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I probably miss overrunning which was connected to Initiative and could be a way to keep hordes down. But Initiative itself was pointless most of the time and the different ways it was ported to 8th (powerfists, always fight first) are basically the most common aspects that made Initiative relevant in prior editions. Similar to the WS value it has been streamlined in a good way. It also lives on in the movement value which is much more important than Initiative ever was.

No; I think the level of tactics introduced in the system of activations is a major improvement.

The issue of striking first on the charge is a matter of rewarding aggression, adds a sort of board-control effect to them.

I like smaller scale games, so I miss anything that differentiated models. I'm not going to claim that Initiative was implemented perfectly, or even well, but it was another way to make one unit different from another, so I regret it going away.

Glad it's gone. Always striking last meant that orks could never fight things without casualties, while eldar could just laugh off charges. The mixed initiatives when fighting IG vs Orks were also highly annoying.

If eldar want to strike first, they've received the tools to do so, but the need to take action, not just sit in a forest.

It seems to me the primary reason as to why people have said they are glad that initiative is gone, is because it meant that low initiative units had no incentive to charge in the first place.

Would you like the initiative system more if it were tweaked in a way that when a unit successfully charges, it always strikes first and only units who were already in combat go according to initiative?

Still no. Picking the proper order is more tactical than "my number > your number", plus the entire unit gets to strike at once and not "my squad leader, your squad except the guy with the hammer, your squad leader, my squad, the guy with the hammer".

Units with exceptionally high initiative get "always fights first" or "fights before fights first", basically implementing Initiative 1, 2 and 3 already.

To those who say that they disliked Imitative because it meant you couldn't charge without potentially taking casualties first, do you also oppose Overwatch or does that magically get a free pass?

 TheFleshIsWeak wrote:
To those who say that they disliked Imitative because it meant you couldn't charge without potentially taking casualties first, do you also oppose Overwatch or does that magically get a free pass?

I think overwatch is, in general, an awkward tack-on to the rules, but I have no real problem with it. Unlike with initiative, there are ways to mitigate overwatch. You can charge from out of LOS or range, many armies have ways to ignore Overwatch, or you can charge in a vehicle or other tanky unit to absorb the fire.

Overwatch a puzzle to be solved. Initiative was just... there.

 TheFleshIsWeak wrote:
To those who say that they disliked Imitative because it meant you couldn't charge without potentially taking casualties first, do you also oppose Overwatch or does that magically get a free pass?

I never have liked Overwatch how it currently functions as essentially a second shooting phase. Too much extra rolling for dubious gains. I'd rather see it be a choice, that you can either shoot during your shooting phase, or you can Overwatch at units that charge you. I find it immersion breaking the way it works now simply because I picture the battle not happening in IGOUGO but instead simultaneously, so during the time the unit was charging toward you, your unit was shooting something else (or the same target even) and now the unit is on top of you. I'd even be ok with declaring per model. Like the lascannon guy is firing at the large target in the distance so he isn't shooting the chargers, but the other guys are laying down cover fire instead of shooting during the shooting phase. I would say I would let this overwatch happen at BS, rather than some other value. The advantage to overwatch being that you might get the opportunity to shoot more than one unit, and maybe overwatch casualties would be require to be pulled form the front possibly denying a charge. This could set up tactics where you negate a units shooting by choosing not to charge. That said I would also be ok with saying all shooting happens during the shooting phase and not at any other time.

Alternatively if they ever went to a system like old fantasy where charging happens during movement, and had alternating phases or something I would be ok with overwatch because it would make sense.

Personally though I like the remove casualties at the end of the phase (instead of turn) method, this could negate the need for initiative, the downside to overwatch, and then just give faster models more attacks than slower models if they are meant to be lightning quick. That way your howling banshee might kill say 3 orks, but get drowned in the sheer number of bodies and die.

I miss it conceptually bit I don't miss the specific implementation.
I suggest working from highest to lowest but giving an initiative boost to units that charged and having the active player strike first when there's a tie.
Example: Guardsman with I3 charges a marine with I4. Guardsman gets +1 for charging. Both currently have I4 and it's the guard player's turn, so the Guardsman strikes first.

 Polonius wrote:

 TheFleshIsWeak wrote:
To those who say that they disliked Imitative because it meant you couldn't charge without potentially taking casualties first, do you also oppose Overwatch or does that magically get a free pass?

I think overwatch is, in general, an awkward tack-on to the rules, but I have no real problem with it. Unlike with initiative, there are ways to mitigate overwatch. You can charge from out of LOS or range, many armies have ways to ignore Overwatch, or you can charge in a vehicle or other tanky unit to absorb the fire.

Overwatch a puzzle to be solved. Initiative was just... there.

I fail to see how this is any different to the myriad of effects in past editions that improved your own initiative or lowered that of an enemy unit.

 vipoid wrote:

 Polonius wrote:

 TheFleshIsWeak wrote:
To those who say that they disliked Imitative because it meant you couldn't charge without potentially taking casualties first, do you also oppose Overwatch or does that magically get a free pass?

I think overwatch is, in general, an awkward tack-on to the rules, but I have no real problem with it. Unlike with initiative, there are ways to mitigate overwatch. You can charge from out of LOS or range, many armies have ways to ignore Overwatch, or you can charge in a vehicle or other tanky unit to absorb the fire.

Overwatch a puzzle to be solved. Initiative was just... there.

I fail to see how this is any different to the myriad of effects in past editions that improved your own initiative or lowered that of an enemy unit.

For me, the big difference is that overwatch mitigation requires choice, at the army list creation time, or during play. Initiative rules changed a bit over the editions, but the throughline was that higher I units fought first. When a unit charged through cover, it's target got to go first (I 10), unless the charging unit brought grenades, which depending on edition or army either caused both sides to fight simultaneously (most armies in 3rd and 4th) or in initiative order (eldar, all armies in 5-7). Nearly all dedicated assault units had grenades stock, the handful that did not usually could not take them. It was usually a very obvious choice. Other than that, most initiative modifers were baked into the units. Furious charge gave an I bonus when charging, Orks at various points got a bonus to initiative when charging. But usually, you just charged your models into the target, and dealth with the casualties from a higher I foe.

Dealing with overwatch usually requires choice. A very few units ignore it stock, most options for ignoring overwatch require a stratagem or a relic, which presents a resource use dilemma. Further, many of the techniques to handle overwatch involve tactical maneuvers. Charging a durable unit, like a transport, is a tactic. Charging from out of line of sight is a tactic. there are ways to mitigate overwatch through clever game play. With initiative, it was mostly about army construction.

I am glad to be rid of Initiative. Felt it only benefited in certain fringe(read: hero) cases and deterred maneuvering against certain units.

Regarding Overwatch I kinda enjoy it. It's more often than not a hail Mary, but sometimes you win big and it can give you those "oh my god" moments.

 TheFleshIsWeak wrote:
To those who say that they disliked Imitative because it meant you couldn't charge without potentially taking casualties first, do you also oppose Overwatch or does that magically get a free pass?

Overwatch is not 21 S4 Attacks hitting on 3+ because you decided to charge a squad of helblasters, a heavy support shooting unit. Overwatch is one or two dead orks at best, often enough no casualties at all unless the weapons hits automatically - and even then, you can get around it.


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 vipoid wrote:
I fail to see how this is any different to the myriad of effects in past editions that improved your own initiative or lowered that of an enemy unit.

Remind me of all the ways orks had to make units not strike before them.

Ideally, it'd either be basically impossible to charge without being "exposed" for at least one turn - whether that's no T1 charges/very few options for crossing 24" and charging in a single turn/no charge-from-reserves/Cant' disembark and assault after moving a vehicle, or a simple "Overwatch" last-chance-firepower.

Both was unnecessary.

But now we have both. Except have a billion exceptions to charging-without-being-exposed. And half a billion exceptions to overwatch. Those are [i]great[i]...

I do not miss it in the slightest, way of doing it in 8th is great. Rewards YOU getting the charge off. I hated how in older editions I'd line up fantastic charges only for my opponent to go 'oh well, im I4/5' and kill everything I charged with before they got a single attack off.

Miss it? I never left it. Tried 8th, realized it was not for me nor my play group, doubled own on 30k and I have not looked back.

8th is a fething garbage fire of boring rules that make no sense, non painted armies, and crap lists.

I definitely miss it.

Kinda? But the difference it made wasn't THAT great to me.

the mechanic of the stat was ok, where it fell over was how infrequently it was actually used.

to many things went "always strikes last" or "always strikes first" when they should have been a +/- on the stat, then give a bonus if you are charging and run with it.

perhaps determine who strikes first as 1d6+ Initiative in any given round - roll one die for each side, all units on that side use the same die

LunaWolvesLoyalist wrote:

8th is a fething garbage fire of boring rules that make no sense, non painted armies, and crap lists.

You just described every edition of 40k. And every edition of every non-specialist game under the GW banner.

LunaWolvesLoyalist wrote:
Miss it? I never left it. Tried 8th, realized it was not for me nor my play group, doubled own on 30k and I have not looked back.

8th is a fething garbage fire of boring rules that make no sense, non painted armies, and crap lists.

I mean, as long as you're playing marine lists against other marine lists, don't mind leaving tanks on the shelf, and are playing in an environment that doesn't have to deal with Invisibility, D weapons, Scatterlaser spam (or Eldar in general), or half the stuff GW hamfisted in during 6E/7E, ok, but that leaves a much smaller game universe.

For everything else, well, there's a reason 7E saw a nadir of 40k sales and market performance, losing its sales spot for the first time in a quarter century. 8E has its issues, but in general 7E was not a good period for 40k, and HH has been on rules life-support for a couple of years now with the death of Bligh.

As is, nothing about Initiative really is missed in 8E, and honestly even in previous editions and HH wasn't super important most of the time.

 Vaktathi wrote:

LunaWolvesLoyalist wrote:
Miss it? I never left it. Tried 8th, realized it was not for me nor my play group, doubled own on 30k and I have not looked back.

8th is a fething garbage fire of boring rules that make no sense, non painted armies, and crap lists.

I mean, as long as you're playing marine lists against other marine lists, don't mind leaving tanks on the shelf, and are playing in an environment that doesn't have to deal with Invisibility, D weapons, Scatterlaser spam (or Eldar in general), or half the stuff GW hamfisted in during 6E/7E, ok, but that leaves a much smaller game universe.

He did say he was playing 30k.... (you don't have to leave tanks on the shelf for it either)

For everything else, well, there's a reason 7E saw a nadir of 40k sales and market performance, losing its sales spot for the first time in a quarter century. 8E has its issues, but in general 7E was not a good period for 40k, and HH has been on rules life-support for a couple of years now with the death of Bligh.

As is, nothing about Initiative really is missed in 8E, and honestly even in previous editions and HH wasn't super important most of the time.

The core ruleset of 7th was not the problem with 7th. Saying that 30k "isn't important "just sounds like a way of handwaving a great game lol. Does it need to be the most popular game put for someone to enjoy it? It's still one of the most popular games in the market

I don't missed Initiative. Disclaimer, I do play orks so it was a mechanic that hurt me more than it helped, but I noticed the problem for other armies too. Most targets worth assaulting were either
A) hiding in cover, in which case it came down more to if you had grenades or not. Grenades usually were either given for free to units or you simply didn't have access to them, it was a very rare exception when you had a choice to them (orks did at one point, but there was rarely a reason to bother).
B) was an expensive assault unit, so generally you were going to get your butt handed to you regardless if you weren't also an expensive assault unit.

Most other mechanics that tried using Imitative were either pointless (can't think of any examples) or BS (Jaws of the World Wolf), the only mechanic I think Init was really useful was Sweeping Advance, but since that mechanic didn't make it to 8th it's a moot point

As a side note, I think Overwatch is a bad mechanic. It punishes assault units for trying to do their job, rarely does enough damage to warrant the dice rolling, and when it did do something it was a gut punch to the charger they had no real control over beside throwing a second unit at it, doubling the cost to kill one unit (especially since shooting units have traditionally be cheaper than their melee equivalence, which has only changed recently). It's better than it was in 6th/7th, where you didn't consider LoS/range, removed casualties from the front, AND had imitative (so couldn't avoid it, could lose attacks from less models getting into BtB or even failed the charge, AND you still got sucker punched for low init armies), but I'd much rather they remove it entirely. If they had to keep it, I'd rather it be free attacks for failed charges to give a reason to choice between moving closer or making hail mary charges.

 Nitro Zeus wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

LunaWolvesLoyalist wrote:
Miss it? I never left it. Tried 8th, realized it was not for me nor my play group, doubled own on 30k and I have not looked back.

8th is a fething garbage fire of boring rules that make no sense, non painted armies, and crap lists.

I mean, as long as you're playing marine lists against other marine lists, don't mind leaving tanks on the shelf, and are playing in an environment that doesn't have to deal with Invisibility, D weapons, Scatterlaser spam (or Eldar in general), or half the stuff GW hamfisted in during 6E/7E, ok, but that leaves a much smaller game universe.

He did say he was playing 30k.... (you don't have to leave tanks on the shelf for it either)

Right, but thats why I noted the vastly restricted list of units and options available that mitigate many of the issues with 7E when everyone is basically playing what is fundamentally the same army (in most cases). If you wanted to play something other than Marine vs Marine games, HH doesn't offer much aside from AdMech and a weird not-quite-IG faction.

That said, anything involving HP's is going to see most of the tanks left on the shelf, that mechanic just...needed to go.

For everything else, well, there's a reason 7E saw a nadir of 40k sales and market performance, losing its sales spot for the first time in a quarter century. 8E has its issues, but in general 7E was not a good period for 40k, and HH has been on rules life-support for a couple of years now with the death of Bligh.

As is, nothing about Initiative really is missed in 8E, and honestly even in previous editions and HH wasn't super important most of the time.

The core ruleset of 7th was not the problem with 7th. Saying that 30k "isn't important "just sounds like a way of handwaving a great game lol. Does it need to be the most popular game put for someone to enjoy it? It's still one of the most popular games in the market

That was meant to be "it wasn't important" referring to Initiative, not the game itself. Phone typing often leaves those little bits out it was meant to note that Initiative was probably the single most disposable stat in both HH and previous editions.

That said, the core ruleset of 7E had a legion of issues, in functional terms a lot more than 8E (8e has lots of werid abstractions and scale issues, but nothing that fundamentally breaks whole swathes of units mechanical functionality or relative value to similar units at a basic rules level, nothing like Jink or HP's to deal with, or viability gaps between vehicle/MC or skimmer/nonskimmer, no Invisibility, etc)

 Vaktathi wrote:
Right, but thats why I noted the vastly restricted list of units and options available that mitigate many of the issues with 7E when everyone is basically playing what is fundamentally the same army (in most cases). If you wanted to play something other than Marine vs Marine games, HH doesn't offer much aside from AdMech and a weird not-quite-IG faction.

This is what I used to think until I started learning the game. The legions have rules woven all through all of their design and all play so very differently, that often the only thing two armies will have in common with each other is 3+ saves. Sometimes not even that. And that's not including Solar Auxilia, Mechanicum or Daemons.

 Vaktathi wrote:
That said, anything involving HP's is going to see most of the tanks left on the shelf, that mechanic just...needed to go.

I don't know what you mean. Are you saying that they are so weak that they won't see play, or that they are so strong that it ruins balance to bring them? Either way, I think that's definitely another misconception.

 Vaktathi wrote:

For everything else, well, there's a reason 7E saw a nadir of 40k sales and market performance, losing its sales spot for the first time in a quarter century. 8E has its issues, but in general 7E was not a good period for 40k, and HH has been on rules life-support for a couple of years now with the death of Bligh.

As is, nothing about Initiative really is missed in 8E, and honestly even in previous editions and HH wasn't super important most of the time.

The core ruleset of 7th was not the problem with 7th. Saying that 30k "isn't important "just sounds like a way of handwaving a great game lol. Does it need to be the most popular game put for someone to enjoy it? It's still one of the most popular games in the market

That was meant to be "it wasn't important" referring to Initiative, not the game itself. Phone typing often leaves those little bits out it was meant to note that Initiative was probably the single most disposable stat in both HH and previous editions.

I understand what you mean now. It definitely wasn't as critical to play as the other ones, except for maybe LD. It was for flavor, and with that flavor removed I feel the game lost a little something.

 Vaktathi wrote:
That said, the core ruleset of 7E had a legion of issues, in functional terms a lot more than 8E (8e has lots of werid abstractions and scale issues, but nothing that fundamentally breaks whole swathes of units mechanical functionality or relative value to similar units at a basic rules level, nothing like Jink or HP's to deal with, or viability gaps between vehicle/MC or skimmer/nonskimmer, no Invisibility, etc)

I think 30k is a great demonstration of how the core rules of 7th are fine, GW just made stupid units to interact with them. I'm definitely not a fan of 7th's balance or the silly things in there. But that's not the core ruleset. 8th did balance better, but the core rules is so much shallower imo. 8th has brought a lot of great things though, so whatever.


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Also I played Tyranids and the initiative mechanic single handedly made my Genestealer collection unplayable. Guys, try not to see it through a personal lens, or confuse a badly written unit or army for a bad mechanic.

I hated init, my Amry was always last in melee. human soldiers arent the best at HTH anyway but counter swinging 2 or 3 guys on a unit of elves or marines was underwhelming.

I not miss it. I almost forgot it existed. ^^

Yes.

I miss the concept but not the execution of initiative; but not enough that i'd advocate it's return.

I do think there should be some more dynamic 'reaction' or 'preparation' options other than, shoot at charging units and only ever hit on a 6+.

What I would want to see a return of is the WS v WS chart in some guise. I actually felt like that had a bit of a purpose. It could be streamlined a little though to appease people - is your WS higher than your opponents? Hit on 3+, is your WS the same as your opponent? Hit on 4+. Is your WS more than double your opponents? Hit on 2+. Is your WS less than half your opponents WS? Hit on 5+ (kind of what it was actually). I'm not a big fan of the idea that a new space marine can hit a 10,000 year old chaos lord on a 3+ in a 1v1 fight.