Real Talk about the Double Turn

[TheOtherJosh]

Basically in 40k planning for the next turn is more "straight-forward" as there is no potential to have back to back turns for a single player.

So, tactically you only have to consider what happens in your opponents turn ... not what should you do if either you or they get a double turn.

[eekamouse]

2 minutes ago, TheOtherJosh said:

Basically in 40k planning for the next turn is more "straight-forward" as there is no potential to have back to back turns for a single player.

So, tactically you only have to consider what happens in your opponents turn ... not what should you do if either you or they get a double turn.

Yet it still sets you up to plan multiple turns ahead. The missions go a long way in this regard as well. 

That is one thing I absolutely favor in 40k over AoS... the Maelstrom missions and progressive objectives. That may even be enough to shake things up to not have everything be different twists on Domination.

[AverageBoss]

8 minutes ago, eekamouse said:

Yet it still sets you up to plan multiple turns ahead. The missions go a long way in this regard as well. 

That is one thing I absolutely favor in 40k over AoS... the Maelstrom missions and progressive objectives. That may even be enough to shake things up to not have everything be different twists on Domination.

Honestly, I think missions in both 40K and AoS are for the most part pretty lousy.

I would much rather see multiple missions taking place in the same game, and asymmetrical missions like Malifaux, Heavy Gear, and Infinity.

Maelstrom is a bit better than standard though (especially Eternal War missions).

[Fr0]

14 hours ago, Auticus said:

If I go first and I'm facing off against kunnin rukk and they get double turn, I'm basically erased at that point.  What deeper strategy must I come up with to counter this double turn?  How do I mitigate being shot 480 times before I can respond?  (240 + 240)

Lube up. How you propose living though one turn of 240 shots,  let alone two? Not sure what to tell you there, partner. Hump terrain?

14 hours ago, Auticus said:

As to how double turn forces contingency plans and strategy... please describe?  What contingency is it providing us to have to come up with?

Meaning make up a backup plan; caulkblock the unit that's going to charge you in case you can't make the charge next turn. ie. I move up my Skullreapers, hoping they can cut up the Retributors next turn, but just in case I don't get to go first I bubble them with Bloodreavers. I think you're assuming we mean an ace up the sleeve, no you need to cushion the blow.

I don't think anyone is suggesting it's perfect, but we've yet to have a game where someone was salty due to going or not going first. It's a dice game, gotta embrace the random or simply house rule no roll off, nothing wrong with that. I go-you go is less interesting to me, I rather enjoy TTG that have dice rolling activations (This Is Not A Test for example).

[Greyshadow]

I do like the traditional alternating turn mechanic as I know that after I finish my turn I can always have a cup of tea and a biscuit while my opponent takes their turn.

[Jamopower]

In my eyes the main problem with fixed initiative is in the interaction with the scenarios. As the objectives are usually scored on the second round, it's very big advantage for going second. Also, even with shooty armies, many times the first turn is not so big plus as the units are not in range and you can deploy stuff out of sight. This is True for almost any game. E.g. In Infinity you never want to start a game with objectives scored at the end of round/game.

Rerolling initiative each turn will even out the advantage in the scenarios where you get points on each turn and leave the decisive roll for the Last turn in the others, thus making it harder to count on that as the whole game plan.

 

I.e. So if you remove the initiative roll each turn, I would also suggest looking at scenarios. For example objectives that are scored at the end of own turn are then better solution.

[Killax]

 

12 hours ago, BunkhouseBuster said:

In my experiences, the Double-Turn only ever confirmed the direction the game was heading.  If I was starting to lose at any point, it helped me lose quicker.  If I was winning, it helped me win quicker.  However, I have had enough games where a double turn helped my army rally and pull back a victory (or at least a closer defeat).  That said, I have never faced off against a really powerful net-list or shenanigans army that everyone talks about, so my experience on being the recipient of a Double-Turn shooting army is limited.

I would be okay with alternate activation.  I have even toyed with the idea of a combined Turn Initiative and Alternate Activations that could shake up the game a bit.

I absolutely agree to the first sentence again but what is the added fun in that? I personally dont think that predictable outcomes are a very good asset to any game, by large because it means that despite the great unit design or input of players some armies it can be denied again by a single roll. 

Toying with the idea of a combined turn and alternate activations could be really cool without removing a massive luck/tactical factor from either side. In addition I also think that this would technically open up even more tactical paths as AoS has now because things like placement from my experience will then become more important. 

5 hours ago, Greyshadow said:

I do like the traditional alternating turn mechanic as I know that after I finish my turn I can always have a cup of tea and a biscuit while my opponent takes their turn.

Same here. In addition I like it if my opponent is also an active part of the game. Knowing that double turning doesn't always mean one wins right then and there but to me it does cause a massive break of time between players which isn't exactly fun and doesnt feel exactly fair if it happens.

1 hour ago, Jamopower said:

I.e. So if you remove the initiative roll each turn, I would also suggest looking at scenarios. For example objectives that are scored at the end of own turn are then better solution.

To that I completely agree, though one of the beauty is that I feel we're getting new scenrios in GH 2017, though Im much less certain if other rules will also change. Not that it's ****** needed, I mean double turning is a unique concept to AoS, but I do wonder still if it adds as much fun as it 'drastically' impacts games.

As a player I think I can't ever fully claim a perfect win if it was of a double-turn. It indeed confirms the situation at hand and snowballs into a victory or loss but I dont know if it's the best way to what is essentially speeding up the game. 

[wayniac]

To be honest, I think there are three major "issues" with AOS when they all are taken together; each one is not that bad individually, but the combination in my view is problematic overall:

1) Shooting into combat; the issue here is that there is zero way to really counter the high-powered shooting units. You have to take it on the chin every turn until you wipe them out or they wipe you, and a lot of the biggest offenders in the shooting category are also fairly hardy in combat as well. Armies with little or no shooting basically have to eat shots the entire game; maybe completely stopping shooting in combat would make some melee armies too good (e.g. Ironjawz who can charge first turn with Ironfist), so maybe a penalty instead, but something to "reward" you for engaging enemy units and provide a semblance of strategy, traditionally you engaged missile troops to stop them shooting and other than Age of Sigmar I can't think of a single other wargame that has a similar rule. 

2) Hero sniping; This is primarily an issue for armies that are wholly dependent on heroes, namely Bloodbound and FEC and possibly a couple others. Granted I'm biased because I play FEC, but having my army essentially be useless if you kill 3-4 characters doesn't feel like a good game, and the extremely lax (dare I say lazy) LOS rules means that it's almost impossible to prevent it no matter how hard one tries.  This is something I do NOT think can be made a global rule because of the outliers (e.g. Kunnin Rukk, which is a problem in and of itself, Tzaangor Shaman, etc.)

3) Double Turn; probably the most controversial, I actually like the double turn in theory, but the problem is combined with the other two it becomes super strong if you get it, because that's two rounds where your opponent can do nothing but take it on the chin and hope that you don't wipe him out. It's bordering very close to a "negative play experience" and I think, despite it being an interesting part of the game, is the most likely to be removed since it's so unlike anything else, including its sister game.

[chord]

I don't agree that shooting is over powered.  I believe the LOS stuff we see is the problem. Oh I can see through that model's arms into the model behind it.  Or I can see a portion of their sword.

Tighten up the LOS rules and I think shooting goes back to "normal" power levels.

[wayniac]

4 minutes ago, chord said:

I don't agree that shooting is over powered.  I believe the LOS stuff we see is the problem. Oh I can see through that model's arms into the model behind it.  Or I can see a portion of their sword.

Tighten up the LOS rules and I think shooting goes back to "normal" power levels.

True, but it's likely to never happen since 40k has those same extremely lazy LOS rules.

[BunkhouseBuster]

2 hours ago, Killax said:

I absolutely agree to the first sentence again but what is the added fun in that? I personally dont think that predictable outcomes are a very good asset to any game, by large because it means that despite the great unit design or input of players some armies it can be denied again by a single roll.

The for comes from even playing the game at this point, as life keeps getting in the way of the hobby.  But specifically, the fun I get out of the potential for double-turn is in the "not knowing" what's coming next.  With a strict IGOUGO system like 40K, I can fairly accurately guess what will happen to my army once I finish my turn up.  Rolling for Initiative in each game turn/battle round shakes that up for me.

Granted, I have yet to play a game that has true alternating activation of units, but the way Age of Sigmar handles it is a nice change of pace from 40K and Warmahordes.  Plus, I currently play strictly Ironjawz and Destruction melee monsters, so my tactics consist of "charge now or charge later?" and "Waaagh!".

2 hours ago, Killax said:

Toying with the idea of a combined turn and alternate activations could be really cool without removing a massive luck/tactical factor from either side. In addition I also think that this would technically open up even more tactical paths as AoS has now because things like placement from my experience will then become more important.

I'm working on it!  As I mentioned, life is getting in the way of the hobby right now, even more so than just kids and job.  I need time to playtest it, but I'll share it here once I get it figured out.

3 minutes ago, Auticus said:

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

This is a nice idea.  Warmahordes had it as well, but it was clunky and took time to roll for the misses and determine who it hit.  The big thing about Age of Sigmar is simplicity and abstraction; if it gets too complicated, it would bog down the game and feel disjointed from the rest of the core rules.

[Charles]

6 minutes ago, Auticus said:

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

I think this would work really well. 

1 = complete miss aim no one is hit

Below or equal to your to hit number but not a 1 = hit your own side

above your to hit number = hit your opponent 

[Trout]

17 hours ago, Carnelian said:

I genuinely feel very sad for you! Keep on playing and I'm sure you'll get this glorious experience soon enough 

He already said he rarely uses initiative rolling in his games. It's pretty hard to find the joy in an experience you have chosen to avoid.

[Trout]

I didn't like rolling for initiative when I first started out. But the more games I played, the more I realized it was adding tension, excitement, and unpredictability to the game which all led to more exciting games. Games which had multiple swings in favor of one army or another were almost always heavily influenced by the initiative rolls.

 

I can see the problem for those who are very competitive. It's understandable that a competitive player wants things within his or her control to be the primary factors in how a game plays out. But AoS has never really been marketed to the competitive players. Those people are almost certainly playing the wrong game.

[Trout]

7 minutes ago, Auticus said:

Against more balanced armies this may not be that big a deal, but against competitive torpedo lists that do massive damage in the shooting phase, getting shot twice in a row without response can be resolved without deploying models in the first place.

Broken lists lead to broken games. It's not about the initiative rules at that point.

[Trout]

16 minutes ago, Auticus said:

Maybe.  But IMO if broken lists are that easy to make, the game itself is broken.  The initiative rules just exasperate the brokenness.  Removing the initiative rules make the game a little bit more tolerable because the synergy of brokenness combined with busted lists and the initiative rules is removed.

You'd be solving the wrong problem. It's broken for other reasons, you don't fix that by patching the wrong thing. It would be like using thicker oil to minimize a leak in your engine instead of actually fixing the leak.

[chord]

1 hour ago, wayniac said:

True, but it's likely to never happen since 40k has those same extremely lazy LOS rules.

Seems like this could be tweaked with a slight modification.  The model that is being aimed at must be at least 50% visible.  (or something to that effect)

[Jamopower]

1 hour ago, Trout said:

You'd be solving the wrong problem. It's broken for other reasons, you don't fix that by patching the wrong thing. It would be like using thicker oil to minimize a leak in your engine instead of actually fixing the leak.

I'm 100 % sure that whatever you'll do for the rules, there will always be broken stuff in a game that has hundreds of different units which you can mix and match quite freely and that has plenty of synergy between those units. One part May get fixed, but at the same time it makes something else better and some of them too good.

[Trout]

6 minutes ago, Jamopower said:

I'm 100 % sure that whatever you'll do for the rules, there will always be broken stuff in a game that has hundreds of different units which you can mix and match quite freely and that has plenty of synergy between those units. One part May get fixed, but at the same time it makes something else better and some of them too good.

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.

[eekamouse]

Some good points on shooting in and out of combat, and LOS. There are even grumblings of LOS not being great in 40k. As someone pointed out above, i's basically the same rule used in AoS and 40k. One variant I've seen bandied about on a podcast and in some threads for 40k, is to change how terrain determines LOS. Basically make the entire terrain feature block LOS, even if it has windows or what not. It acts more like "2d" terrain in this way. So if you're behind it, you're hidden. It varies based on the scale of the model of course. You would abstract low, medium, and tall terrain. 

I had one game of 40k that was largely jungle terrain, and I was physically placing the models on the "plants". It was kind of terrible, but it was really cool looking terrain. But, all I got was a +1 on the cover save from a laser gun? 99.9% using real world physics that laser doesn't make a scratch. Had another game (on the same day) with lots of gothic ruins. I was the attacker in this case and had a slit that I could shoot through because I saw a bit of one model of a squad of 8 or so. Did a good bit of damage. It didn't make sense. I wasn't super happy in either instance.

You really got to just fill tables with terrain for these games I think. It's definitely more interesting in my experience to be able to send a couple of squads of space marines (or whatever) and hide from a giant Chaos Knight, and not have the entire unit picked clean because it saw a shoulder pad. I know that's all 40k discussion, but it applies here too, even more so because I've played on some AoS tables in tournaments where it was basically what amounts to "pipes" laying around. I think there may be some of the mentality that the same style of terrain that was used in Fantasy works just fine in AoS.

I don't think that makes for good games. When I play at home, I load that thing up like we're playing Frostgrave. Love it. It actually goes a fair bit to alleviating the Double Turn issue.

[Sleboda]

Ok, so to "fix" AoS we need to:

- Change initiative

- Redo scenarios

- change the rules to protect characters

- radically change summoning

- change the rules for shooting into combat

- change the rules for shooting from combat

- codify base and model sizes

- redo the line of sight rules

What else?

 

Dunno guys,  seems to me that if you think the game is that flawed,  it's maybe a bit odd that you even play it. 

If you change it that much,  are you still playing AoS?

[eekamouse]

Just now, Auticus said:

I have no issues with playing a houseruled game.   Playing modified AOS is fine.  Its how I was brought up with any game I played in the 80s on up.  Playing "real AOS" has no meaning for me.  Not playing "real AOS" but having fun > playing "real AOS" and hating it.

Modified AOS is still AOS.  And the rules as written even encourage modifying AOS to your groups' liking.

This. AOS excels at being easily house ruled without much issue as well....which is a feature, not a bug.

[wayniac]

24 minutes ago, eekamouse said:

This. AOS excels at being easily house ruled without much issue as well....which is a feature, not a bug.

I will echo this.  One of the main things I like about AOS as opposed to 40k (although 8th is a little better in this category) is just the simplistic way in which you can ad-hoc add things, be it modifiers (e.g. as part of a campaign, this unit gets a +1 to X now for being a "veteran" squad), or scenario or anything really.  The number of AOS games I've had where it's been super laid back and a "how about we have this piece of terrain do X" or "Hey let's use this cool castle and have you try to stop me from getting there" was great and extremely simplistic and pleasant to do in AOS.

[Sleboda]

56 minutes ago, Auticus said:

Playing "real AOS" has no meaning for me.  Not playing "real AOS" but having fun > playing "real AOS" and hating it

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? 

[eekamouse]

7 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? 

I think Game Y doesn't exist

Also, it's not a lot of work to tweak it. My favorite games have still been 1000 point matched play games. I think there might be some level of extremism in your original hypotheses. For me anyway, all those changes you mentioned would be interesting and I'm in favor of at least looking at them, but none of them are required to make AoS fun or a "good game". But, I feel like they would make AoS a better game.