Three Wargaming Rules Mechanics That Need to GO
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 11 ก.ค. 2024
- I have three different wargaming rules "mechanics" that need to go - are you on board?
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Not a wargame mechanic, but D6s with customised symbols for 1s instead of for the 6s cause me unnecessary confusion.
That’s like books with the spine text upside down. Should be illegal.🥴😂
Eh, I like symbols on 1s. Easy to see which dice to reroll if you have reroll 1s ability, or misses in combat, etc. They also roll true, because big symbol is opposite of 6 pips balancing it perfectly. The ones with symbol on 6 is often a mark of 'thatguy' trying to cheat because then side with 1 on is the heaviest meaning they roll 45 and especially 6 far more often...
Or that have a symbol for each, and it is NOT clear which is which. Like, I have a set where one is an X and one is a skull. I still have no idea which is which, officially, so not the X is 1 and the skull is 6. But I could be completely wrong.
@@colbybastian17 I always forget if the custom face is the 1 or 6 and have to flip the dice around...
@@johnamcf so imagine flipping it and it's ANOTHER SYMBOL XD
I find the fastest way to turn me away from ever playing a game is rules bloat. Not only the 300pg rulebook, but needing the 14 other rules supplements, FAQs, and updates before you can even get a game on the table. Not to mention if the opponent similarly has a library of rules necessary, I'm never going to be able to track all that so I'm just left hoping that they fully understand their own rules and are honest about them.
Exactly. The fact that it feels like a newbie has to take a week just to understand 40k before they have their first "real" game is insane.
I wanted to play Bolt Action so I bought the rulebook and joined a FB page for it. Seeing rules get litigated kind of killed my interest in the game - "Well you see this column on this page, but this paragraph on page 56, but also refer to this supplemental book for your army's special rule on page 99" - no thanks.
I used to play GW's WH 40k 3rd edition and wanted to get back into 9th. I couldn't figure out the basic list building. The rules are written like something a government administrator would write. And then the rules STILL leave stuff open to interpretation. Also, I feel their rule books miss an appendix or glossary to explain the technical terms.
Agreed. I got into 40K in 8th but the rules were unbelievably confusing to a new player. And things like attacks being a stat but only for melee and guns having their own shots and all the guns listed but a model could only have one or two. The worst part was the 2-10 passives and auras on each unit. 9th was even worse. Try looking at the 9th edit silent king unit card.
I think 10th made it so, so much simpler to understand. Toned down the passives and auras, and made such great QOL changes like giving each weapon an attacks number right next to it rather than figuring it out. I went from “the models are cool and I like the lore, so I collect some” to “man I actually want to play games now”.
@@3Xero3 I'm struggling with this with Frostgrave right now. I know I can play without all those extra books, but Ann constantly thinking about what I'm missing out on
"inches with extra steps" a la Kill Team 2021's stupid shape ruler. That idea should've been shot into the sun.
As much as I dislike shapes in KT and use inches too, these apparently work well with people with no wargaming background - they find them intuitive. I definitely like how KT limits the amount of different ranges (1",2",3",6" only)to reduce checking the rules.
There was much confusion inWM&H for example with similar rules sometimes having 5" range but at other times 4" or 6".
I still dont get the hate
Its 4 shapes Bro, how hard Is It to Remember 4 shapes with different colors
@@NDGRT-hv6yp It's not hard to understand, it's annoying that they iconised something that literally just means X".
I'll go a step further: Inches in general need to go and people should just be able to use normal rulers.
@@BlommaBaumbart rulers with inches, right?
Uncle Atom: "I don't like Custom Dice."
Every Single Blood Bowl Coach: "And I took that personally."
When I started playing BloodBowl (I think it was second edition) most of us just used standard D6.
Except it's also really easy to just use d6 for blood bowl
Necromunda players as well 😂😂
Also... you only need a few special dice for Blood Bowl and it is usually fine to share.
While for some of those other games you need a bunch of dice, each preferrably.
I think it definitely makes a big difference that in BB you only have the one special die that you never need more than 3 of compared to the examples given in the video where you're going to need a lot more.
Battletech: play with 2 d6, no I go you go, full unit customization
Battletech is the best. Tiny rules changes over the last 40 years, No WYSIWYG miniature BS, welcoming community, NO ARMY LISTS!
I loved this game in the 80's
Smartly designed data sheets that almost become their own game logs.
The hit locations table shows the best of what can be done with 2d6.
The to-hit roll shows the worst.
Have they fixed that, yet?
I wish I enjoyed the models
The Initiative mechanic is absolutely amazing, leading to interesting, complex board states and decisions. For some reason they skipped this in the digital version of Battletech and opted for I go, you go instead. This basically takes tactics out of the game. Goes to show that Jordan Weisman, who designed the original game and also worked on the digital version, never understood what made his game special.
Playing Battletech for the first time was like a revelation.
FFG designers are on record that custom dice are a way to skirt the fact that game mechanics aren't copywritable. I don't explicitly hate custom dice but that's a fact.
That's garbage because who's copying their games? No one. They also can't stop someone from making an aftermarket set of dice that's just different enough to be unique, but is close enough to be usable in the game.
Proprietary dice really exist to make you spend more money on the game and to make sure you need to spend money on any new edition where they change the dice. If you play Imperial Assault, you can't just use those dice for Legion, you have to make sure you have the Legion dice. It forces you to buy whatever starter set or dice come with all the proprietary crap. You can't just play the game if you have your friend's copy of the rules and he's not there with all the other crap.
It's a manipulative marketing gimmick that ends up making games unnecessarily cumbersome (remembering numbers is much easier than remembering proprietary symbols), and sucks more money away from a customer than needed.
It's bad for the hobby and anti-consumerist.
@@thulyover9000 Wait… game mechanics aren’t copywritable? So I can make my own game using the 40k engine as long as I don’t use any proprietary words or duplicate swathes of text?
@@grisch4329 that is the legal theory that wahapedia relies on. Won't stop GW from suing you until you go broke though.
@@Sergar63
Wahapedia is blatantly infringing on GW copyrights because you can't wholesale and republish copyrighted material, period.
Wahapedia operates in a country that doesn't subscribe to international copyright conventions, so GW can't do anything about it.
Yes game rules arent an ip @@grisch4329
I hate one side moving the whole army first if they have initiative. So many games I have seen end with the initiative roll. Watching your army getting deleted before you get a chance to do anything, or having to hide them way back because you may lose initiative is just soooo fun. We do an alternating by phase where the winner of initiative, if they have a smaller force, may "pass" until both sides have equal numbers of units remaining to move.
alpha strike ... the real reason why "I go U go" tends to suck, especially as armies get bigger.
Port Royal by Firelock has a neat twist : the opponent can react to *anything* you do. And because the teams are small this makes the concept work.
@@NotTheStinkyCheese Alpha Strike has pretty much disappeared if you use the terrain layouts but that itself is obviously a problem if you just use chilled out garage terrain.
Battletech doesn't do that, you should try bt.
Necromunda evolved to this, I would approve of it across the wider GW games. Also, atomic mass games' mcp and shatterpoint also fully built around this.
That's how OPR works
The "Cool Mini or Not Business Model" line has me reeeeling hahaha
For as much stuff as I own for that game, I never even got to play a game before they sent it to the farm.
I like Battletech Alpha Strike's version of "I go, you go"... Where each player moves their entire force before the other player, and in the attack phase each player performers all their attacks before the next player BUT with the distinction that all damage and damage effects are applied at the end of the phase. So even if you lost a unit to first/second turn combat they can still participate in battle so long as they were in a position to do so in the first place. It takes care of that awkward moment where you're big bad unit could die in one hit on turn 1 before you even had your first turn.
That is probably the best way to do it. It lets you coordinate your army in a meaningful way while also not giving you too much down time.
At least in the current ruleset, Alpha Strike has players alternate in the Movement Phase, though maybe that was different in the past or with certain house rules. There's even a section on what to do when you have unequal numbers of units. You then also alternate in the shooting phase. And possibly the End Phase, but since that's all resolution it's basically simultaneous. Alpha Strike's "Alternating Activation Phases" are one if its greatest strengths.
Alpha Strike does this a lot better than Battletech ("Classic"). Mental bookkeeping due to declaring first and resolving next in the name of perceived "fairness" really bogs down the game. Same holds true for the unit activations where the ratio has to keep constant. The MP vs TMM discrepancy and heat modifiers and calculations are also slight annoyances that could be done faster.
There's a reason we always play with card activation and declare and resolve fire immediately in our Classic games. I'm tempted to use DFA's Override ruleset but I don't want to create separate record sheets for every unit.
This applies to all of Battletech (regular and Alpha Strike). each phase (movement, shooting, physicals, etc) applies effects simultaneously.
And movement is one then the other (by default 1 unit player 1, 1 unit player 2, but uneven unit numbers can affect this, and it is possible to do this by groups as well if playing a large enough game)
No? AS:CE: "The player with the lowest Initiative roll moves one of their units first . Presuming an equal number of units on the two sides, the Initiative winner then moves one of their units, and the players continue alternating their movement until all units have been moved ."
"The best part of Heroquest...is the custom dice!" 🧙♂️
The best part of HeroQuest is the GARGOYLE. This an abomination. This is a GARGOYLE.
The best thing about HeroQuest is the Barbarian! Look at the muscularity! You are the Barbarian, the greatest warrior of all!
The best thing about hero quest is the furniture!! Oh no...MORMONS!
BRODE SWODE!!!
The best part of HeroQuest is the Dwarf. Barbarian? Hah... that's for beginner and it's easy mode, for the peasantry. The true aficionados and masters of the game chose the dwarf.
Infinity N4's approach to activation is to give both players a lot to do on each other's turns. It makes it a little tough to comprehend (until you're actually playing) but it keeps you locked in and involved.
I didn't play most of N3 and none of N4. How's it looking these days?
After I finish up my Shatterpoint and Bushido models, I am looking at starting to collect updated models for Infinity and Warcrow.
@@oldman1111N4 is great, hacking has been significantly simplified.
@@oldman1111 Infinity N4 is excellent. Far, far more balanced than N3 was, link "purity" is now a thing that you can optionally try to achieve that functionally serves as a game-wide soft-nerf that everyone LOVES because it kills 'auto-takes' and monobuilds. Rules bloat has been significantly dealt with. Stuff like dealing with cover, dodging in the active turn, etc will take you 10 minutes to 'relearn' but make the game much smoother to play. It remains as my solidly favorite game, but I do really enjoy Bushido for the small team size and great melee mechanics.
@@frankwashburn6680 excellent! I still have models from my previous foray. I'll bug one of my local nerds to roll some dice with me soon, then.
Infinity is such a great game on paper. I love it so much but just can't my head around it
igougo is what made me stop playing 40k, in the end. Playing the people and lists that I did, it reached a point of. "Okay, I'm playing against guard and it's their turn. I'm going to go leaf through the RPG books out front. No, no, roll my armor saves for me, I trust you." Rolling your own armor saves is formality anyway, without any choices involved in it, so what's the point?
Where there are no decisions being made, there is no gameplay occurring. The mechanic that most needs to go away is the mistaken belief that 'rolling dice' is 'doing something,' and a meaningful way to alleviate player boredom with executing your tedious processes.
40K is such a dreadful game. IgoUgo is probably the main culprit, but there’s so much else to moan about.
I say the rules that can make Tzeen yell stop it from pain.
@@sirrathersplendid4825 I feel like the IgoUgo system is the poison that makes the whole game sick imo. Once you follow the threads of game design it becomes clear how so much of 40k's dreadful rules are compensating for or based around its turn system.
@@iannordin5250 that as well as trying to link all these wildly different units and weapons to a basic D6.
The moment you introduce different dice types a lot of the "invulnerability" saves and counters to them can be erased from existence.
He calls out Age of Sigmar's potential for one player having to wait twice as long for their turn as an improvement lol.
The worst rule I've ever seen: this operative moves 3 triangle. A triangle is 2 inches.
I wanted to chime in here, in particular because you called out Fallout Wasteland Warfare for it's notoriously custom dice (I love the game and I still think it's a bit overkill). HOWEVER, they actually have a free, single-page PDF you can print out that has an easy 1-12 and 1-20 chart for every single dice in the game, so that you CAN avoid using custom dice if you want and just play it with a handful of d12s and d20s. It even comes with a range ruler reference on the same page so that you can use a tape measure instead of their little measure sticks. And to build on this point, I think that games that use custom dice SHOULD follow suit on this... provide a reference table so that the game can be played without the $20+ proprietary custom dice, that way players can enjoy the game easily and then get more into the hobby. Let the player decide after trying if they'd be interested in having custom dice for sake of convenience. I have no sales data to back it up, but I wouldn't be surprised if a player who starts the game with basic dice and loves it, ends up getting the custom dice down the line anyways.
but then it becomes a table reference issue ... and when everything else is constantly referencing the symbols then learning the game becomes needlessly complicated.
@@NotTheStinkyCheese I agree somewhat. I do think that it can become a chore to reference tables for everything, I'll give you that. FOWW is thankfully a pretty straightforward reference sheet, so I don't think it's much of a hassle, but other games with far more proprietary dice or even directional dice (cough cough proxying scatter dice is always confusing) would probably be a lot more of a hassle. I do think some of that falls onto the player as a responsibility to understand, though. If the game designer incorporated custom dice but gave a table to reference, the player who chooses to try it without the special dice probably understands it's going to go slower, require more reference, etc., and some players might handle that better than others. At the same time, some players don't even want to touch a game if they have to learn a bunch of symbols on dice or sheets, and that's just a personality thing that's equally valid.
There's no right answer to this, honestly. But I think that giving players the option to bypass custom dice is a good practice, even if it's more cumbersome to the player. After all, the whole point of the custom dice is just to streamline the gameplay, in all honesty.
Custom dice are... just dice.
Just roughly plug them into where they should be or make a table.
Unless it something cool.
Custom dice was definitely a response to an abundance of tables in the old days. I'm OK if you could use regular dice with a table. personally. Like, for Blood Bowl, you could say 6 for you down, 5 for dodge or down, 3 and 4 for push, 2 for both down and 1 for me down easily enough, but the symbols are nice shortcuts.
Dodge or down, I like that. I don't recall hearing that before.
I was going to say I hate custom dice because a table accomplishes the same thing without me having to keep track of the single specific die with fancy symbols on it and also remember what they all mean, often by referencing a table anyway if I don't have the symbols memorized. They're a bad solution to a non-issue imo
@@mikek6298You have trouble remembering 3 or 4 symbols?
@@mikek6298 My issue became, Ok so legion has these dice, L5R uses these symbols....Custom dice only really work if you only have one or two sets to remember.
@@dragonkin02 yes, I have trouble remembering a handful of similar abstract symbols *per game* across 3 star wars games alone, let alone everything else, which I play once every few years at best. Especially when they're as creative and distinct symbols as "explosion" vs "explosion, but filled in"
That's why, for me, Infinity The Game is still the best: you can react to every opponent's move when is not your turn, making it incredibly dynamic and fun.
I feel like BLKOUT does this better. It has a similar system with reactions but the game isn't bloated to hell with rules. Cuts down on the minutiae and makes games 30-45 mins roughly about instead of needing to reference rules that much. Best skirmish game atm imho
I like how Bolt Action does weapons: everyone's rifles are 24", medium Howitzers are 60", etc. My opponent tells me what he has, and I know exactly what it's capable of doing.
Hitting and wounding are easy to calculate, too. Base 3+ to hit, with cover modifiers, etc. Wounding is based on the hit unit's experience, and is either a 3+, 4+, or 5+.
There's not a ton of special rules, either, and the rules are generally the same across the board, similar to how the weapons are.
Basically, I don't like crunchy rules. I also like templates 😂.
I-Go-You-Go isn't bad by itself, it's when a whole lot of bloat gets added in that makes a single players turn take an hour it becomes bad. The bonus of the IGOUGO is the ability to coordinate your movement, to feel like you are executing a grand plan. Alternative activations leaves you really just reacting all the way through the turn (which can add even more mental load and slow down player actions). Kings of War manages IGOUGO really well because the actions are short and the resolution of attacks is pretty fast (hit, wound, nerve, done). Alpha strike does exist for IGOUGO, but that should be fixed with ranges in the game rather than blaming the turn sequence that enables that.
Strongly disagree. Personally, I think Kings of War is an extremely boring and unfun game, in large part due to its activation system being unengaging (as well as the rest of the rules just... Not being interesting or fun to make up for the activation system).
Alternative Activations where a player activates characters, that then active x number of units is a way to get around this. It also helps to make characters feel like they are commanding and not just there to beat people's faces.
Oathmark does this, and it works very well!
While I'm very anti IGOUGO, I did like how Warmachine really leaned into it and the game functioned really interestingly with it. I think 40k/other GW far really suffers from IGOUGO because they're straddling the fence (Reactive funk like Overwatch and other abilities) instead of just owning it, and not addressing alpha strike in any meaningful way
Chess is alternating activations and also one of the most celebrating master plan grand strategy games of all time. Executing your strategy AND reacting to your opponent is the fun of alternating activations
YougoIgo is the first but not only reason I dropped every GW games. Alternate activation all the way baby. Yes it can be enhanced with the possibility to activate squadrons or kampfgruppe all together in big games.
I really miss stuff like 5th edition 40k with the scatter dice. It felt like a missed shot was a more exciting event because anything could happen compared to now where the gun kind of just misses and it's a dud shot.
I'm also a huge fan of Gaslands' custom dice, they really bring the lore of the game to the table! Bringing in the feeling of a reckless driver or a car malfunctioning, or hitting a random ditch on the road. They're used to great effect!
I dont miss arguing if the scatter template hit 5 or 8 models
I can understand the intrigue of that. For me, it's too much busy work and unpredictability that means I can do everything right and still completely fail.
@@colbybastian17 Welcome to war. Doing everything right and still completely failing. What you want is total control because of what, insecurity? I love random effect in game. The dice tell the story, even when I lose, I get an exciting story out of it. If you always need to control all aspects and angles so everything goes your way, there are uhh medical journals on that kind of thing. Now GW's scatter was kind of SHIT because it was way too fiddly. War Machine's scatter was much more simple and in fact makes less argument (because it's a fixed clock with limited angles of operation) but retains that aspect of random and things not going you way and the dice deciding fate. They make it even BETTER by making scatter only happen on a MISS. Which again is a great compromise.
@@dmeepI will never miss this argument. It was the worst part of the game.
@@40KWill strange. Me and my friends never argue about that.
I don't have anything against custom dice... as long as they're readily avaliable. Due to restructurization within Asmodee, special dice for Fantasy Flight Games TTRGPs (Star Wars, Genesys, L5R etc) became even more scarce than rulebooks for few years. There are rolling apps or conversion tables as those dice are d8s, but it's not the same.
For activation/initiative - I agree. That's why I love playing Infinity with it's ARO mechanics - reactions makes game more tactically interesting and dynamic. The only downside of that it's really mentally draining if you're new to the game.
Infinity also takes care of list customization pretty well - the amount of units, profiles, fireteams combination really makes it interesting. Obviously, there is a competetive meta going around, but the game really values terrain. It can seem a bit swingy with it's d20 rolls, but truth is that with your actions and planning you can stack up so many bonuses, that it heavily impacts the outcome of your action and yet a bit of luck will swing games.
With initiative Gaslands does something fun as well - each round in a turn is basically a Gear Phase and everyone in that gear or lower activates. That means the higher Gear you're in the more activations in a turn you will have, but it also impacts what moves you can do, what gets riskier etc. So it's balancing between speed/amounts of activations AND precision :)
Totally agree! Games like Marvel Crisis Protocol and X-Wing do a great job with custom dice!
Custom dice nicely streamline things. Instead of designers trying to foce certain probabilities within the confines of D6s (adding layers of re-rolls, re-rolls of 1s etc), they just design dice to reflect the combinations they want to appear in the game, instead of bending over to fit them to standard dice.
I really like how Shatterpoint uses special dice for combat. An attack is a lot more abstract than most games, but it works with the combat tree to make the game a lot more dynamic without filling the unit card with special rules.
My group has 3d printed custom ones and then made molds.
I think some games do a good job with custom dice (X-wing and Command & Colors in particular) but others just bog the game down with endless hours spent perusing the dice (FFG Star Wars RPG, I'm looking at you.).
About activations:
The thing that I think is the main tiring factor in GWs I go you go games isn't the pricipal of the activation sequence, but that you have to throw dice at more or less random points during your opponents turn. Also for some types of games, I think that "old" activation sequence still works really well.
For example, in Kings of War (fantasy rank and file) you never pick up a dice during your opponents turn. While on first glance it seems even more boring, it opens up the opportunity to plan your next turn during your oppoents turn. The result (combinded with a rather sleek and streamlined rules set with emphasis on movement and positioning) is a very fluent and for the game size quite quick gameplay.
On the other hand, for a SciFi combined arms game, I'm on your side with alternating activations. But than again, alternating activations force a lot of times a more reactive gameplay.
So I guess, the preference depends quite a bit on someones own preffered game- and thinking style. You prefer a reactive gamestyle with lots of interactions between you and the other player? - Alternating activations probably suit you more. You prefer a grand strategy style where you have to deliberately position your units, lay traps and swallow your own mistakes? - I'd say I go you go could fit you better.
But those are just my own thoughts and of course, everyone has the right to disagree with my view/opinion ;)
YougoIgo works best with ranks and files games, not with skirmishes where alternate activation really shines
Honestly KoW does a lot in it's design that makes it work really well as a YouGoIGo game. All dice all rolled by the turn player, no skirmishers or model removel to get bogged down on, very set times when the Nerve rolls happen. Everything is really nice and streamlined around planning out your next turn and getting through those dice rolls. If you like rank and flank movement, like I do, it's one of the best games.
KoW's IGYG turn order also allows it to work well with chess clocks.
Totally agree. The thing I hated most about 40k 9th was that in the psychic phase you just sat there and watched the other player roll imperceptable dice and remove your models. Totally thematic though.
Yep, agree 100%. KoW rocks!
From a player perspective I think being forced to buy extra custom dice is definitely an issue, but from a pure design space, custom dice offer a far more focused functionality. It distills a table of outcomes into the dice rather than just rolling a 5+, You can put in so much flavor into a custom dice to make each roll feel more important than just rolling math cubes.
just include the dice with the rule book or faction/game starter set
@@Ghorda9 And include enough of them. I hate having to roll two or three sets of dice for an action and having to remember what the results were for the first set. Was that two hits a crit and a fumble?
I just don’t like paying $10 for six small plastic cubes!
"The men are calling it Higo Hugo, sir. And they don't like it."
"Don't like it? It seems pretty straightforward to me; rather like cricket! We get an innings, then the other chap does..."
"Well that's all very well, sir, in cricket, sir but, begging your pardon, it just isn't like that in war.
I don't think that Hitler fellow plays cricket."
"Well, no... I suppose he'd like to go all the time!"
"So you see sir, it's like this, sir... If it carries on like this... Higo Hugo - Me an' the lads won't be coming to your Friday night wargames. And that's the way it is, sir."
TooFatLardies ad from the Meeples and Miniatures podcast.
I have two things:
1. Minimize the amount of dice that have nearly no effect on the game. For example "roll a D6 on charge. On a 6 this unit deals 1 wound. Just make it flat 1hit/wound on charge.
2. Is about how to present rules. Stop making armybooks for rules (GW). Just make free PDFs or Apps. The cost for this can be transfered to the model prizes.
I hate that chapter approved isn’t a book.
I think GW *SHOULD* keep making the books, and sell those.. but absolutely make the rules free.
They A) modernize, and B) still make book sales.
I like your option 1. I would also add: minimize die rolls that are "automatic", with no decision-making involved. Some games designers think that if for a single action you have to roll on lots of tables (e.g. roll to spot, roll to hit, armor save, armor penetration table, etc) then the game is more "realistic", when in reality it's just more complicated. And you're rolling a bunch of dice without making any decisions, you're just on autopilot -- all of those rolls/charts could be conflated to a single die roll or two without any loss of fun.
I'm not sure I understand point 1,. Are you saying that you would prefer a static "if you charge you deal 1 wound" vs "roll to see if you wound"? So, you want to eliminate the chance? Because going from 1 in 6 chance to a guaranteed hit is can make a big difference in how you might play. Maybe I'm misunderstanding...
@@theandf While that number of dice rolls can give a narrative to combat "Elric saw the man sneaking up on his left and swung at him. The sword rebounded from the man's armour with a clang but the man kept coming". However, that is only excusable with very small actions or key "hero" combats within a larger action. Some may see it as too much hassle even in those cases.
@@johnhaines4163 agreed, that's often the reason why skirmish games do it (less excusable: mass army rulesets where you need to roll for spotting, target acquisition, then hit & penetration, etc). I think it's too complicated in either case, I prefer rolling for actual effect and making up the narrative in my mind, e.g. "this attack failed because Elric dropped the sword" or "this attack brutally succeeded, Elric chopping his enemy's head with a clean sweep of Stormbringer"-- I usually don't need a chart or multiple dice rolls to tell me this :)
The "Full Thrust" starship game from GZG uses standard D6's and then results based on the score (1-3= no hits, 4-5 = 1 hit, 6= 2 hits + reroll). These results then change depending on whether the target ship has screens
The "Stargrunt 2" sci-fi skirmish game from GZG uses a unit activation system, with the addition that a higher commander can use his action(s) during his activation to activate (or re-activate) a subordinate unit or units.
Love Full Thrust's beam weapons dice rolling. To-hit and damage in one roll, and so quick & simple that even when you're rolling a big handful of dice (which can happen with the biggest ships) it's still easy to to determine the result of the roll.
And unit activation with interventions from commanders, snap firing, etc. is a favourite type of activation system of mine. Haven't actually played Stargrunt (though I bought the book in the '90s) but Heavy Gear 1st-2nd edition used a similar activation sequence and I played a lot of that.
Haven't heard of either of these. Will check them out.
@@tabletop.will.phillips Rules PDF for free on the Ground Zero Games (GZG) website, New old stock printed copies inexpensive ($5) on the Monday Knight Productions website. SG2 rules include 2 different die cut counter sheets.
@@tabletop.will.phillips
Free PDF on the GZG website
inexpensive, new old stock, printed copies on the Monday Knight Productions website
1. Custom Dice
I don't know. Blood Bowl is iconic in no small part because of its unique mechanic using custom dice. Or, there is Star Wars Imperial Assault? In imperial Assault, the dice make sense and are actually quite intuitive. Red dice are close range but deliver a punch, greens are your all-rounders, blues are long range but nothing fancy, while yellow dice are for your trick shots, when you lean heavily on special abilities. You know what each dice is for, and can tell what a gun is good at and how it will likely perform just by looking at its dice pool. It is a genius system in my opinion, not a small part thanks to the custom dice...
2. I go, You go
That is a fair point and you bring up really good examples. That antiquated play style really extenuates downtime. Bolt Action is a good example of a much better system.
3. This is also a fair point.
So, I guess I only disagree with your first point. I think custom dice is not a problem. If well executed (and not just used as a gimmick), they can be a great benefit to a game.
I always felt that at least Fast attack should go 1st for both players, then everything else and finally Heavy Support.
Custom dice: i'm midding about this one. while it's annoying to get custom dice, it does save the player time doing conversions from D# to Table, to Result type. it certainly could be a nightmare if not property restrained in type/count and proper distinction.
... as for IGYG: it's awful for anything with this long an activation time. only upside is that you have time to go get a beer during opp's move part.
... force customization is tricky from both sides: too much can overwhelm a new player and too little will underwhelm an older one. then there's the added mess of managing the benefits of each weapon/slot/load-out. it's something to be used contextually, usually in bigger scopes.
Custom dice are great in a number of games. The question is whether it’s actually adding something to the game or just making another thing you have to buy from the developer. I feel like Necromunda’s custom dice add a lot to the game because it makes one roll easily readable, otherwise we’d constantly be checking tables. It also adds a certain level of engagement in a lot of cases.
IGO-UGO can take a running jump. Except in a few cases. A good example is MESBG, which does a great job of interleaving actions in there with heroic actions and the turn is interleaved (I move, you move, I shoot, you shoot, etc).
Bad list customization for sure, but I think it’s part of a bigger issue with ‘streamlining’ and ‘simplification’. Everyone says they want balance and streamlining, but they don’t seem to realize that comes at the cost of variety and player agency.
Balance does have costs, but agency shouldn’t be one of them. Quite the opposite.
@@nunyabidness3075I agree. Unfortunately that's generally not the case, and for some reason the majority of players are fine with that e.g. AoS/40k being as popular as they are.
MESBG is pretty much the best of both worlds between IGUG and alternating.
I think the solution to bad customisation as a response to a demand for balance might be separate tournament rulesets. At home you use the point values and play whatever you want, accepting you may have to use house rules to sort out specific balance issues you encounter. For events, you have to build to more restrictive list templates.
@@yurisei6732 Tournament organizers have been doing this forever. It’s not a solution, it’s a band aid for lack of balance in the game. Dynamic points are the actual solution. The only thing you get with less restrictive home rules is less balanced games there as well. If you don’t care about balance, then that’s fine. Play the original rule set or even fudge your points over or under based on what works for you.
While I can see why you think current Kill Team's list-building is too restrictive I think it's one of the game's biggest strengths, and what allows it to be so well balanced competitively. Warcry is standing there right next to it for people who want those list building options (for the record I play and love both but for wildly different reasons) but you simply can't get the same competitive crunch from Warcry that you can from Kill Team.
Solid points all around though. I especially agree about the custom dice!
It's just one of the things that makes the current version a *much* better game.
@@jonasbarka yeah, having played it a little I was unhappy that my lovely broken Tyranid team wasn't viable anymore... but also the game is just way more fun now that you can't accidentally break it by doing something silly like going "how many Hormagants can I fit into a list?" The lack of customisation is sad, but the flavour that individual teams have and the design space for weird stuff like Imperial Navy Breachers or a Rogue Trader and retinue really helps expand the modeling and collecting options in a great way.
Sure it's more viable competitively but Killteam is supposed to be a game about your individual models and I want to be able to tell a story through a game. Customization is key to that, and as much as I love KT21 (I own well over 200 models, in kill teams alone) it's a major sticking point. I just wrote a comment about how it's gotten to the point where I've decided I'm gonna find a way to run bladeguard vets in a casual game just to have fun
@@beanzeani2440 You can still do that in Kill Team...play narrative. The problem is that if you expand list-building out too much you make it impossible to balance competitively.
I think Killteam customisation has its advantages. The compendium lists are terrible, ok. But the dedicated killteams where there's only one box are great. There isn't the eternal friction of 40k where you need the whole army to have all options. Buy a box, maybe two, and you have everything. Go for it
Near the other extreme from "I go, you go" is the sustem used in Star Fleet Battles. There, the game uses an extenaive sequence of events that occur in precisely that sequence (activate tractor beams before launching shuttles, for example) and simultaneously among all participants (everyone records their activation or deactivation of tractor beams and then reveals them simultaneously). Each "impulse" (1/32nd of a turn) is an opportunity for a ship to move, use various systems, and fire or launch weapons, while the turns are important for energy generation and accounting, along with the fact that any particular system can generally only be used once per turn, and on successive turns only after certain delays. It was incredibly detailed and required a massive rulebool, but it did go a long way to making everything simultaneous.
Another system which had a neat way to use standard d6: Guildball. Soccer, except half the time you beat your opponent to death. You’d roll a fairly large pile of dice, and each player had a fairly long list of things they could do printed on their unit card. A push or a dodge to control space, damage, stealing the ball, special abilities. You’d pick one ability with a cost no higher than your number successes. The effects got better the higher on the list. One success might only be one damage, five might be three damage and a push and generating a point of momentum (which helps later on). Roll enough successes and you could wrap around, picking anything, and then up to the remaining number of successes. There wound up being a huge number of outcomes with a very simple mechanic of rolling lots of dice and hitting on 3+ or 4+.
I totally agree with your list.
But I think that the new Kill Team's problem is not the "tailored" list building, but the fact that the specific Kill Team lists have 10 different units/models, each with a zillion special abilities. So you can chose between different units/models, but then your team is so complex you don't know what each unit/model does. For Harlequins Kill Team I still don't understand their faction abilities :(
I was like "it can't be this hard" but the I read the rules an still be "WTF?!?!"
As far as I understood this it goes like:
1. During Team Selection you decide the Allegory for the battle (e.g Tragedy: If a model loses wounds from a shooting attack it completed a performance)
2. In the first strategy phase one of your models gains the pivotal role. Means this specific model has the accolade ability already by turning point one. (In case of tragedy: Against shooting attacks you retain one successfull normal save before rolling if your model is not in cover. If you do so you completed the allegory performance)
3. You make a tally sheet. The first time a model completes a performance (in case of tragedy: loses wounds from a shooting attack) you gain one point. the first time your model with pivotal role does the accolade you gain another point (this only works one time during the battle even if other effects like change of pivotal role/active allegory come into play)
4. When you have four points all your tally sheet you gain one CP and all your models can perform the accolade
I love the gameplay of kill team and think it is much better designed than big 40K, but with the new kill teams they have lost the simplicity that used to exist. Now it feels just as complex as a big game, whereas in the past I would only need to remember 3-4 different units
Coming from Warmachine&Hordes I think Kill Team is a pretty simple game and the number of operatives makes managing them easy, even with their special rules.
@@MackeyD3 I ignored the whole last season because PoS. I still tend to play more simple teams for a fun game now an then. With all the new stuff it's easy to forget that there are still active rules for compendium teams
@@MackeyD3 I totally agree! My demons and drukhari (with only kabalites and wyches) are way more fun to play than my new chaos marines legionaries. But some of my friends like more the "new" teams with lots of different operatives....and playing with them is so slow
I've come around on custom dice. I think it's a convenience for your players that reduces mental load. Because numbered polyhedral dice are so common, I think it's easy to confuse results- especially across multiple games and game systems. They're not "necessary." You could map out a chart for all the Wasteland Warfare dice results, but the custom dice let you skip that step.
That's how I see it. MCP uses standard D8, they just take the chart out of it.
I think it is more than just skipping a step. I think it is instant gratification/excitement. Take MCP, as soon as you see that crit or wild you are super excited. No thinking or checking, just excitement.
In Reaper Mini's Warlord you would have a card of a particular suit for each unit in your army. Each game round you shuffled all the cards into a deck and If you drew your suit you would activate one of your units.
There were several unit abilities that could affect that deck. Like a tactician would have an extra card in the deck while he was alive (each unit could only be activated once so he would increase odds that you have priority.) Or the spy could delay his turn so the next card would be drawn and activated as long as the spy was activated next turn. It was like "I'm unsure about this board state, maybe if you go first I can get a better move"
Historical wargame "Fistful of TOWs 3" is by default standard IgoUgo, but it has an alternate turn order that alleviates a lot of the problems with that: Attacker moves, defender shoots, then defender moves, attacker shoots. Over watch shots, artillery barrages, suppressing units, etc. plays out in a much more organic way than in a standard IgoUgo style, but without making the whole thing take a lot more time, introducing special mechanics, or otherwise complicating things.
The designers have stated that they were originally going to use only the alternate turn order, but ended up using the standard turn order because it was closer to the one in V2. I honestly feel that that may have been a mistake, the newer turn order is much smoother and solves a lot of the problems with IgoUgo.
I enjoy custom dice a lot when they're packaged with a boxed game, it goes a long way to adding character to the rolling part of the game.
Unit activation by card drawing such as TSATF has the drawback of leading to very slow games. Our club of old guys can only last about 4 hours of play where in such systems we're lucky to get 5-6 turns completed before we have to end the game. Consequently, there is no time for tactical maneuver. Our games end up as head-to-head battles of attrition which I find dull.
I play with guys that love using cards for activation and there are days when it drives me nuts. One side will go first like 4 times while the other just sits and waits. And they use the IGoYouGo system which makes it even worse. But for large Anglo Zulu war battles it's a great system.
@@davegaracci1043- Sharp Practice has a fantastic card draw system. When you add in Deployment Points that are halfway into your table, you usually have extensive gunfire by the second turn. Works pretty well for up to 9 units a side, though for a normal club game 5 or 6 units is plenty. Pretty sure someone out there has modded it for the Anglo-Zulu wars.
I'm 💯% tracking with you. On custom dice, there is a situation where it can help, and that is for clarity and speed of play. In my Old West game, I'm Your Huckleberry, the shooting dice have 2 red faces and 2 blue games. Red means a hit and blue is some negative result. Visually you can read the results much faster than interpreting the pips. Also, you don't have to buy the dice. Just ink the 1 and 6 red, and the 2 and 5 blue, and you are good to go and you can still use them as D6 dice.
I really like the activation system used in Mortal Gods and TOH. It is much like Bolt Action, in that you are drawing tokens from a bag, but there are only two types of tokens (plus three "Fate" tokens added to the total): hero and troop. Each unit has a number of actions it can take in a turn. At the start of the turn you place a number of tokens in the bag equal to the number of actions available plus the Fate tokens. On each player's turn they draw a token from the bag. If it's a troop token, you activate a troop. If you have already activated all your troops, your opponent gets to activate one of his troops and then gets to draw from the bag. Same with heroes, though heroes can use their tokens to activate a troop that's within command range. If you draw a fate token you do nothing (though in MG you draw a card from the "Gods Get Involved" deck), unless it's the third one, in which case the turn ends and you start over.
It works for skirmish games like these and I like that you never know when the turm ends. And you never know if you can activate all your forces in a turn.
I'm on board with custom dice when they improve flow. Gaslands for example is great. The custom dice make it flow really well. You CAN play it with regular dice using tables, but skipping that translate step improves the experience a lot.
X-wing and armada could also have been tables with regular dice. But the custom dice keep the focus of the moment in the right place.
Quite like the idea of dice coming up blank.
You look and immediately see - Nothing happened.
I’m a big kill team player so I love the game and I’m ok with how they set it up. It’s less customizable but the game itself is one of the best systems I’ve used. Skill tends to be one of the ultimate deciders and after playing it since its release I still find ways to grow and enjoy it
I like how Infinity added player agency during opponent turns with the ARO reaction system. It is still mostly Igougo in turn structure, but your dudes aren't just standing there doing nothing when someone runs across their line of sight or takes a shot at them.
ARO is fun mechanic. It also gives tough choices. Should you shoot at enemy that's shooting at you or not? You have 3 attacks. But he might roll crit when you not and kill your model. I tend to overthink things sometimes while playing and have to rush myself as my usual opponents don't mind it ;x
I love the activation mechanic in Black Seas from Warlord. Activation order is dependent on each ship’s position relative to the wind.
The problem with cusomtization is trying to balance the forces. This is the problem they had with Kill Team with so many different armies being able to pick different weapons it is next to impossible to balance. The other problem you see is often one pick becomes the best option. Again we had that in kill team with plasma weapons were the go to weapon. Rather than cusomtization what we had was the opposite were every list was taking the same weapon.
This. You can have lots and lots of customization, but then it will be even harder than it currently is to balance.
True but they could just say, that KT can't pick the same special weapon more then twice. Done
@@alekseylibernikel7606 in that case, you're perilously close to what KT2021 decided anyway.
There's always the complicated Battle Value system of Battletech. Customization doesn't keep the same BV of a standard mech.
@@Serpsor Not at all. I can chose what models i can pick and how many units. In kt18 AM can pick an ogrin. Or a scion. Or just full lasgan team of 20 lads. In KT21 I have a box warband and i can take few opitons out of this warband. Thats it.
I don't mind custom dice if they can fit into the narrative of the game (I do mind the outrageous cost they can add, but that's not a mechanics issue). Using symbol types can reduce the memorisation of the mapping table step. They create icons that fit the narrative (look at the SAGA dice, you know your force based on all the symbols, even if the number distribution could easily be handled by just using 1-6 markers for each box). They help with conversions (I can convert a hit to a crit, to I have to find a die with a value 4-7 and convert to 8, or just locate the hit symbol and flip the die around till the standout crit symbol is shown). Even Bolt Action that was mentioned uses custom dice with the activation system.
I may have played too many FFG and AMG games though and have just accepted specialised dice for what they are.
One mechanic that instantly came to mind for me when I saw the title of the video: rules which forbit pre-measuring. What's the point? Being able to successfully eyeball 8" or 16" or whatever isn't interesting or fun. Furthermore, after the very first time you lay down your tape measure to measure anything on the table, you will have a visual reference for how far EVERYTHING is, which almost entirely defeats any possible point to the rule.
Just allow pre-measuring and be done with it!
There are two reasons for custom dice. 1) They make resolution a *lot* faster than counting pips or table lookups (which is what Wrath of Kings is doing). Roll dice, collect symbols, apply. 2) The real reason: dice are one of the few remaining components in a wargame that can't be easily pirated. Books and cards can be scanned, PDFs can be cracked, miniatures and terrain can be printed at home, but dice heavy enough to roll well still require bespoke manufacturing and economies of scale are on the IP owner's side.
The custom dice doesn't bother me as long as it's doing what it's supposed to be doing, giving quick information on a dice result without having to siff through a bunch of different charts. The games that I play that use them just feel like they play much faster. I haven't come across anything yet where I feel it's gimmicky, knock on wood.
You never have to buy custom dice, you just have to commit to being a bigger nerd than they think you are.
Your second one made me realize that's one of the biggest things I love about Fire Emblem. When it's the enemy phase, you don't just sit and eat hits, you counterattack, and that opens up a whole layer of planning for who will best be positioned to counter what on your opponent's phase.
I am a fair fan of the custom dice in games such as zone wars or gaslands, where there is a novel resource mechanic attached to the dice and they aren't just used for an overwrought task resolution mechanic. Pretty elegant way of introducing emergent elements that'll have impact beyond the current roll, and would be a headache to interpret with standard numbered dice.
Something I just recently realized about IGYG mechanics is it removes any advantages or disadvantages related to the total number of Activations a list has. Star Wars Legion recently added a “pass” mechanic to combat the advantages MSU lists have.
The third problem you mentioned is the main reason why I still play the Kill Team 2018 version. I like the freedom of choice, the ability to change my squad from game to game, and I like to kitbash different specialists. Put some bone antenna on my tyranid warrior to by the comm specialist, or vox caster to my neophyte to be the comms specialist etc. And both players know that this one is a comms specialist, which means it can do this and that.
Im like the Kill Team 2018 even more than Mordheim, in which your options are limited to 1 leader and several number of smaller units, some of them limited as well.
In the current Kill Team, you have a choice from like 8 to 10 different specialists, each with their own set of different abilities. This put a lot more pressure on a player during his or her turn, because it is bloody difficult to remember all the different options and to plan your turn accordingly. Also, these specialist´s abilities are highly situational. You can have a dedicated close combat warrior with two knives, but he lacks any pistol or other weapon except grenades - and he may be a killing machine in one game but completely useless in the other one, as it lacks some flexibility that your average JOE has. Even a basic unit like GSC neophyte has a lasgun, demolition charges and a close combat weapon. Tyranid warrior has a lot more options, but even if you run a melee fighter, it still has at least flesh hooks which acts like a better pistol.
Though you make you list from your roster before the game starts. So if you chose the CC beast for an open field that would be on you as a tactician as you see the board and mission first.
I love KT21. But it is undeniably a sweatier/harder game than most other Warhammer games.
Simultaneous movement, ad hoc firing groups of infantry and support and vehicle/ heavy weapons firing via d20 randomisation. Sounds complicated but elegantly simple to apply...no dead time waiting.
I... _like_ custom dice. I think they're simply easier and quicker to read. Especially when they use different colors for each symbol like in Memoir 44. That makes turns go faster.
Now what I _don't_ like is when a company stops making those dice, so I won't be able to play that game in the future. That, and when there are just too many symbols to learn or are hard to understand their meaning. At that point you're probably better off with standard dice.
I'm fine with custom dice IF the core set of a game comes with all you will ever need for 2 players! Looking at you FFG X-Wing starter... (RIP X-Wing)
Alternate activation is so much better, Kill Team nailed this as far as GW games go. X-Wing style games where there is a kind of initiative, but your pilot choice helps determine who goes when is also way more interesting.
I find Kill Teams current edition does fix the one problem I saw happening with KT 1st Edition, was every team was just as many plasmas etc as possible etc, so you ended up with more or less what current KT does, but at least the current one has some forced variance I guess. I can certainly see both sides of this one though.
I think custom dice are there to speed up the game. In order to use generic D6 a game like 40K has to introduce hit tables and have 2 stats a weapon skill / Ballistic skill and a toughness / strength stat to vary what units can hit. So now you need 2 dice rolls, a hit roll and a wound roll to express what Star Wars Legion does in a single custom dice roll. Yes you have to spend money on custom dice, but if you didn't have custom dice then you would have had to spend time looking up the standard dice value in a hit table, or just committing one or more hit/wound tables to memory. I'll take the dice.
Is also very easy for new players to adopt to a game. Anytime. I don't have to reference a spreadsheet or table to figure out what the effects of my weapon is versus. Your armor is a lot faster
I don't know how GW can eff up a perfectly good squad sized skirmish game, but they can. Kill Team should have just been 200 pt matches with a few alternate rules like, players move the same way they deploy. I know I-Go-U-Go means the whole turn, but to me it could just mean Each player takes turn moving 1 or 2 models, until all units are moved, then they take turn shooting, then charging and fighting. Units don't have to shoot in the same order they moved. Then you just use standard 40k combat rules, except when shooting, it is a by attack basis. If have 4 attack and you want to spread them out, either 4 on one model or two on two different models, then you can do that. With only 200 pts players are not likely to have expensive heroes or knights with a ton of attacks from a melee weapon.
The three biggest gaming system issues ive come across is, in no order:
1. Custom dice, both when the 1s have a unique image and the 6 has a unique image as its easy for someone using them to swap a crappy roll into a great roll secretly, and custom symbols on each side like bloodbowl, no reason for custom dice other than because they can, a simple d6 works fine.
2. Ingame currencies that force players to track something that generates differently based on faction, its just something else to track
3. System that force a complete stop to the game because you have to spend 10 minutes explaining something to your opponent.
4. Repetitive devide intervention in a system that has no rules for gods, how ghe crap does a gun suddenly get better for no real reason other than they rules let you, its not a different weapon, theres no ingame effect affecting your gun, theres no spell or curse or enchantment or any form of magic to provide a boost to your weapon, the system just dictates you can break the rules becausexthe games designer dont know what theyre doing to make the game fun
Oh and rerolls, theyre just the default way for a designer to give up on developing theyre system properly.
Well i guess thats 5/3 issues that irritate me about a wargame :|
I've got your point with the custom dice, but I think there could be reasons to use them for a game, but not many. For example in Star Wars Imperial Assault, they use custom dice, but on those dices have 3 different symbols. Of course you can put card which list which dice rolls means what, but you already have a couple of cards in front of you especially in the late game. In this case I think that is condensed into the dice. So I can see a little usecase for custom dice, but of course you can argue that you can design your game around the normal numbered dice.
I can see the intent behind it, but part of what kept me from playing Imperial Assault (rather than just paining up the minis) was how hard it was to know what was good. What’s better: two blue dice and a green, or a two reds? When are yellow dice good? Without a lot of experience, it felt really hard to look at a unit and figure out what kinds of attacks have good dice and which have bad dice. I somewhat appreciate the attempt to push the limits, but it’s hard to tell what’s happening. Armada was the same way, where it felt very challenging to understand what made a roll good or bad.
Contrast X-Wing, with successes and failures, plus focus which can be successes if you spend resources. While it could be replicated with standard d8s, and spending focus to get +2 to the result, but it was really easy to evaluate. In second edition, when you get into weapons with alternate effects, it’s as straightforward as successes give status debuff tokens instead of doing damage, not figuring out which symbols give what extra effects with whatever combination of upgrades.
I really like the idea of "I go, you go" being alternating, by phase, with clean up done at the end of the phase.
"I move one unit, you move one unit..." "I shoot one unit, you shoot one unit..." "Okay, now let's remove all of the models that died this phase."
I think there could be a really cool wargame that follows the activation method from FFG's Game of Thrones boardgame, too, where every unit's actions are declared secretly and then revealed all at once and then resolved in a predetermined mechanical way.
Drawing chits from a bag (as in Bolt Action) has basically the same effect, but you don’t get to choose which unit goes first, which can upset your plans. Chain of Command has a much cleverer system using five dice, where the player can prioritise which units get to move first.
Custom dice is a tricky one, lookup tables are good and if you're not packaging a healthy amount of custom dice in all your starter sets they're a must but they do slow the game down a bit when you have to reference the table after each roll when compared to being able to just read the dice at a glance. That being said the tables allow for more flexibility if that's what you're going for. I'd love to see tables provided for any games that can use the custom dice and then have the dice itself be the luxury add on that makes the game nicer to play but are never actually required.
I always get dogpiled by people who only play 40k when I say this, but I staunchly stand by doing away with pure IGOUGO turn systems (IE, you move/shoot/charge all your dudes, then it's my turn to move/shoot/charge all my dudes). Alternating activations of any flavor (Even group activation ala Frostgrave) is the only thing I wanna play. Currently playing Middle Earth SBG almost exclusively which alternates by phase, and melee Fights happen simultaneously, it's so so very good.
EDIT: I definitely made this comment like, seconds into watching the video, I was pleased to find you're like-minded once I got farther in haha
Bolt Action had a great turn mechanic.
I can understand it, especially when you're up against someone who takes for freaking ever to get through just one phase. It could be why GW is doing it in Legions Imperialus, as a way to test the waters for wider implementation. Who knows.
Now you've just made me miss playing 2018 Kill Team in a while. The system was a bit janky and sometimes wildly imbalanced, the Commanders and Elites weren't properly integrated so they were flat out not allowed with the competitive scene rules... but I loved it anyway, because it was individual and flavoursome.
Technically, you don't need custom dice to have non-numeric dice results in a game right? You can just use this very archaic tool, known as a table. If you know the faces of the dice, you can just map them to the numbers on regular die with an equal number of sides.
100% this. I recently tried my first ttrpg in Star Wars Age of Rebellion and personally I found the symbols so much easier to remember rather than 1 means this 2 means this and so on.
I would rather die than constantly have to reference a table mid game. This isn't an overly-complex RPG from 1977
I personally dont get, i think symbol dice are easier and if worst comes to worst.. cant you just tape it on the dice faces?
Pass.
Many games stick an extra effect on (highest value) and/or (lowest value). Easy to remember if someone wants to avoid tables.
I don't really mind IgoUgo style of turn sequence, but that might be because I grew up playing games like that. Alternate activations are a nice alternative for games where you can handwave it with ease of communication. I would like to see a system where you have a number of order cards you play face down to send out orders to your units, and the opponent can play some of his cards to mess with that, like moving cards around, or outright canceling one of them. Then once that reaction phase is complete, the orders are revealed.
My favorite initiative rules are from BattleTech. Initiative is rolled each turn. Looser moves a portion of their force, and the winner moves a portion in response. Moving second is really the only benefit. Weapons fire is declared simultaneously, hits and damage are considered simultaneous... thus a unit can fire a weapon in an arm that was blown off, as it hasn't quite happened yet. It is as even and balanced as you can get. Star Fleet Battles is similar, but there is no initiative... you move in the Impulses corresponding to the speed you selected and payed power for, all other actions are simultaneous.
BattleTech also wins on list building. They have had, since day 1, rules on building units, and have developed a method of calculating battle value. All units, rather officially published, customized, or created ground up by players use the same method. No rebalacing every Codex/Technical Readout. Any unit with x speed, y armor, and z weaponry will be the same BV. Nothing to tweak. Are there occasionally ways to game the system? A little, but it is difficult, so balance is largely maintained.
It seems with custom dice you are bothered that you have to buy dice from a single manufacturer. Gaslands for example doesn't have that limitation.
IGOUGO is not just bad either. The goal of Hobgoblin was to make a really fast playing rank&flank fantasy game. Alternating activations slowed the game down significantly. So now in the movement phase one player moves everything, then the other player. This also felt more like a player's battle plan unfolding. Nothing dies/flees until the end of a round anyway.
The problem with IGOUGO that people dislike is the alpha strike gameplay. When one side gets to activate all their units at once, it's very easy to end up with one side just deleting one side of an enemy's formation without the enemy being able to do anything back aside from passively defending. Though I suppose some people do find that fun when they're not on the receiving end of one...
@@RavenAdventwings I don't remember which game it is but there is one that does IGOUGO but nothing is removed till the end of the round. So you can still murder your opponent but have to suffer their retaliation as well. Seems to help a bunch with the alpha strike issue.
@@RavenAdventwings That's a noob problem. The more you play, the more you realise, things are much more balanced than you realise. It's actually incredibly rare to get tabled turn 1. And when you do, it's because you played horrifically. That's a skill issue. Not a game issue.
@@RavenAdventwingsbeing able to delete a side because they got to go first is a problem with the game being too deadly. Wargames should be doing more suppression and retreating than just killing units.
@@michaelcarter577- Exactly. “Shock” is a great mechanism from historical gaming. When shot at, the first thing most troops do in RL is duck and hide. They’re not wounded just suppressed and temporarily ineffective. A good leader will be able to de-shock them and get them back in action.
Its interesting how introducing reactions to 2nd edition Horus Heresy took what was a very rigid “I go, you game” and turned it into a very engaging hybrid system combining the best elements of alternating activations (player engagement) while avoiding the worst pitfalls of of random sequences (i.e. Bolt Action where a player doesn’t get an activation until their opponent has completed all theirs).
Strong agreeon avoiding fiddly custom dice, although it can work very well if done eloquently e.g. MB Games Heroquest.
Personally, I think Reactions in Horus Heresy (and many other similar mechanics GW added to their games over the years) exist mainly as a patch to compensate for problems inherent to the IGOUGO turn structure. And that adopting a different structure - like Alternating Activations - would solve those same problems more elegantly.
@@Bluecho4Which games and mechanics are you thinking of? I'm always interested to hear the specifics on this topic.
Way back in 1998 or so a friend and I got bored of the "Igougo" of 40K. We re-worked it so that at the beginning of a turn initiative was rolled, the winner moved their first unit and then we took turns until all units had completed their actions. We played some of the most enjoyable games that way, because it truly felt dynamic and you could end up having to re-think your strategy mid-round based on who went where and what got killed.
My biggest pet peeve which is very ingrained in war games: 1d6 assigned to everything. It makes games extra swingy and really makes the range between absolute success and absolute failure extremely narrow. It's because of the 1d6 per attack, defense, etc that we have ridiculous crap of saving throws and ward saves and exploding sixes, mortal wounds, etc.
A d20 or a 2d6 system would be so, SO much better. I particularly like 2d6 for a "check" like landing an attack and then an xd6 for results like damage output. The bell curve typically feels much better and less swingy. Also, doubles add a lot more chances to have special outcomes beyond absolute failure and automatic success.
The Mechanic I most want to see gone from wargaming is Modifying the "Target Number" instead of the Roll
Why?
@@adaroben1104 Personal preference, intellectually I know there's no functional difference between saying "The Target number is 5 but, range and cover increase it to 7" and "The Target number is 5, you have a -2 penalty on the roll do to range and cover", but, my brain just likes the latter much more. I actually don't mind systems that modify the target number when the game uses "Roll X or under" to resolve dice checks.
@@jasonscarborough94
Isn't there a functional difference? Who is doing the math and method of conceptualizing the effect matters. A GM saying you need to account for -2 to hit makes you count a dice result, add any modifiers, then include the -2 mod. That can be a lot of extra work to track. My brain only holds like 4 things at once so if I roll 2 dice that's 2 numbers and if I have 3 mods I'm likely to forget one.
On the other hand if it's foggy which makes hitting something a -2 on attack, it cognitively makes sense. It's your attack that is affected. However if it's their armor that gives +2 to resist an attack, it's not that your attack is low, it's their defense that is high. The target to hit should be raised otherwise it seems like you are attacking an average peon with normal defense but you suck at hitting a target. The GM doing part of the math relieves you from crunching every variable. It can also be a piece of hidden info - you don't know how much armor an enemy has, or if an effect they have may run out, so you wont know your chances of hitting them meaning you have a risk and uncertainty. If all the stats are known you can toss them and a die result into a formula to avoid doing math by hand, which is helpful if you have a lot to crunch.
@@adaroben1104 I think your confusing Skirmish games and RPG's. RPG's commonly have multiple factors that go into determining the Target number for an Attack/Skill tests. For example, in combat, both the Attacker's skill and the Defender's Agility/Armor, plus external factors such as range visibility and cover are calculated when determining the Target number. Skirmish/War Games Typically only use one, either the attacker's "Shoot"/"Punch" skill or the Target's To Hit/Is Hit On stat, and usually only has 1-3 modifiers; one based on range to target (usually this is a flat, "+/- 1 beyond this distance, but admittedly some of them get more "ambitious"), an additional modifier if the target is behind cover, and some weapons will have rules that either allow them to ignore range/Cover or impose a situational modifier. If the attack is based on the Attacker's skill armor is part of the math to see if the attack actually deals damage to the target.
Wow, that was rambling novel, let me see if I can condense it down without sounding like an asshole... In Flames of War, An attacking unit rolls one or more d6's and compares each to the target unit's "Is Hit on" stat of 3 or 4+ that can receive upto three stacking +1 modifiers, A long range bonus if 16+ inches away, A cover bonus, and a "Dug-In" modifier. To me, there really wouldn't be any functional difference between applying those modifiers as a +1-3 bonus to the "Is Hit on" stat or as a -1, -2 or -3 penalty to the attacker's Roll(s).
That shirt made me shudder. Carry on.
Was the first thing I noticed... and it may have made me miss the first minute of the video thinking about it.
The upcoming Warcrow game uses custom dice and it's AMAZING. Same company that made Infinity, Corvus Belli. They may be one of the exceptions, because they do an excellent job with utilizing unique dice mechanics to allow deep gameplay. It's so much fun!
You leave my scatter die out of this, he is perfect and precious and can do no wrong
I've come to appreciate custom dice, because they seem to help new gamers relax a little. When I tell a new gamer that they have to roll a 4 or better to hit, it seems more difficult for them to grok than when I tell them "the sword icon means you hit".
It like giving a kid who started driving a big rig or airplane. 😂
Also doesnt help most people seem to kinda ignore the whole "teaching part"
I can see the argument for not liking custom dice but when it comes to games design I think they can’t be dismissed. Blood Bowl is absolutely iconic because of two things; the custom dice and the turnover mechanic.
I just bought the Kill Team starter box recently and have no experience with table top wargaming. I have no intentions of getting into Warhammer 40k due to how expensive it is. But this war game format interests me so I took a chance on it.
I can say that "Theme Forces" in Warmachine and Hordes was insane to me. You are forced to abide by tiny rule sets rather than just playing the army you want. While the bonuses are nice it just felt like the game couldn't be balanced effectively with just the regular rules. "just play these special armies that we tested because there is no way we could balance the whole game effectively". The other rule thing that killed me in WMH is how multiple rules led you to the same result. EVERY faction had some obscure rule name that gave a model "Pathfinder" or the ability to run through rough terrain. Does each faction have to have a different name for the same rule? Lastly, It seemed in MK3 every faction had to have a different game mechanic. Grymkin, Infernals, all had some oddball trope to collect action points, souls or something else. Even the difference of Hordes vs. Warmachine was silly. Rile up your warbeast and siphon off energy. Fine, then rewrite the rules so Warjacks are energy antennae and warcaster "focus" that energy back to them. Seems simple and the same "mechanic"... I am no game designer and a worse player but all of these things kept me from having fun.
Ok, so an expansion of #1, custom dice. The point of custom dice is accessibility for non-gamers. Notice that all 3 of the games you mentioned are IP games that will likely draw in players from outside the traditional gaming community, and especially children. Math is intimidating for most people. Telling them "3 or higher" is more intimidating than "count the X symbols". Mathematically, they are the same. But instead of someone needing to keep track of what number they are looking for, instead they get told to roll the "white" dice equivalent to a 5+, "black" for a 4+, "red" for a 3+. It's less for players to track, and eases them into the gameplay. It also means if you have a system based on different actions rather than target numbers, you don't have to consult a chart each time you roll. Again, mathematically the same, but for an incoming player it's much easier to understand a symbol than tracking numbers.
I agree, custom dice are more accessible. Plus they come in the big box you just bought, so it doesn't matter if you don't already own them. I think in this case Uncle Atom is coming from the perspective of an indie rules author, but Asmodee isn't an indie company. Shatterpoint, MCP, etc, are all "big box" games.
@@theandf They are easier and faster, but they let you make some very unconventional rules. O200h combine special abilty activation, scatter, and success on the same dices. I'ts based on old WW2 action movie. Sometime mouvement is partially randomly determined. A success result is dictated by the quality of the troop (1 to 3 chevrons) and a success determine also the direction you can chose (you choose between the chevrons of uour successes).
and if you have enouf blank dices you can play the game you want!
@@fabiofileri2872 oh, I own and like 0200 Hours! I think that's another argument *in favor* of custom dice! And mine came in the boxed set anyway, no need to buy extra anything ;)
Yeah, I strongly disagree with the first point
I prefer the glancable and immediacy of a custom dice (and they usually look nice). You roll and immediately know if you did it or not. And, like mentioned, you can have crits/damage or special effects all with the same dice roll without need to read all the 500 bones you just rolled (at what point a game stops being a wargame and becomes a dice picking game?). I hate having the experience bogged down by checking tables or rolling 300 times just to know if I miss. I want the results and I want it right now so we can have that razor's edge, nail biting and tense experience of "all of this depends on this roll".
Whatever you say, dude.
Heavy Gear Blitz continues being the greatest minis game I have ever played
Oohoohoo, you are going to loooove the new Warzone! Not only does it have alternate unit activation, there are also reactions you can make during your opponent's turn. It only uses a regular d20 and the list building is a smorgasbord, you can mix and match, don't even have to make a proper squad (there are synergies that promote it in some cases and you do need at least one leader but that's all). The rules do take 60 pages however, not sure if that counts as a lot these days, it's certainly no One Page Rules.
I agree with Point 1 and Point 3 to an extent.
But I guess I disagree a bit on Point 2. I think the Igoyougo activation system makes sense in a wargame. It makes more sense when you look at it as a real life simulation. You probably delegate commands to all your units at the same time and the enemy can't answer to every single unit immediately, like in OPR. I still think the system for Bolt Action is genius and the best compromise for fun gameplay (not waiting endlessly) and realistic real time battle feel.
For things I like/dislike it would be the following:
I really like fluffy rules and wouldn't want to play "boring" rules which feel the same across all the factions with just different selection of datasheets.
Real life is chaotic and many units would just have general objectives and their own commanders would be making decisions. Command certainly couldn't issue orders to every unit at once. I dont think the simulation argument holds up at all.
@@101Mant Yeah, it is chaotic, but even if you use your line of thinking I think the system from games like OPR just don't feel very realistic. It's not like you always have the chance to always have an answer to the last move your enemy makes, which is the case in such systems. I still stand by my argument that the Order dice system from Bolt Action is the best solution I know so far.
Hard disagree with the 1st point.
Look at a game like Fallout, their dice system communicates a lot of information quickly and allows way more nuance than a D6 system.
You _can_ use a normal D10 with a reference chart but I assure you, it's much less enjoyable
I agree with this. The fallout system of dice is very quick to understand once you pick up on it.
I agree with your three points not so strongly on the last one. What I don’t like in a wargame mechanics is either a binary outcome such as roll a single D6 hits or misses or the opposite where your opponent rolls 40 dice.
I definitely prefer alternating activation. At least if my guys are dying I can play an active role in punishing the person attacking me before my entire army is destroyed. There's nothing fun about sitting there and watching your entire army get deleted before you get a chance to do anything. That issue is what made my husband drop 40k. That and just really bad experiences with the community in general.
Now we play Malifaux, which uses a standard deck of cards each in place of dice, does alternating activation and is much closer to the aesthetics we both enjoy.
Completely disagree about nr 1. Custom Dice are amazing for games. Shatterpoint is the best game I have ever played.
Agree on 2 and 3.
I agree with you, Blood Bowl is also a much better game for the custom dice
Totally agree, custom dice is not much of an expense to get into a game, especially compared with model prices in bigger games. I would love to pay for custom dice and a rulebook of a mini agnostic game, rather than "spend 300$ on our models and crappy rules that use your regular d6s because frankly we don't care".
Shatterpoint is a terrible game. A game where you have little control of your units activation order is basically a game of luck.
To add to the pile on... custom dice may provide an opportunity for a business model where rules are provided for low cost/free and miniatures can be agnostic.
Custom dice provide a relatively low and cheap barrier to play whilst still providing a monetary incentive for a project in a post 3d print world.
Custom dice are awsome. Fantasy Flight's Star Wars showed me what the can really do. Oh yeah, and Bloodbowl.
Over the years i think the design thing in wargames that officially bugs me the most is "Regiments of Renown" style "sub armies" where one army list just arbitrarily ends up having wildly different rules and often are way better than the "vanilla" force they're tied to if you build them within some set of restrictions, typically some variation of "use lots of the good unit and you're unable to use the bad units you didn't want anyway".
Narratively, i understand the purpose of Legendary Legions and Regiments of Renown and Historical Platoons and all their ilk, but in the context of just playing normal pick up games or tournaments it just doesnt sit right with me and feels like it sucks a lot of the personal element out of building a wargame army.
Comment in today's game was: "The great thing about IGO-UGO is that you have plenty of time for bathroom breaks."
And we needed it. ("Wee needed it?")
The thing I've seen happen a lot with custom dice is that they start out simple, but then as the game progresses and the mechanics become more complex, they have to add more symbols.
Then you either have factions with weird unique dice which use mechanics and probabilities that are not universal to the game or you get this weird situation where you have to awkwardly retroactively upgrade all of the old factions to sort of start using the new system.
More often than not, the game turns into a mess...
I mostly agree. I do though like the simplicity of custom dice, like in Gaslands, and it is simple to convert to 1= one outcome, 2= another outcome, etc. but ultimately you are right.
Another thing, When I was a kid, we couldn't afford battletech models, which were all metal at the time and didn't come in organized box sets. We had the maps and we had pennies and nickles with arrows drawn on them because we didn't have any money (well, i mean, except for the pennies and nickles.) The dice though, would be a problem.You can play poor hammer with rocks and cans. You can't do much without special dice in a special dice game.
I agree wholeheartedly with you about the activation order, I find that KT has really addressed this very well. As for the list building, I would argue that your criticisms of KT are a bit harsh. In my mind, KT is incredibly well balanced, in part due to the fact that list building has been simplified. Additionally, while some teams have very little flex in building lists, there are some teams which provide some flexibility. Good video!
I always found it silly that GW has alternate activation in their smaller skirmish games where each turn is shorter. Yet in the big war games they do turns, which lets one player sit and watch for a lot of that time. Seems backward to me. I also remember playing my first game of Battletech back in the mid 80's. They used alternate activation with phases but the initiative "winner" moves second. It took me a moment to realize that moving after you see your opponent's move was an initial advantage. I really enjoy that mechanic in that game.
I do something weird here. My cousin and I really wanted to play a Star Wars tabletop game. We didn't have the money to buy into either of the new ones. What I did have was a copy of the table top war game Cross Fire. So we proxied factions from Star Wars into that game. We are still working on how to make force users work, but it has been fun so far. Long story short, we don't need the custom dice; and we didn't have to spend money on a new system. For now we are just using blank bases until we can get models.
I actually am immediately way more interested in a game if it has custom dice, especially d8s, d10s, and d12s.
Definitely agree about I go you go
'I go you go' for 40k is even worse because of the different phases, especially when Psychic Phase was a thing. While there are armies that are decently dynamic and can use all phases, not only do you sit during your opponent turn but the phases were variable in length and complexity because some armies lived or died by the fact one or more phase functionally did not exist for them.
Like psychic and assault for Tau. Or psychic and shooting for anything Khornate. Enjoy your opponent's abilities all being strong in a single phase that takes forever, them skipping a phase and then functionally not engaging with some key mechanics all the while they wipe your army and you can't do a single thing.
I think those are 3 solid choices for annoying things, but my top vote goes to "very slight differences in army options just to sell new models/armies". I don't want a Bolter, a Bolt Carbine, a Bolt Carbink, a Bone Shard Vo-mitter, a Heretical Arch Bolter, a Plasma Capicithorme, a Soulshriek Venn Diagram and a SMACKABOOMSTICK. They're all just small arms, give them the same stats so that when my opponent says "This unit is armed with Bolters", I instantly know the stats instead of constantly having to ask them throughout the game to remind me if they are Bolters with +1 AP or +1 Strength.