This is going to sound ridiculous, but I love the transition edits in these videos. The way the audio starts before the last visual ends is just chefs kiss
@@syd4890 No, like 40k only alternating activation during each phase. So, in the movement phase the player with the initiative (old style turn 1 player) moves one unit then the other player moves one, and so on until all units have been moved. If one player has at least twice as many units as the other, this player activates two units instead of one. We moved the charge phase up to come between movement and shooting to give assault armies a fair chance. We consider this a superposition of player A and B's turns, so each player gains two command points in the command phase, both players score VPs at the same time etc.
@@nanoid314 you should look into how Malifaux 3rd ed solves alternating interactions where one side has more units than the other. Essentially, the side with less units recieves tokens equal to the amount of units they are short on, and instead of moving they can spend a token to delay their move. Essentially this works well in malifaux because you want your opponent to have used all their stuff and then you have free reign to do move and attack whatever you want and your opponent can no longer do anything. This maybe doesnt translate well to 40k, but you could try do it similar where the tokens let you activate two units at a time for moving.
Do you do all phases alternating (like X-Wing) or does one unit go through each phase like Chess? 40K is like if someone intentionally tried to design a bad game as a joke with the turn system so I'd love to try something better.
Yeah im in the same boat with "i go you go." My favort turn order structure has been classic battletech which has alternating activations, then applies all damage at end of round so eveything gets a chance to shoot and do something. Unless your getting seriously outranged i guess.
The best thing that I ever came across that prevented the "You're going, then I'm going too" style of game play was a set of play-aid cards for ADB's Starfleet Battles (a tactical game based on Star Trek TOS/TAS). It had a series of cards with identical backs, but on the face would have things like "Alpha Strike" (Fire all weapons at available opponents) partial actions (like firing at least half your weapons at available opponents or at least one of your weapons at an opponent) and "no action" as a selection. When a particular phase came up to fire weapons or take certain actions everyone took one of the response cards and placed it face down, then all were revealed at the same time to see who was taking an action for that phase and to what extent, and then you played out the phase. It made playing the game better because it added an element of verisimilitude, as people (whether in a tactical game or real war) do actually get caught off guard, suffer damage/losses and have to reconsider tactics when the opponent does something unexpected.
Agreed. The Battletech "you ain't dead til the turn's all the way over" mechanic makes it a ton more fun. Various ways to play with 'you have to declare who is attacking who before rolling' and the like to mess with it if you want, but certainly don't have to.
Heck, even GW themselves did "i move, you move, i shoot, you shoot, i fight, you fight" for Lord of the rings and it would have been the smallest of changes to port that over to Warhammer.
Getting out-ranged is just a problem of mech load-out choice. But, yeah, the "nothing's dead until end of turn" is great when you have a Big Boy mech get focus fired. In "I go, you go" he was basically a waste of points if he gets bodied in the top of the first round. In "Round End Resolution", at least he'll get a shot off. For a rank and file game, "All Moves, All Ranged, All Melee" works well because you have that feel of an army moving in unison, and acting as the commanders yell orders. I'm wondering if that, plus, "Round End Resolution" might be a more representative way to do it, especially in Napoleonic era wargames.
We play Bolter Action 40K at my club. we are casual 40K players Draw dice from a bag and if its your turn then you activate a unit which moves and fires or charges. Or fights back if its in melee. Played about 10 games ...it plays fine. Also, no command points or strategems ( and using 9th edition codexs, which everyone already has. )
Strictly speaking, you can easily convert any simple ugo/igo to a staggered ugo/igo where players move only 1-3 units at a time, you just need to mark units that have already activated until a full-round has passed (full round = all units for all sides have activated). IMHO people often mark activations anyway in ugo/igo, because if you have enough units on the table you're going to be doing that book-keeping no matter what. It will have zero impact on game-balance, because you're preserving the trait that each unit can only act 1/round... but it will vastly improve the gameplay because not only does it break the action into smaller chunks with more immediate feedback, but it introduces a more real-world tactical element where enemy actions can interrupt the strategy for a round.
@@kgoblin5084- Yep. It’s a no-brainer. For skirmish-style games l’d never go back to IgoUgo. “Chain of Command” takes it to the next level as you get to decide which Group goes next. Have seen some excellent SciFi games played employing CoC’s dice-based mechanism.
Bolt Action and Warlords of Erehwon (classic fantasy by same people) have such a fun activation system. Highly recommend. It also scales well with point sizes of games. I've done 250, 500, and up to 2000 and all have felt really good.
Plus the scifi version "Gates of Antares" is free... Scales pretty well too and I even got a kick out of it by playing in 10mm on a kitchen table a couple of times...
I think ontabletop found some rules where star wars legion could be played using bolt action rules for larger scale battles like endor etc. I know bolt action works great but I must give this star wars version a go. I bet it would be fun
The d6 issue is because there isn’t enough spread of results compared to the spread of power. Especially because a 1 always fails and a 6 always succeeds. So that means you have to massively up the number of rolls to reduce the probability of a hormagaunt taking out a dreadnaught, as well as keep track of gigantic volumes of ‘wounds’ I actually preferred 2nd edition for this, where vehicles had a table to roll instead of just dealing a set number of wounds.
This (and it equivalent card retirement) has stoped me getting into whole category of games. It's the corporate evil of planned obsoletence made manifest.
Just starting to get into the hobby with my wife. We got a 40K starter set to learn combat patrol but One Page Rules seems like such a more accessible way to use the same toys. Alternating activation, the models can represent whatever we want and they never get discontinued.
Conplete rules (16pages) has everything you could ever need to add complexity and is only $5 from DriveThruRPG….and every time they up date the rules you get an email notification and can download them for free!
I've been making my own custom ruleset for 40K with alternating activations. It involves allocating "Activation Points" to units on their datasheets and then have a range of actions each unit can use each battleround (like move, shoot, charge etc.) and some reactive things which can be used if a unit has enough AP that battle round to use those (such as return fire.) Also made OC for each unit a random D3 value so each game varies more with which units are most important for objective control and such. I haven't had time to do a lot of play testing yet, but what I've done so far has been so much fun. My local mates like to play various games, but don't care enough about 40K to want to have their own armies (especially at current prices) nor learn how the army building works, and the first thing i noticed when playing "proper" 40K with them was how disenganging the long turn times are and just generally lack of being able to react to things much. The alternating activations and multiple reactive actions are much more engaging and it feels like everyone is in the game the whole time. I will say that to make it a balanced competitive game would be much harder than current 40K just because there are so many more variables and much more skill expression. It really makes it a game where you cannot win it at the army building stage of the game and so that allows so many more lists to be viable options.
That definitely sounds pretty interesting; have thought about doing that myself tbh. Is the ruleset/datasheets for it completely finished or are you still developing some of it?
@@ryangale3757 It's definitely not completed yet, but I can share with you the stuff I have written down. Bear in mind that this stuff is more for reminding myself how it works if I haven't played in a few weeks. The issue with trying to write it in such a way which would allow other people to pick it up and use it, is at that point I'd just be writing an actual like 30-page rulebook and corresponding Codices (which I may do in the future when I have more free time!) You can use the Leviathan or Pariah Nexus Secondary Mission cards for the most part by changing any of the ones which score "at the end of your turn" to make them score "at the end of this battle round." I've also only made some of unit profiles for Space Marines and Tyranids as those are my bigger collections and what people usually want to play games with. A lot of stuff is based on 40K but with changes to abilities which don't work with alternating activations as well as a lot of keywords being a bit different. A bit like Necromunda, it's pretty straightforward with someone taking you through a game, but trying to understand it from my scribblings of rules may be a bit confusing, unfortunately! Might give you some ideas for your own custom rules, though. drive.google.com/drive/folders/1xJyrq7-0_0q56jwNsg9A1zCgnJZOQZjF?usp=drive_link
I've played a lot of Bolt Action and the 'dice in a bag' system is fun. There's a chance your opponent will pull all, or most, of their dice first, but it becomes more unlikely as dice are drawn. Star Wars Legion has a nice variation on that where your choice of Command Card each turn lets you effectively pre-draw a certain number of unit tokens. On your go you can either draw from the bag, or activate a pre-drawn unit. That's a fun way to make sure key units will go when you want them to.
Alternating is almost always better, but I do agree I-go-you-go works better for rank and file games because in my experience alternating R&F games very quickly devolve into one unit getting flanked, then their attacker gets flanked, and then they get flanked and then so on until any semblance of battlelines or shield walls is gone and it's just one continuous dogpile in the middle. The only game I've played recently that's solved this issue is conquest. Its rank and flank, and alternating activation, but you have to plan out the order your units will activate in at the beginning of the turn. Combined with who gets to activate first in a round being random its the only game I've played that has the engagement of alternating whilst keeping the feeling of commanding an army moving as one. Helps that the models are amazing and the rest of the game slaps too.
That’s where systems like Chain of Command come out trumps. You get to decide which units get to activate, and you’ll rarely have enough initiatives to keep everyone moving. Makes you concentrate on the mission at hand. Would love to see 40K adapted to CoC rules. Would work a treat!
Totally agree on the move move shoot shoot melee melee play order. It makes it feel more like the armies are reacting to each others actions and makes for a more engaging time for all. The you go I go is just a long clean up after the first to go. Pictures in dice are ace in things like Bloodbowl where you literally take the picture as the action and brilliant for the balls random movement actions with the arrows.
I get a lot of mileage from the 3d6 bell curve, there are +/- modifiers and then Poor troops roll an extra d6 and discard the highest, elite troops roll an extra and discard the lowest. I use d6 for a modified bolt action initiative system, each player draws two and rolls them, dice activate troops in order of the rolls, a player can elect to add his together to win, but then his opponent gets the same option, dice are discarded at the end and you repeat the draws. There's a "ready" order to interrupt later unit actions (if the retained dice matches or exceeds the activating unit). The dice is retained until used but doesn't go back into the bag till it is used. Units can be formed into squads (according to their army list rules) to be activated together but only contribute two dice to the bag however many troops.) Lot of tactical flexibility around initiative and orders
Very much agree on the model retirement. It’s one of the reasons I’ve waited so long to start blood angels; I didn’t want to put a lot of time into building and painting and have them removed in a few years.
For a rank and file game, "All Moves, All Ranged, All Melee" works well because you have that feel of an army moving in unison, and acting as the commanders yell orders. I'm wondering if that, plus, "Round End Resolution" might be a more representative way to do it, especially in Napoleonic era wargames.
The round end resolution seems to work well in Battletech, I like how that handles thing. Although the model footprint is real small, so tracking it doesn’t need as much book keeping.
I agree with the I Go You Go turn order. I much prefer alternating activations, but also agree that can feel a little skirmish-ey, so for rank and flank games i like the old roll for initiative, Initiative loser moves, initiative winner moves, initiative winner shoots, initiative loser shoots, all melee simultaneously. It prioritizes initiative and allows the initiative winner to react strategically to movement, while giving them the jump on shooting.
Absolutely nailed it, quality vid. Those dice need to help with immersion not pull you out of the game for a little math sidequest, block dice in bloodbowl, skid dice in Gaslands, skulls and shields in Heroquest - hell yeah! The best system with numbered dice I’ve found so far is Burrows and Badgers with little mice using d4 going through the different animals up to a badger using d12s - again, very thematic and keeping that immersive thread. Cheers for the great content, excellent vid work 💥
Great takes. Coming from a D&D/RPG background, UGO/IGO and retiring models seems insane. That's why I'm mainly a Necromunda and Kill Team guy, that and the ability to sample a larger variety without as much cash commitment.
This was really helpful actually. I’m building a wargame that can be plugged into RPGs, so I’ve been paying a lot of attention to what kinds of mechanics are easy to pick up for RPG players who aren’t necessarily experienced wargamers, but still provide enough gameplay and tactical depth for wargamers. I’d love to see more people’s takes on individual mechanics.
Totally agree with all of your points. I think that the attitude of tournament play being the "real" game is just how they try to control you and make you buy more stuff. Edition changes that try to get everyone to chase the dragon is also related to tournament being the "official" way to play (everyone has to upgrade or be left behind). I quite like playing old editions of games because they are done. If you only play friendly games, you can always make up new rules for the new shiny units that have come out since. I am currently dabbling in Epic Armageddon for that reason (3d printer). I never played it when it came out, but I didn't realize it was one of the earlier alternate activation GW games.
I don't mind d6 but I get it. Despite its issues some of my favorite things in X-Wing is the d8s it uses, and they aren't numbers, it's either a hit, crit, or miss, simple as.
Bolt action's activation process brings a lot of good tension to the game. Decisions about which units to move,or shoot are a balanced risk v reward mechanic, and makes for some great games
I could not agree more with all your points. The IGO/UGO is one of the major issues that put me off playing wh40k. I love the mechanics of Star Wars: Legion. I believe it makes the game so much dynamic and entertaining.
I like how Ambush Alley deals with dice. Its one rule - you need to roll 4 or more to succeed, and that's pretty much it. Unit stats are defined by the kind of dice they roll. So poorly trained but very determined insurgents will have troop quality of D6, but morale of D10. Some elite unit will have qualty of D12. Troops of corrupt and hated regime might have quality of D8 but morale of D6. Disorganised angry mob might have quality of D4, etc. Same goes for various othe stats you need. Theres the initial hassle of getting enough of all kinds of dice , but after that the game goes extremely smoothly without unnecesesary stoppages for added calculations.
...I could probably make a mint if I could 3d print conversion bases with super thin bottoms and just enough of a ring to make a 25 mm base into a 28mm base.
D6 can be used quite intelligently in mini games. Claustrophobia comes to mind. But also, I started playing wargames with Warzone in the 90s, which is activation- based and already shunned the "I go, you go" trope. Totally agree with you on this one.
Force on Force is great for dice, the dice your unit uses depends on it's skill Untrained/Trained/Veteran/Elite using D6/D8/D10/D12, almost all actions require you to roll 4+ or 4+ and higher than your opponent if an opposed roll. Certain conditions can then shift your dice up or down so if a Veteran unit is under suppressive fire there dice becomes D8 not D10.
-Three of my favourite minis games (Wrath of Kings, Warlords of Erewhon, Oathmark) use d10s, and each system puts the design space that choice opens up to excellent use. They're all alternating activations too, or alternating-adjacent in Warlords' case. -My #1 dice bugbear is dice that cannot instantly be read. I'm sure your deep purple with dark gold numbers dice are very cool, but if I have to get the spectrograph out to know what you rolled, that's a problem.
I think if I was ever going to play 40K again, I'd do the Apocalypse 2e version of I go/You go where a destroyed unit still gets to move and attack until the end of the whole turn. So you don't get a unit get wiped in one round of shooting and never get to play with it
As someone who started in 1st Ed Killteam I can firmly say Alternating Activations is exactly what 11th edition needs. Dice with pictures on them that should be limited to 1 icon on the face in competitions, usually the faction icon on the 6. Otherwise, I love novelty dice for casual games, especially with people who know how to read my Imperial Fist dice. I know they're a bit of a mess at first but they're so flavourful.
Iv'e haven't played tournaments since 7th edition 40k and have pretty much stopped playing with strangers since then as well. I've made my own game by picking the bits I and my group like from other games. There is no balance but there's been a hell of a lot more fun.
Used to play warmachine, which like 40k, is u go/ i go. Played in a tournament and one of my opponents took 30 plus minutes to do a single turn, most of which was him agonising over the movement of his units down to the mm. During that time i had to sit there and basically do nothing, such a negative play experience. Play smaller skirmish games with alternate activations now, so much more engaging
I broadly agree with everything here. d6's can be useful in a game with a small enough scale - in something like Gear Krieg, based on WW2, the range from the worst thing to the best thing is tight enough that a d6 still works. Overall, though, they're just not granular enough to describe a good range of units. And I'm someone who is *good* at holding all the modifiers and so forth in my head! Heck, even X-Wing, which probably didn't invent "pictures on dice" but certainly main-streamed it, uses d8s. I-go, You-go can work in a small scale game where each side has at most 10 manoeuvre units and where the things they're doing are pretty simple. Song of Blades and Heroes, for example, is basically "I go, You go." But each unit (typically a single figure in that game) can do a maximum of three actions, it takes an action to move or attack, and when you attack your opponent is actively rolling to defend/counter attack. So even though it's only my units activating, my opponent is still present in the game most of the time and it doesn't take that long to get through things. I get bored waiting for my turn in a lot of board games, but generally find even waiting through three other players' turns (in a four player game) tolerable in SBH. And in general, alternating activation whether random or controlled is both a better "model" of the battle and much more interesting to play. Retiring models - in the context you present here - is just dumb, outside of the tournaments. I will push back a bit on the X-Wing second ed, situation, though. Yes, of course there was a financial element to that decision, but the rules also changed quite a bit. Making all the new play-aids available without rebuying models is about the best way to handle that. But even then, a lot of the folks I was playing with just stuck to first ed, never bought the new packs, and felt a bit of relief at no longer needing to chase the meta. So, I'm carving out a distinction between "new rules" and "can't use that mini any longer." But even playing with strangers, if it isn't a tournement or other sponsered event, demanding that everything on the table be axactly what the rules-writer sells is just rude. As long as the mini looks appropriate and doesn't cause confusion, the game can be fun and fair.
I've really liked the dice mechanics in games like Stargrave/Frostgrave, This Is Not A Test, and Space Weirdos/Sword Weirdos. And pictures on dice have been a thing ever since I cracked open original Hero Quest as a kid. That was a big pull for me with Heroscape. It was basically the Hero Quest combat system in a skirmish game.
I've played 10 or so years of Warhammer at this point, and got pretty used to the whole d6 tables thing over time, but my world was cracked the fuck open when I got to even just roll d8s for Deadzone and Firefight. Funny enough, it reminded me that back in the day I rolled d10s of all things for the World of Warcraft Miniatures game, and somehow that of all things even felt better than rolling swathes of d6s. I still have gripes in Warhammer about my lowly runty unit hitting a shot with the same likelihood as some robot with what can only be described as god-tier computing in it. And while I love my colorful wasteland warfare dice with nuka cola symbols, it's like solving a military code every roll. Little much there. Edit: also, "I go, You go" might as well be "It's my turn for the advantage this time". I cannot fathom how WH is played competitively like that. Been starting to do alternating activations and holy hell it's just so much better of a game.
Advantageous initiative is a RIDUCULOUSLY huge advantage in both Warhammer 40k and Warhammer Fantasy that it makes the game kind of suck at times. It's one small reason among many of why I regret playing the tabletop games.
Right there with ya on pretty much all of these points, tho I do get why D6s are the standard go-to for most games, since everyone will have a pair of D6s in their house at some point likely enough. On the alternating activations thing, it's a big part of why I would love to see you do a video on Battletech: Alpha Strike some day. Classic Battletech is really cool too and stuff but it's very complex and a whole faff unless you use Flechs Sheets (which to be fair is the single best TT app I've ever used by a country mile) and so there's a reason it's shortened to CBT, feels appropriate lol. Alpha Strike on the other hand is made for more modern wargamers, with free movement style map design like 40K, simplified stat cards that are so compact they're basically the same size as a trading card, and a really great activation system. Most notably it's core rule is "nothing gets taken off the board until the end phase" which means if your big bad assault mech gets nuked turn 1 it still gets to fire everything it's got at some poor shmuck before being blown up. I don't know for sure, but it seems like the sort of game you could get into Dave!
Absolutely spot on with point two. When I first got into 40K, I was playing with two squads of actual miniatures and proxies to make up the rest of my army because I was a broke eleven-year-old playing against other broke eleven-year-olds. Kitting out and painting new minis is half the fun of tabletop, but at the end of the day they're just physical representations of agreed upon rule sets. If my friends and I could agree a bottle of glue was a dreadnought, there's no reason people can't use old models in friendly games.
Well, I can't say I agree with much of anything you said. Outside of the retiring models thing, that I whole-heartedly agree with. Which is why it's a good thing that there are plenty of game systems out there that play completely differently. If you don't like a system you can always play a different one. And if you and your friends decide to modify the rules to make it more fun for you, more power to you. Hopefully the tabletop scene keeps evolving past the systems that are so well established already.
SW Legion does a good job of removing lots of the busy work of Wargames as well Like when you move a unit, instead of using a tape measure you have preset movement sticks which wrap around the base and you place the unit at the opposite end of. Then additionally any of the other models in the unit can be placed anywhere within a radius of the unit leader, rather than having to move every model the set distance. It's not perfect but it has a lot of elements that make it more interesting and streamlined than 40k to me!
I have never played Infinity (although I own models and Battle Boxes) but the mechanics have always intrigued me. Technically a You Go, I Go game as far as I can tell but with the reactions making it more 'interactive' along with the fact that you can activate the same mini multiple times in a turn based on your model count. With N5 coming I am looking forward to jumping off. On a different note, when I was a child I was always told that swearing was a sign of low intelligence, Dave is proof that this is not the case. Keep it up dude.
According to these critiques of wargames, I can personally recommend everything in the fistful of lead series. It uses mostly d10s, and the modifiers never get your head in a twist. It uses a deck of cards to activate units, with certain cards affording certain bonuses. It’s either skirmish or platoon. It’s very well balanced, and allows you to create very unique units based on the minis in your collection, without arsing around with points.
There was a short-lived d10 system with alternating activations that I really liked. d10s offered so much more granularity between some shitty little goblin with a pointed stick and a giant honking tank armed with comically oversized guns and crewed by the best of the best.
I don't like proprietary dice because it usually means I end up having to pay a bloated cost in order to have enough dice to play a damn game. This may be a feeling of the mechanic of the game that requires me to throw so many admittedly but still in a game where I need to throw a ton of dice and they are just standard D6 or d10 or D20 I can just go pick up a whole mess of those for relatively cheap no big deal but when they're specifically proprietary then I have to figure out where I can buy them and then I have to usually pay like $20 for a small pack of them.
Yeah, hate it too. A D6 can be used for anything, and with custom dice it isnt; often clear how much chance for every result you'll get if you're new to the game. "Roll a 6" is immediately obvious, while "roll a skull,.. wait, how many skulls are even on the dice?" is not.
You know which game has none of these problems? Infinity The Game by Corvus Belli. They use D20s, models which are retired can still be used because of generous proxy rules, and even if it‘s IGO/UGO both players are always very engaged becuase of the reactive system.
With my Rules for Grime and Grit Fantasy Wars, I do try to eliminate a lot of these, if not all of them in some way. You might be interested in taking another look when I get around too updating the rules hopefully over the next few months. The Hardest trope I find after these main 3, is... how to balance a points system, especially printed point systems that become obsolete in a month or two of printing a rule book or data cards.
I've played Battletech and Warhammer, and I like the mechanics in Battletech better: Whoever wins the initiative moves their units LAST, allowing them to put themselves in a better position. Loser moves a unit, winner moves a unit, loser moves a unit, etc. Then in the shooty phase, winner shoots first. Then loser, one unit at a time. As opposed to Warhammer, where it seems like if one player wins the initiative the first round, they pretty much win the game. I really enjoyed this video, because I'm in the process of designing a game. In fact, I paused it a lot and took notes!
I’m not sure why but I feel the need to make an LL Cool J website now? Awesome video as always. I go you go is dull as chuff, love the bolt action/ Star Wars legion chips in a bag mechanic.
My issue with pictures on dice is, firstly it's difficult to tell at a glance if a picture of a skull is a 1 (1 skull, skull is bad) or a 6 (nice, enemy got turned to bones) and also, different companies use each way of thinking about what the picture represents
As far as your last point, I think the issue is not having a response. You need to have SOMETHING to do to prevent your side getting totally wiped out on their first turn. 40K has the command point system which sort of works but it's not greatly fleshed out (at least for my army), why would I want to spend 2 points to give the chaff +1 armour when I can spend 2 points to make my tank fire twice with extra damage? I don't want to make the game more clunky but just having a few options of "in response" actions just so you aren't waiting for your guys to get wasted would be nice.
IgoYgo isn't an inherently bad system. The problem with IgoYgo for 40k and similar games is that IgoYgo is terrible for games that have long turns (because one player is inactive for prolonged periods) and games that have very deadly turns (because one player loses a lot of their army without response). 40k is exactly a game with very long, very lethal turns. Arguably the longest and lethalist turns I've ever seen in a wargame. IgoYgo is a terrible system for 40k. Other games, like BB, use IgoYgo and they're great. I can't imagine BB working with alternating activations very well at all
Some very interesting thoughts. I don't entirely agree with the d6. With several d6 you can create a pretty nice bell-shaped probability distribution - a normal distribution. That's why they're very useful and they're widely available. The problem is more the huge number of bonus factors used in games that are desperate to represent dozens of different units. Or sell them? I'm now more into the historical area. GW is nowadays more into commercial driven madness, which you highlight well in point 2. Historical games in particular have been working hard on alternatives to IGYG. A wide variety of activations and the possibility of interrupting activations as an opponent are now common practice here. I especially refer to TooFatLardies or Sam A. Mustafa games. Thanks for the intellectual stimulation. A really good discussion video. 👍
MESBG is in a sort of halfway house with the "I go you go" system, where heroes can do "heroic actions" to break initiative if you need them to. Admittedly the system in Star wars Legion is better, but at least it's an attempt to thematically give your characters a strategic purpose outside of having good numbers.
Alternate activations isn't a new thing. It's actually mentioned that players could try it out in the original Battlefleet Gothic rulebook in the designers notes... And Battletech did it back in the 80's (and still do) in an awesome way. Still one of the best activation and turn sequence systems if you ask me.
Epic 40k has alternating activation, though you do based on formation, rather than unit. Each formation is basically a platoon with support weaponry and vehicles. What this does is a small Space Marine army is going to have a similar number of activations as an Ork horde. That way, you don't get one army making all its moves before the other (resulting in IGYG by de facto).
I actually thought the x-wing 2.0 conversion kits were a really good move. You got to use your same miniatures and didn't need to buy new ones. The packs weren't super expensive and it allowed for a pretty expansive revamp of the game allowing for easier balance.
I missed the yavapai indian strap...also my arab strap but that a different story NO.1. Question: Who owned more bottles of baby oil at their peak Hogan or Diddy?
Chain of Command by TooFatLardies is IMNSHO the dogs bollocks of player activation game mechanics. So good I'd use their command dice mechanic in every game if I could.
Absolutely agree with you. I’m amazed no one’s adapted 40K to use the Lardies’ command dice mechanic. Pretty sure it’s been done, but I just don’t know anyone who plays 40K when there are so many better options out there.
The deployment setup in CoC is absurdly cool and more games need that, too. Having asymmetrical boards is something 40k doesn't do well and by "doesn't do well" I mean "completely and totally not at all."
I think HH 2.0 has at least partially solved the 'You Go I Go' dilemma with the reactions mechanic. Enjoying that a lot more than 10th ed 40k, but then again I reckon CPs can get in the bin
I don't want to a abandon d6s. I want to abandon 1d6s. 2d6 is the way to go with modifiers. The bell curve is an excellent tool for game design and the flat bonuses represent skill/ability/expertise well.
This seems like many of your issues are GW related. I'd recommend OPR Age of Skirmish. It fixes a lot of your issues or makes them more palatable. Also, you can use your collection as is.
I would bleeding love it if HH moved to alternating activations. Aside from watching grognards lose their minds, which has some intrinsic amusement to me for some reason, it would increase the flow of the game so much. Reactions do help but AA would just be brilliant. Fair chance it would do a lot to help balance the game as well.
Alternate activations is the least of heresy's worries The biggest problem is horrendous internal balance resulting in 2 mindsets of players "I play cool model" "I play good model"
If anyone has played Bolt Action, that is an elegant random activation system. Every game feels so different and varied, assuming that your opponent hasn't stacked the dice bag with a bunch of small units and you may get to do an activation every 3 or 4 dice!
Agree on the D6s not representing scale, just not enough of a range to represent difference between units. OPRs has great rules (alternative activations!), but D6s make it too swingy.
Think GW moving lots of lotr stuff to legends in the new edition :( You go I go can go in the fire. Competative 40k baffles me its arguably the most stunning minature game there is yet people play on mats with carboard cornered buildings as the terrain
Good news with LOTR is that the editions feel easier to track. At least for me. And it’s mostly unchanged. I can’t see friendly games being that much of a hassle in terms of using old stuff.
It feels like the d6 problem isn't really about the die its about stuff some games build around them. I've played games with d10 and d20 that have all the same issues.
Totally agree... and with Brent's video. Those tropes go against my reason for wargaming. I'm more of a role-player at heart and I love being able to make up little stories, visualize scenes in my mind's eye when I push little plastic dudes on the table. YGIG just doesn't work for me, as well as way too complex or specific rules. I'm here to play a game, not watch you go on a rant about how you can have me reroll my sixes because you gave your guy this special runic shield and we're on turn three so it's now fully charged with the energy of the full moon that is now shining in the fifth house of the zodiak or somesuch...
Totally with you on the dice issue. Xwing was great for that with the 8-sided dice with pictures, and those rolls mattered. Retired minis is a reason I don't play many mini games anymore. It's all financially motivated, and part of why I don't play these. Your turn/myturn is another thing that's made me stop playing these games. Shatterpoint did this really well, but I've already stopped playing that already.
Personally, you go I go I like it, I come from trading card games, magic, the gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh!, things like that, I do my things, if you have a response, or a way to interrupt me, you do it, and we have those things in 40 K, You're saves, any strategies that you might have, any special abilities, or reactive abilities, so there are things that your opponent can do, personally, what you just describe with the scale of game, that would be a nightmare, you're basically saying, I charge with my solitaire, my solitaire fights, and instead of going into my howling, banshees fighting, You get to have a unit across-the-board fight, and it's just headache inducing. I'm a little confused about your complaint about math as well, I'll admit initially it was a tad bit complicated, but once someone explained it in terms of fractions of sixth, and more often than that 1/3, or 1/2, things make a lot more sense.
Yeah, I’ve got to agree on you go, I go. I shouldn’t be able to turn up to a game of war with a book under my arm to read when it’s my opponent’s turn.
It occurred to me when i viewed a video about the history of Warhammer and Games Workshop that Warhammer feels like a system that was meant to use larger dice, like 20-sided dice, but went to d6 because 6-sided dice are much more common and/or easier to produce. Warhammer spun out of Games Workshop making DnD miniatures, remember, so there's a heavy element of DnD and early RPG games in its inception. To replicate the larger odds of the d20s, they had to introduce several different rounds of dice rolling just to increase the odds, which has lead to the massive headache of book-keeping your +1 to hit, your toughness and strengths, invulnerable saves....
I have an issue with alternating activations. Esp. in shooty games. They tend to make you target units that haven't activated yet. I feel like this makes the games feel more stiff. Don't have the energy to properly expand on my thoughts though.
Yeah there seems to be some bias here but igyg definitely has benefits One of them being clawing back a victory. If you have fewer units then your opponent in alternating your last few units will get picked off between your activations.
Alternating activations also tends to have the significant problem of preventing any coordination between units. Games often as unrelated units reacting to one another in isolation, often in a chain as each unit in turn exposes themselves to shoot the last unit. Or you get "chaff" units at the back running in circles for no reason other than procrastinating until the enemy does something important first. For a large game like 40k where a given turn is long and deadly, I do think AA would be better system. But I think AA is far from an ideal system. I think I favour IgoYgo with a good reaction system, but I've not reallg played any games that achieve that so its hard to say how well it works in practice
I prefer the d6 in something like Necromunda or Blood Bowl where the symbols tell you everything. Speaking of those 2 games & mini agnostic games like Frostgrave, Silver Bayonet and others where you need whatever you have to run the game. I'd like GW to go to closer to a 5 year rotation of the games to keep the edition longer.
Bloodbowl's work great. The alternative symbols are used well for great gameplay and the dice are relatively cheap and you only need one set (even sharing a single set is easily done). Star Wars Legion also uses symbols rather than numbers, and I think it works well and the gameplay is better for it. However, the dice are expensive and you want a lot of them really.
Nice video I agree... may i point you to a new set of rules I brought "Devilry afoot" 17th century folk monster hunting, solo play using a D10 and a blind dice bag as well.... the company is irregular wars a Uk based business... go and hunt some witches this halloween !
Andy Chambers said 40K should have abandoned IGO/UGO back in 3rd Edition, so you (and all of us who agree) are in good company. Cheers!
For some reason, IGOUGO is a sacred cow in 40k and the game is worse for it.
Seems like they could've made the switch easily back then. Now it would be a big fight! Although I never found it a problem back when I played 3rd ed.
This is going to sound ridiculous, but I love the transition edits in these videos. The way the audio starts before the last visual ends is just chefs kiss
Some old school youtube editing gimmicks right there. I've no idea why people stopped using it.
I don't hate pictures on dice, I hate the price of dice that has pictures on them.
Agreed. Proprietary dice are stupidly costed.
@@TexanJD Same goes for 'got to have' card sets. Someone makes a killing out of those.
Pictures on Dice but only replacing 1 side rather than multiple!
@@dickturpin1964 *cough* geedubbs
*FFG has entered the chat*
My son and I have experimented with simply doing 40k with alternating activations. It works so well that we never do it the old way anymore.
Like grimdark future? ❤
@@syd4890 No, like 40k only alternating activation during each phase. So, in the movement phase the player with the initiative (old style turn 1 player) moves one unit then the other player moves one, and so on until all units have been moved. If one player has at least twice as many units as the other, this player activates two units instead of one.
We moved the charge phase up to come between movement and shooting to give assault armies a fair chance.
We consider this a superposition of player A and B's turns, so each player gains two command points in the command phase, both players score VPs at the same time etc.
@@nanoid314 you should look into how Malifaux 3rd ed solves alternating interactions where one side has more units than the other. Essentially, the side with less units recieves tokens equal to the amount of units they are short on, and instead of moving they can spend a token to delay their move. Essentially this works well in malifaux because you want your opponent to have used all their stuff and then you have free reign to do move and attack whatever you want and your opponent can no longer do anything. This maybe doesnt translate well to 40k, but you could try do it similar where the tokens let you activate two units at a time for moving.
Do you do all phases alternating (like X-Wing) or does one unit go through each phase like Chess? 40K is like if someone intentionally tried to design a bad game as a joke with the turn system so I'd love to try something better.
@@imthelizardking We do all phases alternating (I haven't tried x-wing though).
Yeah im in the same boat with "i go you go." My favort turn order structure has been classic battletech which has alternating activations, then applies all damage at end of round so eveything gets a chance to shoot and do something. Unless your getting seriously outranged i guess.
The best thing that I ever came across that prevented the "You're going, then I'm going too" style of game play was a set of play-aid cards for ADB's Starfleet Battles (a tactical game based on Star Trek TOS/TAS). It had a series of cards with identical backs, but on the face would have things like "Alpha Strike" (Fire all weapons at available opponents) partial actions (like firing at least half your weapons at available opponents or at least one of your weapons at an opponent) and "no action" as a selection. When a particular phase came up to fire weapons or take certain actions everyone took one of the response cards and placed it face down, then all were revealed at the same time to see who was taking an action for that phase and to what extent, and then you played out the phase. It made playing the game better because it added an element of verisimilitude, as people (whether in a tactical game or real war) do actually get caught off guard, suffer damage/losses and have to reconsider tactics when the opponent does something unexpected.
Agreed. The Battletech "you ain't dead til the turn's all the way over" mechanic makes it a ton more fun. Various ways to play with 'you have to declare who is attacking who before rolling' and the like to mess with it if you want, but certainly don't have to.
Heck, even GW themselves did "i move, you move, i shoot, you shoot, i fight, you fight" for Lord of the rings and it would have been the smallest of changes to port that over to Warhammer.
Hell, that was even the method for WH40k RTrader
Getting out-ranged is just a problem of mech load-out choice. But, yeah, the "nothing's dead until end of turn" is great when you have a Big Boy mech get focus fired. In "I go, you go" he was basically a waste of points if he gets bodied in the top of the first round. In "Round End Resolution", at least he'll get a shot off.
For a rank and file game, "All Moves, All Ranged, All Melee" works well because you have that feel of an army moving in unison, and acting as the commanders yell orders. I'm wondering if that, plus, "Round End Resolution" might be a more representative way to do it, especially in Napoleonic era wargames.
We play Bolter Action 40K at my club. we are casual 40K players
Draw dice from a bag and if its your turn then you activate a unit which moves and fires or charges. Or fights back if its in melee.
Played about 10 games ...it plays fine.
Also, no command points or strategems ( and using 9th edition codexs, which everyone already has. )
I've done this too. 40k with the Bolt Action activation mechanic works so well and really improves the game imo (as a casual game anyway)
Strictly speaking, you can easily convert any simple ugo/igo to a staggered ugo/igo where players move only 1-3 units at a time, you just need to mark units that have already activated until a full-round has passed (full round = all units for all sides have activated).
IMHO people often mark activations anyway in ugo/igo, because if you have enough units on the table you're going to be doing that book-keeping no matter what.
It will have zero impact on game-balance, because you're preserving the trait that each unit can only act 1/round... but it will vastly improve the gameplay because not only does it break the action into smaller chunks with more immediate feedback, but it introduces a more real-world tactical element where enemy actions can interrupt the strategy for a round.
@@kgoblin5084- Yep. It’s a no-brainer. For skirmish-style games l’d never go back to IgoUgo.
“Chain of Command” takes it to the next level as you get to decide which Group goes next. Have seen some excellent SciFi games played employing CoC’s dice-based mechanism.
Bolt Action and Warlords of Erehwon (classic fantasy by same people) have such a fun activation system. Highly recommend. It also scales well with point sizes of games. I've done 250, 500, and up to 2000 and all have felt really good.
Plus the scifi version "Gates of Antares" is free...
Scales pretty well too and I even got a kick out of it by playing in 10mm on a kitchen table a couple of times...
I think ontabletop found some rules where star wars legion could be played using bolt action rules for larger scale battles like endor etc. I know bolt action works great but I must give this star wars version a go. I bet it would be fun
The d6 issue is because there isn’t enough spread of results compared to the spread of power. Especially because a 1 always fails and a 6 always succeeds.
So that means you have to massively up the number of rolls to reduce the probability of a hormagaunt taking out a dreadnaught, as well as keep track of gigantic volumes of ‘wounds’
I actually preferred 2nd edition for this, where vehicles had a table to roll instead of just dealing a set number of wounds.
As I approach 60, I have enough angst in my life about model retirement - I don’t need it in my hobby life as well
This (and it equivalent card retirement) has stoped me getting into whole category of games.
It's the corporate evil of planned obsoletence made manifest.
Just starting to get into the hobby with my wife. We got a 40K starter set to learn combat patrol but One Page Rules seems like such a more accessible way to use the same toys. Alternating activation, the models can represent whatever we want and they never get discontinued.
Conplete rules (16pages) has everything you could ever need to add complexity and is only $5 from DriveThruRPG….and every time they up date the rules you get an email notification and can download them for free!
I've been making my own custom ruleset for 40K with alternating activations. It involves allocating "Activation Points" to units on their datasheets and then have a range of actions each unit can use each battleround (like move, shoot, charge etc.) and some reactive things which can be used if a unit has enough AP that battle round to use those (such as return fire.) Also made OC for each unit a random D3 value so each game varies more with which units are most important for objective control and such.
I haven't had time to do a lot of play testing yet, but what I've done so far has been so much fun.
My local mates like to play various games, but don't care enough about 40K to want to have their own armies (especially at current prices) nor learn how the army building works, and the first thing i noticed when playing "proper" 40K with them was how disenganging the long turn times are and just generally lack of being able to react to things much. The alternating activations and multiple reactive actions are much more engaging and it feels like everyone is in the game the whole time.
I will say that to make it a balanced competitive game would be much harder than current 40K just because there are so many more variables and much more skill expression. It really makes it a game where you cannot win it at the army building stage of the game and so that allows so many more lists to be viable options.
That definitely sounds pretty interesting; have thought about doing that myself tbh. Is the ruleset/datasheets for it completely finished or are you still developing some of it?
@@ryangale3757 It's definitely not completed yet, but I can share with you the stuff I have written down. Bear in mind that this stuff is more for reminding myself how it works if I haven't played in a few weeks. The issue with trying to write it in such a way which would allow other people to pick it up and use it, is at that point I'd just be writing an actual like 30-page rulebook and corresponding Codices (which I may do in the future when I have more free time!)
You can use the Leviathan or Pariah Nexus Secondary Mission cards for the most part by changing any of the ones which score "at the end of your turn" to make them score "at the end of this battle round."
I've also only made some of unit profiles for Space Marines and Tyranids as those are my bigger collections and what people usually want to play games with. A lot of stuff is based on 40K but with changes to abilities which don't work with alternating activations as well as a lot of keywords being a bit different.
A bit like Necromunda, it's pretty straightforward with someone taking you through a game, but trying to understand it from my scribblings of rules may be a bit confusing, unfortunately! Might give you some ideas for your own custom rules, though.
drive.google.com/drive/folders/1xJyrq7-0_0q56jwNsg9A1zCgnJZOQZjF?usp=drive_link
I've played a lot of Bolt Action and the 'dice in a bag' system is fun. There's a chance your opponent will pull all, or most, of their dice first, but it becomes more unlikely as dice are drawn.
Star Wars Legion has a nice variation on that where your choice of Command Card each turn lets you effectively pre-draw a certain number of unit tokens. On your go you can either draw from the bag, or activate a pre-drawn unit. That's a fun way to make sure key units will go when you want them to.
I was out of the hobby for years and just recently got some mates together to play. We play with old models and an old edition rules.
Why keep up with new editions if you enjoy a previous 1 😂
Alternating is almost always better, but I do agree I-go-you-go works better for rank and file games because in my experience alternating R&F games very quickly devolve into one unit getting flanked, then their attacker gets flanked, and then they get flanked and then so on until any semblance of battlelines or shield walls is gone and it's just one continuous dogpile in the middle.
The only game I've played recently that's solved this issue is conquest. Its rank and flank, and alternating activation, but you have to plan out the order your units will activate in at the beginning of the turn. Combined with who gets to activate first in a round being random its the only game I've played that has the engagement of alternating whilst keeping the feeling of commanding an army moving as one. Helps that the models are amazing and the rest of the game slaps too.
Absolutely - ordering your command deck is a tactical challenge, you have to try and anticipate your opponets activation order.
That’s where systems like Chain of Command come out trumps. You get to decide which units get to activate, and you’ll rarely have enough initiatives to keep everyone moving. Makes you concentrate on the mission at hand. Would love to see 40K adapted to CoC rules. Would work a treat!
I really enjoy the dynamic alternating activation system of *This is Not a Test* and its use of ten-sided dice. Great video! Thanks for sharing!
Totally agree on the move move shoot shoot melee melee play order.
It makes it feel more like the armies are reacting to each others actions and makes for a more engaging time for all.
The you go I go is just a long clean up after the first to go.
Pictures in dice are ace in things like Bloodbowl where you literally take the picture as the action and brilliant for the balls random movement actions with the arrows.
I get a lot of mileage from the 3d6 bell curve, there are +/- modifiers and then Poor troops roll an extra d6 and discard the highest, elite troops roll an extra and discard the lowest.
I use d6 for a modified bolt action initiative system, each player draws two and rolls them, dice activate troops in order of the rolls, a player can elect to add his together to win, but then his opponent gets the same option, dice are discarded at the end and you repeat the draws.
There's a "ready" order to interrupt later unit actions (if the retained dice matches or exceeds the activating unit). The dice is retained until used but doesn't go back into the bag till it is used.
Units can be formed into squads (according to their army list rules) to be activated together but only contribute two dice to the bag however many troops.)
Lot of tactical flexibility around initiative and orders
Very much agree on the model retirement. It’s one of the reasons I’ve waited so long to start blood angels; I didn’t want to put a lot of time into building and painting and have them removed in a few years.
For a rank and file game, "All Moves, All Ranged, All Melee" works well because you have that feel of an army moving in unison, and acting as the commanders yell orders. I'm wondering if that, plus, "Round End Resolution" might be a more representative way to do it, especially in Napoleonic era wargames.
The round end resolution seems to work well in Battletech, I like how that handles thing. Although the model footprint is real small, so tracking it doesn’t need as much book keeping.
I agree with the I Go You Go turn order. I much prefer alternating activations, but also agree that can feel a little skirmish-ey, so for rank and flank games i like the old roll for initiative, Initiative loser moves, initiative winner moves, initiative winner shoots, initiative loser shoots, all melee simultaneously. It prioritizes initiative and allows the initiative winner to react strategically to movement, while giving them the jump on shooting.
Absolutely nailed it, quality vid. Those dice need to help with immersion not pull you out of the game for a little math sidequest, block dice in bloodbowl, skid dice in Gaslands, skulls and shields in Heroquest - hell yeah! The best system with numbered dice I’ve found so far is Burrows and Badgers with little mice using d4 going through the different animals up to a badger using d12s - again, very thematic and keeping that immersive thread. Cheers for the great content, excellent vid work 💥
completely agree about dice, really do think the balancing would benefit from the introduction of either a d8 or d10 (or both)
Great takes. Coming from a D&D/RPG background, UGO/IGO and retiring models seems insane. That's why I'm mainly a Necromunda and Kill Team guy, that and the ability to sample a larger variety without as much cash commitment.
This was really helpful actually. I’m building a wargame that can be plugged into RPGs, so I’ve been paying a lot of attention to what kinds of mechanics are easy to pick up for RPG players who aren’t necessarily experienced wargamers, but still provide enough gameplay and tactical depth for wargamers. I’d love to see more people’s takes on individual mechanics.
Totally agree with all of your points. I think that the attitude of tournament play being the "real" game is just how they try to control you and make you buy more stuff. Edition changes that try to get everyone to chase the dragon is also related to tournament being the "official" way to play (everyone has to upgrade or be left behind).
I quite like playing old editions of games because they are done. If you only play friendly games, you can always make up new rules for the new shiny units that have come out since. I am currently dabbling in Epic Armageddon for that reason (3d printer). I never played it when it came out, but I didn't realize it was one of the earlier alternate activation GW games.
I don't mind d6 but I get it. Despite its issues some of my favorite things in X-Wing is the d8s it uses, and they aren't numbers, it's either a hit, crit, or miss, simple as.
You go, I go used to make sense, when initiative was a thing. But now, yeah, it's a mess.
Bolt action's activation process brings a lot of good tension to the game.
Decisions about which units to move,or shoot are a balanced risk v reward mechanic, and makes for some great games
Entertaining, cosy, good cinematography (that landing craft 🤤) thanks for another vid!
Impressed at the restraint shown by not titling this video "Warhammers 3 worst crimes against game mechanics"
Well I gotta pay the mortgage. But I don’t gotta pay it that much.
All the smart mechanics seem to have gone to Kill Team. Honestly, I am baffled at how non-GW this game is.
I could not agree more with all your points. The IGO/UGO is one of the major issues that put me off playing wh40k. I love the mechanics of Star Wars: Legion. I believe it makes the game so much dynamic and entertaining.
Well, voice of reason right there. Glad to hear people say these things in a level headed manner :)
I like how Ambush Alley deals with dice. Its one rule - you need to roll 4 or more to succeed, and that's pretty much it. Unit stats are defined by the kind of dice they roll. So poorly trained but very determined insurgents will have troop quality of D6, but morale of D10. Some elite unit will have qualty of D12. Troops of corrupt and hated regime might have quality of D8 but morale of D6. Disorganised angry mob might have quality of D4, etc. Same goes for various othe stats you need.
Theres the initial hassle of getting enough of all kinds of dice , but after that the game goes extremely smoothly without unnecesesary stoppages for added calculations.
Let's just say "no, I will not rebase my 100+ gaunts on 28mm bases when they are already painted and based on 25mm bases."
...I could probably make a mint if I could 3d print conversion bases with super thin bottoms and just enough of a ring to make a 25 mm base into a 28mm base.
@@hariman7727make one that snaps on and off, collar style
D6 can be used quite intelligently in mini games. Claustrophobia comes to mind. But also, I started playing wargames with Warzone in the 90s, which is activation- based and already shunned the "I go, you go" trope. Totally agree with you on this one.
Force on Force is great for dice, the dice your unit uses depends on it's skill Untrained/Trained/Veteran/Elite using D6/D8/D10/D12, almost all actions require you to roll 4+ or 4+ and higher than your opponent if an opposed roll. Certain conditions can then shift your dice up or down so if a Veteran unit is under suppressive fire there dice becomes D8 not D10.
-Three of my favourite minis games (Wrath of Kings, Warlords of Erewhon, Oathmark) use d10s, and each system puts the design space that choice opens up to excellent use. They're all alternating activations too, or alternating-adjacent in Warlords' case.
-My #1 dice bugbear is dice that cannot instantly be read. I'm sure your deep purple with dark gold numbers dice are very cool, but if I have to get the spectrograph out to know what you rolled, that's a problem.
Good shout on Oathmark. I’ve been meaning to look into that!
I think if I was ever going to play 40K again, I'd do the Apocalypse 2e version of I go/You go where a destroyed unit still gets to move and attack until the end of the whole turn. So you don't get a unit get wiped in one round of shooting and never get to play with it
As someone who started in 1st Ed Killteam I can firmly say Alternating Activations is exactly what 11th edition needs.
Dice with pictures on them that should be limited to 1 icon on the face in competitions, usually the faction icon on the 6. Otherwise, I love novelty dice for casual games, especially with people who know how to read my Imperial Fist dice. I know they're a bit of a mess at first but they're so flavourful.
I am with you about pictures on dice 100%. Also, you are the only channel that I watch the ads on. I guess I'm just a sucker for puppets.
Iv'e haven't played tournaments since 7th edition 40k and have pretty much stopped playing with strangers since then as well. I've made my own game by picking the bits I and my group like from other games. There is no balance but there's been a hell of a lot more fun.
Used to play warmachine, which like 40k, is u go/ i go. Played in a tournament and one of my opponents took 30 plus minutes to do a single turn, most of which was him agonising over the movement of his units down to the mm. During that time i had to sit there and basically do nothing, such a negative play experience. Play smaller skirmish games with alternate activations now, so much more engaging
I broadly agree with everything here. d6's can be useful in a game with a small enough scale - in something like Gear Krieg, based on WW2, the range from the worst thing to the best thing is tight enough that a d6 still works. Overall, though, they're just not granular enough to describe a good range of units. And I'm someone who is *good* at holding all the modifiers and so forth in my head! Heck, even X-Wing, which probably didn't invent "pictures on dice" but certainly main-streamed it, uses d8s.
I-go, You-go can work in a small scale game where each side has at most 10 manoeuvre units and where the things they're doing are pretty simple. Song of Blades and Heroes, for example, is basically "I go, You go." But each unit (typically a single figure in that game) can do a maximum of three actions, it takes an action to move or attack, and when you attack your opponent is actively rolling to defend/counter attack. So even though it's only my units activating, my opponent is still present in the game most of the time and it doesn't take that long to get through things. I get bored waiting for my turn in a lot of board games, but generally find even waiting through three other players' turns (in a four player game) tolerable in SBH. And in general, alternating activation whether random or controlled is both a better "model" of the battle and much more interesting to play.
Retiring models - in the context you present here - is just dumb, outside of the tournaments. I will push back a bit on the X-Wing second ed, situation, though. Yes, of course there was a financial element to that decision, but the rules also changed quite a bit. Making all the new play-aids available without rebuying models is about the best way to handle that. But even then, a lot of the folks I was playing with just stuck to first ed, never bought the new packs, and felt a bit of relief at no longer needing to chase the meta. So, I'm carving out a distinction between "new rules" and "can't use that mini any longer." But even playing with strangers, if it isn't a tournement or other sponsered event, demanding that everything on the table be axactly what the rules-writer sells is just rude. As long as the mini looks appropriate and doesn't cause confusion, the game can be fun and fair.
I've really liked the dice mechanics in games like Stargrave/Frostgrave, This Is Not A Test, and Space Weirdos/Sword Weirdos.
And pictures on dice have been a thing ever since I cracked open original Hero Quest as a kid. That was a big pull for me with Heroscape. It was basically the Hero Quest combat system in a skirmish game.
agree on dice. i love games with specific custom dice.
I've played 10 or so years of Warhammer at this point, and got pretty used to the whole d6 tables thing over time, but my world was cracked the fuck open when I got to even just roll d8s for Deadzone and Firefight. Funny enough, it reminded me that back in the day I rolled d10s of all things for the World of Warcraft Miniatures game, and somehow that of all things even felt better than rolling swathes of d6s. I still have gripes in Warhammer about my lowly runty unit hitting a shot with the same likelihood as some robot with what can only be described as god-tier computing in it.
And while I love my colorful wasteland warfare dice with nuka cola symbols, it's like solving a military code every roll. Little much there.
Edit: also, "I go, You go" might as well be "It's my turn for the advantage this time". I cannot fathom how WH is played competitively like that. Been starting to do alternating activations and holy hell it's just so much better of a game.
Advantageous initiative is a RIDUCULOUSLY huge advantage in both Warhammer 40k and Warhammer Fantasy that it makes the game kind of suck at times.
It's one small reason among many of why I regret playing the tabletop games.
Agree with all your points , thanks for putting it out there 😊
Man, point #2 is so damn on point. Just play with your models folks.
Right there with ya on pretty much all of these points, tho I do get why D6s are the standard go-to for most games, since everyone will have a pair of D6s in their house at some point likely enough.
On the alternating activations thing, it's a big part of why I would love to see you do a video on Battletech: Alpha Strike some day. Classic Battletech is really cool too and stuff but it's very complex and a whole faff unless you use Flechs Sheets (which to be fair is the single best TT app I've ever used by a country mile) and so there's a reason it's shortened to CBT, feels appropriate lol.
Alpha Strike on the other hand is made for more modern wargamers, with free movement style map design like 40K, simplified stat cards that are so compact they're basically the same size as a trading card, and a really great activation system. Most notably it's core rule is "nothing gets taken off the board until the end phase" which means if your big bad assault mech gets nuked turn 1 it still gets to fire everything it's got at some poor shmuck before being blown up. I don't know for sure, but it seems like the sort of game you could get into Dave!
LOVE Cheyenne as a table lamp 🔥
Hahaha, and the headlights popping the lens flare is dirty rice. I’ll have to keep it going.
@@MSPaints cheyaaa!
I just played a game of 4E 40k with the Bolt Action activation system and it was great.
Absolutely spot on with point two. When I first got into 40K, I was playing with two squads of actual miniatures and proxies to make up the rest of my army because I was a broke eleven-year-old playing against other broke eleven-year-olds. Kitting out and painting new minis is half the fun of tabletop, but at the end of the day they're just physical representations of agreed upon rule sets. If my friends and I could agree a bottle of glue was a dreadnought, there's no reason people can't use old models in friendly games.
Well, I can't say I agree with much of anything you said. Outside of the retiring models thing, that I whole-heartedly agree with. Which is why it's a good thing that there are plenty of game systems out there that play completely differently. If you don't like a system you can always play a different one. And if you and your friends decide to modify the rules to make it more fun for you, more power to you. Hopefully the tabletop scene keeps evolving past the systems that are so well established already.
Very thoughtful video!
Cheers!
SW Legion does a good job of removing lots of the busy work of Wargames as well
Like when you move a unit, instead of using a tape measure you have preset movement sticks which wrap around the base and you place the unit at the opposite end of.
Then additionally any of the other models in the unit can be placed anywhere within a radius of the unit leader, rather than having to move every model the set distance.
It's not perfect but it has a lot of elements that make it more interesting and streamlined than 40k to me!
I have never played Infinity (although I own models and Battle Boxes) but the mechanics have always intrigued me. Technically a You Go, I Go game as far as I can tell but with the reactions making it more 'interactive' along with the fact that you can activate the same mini multiple times in a turn based on your model count. With N5 coming I am looking forward to jumping off.
On a different note, when I was a child I was always told that swearing was a sign of low intelligence, Dave is proof that this is not the case. Keep it up dude.
Definitely agree on the dice front, more games need to move beyond D6 dice.
According to these critiques of wargames, I can personally recommend everything in the fistful of lead series. It uses mostly d10s, and the modifiers never get your head in a twist. It uses a deck of cards to activate units, with certain cards affording certain bonuses. It’s either skirmish or platoon. It’s very well balanced, and allows you to create very unique units based on the minis in your collection, without arsing around with points.
There was a short-lived d10 system with alternating activations that I really liked. d10s offered so much more granularity between some shitty little goblin with a pointed stick and a giant honking tank armed with comically oversized guns and crewed by the best of the best.
I don't like proprietary dice because it usually means I end up having to pay a bloated cost in order to have enough dice to play a damn game. This may be a feeling of the mechanic of the game that requires me to throw so many admittedly but still in a game where I need to throw a ton of dice and they are just standard D6 or d10 or D20 I can just go pick up a whole mess of those for relatively cheap no big deal but when they're specifically proprietary then I have to figure out where I can buy them and then I have to usually pay like $20 for a small pack of them.
Yeah, hate it too. A D6 can be used for anything, and with custom dice it isnt; often clear how much chance for every result you'll get if you're new to the game. "Roll a 6" is immediately obvious, while "roll a skull,.. wait, how many skulls are even on the dice?" is not.
You know which game has none of these problems? Infinity The Game by Corvus Belli. They use D20s, models which are retired can still be used because of generous proxy rules, and even if it‘s IGO/UGO both players are always very engaged becuase of the reactive system.
Holy shit! That a REAL anamorphic lens! The flare from the dropship looks amazing!
Agreed on all of these.
With my Rules for Grime and Grit Fantasy Wars, I do try to eliminate a lot of these, if not all of them in some way. You might be interested in taking another look when I get around too updating the rules hopefully over the next few months. The Hardest trope I find after these main 3, is... how to balance a points system, especially printed point systems that become obsolete in a month or two of printing a rule book or data cards.
Love the old Aliens models. I had those as a kid, and they have vanished in the age of time.
I've played Battletech and Warhammer, and I like the mechanics in Battletech better: Whoever wins the initiative moves their units LAST, allowing them to put themselves in a better position. Loser moves a unit, winner moves a unit, loser moves a unit, etc. Then in the shooty phase, winner shoots first. Then loser, one unit at a time. As opposed to Warhammer, where it seems like if one player wins the initiative the first round, they pretty much win the game. I really enjoyed this video, because I'm in the process of designing a game. In fact, I paused it a lot and took notes!
I’m not sure why but I feel the need to make an LL Cool J website now? Awesome video as always. I go you go is dull as chuff, love the bolt action/ Star Wars legion chips in a bag mechanic.
My issue with pictures on dice is, firstly it's difficult to tell at a glance if a picture of a skull is a 1 (1 skull, skull is bad) or a 6 (nice, enemy got turned to bones) and also, different companies use each way of thinking about what the picture represents
Great video. Thank you. Really good lighting too.
As far as your last point, I think the issue is not having a response. You need to have SOMETHING to do to prevent your side getting totally wiped out on their first turn. 40K has the command point system which sort of works but it's not greatly fleshed out (at least for my army), why would I want to spend 2 points to give the chaff +1 armour when I can spend 2 points to make my tank fire twice with extra damage?
I don't want to make the game more clunky but just having a few options of "in response" actions just so you aren't waiting for your guys to get wasted would be nice.
IgoYgo isn't an inherently bad system. The problem with IgoYgo for 40k and similar games is that IgoYgo is terrible for games that have long turns (because one player is inactive for prolonged periods) and games that have very deadly turns (because one player loses a lot of their army without response).
40k is exactly a game with very long, very lethal turns. Arguably the longest and lethalist turns I've ever seen in a wargame. IgoYgo is a terrible system for 40k.
Other games, like BB, use IgoYgo and they're great. I can't imagine BB working with alternating activations very well at all
Some very interesting thoughts. I don't entirely agree with the d6. With several d6 you can create a pretty nice bell-shaped probability distribution - a normal distribution. That's why they're very useful and they're widely available. The problem is more the huge number of bonus factors used in games that are desperate to represent dozens of different units. Or sell them? I'm now more into the historical area. GW is nowadays more into commercial driven madness, which you highlight well in point 2.
Historical games in particular have been working hard on alternatives to IGYG. A wide variety of activations and the possibility of interrupting activations as an opponent are now common practice here. I especially refer to TooFatLardies or Sam A. Mustafa games.
Thanks for the intellectual stimulation. A really good discussion video. 👍
MESBG is in a sort of halfway house with the "I go you go" system, where heroes can do "heroic actions" to break initiative if you need them to. Admittedly the system in Star wars Legion is better, but at least it's an attempt to thematically give your characters a strategic purpose outside of having good numbers.
Alternate activations isn't a new thing. It's actually mentioned that players could try it out in the original Battlefleet Gothic rulebook in the designers notes... And Battletech did it back in the 80's (and still do) in an awesome way. Still one of the best activation and turn sequence systems if you ask me.
Epic 40k has alternating activation, though you do based on formation, rather than unit. Each formation is basically a platoon with support weaponry and vehicles. What this does is a small Space Marine army is going to have a similar number of activations as an Ork horde. That way, you don't get one army making all its moves before the other (resulting in IGYG by de facto).
Infinity has an excellent activation system, where if a model moves into your vision arc, you get to react to it.
I actually thought the x-wing 2.0 conversion kits were a really good move. You got to use your same miniatures and didn't need to buy new ones. The packs weren't super expensive and it allowed for a pretty expansive revamp of the game allowing for easier balance.
Alternating sequence or random sequence for the win!
Came for down to earth opinions, stayed for Tony and a 10ms shot of a Blue Meanie. Oh yeah, and you Dave of course.
I missed the yavapai indian strap...also my arab strap but that a different story NO.1.
Question: Who owned more bottles of baby oil at their peak Hogan or Diddy?
Chain of Command by TooFatLardies is IMNSHO the dogs bollocks of player activation game mechanics. So good I'd use their command dice mechanic in every game if I could.
Absolutely agree with you. I’m amazed no one’s adapted 40K to use the Lardies’ command dice mechanic. Pretty sure it’s been done, but I just don’t know anyone who plays 40K when there are so many better options out there.
The deployment setup in CoC is absurdly cool and more games need that, too. Having asymmetrical boards is something 40k doesn't do well and by "doesn't do well" I mean "completely and totally not at all."
I think HH 2.0 has at least partially solved the 'You Go I Go' dilemma with the reactions mechanic. Enjoying that a lot more than 10th ed 40k, but then again I reckon CPs can get in the bin
Excellent video and I 100% agree. The planned obsolescence product cycle can get in the bin. #hobbyneutral and better games!
I don't want to a abandon d6s. I want to abandon 1d6s. 2d6 is the way to go with modifiers. The bell curve is an excellent tool for game design and the flat bonuses represent skill/ability/expertise well.
This seems like many of your issues are GW related. I'd recommend OPR Age of Skirmish. It fixes a lot of your issues or makes them more palatable. Also, you can use your collection as is.
Great winge. Solid points
I would bleeding love it if HH moved to alternating activations. Aside from watching grognards lose their minds, which has some intrinsic amusement to me for some reason, it would increase the flow of the game so much. Reactions do help but AA would just be brilliant. Fair chance it would do a lot to help balance the game as well.
Alternate activations is the least of heresy's worries
The biggest problem is horrendous internal balance resulting in 2 mindsets of players
"I play cool model"
"I play good model"
If anyone has played Bolt Action, that is an elegant random activation system.
Every game feels so different and varied, assuming that your opponent hasn't stacked the dice bag with a bunch of small units and you may get to do an activation every 3 or 4 dice!
Agree on the D6s not representing scale, just not enough of a range to represent difference between units. OPRs has great rules (alternative activations!), but D6s make it too swingy.
You ever play any of Warlord's 2000AD games?
Got random draw activations and pictures on d6's, might be your thing.
Think GW moving lots of lotr stuff to legends in the new edition :(
You go I go can go in the fire. Competative 40k baffles me its arguably the most stunning minature game there is yet people play on mats with carboard cornered buildings as the terrain
Good news with LOTR is that the editions feel easier to track. At least for me. And it’s mostly unchanged. I can’t see friendly games being that much of a hassle in terms of using old stuff.
It feels like the d6 problem isn't really about the die its about stuff some games build around them. I've played games with d10 and d20 that have all the same issues.
Totally agree... and with Brent's video. Those tropes go against my reason for wargaming. I'm more of a role-player at heart and I love being able to make up little stories, visualize scenes in my mind's eye when I push little plastic dudes on the table. YGIG just doesn't work for me, as well as way too complex or specific rules. I'm here to play a game, not watch you go on a rant about how you can have me reroll my sixes because you gave your guy this special runic shield and we're on turn three so it's now fully charged with the energy of the full moon that is now shining in the fifth house of the zodiak or somesuch...
That’s another thing: unit specific rules that could absolutely be made up by anyone on the spot. Because how would you ever know? Hahaha
I mean, that does sound exactly like making up the scene you;ve described you like doing?
Totally with you on the dice issue. Xwing was great for that with the 8-sided dice with pictures, and those rolls mattered.
Retired minis is a reason I don't play many mini games anymore. It's all financially motivated, and part of why I don't play these. Your turn/myturn is another thing that's made me stop playing these games. Shatterpoint did this really well, but I've already stopped playing that already.
Personally, you go I go I like it, I come from trading card games, magic, the gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh!, things like that, I do my things, if you have a response, or a way to interrupt me, you do it, and we have those things in 40 K, You're saves, any strategies that you might have, any special abilities, or reactive abilities, so there are things that your opponent can do, personally, what you just describe with the scale of game, that would be a nightmare, you're basically saying, I charge with my solitaire, my solitaire fights, and instead of going into my howling, banshees fighting, You get to have a unit across-the-board fight, and it's just headache inducing. I'm a little confused about your complaint about math as well, I'll admit initially it was a tad bit complicated, but once someone explained it in terms of fractions of sixth, and more often than that 1/3, or 1/2, things make a lot more sense.
Yeah, I’ve got to agree on you go, I go. I shouldn’t be able to turn up to a game of war with a book under my arm to read when it’s my opponent’s turn.
Infinity d20s, more impactful, free rules and stuff. Some models probably are retired now
Fifth edition will be out before the end of the year and they are, sadly, removing a bunch of units from the 'vanilla' armies
@@_Matthew_117but not removing them completely. And proxying models is a thing in Infinity.
@@_Matthew_117removing from the vanilla list, not the faction. Vanilla is just more curated now.
No models are unusable since infinity proxy rules are pretty lax. Someone won a tournament last year with first edition CA minis as tohaa.
It occurred to me when i viewed a video about the history of Warhammer and Games Workshop that Warhammer feels like a system that was meant to use larger dice, like 20-sided dice, but went to d6 because 6-sided dice are much more common and/or easier to produce. Warhammer spun out of Games Workshop making DnD miniatures, remember, so there's a heavy element of DnD and early RPG games in its inception. To replicate the larger odds of the d20s, they had to introduce several different rounds of dice rolling just to increase the odds, which has lead to the massive headache of book-keeping your +1 to hit, your toughness and strengths, invulnerable saves....
I have an issue with alternating activations. Esp. in shooty games. They tend to make you target units that haven't activated yet.
I feel like this makes the games feel more stiff. Don't have the energy to properly expand on my thoughts though.
Yeah there seems to be some bias here but igyg definitely has benefits
One of them being clawing back a victory.
If you have fewer units then your opponent in alternating your last few units will get picked off between your activations.
Alternating activations also tends to have the significant problem of preventing any coordination between units.
Games often as unrelated units reacting to one another in isolation, often in a chain as each unit in turn exposes themselves to shoot the last unit.
Or you get "chaff" units at the back running in circles for no reason other than procrastinating until the enemy does something important first.
For a large game like 40k where a given turn is long and deadly, I do think AA would be better system. But I think AA is far from an ideal system.
I think I favour IgoYgo with a good reaction system, but I've not reallg played any games that achieve that so its hard to say how well it works in practice
It's nice to know I'm not the only one who thinks the same way mate thank you
I prefer the d6 in something like Necromunda or Blood Bowl where the symbols tell you everything. Speaking of those 2 games & mini agnostic games like Frostgrave, Silver Bayonet and others where you need whatever you have to run the game.
I'd like GW to go to closer to a 5 year rotation of the games to keep the edition longer.
Bloodbowl's work great.
The alternative symbols are used well for great gameplay and the dice are relatively cheap and you only need one set (even sharing a single set is easily done).
Star Wars Legion also uses symbols rather than numbers, and I think it works well and the gameplay is better for it. However, the dice are expensive and you want a lot of them really.
Nice video I agree... may i point you to a new set of rules I brought "Devilry afoot" 17th century folk monster hunting, solo play using a D10 and a blind dice bag as well.... the company is irregular wars a Uk based business... go and hunt some witches this halloween !
Many many many thumbs up for spitting facts