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Oh! That squad of 30 Conscripts 11" away from my Intercessors passed their Order roll earlier - let's thin their numbers before they fire!

The enemy just moved to the objective with a squad of Scouts, so let's move our Infantry Squad just close enough to get ObSec before the turn is over.

The Stalker is in a prime position to hit at least one of my Valkyries - I think I'll hit it with the Macharius Vanquisher before it fires next activation!

...

Appealing in theory, not in practice...

 Grimtuff wrote:

Hecaton wrote:

 catbarf wrote:
Andy Chambers wanted to do exactly that for 4th Ed. GW corporate said no.

You got a source on that? I'd love to read about it.

Can’t find a source ring now, but it is fairly well known that the rules for Mongoose’s Starship Troopers game is what Chambers wanted for 40k.

When he left GW he used those concepts he already laid out to make SST. 40k’s own rules from 3rd to 7th are essentially based on a 15mm WW2 game that Rick Priestley was working on that he bodged into 3rd Ed at the last minute. If Chambers and Priestley got their way, 40k would be incredibly different.

Priestly also is cowriter of Bolt Action...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

mrFickle wrote:
The thing is GW has never had a different system as far as I am aware and if they did make such a massive change to the rules and method of then really it’s a different game isn’t it. But they could put out a second official play style.

Excuse me, have you never seen how dramatically the game changed between 2E to 3E and the amount of change between 7E and 8E?

 Slayer6 wrote:
Oh! That squad of 30 Conscripts 11" away from my Intercessors passed their Order roll earlier - let's thin their numbers before they fire!

The enemy just moved to the objective with a squad of Scouts, so let's move our Infantry Squad just close enough to get ObSec before the turn is over.

The Stalker is in a prime position to hit at least one of my Valkyries - I think I'll hit it with the Macharius Vanquisher before it fires next activation!

...

Appealing in theory, not in practice...

The thing is, you can do this exact thing back to your opponent. I mean, that's obvious right?

If one is going to change the turn structure of the game, then it would be reasonable to conclude that such changes would affect the order and sequencing of actions. That's the whole point. If you don't want to change the order and sequence of the actions, then why would one bother pursuing a change to the turn structure.

I mean, in the current rules... you opponent could move their 30 conscripts into 11" and fire at your unit too. And their tanks, and artillery, and their entire army before you'd have a chance to shoot with your intercessors!

 Slayer6 wrote:
Oh! That squad of 30 Conscripts 11" away from my Intercessors passed their Order roll earlier - let's thin their numbers before they fire!

The enemy just moved to the objective with a squad of Scouts, so let's move our Infantry Squad just close enough to get ObSec before the turn is over.

The Stalker is in a prime position to hit at least one of my Valkyries - I think I'll hit it with the Macharius Vanquisher before it fires next activation!

...

Appealing in theory, not in practice...

Yeah, you just described why people ask for AA, it gives opportunities for counterplay unlike IGOUGO

Alternating activations works fine in Kill Team. It worked fine in Epic 40k. It works fine in every game of other types that I've tried that uses it.

Would it take a major redesign for some balance issues? Sure. Would it be worthwhile to create a more engaging, more strategic, and more modern game?

Yes, I think it would. The main thing I dislike about Kill Team, as a matter of fact, is the IGOUGO movement phase that can completely determine how a game is going to turn out with a single role.

AA also helps mitigate the effect of the going first advantage, because now its down to a single unit (or set of units however you do it) going first, rather than my entire army getting to blast and charge your entire army (potentially reducing you by 10 to 20%) before you can even react.

But mostly it just reduces my boredom.

 Slayer6 wrote:
Oh! That squad of 30 Conscripts 11" away from my Intercessors passed their Order roll earlier - let's thin their numbers before they fire!

The enemy just moved to the objective with a squad of Scouts, so let's move our Infantry Squad just close enough to get ObSec before the turn is over.

The Stalker is in a prime position to hit at least one of my Valkyries - I think I'll hit it with the Macharius Vanquisher before it fires next activation!

...

Appealing in theory, not in practice...

"Ah, I see it is my turn first. My strategy will be that ALL my things, MY ENTIRE ARMY, and kill a solid 500-750pts of your stuff before you ever get to move, take psychic tests, shoot, charge or score with it."

Appealing in....no...nevermind, that does seem to just suck.

If it was full AA instead of by phase I think it'd be better to take a bunch of tiny chaff units to activate while the bulk of my army remained hidden, then once my opponent had gone with his whole army jump the real units out to gank him.

Oh man imperial/chaos knights would be a hoot.

Maybe elite armies would get multiple activations per phase to balance it. Like lets say a knight would have 3, but a unit of grots would have 1 . It could even help with making vehicle unit different from just taking them as solo. A LR would have 1 activation, but if you took 3 in one unit they would get 3 activations.

Karol wrote:
Maybe elite armies would get multiple activations per phase to balance it. Like lets say a knight would have 3, but a unit of grots would have 1 . It could even help with making vehicle unit different from just taking them as solo. A LR would have 1 activation, but if you took 3 in one unit they would get 3 activations.

considering concentration of action is also something you want, AND the corresponding power of elite formations, i doubt that to be necessary. Karol.

Karol wrote:
For all the armies writen by GW in a such a way they that only function, if they go through a whole turn of buffing, debuffing, casting etc An AA system would require a house rewrite of those armies codex rules.

It makes stuff like deep strike unusable for anything other then grabing objectives and staying out of LoS, again hurting factions where use deep strike as their deployment/movment method.

Maybe it is possible to make w40k a good AA system, but it would took years to rewrite the rules for all or even most w40k factions.

It's almost like dropping right next to all your opponents in entrenched positions is dangerous and that they aren't just going to stand around and wait for you to do everything.

Epic Armageddon is a great game with a really good alternating activation system. You can attempt to activate more than one unit when it is your turn, but there is a risk that your unit will do nothing that turn rather than simply activate later.

Teleport is the deep strike in epic armageddon. You place your units at the start of the turn and then alternating activation begins. It forces you to deploy tactically rather than putting your whole army anywhere you like.

Great discussion everyone! Thanks for all of the different ideas - we will definitely try a few out when it is safe to do so again.

Just wanted to touch on why I said "it pains me to say..."

I hate rules disputes, I hate grey areas, and I hate arguing with people in order to gain a competitive edge in a game. If I win, I want to win because of the game itself, not because I used language to twist a confused situation to unfold in my favour.

The answer may be "then 40k is not the game for you!" And thats probably true! Unfortunately tabletop wargaming is an incredibly niche hobby. It may seem to be the world to many of us, but it is really a small community and 40k is the monolith. Knowing the rules of 40k and playing 40k is really the best/only way to get a lot of tabletop wargames under the belt.

I wait patiently for the return of Warhammer Fantasy Battle - but that seems years down the road. So for now, I dig my heels in and search for way in which the 40k rule system may be improved.

Alpha strikes, amped up by a shoot twice strategem (which most factions have), remains the biggest culprit of removing interesting gameplay options. Sticking a giant rock in the middle of the board to block LOS works, but it does not solve the underlying problem.

Everyone discusses the extreme lethality of units in 40k - AA inherently solves that issue by forcing players to choose how to target and distribute damage, rather than simply alpha as hard as they can right away. Alpha striking remains the best strategy - period, because if successful you cripple your opponent and they cannot ever catch up again.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
If it was full AA instead of by phase I think it'd be better to take a bunch of tiny chaff units to activate while the bulk of my army remained hidden, then once my opponent had gone with his whole army jump the real units out to gank him.

Oh man imperial/chaos knights would be a hoot.

In many implementations, that means the now-depleted-by-indirect-fire unit jumps out into the waiting guns of an entire army's worth of units on overwatch, and is killed in the crossfire before it can blink. Readied actions/opportunity fire/overwatch is one of the more popular ways to address exploitation of the activation order.

In others, a unit that comes under attack might be able to react with a limited action. Units that have already activated often get a single reaction for free, while units that have yet to activate can react, but at the cost of part of their activation this turn. So, your unit pops out to do the ganking, and the enemy either returns fire or scurries into cover. This incentivizes you to activate your star units early, so that they can both fight early and still be able to react later.

In some, your units are allocated into formations that activate as a group. You may not have the option to put all your star units in one formation, and if you do, your opponent knows exactly what to target before you have the opportunity to activate. Losing a formation leader can mean running the risk of failing to activate normally, limiting your activity. Putting all your eggs in one command-and-control basket magnifies their strength, but also their vulnerability to disruption.

In a few, you don't even get to pick what order your units (or formations) activate in, and neither player knows which unit or formation will be activating next. I personally enjoy it as I find it an effective representation of Clausewitzian 'friction', but a lot of wargamers hate that degree of randomness.

Again, lots of ways to implement AA. Lots of lessons learned over the past thirty-ish years from the issues it introduces. Raw alternation with no reactions or deferred actions has problems of its own, it's just a step in the right direction. I'd be just as happy with IGOUGO with reactions.

Reactions like that can cause problems though.
Both players just setting their own whole army on Overwatch and daring their opponent to make the first move is a good example.

I know one game though, that gives every unit two actions.
When the unit activates, it must use all of it's remaining actions (1/2).
However, one unit per enemy action can interrupt, using one of it's own actions to return fire.

Like any rules, the exact implementation of AA has it's positives and negatives. Indeed, what you view as a positive or a negative may differ between different people.

In Necromunda, I would describe smaller, more elite gangs, having to activate first is a feature - not a bug.

Karol wrote:
Maybe elite armies would get multiple activations per phase to balance it. Like lets say a knight would have 3, but a unit of grots would have 1 . It could even help with making vehicle unit different from just taking them as solo. A LR would have 1 activation, but if you took 3 in one unit they would get 3 activations.

Gates of Antares and Warlords of Erehwon (sci-fi and fantasy d10-based games written by Rick Priestly and using the Bolt Action activation system) actually covers this via Multiple Order Dice and Monster Dice, respectively.

Particularly powerful/expensive units like tanks or monsters add 2 or more dice to the bag and can be activated more than once in a turn.

the_scotsman wrote:

 Slayer6 wrote:
Oh! That squad of 30 Conscripts 11" away from my Intercessors passed their Order roll earlier - let's thin their numbers before they fire!

The enemy just moved to the objective with a squad of Scouts, so let's move our Infantry Squad just close enough to get ObSec before the turn is over.

The Stalker is in a prime position to hit at least one of my Valkyries - I think I'll hit it with the Macharius Vanquisher before it fires next activation!

...

Appealing in theory, not in practice...

"Ah, I see it is my turn first. My strategy will be that ALL my things, MY ENTIRE ARMY, and kill a solid 500-750pts of your stuff before you ever get to move, take psychic tests, shoot, charge or score with it."

Appealing in....no...nevermind, that does seem to just suck.

500-750? That's a very conservative number... Try 40% to 60% instead...

I had a recent 2000pt game where a trio of Deathstrikes hidden right at the back behind a giant piece of terrain was able to practically eliminate 1400 points of Custodes on Turn 3...

But the best part is, that I know GW will never add an alternative activation system to their main game... So absolute alpha strike armies have nothing to worry about!

Because in the end, the biggest drawback to alternative actions is when you have armies with uneven unit counts. Such as an AM army of 35 units versus a Custodes army of 7 - when those 7 Custodes have had their actions for the turn, do they get additional actions, or do they simply sit there and take it as 28 other units get their own counter actions? How about 3 Knights versus 15 Tyranids?

If you decide to cycle additional activations amongst units which have already had their turn you can technically create imbalance... Disproportionate power, etc. Stormlord, vs Orks for instance:

Stormlord fires
Ork Shoota Boys Mob 1 fire
Stormlord fires
Ork Trukk 3 fires
Stormlord fires
Ork Shoota Boys Mob 2 fire

Karol wrote:
Maybe elite armies would get multiple activations per phase to balance it. Like lets say a knight would have 3, but a unit of grots would have 1 . It could even help with making vehicle unit different from just taking them as solo. A LR would have 1 activation, but if you took 3 in one unit they would get 3 activations.

Having an Imperial Knight activate 3 times per turn sounds kind of crazy. The general point of elite units is that they are better than chaff or line units, and should be able to outfight them on their turns. If someone is going to such a skew that their entire list is only 3 or 4 activations, they should have a disadvantage in terms of maneuver and reaction: they are putting all their eggs in one basket. And even in that worst case scenario, its still better than current 40k with the foes entire army activating before you can do anything. Plus, unless those elite units are made of glass (which 40k, so fair enough I guess with how much damage armies can deal), they should be able to tank a few good hits even if caught out of position.

That said there are ways to mitigate it - as others said reaction moves/abilities exist in some systems, or perhaps the ability to defer an action till later in the turn under certain circumstances, or maybe certain elite units can add extra tiles into the action bag (for games where you draw randomly to determine who activates), and while you still have the same total number of activations, you can get a few extra draws and slightly more ability to pick WHEN you take your action.

 Slayer6 wrote:
...Because in the end, the biggest drawback to alternative actions is when you have armies with uneven unit counts. Such as an AM army of 35 units versus a Custodes army of 7 - when those 7 Custodes have had their actions for the turn, do they get additional actions, or do they simply sit there and take it as 28 other units get their own counter actions? How about 3 Knights versus 15 Tyranids?...

I've worked on this a lot over the years. There are three fixes:
--Initiative system: Like in X-Wing. Players don't get to choose the order of their activations, they go in descending order of initiative. More expensive units get to go faster. Unfortunately, on the scale of 40k and given how GW designed the last "Initiative" system they had, what you'd effectively get is still player turns only the player with the more elite army always gets to go first.
--Random activations: Like in Bolt Action. Instead of switching off one to one you put a token for each unit or tokens for each player equal to the number of units they're using in a bag, then draw tokens to determine who gets to go next. This theoretically intersperses activations such that the player with more units remaining has greater odds of getting to go next, and stretches out the number of activations available to the player with fewer activations. In practice it still kind of breaks down with the kind of unit count disparity in 40k.
--Chunk activations: Like Epic. Before the game starts assign all units in both armies to the same/a similar number of "chunks", then alternate activating all units in one chunk rather than alternating one unit. This one's probably the easiest and most practical fix to apply to 40k, but I've yet to come across a wargame that uses it, which makes me nervous.

 Gregor Samsa wrote:
Great discussion everyone! Thanks for all of the different ideas - we will definitely try a few out when it is safe to do so again.

Just wanted to touch on why I said "it pains me to say..."

.......

Everyone discusses the extreme lethality of units in 40k - AA inherently solves that issue by forcing players to choose how to target and distribute damage, rather than simply alpha as hard as they can right away. Alpha striking remains the best strategy - period, because if successful you cripple your opponent and they cannot ever catch up again.

You might also want to look at THIS THREAD. In addition to the turn structure changes discussed here, I also think that there are some aspects of the game rules that could be changed (without having to throw out all the codexes) that would work to tone down the lethality issue in various ways.

I also think, as discussed at length in the recent threads about objectives and secondary scoring, the current mission design exacerbates the lethality question. In addition to fixing the core rules, the mission design I think also needs to be re-thought and made more diverse.

The challenge one runs up against when trying to convince people entrenched in the current edition of the game is that they often have a lot invested in their army. Changing rules is GOING to impact the relative value and effectiveness of units, and it's GOING to impact people's attitude towards changes when they feel their units of choice would be negatively impacted. I think the price to pay for critical adjustments to the rules, if it raises the potential for deeper gameplay, is worth having to rethink your army list from scratch.

This ability to discourse at a meta level about universally applicable rules is a very important skill.

 Slayer6 wrote:
Because in the end, the biggest drawback to alternative actions is when you have armies with uneven unit counts.

If alternating activation only worked for games with comparable unit counts, it wouldn't have come to be one of the most popular turn structures in wargaming. Check out my last post. There are lots of ways the issue you bring up has been addressed.

And I think you, and others, overestimate how much of a problem it is to begin with- being able to go early by having a smaller unit count is advantageous in its own right. I mean, in a game where currently going first is a significant advantage, why would anyone say 'oh no, my entire army gets to act before more than a quarter of my enemy's can'?

The number and significance of each activation would become a consideration when list building and playing.
I think this is a good thing, it adds some real decision making depth that ultimately comes down to more than "how many buffs can I stack".

Some armies like Knights or Custodes would struggle to achieve a large number of activations due to their expensive units, and that's fine.
There's always allies.
IMO factions like that shouldn't be a viable stand alone army anyway.

 Slayer6 wrote:
Oh! That squad of 30 Conscripts 11" away from my Intercessors passed their Order roll earlier - let's thin their numbers before they fire!

The enemy just moved to the objective with a squad of Scouts, so let's move our Infantry Squad just close enough to get ObSec before the turn is over.

The Stalker is in a prime position to hit at least one of my Valkyries - I think I'll hit it with the Macharius Vanquisher before it fires next activation!

...

Appealing in theory, not in practice...

You've basically highlighted the advantages of AA, not the disadvantages. Each of those scenarios requires the player to consider whether responding to a threat is the best play or creating a threat of your own. A player who literally just reacts is likely to lose but the same is true of a player who disregards their opponent's actions and carries on with their plan regardless.

Like many of the responses here it seems a lot of people haven't played an AA-based game so don't really seem to understand how the system works, specifically how it changes decision making.

 kurhanik wrote:

Karol wrote:
Maybe elite armies would get multiple activations per phase to balance it. Like lets say a knight would have 3, but a unit of grots would have 1 . It could even help with making vehicle unit different from just taking them as solo. A LR would have 1 activation, but if you took 3 in one unit they would get 3 activations.

Having an Imperial Knight activate 3 times per turn sounds kind of crazy.

You could write the rules such that while it could be activated multiple times in a round, it couldn't take the same action more than once. Similar to how most strats work atm.
This could also come at a cost. The easiest that comes to mind is that each unit only puts 1 activation into the pool. But things with the ability to act ++ still use one of those precious activation per action they take. So if that Knight Moves + Shoots + Fights? Well, two other units aren't doing anything....

Having played infinity, the whole "elite armies would be bad because they would get less activations" idea makes no sense to me.
My army has better stats/equipment than the other armies and hits better than them. Me getting less activations when i play Pano (space marines) than when i play Ariadna (Imperial guard) doesnt make the game unbalanced.

ccs wrote:
You could write the rules such that while it could be activated multiple times in a round, it couldn't take the same action more than once. Similar to how most strats work atm.
This could also come at a cost. The easiest that comes to mind is that each unit only puts 1 activation into the pool. But things with the ability to act ++ still use one of those precious activation per action they take. So if that Knight Moves + Shoots + Fights? Well, two other units aren't doing anything....

Taking two minimum sized squads of Guardsman to supercharge a Knight is also silly.
Have you played Alternating Activation games much? Because I believe you're searching for a solution to a problem that doesn't actually exist.

Yes, please. After playing SW Legion for more than an year, I can safely say AA beats IGOUGO in fun and game dynamics.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Having played infinity, the whole "elite armies would be bad because they would get less activations" idea makes no sense to me.
My army has better stats/equipment than the other armies and hits better than them. Me getting less activations when i play Pano (space marines) than when i play Ariadna (Imperial guard) doesnt make the game unbalanced.

Having played SW Legions.. It's pretty much "More Activations, more power" that helped dominate the meta for such a long time between sniper activation, constant troop outputs, and other issues.

 kirotheavenger wrote:

ccs wrote:
You could write the rules such that while it could be activated multiple times in a round, it couldn't take the same action more than once. Similar to how most strats work atm.
This could also come at a cost. The easiest that comes to mind is that each unit only puts 1 activation into the pool. But things with the ability to act ++ still use one of those precious activation per action they take. So if that Knight Moves + Shoots + Fights? Well, two other units aren't doing anything....

Taking two minimum sized squads of Guardsman to supercharge a Knight is also silly.
Have you played Alternating Activation games much? Because I believe you're searching for a solution to a problem that doesn't actually exist.

1) While I can envision many ways of playing these games, I don't think there's a problem and I'm really not searching for a solution. I don't care if 40k stays IGUGO or changes. I'm good either way.
2) I don't see how my idea would supercharge a knight. As is Knights can already move/shoot/charge/fight AND the Guard squad can do the same. As can the next Guard squad. My idle musing of multiple, but must be different, actions would at best allow the Knight the same options it currently enjoys - at the expense of one or more of those Guard squads not doing anything.
3) Yes, chiefly Bolt Action atm.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Having played infinity, the whole "elite armies would be bad because they would get less activations" idea makes no sense to me.
My army has better stats/equipment than the other armies and hits better than them. Me getting less activations when i play Pano (space marines) than when i play Ariadna (Imperial guard) doesnt make the game unbalanced.

Infinity gets around this by giving you an action for every action your opponent takes in most instances. It's also really not an alternating activation game for a few key reasons, but uses its ARO system to provide similar levels of interactivity.

AA is a system I generally prefer, but it comes with its own design pitfalls. It works best in games with relatively few activations that have roughly equal value. Large numbers of activations lead to issues of models losing their interactivity for long periods of time between rounds. The sense of responsiveness that you get from AA goes away when a model activates early and then sits out another dozen activations. Likewise, if games have too much cost disparity, the system hugely punishes expensive units because the opponent never lets them take meaningful activations by essentially "passing" until the expensive model loses the ability to respond. Few games feel as "gamey" as when a player is playing red rover tag with activation counts.

Again, I'm a huge fan of Alternating Activation designs, but you have to do more than just alternate taking actions in an existing engine.

 LunarSol wrote:


Again, I'm a huge fan of Alternating Activation designs, but you have to do more than just alternate taking actions in an existing engine.

obviously, it "works" as a homebrew without many changes but it would still require a full redesign (ie : a new edition) to be implemented at large in 40k.