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Can you elaborate how transports & embarked units work in this systen?

 skchsan wrote:
Can you elaborate how transports & embarked units work in this systen?

The same as normal. So baring any special rules, if you want to disembark, you can only do so before the transport moves, which means you'll need to activate the disembarking unit before activating the transport if you want the transport to move.

E.g. Player A has a Rhino with Tactical Marines embarked, Player B has two units of Gretchin.

Player A activates a unit. They activate the Tactical Marines and, as part of their movement, disembarks from the Rhino, then takes the rest of the activation as normal.
Player B activates a unit of Gretchin.
Player A activates a unit. They activate the Rhino.
Player B activates the other unit of Gretchin.

Likewise, say Player A has a Rhino with Tactical Marines disembarked, Player B has two units of Gretchin.
Player A activates a unit. They activate the Rhino and moves it into position.
Player B activates a unit of Gretchin.
Player A activates a unit. They activate the Tactical Marines and move it in range of embarking on the Rhino and embark.
Player B activates the other unit of Gretchin.

Scenario 3, say Player A has a Rhino with Tactical Marines embarked, Player B has two units of Gretchin.
Player A activates a unit. They activate the Rhino and doesn't move with it, and then shoots with it.
Player B activates a unit of Gretchin.
Player A activates a unit. They activate the Tactical Marines to disembark et. al.
Player B activates the other unit of Gretchin.

Same for units in "open topped" transports, whenever you decide to activate the embarked unit, they act independently of the transport so will shoot on their activation, not the transports.

In a version of this I helped with before it worked like this.


Transports:

-When you activate a transport you activate any units that are embarked in the transport at the same time. Before moving you may choose to disembark any of the units inside.

--Side Note: This is if you want to keep things the way they are currently where units have to disembark before the transport moves. If instead you want to allow units to disembark AFTER the transport moves then the transport moving counts as moving for the units inside. If the transport advances then the units inside advanced as well. They may not advance separately, they may not embark in the same activation that they disembark, they may charge.

-When/if units end their turn within 3" of a transport they may embark upon it at the end of their movement.

-If the transports allow the units inside to shoot they may shoot as part of the transports shooting following all the normal rules for doing so.

-If a unit embarks upon a transport that has not been activated yet the transport finishes their activation and counts as having activated. (I.E. since embarking happens at the end of the movement phase the movement phase is complete with the embarkment. The transport would now do the shooting phase/charge phase/etc etc...)



The end result is you COULD get a particularly large activation out of a transport probably once a game as part of it disembarking a bunch of people. I.E. a drop pod landing and dumping all their dudes or whatever. But it's basically a one time thing and setting it up again is a multi turn thing that eats up a LOT of activations. Thats the benefit of bringing transports.

Perhaps allow a transport to be activated instead of a character so you can do unit + transport?

 Stormonu wrote:
Perhaps allow a transport to be activated instead of a character so you can do unit + transport?

This would work if dedicated transports worked like pre-8th edition, but with prevalence of single model units & the way embarking works in 8th ed it could become very abusable.

 skchsan wrote:

 Stormonu wrote:
Perhaps allow a transport to be activated instead of a character so you can do unit + transport?

This would work if dedicated transports worked like pre-8th edition, but with prevalence of single model units & the way embarking works in 8th ed it could become very abusable.

Pretty much. Since you can now theoretically hold 10 units in a Rhino, it wouldn't really work to allow the embarked unit and transport to work together. While it might also seem odd to have to "drip feed" multiple units out of a transport, I find that to be a good side effect. If you bring a unit and a character, you're gonna have to disembark the meatshields first if you want to protect the character.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
The best way to fix Knights is that, when choosing to shoot, a Super Heavy counts each weapon as a separate activation.

Even when the weapon is one heavy stubber?

We can go half the weapons rounding up, but yeah you bring a Knight you should wait to fire it.

 Lance845 wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:
You will have to have a rule at the start of your turn all effects are reset/turned off.

That's worse. What happens if you activate your psyker last?

I think you still need to end all effects at the start of your turn, otherwise it is too much bookkeeping. You already have to keep track of all units which were activated (which by itself may get confusing if you have a lot of them), now you also have to remember which units have buffs that may expire when they get activated. Perhaps make an exception that if an effect was put by a unit which is the last to activate, it lasts until the end of next turn?
Also a handy idea, if activating a unit of infantry you could put one model in it on it's back to represent that that unit was activated. Not too immersive, but helps out by not needing any tokens.

I don't play 40k that much, I prefer Necromunda. AA in new Necromunda makes it very fun and dynamic compared to old Necromunda.

These are nice rules, but alt act wouldn't really fix more problems than it creates in 40k. 1st turn advantage is replaced with 1st activation advantage, and the inclusion of a strat to move damage from real time to end of turn means that the new meta is a minimum 2 deathstar list, 1 to be ignored till the turn end and 1 to "alpha strike":

Player A: activates 1st deathstar, attacks 1 of player B's deathstars (it uses strat to stay alive)
Player B: activates 1st deathstar, attacks 1 of player A's deathstars (it uses strat to stay alive)
Player A: activates 2nd deathstar with impunity, kills player B's 2nd deathstar
rinse and repeat, until player A is left with the last standing deathstar unit

I'm not aware of any alternate activation game systems that have the range of scales that 40k has, with units ranging from nurgling to titan sized under one ruleset. Alternate activation would make it mandatory to always activate with big units 1st, and makes it very hard to justify including small units in any circumstance as activating some gretchin is a waste of an activation.

Insularum wrote:
These are nice rules, but alt act wouldn't really fix more problems than it creates in 40k. 1st turn advantage is replaced with 1st activation advantage, and the inclusion of a strat to move damage from real time to end of turn means that the new meta is a minimum 2 deathstar list, 1 to be ignored till the turn end and 1 to "alpha strike":

Player A: activates 1st deathstar, attacks 1 of player B's deathstars (it uses strat to stay alive)
Player B: activates 1st deathstar, attacks 1 of player A's deathstars (it uses strat to stay alive)
Player A: activates 2nd deathstar with impunity, kills player B's 2nd deathstar
rinse and repeat, until player A is left with the last standing deathstar unit

I'm not aware of any alternate activation game systems that have the range of scales that 40k has, with units ranging from nurgling to titan sized under one ruleset. Alternate activation would make it mandatory to always activate with big units 1st, and makes it very hard to justify including small units in any circumstance as activating some gretchin is a waste of an activation.

1, 1rst activation advantage is easily and obviously nowhere near the problem that 1rst turn is and inherent in any game where turns exist. It's the least disruptive thing you could possibly have.

2, Deathstars don't really exist. But lets pretend they do.

3, Its arguably FAR more advantageous to have many small activations then just a few large "deathstar" ones. Wanna easy example? I go first and I send my "Gretchin" to the front of the line while hiding my "Deathstar" behind LoS blocking terrain. When you activate YOUR deathstar you get to shoot it at my Gretchin. Perfect, Next I will activate my "Deathstar" and wreck YOUR Deathstar. Players who invest entirely in big expensive heavy units get out manuevered. \\



This sounds like you have never actually played AA 40k and your just theory crafting what you THINK would happen based on a bunch of false assumptions. I.E. the data shows that you are WAY off.

To address your points in turn:
1. I agree that as a concept it's generally less disruptive, but activating a 700 point knight is more advantageous than activating a 40 point guardsman squad. If I do this twice in a row, I have effectively activated my entire army (at least the bits of it that count) before you have activated even 100 points of guardsmen. IMO, this is very similar to current IGOUGO 1st turn advantage as I have activated almost my entire army before you do anything of value. How would armies like dark eldar survive changing to AA with no superheavy equivalents?
2. Within the confines of AA, the units which are capable of contributing the most per activation are the new measuring stick of a deathstar. For example, any of the more expensive knights can both shoot and fight multiple units effectively per activation.
3. Name a single unit capable of hiding behind typical LOS blocking terrain that can emerge and wreck a knight on it's own in one activation. Even if that exists, both players can do this, and it's what the entire game devolves into as it is the best strategy... for example:

How do you beat this 2k list under AA?

Knights Superheavy:
Castellan
Castellan
Helverin

AM battalion
2 Company commanders
5 infantry squads

AM battalion
2 tempestors
3 scions squads

No melee focused army could ever achieve 50% win rate, as there is no way to engage the knights in combat without spending many activations fighting through waves of bodies, while every "turn" the big knights always activate 1st and 2nd.

No psychic focused army could ever achieve 50% win rate as there is no single psyker that can inflict enough damage to even bracket a knight let alone survive the return fire.

No deepstrike list could ever achieve 50% win rate, under this weird scenario the knights don't activate 1st and 2nd, rather they wait out the arrival of a significant number of deepstrikers - wiggling some guardsmen around until there are sufficient bodies on the ground to justify leaf blowing them away (similar style to your gretchin example).

The most likely style of list to oppose it would seem to be another army with lots of guns. Likely an army with those guns concentrated onto a small number of units, so that as many as possible fire per activation, and with the most protection from the "ignore damage till the end of the turn" stratagem. Probably shadowswords or knights then.

I like the concept of AA, but it works best when the units available are more homogenous in power level. The vast difference in power between different unit choices in 40k makes it difficult to balance without moving all damage to a new damage phase, but with a damage phase your point about many small units outmanoeuvring opponents becomes an extremely potent tactic.

Insularum wrote:

Spoiler:

 Lance845 wrote:

Insularum wrote:
These are nice rules, but alt act wouldn't really fix more problems than it creates in 40k. 1st turn advantage is replaced with 1st activation advantage, and the inclusion of a strat to move damage from real time to end of turn means that the new meta is a minimum 2 deathstar list, 1 to be ignored till the turn end and 1 to "alpha strike":

Player A: activates 1st deathstar, attacks 1 of player B's deathstars (it uses strat to stay alive)
Player B: activates 1st deathstar, attacks 1 of player A's deathstars (it uses strat to stay alive)
Player A: activates 2nd deathstar with impunity, kills player B's 2nd deathstar
rinse and repeat, until player A is left with the last standing deathstar unit

I'm not aware of any alternate activation game systems that have the range of scales that 40k has, with units ranging from nurgling to titan sized under one ruleset. Alternate activation would make it mandatory to always activate with big units 1st, and makes it very hard to justify including small units in any circumstance as activating some gretchin is a waste of an activation.

1, 1rst activation advantage is easily and obviously nowhere near the problem that 1rst turn is and inherent in any game where turns exist. It's the least disruptive thing you could possibly have.

2, Deathstars don't really exist. But lets pretend they do.

3, Its arguably FAR more advantageous to have many small activations then just a few large "deathstar" ones. Wanna easy example? I go first and I send my "Gretchin" to the front of the line while hiding my "Deathstar" behind LoS blocking terrain. When you activate YOUR deathstar you get to shoot it at my Gretchin. Perfect, Next I will activate my "Deathstar" and wreck YOUR Deathstar. Players who invest entirely in big expensive heavy units get out manuevered. \\



This sounds like you have never actually played AA 40k and your just theory crafting what you THINK would happen based on a bunch of false assumptions. I.E. the data shows that you are WAY off.

To address your points in turn:
1. I agree that as a concept it's generally less disruptive, but activating a 700 point knight is more advantageous than activating a 40 point guardsman squad. If I do this twice in a row, I have effectively activated my entire army (at least the bits of it that count) before you have activated even 100 points of guardsmen. IMO, this is very similar to current IGOUGO 1st turn advantage as I have activated almost my entire army before you do anything of value. How would armies like dark eldar survive changing to AA with no superheavy equivalents?
2. Within the confines of AA, the units which are capable of contributing the most per activation are the new measuring stick of a deathstar. For example, any of the more expensive knights can both shoot and fight multiple units effectively per activation.
3. Name a single unit capable of hiding behind typical LOS blocking terrain that can emerge and wreck a knight on it's own in one activation. Even if that exists, both players can do this, and it's what the entire game devolves into as it is the best strategy... for example:

How do you beat this 2k list under AA?

Knights Superheavy:
Castellan
Castellan
Helverin

AM battalion
2 Company commanders
5 infantry squads

AM battalion
2 tempestors
3 scions squads

No melee focused army could ever achieve 50% win rate, as there is no way to engage the knights in combat without spending many activations fighting through waves of bodies, while every "turn" the big knights always activate 1st and 2nd.

No psychic focused army could ever achieve 50% win rate as there is no single psyker that can inflict enough damage to even bracket a knight let alone survive the return fire.

No deepstrike list could ever achieve 50% win rate, under this weird scenario the knights don't activate 1st and 2nd, rather they wait out the arrival of a significant number of deepstrikers - wiggling some guardsmen around until there are sufficient bodies on the ground to justify leaf blowing them away (similar style to your gretchin example).

The most likely style of list to oppose it would seem to be another army with lots of guns. Likely an army with those guns concentrated onto a small number of units, so that as many as possible fire per activation, and with the most protection from the "ignore damage till the end of the turn" stratagem. Probably shadowswords or knights then.

I like the concept of AA, but it works best when the units available are more homogenous in power level. The vast difference in power between different unit choices in 40k makes it difficult to balance without moving all damage to a new damage phase, but with a damage phase your point about many small units outmanoeuvring opponents becomes an extremely potent tactic.

Your argument is basically "points are not balanced right now so they won't be balanced in AA" I mean no gak but AA gives more agency instead of twiddling your thumbs for half an hour to an hour.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Your argument is basically "points are not balanced right now so they won't be balanced in AA" I mean no gak but AA gives more agency instead of twiddling your thumbs for half an hour to an hour.

Not even close, my argument is that even though points/balance right now isn't perfect, AA would be a massive incentive to always play a certain style of list like the example I gave, making almost all other styles of play impossible to compete. Exactly how much agency do you think AA gives a dark eldar player when they have no units that can activate with as much impact as a knight? I imagine losing every game is less desirable than thumb twiddling.

I mean in an ideal world Superheavies would be banished to Apoc only. I like the idea of forcing TITANIC Lords of War to have to take multiple actions to do stuff.

Or just decree my Alt Action Homebrew disallows LoW.

Insularum wrote:

Spoiler:

 Lance845 wrote:

Insularum wrote:
These are nice rules, but alt act wouldn't really fix more problems than it creates in 40k. 1st turn advantage is replaced with 1st activation advantage, and the inclusion of a strat to move damage from real time to end of turn means that the new meta is a minimum 2 deathstar list, 1 to be ignored till the turn end and 1 to "alpha strike":

Player A: activates 1st deathstar, attacks 1 of player B's deathstars (it uses strat to stay alive)
Player B: activates 1st deathstar, attacks 1 of player A's deathstars (it uses strat to stay alive)
Player A: activates 2nd deathstar with impunity, kills player B's 2nd deathstar
rinse and repeat, until player A is left with the last standing deathstar unit

I'm not aware of any alternate activation game systems that have the range of scales that 40k has, with units ranging from nurgling to titan sized under one ruleset. Alternate activation would make it mandatory to always activate with big units 1st, and makes it very hard to justify including small units in any circumstance as activating some gretchin is a waste of an activation.

1, 1rst activation advantage is easily and obviously nowhere near the problem that 1rst turn is and inherent in any game where turns exist. It's the least disruptive thing you could possibly have.

2, Deathstars don't really exist. But lets pretend they do.

3, Its arguably FAR more advantageous to have many small activations then just a few large "deathstar" ones. Wanna easy example? I go first and I send my "Gretchin" to the front of the line while hiding my "Deathstar" behind LoS blocking terrain. When you activate YOUR deathstar you get to shoot it at my Gretchin. Perfect, Next I will activate my "Deathstar" and wreck YOUR Deathstar. Players who invest entirely in big expensive heavy units get out manuevered. \\



This sounds like you have never actually played AA 40k and your just theory crafting what you THINK would happen based on a bunch of false assumptions. I.E. the data shows that you are WAY off.

To address your points in turn:
1. I agree that as a concept it's generally less disruptive, but activating a 700 point knight is more advantageous than activating a 40 point guardsman squad. If I do this twice in a row, I have effectively activated my entire army (at least the bits of it that count) before you have activated even 100 points of guardsmen. IMO, this is very similar to current IGOUGO 1st turn advantage as I have activated almost my entire army before you do anything of value. How would armies like dark eldar survive changing to AA with no superheavy equivalents?
2. Within the confines of AA, the units which are capable of contributing the most per activation are the new measuring stick of a deathstar. For example, any of the more expensive knights can both shoot and fight multiple units effectively per activation.
3. Name a single unit capable of hiding behind typical LOS blocking terrain that can emerge and wreck a knight on it's own in one activation. Even if that exists, both players can do this, and it's what the entire game devolves into as it is the best strategy... for example:

How do you beat this 2k list under AA?

Knights Superheavy:
Castellan
Castellan
Helverin

AM battalion
2 Company commanders
5 infantry squads

AM battalion
2 tempestors
3 scions squads

No melee focused army could ever achieve 50% win rate, as there is no way to engage the knights in combat without spending many activations fighting through waves of bodies, while every "turn" the big knights always activate 1st and 2nd.

No psychic focused army could ever achieve 50% win rate as there is no single psyker that can inflict enough damage to even bracket a knight let alone survive the return fire.

No deepstrike list could ever achieve 50% win rate, under this weird scenario the knights don't activate 1st and 2nd, rather they wait out the arrival of a significant number of deepstrikers - wiggling some guardsmen around until there are sufficient bodies on the ground to justify leaf blowing them away (similar style to your gretchin example).

The most likely style of list to oppose it would seem to be another army with lots of guns. Likely an army with those guns concentrated onto a small number of units, so that as many as possible fire per activation, and with the most protection from the "ignore damage till the end of the turn" stratagem. Probably shadowswords or knights then.

I like the concept of AA, but it works best when the units available are more homogenous in power level. The vast difference in power between different unit choices in 40k makes it difficult to balance without moving all damage to a new damage phase, but with a damage phase your point about many small units outmanoeuvring opponents becomes an extremely potent tactic.

the unit would not need to kill a knight in one go. every unit that activates after the knight, can ignore the loyal 32 chaff, and focus on bringing down the knights.

ok, so the knight is for the deepstrikers to arrive so that it can blow them all up. 2 options:

1: the deepstrikers are dealing damage to the knight, and the knight stands the risk of being bracketed before it activates
2: The deepstrikers aren't for killing the knight, so the other units already on the board start to kill the knight instead.

Yes, one big unit can have a better activation than multiple smaller ones, and in a world without cover or LOS blocking terrain, where the knight is free to do whatever it wants without any restrictions, then it will be better than multiple smaller units. But with scenery, and player agency to hide/hold back, the knight is unlikely to be able to kill everything it wants to.

Let's look at another example you've neglected - transports.

15 tankbustas in a battlewagon roll up towards your knight, and fire rokkits at it. The knight activates, shoots the wagon, blows it up and kills 3 tankbustas in the explosion. It can't target the tankbustas, as they weren't there at the start.
15 more tankbustas roll up n a second wagon, and shoot the knight - and at this point, has probably nearly killed it. it has also blocked LOS to the first unit of tankbustas, so your second knight cannot shoot them.

Or, what about annoying units to bog you down?

I have an ork army with all anti tank (kustom mega blasta dreads, ssag, tankbustas etc) and boys. My first move is to da jump the boys to line up a charge against all your chaff. The boys will be shooting & charging in their next activation, and your line of guardsmen probably won't survive it - and that's a lot of chaff to lose. You could commit your knight to kill the boys, but it can't see the KMB dreads,nor target the SSAG, and so would be somewhat wasted. what do you do? If you activate the knight, then the anti-tank wrath of the orks (don't scoff, we're not that bad at it!) will probably kill the knight. If you don't, then the boys will activate and kill a lot of your guardsmen, losing you utility on the battlefield (not everything is about killing). It's call-your-bluff moves like this which AA would allow for, and which IGOUGO denies.



to BCB, would I be right in thinking that psychic powers like da jump would only be useable on unactivated units - otherwise I could move into position, shoot everything, draw out the enemy, and then disappear somewhere else when the weirdboy activates!

 some bloke wrote:
to BCB, would I be right in thinking that psychic powers like da jump would only be useable on unactivated units - otherwise I could move into position, shoot everything, draw out the enemy, and then disappear somewhere else when the weirdboy activates!

That is a good catch.

Several ideas about how to "deal" with powers and buffs.

Currently my thinking would be:
Buffs last until the start of the next turn, to simplify book-keeping. This does mean using powers earlier is more beneficial, and means that an enemy can "take advantage" of the buff expiring the next turn, but I think that is fine in the over-all scheme of things.
As for telyporty powers, there is sometimes a legitimate reason to buff a unit after it has acted, so I am not sure. Perhaps any powers that would move or remove a unit from the board, if used on a unit that has already been activated, only resolve at the end of the turn while resolving normally for non-activated units? For example you might want to move a unit into range of a Farseer so it can Fortune it later.

BaconCatBug wrote:Same for units in "open topped" transports, whenever you decide to activate the embarked unit, they act independently of the transport so will shoot on their activation, not the transports.

some bloke wrote:Let's look at another example you've neglected - transports.

15 tankbustas in a battlewagon roll up towards your knight, and fire rokkits at it. The knight activates, shoots the wagon, blows it up and kills 3 tankbustas in the explosion. It can't target the tankbustas, as they weren't there at the start.
15 more tankbustas roll up n a second wagon, and shoot the knight - and at this point, has probably nearly killed it. it has also blocked LOS to the first unit of tankbustas, so your second knight cannot shoot them.

This goes down the same way, it takes 2 activations to move a wagon then fire the tankbustas, by which point both knights have fired. The point I am (probably quite badly) trying to make, is that if damage happens in real time in an AA environment, high value units get a huge boost due to weighting a disproportionate amount of your army to activating before your opponent - and I do not see how that is an improvement on the existing 1st turn advantage in IGOUGO, as you can replicate the 1st activation advantage every single turn instead of the one off benefit of 1st turn advantage.

To put this in the simplest terms I can manage, the player with the strongest individual unit always gets 1st turn advantage under real time AA.

Insularum wrote:
To put this in the simplest terms I can manage, the player with the strongest individual unit always gets 1st turn advantage under real time AA.

And the solution to that is reduce the massive variance from weakest to strongest unit. The gulf between Grots and Leman Russ/Monolith is less than Grots to Knight Dominus, so remove the knights and now no problem.

Insularum wrote:

Spoiler:

 Lance845 wrote:

Insularum wrote:
These are nice rules, but alt act wouldn't really fix more problems than it creates in 40k. 1st turn advantage is replaced with 1st activation advantage, and the inclusion of a strat to move damage from real time to end of turn means that the new meta is a minimum 2 deathstar list, 1 to be ignored till the turn end and 1 to "alpha strike":

Player A: activates 1st deathstar, attacks 1 of player B's deathstars (it uses strat to stay alive)
Player B: activates 1st deathstar, attacks 1 of player A's deathstars (it uses strat to stay alive)
Player A: activates 2nd deathstar with impunity, kills player B's 2nd deathstar
rinse and repeat, until player A is left with the last standing deathstar unit

I'm not aware of any alternate activation game systems that have the range of scales that 40k has, with units ranging from nurgling to titan sized under one ruleset. Alternate activation would make it mandatory to always activate with big units 1st, and makes it very hard to justify including small units in any circumstance as activating some gretchin is a waste of an activation.

1, 1rst activation advantage is easily and obviously nowhere near the problem that 1rst turn is and inherent in any game where turns exist. It's the least disruptive thing you could possibly have.

2, Deathstars don't really exist. But lets pretend they do.

3, Its arguably FAR more advantageous to have many small activations then just a few large "deathstar" ones. Wanna easy example? I go first and I send my "Gretchin" to the front of the line while hiding my "Deathstar" behind LoS blocking terrain. When you activate YOUR deathstar you get to shoot it at my Gretchin. Perfect, Next I will activate my "Deathstar" and wreck YOUR Deathstar. Players who invest entirely in big expensive heavy units get out manuevered. \\



This sounds like you have never actually played AA 40k and your just theory crafting what you THINK would happen based on a bunch of false assumptions. I.E. the data shows that you are WAY off.

To address your points in turn:
1. I agree that as a concept it's generally less disruptive, but activating a 700 point knight is more advantageous than activating a 40 point guardsman squad. If I do this twice in a row, I have effectively activated my entire army (at least the bits of it that count) before you have activated even 100 points of guardsmen. IMO, this is very similar to current IGOUGO 1st turn advantage as I have activated almost my entire army before you do anything of value. How would armies like dark eldar survive changing to AA with no superheavy equivalents?
2. Within the confines of AA, the units which are capable of contributing the most per activation are the new measuring stick of a deathstar. For example, any of the more expensive knights can both shoot and fight multiple units effectively per activation.
3. Name a single unit capable of hiding behind typical LOS blocking terrain that can emerge and wreck a knight on it's own in one activation. Even if that exists, both players can do this, and it's what the entire game devolves into as it is the best strategy... for example:

They don't NEED to beat the knight in a single activation. Once the knights activation for the turn has been eaten up I have the rest of my turn to do whatever I want to it. It's already committed itself and now it's a sitting duck.

How do you beat this 2k list under AA?

Knights Superheavy:
Castellan
Castellan
Helverin

AM battalion
2 Company commanders
5 infantry squads

AM battalion
2 tempestors
3 scions squads

No melee focused army could ever achieve 50% win rate, as there is no way to engage the knights in combat without spending many activations fighting through waves of bodies, while every "turn" the big knights always activate 1st and 2nd.

No psychic focused army could ever achieve 50% win rate as there is no single psyker that can inflict enough damage to even bracket a knight let alone survive the return fire.

No deepstrike list could ever achieve 50% win rate, under this weird scenario the knights don't activate 1st and 2nd, rather they wait out the arrival of a significant number of deepstrikers - wiggling some guardsmen around until there are sufficient bodies on the ground to justify leaf blowing them away (similar style to your gretchin example).

The most likely style of list to oppose it would seem to be another army with lots of guns. Likely an army with those guns concentrated onto a small number of units, so that as many as possible fire per activation, and with the most protection from the "ignore damage till the end of the turn" stratagem. Probably shadowswords or knights then.

I like the concept of AA, but it works best when the units available are more homogenous in power level. The vast difference in power between different unit choices in 40k makes it difficult to balance without moving all damage to a new damage phase, but with a damage phase your point about many small units outmanoeuvring opponents becomes an extremely potent tactic.

I am not going to sit around and theory craft a turn by turn entire game with you. I am going to ask you to confirm my suspicion. Have you ever actually PLAYED AA?

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 some bloke wrote:
to BCB, would I be right in thinking that psychic powers like da jump would only be useable on unactivated units - otherwise I could move into position, shoot everything, draw out the enemy, and then disappear somewhere else when the weirdboy activates!

That is a good catch.

Several ideas about how to "deal" with powers and buffs.

Currently my thinking would be:
Buffs last until the start of the next turn, to simplify book-keeping. This does mean using powers earlier is more beneficial, and means that an enemy can "take advantage" of the buff expiring the next turn, but I think that is fine in the over-all scheme of things.
As for telyporty powers, there is sometimes a legitimate reason to buff a unit after it has acted, so I am not sure. Perhaps any powers that would move or remove a unit from the board, if used on a unit that has already been activated, only resolve at the end of the turn while resolving normally for non-activated units? For example you might want to move a unit into range of a Farseer so it can Fortune it later.

Another option for tellyporty powers would be to either include a "the unit selected then activates as if it were its turn" clause, and only allow it to work on unactivated units.

Or, you could reword them such that, when the unit next activates, it immediately jumps into position instead of moving.

Another alternative would be for Tellyporting to jump units into reserves, and they can then appear when reserves do. This would be a clean way to do it, and yes, more useful on units which have already activated, but that's tactics I guess.
The only worry there is units appearing, attacking, then disappearing until the next turn... I guess the best approach would be to allow any unit to do so, but units which are moved may not move in their next activation - beit this turn or the next - and may not be moved by any means until their next activation, except to pile into combat. Also cannot be jumped again in the same turn.

This is an awkward one to word - cannot move until after they activate allows jump>activate>jump. (with 2 weirdboys). can only be jumped once in a turn also allows it over 2 turns - jump as last action, activate unit as first unit, then jump as second action to get away. though this ds make the unit useless every other turn, which might be a god balancer, really...though if you have 2 units, you can alternate them in what I will pre-emptively name the "hokey-cokey" manouver.

He already has a rule to allow a unit to activate a character with it. The boyz activate with a psyker ork and then the psyker casts Da Jump and then the turn continues as per normal.

 Lance845 wrote:
He already has a rule to allow a unit to activate a character with it. The boyz activate with a psyker ork and then the psyker casts Da Jump and then the turn continues as per normal.

that is an option, though it would be good to maintain the utility to not have to activate the unit that moment - for example, activate weirdboy and tankbustas, jump boys out of combat with a vehicle, then attack the vehicle with the tankbustas. activate the boys later on.

jump type powers will be very useful, really - jumping screens around to maximise effectiveness. 30 boys soak up a charge for the mek guns, then get jumped away so the mek guns can shoot, meanwhile (what's left of) the boys screen goes to screen the other flank, before the opponent activates it (ll going to plan, of course).

I really want to play AA 40k now, I'll have to recommend it to my group once the government isn't grounding us any more...