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ie alternating action but can be any unit each activation so you could just keep activating
Mephiston each turn.
To stop people just using death stars you could have a unit point limit of say 250 points for example

hummus wrote:
ie alternating action but can be any unit each activation so you could just keep activating
Mephiston each turn.
To stop people just using death stars you could have a unit point limit of say 250 points for example

test it and post results?

We've had several proposed alternating activation systems.

They all boil down to favoring Elite armies with fewer units, your's even more so.

MSU armies would be worthless garbage. On the Other Hand I could run 4 Knights and use a quarter of my army every turn, while my opponent could only use 1/10 of his army every turn.

The only way this could work is if you rewrote all the rules from scratch.

That's why I suggested the point limit on units eg max points for a unit of 250points.
You could use the chess activation as an alternative rather than a replacement for normal 40k

Better yet, you do alternating unit activations, but each player has to activate each unit once per turn, then you start the next turn and do it all over.

There are lots of IC that cost 200+ pts and are not supposed to operate alone. For example, Ghazskul is lord of war that costs 225 pts and is basically a 4-wound warboss without invulnerable saves.
There are such squads like footslogging boyz or IG blobs that won't be really effective unless you max them out. And they WILL cost more than 250.

The units are simply not designed to have a point cap or to be equally costed. What's gona be the point of taking speeders, predators and such stuff when a Landraider is gona shoot 3+ times more often?

The proposed system ain't gona work.

 J3f wrote:
We've had several proposed alternating activation systems.

They all boil down to favoring Elite armies with fewer units, your's even more so.

MSU armies would be worthless garbage. On the Other Hand I could run 4 Knights and use a quarter of my army every turn, while my opponent could only use 1/10 of his army every turn.

The only way this could work is if you rewrote all the rules from scratch.

It would work if you alternate moving a single unit until one side has moved all their units, then the other side moves all their remaining units, then you end the turn. This would potentially allow large swarming armies to pin elite armies with sacrificial units and move around them into flanking positions from which to overwhelm them with numbers.

Why not try dzc's system?

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 J3f wrote:
We've had several proposed alternating activation systems.

They all boil down to favoring Elite armies with fewer units, your's even more so.

MSU armies would be worthless garbage. On the Other Hand I could run 4 Knights and use a quarter of my army every turn, while my opponent could only use 1/10 of his army every turn.

The only way this could work is if you rewrote all the rules from scratch.

It would work if you alternate moving a single unit until one side has moved all their units, then the other side moves all their remaining units, then you end the turn. This would potentially allow large swarming armies to pin elite armies with sacrificial units and move around them into flanking positions from which to overwhelm them with numbers.

No, this leads to another problem. It allows shooty units to kite assault units all day and stay out of charge range.

 J3f wrote:

No, this leads to another problem. It allows shooty units to kite assault units all day and stay out of charge range.

How?

How is that a problem of KK's idea?

 J3f wrote:
We've had several proposed alternating activation systems.

They all boil down to favoring Elite armies with fewer units, your's even more so.

MSU armies would be worthless garbage. On the Other Hand I could run 4 Knights and use a quarter of my army every turn, while my opponent could only use 1/10 of his army every turn.

The only way this could work is if you rewrote all the rules from scratch.

Epic Armageddon has a turn system where players take turns activating one formation at a time. It works perfectly fine and adds some extra tactical depth. You can also try to retain the initiative to carry out two activations in a row, though at an increased risk of failing (meaning you lose a portion of control over the actions your formation can take that turn). If one player has more formations than the other, they simply get to finish their activations at the end of a turn - which is a nice tactical advantage. It doesn't favour a few elite units, it encourages you to strike a balance between a high activation count and durable and potent formations.
You also get to choose the order you activate your units in, so it's possible to move forward with an assault unit at the end of one turn, then activate it early in the next turn to catch up with those shooty units before they can move away.

Hi folks.
I agree that a more interactive game turn would improve 40k game play no end.

However, 40k suffers from some serious core game balance issues,(massive imbalance in size and effect of units and restricted tactical manouvering .)
That means most units activation type game turn mechanics only work with heavy restrictions on list building or unit activation.
Eg unit caps/limits, and/or extra rules for reaction mechanics.

Alternating phases ,(or actions,) allows for more tactical interaction but removes the need for restriction on unit sizes and additionlo re action rules.

Currently players perform all action with all units in their turn, before the opponent can respond .(Alternating game turn.)
This is not really that good for a game like 40k .

So the alternatives are;-
A)Letting a single unit(or unit group) take all their actions, before the opponent can respond.
This means we still get units acting out of turn /time.
EG An attacker still moves shoots assault before the opponent can react.its just a part of the army rather than the whole army.

B)Let the whole army perform ONE ACTION, before the oponent can perform one action.
This means whole armies are activated , but only do a single action before the opponent can react.

In its simplest form it is just interleaved phases, like LoTR,

However, if we introduce 6 order counters made up of 4 actions ,( move, assault shoot , ready.)

Advance = move and shoot.
Charge,=move and assault
Double time =move then move
Evade = shoot then move
Fire support= ready then shoot.
Infiltrate = ready then move.

We get a fully tactical focused game turn that records the state of all units the game and player actions with just one counter per unit.
EG.

Command Phase.

Primary action phase.

Secondary action phase

Resolution Phase.

I may need to explain that better...