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We all know that in literally all games the player who goes first wins more than the other player. This is especially the case in 40K, where a player with heavy firepower will destroy the opponent if they start. Seriously, playing against a player with a Knight and not starting is no fun.

Why not add an initiative system similar to the initiative used in close combat? Let's call it SI. Say the base SI is 4, just like Space Marines. Guardsmen would have 3, Ork Boys 2, and so on. Most units (not all) would have their normal initiative, except for a few:

Units like tanks would probably fire a bit slower, while snipers would fire faster. Some Orks could fire at Initiative 3/4, to show their triggerhappiness.

So the shooting phase would be like this:

It's Player A's turn. Player A is playing Orks and has one unit of Shoota Boyz (SI 3), one unit of Slugga Boyz (SI 2) and a unit of Lootas (SI 4). Player B is playing Space Marines and has one Tactical Squad (SI 4), one Scout Sniper squad (SI 5) and one Dreadnought (SI3). Since Player B has the highest initiative (5, on his snipers) he gets to fire first. He shoots as normally. Then, since both players have SI 4 units, they fire at the same time as normal. They both shoot first and then remove casualties, so everyone in the unit gets to shoot regardless of casualties inflicted by same SI units. Then the Shoota Boyz and the Dreadnought gets to shoot. The Slugga Boyz shoot last.

What do you think? An attempt to balance shooting a bit. Larger things like Tanks, Titans and Knights shoot slower, snipers, scouts and other similar units shoot faster.

You come up with several problems.

1) Units are not priced out based on the fact that they shoot slower or fast, just on their guns and volume/skill at shooting.

2) An army that shoots faster will win more often regardless of whether they go first or not. Tau.

3) if everyone moves first and then shoots in initiative order it favors longer ranged armies that shoot faster in a drastic and unbalanced way. Orcs try to close the gap. Tau retreat out of majority orc shooting range. Tau fire first eliminating all the orcs that are in orc shooting range. Orcs don't get to shoot.


A better solution is alternating activation. Player one activates, movies, psykers, shoots, and assaults a single unit. Player two activates one unit. etc etc until all units have been activated.

Most units will use their normal initiative? So you're wanting to introduce a rule that will make Eldar even more powerful and Orks even worse?

While i don't think there's much potential in your rule, sorry, It could be made to work, for example when shooting using initiative steps and allowing the target unit to return fire using snap shots?

Both our suggestions only add more shooting to an already shooty game though which isn't great IMO.

Sorry, just my opinion.

I think this idea is sort of half-pushing into alternating activation territory, which would probably be easier to turn into something workable. As is, I'm afraid your SI idea doesn't particularly add anything to the game or fix any existing problems. ^_^;

This would be a good system but it requires the entire game to be rebuilt around it. It's not something that can just be switched "on" without some internal balancing done beforehand.

It sounds fair on paper, but it actually magnifies the problem you're trying to correct even more if we just did it with the system we have now. Eldar would basically move first in every single phase, and slower races like the Orks would effectively only be able to make counter-moves since they don't even get to act until the enemy is done. Worse when army-specific rules come into play as Eldar would be able to shoot the Orks then run away due to Battle Focus, while Scatbikes can move AGAIN during the movement phase to keep themselves out of Ork Assault Range. For the Orks, even just trying to box the enemy in is no longer a tactic, since the enemy would move before they got to move each and every time.