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I wonder if classic 40k would have benefited from a +2 to initiative for charging instead of or even in addition to the +1 additional attack.

 Insectum7 wrote:

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.

The problem being that those rules were very binary with cover dropped you to initiative 1 or otherwise ignored by frags, and then the execution made it even worse by failing to give frag to many assault factions in the game while Marines didn't even need to pay for it.

The discussion seems to get bogged down on whether the old initiative was good or bad in earlier editions even though I explicitly said that I wouldn't want them to bring this exact system back, but rather improve on the concept.

Units could get +d3 on initiative when they charge or make an heroic interventions, and gw could implement break points better like they should have done with the old weapon skill (almost everything was WS 4 or 5, extremely few units were above 7,which didn't even matter in most cases since you couldn't even hit on 2s)
My main point is that improving the old system and distribution of the initiative stat would have been better than what we ended up with when they started "streamlining"

 Tyran wrote:
I wonder if classic 40k would have benefited from a +2 to initiative for charging instead of or even in addition to the +1 additional attack.

 Insectum7 wrote:

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.

The problem being that those rules were very binary with cover dropped you to initiative 1 or otherwise ignored by frags, and then the execution made it even worse by failing to give frag to many assault factions in the game while Marines didn't even need to pay for it.

Depends on the edition. Marines got Frags for free starting in 5th iirc, but in 3-4 they were a ppm upgrade.

But I agree that using modifiers rather than the binary flip could have been better.


@Tiberias: Agreed

We still use the Initiative stat for two reasons: resolving combat in order of initiative and for movement, whereas a model's standard move is its initiative + its armor save.

In combat, we still grant a bonus attack if the charging unit doesn't charge through cover, isn't thwarted by defensive grenades or has frag grenades to cancel the cover advantage. Any bonus charging attacks go first, so an ork mob will get its bonus attacks before say an Eldar Striking Scorpion squad receiving the attack. Then the Eldar would go and finally the normal remaining ork attacks. We also still use the old Furious Charge for orks, granting them a +1 initiative on the charge.

I mainly play eldar/dark eldar/harlies, so I definitely felt it when they dropped initiative in 8th. After thinking about it for a bit, I realized that the thing that bugged me wasn't going second; what bugged me was that my lightning-fast harlequins just stood there getting punched on my opponent's turn or when my opponent spent CP to interrupt.

I like the idea of a system like the one catbarf suggested as a baseline:

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.

Although I'd be tempted to just have units on the same initiative strike simultaneously. But then on top of that, I like the idea of giving some units the "stabby" or "extra stabby" keywords. Stabby models killed by enemies without either keyword get to swing at their initiative before being removed. Extra stabby models get to swing unless they were killed by extra stabby enemies.

The idea being that melee *is* a meat grinder, but your harlequins and ork nobz and chaos chosen and so forth are going to put up a fight before they die.

So your termagants or sisters can charge my harlequins and maybe even swing first (I could see harlies having a +1 initiative token rule), but my clowns aren't going to just stand there and politely allow themselves to get wiped out without retaliation.

If only the first-normal-last system could be represented numerically!

 amanita wrote:
We still use the Initiative stat for two reasons: resolving combat in order of initiative and for movement, whereas a model's standard move is its initiative + its armor save.

Whoah, that's cool. I don't know if that's ideal, but a cool take regardless.

That combined with I think a former post of yours featuring simultaneous movement mechanics (iirc?) gives me admiration for your player group and it's willingness to experiment.

Insectum7 wrote: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.

I get where you're coming from, but I felt that it was way too all-or-nothing. You're right that Orks did have ways around it in some editions- though if you failed that Ld check, sucks to suck- but it never sat right to me that all of your models would be hitting last or all of them would be hitting first, and then as mentioned before grenades and cover similarly provided guarantees.

At a fundamental level, I don't quite understand the Initiative stat. I mean, obviously it's to give glass hammer units the ability to take the enemy out before they get slapped, and to add a coherent downside to power fists in a more elegant manner than the current special rule soup, but it's weird to me for a mass battle game to basically say 'you're humans and they're Orks, so by racial default every single member of your squad gets to make all their attacks and resolve every casualty before the enemy can lift a finger'. You could theoretically be so quick and agile (high I) that you always get the first strike in a blink of an eye, but still suck at it (low WS), or be slow as molasses (low I), and yet a skilled melee combatant (high WS). That doesn't sit right with me, as I'd expect these to be go more hand-in-hand- quick reflexes and hand-to-hand proficiency aren't exactly unrelated.

Obviously having the side that charged automatically go first isn't exactly simulationist either, but there it's easier for me to see the intent, and it isn't trying to model a characteristic of the combatants themselves. It's just rewarding aggressiveness in a different way than the old +1A.

I think the underlying issue is that, as with shooting, the game didn't support speed/agility as defense in melee. So Initiative functioned as essentially a kludge to let fragile melee units hit first and either knock out the opposition or die horribly. I think I'd have rather had HH2.0's opposed WS chart, where differences in WS are more impactful, with speed/reflexes/agility rolled into the WS stat. Then resolve activation order differently.

Wyldhunt wrote:Although I'd be tempted to just have units on the same initiative strike simultaneously.

I wouldn't be opposed to that either.

My only concern with simultaneous resolution- and doubly so for 'remove casualties at the end of the turn' proposals- is that it adds more bookkeeping and/or cognitive load over who's actually dead but being left in position to resolve their attacks, or removed but actually still on the board and able to fight.

Initiative stats work in a unit per unit basis. Then you have a game of trying to use your higher initiative units agaisnt the slower units of your opponent.

GW did it pseudo RPG like with fixed initiative stats for whole races/armies. And that made it a uninteractive mechanic that just made armies have advantage over others without any kind of counterplay. As Insectium7 said, maybe it worked in Necrons... exactly because you had different Initiative values for different units.

@Catbarf: ^I can agree that it may have been too all-or nothing. Happy to look at alternatives

As for it's place in a "mass battle" context, I can definitely hear your point. I felt it had a good function for distinguishing units, but at the same time you're really just trying to quickly get to a meaningful result in CC without too much complication. There were definitely fiddly parts of CC operation in 3rd-4th that one could game for advantage, but at the same time were unnecessary side effects of Initiative activation. Simple and clean is good, but I also think unit distinction is good. How to elegantly achieve both is an interesting conundrum.

OPR really surprised me with it's "Quality" stat. Just mashing it all together. It's refreshing, but I think I only half-like it. (Haven't played enough to really say yet)



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Galas wrote:
Initiative stats work in a unit per unit basis. Then you have a game of trying to use your higher initiative units agaisnt the slower units of your opponent.

GW did it pseudo RPG like with fixed initiative stats for whole races/armies. And that made it a uninteractive mechanic that just made armies have advantage over others without any kind of counterplay. As Insectium7 said, maybe it worked in Necrons... exactly because you had different Initiative values for different units.

It seems intuitive to make a Suppression mechanic that effects Initiative, ya? Suddenly that seems sorta obvious.

 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. 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.

TO answer your question, I don't like the gamey-ness of the current mechanic. For all the faults of the initiative system, at least it actually tried to represent something.

We've now got a system where units are arbitrarily selected to fight. By some means that GW doesn't even try to explain, selecting a unit to fight makes your other units fight more slowly.

I'm not saying that bringing back initiative is the only way to solve this issue, just that I would really like to see it fixed by some means.

 vict0988 wrote:
Would you remove the Movement characteristic or keep both?

I hadn't thought about removing movement (it's a can of worms in and of itself, albeit in a largely-unrelated way). In theory, I can understand wanting to merge the two. However, when you look at the move speed of vehicles, as compared with infantry (even infantry that are meant to be very fast/agile) I think it's fair to say that it doesn't necessarily represent the same sort of speed.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 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.

By 7th all the different Initiative values Necrons had were all turned down to 2. If you want units that are good at different things you might as well give them a special rule that makes it clear what the goal is. Want something that is good against more elite units? Make it so it can't be hit on better than 4+. Want something that is hard to hit in melee? -1 to hit. Want something that gets to slay before it gets hit? Give it a fight last application ability. When someone says "it's tactically interesting to match up high or low initiative units with each other" that's exactly what abilities like what the Death Guard flamer dude does with making his buddies strike first and just generally choosing who to strike with first to play around the fight interruption Stratagem feels like to me. When a unit has WS 5 and I 5 what did that say in 7th? It told me it was an Eldar melee unit, not what role it was supposed to perform or how I was supposed to counterplay it. All my units were hitting it on 4+, same as hitting pretty much everything else in the game, all my units would fight after that unit fought, same as pretty much everything else in the game.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
If only the first-normal-last system could be represented numerically!

If you are thinking 0-1-2, It can be!

If you are thinking 1-10 with some models in a unit having a different numbers than others, that is a whole different kettle of fish.

I would honestly prefer to see initiative coming back than continue with fight first/last. Those mechanics could literally just become initiative modifiers.

 alextroy wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
If only the first-normal-last system could be represented numerically!

If you are thinking 0-1-2, It can be!

If you are thinking 1-10 with some models in a unit having a different numbers than others, that is a whole different kettle of fish.

Why? Dude with highest I goes first, then the dudes with the second highest I etc. Where would be the problem in that?

Karol wrote:
Why? Dude with highest I goes first, then the dudes with the second highest I etc. Where would be the problem in that?

Because it was stupid? Take chaos for example, Khorne is supposed to be the best in melee but in practice that was Slaanesh, because +1I made them disproportionately good versus all other Space Marines - but it did absolutely nothing when fighting everything else making the bonus either mandatory or useless, thus impossible to balance or price. Then you had Salamanders, where rules writer stupidly tried to give them 'small' drawback settling on -1I that made all other SM stomp them with comically unfluffy ease.

Oh, and your I usually didn't matter if enemy was behind a bush - unless you had grenades. Unless they had better grenades (which, due to USR stupidity, in some editions almost no one had, but in others, they were common as dirt on some armies shutting all assaults down). Binary much? Oh, orks, supposedly scary melee army? LOL, I2, even IG conscripts moved them down with ease before they even twitched. Ditto for necrons, elite assault units of both races were nearly useless thanks to low I, but perversely enough, normally crippling I debuffs did nothing to either because they fought last anyway.

Etc, etc, it was comical system that was way too easy to abuse and produced stupid and highly illogical results. Last/first fight might not be perfect, but it's much better in practice (and I like the token improvement idea). Much simpler and you don't need to constantly page flip to compare I numbers, especially if the combat involves elites and/or characters (but only some of them, because for some dumb reason half of characters didn't get I boosts - and that funnily enough included most of champion/duelist types, which should be first kind of model to get one)

So much incorrect information right there I cannot even begin to pick it apart...

I like the idea that Conscripts tore Orks apart because they swung first. That's a good one.

Conscripts weren't generally accomplishing much, but I do remember my truk rush ork buddy basically having to plan around losing several models *in melee* before he was allowed to swing even on turns when he charged. Which is understandably a bit demoralizing. Having to lose 10% or 20% of your truk boyz every time they participate in a fight phase seems pretty annoying.

Heck, even those lowly conscripts were doing something like... 30 bodies = 30 attacks = 15 hits = 5 wounds = 4 or 5 dead ork boyz before the orks swing. Which, given that truks had a transport capacity of 10 meant you were likely losing about half your squad. The remaining boys would absolutely win the fight, but still.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Conscripts weren't generally accomplishing much, but I do remember my truk rush ork buddy basically having to plan around losing several models *in melee* before he was allowed to swing even on turns when he charged. Which is understandably a bit demoralizing. Having to lose 10% or 20% of your truk boyz every time they participate in a fight phase seems pretty annoying.

Heck, even those lowly conscripts were doing something like... 30 bodies = 30 attacks = 15 hits = 5 wounds = 4 or 5 dead ork boyz before the orks swing. Which, given that truks had a transport capacity of 10 meant you were likely losing about half your squad. The remaining boys would absolutely win the fight, but still.

I can understand this.

At the same time, it seems equally demoralising when Eldar lose their reflexes, foresight, and even basic vision if anyone charges at them.

"Oh no, the orks we've known about since the beginning of the battle are charging at us across open ground! Truly there is nothing we can do but shrug our shoulders and let them split our fragile skulls. How did our Farseers fail us so?"

 vict0988 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 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.

By 7th all the different Initiative values Necrons had were all turned down to 2.

Hot take, 3rd and 4th edition were better than 7th.

 vict0988 wrote:
If you want units that are good at different things you might as well give them a special rule that makes it clear what the goal is. Want something that is good against more elite units? Make it so it can't be hit on better than 4+. Want something that is hard to hit in melee? -1 to hit. Want something that gets to slay before it gets hit? Give it a fight last application ability. When someone says "it's tactically interesting to match up high or low initiative units with each other" that's exactly what abilities like what the Death Guard flamer dude does with making his buddies strike first and just generally choosing who to strike with first to play around the fight interruption Stratagem feels like to me. When a unit has WS 5 and I 5 what did that say in 7th? It told me it was an Eldar melee unit, not what role it was supposed to perform or how I was supposed to counterplay it. All my units were hitting it on 4+, same as hitting pretty much everything else in the game, all my units would fight after that unit fought, same as pretty much everything else in the game.

Tbh that sounds like a formula for adding a lot of special rules, rather than just quantifying some sort of troop quality with a simple stat. I don't see a particular reason to go with one way over the other, although is sure seems like with an Initiative value you get to act on more of a sliding scale where greater range of different comparative values can potentially be meaningful.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Conscripts weren't generally accomplishing much, but I do remember my truk rush ork buddy basically having to plan around losing several models *in melee* before he was allowed to swing even on turns when he charged. Which is understandably a bit demoralizing. Having to lose 10% or 20% of your truk boyz every time they participate in a fight phase seems pretty annoying.

Heck, even those lowly conscripts were doing something like... 30 bodies = 30 attacks = 15 hits = 5 wounds = 4 or 5 dead ork boyz before the orks swing. Which, given that truks had a transport capacity of 10 meant you were likely losing about half your squad. The remaining boys would absolutely win the fight, but still.

Genuinely that seems like a non issue, because what you're trying to determine in a combat with Initiative is some amount of advantage of one side over the other, and the net result of the advantage then translates to more casualties on one side over the other. It seems like the mechanic was working exactly how it should be working, based on the outcome.

I think there's still an argument to be made that the mechanic was too binary, especially when we're talking about very lethal units who can wipe out an opponent before they get a chance to swing. But when we're talking about a scenario in which 4 Orks were killed because they fought second, rather than just 2 Orks being killed had they fought first . . . I sorta just think the "bad feels" are just like, not important? Troop X is quicker than Troop Y, expect a few more casualties, duh?

Karol wrote:

 alextroy wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
If only the first-normal-last system could be represented numerically!

If you are thinking 0-1-2, It can be!

If you are thinking 1-10 with some models in a unit having a different numbers than others, that is a whole different kettle of fish.

Why? Dude with highest I goes first, then the dudes with the second highest I etc. Where would be the problem in that?

Others have given good answers, but at the most basic, it made the close combat phase a confusing and time-consuming slog. It was easy for a single fight to have 4+ Initiative values along with matching values on both sides of the battle. That meant you needed to carefully select which models go to fight and hope your low Initiative models didn't die before they got to do something.

I'll take alternating unit attacks with Fast & Slow attacking units any day of the week over that. That really all GW needs to do.

Charging units are Fast attackers. All Fight First rules or Fight as if they Charged rules are changed to make that unit a Fast attacker.

All other units are Normal attackers unless under the effects of a rule that make them Slow attackers. Any rule that would delay when a unit can attack are changed to making the designated units Slow attackers.

Units Each instance of a rule that make a unit a Slow attacker negates one instance of a rule that make a unit a Fast attacker.

Players alternate attacking with units, starting with the player whose turn it is. No player may select a Normal or Slow attacker while either player has a Fast attacker unit that has not fought, nor may a player may select a Slow attacker unit while either player has a Normal attacker unit that has not fought.

There. I've cleaned up the mess that is Fight First, Fight Last in 9th Edition in easy rules that fit in the Core Rules section.

 vipoid wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Conscripts weren't generally accomplishing much, but I do remember my truk rush ork buddy basically having to plan around losing several models *in melee* before he was allowed to swing even on turns when he charged. Which is understandably a bit demoralizing. Having to lose 10% or 20% of your truk boyz every time they participate in a fight phase seems pretty annoying.

Heck, even those lowly conscripts were doing something like... 30 bodies = 30 attacks = 15 hits = 5 wounds = 4 or 5 dead ork boyz before the orks swing. Which, given that truks had a transport capacity of 10 meant you were likely losing about half your squad. The remaining boys would absolutely win the fight, but still.

I can understand this.

At the same time, it seems equally demoralising when Eldar lose their reflexes, foresight, and even basic vision if anyone charges at them.

"Oh no, the orks we've known about since the beginning of the battle are charging at us across open ground! Truly there is nothing we can do but shrug our shoulders and let them split our fragile skulls. How did our Farseers fail us so?"

That's partly why I like my "stabby/extra stabby" pitch. As an eldar player, I'm not all that bothered when a squad of charging orks gets to swing before my guardians. They went to the trouble of crossing the table and getting into melee. Good on them for getting to enjoy swinging first. It's when the orks managing to wipe out a squad of banshees or incubi or harlequins and suffer zero casualties in return that it bugs me. I feel like, regardless of who has the faster reflexes, two squads of melee specialists clashing together should result in at least a little damage on both sides.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Conscripts weren't generally accomplishing much, but I do remember my truk rush ork buddy basically having to plan around losing several models *in melee* before he was allowed to swing even on turns when he charged. Which is understandably a bit demoralizing. Having to lose 10% or 20% of your truk boyz every time they participate in a fight phase seems pretty annoying.

Heck, even those lowly conscripts were doing something like... 30 bodies = 30 attacks = 15 hits = 5 wounds = 4 or 5 dead ork boyz before the orks swing. Which, given that truks had a transport capacity of 10 meant you were likely losing about half your squad. The remaining boys would absolutely win the fight, but still.

Genuinely that seems like a non issue, because what you're trying to determine in a combat with Initiative is some amount of advantage of one side over the other, and the net result of the advantage then translates to more casualties on one side over the other. It seems like the mechanic was working exactly how it should be working, based on the outcome.

I think there's still an argument to be made that the mechanic was too binary, especially when we're talking about very lethal units who can wipe out an opponent before they get a chance to swing. But when we're talking about a scenario in which 4 Orks were killed because they fought second, rather than just 2 Orks being killed had they fought first . . . I sorta just think the "bad feels" are just like, not important? Troop X is quicker than Troop Y, expect a few more casualties, duh?

Well, for a more extreme example, consider that same squad of ork boyz charging something like a squad of incubi and getting wiped out before they swing. See above about how both sides should probably be scathed at the end of that clash. And again, conscripts are a pretty weedy example, yet they managed to take out about half an ork squad (albeit only where there 30 of them) before that squad got to swing. I'm not really an ork player, but I imagine having to pay a casualty tax every fight phase would be pretty annoying. Plus, I'd argue that bad feels do matter in gaming as our goal is entertainment. You don't want to come away from your hobby time feeling bad.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 alextroy wrote:

I'll take alternating unit attacks with Fast & Slow attacking units any day of the week over that. That really all GW needs to do.

Charging units are Fast attackers. All Fight First rules or Fight as if they Charged rules are changed to make that unit a Fast attacker.

All other units are Normal attackers unless under the effects of a rule that make them Slow attackers. Any rule that would delay when a unit can attack are changed to making the designated units Slow attackers.

Units Each instance of a rule that make a unit a Slow attacker negates one instance of a rule that make a unit a Fast attacker.

Players alternate attacking with units, starting with the player whose turn it is. No player may select a Normal or Slow attacker while either player has a Fast attacker unit that has not fought, nor may a player may select a Slow attacker unit while either player has a Normal attacker unit that has not fought.

There. I've cleaned up the mess that is Fight First, Fight Last in 9th Edition in easy rules that fit in the Core Rules section.

Well, that still wouldn't address my personal pet peeve with the current system. That is, I charge two squads of harlequins into two squads of enemies. Said enemies either have a fights first rule or use the interrupt stratagem or whatever. My first harlequin unit activates as normal, but then the second unit gets torn apart before it can swing. The current initiative system discourages me from charging with more than one fragile unit per turn, and that's kind of weird.

In WHFB 6th, it had Initiative, Fight First/Last, and fighting first on a Charge.

If you charge, you hit first. If you have a Great Weapon, you fight last, unless you charged, iirc. If you have specific magic items, you can fight first. But, after charges and items were taken into consideration, if the battle remained, it was done by initiative. So Orcs charging Skaven would fight first, but if the Skaven stayed, they'd fight first in the next melee.

It does also help that Initiative isn't purely racial.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Conscripts weren't generally accomplishing much, but I do remember my truk rush ork buddy basically having to plan around losing several models *in melee* before he was allowed to swing even on turns when he charged. Which is understandably a bit demoralizing. Having to lose 10% or 20% of your truk boyz every time they participate in a fight phase seems pretty annoying.

Heck, even those lowly conscripts were doing something like... 30 bodies = 30 attacks = 15 hits = 5 wounds = 4 or 5 dead ork boyz before the orks swing. Which, given that truks had a transport capacity of 10 meant you were likely losing about half your squad. The remaining boys would absolutely win the fight, but still.

Genuinely that seems like a non issue, because what you're trying to determine in a combat with Initiative is some amount of advantage of one side over the other, and the net result of the advantage then translates to more casualties on one side over the other. It seems like the mechanic was working exactly how it should be working, based on the outcome.

I think there's still an argument to be made that the mechanic was too binary, especially when we're talking about very lethal units who can wipe out an opponent before they get a chance to swing. But when we're talking about a scenario in which 4 Orks were killed because they fought second, rather than just 2 Orks being killed had they fought first . . . I sorta just think the "bad feels" are just like, not important? Troop X is quicker than Troop Y, expect a few more casualties, duh?

Well, for a more extreme example, consider that same squad of ork boyz charging something like a squad of incubi and getting wiped out before they swing. See above about how both sides should probably be scathed at the end of that clash. And again, conscripts are a pretty weedy example, yet they managed to take out about half an ork squad (albeit only where there 30 of them) before that squad got to swing. I'm not really an ork player, but I imagine having to pay a casualty tax every fight phase would be pretty annoying. Plus, I'd argue that bad feels do matter in gaming as our goal is entertainment. You don't want to come away from your hobby time feeling bad.

Well I did say that the more lethal encounters may have come out being too severe. Not being able to swing at all is probably too harsh. However when it comes to bad feels, there's a lot of room there. Sometimes one persons bad feels is the others good feels, the reward for paying extra points for your models, or using a specialist that shines at their assigned specialty. If I spend 40ppm on Lightning Claw Terminators and they aren't mulching 6pt Boyz, that's just another potential FeelsBadMan in the opposite direction.

My memory in 3rd 4th was that the balance between Marine and Ork was overall good. 10 Marines might strike first, but not kill too many, while the Ork counterattack was lethal enough to make CC still the right place to be for the Orks. I don't know what the Conscript scenario was. Can't comment.

 Insectum7 wrote:

Well I did say that the more lethal encounters may have come out being too severe. Not being able to swing at all is probably too harsh.
...
My memory in 3rd 4th was that the balance between Marine and Ork was overall good. 10 Marines might strike first, but not kill too many, while the Ork counterattack was lethal enough to make CC still the right place to be for the Orks. I don't know what the Conscript scenario was. Can't comment.

That's fair. I think we agree more than we disagree here. I was mostly just pointing out that low initiative melee units, after going to the trouble of crossing the table and get a charge off, could still end up losing bodies (or the entire unit) before they even swing. Which I imagine is a rather unpleasant experience. Of course, orks could absorb those losses a bit better than many armies. Something like a marine assault squad charging a squad of incubi or a particularly sassy warp spider exarch could end up even worse off.

However when it comes to bad feels, there's a lot of room there. Sometimes one persons bad feels is the others good feels, the reward for paying extra points for your models, or using a specialist that shines at their assigned specialty. If I spend 40ppm on Lightning Claw Terminators and they aren't mulching 6pt Boyz, that's just another potential FeelsBadMan in the opposite direction.

In general, my preference is to let both players feel that they've benefitted form their investments wherever possible. Your terminators invested in ork-killing-claws, but the ork nob invested in a power claw to kill terminators. Initiative can mean that you potentially kill the klaw nob off before he gets to use his investment. Something like my stabby/extra stabby (not a great name) pitch would mean that you'd get the benefits of your lightning claws (you'd get to blend a bunch of orks), but the charging orks would also get to use their power klaw and swing with all their bodies.

I'd like to at least try the old initiative system with more sensible modifiers.
Something like, highest to lowest, +2 for charging, active player wins ties. Throw in a cover bonus if you like. Get rid of the old grenade rules in favour of the current grenade rules.
Tweak unit stats as required.

Ok since some of the discussion is still stuck with the benefits or downfalls of the old initiative system I'm going to reiterate once more.

If GW were to bring back initiative I wouldn't want them to just copy the old system, but improve on it while at the same time toning down the lethality of the game (which is frankly ridiculous at this point) so that it's not mostly like "oops, I managed to charge you with my buffed repentia...might as well just pick up your stuff"

Giving Boni to initiative for charging units seems like good idea to not make the system completely predetermined by the stat itself. And with decreased lethality prolonged combat might actually happen on a more regular basis, which is where the raw initiative value could determine which unit fights first.

To ensure that this also improves granularity between factions and units within factions you would have to distribute the stat properly.
For example if charging units get +d3 to their initiative and baseline space marines were to be initiative 5, a baseline eldar were to be initiative 6, then it would be a bad idea to give orks initiative 3 or 2. But if baseline orks and nobz were to be I 4 and meganobz I 3 then they could still fight before a space marine on the charge depending on their roll.

This is were a good bit of balancing can come into play. Let's say certain melee weapons like thunder hammers give -X to initiative, but meganobz ignore all such penalties because of their brutish strength, which would help them in prolonged fights especially.

My point is that the initiative stat provides all those little levers you could adjust and turn when designing a codex and balancing it with other codices which the current system does not provide.

Edit: the best way to decrease lethality (specifically in melee) imo is to significantly reduce the amount of re-rolls and re introduce Weapon Skill comparison similar to the new horus heresy edition, but with a wider distribution of the statrange across factions. If the Meganobz from our earlier example were to have WS6, it would not matter THAT much that they are slower than most units, because most units would have trouble hitting them, except for other dedicated melee units like for example howling banshees, who if balanced properly should hit before the meganobz most of the time, but have more trouble getting damage through.

Boni and bonii are not a thing.

WS comparisons in 30k are stupid. Space Marines should not get -1 to hit in melee faction-wide. There are tonnes of melee units that don't need the nerf to their damage output.

If you used all WS stats from 1-10 it might work. But the simplicity of using the same stat for most of an army, except for fluffy exceptions is much easier to keep track than a system where you have 5 different WS values in your list of and doesn't have the downside of some factions being -1 to hit. Melee damage output would not be insane if not for stat creep and you can still stat creep in 30k's system so saying it'd reduce lethality is a terrible argument.

My point is that the initiative stat provides all those little levers you could adjust and turn when designing a codex and balancing it with other codices which the current system does not provide.

Stats are not a balancing lever, they are a there to make units fluffy. Otherwise we could all just use our Xenos to proxy Space Marines.

I think the problem with multiple stats is always the wastage. I.E. being initiative 5 if you are fighting initiative 2 stuff. Surely you are paying over being initiative 3 or 4, but deriving no benefit. Its hard to balance that gap with points.

My memory is that old boyz were just a PK-armed nob delivery system, so taking some punches in the face produced a whatever response.