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Title should be pretty self-explanatory. At the moment the game is IGOUGO, where each player moves all their "pieces" and takes all their moves before ceding the turn, like in many collectible card games. A common proposal for healing its ills is alternating activation, where one player uses one "piece", then the other responds, and so on, like chess or drafts.

My question is: what's the most useful form of alternating activation? One where I pick a unit and run through movement, cshooting, combat, etc, and then my opponent does the same? Or one where I pick a unit and run through movement, then my opponent does the same until we're out of movement, then we run through shooting, etc etc?

I kind of liked how BattleTech handles their turns; alternating actions during the different phases with shooting being "simultaneous" (wounds are not resolved until after all shooting is done. A simple matter of marking the number of wounds to commit at the end of the phase) (edit; and melee, as well. Resolve wounds after each phase that requires it. Resolve wounds before moving to the next phase of the turn.)

The biggest drawback to AA is disparity in unit counts. Lists with smaller unit counts will be at a disadvantage in that the player with more units will, presumably, have a larger pool of "safe actions" they can perform before having to commit the important actions, while a player with fewer activations will be forced to "show their hand", as it were.

 General Malarky wrote:
I kind of liked how BattleTech handles their turns; alternating actions during the different phases with shooting being "simultaneous" (wounds are not resolved until after all shooting is done. A simple matter of marking the number of wounds to commit at the end of the phase)

The biggest drawback to AA is disparity in unit counts. Lists with smaller unit counts will be at a disadvantage in that the player with more units will, presumably, have a larger pool of "safe actions" they can perform before having to commit the important actions, while a player with fewer activations will be forced to "show their hand", as it were.

one problem is also when losses are only happening after shooting, glasscannon units get skewed massively.

How? They get their chance to shoot, like everything else and would not get screwed by not going first, etc.

 General Malarky wrote:
How? They get their chance to shoot, like everything else and would not get screwed by not going first, etc.

and that is a bad thing because we don't want to make Damage output alone the most determining point of a unit.

So they have unlimited range, do they? I am failing to see your side of this. Please elaborate as to how what I have proposed will eliminate movement, psykers and melee from the cost of a unit.

 General Malarky wrote:
So they have unlimited range, do they? I am failing to see your side of this. Please elaborate as to how what I have proposed will eliminate movement, psykers and melee from the cost of a unit.

It makes allready too strong suicide units even better?
It does not allow for punishment for bad positioning anymore?

How? I think it would allow for an even greater level of critical thinking, when considering when and where things move to.

Do you not alter your deployment decisions based upon what the opponent has deployed?

AA is an excellent counter to "first turn advantage", in that (under the current system) an army of glass cannons (with range and LoS) can dump a massive amount of damage, crippling the opponent before they can even move a single unit. I fail to see.the appeal in this style of gameplay, short of deriving enjoyment from gaking upon others and their own enjoyment. Not every opponent is going to be a masochist that will enjoy seeing their list torn apart, so that you can enjoy winning. My point is that i feel that AA will level the playing field, as it were, and give people a fething chance to make it worthwhile to even show up.

If alternating activations were to exist I think it'd have to be one activation per unit per game turn, then define an "activation" like Bolt Action (move+shoot, run, move+charge+fight, etc). Needing to pass priority three times per unit in a game as big as 40k would make everything take a hellishly long time.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
If alternating activations were to exist I think it'd have to be one activation per unit per game turn, then define an "activation" like Bolt Action (move+shoot, run, move+charge+fight, etc). Needing to pass priority three times per unit in a game as big as 40k would make everything take a hellishly long time.

Oh? It seems to work in Kill Team.

RevlidRas wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
If alternating activations were to exist I think it'd have to be one activation per unit per game turn, then define an "activation" like Bolt Action (move+shoot, run, move+charge+fight, etc). Needing to pass priority three times per unit in a game as big as 40k would make everything take a hellishly long time.

Oh? It seems to work in Kill Team.

How many units are there per side in kill Team?
How many units are there in a normal army in 40k?




Automatically Appended Next Post:

wounds are not resolved until after all shooting is done. A simple matter of marking the number of wounds to commit at the end of the phase) (edit; and melee, as well. Resolve wounds after each phase that requires it. Resolve wounds before moving to the next phase of the turn.)

This is my problem with your suggestion, this literally makes suicide units way to easier to use.

I am still pretty new to this new edition of 40k and I am not familiar with a lot of units that are not Ork or SM. Could you provide examples of some "suicide units" , please? I consider Boyz and Gretchin to be "throw away/chaff/suicide", in that I do not expect them to survive the trip across the board because they get mowed down prior to doing anything useful other than soaking fire.

 General Malarky wrote:
I am still pretty new to this new edition of 40k and I am not familiar with a lot of units that are not Ork or SM. Could you provide examples of some "suicide units" , please? I consider Boyz and Gretchin to be "throw away/chaff/suicide", in that I do not expect them to survive the trip across the board because they get mowed down prior to doing anything useful other than soaking fire.

Termicide units for chaos, Obliterators (altough they got worse with the higher cost), drop units in essence with PG's or other high powered weaponry.

So, effectively, "anything that can deep strike"? Do not most lists have options for giving most anything deep strike? What about Da Jump and other teleport abilities?

Are jumped Lootas any worse than Obliterators? I am lacking context, please elaborate.

 General Malarky wrote:
So, effectively, "anything that can deep strike"? Do not most lists have options for giving most anything deep strike? What about Da Jump and other teleport abilities?

Are jumped Lootas any worse than Obliterators? I am lacking context, please elaborate.

A: no, either it is very subfaction specific and there are better subfactions or movement shenanigans cost points.
B: Why would you jump lootas, Bv.2: Oblits have an inate depstrike.

Basically units that can punch over their weight with deepstrike that however are often relatively squishy, suicide units.

Not Online!!! wrote:


A: no, either it is very subfaction specific and there are better subfactions or movement shenanigans cost points.
B: Why would you jump lootas, Bv.2: Oblits have an inate depstrike.

Basically units that can punch over their weight with deepstrike that however are often relatively squishy, suicide units.

Okay. So? I am still failing to see how this would throw such a monkey wrench in as to make AA unfeasible. The deepstriking/jumped unit will still get to do their thing. Their target will get to shoot as well. So?

I am starting to get frustrated, here.

 General Malarky wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:


A: no, either it is very subfaction specific and there are better subfactions or movement shenanigans cost points.
B: Why would you jump lootas, Bv.2: Oblits have an inate depstrike.

Basically units that can punch over their weight with deepstrike that however are often relatively squishy, suicide units.

Okay. So? I am still failing to see how this would throw such a monkey wrench in as to make AA unfeasible. The deepstriking/jumped unit will still get to do their thing. Their target will get to shoot as well. So?

I am starting to get frustrated, here.

I am not against AA, i am against a system which allows turn immunity.

Igougo just supports.front-loading your list to do as much damage as possible and maneuvering for first turn advantage.

AA gives people a chance to contribute to a game.

Turn immunity? fething what? Seriously, explain how this confers immunity? It is not immunity, it is "simultaneous action resolution" as opposed to "I won the dice roll for who goes first so I get to mow you down with impunity because after my first turn is done you should not have enough left to be able to effectively respond."

wounds are not resolved until after all shooting is done. A simple matter of marking the number of wounds to commit at the end of the phase) (edit; and melee, as well. Resolve wounds after each phase that requires it. Resolve wounds before moving to the next phase of the turn.)

This is from you, and the point i dislike about it.

So giving people a fair chance to fight back does not sit well with you. Got it. Good to know. Sorry to hear.

 General Malarky wrote:
So giving people a fair chance to fight back does not sit well with you. Got it. Good to know. Sorry to hear.

No the point is you just allow with this a lot less punishment for misplays, it's basically like all just got first turn, so it allows and forces in a lot more dp over actual movement, which would be incentiviced by an AA system.
Basically you just throw out a whole lot of improvement that aa brings with this.

Yup. I am done with this. I am not going to be repeating myself any longer. I concede defeat; you win.

I’d like inter-leaved turns. Player A moves, Player B moves. Player A Psychic, Player B Psychic. A shoot, B shoot. A cc, Bcc... then reverse order

B, A, B, A , etc.

Allows move, counter move. Power, counter power, etc... then flips the order.

I think that splits a reasonable balance between keeping turn time down, allowing counter play, not overly penalizing “low unit count” armies, etc.

Kill Team is pretty good in this regard, but at the larger scale I think resolving larger groups at a time would keep the game going.

I feel the first player in a turn is at a disadvantage, which should help with first turn slaughterfests. By alternating turn order each turn (randomizing? I’d prefer set alternations) the momentum swings back and forth.

I prefer giving each unit a full turn. It's easy to implement and quick to play since you can do all of a unit's actions at once instead of having to alternate three times per unit.

Full turn.

With the current phases if a melee unit does not get it's full turn the opponent can just walk away from them before they can charge or drive a tank between them and their intended target.

 General Malarky wrote:
I kind of liked how BattleTech handles their turns; alternating actions during the different phases with shooting being "simultaneous" (wounds are not resolved until after all shooting is done. A simple matter of marking the number of wounds to commit at the end of the phase) (edit; and melee, as well. Resolve wounds after each phase that requires it. Resolve wounds before moving to the next phase of the turn.)

The biggest drawback to AA is disparity in unit counts. Lists with smaller unit counts will be at a disadvantage in that the player with more units will, presumably, have a larger pool of "safe actions" they can perform before having to commit the important actions, while a player with fewer activations will be forced to "show their hand", as it were.

This is terrible if one of the players brings a close combat army. Before they at least had a 50% chance to do something if they got to play first. With your suggestion, not only the enemy army will get to fully move on turn 1 (and therefore get to ignore my terrain/cover/LoS blocking attempts), but also they get to shoot against my hth list in full effect.

Not to mention that deep strike is punished even more than it already is. Already DS cannot come turn 1, now they get to come in turn 2 and get shot immediately. Not all deep strikers are shock units. Some (ie tyranid rippers) serve the purpose of dropping and capping a backfield objective for a turn or two. Now you basically drop them, then they die immediately. So what's the purpose of using units like rippers?

Finally, imagine an ultimate glass cannon unit. Someone who has all its points' worth of stats and guns implemented in the offense rather than defense. Before, this unit had to be played smart or risk losing it early. And it would be a double edged sword. With your proposal it's like it pays no penalty for defense whatsoever, because no matter what happens, it will get to unload and potentially earn more than its points back. So now all I have to do is play an army full of glass cannons and win the game.

The models and their rules are designed for i go you go games. You can't just change sequencing and think that everything will just work.

"I want to be able to drop my unit and gak on my opponent with impunity!" is what I am hearing and it is making me think that you're an donkey-cave. If you are okay with that, then I am glad I will never play against you.

 General Malarky wrote:
"I want to be able to drop my unit and gak on my opponent with impunity!" is what I am hearing and it is making me think that you're an donkey-cave. If you are okay with that, then I am glad I will never play against you.

Then you are not listening. Mechwarrior is a game where everything is covered in guns. 40k is not.

A unit needs to be able to have it's own agency in the game. You activate a shooting unit, get in range, and shoot. You activate a melee unit, it moves forward, charges, and attacks. That is what needs to be able to happen in the game for it to function without crippling entire armies. It's what happens in the game right now except you swap back and forth between units so the opponent gets a chance to react instead of watching you do it with your entire army.

 Lance845 wrote:

 General Malarky wrote:
"I want to be able to drop my unit and gak on my opponent with impunity!" is what I am hearing and it is making me think that you're an donkey-cave. If you are okay with that, then I am glad I will never play against you.

Then you are not listening. Mechwarrior is a game where everything is covered in guns. 40k is not.

That is utter horse gak.

I do not know what game you are playing, in that case, as 40k is VERY MUCH about shooting o straight-up teleporting in to the opponent's face to bypass getting utterly destroyed trying to get in to melee. Build a melee SM list and see how it does vs a shooting list.

(Not only that, your comprehension of BattleTech is lacking if you think melee is not a factor)

If you do AA by phase, as people have said, CC unit walks forwards, shooting unit walks away, and it's another turn of the shooting unit shooting the CC unit, with no gained ground.

If you transfer all damage resolution to the end of the turn, then it will make some units overpowered. It will also give you no way out of a situation, which is only OK if you had a warning.

For example: if you watch a unit walk up to start killing your tanks, and do nothing about it, then you deserve to get your tanks killed.
If a unit appears out of nowhere, and no matter how much firepower you pour at them, they are still free to perform their shooting attack, then it is immunity.

Real-game example which you might relate to:

a Knight is about to line up a perfect shot on your warboss, who can't waddle out of the way in one turn. To try and save him, you disembark a trukkload of tankbustas and play the "more stikkbomms" stratagem to throw a lot of tankbusta bomms at him. You succeed in inflicting enough wounds to bring him down, but too late! he shoots the warboss off the table, turns around and stomps the tankbustas and their trukk, then falls over once he's done. Good job you got in there first, eh?

Stopping tactical decisions from impacting the enemy when you perform them is enforcing the snowflake society. You may as well change the game to "you score points for every wound you cause, but nothing ever actually dies". At the end, everyone is declared a winner for trying.

you can't make a competitive wargame "fair" by wrapping everone in bubblewrap. you will lose units, and you might do so before they act. it's just how the game works.