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

[Erosharcos]

I love AoS and I always have a good-time overall playing the game. It's by far been my most invested-in hobby over the last 5 years. As I've dipped into other war-games, I have found that one of the biggest hurtles for AoS' enjoyment is the double-turn. I know that this is a controversial topic in the AoS community. And whenever I've seen the discussion come up, I've always gotten a sense that some very bitter former fantasy players come out of the woodwork to take it as an opportunity to just hate on AoS. I don't hate AoS, I think the game is great overall, despite its lack of balance on a competitive level to comparable games. 

As for the double turn, I don't believe that I am alone in that it just feels really bad to get double-turned, especially on turn 2 or 3. The fact that the double turn occurs solely on a d6, the statistical odds of a player getting double-turned are pretty certain. From my experience and from complaints I've seen/am seeing, this leads to frequent "feel bad" moments as you or your opponent watch one another just steam-roll over the other. When getting the double turn, this doesn't feel satisfying... it just makes me feel guilty. Either guilty for getting and taking the double turn or guilty for "taking it easy" on my opponent when I decline a double turn just to make the game more fun. Doing search strings on the internet, this is a very common phenomena among AoS online posters and when I played a lot at my FLGS it was a common complaint among the small AoS community there. 

Another common occurrence is that new players can find the double turn to be a sour mechanic just as I've described above. 

Again, I'm obviously not alone in any of these impressions on the double-turn. We all know that the double-turn often times will decide the outcome of the game. When I think about it that way in more competitive play, it just seems like a very obvious flaw that most games are decided by a single d6 roll and less about the generalship and order of battle of the players. Wargames in general take a while to set up in terms of building, painting, and arranging of the models and terrain, and a common gripe with AoS specifically is that it often times takes more time to set up than play, which I certainly share. 

To reiterate, I love AoS. The game is great overall, and it would take a lot to get my to stop playing painting and collecting. I just kind of realized the errors of the double turn when a buddy and I decided to just not do double-turns and have turn-order determined by drops. It made the game longer, more exciting, and less dependent on setting up for a single d6 to decide the outcome of the game, and more dependent on cleverly working within the remainder of the framework of AoS and each others' army moves, and led to an overall better experience. 

Sincerely, another anti-double turner. 

[Noserenda]

*Resets the "Days since double turn argument" counter to zero*

[Lich King]

#1 Get rid of Round Initiative Roll

#2 Scoring Victory Points start from Battle Round 2 rather than Batte Round 1.

You’ve just fixed and made the game so much better with those two steps. 

Edited January 21, 2022 by Lich King

[NauticalSoup]

Seems like it's here to stay regardless of player feedback.

Maybe in testing they found removing it exposes too many of the game's serious underlying flaws, so by keeping it everyone can get mad about being double turned since it masks many of the other reasons their play experience is bad.

[PJetski]

Nah

Add more reactive gameplay instead

[KrispyXIV]

The double turn makes the game less predictable and more fun.  It can be painful to get hit by it, but it keeps games from having predictable results at the bottom of turn 1 and forces players to act with the uncertainty of knowing who's gets to go next.  It punishes overextension as much as it rewards dangerous gambles, but always rewards thoughtful consideration of the fact that the top of every round may not be yours to play - plan accordingly. 

Theres a strong incentive not to simply take first turn and alpha your opponent off the table - choosing to go first is always choosing to risk getting doubled.  

In scenarios where the second player in the third round gets to remove an objective, it's often worth it to risk getting doubled for potentially game changing control over scoring.  

I like the double, and removing it will gut AoS of one of its advantages over its contemporaries.  

That's an opinion - and highly subjective.  

[Meraklis]

It wouldn't matter if they finally adopted alternative activations. It would make the game much more interesting

 

[JackStreicher]

I‘d like the double to be gone as well. It makes no sense and ruins more games than it helps.

[Thostos]

50 minutes ago, Meraklis said:

It wouldn't matter if they finally adopted alternative activations. It would make the game much more interesting

 

Yup!..time to get up with the times and introduce alternating activations.

 

[Ganigumo]

1 hour ago, KrispyXIV said:

The double turn makes the game less predictable and more fun.  It can be painful to get hit by it, but it keeps games from having predictable results at the bottom of turn 1 and forces players to act with the uncertainty of knowing who's gets to go next.  It punishes overextension as much as it rewards dangerous gambles, but always rewards thoughtful consideration of the fact that the top of every round may not be yours to play - plan accordingly. 

Theres a strong incentive not to simply take first turn and alpha your opponent off the table - choosing to go first is always choosing to risk getting doubled.  

In scenarios where the second player in the third round gets to remove an objective, it's often worth it to risk getting doubled for potentially game changing control over scoring.  

I like the double, and removing it will gut AoS of one of its advantages over its contemporaries.  

That's an opinion - and highly subjective.  

I agree, and I know there's lots of others that do as well. With static turn orders many games can be "solved" or are just as easily determined by the first and only priority roll (in fact that was the state of 40k 9th edition for a while after it released). It adds a wild element to the game that can be strategized around (as opposed to completely random things like dice rolls where you just need to hope for the best). 3rd edition has done a pretty good job of weakening the double turn as well, especially in critical turn 3, despite my gripes about the edition as a whole.

 

 

1 hour ago, Meraklis said:

It wouldn't matter if they finally adopted alternative activations. It would make the game much more interesting

 

Alternating activations is different design, not better. While it could make AOS "better" it would be nearly unrecognizable from the game as it is right now (which could be a good thing based on your perspective). I've got a feeling that it would end up making games longer in general though.

[Skreech Verminking]

Personally I never really had a grudge towards the roll of, yet with the extreme point increases to meat-shield units it almost got impossible to block certain units from charging.

unless games workshop, is going to reduce the cost of clanrats, storm vermin, plague monks, stabbas, and shootas, and increase the size of stormvermin, and plague monks, I see no reason of keeping the double turn.

Make horde armies great again.

or at least playable

[Doko]

Yes double turn is horrible and they got massive feedback saying this,but they refuse to change it. I guess they want have some key things that 40k havent.

But as you said double turn is horrible,makes a game won by a player being better player be lost by only luck of doubleturn to rival.

Double turn is the bigger asset to win a game and it is 100% luck,so a game where the most important to win is luck dont seems a very good game lol.

As you i love aos but i would love it more without double turn,free sumon and new coherency

[Charleston]

Ah, the Doubleturn-Stages

1. Shock and denial. - "Wait, we roll for what? But that seems weird...okay, can you show it in the rules?"
2. Pain and guilt. - "I lost/won 3 games due to weird double turns."
3. Anger and bargaining. - "I hate that mechanic. It is stupid! Can we please houserule it out? Or make a petition?"
4. Depression.  - "...leave me alone"
5. The upward turn. - "Well, at least I get to play with my friends some AoS. Should give it a try, maybe it won't be that bad with the Double Turn this time"
6. Reconstruction and working through. - "Hej, it is actually possible to play around the double turn! Never belived that guy who told me this but it really works"
7. Acceptance and hope. - "It is a part of the game. I hope they finally remove it"

 

  

3 hours ago, Lich King said:

#1 Get rid of Round Initiative Roll

#2 Scoring Victory Points start from Battle Round 2 rather than Batte Round 1.

You’ve just fixed and made the game so much better with those two steps. 

May I invite you for a introduction round of Warhammer 40.000? It is a quite cool system some folks play around here. Considering your post I think you really might like it!

Edited January 21, 2022 by Charleston

[mojojojo101]

I like the way the roll off and potential to be on the end of a double turn forces you to stay on your toes and make difficult decisions through the game. It forces you to make difficult and interesting decisions and makes the game less predictable. That in itself makes it a valuable mechanic to me and I would be disappointed to see it dropped.

FWIW my initial visceral reaction in my first few games was that I hated it, then I played a few games without it and saw the light. I much prefer to have it.

[Freejack02]

Without the double turn, controlling the first turn becomes too powerful. Shooting/ranged becomes even stronger because you know the enemy can't pull the 1-2 (or 2-3) to come back from taking early losses, so they are always playing from behind. 

A lot more would have to be revamped to accommodate that change. 

[yukishiro1]

The game would be better without the double turn, but only if they also did the necessary things to adjust for it. Just removing the double turn on its own would make the game worse right now. It isn't a good mechanic, but it keeps even worse design choices (like strong T1 alpha strikes) in check. 

Edited January 22, 2022 by yukishiro1

[Talas]

I understand some people don't like the priority roll so I ask first before playing a casual game, but my most boring games have always been "you-go-I-go". Yes, with the roll there's a chance that a player gets destroyed, but there's the chance to make a comeback too, and there's also the chance for the game to be "you-go-I-go" anyway. The priority roll is great and I hope it stays with some tweaks to get more people on board with it.

[KrispyXIV]

5 hours ago, Doko said:

Yes double turn is horrible and they got massive feedback saying this,but they refuse to change it.

Perhaps it's related to all the other feedback, that likes the priority roll. 

It's not exactly reasonable to presume your position is either in yhe majority or even "massive" - certainly, there's a lot of players that don't like the double, but many of the players happy with it probably aren't posting about it since, you know, they're happy with it. 

[yukishiro1]

It's one of those things that generates stronger negative reactions than positive ones. The people who hate it, REALLY hate it, while the people who like it tend not to be so passionate about it. Every once in a while you find a true believer, but they're much rarer than the true haters. There may well be as many or more people who support the double turn as oppose it, but their support is much more lukewarm than the opposition. 

For a game designer, that isn't a great place to be. You want to minimize mechanics that create stronger negative than positive reactions, even if on balance the positive reactions outweigh the negative ones. 

Edited January 22, 2022 by yukishiro1

[Chikout]

As others have said removing the double turn and changing nothing else would make the game worse. 

I think gw needs to keep the double turn but make some bigger changes to alleviate the negative effects. The combat phase already has alternating activations. I would be tempted to introduce some form of this into the movement phase. 

One thought I had was that the movement phase would have alternating activations with the caveat that each unit can only move once per battle round. Obviously this would need to be tracked with warcry style tokens but I think it could be really interesting. 

[Azlak the Damned]

12 hours ago, KrispyXIV said:

The double turn makes the game less predictable and more fun.  It can be painful to get hit by it, but it keeps games from having predictable results at the bottom of turn 1 and forces players to act with the uncertainty of knowing who's gets to go next.  It punishes overextension as much as it rewards dangerous gambles, but always rewards thoughtful consideration of the fact that the top of every round may not be yours to play - plan accordingly. 

Theres a strong incentive not to simply take first turn and alpha your opponent off the table - choosing to go first is always choosing to risk getting doubled.  

In scenarios where the second player in the third round gets to remove an objective, it's often worth it to risk getting doubled for potentially game changing control over scoring.  

I like the double, and removing it will gut AoS of one of its advantages over its contemporaries.  

That's an opinion - and highly subjective.  

This ^^^ 👍🏻

[zilberfrid]

The double turn hides imbalance by adding a random factor. If it went away, win rates of overtuned books would spike and monday morning books would sink even further.

In a good world, GW would write balancwd books, but that's not where we are.

[Kasper]

Ahh sheeeet here we go again.

[Clan's Cynic]

Double Turn could work if the game had alternating phases ALA Lord of the Rings. You'd still have the unpredictability and potential edge of someone going twice, but the overall impact would be lessened because you're not getting to do EVERYTHING all over again. Shooting would still be very powerful, but at least your opponent could either have repositioned in the Movement phase knowing it's coming, or they could immediately return fire with their own.

In an I Go You Go system though, forcing Double Turns is just shoving a square peg into a round hole. GW's doubling down on shooting in 2.0 definitely hasn't helped that either. 

The problem with the "it helps people come back" argument is that for every game someone does go twice later and make a comeback, there's another where they get absolutely stomped twice.

Edited January 22, 2022 by Clan's Cynic

[Charleston]

Well, to add a serious opinion on the Doubleturn:

• It is a swingy mechanic that can either turn the game in favor of the player who is already winning, or it can allow the underdog to get a fair chance of returning to the game.
  • Fun part: Games that seem like balance toppled already may get some tension back
  • Unfun Part: Sometimes you can do everything "right" and then a doubleturn will ruin the game outcome nevertheless
• It increases the stakes of playing more risky strategies. You can try to position in a way that expects to get the doubleturn to crash your opponent, but sometimes when you fail the initiative you are in a damn bad position for a counterstrike. High Risk, high Reward which makes the game more tense.