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The dreaded double turn


WoollyMammoth

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1 hour ago, BunkhouseBuster said:

You have my vote!

 

1 hour ago, AverageBoss said:

Would honestly prefer if the game had full alternating activation in each phase (like we have in the combat phase currently), with the initiative roll determining first activation each round. That would really differentiate AoS and 40K.

+another

Frostgrave has something like this. Everyone takes turn activating heroes (and any units within 3" of hero), then everyone activates non-battleline/non-hero units, then everyone activates battleline units...

It's not 100% analogous. But, I wonder how something like that would work. I like how it's broken up in that way. It creates stress on clumping units versus spreading out.

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Don't know, the way I see it there are numerous ways to counteract the shooty double turn. The simplest way is to just stay back a little bit, out of range of the majority of their shooting. They spend their first turn moving forward and doing minimal damage to you. If you win initiative t2, they will be in range and you pounce on them. If they win t2, they get one full turn of shooting, and then you pounce and hope for the return double. If you lose initiative both t2 and t3 it's rough, but any other outcome should allow you to go more or less even. If you go first t1 and go into range of their shooting, you are in for a world of hurt though. If you are somehow able to alpha strike them with magic, combat or shooting of your own, you could potentially nullify the threat immediately as well.

In the end, it comes down to knowing how many drops you and your opponent have, and knowing the threat ranges. By adjusting your deployment and strategy to that, it is nearly always possible to squeeze out an advantage or at least go even.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 9/20/2017 at 9:49 AM, AverageBoss said:

Would honestly prefer if the game had full alternating activation in each phase (like we have in the combat phase currently), with the initiative roll determining first activation each round. That would really differentiate AoS and 40K.

thats such a cool idea

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I really like the double turn and the reason for that is that it is highly tactical. You can get much better in taking advantage of it and defend against it but it is disguised in randomness.

What I mean with that is this. I am a good chess player and a good poker player. My problem with chess is that it is so deterministic that I can’t play a game with any of my friends, it is pointless. I will pretty much always win. But I have no problem getting my friends to play poker with me. I might have a much higher chance winning the poker game but it is disguised in randomness.

I lost because of the turn roll (true or not) is a perfect excuse for players with different skill level to want to play each other again. And that is good for the community.

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22 minutes ago, Auticus said:

Can you explain how you think double turn makes the game highly tactical?  Where and how does it introduce more choices in the game?

I am not a tactical genius :) but let's put it this way. Do you think there is always one obvious choice? 

I have posted a few battle reports in the order forum under "Fyreslayers at FANATIC". Have a look at for example game 3. In that game I gave the first turn to him (I didn't do that in my other two games where I had the opportunity).

Then in my turn knowing that I could get a double turn I had the choice to deploy my aurics or wait until I knew for sure. I did wait, was it the right thing to do or not?

Then I won the turn roll but still didn't have any good place to put my aurics. If i took the turn I would give him the opportunity for a double turn to him. Maybe I should have given the turn to him, to create more space for my aurics by killing more of his screen and pile closer to him with my vulkites and get the opportunity for a double turn on the next battle round. I didn't. He got the double turn and I was forced to retreat.

You don't think any of these choices where highly tactical? 

Edited by Andreas
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On 19/9/2017 at 4:52 PM, Auticus said:

I can't remember the last time I've seen a shooty heavy army that gets double turn lose a game after getting said double turn.  Thats why I rant about it so hard.  Its just too easy and too much like playing roulette.

I haven't had problems with it, as far the terrain isn't scarce and your opponent can't just take whatever objectives he wants while being able.to focus priority targets freely.

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24 minutes ago, Auticus said:

When I say explain how it makes the game highly tactical... let me give you an example of this past weekend.

I was asked to run a path to glory campaign for our local GW store.  As such I have houseruling to a minimum and we are using the double-turn.  

So I define "tactical" as "having tactics", and as you play chess you know the difference between tactics and strategy.  For those that may not, a tactic is simply a military choice.  So to define the double turn as highly tactical is to say that there are more choices you have to consider with the double turn.  I don't see this at all.

Please read my post above and also the battle report I refer to if you have time. Yes I know the difference between  strategy and tactics. You can have a strategy of playing for the double turn but my choices above where tactical and the possibility of the double turn gave me a lot of more options to consider.

In game 4, I won the game due to the turn roll. But on the other hand, it would have been easy for him to consider the possibility of loosing it and play accordingly. He didn't, and we both considered that a mistake. Win or loose that roll, he did a mistake by not considering what that turn roll could do to him.

But I am not saying you can't loose only because of the turn roll, even if you are doing everything right. I poker you can loose even if you are delt A-A, it happens.

Regarding list building. It is important especially if players are close in skill level but if there is not a huge power gap between the lists, player skills will account for most IMO.

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3 minutes ago, Auticus said:

Yes all things considered, if two lists are equal then player skill dictates the game.

The problem is that lists bounce so wildly in power level because the point system is not good.

Not sure I agree. I think the points are allright with some outliers. But we have different experiences and play different people. So that could of course be absolutely true for you. Here I can play my brayherds and win every second game or go with my fyreslayers to a more hardcore tournament and win every game if i am really lucky.

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12 minutes ago, Auticus said:

Lack of terrain is definitely a problem, but I have talked a lot about that already.  People expect tournament standard terrain - which is sparse.  Or else they get cranky and start going off about playing to advantage.

Yeah i know where you are coming from, it is painful that TO haven't adapted to the new AoS. Infinity and malifaux are the only games i had played where terrain density and LoS was taken into account.

Last weekend.i played a game against outcast where ni piece of terrain allowed me to hide anything out of LoS, and one was a big ass chaos symbol in the middle 12" wide. Luckily my friend wasn't going all shooty but yeah, it can be painful.

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1 minute ago, Auticus said:

There's no way to quantify it no. 

If i play my  khorne or nurgle army i usually get stomped.  If i play my death army I rarely lose.  My skill doesn't change.  The lists do.  THe math does.

If that is true I think you are much better at playing your death-list than your other lists. :)

Here we would consider khorne and nurgle much stronger lists in general. But then I haven't seen your lists.

You can make good and bad list, I completely agree with that.

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I think the iniative roll adds to the character of the game -  whether you have positive opinions of it or not. If players are looking for accurate military/combat simulation then AoS is probably not a good place to look!

@Auticus In the game you describe I would argue there was an opportunity to set up another unit to block you from the one with the artefact so in that respect i agree with @Andreas that the initiative roll does add another layer to the decisions you make and things you need to plan for. I also agree with you that the results of that roll can sometimes leave you feeling like a passenger - it feels disconnected from your units & characters but can have a massive impact on them.

I don't think alternate activation would work in AoS. Many units - and whole armies -  depend on effective use of multiple synergies and if you have to spend 4 activations setting up one unit to make it work it would massively swing the power balance to units that don't rely on synergies, and to characters (who would be able to move/fight/shoot in the same activation as applying a buff to themselves) then we would all just moan about that instead :) 

I hope that if any changes are made that they are minor and that they stay in the rules and out of war-scrolls so they apply evenly to everyone. 

 

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2 hours ago, Auticus said:

We've been using alternate activation this year for our campaign.  It actually had more people liking it than hating it.  The only thing holding it back is a lot of our playgroup don't like houserules, and even though they liked it, want to play RAW.

So I know it can easily work with AOS because I've done it.  I think that if they had included alternate activation "officially" that my bet is most people would have actually liked it because it would have been more engaging.

I'm wondering if for some players, your group and others, want to stick with the "official" rules because it's easier to remember.  In several of my games, my opponent and I forget to roll initiative each turn, and play IGOUGO without realizing that we forgot the double turn.  I wonder for how many people it is a matter of "I don't want more rules to try and remember" as opposed to "ONLY WHAT'S PUBLISHED BECAUSE REASONS", you know?  Has anyone put that into a poll yet?

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The problem isn't with the double turn itself, the problem is that whoever finishes deploying first decides the order and potential of the doubles.  That's a problem that's not a simple matter of game play, it goes all the way back to list building.  Because winning deployment is so important, it encourages building a list with as few drops as possible.

By forcing your opponent to take the first turn, they basically won't be in range to do anything effective on their turn, If they move up enough to score any VPs on objectives, they risk being in a position to get charged and then doubled.  You'll be able to move up cautiously and position units to both receive their charge if they win the priority or capitalize on your double.  If the opponent was reckless, you might even be able to charge turn one.  Either way, you have the first opportunity for a double. 

If you win the roll for turn 2, you can capitalize on the double, or not take the double, in which case you maintain the "2nd player" position.  (Note that you can do this for the entire game (dice permitting) denying any double turns at all, simply because you finished deploying first.)  If the opponent wins the roll for turn 2, they have the choice to either take a single turn, and remain the 1st player with no opportunity for a double on the next turn, or give you a double turn, which (if you've played correctly) could be devastating for them.

So, by winning deployment and going second,  you have controlled the double turn until at least turn 3.  If you didn't already get a double, you are still the player who will get the first double.  Either way, the 1st player cannot get a double until after you have already had one.

That is where the problem lies.  I don't really mind the double turns, but I would rather see 1st turn decided by a random roll rather than by whoever engineered their list for the fewest drops.  It could be a roll-off with +1 for finishing deployment first, and allowing the opponent to seize initiative like 40K, or any combination of that.  That would make the strategy more dependent on placement and turn order during the game rather than it ending at the list building stage because I took a Battalion.  I want to out-play my opponent, not "out-list" them.

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  • 1 year later...
On 9/14/2017 at 9:46 PM, Killamike said:

I've played in a lot of tournaments and have never had an issue with the double turn. 

It's part of the game so build lists accordingly. Chaff and screens of units that have no damage output are just as important as your heavy hitters. 

And the times were I have most wanted the double turn are late game when I need to do things to score points. 

The reason it's not in 40k is that the shooting phase currently is so extreme. If you got 2 turns of shooting you would kill everything. 

I bought 40 marauders in my tzeentch list for this reason, first turn charges and double turn shenanigans massacre them instead of my wizards and give me another’s turn to breath (in theory)

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On 10/4/2017 at 4:03 PM, Rob Hawkins said:

The problem isn't with the double turn itself, the problem is that whoever finishes deploying first decides the order and potential of the doubles.  That's a problem that's not a simple matter of game play, it goes all the way back to list building.  Because winning deployment is so important, it encourages building a list with as few drops as possible.

By forcing your opponent to take the first turn, they basically won't be in range to do anything effective on their turn, If they move up enough to score any VPs on objectives, they risk being in a position to get charged and then doubled.  You'll be able to move up cautiously and position units to both receive their charge if they win the priority or capitalize on your double.  If the opponent was reckless, you might even be able to charge turn one.  Either way, you have the first opportunity for a double. 

If you win the roll for turn 2, you can capitalize on the double, or not take the double, in which case you maintain the "2nd player" position.  (Note that you can do this for the entire game (dice permitting) denying any double turns at all, simply because you finished deploying first.)  If the opponent wins the roll for turn 2, they have the choice to either take a single turn, and remain the 1st player with no opportunity for a double on the next turn, or give you a double turn, which (if you've played correctly) could be devastating for them.

So, by winning deployment and going second,  you have controlled the double turn until at least turn 3.  If you didn't already get a double, you are still the player who will get the first double.  Either way, the 1st player cannot get a double until after you have already had one.

That is where the problem lies.  I don't really mind the double turns, but I would rather see 1st turn decided by a random roll rather than by whoever engineered their list for the fewest drops.  It could be a roll-off with +1 for finishing deployment first, and allowing the opponent to seize initiative like 40K, or any combination of that.  That would make the strategy more dependent on placement and turn order during the game rather than it ending at the list building stage because I took a Battalion.  I want to out-play my opponent, not "out-list" them.

This is old post but I wanted to say that I love my spell portal for when people get cheeky and give me first turn, they don’t like it that my tzeentch army can still touch them with something lol, and marauder Line wrapping my goodies makes for an annoying chaff that will block all initial charges, gunlines still an issue tho...

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On 10/4/2017 at 11:29 AM, Twitch of Izalith said:

I think the iniative roll adds to the character of the game -  whether you have positive opinions of it or not. If players are looking for accurate military/combat simulation then AoS is probably not a good place to look!

@Auticus In the game you describe I would argue there was an opportunity to set up another unit to block you from the one with the artefact so in that respect i agree with @Andreas that the initiative roll does add another layer to the decisions you make and things you need to plan for. I also agree with you that the results of that roll can sometimes leave you feeling like a passenger - it feels disconnected from your units & characters but can have a massive impact on them.

I don't think alternate activation would work in AoS. Many units - and whole armies -  depend on effective use of multiple synergies and if you have to spend 4 activations setting up one unit to make it work it would massively swing the power balance to units that don't rely on synergies, and to characters (who would be able to move/fight/shoot in the same activation as applying a buff to themselves) then we would all just moan about that instead :) 

I hope that if any changes are made that they are minor and that they stay in the rules and out of war-scrolls so they apply evenly to everyone. 

 

It could work if those activated synergies became constant auras! Then you only have to activate the units and not the abilities themselves, we would also need to points adjust for things as Death Stars become more effective (literally putting all your eggs into one activation would be more dangerous then several activations in that system lol) and characters dying before they get abilities would be annoying, however! The only thing that reliably kills characters in one activation is mass shooting... spells are too random to focus on, even a d6 mortal wound spell (normally a 7 or 8 to cast) has a higher chance of not killing a 5 wound hero then actually doing something, so you couldn’t activate heroes fine. And if you would argue that the opponent could kill them with a second one then sure... but in the game as is The you might do that if they win initiative anyways... at least with alternate activation even if the opponent gets the turn you can activate a unit to react!

All in all I think alternating activation would make everybody phase much more indulging tactics wise! Also the opponent is much less likely to effectively deploy certain strategies that seem over powered in my opinion (such as when I use gaunt summoner and kill 20 skeletons from possible 51 inches away... I would need several activations to pull that off so now I need to risk my summoner or risk another’s hero dying to pull it off)

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One thing we seem to be forgetting is that there are plenty of armies that can do damage or move up v quickly on turn one and block off opponents. 

I think it's something that players learn quickly: you need a game plan for taking the first turn and you need to be able to put pressure on the opponent if you are given turn one, either by being able to damage them or being able to move onto the objectives with big blocks and never leaving them or by moving up to pen your opponent in.

Their are ways that things like magic can be extended through the portal or balewind to do damage turn 1 and also endless spells can mitigate the double a little bit. I think planning for turn 1 is ia key part of list building if you are not going for a v low drop army. 

I don't know all the armies but of the ones I play or have played frequently there are certainly plenty of shenanigans for all of them to put hurt on opponent in turn 1 (Stormcast have shooting and deepstriking, Legions of Nagash have zombie dragons with pinions and summoning units kept in reserve, The new Blades of Khorne seems to have lots of plays for first turn charges, Tzeentch can extend their magic through various means and also (depending on destiny dice) get turn 1 charges off with tzaangor or enlightened or put out shooting pressure). 

I don't play the following but I'm pretty sure they can all benefit from first turn: IDK with eels, fyreslayers with tunneling, sylvaneth with their trees, Skaven with skitterleap/gnaw holes etc, presumably flesh eater courts can get first turn charges with dragons and board control with summoning). 

I'm not so sure about other factions. 

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One of my concern with the double turn is the effect it has on armies that do the majority of their damage in the shooting or hero phase. AoS has traditionally been focused on the combat phase where both players get a turn to fight regardless of whose turn it is. It means even if it isn't your turn you still get a chance to make meaningful decisions.

When an opponent gets the double turn and has a shooting or casting army (shooting being less interactive due to unbinds with magic) all you would do is roll saves for two turns without the opportunity to strike back. On the other hand, if a melee player gets the double turn they can be up in the shooting/casting players face before that player gets a chance to react. I feel this limits design space and makes it is very difficult to create ranged focused armies that are fun to both play with and against.

On a different note, I really like alternative activations as a way of keeping both players engaged and avoiding the "I had a full army then my opponent took a turn/turns and now I have no army" feels bads.

Disclaimer: The worst play experiences for me are when I have a full army when I cede control to my opponent (i.e. end my turn/activation) then by the time I'm in control of my army again my entire army is dead without having had an opportunity to react.

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16 hours ago, Forrix said:

isclaimer: The worst play experiences for me are when I have a full army when I cede control to my opponent (i.e. end my turn/activation) then by the time I'm in control of my army again my entire army is dead without having had an opportunity to react

For me its breaking a model ;)  I’d rather lose. 

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On 3/26/2019 at 8:18 AM, Forrix said:

One of my concern with the double turn is the effect it has on armies that do the majority of their damage in the shooting or hero phase. AoS has traditionally been focused on the combat phase where both players get a turn to fight regardless of whose turn it is. It means even if it isn't your turn you still get a chance to make meaningful decisions.

When an opponent gets the double turn and has a shooting or casting army (shooting being less interactive due to unbinds with magic) all you would do is roll saves for two turns without the opportunity to strike back. On the other hand, if a melee player gets the double turn they can be up in the shooting/casting players face before that player gets a chance to react. I feel this limits design space and makes it is very difficult to create ranged focused armies that are fun to both play with and against.

On a different note, I really like alternative activations as a way of keeping both players engaged and avoiding the "I had a full army then my opponent took a turn/turns and now I have no army" feels bads.

Disclaimer: The worst play experiences for me are when I have a full army when I cede control to my opponent (i.e. end my turn/activation) then by the time I'm in control of my army again my entire army is dead without having had an opportunity to react.

I see this discussion a lot, so I'll give my usual thoughts on the matter:

You often see the claim of "shooting armies getting double turns is too strong", and while it can feel really bad to have your opponent deal damage twice without being able to respond, I don't think it's overpowered in any way. The thing about shooting units is that they are usually either very expensive. very inefficient, or both. There are few if any 40k style armies that can sit at 24"+ away and table you with two rounds of shooting.

Many of these units are actually not efficient at dealing damage at all - Judicators are often listed as a strong shooting unit that feels abusive with the double, but a min unit shooting deals on average 2-4 wounds to most units in the game. 5 models for 160 points is nothing special, and would be laughable if it were a melee unit. The strength of these types of units - long range shooters like Longbows and Artillery - is not that they deal massive damage and table people, but that they kill key pieces in the enemy army before the combos can get in range. If you have moderate terrain on the table, you should be able to hide your small Heroes and support units with no problem.

Other units are efficient at dealing damage, but usually have major drawbacks. Sometimes it's limited to one efficient turn per game (Glade Guard, for example), or requires a big combo to go off,  but a lot of the time it's range. Crossbow units for Stormcast, Aethermatic Rifles for KO, and Freeguild Gunners are all examples of units that are fairly efficient shooters, but they suffer from 12-18" ranges. Knowing these ranges, it's often very possible to position yourself in such a way that even with a double turn, the shooting armies aren't dealing that much damage at all, because they'll be mostly out of range even with moving. 

There are, of course, some melee armies that are weaker against shooting than others. Slow, footslogging armies that don't have movement shenanigans or any type of Charge bonus can really suffer against them, because they can get kited pretty hard, but most melee armies in the game have some sort of movement gimmick that limits that sort of thing (reserves, or Run + Charge, or +Charge Distance, etc). I would imagine those will only increase as new Tomes come out.

Edited by Requizen
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It seems that a lot of people are forgetting that there's a lot of luck involved in this game - so you may get the double turn, but your dice may fail you and you'll end up doing nothing (or very little) for the whole turn. The same can happen to your opponent. For my playing group, rolling for initiative creates additional excitement - and we see this simply as the aprt of the game.

Maybe some of the complaints are originating from the people who have experienced a truly devastating duoble turn. Again, things like that can happen - but you can also have a game without a single double turn, which is a one-sided bloodbath. As some people already stated, there are ways to prepare for the potential double turn, but paying with lot of various can also lower the risk of potentially devastating double turn.

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23 hours ago, Requizen said:

I see this discussion a lot, so I'll give my usual thoughts on the matter:

You often see the claim of "shooting armies getting double turns is too strong", and while it can feel really bad to have your opponent deal damage twice without being able to respond, I don't think it's overpowered in any way. The thing about shooting units is that they are usually either very expensive. very inefficient, or both. There are few if any 40k style armies that can sit at 24"+ away and table you with two rounds of shooting.

Many of these units are actually not efficient at dealing damage at all - Judicators are often listed as a strong shooting unit that feels abusive with the double, but a min unit shooting deals on average 2-4 wounds to most units in the game. 5 models for 160 points is nothing special, and would be laughable if it were a melee unit. The strength of these types of units - long range shooters like Longbows and Artillery - is not that they deal massive damage and table people, but that they kill key pieces in the enemy army before the combos can get in range. If you have moderate terrain on the table, you should be able to hide your small Heroes and support units with no problem.

Other units are efficient at dealing damage, but usually have major drawbacks. Sometimes it's limited to one efficient turn per game (Glade Guard, for example), or requires a big combo to go off,  but a lot of the time it's range. Crossbow units for Stormcast, Aethermatic Rifles for KO, and Freeguild Gunners are all examples of units that are fairly efficient shooters, but they suffer from 12-18" ranges. Knowing these ranges, it's often very possible to position yourself in such a way that even with a double turn, the shooting armies aren't dealing that much damage at all, because they'll be mostly out of range even with moving. 

There are, of course, some melee armies that are weaker against shooting than others. Slow, footslogging armies that don't have movement shenanigans or any type of Charge bonus can really suffer against them, because they can get kited pretty hard, but most melee armies in the game have some sort of movement gimmick that limits that sort of thing (reserves, or Run + Charge, or +Charge Distance, etc). I would imagine those will only increase as new Tomes come out.

In 2nd edition so far I'd say that's true but we also don't see shooting armies getting played much (though that seems to be slowly changing). My post wasn't meant to complain about how shooting armies are overpowered right now but how the presence of a double turn makes designing and balancing shooting heavy armies difficult and could easily lead to very bad play experiences.  As you point out in the above shooting in 2nd edition shooting is really just about surgical unit removal and the army builds that rely on shooting for the bulk of their damage aren't very strong (RIP Kharadron Overlords).

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