Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

OK, for anyone unfamiliar, in AoS, there's a roll-off at the start of every battle round to determine which Player Turn happens first. I suspect it was left out of 40K 8th because it seemed to make a lot of people mad. However, do people think that this could go some way towards softening the advantage of going first? If you're going first, but not guaranteed that your opponent won't subsequently get two turns in a row, would that encourage you to perhaps play a bit more defensively, and thus reduce the impact of any first-player-turn Alpha Strike? Or am I talking a load of barmy old cack?

This has been discussed many times on this forum and people cannot agree with each other from either side.

For some people they say that shooting and such would be even more powerful, while others say that CC based armies would get a huge power boost.

Personally, i would ask those who play age of Sigmar about how it works for them, because their system is almost the same as 8th edition 40k.

Depending on how they answer, i would either tweak or implement the rules into 40k and then TEST the system. Because it's all good and all doing the math hammer on how it would work and all. But that doesnt tell you how it actually works on the board.

It might look rubbish on paper, but in practice it could be a perfect score

The initiative system wouldn't really fix the 'first turn' issue. Instead it would just hinge the game more on a single dice roll.

It's a divisive rule in AoS too.

Me? I'm quite fond of it. Having to factor in how to best exploit your own double turn, whilst looking to mitigate your opponent's double turn is a challenge in itself. But, I can see why other players don't find it that much fun.

It sounds a simple enough change, but the impact it has can be quite profound upon the game!

Take combat for instance.

In AoS, even with chargers (and not allowing for special rules, natch), each player takes in turns to resolve a unit's attacks, starting with the Initiative Holder. So a double turn isn't entirely disastrous, as mass charging still isn't necessarily a good idea. In 40k? With charging units resolving first (again, barring special rules), that's quite a hammer blow if you get to exploit a double turn.

In short? It certainly could be adapted - but you'd need to rejig other bits and pieces so a Double Turn doesn't become an auto-win.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

In AoS, even with chargers (and not allowing for special rules, natch), each player takes in turns to resolve a unit's attacks, starting with the Initiative Holder. So a double turn isn't entirely disastrous, as mass charging still isn't necessarily a good idea. In 40k? With charging units resolving first (again, barring special rules), that's quite a hammer blow if you get to exploit a double turn.

In short? It certainly could be adapted - but you'd need to rejig other bits and pieces so a Double Turn doesn't become an auto-win.

Hmm, good point – I hadn't thought of this. Do you reckon, without changing the Chargers First rule, the double turn could potentially swing the pendulum too far the other way, in that it'd be preferable to go second, and potentially get two turns in a row, rather than go first and have the chance of alpha striking?

If my opponent has a chance of going twice I want to remove as much of their army as possible so it has as little impact as possible when they do.

Nothing changes.

My experience of the AoS "initiative" roll is that the two-turns-in-a-row problem is infinitely worse than any first-turn advantage in 40k has ever been. Sticking it into 40k with massively more/bigger guns would create a nightmare from which we would never wake.

I have almost zero first-hand experience with AoS, but this seems like a really bad idea. Picture an imperial guard army or a Guilliman gunline getting two turns in a row to shoot at you without retaliation. I-GO-U-GO isn't ideal, but at least you get a chance to silence a couple of the enemy guns between volleys.

My understanding is that shooting isn't quite as severe in AoS as it is in 40k. Melee is one thing as anything that doesn't get killed on the charge will have a chance to punch back, but 40k shooting can absolutely devastate units that are left exposed to it.

You fix first turn wins by adopting the "unit activation" mechanic like big boy games and dropping the extremely outdated IGO-UGO system.

AoS's random initiative turn sequence is possibly the worst game design I've ever seen, in quite possibly the worst game I've ever played.

And to think, they dropped Fantasy for this...it's a joke.

Unit activation sounds great. But scaling wise i could see it being bogged down by the sheer amount of units (remember, this aint warmachine or bolt action. The amount of units in a typical 40k game is at least 10+ units a side)

This sounds good, but it would be hampered by scaling battles. a 500pt game would go pretty fast with unit activation, but then you go to about 2000pt+ games (the standard 1850 last edition is still alot) And you'll find that the game slows down dramatically, sometimes slowing down soo much that even with the most barebones rules on units it would be really slow

mchammadad wrote:
Unit activation sounds great. But scaling wise i could see it begin bogged down by the sheer amount of units (remember, this aint warmachine or bolt action. The amount of units in a typical 40k game is at least 10+ units a side)

This sounds good, but it would be hampered by scaling battles. a 500pt game would go pretty fast with unit activation, but then you go to about 2000pt+ games (the standard 1850 last edition is still alot) And you'll find that the game slows down dramatically, sometimes slowing down soo much that even with the most barebones rules on units it would be really slow

Warmachine and Bolt Action scale to and past 10+ units a side easily enough. A bigger problem with introducing alternating activations is going back and compressing the whole four-phase structure into a single discrete "activation" per unit (the way things like Bolt Action do it...) so you only have to switch off through all of both armies once per turn instead of four times a turn.

mchammadad wrote:
Unit activation sounds great. But scaling wise i could see it being bogged down by the sheer amount of units (remember, this aint warmachine or bolt action. The amount of units in a typical 40k game is at least 10+ units a side)

This sounds good, but it would be hampered by scaling battles. a 500pt game would go pretty fast with unit activation, but then you go to about 2000pt+ games (the standard 1850 last edition is still alot) And you'll find that the game slows down dramatically, sometimes slowing down soo much that even with the most barebones rules on units it would be really slow

I can't imagine alternating between units would take any longer then activating all those same units in 2 chunks. Except now im not looking around the table double checking to make sure if I missed anything because I only have to worry about the one unit.

Activating units is definitely slower than IGOUGO...but it's also better. Solution? Run smaller games. Run a 1500 army instead of 2000. There is not a gold standard army size which "must" be played.

Only reason initiative works so well in aos is because aos doesnt have the first turn super long distance issues that 40k does.

40k needs something else.

... A bigger problem with introducing alternating activations is going back and compressing the whole four-phase structure into a single discrete "activation" per unit (the way things like Bolt Action do it...) so you only have to switch off through all of both armies once per turn instead of four times a turn.

Already done here and it works great:

Beyond the Gates of 40K
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/733472.page

In 40k if I'm unlucky I lose the single first turn and deal from then on. In AoS it can be a stream of double turn after double turn for the enemy and never knowing when I actually get to do something.

It's a bad rule that just makes the game worse.

Mithras001 wrote:

... A bigger problem with introducing alternating activations is going back and compressing the whole four-phase structure into a single discrete "activation" per unit (the way things like Bolt Action do it...) so you only have to switch off through all of both armies once per turn instead of four times a turn.

Already done here and it works great:

Beyond the Gates of 40K
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/733472.page

Tested and played this and it works great.