Cult of Games XLBS: How Do You Control Your Command On The Tabletop?
February 14, 2021 by avernos
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Happy Sunday!
The community has had a fair bit of discussion on the forums about ‘luckless/random free games’ like chess. Strategy games and wargames are very different things. Strategy games are often war themed and wargames usually involve strategy but neither is guaranteed to contain the other.
I’m in total agreement with Llyod and Gerry. Saga is amazing. Saga is brilliant.Saga is the pinnacle of strategy wargames.
Warmaster and Hail Caesar both have a great command and control system.
2nd….happy Valentine’s day
It’s the XLBS SHOW……Happy Sunday fellow CoGs!
@avernos love the B5 model very very nice!
happy sunday cogs…….
Happy Sunday…
If my first Codebusters answer submitted 9am last Sunday wasn’t good enough for @warzan, then the second one should be given that they’re both good answers to the puzzle set!
Happy Sunday
Regarding the wooden fortifications Lloyd showed reference photos of: you guys may want to check out this vid the historytuber Shadiversity did on wooden castles – https://youtu.be/tuDbUg-FOMY
Ah, on the burning the timber thing, would it heat it up enough to harden the timber, or is is just the aesthetic effect?
Happy sunday everyone. Really enjoyed the whole building a watchtower section! Wonder if I can do something in 15mm for my Romans…
Happy Sunday!
I actually really like the way Star Wars Legion handles command and control. It’s by no means an extreme version of it, but the command cards, bidding, order allocation gives strategic choices, and the suppression mechanic works really nicely with it to layer in tactics. It’s very accessible but gives much more agency to you as a general to influence the game versus a system where aside from movement it’s just chucking dice.
LOL it’s XLBS SHOW Time
Love Saga. Love life.
The command and control heavy games, where perhaps several unit can’t move, can be off putting for new players.
“Why can’t they move?”
“Because the orders didn’t get through.”
“But the leader is with them?! Why can’t they move?”
“Because you rolled a one. Dry your eyes it’s my turn…”
I like the Bolt Action model of dice from the bag, but I think that the Too Fat Lardies and Test of Honour style draw mechanic is a touch better. In those games there’s a potential for everything to activate, but there are “Tiffin” or fate counters, that if drawn, can end a round of activation, or at least draw the round short. The 40K model of everything activating makes some sense, in that a sci-fi world shouldn’t have too many Comms issues, but I feel the command dice on top of that, that can often mitigate a bad roll etc. might be too much control. War is war and by nature chaotic, so even in the grim dark things shouldn’t be predictable and there should be space for unexpected heroes to make a difference and elite units to suffer a gun jam.
I think being more of a hobby hound and a narrative leaning player I guess my army not being competitive or my tactics being pants doesn’t worry me so much. If I get some nasty rolls and some fog of war elements that ruin my chances sometimes that’s a blessing, because then I have those random effects to blame my woeful generalship on.
Great show.
Stay safe, stay awesome.
in modern era there is such a thing as ‘electronic warfare’ …
It’s like war itself, which never fundamentally changes regardless of the tech available.
As such it doesn’t matter whether the order is carried by a human, pigeon, magic or invisible waves.
What matters if (a) the order arrives and (b) the human at the other end understands and interprets them correctly.
Heck … even if you ignore the tech used to deliver the order and assume it arrives the human component will f*ck it up more often than not unless it is very carefully worded.
A game like ‘chinese whispers’ should clarify this ..
40k suffers that way, no real fog of war as the fanbase seems very competitive and not looking for a simulation or narrative in the main. If you are asked to pay over £20 for one officer I guess you’re not going to be happy if he doesn’t get his orders delivered. Lol
I had meant to throw in an idea I was considering for Bolt Action was that in certain circumstances you lose a dice from the bag so not all your units are represented that round and needing to think ahead as to who will lose an entire turn. Maybe if you want to play an imbalanced points game. You may have more points of soldiers, but you can’t get orders to them all.
I think there is more than enough uncertainty in Bolt-Action.
Heck, put enough pins on an enemy and he may have to waste several orders just to get them activated if he is unlucky with his dice.
It might be interesting to ‘randomise’ reserves so you won’t know what units are going to be ‘in reserve’ before the battle begins.
Has anyone considered a 40K D&D as they have giant spider’s an critters in the sub levels of the hive city’s.
if you get a copy of Rogue Trader it was more an RPG than it was a tabletop game
Sounds good.
It’s the Smashy an Nicey show Yayyyyyyy.
Happy Sunday All
Lol.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMRTa5srNxw
Great show as usual guys, I particularly enjoyed The Sweet musical interlude!
That the power station section of the B5 Lloyd
The battle of glendarroch!?!?
Did the French cavalry not steam off an got hammered at Waterloo?
The battle hamster wheel?
We’ll see Ben pull a sicky next weekend?
Fab show guy’s.
Lead will be fine on a medieval building, it’s been around forever. If you wanted to use a log on the corners on the roof, a balsa rod would be a lot easier in which to carve a groove than a skewer
Those rave Shaltari. Holy mama!
Happy Sunday guys an interesting show
On the subject of command and control, my favourite mechanism is that used by Mortem et Glorium. The way that works is you have a number of commanders in your army list. These are ranks as either Professional or Instinctive, and there is several levels from Legendary down to Mediocre.
When setting up you allocate your Units to each general. A legendary General can control 5 Units where as a mediocre can only control two units. Or you can have a floating general.
At the beginning of each turn you then drawn either cards/chits equal to the ability of the general so a legendary can draw 5 where as a mediocre can draw 2. These cards or chits are coloured from Red (the best) to Black (the worst) are then used to activate your units. A floating general can allocate his cards to his sub-generals etc
The difference with the professional and instinctive generals is that the command range and whether they can get cards or chits from another general.
The issues with units not getting into combat is resolved by units either automatically charging and you have to pay a command token to stop them charging. Or they get in position to charge within a base width of the enemy and they can charge or you pay a card/chit to charge.
It makes for a very dynamic and tactical game with that element of chance in it, it is extremely simple and works superbly well.
Oh and as to SAGA being the perfect game ….NOPE not even close 😀
But you could play Saga 6mm! @commodorerob
Happy Sunday… where are my roses?! It’s bloody VD!
00:04 KITTIES!
01:30 @warzan going full Mario… what meds are they giving you? XD
04:30 SAGAAAA behind a paywall….
05:30 Warren does an army over a weekend… hmm… skellibobs…
21:00 @lloyd does tower of kebab!
30:00 Lloyd is getting carried away…. if he ever would build something like that in 1:1 scale it could get out of hand XD
34:00 @avernos reveals the curtain!
41:23 A swipe? oO
42:00 all the dogs in the neighbourhood…. Awuuuuuuuuuuu
48:00 Fire! Fire! FIRE!!!! BURN ALL THE THINGS!
48:15 never compare your woods dudes
49:30 An Uboat you say? Where is that? *g*
54:00 how do you write “umhuha”? XD (And he really did upload the pics to his project)
1:03:00 Roleplay with Rob…. Details! We need details!
1:06:00 Cpt Alphastrike surely has something to say.
1:06:30 SAAAGAAAAA
1:07:10 Invasion! Hide!
1:08:00 Kid on board… will Warren restrain from using curse words?
1:22:00 Soooo many dwarves!
1:24:30 I did not hit Gerry… that was SomeDudeOnYouTube….
1:28:45 No Star Wars? HERESY!
1:31:20 Round bases? This episode it full of heresy! We need more fire! HANS!
1:35:45 “I’m not dead yet….”
And now of to chocolate cake
@sundancer
roleplay with Rob referring to @buggeroff s reaction to me suggesting a RPG bootcamp on the Wednesday night radio . @buggeroff is mentally scarred from over two years of me torturing him in DnD ?
understandable… you should only torture the character not the player 😉
he does both. very well
lol, we’re having a good laugh though 😉
@warzan Aventine Miniatures do separate hoplons and also sell the LBMS transfers for them which are quite bright as well.
I agree, SAGA is the pinnacle of wargaming.
Metals shields are great, but for plastic skellies I think the weight distribution will be unbalanced a lot will spend their time on their faces
True, didn’t think of that. However if you’d use pennies or washers for bases that might solve that.
@warzan Mantic are releasing a new Ratkin army soon, with some Doomwheel type things, they’ll be cheaper than GW ones for sure
You can get the tunnel runners already they’re from warpath. I’ve got a bunch somewhere they’re very nice. Much smaller than the doom wheel though
Happy Sunday, folks!
Great seeing the lads channeling some of the Wednesday night radio show and boppin’ out.
Wow, @warzan, that is one of the best miniatures you have ever had a hand in! What a cutie and a blue shark for bonus. As far as shield bosses and decals go, invest in a small hole punch. You will always find more uses for it but then I like excuses to buy new tools.
Warmaster has the nice rule that if you are within charge range you don’t need to roll to give that order. With Two Fat Lardies rules I find the Tiffen always comes up just before my units get to do anything. While I probably get screwed by bad command rolls just as often I think I prefer the illusion of control that the dice give me compared to the card stack. More important to me is what I get to paint/base to play.
@avernos B5 is looking great! even leaving it on the display stand will look amazing on a star field table
I really like the idea of a set of choices and stats based on a healthy unit that change due to wounds or terrain. Sort of a “Leveling Down” mechanic.
@lloyd I do wish you would open up some of those Project Blogs. I can see why you want to make the Project System more searchable as it really is a massive resource of images and experience. I always love seeing the stack of photos you take as they are exactly what I am referring to. Of course this is coming from the guy who has his own backlog of photos waiting for blogs to be written.
Thanks for another entertaining show! Now, I’m going to continue to puzzle on flowers and France…
Happy Sunday folks,
Command and Control/ Initiative systems…..
Two Hour Wargames have a simple one that works without a lot of effort.
Each u it has a base ability score 1-6 , which is used for most rolls (6 is for movie type heroes and nor recommend for normal games) Average grunts are 3 , exp 4, with leaders a level higher genrally. A leader can activate so many units within command range on activation.
At start of move a die is rolled for each side highest wins ties re_roll. But if you roll a 5 and your leader/unit is 4 or below it doesn’t activate (unless another leader with a better skill activates them, likewise the lower die rolling player can only activate units/ leaders equal to or higher than roll. The winning player activates activating a unit at a level with an opponent, till all units with that skills level, then they drop till.next level allowed by die roll till.all units/leaders have activated to the die outcome.
HAHAHAHAHA!!
I do believe even with my crappy dice rolling we still defeated the Zulus
did die on the fields of Clontarf
and Rob is a git
@avernos @warzan @lloyd @commodorerob
Always and forever ?
I have played a whole one game of it, but I quite liked the system in Sharpe Practice of drawing numbered tokens corresponding to specific units from a bag, but if you draw three(?) Tiffins then the round ends immediately.
It does leave you at considerable mercy of chance, but forces you to be careful with your positioning as one unit could block several others in. I wouldn’t call it a competitive system but it felt thematic.
At the other end of the scale there lies Star Wars Legion. Every unit will activate each round but there are mechanics that give you choices over how much control over activation you will have. Do you play the powerful command cards and order fewer units, or take the weaker card and direct more?
For the plant bases Sarissa Precision do them
https://sarissa-precision.com/search?q=planked+base
For the planked bases Sarissa Precision do them
https://sarissa-precision.com/search?q=planked+base
Command and Control is a very interesting topic. I’d never really thought about it, but I think that it is a reason why I like certain games more than others. Big fan of Infinity and Inquisitor for example.
I know I’m lat to the party! But what’s the name to that awesome song? And who performs it? Please, I just watched the show and I can’t get it out of my head!
Ben Franklin invented the lightening rod. 1752
re command and control, i agree that SAGA is really good at allowing you to move unless really unlucky ( and how many times in real life did units not do anything since they were ordered to not do anything or the commander wanted clarification ( see the Movie Crimson Tide ). Having a unit not do anything is also abit unrealistic if an entire army is moving up. I would suggest that closing with an enemy unit is allowed or , as i have seen in naval games, declare yourselves in formation and all ships follow the lead ship until fired upon by enemy unit. THen it has freedom to move ( you can make it that it doesn’t have freedom to move but you can’t take away all command decisions from a player). I dislike all units moving, sometimes the other player causing you to miss a turn is just what happens. I guess it depends on the game, period, scale and overall intent ( i am playing Germany in World war 2, I don’t attack Russia, what does that do…..can russia attack me, or can i ally with russia and conquer the world….can Japan ally with USA…..very high level but if you are playing a wargame, it does sort of matter what you are intending to achieve and unit paralysis on a battlefield is part of human nature ( or game nature if playing other races….)