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I am a bit puzzled by this. I have tried to get people to change how 40K plays a bit, but nobody wants to do it. I am not sure if it's "not in the book you can't do it" mentality since GW says change anything you want, so it is in the book or just a personal dislike of the I go, you go mechanic.

So I want to hear Dakka's views.

For me, I don't like the I do everything then you do everything, because really when you get first turn and do a lot of damage. Also not doing anything for 10-45 minutes except for removing minis, is not my ideal of fun really. Same when it's my turn. My opponent not doing anything really but just removing minis, I can't really take any pride on how well I did because he/she basically did nothing that turn. When me and my son use to play we added in Lord of the Ring rules and it was so much more fun, the added interaction between us made the game a lot more fun.

So why are you so apposed to this system? Why would you like this system? Please I would love to hear your thoughts on it. Maybe this way I can try and understand why some people are dead set against it. They don't give no explanation, so I am really puzzled over this.

I would prefer alternating activation, yes. It gets tiresome to just sit for 30-45 min while your opponent gets to have all the fun. Plus I really hate the "Alpha strike" where on the first salvo your opponent can remove entire chunks of your lovingly modeled and painted army.

If not alternating activation, another system I would like to see is "simultaneous combat" where all actions are considered to been having occurred at the same time. Models that are removed as casualties still get to act but are removed at the end of the game turn. That way you can still deliver a devastating return fire even if your opponent removed half your army.

I tried this a while back in a game of 40k with some homebrew tweaks to the rules, what was very notable is that having lots and lots of MSU became king, , and the game flipflops into Omega Strike with the person with the most units able to control the flow of the game fairly easy, and I don't think that would have changed much with simultaneous combat

Igo-ugo is mainly just traditional board game turn order structure. It works well enough for chess or similar games where you don't do a lot of things at once but for something with as many moving parts as 40k something a little more nuanced would be better.

Basic alternating activations would be a step up but I think I'd like to see something based on initiative with care taken for what happens when eldar face off against orks or similar large differences. But I'd be all for 40k receiving a fundamental overhaul so being stuck to current profile systems isn't necessary. Some way of expressing how space marines are independent, the guard moves in chunks platoon by platoon and tyranids act like one would be great.

There's a lot of game design that GW simply hasn't tapped into.

I generally like the Igo-Ugo round structure because it's simply clearer to the players, and "fair" in terms of which models move, and which don't.

I think the simplest solution is to alternate on aphase by phase basis, soa Game Trun would resolve as

Turn Start Book Keeping
Movement phase
Player 1 Goes, Player 2 Goes
Psychic Phase
Resolve Psychic Points
Player 1 Goes, Player 2 Goes
Shooting Phase
Player 1 Goes, Player 2 Goes
Assault Phase
Player 1 Goes, Player 2 Goes
Resolve Combats
End Turn

I like an initiative system.

1. At the beginning of the movement phase, each unit rolls a d6 and adds their Initiative score (vehicles add 0, with Heavy vehicles taking a -1 and Fast vehicles getting a +1). This is their initiative score.

2. From highest to lowest, each unit takes the phase appropriate action. If both players have units with the same score, at that initiative step the player who has fewer units with that score will act first.

3. Once you're finished, proceed to the next phase. (Psychic, shooting.)

4. Assault phase: as above, with the actions being limited to declaring and performing charges, (with Overwatch being performed out of sequence, regardless of the firing unit's Initiative). Afterwards, you would have a combat phase, where actual CC would be fought just as it is now, followed by combat resolution just as it is now.

Ideally, of course, this would require some fiddling with special rules and points values to reflect armies that tend to be slower than others.

The phase turns are awesome. Done it a few times and it's been fun.

Jimsolo's idea above is cool but would require major tweaks as certain armies benefit too much.

If you wanted to do interleaved phases, the "fairest" way is like this:

P1 move, P2 move;
P2 psyk, P1 psyk;
P2 shoot, P1 shoot
P1 assault, P2 assault

That's the Thue-Morse ABBABAAB for the 8 actions.

I would certainly prefer if 40K went "I go, you go" or at least "interleaved turns" rather than this all or nothing thing we got going on.

I think it would open up tactics, and eliminate 1st or 2nd turn tabling that is now quite common.

However, I certainly would not want it to go the route of a die roll like in AOS. That gak is stupid.

Well, it's still better than outright knowing, as it prevents people being too greedy, while allowing hail merry attempts.

The main problem with the current system, as mentioned, is just how massive that turn 1 advantage can be, to the point that building your entire army to assure you are technically first even while second is a very dominant strategy (drop pod armies, etc) and even in eternal war missions where stealing objectives works, being first is still superior.

Beyond that, it's just far too predictable what any player would do at any turn, as he can do anything he wants without any concerns of enemy response until he is finished. Having multiple units come out from behind reach and hit a unit before it can defend itself is very simple.


So solutions.
The activation system is the "go to" answer, but it's not enough. It simply turns the game into "who can MSU better to game the system" contest.
Initiative system is also suggested, but a poor idea as initiative tends to be the same across an army, and the same issues will return, but with a tier system.

Random idea I had, is random activations. All units of all players (in case there are more then one) are added to a "unit pool" of sorts, then activated one by one by random draw until all activations are done, then a new pool is made for next turn.
This however cause an issue with support units like psykers of markerlights being nonfunctional, so a more complicated solution is required.

I like it in varied other games - its on my list of things to try out with 40k .

Having played BA and Malifaux etc I find "I go you go" a lot better for the flow of the game and feels more "natural" but in 40k it would turn into an MSU fest and it would get abit dull, with more rigid army building rules it would work, I feel that atm they just need to tone the power down slightly and then the activation system would be passable... Also fill the board with terrain, makes it a lot more tactical, you would be surprised!

Look up battletech turn structure. I think it'd work the best with some tweaks. Basically it's done by initiative, but all your units get to shoot as long as they were on the board at the start of the shooting phase.

I actually don't see it increasing MSU anymore than we've already seen it increased through overly heavy power weapons, as you'd be shooting anyway.

I don't actually play any games that I can think of which are still IGOUGO. As such, my friends and I are working on a system for gaming 2nd edition retro.

We're trying out tactic/strategy cards, varying activations, command dice etc.

I've always enjoyed it far more.

If the phases were alternated, GW could safely get rid of overwatch.

After playing some Bolt Action and X-wing (and years of doing inidividual initiative in D&D), I really like alternating turns rather than one whole army going then the other (IGOUGO).

Not to be a troll, but when I see "alpha strike is too good" and "initiative based system would be best" from the same posters it looks a lot like Eldar players complaining about one of the only decent counters to their army.

I'd prefer the Initiative route, then at least that stat matters outside of Combat. My genestealers are suppose to be super fast buggers but somehow moves at the same pace as everyone else until it's hugging distance.

I'm indifferent on the igougo vs. interleaved debate. I've played games with both, and either ways you can still kill units before they get to do something. As others pointed out it makes MSU more flexible.

 Brutus_Apex wrote:
I think it would open up tactics, and eliminate 1st or 2nd turn tabling that is now quite common.

You know, I here this on Dakka and every time I shake my head wondering why their play experience is so different than mine. I've NEVER encountered this.

Are they not using enough terrain ? Are they not taking advantage of cover ? Are they playing too few models ?

I don't want to derail the thread, but let me assure that round 2 tabling is not "now quite common" everywhere.

I actually quite like how Dust works activation in that players alternate activating units, where a unit does their moving, shooting, and assaulting before letting an opponents unit do the same

I like the comments please keep them coming.

What me and my son did was sort of keeping the "spirit" of what GW did. Me and my son still did the two phases of I move/shoot/assault and you move/shoot/assault to I either mover or shoot, then you move or shoot, than I shoot or move what I didn't do before, and then you move or shoot what you didn't do before. Then we all assault at the end.

This took care of one side having more units than the other, You still moved or shoot all your units it was just broken up. We even added LotR Hero Interaction rules as well. I was going to add in reach rules, so if someone crossed infant of you say 4" but you had a whip like some Nids, they could get a pot shot at you, or you could snap fire at them. Sadly he lost interest since other people played differently and he wanted to do Magic now.

I tried to see if others would do, but like I said in my first post, people are dead set against it. I even had a comment of someone loved playing an army before, but can't now, I said, let's change the rules so you can, and still didn't want to do it. Something about mixing up the rules on how to play. That I guess can be understandable.

But still, why play GW horrible way when they say the same, but don't want to change it for more fun. That still mind boggles me.

Is it a generation gap thing? I mean being almost 50, we would alway change things when discussed and someone wasn't having fun and it seems the young ones need structure and can't change. Almost like Sheldon Cooper because it has to be by the book. Doesn't matter if the book is bad, still have to abide by it, even when it says to change if you like.

 adamsouza wrote:
I'm indifferent on the igougo vs. interleaved debate. I've played games with both, and either ways you can still kill units before they get to do something. As others pointed out it makes MSU more flexible.

 Brutus_Apex wrote:
I think it would open up tactics, and eliminate 1st or 2nd turn tabling that is now quite common.

You know, I here this on Dakka and every time I shake my head wondering why their play experience is so different than mine. I've NEVER encountered this.

Are they not using enough terrain ? Are they not taking advantage of cover ? Are they playing too few models ?

I don't want to derail the thread, but let me assure that round 2 tabling is not "now quite common" everywhere.

Games being functionally over by turn two are quite common at all the stores/clubs I play at.

I don't necessarily think alpha strike mechanics are what's to blame, but the situation seems to come up quite a bit.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I generally like the Igo-Ugo round structure because it's simply clearer to the players, and "fair" in terms of which models move, and which don't.

I would agree with this, but seeing how we put dice beside our minis, and other games use tokens, it should be fairly easy to see what minis have moved or fired. Not saying you are wrong, just saying how we can show who moved or fired.

Davor wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I generally like the Igo-Ugo round structure because it's simply clearer to the players, and "fair" in terms of which models move, and which don't.

I would agree with this, but seeing how we put dice beside our minis, and other games use tokens, it should be fairly easy to see what minis have moved or fired. Not saying you are wrong, just saying how we can show who moved or fired.

I'm aware of these bookkeeping methods, and somewhat prefer not to need them.

As far as a basic mod, alternating phases is the simplest to implement because it doesn't require rebalancing of points and statlines. LOTR did alternating phases and it was fairly simple, 40K wouldn't be much different. I'd be in favor of it for adding interaction in the phases without a radical overhaul of the game. Would you want to roll off for first/second every game turn?

I like the idea of alternating phases. But I've never tried it in the context of 40k. Such a system can still have its problems (a person can move in to a position to shoot but then have the opponent hide before the shooting phase rolls around).

I don't like the idea of alternating unit activations, as then it becomes a game of trying to beat the system.

I don't really like random or semi-random activation (like Bolt Action) because it's too important of a mechanic to leave to chance.

I don't like initiative because then it makes initiative an extremely important all-or-nothing stat (There's no point paying the points for ini4 over ini3 if your opponents army is all ini5, and there's no point in paying for ini5 over ini4 if your opponent's army is all ini3), And as some people have mentioned a lot of armies have very similar ini (a lot of games are just going to be an ini4 army vs an ini4 army).

Maybe doing interleaving phases, but combine movement and shooting (one person moves and shoots, the other person moves and shoots) but removing casualties at the end of the phase to avoid one army getting wiped out before having a chance to shoot back.

The current 40k's structure allows easilier (as far as one is willing) a "strategical approach". That's more the global plan you have that will give you Victory. Unless of course you're playing in cheesy mode unabled but then... well. No point even playing.

Otherwise, the easiest, which brings dynamism without totally upsetting the game is to keep the same actions sequences, but just alternating turns, as lots already said.

You might try to adapt Bolt Action's activation system, but then it well ask for a heavy rebdesigning and that isn't always what's being looked for.

Anycase, selecting such a system instead of the normal one tends to make "tactical" skills (and rolls ) count more than the global plan for the game. It's however very funny because it results in Something much more lively.

I've played that a few times with a friend of mine and I find that it makes for a much smoother and more realistic game.

It means you have to focus more on positioning, LOS, angles of attack and flanking.

E.g.
Normally you can just move a Sentinel up, get shots on side armour and fire in your turn.
With this style, your opponent could then angle to negate your flanking move - meaning you need to have multiple units threatening from multiple angles or have your attacks mitigated.

I love it. It makes for such a dynamic game. You need to actually prioritise.

Count me in as a big fan of alternating phases, it ahs the potential to add a lot more tactical maneouvering to the game without moaking MSU the dominant set up that would happen with alternate activation.

To make it work best though would require some changes to the rules, specifically making sure that all movement happens in the movement phase (moving, running and shooting) to prevent the problem of assault armies chasing their opponents across the board and never getting into charge range.