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So there are a few threads where the topic of interleaving turns has come up, partly to eliminate the current tedium of mostly just waiting for the other player to do things, and also to add more tactical elements to the game. I've been thinking on this subject for a little while, and come up with the basics for a system that I think is good fun to play, so I'm going to share it here.

Turns
Instead of the current phases, turns are structured as one big Action phase, followed by the Morale phase.

During the Action phase players alternately perform actions with their units, with each unit able to take up to two actions per turn, and only able to perform each action once per turn (barring abilities). Available actions are:

• Move/Arrive: As per the Movement phase, except that units may not Advance (see below). A unit that is placed in reserve (teleport chamber etc.) by any special deployment ability may instead use this action to Arrive as described by the ability. This still counts as the unit having performed a Move action.
  
• Advance: Unit may move up to its Advance distance (D6", 6" for bikes etc.). If the unit has Assault weapons or can otherwise Advance and Shoot in the same turn, then it may perform an immediate Shoot action that does not count against the two actions per turn limit.
  
• Shoot: As per Shooting phase.
  
• Charge: As per Charge phase. If the charge is successful the unit may perform an immediate free Fight action. If a Charge is failed the unit may perform no further actions this turn. Units that are being charged may no longer Overwatch, but may use any other abilities that trigger when charged as normal. Characters may no longer perform Heroic Interventions.
  
• Fight: As per the Fight phase. Each unit may perform the Fight action up to twice per turn.
  
• Manifest Psychic Powers: A Psyker may manifest as many powers as indicated on their data sheet, as per the Psychic phase.

The Morale phase occurs just like it does now, except that both players do it for their own units at the same time.

Activation Order
By default the order in which actions occur is simply one per player, repeating until every unit has taken as many actions as it can (or forfeits any remaining activations), however there are a few exceptions:

• The Counter-Offensive Stratagem is now 1cp, and instead simply allows a player to take an action ahead of another player's. Since other players may do the same it possible for players to effectively "bid" cps to go next at a crucial moment. In a 3+ player game this will change the activation order for the rest of the game (or until this stratagem is used again).
  
• Units that can Shoot in the same turn that they Fall Back may instead perform an immediate Shoot action after falling back. Note: this is not a free action, i.e- they must be able to perform the Shoot action in order to do this, and that will usually be their entire turn.

Free and Immediate Actions
A free Action (such as the free Fight from a successful Charge) are not subject to the normal two action and no duplicate actions limitations per turn. Immediate actions occur right away, i.e- immediately after the current action. The Counter-Offensive stratagem may not be used to supersede this, but some other abilities may (such as Strike First below).

Tracking Actions
My preferred method for tracking actions in this system is to use coloured tokens to indicate which action(s) a unit has performed. Units start with no counters, then each time they perform an action (except free actions) the appropriate counter is placed beside them, once they have two counters they are done for the turn. During the Morale phase each unit has its counter(s) removed after taking/skipping a Morale test, thus resetting for the next turn.

If you don't have suitable tokens you could assign numbers on die to each action or, if you don't mind flexing your memory a little, you can simply use coins or other two-sided counters; when a unit takes its first action place the counter face-up, then flip it when the unit takes its second action (or fails a charge) to indicate no more actions left. This of course requires you to remember which action each unit has already taken though.

Abilities
Understandably, with such major changes, some abilities will require some common-sense tweaks to make them function correctly. Here are a few common examples:

• Bonus Phases: Rules such as Astra Militarum Orders, Adepta Sororitas Acts of Faith and similar that allow a unit to act again as though it were a particular phase. In these cases the unit receives an immediate free action of the appropriate type. For example, if a unit can pile-in and fight an additional time, they will receive a free Fight action. If they can move again as if it were the Movement phase they get a free Move action and so-on.
  
• At End of Phase: If an ability is triggered at the end of a particular phase, it instead applies after the Action of the appropriate type, i.e- "at the end of a unit's Movement phase" becomes "after a unit takes the Move action". If the ability doesn't require a unit to actually act during the phase (e.g- move in the Movement phase) then you may need to discuss with your opponent when the ability should be applied.
  
• Until End of Phase: If an ability lasts until the end of a given phase, it instead applies to all Actions of the same type. For example, if an effect lasts until the end of the Shooting phase, it instead applies to all of the appropriate player's Shoot actions that turn..
  
• End of Turn: Since both players have a single combined turn, all "end of your turn" and "end of your opponent's next turn" are simply until the end of the current turn. This means it is often a good idea to prioritise any such abilities to maximise their duration.
  
• Strikes First: Units that may strike first, such as Howling Banshees and Slaaneshi Daemons, may instead perform a Fight action out-of-sequence, whenever an enemy is about to Fight in the same combat. For example, if an enemy Charges your Howling Banshees and is about to perform their free Fight action, you may instead perform an immediate Fight action of your own first (though yours is not a free action).
  
• Strikes Last: Abilities that cause a unit to Fight after all others instead effectively grants Strike First (above) to all enemy units in the same combat. In other words, every other unit in the combat gets to jump ahead each time the affected unit tries to Fight.
  
• Shoot Then Move: A unit that can shoot then move instead of move then shoot as normal, may instead perform an immediate Move action after it shoots.

There are not doubt tons of other common rules I haven't thought of yet, so I will likely be adding clarifications to this list in future.

Thoughts
The aim with this system is to really open up the tactical possibilities in a game of 8th edition 40k; currently the game, as in past editions, is mostly just one player rolling saves and weeping into their hands as big chunks of their beautifully painted and expensive army is wiped out by the other player, before getting a chance to do the same in return. By interleaving turns both players are more active throughout the battle, and the order in which actions are performed becomes crucial to an army's success or failure, leading to a lot more tactical options.

I opted for a two action structure with full freedom in preference to a system of taking a full turn with one unit, as it allows a lot of very interesting possibilities:

• Firstly, it works better with Aura abilities, as you can prioritise Move actions to keep units in range, but this comes at the cost of delaying other actions; so you must weigh up whether maintaining the Aura or shooting/charging etc. sooner is more important.
  
• Units can either Move then Shoot (with penalties) or Shoot then Move. In the former case you're not only taking penalties but risking a target also moving, but can get your unit into a better position, into cover, or away from a potential charging enemy. In the latter case you prioritise the shooting, but potentially leave yourself vulnerable to retaliation if you're in the open or within charging distance.
  
• Overwatch is gone, because a player can prioritise Shoot actions against potential chargers; this does require some thinking ahead though, as you may lose the chance if you don't shoot in one turn, and the enemy charges first in the next.
  
• Combats are more piecemeal, as an enemy may Fight before you are ready to Charge, thus units already in combat can still strike first if you or your opponent take their Fight actions early. This means that while you can still take other actions before charging, doing so may reduce the impact. For example, you may wish to Move then Charge to increase your chances of success, but this may mean the target inflicts extra damage compared with risking a Charge straight away to hurt them sooner. Likewise you may be able to Shoot then Charge, but need to weigh up whether it is better to soften up the target first and risk return damage, or get stuck in and Shoot with pistols later (or Fight a second time).
  
• The ability to Fight twice per turn somewhat favours dedicated combat units that Fight with just Melee weapons (i.e- do not rely on Pistols). However this is somewhat mitigated by the extra flexibility that taking the Shoot action in any order gives, so I think it balances it out a bit without disadvantaging Assault Marines and similar.

I'm currently playing with these basic changes, alongside giving Blast weapons an average number of to-Hit rolls, and am finding that together it makes the game a lot more tactical, rather than just mostly luck and numbers. In theory it should be possible for a tactically skilled player to hold their own a lot more easily against an unskilled player that just happens to have a stronger army, however, whether or not I'm any good at tactics remains up for debate, so I can't say for sure so far, but it's a lot of fun

Hey Haravikk, it's good to see other gamers are thinking about Alternating Activations as a "Two-Action" system, and we're definitely on the same page w.r.t. lowering the downtime between players and making the game less "I go, you wait and take it up the posterior." I had been tweaking my Alternating Activation system and came to a few different conclusions however, which may be a little different. Feel free to apply any ideas accordingly:

Firstly, I find that having 5 different actions with "once per turn" restrictions will be more bookkeeping-heavy in the long run. I ultimately went for consolidating Actions into "Three" choices, both for general simplicity, as well as to "atomicise" actions: There's no reason for a player to "Advance and Shoot" when "Move and Shoot" is a thing

Advance: You make a normal move, discarding any Defense Tokens on the unit. You are allowed to move within and past "melee range" of enemy units (which would vary based on the CCWs in question) of an enemy, but moving within melee range of an enemy results in a "Free Strike". You may break up your move to make an attack with either an Assault Weapon or a melee weapon; if attacking with a melee weapon, you can make a 3" step which does not trigger Free Strike.
Engage: You make a combat action. If this is a melee attack, you can make a 3" step as well and 3" Consolidate.
Defend: You add a "Defense Token" to your unit. The implentation is still being hacked out, but Defense Tokens are a "Catchall" for Jinking, Go to Ground, Smoke, Ion Shields, and many other special defenses that exist in 40k. Currently, I'm going for "Divide the number of failed saves by the number of defense tokens on the unit" or "+1 Toughness vs Shooting per token" or so, with a max of 4 tokens.

Note that a unit may only Shoot once per game turn: For book-keeping, you could use "Red tokens" to show when a unit shot (either via Engage, or Assault Weapons after an Advance), and "Blue tokens" for any other action. This way you only have two types of tokens to keep track of, rather than six!

Second, you should probably consider making CP not a "Finite Resource" that is allotted over the entire game, but something which is "per turn" and determined by your army's Strategy Rating. In the Alt activation system I'm doing, I decided that CP should be less for "Fate manipulation" (Die rerolls, autopassing Battleshock) and more to *coordinate* your forces. To this extent, I made a few tweaks:
-When you are about to perform an attack, your opponent may Interrupt you. This lets your opponent immediately perform *one* action with a unit. (This is a catchall to represent Overwatch, counter-charging, defenses such as Go to Ground, etc).
-You may Activate or Interrupt with a unit that has 0 Actions on it. If a unit has only *one* Action on it, you can Interrupt or Activate it by spending a CP.
-Once you finish performing actions with an Activated Unit, you may optionally spend a CP to activate a second (and only a second) unit, before handing the Initiative back to your opponent.
-Certain armies will have assorted shticks to reduce or eliminate certain CP costs. For example, Orks would be able to activate a second unit for free if the first one managed to make it into a new melee. Waaaaaagh!
-It costs 1 CP less to Interrupt versus an activated Superheavy, or activate a unit with only 1 CP if the next action would involve making an attack against a Superheavy. Call it "Priority Target".

You could do some pretty open-ended stuff with these rules too: Advance was written in a very loose way, to either allow for "Run & Gun" shenanigans, "hit and run" melee (Be it Shining Spears or Death Cult Assassins), and to promote a more "fluid" melee as a whole.

Other things that may be worth considering include bringing back Pinning/Disruption Tokens, or having some weapons able to place "action points" on enemy units. As an example: If you hit an enemy vehicle with a variable number of Haywire weapons, roll a D6, adding +1 for each "Hit" you scored with that unit's Haywire attacks. If you exceed the Toughness of that vehicle, it gains an extra "Action Point". (Which means it has 1 less action available to it).

My concern with 2 separate actions but only one at a time is two fold.

First, remembering who was activated and what activations they did is either book keeping or increasingly more difficult the more units exist. Keeping track of this more and more as the game goes will start to drag on it.

Second, things like moving into position to charge and then having to wait to actually charge are bad. Especially for a unit like lychguard who are 5" pure melee and they could be fighting nids that could be 8-12" move.

More and more I am thinking players should be touching the units as little as possible. One quick tactical activation each and then on to the next turn.

Currently you potentially activate each unit up to 4+ times with the way phases and melee works. But that at least follows a structure of phases to help organize it (and its still not uncommon for things to be missed). This doesn't even have that structure and those actions could be all over the place.

I think alternating actions is the future of war gaming.

I like what you guys have done here. It's very similar to my own ideas on the subject. I had the game down to three phases: action phase, fight phase and battleshock phase. In the action phase you could do one of a number of defined actions (move and fire, advance, stand and fire etc.). The fight phase was everyone within melee range attacking on alternating units. Then morale was carried out and then back to the action phase. This was before CPs were known of though so it might need tweaking.

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Firstly, I find that having 5 different actions with "once per turn" restrictions will be more bookkeeping-heavy in the long run. I ultimately went for consolidating Actions into "Three" choices, both for general simplicity, as well as to "atomicise" actions: There's no reason for a player to "Advance and Shoot" when "Move and Shoot" is a thing

That's a good point; my main aim though is to be a "bolt-on" to regular 8th edition, though this does create a lot of problems vs. an all-new system. For example, allowing a unit to simply Move twice is fine for most Infantry, but a bit too powerful for faster units, though I suppose since they forego doing anything else it may not be a big deal. I'll definitely take a good look at paring the options down, particularly with regards to Advancing!

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Second, you should probably consider making CP not a "Finite Resource" that is allotted over the entire game, but something which is "per turn" and determined by your army's Strategy Rating. In the Alt activation system I'm doing, I decided that CP should be less for "Fate manipulation" (Die rerolls, autopassing Battleshock) and more to *coordinate* your forces.

I love the idea, but I think for compatibility this may be difficult as again I don't really want to be re-writing every stratagem or rebalancing command points; personally I've no problem with "fate manipulation" in a game where random chance has so much potential to shaft you as in 40k. Very interested by some of your specifics though; especially having interrupt only work for units that haven't been activated at all that turn.


I noticed you mentioned going to ground and jinking earlier, which is something I'd been thinking of actually; except I was thinking of doing them as "reactions", basically actions you can take out of sequence without spending command points. Going to Ground for example would let you Advance out of sequence to try to get to cover before getting shot, Jink would give a save against the attack, but means you've sacrificed an action to do-so. Just some ideas.

 Lance845 wrote:
My concern with 2 separate actions but only one at a time is two fold.

First, remembering who was activated and what activations they did is either book keeping or increasingly more difficult the more units exist. Keeping track of this more and more as the game goes will start to drag on it.

I mentioned under tracking actions, but the way I'm doing this is with coloured counters (tiddlywinks actually ); basically I assign colours to each action and pop the appropriate coloured token on a unit when it takes that action. This has worked pretty well in a few play-test games, though I tend not to play huge games but I didn't find it overly burdensome.

 Lance845 wrote:
Second, things like moving into position to charge and then having to wait to actually charge are bad. Especially for a unit like lychguard who are 5" pure melee and they could be fighting nids that could be 8-12" move.

Well, this would be an ideal case for using command points to prioritise the second action if you can; however it does work both ways, those 'nids might be faster, but they too have to move and then charge to get to you quickly. Basically if they get into charge range, then unless they spend command points, you can simply charge them first.

 Lance845 wrote:
Currently you potentially activate each unit up to 4+ times with the way phases and melee works. But that at least follows a structure of phases to help organize it (and its still not uncommon for things to be missed). This doesn't even have that structure and those actions could be all over the place.

I'm not sure this is actually a problem; what you consider unstructured I'd call structured differently
It's not so much "all over the place" as, you have to have some idea what you want to do in your turn, but as the enemy does their thing you can also react or adapt accordingly. It makes the game a lot more like chess, as every action your opponent takes can (and should) disrupt your plans, that's the whole point; currently in 40k you basically get to do whatever you want for the entire turn, then your opponent does the same; while there are some tactics, turns (particular 2 onwards) are often pretty devastating to anything you might be trying to do, and you have only limited ability to mitigate it. This is why it can all too easily comes down to a numbers and list-building game only, rather than a tactical one.

 Future War Cultist wrote:
I think alternating actions is the future of war gaming.

Here's hoping!

Unfortunately GW seem intent on keeping the status quo for now; while there's a lot of stuff to like about 8th, I don't see them doing another major change for quite some time, so alternating activations seem firmly in the realm of fan-made rules only for the time-being.

I'm not saying I think the games current structure is good. Its not. I'm saying in chess you move a piece once and it's every single action is significant. The move is also an attack. Its quick. Its elegant. It requires no book keeping or markers let alone 2 color coded ones per unit.

Single activations per a unit flows better, makes the actions more immediate and significant.

I think to make this work proper would require a pretty major tooling. Fortunately plenty of other games have already broken that trail. Bolt Action isn't perfect, but its methods would work very well for a transition. That's the trail I'd recommend following.

 Haravikk wrote:
Very interested by some of your specifics though; especially having interrupt only work for units that haven't been activated at all that turn.

I noticed you mentioned going to ground and jinking earlier, which is something I'd been thinking of actually; except I was thinking of doing them as "reactions", basically actions you can take out of sequence without spending command points. Going to Ground for example would let you Advance out of sequence to try to get to cover before getting shot, Jink would give a save against the attack, but means you've sacrificed an action to do-so. Just some ideas.

The idea is Interrupt can be used if a unit has 0 or 1 Actions on it, but Interrupting or reactivating a unit that has already taken a single Action will cost a CP in addition to any other CP costs (with certain exceptions of course, such as reduced CP costs to interrupt/reactivate to attack an enemy Superheavy, etc). This single Action can be any of the 3 Actions that are normally available for an Activation, so it can represent Overwatch/reaction fire, taking cover, or any form of counter-movement (ducking out of LOS, counter-charging, etc).

Interrupts let you pre-empt your opponent's actions, but each Interrupt means one less Action available (unless you're willing to spend CP to offset the Activation restrictions). The "2 action system" with interrupts I feel has the potential to give the game a very X-Comesque dynamic.

Great work. I had hoped the geedubs would have included similar in the advanced rules as another way to play. I hope that they chapter approve something bolt on like this perhaps as an edition 8.5 on the way to 9th which they might skip entirely and call mk10 hammer.

 Lance845 wrote:
I'm not saying I think the games current structure is good. Its not. I'm saying in chess you move a piece once and it's every single action is significant. The move is also an attack. Its quick. Its elegant. It requires no book keeping or markers let alone 2 color coded ones per unit.

Single activations per a unit flows better, makes the actions more immediate and significant.

The problem with that though is, while it may work for a more abstract/high level game like chess, it feels strange for a game like 40k. Though it feels strange in much the same way turns do now, where units are essentially acting unopposed.

I suppose it could perhaps be made to work if, while taking its turn, a unit could still be interrupted. For example, let's suppose a unit can move, advance/shoot, charge then fight as a single activation, but at each stage the opponent can interrupt with actions such as Overwatch, Go to Ground, Counter-Attack or whatever. It still runs into other issues though; for example Aura abilities, as your single activation can move you out of range of an Aura; the only fix for which seems to be having mechanisms to allow Characters to activate at the same time, but this starts to get very complicated IMO.


This is why I favour the two-action system; like I say, I haven't found placing two-counters to be especially burdensome, if anything the main slow-down is from considering which action(s) to take next, and what my opponent's next action(s) may be, but that's actually a good thing as it shows the system works to make the game more tactical, and I think with practice it'd go more smoothly. It also has more of an element of risk in terms of what you prioritise and what your opponent may do in response; as I mentioned in the first post this can include shooting sooner from a weak position, or shooting later from a stronger one, or the situation you queried about move & charge, as moving closer means more risk of being damaged, but it's necessary before you can guarantee a charge, but that's what good tactics and/or spending command points can aid you with.

I would consider making changes to having some things be 2 AP actions (or cost 2 actions).

For instance, have advance be a 2 action, where you move and advance at the same time (ideally you would change advance) if you have shoot and advance then you can do so as part of this action. Same with charge, just have it be charge and fight.

I think to do this though it needs to be a re-write to the game from the ground up. I think more expensive units would need more actions per turn to balance out extreme MSU, otherwise the dominant armies will all be action wasting MSU armies. If you did not want a full rewrite, you could make it 1 action for every increment of 5 PL or something. Maybe the following would work 0-3 PL unit gets 1 action per turn, 4-9 get 2, 10-15 get 3, 16-20 get 4, 21-30 get 5. Characters get +1 action. Then allow passing as an action.

 Haravikk wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
I'm not saying I think the games current structure is good. Its not. I'm saying in chess you move a piece once and it's every single action is significant. The move is also an attack. Its quick. Its elegant. It requires no book keeping or markers let alone 2 color coded ones per unit.

Single activations per a unit flows better, makes the actions more immediate and significant.

The problem with that though is, while it may work for a more abstract/high level game like chess, it feels strange for a game like 40k. Though it feels strange in much the same way turns do now, where units are essentially acting unopposed.

I suppose it could perhaps be made to work if, while taking its turn, a unit could still be interrupted. For example, let's suppose a unit can move, advance/shoot, charge then fight as a single activation, but at each stage the opponent can interrupt with actions such as Overwatch, Go to Ground, Counter-Attack or whatever. It still runs into other issues though; for example Aura abilities, as your single activation can move you out of range of an Aura; the only fix for which seems to be having mechanisms to allow Characters to activate at the same time, but this starts to get very complicated IMO.


This is why I favour the two-action system; like I say, I haven't found placing two-counters to be especially burdensome, if anything the main slow-down is from considering which action(s) to take next, and what my opponent's next action(s) may be, but that's actually a good thing as it shows the system works to make the game more tactical, and I think with practice it'd go more smoothly. It also has more of an element of risk in terms of what you prioritise and what your opponent may do in response; as I mentioned in the first post this can include shooting sooner from a weak position, or shooting later from a stronger one, or the situation you queried about move & charge, as moving closer means more risk of being damaged, but it's necessary before you can guarantee a charge, but that's what good tactics and/or spending command points can aid you with.

While I think interrupt actions like overwatch should exist, and in my proposals always do exist, I don't think it needs to be that complicated. Going to ground was a "interrupt" free action all through 7th. Just keep it going.

The issue you bring up about auras is real. But its equally real in your 2 action set up. Player a either moves a character forward first making it a target or moves a unit forward first stepping outside of the aura. Player b uses his action to shoot. Cause why wouldn't he make use of the brief moment of separation?

Fixing that is not complicated. Its a simple expansion of an already existing mechanic. Heroic intervention. If a unit is activated within 3" of a character that has not been activated yet then that character may activate as well. A character activated in this way does not activate again later in the turn.

Call it "lead from the front" of whatever. Saviour protocols on drones should be amended to act the same way. Now drones and other protector characters can stay with their protected characters and the inter unit balance of 8th (which is better then it has been in forever) doesn't change but the tactical nuance of alternating activations stays in play.

I think there is too much reliance on command points. Saying a unit can spend a command point to move and charge means all those pure melee units more or less require an external mechanic to do their most basic job. Melee needs to function as well as it does now before command points ever come into play or the system is inherently broken.

 Lance845 wrote:
The issue you bring up about auras is real. But its equally real in your 2 action set up. Player a either moves a character forward first making it a target or moves a unit forward first stepping outside of the aura. Player b uses his action to shoot. Cause why wouldn't he make use of the brief moment of separation?

In the 2-action setup you can "leap-frog" units; say you have unit A in the lead and unit B in the rear, with a character in the middle, you would move unit B up first, then put the character on the other side it from any enemies that might shoot, then finally move up unit A. You sacrifice a little movement to do it but it's the trade-off for maximising the use of the Aura, and there's only one point at which the character is vulnerable, and only if the enemy has anything in position for them to be the nearest target. Besides which, a lot of auras are 6" anyway, meaning you can usually keep infantry within range when their maximum move per action is 6" or less, without having to expose the character. It's more of a slow down for faster units, but I think that's fair. The trade-off overall however is having to prioritise the Move actions or risk an incomplete formation move from being exploited.

 Lance845 wrote:
Fixing that is not complicated. Its a simple expansion of an already existing mechanic. Heroic intervention. If a unit is activated within 3" of a character that has not been activated yet then that character may activate as well. A character activated in this way does not activate again later in the turn.

This is still added complexity and doesn't change the issue of units effectively acting unopposed rather than fighting a battle with more back-and-forth, which to me is the biggest draw of using 2-actions. I've never liked units being able to move, shoot and charge all at once with essentially nothing to stop them; sorry, but I'm not going to change my view on that point, a single activation system just requires either too much in the way of extra mechanics to work with interleaved turns, or else a total re-write of the game, and even then it still won't model warfare as well as multiple activations IMO.

 Lance845 wrote:
I think there is too much reliance on command points. Saying a unit can spend a command point to move and charge means all those pure melee units more or less require an external mechanic to do their most basic job. Melee needs to function as well as it does now before command points ever come into play or the system is inherently broken.

I didn't say it's the only option, I said it's an ideal one to use a command point on. If you don't want to, or don't have any, then the alternative is tactics, which is kind of the point; as the name of the game with interleaved activations is forcing your opponent to make hard choices about what to prioritise next.

For example, say there's a juicy target you want to charge and you have two units that can do it, unit A is more durable but not especially dangerous in combat, while unit B isn't as tough, but has numbers/attacks to really do damage in combat. You move unit A into charge range as your first action. Now your opponent can either shoot unit A and do less damage, risking unit B coming in at full strength later in the turn, or they can delay shooting in the hopes that unit A fails its charge, but if it doesn't they won't be able to shoot at all, and will start taking damage.

And that's just a tiny example; in a system like this any delay to shooting is a big risk for shooty armies as every delayed Shoot action is a chance for your opponent to move your favoured target(s) out of the way or deny your Shoot action(s) entirely. I mean really if you look at it as single units rushing up and charging all at once them IMO that's the wrong way to look at it, as something rushing headlong on a 40k battlefield absolutely should be shot to pieces if you didn't bother to provide a distraction to make it work.

How many games with these mechanics have you actually played? Against how many different players? Your friends or testing outside of your rwgular play group to get "unfriendly" testers to try and break it?

Battle round play:

Movement:
Player 1 moves all, Player 2then moves all

Psychic:
Players alternate activating 1 unit of psykers

Shooting:
Players alternate nominating 1 unit to shoot, LOW can only be chosen to shoot after all other non-LOW units (friend or foe) have shot

Charge:
Players alternate nominating and resolving charges

Combat:
Players alternative choosing charging units to activate, then alternate choosing stuck in units to activate

THis would obviously work much better at 1000 points or less. 2000 armies with 30 MSU would be a nightmare.

To track all of then alternate activations it seems we should return to the era of command counters - chits that show if a unit is on overwatch or had gone to ground or is fleeing or whatever... Old epic style or second edition style . I frankly don't know why gw ever got rid of those.

Wulfey wrote:
Battle round play:

Movement:
Player 1 moves all, Player 2then moves all

Psychic:
Players alternate activating 1 unit of psykers

Shooting:
Players alternate nominating 1 unit to shoot, LOW can only be chosen to shoot after all other non-LOW units (friend or foe) have shot

Charge:
Players alternate nominating and resolving charges

Combat:
Players alternative choosing charging units to activate, then alternate choosing stuck in units to activate

THis would obviously work much better at 1000 points or less. 2000 armies with 30 MSU would be a nightmare.

Curious as to why you're not alternating movement as well?

I would like to see a simple system: Alternate moving units. A player may "pass" once and not move a unit. That, or have a bag with 1 bead per unit, draw beads, each bead = 1 unit able to move.

Bolt action has a really good way of doing things. Alternating units performing a single action which can be moving, shooting or a mixture of both. It really keeps both players in the game at all times without getting too complicated.

 Future War Cultist wrote:
Bolt action has a really good way of doing things. Alternating units performing a single action which can be moving, shooting or a mixture of both. It really keeps both players in the game at all times without getting too complicated.

Doesn't this throw everything out of whack because the 40k unit balance is designed with units being able to do all 3 in a turn?

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 Future War Cultist wrote:
Bolt action has a really good way of doing things. Alternating units performing a single action which can be moving, shooting or a mixture of both. It really keeps both players in the game at all times without getting too complicated.

Doesn't this throw everything out of whack because the 40k unit balance is designed with units being able to do all 3 in a turn?

That is true. For 40k to go down this route would require a major rework.

 Future War Cultist wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 Future War Cultist wrote:
Bolt action has a really good way of doing things. Alternating units performing a single action which can be moving, shooting or a mixture of both. It really keeps both players in the game at all times without getting too complicated.

Doesn't this throw everything out of whack because the 40k unit balance is designed with units being able to do all 3 in a turn?

That is true. For 40k to go down this route would require a major rework.

I disagree. Next to no units in the game are really built to want to walk forward shoot all their guns and then charge. Generally speaking while everyone is capable of being in melee and some melee units have guns to supplement their melee they are generally costed for how well they excell at where they want to be not what they aee capable of in a pinch.

The outliers aee so few and far between and even then they generally excel SO well at the one that they are worth their points anyway.