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Ok so the rumors about 10th ed coming out next summer keep circulating. Don't know if there is anything to them, but if they are true I just wish for GW to get rid of the fight firsr/last system. The system doesn't make 9th melee combat unplayable right now, but I hate it with a flaming passion for its clunkyness and idiotic implementation.

I mean the whole premise of these rules was to "streamline" the game back when 8th came out. And fair enough, the old initiative system was not without problems, but nobody in their right mind can tell me that the current fight first/last system is less complicated or more intuitive. I mean they had to release a dedicated article on warhammer community with a designers commentary to clarify the interactions for Pete's sake and still just unnecessarily complicated.

Maybe it's a fools hope, but they could just bring back initiative in 10th. Not exactly like it was in earlier editions, but use it as a building block to improve on the old system. Not only is it more easily understandable, but it could also be used in balancing and bringing back more granularity between units and factions (classic fast but weaker elves and strong but slower orks).
The game would of course also have to be less lethal to properly implement that, because with the current lethality levels, fast units would have too much of an advantage.
But the issue of general arms race between new and old codices and ever increasing lethality over the course of an edition is another topic entirely.....

There are some things I'll wax nostalgic about from older editions, but the Initiative stat isn't one of them. As useful as it was to certain armies, like Eldar being able to rely on offense as their best defense by usually hitting first, it was also frustrating for armies like Orks that ought to be melee-focused but got crippled by striking last. It was one of those things that was frustrating to play with, because it applied to your whole army, with limited means to overcome.

The current system is fairly straightforward at its core, but GW has in typical GW fashion made it drastically overcomplicated by piling bespoke special mechanics onto a core one, rather than building the mechanic from the outset to support those special cases. I think you could marginally rewrite it to be more intuitive without drastically changing how it works.

Something like:
-Any unit which charges receives an Initiative token.
-Any unit which is in Engagement Range at the start of the Fight phase receives an Initiative token.
-Any unit with a 'Fight First' ability adds an Initiative token.
-Any unit with a 'Enemy Fights Last' ability removes an Initiative token from the appropriate unit.

And then you fight in order of initiative tokens, units with the most to units with the least. Within each 'step', alternate back and forth as in the current system. You could add in more effects that add or take away initiative, like cover or grenades or whatever, since now they're just straightforward +1s and -1s rather than exception cases that need to be resolved by canceling out with existing effects.

I prefer the AoS system.

After I’ve completed my charges, I get to choose one unit to fight with. Then my opponent, then me, until all of our units have fought.

Some armies have special rules here, such as the Hyshian Elves, who get to pick two units at a time,

This makes combat quite thorny. You can find yourself overcommitting, and getting squished even when you’ve charged.

Though there is something, and I know it’s in an existing game but I’m buggered if I can remember what it is, where casualties are removed at the end of the Game Turn.

So even if you have a truly stonking first turn and butter my army, I at least get a shot at some retribution,

Yes it’s a bit book keepy, but I think it’s something people would rapidly adapt to, and perhaps even welcome as whilst First Turn remains advantageous as you get to dictate the flow of the battle, it’s not as one sided as I hear it is now.

From what I understand GK would often always go first, thanks to the fact that in older editions their weapons gave them a buff, which made them go first. I am all in favour of removing fight first/last, and just giving my termintors those old rules back.

Units in melee should be fighting at the same time unless one charged or one has a special rule.

Karol wrote:
From what I understand GK would often always go first, thanks to the fact that in older editions their weapons gave them a buff, which made them go first. I am all in favour of removing fight first/last, and just giving my termintors those old rules back.

It was the Halberds that gave them.. Either +1 or +2 initiative. One of the very few weapons that did so in that time, which gave them a massive advantage on everyone except Eldar in melee with their mass of power weaponry.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
It was the Halberds that gave them.. Either +1 or +2 initiative. One of the very few weapons that did so in that time, which gave them a massive advantage on everyone except Eldar in melee with their mass of power weaponry.

LOL no. 1 attack S4 power weapon scared no one (except for idiot 4chan clowns screeching about Ward books). Orks didn't care one bit, neither did any massed army with 5/6/- saves because said power weapons made GK extremely inefficient against them. Neither did anything with ++ saves. Or any proper assault troops because GK were extremely squishy with barely any access to ++ themselves. Or monsters with high T laughing at said S4. All the power weapons did was countering FNP spam, letting GK take on durable shooty armies to give them counter strategy to them, and reducing the importance of multiple wounds death star spam in the meta due to force rule. There was a lot of play, counterplay, and strategy involved, exactly as you'd expect from a competent rules writer.

There is a reason why GK players spammed Purifiers even despite Crowe tax (ability to counter chaff and medium melee units) or Paladins (despite massive Draigo tax - actual melee ability and durability). Thankfully either approach had a trade off in much smaller army, again leading to counterplays unlike 7th and 9th editions where spamming far more broken units is actually cheap. Did I say competent rules writer yet?

 Irbis wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
It was the Halberds that gave them.. Either +1 or +2 initiative. One of the very few weapons that did so in that time, which gave them a massive advantage on everyone except Eldar in melee with their mass of power weaponry.

LOL no. 1 attack S4 power weapon scared no one (except for idiot 4chan clowns screeching about Ward books). Orks didn't care one bit, neither did any massed army with 5/6/- saves because said power weapons made GK extremely inefficient against them. Neither did anything with ++ saves. Or any proper assault troops because GK were extremely squishy with barely any access to ++ themselves. Or monsters with high T laughing at said S4. All the power weapons did was countering FNP spam, letting GK take on durable shooty armies to give them counter strategy to them, and reducing the importance of multiple wounds death star spam in the meta due to force rule. There was a lot of play, counterplay, and strategy involved, exactly as you'd expect from a competent rules writer.

There is a reason why GK players spammed Purifiers even despite Crowe tax (ability to counter chaff and medium melee units) or Paladins (despite massive Draigo tax - actual melee ability and durability). Thankfully either approach had a trade off in much smaller army, again leading to counterplays unlike 7th and 9th editions where spamming far more broken units is actually cheap. Did I say competent rules writer yet?

Once again you manage to miss the point in a spectacular fashion...

I agree with the idea that both sides fight before casualties are removed. Unless there is some special reason or rule, having a squad wiped out in melee while they just stand there has always sucked.

30k does it pretty well, but still has some issuses.

I've really been enjoying the return to Initiative since moving to 30k. It's vastly simpler and more intuitive than the fights first/last mess in current 40k. But if it was brought back to 40k I'd like to see a re-balancing of Initiative across factions. There's no reason that fighty Ork units should be "slow", for example. They should have the same Initiative as marines, IMO.

 catbarf wrote:
There are some things I'll wax nostalgic about from older editions, but the Initiative stat isn't one of them. As useful as it was to certain armies, like Eldar being able to rely on offense as their best defense by usually hitting first, it was also frustrating for armies like Orks that ought to be melee-focused but got crippled by striking last. It was one of those things that was frustrating to play with, because it applied to your whole army, with limited means to overcome.

That, to me, seems like a failure of execution, not of the concept itself.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
That, to me, seems like a failure of execution, not of the concept itself.

I think it's very similar to the issues faced with Ballistic Skill and to-hit penalties. Without much in the way to boost the relevant stat, it means you can get army-wide matchups where there is no way to strike first or hit on better than 6+, and since there's no real counterplay it just isn't fun.

And the other issue with Initiative is that it was all-or-nothing. You often had situations where a unit paid for high initiative that was wasted, or you could get a bonus to your Initiative but it still didn't matter if the enemy's was high enough.

So I could see Initiative being redeemed if two things were addressed- having more ways to modify it, and giving it a less black-and-white effect than 'whoever has a higher stat makes all their attacks before the enemy swings at all'. Give different weapons and circumstances modifiers to Initiative, and maybe use something like a comparison table, where the higher your I over the enemy, the more of your attacks you get to make before the remainder are resolved simultaneously with the opponent's.

But at that point it's been changed so much that it doesn't bear all that much relevance to the original mechanic- and I'm not sure the gameplay effects are worth the complexity over a simpler model. As a stat it feels more appropriate to me for a skirmish game than a mass-battle wargame, to be honest.

The problem of Initiative was the classic GW problem of creating a system with strong breakpoints and then proceeding to place entire factions at different sides of the breakpoints with little logic or reason.

Having units fight as a whole, instead of having to fight multiple times each phase to get through different weapons is simpler.
@catbarf I think the easiest thing would just be to have high initiative normal initiative and low initiative. Charging and certain rules makes you fight at high initiative. Then instead of having abilities that make you fight at a lower initiative they just put you at low initiative no matter what. The text could be very clear, regardless of what initiative that unit fights at it's fighting at low initiative this turn, end of story. No cancelling out positives and negatives. Just yes, nothing or no. No beats yes. First activation at high initiative being the turn player's and first activation of normal initiative being the opponent's should also be normalised, one or the other, keep it simple.

Tiberias wrote:
Maybe it's a fools hope, but they could just bring back initiative in 10th. Not exactly like it was in earlier editions, but use it as a building block to improve on the old system. Not only is it more easily understandable, but it could also be used in balancing and bringing back more granularity between units and factions (classic fast but weaker elves and strong but slower orks).

"Sorry Blood Angels you've been doing a little too well in the past 3 months, chill out, your initiative is down by 1." I hate initiative and I hate your philosophy of things that should be dictated by fluff being dictated by balance.

EviscerationPlague wrote:
Units in melee should be fighting at the same time unless one charged or one has a special rule.

Shooting units get to wipe out their opponent without taking damage, I think it's fair that melee units get a chance to do the same. The ability to fight back at all is already pushing the game into favouring shooting.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
I've really been enjoying the return to Initiative since moving to 30k. It's vastly simpler and more intuitive than the fights first/last mess in current 40k. But if it was brought back to 40k I'd like to see a re-balancing of Initiative across factions. There's no reason that fighty Ork units should be "slow", for example. They should have the same Initiative as marines, IMO.

It makes some sense with Orks being less intelligent than Marines and Necrons being very deliberate and not having lightning fast reactions, it was just frustrating, especially with remove from the front and sweeping advance in the game.

Racerguy180 wrote:
30k does it pretty well, but still has some issuses.

Of course there's largely same initiave as units are often same.

Not like entire army is relegated to never getting to strike before opponent gets to strike.

And with current lethality if you always strike last you always get killed before you get to strike...So basically army like orks would just forget melee as they go to melee, then they die.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 vict0988 wrote:
Having units fight as a whole, instead of having to fight multiple times each phase to get through different weapons is simpler.
@catbarf I think the easiest thing would just be to have high initiative normal initiative and low initiative. Charging and certain rules makes you fight at high initiative. Then instead of having abilities that make you fight at a lower initiative they just put you at low initiative no matter what. The text could be very clear, regardless of what initiative that unit fights at it's fighting at low initiative this turn, end of story. No cancelling out positives and negatives. Just yes, nothing or no. No beats yes. First activation at high initiative being the turn player's and first activation of normal initiative being the opponent's should also be normalised, one or the other, keep it simple.

Eh that's basically always strike first(high initiave), always strike last(low initiave)...

 LesPaul wrote:
I agree with the idea that both sides fight before casualties are removed. Unless there is some special reason or rule, having a squad wiped out in melee while they just stand there has always sucked.

This idea seems good on paper, particularly when you look at durable units like marines or orks fighting each other. It's certainly likely to work well for something like HH where opposing sides are broadly similar.

However in practice it would break a lot of the 'glass cannon' melee specialists like aspect warriors or GSC acolytes. I'm not sure how they would ever be viable without some kind of 'fights first' rule, and then we'd end up circling back around to the original issue.

I feel as covered, the problem of initiative was just that its very difficult to please all sides.

Going "Eldar/Tyranids fight first, Orks fight last, the end" isn't much fun for the Orks. But equally "Elves and gribblies fight first, unless they step on rocks, in which case they are initiative 1 like everyone else would be, unless they have grenades. But we aren't giving them grenades, because if everyone with high initiative gets grenades why have this rule reducing initiative to 1?" prompts "Why indeed GW, why indeed?"

It feels to me like chargers should strike first - because they've got across the table and had to make a successful charge roll. But the system of fights last/interrupts was meant to stop "I make 3 successful charges, I kill everything I touch, that's a huge number of points gone, gg no re".

We also already see that fights on death is incredibly powerful - if not broken - so making this a gamewide rule without a major rewrite of stats seems likely to skew the game.

You could re-write 40k entirely so everyone fights at the same time - and if you shoot a unit, it gets to shoot back at you. But I can't see them doing it.

xttz wrote:However in practice it would break a lot of the 'glass cannon' melee specialists like aspect warriors or GSC acolytes. I'm not sure how they would ever be viable without some kind of 'fights first' rule, and then we'd end up circling back around to the original issue.

Both units would be destroyed, GSC acolytes would have their points adjusted down and they'd be fine. They get destroyed when they get charged or shot right now, it wouldn't be the end of the world. However giving them Initiative 1 because of saws or whatever would truly be a death sentence against killy melee units.

tneva82 wrote:

Racerguy180 wrote:
30k does it pretty well, but still has some issuses.

Of course there's largely same initiave as units are often same.

Not like entire army is relegated to never getting to strike before opponent gets to strike.

And with current lethality if you always strike last you always get killed before you get to strike...So basically army like orks would just forget melee as they go to melee, then they die.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 vict0988 wrote:
Having units fight as a whole, instead of having to fight multiple times each phase to get through different weapons is simpler.
@catbarf I think the easiest thing would just be to have high initiative normal initiative and low initiative. Charging and certain rules makes you fight at high initiative. Then instead of having abilities that make you fight at a lower initiative they just put you at low initiative no matter what. The text could be very clear, regardless of what initiative that unit fights at it's fighting at low initiative this turn, end of story. No cancelling out positives and negatives. Just yes, nothing or no. No beats yes. First activation at high initiative being the turn player's and first activation of normal initiative being the opponent's should also be normalised, one or the other, keep it simple.

Eh that's basically always strike first(high initiave), always strike last(low initiave)...

The problem is when I have an ability that says "At the start of the Fight phase, if a unit with this Obsession is within Engagement Range of any enemy units, it can fight first that phase." and you have an ability that says "At the start of the Fight phase, you can select one enemy unit within 3" of the bearer. That unit is not eligible to fight this phase until after all eligible units from your army have done so." what happens isn't clear from the rules so we need designer's commentary. I actually believe that in-eligible to fight is different from fight last, making things unnecessarily complicated. Imagine the core rules explaining the three initiative steps, all working the exact same way with the active player going first and then back and forth. Now the rules of the previously mentioned rules could be changed to "At the start of the Fight phase, if a unit with this Obsession is within Engagement Range of any enemy units, it fights at high initiative that phase." and "At the start of the Fight phase, you can select one enemy unit within 3" of the bearer. That unit fights at low initiative even if another rule would make it fight at high initiative."

Always preferred a more 'dynamic' fighting system than 'taking turns'.

2nd ed/oldcromunda's system is fun, but sadly unworkable for a mass battle game.

Love the lotr games approach of 'all fighters roll a d6, highest wins' (with caveats) and the winner rolls damage.

Kill team's approach od rolling attacks and alternatively declaring 'strikes' or 'parries' with rhe successful hits is also something me and my group really enjoys.

Initiative waa one of those things that caused as many problems as it supposedly solved.

 vict0988 wrote:

xttz wrote:However in practice it would break a lot of the 'glass cannon' melee specialists like aspect warriors or GSC acolytes. I'm not sure how they would ever be viable without some kind of 'fights first' rule, and then we'd end up circling back around to the original issue.

Both units would be destroyed, GSC acolytes would have their points adjusted down and they'd be fine. They get destroyed when they get charged or shot right now, it wouldn't be the end of the world. However giving them Initiative 1 because of saws or whatever would truly be a death sentence against killy melee units.

It's not a great argument to say that these units are vulnerable if they don't get in combat first, so let's increase their vulnerability in the only situation they're currently 'safe'. Right now if Acolytes (or say Banshees) make a charge against a suitable target they can probably wipe it and continue to hold objectives or threaten other units. An opponent has to make a decision to address that, which may be to shoot the Acolytes instead of another threat, charge them, etc. If the Acolytes are already mostly dead for 'free', then an opponent is under less pressure. By forcing units like this into what's basically now a suicide role, it just encourages players with squishy melee options to stick with more durable melee or shooting instead.

I disagree that this can be addressed with points changes. A common issue in 8th was units having datasheets that were basically ineffective at their intended role, and then only seeing play if their points were cut low enough that spamming the unit became worthwhile. That leads to T3 model spam skew lists like we saw in early 8th, which aren't great fun to play with or against. That would be the only situation where suicide melee units would be fielded over better options.

 xttz wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

xttz wrote:However in practice it would break a lot of the 'glass cannon' melee specialists like aspect warriors or GSC acolytes. I'm not sure how they would ever be viable without some kind of 'fights first' rule, and then we'd end up circling back around to the original issue.

Both units would be destroyed, GSC acolytes would have their points adjusted down and they'd be fine. They get destroyed when they get charged or shot right now, it wouldn't be the end of the world. However giving them Initiative 1 because of saws or whatever would truly be a death sentence against killy melee units.

It's not a great argument to say that these units are vulnerable if they don't get in combat first, so let's increase their vulnerability in the only situation they're currently 'safe'. Right now if Acolytes (or say Banshees) make a charge against a suitable target they can probably wipe it and continue to hold objectives or threaten other units. An opponent has to make a decision to address that, which may be to shoot the Acolytes instead of another threat, charge them, etc. If the Acolytes are already mostly dead for 'free', then an opponent is under less pressure. By forcing units like this into what's basically now a suicide role, it just encourages players with squishy melee options to stick with more durable melee or shooting instead.

I disagree that this can be addressed with points changes. A common issue in 8th was units having datasheets that were basically ineffective at their intended role, and then only seeing play if their points were cut low enough that spamming the unit became worthwhile. That leads to T3 model spam skew lists like we saw in early 8th, which aren't great fun to play with or against. That would be the only situation where suicide melee units would be fielded over better options.

The question was one of viability, not whether the game would be more fun. Don't forget that they'd be a lot more killy if they received a charge as well, so it'd be a bittersweet change for Acolytes, not just a nerf. Every unit can be made viable when it is cheap enough and I think we can agree that Acolytes should be on the cheaper end of the spectrum so saying "just lower their points" makes more sense for Acolytes than Howling Banshees.

 vict0988 wrote:
Having units fight as a whole, instead of having to fight multiple times each phase to get through different weapons is simpler.

I would argue that resolving each combat separately is simpler, rather than one combat magically affecting another combat on the other side of the table.

^^^^^And I would second that argument.

 vipoid wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:
Having units fight as a whole, instead of having to fight multiple times each phase to get through different weapons is simpler.

I would argue that resolving each combat separately is simpler, rather than one combat magically affecting another combat on the other side of the table.

Good point, but you could resolve battles individually without Initiative and you could go back and forth in a system with initiative. I think battles across the table affecting each other is interesting and adds enough depth to the game that it's worth keeping. Do you dislike the mechanic? Is it just that it makes the game less simple or is it the lack of a story for why we're going back and forth? Adding back initiative would add complexity without much depth and it would be annoying, that's why I am not in favour.

Would you remove the Movement characteristic or keep both?

 vict0988 wrote:
I think battles across the table affecting each other is interesting and adds enough depth to the game that it's worth keeping. Do you dislike the mechanic?

i think i'm missing something, what do you mean they affect each other?

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:
I think battles across the table affecting each other is interesting and adds enough depth to the game that it's worth keeping. Do you dislike the mechanic?

i think i'm missing something, what do you mean they affect each other?

Whether I choose to fight with my Lychguard against your Meganobz or with my Flayed Ones against your Boyz impacts both fights, even if they are 30" apart. In 7th edition it wouldn't matter, because if I fought with my Flayed Ones first my Lychguard would still go before the Meganobz because their Initiative 2 was higher than the Initiative 1 of the Meganobz and if I fought with my Lychguard first the Flayed Ones would still strike at the same time because their Initiative was the same as that of the Boyz. So the question is about whether this mechanic of going back and forth with different units across the table takes you out of the game and/or is too complex or if it is an interesting challenge.

 vict0988 wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:
I think battles across the table affecting each other is interesting and adds enough depth to the game that it's worth keeping. Do you dislike the mechanic?

i think i'm missing something, what do you mean they affect each other?

Whether I choose to fight with my Lychguard against your Meganobz or with my Flayed Ones against your Boyz impacts both fights, even if they are 30" apart. In 7th edition it wouldn't matter, because if I fought with my Flayed Ones first my Lychguard would still go before the Meganobz because their Initiative 2 was higher than the Initiative 1 of the Meganobz and if I fought with my Lychguard first the Flayed Ones would still strike at the same time because their Initiative was the same as that of the Boyz. So the question is about whether this mechanic of going back and forth with different units across the table takes you out of the game and/or is too complex or if it is an interesting challenge.

oh, i get what you mean. At first i thought you meant like actually killing stuff or something.

Yeah, just make all damage resolve at the end of the turn (for shooting AND for melee) if you want to stay in an IGOUGO system (let's not start that debate again tho)

My biggest gripe about the current system is that no matter how many pluses you get (fight first, charge, spec strategem) if there is one minus it cancels out all of the pluses (if you get hit by fight last then everything that is to your advantage is ignored). To me that makes little gaming sense. If I can amass bonii then one penalty, equal in scale to any one of my bonii, shouldn't mean that all bonii are lost.

If I have fight first and charge you I shouldn't be fighting you at the same initiative level simply because you have me fight last. If it were just one bonus to one penalty then I can see it but not one penalty wiping out multiple bonii.

 vict0988 wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:
Having units fight as a whole, instead of having to fight multiple times each phase to get through different weapons is simpler.

I would argue that resolving each combat separately is simpler, rather than one combat magically affecting another combat on the other side of the table.

Good point, but you could resolve battles individually without Initiative and you could go back and forth in a system with initiative. I think battles across the table affecting each other is interesting and adds enough depth to the game that it's worth keeping.

Hard disagree. While I like the idea that battles on one side of the table can effect the overall battle elsewhere, I find this particular mechanic to be a very artificial way to achieve it.

Now if we're talking killing a psyker on one side of the table meaning that your psychic phase overall is weakened (a la 2nd edition), then that's something. Or killing a character that provides an army-wide buff (such as Captains in 4th edition) then that's something. But just arbitrarily "these guys fight a round of combat against random joe's over here and that has an immediate effect 1 km away", or whatever, feels pretty dumb.

 catbarf wrote:
There are some things I'll wax nostalgic about from older editions, but the Initiative stat isn't one of them. As useful as it was to certain armies, like Eldar being able to rely on offense as their best defense by usually hitting first, it was also frustrating for armies like Orks that ought to be melee-focused but got crippled by striking last. It was one of those things that was frustrating to play with, because it applied to your whole army, with limited means to overcome.

Ooh I have a hard time seeing eye to eye on that one. I thought the Orks did a really good job of dealing with this (3rd-4th, don't recall 5th-onward) with their Assault rules where they would take a Mob Check and if passed, doubled their initiative for charging. They'd strike at I4 for their first round of combat, and then drop back to 2 for subsequent rounds. I also played Necrons back in those days and their army was interesting in that they had an array of Initiative stats, from 2-6, with I4 being reserved for Flayed Ones and I6 for Wraiths. It was a very meaningful distinction for those units, and at the same time I never felt like I was being "robbed" for having Warriors stuck at I2.

And then on top of that of course you had the rules for modifying your Initiative by being in cover, or throwing Frags. And Eldar had the Plasma Grenades which effectively negated all bonuses and left them striking first at their natural Initiative. I thought all that stuff was pretty good.