A thought experiment to balance out the first turn advantage

I had a random thought today, and thought I would put it before you guys to see what you thought.

First turn advantage is just what it sounds like.  In chess, white has a slightly higher win rate than black.  Games like Magic or Hearthstone give a small advantage to the second player to try to balance this out (first player doesn't draw a card first turn in Magic, and the second player gets the coin card in Hearthstone).

Warhammer's only first turn advantage mitigator is that units with vanguard can't charge on the very first turn.  However, for a lot of armies, this doesn't matter in the slightest.  First turn magic and shooting cause a lot of damage, and the only defense the second player gets is their position on deployment and whatever natural defense they have.

My thought is this: magic phase goes to the alternate player each turn.  First player gets a chance to move all of their units, the second player gets their magic phase (which lets them get up defenses such as trollguts, or try to limit the number of incoming shots), then the first player completes the remainder of their turn (shooting, close combat, etc).

The advantage is that magic is one of the most game changing phases of each turn.  The non-casting player gets to move around and dictate what units will be in range of what spells, and still dictates movement, shooting, and combat.  The casting player is no longer completely defenseless on the first turn, and has a chance to defend themselves and weaken the opponent a bit before combat starts.

The disadvantage is that you can no longer control whether you are going to be attacking with a strong unit or not.  As the game currently stands, if the enemy casts withering on you, you can try to keep that unit out of combat (or at least not charge in afterward).  You now have to preemptively cast your buffs, and they can try to hex you after they see what you have charged.

What do you guys think?  Would this help mitigate the first turn advantage equally across all armies, or would it change the game too much and cause a different type of imbalance?

It's actually an interesting idea. If I had friends (or even just a friend lol) to play the game with regularly, that would be something new to try out.

I think it would definitely change the game, of course, because 1st turn magic phases are usually spent on either softening up the opponent, clearing their chaff, or giving yourself a quick boost (or your opponent a quick un-boost ) before the game really gets rolling. However, if your opponent gets his magic phase first, then he can clear your chaff, or buff/debuff as need be.

I know that it could be abused by possible outcomes (the two spells from Orcs and Skaven that cause a unit to get moved come to mind), but it's the Magic phase. It's not "abusable" because it's nearly entirely random, and that in of itself keeps it 'balanced'.

My only concern would be that this would discourage aggressive gameplay and opt players to take more defensive/"castling" openings, as they would not want to extend their necks out just to have it get cut off by the opponent too early. Granted, everyone plays the game differently, and each playstyle has its own outcomes, so I don't know how much of a factor this would be.

I would highly encourage you, or any other Tyrant in these forums, to actually give this style a try or two and see how it plays out. Again, if I had people to play with who would be willing to test out ideas, I would give it a go myself!

I actually like this idea a lot - I'll give it a go when\if I get the chance (8th edition was very unpopular with my group, so games are rare). Magic was the real Achilles heel of 8th (for me) in terms of gaming.  If the points system was designed to give an indicator of "worth" to a unit, then every wizard in the game is massively undercosted

We've yet to try it in our group, but to try and mitigate the 1st turn advantage, this was come up with for each turn.

- Roll for initiative
- You have your movement phase, they have theirs - both including charges.
- One magic phase.  One pool of dispel\power dice combined.
- Shooting, as above.
- Combat, as above.

The player that moves first gets the advantage of trying to dictate play.  The player that moves second gets the advantage of a potential counter-charge.

Six-dicing spells becomes much more risky as if you use all your dice - you can't dispel.  The first player has to balance attack with a possible defense and the second has to balance defense with a needed attack.

Alright, looks like I might be able to get a game in this weekend using cross turn magic.  I will let everyone know how it goes.

Definitely looks like an interesting idea.  My other army is Bretonnians, so out of habit I always deploy assuming the enemy is going to get a turn to shoot off all my toys.  As a result I'm normally not too bothered by going second.

With that being said, switching up the magic phase would also impact on Magic Missile and Direct Damage spells, potentially rendering them useless as you cannot aim your caster where you want to throw the spell.

Definitely looks like an interesting idea.  My other army is Bretonnians, so out of habit I always deploy assuming the enemy is going to get a turn to shoot off all my toys.  As a result I'm normally not too bothered by going second.

With that being said, switching up the magic phase would also impact on Magic Missile and Direct Damage spells, potentially rendering them useless as you cannot aim your caster where you want to throw the spell.

That might not be a bad thing. If they are spending their time dancing around your wizard, then they are not charging.

Still, that is one more thing to look out for. One thing I thought of as an unintended side effect is that it is now easier to fear units off the table. If you cause a panic during the magic phase, then the fleeing unit can be charged on your next turn without it having a chance to rally.  I plan to add a brief 'magic cleanup' phase to give panicked units a chance to rally after magic hits them.  Standard rally test or keep running phase, just after the magic phase and separate from the normal rally and remaining moves phase.

I will try to keep variables down to see how everything works in its most base form.

This would massively favor any army that has movement spells.. beastmen primal surge, VC, Walk between worlds, steed of shadows. You could easily make game breaking charges on the bottom of the first turn.

This would massively favor any army that has movement spells.. beastmen primal surge, VC, Walk between worlds, steed of shadows. You could easily make game breaking charges on the bottom of the first turn.

Very possibly.  Comet is also strong under this setup, since there is not much of chance of getting out of the way before it drops.

However, my counterpoint is that under the current turn system, there are many more spells that are even more game breaking.  A demon prince flying up and 6 dicing a purple sun on turn 1 is just as broken as setting up a big charge, and almost all armies have a way to do that, such as a skink priest moving up and allowing the slann to get a first turn dwellers, or putting a wizard on a horse, or giving your Death Slaughtermaster a carpet.

What would you think of setting up the magic phase in between the charge phase and the other movement phases?  That way the moving player can react to movement spells, and all rally attempts occur at the same time.  You can still charge something to stop a magic missile or direct damage spell, and you can still avoid a comet.

What would you think of setting up the magic phase in between the charge phase and the other movement phases?  That way the moving player can react to movement spells, and all rally attempts occur at the same time.  You can still charge something to stop a magic missile or direct damage spell, and you can still avoid a comet.

Y'know, at this point, you could almost dissolve the magic phase into various parts, much like how the old 40k psychic powers had worked; each one was given a distinction of a phase that it could be interacted with. However, that would essentially change everything that the magic is. You could, in fact, adopt and adapt the old psychic rules and convert them into rules for magic, with whatever various changes that would make the magic work in that fashion.

Now, would that help with the balancing of the "first turn advantage"? Maybe not, unless you had spells that could be designed or written with "can play on either player's turn" or "during your opponent's [fill-in-blank] phase", but again I don't know if that would actually help balance the game or not. I've never played 40k, so I don't understand how the old psychic powers worked (well, I have a basic idea, but not any known knowledge).

The more complicated this gets the less good the idea seems.

How about simply 'If you take first turn do not get a movement phase (except forced movement)'. Feels like a bit of an overreach to me at first glance, but it does feel like it has less rules exploitation potential than swapping magic phases

The more complicated this gets the less good the idea seems.

How about simply 'If you take first turn do not get a movement phase (except forced movement)'. Feels like a bit of an overreach to me at first glance, but it does feel like it has less rules exploitation potential than swapping magic phases

I still think this is worth trying out.  After some thought, (and taking into consideration everything everyone has said) I think that putting the magic phase in between the charge phase and the rest of movement keeps magic in the same position as it is in current game setup in so far as its strength is concerned.  No additional phases, no additional complications.  I'm hoping that it ends up being a simple yet fun variation.

I'm seeing each turn look like this:
 - Charges
 - Opponent's magic
 - Other movement (rallies and additional movement)
 - Shooting
 - Close Combat

This is the turn setup I will be trying on Sunday.  If it works out, I will do more testing.  If it is complicated or if it does not seem to help the game, I will let everyone know.

I still think this is worth trying out.

Absolutely, I am curious how it plays out.

The first game was a rousing success!

We ran our turns like this:
Opponent's magic
Movement
Shooting
Close combat

Very simple, and it worked great.  I will post a battle report later, but basically, my opponent won first turn. I was able to cast bubble trollguts in the first turn, which saved me losing an ironblaster before I could move. After that, magic still occurred during each of our turns, so it involved little fuss. The game was really fun, and definitely worth trying this style again.

The first game was a rousing success!

We ran our turns like this:
Opponent's magic
Movement
Shooting
Close combat

Very simple, and it worked great.  I will post a battle report later, but basically, my opponent won first turn. I was able to cast bubble trollguts in the first turn, which saved me losing an ironblaster before I could move. After that, magic still occurred during each of our turns, so it involved little fuss. The game was really fun, and definitely worth trying this style again.

I'm glad you had success!

I'm curious, however, what you mean by the statement that I bolded in the above quote. Did you keep the alternate magic-phase style in the same pattern the rest of the game? Or did you revert back to the traditional play after the first turn?

I'm curious, however, what you mean by the statement that I bolded in the above quote. Did you keep the alternate magic-phase style in the same pattern the rest of the game? Or did you revert back to the traditional play after the first turn?

We kept the same pattern through the whole game. What I meant was that once you started playing, it no longer felt like anything was really different. For all intents and purposes, you still had one turn where you do everything. There is no bouncing back and forth.

The game flow went like this:
- player 2 magic
- player 1 movement
- player 1 shooting
- player 1 combat
- player 1 magic
- player 2 movement
- player 2 shooting
Etc.

After the first turn, while you technically are changing the turn marker before the magic phase, it just feels like you moved the magic phase to the end of the turn. It was very smooth, and there was no confusion at any point, yet it definitely helped the first turn feel less make-or-break.

Ah, interesting! I like the idea of how that flows. And it doesn't break up the "turns" as much, since it flows into each other, as you have shown.

I'll pitch the idea someday. When I have people to play against lol