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Ok maybe I missed something on 2nd edition since I don't play it myself

 kodos wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
Making IGOUGO work is simple

genuinely curious how would you make it work?

One page Rules, Warpath Firefight, Kings of War, Lord of the Rings, Deadzone, 3rd Edi 40k
IGoUGo works fine in general

in case you talk about alternating player turns for 40k, go back to 3rd

OnePageRules is alternating activations tho....

 kodos wrote:
activating the whole army in one turn reduces the value of split fire because you are shooting with multiple units anyway before the opponent can react
yet if there is a unit by unit based system were a single unit is activated at once, being able to shoot more than 1 target is much stronger and on a level of double activation

Nope, you have that completely backwards. The typical scenario where split fire is relevant (outside of badly designed units) is that you have a unit of lascannons and a priority target tank that has some damage on it.

In IGOUGO split fire is valuable and risk-free. You split your lascannons between the primary target and a secondary target to ensure that you don't overkill the primary, and if you didn't use enough on the primary target you still have the rest of your army to finish the job. Overkill is minimized except at the very end of your turn, as you are activating your lowest-priority units and have few/no backup options left.

In an alternating activation system split fire has significant risks. If you split your lascannons you risk letting the primary target survive and activate so the best play is usually to focus fire and maximize your chances of a kill. Split fire becomes a highly situational tool that you're only going to use when you have multiple severely damaged targets to finish off and also a high-threat unit that can reliably clean up all of them with minimal chance of failure.

From a balance point of view this makes the risk of split fire mechanics far worse in IGOUGO. There's no mitigating factor that would prevent you from splitting fire at every opportunity and maximizing your offensive efficiency so any split fire mechanic that is a little too good will be abused constantly. But in an alternating activation system there's inherent counter-play to split fire mechanics built into the system and even if one pushes the power level boundaries too much it can't be exploited without limits.

alternate activation is still IGoUGo, so why should GW remove the options to break that?

Um, no? IGOUGO is activating your entire army at once. Alternating activation is by definition not IGOUGO.

so such stratagems are the first thing GW would add to the game to break IGoUGo up, as they do now

Can you please stop trying to derail this conversation with "GW will always do something profoundly stupid so every idea is bad"? If GW is always going to screw up every conceivable rule they could publish then why are you here?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Karol wrote:
A few things. It is not the case, if there are no factions that split fire to kill two things or have a huge over kill in the damage they do. As soon as there is one , there will be a huge problem of trading up. Epecialy if the faction ends up aggresivly undercosted for what it can do.

"GW will always screw everything up" isn't a constructive argument here. And even in the case of balance issues IGOUGO makes all of these problems worse. An undercosted high-offense unit is even more effective in an IGOUGO game where you can spam multiple of them and activate them all at once, without any return fire threatening to destroy them before they fire or any risks of failing to finish off a target if you split fire to maximize their efficiency.

Buff stacking would be a problem for factions that require multiple activiations.

Buff stacking should be removed from the game so this is a feature not a bug.

As the stratagems goes. You may not want them. I may not like them. But GW can sell cards for them, so for at least the next 2-3 editions they will stay.

"GW will do the stupid thing instead of fixing the problem" may be true but it doesn't mean that stratagems should continue existing. They're a problem and they need to be removed even if GW insists on milking the cash cow of stratagem cards.

And TBH it's not about the stratagem cards, which I doubt make enough money to really matter. It's about covering up the poor depth of the core mechanics by attaching a pseudo-CCG element of figuring out the best way to play your buff cards. It lets 14 year olds feel like a tactical genius for figuring out that you should play all your buff cards on your best unit and kill a bunch of stuff but doesn't require any real strategy that might make people give up on trying to understand how to plan more than one move in advance.

 kodos wrote:
or for alternating turns, simple add that the one who deploys first is also the one with the first turn
the other player can respond by placing his units accordingly

 kodos wrote:
point is, alternating activations are much easier to break than alternating turns

I strongly disagree. If I had to name the single most impactful rule change to a better game experience overall for my homebrew Custom40k, it would be "player A activates a single unit, player B activates a single unit". It solves lethality problems and makes the game much more engaging. Simply sitting around for 30min not doing anything but removing your own models being a thing of the past is invaluable. I honestly have yet to meet an unwanted rules interaction ("exploit") because of this turn order.

As a side note, the player who finishes first deploying all units gets a bonus to the first initiative roll for the first round. There are multiple ways to deploy units, characters and transports together, alone, in reserve or infiltrating. So even if one side got more units in total, it is not certain who will get the initiative.

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
It is, but from my experience playing project z which uses this method, it actually is enjoyable because you can immediately react to the movements of your competitor. Plus as the game has you roll for.initiative each turn, you need to carefully think about placements and targets as you're not guaranteed to go first next turn.

Granted it is a way smaller game, but I doubt it would not be possible to implement it in 40k.after all. This is still igougo, yes, but better implemented in my view.

It totally can work within the 40k frameset. If you want to give it a try, may I guide you to the thread in my signature. It is kinda like a natural progression of 5th with alternate activation and better overall balance.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
Making IGOUGO work is simple

genuinely curious how would you make it work?

Buy a copy of Conqueror: Fields of Victory and find out!

Shameless self-promotion aside, IGOUGO works fine when it is done properly. The problem is that GW doesn't use it properly and that is why people saying alternating activation would solve the problem are deluding themselves. GW would absolutely screw that up, and people have already explained how - giving bonus activations, repeat activations, and so forth.

It also has known exploits - such as holding a unit back to activate last, and then activating it first in the next turn, effectively rocketing it across the map.

The strength of IGOUGO is that it is intuitive and you don't have to fuss around waiting for players to decide which unit to activate first. Nor do you have to rebalance when the numbers of units shift dramatically. It also avoids gamesmanship over maneuver elements. If one player is locked into ten and the other gets only three, well someone's got a firepower advantage.

And people will do that. The same manipulation of army lists that happens now will happen with activations, and GW will hand out cards that let people break the rules for fun and profit.

The trick to using IGOUGO is to scale it to whatever you are trying to do. If you're playing Axis and Allies, or some board game at the operational/strategic level, reaction moves aren't really needed. On a more tactical level, you can either integrate them into the turn sequence, or create reaction mechanisms.

Panzerblitz/Panzerleader do this, and 2nd ed. 40k did as well.

It seems to me that the problems being blamed on IGOUGO are more related to LOS rules, so units are never really hidden and/or cover, so that it doesn't do much good if they have it anyway. This is combined with massive weapon lethality to make a turn one knockout possible.

Weapon ranges would also factor into this, which is also beyond the scope of IGOUGO.

Finally, as has been noted, not all units will be equal. I'm thinking a superheavy probably has more killing potential than an grot mob, and that using rules manipulation or simple sequencing to allow to superheavies to dump ordnance in consecutive activations would be just as devastating as it is now.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
It seems to me that the problems being blamed on IGOUGO are more related to LOS rules, so units are never really hidden and/or cover, so that it doesn't do much good if they have it anyway. This is combined with massive weapon lethality to make a turn one knockout possible.

Well... no not really. The problem with IGOUGO is that - if employed like 40k, you get very few "turns". This means there is limited scope for interaction.
Infinity for instance is IGOUGO - but the reaction mechanic and simultaneous resolutions makes it feel like it isn't. The game breaks down into lots of smaller turns. The problem with this system is that the skill gap between experienced and new players is vast. Knowing you should lose - and lose hard - for the first 10 games is off-putting. (And this isn't "Eldar vs Votann" imbalance, its "I can just outplay you, so I kill your guys and you don't scratch mine.")

Lethality has gone up through 8th, 9th and 10th, as the various constraints have been done away with. I.E. Heavy = move and can't shoot. Move and only hit on 6s. Move and its -1 to hit. Then its -1 to hit but only on infantry. Then its Stand still and its +1 to hit (although with reduced basic BS its kind of a wash). You were allowed to split fire - being able to shoot and charge with regular weapons etc etc.

But - and I think its an important but - I don't think this fundamentally alters the issue. In older editions of 40k, you often had a turn (or two) of moving around, maybe throw out a few lascannons to pop some rhinos. But at a certain point (often turn 3) you rapidly hit the same level of lethality. Drop melta in the rear of vehicles. Drop flamer templates to delete infantry. Sweeping advance units off the table. Pour so much fire into terminators they invariably roll a few 1s and die etc etc. People would never have got tabled otherwise.

Now maybe you can say this slow build up is better for the game, than say the outset of 8th - where turn one shooting deepstrike meant not clearing about 40% of your opponent's army turn 1 (if they hadn't effectively null deployed) was a failure. Better than about a year into 9th where Ad Mech flyers and Ork vehicle spam were shooting people off the table turn 1.

But the problem is the same. You have limited scope to interact. Having to spend an hour+ moving minis around the table for a turn or two before the lethality kicks in doesn't really change that issue. I think "high skill level 9th" was a reasonable game of trading units into each other - and effectively making bets on how the dice will fall. But the turn system means you only get a few goes of this - and then the game is over (and frankly, everything one one or both sides is usually dead.)

Clearly if you just went "pick a unit, play out a whole 40k turn with that unit, then have your opponent pick a unit and do the same" there would be imbalances between super heavies and 50 point units. But that's a seperate issue. The core issue is changing the game from one of say 30 turns (or whatever it would be, given units invariably die over the course of the game) - rather than 5 (or, if everything dies, just 3 or 4).

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
It also has known exploits - such as holding a unit back to activate last, and then activating it first in the next turn, effectively rocketing it across the map.

The strength of IGOUGO is that it is intuitive and you don't have to fuss around waiting for players to decide which unit to activate first. Nor do you have to rebalance when the numbers of units shift dramatically. It also avoids gamesmanship over maneuver elements. If one player is locked into ten and the other gets only three, well someone's got a firepower advantage.

This sounds like arguments from someone who has not experienced both systems with the same game. While the other guy is moving their complete army, I might as well go play a round of ARAM in League of Legends. There is nothing of interest to do for me most of the time. I'm just sitting there and have to wait. It gets worse with bigger game sizes. Waiting a moment for the other player to decide which unit to activate, before I get to activate one unit, is orders of magnitude better in feel of the game. Every edition of 40k, with whatever rules or balance problems it had, would instantly be more fun with alternate activation. Even if you would not change anything else. Imho.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
Finally, as has been noted, not all units will be equal. I'm thinking a superheavy probably has more killing potential than an grot mob, and that using rules manipulation or simple sequencing to allow to superheavies to dump ordnance in consecutive activations would be just as devastating as it is now.

The difference is that the other player gets to react to your unit. Let me give you an example from Custom40k:
- Your heavy hitter starts on the board, but you want to activate it last to get two consecutive activations with it for whatever reason.
- I can use my own anti-tank weaponry first to damage it, if it is within LoS.
- I can use my own artillery first to damage it, if it is outside.
- I can use deepstrike melta to damage it in both cases.

- Your heavy hitter starts off the board as reserve.
- Depending on both army sizes, I could stall my anti-tank stuff from above until your unit enters the field. Cheap grots say hi!
- It is not guaranteed that your reserves enter the battle at all until 3rd turn. In the 1st round you have a 50% chance of it happening.

- You simply don't win initiative in the following round so can't activate it two times without a reaction possibility from the other player.

And it completely leaves out the fact, that failing all of the above, you get 2 consecutive activations with a single unit as the worst possible outcome for the opposing player. But they are no sitting duck and get to do bad things to you as well. Compared to now, where the whole army unloads their magazines, before you are even allowed to do something else apart from rolling armor saves.

Tyel wrote:

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
It seems to me that the problems being blamed on IGOUGO are more related to LOS rules, so units are never really hidden and/or cover, so that it doesn't do much good if they have it anyway. This is combined with massive weapon lethality to make a turn one knockout possible.

Well... no not really. The problem with IGOUGO is that - if employed like 40k, you get very few "turns". This means there is limited scope for interaction.
Infinity for instance is IGOUGO - but the reaction mechanic and simultaneous resolutions makes it feel like it isn't. The game breaks down into lots of smaller turns. The problem with this system is that the skill gap between experienced and new players is vast. Knowing you should lose - and lose hard - for the first 10 games is off-putting. (And this isn't "Eldar vs Votann" imbalance, its "I can just outplay you, so I kill your guys and you don't scratch mine.")

Lethality has gone up through 8th, 9th and 10th, as the various constraints have been done away with. I.E. Heavy = move and can't shoot. Move and only hit on 6s. Move and its -1 to hit. Then its -1 to hit but only on infantry. Then its Stand still and its +1 to hit (although with reduced basic BS its kind of a wash). You were allowed to split fire - being able to shoot and charge with regular weapons etc etc.

But - and I think its an important but - I don't think this fundamentally alters the issue. In older editions of 40k, you often had a turn (or two) of moving around, maybe throw out a few lascannons to pop some rhinos. But at a certain point (often turn 3) you rapidly hit the same level of lethality. Drop melta in the rear of vehicles. Drop flamer templates to delete infantry. Sweeping advance units off the table. Pour so much fire into terminators they invariably roll a few 1s and die etc etc. People would never have got tabled otherwise.

Now maybe you can say this slow build up is better for the game, than say the outset of 8th - where turn one shooting deepstrike meant not clearing about 40% of your opponent's army turn 1 (if they hadn't effectively null deployed) was a failure. Better than about a year into 9th where Ad Mech flyers and Ork vehicle spam were shooting people off the table turn 1.

But the problem is the same. You have limited scope to interact. Having to spend an hour+ moving minis around the table for a turn or two before the lethality kicks in doesn't really change that issue. I think "high skill level 9th" was a reasonable game of trading units into each other - and effectively making bets on how the dice will fall. But the turn system means you only get a few goes of this - and then the game is over (and frankly, everything one one or both sides is usually dead.)

Clearly if you just went "pick a unit, play out a whole 40k turn with that unit, then have your opponent pick a unit and do the same" there would be imbalances between super heavies and 50 point units. But that's a seperate issue. The core issue is changing the game from one of say 30 turns (or whatever it would be, given units invariably die over the course of the game) - rather than 5 (or, if everything dies, just 3 or 4).

Good post. You saw some of it with the introduction of overwatch in 6th already.
So after that Tau army shot you for half an hour, you now want to attack them and they shoot again for half an hour, but this time hitting on 6s (or sometimes 5s).
That being said, I like the current overwatch. It was a problem of pre 8th that you could walk away from the table for half an hour or more, with stratagems and the changed CC rules it doesn't really work anymore and 40K became much more interactive.
Lethality stays a problem. Things dieing turn 1 has always been a problem, in 6th/7th it was usually vehicles to bite the dust turn 1 because they were made of paper, it has not been that bad since then. But now every unit can shoot all the time and then still charge and do even more damage. Which has the upside of making hybrid units useful, though.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

Um, no? IGOUGO is activating your entire army at once. Alternating activation is by definition not IGOUGO.

Which definition? The 40k player one? 40k is IGoUGo so this must mean the whole system including phased and turns?

IGoUGo simply mean one player "goes" and than the other player "goes", the opposite of IGoUGo is "random go", 40k is IGoUGo, AoS is not
Mantic Firefight or OPR is IGoUGo, Bolt Action is not, both unit activation instead of phases and turns

how many units you activate with one go, or if there are turns does not change that, it is simply about that I do something while you do nothing, and than you do something and I do nothing
if you want 40k to change to unit activation instead of player turns, simply mean you changed who units are handled and not of the system is IGoUGo

but ok, if Alternate Activation is by definition not IGoUGo but everything turn are, what is the double turn or double phase mechanic in AoS?
it cannot be IGoUGo because with a double turn/phase it would be IGoIGo, so it must be random player turns instead, so the definition if IGoUGo is "whatever the current 40k rules are" and everything else is something different.
and that makes no sense

but I guess GW will listen and remove IGoUGo from 40k, by simply adding double turns like in AoS. Easiest way to solve that problem and everyone is happy /s

IGOUGO is one player can move any or all units whilst the other waits (or only reacts within some predefined and narrow architecture) (40k)

Alternating Activation is one player does one unit, the other does one unit, etc. (Chess).

Alternating Phases is where one player does everything first in a phase, then the other player in the same phase, before moving to the next phase (MESBG)

Impulse models allow for some multiple units (but usually not all of them) to activate at once for one player, usually including some element of C2 to coordinate them (Chain of Command)

Digital wargames can have a bit more:
WE GO systems are both players input plans into a static gamestate and then adjudication processes the plans in competition until someone's plan is so broken they need to go in and fix it by pausing the sim (Command)

RTS is a WE GO system with running adjudication that encourages the players to work in battle management...

There's loads in the digital sphere, too many.

8th edition Apocalypse was the best ruleset for 40k in the past 15 years.

-It had bluffing / mind games with the orders system
-It had pseudo alternate activations (though it was detachments)
-It solved lethality problem with casualties removed at end
-It reduced the bloat
-It paired the game down to 4 simple phases
-It used D12 and D6 for better granularity
-It better portrayed abstract value from units instead of every model having X attacks.

But most importantly:
-It had scalability. The Rule-Set worked with these large armies and 40k has been having scale creep for so long. The armies get larger, points get cheaper, yet we were keeping the list building (1pt upgrades etc) for so long in spite of the creep.

Look at armies of 4th edition it was a few units and maybe a vehicle... Some of the armies in 8th/9th/10th look more like 4th edition Apocalypse forces.

I'm not saying the 8th edition Apocalypse rules were flawless, but for a games workshop ruleset for a massive battle system, it was surprisingly fun, engaging, and fast.

Shame it died because it was a side-game and not supported. Para Bellum's Conquest: The Last Argument of Kings is very similar in many regards to 8th edition Apocalypse, if anyone is interested in a game system that has similar tenets but isn't killed by GW.

I would be okey with w40k being super lethal, if all armies could do it. Unit X comes from deep strike blows up something big, in reaction to this some unit counter charges and kills them, in reaction to that the player who just lost his deep strikers blows up the melee killers with an artilery unit, in reaction to that the some flyer blows the artilery. It would at least be fast, bloody and fun. And not the everyone has a turn, and their opponents have a turn, unless you are eldar and then it is always your turn.

Karol wrote:
I would be okey with w40k being super lethal, if all armies could do it. Unit X comes from deep strike blows up something big, in reaction to this some unit counter charges and kills them, in reaction to that the player who just lost his deep strikers blows up the melee killers with an artilery unit, in reaction to that the some flyer blows the artilery. It would at least be fast, bloody and fun. And not the everyone has a turn, and their opponents have a turn, unless you are eldar and then it is always your turn.

You've basically just described alternate unit activation.

At least in that situation each player got to blow stuff up and be part of the game.

Personally though I'd argue that whilst high lethality can build faster games, it also produces a game that isn't as fun when someone spends ages building and painting models to see them wiped out so swiftly from the table. For me the games that are the most fun and engaging aren't the ones where its a landslide of super destruction; but where every fight is a knife-edge. Where the win/loss is potentially possible for both sides for as many turns as possible. Where your tarpit unit does tarpit; where your heavy hitter hits hard but isn't winning the whole game; where you are fighting it out and position; focus on objectives; battle plan etc... are all more important than the fact that you can blast your opponent to obliteration with one round of dice rolling.

Because close games mean that you are in the game and invested into it for longer; they mean even more dice rolling; they mean each roll is epic in a different way

Tittliewinks22 wrote:
8th edition Apocalypse was the best ruleset for 40k in the past 15 years.

-It had bluffing / mind games with the orders system
-It had pseudo alternate activations (though it was detachments)
-It solved lethality problem with casualties removed at end
-It reduced the bloat
-It paired the game down to 4 simple phases
-It used D12 and D6 for better granularity
-It better portrayed abstract value from units instead of every model having X attacks.

But most importantly:
-It had scalability. The Rule-Set worked with these large armies and 40k has been having scale creep for so long. The armies get larger, points get cheaper, yet we were keeping the list building (1pt upgrades etc) for so long in spite of the creep.

Look at armies of 4th edition it was a few units and maybe a vehicle... Some of the armies in 8th/9th/10th look more like 4th edition Apocalypse forces.

I'm not saying the 8th edition Apocalypse rules were flawless, but for a games workshop ruleset for a massive battle system, it was surprisingly fun, engaging, and fast.

Shame it died because it was a side-game and not supported. Para Bellum's Conquest: The Last Argument of Kings is very similar in many regards to 8th edition Apocalypse, if anyone is interested in a game system that has similar tenets but isn't killed by GW.

The D12 system is far worse than AP and Damage. Boltguns were anti-titan and lascannons were anti-MEQ, because somehow 2 boltguns = 1 lascannon. The Stratagem system was stupid as well as far as I remember and of course it was as poorly balanced as any other new 40k product. The game would crack because of the stupid D12 gimmick replacing the deep impact of AP from any kind of pressure applied to the system (just playing a few games ought to do it but a spreadsheet would ruin the game). It might be useful for hyper-casual games and absolutely amazing for large narrative battles where you're not just looking for a short fair game on a Thursday. You can't convince me it's the best 40k has ever been, only that it is your favourite or the best for certain types of play that the current game isn't as great at.

Saying that GW should make 40k some type of alternating activation game is like asking GW to make a soufflé when they can barely boil an egg.

And that doesn't even matter because 40K just need to be like a pretty decent cheeseburger really. Something that isn't too complicated, and everyone can enjoy.

But Darr, everyone knows that people only go to GW for the happy meal toys!

Sure, that may be, but they could at least do better than slapping a handful of uncooked ground beef on a bun.

Doing that would actively hurt my enjoyment of the game because I only like GW burgers when I take the meat home and cook it myself

Um, you know in that case it's more practical for you to just go get some ground beef from the super....

COMPETATIVE PLAYERS ARE TYRING TO RUIN THE GAME FOR ME!

....yes I skipped lunch today, why do you ask?

Somebody get that man a cookie before it's too late

Tittliewinks22 wrote:
8th edition Apocalypse was the best ruleset for 40k in the past 15 years.

-It had bluffing / mind games with the orders system
-It had pseudo alternate activations (though it was detachments)
-It solved lethality problem with casualties removed at end
-It reduced the bloat
-It paired the game down to 4 simple phases
-It used D12 and D6 for better granularity
-It better portrayed abstract value from units instead of every model having X attacks.

But most importantly:
-It had scalability. The Rule-Set worked with these large armies and 40k has been having scale creep for so long. The armies get larger, points get cheaper, yet we were keeping the list building (1pt upgrades etc) for so long in spite of the creep.

Look at armies of 4th edition it was a few units and maybe a vehicle... Some of the armies in 8th/9th/10th look more like 4th edition Apocalypse forces.

I'm not saying the 8th edition Apocalypse rules were flawless, but for a games workshop ruleset for a massive battle system, it was surprisingly fun, engaging, and fast.

Shame it died because it was a side-game and not supported.

I totally agree with your points about Apocalypse. I have played several games using that ruleset, all about the 100-150 point range each side (about 2000-2500 points in 40k terms), and they were a blast. I was hoping 9th-10th editions would take some aspects from the Apocalypse ruleset but that turned out to be a pipedream unfortunately.

Apocalypse is a good example of an impulse model.

Detachments allowed for the activation of multiple units, representing the C2 of those units being at a more tactically coordinated level, and how you constructed your force affected how your Force's command and control worked in a meaningful way.

Q: what is this mysterious "when my enemy is having their turn I have nothing to do?" stuff, when your enemy is moving stuff is when you plan your turn so when the time comes you move and move quickly

also "alternating activations" comes in many flavours, the way Chain of Command does it works nicely, you will activate a few of your units but likely only a few, then the enemy does something

or battle tech where the larger force is parcelled into lumps so the player with the initiative always moves something last and always fires something first - regardless of force sizes as a larger force will have to activate multiple units in each "slot" - so no more in effect making sure you get the drop by having some chaff units and out numbering

leopard wrote:
Q: what is this mysterious "when my enemy is having their turn I have nothing to do?" stuff, when your enemy is moving stuff is when you plan your turn so when the time comes you move and move quickly

It's tricky to plan your turn when each action your opponent takes can change that plan, sometimes quite drastically.
It can also be disheartening for many in a high lethality game to see a LOT of their most effective models removed from the game before being able to do anything save perhaps move up on the board.

So not only can it be a negative experience, but it can also be one where you don't really have much effective planning time; because you can't really make an effective plan until your opponent has done the majority of their turn's sequence.


There is also some hyperbole in it - of course you can plan; and some actions do let you interrupt your opponent and rolling saves and allocating wounds IS part of the game and you are involved with that. However this is all very one-sided where the opponent has almost impunity with regard to agency in terms of influencing the game state.



Again its not an unsurmountable element of the game; its popularity shows that. However it is something that many of us feel could be improved upon to provide a more enjoyable overall game experience that allows for a greater level of consistent interaction and involvement in the whole game.

leopard wrote:
Q: what is this mysterious "when my enemy is having their turn I have nothing to do?" stuff, when your enemy is moving stuff is when you plan your turn so when the time comes you move and move quickly

Replace the save roll with a mathematically equivalent roll to defeat armor that the attacking player makes and outside of the fight phase there are very few, if any, things for the inactive player to do. No actions to take, no (non-trivial) decision points, you just passively watch your opponent roll dice and remove your units. And there's very little planning you can do because until their turn ends you won't know what you have available during your own turn.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 vict0988 wrote:
The D12 system is far worse than AP and Damage. Boltguns were anti-titan and lascannons were anti-MEQ, because somehow 2 boltguns = 1 lascannon.

Um, what? The whole point of the D12 system was that you had separate anti-tank and anti-infantry values, making it easy to create weapons that were good at one but hopelessly bad at the other. And two attacks with boltguns represented an entire unit of 10 marines along with the unit's special weapon. So even if your comparison of D12 values is correct it's representing 9 boltguns + 1 plasma/melta gun = 1 lascannon.

And it's not like 40k is a deep game that can't be solved with a spreadsheet so at best your argument means that Apocalypse was no worse than 40k but had the virtue of being a far less bloated game.

edit - doublepost madness

 kodos wrote:
Which definition?

In a wargaming context IGOUGO means one player acts with their entire force, followed by the other player acting with their entire force. The design question is "how much is activated at once", not "how is activation order determined".

what is the double turn or double phase mechanic in AoS?

IGOUGO. One player acts with their entire army, the other player acts with their entire army, and then you move on to the next turn. The fact that order of acting is determined randomly at the start of each turn does not make it something other than IGOUGO.




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Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
The problem is that GW doesn't use it properly and that is why people saying alternating activation would solve the problem are deluding themselves. GW would absolutely screw that up, and people have already explained how - giving bonus activations, repeat activations, and so forth.

Again: "every conceivable mechanic or solution is bad because GW will do it badly" is not a constructive argument.

It also has known exploits - such as holding a unit back to activate last, and then activating it first in the next turn, effectively rocketing it across the map.

That's not an exploit and it's hardly as easy as you say. You have to make sure you have enough units in your army to avoid running out of activations even once you start to lose units, putting a limit on how big your double-action threat can be. You have to know you're getting the first activation during the next turn, meaning no random roll for priority each turn. Finally you have to have a safe place to let that unit sit for a turn and not just get worn down before it can act, and that safe place needs to not be so far back from the fight that your conservative deployment negates the value of double actions and forces you to spend an action just to get back to where you could have been with a normal plan.

If one player is locked into ten and the other gets only three, well someone's got a firepower advantage.

Unit count is a double-edged sword. The player with fewer units gets more firepower per activation to capitalize on fleeting opportunities and deliver alpha strikes, the player with more units has more flexibility in reacting to their opponent's moves and can force the death star player to waste activations on overkilling cannon fodder before closing the trap. Both ends of the scale are viable options and the typical army will usually have a balance of MSU and big units.

It seems to me that the problems being blamed on IGOUGO are more related to LOS rules, so units are never really hidden and/or cover, so that it doesn't do much good if they have it anyway. This is combined with massive weapon lethality to make a turn one knockout possible.

Not really. Abundant cover and LOS blocking prevents the turn 1 alpha strike but it just moves it to a later turn. You still have to come out from behind your cover to do anything (unless you make static artillery gunlines overpowered, which creates a miserable experience for everyone), at which point the alpha strike happens. The real problem with lethality is that you get to act with your entire army at once, giving a massive advantage to the player who takes the first shot. In a modern system that dumps IGOUGO this isn't nearly as much of a problem since the first shot advantage only applies to one unit instead of the whole army. You may still have a lethal opening turn but at least it's going to be a mutual slaughter, not a game-ending alpha strike.

Apple fox wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:
Survivors of the Virus Bomb strategem might remember their implementation in 2nd ed. differently

Wasn’t that banned basically everywhere where it wasn’t a friend group playing, I am sure it was still banned at the club I went to even all though 3rd edition for 2nd edition games.

GW told everyone in an FAQ to remove the Virus Outbreak card from the deck and destroy it.

 catbarf wrote:

Worth noting that after rewriting the entirety of 40K to create 3rd Ed, Andy Chambers wanted to iterate further for 4th, and was rebuked by management who had cold feet about radically changing their cash cow again so soon. He left not long after..

I'm not sure that's accurate. The word when Starship Troopers was released was that it was the game Andy Chambers wanted 3rd edition to be, but management thought it was too big a deviation from 2nd.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:
Again: "every conceivable mechanic or solution is bad because GW will do it badly" is not a constructive argument.

You are correct. It is not an argument, it is an indisputable fact.

I like IGOUGO. I do not like GW IGOUGO. I'm pretty sure I would detest GW alternating activations, however they do it.

I think a lot of other people will as well.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:
Again: "every conceivable mechanic or solution is bad because GW will do it badly" is not a constructive argument.

You are correct. It is not an argument, it is an indisputable fact.

I like IGOUGO. I do not like GW IGOUGO. I'm pretty sure I would detest GW alternating activations, however they do it.

I think a lot of other people will as well.

Thing is GW have certain elements to their style of rules writing. They aren't just "flat out bad" there are style elements in there. Many of us feel that alternating activation would work better with some of the balance and game structure styles that GW tends to lean into.

Having hyper lethality can work better with alternating activation - heck we already see it working better with close combat in games like Age of Sigmar where it happens in a limited form during each turn for close combat resolution. Again the alternating unit by unit activation at least means that, even in a hyper lethal environment, one player isn't getting to utterly dominate the other through an entire army activation.

Yes there are sure to be ways GW could muck it up; esp since they might muck it up by making some kind of hybrid setup that's "kind of alternate unit activation but kind of not" or something. But at the very least it might help resolve some of the big long standing problems that after 10 editions; its clear GW are unlikely to fix without a massive management and rules team shakeup

 Overread wrote:
Thing is GW have certain elements to their style of rules writing. They aren't just "flat out bad" there are style elements in there. Many of us feel that alternating activation would work better with some of the balance and game structure styles that GW tends to lean into.

But why do you feel that? What has GW done with 40k that would in any way fill you with confidence that they would not kludge it up with special rules and exploits so that one army gets unlimited activations while the other sits there?

Because I'm certain that's what would happen. Activations give GW one more toy to play with, and play with it they will.

At least with IGOUGO you know you are actually getting a turn. Half your army will be dead, but you will get a turn.

Imagine what GW would do with activations! I guarantee that some units would get to activate twice in the same turn. You know it will happen. Oh the sales boost that will produce!

And then the strategems, and the army special rules, and unit formation rules allowing mass activation.

GW has always kludged up whatever design space is available to them. They will do that here as well.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:


At least with IGOUGO you know you are actually getting a turn. Half your army will be dead, but you will get a turn.

Unless its AoS then your opponent gets another turn and you're left with 1/8th of your army

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
Imagine what GW would do with activations! I guarantee that some units would get to activate twice in the same turn. You know it will happen. Oh the sales boost that will produce!

And then the strategems, and the army special rules, and unit formation rules allowing mass activation.

So the worst-case scenario for GW trying alternate activation is they turn it into IGOUGO, the broken system we already have? Seems like a pretty compelling argument for dumping IGOUGO and at least trying something better.


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Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
You are correct. It is not an argument, it is an indisputable fact.

Then what is your point in being here? If the current game is bad and every conceivable alternative is assumed to result in the worst possible outcome then why are you engaging in a discussion of possible improvements? Do you get some kind of emotional satisfaction from venting about how much GW sucks and how pointless it is to discuss anything else?

His point is that in regard to the actual topic if this discussion - GW tendency to rule churn - you can't expect the company to produce a core mechanic that would be allowed to remain untouched and unmessed with for long.

GW could totally produce a good enough or decent system. But judging by how they handle the game, it could well be short lived as the next supplement or rules editon kicks it upside down with a random uncalled for fix, or some special rule/strategem...

This point is a bit removed from the boardgame mechanic breakdown and tied to the original topic.


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One thing I like with random activation is how you can make the number of units an important factor. Take multiple cheaper units (the Soviets are extremely good at that) and you can greatly increase you chances of going first and play a few units in a row.

However in BA going large with your army necessarily means either lowering troop quality (and losing them quickly, losing said doces and VP), or going light on core infantry (and making a handicap for yourself in cappin points), or on useful support (artillery strikes and the like). So this is always a deliberate trade you make.

Not sure I'd work the same in 40k gameplay wise. We didn't particularly tried to check that aspect of things when we tested random activation for 40k, but since you have armies meant to be big and others meant to be small...

I guess it's a question of take on it: either you regard this just as much as an army defining trait, or as a frudtrating gameplay disadvantage you can't do anything about. But somehow, that would not disheart me, since there where army initiative value that would let you play first no matter what in 2nd (iirc, I read the full rules but as I can't play them won't remember perfectly). And apparently it was a fun edition.

Random rambling wall of text for you.