jimmyzimms wrote:
I'd never make it equal and a blanket value across lists. Whatever it is should be some function based on the SR of the army. Basically better trained armies should require less but not a ton less. Make sense?
So what about commander per N +1 formations where N is equal to list SR. SC counts as 2 Commanders for this evaluation.
If you're under then you suffer on your initiative roll and can't retain. Seems high activation armies really try to 1-2 combo you with tons of targets.
My thoughts would be to say if you’re out of activations, you can only make whatever actions you’d make on a failed initiative roll (said broadly deliberately in case that definition changes). I think EA actually covers that fairly well.
The way I’d do it is you wouldn’t be forced to take a certain number of commanders, but you’d be rewarded for sacrificing more points into them by having better command abilities. I’d make Supreme Commander group activations and Initiative retention things you can do with ‘excess command points’, as well as maybe something that allows you to modify Initiative rolls (you could remove them too, but I think they’re probably too core to the game for that, and they do some nice things). You could also make some other abilities work by using a ‘command point’ (e.g. an Inspiring that takes an activation point). You’d also need some default command points (maybe per points level?); I kind of like the idea that scouting units that lack commanders are a bit of an opportunity cost, but you could make all units have a commander option, too.
Doing it this way lets you sacrifice activating certain units to their full abilities in order to take tactical advantages elsewhere, which I kind of like (e.g. sorry Mrs Titan, you can’t Marshall because Supreme Com. has to Engage and all the other commanders are dead).
You could also tie activation point usage into scoring (e.g. 1 AP => 1 score point).
So, a rough idea of what I’m envisioning. You’d get this many activation points per turn:
* X activation points per 500 pts
* 1 activation point per (alive) Leader
* 3 activation points per (alive) Supreme Commander
You can use activation points for these things:
* 1 activation point to activate a unit (normal Initiative roll, etc.)
* Modify Initiative rolls by 1 point for each Activation point
* Group activation (like Supercom) 2 points per additional unit (maybe discounted if Supercom is leading it?) to a max of 3 units
* Retaining the Initiative takes 1 extra activation point over the normal 1 to activate (i.e. 2 points for Retaining in total)
A unit may perform a Hold action if there are insufficient Activation Points to activate it.
Obviously the specific numbers need fine-tuning, but that’s the idea I’ve had bubbling away for a little while.