stat might work, but is too complicated as you described. Avoiding "all eldar go before all necrons" is definitely a concern though. That could possibly be mitigated by adding an army-wide rule to armies that tend to be victims of that that grand the whole army a "special" initiative value for unit order rolls only, so instead of necron units all rolling for order with +1, they all get +4. used a d20 or 2d6 would also help here a lot, as it'll still favour high initiative units (which I do kind of want to do), but not so much that all eldar end up going before all necrons etc.

I would look at the rules Manitc has for Warpath.

It is an alternating activation turn, but each player just rolls a D6 for initiative and then can choose to go first or second.

You can automatically activate one unit, then try to activate a second on a 3+, and a 3rd on a 5+. Then if you fail one of these rolls or activate 3 units your opponent goes. If a unit fails an activation test it does nothing this turn.

This allows players some choice as to what units go first. Your plan forces units to activate in a certain order which removes tactics from the game.

During each Activation a unit can Move, Shoot/Fight in Combat.

Chagring happens durnig movement (for them it is Movement x2, but for 40k you could do movement + 2D6). There would be no shoot and charge in this case though.