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 mugginns wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

 mugginns wrote:
The MSU thing comes up every time alternating activations comes up. MSU and hordes don't break the game in any other alternating activation game. It is fine.

This is false, Malifaux needed to issue a large errata at one point to address just this issue. There were lists that would force their opponent to activate out prior to moving any piece of consequence. To be fair this was for a game where each model performed a complete activation, but it was still an issue. Though not straight alternating activation it was also an issue in early x-wing with tie swarm lists. If in a game it is possible for one player to significantly out activate the other it is always an advantage if it can be done at little to no cost. Other alternating activation games like Drop zone commander use battle group activation as I have suggested, otherwise alternating activation could become an issue.

I don't understand how out activating could be done at little to no cost. If you bring more activations in Bolt Action, those troops will be worth fewer points, so will be less effective overall. I've played hundreds of BA games and never had a problem. I didn't play Malifaux at the time so I'll take your word for it.

Not a problem in Dark Age, Walking Dead, Blood and Plunder, Test of Honor, Beyond the Gates of Antares, etc. Not all of these games are strict 'alternating activation' but obvious subtle differences occur in every wargame.

edit: really though this whole thing was hashed out a month or two back with that huge thread. The same constant 'but what about this' brought up, knocked down every time.

Are those games balanced around not having super cheap units available? In malifaux (in part due to summoning mechanics) I think people were getting something like 12 activations (more than most crews) out of 20% of their army. This is when it becomes a problem unless everyone does it.

Consider for instance lets consider the following match-up (and I'm not saying this these are the best lists possible)

Rowboat
2 Ultramarine Fellblades
2 Inquisitors
12 Acolytes

I have 14 activations for 206 points, then 3 big point units.

My opponent runs the mentioned Magnus + 3 Knights

So I have cheap units to absorb smite, block assaults, protect characters, and you move everything before I need to commit my units. Then if I shoot first because of turn order I destroy 1 of you 4 units.

This isn't even a great list.

What about character spam assassins. You position then I infiltrate culexus assasins after you move to force you to shoot at them while I pick off your units.

The point is those games have presumably been balanced around alternate activations. At current 40k is not and would need some modified version of it to be fair and engaging. But when I can reasonably out activate entire armies (not even extreme armies) for 1/10th of my points, MSU is a problem. In the end it holds that I can field just as big damaging units for front end damage, while still getting advantage in activation , unless my opponent builds the same type of list.

Breng77 wrote:

 mugginns wrote:
The MSU thing comes up every time alternating activations comes up. MSU and hordes don't break the game in any other alternating activation game. It is fine.

This is false, Malifaux needed to issue a large errata at one point to address just this issue. There were lists that would force their opponent to activate out prior to moving any piece of consequence. To be fair this was for a game where each model performed a complete activation, but it was still an issue. Though not straight alternating activation it was also an issue in early x-wing with tie swarm lists. If in a game it is possible for one player to significantly out activate the other it is always an advantage if it can be done at little to no cost. Other alternating activation games like Drop zone commander use battle group activation as I have suggested, otherwise alternating activation could become an issue.

And those examples are of games that have units with significantly higher staying power then in 40k. Things die fast in 40k. Especially if those things are stepping forward alone.

40k, and especially 8th, is a crazy killy game with individual models dropping all over the place. Going pure MSU for super activations will get you annihilated within a couple turns as your activations get removed VERY quickly and what activations you have remaining have little or no impact.

Just to clarify this entire discussion...

We're discussing, obviously, a fan-produced modification to 40K. GW is not going to suddenly up and change the game anytime soon. All of the "Well you could break it by..." is irrelevant if it's being played by a guy and his friends. You're not going to be throwing this down in front of strangers and random people from the internet.

If someone does something unseemly to abuse the system, there's a good chance you're not playing with that person anyway. The hand-wringing over how it could be abused is kinda pointless. I play 2nd ed. with a varied activation system and it's superb - now it's easier to manage than 8th, but no one in our gaming group is a douchebag, so it matters little if there are cracks in the system. In fact we change the game as we discovered cracks and mistakes etc.

Breng77 wrote:

 mugginns wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

 mugginns wrote:
The MSU thing comes up every time alternating activations comes up. MSU and hordes don't break the game in any other alternating activation game. It is fine.

This is false, Malifaux needed to issue a large errata at one point to address just this issue. There were lists that would force their opponent to activate out prior to moving any piece of consequence. To be fair this was for a game where each model performed a complete activation, but it was still an issue. Though not straight alternating activation it was also an issue in early x-wing with tie swarm lists. If in a game it is possible for one player to significantly out activate the other it is always an advantage if it can be done at little to no cost. Other alternating activation games like Drop zone commander use battle group activation as I have suggested, otherwise alternating activation could become an issue.

I don't understand how out activating could be done at little to no cost. If you bring more activations in Bolt Action, those troops will be worth fewer points, so will be less effective overall. I've played hundreds of BA games and never had a problem. I didn't play Malifaux at the time so I'll take your word for it.

Not a problem in Dark Age, Walking Dead, Blood and Plunder, Test of Honor, Beyond the Gates of Antares, etc. Not all of these games are strict 'alternating activation' but obvious subtle differences occur in every wargame.

edit: really though this whole thing was hashed out a month or two back with that huge thread. The same constant 'but what about this' brought up, knocked down every time.

Are those games balanced around not having super cheap units available? In malifaux (in part due to summoning mechanics) I think people were getting something like 12 activations (more than most crews) out of 20% of their army. This is when it becomes a problem unless everyone does it.

They do have super cheap units available, yes

Consider for instance lets consider the following match-up (and I'm not saying this these are the best lists possible)

Rowboat
2 Ultramarine Fellblades
2 Inquisitors
12 Acolytes

I have 14 activations for 206 points, then 3 big point units.

My opponent runs the mentioned Magnus + 3 Knights

So I have cheap units to absorb smite, block assaults, protect characters, and you move everything before I need to commit my units. Then if I shoot first because of turn order I destroy 1 of you 4 units.

This isn't even a great list.

What about character spam assassins. You position then I infiltrate culexus assasins after you move to force you to shoot at them while I pick off your units.

The point is those games have presumably been balanced around alternate activations. At current 40k is not and would need some modified version of it to be fair and engaging. But when I can reasonably out activate entire armies (not even extreme armies) for 1/10th of my points, MSU is a problem. In the end it holds that I can field just as big damaging units for front end damage, while still getting advantage in activation , unless my opponent builds the same type of list.

Hypotheticals could go for days. I've never played a game of 40k like the one you suggested. I'm guessing even without alternating activation that game would suck anyway.

If someone does something unseemly to abuse the system, there's a good chance you're not playing with that person anyway. The hand-wringing over how it could be abused is kinda pointless.

Spot on.

Chuck in a system similar to how Bolt Action & Antares activates units.

Forget the "phases" of the turn, activate a unit, that units, moves, fires, brain bullets, fights etc.


Could be worth a try but its a serious change, I'm actually surprised GW didn't go close to this - not with orders but with tokens in a back to pick units and then this being GW a couple of "random event" tokens.

To be honest I'd actually give it a go, combine with the CP system to allow "interrupts" and "buying" an activation etc

If we are talking about friendly house rules anything is feasible. No need for a thread discussing it, try it out and see if your group likes it. If you want to share what you have done, proposed rules seems like the place. If we are talking about could 40k function as a balanced game by changing to alternating activations as currently constructed, not in the way suggested by the OP.

As for never seeing armies as I describe, currently there is no advantage to said army.

For models having more staying power, this is false, models in malifaux die just as easy.

leopard wrote:
Chuck in a system similar to how Bolt Action & Antares activates units.

Forget the "phases" of the turn, activate a unit, that units, moves, fires, brain bullets, fights etc.


Could be worth a try but its a serious change, I'm actually surprised GW didn't go close to this - not with orders but with tokens in a back to pick units and then this being GW a couple of "random event" tokens.

To be honest I'd actually give it a go, combine with the CP system to allow "interrupts" and "buying" an activation etc

Already done and linked to on page one. Beyond the gates of 40k.

As I've mentioned, a few alternating activation systems I've played with don't even guarantee you'll activate 100% of your units - and some make it increasingly more difficult to get some over on the other guy.

M.

Every game I’ve played with alternator activations worked better than IGOYOUGO. Whether t was GW’s own epic 40,000, drop zone commander, or bolt action and ta derivatives, they all suffer less from these criticisms Jan 40k already does. Every criticism of alternating activations can be equally applied to 40k in greater measure.

 amanita wrote:
We found alternating units to be too cumbersome and time consuming, and certainly not any more realistic. So we created what we call a Reaction Phase, where the defending player can either move or shoot a little bit before the Assault Phase if a unit passes a leadership test. No need to just sit there and take while on defense, no need for overwatch mechanics, etc.

We are pretty happy with it.

Could you elaborate on which units are eligible to react, and in which proportion with the rest of the army?

I wrote my own AA system to deal with 3 issues I have found in AA games:
-The ability to take cheap units to either create "skip" activations or overload a "diebag" activation system.
-Randomized activation orders, be it "Initiative" rolls ala Epic or die-bag ala Bolt Action.
-Bespoke powers and abilities that cause the game to degenerate back into IGOUGO.

If you solve these three issues, you're ahead of the curve.

 Kaiyanwang wrote:

 amanita wrote:
We found alternating units to be too cumbersome and time consuming, and certainly not any more realistic. So we created what we call a Reaction Phase, where the defending player can either move or shoot a little bit before the Assault Phase if a unit passes a leadership test. No need to just sit there and take while on defense, no need for overwatch mechanics, etc.

We are pretty happy with it.

Could you elaborate on which units are eligible to react, and in which proportion with the rest of the army?

Bolt action and it's other similar games does this too. There are a bunch of trigger conditions, (units moving into los/range, being targeted by shooting, being charged) that allow you to make a ld test to react with what amounts to half activations. (doing a move, making a shooting attack, etc etc...). It takes up their activation for the turn but you get to interrupt the opponents turn.

 MagicJuggler wrote:
I wrote my own AA system to deal with 3 issues I have found in AA games:
-The ability to take cheap units to either create "skip" activations or overload a "diebag" activation system.
-Randomized activation orders, be it "Initiative" rolls ala Epic or die-bag ala Bolt Action.
-Bespoke powers and abilities that cause the game to degenerate back into IGOUGO.

If you solve these three issues, you're ahead of the curve.

1. this can be solved in a few ways - if the delta isn't expected to be large the way the Two Fat Lardies card activation system plays works well (you get a card for each character who can activate units near them - then unactivated units alternate on a turn end card - the only stuff that potentially doesn't activate are un drawn leaders).

Alternatively you have something like four markers each, which activate up to a quarter of your army, more units for a horde, fewer for an elite.

2. the way Chain of Command handles this is a good one, you have a turn, roll a number of dice - what you roll tells you what you can do - some results activate units, some trigger other effects, when you are done you roll again to keep going, eventually you roll enough of some numbers your turn ends - so you have a decent bash as several turns in a row - each of which will see you activate a portion of your army so in your overall "turn" you may not activate everything

3. thats solved by carefully explaining the idea to the writers using a length of 2x4 behind a shed


Personally the way activation works in the various Two Fat Lardies games is well worth a look, be it a pure card system ala Bag the Hun (where units move and fire on separate cards, heroes can take others with them and there are various "bonus" cards - the "big man" system used in Sharp Practice and similar through to the command dice system from Chain of Command - many ways to create an interlaced turn.


Or you can go the whole hog and have an "impulse" system like Star Fleet Battles did and then when someone suggests an "apoc" scale game you can either elect to kill them before the game or commit suicide part way through

A compromise would be something similar to what LOTR did, and have the players alternate within phases. So player 1 moves, player 2 moves, player 1 shoots, player 2 shoots, etc. Charges were done in the movement phase and fought in the "Fight Phase". Not a huge fix, but potentially allows you to grab cover before getting shot or smite something before it shoots you.

Best and most fair way to do this is to allow the player with fewer units a certain number of refusals equal to the difference in number of units. So player 1 has 10 units and player 2 has 15 then player 1 can refuse to move 5 times, meaning they can allow player 2 to telegraph their strategy by 5 units before they make a move. If player2 brought a ton of msu it means player 1 can wait til the real units start getting deployed before they counter.

Wrath of Kings

The game's similar scale to WM/H, but with alternating activations and it works like a dream: There are three types of units; Leaders, Infantry, Specialists. Each and every model can be activated by themselves, BUT a group of Infantry can be also combine activated if in a bubble with a leader. (I'll skip specialists, cause they are mostly individual heroes, monsters etc). Now, sounds like having a list with ton of models and activating them separately is a key to out-activate your enemy? Wrong. Once one player has finished all his activations, the other player can still activate one unit, and the finished player will "pass". After that, one more activation for the player with models left, but the rest of the unactivated models simply do not activate.

The rules are available for free if you want to try, and of course applying this to 40k would take some work (in WoK models and units have often much smaller impact than a unit in 40k can have), but AA really can be solved. WoK is one example. The system is very fun and strategic as you can play sort of a "dare" minigame around activations and react if your opponent wants to move faster.

 Lance845 wrote:
It takes up their activation for the turn but you get to interrupt the opponents turn.

That was my main curiosity. Thanks.

leopard wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
I wrote my own AA system to deal with 3 issues I have found in AA games:
-The ability to take cheap units to either create "skip" activations or overload a "diebag" activation system.
-Randomized activation orders, be it "Initiative" rolls ala Epic or die-bag ala Bolt Action.
-Bespoke powers and abilities that cause the game to degenerate back into IGOUGO.

If you solve these three issues, you're ahead of the curve.

1. this can be solved in a few ways - if the delta isn't expected to be large the way the Two Fat Lardies card activation system plays works well (you get a card for each character who can activate units near them - then unactivated units alternate on a turn end card - the only stuff that potentially doesn't activate are un drawn leaders).

Alternatively you have something like four markers each, which activate up to a quarter of your army, more units for a horde, fewer for an elite.

2. the way Chain of Command handles this is a good one, you have a turn, roll a number of dice - what you roll tells you what you can do - some results activate units, some trigger other effects, when you are done you roll again to keep going, eventually you roll enough of some numbers your turn ends - so you have a decent bash as several turns in a row - each of which will see you activate a portion of your army so in your overall "turn" you may not activate everything

3. thats solved by carefully explaining the idea to the writers using a length of 2x4 behind a shed


Personally the way activation works in the various Two Fat Lardies games is well worth a look, be it a pure card system ala Bag the Hun (where units move and fire on separate cards, heroes can take others with them and there are various "bonus" cards - the "big man" system used in Sharp Practice and similar through to the command dice system from Chain of Command - many ways to create an interlaced turn.


Or you can go the whole hog and have an "impulse" system like Star Fleet Battles did and then when someone suggests an "apoc" scale game you can either elect to kill them before the game or commit suicide part way through

1) I prefer the Stargrunt II system to an extent. If a player has less unactivated units than their opponent, they may skip until the delta equalizes. "Fine, you moved an Acolyte. Take a *real* turn now."
2) I made Activation and Interrupts a "resource mechanic." Command Points (though they regenerate turn-by-turn) are not used for bespoke stratagems, but to manipulate activation and interrupt orders.
3) I personally prefer a lead pipe myself. The cost for chain activations or chain interrupts slowly increments. Thus, activating 2 units in a row is 1 TP, 3 in a row is 3 TP, 4 in a row is 6 TP...This, combined with a fairly flexible "trigger on attack" interrupt system means there's very little downtime for either player to make meaningful play decisions.

Starfleet Battles is hilariously unscalable, but there were things aboit it I liked. Stuff like "as needed" deployment of Shuttles (Bomb, boarding, admin, wild weasel), risk/reward of lowering shields to use transporters, etc. Of course, the real suicide pact is an "apoc" game where everyone is playing Kzinti dronespam!

My favourite activation system by far is the Bolt Action one (I think Antares using the same system or similar). It makes the game so much more immersive and tactical as you don’t know who is going to get to go next. You can plan your turn but things may not go the way you want them to and you may have to adjust your plans on the fly (do I fire the AT gun now to take out that enemy vehicle whilst I can or do I rally my infantry squad first to get them back in the game?).

My favorite system of a game at least similar to 40k is Bolt Action as well. It manages to make your activation choices meaningful, while also keeping it random enough to allow for unexpected swings in the game. Big fan of it.

That said, the way 40k has its turns/phases an alternating activation system would just make it even more unwieldy than it is now, even if it would maybe feel more balanced. Bolt action works because units only activate once a turn, and the rules are generally very simple even compared to 8th. I wouldn't want alternate activations every phase of this game.

 edbradders wrote:
My favourite activation system by far is the Bolt Action one (I think Antares using the same system or similar). It makes the game so much more immersive and tactical as you don’t know who is going to get to go next. You can plan your turn but things may not go the way you want them to and you may have to adjust your plans on the fly (do I fire the AT gun now to take out that enemy vehicle whilst I can or do I rally my infantry squad first to get them back in the game?).

What's the jist? I'm vaguely aware of Bolt Action (the figs look pretty nice) but I have not read into it.

M.

 Elbows wrote:
Just to clarify this entire discussion...

We're discussing, obviously, a fan-produced modification to 40K. GW is not going to suddenly up and change the game anytime soon. All of the "Well you could break it by..." is irrelevant if it's being played by a guy and his friends. You're not going to be throwing this down in front of strangers and random people from the internet.

If someone does something unseemly to abuse the system, there's a good chance you're not playing with that person anyway. The hand-wringing over how it could be abused is kinda pointless. I play 2nd ed. with a varied activation system and it's superb - now it's easier to manage than 8th, but no one in our gaming group is a douchebag, so it matters little if there are cracks in the system. In fact we change the game as we discovered cracks and mistakes etc.

You say that but necromunda, shadespire and 8th melee all tell us that alternating activations are very much on the design team's radar.

 Infantryman wrote:

 edbradders wrote:
My favourite activation system by far is the Bolt Action one (I think Antares using the same system or similar). It makes the game so much more immersive and tactical as you don’t know who is going to get to go next. You can plan your turn but things may not go the way you want them to and you may have to adjust your plans on the fly (do I fire the AT gun now to take out that enemy vehicle whilst I can or do I rally my infantry squad first to get them back in the game?).

What's the jist? I'm vaguely aware of Bolt Action (the figs look pretty nice) but I have not read into it.

M.

every unit gets an activation dice to indicate the order given to it - determines if it can move, fire, both, duck and whatever - the dice go into a bag - someone draws a dice, the colour tells you who gets to activate a unit.

its very simple and easy to understand, it just brings up issues if one side has significantly more units that the other, you don't need the dice for actual orders, could do the same with two colours of glass beads etc.

Also easy to add a third colour for "special effects" or events.

The concept of a 'turn' is also a bit different as a unit won't always get to move, fire, assault etc - it may have to pick to do one or the other (i.e. you don't have move, advance then charge for movement, you just have move, run (which means no shooting IIRC) and assault as move options.


if you have forces of roughly equal unit counts and don't go mad its a pretty good skirmish game at a platoon level, just falls over if you go larger and is written around a "pin" mechanic that doesn't work

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Elbows wrote:
Just to clarify this entire discussion...

We're discussing, obviously, a fan-produced modification to 40K. GW is not going to suddenly up and change the game anytime soon. All of the "Well you could break it by..." is irrelevant if it's being played by a guy and his friends. You're not going to be throwing this down in front of strangers and random people from the internet.

If someone does something unseemly to abuse the system, there's a good chance you're not playing with that person anyway. The hand-wringing over how it could be abused is kinda pointless. I play 2nd ed. with a varied activation system and it's superb - now it's easier to manage than 8th, but no one in our gaming group is a douchebag, so it matters little if there are cracks in the system. In fact we change the game as we discovered cracks and mistakes etc.

You say that but necromunda, shadespire and 8th melee all tell us that alternating activations are very much on the design team's radar.

Not merely on radar. Few days ago they talked about this on Twitch, might have been the Cruddance or the other guy. Chat asked about alternating actions and they said it had been considered. They are experimenting with the smaller games and I wouldn't be too surprised if they did new Kill Team in such a vein, but 40k proper will carry on with IGOUGO as that is the style they prefer.

Correct, I'm talking about a main game like 40K. I do think it would have been a fantastic change to make when they did the 8th cross-over....but now that they didn't, I genuinely don't expect that change, possibly ever.

40K is their biggest, tastiest cake. You don't want to screw with that. It's why Fantasy (a sales disaster at the end of its cycle) was the testing ground for AoS etc. You can swing for the fences and go crazy when you're replacing a product which isn't doing much for you. 40K is the money maker and I don't imagine they'd risk a huge change on that as long as it continues to be so.

They've had alternating stuff in specialist games for a while, including the now-discontinued Warhammer Historical line of games, etc...but it's 40K we're talking about. The big motha.

40k is these days essentially defined by the feel of how the game plays.

- IGOYGO sequence
- illogical turn order
- buckets of dice to generally little effect
- re-roll anything you don't like just because
- silly numbers of models that end up as wound markers
- ambitious but rubbish rules
- editing as bad as this forum post

they seem hooked on keeping it something young kids could play, if young kids were millionaires and were not busy pulling wings off flies

Ages back I tried to make some Advance Play rules; should have kept those to share out here hah!

M.

 Infantryman wrote:

 edbradders wrote:
My favourite activation system by far is the Bolt Action one (I think Antares using the same system or similar). It makes the game so much more immersive and tactical as you don’t know who is going to get to go next. You can plan your turn but things may not go the way you want them to and you may have to adjust your plans on the fly (do I fire the AT gun now to take out that enemy vehicle whilst I can or do I rally my infantry squad first to get them back in the game?).

What's the jist? I'm vaguely aware of Bolt Action (the figs look pretty nice) but I have not read into it.

M.

The dice bag mechanic is a part of it but it's not really necessary for the core mechanics of the game.

The key thing is you pick a unit to issue an order to.

The orders determine what the unit does for the turn.

-Double Move
-Don't move and shoot (+1 BS)
-Move and shoot
-Take cover (down in 7th) -1 to hit when you shoot at that unit.
-Rally (remove pin markers)
-Prepare a reaction (basically go on overwatch)

When an enemy unit is doing their order sometimes it allows you to respond with reactions. Reactions are a Ld test -1 for each pin marker on the unit. Ushually half actions.

-one lets you shoot when enemies come into los (over watch)
-make a Move action
-etc...

Reactions activate a unit as though it was their normal activation I.E. it takes up their turn. And if they have already been activated then they cannot do a reaction.

When your unit gets wounded in shooting you take a pin. For every model that dies in melee you take a pin. Every pin marker is a -1 to hit and leadership. (the game runs on d12s instead of d6s). If a unit has more Pins then leadership they break and flee the battle. The rally order is really important to keep units under fire under your control.

If you issue an order to a unit that has at least 1 pin on it you have to pass a leadership test or they will automatically go down. (the unit doesn't follow the orders they just take cover because they are under fire).


Turns go VERY quickly especially if people are reacting back and forth. Who you activate and what you do with them becomes very tactical. Things like Necrons with high ld can just keep on marching forward a bit longer then things like guard who need to rally a little more often. It's very cinematic and very tactical. MUCH better game play.

Sounds neat; might have to pick it up sometime - there's a starter kit at my FLGS. For whatever reason I've never found myself particularly drawn to WW2 wargaming - I don't know why, as WW2 is interesting and I do like wargaming...

M.

 Infantryman wrote:
Sounds neat; might have to pick it up sometime - there's a starter kit at my FLGS. For whatever reason I've never found myself particularly drawn to WW2 wargaming - I don't know why, as WW2 is interesting and I do like wargaming...

M.

Personally if i was going to play bolt action id play konflikt 47'. A what if wwii didnt end and got REAL wierd. But i have nobody to play with. So that ends that.