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you can have an Action/Reaction based System with Turns and Alternate Activations

using Alternate Activations with Reactions just interrupts the game flow and slows it down
hence why a Reaction should never interrupt an Action no matter how realistic it might be, it is just bad for the game flow

Move/Shoot/CC Phase by itself does not work well with modern combat
therefore there is movement outside the movement phase, which makes the idea if dedicated phases obsolete

also a reason why alternating phases does only were well as long as nothing else is done in that phase (all Movement including charges in the Move Phase, all Shooting in the Shooting Phase and all Melee in the CC phase)

to add in reactions, you can add a reaction range, were a reaction may be taken if an enemy unit finish a reaction in range
with specific reaction on differente factions/units

Based on the comments and what people are hoping to get out of a system to me accurately depict the flow of combat - it seems to me that it is perhaps less a desire to have AA specifically than it is a desire to have some sort of reaction mechanism and/or simultaneous resolutions for certain things.

Let's use the tank and AT infantry analogy. You have AT infantry setup waiting to fire on a tank, but the tank, on its turn lumbers around the corner and shoots at the AT guys, blows them away, and that's the end of the story. More realistically, tank comes around the corner and the AT guys shoot at the tank first (before tank can line up a shot). Maybe the tank dies, or maybe it lives and returns fire. Or maybe both sides fire at the same time.

I'm imaging a system where the basic game flow is still IGOUGO, but that you give players options for both a "proactive" and "reactive" option in addition to the normal option.

So for example, let's take the AT infantry.

OPTION #1 - On their turn you could use the AT squad normally (move, shoot, etc.). Or...

OPTION #2 - You could place them on overwatch - deferring their shooting in order to interrupt an enemy unit's MOVE in order to shoot at that unit first. Maybe there's a slight penalty (i.e. -1 to hit if the target wasn't in LoS at the start of the turn, or whatever). Or....

OPTION #3 - Perform a reaction action if certain conditions are met - i.e. if the tank fires on you, you can fire back, with both attacks occurring simultaneously. Reactions would then restrict what the unit can do on it's own next turn. I.e. if you took the "return fire" action that prevents the unit from running/shooting/assaulting on its next turn (but you could take a perhaps a normal move).

The above set of options, more so than AA, would create some more interesting decision points for the player. Do you use the unit normally (with maybe your opponent reacting to the attack?), or defer it's action (overwatch) in order to take a more opportunistic shot later? Do you take a response action if it means limiting what the unit can do on its next full turn?

To me, these questions and situations are more interesting than the sort of decision space AA would create. It engages players more on each others turn (overwatch and reactions), but keeps a lot of the overall structure of the game intact.

Thoughts?

this is how we once ruled it (early 6th Edition)

Units act, Models react

Every time a unit is chosen to do something, the unit is activated and performs an Action.
Every unit can only be selected once per Phase, performing a single Action and has to completely finish it before the next unit is activated. No unit can perform 2 Actions during a Phase nor can the player interrupt an Action of a unit to change it or activate another unit (eg stop moving a unit because the player realise that it would block another unit and moving the other unit first).
Units and models in Alarm Status (out of formation, failed Leadership test, gone to ground) can only perform Reactions and no Actions.

If a unit finish an Action all enemy models within 8 inch of a model of that unit can perform a Reaction.
Only affected models can perform a reaction but don’t have to if the player don’t want to react. The target of the reaction can only be the unit which triggered it.

Possible Reactions are:

Return Fire
Reacting models can shoot with -1 to hit at the enemy unit.

Retreat
The reacting models make a single move directly away from the enemy unit.

Counter-Attack
The reacting models can make melee attacks against enemy models in point blank range.

Counter-Charge
The models can make a single move and attack the enemy unit in close combat. This is handled like it would be a normal charge action.

All models use Retreat and Return Fire as standard Reaction. The army list stats which other Reactions can be used or if special Reactions are available.

Overwatch
Instead of performing any action in that turn a unit can switch to overwatch.
The unit chose a direction and forms a fire corridor which is as wide as the unit. The reaction range in this corridor is increased by 8 inch but the unit cannot react to actions outside the corridor

I mean there are also the Beyond the Gates rules.

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/733472.page

Based on action/reaction with AA activations - but I think you could actually use the action/reaction system but keep the normal IGOUGO overall system. Makes for sort of a hybrid game.

when I wrote the above, this was already seen as too far and removing phases not an option at all (same as removing tank armour was a no go but we found a workaround)

yet it worked at least better than the original

For me, for any sort of AA or major turn structure adjustment to stick, it has to work in conjunction with the core rules and an existing set of codex books. Approaches that create major imbalances or issues with codex books, prompting lots of edits or FAQs for the codexes is a huge barrier for a system like this getting adopted.

As an aside, I'm working on ProHammer and trying to make it work essentially for any codex from 3rd - 7th edition. Global rules in ProHammer modify or adjust board aspects of codex books (like no formations from 7th edition books) but don't require codex specific modifications. Ideally the turn structure changes here would work similarly.

So, let's consider IGOUGO as the basic system - but then enrich it with a series of primed and response reactions that, taken collectively, start to break down the IGOUGO system.

"Primed" actions are those where you proactively put a unit into a certain state of preparedness by deferring action on its current turn in order to interrupt an opponent's turn and conduct a certain action. An example of a primed action is something like overwatch fire second 2nd edition. You put the unit into a state of readiness allowing you to interrupt your opponent's movement in order to shoot at them.

"Response" actions are those you take during an opponent's turn in response to a unit being affected by a certain enemy actions, and which then limit the types of the actions the unit can take on their next normal turn. An example of this is the "Go to Ground" rule that lets you take emergency cover in response to being shot, with the restriction that you can't move next turn and only shoot on snap fire.

I think adding in a few more of these type of options could start to change the gameplay in a way that's similar in some respects to AA, but that preserves the core structure of the 40K game.

For example, what if alongside "go to ground" you have an option to "return fire" and resolve hits simultaneously with a unit shooting at you, but then you can't shoot at all next turn (but would still be allowed to take a normal move).

The main issues with Alternating Activation systems is that they tend to fall apart as games scale up. It's a system that works best when each side has roughly the same number of activations, each activation is worth a similar percentage of the army, and the total number of activations is relatively low. If these aren't taken into account, its very easy for the system itself to warp balance in weird ways, usually by rewarding players that can take a high volume of cheap pass tokens to turn the game back into IGOUGO by removing the opponent's ability to respond to their actions.

Army building in 40k really isn't set up in a way that lets you just slap an Alternating system on it as is. I think there's some potential in doing something with alternating detachments, but you'd have to go back to something more like what 8th used for that to work. Honestly, you may just find out that by the time you get something working, you've essentially recreated Apocalypse.

So, awhile ago, I played with an earlier thought experiment at thr tail end of 7th which was to redo Overwatch in a way that also eliminated Interceptor. The idea was to create a "middle ground" between 2nd ed and 6th-9th Overwatch, where rather than shutting down movement, it would make attacks more risky.

Tldr: In this experimental form of "Overwatch-hammer," a unit could forfeit shooting in its shooting phase in order to enter Overwatch. When an unengaged enemy unit declared an attack (defined as tank shock, shooting, witchfire, malediction, or charging unit) vs a unit within 6" of at least one overwatching units, one of tbose ovetwatching units could preempt the attack with a shooting attack of their own, after which the overwatch would end.

It was a little gamey that Overwatch didn't stop "movement" by itself, but it created a maneuver-shenanigan system where you wanted to position your units around to minimize return fire as much as you could. The only real danger edgecase was ruling that Warp Spiders could not both Overwatch and Flickerjump vs the same attack, but options that explicitly comboed with shooting (e.x. Battle Focus) did.

I actually really like Apocalypse's system for the scale it is at. It also replicates C2 pretty well (not that it goes into detail about C2 networks or anything, but the "out of command units can't receive orders when the rest of their detachment activates" is pretty cool and you can riff off of that for houserules).

IGOUGO with Reactions is much more "lurch-y" than simply alternating phases (or activations). I do think it is still flawed, though, but it generally handles our tank example very well.

Conceptually speaking, what are the types of reactions and/or primed overwatch-like things that would make sense to include in a responsive turn structure? Note - I think vehicles could take primed actions but not reactions.

---------------------------------------------

Overwatch >>> "Primed" shooting response to enemy movement (normal moves or charge moves). Interrupt enemy movement to take a shot. Declare overwatch instead of shooting/running/assaulting.

Counter-Charge >>> "Primed" response to being charged or a friendly unit within 6" being charged (allows you to break cover and simultaneously charge your opponent and/or support an ally unit being charged). Declare counter-charge instead of shooting/running/assaulting.

---------------------------------------------

Take Cover! >>> "Reaction" to being shot at. Improves cover save but limits shooting/movement next turn.

Return Fire! >>> "Reaction" to being shot at. Exchange fire simultaneously (-1 to BS for reaction fire) and can't shoot next turn.

Hold the Line! >>> "Reaction" to being charged (-1 BS to shooting but don't attack back when fighting - also negates cover advantage). Can't shoot next turn.

I wouldn't make it too complicated. The problem with Overwatch/reactions in an IGOUGO system is visible from 2nd edition 40k, which had exactly that mechanic; it becomes an "overwatch-off" where both armies deploy out of LOS/in cover from each other, and then go into overwatch. The first valuable unit that moves gets utterly trashed by the enemy overwatching it, so there's no incentive to move.

Besides, it's not a great way of grasping the fluidity of combat. It doesn't feel very fluid when a unit interrupts another unit, does exactly one thing and does it poorly (e.g. -1 to-hit) and then the enemy turn resumes completely unimpeded by that unit. AA is much smoother and simpler, as is alternating phases.

The thing with units on the tabletop is that they're real "people", at least in the setting, and not models. Their reactions won't be perfect (my Baneblade crew might panic when Ork Tankbustas move out from cover to acquire a target, even if I'd rather save it to shoot at the 30 boys squad that's rushing down my poor infantry). Conversely, their reactions might be even better than I could've planned for (the main gun knocks out the tankbustas trukk, then the heavy bolters hose down the bustas themselves, because the trained crew has fought Orks before and knows that inside every trukk is something to fire heavy bolters at). So simply slapping a single reaction into the regular IGOUGO structure feels inadequate.

Conceptually, to the "overwatch-off" approach it needs to be implemented in a way where there is some trade-off involved. The "most potential" option should always be taking the normal action (i.e. shooting during your own turn). Overwatch (primed action) lets you defer acting but with a penalty that it may not be as effective (no splitting fire, to-hit penalties, range limits of 18" or 24" etc.).

I'm also looking at this from the lens of ProHammer which uses declared firing - so if you declare overwatch fire on a unit that you end up not being able to shoot at (i.e. it never moves into view) then you've wasted your opportunity.

The game has also changed considerably since 2nd edition days - in particular there are more objectives that require board position and movement to secure I feel. I dunno - I played a lot of 2nd edition and overwatch was useful but never felt like it undermined the flow of the game.

2nd ed Overwatch was very much a case of it "freezing the game" due to a lack of tradeoff: forfeit movement and shooting, to lock down enemy movement with your own shooting. Other than the strictly mechanical stuff ("which model do you remove fron the squad"), this also meant a large standoff with most armies not doing too much (and that's before getting to rolling for smoke/blind grenades...)

Linking Overwatch to "attacks" would be more limited in scope, and would mainly be useful vs. reserve-based attacks, or move-attack-move powers, independent of edition. Whether it's pre-8th Crisis Suits, 8th-9th Tallarn Tank Commanders, 7th ed Psykers, etc. "7th ed Ynnari Warp Spiders" are arguably the perfect usecase for a unit that essentially existed outside the normal 40k rules, and were what originally prompted this thought experiment.

The main restriction would be the fact that *one* unit gets to resolve overwatch before the unit resolves its declared attack, so depending on edition, this would either mean an inability to combo with other options, or the results being an annoyance/overkill depending on if you run msu or shooty blobs. The fact that overwatch would be vs one unit, would also mean losing access to any "split fire"-style powers.

Great discussion! I myself have been toying with this for quite a while and I have always kept a few things in mind:

You can find my set of proposed rules and turn structure here, but I'll quote all my rationale below.

Pillars and constraints

Added Complexity: Players that want AA are looking for added tactical depth in the play/counter-play nature of AA, meaning that the game will be perceived as more complex and require more cognitive load from players. Any proposed rule will move the core game system away from a “beer and pretzels”, sit and relax game experience.

Full Compatibility: The proposed system must be compatible with all codex, units and stratagem rules as much as possible, meaning that all players need to play this variant is to understand the new turn structure. No changes to datasheets or core rules outside of the turn structure will be required.

Balance via “levelled playing field”: Balance is always a shifting concept and hard to grasp, especially if you are comparing apples to oranges. Old strategies may be invalidated by a change and new exploits will be found. What AA advocates seek for, however, is to address the powerful alpha-strike potential of certain shooting army compositions when they are able to position and shoot indiscriminately and with no reaction possible. There will always be an advantage in any system to the player who “goes first”, only simultaneous activation systems truly prevent this, but the extent of that advantage is greatly diminished in an AA system versus IGOUGO, thus the “levelled playing field” removing so much power from the initiative roll, which is a “no player agency” roll that should have less of an impact on the tactical options a player has.

Practical considerations

The proposed rules system aims at achieving the following goals on top of the aforementioned assumptions:

Maintain unit action density vs traditional 40k: Meaning that all units should move, fight, shoot and all other actions as many times as they would have. This is especially challenging due to the nature of the fight phase, in which players will actually have alternating activations inside of the IGOUGO structure.

Avoid reactive movement preventing charges: one of the hardest elements to balance properly in 40k is that of melee vs shooting, and in moving to a true AA system where every player can immediately react to an opponent’s movement becomes even more apparent. In order to preserve melee armies ability to close the distance before the enemy has a chance to escape the movement aspect of a turn for the reactive player happens at the end of a turn, after shooting. This lets melee armies move and charge before the enemy reacts, but also forces shooting armies to move in and stay within charge distance after getting range to shoot their weapons.

Lower the impact of Alpha-striking: Alpha Strikes are much less efficient since a maximum of 3 units can shoot at a single target before the target has a chance to react. This is lessened (and stays closer to current 40k balance) if the shooting army has range and can stay still, thus shooting with a few more guns before the enemy can retaliate.
Another side-effect of this structure is that focusing firing an enemy unit, but failing to destroy it can result in an opportunity to fire at a secondary target before they get a chance to shoot. This can have a great impact on the flow of the game as the rules of target priority, which aligns with the Added Complexity pillar.

Battle book-keeping: with any AA system there will come the necessity to clutter the field with some form of book-keeping counters. It is recommended that players use colored counters to mark which units they have already “activated” in any mixed sub-phase.

So the proposed Battle Round Sequence is:

1 - Command Phase - Mixed
2 - Active Player Movement Phase
3 - Psychic Phase - Mixed
2 - Shooting Phase - Mixed
3 - Active Player Charge Phase
4 - Initial Engagement Fight Phase - Mixed for chargers and heroic intervention
5 - Reactive Player Movement phase
6 - Reactive Player Charge phase
7 - Counter Engagement Fight Phase - Mixed for chargers and heroic intervention
8 - Ongoing Engagement Fight Phase - Everybody else fights
9 - Morale Phase - Mixed

You can find way more details and other explanations on my blog, it's just such a hassle to format it all to be read here in the forums. Follow the link below.
http://wargamingrebel.blogspot.com/2020/10/alternating-activations-for-warhammer.html

I love these discussions and what you guys have already exposed and other rulesets have really inspired me. I don't claim that this is the best, and it does make the turn structure waaaay more complex, but at the end of the day, it's the best shoe-horned alternate activation system I can think of within the constraints we've established so far. At least my best attempt at it.

arhurt wrote:
Great discussion! I myself have been toying with this for quite a while and I have always kept a few things in mind:

Added Complexity:
Full Compatibility:
Balance via “levelled playing field”:

.....

So the proposed Battle Round Sequence is:

1 - Command Phase - Mixed
2 - Active Player Movement Phase
3 - Psychic Phase - Mixed
2 - Shooting Phase - Mixed
3 - Active Player Charge Phase
4 - Initial Engagement Fight Phase - Mixed for chargers and heroic intervention
5 - Reactive Player Movement phase
6 - Reactive Player Charge phase
7 - Counter Engagement Fight Phase - Mixed for chargers and heroic intervention
8 - Ongoing Engagement Fight Phase - Everybody else fights
9 - Morale Phase - Mixed

This is slick, and is somewhat inline with the ideas that I was puzzling over in one of my recent attempts, although I didn't get as far as you did Nice work!!

There are a couple of key insights in here. One is that I really appreciate your pillars of wanting to have something that works out of the box without having to modify codexes. Getting people to play a new system is one thing - if they then have to use a totally different codex it's quite another!

I think how you've interlaced the phases with alternating activations, and specifically with the 'reactive' players movement phase occurring after a combined players shooting phase is really smart - as that neatly solves the issue that other AA systems run into where charging units struggle to close range since their intended targets can back off. Also creates more a simultaneous fire situation to reduce the effect of alpha striking. It also allows one side at a time to coordinate their movements across multiple units, addressing issues with transports or characters not being able to move properly alongside other units. Very clever!

I'm going to see if I can adapt this for 5th edition / ProHammer and give it a test out. This is by far the most promising approach I've seen yet.

 Mezmorki wrote:
I'm going to see if I can adapt this for 5th edition / ProHammer and give it a test out. This is by far the most promising approach I've seen yet.

Thanks for the kind words, I really appreciate any feedback and will provide from my own games.

I was quite happy with the result, built on top of some insights I got from playing Killteam and discussions such as this. Killteam had a very neat dynamic where it could even be worse to go first, as you could set up a lot of units to fire first by not moving and your opponent would then simply move out of LoS, exactly the kind of play/counterplay I love about AA systems. Of course that it doesn't translate directly here, but you get the point.

Another tangential inspiration came from Star Wars: Armada, where you shoot before you move (and in an AA system) and this makes it so that movement becomes extremely tactical since you have to move thinking about your next turn's firing. Which is to say that it at least made me think about moving post shooting phase.

Now as much as I like the result, I must point a few points of tension that I have unresolved (and they may well be unavoidable to keep the closest balance to traditional 40k as possible. But it's two concepts to do about combat. Firstly, there are essentially 2 fight phases lined up back to back and that can be both tiring to execute and feel very overpowered if you are a melee army versus a shooting one. I tried my best to alleviate this by only having chargers from both team potentially fighting twice, but it's something to keep in mind. An army like space wolves, which has powerful heroic intervention mechanics, coupled with "fight again" stratagems, can easily chain their melee unhinged by the interrupting other phases.

Which also brings us to the second point which is two movement phases strung back to back if you are reactive player on the first round as you get to reposition, charge, fight and then reposition and fight again as active player on the following turn, potentially negating a lot of firepower with pile-ins and consolidations since the enemy cannot fall back in time to shoot and I didn't want to create a whole exception for this. Some armies like harlequins, who really rely on their fall back and re-engage as an example, can be hit heavily by this. It's less an issue now that vehicles can shoot into combat, but it is a small boost to fast melee units that can potentially shoot down entire gunlines by virtue of going second (or simply making it happen on Battle round 2 to 3).

Edit:This can be remedied by creating a specific "Mixed fall-back sub-phase" just before the Shooting phase.

Thanks for the input everyone.


I've decided that what I want to do is rebuild the core structure of the game using the current stats, and only changing what would be necessary to change to find an efficient game structure.

I have an engineering degree and am very proficient at Excel. I want to convert all the dice rolls to a D12 system which will allow more breathing room for model uniqueness.

I want to keep as many stats the same, as I feel GW knows what their units are capable of.

That being said, upon completion, I would love if everyone would play test it to see how it balances.

Is this something you all would be interested in? I feel confident I can create a basic rules book that improves upon the core game, allows more unique choices in tactical gameplay, without giving one player too much power. I think its time we move the 40k millennium, out of the 1980s.

I'm looking at your rules from the perspective of 5th edition (ProHammer) - and god I'm glad I don't have to deal with stratagems throwing things out of whack. I feel like 8th and 9th could be played comparing army lists and playing a card game with stratagem powers to see who wins - disregarding the physical board entirely. I don't really think this. Well, not entirely...

But anyway, I feel like the structure of earlier editions of the game would work even more cleanly under your system. You don't need a distinct command phase or psychic phase.

I was wondering about melee - and I think for a 5th edition version of this you could just have the active player do their charges, then both sides fight their respective assaults normally. During the reactive players charge phase. they do their charges and then both sides fight their respective assaults. Just like in the standard turn structure, it's possible for each unit to fight twice over a full game turn (once on their turn and once on their opponents turn). This would be the same with your structure as modified above.

Morale is handled differently in 5th - and I think you might need to add a morale check after the active players fight phase and again after the reaction player's fight phase.

==================================

Start of the game - determine Alpha (i.e. active) and Omega (i.e. reactive) player.

Turn 1 - Alpha player acts first.

==================================

Phase 1 - Alpha player Movement (moves all units). Roll for reserves for alpha player. Roll to regroup for alpha player.

Phase 2 - Shooting Phase (mixed). Players alternate shooting in "rounds" with up to 3 units at a time per round, starting with the alpha player. Remove casualties caused from your shooting after opponent finishes their next round (*see note below)

Phase 3 - Assault Phase A. Alpha player declares + resolves charges. All engaged units fight once.

Phase 4 - Morale Check A. Both sides check morale and may fallback if leadership tests fail. Unengaged units that suffer shooting losses test morale. Units loosing melees test morale.

Phase 5 - Omega player Movement Phase + reserves + regroup rolls

Phase 6 - Assault Phase B. Omega player declares charges and resolves them. All engaged units fight once.

Phase 7 - Morale Phase B. As above. This will just be additional morale tests from Assault Phase B.

==================================

*Note on Shooting "rounds"
The idea of not removing casualties until after your opponent's next round is that it enables units fired on to essentially return fire at full strength. If this is too strong - you could do some things to temper this like require you to place units into "overwatch" mode if they don't move on their turn, allowing them to shoot simultaneously or even apply casualties immediately. But even without overwatch, allowing simultaneous fire in groups up to three might be cleaner than having distinguish between moving and non-moving units.

Also - if I'm reading your rules as you intended, it looks like during shooting, the reactive player could potentially fire with all of their units BEFORE the active player, in the event where the active player moved everything. Is this what you intended? Or is really that you just take turns alternating all in one sequence except that you have choose to fire with your units that were stationary first?

Great adaptation, I'm glad it got your gears running.

I'm not as versed in 5th as you are, how where casualties removed? I remember in 7th that they where removed from the front, but as long as you can use counters, or maybe set the models on their sides, you should be able to keep bookkeeping to a minimum.

 Mezmorki wrote:

Also - if I'm reading your rules as you intended, it looks like during shooting, the reactive player could potentially fire with all of their units BEFORE the active player, in the event where the active player moved everything. Is this what you intended? Or is really that you just take turns alternating all in one sequence except that you have choose to fire with your units that were stationary first?

You read that right, but upon reflection I think it can end up hurting more than it helps. It is a note from Killteam and works wonders on that system, but in here it actually throws a wrench in so many ways. In that system both players get to move before they shoot, so it kind of flips it on it's head, I'll have to remove that entirely on hindsight, so consider that changed as I will edit that out as soon as finish this reply. Edit: And done.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

timebandit3077 wrote:
Is this something you all would be interested in? I feel confident I can create a basic rules book that improves upon the core game, allows more unique choices in tactical gameplay, without giving one player too much power. I think its time we move the 40k millennium, out of the 1980s.

I'd have to see a more fleshed out idea before commiting to testing it, but I can surely take a look at what you cook up. Maybe write a few sentences that describe the general direction before you pour too much effort into rebalancing the whole thing, but sure, I'd love to see what you propose.

Having said that, I really believe in not tweaking combat mechanics too much and simply altering the turn structure or other easier to achieve concepts. If you start rolling D12's or consolidating entire unit's shooting into a consolidated averaged roll I feel that it shifts too much out of what makes 40k well... 40k. But I have been positively surprised before!

My main goal was to make the movement, shooting, assault, etc happen simultaneously, I have not gone into details how I would make that work.

My only issue now is apparently doing it this way may move the game out of balance, as GW designed the game with FULL turns before the opponent goes. I fail to see how a few things could be adjusted to adjust for this.

As for the D12 system, its essentially the same. Instead of hitting on 4+ on a D6, you're hitting on 6+ on a D12, etc. however, I wanted to adjust the dice so instead of maxing out at 6, the rolls could go much higher, if you decide to be advantageous. Everything would be balanced so I would minimize the stats changes as much as possible. The whole point of me wanting to do this is to remove the line warfare mechanic I see in every tabletop game. There is no flanking maneuvers, no cover fire, no tactics except for shooting, and what you shoot, and assault, and what you assault, and what units get powerups. For a complex game like this with so many damn stats, its rather lacking in gameplay I think.

The issue with converting everything exactly to a D12 structure is time...There are so many damn stats just for Marines alone, doing it for every army is going to be a chore.

I don't want to rewrite the stats to be different, as I trust they are balanced. I would want to rewrite certain things like armor saves, AP, cover rules to be more dynamic.

As of now, there really isn't one correct way to do this, but it seems that the people would be open to the idea, if it works out. Hell, if it ends up working, I'll send it to GW haha. But people rather see a completed product then testing bits and pieces here and there.

Apocalypse mixes d12s and d6s well and tbf is a better game imo

A 4+ does not becomes 6+ on a d12. Its 7+. You double the number and -1 to keep the same success chance.

2+ = 3+
3+ = 5+
4+ = 7+
5+ = 9+
6+ = 11+

You can open the documents in word and do a replace to adjust every instance of x with y.

 Lance845 wrote:
A 4+ does not becomes 6+ on a d12. Its 7+. You double the number and -1 to keep the same success chance.

2+ = 3+
3+ = 5+
4+ = 7+
5+ = 9+
6+ = 11+

You can open the documents in word and do a replace to adjust every instance of x with y.

Ah right, 50%.

Also, what documents can I open? The data tables? Where can I find those?

Back to Arhurt's proposed system...

I wrote up rules for Interlaced Phases for 5th Ed / ProHammer, and played about 2/3rds of a game last night on Tabletop Simulator.

So it takes a bit to wrap your head around the system - but it does work and create some interesting tactical situations to consider. In no particular order:

Deciding when to charge is a bit more interesting. On game turn A, the Omega player can move and charge towards the end of the turn. They become Alpha player next game turn, and can move then and also charge, although the combined shooting phase sits between the latter move and charge phases. Tactically speaking, this creates an interesting choice. Do I position forces so that I can run out from outside of LoS and immediately charged during my Omega phases, or do I take advantage of getting a double move and charge in the Alpha phase - at the risk of taking casualties from shooting right before the charge. This trade-off doesn't exactly exist in the base game because if you ran out in turn A, your opponent could move away AND also shoot at you before your movement and charge in Turn B. I don't think it undermines the balance, but it sets up some different tactical considerations.

We really like the combined shooting with simultaneous casualty removal within a phase. Feels significantly more balanced, and makes shooting conceptually feel more like assaults where both sides get to exchange blows/shots.

All this said - my group and I never suffered from burdensome / cheesy alpha strike syndrome. Probably because we playing 5th edition before formations/strategems/terrible terrain rules/etc. were all into the game to make shooting as strong as it has become. As a result, the need for an alternative turn structure is less, and I'm not sure the rules added here are really worth the overhead and extra book keeping (which, granted, is pretty minimal). I like the changes - but at the same time the traditional IGOUGO wasn't a big issue for our group.

I'll let you know how the battle turns out. Dark Eldar vs. Blood Angles, 2000 points. It's.... interesting.

 Mezmorki wrote:
Back to Arhurt's proposed system...

I wrote up rules for Interlaced Phases for 5th Ed / ProHammer, and played about 2/3rds of a game last night on Tabletop Simulator.

So it takes a bit to wrap your head around the system - but it does work and create some interesting tactical situations to consider. In no particular order:

Deciding when to charge is a bit more interesting. On game turn A, the Omega player can move and charge towards the end of the turn. They become Alpha player next game turn, and can move then and also charge, although the combined shooting phase sits between the latter move and charge phases. Tactically speaking, this creates an interesting choice. Do I position forces so that I can run out from outside of LoS and immediately charged during my Omega phases, or do I take advantage of getting a double move and charge in the Alpha phase - at the risk of taking casualties from shooting right before the charge. This trade-off doesn't exactly exist in the base game because if you ran out in turn A, your opponent could move away AND also shoot at you before your movement and charge in Turn B. I don't think it undermines the balance, but it sets up some different tactical considerations.

We really like the combined shooting with simultaneous casualty removal within a phase. Feels significantly more balanced, and makes shooting conceptually feel more like assaults where both sides get to exchange blows/shots.

All this said - my group and I never suffered from burdensome / cheesy alpha strike syndrome. Probably because we playing 5th edition before formations/strategems/terrible terrain rules/etc. were all into the game to make shooting as strong as it has become. As a result, the need for an alternative turn structure is less, and I'm not sure the rules added here are really worth the overhead and extra book keeping (which, granted, is pretty minimal). I like the changes - but at the same time the traditional IGOUGO wasn't a big issue for our group.

I'll let you know how the battle turns out. Dark Eldar vs. Blood Angles, 2000 points. It's.... interesting.

Tabletop Simulator? You can make your own game in that? They have 40K?

TTS has everything and can do everything if you have the skills and time to write the the scripts/make the assets.

timebandit3077 wrote:

Tabletop Simulator? You can make your own game in that? They have 40K?

Yes. There is actually a staggering amount of stuff available for it. Check out the stuff for "Battle Forged" armies on TTS.

https://www.reddit.com/r/TTSWarhammer40k/comments/gimh5y/battleforge_mod_compilation/

I'm not sure if you are familiar with TTS or not, but basically you download a package of "saved game" data that connects to an online repository curated content for the game. This includes practically every model in the game, table top board setups for 8th/9th edition, card decks for various things, terrain options, etc. It's pretty insane actually. Works really well once you get the hang of it.

Here's an in-game shot from a couple of games ago:

https://cf.geekdo-images.com/kGsGVSbFnGda85SSfvBbpg__original/img/Cn65fkwtsKXZJp67EvcCX3rbbx8=/0x0/pic5711671.jpg

timebandit3077 wrote:
Tabletop Simulator? You can make your own game in that? They have 40K?

Do note that the vast majority of TTS mods have very little scripting; they're sandboxes full of game pieces/dice rollers/rules quick-reference docs, they don't necessarily implement or enforce any rules. You can play the game with them but if you're not playing with people you know and talking through the game it won't work very well.

 Mezmorki wrote:
So it takes a bit to wrap your head around the system - but it does work and create some interesting tactical situations to consider. In no particular order:

Yeah, it does take a little bit of mental flexing, especially for us that are so used to the 40k flow, to be in that familiar setting, but constantly watching ourselves if we are not just breaking the new order of operations =D

 Mezmorki wrote:
Deciding when to charge is a bit more interesting.

The differences in movement between Active (Alpha) and Reactive (Omega) is really fun and does put some value in going second to exploit that move->fight->move capability. I still feel like it's not overpowered since the first player can still dictate much of the flow of the initial turn and both advantages wane off turn 3-4 as players swap roles.

 Mezmorki wrote:
We really like the combined shooting with simultaneous casualty removal within a phase. Feels significantly more balanced, and makes shooting conceptually feel more like assaults where both sides get to exchange blows/shots.

Indeed, this makes the game feel so fresh. On playing smaller scale games, though, I felt like we need to lower the activation numbers, some 500pts armies, for example, only have 3 units, so I'll likely provide a range that goes from 1 to 2 and then caps at 3 for all games from there on.

 Mezmorki wrote:
All this said - my group and I never suffered from burdensome / cheesy alpha strike syndrome.

It definitely feels like something that started really hurting on 7th with the crazy Formation stacked special rules and plagued 8th with it's simplistic terrain rules. Don't get me wrong, I love 9th, but I still feel like the alternated shooting phase adds rather than subtracts as a whole for that. I'm glad to hear that your group sticks to 5th though, feels like it was a solid system. I actually enjoyed much of 7th before the formation shenanigans.

 Mezmorki wrote:
I'll let you know how the battle turns out. Dark Eldar vs. Blood Angles, 2000 points. It's.... interesting.

Coming back to report the results of our game and some other feedback...

I ended up getting tabled after I made a few tactical blunders and really underestimated my opponent's staying power. I even got lucky and blew up his land raider with a haywire cannon shot But by turn 5 it was apparent that I lost too much stuff early in the game to hold the objectives and didn't quite have the right stuff in the right spot. All in all, it was a great game.

As for arhurt's turn order system - we debated it for a while afterwards. By and large, the net effect of the system is to allow for more simultaneous shooting while allowing each player to still maneuver their forces all at once in a way that doesn't break the basics structure of the game. It did work, and I really like the simultaneous shooting.

However, the "double turns" where an omega player is able to move and charge, and then next turn becomes alpha and can move, shoot, and then charge ends up with it feeling like each player's turn is much longer - and other than an combined shooting phase it is. It means you have to plan out not only your "double moves" and assaults, but also you opponent's "double moves." In a strange sort of way, while making the choices more longer term and consequential, also makes the game feel even less like a back and forth (what AA systems might be trying to achieve in the first place), since players can move so much before your opponent gets a chance to move in response.

Having played this, I think we'll stick to the original turn structure - but are curious to find ways to reintroduce the combined shooting again. It may be that a simple reaction to shooting option is all that is needed. I.E, you can already go to ground as a shooting reaction. What about just adding a "return fire" reaction that means you forego your shooting (and assaulting?) next turn but could still move normally. This could be combined with a simple "overwatch" option that allows you to preemptively place a unit on overwatch (instead of it's normal shooting/assaulting) in order to return fire and then be able to act normally next turn. Do you have to return fire on the unit