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In order to reduce the advantage of going first, I want to propose the following rule:

The player going second is allowed to make use of wargear, unit special rules, psychic powers, stratagems etc. as if it would be their turn before the player going first starts their movement. Effectively having a turn 0 buff phase.
The scope of these effects is limited to things that do NOT allow movement, unit placement, shooting or melee in any form. Broadly speaking no "offensive" actions.

Examples of things that are supposed to get used like this:
- Defensive psychic powers (like granting a unit an invul save)
- One use items (like the 4++ relic BT got)
- Unit abilities like Smoke Screens from SM Incursors

The idea is that a first turn alpha strike could be migitated a bit better.

a_typical_hero wrote:
In order to reduce the advantage of going first, I want to propose the following rule:

The player going second is allowed to make use of wargear, unit special rules, psychic powers, stratagems etc. as if it would be their turn before the player going first starts their movement. Effectively having a turn 0 buff phase.
The scope of these effects is limited to things that do NOT allow movement, unit placement, shooting or melee in any form. Broadly speaking no "offensive" actions.

Examples of things that are supposed to get used like this:
- Defensive psychic powers (like granting a unit an invul save)
- One use items (like the 4++ relic BT got)
- Unit abilities like Smoke Screens from SM Incursors

The idea is that a first turn alpha strike could be migitated a bit better.

What about, for a similar effect, a set of stratagems (some of which can be 0 CP), which you perform at the start of your opponents first turn, if you are going second, to do things like:

pop smoke
perform defensive psychic powers
billowing exhaust clouds (all >EVIL SUNS< bikes and vehicles in the army have -1 to hit them for this turn, 3CP?)

and so on. it would be a way to allow players to have some benefits to going second. "Grand illusion" stratagem for necrons, perhaps, where you select a unit if it is targeted by shooting in the first turn if you're going second, and immediately redeploy them - the shooting is wasted (it would be at least 3CP, but quite cool and situational, I feel).

OR we remove the outdated system of IGOUGO and bring in AA. Trying to make IGOUGO doesn't work in a primarily shooting game whatsoever.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
OR we remove the outdated system of IGOUGO and bring in AA. Trying to make IGOUGO doesn't work in a primarily shooting game whatsoever.

I disagree. There's just too much emphasis on shooting currently that needs toning down. It needs just as much restrictions & difficulties as getting into melee.

What if the top of 1 was allowed no shooting, psykic attacks, or assault? Going first meant you'd have an extra movement phase, basically? So player 1 eats the alpha, but has better board control. Seems like it'd be better than player 2 eats the alpha but player 1 has better board control.

 skchsan wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
OR we remove the outdated system of IGOUGO and bring in AA. Trying to make IGOUGO doesn't work in a primarily shooting game whatsoever.

I disagree. There's just too much emphasis on shooting currently that needs toning down. It needs just as much restrictions & difficulties as getting into melee.

That still doesn't fix the primary issue of IGOUGO, which is, "Whelp I deleted half your army, GL"
Even if you brought that to "Whelp I deleted a quarter of your army, GL", that's still problematic. It's an outdated system and quite frankly an unrealistic one.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 skchsan wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
OR we remove the outdated system of IGOUGO and bring in AA. Trying to make IGOUGO doesn't work in a primarily shooting game whatsoever.

I disagree. There's just too much emphasis on shooting currently that needs toning down. It needs just as much restrictions & difficulties as getting into melee.

That still doesn't fix the primary issue of IGOUGO, which is, "Whelp I deleted half your army, GL"
Even if you brought that to "Whelp I deleted a quarter of your army, GL", that's still problematic. It's an outdated system and quite frankly an unrealistic one.

Because AA is so realistic.

pm713 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 skchsan wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
OR we remove the outdated system of IGOUGO and bring in AA. Trying to make IGOUGO doesn't work in a primarily shooting game whatsoever.

I disagree. There's just too much emphasis on shooting currently that needs toning down. It needs just as much restrictions & difficulties as getting into melee.

That still doesn't fix the primary issue of IGOUGO, which is, "Whelp I deleted half your army, GL"
Even if you brought that to "Whelp I deleted a quarter of your army, GL", that's still problematic. It's an outdated system and quite frankly an unrealistic one.

Because AA is so realistic.

More realistic than IGOUGO. In reality we should be playing a RTS with models but that's a bit much to do.

AA might be more "realistic" as in "Higher-fidelity simulation", but I think the point is AA is wholly un-"realistic" in that it's not realistic to expect that kind of transition.

Bharring wrote:
AA might be more "realistic" as in "Higher-fidelity simulation", but I think the point is AA is wholly un-"realistic" in that it's not realistic to expect that kind of transition.

apocalypse and kill team did it... theres no reason why 9th edition couldnt choose to use it.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

Bharring wrote:
AA might be more "realistic" as in "Higher-fidelity simulation", but I think the point is AA is wholly un-"realistic" in that it's not realistic to expect that kind of transition.

apocalypse and kill team did it... theres no reason why 9th edition couldnt choose to use it.

Apoc isn't AA though.

 skchsan wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

Bharring wrote:
AA might be more "realistic" as in "Higher-fidelity simulation", but I think the point is AA is wholly un-"realistic" in that it's not realistic to expect that kind of transition.

apocalypse and kill team did it... theres no reason why 9th edition couldnt choose to use it.

Apoc isn't AA though.

Yes it is. You alternate activating (aa) detachments which are given a singular order that all units within the detachment must follow. Which effectively means good list building means building tight concise and cohesive detachments that act together as a sigular unit. Effectively units are models and detachments are units.

What about that isnt aa?

By that extension, then in 40k, you alternate activating (AA) armies which are given a singular order, aka a "turn", that all units within the army must follow. The only difference is damage is resolved piecemeal and not clumped up at the end of the round.

If detachments are units, then 40k is a single detachment army for comparison puposes.

 skchsan wrote:
By that extension, then in 40k, you alternate activating (AA) armies which are given a singular order, aka a "turn", that all units within the army must follow. The only difference is damage is resolved piecemeal and not clumped up at the end of the round.

If detachments are units, then 40k is a single detachment army for comparison puposes.

Thats a load of crap. Because there are no "orders" to give. Every unit does every thing every time with no opportunity for the enemy to respond. Bad faith strawman arguments are bad. Try again.

 Lance845 wrote:

 skchsan wrote:
By that extension, then in 40k, you alternate activating (AA) armies which are given a singular order, aka a "turn", that all units within the army must follow. The only difference is damage is resolved piecemeal and not clumped up at the end of the round.

If detachments are units, then 40k is a single detachment army for comparison puposes.

Thats a load of crap. Because there are no "orders" to give. Every unit does every thing every time with no opportunity for the enemy to respond. Bad faith strawman arguments are bad. Try again.

Bad faith argument is claiming apoc is AA.

Lethality in apoc is curtailed via end-of-round dmage system and not because its a "detachment is a unit" AA. It's far from AA.

 skchsan wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

 skchsan wrote:
By that extension, then in 40k, you alternate activating (AA) armies which are given a singular order, aka a "turn", that all units within the army must follow. The only difference is damage is resolved piecemeal and not clumped up at the end of the round.

If detachments are units, then 40k is a single detachment army for comparison puposes.

Thats a load of crap. Because there are no "orders" to give. Every unit does every thing every time with no opportunity for the enemy to respond. Bad faith strawman arguments are bad. Try again.

Bad faith argument is claiming apoc is AA.

Lethality in apoc is curtailed via end-of-round dmage system and not because its a "detachment is a unit" AA. It's far from AA.

Igougo: a turn structure in which a player uses all of their actions and available pieces/units before the next player does the same. A game turn is only broken up into the individual players turns.

Aa: a turn structure in which the players take turns activating a segment of their available pieces/units and generally cannot activate the same unit again unit the next game round. A game turn is divided up into the alternating activations and ends when all available pieces/units have been activated.


Which of those is apoc?
Again, what is apoc if not aa?

It wouldn't be too far off to call it autochess with element of chance.

It's not AA.

 skchsan wrote:
It wouldn't be too far off to call it autochess with element of chance.

It's not AA.

Your contributions here have been real wonderful. You just deny a thing is what it is while not defining why or having any real argument to back up your position. Good work all around.

Apoc is clearly AA. It's just a different sort of AA than Kill Team.

On topic: Perhaps it would be cleaner to simply give some abilities a "pregame" or "deployment" keyword that allows you to declare they've been used/put into effect when you deploy a unit? That way, you don't have to work out the nitty gritty of adding a pseudo-turn to the game.

The 0CP strat approach would probably work too, but it feels odd to have to create strats for every single ability that might fall under this umbrella.

a_typical_hero wrote:
In order to reduce the advantage of going first, I want to propose the following rule:

The player going second is allowed to make use of wargear, unit special rules, psychic powers, stratagems etc. as if it would be their turn before the player going first starts their movement. Effectively having a turn 0 buff phase.
The scope of these effects is limited to things that do NOT allow movement, unit placement, shooting or melee in any form. Broadly speaking no "offensive" actions.

Examples of things that are supposed to get used like this:
- Defensive psychic powers (like granting a unit an invul save)
- One use items (like the 4++ relic BT got)
- Unit abilities like Smoke Screens from SM Incursors

The idea is that a first turn alpha strike could be migitated a bit better.

Nope SM almost never use their smoke launchers, I don't want to let them use it for free if Necrons don't get anything. Maybe if all Necron vehicles got to heal a wound at any time in the first turn and all units with Reanimation Protocols could use that ability at any time on the first turn I'd be more okay with it. T2 is pretty good if you play with the right terrain, get some good tall ruins without windows and watch ranged armies struggle. If you are playing on bowling alleys you can introduce a rule that nerfs shooting, don't just allow a few factions to do stuff for free. -1 to hit or -1 BS or no Aura buffs you could nerf it a lot of ways, terrain and good missions help a lot.

 vict0988 wrote:
Nope SM almost never use their smoke launchers...

To be fair, it's not that SM doesn't use smoke launchers but rather, units that are supposed to utilize them to the fullest (units with weak offense potential, i.e. rhinos) are hard to fit into lists due to points constraint.

 skchsan wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:
Nope SM almost never use their smoke launchers...

To be fair, it's not that SM doesn't use smoke launchers but rather, units that are supposed to utilize them to the fullest (units with weak offense potential, i.e. rhinos) are hard to fit into lists due to points constraint.

Right, I was mostly talking about Repulsors, I assume those have smoke launchers not that anyone would ever dream of using them.

I don't think there's one single solution to prevent any army to suffer too much from turn 1 shooting that couldn't create further imbalance.

I'd like to see the "prepared position" stratagem free to use if the player decides to not roll to seize the initiative for a start, as there's little to no advantages linked to not try the seize roll. Making it free but missing your 1/6 chance to go 1st could be an intresting turn 0 descision to make. You could also count prepared position as the faction traits who gives cover to units at 12" and -1 hit if already in cover, but that could be a little too much.

One more thing that i think could be intresting would be to have faction specific defensive turn 0 stratagems like prepared position in addition. It could really be tailored to every army whith it's strenght and weakness, and add a layer of personnality to every army.
For example:
-Dark eldars could try to seize whith 2 dices, or on a roll of a 5+ to represent how fast and deceiving they are.
-Grey knights could cast a spell that protects them from ranged attacks and improve all invulnerable saving throws by 1 and give a 5+ invun to units that don't have any.
-Imperial guardsmens could deck to cover and gain 1 to armor saving throws in addition to ignoring morale test for this turn.
-Tyranids could deploy a deep fog of spores that would apply a -1 to hit modifier and a 6+ fnp because Tyranid spores are magic or something.

You probably get the point by now.

hadrahil wrote:
I don't think there's one single solution to prevent any army to suffer too much from turn 1 shooting that couldn't create further imbalance.

I'd like to see the "prepared position" stratagem free to use if the player decides to not roll to seize the initiative for a start, as there's little to no advantages linked to not try the seize roll. Making it free but missing your 1/6 chance to go 1st could be an intresting turn 0 descision to make. You could also count prepared position as the faction traits who gives cover to units at 12" and -1 hit if already in cover, but that could be a little too much.

One more thing that i think could be intresting would be to have faction specific defensive turn 0 stratagems like prepared position in addition. It could really be tailored to every army whith it's strenght and weakness, and add a layer of personnality to every army.
For example:
-Dark eldars could try to seize whith 2 dices, or on a roll of a 5+ to represent how fast and deceiving they are.
-Grey knights could cast a spell that protects them from ranged attacks and improve all invulnerable saving throws by 1 and give a 5+ invun to units that don't have any.
-Imperial guardsmens could deck to cover and gain 1 to armor saving throws in addition to ignoring morale test for this turn.
-Tyranids could deploy a deep fog of spores that would apply a -1 to hit modifier and a 6+ fnp because Tyranid spores are magic or something.

You probably get the point by now.

Giving armies a specific ability in exchange for forgoing their seize is an interesting approach. I would like to see these as either army-specific or clan/chapter/whatever-specific.

EG speed freeks can move up to D3 units as if it were the movement phase if they aren't going first (they are ahead of the pack).
Blood Axes can entrench to gain +2 from cover instead of +1
etc.

I would make this work by:

1: Make these abilities a stratagem with a universal 2CP cost, and make them all "worth" about the same.
2: Allow them to be used after seize but before the first turn
3: Make them free if you elect not to seize.

This way if your opponent seizes, you can pay 2CP to actually have expected that. If you try to seize and fail, you can still buy the ability.