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Real Talk about the Double Turn


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8 minutes ago, Sleboda said:

Agreed. Just wondering why anyone would choose Game X as the starting point if they had to do so much to it to make it fun,  it would longer be recognizable as Game X.  Why not start wirh Game Y instead? 

Because people want to play Game X, but feel that changing it is best.  I mean, AOS is far from a perfect game.  I've read enough complaints about the things to feel there is some merit to what they say, even if others (such as yourself) find no issues at all.

As an aside, I've always wondered this every time I see your name.  Are you "Painting with the average joe" Sleboda?

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4 minutes ago, Sleboda said:

Yep.  That's me!  Been a loooong time since those were published. ?

Wow.. I remember those, they were very helpful back in the day.  I still remember the part about wanting to paint the cold one knight in Pittsburgh Steelers colors "but a yellow lizard might be a bit much" :D

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2 hours ago, Trout said:

I don't disagree.

 

My point was that changing the initiative rules because people are using broken lists is the wrong way to go about it. If broken lists are that big of a problem in your community, houserule them out of existence rather than making a fundamental change to the way the game is played.

Yes, I messed up with the quotes and it didn't include the "quote of the quote".

It was meant as a general comment on the rules tweaking, in which I'm on the same lines with you. If you're tweaking rules because of power gaming and trying to "counter" the good stuff, you'll just get new stuff to counter. But don't get me wrong, I'm all up for tweaking for fun stuff and making illogical stuff less so.

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14 hours ago, Auticus said:

Make shooting into combat have a risk to hit your own side and I'm all for it.

It's been quite some time, but I seem to recall an edition of WHFB or 40k that included this. Maybe it was just templates but I agree, there should be some risk or I'd like if they took a page from the new 40k - 1" within enemies means you can't get shot at (unless you have pistols) and you can't snipe heroes with less than x wounds. This might not be possible in AoS though, as much as I hate to lose a 'secrator if the shoes were on my feet I'd want to take it out too.

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13 minutes ago, Sleboda said:

It doesn't need to be fixed.  The whole "if you see it, you see it" is perfect.

I think there's an argument to, "If you see one models shoulder through a crack in the scenery, you should get some kind of negative modifier (maybe severe), instead of being able to decimate the entire unit."

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3 hours ago, eekamouse said:

I think there's an argument to, "If you see one models shoulder through a crack in the scenery, you should get some kind of negative modifier (maybe severe), instead of being able to decimate the entire unit."

Sadly there seems to be a portion within our hobby who lack a common sense approach to gaming, and GW writes their rules under the impression that people are going to use common sense at all points in a game.  The whole "I can see the feather in that one models's hat so I can shoot the unit" is a really good example of this.

What I think would benefit is a set of "play guides" done by the Warhammer TV guys, where they suggest how we interpret some of the frequent issues such as line of sight would actually be more beneficial than an extra page of rules complicating it.

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RE: terrain and forests, I always thought it should be simple:  You can't see THROUGH a forest, but you can see INTO the forest (providing cover, of course).  But yeah, the LOS rules I really hate because they feel phoned in and lazy, and with how GW terrain there's almost never some part sticking out, and I don't think "make your own terrain" is a valid response or solution to this because for purposes of discussion the baseline assumption must be GW terrain on a GW board, organized similar to how they do in battle reports and on Live, which is a few pieces of normally not-LOS hindering terrain in each quadrant of the board, with several large gaps between them.

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Wow! I can't believe this thread has got to 13 pages! With no sign of slowing down.

The club I play at is a hyper competitive environment. Rukk + Stonelord, skyfires spam etc..
The tourney top 5 lists give or take.

I don't play with a list like that at all. I play for fun. (No winning ever is NOT fun)

My list is a death monster list that's themed around being very fast and considerably punchy IF the monsters are on full health.

Almost every game I play my opponents have the abilities within their lists to completely neutralise my only threats.

But you don't win tourneys by playing the list, you win by playing the mission AND the opponent.

The double turn is in the rules. It's not going to go away. As others have mentioned, the game 'balance' units points, ranges etc have all been attributed with the double turn as part of the rule set.

As such lists are written with this in mind. Deployment and movement etc are all effected by it which becomes a tactical battle.

So with that backdrop. Even in a hyper competitive environment all of the players at my local club genuinely like the double turn part of the game. And just because you win the dice roll doesn't mean you have to take the initiative. It's a game of random chance that you try and make the odds more favourable for you whilst decreasing your opponents chances.

I for one much prefer AoS to WHFB without a doubt.

I'd even go so far as to say in my opinion it's a completely better game in every way.

As always the above is just my opinion and my interpretation of the local meta.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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10 hours ago, eekamouse said:

I think there's an argument to, "If you see one models shoulder through a crack in the scenery, you should get some kind of negative modifier (maybe severe), instead of being able to decimate the entire unit."

agreed right now its ridiculous what people try to argue is visible 

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On 7/26/2017 at 0:35 AM, Somanlius said:

I love the double turn. I usually play against a double Stonehorn / Thundertusk army and, man, it's brutal to be on the recieving end. The game can sometimes be over with the second initiative roll.  But it adds a special layer on tension and I've always imagined it as a "fortunes of war" type of thing. War is crazy and unpredictable and I think the double turn helps me feel more immersed in the game. Otherwise it would feel like a bland board game or chess.

This is part of the problem with it. Sure it's fun, but if the game can be over on the second initiative roll, then the power swing from a DICE ROLL-OFF  is way too high. Sure you can "plan ahead" for your opponent going twice, but that's not much different than planning for your opponent going next anyways. Set up defensively as best as possible. Winning a dice roll is outside of your control. Strategy is taking information and planning with it. The double turn has too much impact on the result of the game to be worth the tiny amount of extra thinking it adds.

 

It's really not that much strategy. It's just an unpredictable moment with huge consequences, which is why it's exciting and tense. 

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2 minutes ago, Auticus said:

I don't think winning an init roll is really playing the game other than taking advantage of what I consider a bad mechanic to win the game.  I mean... I have won plenty of AOS games because I got double turn.  But that type of win doesn't feel like a win to me.  It feels like we each rolled a D6 and I won the dice off and therefore won.

It does kind of rob the narrative out from the game as well. You don't get a chance to build up a story or arc over the course of the game.... which is funny, because the plug-and-play nature of AoS lends itself so easily to that.

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4 minutes ago, Auticus said:

You want a solid random init system, do what battletech does.  Do random unit activation instead of letting one player move all of his stuff.  Thats a system I'd back 100%

Not played Battletech, but I've played that in some "board game" war games specifically the Lock n' Load system... where each unit generates a chit you throw in a bag, and you pull chits one at a time and activate. It's awesome frankly. No reason you couldn't do something like that in AoS with numbered pieces of cardboard or paper. Does a good job of simulating precise timing (or lack thereof) on the battlefield.

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8 minutes ago, Auticus said:

If you pull the Var Asai document I have here on tga, I've added an alternate activation system.  Check it out.  A lot of my guys liked it a lot.

Oh nice! I read this a while ago. Great stuff!

The problem here is the level of competitive play. It's all most people want to do. There's a group about an hour from where I live that gets more into narrative stuff, but the convenience of the "main" shop in the area is too much to overcome. It's a good group of folks as well, so even if they are more competitively bent, the games are still fun. I'd love to run through something like this though. Looks fantastic!

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3 hours ago, eekamouse said:

It does kind of rob the narrative out from the game as well. You don't get a chance to build up a story or arc over the course of the game.... which is funny, because the plug-and-play nature of AoS lends itself so easily to that.

I disagree. For me the double turn leads to all sorts of narrative excitement! 

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i like the idea! but i would actually do it vise versa. so the LAST 2-3 turns people can get the double turns - hence the game gets more "intense" i suppose, and more is at stake. realistically, the 2 armies start of by taking their positions and/or start shooting arty etc (representing say the first 3 turns) and not much can "go wrong" so to speak. but later, as the battle escalates, more unexpected things can happen and the battle can completely turn etc. 
this might even prevent OP shooting lists that have the advantage of having a doubleturn in T2, so that the enemy actually has a chance of reaching them

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14 minutes ago, Kosmion said:

i like the idea! but i would actually do it vise versa. so the LAST 2-3 turns people can get the double turns - hence the game gets more "intense" i suppose, and more is at stake. realistically, the 2 armies start of by taking their positions and/or start shooting arty etc (representing say the first 3 turns) and not much can "go wrong" so to speak. but later, as the battle escalates, more unexpected things can happen and the battle can completely turn etc. 
this might even prevent OP shooting lists that have the advantage of having a doubleturn in T2, so that the enemy actually has a chance of reaching them

I like that logic. I guess it has somewhat the same effect of not allowing two double turns for one player in match as well.

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Oh gosh, the random turn. I go back and forth on this. I understand both sides of this, those that are for and against it, and basically agree with both sides. Yes, it can make the rich get richer, but at the same time winning an initiative role can be the moment of comeback for an underdog. Overall I like bit of uncertainty it give to planning. In a balanced game where you set a unit up for success if they charge first, but if you lose the initiate, they're SoL, does really add another strategic layer to the game. I think at the end of the day I lean more toward the random turn and as an innovative development in the AoS system. In wargames, I just like random elements that throws a wrench in a general's planning.

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17 hours ago, bsharitt said:

Oh gosh, the random turn. I go back and forth on this. I understand both sides of this, those that are for and against it, and basically agree with both sides. Yes, it can make the rich get richer, but at the same time winning an initiative role can be the moment of comeback for an underdog. Overall I like bit of uncertainty it give to planning. In a balanced game where you set a unit up for success if they charge first, but if you lose the initiate, they're SoL, does really add another strategic layer to the game. I think at the end of the day I lean more toward the random turn and as an innovative development in the AoS system. In wargames, I just like random elements that throws a wrench in a general's planning.

Just curious to see if you agree. I have only played to games that weren't close. Every other game I lost I felt I had a chance and every game I won I felt I could have lost on a single dice roll being different. I think the randomness you describe actually helps games being closer. 

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On 7/29/2017 at 4:53 PM, Kramer said:

Just curious to see if you agree. I have only played to games that weren't close. Every other game I lost I felt I had a chance and every game I won I felt I could have lost on a single dice roll being different. I think the randomness you describe actually helps games being closer. 

All in all the games are more 'exciting' than they used to be with the double-turn, because of how much they determine the game. I personally hate that a strategy game has such an important moment determined by luck, but it IS undeniably exciting. And it definitely makes it feel like games can always go both ways. Since getting a double turn can allow you to turn the battle in a single round, again based completely on luck. It's exciting, but completely not satisfying to win (or lose) because of a roll off. 

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4 hours ago, Tidings said:

but completely not satisfying to win (or lose) because of a roll off. 

Agree with the rest of it but this has not been my experience. I find you can plan and gamble on the double turn. Meaning you tactical choices and gambles do get you the win. So 'completely not satisfying' might be a bit much. 

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