Age of Sigmar with Alternate Activation

[Auticus]

I'm going to add this as an optional format in Azyr.

Alternate Activation.

Pick a hero, unit, monster, or warmachine and run through its HERO, MOVE, SHOOT, and Combat phase. Heroes can group activate with another unit, monster, or warmachine within 3" of them (so they activate along with that unit).

Once done, your opponent does the same until everything has been activated. Then move to next turn.

Thoughts

[Mr Mystery]

Purely from a player perspective, it makes the game too reactive.

I've found controlling my own 'charge everything and give it a shoeing' impulse to be a real hindrance when you now take it in turns to select a unit to fight.

IGOUGO outside of that, to my mind, gives too much freedom to back off from fluffed fights.

The only system I've played where I found it satisfying was Epic, and that was down to the orders system. The orders restricted your available options, so it wasn't as easy to think 'whoops, that went wrong...everyone back off', or even 'and a bit more pressure here will see them off'

Just my tastes though. Others may well enjoy that sort of thing

[grimmas]

Unit activation is not a mechanic I've ever really liked. I do like alternating between players within phases however something like I move a unit then you a unit and so on or I move all my units them you move all your units. I'd also go with mixing the two depending on the phase, say may be each side move all their army then the other side moves all their army but they then alternate units for the shooting and charge phases of that make sense.

I think we may have talked above this elsewhere though. 🙂

[Auticus]

Thats something to consider.

I do not like one side moving all then the other side moving all, then you shooting all then the other shooting all because it still puts a lot of importance on who goes first.

There are two main appeals to alternate activation

1) it keeps both sides engaged throughout
2) it prevents who goes first as being such an important thing, esp in a game like AoS where you can potentially go first twice in a row.

Now I like the alternating through HERO phase, then alternate through MOVE, then SHOOT, then COMBAT because you are able to respond as opposed to stand there and take it in the face completely if you don't go first.

If we just say "ok i moved all my stuff now you can move all your stuff, now i get to shoot my entire gunline at you because i went first, you stand there and take it in the face" the end result is the same as leaving it as is as opposed to "i shoot a unit, now you get to shoot a unit" where you can respond back immediately.

[grimmas]

Yeah I'd only use alternating the armies for the movement or Hero phases. You'd need something else for the others you could go crazy, do a Battletech and only remove models at the end of the shooting phase.

My preferred option would be alternating units in each phase. It would also tie with the current combat phase which is one of the best bits of the AoS rules. I quite like the way it would allow a player to react to the opposition moves etc.

My primary issue with a unit being activated for all its actions as it tends to mean it becomes a bit of a Deathstar Death match

[Auticus]

We're going to do some tests and see how it goes. To date I haven't had the issue of deathstars like you mentioned but I have not done this yet with Age of Sigmar.

[grimmas]

Deathstar may be the wrong word to be honest. It's more of a feel thing it just makes it feel that one is playing with individual units rather than an army (and it always seems like everyone just used their most powerful unit first). This is from my experience of other systems like you I've not tried it with AoS so I'm interested to hear how it works for you.

[Auticus]

To me it makes it feel more like an RTS. If you use your most powerful units first, you could end up in a bad position and not be able to counter. I like to use my chaffe units first to let the table develop before I commit my more heavier units.

[grimmas]

Well we are discussing a personal preference so entirely understandable we'd view it differently. I do think that the AoS rule set can easily be varied to deal with an alternative activation sequence with very little/no effort. How were you going to run the Hero and Battleshock phases?

[Auticus]

You activate a hero, monster, warmachine, or unit. If a hero you can also activate a unit, warmachine, or monster within 3" if they share the same keywords.

They play through ALL of their phases.

So if I activate a hero, I do his hero phase, then his move, then his shooting, then his combat.
If I group activated, the unit or whatever follows suit.

Then my opponent activates one.