3 Wargaming Mechanics & Tropes That Can GET IN THE BIN

I go you go is fine. Sure if you feel otherwise that's the way you feel. But the reason you feel that way is that you're stupid.

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.

Infinity has an excellent activation system, where if a model moves into your vision arc, you get to react to it.

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.

BattleTech Alpha Strike handles activation the best IMHO

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!

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.

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."

OPR! Most of those issues are specifically GW issues.

I think your issue with d6 is more confusing to me, than d6 is with you.

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.

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

For more sides dice
Like form rpg d8 d10 d12 d100
It wold need easyer to suply
So GW wold need ensurre suply of a bit rerer type of dice
So ned have dice production
.

I all in one box i see curse city day add d8 and d12.

About picter
Problem wold be suply and demand problem
Like sw rpg form FFG getin dice was super expenve bacose pictures.

Is that big of the del wivt x win 2.0? Isn also wit new ed of any gw you need buy new army book new core book .
Cosw wold be simular.
A d that j think was risk of x wing going bavy acesory
I hope it was genuly beter game.
In term of rulse xwin2.0
I rrly love about it that models come painted in boxes.

Nr 3
Army go. Agrmy go?
Vs
Umit/model go .

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.

completely agree about dice, really do think the balancing would benefit from the introduction of either a d8 or d10 (or both)

agree on dice. i love games with specific custom dice.

D6 is the worst. I have felt this way since I started playing table top games 20 years ago. I agree with all of your points on things that should go.

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 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.

There nothing wrong with D6 as a dice but just 1 D6 is too small of a range, and the moment your able to stack a bonus or two, it swings wildly.
A 2D6 or 3D6 based system has a real probability curve to play with, but you can't mass roll the dice anymore.

I don't like pictures on dice, because they are confusing as hell.

Unless you're familiar with a specific set, you don't know what they mean.

I'm short sighted and the dots are still easier to read compared to the picture on 6s.

I forgive XWing for that, as it had nice and simple designs.

In terms of removing units : i don't care about the model being impossible to buy, you made that unit, so unless it's role in roster is redundant, you have no reason to remove it from rules.

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

I agree on the majority of points there.
Not being allowed to pre-measure is one that rubs me the wrong way.

I have missed yappa pie SO much

I dropped out of xwing when the new edition came out. It was already expensive enough

Bro literally went after SIX SIDED DICE before even mentioning I-go-you-go, objectively the WORST thing about any game it’s in

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.

It sounds like your issue isn't with six sided dice but with overly complicated combat resolution mechanics (like WH40k)
In short, you have a problem with Games Workshop.
(Also the reason people don't like bespoke dice is that they are bespoke, ie. you have to buy them from the company in question and can only use them to play one game).

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.

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.

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!

Just play OPR

These all seem almost 40k specific, retiring models is the one that's common across all model-based games (Corvus Belli always gets flak for this when they retire models in Infinity).
I disagree about picture dice, because IMO it introduces even more book-keeping and proprietary dice are expensive. D6s themselves I understand, because they may not be granular enough and the book keeping part is a 40k thing again. Games that use d20s or d10s are easier to handle as there's more room for units having different stats and those being the only thing that matters.
Pure IGOUGO is boring, 100% agree. CB did well in Infinity by having units react to what the opponent is doing. It means both players are engaged at all times.
What I'm surprised wasn't mentioned and is a GW issue is pointless rolls. From what I saw people still complain about those in 40k and rerolls, extra save rolls etc are getting ridiculous. Even the Wounding roll seems superfluous when you think about it.

If you are not happy with the way D6 feels regarding relative power of different minis, I think it has now to do with the system you are playing, rather than the actual dices...
It is a problem of mechanic, not hardware.
GW is notoriously all at that.
Just try other games. AT-43 had a very smooth and "powerful" system with D6s, you should take a look at it.

I still need some Savage Boarboys....I don't own them because they were out of stock for yonks, then they got discontinued. :P The old new Old World ones are wearing clothes and that doesn't work for me brother.

Dice are tools, and they should be treated as such by the designers. GW have had a problem for the longest time with Warhammer, AOS and 40k where they seem to think that D6 are the only type of dice available. Also, they seem to forget about the centration effects of rolling multiple D6. If you just want a number between 1-12, roll a D12. It's not hard.

Between friends, it should always be a "gentleman's agreement "

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.

I hate pictures on dice because they're functionally rights management for tabletop games- "No you can't just play with the un-copyrightable rules, you will play our game by buying our dice and giving us your money because we have a monopoly on this game".

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

I like dice with images, some say/show something funny for the 1 or 6, like a cute dumpster fire or wow doge respectfully. But it’s annoying to roll together. Some Warhammer dice are an inconsistent. I have a small collection where most show a faction symbol for the 6, but there are some likely from another manufacturer that have the chaos star on the 1. So sometimes rolling dice with pictures prompts me to waste time and check to make sure it was the best or worst result.

Your dice issue is similar to my "points" issue. Why does GW try to balance, but stick with the 2,000 point standard? A guardsman is like 6 points. If they want to adjust the balance, it can only go up or down by 1 point, which is a 16% shift in cost. (Similar to your dice thing, a 4+ to hit vs a 3+ is a 16% difference. 20% really when you consider nothing has a 1+). Bump points costs up by 10x. If a battle is 20,000 points and a guardsman costs 60, you've got way more room to tweak the cost and get it right.

Dont need to apologise for how you feel dave 😂 so much justified here

I agree with the you go i go being a bit boring. The one time i have seen it done interestingly is siliver bayonet where half of player 1s army activates, then all of player 2, then any monsters (NPCs) then the remainder of player 1.

But also if your army interacts with your opponent in anyway such as shoot or melee then they get to do it back or move.

So despite being mostly you go i go, i didnt feel the need to go sit down and wait for 20 minis till i need to roll some saves that i have stopped caring about 😂

I hate You Go I Go with what's left of ky army. I am a huge fan of alternate activation. Another method I have seen is to use a deck of playing cards. Each unit gets a random card drawn, then they go in order. Obviously you have to decide which order their suits go in. Ie. Spades go first, followed by hearts, clubs then diamonds. King down to 2, with maybe Ace is wild? I haven't played that version much. Saw it used for Battletech.

I really like the Blood Bowl version of UGO/IGO, where, yeah, you get to move and smash and pass etc with your whole team, but only until they fuck up, and then it's immediately my go.