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hello

I've been brewing a set of simple AA rules. I'm looking for opinions and detecting pitfalls in my reasoning.

SHOOT BACK : During the movement and shooting phase, any unit who gets fired at, can fire back. The player getting shot at can shoot back if the targetted unit has not previously shot during this round.
By firing back, the targetted unit looses the ability to shoot when next activated, but it keeps the ability to move. The targetted unit can only fire back at the unit who targetted it.
Removing models is done after both units have shot. Damage tables are taken into account before wound allocation.

A unit cannot overwatch with weapons if it has already shot with during any previous phase.

Fall back : a unit who falls back suffers D3 mortal wounds, capped at 1 wound per attacking models. (ie if a unit falls back from another, the unit that stays in place cannot do more wounds that it has models).

Units coming from reserve with the ability to deepstrike, can do so 6 inch from their opponents instead of 9. The 9 distance is historically tied to the game’s turn structure. Now that movements are alternated, there is no reason to keep this mechanic which deeply hurts deepstriking melee units.

If you alternate within a phase but don't allow charging until the end of the turn then when the orks move their boyz into position to charge my tau my tau will use their movement to move back out of the charge range of the orks making them unable to charge or very unlikely to make their charge.

Alternatively I will move an unfavorable target between their intended target and them. Like a devilfish transport.

Also, now that I can see what they WANT to do, I can focus all my shooting into that unit crippling it's ability to pose a threat.


With 40k you cannot do AA and separate out the individual phases like this. It cripples melee units.

 Lance845 wrote:
If you alternate within a phase but don't allow charging until the end of the turn then when the orks move their boyz into position to charge my tau my tau will use their movement to move back out of the charge range of the orks making them unable to charge or very unlikely to make their charge.

Alternatively I will move an unfavorable target between their intended target and them. Like a devilfish transport.

Also, now that I can see what they WANT to do, I can focus all my shooting into that unit crippling it's ability to pose a threat.

With 40k you cannot do AA and separate out the individual phases like this. It cripples melee units.

The way you present it, a tactical decision immediately taken to react to your opponents moves sounds like a bad thing. To me it sounds exactly like the kind of game i want to play.

You cannot have AA without the opponents reacting to what you do, that's basically the whole points. It's on you to create new strategies and opportunities to adapt.

Let's take an unmodified 40k system : the tau can blast 1/4 of your boys turn 1 without you being able to do anything about it. Is that better ?

"This is bad but it's better than something worse" doesn't make the thing stop being bad.

When I am given the opportunity to drink milk that has been left out for a week, or milk that has been left out for two weeks, I don't sing the praises of the week old milk.

You claim it gives people the ability to "react" to opponents movement, but what is your answer/solution to the problem that it makes melee even more unviable than it is now? Or are you just biased against melee armies and want everything to be static gunlines shooting each other?

Siegfriedfr wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
If you alternate within a phase but don't allow charging until the end of the turn then when the orks move their boyz into position to charge my tau my tau will use their movement to move back out of the charge range of the orks making them unable to charge or very unlikely to make their charge.

Alternatively I will move an unfavorable target between their intended target and them. Like a devilfish transport.

Also, now that I can see what they WANT to do, I can focus all my shooting into that unit crippling it's ability to pose a threat.

With 40k you cannot do AA and separate out the individual phases like this. It cripples melee units.

The way you present it, a tactical decision immediately taken to react to your opponents moves sounds like a bad thing. To me it sounds exactly like the kind of game i want to play.

You cannot have AA without the opponents reacting to what you do, that's basically the whole points. It's on you to create new strategies and opportunities to adapt.

Let's take an unmodified 40k system : the tau can blast 1/4 of your boys turn 1 without you being able to do anything about it. Is that better ?

No. Thats not a tactical decision because the melee units don't have any other choice. They HAVE to move into position to charge and they HAVE to put themselves at the mercy of the other player in doing so. Melee units are incapable of doing anything about it.

AA does let the opponent react to you. But you STILL have to have agency to do something. If instead of alternating within phases a unit activated and did all 4 of it's phases before the enemy got to react then the melee units can move charge and fight and then the opponent can react to the now changed battle field. The melee unit has agency and the second player gets their agency when they activate. What you have strips all the agency away from a sizable chunk of the units in the game and an entire phase of the game.

Siegfriedfr wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
If you alternate within a phase but don't allow charging until the end of the turn then when the orks move their boyz into position to charge my tau my tau will use their movement to move back out of the charge range of the orks making them unable to charge or very unlikely to make their charge.

Alternatively I will move an unfavorable target between their intended target and them. Like a devilfish transport.

Also, now that I can see what they WANT to do, I can focus all my shooting into that unit crippling it's ability to pose a threat.

With 40k you cannot do AA and separate out the individual phases like this. It cripples melee units.

The way you present it, a tactical decision immediately taken to react to your opponents moves sounds like a bad thing. To me it sounds exactly like the kind of game i want to play.

You cannot have AA without the opponents reacting to what you do, that's basically the whole points. It's on you to create new strategies and opportunities to adapt.

Let's take an unmodified 40k system : the tau can blast 1/4 of your boys turn 1 without you being able to do anything about it. Is that better ?

The scenario Lance is describing doesn't create interesting choices. It just makes it easier for your opponent to kite your melee units. For this reason, it might be a good idea to move charging into the move/shoot phase. So a unit would be allowed to move, shoot, and charge in that order as part of their activation during this phase.

Also, thoughts on moving psychic powers to the command phase or to just after the command phase? As you have it, players wouldn't be able to put up any psychic defenses (which some armies really rely on) until after they've endured their opponent's first volley. And then, if their opponent gets to activate first, they might just shoot any units with offensive buffs to death at the start of the next move/shoot phase before the buffed unit can actually benefit from its offensive buffs. This would also make more sense for mobility powers. Warp Time/Quicken doesn't really do me a lot of good if I have to wait until my next turn (and potentially after my opponent's shooting) to do something with the double-moved unit.

I'm not sure what you're going for with your deepstriking changes. As I understand them, my deepstriking shooty units would be unable to shoot the turn that they arrive. So if I deepstrike some meltaguns, I'll have to ask my opponent to please not charge them, shoot them to death, or simply move away from them before I have a chance to attack with them. That's pretty brutal for units like firedragons that are already having a hard time. Letting deepstrikers arrive 6" away means that you'll be succesfully charging out of deepstrike well over half the time before rerolls or charge buffs. For a lot of armies, this will mean that charges out of deepstrike are nearly guaranteed. While this is a buff for melee armies who are presently at a disadvantage, it also promotes largely non-interactive gameplay. If I'm playing a mostly shooty army, you'll just tie up half my guns on turn 2 and prevent me from shooting for the rest of the game. Even if I have cheap screens (not all armies do) to charge into your deepstrikers, I'll still just be trading badly for a turn and then end up getting tied up on the next turn.

I'm not fond of the mortal wounds on fall back because it doesn't actually fix the main issues with fallback. It's just sort of a spiteful middle finger to the guys running away. A middle finger that will be dramatically more effective against a squad of harlies or terminators than a squad of termagaunts.

Rather than alternating activation per se, I wonder how the game would work if each round a unit could only do one thing; I.e. shoot OR move OR engage in melee (inc. charge)?

 Jadenim wrote:
Rather than alternating activation per se, I wonder how the game would work if each round a unit could only do one thing; I.e. shoot OR move OR engage in melee (inc. charge)?

Well, I imagine it would absolutely cripple any army that had to do anything other than shoot. On one side of the table, you have the horde of blood letters that would have to wait an extra turn to charge (assuming the unit they spent several turns moving towards didn't simply move backwards while their friends kept shooting). On the other end, you have the tau or guard gunline whose offense didn't really need to move in the first place. So on top of the alpha strike we currently see, the non-gunline army's ability to retaliate would be severely reduced.

Plus, you'd be severely diminishing the value of any given unit that's good at more than one thing. Especially if they need to do more than one thing to be effective. So you're hurting the value of something like a ravager that can move fast and shoot well, but you're also making shining spears unplayable as they depend on their ability to move fast to get in range to shoot well and charge well.

One page 40k has alternating activation that works really well, I suggest you check it out. IMO, those rules fix most of what doesn´t really work too well with normal 40k, and make for a much more interesting and fun game.

They are a bit too rules-light on some areas though, so not a proper tourney rules-set as is.

Wyldhunt wrote:

 Jadenim wrote:
Rather than alternating activation per se, I wonder how the game would work if each round a unit could only do one thing; I.e. shoot OR move OR engage in melee (inc. charge)?

Well, I imagine it would absolutely cripple any army that had to do anything other than shoot. On one side of the table, you have the horde of blood letters that would have to wait an extra turn to charge (assuming the unit they spent several turns moving towards didn't simply move backwards while their friends kept shooting). On the other end, you have the tau or guard gunline whose offense didn't really need to move in the first place. So on top of the alpha strike we currently see, the non-gunline army's ability to retaliate would be severely reduced.

Plus, you'd be severely diminishing the value of any given unit that's good at more than one thing. Especially if they need to do more than one thing to be effective. So you're hurting the value of something like a ravager that can move fast and shoot well, but you're also making shining spears unplayable as they depend on their ability to move fast to get in range to shoot well and charge well.

Wouldn't this be where assault weapons could allow an "assault" action to be taken where a unit can move and shoot (At the -1 penalty)

This would leave your list of actions as:

Move - the unit may move as normal. No other Penalties
Use ability - The unit may use an ability as described in it's codex entry.
Advance - The unit may make a normal move and increase the distance by +1d6 inches. The advancing unit suffers a -1 modifier to hit if it is engaged in combat in the same turn it advanced.
Shoot - The unit may shoot using its weapons. The unit is also eligible to fire overwatch if it is charged and has not activated yet.
Assault - The unit may move and shoot or shoot then move. The moving unit may not end it's move further away from an enemy model than it started at.
Charge - The unit may charge a unit within its charge range. If it reaches the enemy unit, that unit may not take it's activation if it has not already done so, unless it can fire overwatch.

This is just a basic rundown not a comprehensive list and some actions can be expanded on or made into their own category if need be.

 Jadenim wrote:
Rather than alternating activation per se, I wonder how the game would work if each round a unit could only do one thing; I.e. shoot OR move OR engage in melee (inc. charge)?

That's kind of how Bolt Action/Gates of Antares (written by the people who wrote 40k for the first four editions) works. When a unit activates you can either shoot at no penalty, move and shoot at a penalty, move double and fight melee if you get into combat, hold your action to make a reaction shot later, go to ground and be harder to shoot, or rally and remove pinning markers.

 Tristanleo wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:

 Jadenim wrote:
Rather than alternating activation per se, I wonder how the game would work if each round a unit could only do one thing; I.e. shoot OR move OR engage in melee (inc. charge)?

Well, I imagine it would absolutely cripple any army that had to do anything other than shoot. On one side of the table, you have the horde of blood letters that would have to wait an extra turn to charge (assuming the unit they spent several turns moving towards didn't simply move backwards while their friends kept shooting). On the other end, you have the tau or guard gunline whose offense didn't really need to move in the first place. So on top of the alpha strike we currently see, the non-gunline army's ability to retaliate would be severely reduced.

Plus, you'd be severely diminishing the value of any given unit that's good at more than one thing. Especially if they need to do more than one thing to be effective. So you're hurting the value of something like a ravager that can move fast and shoot well, but you're also making shining spears unplayable as they depend on their ability to move fast to get in range to shoot well and charge well.

Wouldn't this be where assault weapons could allow an "assault" action to be taken where a unit can move and shoot (At the -1 penalty)

This would leave your list of actions as:

Move - the unit may move as normal. No other Penalties
Use ability - The unit may use an ability as described in it's codex entry.
Advance - The unit may make a normal move and increase the distance by +1d6 inches. The advancing unit suffers a -1 modifier to hit if it is engaged in combat in the same turn it advanced.
Shoot - The unit may shoot using its weapons. The unit is also eligible to fire overwatch if it is charged and has not activated yet.
Assault - The unit may move and shoot or shoot then move. The moving unit may not end it's move further away from an enemy model than it started at.
Charge - The unit may charge a unit within its charge range. If it reaches the enemy unit, that unit may not take it's activation if it has not already done so, unless it can fire overwatch.

This is just a basic rundown not a comprehensive list and some actions can be expanded on or made into their own category if need be.

That’s starting to sound quite a bit like the Kill Team rules. Hmmm, I wonder if you can play a 40k size game just by substituting units for individual models in KT rules? Might have to try that...

 Jadenim wrote:

 Tristanleo wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:

 Jadenim wrote:
Rather than alternating activation per se, I wonder how the game would work if each round a unit could only do one thing; I.e. shoot OR move OR engage in melee (inc. charge)?

Well, I imagine it would absolutely cripple any army that had to do anything other than shoot. On one side of the table, you have the horde of blood letters that would have to wait an extra turn to charge (assuming the unit they spent several turns moving towards didn't simply move backwards while their friends kept shooting). On the other end, you have the tau or guard gunline whose offense didn't really need to move in the first place. So on top of the alpha strike we currently see, the non-gunline army's ability to retaliate would be severely reduced.

Plus, you'd be severely diminishing the value of any given unit that's good at more than one thing. Especially if they need to do more than one thing to be effective. So you're hurting the value of something like a ravager that can move fast and shoot well, but you're also making shining spears unplayable as they depend on their ability to move fast to get in range to shoot well and charge well.

Wouldn't this be where assault weapons could allow an "assault" action to be taken where a unit can move and shoot (At the -1 penalty)

This would leave your list of actions as:

Move - the unit may move as normal. No other Penalties
Use ability - The unit may use an ability as described in it's codex entry.
Advance - The unit may make a normal move and increase the distance by +1d6 inches. The advancing unit suffers a -1 modifier to hit if it is engaged in combat in the same turn it advanced.
Shoot - The unit may shoot using its weapons. The unit is also eligible to fire overwatch if it is charged and has not activated yet.
Assault - The unit may move and shoot or shoot then move. The moving unit may not end it's move further away from an enemy model than it started at.
Charge - The unit may charge a unit within its charge range. If it reaches the enemy unit, that unit may not take it's activation if it has not already done so, unless it can fire overwatch.

This is just a basic rundown not a comprehensive list and some actions can be expanded on or made into their own category if need be.

That’s starting to sound quite a bit like the Kill Team rules. Hmmm, I wonder if you can play a 40k size game just by substituting units for individual models in KT rules? Might have to try that...

I never even thought of that. I mean the rules for kill team work, so trying it out should at least be worth investigating. I guess one thing to consider is how long it could take to set up all the tokens to determine what each units does and resolve each action as it could drag the game on quite a bit.

I don’t think it would be that bad; you have 10 ish models in Kill Team, if you assume that would equate to 10 units of ~100points each, that’s a 1000 point battle without any increase in tokens / activations

 Jadenim wrote:
I don’t think it would be that bad; you have 10 ish models in Kill Team, if you assume that would equate to 10 units of ~100points each, that’s a 1000 point battle without any increase in tokens / activations

It depends on list design; a "unit" in 40k can be a 300pt tank/block of Terminators or a 30pt small character. Even in Kill Team you can have a 2-model Custodian warband or a 20-model Guard warband.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Jadenim wrote:
I don’t think it would be that bad; you have 10 ish models in Kill Team, if you assume that would equate to 10 units of ~100points each, that’s a 1000 point battle without any increase in tokens / activations

It depends on list design; a "unit" in 40k can be a 300pt tank/block of Terminators or a 30pt small character. Even in Kill Team you can have a 2-model Custodian warband or a 20-model Guard warband.

A completely untested thing I've been kicking around for my (probably now irrelevant) combat patrol rules set:

* No units with T6 or higher unless you have a rule saying otherwise (mostly for allowing a single transport).

* Squads can only contain the minimum squad size unless noted otherwise.

* A straight up ban list for problematic units (mostly Celestine in this context).


The intended result is that you have a pretty good idea of what a given unit is going to look like, and it's pretty tough to build the combat patrol equivalent of a death star. Want to field some dark reapers? At 3 bodies, that squad is going to die fast and will represent about 20% of your total army. Want to include a tank? Sure, but it's probably going to something like a rhino rather than a predator.