Basilisk batteries are usually worthwhile providing you can establish diagonal fire lanes, since they can still shoot 90cm when they fail to activate. Baneblades on OW also make a fearsome Blitzguard. That said, it is generally agreed that the artillery company is a sub optimal choice and that singleton Baneblades are underwhelming in attack though they might make reasonable infantry support tanks, and can be used in combination with Shadowswords in a SHT company.

However the issue raised here is not around the quality of particular units, but rather that armies with limited activations (8/7 or less) can struggle against 'normal' armies of 11+ activations. The contention being that this unreasonable.

On the other end of the scale, popcorn armies are a viable choice provided they achieve and can maintain a superiority of roughly 3:2. This means creating a popcorn army of ~15 activations which by definition are small an vulnerable, unless there are also ways of combining them built into the list (commander or WE transport). These armies are legitimately designed to capitalise on activation numbers, and therefore should not be over-penalised by any activation 'buff' granted to their less numerous opponents.

@ginger - hear what you are saying. Right 100% about balancing "pop corn" vs "resilient." Though if you look back at the OP, the issue raised was the effect activation numbers has on upgrade selection (or lack thereof).

I think there are some ways the rules could be modified to give "pass activations" etc, that people might want to play as house rules. But obviously revising the rules officially isn't going to happen.

I was suggesting a way the guard list could be modified to give more variety without going away from the "lumpy" theme.

Not sure if Matty came through here and mentioned what he's up to in the Heavy Mech list but he's approached the list design to push those upgrades as options for the core formation itself (such as X units AND 3Y or 2X). It will be interesting to see how his experiment works in practice and may give us interesting food for thought in the future for list design in EA. As Blip says the passing mechanic is interesting and would be fun in a clean room rule set or as fan-rules but will never see anything in official rules (unless pigs fly and say the 2nd coming of Neil Hunt occurs ).

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weelll, we might just get around that issue by creating a Special Rule to give a formation the right to "pass" (under the appropriate circumstances). That way we can apply this as a boost to particular lists or formations that need encouragement without skewing everything. Something like this

I suggest using a variable amount because this obviously changes significantly from list to list. I also suggest that the guidelines be that this rule should only be available to 'core' formations, and rarely used even then. So for example; perhaps only IG HQ and mechanised infantry companies to encourage the upgrades mentioned above; AMTL Battle Titans (not Warhound scouts); and possibly even tactical marines . . . (Though this last is highly speculative )

Yep I mentioned it here somewhere, and the Heavy Mechanised Imperial Guard list has it in v0.7 (which I'm frustratingly unable to upload into the first post of that thread. I might have to delete some of the older ones perhaps). Companies are made up of 2-4 platoons, which are purchased separately like upgrades.
The v0.7 PDF is near the end of that thread if anyone is interested.

Another secret project I'm working on is a mission pack based on the Age of Sigmar matched play missions. I hope to post that up this weekend. One of the mechanics in that is that the army that finishes deployment first gets to choose who gets to go first in the first turn. This effectively gives one free activation pass to the army with less formations built in to the missions. It isn't a huge change, but potentially offsets the activation difference a little bit if they choose to waive the first activation. I'm not sure I would too often to be honest, but, you know, tactics.

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Most armies except those that have barely any upgrade (Eldar) have that problem, in a variable degree. Is not a problem only for high point formations, but that usually everyone tries to get every formation to the lowest possible points.

The upgrades i can think of that are usually taken, apart from those to fill air transports.

Space Marines - Razorbacks and Hunters.
IG armies - Hydra and stupidly cheap Griffons.
Orks - nothing except Oddboys. On unusual times transports or/and a single Kommando or Stormboy for Warbands, or a Nob for when someone takes a Big Gun formation. And seeing Big formations is becoming scarce, except for taking dual Soopas on Blitz Brigades, much less Huge.
Eldar - Heavy Weapons for Guardians and FireStorms (swap), WaveSerpents and Exarch for Aspects, and the extra Falcon. But Eldar have barely any upgrade compared with others.
Tau - Ethereal, Bonded Team, Skyray, and sometimes extras FWs or Crisis for making a sturdy BTS (for when there is no Manta) or Krootox for plcing BM or Gun Drones on Crisis to soak BM.

Can't say about the other lists, i haven't taken or played against enough to be sure.

So to summarize, no not much. The usual are swaps, single AA, transports, to fill an air transport, BTS, mandatory things (Oddboys), or stupidly cheap (Griffons).

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@Jimmy. Thanks for reminding me about Matty's list.

@Matty. This sounds really interesting, but cant get it to download on my phone and keep forgetting when at my PC. Will try next time i'm at a computer.

I think there are really two problems here that happen to coalesce a bit: a problem with the rules design of the activation system, and a problem with the composition of certain lists (though composition, of course, always reflects the rules to some degree).

The first one is unlikely to be changed throughout the community; with no official company in charge able to force changes on the community, people are probably going to stick with the tried-and-tested, pre-existing standard (whether or not they like it). Personally, I'd prefer something different with activations but I think that something different is always going to be a house rule.

The second problem is more things like 'why aren't Ogryns seen more often?', 'why are Tactical Marines seen as a tax and not the core of Space Marine armies?'. In some cases, the rules force certain choices (people are limited by the size of formations so as to keep enough activations in a list), in other cases, the formation rules are restrictive for whatever reason (say, not allowing Ogryns to replace Infantry in big Imperial Guard formations). These things might change slowly but are the main way the community can and has addressed the combined problem.

All this might be stating the obvious a bit but I think it's helpful to properly separate the two issues so everyone understands what everyone else is saying (especially since the two issues mesh so tightly where activations are concerned!).

On the topic of Titan Legions: I think this is one case where new base game mechanics are the only answer that will significantly improve things, since titans essentially lack the attrition that other formations suffer in EA. Anything that is 'all or nothing' is going to be difficult to balance and the large point costs of titan formations restricts the smoothing out that you get from large numbers of entities on the battlefield.

Since titans have their own list or are relatively separate entities, it might even be possible for such a change to occur and succeed! (Ironically, or perhaps reflective of the design studio ideas at the time, WH40K has a similar issue with monstrous creatures not suffering attrition where squads and vehicles do).

I just wanted to say that the mere fact that 11 activation armies are considered normal and the idea that the effectiveness of popcorn (15) armies needs to be preserved is an indication of just how ingrained the issue is. The only reason 11 activations is normal is BECAUSE number of activations in itself is a goal. And nobody would build a 15 activation army if it wasn't. I think if activations weren't important, the average would be more like 7 activations and would reflect a more natural mix of units in formations that work well together. Personally I think it's no loss if 11 or 15 armies are no longer "better" as they don't reflect what I would regard as a more natural deployment. It's an issue if some races can't be competitive without their activation advantage, but not the loss of the concept of "number of activations" as a primary list building mechanic per se.

But it's all fantasy land stuff anyway

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