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One way to tone down first turn power would be to require the person going first to hold back a certain % of his army in reserve. It could symbolize the army's haste to get to the battle field and some units getting left behind to catch up as the battle starts. Perhaps you could even roll a d6 per unit and on 1 that unit doesn't make the first round of the battle. Either way could add a lot of strategy while dealing with an existing issue.

If them being in reserve causes a problem because some units are not allowed in reserve, just make a new concept like the unit is "Still arriving".

You could hold back your more valuable units to arrive on turn two, preventing them from getting targeted round 1 by the person going second, or put them all out there to get the most from your alpha strike but not the overwhelming force of your entire army.

I don't have a huge sample of games from 8th edition yet, but in the majority of them, the person who goes first has won the game and it's because they can usually take out 10-15% of the other army in the first turn, if they had 20% of their army in reserve, that would drop down to like 7 or 8% giving the person going second less of a gap to close on round 2 of turn 1.

Alternate Activation. Alpha Strike Fixed.

A rule like this just adds unneeded complication. The idea is nice, but it wouldn't fix it completely. It'd just be a band aid fix.

Sir Heckington wrote:
Alternate Activation. Alpha Strike Fixed.

A rule like this just adds unneeded complication. The idea is nice, but it wouldn't fix it completely. It'd just be a band aid fix.

This.

But also your just moving the goal posts. Okay, so player 1 on turn 1 cant alpha strike. Well player 2 can!. It happens to both armies? Well now turn 2 is when the gak hits the fan.

You cant patch over the problem. The actual problem is players act with their entire army all at once. That needs to stop.

As I envision this, player 2 would be able to attack with his ~90% strength army vs player 1's now fully arrived 100% army. You still get an advantage by going first, it's just not as huge of a punch and it normalizes faster.

You are correct in that this is a band aid that can fix the problem with out fundamentally changing the entire game.

I like the current turns mechanics though, I'd just nerf shooting for the player that goes first. Like a -1 to hit for the entire army, just that. This way who goes first shoots with the entire army with a penalty, who goes second shoots after suffering some casualties but without a penalty. I wouldn't touch combat because it's already an hard time for melee specialists and I'd actually like a huge boost to assault oriented stuff.

Alternatively I'd tone down shooting units in the entire 40k quite badly since shooting is so more effective than close combat, but that would be impossible to do, basically a review to all the codexes already printed which is insane.

You are welcome to like and enjoy whatever you want.

But that solution you suggest does nothing. Again, p2 gets the advantage instead of p1. You just moved the goal post and didnt fix gak.

 Lance845 wrote:
You are welcome to like and enjoy whatever you want.

But that solution you suggest does nothing. Again, p2 gets the advantage instead of p1. You just moved the goal post and didnt fix gak.

No, p2 doesn't play with the entire army. P1 does but with a penalty. Alpha strike is not extremely brutal but still decent at least and p2 has a good chance to strike back even if he doesn't have the entire force available.

A -1 to hit for armies with tons of shooting doesn't invalidate them. Assault oriented armies don't rely on their alpha strike shooting anyway, like orks that in turn 1 mostly advance and try to assault by arriving in deep strike. Now turn 1 assault can be countered, the insane amount of shooting that is tipycal of this edition can't.

Sir Heckington wrote:
Alternate Activation. Alpha Strike Fixed.

/thread

Also, a degree of alpha strike is an intended feature and balances out the considerable advantages of going second when you're scoring objectives. If you take that away you give the second player all of the advantages with no cost to offset them.

I agree with Lance and Sir Heckington. Your just moving the goal post if you implement the -1.

Think about it, we have the "forwared positions" stratagem, but no one uses it. It's because no matter what you do you cant stop the fact that you opponent is hitting you with an army of firepower.

Say you put in the -1 to hit. That just makes BS 3+ have a moment of inconvenience, but 4+ which is common in most horde shooting armies would be hamstrung by the severe penalty, which would result in the second army coming out relatively unscathed, and then now second turn becomes the one you want as now the second army is now the alpha striking army.

But if you have an army that is BS 2+, not only is this not a inconvenience, but you just made the alpha strike more pronounced as they can just take second turn, make their opponent suffer all the penalties to their really good survivable kill army and then smile every time as he does a reverse alpha strike.

Your not addressing the problem, not one bit. This is just shifting it to the side rather than actually fixing it.

Alternate activation is the solution.

With an AA system in place. You opponent cannot fire everything at once, instead he has to carefully select which parts of their firepower is going to apply to which area's. All the while you can react to this, it makes the game more tactical and fair to both players because it isn't the bigger gun diplomacy that you see in the current ruleset

mchammadad wrote:


Think about it, we have the "forwared positions" stratagem, but no one uses it. It's because no matter what you do you cant stop the fact that you opponent is hitting you with an army of firepower.

The stratagem is +1 cover save for 2CPs, right? Of course no one would use it, it's terrible and not even remotely comparable to a -1 to hit. You burn 2CPs but even then your armored stuff is still vulnerable to anti tank, so are infantries. An example of that, just considering the armies that I play:

- Drukhari: the entire army has 6+ or 4+ save with 5++ or 4++ invulnerable saves. That +1 to the cover has basically zero impact.

- Orks: basically 6+ save or no save dudes or 4+ save vehicles. The infantries are still very vulnerable since lots of weapons are AP-1 and even against AP0 it's just a 5+ in the best case scenario. Vehicles become 3+ which means 6+ against AP-3, the tipycal anti tank, and even no save against AP4 or better (less common though). Some players use KFF which grants invulns: in their lists that +1 save is also wasted.

- SW: tanks, the flyers, long fangs that are already in cover, deep striking or outflanking units and squads with invulns. The +1 to the cover save only affects vehicles. In fact that stratagem is mostly useful for SM and armies like them. But 2 CPs for an army like SW, that can't have a lot of them unless souping, are a huge investment.

The -1 to hit would also tone down plasma overheat, which is another thing that should be fixed IMHO.

Sir Heckington wrote:
Alternate Activation. Alpha Strike Fixed.

A rule like this just adds unneeded complication. The idea is nice, but it wouldn't fix it completely. It'd just be a band aid fix.

The system from Killteam would be great, readying models for shooting and rolling initiative.

Which is what i reakon GW is going towards.

I feel that kill team is going to be the next 9th edition 40k (With some tweaks for command points and such)

If that happens ill happily be playing 40k fully again, cause at the moment i play more kill team than 40k