In terms of balancing low activation armies, I'd second the point that split fire makes an implicit judgement about the scale of the game and the size of maneuver elements.

An alternate approach would not be to make large units dish out more firepower, but rather, allow them to 'take it' better.

One possibility might be to allow them to ablate blast markers during their activation by eliminating a unit. (at some ratio).

hmm, but WEs couldn't really do that.

One possibility could be that a formation can get only 1 BM for coming under fire per turn. Not per formation which is shooting at it.

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It's a reasonable idea, to avoid popcorn BM attrition. But the book keeping could be problematic.

Morgan Vening

Why? The first time in a given turn a formation is shot at place the Blastmarker for coming under fire and that's it. For the rest of the turn this formation will only get more Blastmarkers for actual casualties (and Crossfire, large Barrages and Disrupt off course) regardless how many formation will shoot at it.
Not more complicated as toremember which formation has activated that turn.

To make it even easier to remember the "coming under fire" Blastmarker could be only placed if the formation has no Blastmarkers.

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I actually kind of like popcorn BM attrition as a game mechanic. But maybe that's just me.

It isn't just you.

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As far as I can see, high activation armies have only ever caused problems where the army list was badly designed in the first place, for example with Siegemasters.

I don't really see the need for an activation limit.

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This makes ranged shooting as a whole MUCH less effective, in a game where assaults already dominate.

I think an activation limit, (I would prefer a system that would allow a player to "pass" an activation) would be good. Actually, I would even think the system needs it.

Too much weight is given to the number of activations; it means a lot of upgrades rarely get used, strong emphasis on small formations, quite often taken even solely for the purpose of "upping the activation count", and make large formations/WE harder to balance.

This is not only a question of addressing high activation army "pop corn" abuse, but also making large formations / low activations army more viable, upgrades more interesting, and would thus give more variety and flexibility in list design.

One could imagine a low activation army developing a tactic/gameplay where it wait out the other army. A "pass" still isn't as valuable as a "true" activation, so there would still be some advantage in having a rapid response, very flexible army, but it would be more feasible to build army supposed to be stiffer and more cumbersome while still keeping it balanced.

The activation system is very volatile, and anything that stray from around 300Pts cost is harder and harder to balance the cheaper they become, as it creates units prone to pop cornish abuse (no pun intended to any denizen of Cornwall), and also harder to balance the more expansive they become, because a "point sink" effect appear where the pricy stuff is constantly in danger of getting either buffed out of proportions, or get price decrease AND possibly accompanying nerf in the process.

This is a flaw of the gaming system and I think an optional rule would be nice. Something like what was proposed already, like allowing the player with the less activation to pass instead of taking an action (suggested lastly by Ginger on the previous page) would be a nice step in the right direction.

I frequently play AMTL, with its very low natural activation count, and it works quite well.

I think putting a cap on (other armies) activation count would make the AMTL list stronger, to the point of being abusive; Being able to out-activate the Titans is more or less the only hope of most opposing armies. The rather common Quake Cannon + Quake Cannon + CLP combo that AMTL (and AdMech) armies field is also usually able to kill or severely maul one formation per turn; Having fewer, larger formations makes one more vulnerable against this kind of weaponry. An activation count limit would make it difficult to make an army that can absorb intense point attrition like that and still reach their target.

Interesting question is whether the AMTL would benefit that much from the option to 'pass.'

If people are concerned about the possibility of a lot of tail-end activations (i.e. you're done and he's got five left), do what Battletech did - once your opponent has two activations to your one, he starts taking two activations to your one. If 3:1, he takes 3:1. And so on.

So if I deploy a list with eight and my opponent has twelve, it goes:

1:1, 1:1, 1:1. 1:1, 1:2, 1:2, 1:2, 1:2.

EDIT: Or vice versa if he wins Initiative.

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Oh definitely. The Big Guns would absolutely love to defer shooting until the very last moment - there's very little that can interfere with its activation, and it's a huge advantage to be able to place that turn's killing blow on a formation that's central to the enemy's next turn plans. Having to commit its fire while the enemy still has a significant number of activations left lets the enemy set up combined assaults for the following turn with impunity, a tactic that is absolutely critical for armies that can't kill the Titans outright.

I'm not sure if the WE-heavy lists are really where the problem is, but rather armies that have large formations of AVs and/or infantry, such are possible with IG and Orks.

Maybe the issue only exists in my head, but it seems like activation counts have increased over the years since the official release of the rules. Maybe the problem is that there are simply too many cheap formations available to armies.

Maybe a simple solution would be to require that at least 1 formation per 1000pts must be worth more than 500pts. That creates a de facto activation limit and I doubt players would mind such a restriction. Such a restrict would also serve to balance higher point games.

It's a simple rule to test, too.