Star wars legion has a very nice initiative! Check it out. Part blind draw part alternating activations.

Or people are tired of Games Workshop.

I'm not sure if this counts as a mechanic, but simplification of combat. Mobile Frame Zero is so good because it's simplified in the right spots. All systems are destroyed by one damage. All weapons deal one damage with a successful hit. All weapons in a particular range band are rolling for the same target result. No looking up stats. No comparing a particular weapon vs a particular armor plus the character wearing it. No layers of saves making a particular unit feel unattackable. You lose so much of the frantic nature of battle if a turn is "Okay move this unit here. Okay he's gonna use... the heavy rifle. It has... *flipping pages* 3 shots at 4 blast, so I need... what's your armor rating? Okay cool so I'll roll these looking for a- oh he has a "gettin' shwifty" bonus that works if you win a coin flip? Mobile Frame Zero also has a very cool initiative mechanic. The current winner always goes first. This may seem bad, but if the winner activates all their units then the other player(s) can do whatever they want without fear of reprisal, which for a capture and hold game can be deadly.

Good video, thanks! One observation I have is that in the realm of Historicals, rule mechanics get put more under the microscope than they do in games with propriatary IP. This is down to the background already being established and people most likely having the figures already. You cant sell people on lore, or fancy artwork, or sculpting, you just have to write really good rules. And because the rules are not a sales vehicle for minis, people will only buy/play them if they are good. Even among my Napoleonics group, it's acknowledged that some rules are good for some things and not others - Black Powder, for example, is great as a multi-player spectacle but unworkable as a tournament game. Which is fine - you can use the same figures for different rules (assuming the basing conventions are similar enough). Similarly, Bolt Action is lots of fun, but not terribly realistic, wheras Chain of Command is realistic but quite punishing to play sometimes.

A certain amount of Asycronis gameplay. Chess is a game but not a miniature wargame

5:40 where can those demon minis be found? I need those in my life. Lol

I still love Epic Space Marine/Titan Legions initiative system. Place an order marker for each unit (first fire, advance, charge, special) and then roll for initiative. This way your units are locked into their planned attack type but the it was Yugoigo for that attack type (stand and concentrated fire, move and fire, move and move). It forced strategy with tactics.

Miniature agnostic games. I have a bunch of stuff for various games, stretching back over 20 years now. Let me use them!

I enjoy the same elements in game systems. Gruntz 15mm, by Rotten Lead, has a very interesting card activation system that builds in random events to spice things up further using a custom deck. I'd say it's my favorite imitative system I have played.

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.

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.

Loved the MUSCLES toys. Still have a bunch put away somewhere. I played the Nintendo game a lot too snd i remember a cartoon too.

Bolt actions activation mechanic is one my favorites. Loved using it during Gates of Anteres back when that was at its height.

Does anyone like Pulp Alley?

I absolutely love the deck of cards combat system for Moonstone. Also, quite controversially it seems, I really dig the Engaged/Concealed mechanic of Kill Team 21 & 24.

I play 40k with the bolt action order dice system and it's so much more fun

Speaking of trench crusade, the blood marker/dice mechanic system is phenomenal. Super crunchy but also universal and simple? I enjoyed it thoroughly

Custom Dice done right: Deadzone. Its six symbols, you can easily just write it down on a piece of paper and roll a standard die to get the same result. Custom Dice done woefully wrong: Fallout Wasteland Warfare. That game is ridiculous.

I love games like Rangers of Shadowdeep where the whole game is one book. (Of course there are expansions, but that’s basically additional missions/stories.)

Bolt Action is still the same. Dice in the bag. Going to play the best wargame ever tomorrow morning. Hopefully USA pulls through tomorrow!

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 KZbinrs! Never want to miss anything.

ooh you know I do love a D12

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.

Thanks for the video. I hate IGYG systems. Imagine playing chess where white could move all of their pieces before black could move one. I currently play Flames of War with Bolt Action activation dice with Overwatch and Opportunity fire. No more tank parks moving from cover to cover without the chance of being fired upon and it keeps both players engaged throughout the turn.

I don't know did someone mention but mantic KOW have nice mechanic where you don't remove models when they are dead . You just add wound counters...

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.

For Bolt Action In the French magazine Vae Victis, a variant was proposed, namely to introduce 3 additional dice of a third colour. When the third die of this neutral colour was drawn, the turn stopped and another turn was taken. The same mechanism is used in the excellent game Code mars Aurora (I recommend+++). And believe me, it adds a hell of a lot of stress because you're going to find yourself with units that you haven't been able to play, so you concentrate on the essential actions and you're faced with some Cornelian choices...

BADS (Bolt Action Dice System) is best. Have adapted/ house ruled it to every game I can.

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.

This Quar's War: A Clash of Rhyfles has an interesting initiative system, involving the use of a deck of activation cards. These cards have little leaves on them, denoting how many actions a player can perform per activation. And the players alternate drawing cards and using them, until the deck is exhausted and a new round starts. The trick is that when it's a player's turn, their _opponent_ draws the card and keeps track of how many actions they can perform. A player knows they always have at least 3, but they don't know if they can afford to set up plays that take 4 or 5 to complete, or if they'll find themselves stranded out of position. The fog of war turned into a gambling mechanic, where you're unsure whether or not to push your luck. (But, of course, canny players know to count cards in the deck, so they have a better idea what they can do later in a round).

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 like those fabric shelfs i have no space for my skaventide stuff

40k.. great vibe, great lore, amazing models.. Absolutely shit rules

Oh man @tabletopminions you really have to play #CodeBlade if you like interesting initiative and activations. Plus campaign mode is coming…

12:00 what if the core rules is free download and factions are required buy but are also reasonable in price

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

You know quite a few computer games heavy in the mod scene boil down game tweaking to editing a txt file?

Dead man's hand has a nice initiative mechnic too.

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.

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.

I feel that it is best to roll to extend the game. I think that OPR has an option to roll for turn 5 on a 4+, 6 on a 5+, 7 or more on a 6+. We use this and it as you said often plays a big role in determining a victor. A hard turn end can promote strange actions on the final turn, I think it best that you keep working towards your goals with the hope of another turn and not throw it all away. I need some form of alternating activations but I find certainty of who goes first each turn to be uncomfortable, that said I hate just rolling each turn, I would favour a weighted roll based upon previous initiatives. I would suggest looking at Mantic's Firefight for an interesting Deployment/Initiative approach at the start of the game. Also the command point options, I should really play that game more often...

I did kik this, and I’ll likely add more to it, if I can, when the pledge manager opens. I discovered one of my friends (who has a 3-D printer) pledged it, too, so I dropped the hard-fig option for STLs (and am currently scratch building my Trench Pilgrims). This reminds me of the original launch of 40K Rogue Trader, when the rules allowed and ENCOURAGED you to build your own stat lines for units and scratch-build/kit-bash your own figures to represent figures. That died by the second printing, I think. I love a game that encourages the players’ own creativity. And I think I’ve found new life for my Helldorado figures, now, too😊 I’m in the same mindset, I’m not much for lore, almost always preferring my own take, but as far as that goes, THE LORE herein jibes very closely to my own writing and, though I’ll be modifying to my own tastes, their published lore speaks to me.

I used the bolt action mechanic in my WW2 micro armour game - All Hell Let Loose I don’t feel guilty as they pinched this mechanic from hex board war games

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.

One mechanic I've enjoyed is no wound/HP for models, and instead finding out what happens to that model when it's damaged. It wasn't until I found Trench Crusade that I was introduced to the idea, and I really like it.

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.

I have to just say that I am loving the new Army Painter paints. I got the speed paints 2.0 and the Fanatic line and I am enjoying both more than I thought I would. So yes, this may be my new got to ghost scheme instead of my old wet blending method.

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.

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.

for me the most important "mechanic" is that every +1 and -1 needs to matter and isn't so easy to get a hold of. I hate when modifiers are thrown around like candy and especially big ones