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I've been experimenting with an alternating activation system for my custom ruleset, and wanted to get some outside opinions on it.

The premise is that both players will get 6 activation tokens, that are then placed into a bag, with each player pulling a random token from the bag, and the player whose token is drawn may then allocate that token to one of their units.

Units can require more than one activation token to be activated though, depending on how expensive/powerful they are. For example, an IG infantry Squad would require 1 token, but a Tactical Squad (which have been significantly upgraded in durability, lethality, and points cost) would require 2. Most lords of war would require 3 tokens, or even 4.

The catch is that if the unit requires more than one activation token to be activated, they have to store that token, and it is not placed back into the bag to be redrawn until that unit is activated. However, units with at least one activation token stored can perform a reaction (overwatch, counter-charge, retreat, etc).

This helps to limit some of the more frustrating elements of play, because as a player stores more tokens on the field for a powerful strategy or deathstar, the chance of drawing the opponents activation tokens goes up, meaning they have more opportunity to react.

Most commander models (SM Captains, Ork warbosses, eldar autarchs, IG command squads, etc) also generate a small number (1-2) of these activation tokens each game turn, which can be utilized by any friendly units within a short distance.

I've also been playing around with ways of manipulating these tokens, such as prescience allowing you to place another activation token in the bag, which is not replaced once used.

Thoughts? I know that this system struggles with alpha-strike strategies such as drop-pods, and am still working on a solution to that.

I see what you're getting at, though - something akin to Bolt Action's system, with a balance factor for more powerful units.

As an idea - multi-token activation could be tied to points cost. There's no particular reason for a 150-point Sister squad to need more tokens to activate than a 150-point IG blob squad, for example. Yes, the Sisters are individually stronger, but you're also paying more to get them, which is already the balancing factor. There's also the issue that, from a tactical perspective, a smaller squad responds more rapidly to changing conditions than a large one - big squads have a certain amount of "inertia", so to speak.

When do the tokens go back in the bag, and what are the limits on how often a unit can be activated? Otherwise, I can see problems with either large unit count armies versus small unit count ones, or with ignoring some units to fast-march others to objectives or into assault range.

Could you provide a small example of how you envision this working - say, a small-scale IG versus Chaos battle?

As an idea - multi-token activation could be tied to points cost. There's no particular reason for a 150-point Sister squad to need more tokens to activate than a 150-point IG blob squad, for example. Yes, the Sisters are individually stronger, but you're also paying more to get them, which is already the balancing factor.

That was the general idea i started with, and i'm using loose tiers of points to determine how many activation tokens a unit needs to activate. However, a direct relationship, say a token per 50 or 100 points, required far more tokens per player than 6, which diluted the penalties for leaving large numbers of tokens in play on the table.

As to your example of IG vs SoB, it would require 3 tokens to activate all 3 50 point guard squads individually, or 2 tokens as a blob of 3 squads, while that 150 point SoB squad would take 1 token to be activated. Guard exist in a weird place, as they are the only horde army with large numbers of small squads, rather than small numbers of large squads, and as such, they needed to be treated somewhat differently. I do agree that a large squad should be more unwieldy than a smaller squad though.

If the expectation that a 150 point SoB squad would take 2 tokens is a result of my statement that a SM Tactical Squad would take 2 tokens, i'm estimating that a 10-man Tactical Squad is going to cost 250-300 points base in their new form, rather than the current ~150.

When do the tokens go back in the bag, and what are the limits on how often a unit can be activated? Otherwise, I can see problems with either large unit count armies versus small unit count ones, or with ignoring some units to fast-march others to objectives or into assault range.

Every unit can be activated once per game turn, with the player whose token was drawn performing a player turn in which they can allocate dice and activate their units. If a player has models near one of their commanders, they could even activate 2 units in one player turn by using the commanders activation dice.

However, no more than 1 unit may perform a reaction per player turn. Otherwise players could just castle up with some commanders, and have several units overwatch anything that dares to be activated within their LoS.

Once the unit's finished with its activation, any activation tokens it used are placed back in the bag, and it receives a marker that shows that it's been activated this game turn. After all units have been activated, all the activation markers are removed, and the next game turn begins the cycle over.