The Dread Double turn

[Overread]

You are in control during your turn. 

You can cast spells, move things, attack things, shoot things. You can manoeuvre and avoid. You even admit in your second segment that you use your turn to create points of failure and such. So you are admitting that during a players turn they have the capacity and potential to affect the course of the rest of the game. It's where many majorly impact choices are made.

 

Furthermore in a miniatures game its when you get to move your stuff around. You get to roll dice and put your hands on your models and control them. 

 

 

In contrast when its not your turn about the only time you put your hands on your models is when you are taking them off the table. You can't setup anything for your opponent; you can't move to swerve and avoid a unit that one turn before started to move toward a vulnerable unit; you can't sweep your cavalry in to intercept. Instead you can purely react to your opponent pushing their agenda twice. They can, twice over, create points of failure for your army to fall into. 

In the end its just not an intuitive area of fun for many and there appears to be a good even general body of anecdotal and actual evidence that getting the double will, many times, result in that army getting the win for the match. 

[Galas]

The Double Turn is the most boring mechanic in the game, just followed by armies attacking first with all of their units. Playing 30 minutes on a 2 hours and a half game because your opponent gets double turn and spends two hours smacking you is just a miserable experience.

It doesn't feel good when you have it, either, for the same reason. I don't care how you can plan for it, is just a extremely swingy mechanic based on a dice roll with nearly no relation to what the players are doing.

The only reason people is defending it, is because is a GW sanctioned mechanic. Would the game don't have it, and some players would try to put it as house rules for tournaments, nearly everybody that is defending it now with tooth and nails would be opposed to it.

The worst part of all of this is people defending other horrible mechanics (It doesnt matter Slaanesh can summon everything because if you get double turn you can kill it before he summons anything!) as balanced because they are balanced by this horrible mechanic. But I suppose that AoS rules writters are so magnificient that they have designed this miraculous mechanic nearly nobody else uses because they were enlightened by Zordon or something. The ones that wrote a 4 page rules game with no structure for building armies. Those ones. 

Also, all the comparisons claiming the double turn is what makes AoS special in comparison with the so much boring 40k... please.

I play AoS despise of  it, not because of it. In Middle Eart it is not bad because you alternate phases, but with the IGOUGO is horrible.

 

Edited December 20, 2019 by Galas

[whispersofblood]

1 hour ago, Overread said:

You are in control during your turn. 

You can cast spells, move things, attack things, shoot things. You can manoeuvre and avoid. You even admit in your second segment that you use your turn to create points of failure and such. So you are admitting that during a players turn they have the capacity and potential to affect the course of the rest of the game. It's where many majorly impact choices are made.

 

Furthermore in a miniatures game its when you get to move your stuff around. You get to roll dice and put your hands on your models and control them. 

 

 

In contrast when its not your turn about the only time you put your hands on your models is when you are taking them off the table. You can't setup anything for your opponent; you can't move to swerve and avoid a unit that one turn before started to move toward a vulnerable unit; you can't sweep your cavalry in to intercept. Instead you can purely react to your opponent pushing their agenda twice. They can, twice over, create points of failure for your army to fall into. 

In the end its just not an intuitive area of fun for many and there appears to be a good even general body of anecdotal and actual evidence that getting the double will, many times, result in that army getting the win for the match. 

I'm talking about being in control of the game, not being the player with an active toggle above thier head. Perhaps a lingustic issue? You say control, maybe I should hear something else? But again casualty removal, and pile-ins are hugelly important part of the game.  Mainly I want to push back on the idea that in your opponent's turn that you should not be busy planning things to do with your models in your opponents turn, and considering the impliations of your opponents choices. I also don't view the "game" as touching my models, and moving them about. To me the game is (infact most activities are) mostly intellectual, so even if hypothetically I couldn't do any actions at all in my opponent's turn, I would still be playing the game and "having fun". 

[Overread]

It sounds like you'd be just as happy to watch a game as to play the game; since even watching others play you can still plan everything out. For many people planning is only part of the fun; the other part is actually getting to act upon your plan. To actually do something with your models; your half of the games total and to actively influence the flow of the game. 

That doesn't mean they aren't planning during their opponents turn, however it does mean that they get to ack. When a single dice roll then scuppers all those plans (or half those plans if they were thinking about the doubleturn) then it can feel very crushing to see an opponent able to make good on one turns worth of action with a further turn of planning and action. 

 

It's not saying that casualty removal has no thinking in it. It's about seeing that its purely a reactionary element of the game. There's a few tricks you can pull in terms of ranges and such; but ultimately you're removing your models from the field of play and typically when an opponent has the turn you'd expect to be taking greater losses unless they've made a huge blunder. Each model and unit removed is another set of plans and potential actions removed. The game already feels powerful when an opponent gets a whole turn to act; getting two in a row just feels overwhelming.

 

I think its important to realise that having the "active toggle over your head" is actually an important part of the game for many players; if not the majority

[Thamalys]

45 minutes ago, Galas said:

The only reason people is defending it, is because is a GW sanctioned mechanic. Would the game don't have it, and some players would try to put it as house rules for tournaments, nearly everybody that is defending it now with tooth and nails would be opposed to it.

Yes, that's probably true. In fact, I'd like to clarify that I'm not claiming that the the double turn is the best bit of AoS, nor the most fun - I doubt anyone would be so masochistic  to claim that. I'm simply saying that I don't find the double turn to be a synonym for a lost game, and that its existence provides an opportunity to engage with a particular strategic aspect of the game. Just one aspect, folks:

3 hours ago, Kirjava13 said:

I really resent the implication that people who dislike the double turn are just not very good at playing the game.

No, that's not what I implied - and if it came across like that, I do apologise. I am a mediocre player who however is ok with the double turn mechanics, that's all - perhaps I'm ok with it because I am a mediocre player in the first place, I don't know.

2 hours ago, Overread said:

If the doubleturn were in 40K it would be exceptionally broken because of how powerful shooting is.

Yes, I agree. However:

46 minutes ago, Galas said:

all the comparisons claiming the double turn is what makes AoS special in comparison with the so much boring 40k... please.

Well, but that's a fact - it is a massive difference between the two gaming systems. Not the only one, not the biggest one, maybe, but surely a very big difference.  As @Overread pointed out, the amount of shooting usually involved with 40K would maybe make the double turn mechanics quite obnoxious, yes, and yet  I found myself sort of "missing" the double turn possibility there. Now, perhaps a bit of context can help: I started with Aos and only later on got involved with 40K, so I was used to the double turn in the first place. Most of you guys have probably been playing a lot without this mechanics, whilst for me, well, that's it's everything I knew until recently. I don't think 40K is boring - with the sole exception of playing against some lists who needs a phenomenally long amount of time to get through the shooting phase. I am glad we don't have anything like it in AoS, and yes, I do think that too much shooting is a bit boring. That's just me, though.

Of course I like doing stuff. When I get a turn I am thinking like everybody else "wow, ok, now I am in charge, let's smash some skulls". I am just saying that when the double turn is a possibility I am actually thinking "wow, ok, now I am in charge, let's smash some skulls while trying to plan for the potential double turn ahead". I find this challenging, not least because planning ahead for a double turn typically involves, sadly, to play a bit more defensively that you would like to. You could delete that unit over there, but you might find yourself badly outstretched in the space of two turns - what do you do, you sit and wait (hard) or you take the gamble (the temptation is a strong one!)? That's a tough choice, one that I'd like to think about and one that only the possibility of a double turn would give you.

Of course I feel utterly helpless when I do take said gamble and get double-turned. Happens more often than I care to admit, especially with some of my lists that are very much in-your-face/alpha strike builds - sometimes you have to gamble, and you know that if you don't get double turned the game might be basically yours in turn 2 already. But then you do get double turned, and it's the other way around. Too much luck-of-the-dice? Well maybe, but I am ok with that.

Final thought: those times when you manage to clutch a victory even when (badly) double turned along the way? Two times the satisfaction!

[Kasper]

2 hours ago, Galas said:

The only reason people is defending it, is because is a GW sanctioned mechanic. Would the game don't have it, and some players would try to put it as house rules for tournaments, nearly everybody that is defending it now with tooth and nails would be opposed to it.

I'm sorry, what? AoS in its current form would be boring and dull without the Double Turn. There is no way you can remove it without revamping the whole ruleset of phases etc. Everything could be calculated and planned so easily.

[Overread]

16 minutes ago, Kasper said:

I'm sorry, what? AoS in its current form would be boring and dull without the Double Turn. There is no way you can remove it without revamping the whole ruleset of phases etc. Everything could be calculated and planned so easily.

I'm not sure that is true at all considering that you can play games right now and the double turn never appears during the match and nothing goes wrong. You don't have to rebuild any part of the game to remove it because no part of the game actually relies upon it to work. Every part from the turn sequence to the abilities and such all work without a double turn ever happening during a game. 

 

 

As for everything being calculated and predicted that's not really true either. Or at least the double turn doesn't lessen nor increase the impact. It just means that one side of the maths gets a *2 bonus for one round which might or might not break the maths from its original conclusion (that's assuming the maths works since that makesa huge assumption on the choice both players make so there would be variation in possible results). 

Honestly if you can predict the win/loss of any match from looking at the army lists and terrain with a high degree of accuracy then chances are all the double turn is doing is introducing one roll that changes that maths - which honestly sounds rather like clutching at straws to change the maths. 

[whispersofblood]

2 hours ago, Overread said:

It sounds like you'd be just as happy to watch a game as to play the game; since even watching others play you can still plan everything out. For many people planning is only part of the fun; the other part is actually getting to act upon your plan. To actually do something with your models; your half of the games total and to actively influence the flow of the game. 

That doesn't mean they aren't planning during their opponents turn, however it does mean that they get to ack. When a single dice roll then scuppers all those plans (or half those plans if they were thinking about the doubleturn) then it can feel very crushing to see an opponent able to make good on one turns worth of action with a further turn of planning and action. 

 

It's not saying that casualty removal has no thinking in it. It's about seeing that its purely a reactionary element of the game. There's a few tricks you can pull in terms of ranges and such; but ultimately you're removing your models from the field of play and typically when an opponent has the turn you'd expect to be taking greater losses unless they've made a huge blunder. Each model and unit removed is another set of plans and potential actions removed. The game already feels powerful when an opponent gets a whole turn to act; getting two in a row just feels overwhelming.

 

I think its important to realise that having the "active toggle over your head" is actually an important part of the game for many players; if not the majority

Ah I get the disagreement. I don't disagree with the reasoning of your position.

I don't actually think it is a mechanics issue, the best I can construct it as is a perception issue. I'm arguing from a mechanics pov it's neither bad or good, it just is a design choice. If you zoom in on any single mechanism at the application stage they are generally not interactive.

But, at the process stage the Double turn mechanic is a very interesting stategic problem to engage with, and like most strategic problems it is both a sift and aggrevating for people with a high need for order. Which makes it a perception problem, not a mechanical problem.

 

[Kadeton]

5 hours ago, Overread said:

Honestly if you can predict the win/loss of any match from looking at the army lists and terrain with a high degree of accuracy then chances are all the double turn is doing is introducing one roll that changes that maths - which honestly sounds rather like clutching at straws to change the maths. 

The double-turn mechanic definitely "changes the maths", in that having a single roll (or series of rolls) with such a potentially large effect on the outcome of the game introduces a lot more variance, leading to a greater number of unexpected outcomes. Whether or not you think that's a good thing depends a lot on how you react to being surprised, both positively and negatively.

If you're the kind of person who is really happy when something unexpectedly goes your way, and otherwise tends to expect things to go against you (so negative surprises have a reduced emotional impact), then you probably quite enjoy the double turn. Similarly, if you're the type of person who just likes to roll some dice and see what happens without getting too invested in the result either way, then the positive experiences of double-turns will probably outweigh the negatives over time.

On the other hand, if you're the kind of person who feels happiest when things go according to plan, and feels like the work you've put into planning means you deserve a commensurate reward, then you probably hate the double turn because it feels unfair. Alternatively, if you just generally feel like things should go your way and feel an acute sense of persecution when they don't, then it's probably not your cup of tea either.

Crucially, neither of those positions are better or worse, or more or less reasonable, they're just different. Everyone has their own individual psychology that changes how they perceive things like this.

Personally, I prefer the double-turn mechanic and its more varied outcomes. When a game is going badly for me, it can either give me an unexpected chance at victory or at least ensure the game is over quickly. When a game is going well for me, it preserves the tension for longer and prevents the outcome becoming a foregone conclusion.

I definitely prefer it to 40K's "I won the initiative roll, so I win the game" mechanic. For those claiming that people only defend double-turns because they're an official GW rule, that would be my strong counter-point example.

[Kasper]

9 hours ago, Overread said:

I'm not sure that is true at all considering that you can play games right now and the double turn never appears during the match and nothing goes wrong. You don't have to rebuild any part of the game to remove it because no part of the game actually relies upon it to work. Every part from the turn sequence to the abilities and such all work without a double turn ever happening during a game.

But this right here is just flat out wrong. Even if a Double Turn doesn't happen in a game, the RISK of it happening is the important part, and it plays a big role. Good players take calculated risks based on this - What if it doesn't happen? Well it obviously doesn't happen, but that doesn't mean it hasn't played an affect on how the player moved and made other decisions during their turn, because there was a chance of it happening.

You could zone out units like Fyreslayers HGBs very easily. Without the risk element you could just go "oh threat range is X inches? I'll just move outside of X+1 inches" since there is zero threat of the opponent suddenly being able to move closer. This is what I mean by the game being easily calculated and predicted.

There is such a big difference between the current game where a Double Turn doesn't happen, but the risk of it is in play, versus the current game where a Double Turn CAN NOT happen. Im honestly surprised you can't see this.

 

Screening would be significantly less important if everything was in a set order of events. Right now you can sit in a bad position with no real way of winning, but you can take a calculated risk and bank everything on being able to move twice in a row and wrap around your opponents units and get an important charge off, securing a kill on important units/heroes that could open up the game. Or an extra round of shooting/magic etc. I think this creates a completely different element to the game, which would be gone in a fixed turn order.

Edited December 21, 2019 by Kasper

[Marrlfox]

The double turn makes me think more than in 40k. I play both systems a lot and I feel like I require a lot less foresight in 40k. The fact that the turns follow a set pattern means I look one turn into the future and that's it. Everything is expected and there is less agency. I'm good at running statistics in my head and it means I can come up with a decent average for how many shots at what strengths and AP is required to eliminate every one of my opponents units then it's just a matter of target priority to minimize return fire. I can set up crazy Gambit turns where I over extend greatly with only a very small danger things won't go to plan. The double turn makes me play safer and more conservatively. I can't rely on knowing the turn order and I need to think on wether it's better for me to go first or second each round. I always plan to be double turned if I go first and often give up the first double turn if I win the roll off so that way later in the game I have the option to take one when it is more advantageous for me. Its fun for me but I can understand why it's not for everyone.

[Kirjava13]

I get the impression from reading a lot of the pro double turn posts here that there's a bit of a straw man being set up. Maybe I'm missing it in some of the anti posts (I'm only skimming a lot of posts so sorry if this is the case) but for my part at least, I don't feel like a return to 40k's turn structure is being advocated, and yet that is what is being used to argue for a double turn. What does come up a lot is a desire to move to alternating activations instead. This would deal with the two main problems I feel people have with double turns- it would limit damage output without response, and it would keep both players involved. But I don't want to go back to simple "I go, you go".

WRT things like zoning, perhaps people are forgetting that having to play for objectives plus the rise of mechanics which allow for fighting twice or charging twice or extra moves means there's really only so much you can do to screen and zone without just giving up the game. In a recent tournament match against Ironjawz, in spite of the best, most cautious screening I could do without just hanging back in my own corner of the table (away from the objectives and out of range to cause any damage of my own), two Mawkrushas got a double turn and just rofflestomped their way through half my army, ensuring that by the end of it, I could only shrug and try and make his victory as phyrric as possible. Not the first time a double turn in rounds 1-2 has left me with zero chance of winning, and undoubtedly not the last either.

[Overread]

You talk about moving things within X+1 distance so that a unit with a threat range of X cannot attack them in a game without a doubleturn; but then in the next breath you talk about not moving up to mitigate the potential of a doubleturn happening. So in effect you're just moving to not moving within 2X+1 distance. You then are playing a 6 turn objective game which means that in most cases you are just moving into the distance between X and 2X in order to get around the fact that basically the opponent "might" get a double turn and they might not. So you're basically back to moving to x+1 distance with a chance it works or a chance it doesn't work. 

And I do see the logic in that being a different system and a different way of planning. My problem is that you're not doing that for one unit, you're doing that for the whole army. If your opponent gets that doubleturn then most times it means they will reach you and they will hammer your army seriously hard. Even without a doubleturn, as 40K shows though overpowered shooting phases, one player can very easily crush another and deal obscene levels of damage. Killing units, removing models and stripping out multiple viable plans. It immediately puts many opponents on the receiving end into a very clear losing position. 

 

That's my issue, the doubleturn for a whole army is just way too powerful. You even admit that it takes an underdog position and guarantees loss; whilst it takes a power position (however slight) and almost guarantees a win. To me that's a very bad mechanic when you might play one or two turns and then someone gets a double and its almost game over at the point of that dice roll. That choices the player on the receiving end make after that point are almost pointless save for trying to eek out a potential draw or just playing for the sake of it.

There's also then the issue of one player having all the agency to act twice in a row, leaving another only able to make reactionary choices and decisions. 

 

In my view the best first step is to remove the doubleturn. The second best would be moving the game to unit based I-go-you-go. In that situation a doubleturn for one single unit would be FAR more exciting and interesting. It would bring in all those unpredictable elements that many of you enjoy in terms of mitigating and taking risks with choices; but at the same time instead of it being the whole army that might lose out; it is instead one unit or one segment of the battlefield that would lose out 

[Silchas_Ruin]

I played a game of 40k last week that was pretty even and changed who had the lead in point last turn, it was great. But I also don't remember how long since last time I had a game like that. In AoS I have them all the time. Thats what I feel the double turn does for me, makes me want to play more AoS than 40k. 

To many 40k game you come to the table, see each others list, setup and decide who goes first .... and at that point you might as well shake on it and go have a beer. You know who is going to win. Its not always and you can get insanely lucky on dice, but really, you know who is going to win...

Not that you can't have that situation in AoS, but way less so. There is always the the chance that if you do everything right AND get to decide the turn order at the right time you can make it. 

I look at the double turn as random ****** happens in a battle. Planning everything thats going to happen in a game before it starts just seems stupid to me.

[Thamalys]

4 hours ago, Overread said:

The second best would be moving the game to unit based I-go-you-go.

I can’t really tell wether that would work, but I’d be up for trying I think - a very different gaming systems from what we have now... any examples of tabletop games that work that way? I’d be interested in checking them out...

[Overread]

15 minutes ago, Thamalys said:

I can’t really tell wether that would work, but I’d be up for trying I think - a very different gaming systems from what we have now... any examples of tabletop games that work that way? I’d be interested in checking them out...

A lot of skirmish games use it - Infinity and Dropfleet/zone I believe all use it and the old spartan games (dystopian wars etc...)

 

I think you could introduce it into AoS as an experiment. The doubleturn could then change. Either you'd roll for initiative each activation (rather than each turn). So for every activation phase you'd both roll dice and whoever wins gets to activate one unit first, then the other player activates; then you'd roll off again until either all units are moved or only one player has units left to move (at which point they'd just move them). Though that is somewhat messy and introduces a lot more dice rolling.

The main trick is to shift the game away from whole army activations which, even without the doubleturn, can be very broken. AoS gets around it by focusing more armies on close combat and having alternating close combat sequences. 40K gets in a bit ofa mess with itself because shooting is much more common in general and some armies are exceptionally good at it so getting a whole turn to sit there and shoot favours many of them. 

 

 

[Kasper]

4 hours ago, Overread said:

In my view the best first step is to remove the doubleturn. The second best would be moving the game to unit based I-go-you-go. In that situation a doubleturn for one single unit would be FAR more exciting and interesting. It would bring in all those unpredictable elements that many of you enjoy in terms of mitigating and taking risks with choices; but at the same time instead of it being the whole army that might lose out; it is instead one unit or one segment of the battlefield that would lose out 

So what happens when you have an army like Mawtribes with maybe 5 units in total and the other player has like 10 units. Is it gonna be you-go-I-go 5 times and then the other player gets to make 5 moves in a row? Warcry kind of suffers from this in some situations.

The arguement that "it is boring to sit and watch for 2 turns in a row" just doesn't apply to my games. I'm excited even when it is my opponent's turn. Is he failing his cast? Can I unbind it? Is he whiffing his shooting? In the combat phase we alternate activations, so it isn't just taking models off the table.

Honestly this discussion is pointless and the thread should be locked. We're beating a dead horse by now.

[Kirjava13]

3 hours ago, Kasper said:

So what happens when you have an army like Mawtribes with maybe 5 units in total and the other player has like 10 units. Is it gonna be you-go-I-go 5 times and then the other player gets to make 5 moves in a row? Warcry kind of suffers from this in some situations.

The arguement that "it is boring to sit and watch for 2 turns in a row" just doesn't apply to my games. I'm excited even when it is my opponent's turn. Is he failing his cast? Can I unbind it? Is he whiffing his shooting? In the combat phase we alternate activations, so it isn't just taking models off the table.

Honestly this discussion is pointless and the thread should be locked. We're beating a dead horse by now.

To address your first point: yes, exactly. Even if I have fewer units than you and I'm waiting while you move the rest of your guys, I'm still not waiting to do something for as long as I am in the current turn structure. 

To address your second point: I'm glad you personally are super engaged by watching someone else roll dice, but the more interactive something is, the better (imo). You even hit on exactly this point by mentioning the combat phase, easily the best part of the game. Take that idea and then apply it to every other phase of the game, and I posit that we will be left with a better game.

[Tropical Ghost General]

So I like the double turn. I've argued it before on other threads and been shot down in a hail of 'your opinion is wrong' from the crowd of those who don't like the double turn, whilst I've tried to rain down my own opinions on the topic. And where has it led? Nowhere.

Now, I play a lot of narrative (as well as matched play), where decisions in games aren't so much about what's the best tactically to do, but what is the most fluffy actions to take, such as not letting my hungry ghouls sit, camping on an objective, instead letting them charge into their nearest meal. 

In the narrative games, you often adapt scenarios, you are constantly changing how scenarios score and how actions interact. Now the point I'm getting too is this:

For all of those who hate the double turn, how many have bothered to truly test alternative ways to play the game? How many times have you tried out another idea to how priority and the turn sequence is done? How much time has been spent just theory crafting and how much time has been put into testing out an alternative method? 

Because I am open to new ideas, I love messing around with the rule set (if it's narrative games), but what is incredibly boring, is hearing the same complaint over and over, without any significant evidence to back up an alternative option. Let's get some of these potentially good ideas backed up with some field tests and progress these ideas further, rather than just moaning about something that isn't going to change anytime soon. 

[Overread]

Honestly I've heard of a few clubs where the default rule is that there is no doubleturn. As noted earlier you can freely run the game without changing anything and it mechanically works. It might change the tactical approach to the game, but the actual game itself works. It even works because with a doubleturn enabled it can still never happen in a game. Indeed its not a guarantee that it will happen in a match and certainly doesn't happen every match. 

As for elite armies having less things to activate that is very true, but that's still true now. For a game like 40K or AoS its not a huge problem, its more of an issue in more skirmish games where agents have much more dynamic functions or very specific set functions and where losing one model can shut down a huge block of options. In those games having a more even number works best. Right now in AoS if you're ogors you've got less units to move around; it doesn't really matter as much if that's a full turn or alternating controls. You'll still have the same limitations and strengths. 

It is indeed much like taking the alternative combat system and instead scaling it up to the whole unit activation. A single unit would activate, cast spells, move, fire ranged weapons, assault, consolidate etc.... then the opponent would do the same with one of theirs. It creates a very dynamic battle situation where you can react to things in real time and where best laid plans can get torn apart very quickly; but also where you can have more reaction to what your opponent promotes. It honestly sounds like it would be really interesting to those arguing that they love the thinking part of waiting out a  doubleturn. 

[Dead Scribe]

8 hours ago, Kasper said:

So what happens when you have an army like Mawtribes with maybe 5 units in total and the other player has like 10 units. Is it gonna be you-go-I-go 5 times and then the other player gets to make 5 moves in a row? Warcry kind of suffers from this in some situations.

The same thing that happens in all games that have alternate activation where that situation arises I imagine.   In my investigation into other games I rarely if ever hear people complain about it.

[InSaint]

 

4 hours ago, Tropical Ghost General said:

So I like the double turn. I've argued it before on other threads and been shot down in a hail of 'your opinion is wrong' from the crowd of those who don't like the double turn, whilst I've tried to rain down my own opinions on the topic. And where has it led? Nowhere.

Well, they can always collect and play 40k. It seems highly unlikely GW will remove the double turn mechanism in AOS  since they have already made 40k fixed alternating activation for the WAAC control freaks. 😉

One of the more common toxic habit I have heard seen in 40k fixed activation is opponents telling me to conceded because I will lose in 2 turns based on his predictions based on fixed activation. At least in AOS, we never know until we roll off for initiative. lol

Edited December 22, 2019 by InSaint

[mikethefish]

On 12/20/2019 at 3:52 PM, Galas said:

Also, all the comparisons claiming the double turn is what makes AoS special in comparison with the so much boring 40k... please.

What's the problem with those claims?  They happen to be true.

[Pitloze]

I really like the way Bolt Action does it. You activate randomly by drawing dice from a dice bag. There is no IGYG. I just feel that in AoS there is too much weight on the priority roll. You can throw hundreds of dice during the game. But the three or four dice you roll for your turns have by order of magnitude waaaaaay more impact. That just feels off. With the Bolt Action way you can also be blessed or not by RNJesus. But it's spread over more dices.

You spend hours painting this cool model. You finally get it on the table. You positioned it right. You got it into combat with the right unit. You had to move off the objective to try and hurt that unit. But that was a choice you made. And it swings and gets a big fat six. That feels good. And should feel good. You put time and effort into that risk and it payed off.

Priority rolls cost nothing, but weigh a ton and do more for the outcome of the game than the description above does. And it comes down to rolling good on one dice. There is no thinking, no planning, no painting. Again, it feels off. After you get the priority there is some tactic involved of course. But getting there is what's the problem.

I do feel that predatory endless spells help. Since you can at least move something around and have a little bit of a counter play. But now we have Endless prayers which the opponent can't move. And OSB have a predatory endless spell that the other play can't move. I don't like that trend.

The person who wins ties chooses who goes first is a great start. But I would like to see more things players can actively do to try and secure a double turn. Maybe add certain side objectives or "plans" that if you complete them they will help you work towards a double turn, at a cost of course. It should have some risk and reward. Anything to get weight of that 2D6.

But as someone already said in this thread. The priority role is a GW sanctioned mechanic. And GW loves locking stuff down. So I don't expect any drastic changes.

Edited December 22, 2019 by Pitloze

[#SteveJames]

Was playing a game with my Iron Jawz this weekend. I hand of Gorked a unit of Brutes and moved my maw Crusha up the board. 

Charged and wiped out my opponents screen, he the got priority and charged my crusha with his second screening unit. Then I used the Iron Sunz "Alright Get em" ability to counter charge my Brutes. 

I had two plans one based on me getting priority and one based on my opponent getting it. 

There's are lots of other games I play or have played with alternate turns, they all have their nuances of how to play. 

However I've found the often I can move a unit X away knowing that my opponent can not reach it. The double turn makes AOS unique as it removes this certainty. A player can not make a move and know it's the best. So it's all about risk management and contingency planning. 

In fact sometime I sacrifice a unit to lure an opponent on to taking a double if they win priority. Knowing that it will bring their good units in range of my best stuff. 

Edited December 23, 2019 by #SteveJames