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Like it, hate it, or apathetic, many of us enjoy sharing our opinions (or simply venting) in regards to the random initiative of AoS. In the spirit of breaking up the larger general thread into its respective topics, I figured I would make one for this.

So what do you think? Do you have any ideas you believe would improve things? Have any interesting experiences to share?

Remember to keep it polite, a difference of opinion is not an excuse to attack the gaming preferences of someone else. And remember that good or bad the experiences of other people are valid events that they went through.

There is nothing IMO that makes double turn "better". It is a mechanic that exists to allow for extreme swingy moments to happen in a game, to give anyone a chance to come back and win due to how devastating it is.

When I win via the double turn, I feel dirty. When I lose via the double turn, I feel as if I might as well be playing craps or some other game to get the same experience without having to spend a grand on pretty models to go with it.

Whenever it is complained about, the common rebuttal is that you have to "plan around it", but to date, five years into the game, I have not seen a good video or explanation on what "plan around it" means short of "make sure you take bubble wrap troops so when you get double turned charge, the only thing that is getting charged are crap troops you don't care about"

The other side of double turn that I hate is the standing there for two whole turns doing absolutely nothing but removing models.

I require interaction during my games. I don't like straight IGOUGO as it is. Double turn amplified that by 100.

It is one of three reasons that I won't touch AOS again until it is removed, as I have given up on house rules since I live in a very anti-house rule tournament-standard region. If it flies at Adepticon or LVO, it has to be the way its done where I am as well.

I would take a traditional IGOUGO over Double Turn.

I would prefer a system more like LOTR or even Warcry.

I would love an alt activation system, as that is my favorite form of activation as it is the most interactive and you don't stand there for an entire turn taking it on the chin just removing models. It also makes alpha strikes not a thing since you can't just win by shoving your army down your opponent's throat while he just stands there unable to do anything.

I have found that having one player deploy their entire army first in exchange for getting first turn, followed by alternating activations, works quite well. And it does not require any other rules to be changed.

Get rid of double turns, hate them. Even though my armies benefit the most from them, compared to other armies. They ruin more games than they save in my experience. I agree with Auticus' reasons for disliking double turns. I don't know how I would feel about Alternate Activations in AoS, but I haven't played around with the concept yet so I can't say much to it.

I've yet to hear anyone outline solid tactics to counter/prepare for a double turn which are not general good tactics. One I've often heard is people say you need to screen good units with bad/chaff units - which is just basic good tactics.


The other aspect that no one can get around nor deny is that the double turn means one person has to sit through two whole turns of the game with nothing to do but react to the other players actions and roll saves and remove models. Even with the alternating close combat aspect of the game (a neat feature!) they still cannot start/escape or force any new close combat events; they are still reacting to one player.



In a game where (for years) one turn can dramatically change the game; the chance of one player getting two turns in a row is obscenely powerful.




It's also my casual observation that its very rare to lose the game if you get a double turn first. Typically if they happen anywhere but near the very end of the game, chances are its going to swing a win toward the player who gets a double turn first.


Personally I think it generates so much contention and debate with players; that it will always result in a boring/bad experience for the person on the receiving end - that its the kimd of feature best moved to Open play and taken out of matched.





I'd also make the argument that a good few I've seen defending it seem to defend it from the point of view that its "unique" to the game. Others seem to defend it because they dislike any "attack" on AoS which I think brings through some of the drama taht surrounded the game; especially onliny.

Honestly I think a lot of the people that defend it do so because they like the game period and will defend any part of that game if they feel someone is challenging its awesomeness.

AOS could have had IGOUGO, alt activations, or any other type of activation and many of those people would defend each and everyone of those just as hard.

I think that does come to be a part of it; especially when those people have had the luck of the dice not to be on the receiving end of many/any doubleturns. Or if their playgroup is very casual/low skill and this a doubleturn doesn't "hurt" as much because their opponent isn't actually taking full advantage of it.


Heck it might even be that they enjoy the game more when a doubleturn hits them because their generally weaker regular opponent(s) actually manage to put up a half decent threat as a result.

Meanwhile if they were to play a player of comparable (to them) or higher skill they might well start to see how "abusive" the mechanic can be.










It's things like this which can complicate gathering bulk feedback from gamers. Esp for real world games because you can't see every match or use data analysis machines to spot patterns. With a computergame you can harvest all this data; you can sift through and see patterns that even good players won't spot; because you can see far more of the data and its 100% accurate too.

With wargames two people of the same skill can report widely different experiences based on their regular opponents.

I think a strong element of defense comes from players that have a weaker army* going up against stronger ones; getting a double turn lets them snag a win once in a while when they otherwise would not.

*I do not mean to imply this is the player's fault, due to the state of AoS balance it could very much be out of their control.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 auticus wrote:
Honestly I think a lot of the people that defend it do so because they like the game period and will defend any part of that game if they feel someone is challenging its awesomeness.

AOS could have had IGOUGO, alt activations, or any other type of activation and many of those people would defend each and everyone of those just as hard.

I do believe there is an element of that. But I also feel that when leveling criticism many people (and I have certainly fallen into this) phrase things in a manner that provokes that mindset to some degree by unintentionally coming across as 'attacking' the game as a whole.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I think a strong element of defense comes from players that have a weaker army* going up against stronger ones; getting a double turn lets them snag a win once in a while when they otherwise would not.

*I do not mean to imply this is the player's fault, due to the state of AoS balance it could very much be out of their control.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 auticus wrote:
Honestly I think a lot of the people that defend it do so because they like the game period and will defend any part of that game if they feel someone is challenging its awesomeness.

AOS could have had IGOUGO, alt activations, or any other type of activation and many of those people would defend each and everyone of those just as hard.

I do believe there is an element of that. But I also feel that when leveling criticism many people (and I have certainly fallen into this) phrase things in a manner that provokes that mindset to some degree by unintentionally coming across as 'attacking' the game as a whole.

Here's something to chew on...

https://aos-tactics.com/2017/01/08/how-to-optimise-for-the-double-turn/

Anyone who defends double turns needs to play a game against a strong Slaanesh or Skaven Skryre shooting, and eat a double turn on the first game round. Then see if they still defend it. You will either lose because your army doesn't exist any more, or you just have no chance of of coming back on objective score if your army can even fight back.

Also @Seriqolm, yes. That article says what everyone else has said in this thread that the supposed counters to a double turn is to just use sound tactical play like screening and zoning and avoiding enemy damage. Posting that is pointless.

My counter is; if the double turn is good, why do we not see it anywhere else? Why did GW not put it in 40k? Would chess be more tactical with random initiative? Is there any other game out there that has had success using such a mechanic?

I like the rule when the dice roll in my favor.
I hate the rule when the dice roll in my opponents favor.
IGOUGO & then simply rolling off to see who controls the 1st endless spell works just fine for me.
I'm fine with Alternating Activation.

So I ask my opponent what they prefer & play it that way.

GW didn't put Initiative roll/double turns in 40k because 40k is a shooting heavy game. Comparatively, AoS has less shooting and thus the impact of a double turn should be less. The impact it has in AoS would be far less than it would in 40k without a doubt.

 auticus wrote:

When I win via the double turn, I feel dirty.

Why?

 auticus wrote:
The other side of double turn that I hate is the standing there for two whole turns doing absolutely nothing but removing models.

How are you doing absolutely nothing?

 Thadin wrote:
Anyone who defends double turns needs to play a game against a strong Slaanesh or Skaven Skryre shooting, and eat a double turn on the first game round.

Well, in my Fyreslayer experience, Slaanesh is a hard matchup even in ideal situations. The Skryre shooting list I feel my Fyreslayers could take in stride and jack them once they are in charge range. YMMV with other armies.

 Thadin wrote:
Then see if they still defend it.

I will/would. You win some, you lose some. There have always been bad matchups/hard counters in Warhammer. Those two armies aren’t all there is. One is falling out of fashion and the other was never really a thing.

 Thadin wrote:
You will either lose because your army doesn't exist any more, or you just have no chance of of coming back on objective score if your army can even fight back.

Thats assuming everything goes the Slaanesh/Skryre players way. They can make mistakes in deployment. They can forget to use a key ability or fail to get off a spell in the Hero phase, still muff the movement phase, still roll poorly in the shooting phase, not have range/LoS for shooting, fail charges, have a poor showing with hit/wound rolls and combat phase target priority. Any and all of the above can happen to various degrees and combinations. Its not a forgone conclusion.

 Thadin wrote:
Also @Seriqolm, Posting that is pointless.

Conversely, and no offense intended, so is posting a perfect nightmare scenario of Slaanesh/Shooty rats. You can dislike the mechanic without either of those two armies on the board.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Why did GW not put it in 40k?

Shooting is much more prevalent I suppose.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Is there any other game out there that has had success using such a mechanic?

Couldn’t honestly say tbh. AoS is all I really have time for. The Game of Thrones game is tempting me though.


I like the double turn. It adds a variation to the game that previous Warhammer never had. Every game can feel different, even when playing the same opponent multiple times.

And really, the most effective usage of winning the priority roll for me was always maneuvering to react to my opponents actions in the previous turn and gearing up for the next turn. Making sure my auras were in range, getting spells/prayers off, grabbing objs, making sure my best units were in the best possible spot etc etc. Just using that extra turn to tidy up and prep for the next turn. Learning how to do that was a game changer for me. Hell, getting too aggressive with the priority roll win lost me more games than I care to admit.

Learning to be a bit more nuanced with taking the priority roll win probably won me more games then the careless rush to smash face that most people lament when complaining about losing the priority roll. And I think thats what alot of the people who are consistently winning games/tourneys do. Sure, if the alpha strike is there, I’m taking it, but I’d be doing that in an IGOUGO game as well.

In terms of prepping for being on the losing end of a priority roll, that was another thing I had to learn. For a long time, I’d just want to kill my way to the win and get caught with my pants down, my army ill positioned. After some painful lessons, I started to calm the feth down and focus on objectives, solely. Once again I’d over commit, though. For example: if there were 3 objectives, I’d try to grab all 3 at once and try to rack up points before my opponent could get them. Of course that would again leave me scattered and promptly punished. Even if I won a priority roll, my dudes were too scattered to put a hurting on my opponent, unless they also made some mistakes.

Right now, while I’m no big tourney winner, I’ve definitely learned to keep things tight and stay focused and thats worked wonders for me in how I’ve dealt with losing the priority roll.. There is really no silver bullet answer that I can give to anyone who dislikes the priority roll and is looking for an answer to “How do you prep for losing the priority roll” . There’s just too many variable at play and its very situational. Anything I’d say would just be a cliche.

With that said, I wouldn’t burn my armies if they dropped the priority roll in AoS 3rd. I do believe the game would lose a crucial piece of what makes it unique and consistently intriguing to me, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world, I suspect.

Anecdotal, but I’ve never encountered a dislike of the priority roll out in the wild. Only online for what its worth. Frankly surprised that its still so divisive.

People constantly ask if this is still a thing, and my own view is it really does not add anything I think is valuable when I have play.
Mostly seems to throw off play and stops some genuinely interesting tactics from being a thing.

 Thadin wrote:
Anyone who defends double turns needs to play a game against a strong Slaanesh or Skaven Skryre shooting, and eat a double turn on the first game round. Then see if they still defend it. You will either lose because your army doesn't exist any more, or you just have no chance of of coming back on objective score if your army can even fight back.

Also @Seriqolm, yes. That article says what everyone else has said in this thread that the supposed counters to a double turn is to just use sound tactical play like screening and zoning and avoiding enemy damage. Posting that is pointless.

Exactly - the doubleturn introduces a mechanic which does not create any new tactical options nor thinking within the game. In fact the only "new" tactic that I think it creates is the benefit of holding back and not advancing toward the enemy - since if there's greater distance between you you might force an opponent with a double turn to waste the first turn just moving close enough to do anything. The thing is that would be great if the game had 30 turns. But the game has typically 6 turns at most with often only needing 5 or so to actually get to a point where the win/loss is locked in.
So as a result holding back a turn on the chance of a double turn is actually very damaging. It would easily leave whoever held back relying fully on getting their own double turn to make up for the loss of ground; objectives and board control that they'd be giving up.



Ergo the only new and unique counter tactic, holding back, is impractical to the point of being detrimental to use in most typical game situations. All the rest of the tactics - screening etc.. - are all regular tactics that are good to use in the game without double turns being a thing. Also if the game relies upon the doubleturn because it has a stronger element of close combat, this is going to likely fall apart given that as GW expands most army model ranges, the number and variety of ranged weapons is most likely to increase. Some armies might retian ranged as purely an elite option; but you can bet many will start to get a greater functional portion of ranged units.

Holding back in case of a double does not work because if the double will not be advantageous the opponent can simply... not take it.

Why?

Because I vastly prefer games where I win due to out maneuver, and solid game play, not because I won a random roll off to get to go twice in a row and blow them off the table with magic and ranged attacks etc first that they do nothing but stand there and watch and take it without the ability to do ANYTHING about it. Or even better, getting to spam summon twice in a row on them so I can (and have) doubled my army size. There is nothing tactical about that.

Its literally the monty python scene with the guy running at you from a mile away screaming and the guards standing there staring at him until he gets up on them and hacks them down.

How are you doing absolutely nothing?

You're removing models. Thats what you're doing. You can't do anything else. You can't move, you can't shoot back, you can't do anything but watch your opponent go through two whole hero, movement, and shooting phases while you stand there with thumbs up the butt.

Anecdotal, but I’ve never encountered a dislike of the priority roll out in the wild. Only online for what its worth. Frankly surprised that its still so divisive.

It was the only house rule that I got a majority of people that liked and gave positive feedback during our events for when I removed double turn, and when I introduced alternate activation.

Its all anecdotal of course, and only GW could tell you if its positive or not from their polls that they don't share with anyone.

Its certainly enough to drive people out, and the games where those people landed on have overwhelmingly discussed the double turn as one of those reasons (from my anecdotal experience).

The only thing you might get is alternate control of an Endless Spell

However anyone using a predatory Endless Spell knows to cast it well into the enemy lines, so at best you just get to move it away from your army for a turn rather than turn it to attack your opponent. Plus there's a good few of them that are not predatory and thus won't switch sides; or which are like the Ossiarch Spells and don't swap sides.

Which is something I think many of us knew (certainly, many of us said as much) when the rules dropped; predatory endless spells will only be used when they have little to no chance of coming back to hurt the casting player. Because outside those circumstances the risk:reward simply favors casting a regular spell instead. GW seems to have realized this (see: Bonereapers and Seraphon) and I would not be surprised to see the next GHB have changes to how they work in matched play along with, potentially, how random initiative works as well. (Though I would not be surprised to see no such changes, either.)

Well if GHB 2020, the Corona Edition has a removal of complete double turn, that would be one massive positive step for me to consider playing it again. I'm not going to hold my breath though, that has become a sacred cow.

I’m honestly impartial to it.

From one side, it can dramatically swing a fight depending on the situation.

From another, it has also managed to benefit me at times too.
Using a dwarf army, nothing is fast.
Having the enemy close the gap for me does make things a lot easier as I can generally get the charges then.

Also have to remember that double turns for 1 player are impossible to get twice in a row, so if someone gets a double turn against you, there’s then a 50% chance you get to follow it up with the same.

To me it’s all the same though.
Barring big tournaments against pure META lists, I’ve never had a dramatic loss due to a double turn though.
I’ve had a few fights swing and then swing back again.



Also, I love some of the view points.

“Anyone who thinks X or Y is wrong”
That’s an opinion and one that frankly adds nothing.

“Everyone thinks X or Y”
No, you cannot speak for everyone.

“They are defending GW no matter what”
No, this does not make their point invalid while validating you’re own.
It’s makes you look childish as you are applying a strawman to avoid points.


People need to realise that having a positive or negative point about the game isn’t attacking or defending them.
It’s simply someone’s opinion.
I’ve never met anyone that agrees with everything or nothing that GW does (although, some are very close)

I think the biggest problem with the Double Turn is that, as auticus said, you're basically sitting there twiddling your thumbs while your opponent beats the crap out of you twice in a row. With how deadly AOS is and how many armies can be devastating enough in a single turn, let alone two, that's where the issue comes in. I get the reason it was added, it's a neat little thing but in a game like AOS it doesn't work in the way they want and I feel at this point it should be set as an optional rule (similar to the "ignore battleline" rule, is that even still around?) so you can use it or not use it. It wouldn't matter that much as most likely whatever the big tournaments use will be adopted as the standard, but there would at least be the option and it would be better received in my experience than an actual "unofficial" house rule.

Right now though the issue is that when it happens, most of the time whoever gets it wins because their army is already killy and now is twice as killy because they get to do all the stuff that they do twice without their opponent being able to do anything but take it.

I will say that I have seen a few people like auticus has mentioned, who rabidly defend AOS and GW as the bestest most greatest thing of all time and anyone who dislikes even a part of it is a hater who needs to stop playing because the game is perfect. They are rare and naturally more rabid on the internet but they exist out there and are worse than the people who just hate GW because 99% of the time those people have been burned by GW in the years past or saw how GW was and see what they become. The fanboys usually have never played anything but GW games and immediately dismiss/disparage any other game and will come to the defense of everything GW does.

I havent' seen: "anyone who thinks x or y is wrong", nor have i seen "everyone thinks x or y", and

"They are defending GW no matter what" is a permutation of what I said:

"Honestly I think a lot of the people that defend it do so because they like the game period and will defend any part of that game if they feel someone is challenging its awesomeness."

Because there ARE people that will defend whatever their game of choice is no matter what, thats not a strawman, thats reality for a lot of people. There ARE people that in this case would defend whatever activation method GW chose to use because at their root they simply don't care enough but don't want to see their game of choice being attacked, or perceived to be attacked.

I don't see anyone here feeling that someone is attacking them from defending the game.

So I'm not really sure where this response came from. At least from where I was, I didn't see any of those things above being said.

 auticus wrote:
I havent' seen: "anyone who thinks x or y is wrong", nor have i seen "everyone thinks x or y", and

"They are defending GW no matter what" is a permutation of what I said:

"Honestly I think a lot of the people that defend it do so because they like the game period and will defend any part of that game if they feel someone is challenging its awesomeness."

Because there ARE people that will defend whatever their game of choice is no matter what, thats not a strawman, thats reality for a lot of people. There ARE people that in this case would defend whatever activation method GW chose to use because at their root they simply don't care enough but don't want to see their game of choice being attacked, or perceived to be attacked.

I don't see anyone here feeling that someone is attacking them from defending the game.

So I'm not really sure where this response came from. At least from where I was, I didn't see any of those things above being said.

I didn’t specify in this exact thread, but I’m quite happy to bet they will be posted on this thread at some stage.

There are also unicorns and magical elves, I can’t show you them, but take my word for it.

See the issue?

I’ve seen even the die hard AoS fans get pissed from time to time because of a judgment call by GW.
I’ve yet to see anyone on here actually talk as you described.

The usual reaction from someone not jumping on the bandwagon to hate every 5 minutes is the old “white knight” that people make them out as.
That I have seen several times on here.
Someone can’t counter a point so simply calls them a white knight, stating they will defend them no matter what.
However, each time I’ve seen the above I’ve also seen them ignore any valid points or reasoning too.

More Tips from Reddit..

https://www.reddit.com/r/ageofsigmar/comments/enx5e4/tips_for_handling_double_turn/


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Thadin wrote:
Anyone who defends double turns needs to play a game against a strong Slaanesh or Skaven Skryre shooting, and eat a double turn on the first game round. Then see if they still defend it. You will either lose because your army doesn't exist any more, or you just have no chance of of coming back on objective score if your army can even fight back.

Also @Seriqolm, yes. That article says what everyone else has said in this thread that the supposed counters to a double turn is to just use sound tactical play like screening and zoning and avoiding enemy damage. Posting that is pointless.

Really seems like this is a pointless thread then if even articles about the double turn aren't even discussed properly. If its sound tactical advice then it would also pertain to the double turn as that is a core part of the game so not pointless at all. Is this going to be a Dakka love in of Auticus and friends repeating themselves like they do in every thread about the game? I could write his and many others post for them as they are so repetitive.

RE: tactics one of the hardet things for me to get into is the whole verbiage. Like bubble wrap, daisy chain (if you can even still do that with things being wholly within more) nd the like. I've been involved in GW games since 1995 and its only within the last few years I've ever heard these terms, and before that was in Warmahordes where everything was much more tactical. It's the things like that which always confuse me because they've never been a thing in warhammer that I can remember but now all of a sudden everyone is doing and pushing them.

Wayniac wrote:
RE: tactics one of the hardet things for me to get into is the whole verbiage. Like bubble wrap, daisy chain (if you can even still do that with things being wholly within more) nd the like. I've been involved in GW games since 1995 and its only within the last few years I've ever heard these terms, and before that was in Warmahordes where everything was much more tactical. It's the things like that which always confuse me because they've never been a thing in warhammer that I can remember but now all of a sudden everyone is doing and pushing them.

Why not learn what these things are and maybe you be a better player? There are always new tactical approaches to new games that were not there before, I play Historicals and there are some tactical moves you can only do in say L'art de la Guerre but not transfer to say DBM but the games are based on the same format just in those games no-one has named the manoeuver.

Seriqolm wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
RE: tactics one of the hardet things for me to get into is the whole verbiage. Like bubble wrap, daisy chain (if you can even still do that with things being wholly within more) nd the like. I've been involved in GW games since 1995 and its only within the last few years I've ever heard these terms, and before that was in Warmahordes where everything was much more tactical. It's the things like that which always confuse me because they've never been a thing in warhammer that I can remember but now all of a sudden everyone is doing and pushing them.

Why not learn what these things are and maybe you be a better player? There are always new tactical approaches to new games that were not there before, I play Historicals and there are some tactical moves you can only do in say L'art de la Guerre but not transfer to say DBM but the games are based on the same format just in those games no-one has named the manoeuver.

Right, I'm just saying it's the most challenging part because it's a whole new style of gaming compared to what I was used to from years ago. I'm using this quarantine/lockdown/end of the world stuff to really take a step back and decide what I want out of the game because I've really just flitted around with things and never done much.

The double turn though, to veer back to the topic, is just an odd mechanic period because of how polarizing it is. I don't hate it but I definitely thing it doesn't need to be a core rule becaue often no amount of tactics can handle your opponent getting two turns in a row to do whatever to you while you just have to take it. Most people in my area forget it (legitimately) and we just do alternating turns. When we do remember the initiative every turn thing, we normally realize how it usually makes or breaks the game.

Jackal90 wrote:

 auticus wrote:
I havent' seen: "anyone who thinks x or y is wrong", nor have i seen "everyone thinks x or y", and

"They are defending GW no matter what" is a permutation of what I said:

"Honestly I think a lot of the people that defend it do so because they like the game period and will defend any part of that game if they feel someone is challenging its awesomeness."

Because there ARE people that will defend whatever their game of choice is no matter what, thats not a strawman, thats reality for a lot of people. There ARE people that in this case would defend whatever activation method GW chose to use because at their root they simply don't care enough but don't want to see their game of choice being attacked, or perceived to be attacked.

I don't see anyone here feeling that someone is attacking them from defending the game.

So I'm not really sure where this response came from. At least from where I was, I didn't see any of those things above being said.

I didn’t specify in this exact thread, but I’m quite happy to bet they will be posted on this thread at some stage.

There are also unicorns and magical elves, I can’t show you them, but take my word for it.

See the issue?

I’ve seen even the die hard AoS fans get pissed from time to time because of a judgment call by GW.
I’ve yet to see anyone on here actually talk as you described.

The usual reaction from someone not jumping on the bandwagon to hate every 5 minutes is the old “white knight” that people make them out as.
That I have seen several times on here.
Someone can’t counter a point so simply calls them a white knight, stating they will defend them no matter what.
However, each time I’ve seen the above I’ve also seen them ignore any valid points or reasoning too.

Cool fair enough. The way I had read it you were rebuffing someone or someones for posting something like that at present.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

If its sound tactical advice then it would also pertain to the double turn as that is a core part of the game so not pointless at all.

While I can appreciate where you are coming from, the sound tactical advice in the two sources provided are identical to just sound tactical advice to playing the game without the double turn.

So "you just have to prep for the double turn" is the same as "you just have to prep to play the game in general without the double turn". There is nothing special you do to prepare for the double turn other than play like you'd play the game without the double turn.

That does not negate or take away the fact that its a hugely swingy mechanic that has massive impact on the game that results in one player standing there for two whole turns doing nothing but removing models without any course of counter play.