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So, I’m getting real sick of IGOUGO, and was curious if anyone has tried 40K with an alt activation system. It seems kinda tricky, due to stuff like auras, but has anyone got any documentation they’ve made with their trials?

Curious how your experience with it was too, whether it worked better or felt bad.

Thanks!

I did some experimentation with AA in 8th. The easiest implementation was a LOTR-style active/reactive system, where within each phase one player would do everything first, then the other player, leaving the Fight phase unchanged.

So, roll off at the start of the turn to determine who can either seize or cede Initiative. The player with Initiative does the command phase first, then their opponent. The player with Initiative moves first, then their opponent. The player with Initiative shoots first, then their opponent. The only exception is that the Fight phase is unchanged, except the player who picks a unit to fight first is the one with Initiative.

Despite retaining the original turn structure I found it made a massive impact, as your opponent having the opportunity to move to spoil your shots before you get to attack made it much harder to pin units down, so positioning was more important for the player with Initiative. For the player going second, figuring out how to position units to survive the imminent attack and effectively return fire was also challenging.

I expected melee to be less useful since it only happens half as often, but that didn't really seem to be the case. While it had less direct damage output, it was no longer possible to walk out of combat and shoot a unit with impunity. Overall I liked this system, but there were specific matchups that it really punished (eg Death Guard versus Drukhari was not fun for the Death Guard player); low movement and short range become more impactful than in a normal IGOUGO system. It would need a game-wide balance pass to really work optimally- but you can probably say that about any AA re-work, so it is what it is.

I've seen another alternating activation implementation on here that went something like this: Place a numbered of colored tokens in a bag equal to the number of units you have on the table. The other player does the same with the same bag, so you have a bag of two colors of tokens.

Draw a token at random, and then keep drawing as long as you keep getting tokens of the same color, stopping as soon as you get one of the other color (which goes back in the bag). The player whose tokens were drawn sequentially then may activate a number of units equal to the number of tokens they got before their opponent got one, and conduct a single 40K turn with just those units. So moving, shooting, charging, melee, etc- and any units they wind up in melee with also get to hit back.

After the activation is completed, the tokens for the units that activated are temporarily discarded, and those units cannot be activated again this round. Once every unit has activated and the bag is empty, the round is over, all the tokens go back in the bag, and a new round begins.

I haven't tried that implementation for 40K, and it seems like there could be some edge cases relating to activation economy, but it's a more 'traditional' flavor of AA that I've enjoyed in other games. Being able to activate multiple units in one go allows for auras to stay with the units they're buffing; but the more units you try to keep together, the longer you'll be waiting for a draw that lets them all activate at once. It's a simple mechanic that provides a touch of C&C friction and unpredictability to the game.

Awhile ago people were saying that the apocalypse ruleset for 8th balanced well at 2k, maybe bump it up to 2.5k for 9th with the points hike. Not sure if they retained the rules in the codexes or not and would have to houserule data sheets for the new units

.https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/801429.page

That thread 9ncludes functional rules for playing 40k as alternating unit activations.

Many versions exist. Some better some worse.

I can also vouch for apocalypse. I dont know how uodated the datasheets are though. Like.. do they have all the new necron units? ::Shrug::

OP, I play in a free for all AA league. Its a blast. Way more active and strategic than standard IGOUGO. Games are much faster and more entertaining than standard. I'll give you a link to the rules we play for balanced games and a picture of the type of board we play:

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/801635.page

Let me know if you have any questions. Usually our games come down to whoever scores the most in round 5 which makes for great games. Last Monday I won a game by a single point.

I haven't yet- but even though I'm one of those who is generally satisfied with the current state of the game, I think I might actually give this a try, just in the spirit of embracing alternative points of view.

I'm pretty much only playing 25 PL Crusade, and I think some form of AA may be particularly well suited to such a small game.

I do belive SW battlefront has a very good alternet activation system. But it is baked into the rules at a very eraly level, so it is hard to copy.

 Lance845 wrote:
.https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/801429.page

That thread 9ncludes functional rules for playing 40k as alternating unit activations.

Many versions exist. Some better some worse.

I can also vouch for apocalypse. I dont know how uodated the datasheets are though. Like.. do they have all the new necron units? ::Shrug::

I don't think it has had support in a long time. Pretty sure it is missing some 8th Ed stuff. I doubt it would be too hard to make data sheets for what is missing though.

Yeah, it's called "Play Apocalypse."

AA AND units only take saves and die at the end of the battle round.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gangland wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
.https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/801429.page

That thread 9ncludes functional rules for playing 40k as alternating unit activations.

Many versions exist. Some better some worse.

I can also vouch for apocalypse. I dont know how uodated the datasheets are though. Like.. do they have all the new necron units? ::Shrug::

I don't think it has had support in a long time. Pretty sure it is missing some 8th Ed stuff. I doubt it would be too hard to make data sheets for what is missing though.

Apoc is missing everything from the latest Admech release onward.

We did play a couple of games of 8th with alternating activations, on a per unit basis. Unit moved, shot, assaulted, then the next. Each unit could fight back back for free once per turn when attacked. Worked pretty well, just some issues with moving out of aura range. That should be less of an issue in 9th if you keep an universal command phase for handing out buffs.

Apocalypse is also a good system. We did some 40k sized games when it came out, it was quite fun. https://www.fundamalleus.com/fundapocalypse has fan rules for new units up to fairly recently.

 catbarf wrote:
Despite retaining the original turn structure I found it made a massive impact, as your opponent having the opportunity to move to spoil your shots before you get to attack made it much harder to pin units down, so positioning was more important for the player with Initiative. For the player going second, figuring out how to position units to survive the imminent attack and effectively return fire was also challenging.

That sounds pretty fun and seems like a good way to make the movement phase more important. I can definitely see how slow forces like Deathguard wouldn't like it as much though.

I've seen another alternating activation implementation on here that went something like this: Place a numbered of colored tokens in a bag equal to the number of units you have on the table. The other player does the same with the same bag, so you have a bag of two colors of tokens.

Draw a token at random, and then keep drawing as long as you keep getting tokens of the same color, stopping as soon as you get one of the other color (which goes back in the bag). The player whose tokens were drawn sequentially then may activate a number of units equal to the number of tokens they got before their opponent got one, and conduct a single 40K turn with just those units. So moving, shooting, charging, melee, etc- and any units they wind up in melee with also get to hit back.

Sounds somewhat similar to Bolt Actions AA system, could be very fun but I would guess it would favor armies with lots of units over elite armies since the horde will have more tokens in the bag. Of course that would make an interesting component of list building when you may want to consider min squad units to maximize the number of tokens you'd have in the bag.

 The Red Hobbit wrote:
Sounds somewhat similar to Bolt Actions AA system, could be very fun but I would guess it would favor armies with lots of units over elite armies since the horde will have more tokens in the bag. Of course that would make an interesting component of list building when you may want to consider min squad units to maximize the number of tokens you'd have in the bag.

In practice, having twice as many tokens as your opponent isn't necessarily an advantage if your units only accomplish half as much.

I much prefer this system over straight AA, where forces with more units can 'bait out' activations and then only swing the hammer once the enemy's force is fully activated. Having activation tokens in 1:1 proportion to your forces doesn't fully quash the 'activation economy' concept, but it does mitigate it to a fair degree.

You start to notice problems when you have, say, a Knight and a bunch of Infantry Squads- cheap chaff to add activations to the pool, but a standout unit to use the activation when the time is right.

I've always been fond of games like World At War/Nations At War where you draw the exact unit that must be activated now or forfeit its activation- basically taking the decision of activation order completely out of the players' hands, and making it impossible to game the activation system- but I understand why that isn't popular to most wargamers today.

 catbarf wrote:


I've seen another alternating activation implementation on here that went something like this: Place a numbered of colored tokens in a bag equal to the number of units you have on the table. The other player does the same with the same bag, so you have a bag of two colors of tokens.

Draw a token at random, and then keep drawing as long as you keep getting tokens of the same color, stopping as soon as you get one of the other color (which goes back in the bag). The player whose tokens were drawn sequentially then may activate a number of units equal to the number of tokens they got before their opponent got one, and conduct a single 40K turn with just those units. So moving, shooting, charging, melee, etc- and any units they wind up in melee with also get to hit back.

After the activation is completed, the tokens for the units that activated are temporarily discarded, and those units cannot be activated again this round. Once every unit has activated and the bag is empty, the round is over, all the tokens go back in the bag, and a new round begins.

I haven't tried that implementation for 40K, and it seems like there could be some edge cases relating to activation economy, but it's a more 'traditional' flavor of AA that I've enjoyed in other games. Being able to activate multiple units in one go allows for auras to stay with the units they're buffing; but the more units you try to keep together, the longer you'll be waiting for a draw that lets them all activate at once. It's a simple mechanic that provides a touch of C&C friction and unpredictability to the game.

I played around with this exact style (Boltgun Action, I called it, some went with Tokenhammer) during 8th, it works well. 1500 points was a good size for normal games. For the most part, activation economy is pretty consistent over long term due to the stochastic nature of the draw and when it spikes for massive activations, it creates memorable moments in the game. We toyed around with the idea that activating a character would allow you to also draw one extra die from the bag to guarantee they don't have to move alone, but haven't yet tried that out.

Most changes to normal turns were that psychic powers and comparable buffs last only until end of the round, so no activating superduper powers early one turn and then late next turn to gain double benefits without activation costs. We also used extra tokens in the bag for the player who rolled to begin the game to model some extra initiative in the activations.

While it takes some gentlemanly agreements to work out inevitable odd interactions here and there, those are minor and I'd play this version again any day over the basic IGOUGO.

 catbarf wrote:
In practice, having twice as many tokens as your opponent isn't necessarily an advantage if your units only accomplish half as much.

I was thinking more along the lines of whichever army has the most units will have the most tokens so they have the biggest probability of going first, at which point they could activate their deadliest unit and go to town. That matters more on Turn 3+ when units are already embroiled in close range combat though. Still sounds about 10x more fair than the current system with lethality cranked up to 11, hah!

I've always been fond of games like World At War/Nations At War where you draw the exact unit that must be activated now or forfeit its activation- basically taking the decision of activation order completely out of the players' hands, and making it impossible to game the activation system- but I understand why that isn't popular to most wargamers today.

I like that system quite a bit, but it would be a tremendous pain for 40k given the breadth of units available. Perhaps something simpler like tokens per slot, so if you draw a Fast Attack token you have to activate a fast attack unit.

 catbarf wrote:
I did some experimentation with AA in 8th. The easiest implementation was a LOTR-style active/reactive system, where within each phase one player would do everything first, then the other player, leaving the Fight phase unchanged.

So, roll off at the start of the turn to determine who can either seize or cede Initiative. The player with Initiative does the command phase first, then their opponent. The player with Initiative moves first, then their opponent. The player with Initiative shoots first, then their opponent. The only exception is that the Fight phase is unchanged, except the player who picks a unit to fight first is the one with Initiative.

Despite retaining the original turn structure I found it made a massive impact, as your opponent having the opportunity to move to spoil your shots before you get to attack made it much harder to pin units down, so positioning was more important for the player with Initiative. For the player going second, figuring out how to position units to survive the imminent attack and effectively return fire was also challenging.

I expected melee to be less useful since it only happens half as often, but that didn't really seem to be the case. While it had less direct damage output, it was no longer possible to walk out of combat and shoot a unit with impunity. Overall I liked this system, but there were specific matchups that it really punished (eg Death Guard versus Drukhari was not fun for the Death Guard player); low movement and short range become more impactful than in a normal IGOUGO system. It would need a game-wide balance pass to really work optimally- but you can probably say that about any AA re-work, so it is what it is.

I've seen another alternating activation implementation on here that went something like this: Place a numbered of colored tokens in a bag equal to the number of units you have on the table. The other player does the same with the same bag, so you have a bag of two colors of tokens.

Draw a token at random, and then keep drawing as long as you keep getting tokens of the same color, stopping as soon as you get one of the other color (which goes back in the bag). The player whose tokens were drawn sequentially then may activate a number of units equal to the number of tokens they got before their opponent got one, and conduct a single 40K turn with just those units. So moving, shooting, charging, melee, etc- and any units they wind up in melee with also get to hit back.

After the activation is completed, the tokens for the units that activated are temporarily discarded, and those units cannot be activated again this round. Once every unit has activated and the bag is empty, the round is over, all the tokens go back in the bag, and a new round begins.

I haven't tried that implementation for 40K, and it seems like there could be some edge cases relating to activation economy, but it's a more 'traditional' flavor of AA that I've enjoyed in other games. Being able to activate multiple units in one go allows for auras to stay with the units they're buffing; but the more units you try to keep together, the longer you'll be waiting for a draw that lets them all activate at once. It's a simple mechanic that provides a touch of C&C friction and unpredictability to the game.

Replacing strategems and treating command points like might and allowing for heroic actions with characters, would be a great rework of the CP system as well.

Anyone ever thought of AA based on battleroles of units? First fast attack, then other and ending with heavy

 The Red Hobbit wrote:

 catbarf wrote:
In practice, having twice as many tokens as your opponent isn't necessarily an advantage if your units only accomplish half as much.

I was thinking more along the lines of whichever army has the most units will have the most tokens so they have the biggest probability of going first, at which point they could activate their deadliest unit and go to town. That matters more on Turn 3+ when units are already embroiled in close range combat though. Still sounds about 10x more fair than the current system with lethality cranked up to 11, hah!

They could, but when we move out of whole armies working at once, that tends not to be the optimal move more often than not. Timing and tactics start to matter more than pure damage potential. What I've noticed more often in various AA games is that I want to either take the critical moves dictated by the situation first with units that will otherwise be destroyed by well positioned opforce units or play time to see where the opposition is committing before launching a counter-attack that will then cripple them with minimised losses back. If I start with my biggest gun, it is then spent and can be maneuvered around or focused on by the enemy in turn. This tends to be far less healthy for one's plans than a more cautious approach where you delay the big hit until later on and then perhaps take the initiative with it again on the next turn to capitalize on your gains. Much like armoured exploitation of real line breaking, really.

Of course it sometimes is critical to just ram the deathstar in action as your first choice, but it's not cut and dry with interesting terrain and mission parameters.

The Deer Hunter wrote:
Anyone ever thought of AA based on battleroles of units? First fast attack, then other and ending with heavy

Yes.

One of the best features of AA is increased value in player choice. Those kinds of rules strip out the value from the player in the game and put it back onto list building. Its counter to AAs best feature.

I have just recently learned of a 40k-to-Chain-of-Command conversion effort that is currently ongoing with available beta rules, so I have reached out to the relevant folks over at the CoC forums.

 Lance845 wrote:

The Deer Hunter wrote:
Anyone ever thought of AA based on battleroles of units? First fast attack, then other and ending with heavy

Yes.

One of the best features of AA is increased value in player choice. Those kinds of rules strip out the value from the player in the game and put it back onto list building. Its counter to AAs best feature.

Depends on the execution, list building is still a player choice as well even if its role is somewhat diminished by AA. The battlefield roles could be used for reactionary activations, like stealing initiative for an extra activation with a fast interception unit when the opposition is about to start their turn with slower Heavy Support, for example. It's not an unworthy avenue of exploration.

That structure would lead to me building an army of heavies and forcing my opponent into an IGOUGO by making him do all his fast stuff first (or conversely a race to the top to try to force IGOUGO by bringing only fast things depending on what was more advantageous).

 Sherrypie wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

The Deer Hunter wrote:
Anyone ever thought of AA based on battleroles of units? First fast attack, then other and ending with heavy

Yes.

One of the best features of AA is increased value in player choice. Those kinds of rules strip out the value from the player in the game and put it back onto list building. Its counter to AAs best feature.

Depends on the execution, list building is still a player choice as well even if its role is somewhat diminished by AA. The battlefield roles could be used for reactionary activations, like stealing initiative for an extra activation with a fast interception unit when the opposition is about to start their turn with slower Heavy Support, for example. It's not an unworthy avenue of exploration.

It really doesn't. Either you have all your choices and those choices are fully dynamic acording to the current board state or your forced into a subset of your choices because of an arbitrary rule thats adding... What? What does the game GAIN by forcing an initiative based on force org slot? How does the player choices become better? Its silly as hell to add a rule just to add a rule. It contributes nothing and takes away a lot.

Unit1126PLL wrote:That structure would lead to me building an army of heavies and forcing my opponent into an IGOUGO by making him do all his fast stuff first (or conversely a race to the top to try to force IGOUGO by bringing only fast things depending on what was more advantageous).

Jumping the train there a bit. It doesn't need to be forced, so you can't force the opponent if they don't want to use such a possibility and should you want to bring only fast units yourself, other structures like detachments would then give you drawbacks for such skewing. The point here wasn't to shoot down the first thing that pops into your mind but wonder how those slots could be used for interesting play.

For the record, I'm totally on board with catbarf on games that force the players' hands on decisions and timing. Not all games need that, but sometimes it is fun from the wargaming perspective.

Lance845 wrote:

 Sherrypie wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

The Deer Hunter wrote:
Anyone ever thought of AA based on battleroles of units? First fast attack, then other and ending with heavy

Yes.

One of the best features of AA is increased value in player choice. Those kinds of rules strip out the value from the player in the game and put it back onto list building. Its counter to AAs best feature.

Depends on the execution, list building is still a player choice as well even if its role is somewhat diminished by AA. The battlefield roles could be used for reactionary activations, like stealing initiative for an extra activation with a fast interception unit when the opposition is about to start their turn with slower Heavy Support, for example. It's not an unworthy avenue of exploration.

It really doesn't. Either you have all your choices and those choices are fully dynamic acording to the current board state or your forced into a subset of your choices because of an arbitrary rule thats adding... What? What does the game GAIN by forcing an initiative based on force org slot? How does the player choices become better? Its silly as hell to add a rule just to add a rule. It contributes nothing and takes away a lot.

Rather narrow view you've got there, Lance. Modelling operational friction and initiative of squad leaders in situ can be interesting for lots of reasons, for limiting freedom of choice can be quite interesting at times. I like my games to throw some emergent curve balls at the players from multiple factors, not limited to the dice results. Activation sequencing and C&C problems are part of that. Battlefield roles aren't currently used much, while they could offer a glimpse into differentiating armies similarly to how Strategy Rating and Initiative values did in Epic. It might not interest you, but saying there is absolutely no value in pondering the question at all is intellectually dishonest.

Absolute agency in choice is not a luxury field commanders have in war. In games it can be, but it doesn't have to be and plenty of interesting historical battles certainly have been decided on some fluke decisions of moving or sitting still by random no-name line officers. In games, one such example would be the Command and Colors system (Memoir'44, Battlelore etc.) where you have a hand of cards that allow you to activate units in certain parts of the battlefield. The game works as it does because agency is curtailed into a sub-set of possibilites at any one time. What is gained is friction, that defining element of war as a concrete activity. Riding a chain of choices between bad and worse can be thrilling, even if it's not up to everyone's tastes.

Emergent curve balls don't come from written rules. Emergent game play comes from the inherent implicit interactions of the mechanics.

The emergent game play that you want is what happens when you only have one activation but 3 things under threat and you need to figure out what to activate and what to do with it for the best potential outcome. Every piece is available to you but only some can have the strongest impacts. Being able to be witty with an unexpected choice is part of that emergent game play. Making the choices entirely expected becauae of what initiative bracket you are in isnt going to create emergent game play. Its going to limit it.

Sorry if I am coming across as though it wasnt worth pondering. It was. Years ago when it was first bought up, worked out, tested, and found lacking.

In an entirely different game with units and rules written from the ground up what you are talking about can work. Sure. But not 40k. Not with the phases, stats, and datasheets that we have. What people are talking about here is 40k with AA. Not building a whole new game that uses 40k models. Within that framework, this doesn't work.

 Lance845 wrote:
Emergent curve balls don't come from written rules. Emergent game play comes from the inherent implicit interactions of the mechanics.

I know what you mean, but those mechanics still need to be written in the rules in the first place, though

 Lance845 wrote:
The emergent game play that you want is what happens when you only have one activation but 3 things under threat and you need to figure out what to activate and what to do with it for the best potential outcome. Every piece is available to you but only some can have the strongest impacts. Being able to be witty with an unexpected choice is part of that emergent game play. Making the choices entirely expected becauae of what initiative bracket you are in isnt going to create emergent game play. Its going to limit it.

Not entirely convinced about that being an issue, though. Of course tiering things on their responsiveness is going to limit your choice space in comparison to unlimited activation, that's the premise here: could the roles be used in prioritising activations in an interesting fashion? But it doesn't have to be so deterministic as to be easily calculatable from the get go. I do agree that it wouldn't be easy to gain much out of it in the fully open information way that 40k traditionally operates in, while the possibility of using initiative brackets would hold much more weight in an activation scheme that had some fog of war baked in it.

 Lance845 wrote:
Sorry if I am coming across as though it wasnt worth pondering. It was. Years ago when it was first bought up, worked out, tested, and found lacking.

No problem, absolute statements about game design just tend to raise my eyebrows. For example in this case, pardon me for not believing the whole breadth of the subject would have been explored to satisfaction. It is easy to point at the past and find examples of design that work while it is pretty much impossible to do the same and say all variants have been exhausted, nothing to see there anymore.

 Lance845 wrote:
In an entirely different game with units and rules written from the ground up what you are talking about can work. Sure. But not 40k. Not with the phases, stats, and datasheets that we have. What people are talking about here is 40k with AA. Not building a whole new game that uses 40k models. Within that framework, this doesn't work.

See above. While personally I'm happy playing 40k AA without such limitations with the straightforward Bolt Action style system, just saying "nope, no way to get it to work" isn't convincing me to abandon the idea that a more stratified system wouldn't be possible just as well. Naturally it changes the dynamic of the game and nailing it into a desirable range is certainly much harder than simple freewheeling unit selection, yet there isn't an objective standard to say which is better. Again, taking catbarf's example from earlier, what about games that randomise a specific unit to activate at times? That is at the other end of dictating actions to players, which is absolutely limiting their agency by the whim of fates yet can produce a player experience that is more visceral in creating a more hectic narrative to the battle. This, too, is emergence, and this is an important part to emphasize: for emergence to matter, it must rise out of the play as an answer to the "let's play to find out" premise of the game. If you have absolute freedom to dictate when and who acts, there is an argument that the emergence is actually lower because you are able to formulate and follow a stricter plan of action instead of riding the wave and trying to steer it as best as you can.

Again, both of those design statements are valid, even if one makes a stricter choice on curtailing the player agency in timing of activations. More freedom is more akin to chess, constrained freedom is more akin to battlefield command. Choice of how much and what type of agency the players are given depends heavily on the desired experience. Enjoying both styles ranging from chess to free Kriegspiel, I would play 40k with either as an improvement over the normal if they have been made with care.

My argument is not that the game would not be functional. Its that it adds nothing to the experience and takes a lot away. But by all means, if you wnt to take a crack at it be my guest. Let me know how you address auras, psykers, and characters in different battlefield roles from the people you want them to hang out with. In particular address tyranids who have no synapse creatures in several of those roles or who's obvious pairings are in different roles. (Raveners are fast attack, the red terror that boosts them is elite).

That's not sarcasm. I am legitimately interested to see you create something that 1) works 2) doesnt pigeon hole players into specific lists and 3) adds something to the game thats at least equivalent to what you loose by not going free full AA.

 Lance845 wrote:
My argument is not that the game would not be functional. Its that it adds nothing to the experience and takes a lot away. But by all means, if you wnt to take a crack at it be my guest. Let me know how you address auras, psykers, and characters in different battlefield roles from the people you want them to hang out with. In particular address tyranids who have no synapse creatures in several of those roles or who's obvious pairings are in different roles. (Raveners are fast attack, the red terror that boosts them is elite).

That's not sarcasm. I am legitimately interested to see you create something that 1) works 2) doesnt pigeon hole players into specific lists and 3) adds something to the game thats at least equivalent to what you loose by not going free full AA.

While I have no quick, comprehensive answer to how such a system would circumvent those issues (beyond allowing CHARACTER units to act on the highest initiative and activate another unit along with them... hey, that's actually one starting point), I do have to take issue with the idea that it adds nothing to the experience as that is patently untrue. It changes the experience by changing the idea on what the player's decisions focus on, which is precisely why you cannot compare them directly as if they only moved on a linear good/bad axis. Full control requires the player to formulate a plan and bear the responsibility of all activations and their consequences, which is very gamelike while restricting that in various ways can add to the experience of commanding a more chaotic struggle where neither side might be able to execute the optimal plays when they want to, changing the emphasis to a more simulationary structure which in turn can produce stories that are more akin to war stories which constantly include random chances and occurances that wouldn't be there in perfectly controlled environments (example: an infantry unit is sneaking past a tank, which will destroy them if it gets to activate now. In a more restricted system, it might not get that opportunity immediately and the unit lives. These things are everywhere in proper war memoires, like maybe this tank commander momentarily hesitated due to dizzyness, mercy or just plain old zoning out for a minute and not taking the shot). That is adding something to the game, while it does detract from the more chess-like efficiency that perfectly free AA gives you. It's a choice.

I didnt say adds nothing. I said adds something that is at least equal to what you loose by not going full AA.

What your dizzy tank commander example does is take away player agency. Some degree of randomness is good. But its generally a semi controlled or at least statistically or probabilistically understood randomness that allows you to hedge your bets on the decisions you make.

When you stop doing that and make it pure randomness a player can lose not because of the merits of their tactical and strategic acumen but because the card draw was bad. You drew no mana. You never really had a chance.

I am for maximizing player agency. When i lose its because my opponent made better choices. When i win its by my own merits. Statistically speaking. Again, some controlled randomness is good.

But initiative based on battlefield role isn't game randomness. Its hard coded restrictions that limit your agency and place more emphasis on list building than in game tactical decision making. It's a potential return to first turn advantage as we have it now.



And as an aside, not all nid synapse creatures are characters. In fact my go to nid list has only 3 synapse creature that are characters. A tyranid prime and some neurothropes. The bulk of my synapse comes from tyranid warriors.

The neurothropes are meant to buff the mid/front line and baby sit the backfield artillary. So. How do the neurothropes activate early enough to buff the troops but also follow the artillary asuming heavy support will go last and troops somewhere in the middle? How do the tyranid warriors supply their synapse to the raveners when they are fast attack and moving first? This assuming that FA are going to go first in a FOC based initiative.

I am presenting these issues because these are issues that presented themselves when we went over this previously.

And again, a system like that could work great in another game that isn't 40k. It's 40k as is that prevents it from working.

Lance845 wrote:My argument is not that the game would not be functional. Its that it adds nothing to the experience and takes a lot away.

Lance845 wrote:I didnt say adds nothing. I said adds something that is at least equal to what you loose by not going full AA.

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Lance845 wrote:What your dizzy tank commander example does is take away player agency. Some degree of randomness is good. But its generally a semi controlled or at least statistically or probabilistically understood randomness that allows you to hedge your bets on the decisions you make.

When you stop doing that and make it pure randomness a player can lose not because of the merits of their tactical and strategic acumen but because the card draw was bad. You drew no mana. You never really had a chance.

I am for maximizing player agency. When i lose its because my opponent made better choices. When i win its by my own merits. Statistically speaking. Again, some controlled randomness is good.

But initiative based on battlefield role isn't game randomness. Its hard coded restrictions that limit your agency and place more emphasis on list building than in game tactical decision making. It's a potential return to first turn advantage as we have it now.

Now, this sounds like a whole lot of assumptions. To substantiate your claims here, you'd already need to have a vision on what that initiative tiering looks like. What is this pure randomness in this context and why is it not a probabilistic question as well if there is some wibble in who gets to activate and when (BA tokens, specific unit markers, role tiers, card draw...)? If the infantry commander knows it's more likely than not that they might get the chance to activate out of harms way before the tank goes and takes that (maybe the token draw odds sit at 7-5 odds next turn or something, whatever), is that not a solid player decision point to have in the game?

I get that you're for direct maximisation of agency, but that is not exactly the premise I'm interested in this case and again, not the same axis to be tweaked that could produce a strictly superior play experience. That dichotomy is false. The choices themselves are just as meaningful if not more so since following a strict plan of prescribed actions is harder. I agree that going for a simple "Fast Attack goes first, Heavy last" solution is not a workable one nor have never been advocating one as 40k currently stands without unit changes, but using the role tags for potential initiative trickery is an interesting lever that could be made to work as a filter on the general AA scheme. Since you don't seem to care much for the more simulationary style, let's look at it from the agency promoting angle. Say we use the Bolt Action method with X dice in a bag for X units, drawn randomly. Maybe bringing 1/3 or more of your army in Fast Attack units grants you extra dice in the bag to raise your chances of activating early, since it's clearly a recon force? Maybe activating Heavy Support units before others costs you two counters but remains an option? The tags are coded in the army, but that doesn't need to come at the expense of tactics at the table.

Also, deploying any units with distinct activation advantages at particular points of the battlefield is a tactical decision of its own lest we forget that. It starts to matter a heck of a lot more when the game steps out of IGOUGO.

Lance845 wrote:And as an aside, not all nid synapse creatures are characters. In fact my go to nid list has only 3 synapse creature that are characters. A tyranid prime and some neurothropes. The bulk of my synapse comes from tyranid warriors.

The neurothropes are meant to buff the mid/front line and baby sit the backfield artillary. So. How do the neurothropes activate early enough to buff the troops but also follow the artillary asuming heavy support will go last and troops somewhere in the middle? How do the tyranid warriors supply their synapse to the raveners when they are fast attack and moving first? This assuming that FA are going to go first in a FOC based initiative.

I am presenting these issues because these are issues that presented themselves when we went over this previously.

And again, a system like that could work great in another game that isn't 40k. It's 40k as is that prevents it from working.

Assuming such system the Neurothrope seems like a non-issue if it's a character, who could have initiative priority in the tiered system (being commanders they ought to have the best situational awareness anyway, yay for making officer status matter more). Combining this with LotR style Heroic Actions like commanding the artillery to fire on their activation seems like a trivial answer. Synapse creatures in general could have this rule, if it seems to get weird with Nids.

And again, I never advocated straight-up role tiering in activation order, but tying it into the system so it could be made to matter at least a bit unlike now.

I mean, it sounds like an impulse system like CoC has would work. I'll see if I can get my hands on the COC/40k hybrid rules.