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"Multiunit Models" in Alternating Activation Games: Is this a viable concept?  [RSS] Share on facebook Share on Twitter Submit to Reddit
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Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut







An issue that pops up in Alternating Activation games, whether its old-school games like Battletech or attempts to port games like 40k over to an AA system (ex: Beyond the Gates of 40k) is the fact that in many such games, not all activations are created equally. Activating a single "Power 1" unit (an Acolyte, a unit of Volksgrenadiers, a pickup truck, etc) is a single activation, while activating a "Power 20" unit (a Baneblade, Tiger 2, a custom-built mech full of LRMs) is a single Activation. For games that are strict "activate one unit," this can be annoying (one player takes a bunch of Power 1 units for pseudo "skip turns" until the Power 20s can act and shoot something dead), while this can be disastrous for games where out-uniting your opponent increases your ability to get consecutive actions (whether it's an activation ratio ala Battletech or a die-draw system ala Bolt Action).

While the "lots of MSU" can be countered by allowing the player with less unactivated units to skip (I call it the "Fine, you move a Power 1 unit. Quit wasting time and take a real turn" rule), this still doesn't solve the innate issue of units that concentrate too much power into a single activation. Some might state such units "simply don't belong in a game," while others might suggest making said units require more activations to work in full. Personally, I consider the first a cop-out, while the second one has the risk of making the game become more "IgoUgo"-ish if one player skews towards superheavies and the other doesn't.

My view is more that certain "super-units" should actually be treated as one model, where certain components activate/are targeted as separate units. So a supertank might activate its engine block as one component, its main turret as another, auxiliary weapons as another, and those would have to be targeted separately and destroyed in turn. While such granularity could break down if applied on a larger scale, my view is that since such vehicles are costed pointwise similar to multiple squads/small vehicles/etc, they should have roughly the same amount of activations to go through.

Does such a concept seem workable or a bit too overengineered?
   
Made in gr
Thermo-Optical Spekter





Greece

It has been attempted on a few game systems, tracking was always an issue as was the need to coordinate the multi composed units, of how certain units do not make sense form a logical perspective, but makes sense from a mechanical standpoint.
   
Made in us
Infiltrating Prowler





Portland, OR

I am not sure that it is necessarily a bad thing.

There are different ways to utilize alternate activations and balance it. It is going to depend on where the issue is with a given game system and identifying if it is necessarily an issue.

A person has 2-3 big, powerful units, while the opponent has 12 smaller units. Ideally, even if smaller units got to move or there were more, the bigger unit would normally be able to withstand that. It is also something to think about, risk vs reward and what is your priority for actions.

When a game has different units and different numbers, you usually wouldn't just go Player A, B, A, B, B, B, B, B, etc. You could but that doesn't always have the best outcome for either player. You could reverse it and have it go Player B, B, B, B, B, A, B, A in terms of numbers. Or have it split so it is A, B, B, B, A, B, B, B. You can also make so that a Player that is outnumbered can "hold" their activation until a certain point, requiring the one with smaller units to move first.

Unit activation order and priority isn't the only way to balance it. If the whole point of taking multiple small units to create a "cheerleader" effect, then there are other balance issues to consider especially if those Power 1 units can easily take out a Power 20 unit. That is a serious misbalance in unit abilities, not simply alternate actions.

Those types of questions and answers change depending on the game style. If you are just playing Side A destroy Side B, then there is a certain number of options. If you are playing Objective Base, then there are ways to add more "risks" making it a harder decision to simply stack activations by taking cheap units, requiring more specialized roles.
   
Made in hk
Decrepit Dakkanaut






SoCal, USA!

The easy fix is to allow Power 1 units to transfer their activation to a Power 20 unit aka "cheerleading"... then they're all equal again.

   
Made in ie
Veteran Wolf Guard Squad Leader





Dublin

In a good alternating activation system the advantages of having low numbers of powerful units should be balanced with the disadvantages
+High chance of being first to deal damage each turn +Difficult to destroy / render ineffective +Easier to maneuver army
-Major loss to army effectiveness if destroyed -low model count means can't cover as much of the battlefield -less flexible

If this is still creating issues, then the number of these "super units" should be limited. Warpath does this quite well by making powerful vehicles "High Value Assets" -only X number of HVA's can be taken per Y amount of points. Another solution I'm toying with, inspired by computer RTS games, is having 3 tiers of units, with a decision on the allowance of tier 2 and 3 units, before each player draws their lists.

I let the dogs out 
   
Made in gb
Fixture of Dakka






I've seen games where a huge model only activates certain bits on one activation. For example, in Confrontation the huge mosnsters - the dragon and the other big thingy - had multiple activation cards (move, breathe fire, tail strike, claw attack, bite attack, etc); those cards went into the activation stack separately, so for example, the dragon might move, then the enemy activates a model, then the dragon bites an enemy, then the enemy activates another model ...

Heavy Gear Blitz did something similar with the huge CEF landship, too.

As PsychoticStorm says, the only real tricky bit is remembering which parts of the large model have activated.
   
 
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