Just a few thoughts in the lead up to Cancon.

http://d6addiction.blogspot.com.au/2016/12/food-for-thought-is-activation.html

My regular opponent's tau is usually 13 to 14 activations at 3k including space ship. My Steel Legion and Kreig struggles to match that kind of activation count whilst maintaining a decent amount of fighting units. The 3 support slots for each core unit taken (plus much cheaper core units) give him so much more flexibility. It's also the main reason most of my upgrades get left behind as the core formations are usually too expensive to spend more on them. We've talked about capping activations but the endlessly annoying coordinated fire means his armies are based around lots of small units. And his space ship regularly breaks at least a shadowsword first thing first turn....

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That was quite the read. I do like your different senarios idea reguardless of the activation advantage argument. Would be a challenge though as it would add a whole new dynamic for list creation balance. I can't say I completely agree with your assessment but in my experience higher activation (popcorn) lists do tend to perform better. Eldar in particular due to the avatar and the powerful bonus movement rules. Eldar are very tough though reguardless of activation counts. Played several games against saim-Hann with activation counts of 10-11 and lost 2/3 of the time. That seems to be more just the list than specifically the high activation count though. Tau I can't say I find them particularly potent. Though I was playing mostly Necrons in those days, which seem to dominate some lists.

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Necron AC (click to see current Necron list threads)
Toronto Wargaming Group

Interesting stuff as always. It inspired me to have a peek at the 3k UK tournament winning lists this year. I thought they would be skewed towards high activations but actually is very even. Lowest is 9 highest is 12 with the most common being either 10 or 12. If you look at the top 3 in the tournaments it's also pretty similar. As a general rule air assault lists are high activation, ground pounders low.

In that way the space Wolf list you posted's struggles make sense. It can't delay enough to deliver its air assaults and then escape/minimise return assaults. Personally, I'd have no issues facing ferals with 10 activation steel legion. You've got them comfortably outranged and can get into the beyond 30cm assault sweet spot where you can hit the orkeasaurus bit they can't assault you (without the suicidal move of Boyz before saurus). As such you should be able to force at least a draw.

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Has anyone played or read the Blucher rules? They have in interesting way to manage activations!
When it is your turn, your opponent secretly rules 2d6 and hides them under a cup. You then activate units as you like, but as soon as you have activated units equal to the number hidden under the cup, your turn ends and any units that haven't activated don't get to do anything!
There is a bit of risk and reward in planning your turns as you have to decide if you risk leaving important actions till later.

Interesting, but would never happen.

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Necron AC (click to see current Necron list threads)
Toronto Wargaming Group

Being long time gamers, we added Activation in SM1. Based on some rules we have used/seen in more "reputable" Wargame companies like AH, SPI, GDW, etc. We never had any problem with the Activation system. If your opponent had more activations, so be it. Warfare is not "equal" per se ... I think and I've said this before here and elsewhere. I think it's more about the gamers' ability than the actual rules. However, IMO SM1 rules we more "wargame" based than next with SM2. And Activation worked very well with SM1 with little modification.

But that being said, with 4 iteration of Epic from GW. Each rules being more diverse than the previous. And by the time they added Activation with E:A, they were not really interested in rules but making models. They are a model making company not a wargame company and they have said that. More than once.

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Legion 4 "Cry Havoc, and let slip the Dogs of War !" ... "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

It's very clear from the designer notes that EA was very much a wargame for wargamers. Doesn't mean it was the end all of rulesets [makes a shifty look at those terrible aerospace rules] but it's not about making and selling models. actually that's a huge reason for it's lack of support by GW. This, along with LotR were the two last tight well written and well balanced rulesets from GW (LotR probably being THE BEST rules in quality they've ever released period).

However I am in agreement with L4 in that activations and activation count in EA armies are not equal and shouldn't be. Hell some entire lists are themed around having spam'd formations (BSM and FO for example) of crap troops and they simply don't work without that imbalance (they're balanced via other mechanisms). There's nothing needing to be "fixed". If there's anything harming the competitive scene it's that "efficiency in winning" is over pointed to other concerns (such as say granting particular amounts of points in being fluffy and painting and other orthogonal ideas) when picking a ranking.

More issues are to be found, IMHO, in the lack of a good range of scenarios for the tournament scene having really just that one (the friendly play scene is healthy in this regard) and the reliance on it to exclusion of any alternatives. I really like what MattyC has been up to with his scenarios. In addition, I think with the benefit of more than a decade of hindsight, the upgrade structure of most of the lists probably doesn't work as well as it could have as opposed to an approach like making those formations having them built in as options (e.g. "SL Mech Inf formation being 6 units + 1 commander with transport and with either 6 more units or +4 Hellhound tanks" as a completely rough concept)/

anyhooos

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Agreed guys, and well said. War is not 'fair', indeed most participants want to make it as 'unfair' as possible - in their favour!

The activation count is tied to 'activation size', and goes back in history past Napoleon to earlier times. This is why military formations have different operational and organisational sizes. Most wargame rules ignore these and E:A is no different. Furthermore rules rarely take into account the long term history of a military organisation; attrition, reinforcement, amalgamation, detatchments training, experience etc and although they may pay more attention to equipment, even this may alter dramatically between notionally equivalent formations. There should be a lot more "hurry up and wait" to be more accurate. Basically there are a whole lot of things that could be added or changed that contribute to the notion of 'activation' and impact.

Finally as the rules currently stand, even if both sides start out with equal numbers of activations, it is quite usual for one side or the other to have significantly more viable (unbroken) activations than the other in the 2nd and especially the 3rd turn.

Ultimately, changing the way that activations work strikes at the heart of the rules in so many ways. Changing this is likely to need / cause a significant re-write . . . and they do work reasonably well as they are.

As far as scenarios, AT/SM1 had a great random scenario/mission system.

Decide what Battle Force Level[BFL] for the game. 1000-6000 pts.
Numbered Chits were drawn secretly from one set for the Attacker and one set for the Defender.
After each side chooses your Race, Army, Force, etc., you are going to game with. E.g. IG, SM, Ork, etc., etc.

Basically all you had to do is decide by 1d6 who chooses to Atk or Def.

The Numbered chits were secretly cross indexed to a list of scenarios/missions, again one for the Atkr and one Def. There were about 8-10 missions for each the Atkr and Def. You'd get Victory Conditions for your side.
Based on the mission generated by these random chits. Your basic BFL could go up or down by as much as 500 - 1000 pts. Rarely did both side have the BFL.

All you knew was what Army your enemy was using and the basic BFL. That was more like a real battle and more like a real wargame. E.g. 4000 pts of Ork or IG, etc. And those pts could go up or down ... But that is all you knew.

Again after Gaming since the 60s. Have played many, many games at many levels, many eras, from many designers. The SM1 rules were generally very much in line with those type games/rules. With SM2, it was abundantly clear, GW Epic was going away from a "real" wargame to a "Kids" game. To sell lots of models painted in bright circus colors. The rules became very much secondary. With the other versions of Epic they tried to make the rules more like a real wargame. With E:A being their best attempt at a wargame. And E40K was a better system than SM2/TL. But after SM2, by that time many of the "real" wargamers had moved on.

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Legion 4 "Cry Havoc, and let slip the Dogs of War !" ... "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

Agreed, activation rules work in game. Its the cookie cutter army choices which result due to the army list which is the problem - anyone wanting a longer description see my last post on the other activation thread.

MattyC has run with this platoon idea in his Hvy Guard list - looks interesting. I'm thinking of giving a similar attempt at ground pounding marines following the various discussions about the "lost" units. But it'll have to be a fan list as i think some of the units stats need a boost too - dreads/vindis in particular.

SM1 had a very good system for making/designing your force. E.g. IG was IG not different rules for each IG type, like Steel Legion, or Baran, etc. The forces available may vary in number or type. But otherwise if one wanted beyond that type of detail ... play 40K ...

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Legion 4 "Cry Havoc, and let slip the Dogs of War !" ... "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."