Double Turn begone! AoS should get rid of the double-turn

[Ghoooouls]

2 hours ago, Lord Krungharr said:

The double-turn is only a result of rolling for priority each battle round.  Definitely a more fair way to play the game than whoever goes first round 1 always goes first.  (However I don't think a tie should give the first go to the previous round's first turn player.)  

One thing that might help mitigate a double turn is allowing each player to declare a Battle Tactic at the start of the Battle Round, thus one could complete it potentially in the opponent's turn (like Slaying a Warlord or Bringing It Down if YOU are being charged or retained in combat in their turn).  Would give each player more chance to score those points.  

Don't understand why there's any loyalty to the you-go-i-go game design in general.  I see many folks write that it just wouldn't be Warhammer.  SOOOOO not true!  Warhammer is the models and the lore; Fantasy played totally differently and yet here we are enjoying many many many of the same models, characters, and faction relationships just a different setting with different rules.  Besides, 40k Apocalypse (another GW game) has simultaneous turns where each side does their thing in each phase and all damage to each side is allocated at the end of the turn.  It's a great system!  

Granted I've never played a game with simultaneous turns... but I'm not sure I'd like it.

Let's say I'm 100% melee like khorne, and I'm up against someone like LRL or Kruleboyz, we both get to move at the same time? They can avoid my traps/charges/shenanigans easier as its happening they can react. We both get to shoot at the same time? Well I have no shooting so just take an entire armies shooting (as I would have normally, however they can react to my movement WAY easier as they can see what I'm moving and position their shooting to nuke whatever they want. We both get to charge at the same time? Well now I've just taken shooting from an entire army with no shooting to give back, and now my benefit of being melee focussed is massively reduced because those armies ALSO get to charge and fight at the same time as me? But I couldn't shoot at the same time as them.... I think it'd bring way too many problems into the game imo. The majority of AoS is movement and positioning, that'd be gone if once I moved something for a set up the enemy could just counter move or move away.

I also feel like this would make games extremely long, with so much to think about all the time, compared to just thinking about a few things in your opponents turn and planning your next turn in your head.

As I said, I've never played that type of game so I may be completely wrong about how it'd work, but thats my understanding.

[Beliman]

@Ghoooouls 

I suggest to look for a game/demo of Conquest: the last argument of the kings. 

It's a regiment-based game but uses objectives, AA and Priority Roll too. It's faster than AoS (1.5h to 2h after a few games).

Melee armies are really good and use all type of diferent mechanics to win: the classic shock/fast units (cavalry/monsters), decaying units like Nurgle, full armored guys that don't care about ranged attacks or fear/ambush tactics (bravery...).

The main selling point is that all units do their job really well and can be changed to be more specialist or generalist by some customization/ hero that leads them (AoS buffs).

As a AA game, you expect that players activate the most optimal unit at the right moment, but take in mind that Conquest uses a deck made of your unit's warscrolls to know the order of your activations, and must be build at the start of each battleround, so you can't change your activation order (there are a few tricks to manipulate the deck but only for a few factions with a high cost). In other words, you don't know when the enemy will activate that unit. Maybe at the begining of the battleround, to capture that objective... or at the end of the round when units are already engaged... or maybe after a Hero cast a powerfull buff...

Alpha strikes and full pew-pew-pew armies are the advanced tactics to use because you don't set-up units, they arrive from your table edge... maybe your 70" archers can't arrive until turn 3 because they are Heavy (type of unit).

It's a well designed game because everything plays with the same rules. And it seems that everything you don't like abou AA has been taken in consideration.

Edited January 23, 2022 by Beliman

[Enoby]

12 hours ago, kahadin said:

@yukishiro1 You say AoS is badly designed, but have not given example of a well-designed mini wargame by your standards. I think its because there aren't any.

If you can't name a miniatures war game that follows your idea of well designed then I can't take your claim seriously. 

To try answer the question from my own perspective, I think Malifaux (which is more of a skirmish than a wargame) is better designed, though it's hard to make a 1:1 comparison. Importantly, they use alternative activations - with certain abilities you can 'double turn' (as in have two friendly models act without interruption) but because each activation is much less impactful this doesn't feel bad (and usually lets your opponent do the same later on in the round). Malifaux is much more based on objectives and less on killing, which often means the opponent can answer activations in kind (as in, they'll not have their models wiped off the bored so the game is much more back and forth). The double turn is much more controversial because you get to do everything again, which can overwhelm an opponent. 

Personally I'm mixed on the rule. I do see the advantages of ensuring that one person can't guarantee their win, and to give another layer of tactical depth. I don't tend to lose much to the double turn as I can negate most advantages it gives (and will occasionally allow myself to be double turned). However, I do see some glaring issues:

- I've heard people say "if you lose to the double turn, you'd lose anyway", and while this can be true, I think what's more likely is that it totally skews the balance of 60/40 games. If you're the army on 60% left and you go again, reducing the 40% to only 20%, then they likely have no chance of winning what could have been a close game. I think this is where the "ruining games" idea comes from - when what looks to be a balanced battle becomes irreparably skewed because of a double turn.

- To link to the above, others have said that it's fine because 'winning faster' is a good thing, but I'd disagree. In theory in sounds sensible - if you're going to lose, why drag it out? But in addition to the above on skewing close games, it isn't fun to be tabled without doing much besides moving. For example, in a casual game, imagine someone getting first turn and simply moving up their 2000pt list up to capture objectives. Yes, they likely made tactical mistakes, but this is a very normal move in casual games. Then player 2 comes along and charges them with the bulk of their army, wiping off 30% of their models with a nasty charge. Player 2 then wins the roll off and goes again, this time getting everything that wants to be in, in and wiping off another 40%. Player 1 is left with their support models and no chance to come back. They moved their army once before having to pack it all away again, probably feeling pretty bad about the game. Tactical errors or not from Player 1, that's not a good reason to have a mechanic that can wipe away an army without the opposing player getting to do much interaction at all. Granted, AoS 3 has helped this a bit, damage is still so high in AoS that you need to seriously invest in defences to tank, and this isn't guaranteed in casual games.  

- I think my main issue is just how long you can be sat there waiting for your opponent's turns to finish. Maybe I just play with slow people, but it can easily take 30 mins or more for them to finish their turn, so having to stand there for an hour with minimal interaction is pretty boring - and can be quite frustrating when most of the interaction is being told how many mortal wounds are being taken. 

- Finally, close to every opponent I've had has enjoyed the game less once they've been double turned. Whether that's because they've been wiped off the board, have to wait longer to play, or just don't enjoy the feeling of helplessness, I've only had a handful of games that have been made more enjoyable by the rule. Most of the time it sours the rest of the game - or at least that turn. I don't particularly like my opponents feeling bad, so I feel pretty guilty about taking a double turn against some people. 

---

I know I've given a lot of negatives but I'm not on the side of 'remove the double turn', but rather 'reform the double turn'. While it wouldn't help the time issue, more defensive advantages when being made (not choosing) to go second would help everything but the time issue. Alternatively, alternating activations would be a big boon to the system (but would need some pretty huge changes to the game). For now, the double turn is important as a competitive or semi-competitive level where set turns would lead to obvious strategies. In a casual sense, it can help bring people back from the edge, but from my experience it usually just frustrates them.   

[Ganigumo]

@Ghoooouls warcry is an example of a game with alternating activations, but it got rid of phases entirely to manage it. Each model can make 2 actions in an activation. Actions are things like move, retreat, attack, shoot etc.

[Orbei]

The double turn is a hugely important mechanic to AoS because the priority roll is the single most impactful element of chance in the game. A single roll off determines which player gets to use their entire army, potentially for the second time in a row. Nothing is more powerful or important than that roll. RNG by its nature is a great equalizer and levels the playing field. The more that is left to chance the more likely it is that either player might win. In my opinion AoS is generally a very poorly balanced game - looking at various factions and warscrolls makes this pretty clear. As it currently stands some factions have competitive winrates far above what should be tolerable and others are left in the dust, and this is with the benefit of a double turn mechanic pulling all winrates towards 50%. The potential double turn, being the greatest slot machine mechanic in the game, gives lists a fighting chance and covers up for the poor rules balance. Taking away this mechanic in a vacuum would be a disaster.

Let's say two friends want to play Lumineth against BoC. Well, LRL are way better than BoC. They're probably going to win most of the games all else being equal. The right timing of a double turn might let Lumineth win some games easier but they were going to win those games anyway. Alternatively, a very fortunate double turn could give the BoC player a puncher's chance. Win the slot machine roll, maybe win the game.

Imagine if the game had a new mechanic where at the end of each turn you rolled for a volcano, and on a 3-6 you could remove half of your oponents remaining force. Suddenly rolling for the volcano is as important as anything you might do with your models and will likely decide who wins each game. Everyone's winrates is going to hover around 50% regardless of the warscrolls or points because of the almighty volcano. The double turn is a toned down version of this. Huge power swings determined via RNG.

It is a bad mechanic, sure, and creates it's share of unfun moments. But not having it would also result in bad experiences in a game without alternating activations and questionable balance.

Edited January 23, 2022 by Orbei

[Ganigumo]

The priority roll is also the good form of RNG, in that it can be strategized around (even if its strong), it has you asking yourself questions about your moves like "is this a good move? Will I be out of position if I get doubled? Will I be able to capitalize on a potential double?" As opposed to truly random, where all you can do is pray.

[Dogmantra]

3 hours ago, Enoby said:

To try answer the question from my own perspective, I think Malifaux (which is more of a skirmish than a wargame) is better designed, though it's hard to make a 1:1 comparison. Importantly, they use alternative activations - with certain abilities you can 'double turn' (as in have two friendly models act without interruption) but because each activation is much less impactful this doesn't feel bad (and usually lets your opponent do the same later on in the round).

Caveat before I say anything: I quit when 3rd edition came out, but I was a playtester so I did use the 3rd ed rules as they were at the time. Much of what I say will be informed by my experience with 2nd edition.

I sort of knew Malifaux would come up, and yes for the most part the alternating activation system works very well. However, I think it is easy to point to it and similar games as examples and not acknowledge that they have historically had some pretty large problems with activation, namely "top and tailing" which is in my opinion the equivalent of the double turn. Top and tailing is when you win initiative and can therefore act first in a turn, but you also outnumber your opponent and therefore also get to go last in a turn. It's compounded if you win initiative again next turn because the model that acted last in the previous turn can now act first, getting in effect a double turn.

In Guild Ball's early life, there was a model called Avarisse & Greede, who gave you two activations (one for each model). This was the only way to have more than 6 activations on your team. It led to a majority of competitive rosters containing A&G solely to top and tail, or to avoid being top and tailed. It was changed much to the relief of the community.

In mid-late Malifaux 2e, top and tailing became a much more prevalent strategy, particularly within my own faction, Gremlins. Spamming lots of cheap models with a few powerful ones allowed a Gremlin player to play cagey and essentially get a whole turn with an opponent not being able to react at all by activating just their chaff exclusively. Winning the intiative on the next turn then allowed them to alpha strike with their most powerful model, hopefully double turning. There were other advantages and it did require more thought than just spamming during crew creation, but I know that many players found it frustrating to play against, and tbh it was kind of boring for most of my crews to start with three or four bayou gremlins just for numbers.

Both of these games did take steps to mitigate the power of top and tailing, Guild Ball changed Avarisse & Greede to activate simultaneously. Malifaux 3rd ed introduced pass tokens. My point is not that alternating activations is worse, just that there are many problems that it introduces that need to be solved, and as it currently is, AoS has a lot of aspects which are currently neutral that would turn directly into flaws if switched to an alternating activation system (for example, possible number of units being wildly different between factions & lists).

I would also point out that there are other differences between a game like Malifaux and AoS:

The table is effectively larger relative to a unit in Malifaux. Despite being a physically smaller table, models are single small bases and move more slowly than in AoS, where it's not particularly unusual for a model to move 12" in the move phase, then charge another 7 or 8" in the charge phase and still fight at maximum strength.

Terrain also plays a huge part. A common issue (at least in 2e but I imagine it exists in 3e as well) for new Malifaux players is that they find shooting to be incredibly overpowered. The issue was always that they were not playing with enough terrain. Personally before doing something so drastic to AoS as revamping the turn system, I would prefer to see terrain changing so that there's an expectation for more LoS blocking terrain & more impassable terrain, making the manoeuvering aspect of the game more important, and making it easier to keep models safe, at the cost of them being in an inconvenient position stuck behind some terrain.

 

Enoby: I'm not really disagreeing with you in any way, and you're not wrong to bring Malifaux up as an example of a well designed game that uses alternating activations. I'm more using your post as a springboard for some thoughts that crop up whenever the double turn comes up as a topic. I'm not really pro- or anti- double turn, but I think that a lot of the discourse around switching to alternating activations misses that activation control of some sort is always an issue (and a dealbreaker for some), and it is one of the most difficult problems to solve in miniatures wargame design.

[yukishiro1]

Pass / standby tokens cure most of the issues with AA games re: activation mismatches. Based on its past track record of being very stubborn about not learning from other games, though, if GW did go to AA I suspect it would probably insist on making all the same mistakes those other games have made before figuring out how to structure things right. 

[pnkdth]

1 hour ago, Ganigumo said:

The priority roll is also the good form of RNG, in that it can be strategized around (even if its strong), it has you asking yourself questions about your moves like "is this a good move? Will I be out of position if I get doubled? Will I be able to capitalize on a potential double?" As opposed to truly random, where all you can do is pray.

Yes, you can position yourself accordingly yet the same is true for a strictly IGYG-system.

I would like to limit a double turn to once per game. That way you still have the uncertainty but won't have to deal with bad luck ruining an entire game. Makes the decision to take the double an actual decision instead of a no-brainer where you take it 99% of the time + if taking it early it means you gotta play with that in mind later. It would still matter but not potentially wreck a game just because of a string of bad priority rolls.

You could also expand the priority roll system with triumph-like abilities or "Tactical Counters" only useable if you get double turned. Perhaps some ability like a counter-charge, fight first, or whatever works. Downside of this, more rules bloat.

 

Edited January 23, 2022 by pnkdth

[Ganigumo]

30 minutes ago, pnkdth said:

Yes, you can position yourself accordingly yet the same is true for a strictly IGYG-system.

I would like to limit a double turn to once per game. That way you still have the uncertainty but won't have to deal with bad luck ruining an entire game. Makes the decision to take the double an actual decision instead of a no-brainer where you take it 99% of the time + if taking it early it means you gotta play with that in mind later. It would still matter but not potentially wreck a game just because of a string of bad priority rolls.

You could also expand the priority roll system with triumph-like abilities or "Tactical Counters" only useable if you get double turned. Perhaps some ability like a counter-charge, fight first, or whatever works. Downside of this, more rules bloat.

 

Its not about positioning, its about the fact that it is a random element that can be strategized around, and raises questions, unlike something like the bad moon or casting a spell on a 7. 

The random element adds more depth to the question as well, as a surprising number of the decisions we make in a game do in fact have a right answer (even if we don't see it). Like whether to run with a unit, or if we should make a retreat move.

High level play has the issue of meta lists working to eliminate as much inconsistency as possible, with the end goal being an army where every decision does in fact have a right answer and if you make them the only thing holding you back is RNG.

Good rng, like the double turn, creates a more complex question, where there can often be scenarios without a right answer.

This isn't a defense of the double turn inherently (although I do like it) but in mechanics that similarly use RNG in controlled and limited ways to make dexisions less solvable.

Also you can never get doubled twice without getting one yourself, because only the person going second in a round can get a double, and doing so puts the other player going second. There is a small possibility of a very volatile game though.

[Skipsalajan]

14 hours ago, mojojojo101 said:

I mean I'd be pretty disappointed to see it go, but I do think it's a pretty great mechanic, even if that isn't always that obvious.

For me, it makes the tactical decisions you make during the game more interesting and more difficult because you have to always have it in the back of your mind.

Ultimately I think that's valuable but much harder to quantify than occasionally getting spanked by a double turn.

Yea mee too. I really like it

[pnkdth]

20 minutes ago, Ganigumo said:

Its not about positioning, its about the fact that it is a random element that can be strategized around, and raises questions, unlike something like the bad moon or casting a spell on a 7. 

The random element adds more depth to the question as well, as a surprising number of the decisions we make in a game do in fact have a right answer (even if we don't see it). Like whether to run with a unit, or if we should make a retreat move.

High level play has the issue of meta lists working to eliminate as much inconsistency as possible, with the end goal being an army where every decision does in fact have a right answer and if you make them the only thing holding you back is RNG.

Good rng, like the double turn, creates a more complex question, where there can often be scenarios without a right answer.

This isn't a defense of the double turn inherently (although I do like it) but in mechanics that similarly use RNG in controlled and limited ways to make dexisions less solvable.

Also you can never get doubled twice without getting one yourself, because only the person going second in a round can get a double, and doing so puts the other player going second. There is a small possibility of a very volatile game though.

I'm not even against the DT, I just want more things make the game more interesting since the impact of a double is still too great (otherwise the rate of which people go for the double would be far less frequent). I also think the questions become way more important (and interesting) when you know that if you push on this DT, you won't get it again. Becomes an unknown in addition to a resource.

[yukishiro1]

I think some of the issues with the DT would be mitigated by GW finally admitting defeat and giving up on the "player who finishes dropping first gets choice of priority." It's not even in the core rules any more, which makes it doubly puzzling why they put it in the GHB. It's totally out of place in a game like AOS and it interacts very poorly with the T1/T2 double turn.

I would wager that by far the most common complaint re: the DT is from melee armies (that don't have strong alpha capability like e.g. IJ) facing low-drop ranged armies, who get given the turn and then get doubled off the table if the ranged army gets the T1/T2 double. This is the circumstance where the DT makes you feel most powerless, because there's really very little you can do about it - there's just a ~45% chance that you lose that game with the roll-off for T2. You can't hold back to mitigate the impact of getting doubled because they're a ranged army so they'll happily shoot you off the table either way, you can't set yourself up to double them back if you get doubled because you'll have so little of your army left that it barely matters, etc. The meme "play around it!" doesn't really have any application to this situation, and it's also the most frustrating from the perspective of playing the game, because you spend a bunch of time setting up and then the game's effectively over after you've moved your models one single time and maybe had a token combat. 

If you had to roll off for T1 priority (or even better, you just rolled for who goes first, no choice involved) you wouldn't be able to abuse the T1/T2 double turn any more and I think a lot of the complaints with the mechanic would go away. 

Edited January 23, 2022 by yukishiro1

[Dogmantra]

2 hours ago, yukishiro1 said:

Pass / standby tokens cure most of the issues with AA games re: activation mismatches.

They change the dynamic, but I wouldn't say they solve anything. There are many considerations with how you implement them. Consider a really straightforward implementation of pass tokens: at the start of the round you generate pass tokens so that both players have the same number of total activations. Use one to skip activating a unit when it's your turn. At the end of the round, any that are left are lost.

- what happens when a unit is destroyed before it activates? do you have to discard a pass token? what if you don't have one? is it okay to have different numbers of activations as long as they were the same at the start of the round? depending on the way you address these questions, there is the potential for an odd gameplay situation where players want to deliberately leave a unit with one model left because it's a useless activation for their opponent rather than finishing it off and have to give up a pass token.

- doesn't directly change activating the same unit at the end of a round, winning initiative and then activating that same unit again at the start of the next round

- risks flipping the dynamic where instead of lots of activations giving you activation control, few activations give you activation control. Rather than having say, 11 units vs 8, where your first 3 activations are chaff, meaning you can chain a few strong activations together at the end of the round, there's the potential for that to shift to wanting 5 units vs 8, where your first 3 activations are passes. This is imo worse because at least when activating chaff you are activating something, so the game moves forward and you potentially give your opponent a target to pick on, even if it is just chaff. Plus you have presumably spent points on chaff, as opposed to being given pass tokens for free. I can see it leading to a race to the bottom scenario. Again, this does depend quite heavily on the surrounding systems as to whether it becomes a problem

shrug, again I don't wanna come off as anti alternating activations, I just don't think it's a cut and dry answer and there are always compromises and considerations you make, any turn based system will always be unfair to some extent.

[Greyshadow]

There is a risk that only people who feel this is an issue are going to post here. So... I LOVE the turn mechanic as it stands. Games can play out really differently depending on the priority roll and I think that's great! Also, I know alternating activation is really popular at the moment but I hope the game stays as is in this regard. I love that sweet down time to socialise and chill.

[Beliman]

@Dogmantra

All games with AA have their own solutions for your questions: summoning give pass tokens to enemies, not using pass tokens give you some buffs in the end phase, units can flee for pass tokens or their threat-zone is still important for the game (even if it's one model), ... not a big deal, and usually, it's something easy to use and have some strategy around pass tokens without breaking the game. Some Malifaux masters (generals) even use pass tokens as a resource and Nords in Conquest can chain-activate without losing pass tokens to gain momentum.

I'm a hugh Malifaux fan, and even with all it's faults, I still think it's one of the best 1v1 games out there. Btw, if we just focus on wargames, Conquest, Asoiaf and Legion uses AA too, and they are well designed (I really like Conquest).

[Dogmantra]

1 hour ago, Beliman said:

@Dogmantra

All games with AA have their own solutions for your questions

Yes, this is why I said they were considerations and not impossible problems. However, I don't think that any game "perfectly" solves activation control, and each of those answers has its own knock on effects on what the rest of the game will look like. My point is that it's not as simple as saying just use alternating activations, and there are always compromises. I do disagree that something like pass tokens are a particularly good solution. They're fine, but I don't really see them as being particularly much better than how AoS currently works, but at that point I think we come onto matters of taste.

[Lord Krungharr]

17 hours ago, Ghoooouls said:

Granted I've never played a game with simultaneous turns... but I'm not sure I'd like it.

Let's say I'm 100% melee like khorne, and I'm up against someone like LRL or Kruleboyz, we both get to move at the same time? They can avoid my traps/charges/shenanigans easier as its happening they can react. We both get to shoot at the same time? Well I have no shooting so just take an entire armies shooting (as I would have normally, however they can react to my movement WAY easier as they can see what I'm moving and position their shooting to nuke whatever they want. We both get to charge at the same time? Well now I've just taken shooting from an entire army with no shooting to give back, and now my benefit of being melee focussed is massively reduced because those armies ALSO get to charge and fight at the same time as me? But I couldn't shoot at the same time as them.... I think it'd bring way too many problems into the game imo. The majority of AoS is movement and positioning, that'd be gone if once I moved something for a set up the enemy could just counter move or move away.

I also feel like this would make games extremely long, with so much to think about all the time, compared to just thinking about a few things in your opponents turn and planning your next turn in your head.

As I said, I've never played that type of game so I may be completely wrong about how it'd work, but thats my understanding.

In the alternating activation games I've watched and tried, usually there's an 'initiative' roll off for each phase.  So for example, before moving the winner moves after the other player and I imagine they could write it so super fast reflexive armies (like Slaanesh or Aelves of sorts) might get a +1 or win ties to that roll maybe.  Aside from fancy pants weapons shooting should be very simultaneous with very few exceptions.  The melee could be initiative roll off with you-go-i-go, or I'd prefer each unit to have an initiative stat like old 40k (not sure if current 40k has that).

I think it would take about the same time to complete, just be more bookkeeping for damage counting which is easily done with little counters or pencil and paper.

[JackStreicher]

I had a League game yesterday in which we never got a single double turn due to our rolls. It was enjoyable and tense, a really good game!
If he ever had a double turn I would've lost (tabled) due to his insane damage capabilities. If I had a doubleturn he would have lost.
This way it was tactical and fun without throwing a wrench at us and forcing the game to go a certain way.
Planning ahead in this case was: Screening like crazy, which would've been in vain if he spiked his dice or got a double turn.

It's one of the examples of why a DT is actually pretty bad. It's an unfair advantage for one player, period. You can argue as much as you want, this however doesn't change. (It isn'T made fair by giving the other player the chance to also get a DT. If one player gets a DT he's at an unfair advantage from that point onwards)
 

If you are interested:
I played an experimental SBGL list with 2x 20 and 3x 10 Grave Guard, 60 Zombies, 2 Vamps, 10 Wolves, a Nekro and a Wight King in Legion of Blood
HE played a Knights of the Empty Throne list with: 6 Varanguard (Tzeentch, General)), 3 Varanguard, Bela'Kor, 2x5 Knights, 1x Iron Golems, 1 Sorcerer Lord and a Warshrine.
By the end of the game his Varanguard had slaughtered 85 Grave Guards, 30 Zombies, 10 Wolves, a Vamp Lord and almost my Wight King. In the end the Zombies won me the game combined with my arcane Vampire buffing them. 

Edited January 24, 2022 by JackStreicher

[Beliman]

16 hours ago, Dogmantra said:

Yes, this is why I said they were considerations and not impossible problems. However, I don't think that any game "perfectly" solves activation control, and each of those answers has its own knock on effects on what the rest of the game will look like. My point is that it's not as simple as saying just use alternating activations, and there are always compromises. I do disagree that something like pass tokens are a particularly good solution. They're fine, but I don't really see them as being particularly much better than how AoS currently works, but at that point I think we come onto matters of taste.

Completely agree. AA is not as easy to be implemented as it seems, and usually needs a whole system around it.

But that's the same for AoS: +1 CPs, Endless spells and doubles tries to mitigate double turn, and Imho, it's not enough. We still see debastating double turns that destroy what could have been a fantastic game, like@JackStreicheralready said above.

I think that people wants to win or lose because hood or bad decisions based on their plastic soldiers: their range, damage, position/movement, etc... double turns in IGYG doubles that.

Double turn needs a lot more than just a few patches to fit in IGYG systems. And we can see a lot of ways to fix AA imbalance on other wargames. That's why people that played this other games feels that are better designed and balanced than AoS (I'm only talking about double-turn here).

Edited January 24, 2022 by Beliman

[Yondaime]

On 1/22/2022 at 4:40 PM, Kadeton said:

In a fixed initiative game, the player who is winning continues winning. You see this in 40K all the time - as soon as one player has gained an advantage (generally during the first shooting phase), they then leverage that advantage to consolidate their lead in subsequent turns. Once you fall behind, it's almost impossible to turn the game around.

When a double turn occurs in AoS, generally one of two things happen:

1. The player who is winning wins faster. They would have won anyway without the double turn, but now they crush their opponent immediately;
2. The player who is losing now has an opportunity to turn the tables and win when they otherwise would have lost.

I like both of these outcomes, personally. The first provides a clean, decisive end to the game rather than the "Are we bored enough to call this a foregone conclusion?" ending you often get in 40K. The second provides uncertainty and hope, which helps you stay engaged with the game even when it's going against you.

I would still very much prefer a system with alternating activations. But the double turn is, IMO, a surprisingly clever piece of design to mitigate the inherent flaws of an IGYG turn structure.

You are not considering one of the most common scenario, specially in high competitive games 

a close and balanced game, then victory is locked behind a dice roll

 

Lets remove the competitive rant for a moment, to me its a unfun rule, i dont like watching my opponent play 2 times in a row, its boring and frustating, specially if said player have like 40 sentinels, 3 bastilodns, 20 snake waifus etc

 

Shooting will be always be the strongest pick, lock at the top meta lists atm, you have:

Lumineth

Dok

Seraphon

Gargant (that plays a different game)

Ironjawz (a glass cannon army that its main wincon its to move across the board turn 1 and then use movement shenanigans to ignore overwatch and lock units)

 

and in 3rd edition even with the +1 cp/remove objective if you go second in like 100+ games i did i gave doube when i won initiate in like what, 2 games? 

 

Its a impossibile rule to balance, all the game literally revolves on it, its the reason battle regimen is the most picked, even if you dont get a bonus enanchemnt and a bonus command point, and even if you have to deploy all before your opponent, all these side negative effect and still having even the possibility to go double makes it by far the strongest pick

 

Sorry for the wall text and the poor english, but i wanted to give my 2 cents

[Koala]

This pops up every few months. I always point out that due to the alternating MELEE activations double turns are not that problematic as long as the main focus of the gameplay is to go in and bash each other in the face. ( With reasonably killy/tanky units) 

It is ranged/spell heavy gameplay that is the issues. ( Because you literally get two times the value without counterplay) It is just very unfun to be on the receving side of this, even as you possibly win the mission.

 

And every few months i look at the recent Battletomes and realise: there is more and more ranged and spellheavy Units. 

Now we know GW likes the Double Turn as the unique AoS thing. And so do i. 

But imho this means a lot of ranged units need to have their warscrolls changed so they have more of a support role. Those funny little gimmicks they hand out are sure not going to cut it.

(Full disclosure: i love my tzeentch and hedonites. But pre-pointsincrease flamers were just toxic)

[whispersofblood]

2 hours ago, JackStreicher said:

I had a League game yesterday in which we never got a single double turn due to our rolls. It was enjoyable and tense, a really good game!
If he ever had a double turn I would've lost (tabled) due to his insane damage capabilities. If I had a doubleturn he would have lost.
This way it was tactical and fun without throwing a wrench at us and forcing the game to go a certain way.
Planning ahead in this case was: Screening like crazy, which would've been in vain if he spiked his dice or got a double turn.

It's one of the examples of why a DT is actually pretty bad. It's an unfair advantage for one player, period. You can argue as much as you want, this however doesn't change. (It isn'T made fair by giving the other player the chance to also get a DT. If one player gets a DT he's at an unfair advantage from that point onwards)
 

If you are interested:
I played an experimental SBGL list with 2x 20 and 3x 10 Grave Guard, 60 Zombies, 2 Vamps, 10 Wolves, a Nekro and a Wight King in Legion of Blood
HE played a Knights of the Empty Throne list with: 6 Varanguard (Tzeentch, General)), 3 Varanguard, Bela'Kor, 2x5 Knights, 1x Iron Golems, 1 Sorcerer Lord and a Warshrine.
By the end of the game his Varanguard had slaughtered 85 Grave Guards, 30 Zombies, 10 Wolves, a Vamp Lord and almost my Wight King. In the end the Zombies won me the game combined with my arcane Vampire buffing them. 

There is a distinction between a game where a double turn doesn't appear and a game without a double turn. In this fun and balanced game with largely no ranged damage, the possibility of a double turn still existed. And so you likely made decision with that in mind which led to by your own admission a fun and balanced game. 

What you have to ask yourself is if even the possibility didn't exist would the player who went first have just won because they got to choose the first engagements.

[JackStreicher]

6 minutes ago, whispersofblood said:

There is a distinction between a game where a double turn doesn't appear and a game without a double turn. In this fun and balanced game with largely no ranged damage, the possibility of a double turn still existed. And so you likely made decision with that in mind which led to by your own admission a fun and balanced game. 

What you have to ask yourself is if even the possibility didn't exist would the player who went first have just won because they got to choose the first engagements.

That's not right. Everything I did I had to do anyways, double turn or not. I had to screen to survive his turn. Usually my opponent gets his turn after mine (or vise versa), so I have to screen to survive his damage. I shall not overextend or expose my charakters. This I have to do anyways. If my opponent received a double turn I would've run out of screens and he could have simply smashed my defences and finally would've tabled me. There's not really a difference. The only differences are the following:

- One Player could take the risk of trying to get the double turn, playing super aggressively. If this is rewarded the game is pretty much over for his opponent. If he does not get the DT he'll be in trouble. It's a feel bad in both cases since as I said: the double turn (to me) is a mechanic that gives an unfair advantage to one player (not neccessarily the one taking it).

- The possibility to turn a game around. Usually this means that grave mistakes were made (in the turns before / Listbuilding) so this mechaic is required. It's still not fair at all. If you make such horrendeous mistakes, you deserve to lose.

- The Easy DT: You don't need to place your important pieces aggressively because you either have great shooting, awesome magic or another trick up your sleeve to hurt your opponent from afar. Awesome, the biggest NPE gets to go twice in a row, so much player interaction, amazing.

So why exactly do we need the DT? That's right, we do not. It's not a good game mechanic it's simply a trademark of AoS for the sake of it.

 

[Kadeton]

3 hours ago, Yondaime said:

You are not considering one of the most common scenario, specially in high competitive games 

a close and balanced game, then victory is locked behind a dice roll

If you have a "close and balanced" game state at the end of a round, then whoever goes next will gain the advantage. In AoS, this is the person who wins a roll-off at the time. In 40K, it's the person who won the single roll-off at the start of the game. Are you saying that having one initiative roll to determine the outcome is better than having multiple initiative rolls?

I get it - for some people, a double turn will always be a feels-bad moment, and no amount of discourse on why those feelings don't necessarily match up with the probabilistic outcomes is going to make it feel better. That's okay. Some people don't like Vegemite either. As long as those people don't try to stop anyone else from eating Vegemite, it's fine.

3 hours ago, Yondaime said:

Lets remove the competitive rant for a moment, to me its a unfun rule, i dont like watching my opponent play 2 times in a row, its boring and frustating, specially if said player have like 40 sentinels, 3 bastilodns, 20 snake waifus etc

Yep, I agree. The more interaction they add to the game for the inactive player in order to reduce this effect, the better (all the way up to and including reworking the core system for alternating activations, IMO).

3 hours ago, Yondaime said:

Shooting will be always be the strongest pick, lock at the top meta lists atm, you have:

Lumineth

Dok

Seraphon

Gargant (that plays a different game)

Ironjawz (a glass cannon army that its main wincon its to move across the board turn 1 and then use movement shenanigans to ignore overwatch and lock units)

Right now, the top meta list is Fulminators, Longstrikes and/or Stormdrake Guard. Everything else is second-tier at best.

3 hours ago, Yondaime said:

Its a impossibile rule to balance, all the game literally revolves on it, its the reason battle regimen is the most picked, even if you dont get a bonus enanchemnt and a bonus command point, and even if you have to deploy all before your opponent, all these side negative effect and still having even the possibility to go double makes it by far the strongest pick

I don't think it's about balance, except in the broadest possible sense. It's about creating unpredictable outcomes. It essentially emphasises the "gambling" aspect of the game, which is honestly one of the things GW does best. (They're certainly not very good at balance!) That increased uncertainty pushes the outcomes of games closer to the overall average, but it doesn't (and I imagine was never intended to) make any given match more balanced.