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 kodos wrote:
My point is, solving melee is not related to solving Alpha Strike

Solving one can help the other but both have unique problems that have not 1 combined solution.

As changing how charge and overwatch work will help melee, as will increase CC mortality.

But this does not change Alpha Strike and need to happen independent from solving that problem

And my point was that solving "alpha strike" by introducing a turn structure that creates a slew of new balance issues doesnt help. The point of changing the turn structure to fix alpha strike is to change it to something that creates a inherently even playing field. Alternating phases does not have a inherently even playing field. Its has a inherently biased playing field in ways that are actually worse than igougo.

Yes. Cc has other issues that need to be addressed separately. But THIS alternating phases suggestion is a fething mess.

I'm wholly within the "alternating phases is a bad idea" business. if you can't punish your opponent for bad positioning, it's a bad thing. The only way it could work is to punish shooting armies for moving - EG you can move away, but only hit on 6's. I'd happily play a game where I herd an ineffective shooting army into a corner and then krump 'em.

 Lance845 wrote:
I have spent the last couple years creating, helping to create, and just looking for, and then testing all kinds of versions of 40k in all kinds of turn structures with all kinds of solutions to first turn issues. I am not speaking from a theory point of view. I am speaking from experience that comes from hundreds of hours of play test over that span. -1 to hit "night fighting" rules. Holding back reserves. You dilute or shift the problem but you don't eliminate it. You can make it more manageable but it's still there. You lesson it's impact so others don't notice as much or you just hand the advantage to player 2. Anyone "good" at the game will look at the mechanical structure, find the weakest points to exploit for the biggest advantages, and will capitalize on them. Some will argue that it's poor sportsmanship and others will say it's simply working within the confines of the rules you gave them and playing intelligently. Doesn't matter. If you provide the tools someone will use them.

That's a fair point, all of my suggestions are just theories at the moment. Can I ask (genuinely, this isn't sarcasm, I'm after your experience in this) what the downsides were to holding back reserves? Mathematically, it seems like it will fix the issue, and by the time both sides have their whole force, they should have repositioned to gain their own advantage. Also, by turn 3, I would expect to start to see a leader and an underdog. I can only imagine that it would improve the balance of the game by mid-game.

Given that I have so few turns to annihilate my opponent, (with a shooty army you basically (should have) lost, if a non-negligible army gets into CC) this requires ridiculous shooting power to even give me a chance. One turn more or less with that ridiculous shooting power makes a large difference.

I think this is the issue. in previous editions, you had to kill a CC army before it got to you or you died. When CC got nerfed, shooting just got better - there's less cover, terrible LOS rules, and better AP. we've inherited this powerful shooting, but the reason it needed to be powerful has been removed.

 some bloke wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
I have spent the last couple years creating, helping to create, and just looking for, and then testing all kinds of versions of 40k in all kinds of turn structures with all kinds of solutions to first turn issues. I am not speaking from a theory point of view. I am speaking from experience that comes from hundreds of hours of play test over that span. -1 to hit "night fighting" rules. Holding back reserves. You dilute or shift the problem but you don't eliminate it. You can make it more manageable but it's still there. You lesson it's impact so others don't notice as much or you just hand the advantage to player 2. Anyone "good" at the game will look at the mechanical structure, find the weakest points to exploit for the biggest advantages, and will capitalize on them. Some will argue that it's poor sportsmanship and others will say it's simply working within the confines of the rules you gave them and playing intelligently. Doesn't matter. If you provide the tools someone will use them.

That's a fair point, all of my suggestions are just theories at the moment. Can I ask (genuinely, this isn't sarcasm, I'm after your experience in this) what the downsides were to holding back reserves? Mathematically, it seems like it will fix the issue, and by the time both sides have their whole force, they should have repositioned to gain their own advantage. Also, by turn 3, I would expect to start to see a leader and an underdog. I can only imagine that it would improve the balance of the game by mid-game.

There are a few things. Some of what I am going to say is going to be objective cause and effect for what it mechanically does to the game. Some people might like that effect. Some of it could be "bad". Some of it boils down to my personal preference.

So lets assume that anyone can do that with even points. SO that in a 2k game you are only allowed to deploy 1k points and 1k has to be in reserves with 500 entering on turn 2 and 500 entering on turn 3.

So before I get into that theoretical example lets divert to practical reality, a knight army can't do that. Many armies can't. And even when they can the synergy of their units starts getting broken up into distinct little chunks that are no longer on the table at the same time to synergize. The opponent will prioritize the weakened unsynergized components that are available for them to kill so that when the "other half" arrives a turn or 2 latter they never get to act in full capacity. You now have to build your army with delivery methods for bringing on these chunks. For example, as a Nid player I either have to play Jormungdr and deploy each of these little chunks with enough mawlock, raveners, and or trygons or 115 point tyrannoctyes that can carry 1 unit of 20 models OR 1 monster to put them on the table turn 2 and 3 where they will be useful or else (I assume) I would have to bring them on from my table edge and spend the next few turns running them up the table so that MAYBE they do things by the end of the game. Space marines would need to invest in drop pods or air ships. Again, what do knights invest in? What do Tau invest in for fire warriors? What can orks buy to deliver their dudes up the table? Necrons? There are logistical issues for armies that relate to telling them when and how they can bring their guys onto the table. By turn 3 their positioning will matter a lot. These issues get more pronounced the lower the points. How does this work at 1500 point games? 1250? 1000? And things become more manageable the higher you go, 3k, 4k.

Back to the theoretical - turn 1 is exactly the game as it is now except you have 2 1k armies instead of 2k armies. Then player 1 gets an injection of reserve units increasing their starting value to 150% which they immediately turn on player 2 (who presumably moved on their turn to try to do damage to player 1... so LOS blocking terrain isn't an excuse here). Then player 2 gets his injection of points. Now these 500 are unharmed, but they get added to the greatly diminished 1k he started with, both suffering more losses on turn 1 then player 1 did (on average) and THEN suffering even more losses on turn 2. Repeat for turn turn 3.

This is one of those cases where it appears diminished so people are less likely to notice it's impact, but you haven't actually removed it. The sudden injection of a bonus 500 points of dudes makes you feel like you gained, especially because it's unlikely that in turn 1 or 2 that you are loosing 500 points of models but player 1 still has the inherent 1rst turn advantage and is still removing more from 2 on each turn because of it.

Now some people may really like the idea of building their armies with reserves in mind. They might like how that adds a level of planning to army composition that is only optional now but would be forced under these rules. But I personally hate the idea of making that a forced thing.

These are my general observations. I think it makes for an interesting SCENARIO especially under narrative play. But I don't think it balances out 1rst turn advantage at all and it punishes some armies, while forcing others to incorporate models, strats, and whatever else just to function under the new set up.

 Lance845 wrote:

 some bloke wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
I have spent the last couple years creating, helping to create, and just looking for, and then testing all kinds of versions of 40k in all kinds of turn structures with all kinds of solutions to first turn issues. I am not speaking from a theory point of view. I am speaking from experience that comes from hundreds of hours of play test over that span. -1 to hit "night fighting" rules. Holding back reserves. You dilute or shift the problem but you don't eliminate it. You can make it more manageable but it's still there. You lesson it's impact so others don't notice as much or you just hand the advantage to player 2. Anyone "good" at the game will look at the mechanical structure, find the weakest points to exploit for the biggest advantages, and will capitalize on them. Some will argue that it's poor sportsmanship and others will say it's simply working within the confines of the rules you gave them and playing intelligently. Doesn't matter. If you provide the tools someone will use them.

That's a fair point, all of my suggestions are just theories at the moment. Can I ask (genuinely, this isn't sarcasm, I'm after your experience in this) what the downsides were to holding back reserves? Mathematically, it seems like it will fix the issue, and by the time both sides have their whole force, they should have repositioned to gain their own advantage. Also, by turn 3, I would expect to start to see a leader and an underdog. I can only imagine that it would improve the balance of the game by mid-game.

There are a few things. Some of what I am going to say is going to be objective cause and effect for what it mechanically does to the game. Some people might like that effect. Some of it could be "bad". Some of it boils down to my personal preference.

So lets assume that anyone can do that with even points. SO that in a 2k game you are only allowed to deploy 1k points and 1k has to be in reserves with 500 entering on turn 2 and 500 entering on turn 3.

So before I get into that theoretical example lets divert to practical reality, a knight army can't do that. Many armies can't. And even when they can the synergy of their units starts getting broken up into distinct little chunks that are no longer on the table at the same time to synergize. The opponent will prioritize the weakened unsynergized components that are available for them to kill so that when the "other half" arrives a turn or 2 latter they never get to act in full capacity. You now have to build your army with delivery methods for bringing on these chunks. For example, as a Nid player I either have to play Jormungdr and deploy each of these little chunks with enough mawlock, raveners, and or trygons or 115 point tyrannoctyes that can carry 1 unit of 20 models OR 1 monster to put them on the table turn 2 and 3 where they will be useful or else (I assume) I would have to bring them on from my table edge and spend the next few turns running them up the table so that MAYBE they do things by the end of the game. Space marines would need to invest in drop pods or air ships. Again, what do knights invest in? What do Tau invest in for fire warriors? What can orks buy to deliver their dudes up the table? Necrons? There are logistical issues for armies that relate to telling them when and how they can bring their guys onto the table. By turn 3 their positioning will matter a lot. These issues get more pronounced the lower the points. How does this work at 1500 point games? 1250? 1000? And things become more manageable the higher you go, 3k, 4k.

Back to the theoretical - turn 1 is exactly the game as it is now except you have 2 1k armies instead of 2k armies. Then player 1 gets an injection of reserve units increasing their starting value to 150% which they immediately turn on player 2 (who presumably moved on their turn to try to do damage to player 1... so LOS blocking terrain isn't an excuse here). Then player 2 gets his injection of points. Now these 500 are unharmed, but they get added to the greatly diminished 1k he started with, both suffering more losses on turn 1 then player 1 did (on average) and THEN suffering even more losses on turn 2. Repeat for turn turn 3.

This is one of those cases where it appears diminished so people are less likely to notice it's impact, but you haven't actually removed it. The sudden injection of a bonus 500 points of dudes makes you feel like you gained, especially because it's unlikely that in turn 1 or 2 that you are loosing 500 points of models but player 1 still has the inherent 1rst turn advantage and is still removing more from 2 on each turn because of it.

Now some people may really like the idea of building their armies with reserves in mind. They might like how that adds a level of planning to army composition that is only optional now but would be forced under these rules. But I personally hate the idea of making that a forced thing.

These are my general observations. I think it makes for an interesting SCENARIO especially under narrative play. But I don't think it balances out 1rst turn advantage at all and it punishes some armies, while forcing others to incorporate models, strats, and whatever else just to function under the new set up.

I agree that, if both players get reinforcements on their second turn onwards, the advantage lies with player 1 every time.

My suggestion was for player 2 to get their reinforcements on their turn 1. essentially, player 1 gets the advantage of the opening salvo of fire, player 2 gets the advantage of a reinforced army. the basic maths I provided backs up that, in a theoretical sense, 2 armies who destroy (I think it was) 20% of their own points worth a turn, with this method, are still roughly tied by turn 3.

This idea can be adjusted accordingly, but I would suspect it to be:
Deploy up to 1/2 the points of your army, in whole units
first wave (player 2 turn 1, player 1 turn 2) deploy up to half of your remaining points
second wave (player 2 turn 2, player 1 turn 3) deploy the remainder of your points

Knights might have a bit of a disadvantage, or an advantage, depending on how it plays out. Assuming (I don't know knights points) you have 3 Knights over 500pts each and some chaff to fill the gaps. you would deploy 1 knight and the chaff, then get no reinforcements in wave 1, then get 2 knights in wave 2. Or, you make a special caveat that if a single unit is more points than you are allowed, they may be deployed. no other units may be deployed at this time.

That would allow 3 knights to start with 1, then get another, then get another. Orks could start with 1k on the board, then have a stompa arrive, then have the dregs turn up on their second wave. From what I gather, single powerful units have a disadvantage to MSU this edition, as people just focus them to death with high damage weapons, so allowing a knight to arrive a little early might offset the fact that they have only got 3 models + chaff.

Have you ever playtested this "unbalanced" reinforcement system? If not, would you be willing to? I've not a lot of free time so seldom have the chance to play any more.

What if Prepared Positions stratagem, functioning similar to the previous "nightfighting" was a built in feature and not a CP spender?

Ah. Okay.

Im bout to start work il give a full response tonight.

How do you propose first player is chosen? When? Before deployment or after?

Il do math and mull it over.

 Lance845 wrote:
Ah. Okay.

Im bout to start work il give a full response tonight.

How do you propose first player is chosen? When? Before deployment or after?

Il do math and mull it over.

sure thing, I'll pick it up tomorrow morning.

I was thinking along the lines of players roll off, highest roll chooses to go first or second, who goes first deploys first. It could be trialled by having player 1 deploy first or second, depending where the advantage appears to lie during playtesting.

An alternative system might be to allow player 2 to deploy 3/4 of their army and player 1 to deploy 1/2 of their army, then player 1 leads with the reinforcements on their turn 2. it would present player 1 with more targets, and might mitigate any advantage player 2 has from the increased army size, as they won't guarantee 1/4 of their army to be unscathed on their first turn.

turn structure would be:
turn 1:
player 1 (1/2 army)
player 2 (3/4 army - losses)
turn 2:
player 1 (1/2 army - losses + 1/4 army)
player 2 (3/4 army - losses + 1/4 army)
turn 3:
player 1 (3/4 army - losses + 1/4 army)
player 2 (whole army - losses)

player 1 (whole army - losses)
player 2 (whole army - losses)

etc.

might be necessary, might not be - just glancing at it suggests that the player 1 would have some advantage in choosing their targets on turn 1. though this may be needed. only way to tell is to test, after all!


this actually has some nice implications, thinking on it - if you have the extremes of a CC horde vs a gunline, who do you want to go first?

if the gunline goes first, they get the opening salvo, but the horde has more bodies further up the field at the end of their first turn...
if the horde goes first, they get to move first and avoid the firing lines of your gunline, but there's less of them...

the deployment could always be adjusted to number of units instead of value of them, to avoid the maths. Transports count as 1 unit plus all the units embarked, and titanic units count as 3 units. ergo, a knight army with 3 knights and 4 units of chaff would have 13 units, so can deploy 6 units, followed by 3 and then 4. this might be a simpler alternative to points values or power levels.

So something I saw related to the new Apocalypse GW is coming out with was, if my memory serves correctly, the notion that casualties are removed at the end of the game turn or somesuch. It seems like a really simple solution.

 Nurglitch wrote:
So something I saw related to the new Apocalypse GW is coming out with was, if my memory serves correctly, the notion that casualties are removed at the end of the game turn or somesuch. It seems like a really simple solution.

Its a LOT of book keeping and would slow 8th 40k down drastically. It really depends on how Apoc does it and everything else for its viability.

some bloke wrote:
My suggestion was for player 2 to get their reinforcements on their turn 1. essentially, player 1 gets the advantage of the opening salvo of fire, player 2 gets the advantage of a reinforced army. the basic maths I provided backs up that, in a theoretical sense, 2 armies who destroy (I think it was) 20% of their own points worth a turn, with this method, are still roughly tied by turn 3.

This idea can be adjusted accordingly, but I would suspect it to be:
Deploy up to 1/2 the points of your army, in whole units
first wave (player 2 turn 1, player 1 turn 2) deploy up to half of your remaining points
second wave (player 2 turn 2, player 1 turn 3) deploy the remainder of your points

Knights might have a bit of a disadvantage, or an advantage, depending on how it plays out. Assuming (I don't know knights points) you have 3 Knights over 500pts each and some chaff to fill the gaps. you would deploy 1 knight and the chaff, then get no reinforcements in wave 1, then get 2 knights in wave 2. Or, you make a special caveat that if a single unit is more points than you are allowed, they may be deployed. no other units may be deployed at this time.

That would allow 3 knights to start with 1, then get another, then get another. Orks could start with 1k on the board, then have a stompa arrive, then have the dregs turn up on their second wave. From what I gather, single powerful units have a disadvantage to MSU this edition, as people just focus them to death with high damage weapons, so allowing a knight to arrive a little early might offset the fact that they have only got 3 models + chaff.

Have you ever playtested this "unbalanced" reinforcement system? If not, would you be willing to? I've not a lot of free time so seldom have the chance to play any more.

some bloke wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
Ah. Okay.

Im bout to start work il give a full response tonight.

How do you propose first player is chosen? When? Before deployment or after?

Il do math and mull it over.

sure thing, I'll pick it up tomorrow morning.

I was thinking along the lines of players roll off, highest roll chooses to go first or second, who goes first deploys first. It could be trialled by having player 1 deploy first or second, depending where the advantage appears to lie during playtesting.

An alternative system might be to allow player 2 to deploy 3/4 of their army and player 1 to deploy 1/2 of their army, then player 1 leads with the reinforcements on their turn 2. it would present player 1 with more targets, and might mitigate any advantage player 2 has from the increased army size, as they won't guarantee 1/4 of their army to be unscathed on their first turn.

turn structure would be:
turn 1:
player 1 (1/2 army)
player 2 (3/4 army - losses)
turn 2:
player 1 (1/2 army - losses + 1/4 army)
player 2 (3/4 army - losses + 1/4 army)
turn 3:
player 1 (3/4 army - losses + 1/4 army)
player 2 (whole army - losses)

player 1 (whole army - losses)
player 2 (whole army - losses)

etc.

might be necessary, might not be - just glancing at it suggests that the player 1 would have some advantage in choosing their targets on turn 1. though this may be needed. only way to tell is to test, after all!


this actually has some nice implications, thinking on it - if you have the extremes of a CC horde vs a gunline, who do you want to go first?

if the gunline goes first, they get the opening salvo, but the horde has more bodies further up the field at the end of their first turn...
if the horde goes first, they get to move first and avoid the firing lines of your gunline, but there's less of them...

the deployment could always be adjusted to number of units instead of value of them, to avoid the maths. Transports count as 1 unit plus all the units embarked, and titanic units count as 3 units. ergo, a knight army with 3 knights and 4 units of chaff would have 13 units, so can deploy 6 units, followed by 3 and then 4. this might be a simpler alternative to points values or power levels.

Okay, so when I do these I tend to like to start by thinking of the worst case scenario. It's great when everything works in optimum conditions but you will almost never see optimum conditions (which is why I use the Tau vs Orks with Tau moving second scenario for alternating phases) and you gain so much more information about whats happening under the opposite conditions.

So who would suffer the worst under your proposal? I think it's necrons as the second player. They have almost no units that can start in reserves and when they can (outside of deathmarks) they can only deploy via vehicles (monoliths and nightsythes) and only one unit at a time. They also have the slowest general infantry movement speed at 5" so if they were capable of deploying onto your table edge it would more of less cripple them. And further they have no transports outside of warriors in Arks (and then only 10 of them with no character support).

In the math theoretical area you are basically right. It evens out a bit because player 2 gets reserves first on first turn. But that only matters when there ARE reserves and those reserves have delivery methods that matter.

So a few questions.

1) Should everyone be forced to have reserves? - This is central to your proposal. If the answer is no then your method stops working the moment somebody doesn't.

2) Do all armies have equal access to reserves? - Necrons prove they don't. When that comes into play your system stops working.

3) Is it in everyones best interest to deploy their reserves ASAP? - The advantage of deploying earlier for the second player is only an advantage if deploying early IS an advantage. Since 8th started I have never once played a game where I had units in reserves where I deployed ALL of them before my opponent did all of theirs. I always held SOMETHING back. This was often easy to accomplish, they jumped the gun and dumped their guys onto the field ASAP. But I refused to remove all the tricks I had up my sleeves until I knew the total layout of the battlefield and could deploy those deepstrikers in the most optimal positions without having to worry about counter deepstrikes. It has won me game after game after game (granted this was mostly when everyone could deploy on turn 1). Deploying reserves early lets you pack a punch. But holding those reserves to deploy them in key weak enemy positions and disrupt their battle plans has been a massive boon. So is player 2 giving away all their reserves on turn 1 the real big advantage it would need to be for your method to actually fix first turn advantage?

Your method works on a basic theoretical math level when all things are equal and 2 sides are just removing numbers of points at an equal pacing. But I don't think it holds up in practical conditions where armies are not equal, do not have access to equal amounts of or useful uses for reserves, and where none of us should HAVE to have reserves just for the game to balance. When those conditions go sub optimal it just becomes the game we have now and nothing changes.

Good job working through the deployment scenarios and thinking of where each side could steal a mechanical advantage. Thats the kind of thinking that needs to go into these types of things. Always think who would suffer the most and who could capitalize the most, pit them in best/worst case situations, and then think to the root of why each side is taking the advantage/hit. If the advantage is purely strategic/tactical then good! It should be. But if it's built into the core mechanics where even if the other person plays the best game anyone has ever played they are still fighting uphill against the games mechanics instead of the other player, well.. then the issue is the games systems. Whatever deployment/first player method you pick SOMEONE is going to math out under what circumstances the optimum advantage will be and do that. And once someone figures it out it gets spread and then that is all anyone will do.

 Lance845 wrote:

Okay, so when I do these I tend to like to start by thinking of the worst case scenario. It's great when everything works in optimum conditions but you will almost never see optimum conditions (which is why I use the Tau vs Orks with Tau moving second scenario for alternating phases) and you gain so much more information about whats happening under the opposite conditions.

So who would suffer the worst under your proposal? I think it's necrons as the second player. They have almost no units that can start in reserves and when they can (outside of deathmarks) they can only deploy via vehicles (monoliths and nightsythes) and only one unit at a time. They also have the slowest general infantry movement speed at 5" so if they were capable of deploying onto your table edge it would more of less cripple them. And further they have no transports outside of warriors in Arks (and then only 10 of them with no character support).

I hadn't realised that Necrons couldn't hold units in reserves, I assumed that all armies could hold units back and have them deploy from their board edge. I'm not familiar with the newcrons (I played them back when they were still sinister. technically they were "new" back then...) but do they not have sufficient fast units to hold in reserves, and then have their main infantry bulk on the board at the start? I agree that an army of slow infantry (EG shooty ork green tide) might lose out a bit if their deployment is staggered. Perhaps this could be solved by having board halves instead of board edges - essentially allowing you to walk in from your board edge, and your half of the side edges. This would make the deployment more flexible, and make people more hesitant about all-out rushing forward turn 1, as they might get surrounded. more tactical thinking is always welcomed. on diagonal deployment, you each get a long and a short edge.

If we did this, and allowed necrons to walk on like anyone else (or use their tricks, if they want to) it would mitigate the speed issue somewhat.

 Lance845 wrote:

In the math theoretical area you are basically right. It evens out a bit because player 2 gets reserves first on first turn. But that only matters when there ARE reserves and those reserves have delivery methods that matter.

So a few questions.

1) Should everyone be forced to have reserves? - This is central to your proposal. If the answer is no then your method stops working the moment somebody doesn't.

Yes, I propose that everyone has to deploy between 1/4 and 1/2 of their units on turn 1 (or between 1/2 and 3/4 for player 2, if this method is used). Then they get up to 1/2 of their reserves on turn 1 or 2, and the rest on turn 2 or 3. Mathematically, you get less units if you deploy less, so there's no advantage to deploying less on turn 1, unles you want a big wave to come in turn 3.

 Lance845 wrote:

2) Do all armies have equal access to reserves? - Necrons prove they don't. When that comes into play your system stops working.

I think all armies should be able to hold units in reserve to walk/drive onto the field - some armies are better at deepstriking, but that's just their thing. I think my proposed "1/2 the table" deployment would make things very interesting.

 Lance845 wrote:

3) Is it in everyones best interest to deploy their reserves ASAP? - The advantage of deploying earlier for the second player is only an advantage if deploying early IS an advantage. Since 8th started I have never once played a game where I had units in reserves where I deployed ALL of them before my opponent did all of theirs. I always held SOMETHING back. This was often easy to accomplish, they jumped the gun and dumped their guys onto the field ASAP. But I refused to remove all the tricks I had up my sleeves until I knew the total layout of the battlefield and could deploy those deepstrikers in the most optimal positions without having to worry about counter deepstrikes. It has won me game after game after game (granted this was mostly when everyone could deploy on turn 1). Deploying reserves early lets you pack a punch. But holding those reserves to deploy them in key weak enemy positions and disrupt their battle plans has been a massive boon. So is player 2 giving away all their reserves on turn 1 the real big advantage it would need to be for your method to actually fix first turn advantage?

I would classify this one as tactics. some armies will want the units ASAP, others will want them to hold back. some might deploy 1/4 of their army, bring in 1 unit on their second turn, then bring in a massive wave of everything that's left. This could mean that one player is forced to deploy all of their stuff before the enemy does theirs, which could be a major disadvantage, but it will have to be tested to find out - the finer details of what can and cannot break the system are best tested rather than assumed, I suppose.

 Lance845 wrote:

Your method works on a basic theoretical math level when all things are equal and 2 sides are just removing numbers of points at an equal pacing. But I don't think it holds up in practical conditions where armies are not equal, do not have access to equal amounts of or useful uses for reserves, and where none of us should HAVE to have reserves just for the game to balance. When those conditions go sub optimal it just becomes the game we have now and nothing changes.

I don't think that these rules should be a concrete "only way to play", but I do believe that they could be introduced as a set of missions which detail the deployment, and offer a more balanced approach than "everyone line up and let's play quickdraw".

 Lance845 wrote:

Good job working through the deployment scenarios and thinking of where each side could steal a mechanical advantage. Thats the kind of thinking that needs to go into these types of things. Always think who would suffer the most and who could capitalize the most, pit them in best/worst case situations, and then think to the root of why each side is taking the advantage/hit. If the advantage is purely strategic/tactical then good! It should be. But if it's built into the core mechanics where even if the other person plays the best game anyone has ever played they are still fighting uphill against the games mechanics instead of the other player, well.. then the issue is the games systems. Whatever deployment/first player method you pick SOMEONE is going to math out under what circumstances the optimum advantage will be and do that. And once someone figures it out it gets spread and then that is all anyone will do.

Thankyou, I'm aspiring to go towards game design, so it's good to know I'm picking up some good habits!

I think as a series of missions it works really well to mix things up. It should get some play test (again try to test it with necrons going second to see how their options effect them).

My degree is in game design.

It's a lot of critical thinking in the planning and test stages (the earlier you catch potential problems and fix them the less expensive and time consuming it is to repair them). But it's also a LOT of psychology. Understanding why the players do what they do so you can predict WHAT they will do and so you can build your mechanics to encourage them to do what YOU want them to do while making sure that it's fun.

So I'm gonna give a real unpopular opinion on this.

You can't fix it, no matter what you do, so long as super heavies, meaningless cover save rules, the sheer amount of AP on the field, and the current wounding system

Super heavies are a problem because of the fire power they bring in a single unit. Since almost every list is running them, the player that looses theirs first pretty much is done wince they most likely have no way to remove their opponants.

Cover saves are pointless at this point since cover is so annoying to get, and the 50% rule is no longer a thing

The AP in the game is way to outta control there is to much of it making saves not nearly as important. In past edditons everything was balanced around the marine stat line, with that 3+ save almost always turning into a 4 or 5+ save with the amount of AP on the board, saves unless invulves are pointless. Just as a through experiment. Next time you play notice how many times you end up just taking your invul because it's either better or the same

Then you have the wounding system. Because it was changed, the new hotness is now T8, t7 is pretty much the same as a t6 getting wounded on 4 vs 3 makes all the difference.

Tl;Dr remove super heavies from standard games, go back to the old to wound system, cut back on the AP on the field.

Just migrate super heavies to the upcoming Apocalypse.

When fliers were first introduced in 40k it was wonky but manageable. When heldrake came out the game broke (in attempt to fix the mess it brought with). When baneblade got merged into 40k, that's when the apocalypse happened.

 skchsan wrote:
Just migrate super heavies to the upcoming Apocalypse.

When fliers were first introduced in 40k it was wonky but manageable. When heldrake came out the game broke (in attempt to fix the mess it brought with). When baneblade got merged into 40k, that's when the apocalypse happened.

Managable is an interesting way to put it considering necron airforce was dominating all.

That said I would not really compare them because GW innall their infinite wisdom, put out flyers with no way to shoot them down unless you had other flyers. Reminder they put out flakk rockets but did not give them a point cost so no one could legally take them

Let's be honest here - there has not been a single edition in which something wasn't broken. Back when I started using Orks in 4th, through to 7th, we had deathstar units which were nigh-on untouchable. Then fliers arrived, and they became the new hotness. Eldar had their silly shields that made their tanks impossible to shoot off the table. wraithknights were immune to small arms fire. Now, people rely on their single biggest unit and cry when it's removed? In a meta where everyone is bringing high damage anti-tank, counter it with infantry. Most armies have anti-tank weapons to go on single wound models. some better than others, EG guardsmen with meltaguns vs orks with rokkits, but orks need to use their powerklaws anyway.

If you go back to the old wounding system, tanks will be immune to small arms fire again. This used to be balanced because their rear armour was weak so they were weak to CC, now if a unit is T8, it's T8 in CC as well. using old wounding, S4 can't hurt it.

I think that superheavies aren't the whole problem in the game. Perhaps by making the superheavy detachment cost CP to take will balance their excessive shootiness somewhat.

Superheavies and flyers are definitely part of the problem, as are the new wound chart and AP system which buff the power of low strength weapons and reduce the utility of armor. These push people towards low-model-count superheavy vehicle/monster armies or huge hordes.

But I still think the ultimate problem here is the line of sight, cover, and deployment mechanics. The killyness and rock-paper-scissors-ism of 40K's weapons matter most when everything can see and shoot and kill everything else from turn 1. In this environment, you need to achieve perfect balance; if you don't, someone gets shot off the table before they can act, and if they don't, they kill the other army on turn 2.

If it was much more possible to deploy a substantial fraction or even all of your army out of line of sight, then this effect is substantially diminished. Same if armies are required to start farther apart (via shorter deployment zones rather than a bigger table, due to the obvious anatomy of the human arm). Likewise, things get better if models in cover get a better save, or if it's not possible to kill every model in a squad if one of them has a gun barrel visible, or if area terrain blocked line of sight.

Making the first turn random, in conjunction with different deployment mechanics would help too. When you can't be sure you'll go first, you're less likely to risk it all deploying everything out in the open with commanding lines of fire.

Yes, all of this would require rebalancing and updated points costs. That's inevitable no matter what's changed (including nothing; things are hardly balanced right now). But I think it would all help, because it would re-introduce maneuver warfare into the first and second turns, and reduce the impact of the much more dangerous weapons because they're not all firing every turn at hapless, defenseless targets.

I fondly remember older editions where the terrain and cover allowed for much more hiding and maneuvering. In 8th edition, even though most models are much faster than they ever were in prior editions, there's not much of an aspect of maneuver warfare because tanks no longer have different facings and everything can see and shoot everything else for the most part. Armies just line up and shoot or charge towards each other.

Pointed Stick wrote:

I fondly remember older editions where the terrain and cover allowed for much more hiding and maneuvering. In 8th edition, even though most models are much faster than they ever were in prior editions, there's not much of an aspect of maneuver warfare because tanks no longer have different facings and everything can see and shoot everything else for the most part. Armies just line up and shoot or charge towards each other.

I definitely think you've found a key point here. The previous editions could cope with high firepower because vehicles could take a lot more of a hit from the front. Turn 1 was almost entirely aimed at front armour, and so there was some chance of doing damage but it usually increased after a turn or 2 of manoeuvring. Landraiders and monoliths could wade into the thick of it with less concern, as they had AV14 on all faces.

Now, there is no benefit to moving. a unit has cover from all directions if it is in cover. a vehicle is as hard to hurt firing a gun at it's heavily-armoured bulldozer front as it is shooting its lesser armoured fuel-storage rear. if you can see, and are in range, there is no point in moving, it's never going to be a better shot. Drop pods used to be used because getting behind the enemy tank with a meltagun could be gamechanging. Now, it has the same effect as walking up to it's front, but walking is cheaper.

I do think that a lot of evils could be countered by going back to having armour facings on vehicles. I really liked it when damaging a vehicle was different to damaging a person. It could even be a direct substitute for the "to wound" mechanism, and keep the wounds and saves in play, though the wound count and saves may need to be nerfed a little. most weapons which will get through the armour will get rid of the saves anyway. Make it so that a glancing hit will only ever do one damage. Or half damage, rounding up.

As a buff to terminators, (complete side-thought here) they could go back to their oooooold rules of having an armour value. Just against shooting, maybe, to stop them being too scary. AV10, meaning S3 doesn't touch a terminator.

I wouldn't mind seeing armor facings return in some fashion, but I wouldn't want to go back to the old vehicle rules. They were super complicated and vehicles were much weaker to anti-tank weapons; single high-strength shot could destroy any vehicle with a single hit with enough luck (though honestly maybe that was a good thing as It doesn't sit quite right with me that Lasguns and Bolters can now destroy Land Raiders). And it was always total nonsense that you could destroy the heaviest vehicle with a single lucky shot, but any multi-wound T6 creature required at least two.

Adding damage bonuses or positive modifiers to wound when shooting at certain models' sides or rears might be a nice tactical improvement, but only as long as they stayed within the current wound-based system which has greatly simplified the core rules and I think it a good thing overall.

I also very strongly believe that making area terrain block line of sight again would have a huge positive effect of making units need to maneuver more to get a good shot. As you say, right now there is no benefit to moving if you can already see your target, and with the current rules you can almost always can.

Facings is a incredible drag on the game. If it's something like X-Wing where the vehicles arks are clearly defined by it's base and the model itself has no impact on the rules then everything is fine. Where it's 40k and facings can become unclear or a point of contention it's not just odd measurements it's total nonsense. Sure, a rhino is a box and it's corners are clearly defined. What about a Ghost Ark? What about a Night Scythe? Imperial Knight? None of them have clearly defined rears and some of them can be modeled in ways that can make the rear/side harder to define. What if the knights torso is rotated for a dynamic pose? What if it's off center from it's base?

40ks rules are gak because they are so loose. Facings is more loose problems waiting to happen.

 Lance845 wrote:
Facings is a incredible drag on the game. If it's something like X-Wing where the vehicles arks are clearly defined by it's base and the model itself has no impact on the rules then everything is fine. Where it's 40k and facings can become unclear or a point of contention it's not just odd measurements it's total nonsense. Sure, a rhino is a box and it's corners are clearly defined. What about a Ghost Ark? What about a Night Scythe? Imperial Knight? None of them have clearly defined rears and some of them can be modeled in ways that can make the rear/side harder to define. What if the knights torso is rotated for a dynamic pose? What if it's off center from it's base?

40ks rules are gak because they are so loose. Facings is more loose problems waiting to happen.

Facings weren’t that bad if you weren’t playing with scrubs who tried to game them.

The point is if they were clearly defined you wouldn't be able to game them at all.

The same thing went for templates and scatter dice. Trying to get a accurate birds eye view of the center of the table to count models while attempting to hand trace a straight line over models to move a disk up to 12"...

It's all ill defined nonsense that causes problems.

No game should open the door to that kind of crap. Those scrubs could just as easily be trying to play the game correctly as twist it for an advantage and end up in exactly the same boat.

 Lance845 wrote:
The point is if they were clearly defined you wouldn't be able to game them at all.

The same thing went for templates and scatter dice. Trying to get a accurate birds eye view of the center of the table to count models while attempting to hand trace a straight line over models to move a disk up to 12"...

It's all ill defined nonsense that causes problems.

No game should open the door to that kind of crap. Those scrubs could just as easily be trying to play the game correctly as twist it for an advantage and end up in exactly the same boat.

Buddy I hated facings too lol, I just meant if you played someone reasonable back then it made it easier

An easy thing to do would be “Fog of War” the person who gets first turn has a -1 to hit modifier because the battle is just starting and they haven’t gotten clear shots on the approaching enemy. This makes it harder to a shooty alpha strike army to cripple you on turn one

warpedpig wrote:
An easy thing to do would be “Fog of War” the person who gets first turn has a -1 to hit modifier because the battle is just starting and they haven’t gotten clear shots on the approaching enemy. This makes it harder to a shooty alpha strike army to cripple you on turn one

This was discussed, but it only moves the goalposts - player 2 now has the advantage. there have been a few ideas thrown around in this thread, and some are more effective than others.

They need enhanced rules for cover and concealment as well. It should be very hard to dislodge infantry in buildings and ruins. Assault troops should excel at clearing things out from cover.

One idea is that the guy who gets 2nd to go is allowed to overwatch any enemy unit that moves into range with -2 to hit. This offsets the benefit of going first and alpha striking. And encourages more terrain and cover. This would also tie into more rules for moving and shooting

You may choose to not move or shoot a unit on your turn to overwatch with normal BS on your enemies turn.
You may use half movement and overwatch at -2 on enemies turn
Or move and shoot as normal with no overwatch

Armies that go second are assumed to be carefully moving up to the battlefield and as the enemy begins to engage them they are returning fire and the battle begins.

I'd say that adopting the Damage phase from Apocaylpse could pay dividends here.

When you look at it, Alpha Strike armies and tactics depend on being able to take out high priority targets before they've done anything beyond deployment.

Such targets could be elements which, when deleted, break synergy, direct 'hard counter' units to your own strategy, or just plain old high points cost stuff.

Once destroyed, your stuff has a far easier time of it, and that's an upperhand that can be tricky for your foe to deal with.

Apocaylpse however doesn't remove models until the end of the Game Round. Adopted into 40k, it would mean Alpha Strikes are of broadly lesser value - because whatever you've marked for death will still have some say in the battle - and may well kill whatever just did for them.

The net result, in theory is that Going First simply means you can better dictate the flow of the battle, without outright dominating it. You still have the advantage of forcing your opponents target selection to some degree, and they still have the 'last laugh' advantage of being able to scrabble for objectives when you've used your last player turn.

Moreover, to me it makes for a more nailbiting game. In that final turn, did I do enough damage to shoo off an objective? Will I have the higher number of models?

Sure, it's not perfect. But it is better. At least in my opinion

warpedpig wrote:
One idea is that the guy who gets 2nd to go is allowed to overwatch any enemy unit that moves into range with -2 to hit. This offsets the benefit of going first and alpha striking. And encourages more terrain and cover. This would also tie into more rules for moving and shooting

You may choose to not move or shoot a unit on your turn to overwatch with normal BS on your enemies turn.
You may use half movement and overwatch at -2 on enemies turn
Or move and shoot as normal with no overwatch

Armies that go second are assumed to be carefully moving up to the battlefield and as the enemy begins to engage them they are returning fire and the battle begins.

Okay. Tau vs Orks. Tau go first. What has changed with these rules?

Tau vs Ork Tau go second, what has changed with these rules?

You can't fix the underlying problem by putting bandaids on the second players turn or the first players turn. Your just move the goalposts at best for when the brutal alpha strikes happen and doing nothing at all at worst. The problem is attacking with your entire army all at once. Fix that.


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 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I'd say that adopting the Damage phase from Apocaylpse could pay dividends here.

When you look at it, Alpha Strike armies and tactics depend on being able to take out high priority targets before they've done anything beyond deployment.

Such targets could be elements which, when deleted, break synergy, direct 'hard counter' units to your own strategy, or just plain old high points cost stuff.

Once destroyed, your stuff has a far easier time of it, and that's an upperhand that can be tricky for your foe to deal with.

Apocaylpse however doesn't remove models until the end of the Game Round. Adopted into 40k, it would mean Alpha Strikes are of broadly lesser value - because whatever you've marked for death will still have some say in the battle - and may well kill whatever just did for them.

The net result, in theory is that Going First simply means you can better dictate the flow of the battle, without outright dominating it. You still have the advantage of forcing your opponents target selection to some degree, and they still have the 'last laugh' advantage of being able to scrabble for objectives when you've used your last player turn.

Moreover, to me it makes for a more nailbiting game. In that final turn, did I do enough damage to shoo off an objective? Will I have the higher number of models?

Sure, it's not perfect. But it is better. At least in my opinion

In order for that to be feasible you have to adopt the damage and number of shots of apoc also. 1 unit of termagants can roll 90 shots. 180 with a stratagem. Rerolling 1s. Assuming only half get through you need 90 tokens to be placed next to units after I shot a single units attacks. The book keeping would be insanity.

An easy fix that I am still shocked GW hasn't implemented is to adjust the Tactical Reserves restriction.

Instead of disallowing both players from bringing in Reinforcements on Turn 1, it should only apply to the player who goes first.
That way the player who goes second doesn't have the disadvantage of having to weather TWO turns of the opponent, including their Reinforcements before being able to bring in their own.

It would make "Beta-striking" a valid option.
Player 1 gets to go first (with no Reinforcements) and pew-pew at least half of Player 2's forces (because you still have to deploy up to half your army)
Then Player 2 gets to respond WITH Reinforcements to "shore-up" anything lost in Player 1's opening turn.
Then on Turn 2, Player 1 can bring in Reinforcements

It just makes the most sense and it continues to boggle my mind that GW has not made this the "official" way to do this.

Other than that, Apocs "Damage phase" could be a way to go. Remove casualties at the end of each Battle Round after both player turns have resolved

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