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So my roommate and I both enjoy the ruleset (and setting) for The Lord of the Rings/Hobbit.

We were thinking about trying a game of 40k using a modified version of the turn sequence for said game.

For those unfamiliar, at the beginning of each turn the players roll off for priority, on a tie the person who didn't have priority last turn gets priority. This would include the first turn and seizing would still be allowed.

The rest of the sequence begins with the player who has priority performing all of their movement phase, then the other player doing their movement phase. Then the priority player does their shooting phase followed by the other player doing their shooting phase.

The only problem would be the assaulting phase. "Charges" in LotR are made during the movement phase and then the player with priority chooses the order of the combats during the combat phase. Obviously this part doesn't work for 40k, so the question is how to address it? I don't want to remove the ability of a unit to shoot before assaulting or anything.

This would just be for fun to see how it balances things like assault units survivability and making shooting less overwhelming when you can react to your opponents movements before they shoot at you and vise versa.

So, any suggestions on how to give this a reasonable shot? As I said, it'd be just for fun. Mostly to get my roommate to play 40k as he's not a fan of the rules and most of that has to do with the "I do everything and then you do everything" nature of the turn sequence.

I was actually thinking of something similar.

Movement Phase:
Player with Initiative moves first, then the other player.

Shooting Phase
Player with Initiative shoots/runs first, then the other player.

Assault Phase
Player with Initiative charges first, then the other player. Resolve combats after both players have completed all their charges.

I think that both sides shooting before the charge eliminates the reasoning behind overwatch, so it can be ditched. Removing overwatch and resolving close combat only once per game turn should reduce the overall turn length.

Something I would do is allow the seizing of initiative every game turn, so initiative would go back and forth randomly during the game.

That could work.

I don't know if I'd do stealing initiative for EVERY turn. There's already a lot of variability in the initiative step.

I also don't want to change up too many of the other rules outside of the turn sequence, so I'm not sure I'd want to get rid of overwatch. Maybe insert the initiative test rule that's been in the rumors for overwatch, instead of remove it entirely?

Jefffar wrote:
I was actually thinking of something similar.

Movement Phase:
Player with Initiative moves first, then the other player.

Shooting Phase
Player with Initiative shoots/runs first, then the other player.

Assault Phase
Player with Initiative charges first, then the other player. Resolve combats after both players have completed all their charges.

I think that both sides shooting before the charge eliminates the reasoning behind overwatch, so it can be ditched. Removing overwatch and resolving close combat only once per game turn should reduce the overall turn length.

Something I would do is allow the seizing of initiative every game turn, so initiative would go back and forth randomly during the game.

That sounds good. Another idea might be to leave the assault phase in but allow a unit to charge during any phase. Why should a squad of bloodletters sit around waiting to get shot instead of just charging the enemy if they are in range.

the main thing I would watch out for is that this devalues or multiplies the value of certain ranges of weapons. remember that two armies might start 24" from each other, and if both armies walk towards each other before the first round of shooting, they're at 12" away. This allows a large number of extra powerful 12" range attacks which normally are not viable turn 1, such as torrent weapons.

Jathom,

I primarily see Overwatch as a way to give shooting units a chance to do some damage to that assault unit that just jumped out of an assault vehicle o walked out from behind cover for the very first time. If both sides get to shoot between the movement and assault phases, Overwatch is no longer necessary, slows the game down and (except for Tau) rarely does anything.

Being able to steal initiative every turn (and both can do this) is more a little drama every turn and a chance for one player to turn it around.

Buttons,

I disagree because then you have the opposite and equally problematic scenario of the gunline sitting there and letting the Khorne Bezerker's charge them without trying to shoot them first.

I think the problem here is that no matter how cool and fluid the rules are, there is no way to actually truly represent a fluid battlefield on a miniature's table top. So instead we are stuck with a system that divides up the action. The result is that instead of one continuous move across the table, units move in short jumps with interruptions in-between.

I think one of the main things that I would want in a "combined turn" game design is this:

During the shooting phase, any casualties are ignored (and thus the already-killed models may still fire) until the end of the phase, at which point all casualties and damages are resolved.

Simply setting a model on it's side or marking the unit with dice should be easy enough until that unit gets to fire, after which you don't need the model on the table any more.

The one big problem I have with combined turns is the assault phase. In the game as it is, assuming say, a 6 round game, you actually see 12 assault phases, 11 of which COULD have combat, and 10 which are much more likely to. (Down to the 6-8 range if your opponent is actively avoiding combat, or you have "dead" turns where a unit has won a combat and is heading to another.) I see this as a necessary design to, for lack of a better term, "reward" melee units for making it to the enemy. A shooting unit can easily make use of all 6 shooting phases, but a melee unit could only ever use 3 or so assault phases. But since they currently fight on both turns, that turns into 6, evening the score.

In a combined turns system, I don't know how you would resolve that disparity without intensive changes. Perhaps you could have two full rounds of combat every assault phase? That would probably get the closest to replicating the current design, even if it doesn't make all that much sense. Just doubling attacks wouldn't work, since high initiative guys would tear people apart twice as fast.

This is the problem with most modifications to the 40k rule set.
The current rules are so complicated and diffuse, even great ideas and positive changes like a more interactive game turn.
Require quite a lot of extra work and restructuring to make them work.

Although alternating turns is the least disruptive option for 40k.The most successful implementations I have seen roll back to 2nd/3rd ed as a starting point.
(To get rid of all the clutter and bloat that has accumilated over the last 16 years.)

So the players start with the simple option of;-

Stay still and fire to full effect.
OR
Move once and shoot weapons that can move and fire.
OR
Move , then move again, or Move then move into Assault.(No shooting.)

This means ALL the movement is carried out in the movement phase.
All the shooting is carried out in the shooting phase.
All the close combat is carried out in the assault phase.

It just makes the game play more intuitive.And a lot easier to balance the phases.

Just a thought..

I appreciate all the help and responses.

I know that there's a lot of work and retooling that should probably go into house ruling 40k, but I'm just looking for easy ways to make the game more appealing to a grumpy gamer.

Removing overwatch (except for Tau) might be a way to go. The thing about alternating phases is that if your opponent is coming at you and you don't want to stand and be charged, you can run before they can charge (most times). It will speed up the time it takes for assault units to get into combat, but I take that as a good thing. Might make them slightly more viable in a shooting game.

Jathom wrote:
I appreciate all the help and responses.

I know that there's a lot of work and retooling that should probably go into house ruling 40k, but I'm just looking for easy ways to make the game more appealing to a grumpy gamer.

Removing overwatch (except for Tau) might be a way to go. The thing about alternating phases is that if your opponent is coming at you and you don't want to stand and be charged, you can run before they can charge (most times). It will speed up the time it takes for assault units to get into combat, but I take that as a good thing. Might make them slightly more viable in a shooting game.

It's vastly more practical to mess around with scenarios if you want a quick and dirty way to make the game more interesting that's not a lot of work; make up stuff that punishes the dominant strategy (this planet's magnetic field is weird, Skimmers, Flyers, and Jetbikes must make a Dangerous Terrain test whenever they move) or offers rewards (this objective grants you control of the nearby quad-gun) or some such.

That said alternating turn order isn't actually going to help much against the armies on top of the current meta unless you're playing on a table so dense that shooting isn't very helpful in the first place.

If you want to add Unit Activation to 40K I strongly recommend that you look at the rules for Epic A. Those are the best version of the mechanic and suited to 40K. Still might be some problems with the FOC but the effort it will take to get it right should be well worth it. Unit Activation is way superior to IGOUGO. The game is far more involving for both players and it opens up more tactical situations that Players can exploit. Its like going from playing the slots to playing poker. It makes the game a whole lot more involved.

the biggest problem with the individual turns going in different orders is that it strengthens overall shooty armies and nurfs close combat more. you can't jump out and get into assault between waves of fire anymore, all this will do is make firepower even more effective. it'll also improve long range maneuverable armies like, say, eldar, as they can see you move up to them, so they move away from you. you've gained nothing and they still get to shoot you for it. as an assault army again, you'll be at a disadvantage, especially if you have the initiative - you move flat out, then they get to shoot with all their shorter range weapons!

dystopian wars does it well - you take it in turns to move & shoot with a unit, then if only one player has units left, they go through them. this would require overwatch to still work, but units that overwatch count as having used their activation. so:

unit A moves, shoots and assaults unit B, which hasn't activated yet. unit B can either overwatch as their activation, or wait and hope they fail the charge.
or
unit A moves, shoots & assaults unit B, which has already activated. unit B may use overwatch, and will still count as having activated.

this makes overwatch an interesting bit of tactics. if you're charged before you've activated, then you can lose your activation by either being engaged in combat or overwatching. however, if you overwatch with the unit, you have 1 less unit to try to activate and so the opponent will have more activations to do than you will. if you don't overwatch and they fail the charge, you can move back and shoot, or you can assault them yourself. it makes assault much more viable.

I literally just came on here to make the same suggestion as OP. Roll off, winner gets "Aggressive" or "Tactical" stance and loser gets other.

Agressive player moves + charges, tactical player then moves + charges.

Agressive player shoots, tactical player shoots.

And make sure theres enough LoS blocking terrain so that movements are meaningful - namely that they can move out of LoS of an aggressive unit or into LoS of a desired target.

The first major difference would be that fast melee armies and heavy shooty armies both get to do their thing first turn. Currently either the fast army gets to zoom across the board before a shot is fired, or gets blown to gak before they take a single step. Neither outcome is desirable at all.

 some bloke wrote:
the biggest problem with the individual turns going in different orders is that it strengthens overall shooty armies and nurfs close combat more. you can't jump out and get into assault between waves of fire anymore, all this will do is make firepower even more effective. it'll also improve long range maneuverable armies like, say, eldar, as they can see you move up to them, so they move away from you. you've gained nothing and they still get to shoot you for it. as an assault army again, you'll be at a disadvantage, especially if you have the initiative - you move flat out, then they get to shoot with all their shorter range weapons!

A reason why I indicated that if going this route Overwatch can be gotten rid of.

 some bloke wrote:
dystopian wars does it well - you take it in turns to move & shoot with a unit, then if only one player has units left, they go through them. this would require overwatch to still work, but units that overwatch count as having used their activation. so:

unit A moves, shoots and assaults unit B, which hasn't activated yet. unit B can either overwatch as their activation, or wait and hope they fail the charge.
or
unit A moves, shoots & assaults unit B, which has already activated. unit B may use overwatch, and will still count as having activated.

this makes overwatch an interesting bit of tactics. if you're charged before you've activated, then you can lose your activation by either being engaged in combat or overwatching. however, if you overwatch with the unit, you have 1 less unit to try to activate and so the opponent will have more activations to do than you will. if you don't overwatch and they fail the charge, you can move back and shoot, or you can assault them yourself. it makes assault much more viable.

For this to work, Overwatch would have to work exactly as a normal shooting attack, no Snap Shots, etc. If you have to make a choice between shooting now or taking your turn normally, shooting now has to be effective.

However, I think that a lot of why the assault game has had trouble this edition is that many people were playing faily open tables, which favours shooting armies. As the rules improved for shooting, assaulting armies suddenly found themselves exposed to several turns of very effective fire trying to get across the table. On a densely terrained table with good line of sight blocking terrain (as the rule book advises you to play on) assaulty armies can get much closer without taking very many shots. This mirrors real life in which a long charge across open ground usually results in the attackers being shot down.

That even most assault units in this game carry some form of ranged attack should tell you something about what is intended to be the primary killing tool of this game.