I’ve shown a few pics of us playtesting DZR recently, and you may have noticed some bespoke D6s we’ve had lying around. So far, nobody guessed quite what they are, though there have been some fun suggestions. Today I thought I’d explain what they really do.
Meet the Command Dice.
These are, (hopefully) obviously, not final production copies. They’re my playtest versions, and incidentally a great illustration of how impermanent “permanent” markers are. Playing with these means smudgy hands.
To Start With, Why Command Dice?
The new dice are a replacement for the old deck of Battle cards. As such, their job is to provide a set of gameplay tweaks as a resource for the players to manage. How you use them is an opportunity for players to demonstrate their skill. It also helps to make every game different and reduces any predictability in what you and your opponent can achieve. With the right combination of Command Dice at the right moment you can do almost anything. If you use them well.
I was originally planning to use bespoke dice with the original version of Deadzone, but for various reasons that didn’t happen. Cards are fun too, and was happy using them. However, this new dice system is faster to play, easier to explain, and still retains the gameplay features I was after. So I think this change is a big win 🙂
What Are Command Dice?
Command Dice are an abstract representation of the training and cohesion of a well-led fighting force. They allow us to include moments of cunning and planning as well as luck without the need for complex rules. It’s easy to imagine what each Command Dice result represents. It might be a carefully lined-up shot, a sneaky ambush, a sucker punch, sly feint, or coordinated attack. Thinking about the results in this way helps make the story of your battle that much more interesting.
At the start of each Round, both players check how many Command Dice they are entitled to, and roll them afresh.
Each Strike Team starts with 3 Command Dice. Some abilities (notably Tactician (x)) alter this number.
As long as the player’s Strike Team has at least half of its models still on the table, they may re-roll as many Command Dice as they choose. If they re-roll any dice then they must keep the second result. All re-rolls must be made at the same time and before the first activation of the Round.
The results of these dice must be used during that Round or they will be lost. Unused Command Dice are discarded at the end of each Round.
How Do You Use Them?
Most results are used to enhance the actions of the active model when it is your Turn. The exceptions are adding dice to a model’s roll when it is attacked in your opponent’s Turn, and some army special effects.
Each Command Dice is discarded as its result is used.
What Do They Do?
I’ve laid out the dice in the picture above to show one of each side: all 6 sides are different. In order, they mean:
| Symbol | Meaning | Notes |
| +1 | +1 model activation | Normally players take Turns activating a single model. Use this immediately after you have taken a Turn with one model to take a Turn with another. If you have rolled this result several times then you can take Turns with several models in a row. |
| Cube | +1 dice to any normal test | If you have rolled this result several times then you may choose to add more than one dice to a single test. |
| Move | Additional Move action | The Move is restricted to 1 cube only, regardless of the model’s Speed stat. |
| Shoot | Additional Shoot action | |
| Fight | Additional Fight action | |
| Mantic Splat! without text in | Army special | The effect is different for each army. Army special effects do not count towards any other restriction on number of actions per Turn unless specifically mentioned otherwise. |
Move, Shoot and Fight allow the model to do that action on top of their normal 2 short or 1 long actions. They are very useful as they don’t count towards the normal restriction that you cannot repeat a given action within a Turn.
Special actions are defined at the army level, and every army has a unique effect.
Design Notes
As the dice are rolled at the start of each Round, and then spent during it, you reduce the amount of fiddling about off-table. You either have an option this Round, or you don’t. Changes (other than spending them) are corralled into a single bookkeeping phase at the start of the Round.
Although the dice are the same for everyone, the ability to re-roll the ones you don’t like plus the variable meaning of the special result makes them quite bespoke in practical effect. It also means that I can change what I want from them as the game plays out. So, if I have an assault army I might want to get lots of extra Move actions early on, to close the range, but then want more Fight actions and bonus dice in later Rounds. The Command Dice let you choose each Round what kind of tactics you’re going to use. However, because they’re dice they aren’t guaranteed to play nice with your plan…
Our testers so far have been really pleased with the results on the tabletop, which is gratifying. A couple were a little skeptical at first, though that seems to have quickly evaporated when they’ve tried it out in practice. I hope you find the same.
The beta rules will be out soon (though I can’t tell you when yet as I don’t know), so you might want to make your own set of Command Dice in anticipation. That’s partly why I’m telling you this now. Alternatively, you can always use a normal D6, reading the results in the same order as the table. When I ran my first playtests I had the above table printed out beside each player, and we just put normal D6 on the relevant row as reminders of what we had left.
So, what do you think?
Quirkworthy 
I’ve been loving the new command dice. The variable effect per army, and if I’m not mistaken, potentially by commander, gives a lot of room for different styles of play…..even within the same faction. It’s been fast and fun!
The army lists are defined by type of commander, so there will be more than one list per faction. For example, the vanilla Enforcer captain special rule won’t be the same as Howlett’s even though they’re both Enforcers.
Can we more than one leader model in an army or only one? WHO wil then be the comander?
An army will list the commander when you build it. Several have options for other models with the Tactician ability.
I find the concept very interesting, especially the part where you now activate one model at a time plus the variable bonus from dice. This mean I suppose that whe no longer have things like an enforcer team with the initiative activating the complete team at once before their opponent even acted, correct ?
In general, yes.
Technically they could have a Tactician (2) leading them to get 5 Command Dice in total, and then roll all +1s. Assuming they had 6 models or less and went first, they could then activate with everyone before their enemy. But as you can see, getting all those ducks to line up perfectly is rather unlikely.
Yes of course, but it would be an extreme case based on rolling the same result on all dice, and having this result would mean no other bonus from the dice, I can live with that.
At first I was expecting a simple 1.5 edition with just a few changes, but this is starting to look more like a true Deadzone 2.0 and I really like what I see for now.
A very extreme result, and as you say, costing you all other bonuses. I think most people would re-roll that result.
Glad you like it 🙂
Hate it, not because you are using dice but because it is a big departure from DZ and with all the other mods has essentially become a totally different game. Why not leave DZ alone, after all we haven’t even got the KS yet and call these rules Firefight for the Warpath KS. I’ve spent enough on DZ without having to buy it all over again because you want to completely change the system – not pleased.
I don’t think that you’ll have to buy anything to play this, David.
All you need is the new rules and the Command Dice. As I said at the end of the post, you don’t even need the specific Command Dice as you can play with normal D6. As it sounds like you’re a KS backer then you’ll probably be getting digital copies of the new rules for free as well – all of which means that you don’t actually have to spend anything extra at all.
Your gaming mat, models, scenery are all just as usable as they were before. No change there.
These are the rules changes for the Infestation KS. The Warpath Firefight rules have been done by someone else, and I’ve no idea what they are.
overall brilliant…
love :
– special army effect
– less cards is easier to manage
– have to use the effects within a round
i am a bit sad that the nb of activation per turn would now reduced and the nb of dice rolled not based on a command stat (3 dice for anyone)
also : is there going to be a speed stat from now on ? that would be nice as we will soon have jetbikes all over the board and i cannot imagine them going like 2 cubes per activation :p
Yes, there is a speed stat now for exactly that sort of reason.
Number of activations based on Command stat was, in hindsight, probably a darling I should have murdered earlier. I like the idea, but unfortunately it ends up getting exploited rather a lot. In the end it did more harm than good, so it had to change in some way, and this works fine. Some of the army special rules mess with this sort of sequencing too, so it’s not gone away totally.
Oh, and 3 dice is the starting point. Most people have a commander that gives them +1 or 2, so there’s some variation already.
Do tactician(N) ability from several sources stack, or do you just use the highest one/the one of your current commander ?
Highest one only. They did stack originally, but it’s too obvious an exploit, and it messes with being able to play larger games on 2 mats.
I liked the idea of cards at first, but when I finally got the rules in my hand I was overwhelmed by having Command actions too. This seems to collect those two aspects into single, more fluid one. Now to find some blank D6’s.
Will these command dice be universal to Mantic games or will Deadzone have different command dice from Warpath?
Interesting that dice can grant free fight and free move. Would move still give free fight action too?
Less important questions, but as I heard some rumors on internet:
– Will aggression system go the way of dodo? If so, will it be replaced somehow?
– Some actions will be removed from the game?
– No more rolling up?
-Will Deadzone still be more complex and/or in depth than Mars Attacks?
*Waiting for beta intensifies*
I did suggest that Warpath use the same Command Dice, but the chap working on that didn’t want to. So no, they’re not the same. Naturally, I prefer my approach 😛
The rule for getting a free fight if you move in applies to however you move in.
DZR is very different from MA as it doesn’t have Heroes. I’d say it was definitely more involved, especially if you play campaigns, but it’s mostly just different.
Aggression has been heavily streamlined as have some actions. A couple have gone entirely. I made a list of what I’d taken out, and it looks really alarming when you first see it. What’s interesting is that I keep hearing testers saying that they don’t miss any of it after a game or two. That’s because the stuff that’s gone either hasn’t really gone (it’s been hidden elsewhere) or was seldom used in the first place.
Rolling up stays.
As I was almost finished making these test dice, it occurred to me that I could have printed out some neat symbols on labels, cut them out, and stuck them onto a normal D6 instead. Then they wouldn’t smudge everywhere. Ain’t hindsight great?
I really like this new dice mechanism.
Will it be possible to choose to keep a die from one round to use it in the next round?
If that turns up it will be as a special rule for a character. In practice, you generally don’t want to keep CDs you haven’t used.
Well you might want to keep a fight dice for the turn in which you fight, or choose to spare an additional shoot dice for the next turn when you can get a clear shot on your target etc…
Possibly, but why not use it now and roll again for next Round. Saving it just reduces your resources.
I can see it as being useful very occasionally, but the idea of this redux is to streamline things, so rarely used rules have mostly been excised.
Im not sure if Ive really understood how it works… Do you reroll the dice each turn? Do you have the option of using those three dice each turn, or are they discarded after use (for the rest of the game)?
Overall, Im not sure if I like the change… cards gave you an element of resource management, they allowed you to plan ahead (“Ive got a move card here, so if X does Y, I can achieve objective 1 next turn”, etc). Changing to dice seems to make it a bit more random… Dunno.
And re: Movement stat: How does that work? What other stats have been changed? If weapon choices are now more modular, is there a system in place that makes weapons more than just a source of AP/is AP relevant to more than just anti-armour? A fixed number of bonus successes could work for instance (or rolling additional dice, though thatd make scaling with the shooters skill problematic).
Using Command Dice is just for that Round. You’ll roll them again the following Round. You will always have at least 3, and more as long as you have a model with Tactician on the table at the start of that Round.
Dice are resources to be managed too. They allow you to plan ahead (within a Round). Dice are random, just as drawing cards from a deck is.
The main difference here is that you could hold cards between Rounds, and it’s not really worth holding dice between Rounds (for reasons I’ve explained in other comments). In practice, I don’t think this is a significant loss. I can’t remember a game of DZR when I wanted to save a dice between Rounds.
I’ll come back to your other questions another time. For now let’s try to keep this thread (at least mostly) about CDs 🙂
if i have multiple tactician models, do they sum up the cd bonuses ?
when it will come to converting the old cmd stats into tactician, will it be cmd 1+2 minus 3 = tactician score ?
or does the cmd 1/2 stick in dzr ?
nice enhance to have an ability with score in brackets.
There is no standard calculation for converting old stats like that. It’s about making the model behave as they should in terms of the background story.
Maybe that could be a bonus for having multiple units with tactician since they dont stack for die count?
I played a game recently in which I killed the opposing commander, then lost mine, and the difference between my opponent having a second tactician and me not was painful. There’s already a real benefit to having a backup 🙂
This system seems pretty intresting, those dice allow some cunning improvised action without beeing allmighty.
I do think that keeping one die from a round to the other (or one par tactitian value) could be intresting but I think this might change once I’ve test the beta.
When you play, you’ve generally got not enough of the dice you want so they all get spent. if you are left with any then they tend to be things you’d rather re-roll.
This new mechanic seems like a good thing, sort of like the dice system in Saga ? I´m really looking forward to the beta rules.
The cards in deadzone also had a lot of other effects such as weak spot, headshot, booby trap etc, do you have anything new planned to replace these things ?
A little like the Saga dice, but simpler 😉
When it comes down to it, being able to add a +1 to anything actually covers a lot of the old card effects. Also, as mentioned earlier, the army-specific special results cover some more.
As you say though, a minority are not replaced.
Bespoke dice sound good but it seems like a normal die + chart would give you more variation between armies since the chart can be tailored for each faction.
You could indeed have more variation that way. However, that way also lies more rules bloat, expense, slower play, and extra rules queries. Not all good.
So you pays your money and takes your choice.
With DZR I’ve aimed for enough variation to be able to characterise different forces so that they play differently on the tabletop, whilst removing everything that can be removed to make the whole thing play very quickly and smoothly. I practice, because the rules are the same for everyone apart from their army special, it’s really easy to memorise and rules questions are rare after the first game. Basically, all you really need to remember is the army special for each side, and they’re not complicated.
Nice simple system, I am in favour, however two points..
Will horde armies have access to sufficient dice, or will it be a case of using these armies without tactics ?
Please keep the number system alongside the special dice. I have the special ability of forgetting dice, and it allows two different colours to be used.
1) Horde armies are generally supposed to be of lesser quality, so it makes sense that they are individually less likely to have access to the fancy tricks the CDs represent. That said, it doesn’t mean they are without tactics at all. They have the same number of CDs and a larger number of models as potential targets for them, so they actually have more options.
2) This is more of a layout question. I’ll raise it with the appropriate chaps.
Check out that old man archaeologists beard. Lookin good sir 😉
Thanks diggah. I think that’s a complement…
🙂
Sure is. 😉
I know I’ll miss the cards (and all the deck boxes and protectors I bought for them), but the new system sounds pretty good. I’m looking forward to the beta rules.
I do have a couple of questions for you though…
1) Are all the old plastic counters still of use or are those more purchases that will be thrown away like the cards?
2) Will stats for all the new models coming out for the new Warpath kickstarter get stats for DZR or will this be something we’ll have to wait for DZ v3 for?
1) I don’t have a set so I’m not 100% sure. Things like activated, pinned, wounded, and items are still used, so I expect that most of them should still find a home.
2) The potential number of army lists is very large, and we won’t fit them all in the core rulebook. RR and I have discussed this, and we’re working on ways to get them all out there. Naturally, Mantic want the lists out there so you can be playing with them!
As a general rule, the idea is to have all the Warpath models usable in DZR, with the sole exception of huge tanks and similar things that don’t fit on the board.
Excellent. Although we’ve departed from the cards, it’s nice to know with the activated, pinned and wounded counters, DZ will still feel the same.
I’m really looking forward to the DZR rules now. In fact I’ve even put a painting spurt on and knocked out 6 Forgeguards (with a mix of all the weapons) and 3 Asterians yesterday. 🙂
Now if only someone could poke Ronnie and ask him to put together a “one of everything new” pledge in the Warpath KS for us DZ nuts. 😉
I think that’s an important point: it still feels like Deadzone. Just Deadzone amped up to 11 😉
can the +1 be used to interrupt opponent actions (like a replace of overwatch) ?
does the shoot free action means that blaze away goes away ?
No, the +1 is to extend your turn.
Blaze Away has morphed into something different. The Shoot action on the Command Dice isn’t part of that replacement.
one more question : will the army special be something dependant on :
– the faction you play / corporation you serve (for gcps) ?
– the commander of the team ?
– other models (like leaders, specialist that grant special tactics to the team) ?
– all of the above ?
the last one being my favorite option
Each army list (and therefore special rule) is defined by its commander. There are several possible commanders within each faction. The options within that army list also change depending on the commander, so instead of the models defining the leader and the tactics, the commander defines the tactics and therefore the models. It gets to the same place as your last option from another direction.
another question that popped up : the battle cards used to work as a real original round/time keeper; as soon as one player ran out of cards the game stopped.
how does that translates with the cd and abandon of the battle cards.
that was probably my favorite game mechanic
I liked that mechanic too, and was sorry to see it go. Still, you can’t have everything, and overall the dice are better for Deadzone.
The time is now kept using VPs. So, if a mission wants you to play the enemy out of time then you would get a number of VPs at the end of each Round to force them to act before you won. It comes to a similar place in that it can be used to add time pressure on the other side.
shame. you could model something identical with the dices ?
The VPs work very well for this. At present, the battles are so fast that three’s not been any need to force an end to the game (which was the original purpose of the cards).
Would there be any chance to have mercenaries in your unit change the army special? So mercenaries don’t become the commander but when the mercenary is in the unit the command special is the mercenary rule rather than the normal command special rule. As you might be able to tell from my previous question about mercenaries being unit commanders, I am really hoping for anything that allows all those unaffiliated mercenaries to get more use.
Ronnie doesn’t know this yet, but I’ve done a list to accommodate all the weird mercenaries so they get some more table time. Hopefully I can distract him long enough to sneak it into the main rules. If not, it’ll turn up later on. We’re going to have a fair trail of extra army lists as there is so much you can do with the idea. I’m sure we’ll see fan versions too.
Each army has the potential to hire mercenaries – the limitation is who can fight for each commander. So I think you’ll see a general uptick of mercenary usage overall.
Yeah, would love to see a sort of Expendables Commander List with Blaine in charge of other mercs who don’t hate him and each other enough to work together.
That’s kind of where I’m going here.
I suppose that the dice will be part of the kickstarter stuff, but how many should we get ?
Will the lock-down pledge get more dice than a quarantine ?
Thanks in advance.
I don’t know the details of this as I had nothing to do with the KS. However, after asking around the Mantic office today I can confirm that the pledges will have dice in and more will be averrable was extras shortly after the game comes out. Exactly how many per pledge level is not yet nailed down. The sort of numbers we were talking about was 5 for the smallest pledges (where you are buying stuff for one player) and 10 for larger ones (enough for 2 sides). That seems fair.
To put those numbers in context, each player needs 3, and possibly more. Currently only special named characters have more than Tactician (2), so for the core rulebook’s armies 5 will always be enough.
If tactician (2) is indeed the normal maximum outside special characters, then 5 dice per players should be fine indeed.
Thank you for your answer. ^_^
The command dice mechanic sounds great, I hope however the special abilities are really flavourful because one of my favourite things about the battle cards were how they informed the way certain factions played; i.e. enforcers with their endless unsuppressing and asterians with their large amount of shoot and headshot cards are you aiming for all factions to use the same command dice or have differences (for example plague having two move results or something similar)
All factions use the same dice. The variations come from two things.
Firstly, you get to re-roll any you choose (until you take too many losses). That means you can tailor your dice more than you could with cards as you can adapt to the game as it rolls along.
Secondly, the special is army specific, so even though you roll the same physical cubes, one of the results is different.
Also, because the results are quite broad, the uses are too.
Ah I failed to consider the first point!
You aren’t the first 🙂
Will any of the Plague commander special abilities replace the “Twisted” card? Mutations are such a fun part of playing Plague. On that note, will the mutations be making the jump into DZR? Would be a shame to see them go away.
i certainly does hope that the twisted is kept for plague !!!
Fun but fiddly. They added bookkeeping/tokens, usually to models that already had an Enrage token. An average of more than 1 “permantent” token per model already feels too much. During play, I regularly had Plague models that had mutation, were enraged, held an item, and had already activated that round. 4 tokens to a model is just tedious.
And I often forgot them anyways. So all in all, not that fun. =/
As Torkel says, they were a bit fiddly for what they did, so at present they’re not used. I do like the idea of mutations though, so I’m playing with other ways to include them, and the idea may return later in some other guise.
As part of the campaign rules maybe? Youd need to keep track of experience, abilities and equipment anyway, mutations should slot right in. Might be a random, but very cheap upgrade option. (ie, you can draw a mutation at any time after a battle, even if you havent gained enough experience to level up yet. New mutation replaces the old?)
please keep the mutations !
they can be easily insered as part of the experience / advanced / campaign system
Yup, the campaign is the best place for them.
So are we just going to let it slide that Warpath uses D6 for attacks and proprietary D8 command dice, and Deadzone uses D8 for attacks and apparently proprietary D6 command dice?
Don’t you want to be able to transition back and forth between the two easily? You’re ensured to have enough of both dice for each game!
That’s quite funny 😛
Lets you easily tell them apart, I guess? ^^
I’m saying nothing.
Well, after all those times when deadzone players asked for d8s in Warpath, we finally got them … ^_^
Be careful what you wish for…
Not related to command dice. Will the GCPS be included in the beta (they promised a deadzone list in the warpath KS)? If not, any idea how they’ll play?
They’re not in the list of initial armies I was given for the core rules, and so therefore not the beta. At least, not to start with. These things have a habit of growing…
Probably cant hurt to prepare for them a bit, since they turned up as a KS stretchgoal for Warpath. Must be kind of annoying though.
No comment.
So your opponent knows what your Command Dice are? That sucks. Cards are better.
& only one Variable Effect per army? That sucks too. Cards are way better!
i certainly think that the special cmd abilities will be multiple for a given squad and not 1 commander = 1 special effect.
i expect the commander to have a significant special effect but that the other models, especially the mercs will bring their own tricks and share them with the team.
Cards have a host of problems when compared to dice, as well as a host of benefits. It’s not all one way.
Opponents knowing what you have is not a bad thing, it’s just different form the way cards usually work. It means that they can see some of what you could do, and therefore can take that into account in their own plans. But given the vast number of options which are typically available at any one time, knowing what your opponent’s Command Dice are is not often much help.
More than one variable effect per army is just cumbersome and slows the game down. It also de-characterises each army.
That said, individual models still have specific abilities that make them different from each other, so there’s no shortage of individuality. And as for mercenaries sharing their benefits, I’m not convinced that applies to many of them. Most mercs are loners that do what they do really well and aren’t team players like that.
Plus, in the heat of battle, dice get knocked around. In my gaming group those Command Dice, even set aside off the board or somesuch, about 4 outta 10+ of us [them, not me] have a huge prob knocking things over, scattering stuff &/or otherwise causing wrath & ruin on the gaming table. [Heck, a couple guys can’t even manage to consistently roll dice in a dice tray… :-o] Command Dice aren’t gonna go over well in my group.
Well they won’t suit everyone. As I often say, you can’t please all the people all the time. However, knocking the dice has not been a problem in the games I’ve played, and hasn’t been mentioned once in any of the playtest reports I’ve had back. I’ve also never heard that complaint about Saga, which is both popular and also uses dice as counters off table. Nor does it stop people playing the many games that use cards and counters as reference next to the table.
Sure, they’ll get knocked over every once in a while, just as models do. And, just like models where there exact positioning might be important, there will occasionally be awkward moments when you can’t recall exactly what they were. That’s a potential issue in any figure game, and I don’t think it’s significantly different here.
if this is an issue (knocking off dice), one can make / buy a dice tray where they are held firmly and wont bulge.
it’s the same kind of issues as spilling your coffee mug over your card / character sheet or stucking a slice of pizza on it…
“for the gaming table are full of dangers” (especially late night) :p
I managed to get superglue on one of my cards. Still not sure how . . .
Could have just put clear tape over the dice faces. That would have kept marker fingers to an all time low. Unless you want to easily re-use the blank dice for future game design purposes.
That might have worked.
So I take it the Command Action is gone the way of the darling dodo. What of Overwatch and Sentry Gun rules? Are they still requiring a dice roll to react or what?
Command actions have gone, yes. Replaced by the CD.
Sentry guns work differently now. I’ll get to them later.
What of the rules for Rampage, Own Agenda, and Gun Crazy? All three raised some important q’s like if the model lost it and attacked his own strike team members why would they put up with it? Are strike team members considered temporary enemies or some kind of third party type? Can a Rainmaker still shoot if he has a (temporarily alienated) strike force member in the same cube when he loses control? Should a model on a Rampage who can’t move to attack his own team mates break away from an actual enemy in the same cube? Etc etc.
for my group we ended up not using the models as too hazardous to play.
i like the own agenda though. we use it when hiring unique characters if each side has it on its list : the character gains own agenda.
whil this tend to nerf the unique character power level, it brings interesting stories to the table.
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Command Dice questions that seem like they have obvious answers… Esp if they are intended to replace how the Battle Cards currently work…
1: Action Results: limit one action from a dice per strike force member each Activation? Or can you get stupid crazy and spam Move actions, Shoot actions and Fight actions all on the same model?
2: Multiple Cube results can be used on same model? Like if I roll 3 cube results for a round, can I use all 3 on a Shoot action or do I have to split them up and give one ‘+cube’ to each action?
3 Something that comes to mind now is the Project Pandora Last Man Standing rule. Where the very last model got to use all the actions listed (or those listed on one option of an Order that has a divder) once everyone else in their team is dead. Would that be completely out of the question for DZR? (Might consider this for a house rule for a Project Pandora style game…)
+1 should still be useless to a last man standing though, while I could see Move being restricted to 1 use, and the Fight and Shoot options could upset the apple cart the least..
1) I started with this restriction, and have removed it because it’s just more fun without it. No restriction also means you have to balance one uber hero against a more efficient team.
2) As you choose. Using lots of cubes usually results in waste as they overkill their target. Then you’ve got no CD left for anyone else. But that’s a tactical choice 🙂
3) Without the restriction this isn’t really necessary.
And yes, +1 is useless to a solo warrior.
Wow. What about grenades, frag, etc? Have all the Blasty style attacks been consolidated to use the same action to hit now, like Throw Grenade action or will some still have the Shoot Action to deliver? Cos those with Blaze Away hit resolution and Throw Grenade would be at a big disadvantage to those that use Shoot action in this version methinks.
Will the new rules affect how Fight daisy chain combos work, Jake?
Yup. They’ve gone now, barring extremes of fluke dice rolling.
So does that mean something else is replacing the Fight Doubles now?
No special results for Fight doubles now. The increased damage and reduced armour means mostly they’re toast anyway.
So are Command Values completely gone? If so, that means you can’t win by wiping out everyone bar the non-CV models, Psychic Mindstorm needs a new defender’s mechanic, and so forth.
Is Overwatch open to any [legal] actions now? That would probably be a lot less to remember. and more space to save for stat entries too.
i loved the mechanism where losing your key commander meant losing your ability to coordinate efficiently.
i think the 3 dices minimum whatever grunt is leading is a bit off.
couldnt we still have a cmd stat still ?
Ooh! I know, kieep the 3 dice minimum, but make it that you only get the Command Dice re-roll if one of your tacticians are still in play, that way without your leadership, coordinating is still possible but not nearly as easy to change on the fly as the absence of real leadership begins to show. Not impossible to get through without, but potentially a lot less easy than before.
Is initiative done the same way? First to activate all their models goes first next round?
Been trying out the dice along with movement rules. Gave Enforcer side ‘Get Mean’ (only towards Alert) as their mantic splat. Also Plague had ‘mutate’ (if at least one mutant available without a mutation in play).
Sooo… any news on the open beta?
I’m just finishing another pass on a bunch of army lists, so it’ll need to get laid out. It’s definitely coming though 🙂
While I am happy that Deadzone is continuing to get support and I honestly think I like the I go you go 1 model at a time mechanic much, much better, especially after seeing Enforcers abuse the hell out of the current rules, I am still waffling on the dice.
Incoming tangent that only a boardgamer will understand, the rest can stick to the next paragraph. Have you ever played Thunderstone? How about Quirriors? Do you know why the former is infinitely better than the latter? Both are XXXX building games where you grab as much of the XXX as you can to make your engine work better. They both have a fantastical (fantistical fantasmographical… bah fantasy) theme, they both involve building up your resources to win a game, yet Thunderstone is so much better. All due to those damn dice. See some people have this ailment, it cannot be diagnosed, it also cannot be cured. It is affectionately known by this totally made up name of dicehateme-itis. You know you have this tragic illness if you play for example Risk and attack Australia with 40 armies and watch them get decimated by those 2 loan guarding armies. You also know you have this malady if You cannot Win Pandemic: The cure EvAh (ever for the meme-averse). I can already imagine the steamroll that is going to happen when my opponent rolls a gob (its metric look it up) of dice that have murder,death,kill written all over them.
Short version I think I will find a way to bastardize the Cards into the new rules and jettison the dice. I just enjoy the tactics of knowing what your opponent can do (I count cards, sue me) versus law of RNG that hates me. Good show so far I cannot wait till this hits retail sounds like some good imrpovements. Hopefully it won’t be a KS and will go immediate retail but if not I guess I just wait longer.
I think AP Ammo should be changed to this:
AP Ammo: AP Ammo is One-Use. A model with AP Ammo can use it when taking an action that uses its Shoot Value. That action is made with an additional AP1.
-This would make up for the loss of battle cards such as Weak Spot and Head Shot once we move to Command Dice. Also would make AP Ammo a bit more useful to those with the Rapid Fire rule as well as Frag/Massive Frag rule weapons.
Ideally I’d like Ammo and AP Ammo to have been without the One-Use rule, though Ammo would probably have to be dropped to +1 Blaze Away instead. The downside being that you’d never run out of Ammo or AP Ammo this way. Upside would be that getting killed would give that item to the opponent (for those that can shoot and carry items). It could create a new thing to contest. But at least think the AP Ammo idea over if you haven’t thought of this already.
Also, if there’s room, perhaps an optional Objective Generator table where the random mission objectives now mean something, even if its just fluffy and useless in the current battle.
i myself hope the blaze away gets reworked into something more dangerous albeit not precise shot.
i like the area effect of blaze away but i think that the zone should be kept under fire for a whole round so that any model entering the cube would be hit by it as well and would need to perform a survive test upon entering the blazed away cube.
some models could still go into the cube or even cross it but would need lots of successes to survive unscathed.
what do you think ? isnt it something that would render nicely the “interdict this passage through a hail of bullets / shots / shells” trick in a realistic, quick and deadly gaming mecanism
If that worked there might have to be a rule where crossing cubes that would result in blocking the Area LOS to that kind of suppressing fire would get that model’s cube hit instead of the target cube, at least until they themselves were pinned/suppressed. Could be a fairly powerful change. Maybe that’s how Sentry Guns will change? Only Jake and his band of playtesters know for sure…
I remember Champions/Hero System had a maneuver where you drew a line of hexes from attacker to target hex, and anything that crossed any of them was subject to a potential attack.
i thought about it but it may prove a bit too complex a rule to materialize in game, especially in 3d.
i would be happy with a rule that only affects one desired cube at a start.
Could just keep it simple. target cube is the only one that can be suppressed, but if any cubes suddenly become ones that would block AreaLOS to that cube (say by an Alert or Enraged model entering it) then you lose the constant suppression effect. Less to brain.
Put the AP ammo in a box only, forcing players to get out of the corner if they want to use it.
The other idea could be to make it One Game. So you get the use of it for that mission, but then it’s gone.
I did have an idea where it was part of the random objective generation, so that it is tied to a cube with that objective in it, making it an ammo dump or armory. So only while you are on that cube -say, Objective Z- you would get a bonus to AP or to Blaze Away.