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So, I'm sure this has been discussed before, but the dakka search function is... yeh. Anyway.

Besides, I'm not asking about 'how' to change the igougo system, as I already have one (the most obvious) in mind, but my question becomes just how many things get completely broken by alternating turns by 'unit' instead of by 'army'.

I've looked through some things such as stratagems that last until the 'next battle round' and 'your next movement phase', but they all seem to drop into the new system seamlessly.

However I'm sure there's something I'm not considering, so I'm wondering if there's anything major that breaks when you try to play alternating units?

A few units would need to go up in price that can do a lot. Said units already needed to go up in price though so.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
A few units would need to go up in price that can do a lot. Said units already needed to go up in price though so.

Why is this? As far as I can tell the change wouldn't affect the effectiveness of any units?

Currently OP units would still be equally as OP, but that's a problem for tomorrow Niiru.

It makes the deathstrike strategem from necrons nearly 100 percent effective against any army that doesn't have a castellan knight iwth anti-flyer equipment. Right now, most competent players will kill the third necron flyer to prevent that strategem if they go first (about 45 percent fo the time against this elite, small army of necrons). But IgoYougo, you would have to also kill it with your FIRST SHOT to stop the hurting. It also makes things like castellan knights really, really effective cause they can blow up a couple of tanks before those couple of tanks get to fire, EVEN on a turn when the castellan knight is the "yougo" and not the "Igo".

Considering tank commander prices, you would lose a lot of armor points and end up with maybe 1 of 3 tanks getting to fire, EVER, because the moment the castellan shoots, 2/3 of tank commanders die, poof. So one may or may not have shot before the castellan -- and if not, it shoots AFTER the castellan, but the castellan in the rotation kills the other 2 before they can do anything.

You would see all the little units taht don't get to shoot first suddenly being similarly squeezed out by the order of fire, and so everyone would be "riptide vs baneblade, again".

Dukeofstuff wrote:
It makes the deathstrike strategem from necrons nearly 100 percent effective against any army that doesn't have a castellan knight iwth anti-flyer equipment. Right now, most competent players will kill the third necron flyer to prevent that strategem if they go first (about 45 percent fo the time against this elite, small army of necrons). But IgoYougo, you would have to also kill it with your FIRST SHOT to stop the hurting.

Amalgamated Targeting Data?

You wouldn't have to kill it in just your first shot, but you would have to kill it with your first unit's worth of shooting to stop it before it happens.

But that's kinda the point of changing the rule. Right now if you go second, you lose half your army turn 1 before you even get a turn, and the enemy can cripple you easily.

But the stratagem requires all 3 Scythes to be within 6" of each other, and they roll for units within 3" of their target location. So it's hardly a game changer (you'd still only be able to use the stratagem once per battle round).

Plus your opponent wouldn't be within 24" of you turn 1 anyway. If you move your scythe closer to the enemy, it will no longer be within 6" of the other scythes. You'd have to move all 3 scythes, and then shoot with the third, in order to do it turn 1. Which gives your opponent 3 units worth of shooting to try and counter it.

So it's still possible to prevent it happening, but you only get 3 units instead of your whole army to gun them down.

As far as I can see the stratagem still works fine, and the new rules improve things for the necrons without being unfair on the opponent.

But it was a good weird rule interaction, and it reminds me that there's a couple other similar stratagems that require 3 units in proximity. Luckily it seems that it still works fine.

Edit: Actually the only bit that's a little janky is that you would need to forgoe shooting when you move the first two scythes, and only shoot with the third (if you want to use the strat after they move, instead of before they move). So if your enemy kills the last scythe before you use the strat, then the first two have lost their turn at shooting. Might need a rules tweak, but I think it works out fine as a risk/reward kind of situation.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Dukeofstuff wrote:

You would see all the little units taht don't get to shoot first suddenly being similarly squeezed out by the order of fire, and so everyone would be "riptide vs baneblade, again".

This is no different to how it is now, except that instead of all 3 knights in a knights list all getting to fire first and wiping out multiple tanks before any of them (the tanks) get to shoot, you instead only get 1 knight firing before you get to shoot back.

Does mean that it's better to try and kill enemy units that haven't had a turn yet, as it means you take less returning shots. But it's still better than the alternative.

Really, the problem here is that knights are terribly balanced and shouldn't be in the game, and neither should any of the LoW vehicles as they're all Apocalypse scale. Easy fix would be that LoW/titanic always go last in any round (to signify their slow bulky nature), or something like that. Or just remove them from the game (I hadn't considered them in my planning, as my game group don't play with any of these units, as they're just inherantly broken and not fun (for us, anyway, people can enjoy them if they like))

The basic problem has less to do with balance and more to do with play time. If you want to alternate play using the current turn structure (move/psychic/shoot/charge/fight) you need to pass priority for every unit on the table 5-8 times a turn; it'd be like playing MTG with someone who insisted on getting verbal confirmation of no responses every single time they passed between phases. Nothing is happening but the rules have a hole in them where something could happen, but because you're using alternating activations you need to verbally confirm every hole.

What you want to do is cut down the turn order such that units aren't doing quite so many things every turn. My own rewrite project divides play into two phases (movement and combat), psychic powers are done when you activate the psyker in whatever phase, Overwatch is gone in favour of allowing some guns to be used in melee, charging is part of movement, and you shoot or fight in the same "combat" phase instead of having separate phases.

I might be wrong due to Lack of experience, but the fight phase might get a little bit wonky, if multiple units are involved. Lets say 3 units of player A just charged one unit of player B.

In the current rules set, all 4 units would get to fight once in As fight phase and once in Bs.
I'm not sure how this would be handled under EDIT: AA
If B's unit can fight back against each charging unit he would suddenly have 3 fight phases in the enemies turn.
If he can only "fight back" once, the second and third A unit charging can not be fought back in As phase and thus get less retailiation than before.
If fighting back in As phase is dropped completely A could charge a half dead infantry squad into a knight. If only one survives overwatch, the Knight loses his shooting phase in his turn because he can not as usual kill them in As fight phase


EDIT: I just realize that the last example is not the best as the Knight could still Fall back and shoot, but I think my intention is clear

Niiru wrote:

Besides, I'm not asking about 'how' to change the igougo system, as I already have one (the most obvious) in mind, but my question becomes just how many things get completely broken by alternating turns by 'unit' instead of by 'army'.

Depends on the detail of the new system

If you have one unit going thru all current phases, than the opponent chose a unit to do everything and switching back again, you would have different problems than units are limited in actions and/or combined phases (I move, opponent move, until all units are done, than shooting etc)

in general, everything that makes units acting twice is a a big problem, as are the phases were not every unit can do something and of course actions outside the dedicated phase

A few things which can prove problematic:

1: Fight Phase. As per current rules, units get to fight in each fight phase. So lets say you charge a unit with your first activation, and then these units fight each other. Then you charge a second unit in your next activation, and as per RAW, your first and second units get to fight. Lets say your third activation is to just shoot something - there's still a fight phase, so your 2 units will fight, and the enemy units will fight back. You could feasibly get a unit to fight many, many times.
This would be easily fixed by simply making a unit only fight in its own activation. If you're charged, next time you activate you can either fight or flee. Job done.

2: Is Characters - a lot of characters have buff auras, and need to advance with their army. If you have to activate them separately, then they will either move in front and be targetable, or be left behind and the other units will have to daisy-chain for their aura to work. This can be fixed by allowing a character + one unit within 3" to activate at the same time.

3: Time is one thing. 2k games will be too long, in general, as most people will have a lot more of their army to do. Plus there's the changeover time between each players activation, which may only be a few seconds, but will add up. I'd have no issue with dropping back to 1250pt games, though - big games are only a thing because of Knights and other superheavies.

4: On the subject of Superheavies, single powerful units will become the new hotness. Activating one unit is not the same as activating another - and to a large extent, this needs to be a feature and something to consider when list building. However, I played a 2k game last night with 3 kill tanks, and it would have pasted the enemy before they even had half a chance of dealing any damage. And kill tanks are perhaps on the lowest end of the damage-per-point scale of superheavies, just above the stompa. Huge or powerful units will be the focus. MSU will be very hard to play with.
This can be fixed by breaking some superheavies into multiple sections, so a baneblade can activate main weapon systems separately from its activation - so it can move & fire its smaller guns, and then next activation fire the main turret. Knights are a bit iffy because they want to charge, but perhaps this simple breakdown of main weapons & everything else to half a superheavies output would do the trick. Also/alternatively preventing them from activating before other units is another option. This could even be put through to give the order of fliers>infantry>bikes/cavalry>vehicles/monsters>superheavies.
To that end, initiative values could resurface. Allow you to activate anything with initiative equal to or lower than the last unit you activated. Allow commander units to bypass this by activating a nearby unit at their initiative. I will start a new thread on this to avoid derailing this one.

5: Overpowered auras - more a feature than a problem, but one to think about. Imagine if you will, a gunline of space marines with all their nastiness in there. Behind one half of the army stands a chapter master, giving rerolls to all like an ironclad Santa Claus. half their army fire, using the aura, and then the chapter master moves along the line in his activation, and now the second half fires, still benefitting from the aura, repeat in reverse in turn 2.
This can be fixed with making certain auras have to activate - making them a lot less tempting if you can reroll loads but have to miss an activation of powerful shooting for your character to shout inspiring quotes or wave his arms around in an interpretive dance about how to aim down the sights.

I would enjoy trying AA in 40k, but I don't think that it will simply drop in perfectly. Nothing I've thought of is a difficult fix, though.

Perceived and real problems and their solutions.

1) The fight phase - It just doesn't work as written. Because each activation has it's own fight phase every unit would get to fight potentially dozens of times.

Solution: A unit only fights on it's own activation or with the use of a stratagem that would allow them to fight again.

2) Keeping units within auras - In a pure AA units that need to be in range of each other would constantly be popping out of range of each other as they leap frog over the course of multiple activations.

Solution: When you activate a unit you may also choose to activate a single character unit within 6" of that unit as well. When you activate a unit if there is another unit within 6" that is capable of protecting that unit you may activate 1 such unit as well. End result, you can activate firewarriors, drones, and a cadre fireblade. Necron Warriors, a cryptek, and it's lychguard. Thats the biggest your activations will ever get.

3) The game will take longer

Solution: No it won't. You make all the same moves. You just reduce the downtime between doing things.

4) Big expensive units will overwhelm with powerful activations / MSU will over power with so many damn activations!

Solution: Neither is true. A couple massive units with lots of power get out maneuvered. They can't shoot their desired targets if those desired targets are out of LoS because you didn't activate them yet. Which gives you a whole turn to focus fire and bring down their effectiveness. They get outmaneuvered and outpaced. Meanwhile a bunch of MSU units, yes have lots of tactical flexibility and maneuverability, but they also have no power in any given activation and drop like flies. 30 activations in turn 1 becomes 20 in turn 2 and 10 in turn 3. That advantage dwindles fast. The best lists will have a mix of units and sit somewhere in the middle so they can tactically use each aspect as needed.

 Lance845 wrote:

2) Keeping units within auras - In a pure AA units that need to be in range of each other would constantly be popping out of range of each other as they leap frog over the course of multiple activations.

Solution: When you activate a unit you may also choose to activate a single character unit within 6" of that unit as well. When you activate a unit if there is another unit within 6" that is capable of protecting that unit you may activate 1 such unit as well. End result, you can activate firewarriors, drones, and a cadre fireblade. Necron Warriors, a cryptek, and it's lychguard. Thats the biggest your activations will ever get.

3) The game will take longer

Solution: No it won't. You make all the same moves. You just reduce the downtime between doing things.

2: This would work but will need work. Worded as it is, a Morkanaught has a KFF, so you could have a morkanaught and another powerful unit activate at the same time - potentially even a stompa. Not all buff units are pure-buff.

3: I think it will. Downtime between each activation will include formulating your plan and working out your next move. moving your army as a whole will take less time than reacting to each and every turn of your opponent. I can see that I have to move 3 trukks forwards to amass for an attack. If I move 1, then you react by moving away, I now have to weight up if I want to keep persisting in this attack or if the trukks need to try something else. Every decision takes time - you either make 1 or 2 in igougo, or one each time an opponent activates in AA. There's also the time taken to decide which unit to activate next. I start my trukk plan, and on the other flank you start a plan - do I try to thwart your plan, or finish mine? which will be better for me? can I afford to lose those units? Decisions, decisions.

Disclaimer - I actually think that such decisions would be a good thing for the game - but they will slow it down. Pondering time must be considered - true, moving everything will take the same length of time, but deciding the order will take longer.

If i have read your posts on the issue correctly you never played aa. I have. In a lot of versions of it. Any slowdown at first is due to getting used to the rules. The decisions you make are quick and simple. I want to activate x psyker to cast y spell before z unit does its thing. Where and how you move them might change but the over all strategy will hold up and with the less down time you will be more invested in the opponents moves, keeping you planning as their activation unfolds.

It doesn't take longer.

And probably more important, it feels like it takes less time (even when it doesn't), because everyone is doing things more often.

 Lance845 wrote:
If i have read your posts on the issue correctly you never played aa. I have. In a lot of versions of it. Any slowdown at first is due to getting used to the rules. The decisions you make are quixk and simple. I ant to activate x psyker to cast y spell before z unit does its thing. Where and how you move them might change but the over all strategy will hold up and with the less down time you will be more invested in the opponents moves, keeping you planning as their activation unfolds.

It doesnt take longer.

And probably more important, it feels like it takes less time (even when it doesnt), because everyone is doing things more often.

That's a fair point on the feeling of less time.

Thinking back, I have played some AA games (Dystopian wars being the main one, which I spent a few years playing when it came out). But yes, you certainly will have more experience than me. I'm just saying that if your tactics have to adapt throughout the turn, instead of set a goal > aim for goal > succeed/fail at goal, it will require more thinking time. If you're trying to take an objective, kill a key unit, take out the warlord etc and the opponent can react to your every move, you will have to think on your feet, and that will take time. in IGOUGO, you know exactly where everything will be in your whole turn, so your plan doesn't have to change as you go (excepting when your shooting is unsuccessful/too successful, and that tends to put a pause in games, in my experience - I would expect that, but more frequently).

 some bloke wrote:
A few things which can prove problematic:

1: Fight Phase. As per current rules, units get to fight in each fight phase. So lets say you charge a unit with your first activation, and then these units fight each other. Then you charge a second unit in your next activation, and as per RAW, your first and second units get to fight. Lets say your third activation is to just shoot something - there's still a fight phase, so your 2 units will fight, and the enemy units will fight back. You could feasibly get a unit to fight many, many times.
This would be easily fixed by simply making a unit only fight in its own activation. If you're charged, next time you activate you can either fight or flee. Job done.

There were two possible fixes I had in mind for this. One is basically what you say, that each unit can only fight in its own activation turn, which pretty much works. The other was that each unit can fight normally once per turn, and every time they fight after that they only hit on 6's. (This is based on a different rule set that uses alternating units that seems to work well). Neither is perfect, but I think with a couple small tweaks it shouldn't be a problem.

2: Is Characters - a lot of characters have buff auras, and need to advance with their army. If you have to activate them separately, then they will either move in front and be targetable, or be left behind and the other units will have to daisy-chain for their aura to work. This can be fixed by allowing a character + one unit within 3" to activate at the same time.

Personally I would want to fix this by going back to the days when you could attach characters to units. It was just a much better system imo, but there we go. But yeh I agree with your solution, however it might have to be limited to certain characters not ALL characters, otherwise you could do stuff like moving an assassin or an exalter flamer (both decent solo units) along with a backup unit. But limited to only characters with Auras maybe.

A connected issue to this would be Psychic buffs. Sorcerer A buffs Unit B, but its then the enemy turn, so they would target Unit B to stop the psychic buff from having full effect. However I guess on a battlefield if you could see a shining sorcerous monstrosity chanting towards a unit that suddenly looks more powerful, you'd start shooting at them. Would need playtesting but I think it would be ok. Most psychic buffs are very good anyway.

3: Time is one thing. 2k games will be too long, in general, as most people will have a lot more of their army to do. Plus there's the changeover time between each players activation, which may only be a few seconds, but will add up. I'd have no issue with dropping back to 1250pt games, though - big games are only a thing because of Knights and other superheavies.

In theory, it shouldn't take any longer than a normal game, because you're still doing the same number of things with the same number of units.
However, turn1 would take longer in practise, simply because of player 2. Because instead of half of the second players army being destroyed already (and so not needing to be activated at all), some parts of it would have been given actual turns. (which is a big part of the reason for the change).
I think dropping to 1750 would be all it would take to make the game end up the same length as a current 2000. I'm also happy with 1500 (this is what we used to play all the time, back in the day).

4: On the subject of Superheavies, single powerful units will become the new hotness. Activating one unit is not the same as activating another - and to a large extent, this needs to be a feature and something to consider when list building. However, I played a 2k game last night with 3 kill tanks, and it would have pasted the enemy before they even had half a chance of dealing any damage. And kill tanks are perhaps on the lowest end of the damage-per-point scale of superheavies, just above the stompa. Huge or powerful units will be the focus. MSU will be very hard to play with.
This can be fixed by breaking some superheavies into multiple sections, so a baneblade can activate main weapon systems separately from its activation - so it can move & fire its smaller guns, and then next activation fire the main turret. Knights are a bit iffy because they want to charge, but perhaps this simple breakdown of main weapons & everything else to half a superheavies output would do the trick. Also/alternatively preventing them from activating before other units is another option. This could even be put through to give the order of fliers>infantry>bikes/cavalry>vehicles/monsters>superheavies.
To that end, initiative values could resurface. Allow you to activate anything with initiative equal to or lower than the last unit you activated. Allow commander units to bypass this by activating a nearby unit at their initiative. I will start a new thread on this to avoid derailing this one.

While I love the idea of bringing back initiative, it would require actually changing the rules of every unit in the game, which would be -better- but also goes against my intention of trying to make the change as simple as possible. Existing datasheets need to be kept.

My original thought for superheavies was to make it so that they always go last. They're big and hulking, they aren't lightning fast. This would still make them strong, but also means they can die before they manage anything. Which is no different to the way it is now, except that atm if you run knights and get first turn then it's pretty much autowin. This makes it so that knights effectively always get activated 'turn 2' (as in the enemy gets to shoot a lot at them first). Much more realistic tbh, and if anything will actually nerf knights and other LoW a bit. No bad thing, they need it.

I do love the idea of having them activate in sections though. Might be easy enough to do with a universal rule rather than changing datasheets individually. Something like "All superheavy vehicles can only do one thing per activation, and must be done in the normal activation order - Move, shoot one weapon, charge". Charge and melee would have to be a single activation, so melee knights would still be good, but they have to do their charging last so enemies get time to try and back away. I think this works pretty well actually.

5: Overpowered auras - more a feature than a problem, but one to think about. Imagine if you will, a gunline of space marines with all their nastiness in there. Behind one half of the army stands a chapter master, giving rerolls to all like an ironclad Santa Claus. half their army fire, using the aura, and then the chapter master moves along the line in his activation, and now the second half fires, still benefitting from the aura, repeat in reverse in turn 2.
This can be fixed with making certain auras have to activate - making them a lot less tempting if you can reroll loads but have to miss an activation of powerful shooting for your character to shout inspiring quotes or wave his arms around in an interpretive dance about how to aim down the sights.

This is a really good point, and not one I'd thought of. I did wonder if something like "Characters must take their turns first" (as they're the leaders) might fix this, but I think your version of "auras must be activated" is better, and effectively does the same thing if you want the aura to work for all your nearby units from the start, but gives you the option of putting off activating until later if its tactically beneficial. This one definitely needs some thought.

I would enjoy trying AA in 40k, but I don't think that it will simply drop in perfectly. Nothing I've thought of is a difficult fix, though.

I think some of it is pretty easy to fix, but the superheavies and the character auras need some thought. Thanks for the ideas!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kodos wrote:

Niiru wrote:

Besides, I'm not asking about 'how' to change the igougo system, as I already have one (the most obvious) in mind, but my question becomes just how many things get completely broken by alternating turns by 'unit' instead of by 'army'.

Depends on the detail of the new system

If you have one unit going thru all current phases, than the opponent chose a unit to do everything and switching back again, you would have different problems than units are limited in actions and/or combined phases (I move, opponent move, until all units are done, than shooting etc)

in general, everything that makes units acting twice is a a big problem, as are the phases were not every unit can do something and of course actions outside the dedicated phase

The system I'm considering is more like the former. Player 1 picks Unit 1, moves shoots charges attacks consolidates. Player 2 picks Unit 1, does the same.

Fight phase (as someone else pointed out) requires either everyone fighting in only their own fight phase, or a penalty to subsequent fight phases if they continue to be in combat multiple times. This is probably one of the more complicated problems.

What about a changing igougo into each phase. player 1 move, player 2 move, player 1 shoot, player 2 shoot, NOW BOTH players remove casulties, player 1 charge, player 1 charge, BOTH players remove causalities. Now everything you put on the table will have a chance to do something before it dies. You could keep alternate players for moving and shooting units, but removing casualties is only done after everything has gone. Real combat is not pulling the trigger only once, you go through a full mag pretty quick and it's more spraying round in the general direction of the enemy unless you have a good view (15yr Army combat vet) Both sides take hits at about the same time really

 Salted Diamond wrote:
What about a changing igougo into each phase. player 1 move, player 2 move, player 1 shoot, player 2 shoot, NOW BOTH players remove casulties, player 1 charge, player 1 charge, BOTH players remove causalities. Now everything you put on the table will have a chance to do something before it dies. You could keep alternate players for moving and shooting units, but removing casualties is only done after everything has gone. Real combat is not pulling the trigger only once, you go through a full mag pretty quick and it's more spraying round in the general direction of the enemy unless you have a good view (15yr Army combat vet) Both sides take hits at about the same time really

Your blood angles and im tau. You move first and try to get into position to charge me. I move back and then place tanks between your melee dudes and my infantry so its impossible for you to charge. Your melee based army tries to shoot me. I shoot the feth out of any unit that is even remotely a threat.

Alternating phases is worse than igougo.

Blob units would also be advantageous, as that’d be a lot of shot/attacks that would go off at once. Without suppression mechanics, there would be little reason to use MSUs instead of hordes.

Alternating activations struggles in games with activations of wildly different value. It tends to overvalue large numbers of cheap activation to gain control so that a single expensive model can activate freely with no reprisal.

Personally, if I wanted to integrate the turns, I'd look to do so via detachments. Force people to take 3 each and alternate activating them. Going a step farther, you could get different types an initiative value so that fast attack could attack before battalions and super heavies would activate last.

 LunarSol wrote:
Alternating activations struggles in games with activations of wildly different value. It tends to overvalue large numbers of cheap activation to gain control so that a single expensive model can activate freely with no reprisal.

Personally, if I wanted to integrate the turns, I'd look to do so via detachments. Force people to take 3 each and alternate activating them. Going a step farther, you could get different types an initiative value so that fast attack could attack before battalions and super heavies would activate last.

I'm not sure what you mean by the first part of this... I assume you mean that it allows for a single expensive unit (such as a knight) to have a big advantage, but I've already mentioned that knights (and other superheavies) already break the game, and the best solution is to either remove them or make them have a disadvantage. I think the best one (which actually goes into your second point quite well) is for superheavies/LoW to always go last.

Which brings me to your second point, and one which I actually really like at first glance. Making it so that it is detachment based is interesting, as it still breaks the turns up, and the 'initiative' can be added to the detachments rules much more easily than individual units.

However this might end up giving a big advantage to armies that can field a really powerful fast attack list, especially as you can still fit two Heavy Supports in an outrider... it's a shame that the outrider/spearhead/etc detachments allow for other unit types to be mixed in with the primary. It would mean that Chaos could spend 60 points on 3x Spawns, which would allow two Landraiders to go first.

But a variation on this might be to just do it by their slot, so make it that Fast Attack always go first, elites and troops can go in any order you like, and heavy support go last? (With superheavies going super last).

Something to think about. I think a lot of the problems get fixed just by forcing all the superheavies to go last. That removes a large amount of the garbage.

Niiru wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
Alternating activations struggles in games with activations of wildly different value. It tends to overvalue large numbers of cheap activation to gain control so that a single expensive model can activate freely with no reprisal..

I'm not sure what you mean by the first part of this...

If units have alternate activations, but you keep the current phases and/or do not limit what a unit can do.

A unit with Melee weapons, ranged weapons and psionic powers has the advantage over a unit with only one of them as they can do all 3 things during their activation while the other unit can only do 1.
so it is valid to spam cheap activations so that the one unit that can do everything during one activation is sure to be the last one on the field to act (and striking back in melee or shooting it is not possible).

 kodos wrote:

Niiru wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
Alternating activations struggles in games with activations of wildly different value. It tends to overvalue large numbers of cheap activation to gain control so that a single expensive model can activate freely with no reprisal..

I'm not sure what you mean by the first part of this...

If units have alternate activations, but you keep the current phases and/or do not limit what a unit can do.

A unit with Melee weapons, ranged weapons and psionic powers has the advantage over a unit with only one of them as they can do all 3 things during their activation while the other unit can only do 1.
so it is valid to spam cheap activations so that the one unit that can do everything during one activation is sure to be the last one on the field to act (and striking back in melee or shooting it is not possible).

Which is only true in a game where all your cheap chaff activations have any survivability and staying power. In 40k they simply don't and spaming them might give you a strategic edge in turn 1 but by turn 3 your just out of activations and only have your probably damaged or dying unit that can do 3 things.

Again, with 40ks design choices, this just isnt really an issue.

 kodos wrote:

Niiru wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
Alternating activations struggles in games with activations of wildly different value. It tends to overvalue large numbers of cheap activation to gain control so that a single expensive model can activate freely with no reprisal..

I'm not sure what you mean by the first part of this...

If units have alternate activations, but you keep the current phases and/or do not limit what a unit can do.

A unit with Melee weapons, ranged weapons and psionic powers has the advantage over a unit with only one of them as they can do all 3 things during their activation while the other unit can only do 1.
so it is valid to spam cheap activations so that the one unit that can do everything during one activation is sure to be the last one on the field to act (and striking back in melee or shooting it is not possible).

This... doesn't make any sense to me?

Are you saying that it's beneficial for player 1 to spam a bunch of rubbish cheap units that can only do one thing (eg. hormagaunts or rippers), because that means Player 2's terminators (that can do everything) won't get a turn until the very end of the turn?

This isn't how it works... it's alternating units for a reason. The terminators will get their turn whenever player 2 wants. They can go first. Player 1 can't do anything to prevent it (other than kill them immediately, of course).

All spamming a bunch of cheap activations would do, is mean that Player 1 would then have a bunch of chaff units taking turns all at the end of the round back-to-back, without player 2 doing anything, because all of player 2's units will already have had their turns.

No, it is about Player A spamming Hormagaunts, so that Player B takes all his activations to react to those, and at the end the Flyrants of Player A can act without beeing interrupted.

the other problem is that a unit that can act in 3 phases can take on 3 units while the other unit can only take on 1.


usually games with activations either have a "pass" mechanic to combensate unequal numbers of eactivations or limit the numbers of actions per unit (can only do 2 things per activation) or both


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 Lance845 wrote:

Again, with 40ks design choices, this just isnt really an issue.

yeah, the are bigger issues than that in 40k and a lot of other stuff will happen bevor those things have in impact on the game

overall I still think that just taking the current Turn-Sequence from Kill Team is the one option that does not need a lot of other adjustments, while it would still be an improvment compared to the current rules

 kodos wrote:
No, it is about Player A spamming Hormagaunts, so that Player B takes all his activations to react to those, and at the end the Flyrants of Player A can act without beeing interrupted.

the other problem is that a unit that can act in 3 phases can take on 3 units while the other unit can only take on 1.


usually games with activations either have a "pass" mechanic to combensate unequal numbers of eactivations or limit the numbers of actions per unit (can only do 2 things per activation) or both

Ahh I see, that makes a lot more sense. But I'm not sure it's such a huge deal as you make it out to be... as it means those 'Big Units' going last run the risk of being killed before they ever get their turn, so it's a risk/reward kind of situation. Whether it balances out or not is hard to guess without some playtesting, but seeing as spamming a bunch of hormagaunts (or whatever) is draining out more points than the normal CP troops tax, there's a lot of downsides to this plan for very little gain.

(One issue though is if those 'big units' are characters, as then they can go last without so much of a risk of being killed...but I don't see any big problem with "player 1 having 3 big characters getting to go back to back at the end of the turn", when you compare it to "player 1 having 3 big characters and the entire rest of their army getting to go back to back before player 2 gets to move or do anything at all".

Still seems 100% more balanced and fairer than the current system. (Edit: Also, I see no reason not to include the standard 'pass' mechanic. The system I'm bastardising this from uses it as well. You can only pass your turn if your opponent has more remaining units than you do.)

Also the whole 'some units get 3 phases while others get only 2' thing... I mean, yes, and? That's exactly the same as it is right now. And yet when people ask "should berserkers have their pistols so they have something to do in the shooting phase", the answer is always "no, that's stupid, axes and swords bruh, rip and tear". Alternating units instead of turns doesn't change the balance of this at all, at least not on average, it might have very minor affects on an individual basis.

Overall I still think that just taking the current Turn-Sequence from Kill Team is the one option that does not need a lot of other adjustments, while it would still be an improvment compared to the current rules

Interesting point, I have to admit that I never got fully to grips with the Kill Team rules. I shall go find my copy of them and take a look.

The better change to IGOUGO is Kill Team Alternate Activation method. It basically works like this:

1. Roll Initiative on 2d6. The higher roll goes first, reroll if tied.
2. Movement Phase: The first Player moves their entire army first, including Charges. Then the second player moves their entire army. Note, a unit that was charged this turn cannot Fall Back.
3. Psychic Phase: Alternating casting of Psychic Powers starting with Player 1.
4. Shooting Phase: Alternating shooting of units, starting with Player 1.
5. Fight Phase: Alternating close combat attacks by unit starting with Player 1, with all Charging units on both sides fighting before non-charging units.
6. Morale Phase: Starting with Player 1, each player does all their Morale checks.

There are extra details in most phases, but that is the high level of play. It prevents most, but not all, of the issues that would result from switching to single unit activations while getting away from IGOUGO

The biggest issue that remains is that units with too many weapons are still super efficient in the Shooting Phase. I'd say you almost need to add a rule to some weapons requiring them to count as a separate unit for firing purposes. That would spread out the shooting of certain units (like Knights) over the time that your opponent is allowed to fire multiple units.

I posted about this a year or so ago
both myself and my roommate play 40k, both play marines
I also play adeptus titanicus

we discussed the AT rules, the alternating activations, how it might improve 40k

we tried it several games,
it works,
yes, it will take some tweeking of the rules, but it most definatly works

biggest observations were
1) the game is no longer 100% decided by who goes first, we have played aginst each other so many times, that almost all our games are decided by a single die role, who goes first. in local game community, the same is true, entirely too many games decided by that roll of who goes first

2) games tended to last a bit longer and victory points were closer resulting in much more fun close games

so, to answer all of you
YES, it is possible
YES, it can work
YES, the rules will need some tweeking
YES, we found it a much more challenging and fun game



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can not find my old post
this is the basic format we used,
we only played with 1500 points
-- YES, the game does take longer, this is because both players would spend a bit more time in thought about which unit to activate in each phase

set up game normaly
initiative is rolled for at the beginning of each round

1)roll initiative, person that rolls highest decides if they will be player 1 or player 2
2) movement phase
- alternating movements.. player 1 activates and moves 1 unit, player 2 moves 1 unit, rinse and repeat
3) psy phase
- alternating activations, player 1 then player 2, alternating
4) shooting phase
- alternating activations, 1 then 2 then 1 then 2
5) charge phase
- alternating activations, 1 declare charge, complete charge (or fail ), then 2 declares charge, completes charge (all normal rules apply, overwatch ect )
6) melee phase
- alternating, starting with units that completed a charge, first player 1 activates and rolls a unit, then player 2 then back to player 1 continue until all charging units have been activated
- non-charging units activation, alternating activations between player 1 and 2 for units that did NOT charge this phase
7) moral phase
8) end phase - calculate victory points if any
start over again for next round with step 1

I've probably played more alternate-rules 40K than 95% of the users on Dakka, so my info is based on actual game experience. This is based on maybe 50-60 games played with alternate rules.

A quick super simple explanation of our version of Tokenhammer: Start of the turn each player places a single token (their own colour) into a mug for each unit alive (including off-board). A player who has "initiative" adds an additional token to their side for the first turn. Each "turn" is actually a battle round, since you play until the tokens have been spent. Players draw tokens one at a time, continuing to draw until their opponents colour is drawn. This allows minor runs of 3-4 tokens, but generally averages out to 1-2 per player. The player with the tokens then selects units by placing the token on the units they want to activate and does a miniature turn (move, psychic, shoot, charge, etc.).

I won't list the benefits (which outweight the negatives 100%) but will list what changes and what is impacted.

1) We arbitrarily end all effects from spells, etc. at the end of the battleround to avoid abusing the system. i.e. if a psyker casts a spell and goes first in one battle round, and last in the next battle round his spell could technically "last" the equivalent of four turns. So, you want to run spells and stratagems early in your tokens to get the most affect out of them.

2) The games are much longer. The tokens introduce a lot of analysis paralysis, and you end up thinking a lot harder about who to activate. This means you'll do a 1250-1500 point game in the time of a normal 2000 point game. However, due to the lack of IGOUGO, you're also not losing 30% of your army in a single activation/token.

3) Morale is done collectively at the end of the battleround. So this is different from the main game, but it still has an impact (you're more or less still rolling your units morale tests after your opponent has activated all of their units).

4) Close combat needs tweaking but works quite well. If a unit charges, that unit fights. If a unit is fighting someone (i.e. they've resolved a round of combat already) and is charged by a further unit, the charging unit fights...then the defending unit fights...HOWEVER...we add in the stipulation that if the defending unit fights and targets its previous opponent (who it's already fought), that unit will then get to fight again - so a unit always defends itself, but if it lashes out for bonus attacks against a previous enemy, they will clobbered back. It sounds messy but it works perfectly well.

5) Every game we find one random stratagem which we need to rule on the fly. We also only have 6-8 different armies so I'm sure there are more hiccups somewhere else in the game, but generally you go into the game knowing you'll encounter some minor thing you hadn't seen before. That's fine.

6) While this is a benefit, tournament players will not see it as such; you can't death-star hero clusters with auras effectively or reliably. When you only activate a couple units at a time, suddenly your big castle of six aura-buffing characters and three shooty units cannot move up the table together cohesively. Because of this you tend to see army composition change, with smaller dedicated groups formed instead of big monster-balls.

7) It can break up stuff like Tau who need to shoot all of their targeting gimmicks off before shooting other units. Again, an actual benefit, but not to tournament minded gamers.

8) It can be difficult to remember what "phase" you've used stratagems if you don't keep track. This can introduce a small amount of book keeping for stuff like re-rolls, etc.

9) The thing that will upset most tournament/WAAC style folks is that it introduces chaos and lack of control to your game. The god-like power to move everything at once and do precisely what you want to do is gone. You're playing far more reactively and you can't "count" on anything. The players who like more realistic wargames will enjoy this tremendously. The heavy mathhammer/MTG combo battalion will hate it, because it takes elements out of their hands/control.

10) If desired, this kind of game method can be abused just like normal 40K. You might take three knights and then ally thirty guard squads in, just so you get as many tokens as you want and spend the first three you drawn on your knights, etc. This type of game mode is not suggested or intended for tournament play. You'd end up with the same kind of shenanigans you see in the tournament scene. We have considered an easy option to curb this, but never bothered since our group doesn't play with that mentality (i.e. each codex you use generates tokens of a certain colour, so if you had Knights and Guard combined, each one would be a different colour - so you couldn't use the Guard to generate additional tokens in the hopes of early activation for your Knights).

11) The biggest issue is honestly the players. 40K is notorious in wargaming circles for players being 100% beholden to GW and generally being terribly unwilling to modify anything. If you try to force a new play style on someone who isn't interested, you'll get nothing from it. You need like-minded, level-headed people who understand you're playing a modified set of rules and once or twice in the game you'll have to discuss a conflict and come to an amenable conclusion.

I admit after playing Tokenhammer, I want nothing to do with normal 40K (I've tried it since...and been thoroughly disappointed). It does take work though, and you need to change/sacrifice some rules to get there.

I notice that one of you guys went Move-Charge-Shoot, while others go with Move-Shoot-Charge (other phases shuffled in as required).

Alextroy, im curious how you find doing the charge before shooting? I imagine it alters the balance of units a fair bit?

I've never played a 40K game that way, but that is the issue that would either require the most changes or would most impact game balance. In theory, you could have a Charge Phase after Shooting and before Fight, but you'd have to decide how to do it. Would it be one player does all charges than the other player does all, or alternating units?

I don't get to play enough 40K to try and workout the issue. My input is that GW has done a workable system in Kill Team that works rather well with single models. It should work similarly via units.

 alextroy wrote:
I've never played a 40K game that way, but that is the issue that would either require the most changes or would most impact game balance. In theory, you could have a Charge Phase after Shooting and before Fight, but you'd have to decide how to do it. Would it be one player does all charges than the other player does all, or alternating units?

I don't get to play enough 40K to try and workout the issue. My input is that GW has done a workable system in Kill Team that works rather well with single models. It should work similarly via units.

Hmm, not necessarily. It works well in a gang fight-scale game because there's an inherently limited power scale between individual infantry models, but adding in squad-level units, tanks, hero characters, etc. introduces vast differences in power level.

Then again maybe it's not a problem in practice.