Phases
The first thing I want to cover is something that's ready already. It's a topic in the wargaming community, how to activate units? Oldhammer style has game turns and phases. Newer games opt for alternating activations with variations. Ultimately, since I want to go with Oldhammer inspiration, the phases is the way to go, but I'm going to make it more interactive.
Phases in Xenoblight come in two forms: set and variable. The set phases are Initiative and Command. The variable phases are Movement, Shooting, and Hand-to-hand.
At the start of every game turn, players simultaneously participate in the Initiative phase. The Initiative phase is to determine the order players will act in the game turn.
The Command phase follows and it's where players get organized. First, if any friendly models are Wounded, you have to test them to see if they Break (Break test). Next, you have to determine the order you want your variable phases to be in. These three phases are each on a card and you put them in order from first to last (top of deck is first) in secret. Finally, you decide which friendly models receive your Leader's limited orders. Players do this step in order but it can be done simultaneously (have to test this).
The first variable phase is the Movement phase. During this phase models have to move in order of which types of moves they either want or have to do. Meaning, any Break Moves are done first (models that failed their Break test), next models that you want to charge must do so (moving into close combat), and finally any normal moves and running can be done.
The next variable phase is the Shooting phase where you choose targets and have your models use their ranged attacks to shoot them. This is the most straightforward phase.
The final variable phase is the Hand-to-hand phase where models attack targets that are in melee range of them or perform Retreat moves (with risk of being attacked).
So the set phases are always done in order and the variable phases are different for everyone. Player A might have their variable phases like this: shooting, hand-to-hand, movement. While Player B can have theirs as: movement, hand-to-hand, shooting. But each player alternates each of the variable phases, i.e. Player A performs the shooting phase then Player B does the movement phase.
To wrap up this long post, the reason why I chose to do it like this is because it allows two things to happen. One is the macro decision space and another is the micro decision space. Players spent most of the strategy planning stage in the command phase (macro decisions) and should things go awry, they still have flexibility to react accordingly in the phases (micro decisions). I feel like this is a decent balance but playtesting will tell if it is.
Thank you for reading! Feel free to ask anything :)