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EviscerationPlague wrote:So fix the outdated IGOUGO system

They did. they just had to do it after they left GW-both Rick Priestly who went to warlord games, and Andy Chambers who went freelance and did fantastic work with DUST.

Backspacehacker wrote:One thing i have always been interested in, is trying out bolt hammer system. Where you basically just use the bolt action alternating actions and dice pick method to pick a unit, then activate all of its phases in that turn then draw another die.

Becasue iirc early warhammer rules and bolt action were authored by the same guy, or at least one of the editions of warhammer was i want to remember, i might be thinking of another game.

I have watched many videos of bolt action games over on the gamemaster hobby channel, it looks cool, however i dislike the dice activation system (it is very much like SW legions card activation system). because it removes a level of control the player has as to when and where you can activate units as a battlefield commander should in a war game. i far prefer the DUST system with alternating unit activation where the active unit gets to choose 2 actions (it's full set of actions) in any combination it wishes and also has a range limited reaction mechanic.

Or classic battletech that works in 3 steps-

1. alternate activations for movement
2. simultaneous fire of weapons (and the immediate effects of damage)
3. simultaneous melee combat (followed by the immediate effects of damage)

Both systems prevent alpha strikes from ruining the game and also keep both players very actively involved beyond standing around waiting to see how many saves they have to roll.

I am sure you could try those systems (or bolt actions) out with 40K and it would work. however, finding players willing to step away from the IGOUGO mechanics may be hard to find since it is so ingrained in the 40K game.

EviscerationPlague wrote:


But sure, just blame the Americans.

OK, I will continue to do so. Thanks for the permission!

 aphyon wrote:
however i dislike the dice activation system (it is very much like SW legions card activation system). because it removes a level of control the player has as to when and where you can activate units as a battlefield commander should in a war game.

I know hordes for courses and all that but I like a wargame that is built in such a way that elements of the game and your own army are outside of your control. To me this represents both fog of war and the chaos of the battlefield. A battlefield commander won't always be able to direct things like a conductor. Messengers are shot, radios short out, orders are misheard, or misunderstood, troops panic or go rage or even worse, inprovise or go off script. You can't always control everything and you won't always be able to get your troops to do what you want them to do when you want them to do it. You see it in a lot of historicals. And honestly being able to deal with this is what separates the good and the great, imo. It makes a far more interesting and less sterile game state.

I learned it from warlords great 'test of honour' game. I was useless at it. I struggled horribly with not having total control of my army whereas my friends just flowed with it. It taught me something of myself and my skills and frankly how much more I have to grow as a player. To the point that these days my preference is a game with a certain 'chaos' element.

It tests different skills and abilities than games like wmh where you have full control of every aspect of your army. It tests your ability to think on the fly and improvise with often less than ideal situations. Imo its a far more intriguing way of testing a players 'skill'.

It was Alessio Cavatore who wrote the Bolt Action rules, as well as took the lead on 40K 4th and 5th edition, though he was involved in many others.

I'm a fan of the Bolt Action rules set, and random activation in particular. The game feels very suspenseful and smooth. I'm not sure how great it would translate to 40K where there can be vast gulfs in quantity and quality of units. Definitely worth trying!

 Warptide wrote:
It was Alessio Cavatore who wrote the Bolt Action rules, as well as took the lead on 40K 4th and 5th edition, though he was involved in many others.

I'm a fan of the Bolt Action rules set, and random activation in particular. The game feels very suspenseful and smooth. I'm not sure how great it would translate to 40K where there can be vast gulfs in quantity and quality of units. Definitely worth trying!

It works pretty well for older editions, guy at the old shop near me used to play it all the time, not sure how it works in 8th and 9th.

Deadnight wrote:

 aphyon wrote:
however i dislike the dice activation system (it is very much like SW legions card activation system). because it removes a level of control the player has as to when and where you can activate units as a battlefield commander should in a war game.

I know hordes for courses and all that but I like a wargame that is built in such a way that elements of the game and your own army are outside of your control. To me this represents both fog of war and the chaos of the battlefield. A battlefield commander won't always be able to direct things like a conductor. Messengers are shot, rqdios short out orders, orders are misheard, or misunderstood, troops panic or go rage or even worse, inprovise or go off script. You can't always control everything and you won't always be able to get your troops to do what you want them to do. You see it in a lot of historicals. And honestly being able to deal with this is what separates the good and the great, imo. It makes a far more interesting and less sterile game state.

I learned it from warlords great 'test of honour' game. I was useless at it. I struggled horribly with not having total control of my army whereas my friends just flowed with it. It taught me something of myself and my skills and frankly how much more I have to grow as a player. To the point that these days my preference is a game with a certain 'chaos' element.

It tests different skills and abilities than games like wmh where you have full control of every aspect of your army. It tests your ability to think on the fly and improvise with often less than ideal situations. Imo its a far more intriguing way of testing a players 'skill'.

IMHO this is exactly what separates wargames from war themed games. Modern 40k is war themed game and has exactly zero connection to the roots of the genre - the actual officer training tool.

Yep. I got into the hobby for loving wargames. War-themed games ring very hollow for me.

I'm the opposite. Probably why I like 9th as much as I do.

Well, that and the roleplaying elements that Crusade brings, especially at the small 25PL level.

Marketing data that I have had to respond to shows that the vast majority of potential players desire war-themed GAMES more than they do wargames for a variety of reasons.

Wargames fell out of style and commercial profitability around the early 2000s.

That is sad, but makes sense and is not surprising. In my university students, I have noted that capacity for critical thinking seems on the decline alongside … well, anyways it makes sense. With eighth edition, I read and heard so many claims that the game went quicker so could play more games in an afternoon when I was happy to leave the models up for weeks until the battle was resolved. The hobby was more like a model train set back in the day, more model battle set than yeah, a themed boardgame

 jeff white wrote:
That is sad, but makes sense and is not surprising. In my university students, I have noted that capacity for critical thinking seems on the decline alongside … well, anyways it makes sense. With eighth edition, I read and heard so many claims that the game went quicker so could play more games in an afternoon when I was happy to leave the models up for weeks until the battle was resolved. The hobby was more like a model train set back in the day, more model battle set than yeah, a themed boardgame

And what makes it even worse is that, games now take just as long, if not longer then the hay days of 7th with all the bloat, and specials rules that 9th has now accrued.
So we managed to get the worst of both words. A war themed board game, that some how manages to take longer then when it was a wargame.

 jeff white wrote:
That is sad, but makes sense and is not surprising. In my university students, I have noted that capacity for critical thinking seems on the decline alongside … well, anyways it makes sense. With eighth edition, I read and heard so many claims that the game went quicker so could play more games in an afternoon when I was happy to leave the models up for weeks until the battle was resolved. The hobby was more like a model train set back in the day, more model battle set than yeah, a themed boardgame

Sometimes it feels that way to me too... And then I wonder if I'm just turning into the old man sitting on his porch and yelling "Get off my lawn!" to all the teenagers.

Because I'm not sure the thinking is less critical... It's different to be sure. When I grew up, you still had to memorize people's phone numbers, and I do believe the process created within my brain certain schema or neural pathways that don't exist in the brains of those who use their phones to do literally everything.

But then an equal number of times, I'm amazed when one of those people who my generational bias causes me to judge does something like check their home security cameras or other parts of the system from their phones, or creates a lightshow from their phone where I once spent hours acid etching home-made circuit boards to build a light organ for my stereo.

People tend not to memorize facts as much as I had to in my day, because it's all right there at their fingertips anyway. But they can boolean search and data-mine better than I will ever be able to, and they can kit bash a solution to quite a few problems by kitbashing five or six different apps to get a job done.

And that's kind of how I feel about the game too. 9th isn't better or worse- it's different. It cobbles together elements of a table-top wargame, a collectible card game and a roleplaying game, and binds all of that to what is arguably the best range of sci-fi models on the market in order to tap into the collector instinct as much as it does the gamer instinct.

When you want a table-top wargame, pure table-top wargames are better
When you want a collectible card game, pure collectible card games are better
When you want a roleplaying game, pure roleplaying games are better

But when all that purity gets boring, and you get to the point where none of those solutions quite scratch the itch because you're looking for something that is maybe more broad at the cost of some depth, well there's really nothing like Crusade.

And I came to the conclusion a year or two ago that I was never really a fan of pure table-top wargames at all- I always loved 40k because I sensed within it the potential to be more than a table top wargame. Wargames and simulations of any kind bore the $#!+ out of me. I was always bolting homebrewed progression systems and map based campaigns and home made wargear cards onto 40k because stand alone games were just never enough for me.

It doesn't mean that I'm right and anyone else is wrong; it doesn't mean that 9th is better than 5th or that 5th is better than 9th. It's a matter of taste, and it's okay for for our tastes and opinions to differ.

 Mezmorki wrote:
ProHammer to the rescue again (I think)

If you have to keep TRYING to make IGOUGO work, it means it doesn't work to begin with.

To make my motivation clear... I always play in map based campaigns and progressions. And I still love wargames. I like feeling like I'm commanding an army, not commanding a card deck and combos.

You can have pure wargames with rpg elements. Advanced Squad Leader has a lot of narrative / roleplay opportunity but is the most crunchy wargame I've ever played.

Battletech as well. Very wargame. Very narrative / progression / quirk system if you want plus hooks to their RPG so you can do both.

 auticus wrote:
To make my motivation clear... I always play in map based campaigns and progressions. And I still love wargames. I like feeling like I'm commanding an army, not commanding a card deck and combos.

You can have pure wargames with rpg elements. Advanced Squad Leader has a lot of narrative / roleplay opportunity but is the most crunchy wargame I've ever played.

Battletech as well. Very wargame. Very narrative / progression / quirk system if you want plus hooks to their RPG so you can do both.

If you have not played it, Herald of ruin, very good stuff.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 Mezmorki wrote:
ProHammer to the rescue again (I think)

If you have to keep TRYING to make IGOUGO work, it means it doesn't work to begin with.

To quote Andy Chambers (I reached out to him on Facebook to confirm a rumor that he was trying to move 40k to an AA system back in 3rd):

Yes, I wanted to consider some alternatives because straight IGOUGO has issues as we all know by now.

So yeah, maybe we should give up on AA since even GW designers knew it had issue back in the 90s.

I wont play a game that is IGO UGO any longer personally barring some extreme exceptions like Blood Bowl or games like that.

 auticus wrote:
I wont play a game that is IGO UGO any longer personally barring some extreme exceptions like Blood Bowl or games like that.

I don't hate IGOUGO, but honestly the game has to be designed around it from the ground up and 40k is definitely not.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 auticus wrote:
I wont play a game that is IGO UGO any longer personally barring some extreme exceptions like Blood Bowl or games like that.

I don't hate IGOUGO, but honestly the game has to be designed around it from the ground up and 40k is definitely not.

I mean, the igoyougo system in 40k or the more extreme igoyougo in warmachine can be problematic.

Aa is far from perfect though. Personally I often find aa (alternative activation) often jarring and immersion breaking unless it has other elements like in necromunda where you activate a boss or champion and you can activate other mooks too. And i say that whilst liking more than a handful of aa systems.

Where do you sit on more hydrid expressions of igoyougo like lotr sbg' 'broken phase' igoyougo' or infinity's 'interrupted turn' igoyougo.

Both are technically igoyougo but the turn structure is quite different and imo makes really interesting and dynamic immersive games (yes, sbg is gws best system. Fight me. :p)

the problem with 40k starts that it is not pure IGoUGo but a strange mix of several mechanics were not all armies have access to everything and that the fix to one problem creates many others

there are 2 kind of problems: long waiting times/non-dynbamic gameplay and Alpha Strike

first one comes not from IGoUGo but from alternating player turns, and as those turns take so much time various "Reactions" were included to the game to keep the other player involved
but this "fix" just made the turn taking even more time for less dynamic gameplay, it has the opposite effect

Infinity or Starship Troopers solve this problem by replacing the strict IGoUGo with Action/Reaction, while keeping Alternating Turn, were LotR keeps the strict IGoUGo but uses Alternating Phases
so both work because the "fix" was implemented correctly

Alpha Strike is now a very different one, as the first activation can cripple the opponent in a way that he has no chance to win after that
this has nothing to do with the gaming system, and also Alternating Unit Activation won't solve it by default

the problem is simple, one player can get all his units to do damage in the first turn without any risk
an easy fix would be first turn charges, which GW always try to remove, because exposing all units in first turn to kill halve of the enemy army, just to get wrecked in melee in return, is not something GW wants

other solutions like one player deploys everything first but also has to take the first turn, the possibility to let your whole army enter the game from reserve etc.

Alpha Strike is not there because of IGoUGo or Alternating Player Turns, but because GW wants it to be there

And I am sure, if the game switches to Alternating Unit Activations, GW will find a way to add Alpha Strike possibilities for some armies making the gameplay much worse than it used to be


any change to the core game mechanics will mean nothing as long as the design philosophy behind 40k won't change as well

Deadnight wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 auticus wrote:
I wont play a game that is IGO UGO any longer personally barring some extreme exceptions like Blood Bowl or games like that.

I don't hate IGOUGO, but honestly the game has to be designed around it from the ground up and 40k is definitely not.

I mean, pure igoyougo like in 40k or the more extreme warmachine is problematic.

Aa is far from perfect though. Personally I often find aa (alternative activation) often jarring and immersion breaking unless it has other elements like in necromunda where you activate a boss or champion and you can activate other mooks too. And i say that whilst liking more than a handful of aa systems.

Where do you sit on more hydrid expressions of igoyougo like lotr sbg' 'broken phase' igoyougo' or infinity's 'interrupted turn' igoyougo.

Both are technically igoyougo but the turn structure is quite different and imo makes really interesting and dynamic immersive games (yes, sbg is gws best system. Fight me. :p)

Honestly I really like Apoc's system and wish they'd base the game system around that. Firstly: unit casualties are resolved at the end of the game turn (saves and removing of models/units) meaning both players hit with full force during the entire game turn and target priority becomes a judgement call on if you've done enough damage to force a unit to be wiped or not. Additionally you treat units as a singular whole instead of individual models which can lead to some cool modelling opportunities as long as the unit's footprint matches that of the original bases (cool scenic group shots anyone?), or just speed up movement as you move everyone in movement trays rather than needing to fiddle with individual model placement.

Secondly turn order is far better than 40k's as well. It goes Initiative Phase, Orders Phase, Action Phase, Damage Phase. To summarize each and how they could fit 40k proper:

The Initiative Phase gives turn priority and could result in someone going first multiple times, but since casualties are removed at end of turn and Apoc uses an AA style system this is less of an issue than in AoS.

The Orders Phase has players check for units out of command (more than 12" from their detachment's commander which puts them at risk for being routed), set up reinforcements, generate command assets, and issue orders. For 40k this could be the command phase, followed by the reinforcement step as well as a morale step if we want to bring in the out of command feature of Apoc as well

The Action Phase has players activate detachments where they can perform two actions in any sequence: move, shoot or fight. Movement works like regular 40k only charges are done by moving units into base contact with other units (upon reaching base contact the movement automatically ends) and not by declare a charge or dealing with reactions. Shoot actions follow the rules of 40k except a unit in combat can not shoot if it has any enemy units touching it. Melee combat is more simplified as one unit merely has to touch another unit and the whole unit gets to attack the opposing unit when chosen to fight. To bring this in line with 40k I think the detachment activation would need to be replaced with unit activation, but let characters activate themselves and a set number of units (say a Space Marine Lt activates 1 additional unit, a Captain actives 2 additional units a Chapter Master 3 additional units and something on a Primarch's level 4 additional units (obviously untested and just an example of how it could work). The removal of charges as a form of movement would slow the pace of alpha strike melee armies, but would also allow them to make contact with opposing units and attack in one go before the enemy tries to break away. Overwatch could be worked into this system by having units spend their shooting action to set to Overwatch or by leaving it as a stratagem that could be used sparingly. Additionally I'd argue for pistols being allowed to shoot in melee like regular 40k just so an engaged unit could choose to shoot then fall back, or shoot and then fight an enemy that's charged them for more interesting tactical decisions.

The Damage Phase has players check the command units (if there are any remaining after the movement phase) and remove them outright as destroyed units as they end up cut off from friendly forces and lose contact with their leadership. This is followed by rolling a d6 for each large blast maker and a d12 for each small blast marker and for each you roll under the unit's wound characteristic that unit gains a damage marker. If they gain damage markers equal to their wounds the unit is destroy (yes, that's right, the whole unit goes at once, not individual models). Additionally when the damage markers are equal to half the unit's total wounds count the unit becomes critically damaged and loses half it's attacks characteristics and take -1 to their hit rolls with heavy weapons. For 40k perhaps there could be a change to "out of command" to reflect if the unit still has a unit leader or is in a certain distance of an appropiate type character. Or it could be dropped for a morale system based on the number of damage markers a unit has and if they're within 12" of another friendly unit or not. Otherwise I don't want to change the actual damage mechanics because the ideas here are great. I honestly love this system and how it doesn't punish players caught out while still promoting smart positioning and play to ensure you don't lose a bunch of units every turn.

Now of course the biggest hurdle in using this system in 40k has to be moving everything over to a system that supports the changes, but Apoc did most of the work in 8th and it wouldn't take much to get the rest of the game onto the new datasheets (though as a rule is seems every 5 wounds in 40k is 1 wound in Apoc) but I feel this system would speed game play (as generally you use less dice), while rewarding smart positioning and even have room for theory crafting as elements from 40k modern are blended in and some of the fine wrinkles are flattened out (such at their being no limit in Apoc of a unit doing the same action twice).

Apoc was so good and appreciated by the community that it's been a dead game since launch
Meanwhile 40K with its much hated IGOUGO system has been growing and growing in popularity. That should tell us something.

 Aenar wrote:
Apoc was so good and appreciated by the community that it's been a dead game since launch
Meanwhile 40K with its much hated IGOUGO system has been growing and growing in popularity. That should tell us something.

People will consume absolute trash as long as it's easily accessible and low effort on their part?

 Sim-Life wrote:

 Aenar wrote:
Apoc was so good and appreciated by the community that it's been a dead game since launch
Meanwhile 40K with its much hated IGOUGO system has been growing and growing in popularity. That should tell us something.

People will consume absolute trash as long as it's easily accessible and low effort on their part?

Works on junk food and low quality tv shows .

 Blackie wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

 Aenar wrote:
Apoc was so good and appreciated by the community that it's been a dead game since launch
Meanwhile 40K with its much hated IGOUGO system has been growing and growing in popularity. That should tell us something.

People will consume absolute trash as long as it's easily accessible and low effort on their part?

Works on junk food and low quality tv shows .

Or just the 'cult of officialdom' has it that the main 40k rules set is 'proper' 40k, everything else is irrelevant.

Doesn't matter if its good or bad, 'official' trumps all. Gamers are often very conservative about 'following the dogma' and not stepping 'outside of the rules'.

That said sim-life isn't far off the money either. :p otherwise we wouldnt be swamped by forgettable pop-idols and brain killing reality TV either :p

Deadnight wrote:
Aa is far from perfect though. Personally I often find aa (alternative activation) often jarring and immersion breaking unless it has other elements like in necromunda where you activate a boss or champion and you can activate other mooks too. And i say that whilst liking more than a handful of aa systems

IGOUGO also has the distinct advantage of being fast and having no paperwork or unit tracking involved.

Though i've wondered how 40k would feel with alternating force organisation slots, particularly with a properly restricted FoC - four alternating rounds per turn (elite, fast, troop, heavy) with the HQs as wildcards. It eliminates the need to track which individual units have and haven't been activated and has some room for variation (i.e. shuffling the elites round up and down the order turn by turn).

A.T. wrote:

Deadnight wrote:
Aa is far from perfect though. Personally I often find aa (alternative activation) often jarring and immersion breaking unless it has other elements like in necromunda where you activate a boss or champion and you can activate other mooks too. And i say that whilst liking more than a handful of aa systems

IGOUGO also has the distinct advantage of being fast and having no paperwork or unit tracking involved.

Though i've wondered how 40k would feel with alternating force organisation slots, particularly with a properly restricted FoC - four alternating rounds per turn (elite, fast, troop, heavy) with the HQs as wildcards. It eliminates the need to track which individual units have and haven't been activated and has some room for variation (i.e. shuffling the elites round up and down the order turn by turn).

It works great. As I mentioned before, my group uses alternative detachment activation with 3-5 activations per side, based on quite rigid FOC equivalent. Combined with end of round damage resolution this creates very engaging and fair game without problems typical for both pure IGOUGO and AA.

As to why Apoc failed - it is for two reasons. One is the „cult of officialdom” Deadnight mentioned, but second is no less important - Apoc has no room for „your dudes” and extensive customization which is a key feature of 40k for great many players. Any oversimplified 40k is bound to fail and a huge part of this very thread was exactly about oversimplification of 8th/9th. Yes, even with all the bloat and complexity of layers upon layers of special rules of 9th many players consider it oversimplified, because the complexity is not where it should be.

Apoc failed in my area simply because it wasn't tournament standard.

Same as why no one played crusade and any of the other formats there, which were 40k just not tournament standard 40k.

Apoc likely failed for a lot of reasons, but I think it has a lot of positive merits in it's core rule design that could be applied to 40k, even if changes need to be made to accommodate a more granular wargear selection and unit sizes.

Honestly I think it has one of the best turn mechanic systems GW ever designed, and solved a lot of the complaints we usually have about the game's lethality and even introduced a d12 for more viarance.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 auticus wrote:
I wont play a game that is IGO UGO any longer personally barring some extreme exceptions like Blood Bowl or games like that.

I don't hate IGOUGO, but honestly the game has to be designed around it from the ground up and 40k is definitely not.

I think 40k is fine in an IGOUGO system, but the issue became the lethality escaped reasonable levels. When you can loose half your army in the opening shots the game turns more into a civil war reenactment where you jsut fire volleys at each other.

As mentioned earlier, the IGOUGO issue really gets curbed in the game when you start filling the board up with LOS blocking items so you can just alpha strike.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Apoc likely failed for a lot of reasons, but I think it has a lot of positive merits in it's core rule design that could be applied to 40k, even if changes need to be made to accommodate a more granular wargear selection and unit sizes.

Honestly I think it has one of the best turn mechanic systems GW ever designed, and solved a lot of the complaints we usually have about the game's lethality and even introduced a d12 for more viarance.

Absolutely, a d12 system would be a god send to give us a far greater range of balance to work with.