Think about the implications of changing the first paragraph of 1.9.6 (the hit allocation rules) from:

to the following:

And changing the last paragraph of the same section from:

to:

I was also thinking that this might also require a "look out sir!" type rule that would allow a unit containing a character to swap hits with another unit of the same type (Inf, LV, or AV).

I'm curious as to why you think these changes are necessary?

In my, albeit somewhat limited experience of the current rules, the way in which hits are allocated works well enough.

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This is really just an offshoot of this thread.

Ah yes, I've just read through that, and it has made my eyes and brain hurt, so I think the least said soonest mended on that one   (please refer to my reply there if you are confused by my answer).

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I think the concept would work in principal but I think you'll eventually run into similar kinds of problems.  It mixes up which player will allocate a hit to a given unit but you'll still end up with gamey choices.  A defender is going to burn all the special hits as soon as possible so the attacker doesn't have them available to allocate to more valuable targets (with obvious exceptions if the defender is allocating on a valuable unit).  Also, in close cases you would have to measure range to many of the units to determine exactly who gets to allocate to the valuable units, whereas that's rarely necessary currently.


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Edit:  Ack.  Some days I cannot communicate effectively.  Rewritten so as not to sound like a non-grammatical idiot.

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Neal

For me its either attacker or defender that allocates. Either way you are favoring one side but doing so consistently.

I agree; one should be picked and settled on concretely.

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

The one change I'd like to see in hit allocation is allowing the attacker the ability of targeting WEs with TK weapons when there is a mixed formation.

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"I don't believe in destiny or the guiding hand of fate." N. Peart

Technically you can already DS as when shooting at mixed formations you chose WE or none WE, but I'm sure you mean AT/AP/MW at normal and TK at WE  

Er, that's already in the rules:

If a formation includes both war engines and non-war engine
units then an attacker must state whether any attacks he makes
on the formation will be directed at the war engines or the
other units in the formation. Attacks directed at the war
engines can only be allocated against war engines if they hit,
while attacks directed at other units may not be allocated to the
war engines in the formation.

You just indicate that your TK weapons... and heck, any AT weapons you desire, are targetting war engines.

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"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

Now living in Boston... any EPIC players want to meet up?

Oops, my bad.   What was I thinking of?

Edit: I think I was thinking of allowing MW (but not TK) to choose vehicles instead infantry.

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"I don't believe in destiny or the guiding hand of fate." N. Peart

I guess my assumption behind this type of alternating allocation is that it rewards a defender for hiding valuable units several units deep behind less valuable ones or rewards the attacker for working into a position that puts the valuable targets closer. That's the kind of tactics that this game seeks to reward, right?

The idea that the defender will try to allocate special hits to throwaway units is understood. The counter to this would be for the attacker to try to get into a position where he can make sure he'll get to allocate a 'good' hit onto a 'good' unit. If a good firing position is chosen, then the attacker can prevent the defender from wasting all of the special hits before the attacker can allocate at least some of them.

Having the attacker decide who allocates first is meant to prevent players from gaming the system by arranging their units in an alternating throwaway/valuable/throwaway/valuable/... pattern.

I also think that most of the time this won't cause much extra measuring, because most formations tend to be homogeneous with only one or two special units. I think more time would be spent by the attacker trying to count whether the juiciest target is an even or odd number in the order of allocation, so that he can decide who allocates first. But counting like that is faster than measuring (for most people).

I imagine this type of hit allocation would result in the same kind of situation that happens when my wife and I play Backgammon. In most cases, based on the dice roll, we both know what the optimal move will be and we can practically play for each other (like if she gets a roll that lets her bump one of my checkers off the board, I know full well that she'll do it, because that's how the game works). In the same way, a friendly group that is familiar with each other will probably get into the habit of just having a single player allocating the hits in a method the splits the difference of who gets the advantage.

Like I said in the other thread. The MW second round allocation rule was put there to fix the problem caused by the defender allocates rule (which is there to prevent sniping)

For me the most practicable options are:
Include other special weapons in the second round or
Allow attacker to allocate or
Leave well alone and accept that defenders can allocate special shots in any order they like.

Everything else discussed suffers from hideous levels of subjectivity or complexity

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[url=http://tinyurl.com/bott2015][img]http://i62.tinypic.com/205fcow.jpg[/img][/url]

Yeah, tbh, this argument has convinced me.  I think you're right.