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Pancakey wrote:

 Togusa wrote:

Slipspace wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Togusa wrote:

 Smirrors wrote:
So in summary remove massive reroll auras and remove stratagems that allow many units to attack twice and then repoint units based on their base performance and tweak rules for units that lost out. This will speed the game up too.

It really would speed things along. Rerolls aren't needed at all. I think the game is just too lethal as it is and a lot of that is because of rerolls.

This would likely result in even bigger armies as effectiveness dropped off. People complained soooooo much about randomness in previous versions and now we want to swing the pendulum back?

Reroll auras represent much of what's currently wrong with 40k so they absolutely should be removed. Right now, several armies have so many reroll abilities the dice aren't actually random any more. So yes, having the pendulum swing back towards more randomness would be a welcome change. Randomness is required in any wargame and is not inherently bad as you seem to imply. What's important is the degree of randomness and its impact on decision making in the game. The bigger armies is also purely because of GW's approach to points changes - everything gets cheaper rather than making things more expensive, so we now have a situation where a 2000 point army after next week's Chapter Approved could be more like a 2300 point army from the beginning of 8th edition. Reverse the direction of those changes (keep most of the weaker stuff at its current points cost and make the average/good stuff more expensive while keeping the relative values intact) and I think the game would improve.

Every-time I deep-strike my Obliterators or move them up the field into firing range, I make sure they've been buffed by a sorcerer to hit, a Captain is nearby, VoTlW is active. Hitting on 2+ rerolling 1s and +1 to wound. I have yet to play a game where three Obliterators run like this haven't murdered the intended target. And in doing so I keep wondering, "Why am I even rolling this, why not just pay the CP and have my opponent pick up his model."

This is main issue with 8th. It’s almost as if removing player interaction on the table was a design goal.

I agree. I've been sending them monthly emails telling them that it's time to let IGUGO Go. We need alternating activation, otherwise I'm just doing things while my opponet sits on the other side of the table and reads their codex.

IGOUGO -> AA would take basically a new edition to do right. It'd be a bigger change than 6E -> 8E, or anything in between.

Bharring wrote:
IGOUGO -> AA would take basically a new edition to do right. It'd be a bigger change than 6E -> 8E, or anything in between.

It doesn't require that big a change. GW proved they can do a mediocre job doing AA based style turns. It might require a rewrite of some core rules (which needed to be done anyway so who cares), and at the same time I don't think it'll take much adjusting of points either.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Bharring wrote:
IGOUGO -> AA would take basically a new edition to do right. It'd be a bigger change than 6E -> 8E, or anything in between.

It doesn't require that big a change. GW proved they can do a mediocre job doing AA based style turns. It might require a rewrite of some core rules (which needed to be done anyway so who cares), and at the same time I don't think it'll take much adjusting of points either.

I suppose "big change" is a bit relative. But what change has happened in 40k since the advent of 6th that's been anywhere near the scale of a change from IGOUGO to AA?

Whether we're talking scale in terms of mechancial impact, balance impact, quantity of rules, or complexity of rules, I don't think anything else that's changed would come close.

Bharring wrote:
IGOUGO -> AA would take basically a new edition to do right. It'd be a bigger change than 6E -> 8E, or anything in between.

You can just use the Kill Team movement and shooting phase rules for 40k and it works. How is that a bigger change than 8th which required new codices for everyone, twice?

Obviously, the current balance would be thrown out of the window, but that happens pretty much every edition anyways.

Alternating phases is way cooler than alternating activations.

recently saw a kind of a review/comparision video between games including 40k

funny fact, they guy described the alternating activation of other games as "classic IGoUGo" and the alternating phases of 40k as the exotic new (in SciFi Skirmish games) system.

So it is all about what people are used to

And don't expect that alternating unit activation will fix anything or increases player interaction by default.

Bharring wrote:
IGOUGO -> AA would take basically a new edition to do right. It'd be a bigger change than 6E -> 8E, or anything in between.

Going from Alternating player turns to alternating phases or alternating unit activation will be a smaller change than going from 5th to 6th

And of course it needs a new edition to do it.
GW makes any changes to the core rules with a new edition, even the Errata/Patch to fix the 6th Edition core was rolled out as 7th.

While the overal impact to the game would be much smaller than changing the to hit & to wound rules without adjusting the unit & weapon profiles (or add flyer rules but adding AA guns only with a new Codex).

I do think that the killteam way of handling the shooting phase would really make the game more fun.
For those who are not familiar with it: First one player moves, then the other. You have the option to aim instead of moving. Once it comes to the shooting phase, you take turns to pick units to shoot with, with units that have aimed shooting first, similar to how charging units fight first in the combat phase.

IMO just implementing this would solve a lot of problems WH40k has now - the opponent having little to do during the enemy turn, no counter-play and few tactical decisions in the shooting phase and the alpha-strike issue.

 Jidmah wrote:
I do think that the killteam way of handling the shooting phase would really make the game more fun.
For those who are not familiar with it: First one player moves, then the other. You have the option to aim instead of moving. Once it comes to the shooting phase, you take turns to pick units to shoot with, with units that have aimed shooting first, similar to how charging units fight first in the combat phase.

IMO just implementing this would solve a lot of problems WH40k has now - the opponent having little to do during the enemy turn, no counter-play and few tactical decisions in the shooting phase and the alpha-strike issue.

Sounds like the army standing still would win through shooting most of the time. basilisks would allways gets the aim bonus and shoot first because why ever move them? I dont fancy rules that promote static gunlines.

 Togusa wrote:

Every-time I deep-strike my Obliterators or move them up the field into firing range, I make sure they've been buffed by a sorcerer to hit, a Captain is nearby, VoTlW is active. Hitting on 2+ rerolling 1s and +1 to wound. I have yet to play a game where three Obliterators run like this haven't murdered the intended target. And in doing so I keep wondering, "Why am I even rolling this, why not just pay the CP and have my opponent pick up his model."

Incidentally that's what I'm often doing. I just pick up my models and not make opponent waste both of our time rolling dice.

Gitdakka wrote:

Sounds like the army standing still would win through shooting most of the time. basilisks would allways gets the aim bonus and shoot first because why ever move them? I dont fancy rules that promote static gunlines.

If the static never moving gunline has always the advantage, stop playing without terrain will help a lot

What if the board is full of terrain and it still doesn't help, because either the gunlines move a lot, or just ignore terrain that isn't 30cm high and LoS blocking?

Karol wrote:
What if the board is full of terrain and it still doesn't help, because either the gunlines move a lot

So what if the static gunline starts moving a lot and lose the advantage of not moving?
problem solved I guess

and if the terrain does not block LOS, you can also play without

Karol wrote:
What if the board is full of terrain and it still doesn't help, because either the gunlines move a lot, or just ignore terrain that isn't 30cm high and LoS blocking?

If you are changing to AA you are changing whole ruleset so can release new rulebook with actually terrain rules that doesn't require being 30cm los blocking to have an impact. You could also introduce such a dramatic concept as indirect fire not being as accurate as direct.

 kodos wrote:

Gitdakka wrote:

Sounds like the army standing still would win through shooting most of the time. basilisks would allways gets the aim bonus and shoot first because why ever move them? I dont fancy rules that promote static gunlines.

If the static never moving gunline has always the advantage, stop playing without terrain will help a lot

I never play without terrian, dunno why you would jump to that conclusion. Also this was a hypothetical scenario where new rules were implemented, im just saying units like artillery would be annoyingly good in that environment unless nerfed. And at some state during the game armies will be within line of sight to eachother. If in that situation the army standing still gets to shoot first with everything it would seem movement is not encouraged.

Gitdakka wrote:

 kodos wrote:

Gitdakka wrote:

Sounds like the army standing still would win through shooting most of the time. basilisks would allways gets the aim bonus and shoot first because why ever move them? I dont fancy rules that promote static gunlines.

If the static never moving gunline has always the advantage, stop playing without terrain will help a lot

I never play without terrian, dunno why you would jump to that conclusion. Also this was a hypothetical scenario where new rules were implemented, im just saying units like artillery would be annoyingly good in that environment unless nerfed. And at some state during the game armies will be within line of sight to eachother. If in that situation the army standing still gets to shoot first with everything it would seem movement is not encouraged.

The attack phase is before the Shooting phase. Meaning that you can aggressivly charge if you use the terrain decently.

Also Artillery, despite some peoples claims, is not particulary good overall.

Gitdakka wrote:

 kodos wrote:

Gitdakka wrote:

Sounds like the army standing still would win through shooting most of the time. basilisks would allways gets the aim bonus and shoot first because why ever move them? I dont fancy rules that promote static gunlines.

If the static never moving gunline has always the advantage, stop playing without terrain will help a lot

I never play without terrian, dunno why you would jump to that conclusion. Also this was a hypothetical scenario where new rules were implemented, im just saying units like artillery would be annoyingly good in that environment unless nerfed. And at some state during the game armies will be within line of sight to eachother. If in that situation the army standing still gets to shoot first with everything it would seem movement is not encouraged.

If a gunline that does not move has the advantage, the conclusion is that it is able to see everything all the time, so there is not enough terrain on the table

Of course there will be a point in the game were units see each other, best case would be that thise is close enough for everything being in charge range, were moving out of range or stay to shoot (and be charged) are the available options

meh.

 kodos wrote:

If a gunline that does not move has the advantage, the conclusion is that it is able to see everything all the time, so there is not enough terrain on the table

Of course there will be a point in the game were units see each other, best case would be that thise is close enough for everything being in charge range, were moving out of range or stay to shoot (and be charged) are the available options

how do you block LoS to a flyer or hover tank like an exorcists? I can't imagine anything helping other then playing on a litteral labyrinth table with tall 3 tier buildings everywhere and slim corridors. With everything else, the enemy will see you turn 1 most of the time, turn 2 if you want to take any objectives and not lose the game.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Alternating phases is way cooler than alternating activations.

Out of interest, why do you think that?

I think a player can have nothing to do for a long time during alternate turns....wheras you are soon moving and firing again on alternating units and its a bit more 'real time combat' rather than a load of men stood there waiting for the enemy to fire, charge etc

 kodos wrote:

Karol wrote:
What if the board is full of terrain and it still doesn't help, because either the gunlines move a lot

So what if the static gunline starts moving a lot and lose the advantage of not moving?
problem solved I guess

and if the terrain does not block LOS, you can also play without

You must be playing in a place where people dont play much marines do you? Because here, marine armies lose nothing from moving. Because they either ignore it and have in build re-rolls, or arrive en mass 9" away from you. Plus flyers seem to be used a lot this days, and it is really hard to hide from something that moves that fast and has a big fly stand that when placed on top of a building always sees most, if not all of the table.

Gitdakka wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
I do think that the killteam way of handling the shooting phase would really make the game more fun.
For those who are not familiar with it: First one player moves, then the other. You have the option to aim instead of moving. Once it comes to the shooting phase, you take turns to pick units to shoot with, with units that have aimed shooting first, similar to how charging units fight first in the combat phase.

IMO just implementing this would solve a lot of problems WH40k has now - the opponent having little to do during the enemy turn, no counter-play and few tactical decisions in the shooting phase and the alpha-strike issue.

Sounds like the army standing still would win through shooting most of the time. basilisks would allways gets the aim bonus and shoot first because why ever move them? I dont fancy rules that promote static gunlines.

The thing is, so does that unit of lootas in your backfield. The guard player picks one basilisk to shoot, you then pick your lootaz and kill or degrade the other one before it can shoot. Also note that in KillTeam charging happens in the movement phase, so a charged unit immediately loses its chance to shoot.
You also have to move in order to score objectives - all CA2018 missions heavily punish sitting in a corner and shooting, and the new missions seem to be doubling down on that.

VAYASEN wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Alternating phases is way cooler than alternating activations.

Out of interest, why do you think that?

I think a player can have nothing to do for a long time during alternate turns....wheras you are soon moving and firing again on alternating units and its a bit more 'real time combat' rather than a load of men stood there waiting for the enemy to fire, charge etc

Two players bunker up, you go first, nothing in LoS, slowly creep on enemy and objectives. His turn happens he alfa strikes you. Then wins going first for turn 2 and alfa strikes you again. So next game you don't creep on to objectives you bunker up. So he moves on to objectives un opposed. Scores points, with infiltrators, gets first turn and scores again. Now he had scored for 2 turns when you did not, and has most of his army on objectives.

I can imagine something like that happening.

Karol wrote:

VAYASEN wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Alternating phases is way cooler than alternating activations.

Out of interest, why do you think that?

I think a player can have nothing to do for a long time during alternate turns....wheras you are soon moving and firing again on alternating units and its a bit more 'real time combat' rather than a load of men stood there waiting for the enemy to fire, charge etc

Two players bunker up, you go first, nothing in LoS, slowly creep on enemy and objectives. His turn happens he alfa strikes you. Then wins going first for turn 2 and alfa strikes you again. So next game you don't creep on to objectives you bunker up. So he moves on to objectives un opposed. Scores points, with infiltrators, gets first turn and scores again. Now he had scored for 2 turns when you did not, and has most of his army on objectives.

I can imagine something like that happening.

I think you're both misinterpreting Unit here. Alternating phases is just another take on the turn structure, which can take many forms and doesn't necessarily mean it would have more downtime than straight activations. Karol on the other hand seems to be thinking about double turns in non-alternating turn order, which is an entirely different thing.

Two recent examples of alternations within the GW sphere: Kill Team and Adeptus Titanicus. Kill Team is a bit weird in that one side first moves all while the fighting is alternating, but Titanicus does a very nice hybrid of the phases/actions idea. The turn is divided to phases, within each phase players activate alternating between them pretty straightforwardly, except there are tricks for group activations and other out of sequence shenanigans. This way all participants are able to respond to parts of the others' actions and activation order becomes a very important decision point. Also curbs alpha striking rather nicely.

 Jidmah wrote:
I do think that the killteam way of handling the shooting phase would really make the game more fun.
For those who are not familiar with it: First one player moves, then the other. You have the option to aim instead of moving. Once it comes to the shooting phase, you take turns to pick units to shoot with, with units that have aimed shooting first, similar to how charging units fight first in the combat phase.
IMO just implementing this would solve a lot of problems WH40k has now - the opponent having little to do during the enemy turn, no counter-play and few tactical decisions in the shooting phase and the alpha-strike issue.

Here's what tends to happen when new players play Kill Team: first, they don't use enough terrain, then the shootier team sits still all the time and kills the non-shooty team, then both players start going all-shooty before, eventually, they start using enough terrain and an interesting game breaks out.

With the KT-style alternating movement phases then alternating units in the other phases, if the shooty player goes first and stands still with everything he'll find himself without any targets to shoot at because the second player will move his units out of range and LoS. The activation system forces you to cover multiple angles and lanes of fire and the objective system forces you to move to secure points to win the game. In practice, the shootiest army does not have the greatest advantage and against a good player sitting still the whole game to shoot first will see you lose every single time.

I think this thread has convinced me to see if anyone local wants to give a small (1250ish) AA game of some sort a try.

Basic implementation leaves a couple core questions. I think I'll see if they want to:
-Alternate Move phases
-Alternate psychic phases
-Alternate *unit* shoot phase
-Alternate *unit* charge
-Alternate unit fight

Should it be that or full alternate-unit activations, where each unit does everything?

For a simple game, I figure just basic alternate until one player is done, then the other player finishes theirs. But if the rules were well designed, there could be a better system (to handle unit count skews, for example).

I think my CWE infantry are in for a world of hurt this way. But it should be interesting.

VAYASEN wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Alternating phases is way cooler than alternating activations.

Out of interest, why do you think that?

I think a player can have nothing to do for a long time during alternate turns....wheras you are soon moving and firing again on alternating units and its a bit more 'real time combat' rather than a load of men stood there waiting for the enemy to fire, charge etc

Karol wrote:Two players bunker up, you go first, nothing in LoS, slowly creep on enemy and objectives. His turn happens he alfa strikes you. Then wins going first for turn 2 and alfa strikes you again. So next game you don't creep on to objectives you bunker up. So he moves on to objectives un opposed. Scores points, with infiltrators, gets first turn and scores again. Now he had scored for 2 turns when you did not, and has most of his army on objectives.

I can imagine something like that happening.

Sherrypie wrote:I think you're both misinterpreting Unit here. Alternating phases is just another take on the turn structure, which can take many forms and doesn't necessarily mean it would have more downtime than straight activations. Karol on the other hand seems to be thinking about double turns in non-alternating turn order, which is an entirely different thing.

Two recent examples of alternations within the GW sphere: Kill Team and Adeptus Titanicus. Kill Team is a bit weird in that one side first moves all while the fighting is alternating, but Titanicus does a very nice hybrid of the phases/actions idea. The turn is divided to phases, within each phase players activate alternating between them pretty straightforwardly, except there are tricks for group activations and other out of sequence shenanigans. This way all participants are able to respond to parts of the others' actions and activation order becomes a very important decision point. Also curbs alpha striking rather nicely.

I quoted all three of them, but will reply to them in total because clearly I didn't explain what I meant, and Sherrypie is right, but also wrong.

The game that I use as an example is Games Workshop's Lord of the Rings, which I think is their best balance rule-set so far. But I'll explain for those who have the misfortune to be unable to play it:

Alternating phases in a turn is thusly:
1) The players roll off for Priority, with the player who didn't have it last turn taking it on ties (re-roll if it's turn 1 and you tie).
2) The Priority Player (PP) moves all of his units, the same way the Movement Phase works in 40k now. This is also where charges would happen, and any unit tied up by a charge cannot act in any subsequent phase.
3) The Non-Priority Player (NPP) now takes his own movement phase, moving everything. This is naturally reactive to how the PP moved, and again, charges happen now.
4) The PP takes any shots he can - essentially the shooting phase.
5) The NPP takes any shots he can - essentially his shooting phase. There are certain actions the NPP can take that allow him to "steal a march" and fire first at the cost of some in-game resource (Might, in the case of LOTR). The PP can expend Might as well to try to steal the march back, at which point it becomes a 50/50 who actually shoots first (in LOTR, the side playing Good wins on a 4+ and the side playing Evil wins on a 1-3, and you only roll 1 dice)!
6) The PP and NPP fight simultaneously, rolling what's called a "Duel Roll." This is by model in LOTR but it could be by unit for 40k, if we're willing to adjust scale to fit game size. The Duel Roll is a roll-off (with certain modifiers or whatever), and the winner of the roll-off wins the duel and gets to Strike the enemy (essentially a roll to-wound). Where the skill of the model comes into it (e.g. an SM being more skillful than a Guardsman) is what is called in the LOTR game a "Fight" value. The higher Fight value takes ties. Between rerolls, modifiers, buffs, additional supporting dice (e.g. roll 3 take the highest), and whatnot, it's quite common to see both players roll a 6 in the duel roll (which is obviously the maximum) and therefore the skill of the model is often quite crucial into determining who wins the fight, but not always!

To me, the impact this would have on 40k is the following:
1) You never know if you will have priority or not on the next turn, and so you have to maneuver very carefully to not overexpose yourself, and then suddenly be caught out by a bad priority roll! Maneuvering becomes very tactical, and you often have to risk it for the biscuit, especially keeping in mind point 2:
2) Sometimes, you don't want priority first. In fact, in LOTR, having priority is a huge burden, because your opponent is playing reactively that turn, and a single mistake in movement can see a unit caught up into a combat it didn't expect by a charge, or out in front of a unit spending some resource (say, command points or Might) to try to shoot it first!

Movement also becomes very, very, very tactical. Since both players move before anyone shoots, they get to do as they wish. The PP has the advantage in the shooting phase, possibly destroying enemies before they can retaliate, but actually is at a severe disadvantage in the movement phase. The NPP might move to threaten units in an unexpected way, forcing the PP to shoot at sub-optimal targets to preserve his power for next turn (e.g. enemy lascannons shifting quickly to threaten a Basilisk might take some heat from the Basilisk itself, rather than the Russ that the Basilisk was lining up on!). Alternatively, the NPP might move his units out of LOS, trying to preserve his own power. Though in this case he has to be careful - if he becomes the PP next turn, his units cannot engage the enemy without moving, which has all sorts of ramifications for heavy weapons, etc.

Close Combat is also more dynamic - in LOTR, units that lose a duel automatically fall back out of combat (though only 1", so that the enemy can still charge them if they steal priority). This avoids awkward questions of "wat do wit combat locking" and the Duel Roll allows both units a chance to fight at their full strength, rather than one unit striking first simply because. And since charges happen before movement, units can re-tie enemy units in combat if they have Priority or they go first with spending a Might point (or CP, or whatever. Same way you can shoot first for the same cost). That said, LOTR has a funny rule where you can shoot into combat with a 50/50 of hitting your friend or the enemy, but only if you're Evil. Good models cannot risk the lives of other Good models in the rules, and so they cannot shoot into combat.

Anyways, I feel like I dove down a rabbit hole but I am happy to expound further.

 Jidmah wrote:


The thing is, so does that unit of lootas in your backfield. The guard player picks one basilisk to shoot, you then pick your lootaz and kill or degrade the other one before it can shoot. Also note that in KillTeam charging happens in the movement phase, so a charged unit immediately loses its chance to shoot.
You also have to move in order to score objectives - all CA2018 missions heavily punish sitting in a corner and shooting, and the new missions seem to be doubling down on that.

Then it just becomes a race to have the models with the most guns. Split fire from a super heavy will knock down multiple units and is a far superior activation than other smaller units. The system works in kill team, because you're always deal with a single model that has a single gun. To make it work in 40K requires a lot more layering - most importantly a damage phase like Apoc.

This alternating phase in LotR works because the focus of the game is on movement and melee and the game has a different balance

For 40k, there would be no downside in going first as having the possibility to kill everything in one shooting phase (alpha strike) is > being the reactive player

Bharring wrote:
I think this thread has convinced me to see if anyone local wants to give a small (1250ish) AA game of some sort a try.

Basic implementation leaves a couple core questions. I think I'll see if they want to:
-Alternate Move phases
-Alternate psychic phases
-Alternate *unit* shoot phase
-Alternate *unit* charge
-Alternate unit fight

Should it be that or full alternate-unit activations, where each unit does everything?

full alternate unit activation won't work for 40k without bigger changes to what a unit can do (eg limiting the actions of units)