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 Lance845 wrote:

SweetLou wrote:
GWS best system is the LOTR system. Real simple. You move, your opponent moves, you shoot, your opponent shoots, then you both fight. This simulates moving at the same time.

Or alternating unit. I move, shoot and charge 1 unit, then the opponent does.

Yeah except thats happening in a game where shooting isn't done by the vast majority of the units in the game and not at ranges that can span the entire table.

In 40k when your khorne bezerkers move forward or your whatevers deepstrike in, i just take my tau and step back to 12" away. Giving you the worst possible chance to succeed on a charge while letting me shoot the gak out of your melee units.

Alternating phases doesn't work in a game based around shooting that also has melee. longer ranged armies dominate shorter range and melee drastically.

...Or you could...futz the distances...stop treating Deep Striking directly into combat like a core mechanic...change the balance between guns and melee so a walking melee unit isn't a suicidal joke...

Any large-scale rewrite of the turn order is going to be s*** if you dump it into the game without changing anything else. We know that. You'd have to rewrite a lot of other stuff to support it. No proposal on this page is a complete, balanced, and ready-to-implement change, and many would require a lot of other changes to support them if they were to be usable. The answer to "yeah, but this change is unplayable if you don't change anything else" is "I guess I need to change other things", not "oh, then I won't make it".

Minimal impact changes aren't better. They're easier to write and implement, yes, but 7th edition was the product of a bunch of people taking a system that kind of worked and spending fifteen years on minimal impact changes until they decided that they'd f***ed the game up so much there was nothing to lose by throwing out the incrementals and trying to actually solve the problem.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

SweetLou wrote:
GWS best system is the LOTR system. Real simple. You move, your opponent moves, you shoot, your opponent shoots, then you both fight. This simulates moving at the same time.

Or alternating unit. I move, shoot and charge 1 unit, then the opponent does.

Yeah except thats happening in a game where shooting isn't done by the vast majority of the units in the game and not at ranges that can span the entire table.

In 40k when your khorne bezerkers move forward or your whatevers deepstrike in, i just take my tau and step back to 12" away. Giving you the worst possible chance to succeed on a charge while letting me shoot the gak out of your melee units.

Alternating phases doesn't work in a game based around shooting that also has melee. longer ranged armies dominate shorter range and melee drastically.

...Or you could...futz the distances...stop treating Deep Striking directly into combat like a core mechanic...change the balance between guns and melee so a walking melee unit isn't a suicidal joke...

Any large-scale rewrite of the turn order is going to be s*** if you dump it into the game without changing anything else. We know that. You'd have to rewrite a lot of other stuff to support it. No proposal on this page is a complete, balanced, and ready-to-implement change, and many would require a lot of other changes to support them if they were to be usable. The answer to "yeah, but this change is unplayable if you don't change anything else" is "I guess I need to change other things", not "oh, then I won't make it".

Minimal impact changes aren't better. They're easier to write and implement, yes, but 7th edition was the product of a bunch of people taking a system that kind of worked and spending fifteen years on minimal impact changes until they decided that they'd f***ed the game up so much there was nothing to lose by throwing out the incrementals and trying to actually solve the problem.

Yeah. I get that. But what i am saying is that the amount of changes needed to make the game function on a alternating phases level would require changes to movement, weapons, melee, everything. You would be scraping and rebuilding so much that the game would be entirely unrecognizable. You might as well build a new game from scratch.

Meanwhile its not true that you need vast swathes of changes to redo the turn structure. Alternating unit activation MOSTLY just works with 8th ed 40k. There are a couple small adjustments that smooth out the wrinkles in the peripherals. But the game can stay mostly unchanged.

I'd like to see a little more guidance and rules tweaks based on game size. Like talking about the sort of things you might field at lower points games and how if you field some things, the game becomes about those things. So some scenarios about what to do when someone takes heavy armour in a 500 point (25PL) game. Maybe about how to transition to larger and larger games.

And things like how objective secure type rules might not belong in smaller games. Scenarios can get really skewed when you don't have enough points to consistently 3+ troops like battalion formations have. Or feel that the game is limited because if you took a different formation you can't really go after objectives except if you're the only player with models near them.

 Chamberlain wrote:
I'd like to see a little more guidance and rules tweaks based on game size. Like talking about the sort of things you might field at lower points games and how if you field some things, the game becomes about those things. So some scenarios about what to do when someone takes heavy armour in a 500 point (25PL) game. Maybe about how to transition to larger and larger games.

And things like how objective secure type rules might not belong in smaller games. Scenarios can get really skewed when you don't have enough points to consistently 3+ troops like battalion formations have. Or feel that the game is limited because if you took a different formation you can't really go after objectives except if you're the only player with models near them.

Right now, Battalion are way too strong in terms of CP's granted (and Brigade detachments being less so), especially since only very few armies can actually take them without necessarily paying troops tax - that is to say, only very few armies have troops that are worth taking/synergizes with rest of the army.

Either tone down the CP's granted or elevate the CP's granted from 1 to 2 in detachments such as Vanguard, Spearhead, or Outrider. Supreme Command & Air wing should stay at 1 CP, while decreasing Super-Heavy to 2 CP from 3 CP.

I agree about the batallion detachment. It's just such a good amount of command points for the relatively small number of units you need to take. And with "objective secured" type rules and not all armies having the same distribution of battlefield roles among their datasheets, it can create some strange results when it comes to list building.

There was a larger Narrative event a short while ago. Even there the space marine players just couldn't resist adding a battalion detachment of Imperial Guard. Not even a tournament and that mind set bled deeply into army construction.

Battalion being 2 CPs would be my ideal solution.

 Lance845 wrote:
In 40k when your khorne bezerkers move forward or your whatevers deepstrike in, i just take my tau and step back to 12" away. Giving you the worst possible chance to succeed on a charge while letting me shoot the gak out of your melee units.

You're assuming a deep strike arrives to only threaten a single unit, which doesn't need to be the case; if a unit arrives in charge range of two or more potential targets, then you could run with one but they'll just charge another instead. Plus, if you add alternating activations, the obvious addition to support it is a stratagem to enable jumping the turn order at the cost of a command point; doing so can either force your opponent to spend command points as well, or let you charge right away.

While there are certainly some issues, it wouldn't require a full rewrite, most issues can be resolved at the core rules level, with only tweaks to some specific abilities that don't quite work with interleaved turns. I had a go at a very minimal interleaved turns setup linked in my signature; could do with more refinements, but is very simple overall.

Besides, any issues tend to pale in comparison to the fundamental flaws of the I-go-you-go system we have now in the first place.

 Haravikk wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
In 40k when your khorne bezerkers move forward or your whatevers deepstrike in, i just take my tau and step back to 12" away. Giving you the worst possible chance to succeed on a charge while letting me shoot the gak out of your melee units.

You're assuming a deep strike arrives to only threaten a single unit, which doesn't need to be the case; if a unit arrives in charge range of two or more potential targets, then you could run with one but they'll just charge another instead. Plus, if you add alternating activations, the obvious addition to support it is a stratagem to enable jumping the turn order at the cost of a command point; doing so can either force your opponent to spend command points as well, or let you charge right away.

Its alternating phases. I dont need to back up with one unit only. I can back up with ALL units. Also, i get an entire shooting phase before you charge. You have to reveal your hand to me without actually doing anything. I can turn my entire army toward shooting your melee units who are obviously trying to charge me so they either no longer exist or are so damaged that it doesnt matter.

While there are certainly some issues, it wouldn't require a full rewrite, most issues can be resolved at the core rules level, with only tweaks to some specific abilities that don't quite work with interleaved turns. I had a go at a very minimal interleaved turns setup linked in my signature; could do with more refinements, but is very simple overall.

Besides, any issues tend to pale in comparison to the fundamental flaws of the I-go-you-go system we have now in the first place.

Disagree. Alternating phases has all the same problems as igougo coupled with vastly favoring shooting and range. Alternating phases is actually worse than igougo.

What about a set up similar to AoS, but with alternating activation in the shooting phase?

 Lance845 wrote:


Its alternating phases. I dont need to back up with one unit only. I can back up with ALL units. Also, i get an entire shooting phase before you charge. You have to reveal your hand to me without actually doing anything. I can turn my entire army toward shooting your melee units who are obviously trying to charge me so they either no longer exist or are so damaged that it doesnt matter.

You can already do that with IGOUGO. In fact that is the problem.

 Lance845 wrote:

Alternating phases is actually worse than igougo.

Not the least bit, no.

IGOUGO was less of a problem when split fire wasnt allowed army wide.

Distraction carnifex was a real thing. Now shooty armies can distribute the fire power better to minimize overkills.

 Infantryman wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:


Its alternating phases. I dont need to back up with one unit only. I can back up with ALL units. Also, i get an entire shooting phase before you charge. You have to reveal your hand to me without actually doing anything. I can turn my entire army toward shooting your melee units who are obviously trying to charge me so they either no longer exist or are so damaged that it doesnt matter.

You can already do that with IGOUGO. In fact that is the problem.

 Lance845 wrote:

Alternating phases is actually worse than igougo.

Not the least bit, no.

At least in igougo (which i hate btw) those deepstrikers and melee units will not have moved into position yet revealing their intentions. In igougo they get to act without interuption. Moving and then assaulting. In alternating phases the enemy can see your entire plan. Did you get close to assault? Guess what, you also just got closer to every gun he has. How is that better than igougo?

 Lance845 wrote:
Its alternating phases. I dont need to back up with one unit only. I can back up with ALL units. Also, i get an entire shooting phase before you charge. You have to reveal your hand to me without actually doing anything. I can turn my entire army toward shooting your melee units who are obviously trying to charge me so they either no longer exist or are so damaged that it doesnt matter.

You seem to be discussing only alternating phases, but the post you were replying to also covers alternating unit activations which is what I'm referring to, sorry for the confusion there.

Disagree. Alternating phases has all the same problems as igougo coupled with vastly favoring shooting and range. Alternating phases is actually worse than igougo.

I disagree with your disagreement; all the problems you suggest that alternating phases would have already exist in igougo, but even worse because you suffer everything during your opponent's turn with no means of mitigating any of it at all.

Personally I favour alternating unit actions, e.g- each unit can take two actions per turn from Move (with optional Advance), Shoot, Fight, or Charge + Fight, and can't do the same action twice (except fight), but players can only take one action at a time. This solves most problems, and has much more tactical flexibility without being hard to bolt onto 8th. In this case falling back with a shooting unit means you're not doing something else, so every decision is crucial.

Given my preference for smaller games, I think the best alternating activation approach would be to take the rules from the recent Necromunda: Underhive game with it's basic, simple and double actions and make the group activation rules the norm rather than something you do as something extra or special.

@Lance845.

Alternating phases doesn't work in a game based around ''unrestricted'' shooting that also has melee. longer ranged armies dominate shorter range and melee drastically.

There fixed that for you!

If 'to hit' in shooting is not modified for things like distance to target, size of target, cover etc.And shooting is directly competing with assault for the single role of just physical damage.It causes issues with the game play no matter what game turn mechanic you use.

Main issues with 40k.
1 .Lack of player interaction in the game turn.

2.Lack of balance between shooting and assault , tactically and mechanically.

3.Complete miss management of morale effects.

The ''intended game play'' could be arrived at with much more straight forward rules that deliver a far more tactically diverse game.IF you define and focus on the ''intended game play'' that is...

 Hollow wrote:
Have 70% of the 'fan base' disappear.

He has the solution.

 lolman1c wrote:
How would you fix all the current community problems with 40k?

I'd roll 40k back to 5th Edition rules, streamline it a bit, but only allow people to play army lists from the 3rd Edition Rulebook. NO Codices.

40K has a lot of problems: Game length, lack of tactical elements, poor balance, unfocused game scale, poor player engagement, imprecise rule wording, this list could go on and on, which is really shocking as 40K is over 30 years old and on its 8th iteration.

Alternating Activations need to be introduced, as IGOUGO is atrocious and alternating phases doesn't solve the issue that one side gets to make all of its attacks before the opponent can respond. Shooting needs to be completely overhauled, with to-hit modifiers such as range, target speed, visibility, and size, but most importantly a proper suppression system need to be implemented. Morale needs to become a greater part of the game, as I would much rather see a "morale phase" than the current psychic phase. Army building needs to be more structured and limited, as the current rules do not encourage a thematic army and do not discourage min-maxing, while unit cards would be much easier reference material. On a minor note, I would like to see psychic powers ranked, with higher tier psychic powers being available only after the psyker has taken a sufficient number of powers from the same discipline. However, these are points that have been brought up before.

What I want to propose is a dramatic change to how we define a unit. Units are no longer made up of individual models, but instead are made up of "fireteams" of 3-6 models on a single movement tray. These "fireteams" will be treated like monstrous creatures under the current rules, with a wound pool and reduced performance once they take enough wounds.



Lets go point-by-point to see how this would improve the game:

Lack of Tactical Elements: Every fireteam will have front, side, and rear edges, allowing for the fireteam to be treated as having a facing. This means that fireteams, and thus their units, can be flanked intuitively, without a rule abstraction, such as granting a bonus to units who attack the fireteam's sides or rears. Giving all units a facing also allows for stealth units to be more thoroughly fleshed out, with effects like getting a more powerful flanking bonus, call it surprise attack, for attacking the rear of a fireteam. They could even reduce the effective firing arcs of units hoping to target them.

Unfocused Game Scale: The fact that the rules differentiate power swords from power axes and power spears is ridiculous in a game where titan formations are in play. Its time we stop pretending every individual model on the table is special and important. Attacks and damage are resolved at the fireteam level, not the model, and adding special weapons to the unit do not reduce the base attacks of the unit. Individual models do not have to be completely abolished, especially characters and particularly powerful infantry, but they should not be the norm.

Poor Balance: As attacks are not limited to integers on a model basis, the power of any given unit can be more easily controlled. Under the current rules, a 10 guardsmen squad could have 10 attacks, or 20 attacks, or 30 attacks, etc. With that 10 Guardsman squad being made of 2 fireteams, they could have 8 attacks, or 14 attacks, or 26 attacks. While this does not directly solve balance issues, it is an additional tool for balancing units.

Game Length: I've typically found a great deal of time in my games was spent just moving models around. While this has certainly gotten better with the removal of weapon templates, as people don't need to precisely measure the distance from each and every model to make sure they will take the least damage possible from a blast, a great deal of time is spent moving models, particularly if you play horde armies. With fireteams, I would only have to move 5 elements of 6 Gaunts instead of 30 individual models. Additionally, fireteams give us the option to give a units less attacks/wounds than 1 per model, meaning there would be fewer dice rolls to resolve, speeding up the game.

There are a number of issues with this idea I have yet to resolve, notably how Fireteams interact with multi-level buildings where the upper levels are typically only 1 model wide. Having players keep track of a fireteams wounds will increase book-keeping, but a single dice next to an element should suffice, and they will take large numbers of wounds frequently, meaning youre often removing elements wholesale rather than keeping track of them indivudally all game.

Thoughts?

Agree with Alternating Activation. Agree with morale. Disagree with facings. No opinion on fire teams.

Play beyond the gates of 40k. Most if not all of your issues are addressed.

Rav1rn, pretty much everything you posted is basically the Warpath ruleset from Mantic.

"Squad basing" should only be a thing when you get below 15mm, if that. 40k is the absolute worst place for it.

 Stormonu wrote:
Rav1rn, pretty much everything you posted is basically the Warpath ruleset from Mantic.

Maybe he just wants to play Warpath with 40k models?

But yeah, he's not playing 40k anymore. Not in the slightest.

I would ditch the detachment system, and instead make a system like whfb with a max point percentage restriction on hqs, elites, heavy support etc, and a minimum point percentage requirement for troops. That would be more restrictive, forcing people into making more balanced lists while also being more fluffy.

Maybe a new detachment system could be created overlaying this, simply for the purpose of command points, which i like.

Northern85Star wrote:
I would ditch the detachment system, and instead make a system like whfb with a max point percentage restriction on hqs, elites, heavy support etc, and a minimum point percentage requirement for troops. That would be more restrictive, forcing people into making more balanced lists while also being more fluffy.

Maybe a new detachment system could be created overlaying this, simply for the purpose of command points, which i like.

More fluffy? So Deathwing and Ravenwing can go feth off?

 Infantryman wrote:
"Squad basing" should only be a thing when you get below 15mm, if that. 40k is the absolute worst place for it.

This.

Facing is fine for smaller scale big battles or really pedantic skrim games

40k is some where in between that. ultimately the first step to "fix" 40k is to figure out what you want out of it.

giant battle, patrol, skirmish, platoon, battalion. what scale does it need to be?

100% the thing that would help on any of these scales would be alt activation. beyond that the little stuff like facing and types of dice depend on the scale you want to represent.

 Desubot wrote:
ultimately the first step to "fix" 40k is to figure out what you want out of it.

what scale does it need to be?

100% the thing that would help on any of these scales would be alt activation.

Indeed. Having a goal, an objective, makes it a lot easier to understand what "fixed" means.

Or better, how long should it take to play a game? I say 60-90 minutes from unpacking to packing. That right there suggests we're looking at roughly a half-dozen "units", be the Knights, Characters, Vehicles or Squads.

40k is an Igo-Ugo game; alt activation makes it not 40k.

Character targeting has always irked me a bit, even more so when they changed it in CA, preventing you from targeting one if there's a hidden enemy unit behind. With this in mind I thought of the basis of a new targeting rule that may be an improvement.

A Character may not be targeted in the Shooting Phase unless one of the following criteria are met:

- The Character has a wounds characteristic of more than 10.
- The Character is the closest enemy unit.
- There are no enemy units within 6" of the Character..

This I feel would avoid situations whereby there's a Character in front of you, but an enemy squad slightly closer but behind you prevents you targeting the lone dude.

I like that idea.

Also, I had a thought about how to fix cps and detachments. A simple hybrid of the current set up and the AoS system. You play at either platoon, company or battalion level, which grants both sides either 6, 9 or 12 command points. Or 3, 6 or 9. Something along those lines any way.

This would require a rethink of the foc. Using real life terminology as a basis, I’d have it as something like this:

Headquarters
Infantry
Armoured
Artillery
Air
Support

The first is your leaders, obviously. Proper HQ choices. The second is all fighting squads of infantry, taken from both troops and elites. The third is heavy support vehicles and monsters. The forth is, well, artillery. The fifth is fliers. And the last is a mixture of secondary characters and specialised units. Let’s use the imperial guard as an example:

Officers, Tank Commanders and Commisars would be Headquarter units.
Infantry squads, scion squads, veteran squads, and ogyrn squads (both kinds) would be infantry.
Leman Russ tanks (and possibly hellhounds) would be armoured.
Heavy weapon squads, basilisks, wyerns, hydras, manticores and the death strike are all artillery.
Valkyries are air, of course.
Support would be pyskers, tech priests, navy officers, sentinels, artillery officers, railings, ground based transports, priests...all those sorts of units.

A platoon level game would be a minimum of 3 infantry units (no maximum), up to 1 armoured unit, up to 1 artillery unit, up to 1 air unit, any number of support units and at least 1 headquarters unit to lead it all. That’s just an example though.

Allies would be changed to 40% of your points total, and they must fit into your foc. So in a 1000pt game, an imperial army could be a space marine faction of 600pts, backed up by 400pts of IG. And with an inquisitor as general.

This is all wip of course.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
ultimately the first step to "fix" 40k is to figure out what you want out of it.

what scale does it need to be?

100% the thing that would help on any of these scales would be alt activation.

Indeed. Having a goal, an objective, makes it a lot easier to understand what "fixed" means.

Or better, how long should it take to play a game? I say 60-90 minutes from unpacking to packing. That right there suggests we're looking at roughly a half-dozen "units", be the Knights, Characters, Vehicles or Squads.

40k is an Igo-Ugo game; alt activation makes it not 40k.

IGOUGO and 40k do not necessarily have to be mutually inclusive. After all, Epic was Alternating Activation, and there have been bits and pieces of Alt Activation throughout. Assault is currently Alternating Activation, while the Psychic Phase in 2nd edition was also Alternating Activation.

What matters more besides whether the game is AA or not is the fact there is very minimal "interaction" between players as a whole. When it's not your turn, unless you have access to the odd Stratagem or bespoke ability that lets you act out-of-sequence, you get to sit and put your thumb up your posterior while your opponent takes forever to do everything.

WHFB was IGOUGO and yet even the simple act of having Charge Reactions (Flee versus Stand and Shoot) or choices of how to counter Magic (Dispel Dice versus Scrolls) helped kill downtime for one player. Arguably the fact the game used movement trays instead of having to fiddle around with perfect squad coherency helped the game go faster (and the fact that AOS eliminated templates despite WHFB not being a "coherency" game is something I view as support for my hypothesis that templates were axed, not because they slowed the game down, but because they weren't something GW could sell effectively).

 MagicJuggler wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
100% the thing that would help on any of these scales would be alt activation.

40k is an Igo-Ugo game; alt activation makes it not 40k.

IGOUGO and 40k do not necessarily have to be mutually exclusive. After all, Epic was Alternating Activation,.

Epic 40k is not "40k" - it is "Epic".

28mm 40k is both necessarily and definitionally an Igo-Ugo game. For a game to be "Warhammer 40k", it must be both Igo-Ugo turns (move, shoot, fight) *and* mass roll d6 resolution. To change either of those fundamental, core characteristics makes the game something other than "Warhammer 40k".

If you want alternating activation as the core mechanic, or d10/d20 resolution, you've lost the plot and are no longer playing "Warhammer 40k". It's the same with the cock-eyed "chess" variants that play on a hexagon or somesuch - they're no longer "Chess". Now those variants can potentially be better, but they are different games.

Also, within the 40k context, rolling saves and Ld *is* interactive.

I don't think essentialism will really work here. "For a game to be 40k it must have" can apply to any mechanic until it doesn't. All it takes is an edition change and suddenly the essential is not essential. People would have claimed comparing WS in close combat was essential to 40k up until 8th edition dropped.