Rather than “game ends after X rounds” I strongly prefer “something big happens after X rounds”. Something explodes, the demon awakens, etc. A new inclusion that pushes the game to its end at x2 speed but doesn’t arbitrarily end it mid-stream.
The best mechanic for army scale games: instead of moving each model individually, move the unit leader and then place the rest in coherency/certain radius.
I haven't even gotten to play the game yet, but Ravaged Star by MiniWarGaming does this and I just adore the idea. For some of their units, they have the Leaderless rule, which means you pick a model to be the leader each time the game would call for a leader. So you can kind of "leap frog" the leader from the front to the back to use the unit in interesting ways. Need to move? Pick a model at the front. Need to be behind cover? Well, the game targets the leader, so pick the unit in the back that's behind the wall. The trade off is that these units often have lower speed, weaker stats, etc. Because they've got all these mechanical benefits going for them.
@@Thetracker69I pledged the game too. Between this rule, and the initiative rule (not to mention Viking space dwarves with mecha), I look forward to trying the game.
I like Warcry's initiative mechanic. Making the initiative roll also the source of special abilities makes for a fun trade-off where winning the initiative may result in your opponent having access to more special abilities, or more powerful abilities, for the coming round. In addition the wild dice mechanic gives some useful tools for players to tweak their roll more to their liking.
@@tabletopminions the Kill Team rework, and the fact they have made all the rules free etc. gives me hope. However I can't think of much in Warcry that needs changes.
My favorite mechanic is definitely Battletech's shooting phase with all damaged being applied after the phase is complete. It's really nice to let everyone do something before they get blown off the table.
There's a Viking skirmish game called Ravenfeast that does very much the same thing. Everyone swings at the same time and the hits that land get resolved afterwards.
@@ericfinley220 agreed. I hate igougo. It makes zero sense that 100% of your army can shoot bullets into 100% of mine and still act like I can shoot. Sometimes, people get the drop on you and that's why per-unit activation is better, but most people who already play 40k can't fathom that because their attention span has been trained into spending 20-30 hardcore minutes moving and shooting their entire army and then being able to "check out" from the battlefield and let their opponents do their thing for another 20 to 30 minutes. Per unit activation is better. Most people have been trained away from that. Faction rules from scale-battle war games like 40k and age of sigmar are ruining the game design and philosophy of killteam and warcry as per unit activation games. I absolutely HATE tabletop games that play deep into the rules as their form of gameplay. I enjoy games that go deep into movement, line of sight, diverse terrain, unique weapon rules, silly dice interactions, rolling for saves against successes, making explosion sounds with my facehole while my little dudes get blown off the table, appropriate amounts of faction flavor and lore flavor, special game mechanics that don't beg eratta, faqs, or more than a paragraph to explain (ambush and deep strikes are nicely simple like that). I don't want to find out your plague marines get to roll the OPR Grimdark Firefight Regeneration Rule when that silly dice rule doesn't apply for anyone else. Silly dice coming from faction rules are bad. Rules like Astartes in Killteam that simply say "shoot twice for bolt weapons, fight twice with any melee" IN MY HUMBLE AND OFTEN FRUSTRATED OPINION are GOOOOOOOOD. As a game design philosophy, leave the silly dice to the weapon rules, and the hard counter stuff to the faction rules. Good God almighty
1) *Infinity's* ARO system that let's you feel like it's always your turn! 2) *Malifaux's* cheating card system that facilitates tough choices and great mind games! 3) *Moonstone's* card-based battle system that makes you actually feel like you're in an actual sword duel!
Of the various game systems I have played, Malifaux is the one that I enjoyed the most. The Initiative, the Chain activation, the generic base size/height stat that eliminated modeling for advantage were all aspects that made the game much more interesting.
My favourite part about Malifaux, is that you are the one playing the cards - it's completely different from dice being rolled, re-rolled, and whatever. I don't feel any different depending on which player rolls the die - some people feel an illusion of agency when they do it, for some reason.
I like the rule where casualties are taken at the end of the shooting or close combat phase which allows all models to do something before removing them, like Ravenfeast.
This is a mechanic that can help offset initiative advantages. In some games where you have random initiative and models are removed as soon as they take enough damage, one player winning initiative 2-3 times in a row is all but a guaranteed win.
I really like the sound of this. It's perhaps a bit abstract (but then, we're playing with toy soldiers - it kind of always will be to a greater or lesser extent) and I feel like this allows a model to still do stuff while not preventing an opponent just laying waste to your stuff. Never heard of Ravenfeast I don't think, but might have to take a look.
@@badbones777 Not really any more abstract than any other initiative method. The idea is usually that everything happens more or less simultaneously. Even if a unit gets to go first and fires a fatal shot into another unit, by the time they have done that, the killed unit has already made their attack as well, etc. Basically everyone is declaring what they do and then at the end of the round it's all resolved. Classic Battletech does something similar.
The most thematic activation system I have come across is in Gaslands. The turn is split into phases represented by gears. What gear your individual car is in determines when it goes in the turn and what templates you can use for movement. Also one book and a big bag of second hand hot wheels, that's some superb cheap gaming right there.
Now buy a bunch of keychain 6-speed gear shifts for the players, and a 6-speed manual gear shift from your local junkyard mounted on a board for the gear phase indicator.
Star Wars Legion has a great initiative mechanic with the command cards. The player who plays the card with lower pips gets initiative. But there’s a trade off because lower pip cards generally activate less units. Also, the effect of the card as well as what unit(s) they activate require thoughtful timing as to which particular card to play. Sometimes at a particular juncture you may play a lower pip card because you really want to go first. Other times it’s about the specific units you want to activate, and other times it’s about the effect the card grants. Or sometimes it can be all of the above at once.
I really enjoy rules which keep units alive to act. Hobgoblin only makes "damage" count at the end of a round, so everyone gets to act, same as Alphastrike. Turnip has (usually) simultaneous firefights. Warmaster requires at least three damage per phase, so you need to go hard or go home. I spend time creating that army, I want to use it!
Uncle Adam, I just want you to know, I really don't care to play the wargames themselves, but man, do I love hearing you talk about them. Thanks for making my day a little better, have a great weekend.
I recall my favorite mechanic or rule of original Warhammer Quest was what would occur between battles or dungeon runs. You could travel to a village, town, or city. Traveling to villages take less weeks than to city, but gives you less options for what you can do in the larger settlements. Things could randomly happen every week as you travel, like encountering travelers on the road or being waylaid by bandits who steal your gold. When in a settlement, you would spend gold every night to room and board and random things could happen in town too. Each passing week heals your model’s hp for the next battle, but exposes you to random event risks like muggings or being pickpocketed or getting tricked by swindlers or your models simply getting bored and going gambling and drinking risking losing gold or hp in a bar brawl (depending on how you roll on event tables). You could also visit establishments like alehouses, the governor’s mansion to curry favor, or even an underground chaos cult temple to pray to dark gods if you played a chaos warrior. There were no experience points at all in the game… to level up, you had to use gold - and only gold - to hire a specific trainer to train each of your models to the next level (which also takes time, thus requiring more gold spent for room and board), all while balancing buying supplies, gear, and potions, thus making saving and earning Gold in battles and dungeon runs the driving force in the game. Ingenious system. I don’t know any other game past or present that had something so immersive
Look in to Shadows Over Brimstone! It's WQ95 with cowboys meets cthulhu. It has towns between dungeons and fan content that adds to it. Dungeon Dive has a really good video series all about it.
@@edwardclay7551 Well, hold up there partner... I loved the game, but it did have a few "problem areas". 1. The bad guys just sort of spawned around you and they had very little tactics aside from surrounding your heros and attacking. 2. The portcullis card could make a dungeon run impossible. 3. The death-rate was quite brutal... A few bad rolls in the first couple of rooms of the first dungeon, and your whole group of adventures could meet a really early (and disappointing) death. But inspite of these, they game was still bunches of fun to play.
I love it when games have a DBX style combat where instead of typical combat statistics the combat is based on matchups, like Cavalry destroys light foot if it outscores it by just a point, light infantry cannot be destroyed by heavy infantry when not flanked etc. This makes combat way more engaging and based on tactical decisions.
I love how MCP does opposed dice rolls, it makes it feel like you're doing things even on your opponents turn because you're both modifying each other's dice. Amd the dice system allows a lot more granularity than success/failure with various triggered effects. All of it is still somehow incredibly intuitive with easy to read iconography.
You nailed it. Especially the bit about the lack of need to buy multiple books just to play an army ….and then have those books be outdated within a couple months before you’ve finished painting your army. 😅
Bushido's Attack and Defense dice mechanics that make every melee exchange and interactive bluff between you and your opponent to decide how many dice you want to put in defense or attack, no matter whose turn it is
Heroscpe’s activation system is its best feature. Each round, we roll initiative & each player is given 4 activation tokens. Players then covertly place the 4 tokens, labeled 1-3 & X, face down on their units’ cards.. In initiative order, players alternate unit activation, based on their token’s order. Units with no token will not act this round, neither will units with the X token. This gives the players partial information & a bluff mechanic.
The game Heroes of Normandie took the hidden order mechanic one step further by allowing all remaining units (any that did not receive a numbered activation token) to activate in a turn segment known as the Supply Phase. They may not shoot or melee during this activation, but it allows a player to maneuver them into a position where they could be activated for combat in the next turn. I've thought about incorporating the rule into games of Heroscape.
An activation mechanic I prefer is leaders activating units. This adds an element of role play. And it is kind of realistic. Soldiers need people to coordinate their actions. Some games that do this well are Frostgrave, 7tv and Chain Reaction
I agree with one book, per game. As a Old AD&D guy, I understood the three books. One is how to play, one is how to run the game, and one of all the monsters. Only the one running the game needed to buy all three, but if you were never going to run a game, then all you need is the first handbook on how to play. I like the role a set amount of dice to role for initiative. For a two player game. Thanks😊
Blood Bowl's "press your luck" game turn is one of its more interesting mechanics. Yes, it's an I-Go-You-Go game, but because your turn can abruptly end if you fail a roll, it means you always have to be careful how you sequence your turn.
@greystorm9974 To each their own. I quite enjoy it, but I do recognize that not everyone enjoys the random elements of Blood Bowl. I hope you and your friends have as much fun with your preferred games as I have with mine. :)
Silver Bayonet has two great mechanics: 1. The winner of the initiative roll goes first but only with ½ their force. Then it’s the monster phase followed by the loser of the roll activating all their miniatures. Finally the winner activates the remainder of their troops. This approach allows the winner some ability to deal with the monsters/opponent but they then have to weather the storm. 2. Shooting and Melee attacks use 2d10s, a power and a skill dice with a target defence stat number to beat. The weapon either wounds on the power dice roll (eg Blunderbus) or the skill dice (eg fencing sword). Players also start the game with 1 re-roll for each dice which helps turn a 10 & 1 into something deadly. The Silver Bayonet game has taken over as our go to game this year. So much so that one of the group has reskinned it for space and the rules can be found at the Laser Bayonet FB Group. Oh and it’s all in one book (apart from the expansions - we’re off to the pyramids next year, what could possibly go wrong?)
The dice system has other effects down the line. Since your rerolls per dice type are limited, you don't want to overload your team with all one damage dice type. You can get additional rerolls by capturing objectives. A simple mechanic like that informing your entire team building strategy and game play priorities is good design.
@@HeadCannonPrimeStargrave is also by Joseph McCulloch but uses a different d20 system. My group prefer the reskin of the Laser Bayonet rules and plan to run the Stargrave campaigns next year with the modified Silver Bayonet mechanic.
One Page Rules has all of these (in their advanced rule sets). My son, friends, and I recently started playing, and I honestly haven’t had as much fun playing tabletop wargames since the 1990s with 4th Edition Warhammer Fantasy.
Bolt Action's use of order dice is a great mechanic and sets up situations where both you and your opponent desperately want the next dice! Couple that with scenarios that have a fixed length (6 turns with the possibility of 7 being the norm), and different ways to win (taking objectives, moving to specific parts of the playing area and/or killing enemy units), means the (re)playability is very high and varied.
One of the most enjoyable 'rules discussions' that I've seen for a long time and I especially liked the examples you gave. Yes please, more of this kind of video.
Chain of Command by Too Fat Lardies has all or elements of all these three. The activation mechanic is deeper than Bolt Action, you have a fixed number of activation dice to use for all your stuff so you might not act with everything every time it's your go, and leaders can activate elements that are below them in the chain of command, so are more action efficient (you can activate a squad on a roll of 2, or you can activate a squad using a senior leader on a roll of 4, and then the leader can do or activate two more things!). Before you start deploying (assets deploy as an activation when they are off table, and they stay off table until you deploy them) there is a patrol phase to decide deployment points which makes the game overall very tactical and reactive. The game ends when you achieve a particular objective, or when one side's force morale goes to 0. It starts between 8-11 and is reduced by Bad Things happening (leaders injured, tanks exploded, squads wiped out etc) so you don't really know how resilient your dudes are until they get to face combat. Once they have faced combat, there is a campaign system for in between games: getting casualties back, deciding the men's opinion of their commander and gaining bonuses or maluses for the next map in the campaign and so on, AND there are a ton of Pint Sized Campaigns that cost the price of a beer and offer many many sessions of play, with historical background and organisations. And if you are not into WW2 or historics in general, ALL of these systems can be transplanted to other games, as long as there is a chain of command, which there usually is to some extent, generals, heroes, wizards, Primaris Sergeants et cetera can all be classified as either junior (~squad level) leaders or senior (~platoon level) leaders.
I personally think Chain of Command is WAY better / more fun / fog-of-war-ish than Bolt Action. Bolt Action feels like 40K (...1940k) but with just a few better mechanics. Chain of Command feels like WWII (well... the movies, since I wasn't there for the real thing.)
@@GregX999 I absolutely agree, I have no desire to take my WW2 figs and use them for Bolt Action. If I had nobody to play CoC with, I'd work on poaching BA players instead...
Deadzone's initiative works like this: round one is a command roll, and every other round is determined by who finished activating their models first. In a game alternating activations (and the ability to activate twice for resources) this is like a blue shell if you're losing and a solid advantage to low model-count factions. Also pretty much all Mantic games are one book by design: Deadzone technically has a separate one for rules and forces but they're sold together; Firefight bundled both into one book with the Command Protocols update; and Kings of War has one book for rules & forces for like, 28 different factions (plus yearly rules updates called Clash of Kings). I find it much easier to list build when you can compare your army's stats against others.
I really like Star Wars Shatterpoint's activation system. Each of your 6 characters is in your deck of cards. Players alternate their activations and randomly draw the character they will activate. To keep things interesting and less random: - a 'joker' card lets you choose any character for activation (so one character will activate a second time) - you can 'reserve' a card for later use and draw another card (this costs a precious resource) - some characters can manipulate your deck or get special abilites when activated via the joker card or played from reserve
Carnevale has fun initiative: it's a roll off with the number of dice determined by the character in your force with the highest remaining command points. But these command points are also used in the game for special abilities, so utilising those might sacrifice your chance for initiative. If you've got even a single CP left and your opponent none, then you automatically have initiative and that can be a powerful factor to hold onto.
My top 3: 1) Moonstones card based stuff, both magic arcane and fighting. the whole bluffing aspect is amazing 2) BLKOut's lean out mechanic. Put a token the size of you base touching so you can look around corners without sacrificing your cover modifiers 3) deadzone's cubes. Just makes things super easy when it comes to range and movement.
the bolt action dice bag is my favorite activation system of all time. Alternating activations that simulates the fog of war and its unpredictability while still feeling fair and grounded in strategy. and it's elegantly simple in concept.
Fatigue mechanic in Saga is brilliant. Also order dice mechanic are good in saga. There's no separate morale mechanics but more units you lose less order dice you have and less activations you can do. It's also well thought out mechanic as you need to lose certain amount of models to lose the order dice and not whole unit. Player could have remnants of several units on the table and only one order dice left which essentially means theres nothing they can do and the game is over. This emulates the overall morale of the army really well.
The game also encourages the min-maxing of activation dice by using smaller units, but at the risk of easily losing those dice when units fall below a minimum. Your special abilities are easier to get off as well since you have more dice to prime them, but have less punch because you are using them on smaller units. It's a good risk/reward system
And this activation system breaks the "1 unit / 1 activation" pattern. You don't have to activate everything, instead you have more options to plan your turn.
Uncertainty of command. A player issues orders to a unit, then checks to see if the order was successful. Unsuccessful orders will end all orders to that group of units. The rule creates a fog of war effect where you are never certain if units will act or not. Hail Caesar and To The Strongest use this type of command rule.
Fights of Fantasy uses an initiative/activation system similar to that used by Bolt-Action except that players put numbered tiles into a bag. They draw a tile for each unit or character during what’s called the marshaling phase at the beginning of a turn. The tile is then placed next to the respective unit or character and that is the order from lowest to highest that each acts in each phase for the duration of the current turn. The number of tiles equals twice the units on the board because certain leader and character traits and magic spells can cause/permit players to draw multiple tiles (they choose which one to keep) for a unit or character. Some spells allow a player to draw new tiles for a unit to make them act earlier or later in a turn (to help their own troops or hurt their opponent’s). At the end of the turn all the tiles are gathered up and placed back in the bag and the process repeats with the next turn. This randomization makes it challenging because you may need a unit to act at a certain time but the tile you draw isn’t what you needed. This sort of simulates battlefield confusion, fog-of-war, or unit hesitation. It means that players are constantly scanning the board to see which unit or character will be going next which helps keep people engaged in the game. It’s also a very simple, easy-to-learn process.
I just wanted to pop in and say I’ve been a fan of your videos for a long time. And your videos are a great place to go for stress relief. Hearing your voice is calming and the subjects you choose are interesting and your views are logical and informative. Thanks Tio for all the work you put into making our hobby enjoyable 🎉
I started making a ttwg at the beginning of last month and it was actually one of your videos that inspired me to add the initiate roll in it instead of the I go you go system, but when it comes to separate "books", I would like to go with that since it allows me to focus more on a specific faction while the core rules will just go over the game itself and this doesn't run the risk of making the main core rules book as thick as a dictionary
Not a wargame but in the board game Spartacus i like that a gladiator has x dice for attack y for defense z for speed and those also represent life points. Each damage you choose which dice to discard so they become weaker/slower as they get injured.
Worms: The Board Game by mantic has a really good mechanic. There is a set number of supply cards, two for each player plus two extra. When the supply cards are all drawn, a random sudden death card comes into play, e.g. destroying tiles, so the gameboard gets smaller. Really speeds up the endgame.
I may be an outlier, but I did not get notified of this new episode and it didn’t even show up in my feed in the time sequence. Is this something that anyone else is noticing? And you’re one of my favorite RUclipsrs! Never want to miss anything.
Having a good initiative system can completely change a game. The game I'm working on, Combat Tails - a game of Anthropomorphic soldiers, has each unit getting a number of 'charges' these are just dice that you can spend on actions. The number of charges you have determines when in the initiative order you act. Characters (players or enemies as it is a single player and co-op game) activate based on the number of charges, starting at 6, and going down to 1. The number of charges you get is based on your equipment loadout - the more you carry, the slower you are. Each round you add the number of charges (again, dice) to your charge meter to determine initiative. Leaders can give dice to other characters to speed them up, And there is an 'Escalation pool' mechanic that you can take dice from, but when it's empty, it changes the effect of the game - enemies might do more damage, or move faster and so on. The game will also be having a campaign - The players are controlling a member of the Combat Tails team. Combat Tails is the codename for the daring and highly trained, Anthropomorphic Special Mission Force - it's purpose; to protect mammal freedom from the Ruthless Reptilian Forces of SCALE! As you progress, you combat SCALE, defeating their plans.
I like the initiative mechanics in Rogue Stars, a small scifi skirmish game. You pick a model, then make an "activation roll" for that model. If you succeed, you activate that model and can then make another activation roll for the next one and so on, either until you're done with all your models or choose to let the opponent go. But, if you ever fail an activation roll, the opponent can steal the initiative and make their own activation roll.
Mr. Welch, while he is mostly known for RPG's, has a saying as follows. "Good art can sell a bad book or game. But bad art or no art can simply kill a great game!" A good example of this is look at GW's books and packaging for their miniatures. Their games currently being made and sold have beautiful cover art on the books and the packaging for the miniatures beautifully shows off the miniatures and at least for 40k is color coded for each faction. But let's face it, the rules set for 40k are OK to good... at best. A good example of bad art/packaging is Kings of War. Their packaging for miniatures does nothing to show off the miniatures in the box and most of the time the photograph on the front of the box of the miniatures has them painted in a color scheme which blends in with the background & foreground that is using the same color scheme more often than not. More often than not, new players are sold on some if it looks cool, sounds cool or has a cool story/background/lore.
In Demonworld, the player who has given out the least orders for the current phase (ranged combat, move, close combat) decides who goes first. This can become very interesting as soon as you get into close combat range. Attack orders give initiative bonuses no matter who attacks first, but at the same time you might not want to give the order so you can get a strategic advantage over the enemy. The game is full of these neath mechanics, but they all end up in a lot of mental arithmetic.
Set number of turns and campaign play are two of the reasons Forbidden Psalm is probably my favorite wargame at the moment, and has been for a while now.
Star Wars Shatterpoint has a pretty neat initiative mechanic. Each player has a deck of cards, 1 for each unit, plus 1 shatterpoint and alternates drawing one and activating that unit. If you draw a unit you don't want to use yet you can bank one, to use later and draw again, or use your banked unit once you have one. The shatterpoint card is basically wild, letting you activate any unit you want. I've been so slow painting my stuff up I don't remember 100% how it all works, but if I got something wrong - well this is the internet, I'm sure someone will be along momentarily to correct it.
@@benbonney true enough but those paints are aimed at the real painters , they're a luxury item . In terms of the things you need though they're generally more expensive .
I love alternate activations and have adapted that and the ordrrs from Legions Imperialis to our games of 40k. We have had to do some tweaking with rules and stratagems,but it has made 40k so much more enjoyable to us.
The Too Fat Lardies always have interesting activation systems. Chain of Command's command dice and patrol phase really sold me on that game, and their card-based activation from Sharp Practice/Infamy Infamy make for some really interesting games. I also use 'At the Sharp End' for campaigns in pretty much every rule system i own. I also like crossfire's whole initiative and reactions system, giving the whole game a fast-paced and chaotic feel (although the rules for vehicles are really bad).
Blood and Plunder is my favorite initiative system. You and your opponent draw from a deck of cards equal to the number of units you have at the start of the turn, and then each play one card. Certain suits are faster and slower than others, for example a spade is the fastest and a club the slowest, but playing a slower card gets you more actions that turn. So you can play a spade to try and go first and do 1 action with a unit of your choice, or play a club knowing you'll go second but will get 2 or 3 actions depending on the veterancy level of the unit.
I like bag-drawing for initiative too, especially since you can also put in tokens for the game to activate, be it NPCs, hazards or something else. Zone Wars does this quite well I think. Campaign rules is almost the most important bit for me, campaign rules that focus more on helping telling the story than making sure everything is balanced like a chess-game. Go wild! Go crazy! Did Steve the zero cost commoner just find Excalibur and now you have a free king? I'm in. Also the leader has taken one too many blows to the head and is now being prodded along? Sure! I think the third one is when all the rolls are done at once. Like if you attack someone both sides rolls at the same time and that tells you what you need to know. I do want all the rules to start playing be in one book, I do not mind if they then sell books with new campaigns, classes and gear. In fact I rather like that, as long as it doesn't get confusing and you don't know what books you need, or that you bought a cool model but now have to buy a book to use it.
Late to the party, but Runewars Miniatures Game, a rank and file fantasy wargame by Fantasy Flight Games, has a fantastic activation/initiative system. Each unit has a command dial from which you select which action that unit will take in that round. These actions have an initiative value assigned to them, and players activate units in ascending initiative order. What this does is create a situation where "who goes first" only matters for initiative ties, so some rounds are laidback with no initiative overlap between players, but other rounds are REALLY tense with multiple confrontations depending on who wins initiative. Additionally, different units can have different initiatives for the same action, e.g., large units may be slower and have a later melee attack. The downside is that the initiative is tied to printed components, so if there is a balance issue then the only recourse is to change the cost of units. But for the most part things were well balanced. I wish it weren't discontinued, but at least it finished with all factions having parity.
For initiative, Horus Heresy 2nd edition has a fun twist. Turns play out like normal where one side does all their actions and then it flips, but during one player’s turn, the other player has Reactions. Reactions are a set list of actions they can use on their units under set circumstances that allow them to still be involved even when it isn’t their turn. There are limitations like not being able to do multiple Reactions per unit and you can only have so many per phase, but it’s really fun. And the best part is that every army in the game (minus Custodes and Sisters of Silence but they don’t care) have unique twists or additions to said reactions. Each Space Marine Legion has their own Advanced Reaction, which is a special one exclusive to them that can only be done once a game, and these can get very fun. A personal favorite of mine is the Iron Warriors one where they shoot back at an enemy that shot them, but with 3 times the number of shots and a chance to overheat the guns. And on top of all that, what warlords you pick can give you more reactions in different phases while they’re still alive. So you can augment your reaction roster a little
I only know of one game that does it, but making terrain setup part of the game. In _Age of Hannibal_ the board is divided into sectors before play. A deck of terrain cards representing the area is shuffled and dealt to the two players. Taking turns, the players place a card face down in an empty sector adjacent to their table edge or one of their placed cards. This represents each side's scouts finding advantageous terrain for the army. For instance, if you have heavy cavalry or chariots, you might place "open plain" cards straight up the middle of the table, ignoring the flanks, to ensure your troops have a path to charge the enemy. If you're mostly skirmishers and medium infantry you might place woods, hills and uneven ground across the table to keep them from being run down. After all cards are placed, flip them face up and place terrain.
I love rolling on the rando loot or injury tables in either Mordheim or Frostgrave at the end of the game and then taking those new positive or negative attributes into the next game just makes everything feel sort of alive.
My favorite wargame mechanic is hit points. The idea that some units may take multiple hits to put down or several more hits than most units makes that unit more formidable or resilient. It warrants different strategies and different tactics to address. It could be a critical component for running a successful campaign or enduring those situations when you lose the initiative.
Nice list! I would like to mention a few great rules myself: * first two rules from Conquest: The Last Argument of Kings. Their intiative system is alternating activations, but you have to prepare the order in which you activate your units at the start of the round. When it is your time to go you flip the next card from the stack you prepared and that unit gets activated. So you are trying to anticipate your opponents moves and sometimes they'll surprise you and your clever plan suddenly went down the drain or vice versa :D The second rule I like from Conquest is the deployment system. No units start on the board. Only light units can enter on turn 1 (a die roll decides for each unit if it enters or not), on turn 2 the odds for lights to come on improves and medium units get their shot at coming in, turn 3 all remaining light units enter automatically, odds for mediums increase and heavy units have their first opportunity (though once per round you can nominate 1 unit that is allowed to come on during that turn to automatically succeed their roll, so you aren't just at the mercy of the dice). So light units aren't just faster moving and heavy units more armored - they arrive at different times on the battlefield. * Secondly I really like Dropfleet commanders range system. All weapons have a certain range, which adds in how "visible" an enemy ship is. So the formula is "weapon range + target signature". The ships get bigger energy signatures the more stuff they do when they activate - shooting every single weapon? Or pushing the engines to their limits? That will increase their energy signature significantly for that round, making them easier targets. It really nicely simulates that you don't actually see your opponents ships in space - you know where they are from sensor readings, if they do stuff to be more easily detectable you can lock on your weapons from farther away!
Kampgruppe Commander, now up to version 3. A player rolls a number of command points at the beginning of the turn. The command points are modified by the skill of the leader. Points are allocated to a unit to move, fire rally etc. Ponts can be allocated for a unit to move, fire etc 2x or more by allocating additional points. The opponent can interrupt the phasing players move or fire, by rolling against unit's skill and having command points deducted from their next turn. I am simplifying for brevity, but the ability to reflect the commander's skill and unit skill and also being able to interrupt your opponent's turn is the highlight of this rule set.
Overwatch. Something I really appreciate is when games abstract in a clever way to effect of continuous fire without putting in an interrupt (which slows things down).
My fav initiative mechanic is from Pulp Alley. At the start the players roll a d6 (this is the only roll for initiative in the whole game), and the highest number will be the Director. The Director is who choose a player (who can be him, or another player), and that player activates a model. The Director title can be changed in the game: doing objectives, or winning fights. It is very exciting , because sometimes it is better if the other player activates first.
When it comes to game length, I prefer something more open ended or something for the players to decide. One of problems I have with a set game length is players who run down the clock or the mad dash at the end of the game to secure locations. It detracts from the "realism" of the game for me that everyone would just hide until the last minute before charging out to fight. Unless it's a sports game, that's not how things work. 🤷♂️
I can see fixed turn lengths are useful for tournament’ style games where scoring / limited time periods are favourable. But for more Narrative style games I agree with your point that this ‘breaks’ the story being told unless there is a narrative reason for the limit eg. The spaceship you are on will explode in x turns.
@haydenburnham4103 That's a valid point. In the one Reign in Hell game I played, I was able to win because I was able to swoop in and secure the objective (king of the hill) because I waited until the last turn to pile on it.
Hey, really great video. Completely agree with all of these. Especially the last point about having all rules and datasheets in one book. The latest version of Bolt Action did this and it's a lot easier to manage.
I am on board with all your likes. I find I like to have interesting dice mechanisms. Space Weirdos uses 2 dice for a check which gives an interesting bell curve dynamic plus the dice type shifts the dynamic making the along the scale letting the player judge the odds in a different way. Another is Monsterpocalypse in which the actions on the table change the dice pools giving the player more or less resources to use in order to further change dice pools for advantage.
Funny enough, Darktide has almost all of them and I really enjoyed it...with a few homemade rules. The initiative mechanic, number of rounds is infinite but most missions have mechanics to make you hurry up, there's a campaign and upgrades and everything you need to play is within the box.
I love the initiative system in the Runewars Miniatures Game. Units move depending on what action they have been ordered to do at the start of the round. Keeps everything moving with a few surprises along the way.
The way you described rolling to see if the game ends after turns 5, 6, and 7, reminds me of my favorite mechanic from the board game Betrayal at the House on the Hill. Every time you reveal an "Omen" tile, you roll 6 special dice (equal chances per die of rolling 0, 1, or 2). If the total of the dice is lower than the total of revealed omens, then the next phase of the game begins. I always liked how there was a chance of it happening right away, or that it could go on longer than usual, but that it usually happens around the 5th -7th time. It might be a fun way to augment some rules out there.
I like interesting initiative systems. I also like it when the unit's ability is somehow reflected in the initiative. Heavy Gear is a simple "roll to see who goes first and then alternate" but the roll uses the overall commander's Tactics Skill, so it's not just a simple 50-50. Stargrunt II makes a roll to see if a unit will actually do what you told it to do, and this is affected by both the unit's quality and the unit leader's ability. And so on. Time limits are almost never fun. They generally force everyone to have the same style of force and play in the same way, they rarely make any kind of narrative sense, and they encourage you to let a unit stand on an objective marker and get shot to pieces just so you can claim the "points" and thus the victory. But if it was a real fight in the real world, that victory would be very short lived as the all-but-dead unit would be obliterated a few minutes later and the only real long-term effect would be that the war lasted an extra day. Sometimes a time limit has a good reason for existing: if you were doing a Battle of Hoth fights, say, then the Empire might have to reach a certain point by Turn 5 or the Rebel leadership has escaped. But if the default play is "stand on this spot for four turns" then in my experience the game is frustrating and immersion breaking; the story has been jettisoned in favour of a game mechanic and you might as well be using checkers instead of minis at that point. One you didn't mention is a "damage" system that reflects actual fighting. Most people in a modern (meaning eighteenth century or later) firefight never get killed. Heck, most of them never even get hurt. Fights go on only until one side decides it can't win, and then they retreat. Games where accuracy of fire and morale impacts matter more than "did that bullet go through your armour" are much more interesting. Games where the objective is to force the enemy off the board rather than killing everyone on the other team are also much more interesting. For me, Stargrunt II is an excellent example of this, although my memory is that Bolt Action does a good job with it, too.
I really dig the Star Wars Legion activation mechanic - mostly alternating, but you can’t always guarantee what unit you’ll be able to activate since you draw tokens for unit type. But then you layer the command cards on top of that for an element of control. It’s all a nice combination, and adds a couple of interesting decision points in each turn.
Conquest's deck building system adds a nice complexity to the game when you look at the board and try to figure out how your opponents will play and distrub their game.
The stealth mechanic in 02 Hundred Hours is a work of genius, and the activation system is great too. Couldn't agree more about the initative and campaign rules being critical to a great wargame. Thanks for the content.
Been playing County Road Z , Solo Campaign. Sooo much fun! Love Campaign games that I can play Solo or Co-Op. They zombie AI is really well done, and the randomness of each mission is superb! Also a fan of the Base building Mechanics, or non combat based strategy parts of the campaign. There is even alternative rules if you want to skip that part and just play a Road Trip style and just use vehicles instead of a Base. Never knew making modern terrain was this addictive.
I agree with your choices. I always enjoyed the mechanic in Warmaster where you would take leadership tests from your heros to activate units. Once you fail you can't give anymore commands that turn with that hero. It could really throw a wrench in your plans!
An interesting variation on the initiative roll in Rumbleslam is that you roll for initiative each round, but you have to nominate which model is going first regardless of the initiative roll.
I love the initiative mechanic of card stacks, like the old Confrontation game or the newer Conquest, Last Argument of Kings. The fact that you have to set up your stack before knowing who will get the first action can be very interesting and can lead to some amazing failures on your side.
In TechCommander the initiative is pretty interesting. In the Deathmatch game mode, each player draws a card with a number corresponding to their spawn location, then all players roll-off for the order in the turn. After the turn is over, any spawning units will use the same procedure, surviving units also roll for initiative. Each turn is different, and players need to keep their head on a swivel because with multi-players games, the state of play is constantly changing from one turn to the next. Also, bonus, TechCommander is a one-book system.
I really like the Silver Bayonet mechanic where you roll 2D10 (different colours) to hit and depending the type of weapon, the damage if you succeed is the number on one or other of those dice. A nice way to have less rolling but you also get that hope that the more important of the two dice rolls higher. Also feels a little more narrative in a way.
Full Spectrum Dominance is worth a look on the initiative front. While technically IgoUgo, deciding how many action dice to spend on a unit affects how much it can do. Also, the Command trait allows your activation to flow down to other units. The Activation Dice mechanic ends up being more important than "initiative" per se.
I dislike having to buy new books to play as it's a barrier for people who just want to play. But, I love stuff that adds to the fiction of the universe or adds new missions type things. So good on my list are art books, novels, campaign books like in D&D or Frostgrave. Things that you don't have to buy, but add enjoyment if you are really into it and want to gold plate your experience. I look at it sort of like the cash shop cosmetics(good) vs pay to win(bad) stuff in video games.
one of the things one of my groups has done in "Oldhammer" type games (like Rogue Trader) is use a card deck for activation. like each unit gets a card, if that units card gets pulled they do something. Put a Joker in the deck and when that comes up something weird happens at GM discretion.
I like Stargrave activation mechanics - first the crew captain and up to three models in the 3" range and LOS activates, then the first mate and up to three models in 3" and LOS and then the rest of the crew - this greatly simulates how the initiative goes from the higher rank to lower rank models.
Warmachine has a Boost mechanic in which you can roll and keep an additional D6 on an attack or damage roll, so if you need a roll of 9 to hit you may spend a Focus to boost the roll, as 3D6 have a much better chance of rolling a 9+ than 2D6 will. Similarly, boosting damage rolls can make that hit really count. It's a game mechanic that Warmachine players have loved for years.
Not exactly initiative but "start of turn" mechanics that I liked : - Warmachine control phase (resource allocation), - SAGA orders phase (good mix of randomness and planning)
We changed the Bolt Action dice mechanic for cards. 1 card of a suit for each unit. Instead of a die in your color, there is a suit. Basically, a randomizer that remembers as it were, reduces the bag shaking, worrying about different dice... We use the same mechanic for Battletech Alpha Strike because we didn't like the..."You have 8 units, I have 5, when does who move 2 units?" discussions.
Totally agree with point one. We're in a golden age where models are so fantastic that it no longer really matters as much as the rules. If the mechanics pull me in and help me suspend disbelief, then it's doing it's job. Otherwise it feels like a bumpy road trying to get anything done.
Rather than “game ends after X rounds” I strongly prefer “something big happens after X rounds”. Something explodes, the demon awakens, etc. A new inclusion that pushes the game to its end at x2 speed but doesn’t arbitrarily end it mid-stream.
The best mechanic for army scale games: instead of moving each model individually, move the unit leader and then place the rest in coherency/certain radius.
Star Wars Legion has that mechanic, and I LOVE it! Don’t have to be a stickler for the exact distance of every model.
I haven't even gotten to play the game yet, but Ravaged Star by MiniWarGaming does this and I just adore the idea. For some of their units, they have the Leaderless rule, which means you pick a model to be the leader each time the game would call for a leader. So you can kind of "leap frog" the leader from the front to the back to use the unit in interesting ways. Need to move? Pick a model at the front. Need to be behind cover? Well, the game targets the leader, so pick the unit in the back that's behind the wall.
The trade off is that these units often have lower speed, weaker stats, etc. Because they've got all these mechanical benefits going for them.
I wish more platoon scale games did this.
Firefight does this! Such a simple wargame that it actually has an alternating activation system.
@@Thetracker69I pledged the game too. Between this rule, and the initiative rule (not to mention Viking space dwarves with mecha), I look forward to trying the game.
I like Warcry's initiative mechanic. Making the initiative roll also the source of special abilities makes for a fun trade-off where winning the initiative may result in your opponent having access to more special abilities, or more powerful abilities, for the coming round. In addition the wild dice mechanic gives some useful tools for players to tweak their roll more to their liking.
Warcry is so fun I'm amazed GW made it
Deadzone uses a similar method. Making Deadzone a great sci fi analogue from a design standpoint.
Warcry is really great - I hope they don’t screw it up next summer. Thanks for watching!
@@tabletopminions the Kill Team rework, and the fact they have made all the rules free etc. gives me hope. However I can't think of much in Warcry that needs changes.
I loved Warcry but could never find anyone who actually played it.
My favorite mechanic is definitely Battletech's shooting phase with all damaged being applied after the phase is complete.
It's really nice to let everyone do something before they get blown off the table.
Feels like a real conflict is going on when you have the mentality that it's all happening simultaneously in "real" time
There's a Viking skirmish game called Ravenfeast that does very much the same thing. Everyone swings at the same time and the hits that land get resolved afterwards.
@@ericfinley220 agreed. I hate igougo. It makes zero sense that 100% of your army can shoot bullets into 100% of mine and still act like I can shoot. Sometimes, people get the drop on you and that's why per-unit activation is better, but most people who already play 40k can't fathom that because their attention span has been trained into spending 20-30 hardcore minutes moving and shooting their entire army and then being able to "check out" from the battlefield and let their opponents do their thing for another 20 to 30 minutes.
Per unit activation is better. Most people have been trained away from that. Faction rules from scale-battle war games like 40k and age of sigmar are ruining the game design and philosophy of killteam and warcry as per unit activation games. I absolutely HATE tabletop games that play deep into the rules as their form of gameplay. I enjoy games that go deep into movement, line of sight, diverse terrain, unique weapon rules, silly dice interactions, rolling for saves against successes, making explosion sounds with my facehole while my little dudes get blown off the table, appropriate amounts of faction flavor and lore flavor, special game mechanics that don't beg eratta, faqs, or more than a paragraph to explain (ambush and deep strikes are nicely simple like that).
I don't want to find out your plague marines get to roll the OPR Grimdark Firefight Regeneration Rule when that silly dice rule doesn't apply for anyone else. Silly dice coming from faction rules are bad. Rules like Astartes in Killteam that simply say "shoot twice for bolt weapons, fight twice with any melee" IN MY HUMBLE AND OFTEN FRUSTRATED OPINION are GOOOOOOOOD. As a game design philosophy, leave the silly dice to the weapon rules, and the hard counter stuff to the faction rules. Good God almighty
Sounds like you just described One Page Rules to me, and that continues to make me overjoyed that we've found this game.
1) *Infinity's* ARO system that let's you feel like it's always your turn!
2) *Malifaux's* cheating card system that facilitates tough choices and great mind games!
3) *Moonstone's* card-based battle system that makes you actually feel like you're in an actual sword duel!
My first two mechanics as well that came to mind were the ARO system and then Malifaux with the fate deck and cheating :)
Of the various game systems I have played, Malifaux is the one that I enjoyed the most. The Initiative, the Chain activation, the generic base size/height stat that eliminated modeling for advantage were all aspects that made the game much more interesting.
My favourite part about Malifaux, is that you are the one playing the cards - it's completely different from dice being rolled, re-rolled, and whatever. I don't feel any different depending on which player rolls the die - some people feel an illusion of agency when they do it, for some reason.
I agree with the ARO. Fantastic rule
I like the rule where casualties are taken at the end of the shooting or close combat phase which allows all models to do something before removing them, like Ravenfeast.
This is a mechanic that can help offset initiative advantages. In some games where you have random initiative and models are removed as soon as they take enough damage, one player winning initiative 2-3 times in a row is all but a guaranteed win.
I really like the sound of this. It's perhaps a bit abstract (but then, we're playing with toy soldiers - it kind of always will be to a greater or lesser extent) and I feel like this allows a model to still do stuff while not preventing an opponent just laying waste to your stuff. Never heard of Ravenfeast I don't think, but might have to take a look.
@@badbones777 Not really any more abstract than any other initiative method. The idea is usually that everything happens more or less simultaneously. Even if a unit gets to go first and fires a fatal shot into another unit, by the time they have done that, the killed unit has already made their attack as well, etc. Basically everyone is declaring what they do and then at the end of the round it's all resolved. Classic Battletech does something similar.
@Wafflebob it does sound really interesting
The most thematic activation system I have come across is in Gaslands. The turn is split into phases represented by gears. What gear your individual car is in determines when it goes in the turn and what templates you can use for movement. Also one book and a big bag of second hand hot wheels, that's some superb cheap gaming right there.
@@basstedson +1 for Gaslands. The activation system is great.
Modding toy cars is a big plus, too. I really enjoy that.
Now buy a bunch of keychain 6-speed gear shifts for the players, and a 6-speed manual gear shift from your local junkyard mounted on a board for the gear phase indicator.
Star Wars Legion has a great initiative mechanic with the command cards. The player who plays the card with lower pips gets initiative. But there’s a trade off because lower pip cards generally activate less units. Also, the effect of the card as well as what unit(s) they activate require thoughtful timing as to which particular card to play. Sometimes at a particular juncture you may play a lower pip card because you really want to go first. Other times it’s about the specific units you want to activate, and other times it’s about the effect the card grants. Or sometimes it can be all of the above at once.
I really enjoy rules which keep units alive to act. Hobgoblin only makes "damage" count at the end of a round, so everyone gets to act, same as Alphastrike. Turnip has (usually) simultaneous firefights. Warmaster requires at least three damage per phase, so you need to go hard or go home. I spend time creating that army, I want to use it!
Uncle Adam, I just want you to know, I really don't care to play the wargames themselves, but man, do I love hearing you talk about them. Thanks for making my day a little better, have a great weekend.
I appreciate that, honestly. Thanks for watching!
I recall my favorite mechanic or rule of original Warhammer Quest was what would occur between battles or dungeon runs. You could travel to a village, town, or city. Traveling to villages take less weeks than to city, but gives you less options for what you can do in the larger settlements. Things could randomly happen every week as you travel, like encountering travelers on the road or being waylaid by bandits who steal your gold. When in a settlement, you would spend gold every night to room and board and random things could happen in town too. Each passing week heals your model’s hp for the next battle, but exposes you to random event risks like muggings or being pickpocketed or getting tricked by swindlers or your models simply getting bored and going gambling and drinking risking losing gold or hp in a bar brawl (depending on how you roll on event tables). You could also visit establishments like alehouses, the governor’s mansion to curry favor, or even an underground chaos cult temple to pray to dark gods if you played a chaos warrior. There were no experience points at all in the game… to level up, you had to use gold - and only gold - to hire a specific trainer to train each of your models to the next level (which also takes time, thus requiring more gold spent for room and board), all while balancing buying supplies, gear, and potions, thus making saving and earning Gold in battles and dungeon runs the driving force in the game. Ingenious system. I don’t know any other game past or present that had something so immersive
5 Parsecs from Home (and I assume 5 Leagues) has a lot of activities between battles.
Look in to Shadows Over Brimstone! It's WQ95 with cowboys meets cthulhu. It has towns between dungeons and fan content that adds to it. Dungeon Dive has a really good video series all about it.
Yeah original warhammer quest was quite literally a perfect game.
@@edwardclay7551 Well, hold up there partner... I loved the game, but it did have a few "problem areas". 1. The bad guys just sort of spawned around you and they had very little tactics aside from surrounding your heros and attacking. 2. The portcullis card could make a dungeon run impossible. 3. The death-rate was quite brutal... A few bad rolls in the first couple of rooms of the first dungeon, and your whole group of adventures could meet a really early (and disappointing) death. But inspite of these, they game was still bunches of fun to play.
I love it when games have a DBX style combat where instead of typical combat statistics the combat is based on matchups, like Cavalry destroys light foot if it outscores it by just a point, light infantry cannot be destroyed by heavy infantry when not flanked etc. This makes combat way more engaging and based on tactical decisions.
I love how MCP does opposed dice rolls, it makes it feel like you're doing things even on your opponents turn because you're both modifying each other's dice. Amd the dice system allows a lot more granularity than success/failure with various triggered effects. All of it is still somehow incredibly intuitive with easy to read iconography.
MCP is my favorite game.
My favorite game mechanic is this guy named Vito over on Main St. He can fix a game while you’re still playing. Generally involves “special dice”.
You nailed it. Especially the bit about the lack of need to buy multiple books just to play an army ….and then have those books be outdated within a couple months before you’ve finished painting your army. 😅
Bushido's Attack and Defense dice mechanics that make every melee exchange and interactive bluff between you and your opponent to decide how many dice you want to put in defense or attack, no matter whose turn it is
Heroscpe’s activation system is its best feature.
Each round, we roll initiative & each player is given 4 activation tokens.
Players then covertly place the 4 tokens, labeled 1-3 & X, face down on their units’ cards..
In initiative order, players alternate unit activation, based on their token’s order.
Units with no token will not act this round, neither will units with the X token.
This gives the players partial information & a bluff mechanic.
The game Heroes of Normandie took the hidden order mechanic one step further by allowing all remaining units (any that did not receive a numbered activation token) to activate in a turn segment known as the Supply Phase. They may not shoot or melee during this activation, but it allows a player to maneuver them into a position where they could be activated for combat in the next turn. I've thought about incorporating the rule into games of Heroscape.
An activation mechanic I prefer is leaders activating units. This adds an element of role play. And it is kind of realistic. Soldiers need people to coordinate their actions. Some games that do this well are Frostgrave, 7tv and Chain Reaction
I agree with one book, per game. As a Old AD&D guy, I understood the three books. One is how to play, one is how to run the game, and one of all the monsters. Only the one running the game needed to buy all three, but if you were never going to run a game, then all you need is the first handbook on how to play. I like the role a set amount of dice to role for initiative. For a two player game. Thanks😊
Blood Bowl's "press your luck" game turn is one of its more interesting mechanics. Yes, it's an I-Go-You-Go game, but because your turn can abruptly end if you fail a roll, it means you always have to be careful how you sequence your turn.
Which I think is the worst part of that archaic game
@greystorm9974 To each their own. I quite enjoy it, but I do recognize that not everyone enjoys the random elements of Blood Bowl.
I hope you and your friends have as much fun with your preferred games as I have with mine. :)
Silver Bayonet has two great mechanics:
1. The winner of the initiative roll goes first but only with ½ their force. Then it’s the monster phase followed by the loser of the roll activating all their miniatures. Finally the winner activates the remainder of their troops. This approach allows the winner some ability to deal with the monsters/opponent but they then have to weather the storm.
2. Shooting and Melee attacks use 2d10s, a power and a skill dice with a target defence stat number to beat. The weapon either wounds on the power dice roll (eg Blunderbus) or the skill dice (eg fencing sword). Players also start the game with 1 re-roll for each dice which helps turn a 10 & 1 into something deadly.
The Silver Bayonet game has taken over as our go to game this year. So much so that one of the group has reskinned it for space and the rules can be found at the Laser Bayonet FB Group.
Oh and it’s all in one book (apart from the expansions - we’re off to the pyramids next year, what could possibly go wrong?)
The dice system has other effects down the line. Since your rerolls per dice type are limited, you don't want to overload your team with all one damage dice type. You can get additional rerolls by capturing objectives. A simple mechanic like that informing your entire team building strategy and game play priorities is good design.
I thought silver bayonet had an official sci-fi ruleset. Or am I thinking of Star grave?
@@HeadCannonPrimeStargrave is also by Joseph McCulloch but uses a different d20 system. My group prefer the reskin of the Laser Bayonet rules and plan to run the Stargrave campaigns next year with the modified Silver Bayonet mechanic.
One Page Rules has all of these (in their advanced rule sets). My son, friends, and I recently started playing, and I honestly haven’t had as much fun playing tabletop wargames since the 1990s with 4th Edition Warhammer Fantasy.
Bolt Action's use of order dice is a great mechanic and sets up situations where both you and your opponent desperately want the next dice!
Couple that with scenarios that have a fixed length (6 turns with the possibility of 7 being the norm), and different ways to win (taking objectives, moving to specific parts of the playing area and/or killing enemy units), means the (re)playability is very high and varied.
One of the most enjoyable 'rules discussions' that I've seen for a long time and I especially liked the examples you gave. Yes please, more of this kind of video.
Chain of Command by Too Fat Lardies has all or elements of all these three. The activation mechanic is deeper than Bolt Action, you have a fixed number of activation dice to use for all your stuff so you might not act with everything every time it's your go, and leaders can activate elements that are below them in the chain of command, so are more action efficient (you can activate a squad on a roll of 2, or you can activate a squad using a senior leader on a roll of 4, and then the leader can do or activate two more things!). Before you start deploying (assets deploy as an activation when they are off table, and they stay off table until you deploy them) there is a patrol phase to decide deployment points which makes the game overall very tactical and reactive. The game ends when you achieve a particular objective, or when one side's force morale goes to 0. It starts between 8-11 and is reduced by Bad Things happening (leaders injured, tanks exploded, squads wiped out etc) so you don't really know how resilient your dudes are until they get to face combat. Once they have faced combat, there is a campaign system for in between games: getting casualties back, deciding the men's opinion of their commander and gaining bonuses or maluses for the next map in the campaign and so on, AND there are a ton of Pint Sized Campaigns that cost the price of a beer and offer many many sessions of play, with historical background and organisations.
And if you are not into WW2 or historics in general, ALL of these systems can be transplanted to other games, as long as there is a chain of command, which there usually is to some extent, generals, heroes, wizards, Primaris Sergeants et cetera can all be classified as either junior (~squad level) leaders or senior (~platoon level) leaders.
Agree totally, the patrol phase in CoC is a brilliant mechanic.
I personally think Chain of Command is WAY better / more fun / fog-of-war-ish than Bolt Action. Bolt Action feels like 40K (...1940k) but with just a few better mechanics. Chain of Command feels like WWII (well... the movies, since I wasn't there for the real thing.)
@@GregX999 I absolutely agree, I have no desire to take my WW2 figs and use them for Bolt Action. If I had nobody to play CoC with, I'd work on poaching BA players instead...
Second on this one. Favorite rule set by significant margin
Deadzone's initiative works like this: round one is a command roll, and every other round is determined by who finished activating their models first. In a game alternating activations (and the ability to activate twice for resources) this is like a blue shell if you're losing and a solid advantage to low model-count factions.
Also pretty much all Mantic games are one book by design: Deadzone technically has a separate one for rules and forces but they're sold together; Firefight bundled both into one book with the Command Protocols update; and Kings of War has one book for rules & forces for like, 28 different factions (plus yearly rules updates called Clash of Kings). I find it much easier to list build when you can compare your army's stats against others.
I really like Star Wars Shatterpoint's activation system. Each of your 6 characters is in your deck of cards. Players alternate their activations and randomly draw the character they will activate. To keep things interesting and less random:
- a 'joker' card lets you choose any character for activation (so one character will activate a second time)
- you can 'reserve' a card for later use and draw another card (this costs a precious resource)
- some characters can manipulate your deck or get special abilites when activated via the joker card or played from reserve
Carnevale has fun initiative: it's a roll off with the number of dice determined by the character in your force with the highest remaining command points. But these command points are also used in the game for special abilities, so utilising those might sacrifice your chance for initiative. If you've got even a single CP left and your opponent none, then you automatically have initiative and that can be a powerful factor to hold onto.
Man I wish carnevale was more popular. So sweet
That sounds cool. Never heard of the game, I'll have to look it up!
My top 3:
1) Moonstones card based stuff, both magic arcane and fighting. the whole bluffing aspect is amazing
2) BLKOut's lean out mechanic. Put a token the size of you base touching so you can look around corners without sacrificing your cover modifiers
3) deadzone's cubes. Just makes things super easy when it comes to range and movement.
Bolt actions activation mechanic is one my favorites. Loved using it during Gates of Anteres back when that was at its height.
the bolt action dice bag is my favorite activation system of all time. Alternating activations that simulates the fog of war and its unpredictability while still feeling fair and grounded in strategy. and it's elegantly simple in concept.
Fatigue mechanic in Saga is brilliant. Also order dice mechanic are good in saga. There's no separate morale mechanics but more units you lose less order dice you have and less activations you can do. It's also well thought out mechanic as you need to lose certain amount of models to lose the order dice and not whole unit. Player could have remnants of several units on the table and only one order dice left which essentially means theres nothing they can do and the game is over. This emulates the overall morale of the army really well.
Fatigue mechanic in Saga is so good that Trench Crusade uses a modified version of it as well. :)
The game also encourages the min-maxing of activation dice by using smaller units, but at the risk of easily losing those dice when units fall below a minimum. Your special abilities are easier to get off as well since you have more dice to prime them, but have less punch because you are using them on smaller units. It's a good risk/reward system
And this activation system breaks the "1 unit / 1 activation" pattern. You don't have to activate everything, instead you have more options to plan your turn.
Infinity ARO system keeps the game engaging for both sides throughout the game
I love the Turn 0 mission building and the pip initiative/order system mechanics in Star Wars: Legion. So fun and flexible.
Uncertainty of command. A player issues orders to a unit, then checks to see if the order was successful. Unsuccessful orders will end all orders to that group of units. The rule creates a fog of war effect where you are never certain if units will act or not. Hail Caesar and To The Strongest use this type of command rule.
Fights of Fantasy uses an initiative/activation system similar to that used by Bolt-Action except that players put numbered tiles into a bag. They draw a tile for each unit or character during what’s called the marshaling phase at the beginning of a turn. The tile is then placed next to the respective unit or character and that is the order from lowest to highest that each acts in each phase for the duration of the current turn. The number of tiles equals twice the units on the board because certain leader and character traits and magic spells can cause/permit players to draw multiple tiles (they choose which one to keep) for a unit or character. Some spells allow a player to draw new tiles for a unit to make them act earlier or later in a turn (to help their own troops or hurt their opponent’s). At the end of the turn all the tiles are gathered up and placed back in the bag and the process repeats with the next turn. This randomization makes it challenging because you may need a unit to act at a certain time but the tile you draw isn’t what you needed. This sort of simulates battlefield confusion, fog-of-war, or unit hesitation. It means that players are constantly scanning the board to see which unit or character will be going next which helps keep people engaged in the game. It’s also a very simple, easy-to-learn process.
I just wanted to pop in and say I’ve been a fan of your videos for a long time. And your videos are a great place to go for stress relief. Hearing your voice is calming and the subjects you choose are interesting and your views are logical and informative. Thanks Tio for all the work you put into making our hobby enjoyable 🎉
I started making a ttwg at the beginning of last month and it was actually one of your videos that inspired me to add the initiate roll in it instead of the I go you go system, but when it comes to separate "books", I would like to go with that since it allows me to focus more on a specific faction while the core rules will just go over the game itself and this doesn't run the risk of making the main core rules book as thick as a dictionary
One rule I love in Wargames is the roll to attack with a chance you explode/troops devour eachother, like with Turnip28
Not a wargame but in the board game Spartacus i like that a gladiator has x dice for attack y for defense z for speed and those also represent life points. Each damage you choose which dice to discard so they become weaker/slower as they get injured.
Worms: The Board Game by mantic has a really good mechanic.
There is a set number of supply cards, two for each player plus two extra.
When the supply cards are all drawn, a random sudden death card comes into play, e.g. destroying tiles, so the gameboard gets smaller.
Really speeds up the endgame.
I may be an outlier, but I did not get notified of this new episode and it didn’t even show up in my feed in the time sequence. Is this something that anyone else is noticing?
And you’re one of my favorite RUclipsrs! Never want to miss anything.
Having a good initiative system can completely change a game. The game I'm working on, Combat Tails - a game of Anthropomorphic soldiers, has each unit getting a number of 'charges' these are just dice that you can spend on actions. The number of charges you have determines when in the initiative order you act. Characters (players or enemies as it is a single player and co-op game) activate based on the number of charges, starting at 6, and going down to 1.
The number of charges you get is based on your equipment loadout - the more you carry, the slower you are. Each round you add the number of charges (again, dice) to your charge meter to determine initiative. Leaders can give dice to other characters to speed them up, And there is an 'Escalation pool' mechanic that you can take dice from, but when it's empty, it changes the effect of the game - enemies might do more damage, or move faster and so on.
The game will also be having a campaign - The players are controlling a member of the Combat Tails team.
Combat Tails is the codename for the daring and highly trained, Anthropomorphic Special Mission Force - it's purpose; to protect mammal freedom from the Ruthless Reptilian Forces of SCALE!
As you progress, you combat SCALE, defeating their plans.
I like having cards for each unit. especially in games where those cards come in the same box as the unit.
I like the initiative mechanics in Rogue Stars, a small scifi skirmish game. You pick a model, then make an "activation roll" for that model. If you succeed, you activate that model and can then make another activation roll for the next one and so on, either until you're done with all your models or choose to let the opponent go. But, if you ever fail an activation roll, the opponent can steal the initiative and make their own activation roll.
I have a copy of Rogue Stars but haven't had the chance to play it. But the initiative system is one of the reasons I've been wanting to play it.
It’s basically the Song of Blades and Heroes activation system - which makes sense, it’s written by the same guy. Thanks for watching!
I loved that you went above and beyond for this video and directed a whole WW2 battle scene :D
Exactly - I totally didn’t type “ww2 battle” into the stock video service I use and then pick one that worked. Thanks for watching!
Mr. Welch, while he is mostly known for RPG's, has a saying as follows. "Good art can sell a bad book or game. But bad art or no art can simply kill a great game!"
A good example of this is look at GW's books and packaging for their miniatures. Their games currently being made and sold have beautiful cover art on the books and the packaging for the miniatures beautifully shows off the miniatures and at least for 40k is color coded for each faction. But let's face it, the rules set for 40k are OK to good... at best.
A good example of bad art/packaging is Kings of War. Their packaging for miniatures does nothing to show off the miniatures in the box and most of the time the photograph on the front of the box of the miniatures has them painted in a color scheme which blends in with the background & foreground that is using the same color scheme more often than not.
More often than not, new players are sold on some if it looks cool, sounds cool or has a cool story/background/lore.
Humans - in general - are attracted to looks. But looks will fade, especially when you’re playing a lousy ruleset. Thanks for watching!
I would agree mostly. Warhammer the old world is a rule bloat trainwreck with huge barriers to entry for new players.
In Demonworld, the player who has given out the least orders for the current phase (ranged combat, move, close combat) decides who goes first. This can become very interesting as soon as you get into close combat range. Attack orders give initiative bonuses no matter who attacks first, but at the same time you might not want to give the order so you can get a strategic advantage over the enemy. The game is full of these neath mechanics, but they all end up in a lot of mental arithmetic.
Set number of turns and campaign play are two of the reasons Forbidden Psalm is probably my favorite wargame at the moment, and has been for a while now.
Star Wars Shatterpoint has a pretty neat initiative mechanic. Each player has a deck of cards, 1 for each unit, plus 1 shatterpoint and alternates drawing one and activating that unit. If you draw a unit you don't want to use yet you can bank one, to use later and draw again, or use your banked unit once you have one. The shatterpoint card is basically wild, letting you activate any unit you want. I've been so slow painting my stuff up I don't remember 100% how it all works, but if I got something wrong - well this is the internet, I'm sure someone will be along momentarily to correct it.
I feel that last one was a snipe at GW 😂
I can almost guarantee it was . To be honest though GW charges more for everything than anyone else
@garypeyman932 I was looking at the price of Duncan Rhodes paints this morning and couldn't believe how expensive they are for a GW alternative.
@@benbonney true enough but those paints are aimed at the real painters , they're a luxury item . In terms of the things you need though they're generally more expensive .
Conquest LAOK has all rules available for free alongside an army builder on an app. 10/10 design. Also allows for easy changes to be made.
I love alternate activations and have adapted that and the ordrrs from Legions Imperialis to our games of 40k. We have had to do some tweaking with rules and stratagems,but it has made 40k so much more enjoyable to us.
Blood & Plunder has everything you mentioned and so much more!
bolt action 3 has the same old initiative system 😊 it is also an opr optional rule. by the way😊
Also used in Warlords of Erehwon and Gates of Antares.
If it ain't broke...
The Too Fat Lardies always have interesting activation systems. Chain of Command's command dice and patrol phase really sold me on that game, and their card-based activation from Sharp Practice/Infamy Infamy make for some really interesting games. I also use 'At the Sharp End' for campaigns in pretty much every rule system i own.
I also like crossfire's whole initiative and reactions system, giving the whole game a fast-paced and chaotic feel (although the rules for vehicles are really bad).
You picked some seriously good mechanics to highlight!
Blood and Plunder is my favorite initiative system. You and your opponent draw from a deck of cards equal to the number of units you have at the start of the turn, and then each play one card. Certain suits are faster and slower than others, for example a spade is the fastest and a club the slowest, but playing a slower card gets you more actions that turn. So you can play a spade to try and go first and do 1 action with a unit of your choice, or play a club knowing you'll go second but will get 2 or 3 actions depending on the veterancy level of the unit.
I like bag-drawing for initiative too, especially since you can also put in tokens for the game to activate, be it NPCs, hazards or something else. Zone Wars does this quite well I think.
Campaign rules is almost the most important bit for me, campaign rules that focus more on helping telling the story than making sure everything is balanced like a chess-game. Go wild! Go crazy! Did Steve the zero cost commoner just find Excalibur and now you have a free king? I'm in. Also the leader has taken one too many blows to the head and is now being prodded along? Sure!
I think the third one is when all the rolls are done at once. Like if you attack someone both sides rolls at the same time and that tells you what you need to know.
I do want all the rules to start playing be in one book, I do not mind if they then sell books with new campaigns, classes and gear. In fact I rather like that, as long as it doesn't get confusing and you don't know what books you need, or that you bought a cool model but now have to buy a book to use it.
Late to the party, but Runewars Miniatures Game, a rank and file fantasy wargame by Fantasy Flight Games, has a fantastic activation/initiative system. Each unit has a command dial from which you select which action that unit will take in that round. These actions have an initiative value assigned to them, and players activate units in ascending initiative order.
What this does is create a situation where "who goes first" only matters for initiative ties, so some rounds are laidback with no initiative overlap between players, but other rounds are REALLY tense with multiple confrontations depending on who wins initiative.
Additionally, different units can have different initiatives for the same action, e.g., large units may be slower and have a later melee attack.
The downside is that the initiative is tied to printed components, so if there is a balance issue then the only recourse is to change the cost of units. But for the most part things were well balanced. I wish it weren't discontinued, but at least it finished with all factions having parity.
For initiative, Horus Heresy 2nd edition has a fun twist. Turns play out like normal where one side does all their actions and then it flips, but during one player’s turn, the other player has Reactions. Reactions are a set list of actions they can use on their units under set circumstances that allow them to still be involved even when it isn’t their turn. There are limitations like not being able to do multiple Reactions per unit and you can only have so many per phase, but it’s really fun. And the best part is that every army in the game (minus Custodes and Sisters of Silence but they don’t care) have unique twists or additions to said reactions.
Each Space Marine Legion has their own Advanced Reaction, which is a special one exclusive to them that can only be done once a game, and these can get very fun. A personal favorite of mine is the Iron Warriors one where they shoot back at an enemy that shot them, but with 3 times the number of shots and a chance to overheat the guns. And on top of all that, what warlords you pick can give you more reactions in different phases while they’re still alive. So you can augment your reaction roster a little
I only know of one game that does it, but making terrain setup part of the game. In _Age of Hannibal_ the board is divided into sectors before play. A deck of terrain cards representing the area is shuffled and dealt to the two players. Taking turns, the players place a card face down in an empty sector adjacent to their table edge or one of their placed cards. This represents each side's scouts finding advantageous terrain for the army. For instance, if you have heavy cavalry or chariots, you might place "open plain" cards straight up the middle of the table, ignoring the flanks, to ensure your troops have a path to charge the enemy. If you're mostly skirmishers and medium infantry you might place woods, hills and uneven ground across the table to keep them from being run down. After all cards are placed, flip them face up and place terrain.
Chit pull system is common initiative in most hex and counter war games similar to the dice-bag mentioned
I love rolling on the rando loot or injury tables in either Mordheim or Frostgrave at the end of the game and then taking those new positive or negative attributes into the next game just makes everything feel sort of alive.
My favorite wargame mechanic is hit points. The idea that some units may take multiple hits to put down or several more hits than most units makes that unit more formidable or resilient. It warrants different strategies and different tactics to address. It could be a critical component for running a successful campaign or enduring those situations when you lose the initiative.
Nice list! I would like to mention a few great rules myself:
* first two rules from Conquest: The Last Argument of Kings. Their intiative system is alternating activations, but you have to prepare the order in which you activate your units at the start of the round. When it is your time to go you flip the next card from the stack you prepared and that unit gets activated. So you are trying to anticipate your opponents moves and sometimes they'll surprise you and your clever plan suddenly went down the drain or vice versa :D
The second rule I like from Conquest is the deployment system. No units start on the board. Only light units can enter on turn 1 (a die roll decides for each unit if it enters or not), on turn 2 the odds for lights to come on improves and medium units get their shot at coming in, turn 3 all remaining light units enter automatically, odds for mediums increase and heavy units have their first opportunity (though once per round you can nominate 1 unit that is allowed to come on during that turn to automatically succeed their roll, so you aren't just at the mercy of the dice).
So light units aren't just faster moving and heavy units more armored - they arrive at different times on the battlefield.
* Secondly I really like Dropfleet commanders range system. All weapons have a certain range, which adds in how "visible" an enemy ship is. So the formula is "weapon range + target signature". The ships get bigger energy signatures the more stuff they do when they activate - shooting every single weapon? Or pushing the engines to their limits? That will increase their energy signature significantly for that round, making them easier targets.
It really nicely simulates that you don't actually see your opponents ships in space - you know where they are from sensor readings, if they do stuff to be more easily detectable you can lock on your weapons from farther away!
Kampgruppe Commander, now up to version 3. A player rolls a number of command points at the beginning of the turn. The command points are modified by the skill of the leader. Points are allocated to a unit to move, fire rally etc. Ponts can be allocated for a unit to move, fire etc 2x or more by allocating additional points. The opponent can interrupt the phasing players move or fire, by rolling against unit's skill and having command points deducted from their next turn. I am simplifying for brevity, but the ability to reflect the commander's skill and unit skill and also being able to interrupt your opponent's turn is the highlight of this rule set.
Overwatch. Something I really appreciate is when games abstract in a clever way to effect of continuous fire without putting in an interrupt (which slows things down).
My fav initiative mechanic is from Pulp Alley. At the start the players roll a d6 (this is the only roll for initiative in the whole game), and the highest number will be the Director. The Director is who choose a player (who can be him, or another player), and that player activates a model. The Director title can be changed in the game: doing objectives, or winning fights. It is very exciting , because sometimes it is better if the other player activates first.
When it comes to game length, I prefer something more open ended or something for the players to decide. One of problems I have with a set game length is players who run down the clock or the mad dash at the end of the game to secure locations. It detracts from the "realism" of the game for me that everyone would just hide until the last minute before charging out to fight. Unless it's a sports game, that's not how things work. 🤷♂️
I can see fixed turn lengths are useful for tournament’ style games where scoring / limited time periods are favourable. But for more Narrative style games I agree with your point that this ‘breaks’ the story being told unless there is a narrative reason for the limit eg. The spaceship you are on will explode in x turns.
@haydenburnham4103 That's a valid point. In the one Reign in Hell game I played, I was able to win because I was able to swoop in and secure the objective (king of the hill) because I waited until the last turn to pile on it.
Hey, really great video. Completely agree with all of these. Especially the last point about having all rules and datasheets in one book. The latest version of Bolt Action did this and it's a lot easier to manage.
I am on board with all your likes. I find I like to have interesting dice mechanisms. Space Weirdos uses 2 dice for a check which gives an interesting bell curve dynamic plus the dice type shifts the dynamic making the along the scale letting the player judge the odds in a different way. Another is Monsterpocalypse in which the actions on the table change the dice pools giving the player more or less resources to use in order to further change dice pools for advantage.
Funny enough, Darktide has almost all of them and I really enjoyed it...with a few homemade rules. The initiative mechanic, number of rounds is infinite but most missions have mechanics to make you hurry up, there's a campaign and upgrades and everything you need to play is within the box.
I love the initiative system in the Runewars Miniatures Game. Units move depending on what action they have been ordered to do at the start of the round. Keeps everything moving with a few surprises along the way.
I like the revive mechanic in Relicblade at the end of each round. It doesn't happen often, but it's usually very exciting when it does.
The way you described rolling to see if the game ends after turns 5, 6, and 7, reminds me of my favorite mechanic from the board game Betrayal at the House on the Hill. Every time you reveal an "Omen" tile, you roll 6 special dice (equal chances per die of rolling 0, 1, or 2). If the total of the dice is lower than the total of revealed omens, then the next phase of the game begins.
I always liked how there was a chance of it happening right away, or that it could go on longer than usual, but that it usually happens around the 5th -7th time. It might be a fun way to augment some rules out there.
I like interesting initiative systems. I also like it when the unit's ability is somehow reflected in the initiative. Heavy Gear is a simple "roll to see who goes first and then alternate" but the roll uses the overall commander's Tactics Skill, so it's not just a simple 50-50. Stargrunt II makes a roll to see if a unit will actually do what you told it to do, and this is affected by both the unit's quality and the unit leader's ability. And so on.
Time limits are almost never fun. They generally force everyone to have the same style of force and play in the same way, they rarely make any kind of narrative sense, and they encourage you to let a unit stand on an objective marker and get shot to pieces just so you can claim the "points" and thus the victory. But if it was a real fight in the real world, that victory would be very short lived as the all-but-dead unit would be obliterated a few minutes later and the only real long-term effect would be that the war lasted an extra day. Sometimes a time limit has a good reason for existing: if you were doing a Battle of Hoth fights, say, then the Empire might have to reach a certain point by Turn 5 or the Rebel leadership has escaped. But if the default play is "stand on this spot for four turns" then in my experience the game is frustrating and immersion breaking; the story has been jettisoned in favour of a game mechanic and you might as well be using checkers instead of minis at that point.
One you didn't mention is a "damage" system that reflects actual fighting. Most people in a modern (meaning eighteenth century or later) firefight never get killed. Heck, most of them never even get hurt. Fights go on only until one side decides it can't win, and then they retreat. Games where accuracy of fire and morale impacts matter more than "did that bullet go through your armour" are much more interesting. Games where the objective is to force the enemy off the board rather than killing everyone on the other team are also much more interesting. For me, Stargrunt II is an excellent example of this, although my memory is that Bolt Action does a good job with it, too.
I really dig the Star Wars Legion activation mechanic - mostly alternating, but you can’t always guarantee what unit you’ll be able to activate since you draw tokens for unit type. But then you layer the command cards on top of that for an element of control. It’s all a nice combination, and adds a couple of interesting decision points in each turn.
Conquest's deck building system adds a nice complexity to the game when you look at the board and try to figure out how your opponents will play and distrub their game.
The stealth mechanic in 02 Hundred Hours is a work of genius, and the activation system is great too. Couldn't agree more about the initative and campaign rules being critical to a great wargame. Thanks for the content.
Been playing County Road Z , Solo Campaign. Sooo much fun! Love Campaign games that I can play Solo or Co-Op.
They zombie AI is really well done, and the randomness of each mission is superb!
Also a fan of the Base building Mechanics, or non combat based strategy parts of the campaign. There is even alternative rules if you want to skip that part and just play a Road Trip style and just use vehicles instead of a Base.
Never knew making modern terrain was this addictive.
I agree with your choices. I always enjoyed the mechanic in Warmaster where you would take leadership tests from your heros to activate units. Once you fail you can't give anymore commands that turn with that hero. It could really throw a wrench in your plans!
An interesting variation on the initiative roll in Rumbleslam is that you roll for initiative each round, but you have to nominate which model is going first regardless of the initiative roll.
I love the initiative mechanic of card stacks, like the old Confrontation game or the newer Conquest, Last Argument of Kings. The fact that you have to set up your stack before knowing who will get the first action can be very interesting and can lead to some amazing failures on your side.
In TechCommander the initiative is pretty interesting. In the Deathmatch game mode, each player draws a card with a number corresponding to their spawn location, then all players roll-off for the order in the turn. After the turn is over, any spawning units will use the same procedure, surviving units also roll for initiative. Each turn is different, and players need to keep their head on a swivel because with multi-players games, the state of play is constantly changing from one turn to the next.
Also, bonus, TechCommander is a one-book system.
Take a look at Mark Walker's Eisenbach Gap for a really neat activation system.
Speaking of trench crusade, the blood marker/dice mechanic system is phenomenal. Super crunchy but also universal and simple? I enjoyed it thoroughly
I really like the Silver Bayonet mechanic where you roll 2D10 (different colours) to hit and depending the type of weapon, the damage if you succeed is the number on one or other of those dice. A nice way to have less rolling but you also get that hope that the more important of the two dice rolls higher. Also feels a little more narrative in a way.
Full Spectrum Dominance is worth a look on the initiative front. While technically IgoUgo, deciding how many action dice to spend on a unit affects how much it can do. Also, the Command trait allows your activation to flow down to other units. The Activation Dice mechanic ends up being more important than "initiative" per se.
I dislike having to buy new books to play as it's a barrier for people who just want to play. But, I love stuff that adds to the fiction of the universe or adds new missions type things. So good on my list are art books, novels, campaign books like in D&D or Frostgrave. Things that you don't have to buy, but add enjoyment if you are really into it and want to gold plate your experience. I look at it sort of like the cash shop cosmetics(good) vs pay to win(bad) stuff in video games.
one of the things one of my groups has done in "Oldhammer" type games (like Rogue Trader) is use a card deck for activation. like each unit gets a card, if that units card gets pulled they do something. Put a Joker in the deck and when that comes up something weird happens at GM discretion.
I like the customization of Units and Heroes. No need to go overboard, but it will attract me more if I can twik the units.
I like Stargrave activation mechanics - first the crew captain and up to three models in the 3" range and LOS activates, then the first mate and up to three models in 3" and LOS and then the rest of the crew - this greatly simulates how the initiative goes from the higher rank to lower rank models.
Warmachine has a Boost mechanic in which you can roll and keep an additional D6 on an attack or damage roll, so if you need a roll of 9 to hit you may spend a Focus to boost the roll, as 3D6 have a much better chance of rolling a 9+ than 2D6 will. Similarly, boosting damage rolls can make that hit really count. It's a game mechanic that Warmachine players have loved for years.
Not exactly initiative but "start of turn" mechanics that I liked :
- Warmachine control phase (resource allocation),
- SAGA orders phase (good mix of randomness and planning)
MCP has a similar priority system to Trench Crusade. Fewer models lets you keep priority.
Use oh “janky” without even a pachow?
My lawyers will be in touch.
We changed the Bolt Action dice mechanic for cards. 1 card of a suit for each unit. Instead of a die in your color, there is a suit. Basically, a randomizer that remembers as it were, reduces the bag shaking, worrying about different dice... We use the same mechanic for Battletech Alpha Strike because we didn't like the..."You have 8 units, I have 5, when does who move 2 units?" discussions.
Totally agree with point one. We're in a golden age where models are so fantastic that it no longer really matters as much as the rules. If the mechanics pull me in and help me suspend disbelief, then it's doing it's job. Otherwise it feels like a bumpy road trying to get anything done.