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I had an idea, and it goes a little something like this ...

What if instead of an I go you go play style it was changed to be something more like this:

Okay, so round one is about to begin, but instead of you
moving all your units, shooting and assaulting, it went
unit by unit back and forth.

It would go by initiative step for units. Starting at initiative ten down to one.

Meaning, your initiative 8 unit moves, shoots and
assaults, then my initiative 7 unit goes, yours. Back
And forth until I1, then repeat for round 2.

The idea that an army of elite soldiers would stand there
And do nothing while the entire enemy force is moving
And shooting seems odd.

I feel like it would create a more realistic and dynamic game
And cut down on alpha strikes. Thoughts?

How does it cut down on Alpha strikes?

How do you account for vehicles which have no initiative value?

How much value will it get considering many armies have similar initiative values across the board (Marines, Orks, SoB, etc)?

What of characters attached to units?

What does this change, and what is your goal for it?

Why not i move, you move (whole army) then i shoot one unit, you shoot one unit and keep going to all units have shot. A unit declares a charge during its shooting step.

easier to keep track of. i think

Vehicles have their own initiative values that would be assigned.
Tanks like Vindicators and land raiders would be slower
So more likely at I1, other faster vehicles like wave serpents would be I4. In the event of an initiative you're, elect a unit, and dice off.

Alpha strikes always benefit an army with long range or scouting
And it would cut down on it by being able to react to it a its happening instead of waiting.

Ties would be broken by dice off.

Units would be eligible to act on the highest initiative in the group
Giving independent characters more value to an army.

Why is a Vindicator slower, even though it has the same crew and engine/chasis as a Rhino? Because it has a gun? That seems immensely arbitrary.

The goal would be to more accurately simulate battle from a common sense standpoint. An army wouldn't sit waiting for another army to do everything its doing before acting.

It would create a more interesting battle in trends of being more reactive to what is happening on the field. It would require more tactics and better generals at the helm.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
A vindicator doesn't just have a gun, a bolt gin is a gun. Its got a massive cannon that would require time to move and adjust to its firing point. It wouldn't be that quick in making those adjustments.

If you've seen the Initiative system in LotR, you'd know that sometimes going first is a disadvantage. So turn order based on INT doesn't really work out.

I'd recommend drawing on the LotR rules for something like this; each turn you roll off and the winner *has* initiative (no choice in the matter)

The player with Initiative moves all of his units, including charges. Then the other player moves his units which are not engaged in close combat

Then the initiative player shoots, then the other player

Finally, close combat.

The goal would be to more accurately simulate battle from a common sense standpoint. An army wouldn't sit waiting for another army to do everything its doing before acting.

It would create a more interesting battle in trends of being more reactive to what is happening on the field. It would require more tactics and better generals at the helm.

Infinity is that way ->

That is exactly how me and my son are going to be playing, once my gaming room is done.

We will use the LotR rules, even have Priority to break ties at Initative.

As for the comment of vehicles and what not, things will be worked out. What is a little tweaking a bit to get things right.
You telling me, after 25 years, GW got 40K right without any errors in their rules?

We still arguing over rules on how things go. When vehicles move seem so small thing to argue about.

I like it simply for the back and forth. You get to be reactive to the other player. They move and shoot, you can counter, but instead of waiting for an entire army to move, you go unit by unit. Giving priority to faster units before slower.

So Eldar get to kill off Marines before thay can react, that sound good.

Isn't eldar killing marines before they can act the norm?

sounds great for eldar armies. "Woo-Hoo, all this PLUS, I get to 'go first" every turn?"

It's an interesting idea, but the problem is, a lot of armies have (almost) universal initiative values. Space Marines have I4 across the board with few exceptions. Tau have I2 across the board with few exceptions. There would probably be some minor differences between certain units, but it'd still likely come down to one army moving everything, then the other army moving everything.

I'd like to see some variant on how Deadzone does things, personally - on your turn, you get to activate and move X number of units, then you pass to your opponent, who does the same thing. Whoever moves their last unit first gets to go first on the next round.

There are some people (including me) proposing the same rule in the Proposed Rules section.

I am 100% for it. It needs a lot of tweaking, but it makes the games fast, dynamic and full of tactical choices.

However, I am more for "you use a unit", "I use a unit" regardless of Initiative.

Wow I'm suprised someone else thought like this.

Honestly one thing that makes me hesitant to play was this whole non realism thing. Watching people play and how stubborn they are with the rules made me honestly doubt the games common sense. An example being I watched a player move in a swarm of tyranid terma/homogaunts and attack, and the defending space marines just sat there like " HURRR DURRRR, OW DAT HURT ME, HEY WAI U KILL MAI BRUDDER!", yet suddenly we grab a fluff book and " The marine fired his bolter with two destructive shots blowing out the tyranids brain, as his comrade came up from behind the genestealer and sliced it in half with a chainsaw as a third tyranide stabbed it's talons into the marine's back"


Huge suspension of belief there, I can't imagine how fun this game would be if it relied more on reaction tactics.

That's similar to the way many games are run, including the late Warmaster. The only difference is the player can decide which of his units to move without factoring in initiative. It makes for a fairly interesting game, deciding which units to attack with while leaving others open for attack.
You'd want a way of marking the units that have moved in the turn or it could become confusing.

Mike94656 wrote:
I had an idea, and it goes a little something like this ...

What if instead of an I go you go play style it was changed to be something more like this:

Okay, so round one is about to begin, but instead of you
moving all your units, shooting and assaulting, it went
unit by unit back and forth.

It would go by initiative step for units. Starting at initiative ten down to one.

Meaning, your initiative 8 unit moves, shoots and
assaults, then my initiative 7 unit goes, yours. Back
And forth until I1, then repeat for round 2.

The idea that an army of elite soldiers would stand there
And do nothing while the entire enemy force is moving
And shooting seems odd.

I feel like it would create a more realistic and dynamic game
And cut down on alpha strikes. Thoughts?

It would be better in many ways, but I would not use Initiative, but Leadership. Also I would not do everything in order as for certain army match-ups it would still turn into Your Turn My Turn and removes an interesting tactical choice.

There's a similar approach (so you get the realism and interesting variance between unit types) but which avoids the problems that come with it. Instead of strict initiative or leadership order, it's just regular I Go You Go but allow an interrupt based on the relevant score (Initiative in your case, Leadership in mine). This adds a whole new tactical aspect to the game with knowing that if you move init X (low score) first, you're giving your opponent a chance to squeeze in an extra move before you actually move it. (To be clear only one interrupt is allowed). And it reflects the real benefit of high leadership on a battlefield, This would increase the value of the relevant attribute and so some re-costing would be useful. It would also lead to more interesting differences and play-styles between otherwise similar armies. It also avoids the problem if high Initiative / Leadership trips being trapped into going sooner than is tactically desired which would be the opposite of how a better leader / troop should behave - as others have pointed out, going first can be a disadvantage.

It plays pretty quickly, also:
"I'm moving these Boyz, leadership 6"
"Marnius Calgar is interrupting"

Lets you bait your opponent into making mistakes also by moving their best troops when they shouldn't so you can get them to commit wrongly. It's a whole new aspect of tactical play for almost zero additional complication.

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Mike94656 wrote:
I like it simply for the back and forth. You get to be reactive to the other player. They move and shoot, you can counter, but instead of waiting for an entire army to move, you go unit by unit. Giving priority to faster units before slower.

It also leads to more tactical decisions in a game. Do you want to move unit Y first and charge those Eldar before they get away, or move unit X and seize those ruins before your opponent does.

knas ser wrote:

It would be better in many ways, but I would not use Initiative, but Leadership. Also I would not do everything in order as for certain army match-ups it would still turn into Your Turn My Turn and removes an interesting tactical choice.

There's a similar approach (so you get the realism and interesting variance between unit types) but which avoids the problems that come with it. Instead of strict initiative or leadership order, it's just regular I Go You Go but allow an interrupt based on the relevant score (Initiative in your case, Leadership in mine). This adds a whole new tactical aspect to the game with knowing that if you move init X (low score) first, you're giving your opponent a chance to squeeze in an extra move before you actually move it. (To be clear only one interrupt is allowed). And it reflects the real benefit of high leadership on a battlefield, This would increase the value of the relevant attribute and so some re-costing would be useful. It would also lead to more interesting differences and play-styles between otherwise similar armies. It also avoids the problem if high Initiative / Leadership trips being trapped into going sooner than is tactically desired which would be the opposite of how a better leader / troop should behave - as others have pointed out, going first can be a disadvantage.

It plays pretty quickly, also:
"I'm moving these Boyz, leadership 6"
"Marnius Calgar is interrupting"

Lets you bait your opponent into making mistakes also by moving their best troops when they shouldn't so you can get them to commit wrongly. It's a whole new aspect of tactical play for almost zero additional complication.

In my humble opinion, this is... absolutely brilliant. I would limit it to the Warlord (and the unit he is attached to, or perhaps a unit within 6"), but the concept is amazingly good.
It would show the leaders as truly leading.

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Mike94656 wrote:
I like it simply for the back and forth. You get to be reactive to the other player. They move and shoot, you can counter, but instead of waiting for an entire army to move, you go unit by unit. Giving priority to faster units before slower.

It also leads to more tactical decisions in a game. Do you want to move unit Y first and charge those Eldar before they get away, or move unit X and seize those ruins before your opponent does.

^This is important too, and another reason for the change.

 da001 wrote:

knas ser wrote:

It would be better in many ways, but I would not use Initiative, but Leadership. Also I would not do everything in order as for certain army match-ups it would still turn into Your Turn My Turn and removes an interesting tactical choice.

There's a similar approach (so you get the realism and interesting variance between unit types) but which avoids the problems that come with it. Instead of strict initiative or leadership order, it's just regular I Go You Go but allow an interrupt based on the relevant score (Initiative in your case, Leadership in mine). This adds a whole new tactical aspect to the game with knowing that if you move init X (low score) first, you're giving your opponent a chance to squeeze in an extra move before you actually move it. (To be clear only one interrupt is allowed). And it reflects the real benefit of high leadership on a battlefield, This would increase the value of the relevant attribute and so some re-costing would be useful. It would also lead to more interesting differences and play-styles between otherwise similar armies. It also avoids the problem if high Initiative / Leadership trips being trapped into going sooner than is tactically desired which would be the opposite of how a better leader / troop should behave - as others have pointed out, going first can be a disadvantage.

It plays pretty quickly, also:
"I'm moving these Boyz, leadership 6"
"Marnius Calgar is interrupting"

Lets you bait your opponent into making mistakes also by moving their best troops when they shouldn't so you can get them to commit wrongly. It's a whole new aspect of tactical play for almost zero additional complication.

In my humble opinion, this is... absolutely brilliant. I would limit it to the Warlord (and the unit he is attached to, or perhaps a unit within 6"), but the concept is amazingly good.
It would show the leaders as truly leading.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Mike94656 wrote:
I like it simply for the back and forth. You get to be reactive to the other player. They move and shoot, you can counter, but instead of waiting for an entire army to move, you go unit by unit. Giving priority to faster units before slower.

It also leads to more tactical decisions in a game. Do you want to move unit Y first and charge those Eldar before they get away, or move unit X and seize those ruins before your opponent does.

^This is important too, and another reason for the change.

Thanks. I think even if the idea that changing one side goes then the other to a game of alternating units isn't universally regarded as necessary, it's certainly near the too of the list of things most people believe would improve things. So when I was thinking over ideas based on that and wanting different armies to actually play differently and capture realistically the different organizational abilities of different armies (quite frankly Space Marines who are a small hyper-elite force ought to have better command effects than, e.g. IG or orks), it seemed clear that Leadership should be that differentiator. Unfortunately it presented the case where it turned games back into one side goes, then the other. I mulled it over for a couple of days at the back of my mind as to how I could achieve this without that happening, and then realized allowing an interrupt did exactly that. I see it as DESIRABLE that in, e.g. SM vs. Orks, the SM get the chance to use their greater battlefield coordination, communications, etc., in a way that matters.

If you're interested in tactical play then attaching a high Leadership IC to a unit in regular WH40K makes them better, but has almost no tactical significance. But in this system, it's a serious decision.

@knas ser: awesome ideas.

 Swastakowey wrote:
Why not i move, you move (whole army) then i shoot one unit, you shoot one unit and keep going to all units have shot.

Because what happens then is you move your army, and then I move my army into positions that are better for my shooting, and worse for yours... It's a huge advantage to the player moving second.

Problem is, when you give strong armies like Eldar, Space Marines, or Tau extra free bonuses at the expense of weak armies like Orks, you make my games even more unbalanced which can offset any added depth to the game.

 Dakkamite wrote:
Problem is, when you give strong armies like Eldar, Space Marines, or Tau extra free bonuses at the expense of weak armies like Orks, you make my games even more unbalanced which can offset any added depth to the game.

I did note that there would be some points re-costing. For example, units that are low-Leadership such as Ork boyz all become a little cheaper. To be clear, I'm talking about a overhaul to rules and codices, not just splicing in a single change without adjusting associated things.

So to be clear, this can still be balanced. But it does add a new tactical dimension to the game, and a very interesting one. It also adds a more tactical dimension to list design as well. Consider the following: Giant blob of thirty Imperial Guard vs. three units of ten. In the latter instance, you get more flexibility and more interrupts and manoeuvrability. But in the former case, you could get one super-gifted IC to lead them and give them all both the ability to interrupt and the greater resistance to being interrupted (outmanoeuvered) by other units. Now that Leadership actually has a tactical effect, questions of unit size and availability of ICs to lead them becomes more interesting.

And interesting is good. Quite frankly it plays into how different armies are supposed to be different fluff-wise, in a way that Fleet and a few skimmers do not. Sure, Eldar are a little more maneuverable because they have some fast skimmers and Battle Focus, but it's rather a blunt instrument. What about Space Marines? Should small combat squads of hyper-elite units not be able to react faster and manoeuvre better than a giant mob of battle enraged orks whose leader guides them by bellowing orders as loudly as possible over their own battle cries? And conversely, now orks would gain more advantage from their giant mob size in that a single powerful warlord attaching to the squad actually affects it and makes it much more useful in way other than just 'now we have someone to answer challenges'.

Army differentiation is vital to make the game interesting. And points can make things balanced (though GW gets them wrong too often). That latter principle doesn't really start breaking down until you hit things like Titans and some super-heavies which are so extreme that simply piling on points starts to no longer work. But this system with a small amount of re-costing makes the game MUCH more tactically fun.

And it does it in a way that lets smart / experienced players expand upwards without punishing or making it harder for CAAC or new players. I'm a big believer in making the game more interesting and simpler at the same time. I play both Chess and Go and I have, over time, come to find Go the more interesting game even though the rules are much, much simpler.

When I have time a few months from now, I would like to do a revised rule system that includes this. Another example of simplification and more interesting is to combine cover and to hit rolls. It makes sense they are combined and currently the fact that it is armour OR cover save means that better armoured units derive less benefit from cover than worse armoured ones. A relatively simple change that both reduces the overall number of die rolls AND makes the game more interesting and realistic. A buck naked guardsman and a Dire Avenger stand before you and you are more likely to wound the Guardsman when you shoot than the Dire Avenger, for the Dire Avenger has its aspect armour. But put some long grass in front of them both as you fire your lasgun bolts wildly into the rustling stalks and now the Dire Avenger's armour counts for nothing. Silly AND more rolls than you need.

 Dakkamite wrote:
Problem is, when you give strong armies like Eldar, Space Marines, or Tau extra free bonuses at the expense of weak armies like Orks, you make my games even more unbalanced which can offset any added depth to the game.

I don´t think this is relevant when introducing such a big change in the game.

Balance comes and goes, and a big change is bound to stir things a little. If it is too much, whoever advocates a big change is sure advocating doing some additional small changes to balance specific armies or even units. That´s easy.

Running using initiative works in computer games, and it works in role playing games. If you want a game that works like this, the Ravenmark series is good.

This system won't work, though. High init armies will always go first, and I'm afraid dark eldar are about as alpha-strike as it gets. Dark eldar could move, shoot and assault before Tau or Marines got a chance to respond and it would just make a different kind of imbalance.

 Scipio Africanus wrote:
Running using initiative works in computer games, and it works in role playing games. If you want a game that works like this, the Ravenmark series is good.

This system won't work, though. High init armies will always go first, and I'm afraid dark eldar are about as alpha-strike as it gets. Dark eldar could move, shoot and assault before Tau or Marines got a chance to respond and it would just make a different kind of imbalance.

Hence just letting a unit with a higher score (I prefer Leadership over Initiative) perform an interrupt if it hasn't gone yet. You only get to interrupt with one unit so at most two units go at once and it lets the opposing player try to bluff / bait you into giving up one of those units. After all, if you save the high Leadership unit to near the end of the turn, you know nothing will be able to interrupt it when it commits to your Evil Plan. But to do that, you've had to resist the temptation to use it earlier, perhaps by interrupting someone else. A whole new dimension of bluff, bait and gauging what your opponent will do in order to pull of some clever scheme.

Loads of fun without extra complexity.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 da001 wrote:

 Dakkamite wrote:
Problem is, when you give strong armies like Eldar, Space Marines, or Tau extra free bonuses at the expense of weak armies like Orks, you make my games even more unbalanced which can offset any added depth to the game.

I don´t think this is relevant when introducing such a big change in the game.

Balance comes and goes, and a big change is bound to stir things a little. If it is too much, whoever advocates a big change is sure advocating doing some additional small changes to balance specific armies or even units. That´s easy.

Very well put. And much less wordy than my version.

Except for the whole integrated turns thing, where people will sit and think "what the feth am I meant to do again?"

Also, leadership doesn't help, it just means you have to move your termagants before your hive tyrant. It just means you have to move and shoot with your conscripts before your veterans.

 Scipio Africanus wrote:
Except for the whole integrated turns thing, where people will sit and think "what the feth am I meant to do again?"

How is alternating unit movements complicated. I move one, you move one. Interrupt is simple - when someone picks a unit to move on their go, if it's lower leadership than one of your remaining, your unit can interrupt and go first, before they move the unit.

 Scipio Africanus wrote:

Also, leadership doesn't help, it just means you have to move your termagants before your hive tyrant. It just means you have to move and shoot with your conscripts before your veterans.

No it doesn't. You have confused what I wrote with the OP's idea. You don't have to move anything before anything else. Leadership just lets you usurp a lower-value unit if you want it to. But from this simple process, there's a whole aspect of bluffing, baiting and planning your moves in a way you never would when it's my side goes, your side goes. Seriously - you should try it. It's really fun.

The game is currently designed around having your army participate in two assault phases per one shooting phase.

UgoIgo is a great idea, but the ramifications of adding it to 40k in a balanced way is immense.

Try to imagine Tyranids (who the internet unduly considers terrible) trying to compete in a world where they get shot relatively twice as often as they do now.

knas ser wrote:
Loads of fun without extra complexity.

Yet you want to change the points for every single army and unit, to Balance it.

Sounds Complicated.