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 auticus wrote:

The best way to counter optimization is randomisation : you can't optimize what you can't control. This is why the Double Turn is so hated or loved - it depends how you see the game should be, and with which point of view you're sided.

Couple things with this line that I'd like to point out:

1) it doesn't address hating it because having a player stand there for two turns straight doing nothing is bad design.

2) optimization has not been curbed at all by double turn, the competitive community optimizes the living hell out of the easy to find undercost units, and optimized armies still crush non optimized armies regardless of double turn.

You say it's a bad design, and there are indeed a few people here saying they don't like Double Turn. To you/them, it is a bad design. However, it is a fact that players in AoS have learned to deal with it and with the small change in second edition (tie are won by the player who started first last turn), it adds something more fair to the random side.

Reasons of the "hate" can indeed vary, but they are tied to how you see the game should be and on which side you are.

As for optimization, yes the competitive players keeps doing it - on their lists only. Because they know Double Turn can't be controlled and so they just have to take it into account and optimize elsewhere. All of the competitive players always play while having to think about the possibility of having a Double Turn or not. That's the main reason a lot of players try to play second on first turn.

Some people like the random side, others clearly not. I think there's a big part about control, actually. It's the same with random advances / charges, if you remember it at the times Warhammer Battle was around and where those movements were not decided by dice, but were set in the stone with their move range (simply doubling it, and making it thus very predictable). Some players were really angry when they randomized charges, because it removed their control about that part of the game. Most people finally rolled with it in the end, though. I think it's the same here with Double Turn.

 Sarouan wrote:

However, it is a fact that players in AoS have learned to deal with it and with the small change in second edition (tie are won by the player who started first last turn), it adds something more fair to the random side.

If I'm not wrong it adds about 8% in favour of the player who started the last turn. If it is indeed so it seems to me that people bit in GW's videos explaining that it was somehow a huge improvement in favour of the one that got bit hard the first time.
1. It is only 8% (if I'm right)
2. You already got hit hard first.

 Sarouan wrote:

All of the competitive players always play while having to think about the possibility of having a Double Turn or not. That's the main reason a lot of players try to play second on first turn.

What about the following: if you prepare for a double turn in your favour you aren't prepared for a double turn in your opponent's favour. If you're not preparing for a double turn and your opponent isn't as well then the status quo stays, but if he is preparing then you are in disadvantage. Shouldn't you always prepare for the double turn then and aren't lists made so they can capitalize on bringing high burst damage so doing it twice in a row decides the game? IMO there is no thinking here - a double turn will allow you to close with the opponent and deal your damage first or simply deal your damage twice. At the level of competitive damage output that is being commented here this is a GG.

I have a strong feeling that this isn't the first time I've participated in the same discussion here

Sarouan the thing is a lot of events and groups just straight up don't use the double turn. Also your point regarding some liking it or not still doesn't get around the fact that if a double turn happens one person isn't playing the game nor doing anything for a long period.

In a game where you activate whole armies in alternate that's a massive advantage you've just handed to one player. Indeed most of the time I talk to players I very rarely hear of anyone who lost a game when they got a double turn. Similarly I hear of very few instances where someone wins a game when a double turn happens to their opponent.

There's a few niche situations where a double turn doesn't have a dramatic effect on the outcome of hte game, but by and large if it happens whoever gets it is almost guaranteed a win.

That's a really bad idea. It's one thing to have dice influence game outcome, its another to have the dice decide the outcome of a game. Plus who wants to play a game which might take two, three, four hours of their life if almost the entire win/loss hinges on a single roll of the dice. It's not even an epic moment like the last leader making a defiant last stand or such its just who goes next.

For many armies tho, you CANT prepare for a double turn, if you are vs FeC, Skaven, DoK, IDK, HoS, they can all move fast enough, hit hard enough, and have units that can stand in front to take a hit. Many armies cant do that. Some armies if you sit out and "prepare to be double turned" you straight up lose the game.

 Amishprn86 wrote:
For many armies tho, you CANT prepare for a double turn, if you are vs FeC, Skaven, DoK, IDK, HoS, they can all move fast enough, hit hard enough, and have units that can stand in front to take a hit. Many armies cant do that. Some armies if you sit out and "prepare to be double turned" you straight up lose the game.

That's another issue - sitting back and staying out of range of your opponent is about the only way you can specifically prepare for the double turn. That's a disaster in a game which only has 6 turns of action! Furthermore its a tactic only ranged armies can really do and even then its leaving you at a higher chance of being left not holding objectives.

You can argue that putting up screens to protect weaker units is preparing, but that's just normal gameplay you'd be doing anyway if you've got an army which functions like that and, as noted, some armies just don't have screens as part of their structure.

 Overread wrote:
Sarouan the thing is a lot of events and groups just straight up don't use the double turn.

Sources ? Because where I am playing, I don't see large numbers of groups/events not using the double turn specifically. Yes, people like Auticus use their own rules because they're better suited to how he think the game should be, but that doesn't mean the majority of players does it.

Also your point regarding some liking it or not still doesn't get around the fact that if a double turn happens one person isn't playing the game nor doing anything for a long period.

That's another problem entirely, that comes with the "I go you go" game system. It was always present in those games, be it Warhammer Battle, 40k or Age of Sigmar. It has his advantages and disadvantages as well - but waiting time is indeed part of the negatives.

AoS has the particularity to alternate during the combat phase and since it's a heavy melee focus game, the interactivity happens a lot there.

In a game where you activate whole armies in alternate that's a massive advantage you've just handed to one player. Indeed most of the time I talk to players I very rarely hear of anyone who lost a game when they got a double turn. Similarly I hear of very few instances where someone wins a game when a double turn happens to their opponent. There's a few niche situations where a double turn doesn't have a dramatic effect on the outcome of hte game, but by and large if it happens whoever gets it is almost guaranteed a win.

And that's the point of the Double Turn : you can't predict it and you can't control it. This is indeed a part of unbalance, but that also makes the game unpredictable. A sure victory can become a close defeat. Yes, it is decided by dice, and this is, I think, why some people don't like it. The same way people didn't like it when their sure charge suddenly becomes the prey of rolling random dice, some people don't like when their careful planning fell apart because of a simple dice roll not in their favor and resulting into a Double Turn.

But you can plan your strategy with it into account, and Double Turn is in no way an assurance of victory as well. Battleplans are also made with it into account, and the reason why you have objectives scored at the end of turn is, I believe, one of the reasons.

It is a game design choice, but I wouldn't say it's universally bad. It just has a specific vision behind, that some people don't share/understand here IMHO - and that is perfectly fine.

That's a really bad idea. It's one thing to have dice influence game outcome, its another to have the dice decide the outcome of a game. Plus who wants to play a game which might take two, three, four hours of their life if almost the entire win/loss hinges on a single roll of the dice. It's not even an epic moment like the last leader making a defiant last stand or such its just who goes next.

Dice rolls have always been playing a big part in GW games, not because they're bad but because that's a design choice. You can't control the dice, they are the avatar of everything you, as the general of your army, don't have control on - all the things that go bad during a battle despite your master plan.

Dice rolls aren't balanced - but they are impartial. The dice decide, not the players. I believe that's the main part you dislike here. When I read other players not in favor of it, they are often the ones believing only the skills should be rewarded. They want luck plays the smallest part as possible, because luck can't be controlled or optimized, so that games show only the skills of the players. That's one point of view amongst many.

Players accepting the dictature of dice in GW games don't see what's the big deal here. GW games have always been dice games. Accepting a dice roll is accepting that no matter the skills or how good your list is, things can simply just go wrong. That can give incredible turns of events instead of something that is boringly predictable from the start. That's why I believe balance isn't that important in the end in a game (it's mostly a question about player perception on what is fair and what is not, but that's another topic). We're having fun rolling dice while pushing our painted miniatures on the board, in the end.

About the value of "wasting hours playing an uninteresting game", that's really depending from your point of view. Besides...you are aware that all epic actions in GW games are actually decided by dice rolls, right ? If your warlord fails all his hit and wound rolls because he can't get anything higher than a 2 and need 3+ on his dice, that's the same feeling if I take your argument.

Its not about making it unpredictable, make it Random turn lengths like in 40k then if you want that "unpredictability", Having to watch my opponent take 2 turns and i get to do nothing is awful.

I went against a SCE player that had LOADS of shooting and could spend CP to shoot in hero phase, having him shoot me 4x from the same units WAS NOT FUN b.c he got the double turn.

PS: Units attack may miss some times sure, but its not 1 dice for my Warlord to kill my opponents, i get many dice and many attempts, even re-rolls at times. 1 dice to say if someone gets to play twice IS NOT THE SAME as a unit rolling 30-50 dice. That might defeat 1 other unit, we are talking about full army swings, not 1 unit vs 1 unit.

 Amishprn86 wrote:
Its not about making it unpredictable, make it Random turn lengths like in 40k then if you want that "unpredictability", Having to watch my opponent take 2 turns and i get to do nothing is awful.

I went against a SCE player that had LOADS of shooting and could spend CP to shoot in hero phase, having him shoot me 4x from the same units WAS NOT FUN b.c he got the double turn.

PS: Units attack may miss some times sure, but its not 1 dice for my Warlord to kill my opponents, i get many dice and many attempts, even re-rolls at times. 1 dice to say if someone gets to play twice IS NOT THE SAME as a unit rolling 30-50 dice. That might defeat 1 other unit, we are talking about full army swings, not 1 unit vs 1 unit.

AoS is not 40k...why do you think the shooting units are way more restricted in range and firepower in comparison to their future counterpart ? Double Turn works in AoS because it's a melee focus game. It wouldn't work in 40k because it's mainly a shooting game (you know it is). Besides, while a shooting army in AoS is happy to have a Double Turn, they're not so happy when the melee opponent army gets his own. It goes both ways, and that's where it's unpredictable. You can call it random if you want, it's the same result.

And yes, the Double Turn's dice roll use only one dice. So what ? You still roll dice to hit and wound, and while a shooting army can do a lot of damage in a Double Turn, it's still not guaranted. You had a bad time in your game, doesn't mean it will be the same with every other game with the same lists.

 Sarouan wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:
Its not about making it unpredictable, make it Random turn lengths like in 40k then if you want that "unpredictability", Having to watch my opponent take 2 turns and i get to do nothing is awful.

I went against a SCE player that had LOADS of shooting and could spend CP to shoot in hero phase, having him shoot me 4x from the same units WAS NOT FUN b.c he got the double turn.

PS: Units attack may miss some times sure, but its not 1 dice for my Warlord to kill my opponents, i get many dice and many attempts, even re-rolls at times. 1 dice to say if someone gets to play twice IS NOT THE SAME as a unit rolling 30-50 dice. That might defeat 1 other unit, we are talking about full army swings, not 1 unit vs 1 unit.

AoS is not 40k...why do you think the shooting units are way more restricted in range and firepower in comparison to their future counterpart ? Double Turn works in AoS because it's a melee focus game. It wouldn't work in 40k because it's mainly a shooting game (you know it is). Besides, while a shooting army in AoS is happy to have a Double Turn, they're not so happy when the melee opponent army gets his own. It goes both ways, and that's where it's unpredictable. You can call it random if you want, it's the same result.

After a shooty army has had two turns to fully unload their shots into a close combat army the close combat army is going to be crippled. Seriously crippled, whilst that shooty army is still at full strength. Sure it doesn't like being in close combat, bu its still operating at 100% whilst the close combat army could be down to 50% or worse after two full turns against it. That's the issue, even getting a return double turn one army is critically weaker. Their units are not at full strength and far more likely to lose in close combat or even break and run.


And as said above by several others, its not the same to compare the dice rolls for one unit to a dice roll for a whole army. One unit failing a charge on a dice roll is a problem, your whole army standing still and taking a whole second round of fire/close combat/attacks/spells is a disaster. Any magic or shooty army gets a field day because they can attack with impunity; close combat armies also get to move right into combat how they want too. It's not the same thing at all to compare it to one unit's performance on the dice.

 Sarouan wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:
Its not about making it unpredictable, make it Random turn lengths like in 40k then if you want that "unpredictability", Having to watch my opponent take 2 turns and i get to do nothing is awful.

I went against a SCE player that had LOADS of shooting and could spend CP to shoot in hero phase, having him shoot me 4x from the same units WAS NOT FUN b.c he got the double turn.

PS: Units attack may miss some times sure, but its not 1 dice for my Warlord to kill my opponents, i get many dice and many attempts, even re-rolls at times. 1 dice to say if someone gets to play twice IS NOT THE SAME as a unit rolling 30-50 dice. That might defeat 1 other unit, we are talking about full army swings, not 1 unit vs 1 unit.

AoS is not 40k...why do you think the shooting units are way more restricted in range and firepower in comparison to their future counterpart ? Double Turn works in AoS because it's a melee focus game. It wouldn't work in 40k because it's mainly a shooting game (you know it is). Besides, while a shooting army in AoS is happy to have a Double Turn, they're not so happy when the melee opponent army gets his own. It goes both ways, and that's where it's unpredictable. You can call it random if you want, it's the same result.

And yes, the Double Turn's dice roll use only one dice. So what ? You still roll dice to hit and wound, and while a shooting army can do a lot of damage in a Double Turn, it's still not guaranted. You had a bad time in your game, doesn't mean it will be the same with every other game with the same lists.

Never said 40k and aos was the same, i gave an example to a better turn dice roll mechanic so you couldnt predict the outcome. Shooting has nothing to do with it, we all know players take shooting focus lists time to time and we all know you can have full armies that shoot, that has nothing to do with anything we are talking about. I dont see why you went on this big rant. I showed a better system to "unpredictability of turns" than to someone getting 2 turns in a row. Its even more fluffy to have it like 40k anyways, you dont know when the realm magic will fluctuate, when reinforcements are coming, etc... compare to a double turn.

It seems to be important to be playing like "the majority of everyone else". I don't think thats important to be honest. And there is no way to validate one way or the other if you are playing like the majority of everyone else because there is no global poll where you can get that data.

Now I've been a part of several online polls about the double turn over the past couple years and it usually turns out to be about 60% use it, 40% do not when the poll is taken in an AOS friendly forum (meaning the players all play AOS). The exception was a TGA poll, which has the highest concentration of extremely pro AOS players who will all defend everything AOS no matter what, and that as I recall was about 85% for it, 15% against it.

Additionally when that same poll is taken in a forum that is open to all games, so the players are a mix of every game, the disparity is about 80-85% would never use the double turn and 15% are in favor of it.

For whatever thats worth. Obviously those are just numbers from polls that I've been a part of on several fb groups, forums, and twitter polls and are not representative of the world, but I've been in enough of them to draw my own conclusions.

In my city, the competitive guys play it rules as written because adepticon and other big tournaments use it and they want to play by the standard, and the narrative and casual guys hate it and at the very least just play straight turns. Its about a 50/50 split.

For my money if I had no choice but to use the double turn, I would not be playing AOS at all.

It is simply a fact that a single roll of a D6 is much more swingy than a handful of D6. The phenomenon is called regression to the mean. The larger the number of dice you throw, the more likely you are to achieve the average result.

This is easily shown by looking at the probability space of a 2d6 roll. You will find that the most common score by miles is a 7, which is why GW used 2d6 for leadership tests for decades (it is less swingy than a single dice, and Leadership tests are the ones that used to have the biggest impact on the game) and why the average leadership score used to be 7. When they wanted morale to have less impact on the game, they increased leadership. This logic applies to any number of dice thrown - there will be a mean outcome that gets more and more likely the more dice you throw and at the same time extremes at either end become less likely. Whereas a single dice throw means all outcomes are equally likely at 16.66..%.

Rolling for turn is not like rolling to hit with a single attack or even a group of attacks. It is much more significant as it impacts the entire army. An easy fix would be to have alternating unit activation, so each priority roll only impacts one unit. That is how most games with a roll for priority work and it is fine. The fact that GW half assed it here is a sign of incompetent game design.

My impression is that TGA is changing and even there many are coming round to not liking the double turn. I honestly think a lot of it is player experience. Those who get double turns or never encounter them tend to think the issue is overblown through to loving them. It's those who get on the receiving end who realise what a painful experience it is. That its two whole turns of a game they are playing where they do nothing; that they couldn't prepare for it and play to the objectives of the game and that the game itself doesn't even really build itself around the feature to make it practical to try.

Once you've seen most of your army destroyed or crippled its darn hard to recover the game from that state.


About the only time it feels like a good thing is when one person has already been crippled and gets a double turn to rally around and have a chance at winning. But in that case its a niche and there's nothing in the game that makes double turns more likely to happen in such a case.

Yeah I haven't been on TGA in a long time now, so my data from there is pretty dated. When I was on there it was a "no negative comments about AOS are allowed, this is the AOS happy place" and everyone was pretty pro everything in AOS.

 auticus wrote:
Yeah I haven't been on TGA in a long time now, so my data from there is pretty dated. When I was on there it was a "no negative comments about AOS are allowed, this is the AOS happy place" and everyone was pretty pro everything in AOS.

Yeah its not so much that any more - I think that was more a kneejerk reaction to the very early days of AoS when there was a LOT of aggression against it on a lot of sites and TGA was mostly tying to buck the trend and so came down a little harder. ESp since a lot of people can't express dissatisfaction without getting hostile toward other members of the community.

Glad to see they grew up then and enabled actual discussion. It is possible to criticize something without others taking it a personal attack on them.

Though you are correct and that does make online discussions very difficult today - there is a lot of open venom and hostility towards those that disagree with one's point of view and that can make forums a bad place to be on.

I think summoning needs to have a tradeoff. Like Nurgle you need to get contagion points, Khorne you need blood tithe. FEC can do it for free, and multiple times which is BS (and I played FEC as my main army).

I’ve had the double turn come up in all the games I’ve played 1v1. I haven’t personally had it make much difference.

I dislike the double turn. Not hate it, since it's an interesting concept, but an entire second turn of sitting there doing gak is not fun. If AOS had alternating activation rather than full turns, then the double turn would be more interesting as it would only be one unit.

Instead of going back to a bigger scale, GW should have gone with the Warmahordes approach: Each unit moves/shoots/attacks independently, then the next unit, rather than "movement phase", "shooting phase", etc. They could have still kept Hero Phase. Hell, they could have even kept charging the way it is rather than make it be part of the movement phase.

Would have made the game more interesting IMHO. Throw in alternating unit activations, and suddenly you have a way more tactically interesting game than what we got.

For Double Turn to kinda not be so swingy you would have to rework some aspects of the game. Even then it would not be enough to justify the mechanic itself. It's just not fun in general imo. Only time I've enjoyed it is when I get the double turn, but then I see the abysmal dismay in my opponent and remember how frustrating it is to be on the receiving end.

Changes would be:
- Magic needs to be scaled back considerably. Nobody wants FEC animation double turn or a LoN casting phase two times in a row.
- Scale back shooting.

Those two things enjoy a considerable force multiplier in Double Turns.

I'm a big fan of the double turn since I play to see what happens and it really helps to introduce unpredictability. I get though that the same randomness can cause people who want to make things happen to not be able to. Sometimes a double turn can drastically swing the game and that can be really frustrating.

My personal preference would be for a Bolt Action style dice pull unit by unit activation.

I would be interested in the mechanic if it were more like the new Apocalypse ruleset: Models are only to die at the end of the turn. This would give the priority holder some advantage, but such advantage that they can wipe out the entire enemy army before it gets to do anything.

It is my hope that the new apoc model becomes the 40k and aos model period if they are going to continue down the IGOUGO path.

 Overread wrote:
If GW really wants to keep it have it resigned to open play as an optional mechanic and let matched play avoid it. Which is what I suspect will happen because that lets GW answer the issue for the matched play gamers, whilst getting to not actually remove it as a feature from the game. They just discourage it in "matched" and move it out into the optional realm of open play.

I wholeheartedly agree.
Double turn would be much more fitting for Open Play or Narrative Play.
Especially for the latter, where the Double Turn can represent the tide of battle turning miraculously in the favour of beleaguered, outnumbered army.
However large number of people I have seen online were very adamant on keeping the double turn as the immutable, unique trait of AoS even in Matched Play.

As for me, I am always prepared to deal with double turn in my opponent's favour.
I just do not find it tactically rewarding.

As many of the posters have pointed out, keeping as much distance as possible between my units and the opposing units is all I can do.
If the opponent gets the double turn, I might prevent the worst outcome - having my army crippled irreversibly.
This however will allow my opponent to have greater board control due to my passive deployment.
It gives significant advantage to my opponent, as I need to regain board control I gave up in order to prepare against the double turn.

If I am not on the receiving end of the double turn it is simply "status quo", meaning that we retain traditional "IGOUGO" mechanic.
And I practically earn no tactical reward despite the massive effort I have put in the previous battle round to prevent double turn from ruining my army.
Meanwhile, my opponent loses nothing as the game turn order is "status quo".

At best, preparing hard against the opposing player's double turn only ensures that my force is not critically impaired at the ensuing battle round.
This gives no tactical advantage to me, and also means that I need to prepare for another chance that my opponent will get double turn next battle round: a vicious cycle of passive manoeuvre I would say.
At worst, I give up significant amount of board to my opponent.
And seizing board control at this point is extremely difficult unless I take the double turn: but that relies on a single dice roll, which I find to be the furthest thing from tactical finesse.

 auticus wrote:
It is my hope that the new apoc model becomes the 40k and aos model period if they are going to continue down the IGOUGO path.

I must admit that I would love a similar game system for Legendary Battles in AoS. Their new version of Apocalypse is really good from what I have tried. That, and using the unit bases for big infantry hordes. Those sold for Apocalypse are fine enough.

I grabbed some of the movement rings for AOS play.

I did as well, my Fyreslayers look great put on it. Sadly, the distance between the holes meant for miniature bases can mess with the range distance of their melee weapons. It's not that optimal the way AoS is playing - but if you make a homemade rule to make it work by using the bases, it's really a great tool indeed. Makes movement much easier for big infantry units.

I use the GW Movement Trays for MSU units. Otherwise I am just using some 3D printed stuff I bought off ebay that is specifically created for pile-ins.

 Eldarsif wrote:
I use the GW Movement Trays for MSU units. Otherwise I am just using some 3D printed stuff I bought off ebay that is specifically created for pile-ins.

Do you happen to have a link for those?

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Eldarsif wrote:
I use the GW Movement Trays for MSU units. Otherwise I am just using some 3D printed stuff I bought off ebay that is specifically created for pile-ins.

Do you happen to have a link for those?

Check out this guys options. They look pretty sweet! https://www.ebay.com/usr/uberjisha?_trksid=p2047675.l2559