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I know alternating activation gets brought up in 40k discussions as a panacea, especially in alpha-strike, shooting-heavy metas. I was seriously interested in it back in 5th, and there was a leaked experimental rules set for 6th that looked very similar to modern Kill Team including elements of alternating activation and charging in the movement phase. I'm curious if anyone's had experience scaling Kill Team's rules up to regular 40k.

I'm not proposing any particular set of rules, because there's a lot edge cases that would need to get ironed out. So that we're on the same page: kill team uses IGO-UGO movement phase, then alternating activation for shooting and fighting.

Off the top of my head, the two biggest impacts I see are: melee doesn't get two fights per battle round, and it exacerbates issues with the free fallback mechanic (either the charger goes first, and the shooter flees for free, or the shooter flees first and the charger immediately catches them again).

So what happens when you scale it up? What breaks?

It's already done and it's called Apocalypse. Granted it's on a Detachment by Detachment alternation rather than Squad, but it could easily be adapted. Apocalypse is so superior to 8th it's not even funny. Were it not for the fact GW decided to pretend it doesn't exist after it launched and forgot to fix one or two problem units (because it's still GW, ofc they'd forget how their own rules work and give a unit six times more attacks than it is meant to have). I am slowly working on a homebrew set of rules myself in my free time with alternating action.

The future is alternating activations.

Please GW, get rid of IGOUGO. It's terrible and skews the game so heavily in favour of first turn/heavy shooting.

40K would have problems with AA at this time because of the sheer scale of things you can bring to the game. Huge blobs of troops or the likes of a single Knight getting off mass shots before the opponent can react, still removing units from the game before the opponent gets to go. (try and balance activating a tactical squad and a single Knight...).

Apocalypse, flawed as it may be, may be the best middle ground option for the 2K+ game standard of current 40K.

Make units have activation cost. So opponent can use multiple small units before IK can go.

The problem with introducing alternating activations is that GW's so married to their move-psychic-shoot-charge-fight turn structure that if they tried to do it they'd make you alternate activations each phase (the way they do in Kill Team) and every game would take hours and hours longer. Alternating activation systems not made by GW (ex. Bolt Action) tend to make you do a unit's entire turn worth of actions in one "activation" instead of trying to split the turn into phases.

You can absolutely do 40K with a different activation system, and it works almost seamlessly. However, it does add some time (you don't do each unit...each phase, that's dumb). However, having typed up what my buddies and I used to do...maybe a dozen times on Dakka, I won't regurgitate it again.

Also, you shouldn't do alternating activations, but a token system so that powerful armies are kept in check by the opposite side out-numbering them.

 DarkHound wrote:
(either the charger goes first, and the shooter flees for free, or the shooter flees first and the charger immediately catches them again).

Iirc, this particular issue is actually solved in the core Kill Team rules. It's easy to miss, but there's a sentence under "Fall Back" (I think) that says you can only fall back if you began the movement phase within 1" of an enemy model. So in the AA 40k you're proposing, my assault marines would charge your fire warriors, and your fire warriors would not be allowed to fall back until the following round (after I'd had a chance to chop them up in melee).

I've had some half-finished rules written up for a while for an 8th edition Combat Patrol variant with smaller games (400 to 800ish points) using basically KT AA and enforcing more limitations on maximum unit points values and maximum numbers of units per army. As others have pointed out, a full-sized game of 40k (1500 or 2000 points) would go a lot slower and kind of break if you could shoot a 400 point model right off the bat. By enforcing a reasonable range of unit numbers, lowering the overall game size, and straight up banning especially expensive units, I feel many of these issues would be nipped in the bud.

Wyldhunt wrote:

 DarkHound wrote:
(either the charger goes first, and the shooter flees for free, or the shooter flees first and the charger immediately catches them again).

Iirc, this particular issue is actually solved in the core Kill Team rules. It's easy to miss, but there's a sentence under "Fall Back" (I think) that says you can only fall back if you began the movement phase within 1" of an enemy model. So in the AA 40k you're proposing, my assault marines would charge your fire warriors, and your fire warriors would not be allowed to fall back until the following round (after I'd had a chance to chop them up in melee)...

Which is an awkward patch that's only actually required because GW insists on sticking to their move/shoot/combat phase model. Do alternating activations in one phase the way Bolt Action does it and your Assault Marines charge and resolve the whole round of combat as their entire activation for the turn, then their activation is over and you don't need to worry about remembering who charged where and who's allowed to fall back and how units charging into ongoing combat works and the like.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
The problem with introducing alternating activations is that GW's so married to their move-psychic-shoot-charge-fight turn structure that if they tried to do it they'd make you alternate activations each phase (the way they do in Kill Team) and every game would take hours and hours longer. Alternating activation systems not made by GW (ex. Bolt Action) tend to make you do a unit's entire turn worth of actions in one "activation" instead of trying to split the turn into phases.

Yes- DUST 1947 already does this in an infinity style way. every unit activated gets 2 actions standard (unless they have a special character/skill that gives a 3rd) they can be any combination of move/shoot/assault/special action.

They way they balance it to prevent the above mentioned problems with say a knight or other powerful units-every model in the game has a dice roll chance to react within 16" (or 24" if you are classified as an AA vehicle) when they observe an enemy unit activate. this uses up the models activation for the turn and they cannot react if they already activated(forcing very tactical play) but it allows them the chance to get one or both actions that interrupt the enemy activation. that coupled with area terrain blocking LOS unless you are in it and within 4" of an edge. makes for very involved and very fast gameplay for both sides.

It is a far superior mechanics system to 8th ed 40K . most games go 3-4 turns, they also do not tend to be very one sided.

The last 200+ point game (huge by dust standards 150 is comfortable on a 6'X4' ) we played lasted 3 turns and both sides killed nearly everything in their adversaries army

Could GW do it? of course, rather or not the player base would support such a radical change is another thing given how ingrained the IGOUGO system is with 40K.

Well those players should not have a say. IGOUGO is detrimental to the long term health of the game at this point. There really isn't a defense for it either. Saying games will be longer is a non-issue, because a longer game is better than one player doing a bunch of stuff for half an hour, which is a far worse time.

GW players will agree and accept any change they make. Look what they shout down in proposed rules and then accept from on high.

Though this doesn't provide much motivation to fix things.

I actually dislike completing all the actions for a unit in a single activation. To me, it messes with the narrative of the action almost as much as full IGO-UGO, and it makes the army feel less coordinated to play. (Each squad has to run out of cover, or charge into close-combat, or whatever, by itself.) Just as much as IGO-UGO, complete alternating activation can feel like some squads are just standing around.

By contrast, thing that I like about Kill Team's rules is that the movement phase makes every model feel like it's acting at the same time (and only resolving damage is delayed as a contrivance of the game mechanics). Moving the army is the most skill expressive and least random element of the game. And, because it has the least effect on your opponent, it's the safest phase to use IGO-UGO. Then alternating activation for damaging effects helps break up alpha-strikes, and that's mostly all you need it for.

I'm trying to minimize changes, so what if you only add alternating activation after the Movement phase? This is already the case for the Fight and Morale phases, so really the only rules change is alternating activation for the Psychic, Shoot, and Charge phases.

I'm interested in what new problems are introduced. I can see that deathstar units can game the activation economy, and a token system counteracts that (though personally I feel like tokens are a little clunky).

 DarkHound wrote:
I know alternating activation gets brought up in 40k discussions as a panacea, especially in alpha-strike, shooting-heavy metas. I was seriously interested in it back in 5th, and there was a leaked experimental rules set for 6th that looked very similar to modern Kill Team including elements of alternating activation and charging in the movement phase. I'm curious if anyone's had experience scaling Kill Team's rules up to regular 40k.

To answer your question, I did try Kill Team's alternating system to a normal 40k game. It actually works quite well, you barely need adaptations (most of it is on the stratagems, and usually they are quite self explanatory. We did include the generic Kill Team stratagems to allow you to choose a unit first in the shooting and assault phase).

It can be a bit tricky at first if there are a lot of units on the board and markers are still useful to remember which unit already shot at this phase - but otherwise, it's very good and change A LOT the tactics you usually employ in game. It helps to mitigate the feeling of an overpowering army destroying you completely before you play yours. Also actually resolve the trouble of alpha deep strike turn 1, since, you know, you alternate activations so you can't play your whole deep strike formation to annihilate the enemy before they retaliate - so we didn't need the FAQ forcing you to deep strike on turn 2.

And no, it doesn't feel like Apocalypse at all. You can still destroy units before they can activate with this system.

Whilest we never really tried Kill team activation in 40 k itself,
we did try the Cover and shooting mechanics, which have lead to a lot less 1st turn deletation of armies and has therefore statistically lowered first turn impact.

Not Online!!! wrote:
Whilest we never really tried Kill team activation in 40 k itself,
we did try the Cover and shooting mechanics, which have lead to a lot less 1st turn deletation of armies and has therefore statistically lowered first turn impact.

Welcome back to 3-5th edition where hard cover saves, blocking LOS area terrain and randomised deepstrike/reserves helped prevent turn 1/2 alpha strikes.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
The problem with introducing alternating activations is that GW's so married to their move-psychic-shoot-charge-fight turn structure that if they tried to do it they'd make you alternate activations each phase (the way they do in Kill Team) and every game would take hours and hours longer. Alternating activation systems not made by GW (ex. Bolt Action) tend to make you do a unit's entire turn worth of actions in one "activation" instead of trying to split the turn into phases.

How would this take longer?

Each unit still “activates” in both cases...?

 aphyon wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
Whilest we never really tried Kill team activation in 40 k itself,
we did try the Cover and shooting mechanics, which have lead to a lot less 1st turn deletation of armies and has therefore statistically lowered first turn impact.

Welcome back to 3-5th edition where hard cover saves, blocking LOS area terrain and randomised deepstrike/reserves helped prevent turn 1/2 alpha strikes.

Aye.
Allbeit the - to hit is indeed better then fixed cover for all involved.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 aphyon wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
Whilest we never really tried Kill team activation in 40 k itself,
we did try the Cover and shooting mechanics, which have lead to a lot less 1st turn deletation of armies and has therefore statistically lowered first turn impact.

Welcome back to 3-5th edition where hard cover saves, blocking LOS area terrain and randomised deepstrike/reserves helped prevent turn 1/2 alpha strikes.

Aye.
Allbeit the - to hit is indeed better then fixed cover for all involved.

Tell that to Orks.

Not Online!!! wrote:
Whilest we never really tried Kill team activation in 40 k itself,
we did try the Cover and shooting mechanics, which have lead to a lot less 1st turn deletation of armies and has therefore statistically lowered first turn impact.

How exactly did you convert the cover and shooting? If 50% of the squad has any obstruction, then they're in cover? Did you also give -1 to hit against targets at maximum range?

I'm a child of 5th edition, so I like lenient cover rules to make you engage with the environment of the board. However, the long distance penalty seems overkill in regular 40k.

sieGermans wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
The problem with introducing alternating activations is that GW's so married to their move-psychic-shoot-charge-fight turn structure that if they tried to do it they'd make you alternate activations each phase (the way they do in Kill Team) and every game would take hours and hours longer. Alternating activation systems not made by GW (ex. Bolt Action) tend to make you do a unit's entire turn worth of actions in one "activation" instead of trying to split the turn into phases.

How would this take longer?

Each unit still “activates” in both cases...?

If you run the game where each unit gets one "activation" per turn and the "activation" is the entire turn you don't need to keep track of what a given unit did earlier in the turn, or pass priority and re-consider your actions 5+ times per unit per turn.

Even if I kinda like the Dust system, I also think that with the current 40k rule set and the heavy use of "bubble abilities" and fall back mecanics a system à la KT would be nicer than a unit-by-unit one, especially since you can have a lot of disparity between two armies unit counts.

 JNAProductions wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 aphyon wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
Whilest we never really tried Kill team activation in 40 k itself,
we did try the Cover and shooting mechanics, which have lead to a lot less 1st turn deletation of armies and has therefore statistically lowered first turn impact.

Welcome back to 3-5th edition where hard cover saves, blocking LOS area terrain and randomised deepstrike/reserves helped prevent turn 1/2 alpha strikes.

Aye.
Allbeit the - to hit is indeed better then fixed cover for all involved.

Tell that to Orks.

, i play R&H i don't have the Auto 6 to hit and it was still a better experience. With BS 5 on basically all my units.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 DarkHound wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
Whilest we never really tried Kill team activation in 40 k itself,
we did try the Cover and shooting mechanics, which have lead to a lot less 1st turn deletation of armies and has therefore statistically lowered first turn impact.

How exactly did you convert the cover and shooting? If 50% of the squad has any obstruction, then they're in cover? Did you also give -1 to hit against targets at maximum range?

I'm a child of 5th edition, so I like lenient cover rules to make you engage with the environment of the board. However, the long distance penalty seems overkill in regular 40k.

Yep aswell as antenas and bits and bobs Like flag Poles don't count for Model sightline.

 DarkHound wrote:
I actually dislike completing all the actions for a unit in a single activation. To me, it messes with the narrative of the action almost as much as full IGO-UGO, and it makes the army feel less coordinated to play. (Each squad has to run out of cover, or charge into close-combat, or whatever, by itself.) Just as much as IGO-UGO, complete alternating activation can feel like some squads are just standing around.

But they don't have to, as AA doesn't have to work like that. The Bolt Action style token activation, when drawn in batches, allows you to get multiple units acting at once especially if you outnumber the opposition. GW's LotR and Epic Armageddon included leaders, who can order units around them to move in unison and so on, giving them a better role than being simple beatsticks or buff bots. Especially in Epic, where you had otherwise straight "I do one thing, you do one thing" activation, you could decide to make a second activation immediately after your first with a command penalty and Commander characters could order up to three detachments near them to engage with them when they went over the top and charged in. There's a lot of leeway in how one wants to do it mechanically.

Alternating activations is the future for sure. For some tweaking of the game...OK massive tweaking...you would eliminate some of the game's glaring issues.

This is probably not in any way original but I was thinking up of a system that uses CPs as activation points. The current system of taking detachments to increase CPs still stands, but now at the start of every turn both players roll for initiative. Whoever rolls highest spends 1 CP to activate one unit, then the other player activates a unit, and so and so forth. When one players runs out of CPs, the other then just goes through theirs until they're all spent. Then the cycle begins again. You will notice that it would be possible to have more units than CPs, meaning that you will have to choose which ones to use. Hopefully that won't be too much of an issue. But it now means that taking bigger detachments, and more detachments, is scaled. You get more CPs but this is because you have more units to be activated. I haven't fully developed the idea but I'm hoping that it would work out.

 Future War Cultist wrote:
Alternating activations is the future for sure. For some tweaking of the game...OK massive tweaking...you would eliminate some of the game's glaring issues.

This is probably not in any way original but I was thinking up of a system that uses CPs as activation points. The current system of taking detachments to increase CPs still stands, but now at the start of every turn both players roll for initiative. Whoever rolls highest spends 1 CP to activate one unit, then the other player activates a unit, and so and so forth. When one players runs out of CPs, the other then just goes through theirs until they're all spent. Then the cycle begins again. You will notice that it would be possible to have more units than CPs, meaning that you will have to choose which ones to use. Hopefully that won't be too much of an issue. But it now means that taking bigger detachments, and more detachments, is scaled. You get more CPs but this is because you have more units to be activated. I haven't fully developed the idea but I'm hoping that it would work out.

So, three Knights (+6 CP) can activate their entire army and have 3 CP to spare, off their detachment alone.

Whereas a Battalion (+5 CP) has literally JUST ENOUGH CP to activate their minimum requirements. And god forbid you take a specialist detachment that only grants 1 CP.

 JNAProductions wrote:
So, three Knights (+6 CP) can activate their entire army and have 3 CP to spare, off their detachment alone.

Whereas a Battalion (+5 CP) has literally JUST ENOUGH CP to activate their minimum requirements. And god forbid you take a specialist detachment that only grants 1 CP.

Well I did say that the idea isn’t fully developed. The amount of cps that detachments bring would need looked at.

Well it comes to mind they could always do it like classic battletech-alternating activations for movement with all types of attacks happening simultaneously-so everybody gets to shoot/swing even if they die.

 aphyon wrote:
Well it comes to mind they could always do it like classic battletech-alternating activations for movement with all types of attacks happening simultaneously-so everybody gets to shoot/swing even if they die.

I like the sound of this. How does it work exactly? When a unit is activated does it perform all of its actions in one go?

No, it is a unit by unit activation for movement and charges* only.

*charges are effectively tank shock where you are forgoing shooting/melee and running into the enemy in the movement phase comparable to 7th edition impact attacks. it allows the enemy a chance to overwatch as the impact attack occurs during the shooting action phase.

all units move and once movement is done all shooting takes place-damage is applied. then all close combat takes place-damage is applied, then cleanup phase takes place- destroyed units are removed etc...



It would make for 40K to be very tactical as to what units move first/last while allowing units to do sometthing at least instead of just being removed from the table because you didn't go first.