[RobW]

Well written response, and yes rule of fun is determining!

My take is to encourage giving the RAW a good few outings on this before moving to more strict order. The groups I’ve been in have always found it fun and never noticed any problems.

Basically after movement it is pretty clear what the order of actions will be. the players look after themselves. It keeps our attention on what’s happening and the dynamics of the battle. We players are only too happy to note our DX has increased due to facing bonus. And when someone is knocked down it can be like a shark frenzy. If sometimes someone does something out of order, it’s not a disaster. We basically carry on.

Attacking fallen figures is for us by far the most common event within the action phase to change DX order, and that is so significant it isn’t hard to remember.

The other thing is that TFT combat often has little knots of combatants. These three over here, the archer in the back dealing with the wolf, etc. And within those knots you can see the facing etc going on and not too hard to keep relative order straightit, at least in our battles (4 a side pretty typical).

So yes I’d encourage RAW here, it’s never been a problem for us (of course ymmv, for many reasons), and after all these years, I still find it so satisfying to get in a big attack before I was “supposed to” because I managed to get in to the side!