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Hello everyone, I've been thinking about this particular fix for a while now, and I think it has the potential to fix many of 40k most commonly complained about problems.

The fix is simple : make use of a system that's already within the game, detachment, and combine it with a alternating activation like most modern games do.

The rule is simple : Instead of activating your whole army at once, the first player to play choose one of his detachment to activate. He then goes through all the phase for that detachment (Move, psychic, shooting, charge, assault, morale) and when he's done it's the other player's turn to activate one of his detachment that has not yet activated. Both players take turns like this until they have activated all of their detachment once. When all detachment have been activated, it's the end of the battle round, and they start a new battle round.

The pro's of this rule :
- Less alpha strike. If players separate their army in multiple detachment, they will only be able to bring certain guns to bear, or to commit only certain units in a fight, leaving them less able to wipe out whole squad in a single turn, and letting the opponent react to their actions. It also makes the first turn less important for both players.

- Less soup. Let's take an imperial soup as an example. If the guard+slamguinuis+knight players wants to shoot something. He'll want to activate his knight. However, since he cannot move his guardsman first, he could potentially be unable to move where he wants to shoot his target. He will also only be able to shoot with his knight, before the opponent retaliate. So a smart opponent could then target the guardsman that haven't shot yet to try and mitigate the damage from their activation. This also impact buffs. Let's say that Guilliman and an ultramarine detachment are supporting a cadian platoon. The cadians guards activate first. If they move out too far, they could get out of the buffing aura of Guilliman since he wouldn't move just yet, making good positioning and planning movement more tactically important and rewarding good movement again.

- A bonus to ''pure'' army. Let's say you want to play a pure ultramarine list. You are benefiting from this rule set, because you can take your huge pure detachment and let it activate all at once, without breaking out your movement and attack in different activation. It's also easier to have your buffs follows the squad they need to follow to be effective.

- Bookkeeping. When people say they don't want alternating activation, the reason is often because tracking the activation of 12+ units over 2000 points is tedious and prone to error. With this system, there is never more than 3 detachment to keep track of (at under 2000 points) and even at 3000 points it is at most 4 detachment.


And for the obvious con :

- The most obvious con, IMO, is that with this the rules could quickly become a race to create the biggest brigade detachment ever to activate all at once. To prevent that, I propose that the CP reward from detachment changes a bit. Basically, bigger detachment would give less CP than the smaller, more specialized one. It could reflect the tactical acumen of fielding a company of warriors that fight cohesively and in the same manners. For example, the patrol detachment could give 3 CP. that means that an army composed of 3 patrols would have at most 14 CP to play with, but will have to split their activation a lot between small group, and the whole army list will mostly be HQ's and troops, and not their more specialized brethren. The biggest detachment, the brigade, would only gives 1 CP. Since it's usually hard to have more than 1 or 2 brigade, an army composed of brigades only would have between 6 and 8 CP. They'll have less than more specialized army, but will be rewarded with huge activation, basically playing the game as it is played now. But with less CP, it'll be harder for them to do massive alpha strikes that kill half of the opponent's list in one turn.

- Melee. Melee combat would probably need an errata to say that it only happens if an ''engaged'' unit (one that either charged or is within 1'' of an enemy unit) is part of an activated detachment, to prevent melee unit activating for like 4 to 6 times a turn and making melee dis-proportionally stronger than shooting. This would make them activate the same number of time as they do now, a maximum of 2 times per battle rounds.



What do you all think? Would you play with such a rule set? Is there any glaring problem I did not consider than makes this unfun, unplayable or just... a bad idea? Tell me your comments and help me improve this idea. I will try to suggest it to my own FLGS to try it out and hopefully come back with concrete experience and feedback.

Another pontential fix to mitigate building 1 large detachment is always allow the player with the MOST detachments go first. Roll off as normal if a tie, but by having the player with more detachments go first, you discourage taking 1 big detachment.

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VoidSempai wrote:
Instead of activating your whole army at once, the first player to play choose one of his detachment to activate. He then goes through all the phase for that detachment (Move, psychic, shooting, charge, assault, morale) and when he's done it's the other player's turn to activate one of his detachment that has not yet activated.

-snip-

What do you all think? Would you play with such a rule set? Is there any glaring problem I did not consider than makes this unfun, unplayable or just... a bad idea? Tell me your comments and help me improve this idea. I will try to suggest it to my own FLGS to try it out and hopefully come back with concrete experience and feedback.

Morale phase. If I go first, my 1st detachment is essentially immune to Morale? Or do I have to suffer through potentially 5 more Morale phases (one for each other detachment in a 2K 3 det./side game)? Might want to skip that and do it at the end of the battle round for both sides, rather than a part of each activation.

That was the first thing that sprung into my head.

 Kcalehc wrote:

VoidSempai wrote:
Instead of activating your whole army at once, the first player to play choose one of his detachment to activate. He then goes through all the phase for that detachment (Move, psychic, shooting, charge, assault, morale) and when he's done it's the other player's turn to activate one of his detachment that has not yet activated.

-snip-

What do you all think? Would you play with such a rule set? Is there any glaring problem I did not consider than makes this unfun, unplayable or just... a bad idea? Tell me your comments and help me improve this idea. I will try to suggest it to my own FLGS to try it out and hopefully come back with concrete experience and feedback.

Morale phase. If I go first, my 1st detachment is essentially immune to Morale? Or do I have to suffer through potentially 5 more Morale phases (one for each other detachment in a 2K 3 det./side game)? Might want to skip that and do it at the end of the battle round for both sides, rather than a part of each activation.

That was the first thing that sprung into my head.

hum yeah it would make way more sense that way. Just check morale once at the end of the battle round for everyone. Thanks!

 Galef wrote:
Another pontential fix to mitigate building 1 large detachment is always allow the player with the MOST detachments go first. Roll off as normal if a tie, but by having the player with more detachments go first, you discourage taking 1 big detachment.

-

I like this one. It's also balanced out by the fact that the more detachment you have, the more your offense is essentially split out, so it shouldn't be overwhelming even if you try to always go for first turn!

While I do like the concept, I see one issue. What's stopping someone from bringing 1 brigade and a number of patrol detachment's to generate CP and allow the brigade to activate first?

Sir Heckington wrote:
While I do like the concept, I see one issue. What's stopping someone from bringing 1 brigade and a number of patrol detachment's to generate CP and allow the brigade to activate first?

Yup.

Remember Deathstar units in 7th?

This "fix" just creates "Deathstar" activations.

It doesn't actually address any of the issues but creates/turns the alpha strike issue into a all new version of itself.

I play Bolt Action and in my 30 years of gaming and speaking as a former Battalion Operations Officer deployed overseas, it is the single game that most accurately "feels" like actual decision making at the Company level. Your leader can coordinate the activation's of the 2 or 3 units that are close to him, but your other squads each activate according to the threats close by.

Bolt Action uses one "order dice" for each unit on the table. Those dice are chosen randomly from a dice bag. Your leader can choose to activate extra units besides itself. Or you can choose to activate another unit. Thus, you have to judge when is the right time to make your main thrust that turn. It feels so cinematic. In the movies, an infantry squad hides behind a wall and lets the tank move before they slip across the street. If the tank moves toward them, they have options to react. That is exactly how it works in Bolt Action. It is a great system.

Now, to the issue at hand. 40k has a HUGE disparity from one unit to another, but each has their own strategic or narrative purpose. If you activate detachment by detachment, it gets you part of the way, and keeps it simple. However, I think it is just as easy to activate 3 units, then you activate 3 units. Or activate 1/3 of your force, then the other guy does. Or you can organize your army into combat TEAMS, before the game. Each TEAM can be a maximum of 1/3 of your force, or 4 units, whichever includes the fewest units.

I think units above a certain number of wounds can count as more than one unit toward the team count. Like 20 wounds counts as 2 units.

Then turns alternate between TEAMS, and perhaps include an initiative roll before each battle round.

This idea creates a balance between alpha strike, multiple small units, soup lists, deep strike spam and the dominance of Titans.

Your thoughts?

Just a random thought. How about activation by unit type?

So alternating activating HQ's first (at which point you may activate an additional 2-3 units of any type for each HQ within X"), then Fast attack, then Elite, then Troops, then Heavy Support. Transports activate when the unit inside them does, or with Troops if empty. Start with the side with the fewest units on the table. Maybe certain Elite units that are HQ-like (e.g. IG platoon commanders) can activate a single extra troops choice with them too - chain of command and all that.

Probably a bit too much book keeping in a large game though.

 Kcalehc wrote:
Just a random thought. How about activation by unit type?

So alternating activating HQ's first (at which point you may activate an additional 2-3 units of any type for each HQ within X"), then Fast attack, then Elite, then Troops, then Heavy Support. Transports activate when the unit inside them does, or with Troops if empty. Start with the side with the fewest units on the table. Maybe certain Elite units that are HQ-like (e.g. IG platoon commanders) can activate a single extra troops choice with them too - chain of command and all that.

Probably a bit too much book keeping in a large game though.

Not only is it book keeping, why restrict players to activating in a specific order? One of the biggest and best advantages of alternating activation is the tactical and strategic thinking that goes into not only what do you activate and do with it, but what are you going to activate NEXT? Can you anticipate what the opponent will do and head him off or try to bait him into activating what you want?

Why take away those choices and place the players on a preset path? You loose a lot and gain what exactly?

 ArmyC wrote:
I play Bolt Action and in my 30 years of gaming and speaking as a former Battalion Operations Officer deployed overseas, it is the single game that most accurately "feels" like actual decision making at the Company level. Your leader can coordinate the activation's of the 2 or 3 units that are close to him, but your other squads each activate according to the threats close by.

Bolt Action uses one "order dice" for each unit on the table. Those dice are chosen randomly from a dice bag. Your leader can choose to activate extra units besides itself. Or you can choose to activate another unit. Thus, you have to judge when is the right time to make your main thrust that turn. It feels so cinematic. In the movies, an infantry squad hides behind a wall and lets the tank move before they slip across the street. If the tank moves toward them, they have options to react. That is exactly how it works in Bolt Action. It is a great system.

Now, to the issue at hand. 40k has a HUGE disparity from one unit to another, but each has their own strategic or narrative purpose. If you activate detachment by detachment, it gets you part of the way, and keeps it simple. However, I think it is just as easy to activate 3 units, then you activate 3 units. Or activate 1/3 of your force, then the other guy does. Or you can organize your army into combat TEAMS, before the game. Each TEAM can be a maximum of 1/3 of your force, or 4 units, whichever includes the fewest units.

I think units above a certain number of wounds can count as more than one unit toward the team count. Like 20 wounds counts as 2 units.

Then turns alternate between TEAMS, and perhaps include an initiative roll before each battle round.

This idea creates a balance between alpha strike, multiple small units, soup lists, deep strike spam and the dominance of Titans.

Your thoughts?

I like this idea. The concept of teams activating is like a compromise between Kill team specified rules (model by model) to a more scaled, bigger ruleset (team by team).

Kill teams Unit activation would work quite well in this scenario, and the bookkeeping wouldn't be as intense as single units by units (So to keep track of things you could give the units in a team a specified team number say between one and six)

Basically, make it so that you designate "Fire teams" within your army, up to all your units. Then activate them using Kill teams current system (players move, Teams Shoot (priority -> Non Priority), Teams Melee (Priority -> non priority), Morale)

The only thing i would do is that charges happen in the movement phase, and the standard charge is Movement + 2D6 for charging as a way to represent the current rules for charging units, and units that can advance and charge would add an additional D6 to the roll, and allow the extra charge distance to be factored into declaring charges, basically make a ruling that you can declare a charge equal to the maximum charge movement you can charge (so a 6 +2d6 can declare a charge 18" away, a 12+2D6 can declare 24" away ect.)

I feel that this could make either option (shooting or melee) a viable tactic, as most of the strategies would be in the movement phase

Deep striking rules would happen at the end of the movement phase, therefore making units that come out of deep strike in an interesting tactical position. (Shooting units would have to be careful where they place themselves, and melee units will have to also place themselves in a good position to either charge next turn or become a screening unit for those that are moving up the field

 Lance845 wrote:

 Kcalehc wrote:
Just a random thought. How about activation by unit type?

So alternating activating HQ's first (at which point you may activate an additional 2-3 units of any type for each HQ within X"), then Fast attack, then Elite, then Troops, then Heavy Support. Transports activate when the unit inside them does, or with Troops if empty. Start with the side with the fewest units on the table. Maybe certain Elite units that are HQ-like (e.g. IG platoon commanders) can activate a single extra troops choice with them too - chain of command and all that.

Probably a bit too much book keeping in a large game though.

Not only is it book keeping, why restrict players to activating in a specific order? One of the biggest and best advantages of alternating activation is the tactical and strategic thinking that goes into not only what do you activate and do with it, but what are you going to activate NEXT? Can you anticipate what the opponent will do and head him off or try to bait him into activating what you want?

Why take away those choices and place the players on a preset path? You loose a lot and gain what exactly?

Not sure I appreciate the condescending tone, but I see the point you make; yeah, it makes it too predictable doing it that way. Twas just an off the cuff thought.

Its not condescending.

I was enthusiastically having a discussion about game design philosophy. Just because im poking a hole in an idea doesnt mean it is in any way malicious. Maybe you legit think the mechanic gains something that is worth the trade off that i dont see?

Remember, the written word has no inflection. Dont assume its written in the worst way possible.