Its about what you can live with.

Based on a long discussion with Eamonn, my co-designer. Trying to 'get it right' for Initiative in a turn-based wargame is surprisingly tough. The game system has been in development since at least 2017 and in that time we explored various schemes for determining Initiative. Original draft was directly inspired by  Battletech:Alpha Strike. Each player would roll-off, winner moves second, and each player would move one unit at-a-time. A good setup, each player feels like they can react to some movement of the opponent, and the winner of initiative feels like they have the advantage. The mechanics bog down though as soon as the opposing sides are no longer 1:1, and now players have to calculate 'unequal unit counts' during the move phase. This leads to 'well when do I move 2:1 units?' and more confusion.

So we decided to move away from the 1:1 notion, and instead said "ok, players move their entire force during the move phase, initiative winner goes second." This worked for the two of us, but play-testing with players unfamiliar with this system - it lead to bad 'analysis paralysis.' Everyone has different approaches to games, naturally. No one system can account for  everyone either. There are plenty of people, when given a sizeable force of models (3-7) who will completely bog down in the agonizing over each move.

It's an understandable perspective too, in a game of limited resources you never want to feel like you squandered an important move or tactical play. Other players (this author included) take a more free-wheeling approach, less time for a movement setup and a bit more reaction to enemy moves. Having played various wargames over the last decade, I can see why games like Star Wars:X-wing, Gale Force Nine's TANKS, and Star Trek: Attack Wing used a fixed initiative order. It creates a  more structured space for players, freeing up mental load to focus more on their tactics. Fixed order is something bankable, predictable, and is a solid mechanic I've come to enjoy...but you'll notice none of those games have melee...

Compare those with Warhammer 40k's "You-go-all-I-go-all". If 40k followed a different turn-ordering system, melee wouldn't be a viable strategy for an army. Melee-builds entire premise is on tar-pitting the enemy force in favorable close combat interactions. 40k facilitates this by allowing players to resolve their entire army without enemy interaction, save any Overwatch mechanics. You can't melee tar-pit someone in X-wing...

LANDWAR as a game system (universal rules set) therefore needed to appeal to both sides. LANDWAR in general favors ranged combat, but there is a place for melee. Several TAGS are just about buffing melee builds, and there's room for some truly fiendish unit types. We struggled with initiative order though. Currently I tried to bash some sort of 'fixed order' rules in; the notion that a Unit's move value is their activation order. This hasn't gone the way I expected. In a recent battle between Eamonn and I, there were entire turns where I won initiative but Eamonn's forces were all faster. Oops. We will be testing a rewrite of the intitiative mess shortly.

The new idea is: 

Players roll-off 3D6, adding them together and comparing the totals. The winner chooses to move first or second. Tags will buff the roll as needed. The movement phase is back to "move all your units" setup (remember the above talk about melee and timing). Overwatch damage will be 50% of the applicable damage output. We feel this gives room for melee-focused builds, and the 3D6 is on a decent curve which can be played with. If you'd like to test this yourself, let us know how it goes. I view the analysis paralysis of "I must move all my units on my turn" to be intractable, and just something players have to live with. There's a reason a game clock was added to Chess....