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Been thinking about this for a little while. A lot of people complain that the tactics in 40K are sparse and how so many of their games are won or lost on the first turn. There has to be a way to make the game more tactical, involved, and fun for the veterans who want it. I'm not saying that these should replace the current rules, but they should be available as some kind of more detailed, advanced rule set, maybe in the back of the book like the 3rd edition campaign rules.

My ideas are below. They are probably stolen whole from Epic, Starship Troopers, and a few other rulesets I've read in the last few months. Read 'em with a critical eye, C & C is welcome.


Possible solutions:

 1.) Players roll for playing order at the start of each game turn. Roll a d6, add your strategy rating, winner can  choose to go first or second.

2.) Armies alternate phases. One side moves, the other side moves, then one shoots, then the other one shoots, etc. Could be combined with the above, so you never know when the enemy's going to get the drop on you. I imagine this would also work great with the old force march rule, infantry and walkers can sprint 12" in the movement phase but then can't move or assault for the rest of the turn.

3.) Actions are taken on a unit by unit basis with the players alternating.


Number 3 is my personal favorite, but it's so different that the rules would need a lot of rewriting to allow for it. Here's what I've thought of; beware that they are completely raw and unplaytested:

There are seven possible actions a unit can take, and each unit gets to perform two actions a turn.
- Move: as it is now.
- Shoot: ditto, with a few alterations mentioned below.
- Charge: pretty much the same, works like a combination of move & fight (see below). Basically models may move into contact with an enemy unit and  fight a round of close combat with a bonus atttack per model for charging.
- Fight: a unit locked in close combat has to fight a round of combat or attempt to flee.
- Flee: a unit in close combat can try to run from the fight. First they have to make a morale check to see if they can get it together and try to run. If this fails then they've wasted an action but no further penalty. If the unit makes its' morale check, it then rolls against its' initiative and any enemy units in the same close combat do the same. If the fleeing unit beats all the enemies' scores it may make a full move in any direction away from the combat. This is  going to necessitate some change to the hit & run special rule, I say they don't need to take the Ld test and maybe get some bonus to the initiative test.
- Goad: force an enemy unit to act. Pick an enemy unit and dice off with Ld stats. If successful, the enemy is spooked or antagonized into action immediately. They must perform two actions. If the goaders fail, no penalty besides losing the opportunity to act.
- Dig in: a unit hunkers down and prepares to hold their position for some time. The unit will receive +1 to their cover save until they act again, and they can take a 6+ cover save in the open (the result of going to ground and lying prone). This takes a little planning, so the only previous action a unit may have taken this turn is moving.

Units that fire heavy weapons or double tap with their rapid fire weapons twice in one action can move but not charge. Units that shoot pistols more than once in a single action cannot move.

Units with tau jet packs and eldar jetbikes can move and fire as one action, and they must fire either before or after they move (so they can't move 4", shoot, then move another 2" and have it count as a single action).

Only pistols and assault weapons may be fired during a charge action. The only exception is stable platform models (guess we'll have to bring that rule back) that can always move and fire heavy and/or rapid fire weapons like bikes, terminators, and tau with jetpacks.

Players can also attempt to retain the initiative similar to the way it's done in Epic. You dice off if you just activated a unit and want to do it again but you'll earn a cumulative -1 penalty every time you try whether you succeed or not. By your third attempt you're at -3, so you can blow your chances for the rest of the game really early if you mess the roll up.

WarGods has gotten around the IGOUGO system, partially at least. Each player issues orders to each of his units at the start of each turn. Each player then takes turns revealing one unit's orders and has to try to fulfil those orders as best he can. Sometimes units lose orders through other units interacting (being broken, for example, or being charged in combat).

Admittedly, though, armies are smaller in that game system. Not sure if this would work in 40k.

Fantastic game though. It's like an older edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battle but with rules that make sense (like chariots behaving like... well, chariots), superb campaign rules that are a part of every game, and beautiful minis.

I've never actually had a game where at the end of turn one I've thought "hmm, I've won this"

I generally find that games are won or lost around turn 3 and 4 with turns 5 and 6 being the risky part where your smugness if turned upside down with a few well placed shots.

Saying that, theres nothing wrong with mixing it up a little and playing slightly different.

1. hmmm, Trouble with having the option of going 1st or 2nd each turn is it can be a huge disadvantage if one player always has the choice as they can pick an choose depending on if they have lots of targets to shot at therefore will go first and if the enemy is hiding they'll simple choose to go second.

Why not do this for the roll of first turn, so a high strategy rated race is more likely to have choice of 1st or second turn. Roll a dice as normal, add the strategy rating, highest school gets choice of first or second.

2. Bad idea, It would garentee that the battle goes one way or the other very quickly and make it a bit unfair. Personally would suggest to ditch this idea.

3. Hmmm, sounds interesting and might be fun to try, the only thing I would suggest is that this applies to all phases movement, shooting and assualt. You take it in turns moving one squad each until all squads are moved, then same again for shooting.

Assualts however should be slightly different, would possibly recommend that when two squads are in assualting distance then roll a D6, add this to your initiative, winner is allowed to assualt.
Also, you can't win the roll and say your not assualting, if you roll you HAVE to assualt and have commited yourself to that action. Otherwise you'd win and say I'm not assualting which is a bit daft.


Seven Possible Moves
Move, shoot, charge (already covered)

Flee, check this thread http://www.dakkadakka.com/Forums/tabid/56/forumid/16/postid/167571/view/topic/Default.aspx

Dig in, check this thread above

Goad, now this I like. Have played a game on the Xbox called Dynasty warriors. Generals and Liutenants can Taunt another enemy officer to get them to attack you and this either passes or fails.

Only a HQ charactor or a model that has access to wargear may use Goad. Each charactor may use Goad once per battle.

The charactor using Goad(Taunt) must first nominate a target(vehicle or units without leadership values cannot be nominated) He then rolls two dice, if the total is equal to or lower than the leadership value of the unit he is Goading then it has passed. If higher then Goad is failed.

The opponent who is Goaded, MUST attack the unit that Goaded them, this mean they can either move shoot and attempt to assualt the squad that goaded them, or, if their squad has a heavy weapon they can opt to stay still and shoot at the squad that Goaded them. The owner of the Goaded unit can choose what they do but any movement, shooting and assualt must be made at the squad that Goaded them.

Example
A tau Fire Warrior veteran would need to roll 10 or less to successfully Goad a Space Marine Master.
A Space Marine Master would need to roll 8 or less to successfully Goad a Tau Fire Warrior Veteran.

Also, each charactor gets one Goad per game, once they have used it (passed or failed) it cannot be used again.

What you think?

Just use battletech rules.

 

Roll for Init each turn, then alternate movement, alternate weapons fire Declaration (effects are simultaneous) and then resolve Close Combat.

 

Example:

 

Space marines win INit, CSM loose,  CSM player moves one unit, SM player moves one, continue until all units are moveds or one side has a 2 - 1 numerical advantage in un-moved units - that side then moves 2 units to every one for the other side.

 

Once all movement complete, both sides declare fire in same order, then all fire is resolved as simultaneous ( CSM player shoots and kills 4 out of 5 dev squad marines - lay models over on side until they return fire, then remove them)

 

Then resolve assaults - any models which reached base contact during movement mean a valid assault took place, even if some models were killed in shooting - remove killed models during shooting from backs of units - like in fantasy.

so 2 units can charge each other in same turn.. lol

Take a standard pack of cards, nominate all red cards to belong to side A and all black cards to side B. Hearts and Clubs are shooting, Diamonds and Spades are moveing. Shuffle, cut and put face down as a draw pile. Dice for first player. First player draws a card and shows it. Depending on the suit player A or B can move or shoot one unit. Player B then draws a card, etc. Each unit can use two cards per turn, three if the third is a court card.

Okay, there are lots of holes in this but it's the start of a system and could be improved with some thought.

I really like the approach Battletech uses. Are there any issues this would bring up?

Namely I think of: assault  movement. How do you compensate for units with enhanced assault distance? Likewise, how would you know if "two units assault each other" if one player is moving first? I like the idea of two units spontaneously charging each other (meaning they'd need to start within 24" of each other) but how could you bring this about?

Simultaneous shooting is a strong idea. The only problem is how do you keep track of what you said was shooting at what target, after rolling fistfulls of dice resolving other shooting events first?

Any other thoughts?

I once wrote up a rule set for simultaneous turns. The basics are as follows:

At the start of the game, each player rolls 1d6, highest starts with "priority"

Start of the turn: Starting with the player with priority all rally checks, reserve rolls, and other beginning of the turn rolls are made

Movement phase: The player with priority decides to move first or second. Whoever is moving first, moves some/any/all of their units. Whoever is moving second then moves some/any/all of their units. NOTE: the player with priority will almost always chose to go second.

Shooting phase: The player with priority chooses to shoot first or second. The first player shoots all units that are able. Casualties are placed on their sides rather than removed. The second player shoots all units that are able. Any casualties that he took due to the first player's shooting may still fire. All casualties from both players are removed. Any end of phase rolls are made (pin checks and the like). NOTE: chooseing to go first or second here is mostly irrelevant.

Assault phase: The player with priority chose to assault first or second. The first player declares assaults and moves all assaulting units. The second player declares assaults and moves all assaulting units. 2 rounds of hand to hand combat are then fought (to simulate hand to hand combat being worked out on both players’ turns in a normal game). Between the 2 rounds, break and consolidation check/moves are made. Units consolidating from the first round into another unit will be able to fight in the second round. NOTE: the choice to go first or second here is very tricky. If you assault first, you may bring your units into range to be charged by enemy units that were previously out of assault range. If you go second you may get charged first by your opponent. So it ends up being a tricky decision. It also makes having counter charge back up units extremely useful.

End of turn: Any end of turn rolls are made. Priority is changed over to the other player.

Each turn run like this is basically 1 turn for each player. It changes the dynamics of the game a bit but tends to level the playing field in terms of first turn advantage.