Top 10 Ways to FIGHT in a game

hey everybody Welcome to The Dice Tower I'm Tom vasel I'm Z Garcia what's happening and I'm Sam Healey oh putting up them 50y cups time to fight o now there are people who like war games and there are people who do not like war games but the fact is there's some sort of conflict resolution in many games M I would say it's not not half of games but it seems like there's a lot of games with it involved when I was going through my list of favorite games many of them had fighting in somehow and I worried about Z cuz he doesn't like to fight I did have a slightly hard time at this uh at this list but you know once I got into the groove I actually had a decent short list of about 16 games slash you know systems and um had a little bit of a hard time cutting that down to just 10 so it took me a while to sort of get my mind in the mood and you know the in the right head space once I got going I was good to go I will start off here by giving you my worst combat uh resolution I hope this isn't on your list I know it's not on yours but that's the CRT the combat resolution table where you roll dice and you look at a table to see what happens the different things that's a throwback okay okay good I was I don't think s that is that's back in the ' 80s and stuff and there's still a few games that use that today and I'm really glad that's God cuz that was just awful you'd be like okay I have five and you have two so the ratio is five to two now we look over okay now we look in this chart okay I need to roll this and I'm adding this y it's the worst we've we've come a long way I think all right well let's find out here's how we want to fight number 10 all right my number 10 is probably one that neither of you would have thought I would have put it on there but a recent game has elevated it to no not throat punching uh that's top five easy um uh but a new game called flick them up uses it and that is manual dexterity combat resolution shortless my number 11 so it's close to throat punching because it is manual and you do have to be a little Dex you have to be able to duck and weave but um that flicking your bullet to try to knock over the cowboy is just really fun and you know does this include like crossbows and catapults too yes yeah all that kind of stuff where you're actually taking some physical element of the game and hurling it at your opponent's pieces yes um that is just fun all get out uh I'm not very good at it that's why it's number 10 but it is very fun so manual dexterity and the the uh the game for that is flick them up I have to say I am surprised it's on your list I almost made my list especially for when you have a duel in that game yeah and you flick flick and then move a little closer exactly oh that's a tense that's a tense yeah it's really cool my number 10 is for a game that the review of it's probably going up today actually um this is a new one I don't think I've seen this in other ones but I like it so much I want to see it more and that's the bidding um combat from melee mhm uh like you attack somebody and you have five gold and then you put out this is how much gold I'm using and they have to guess and if they guess correctly you lose and if they guess incorrectly you win if they're doing a defensive position they can pick two numbers and so there's this out bluffing the other person now melee is this tiny little game that it's I like it but it felt like this is such a cool mechanism I love to see that used in a bigger more yes robust game how much money you're going to throw at the fight right cuz you lose it anyway yeah and so you have that double think of I better spend a lot obviously if you spend a lot they guess low you go into the next wave of fighting with less money yeah you spent your energy so to speak it's it's clever now this is very similar to another one that was on my short list that the with like from the Dune the combat and dune you would both use your wheel to pick a certain number of guys that you would send to battle and you would lose them no matter what mhm so you had to think okay am I going to send in a couple guys and win the battle because you're only going to send in one it was a very interesting um mechanism and this is similar to that so that's my number 10 the bidding mechanism from melee my number 10 is a card driven mechanism in which you need to decide how long you stay in until you decide I'm out of here because I've spent too many resources it's seen in a game that the one I'm going to be using for the example is Kier and there's a few other games that use it as well like Ivan ho from kitzia has a similar system game and the game is that's basically it you play a fight card which adds to your total and then your opponent do the same at any time you can say you're out of it but you don't get any cards back and so the longer you're in it the higher your risk of a big loss is but you could win also it's sort of like a bidding system say it almost sounds like an auction it is sort of right but you lose everything you've put forth in an auction you just retire and you take your stuff back normally and so it has a great tense feeling the tension really builds in the system especially when someone plays a trick on you late where they cancel something you've done you know there these games always have interesting cards that manipulate what's happening so for me the card driven system of pushing your Edge a seen in condo TI okay number nine my number nine which I'm sure is on someone else's list is the simple what you roll is what you kill and that is most obviously from Memoir 44 although it's also in battle um not battle L but uh battlecry and other games where I'm attacking I'm attacking uh tanks so I roll hey I roll tanks I killed the tanks ah such a simple easy combat system you don't have to sit there again and calculate charts the tank is only on to die one time while the troops are on to die two times so they're easier to kill and I just I like that you know the number of dice you get is based on you your attack and then the defense is just automatically calculated in those dice technically you have two tanks because the grenade also counts as a hit right and there's the grenade that hits everything right right so there's two chance to kill a tank three chances to kill a a man only one chance to kill artillery and that's simple but again they took that combat resolution chart and stuck it on the die itself right and it's really easy too you know sometimes when you're playing these games you're like okay I need four fives and sixes and you roll and you're like wait what did I need again was it four plus here you just look at the pictures right which I all you need is the pictures I don't need these numbers but but I do like that a lot so like I said it's probably on someone else's list my number nine popup book fighting oh look i k you okay it's not uh actually my number nine is the first uh crossover we have already what melee is my number nine and uh Tom was just talking about this and I found it to be a fascinating system as well the idea of knowing how much to exert yourself now with there always being a risk of of someone getting in your head and going you're you're going to go strong in the first fight cuz you don't care about the second wave so boom I'm going to guess this of course if you thought they were going to think that then you just spent as little as you can um I thought the land war in Asia yeah I thought it was very interesting melee is a that system in it the game is is fun I probably liked it more than Tom did actually but the system of fighting is as clever as anything else on this list I think I think it's really unique and well put together so my number nine melee I don't know I I I guess I I just don't like it nearly as much as either of you do well we notice is your number two it just no it is not it didn't even enter my mind while I was making this list um I don't know it just it seems very very similar to a paper rock scissors mechanic where you're just trying to outthink your opponent and that's it that's true although that is another it's it's a crap shoot I think Paper Rock Scissors all the outcomes are the same there's no they they're no different from each other if I spend four if I have six coins and I spend four yeah I'm going to go into my next fight with two I'll also probably win cuz you're probably not going to next fight cuz I could guess four you could but it's much less likely Paper Rock Scissors has three similar out what I'm saying my guess beat your guess that's what it boils down to no I most people spend one or two cuz it makes sense to save those bullets I guess I can go for a big push yeah and then be really weak on the next turn you know what I mean I I don't like it there is a paper rock scissors Mech remember the old um uh was the one with the the the the uh had the Miniatures of sphinx and um it was made by Eagle games and it age mythology age mythology oh sure sure this creature kills this creature so you both will put a creature at the fist reveal him and one beat the other yes yes not not on the list well it's Pap Rock Su so I figured he wouldn't have it all right all right mine is um the game that I'm going to use to to exemplify this one is small world and that is deterministic combat really yeah well and again uh normally I guess you could say I wouldn't enjoy deterministic combat but but uh and honestly it didn't even enter my mind until I was looking at somebody else's geek list and I saw it I was like you know what I really do enjoy SM world for the Simplicity of its deterministic combat resolution so that's why I included it on there is mainly small world is what What U bolstered it to number nine otherwise this wouldn't have made my list uh probably not even close so uh just the the idea of being able to look at the board and see and be able to calculate in my mind okay this is what I need to beat that stack of of uh tiles so I do that and now I need to go here this is what I need I know what I need uh and there's two sides to it you know what you need to conquer you also know what other people need to conquer you so that helps you Shore up your defenses even even more uh simplistically so the deterministic combat in small world Vinci if you want to uh use that one as well mind number nine see I I didn't I don't hate deterministic conflict but I don't love it it's not my top 10 small world though elevates it because it's mostly deterministic combat there's that die you can roll and I like that okay that there's that one little bit of that chance right it was definitely on my short list small world cuz I do like that it's really clean makes sense I thought of that scene from uh Dumb and Dumber uh oh thanks we just both said something and he said I you guys both remind me of Dumb and dum I don't know why where he's talking to the is there a chance that we could ever be together one in a million so you're saying there's a chance moving on number eight my number eight is um definitely a very interesting form of conflict resolution because there is no dice there is no card play there's really nothing except what you can agree to and this is B basically a u a negotiation type of conflict resolution the example I'm going to be using is dragon's gold where you go into a problem you're having a conflict for splitting luds and you just need to talk it out there's no rolling there's no I split you choose there's nothing else I mean there is let's figure this out I get this you get that no then you get this I get that are we closer to coming to an agreement you know and so I think that's really interesting it's conflict resolution where you have nothing to Aid you you don't get anything besides what you can talk the other person into into giving you and what you can maybe Strongarm someone else into into handing over that's it so my number eight is dragon's gold or really any conf resolution method that's driven by talking alone like what I couldn't come up with any other really good examples but that's what I thought that's that's really weak I think Sam's asleep first of all I wouldn't consider Dragon SK conflict I mean you're splitting stuff but there's not like war going on you just you just described a United Nations conference man oh my goodness how boring is that no I okay I get that in like in life this is the best way to handle conflict you're right it is good and I game though yeah it's interesting it's different more negotiation I I don't think it belongs in this list that's a reason it's Unique anyway that's my number eight all right my number eight is simultaneous damage in Phase order that's the way that I okay that sounds cool put kind of borders around what this is and the game that I'm using for it is nishima heex ah okay where you set your your piece is the way it's supposed to be set and that's the way that damage is dealt now you can manipulate those pieces by other pieces by rotating them or moving them and that type of stuff but generally speaking when you place something on the board uh in the direction that it's going to be causing damage that's where it's going to be causing damage so now your opponent has to either try to take the brunt of that damage or avoid it completely which then restricts the number of spaces that they can place things on the board so um Z can tell you on not good at this so that's not why I made the the list uh but I enjoy the that style of combat so um nishima hex's combat system I don't know that it's used in other systems um I tried to put some thought into this and I just couldn't come up with anything else that was very similar to it it's but it it's really enjoyable it's like the comment ism is the game that's the thing yeah exactly so enoy thought on this you agree I think it's a very interesting game it's not on my list and I I like it considerably more than Sam does because I don't consider it to be a combat system it is that is but you just said talking in a that's part of the game fighting in yoshima HEX is the game right it's combat it's two two sides combat right which is I mean I thought about player triggered combat like you choose when you fight that almost made my list but saying setting up and then fighting like in in your Shima hex at least I'm not saying it's not a valid system in maybe a game that has something else going on but that is the whole game like that is the game there's no one's arguing that that's not the game that's combat resolution the whole game is resolving a battle my only caveat would be that I think it's more of a subset of the small world deterministic combat because it is deterministic combat there's no Randomness there you put down and that's there's speed uh matters true when something fires phase order is is that's why included that because no no I mean it's a valid choice I just didn't put it on my list cuz I don't know I really like that game I don't think I can see that combat system being something I can pull out of it and go H I really want to stick this in other games oh I think you could work in a lot of different ways that's a very good way to because it's it's simultaneous usually uh the simultaneous nature of a battle is abstracted away in most combat resolutions where um we I I fight and then you fight and then we both remove our things but we both get to shoot right um uh Neuroshima Hex kind of takes care of that problem by resolving everything simultaneously but in Phase order right so I think it's I think it would be a really cool implementation in some other system I don't know what system I didn't really think about it that way but now you said that I think it would definitely work cool my number eight is not necessarily a guilty pleasure in a sense but it's just it's a combat system My Pony fighting resolu but I I think I like it not because I think it's the best combat system just because it's fun and that's D20 combat this shows up in Warlord the card game it also shows up in the Dungeons and Dragons board games Castle Raven LOF and stuff where you basically say I need a number to hit you I roll my 20 here's my modifier plus whatever and there's just something for me about rolling a 20 sided die RPGs I yeah I mean and it's also an RPGs the 20-sided die for attacking is just something I like I it there's something to be said for buckets o dice which was almost one I put on my list like buckets of dice I don't like but there's also something about rolling a 20-sided die and I I like it I know that it gets a lot of hate from some people because it has a very wide range right you know probably technically rolling four six-sided dice or three 36 at a dice is better than a 20 I just like it so my number eight D20 number seven my number seven is a system that is uh seen in sji and it's a system in which when you fight with someone you take all the dice and roll them and each dice shows on every different face one of the factions at the table the game plays with six players and it's really best with six players once you've rolled all this stuff the dice that show you your clan well those are yours and then the opponent takes theirs the other ones that are for people not involved you can use them if you've received previous support from them and had the C to to prove it and it's really interesting because it it allows for a great amount of flexibility and it allows for really interesting surprises where we roll there's a third player that's not involved who happen to get a lot of hits and guess what those dice are helping me now and so now I just suddenly this Troop that just joined my Army and now they're on my side and we just crushed you I think it's a really neat system again it's that whole matching pictures thing that works really well it's just your symbol and your color and then it's the card play on top of that where you get to say haha I have so and so's help and the really interesting part in that game is that you could technically have received that card not from that player cuz somebody else over there might have made a deal taken the card card and then you made a deal and got their card so they don't even know that you're about to pull a surprise and use those dice really cool stuff I think the fighting mechanism in it is is extremely clever Sanji that's my number seven I have not played this neither have I my number seven isn't the game that Sam has not played yet either but will at some point and that's Battle of Five Armies and that's where I say the dice mixed with cards combat almost a little bit what you were just talk about but I like how you play a card and the units you have in battle matter because if you have in battle five armies a whole pile of different units you have more cards that you can use however if you have a whole bunch of one unit when you use the card those units become that much better and so it's kind of a mix you know having a whole herd of of Cavalry is useful but at the same time having a mix with a troll or whatever all the different forces are I really like the combat I think it's it's the main thing I like about Battle of Five Armies which is it is excellent excellent I will say I just watched a movie a couple days ago and yeah War the ring is better than Hobbit but that's neither here or there Lord of the Rings no Lord of the Rings sorry you said war the r War the ring the game sorry okay cool all right uh my number seven is what I called resource allocation to enhance the die roll you're going to love typ nobody typing that Sam's Cho Choice that's what everyone's going to say Sam's Choice the resource allocation to enhance the die roll the the game that that it brought this to mind was Jamaica where you you get into a battle and you can use your your your Canon powder tokens to enhance your die Roll But even if you do that you're like oh I got this in the bag they roll the explosion side on the dice and it's like it's all gone anyway so there's always that chance were talking about that earlier that even if a person uses 10 cannon powder uh or gunpowder on your on the roll you can still roll that explosion side of the die and win and then the other part is I got to use these five gunpowder and then you roll the explosion I didn't need to use them you know that type of thing so I I just really enjoy that decision making process that uh kind of spices up the the whole combat resolution part of it it's still swinging and it's still very light but I really enjoy it that would be my number 11 11 really that's cool I like the idea it I just think it's funny if you're like hey you want to play Jamaica well what's it about and then you say whatever that just said I'm out I I another game I almost lumped when I was going to choose them as igdrasil it's a co-op game but when you fight it's really interesting cuz you can spend Goods ahead of time they're like I don't know Fighters or something you roll and if your roll was still not good enough then you can spend the elves after the roll it has two currencies the elves yeah it's like you know the what you get whatever here get in battle and so there's a currency which is much easier to get but you have to spend before you roll and the other currency which is much harder to get you can actually see what you rolled okay it's really this is this isn't another game where you spend before you roll to see if you do something there are lots of games that do that that is that's a good choice number six one of the problems a lot of com systems have is they're too clever for their own good you do this combat system and then you're like yeah we could just roll a six set a die like the example is I forget what game it is but one of Martin Wallace's you rolled two dice and then you subtracted the smaller one from the larger one and that was your number and it was like why not just roll a five-sided die or whatever you know whatever the the thing was um this one comes really close to that and that's the system that's used it was originally used in schlock Mercenary and then in the um Heroes of the Multiverse board game okay um and essentially you have different weapons and you would roll and then you would count the distance to see if you hit the person but then you would also look at the actual numbers rolled and some weapons would hit on a five and a two for example and some weapons would hit on a one two three and this one might hit only on sixes and so there was like two things going on it was a pretty simple thing say okay I need to roll these numbers and I need to be within the distance when I'm attacking right and I like that it was a it was a cool combat system and when schlock mercy came out I said man I wish the game got like no buzz and died out but the designer then redesigned again to be the Sentinels of the Multiverse board game which is also not getting a lot of Buzz either but it's still out and around so that combat system is there and I like it so I have no idea what to call that dice results a game that was very similar was the dungeon um dungeon not dungeon roll the the Plaid hat dungeon game where you went in and got the summoning Stone oh boy oh um n well maybe will be typed in the bottom of the screen post um but anyhow uh that that I like when you can use dice for different things like range and attack numbers and things so that's what it is all right my number six is uh one that Tom mentioned in passing in one of his other ones it wasn't his choice but it is that bucket o dice uh mechanic where you are rolling left and right you're rolling to hit then you take the ones that score to hit to see if they're rolling damage and then if you score damage the other person gets to try to save against that those damages and you're running you're rolling Dice and dice and dice and of course the game that uh is that that exemplifies this best I think is Warhammer 40K and you just literally yes you're like you have a handful everywhere and if you're the Orcs oh my goodness you roll so many dice in this game it is so fun you actually have to reserve part of the table for just for Rolling dice because you have that many out there I love this kind of mechanic because it can have I don't know it's just so satisfying attack uh uh tactile tactile yeah the the tactile the feel the TTI nature of the game yeah what's the what's the adverb version of that though there isn't one problem talicious Tac yes that's it Delan yes but uh the bucket o dice uh that's hilarious is that actually what you wrote too bucket o dice no I actually you have to write what I wrote down uh rolling to hit SL cause damage slaving throws pass bucket o dice bucket o dice go all right number six is one that I have a sneaking suspicion will show up in someone else's list and this is the cube Tower from Shogun and it is the one in which you are two people are fighting you grab all the cubes in one section you grab all the cubes in the other one you Chuck them in the dice in the in the cube Tower whatever comes out of it Whoever has the most cubes in there that's the one who wins some of the cubes get trapped in there so they might come out later very interesting doesn't really make a whole lot of thematic sense what happened to these two armies clashing combat poop that some of them like what going through a Vortex and come out later it doesn't make a whole lot of sense true but they got lost in the woods hey we're here guys so but it is fun and best of all extremely quick which is what I like about it I didn't know you like wallenstein I do I like that game and the combat resolution yeah I don't like I like and the combat resolution is it's just fun and and whatever comes out you know it's it's it's sort of like a centerpiece to the whole game and that's that's great so number six is Shogun W that's bad Shogun number five all right you're going to love this one let's hear it let's hear it you're going to love this one too rolling equipment that affect combat in different ways so you take some equipment you roll it like down a mountain no you roll dice that have different faces of equipments different Silhouettes and those those different kinds of weapons or equipment can affect the combat in different ways what game Run fight or die you run you roll that's a really convoluted way to say run fight or die okay well that's that's that's the I don't know what you would call that I guess just it's just another kind of dice rolling yeah that could probably fit too because but it's not well so it could fit no um King of Tokyo could fit because the whole game kind of like Nur sham XX is a combat and you're rolling dice to you can't use it the whole game again in that game one face is fighting everything else is everything is is something else no technically you can win by points you know what I mean right which is mean you won the fight we're talking about King of Tokyo now talking about r figh d I know but they're they're similar they're similar not not very but there's a thread there um run fight or die you're rolling bats you're rolling guns you're rolling uh runaway which means that you're positioning yourself differently getting away from this zombie okay so it's different sides of the dice that aren't hits so to speak they're different kinds of equipment that cause hits in different ways a gun will will cause a hit in all three and even the fourth Zone if you're shooting it's like an act it's like action selection through dice yes kind of like that so that's my number five run fighter die all right let's go what do you got all right my number five is um probably the simplest and it is where you you are given a certain number of dice and you roll them all against a Target defense as seen in Ultimate Warriors as seen in Summoner Wars where you have a character it tells you you roll four dice and the guy you're shooting says you hit on fours or better mhm that's it you roll them take three hits you take three wounds and that's that's all there is really clean I like it a lot it's it's one of my favorite types of dice driven combat because it's it's clean it's not the bucket of dice where you have to roll then grab just these and then roll them and then check this and then roll this one big D or something and so I like that I like that it's very straightforward essentially though warham 40K is dice rolling mechanic is the same thing because you have an armor value the unit has an armor value which means that you have to roll a certain uh I know he he Li complications well it's not complications it's just another another round of rolling it's not really complic more complicated no but I mean complications and as in not complicated as in further steps yeah so I like that one I like it cuz it's a little cleaner again my number five Ultimate Warriors well Z still my number five although he used the incorrect Game wallenstein Cube Tower I do like the cube Tower Z's right there's actually no thematic sense to it at all and but the thing who were you I just spent six years in the void out one one random dude the thing that bugs me most about the cube Tower is everyone who uses it says they like it um and it's only in two games yeah well it's in that Euro game may they have like a p it's in the felt game right it's in the Amero I think yeah Amero but it was in wallenstein Shogun you know Shogun wallenstein okay whatever and then it was also in that technically then it was also in that Crusade game that there was a Crusade game you never played that one I can't think of it uh in zikes czes they never there was never an English version and in this game Crusader Army and you have to conquer Jerusalem and so you move along the way and on in the way you would attack different towns you attack both the Muslim towns and you would attack Christian towns you didn't care you just wanted supplies it so you go along and then the first person who got Jerusalem did an attack and if you lost that meant the second player would win cuz they had to fight the leftover stuff it was a pretty fatal flaw in the game wow okay all right but it was entertaining and I like that Cube Tower use of it but that game came out actually I think before wallenstein um could and then and then then Dirk hen fixed it yes so anyway the cube Tower number four all right number four you're going to love this one too specialized dice that have better or worse chances to hit you could just say specialized dice okay I made this list at like 1:00 in the morning here sir this is Memoir 44 no cuz it sounds like what you're saying is Memoir 44 I guess that's one of them customiz Dice With Better or Worse chance to hit no that's different though because you're not saying like di it say 1 one 2ir would be yeah the one the ones I'm thinking about is like Imperial assault or descent where you have different ranges surges um and your Your Heroes don't all roll the same dice they roll different dice based upon their specific abilities got it so that's what I'm think that's what I'm talking about um that combat system is got is where I'm going here okay so um I think it's it's cool because first of all it has that layer of differentiation I'm not like everybody else I don't I don't roll the same combat dice as he does I'm better at hitting in melee than he is in melee but he's better in range than I am in range so there's that level of differentiation there that I enjoy um and I also like the different uses of the Dy there's numbers on it that that say how long how far away you can hit um then there are surges that can possibly bolster your attack so the specialized Dice and combat is one of the one of the things that I enjoy the most I mean it's you know we're talking top five already here so um that's what I'm going with Imperial salt descent style dice got it mine is somewhat shorter than Sam's mine is called multifunction Dice and the games I'm using are descent and Imperial salt what we got yeah but I was able to get it made my 1:00 in the morning okay people give me a break while rolling buckets of dice yes deafening noise no but I I agree with Sam I like the fact with the scent I like roll a dice and it does range hit points and then the surges which might activate stuff on the cards I like that I think that's a cool combat system it works really well it's simple and easy and then the different color dice is like oh these are good for range these are good you don't even have to know that you know you don't have to remember for example like green are good for range you're just like ah these are the dice I'm rolling right but they but they have all that stuff again taking that whole combat resolution table and sticking it on the dice huge fan of that got it all right well I'm going to get a whole bunch of garbage for my number four after these two just synced up my number four is sort of a tug of war it's a car driven system that I am using Blue Moon to personify to um to exemplify so what was it called again it's like a tug of war it sort of like push the threshold it's like playing tennis okay actually I was just to say take out the tug of it's just War essentially where you're playing oh your card's High war is like ha I want this is like here's what I got you have a hand of cards can you beat this and of course there's many other cards that say yes I can beat it and guess what now when you try to beat this back you can't play this type of card actually you'd be surprised it's not you're saying blue moon but this is a thing that's used in like very highly esteemed war games I think we the people uses it or the Napoleonic I'm sorry Hannibal Rome vers Carthage had that same I'm attacking on the Left Flank well I can block that and now I'm attacking over here so it's not it's it's I'm not going garbage for haven't played any of those so I wouldn't know but in Blue Moon that's what that's how it works and it's again it's your push pushing a Thresh old I just threw back uh eight in your court okay you just threw back nine well guess what boom 12 can you match that until somebody goes I'm out I can't do it and you win that round of combat I really like it I I I like the permutations Allowed by Texton cards and maybe you would like these war games then I'm I'm all in are they 30 minutes 8 hours cuz that's too long 20 five minutes is my anyway Blue Moon is my number four guys I love it number three my number three is very similar to my number four but I'm using a different game and it has some difference and that's battle or and battle or the second edition I really like the combat system every time I play it I get excited about it because it takes it started for Memoir but instead of rolling symbols to attack things a sword will hit or two swords will hit but sometimes the one sword won't hit depending on what you're doing or sometimes you roll symbol and that symbol activates the special ability of your card which I like and it's not it's not very complex at all you say okay on this one I need to roll swords so you roll oh swords oh and I as I get to activate this which lets me push you back one or whatever okay very clean combat system I mean battle Lord just keeps raising up for how much I love that game and um I know that it to me I it I get garbage when I say this but it replaces the games like Warhammer and things for me because yes I know I'm not rolling buckets of dice I'm proba most ever roll four or five dice weak but it's all that stuff is done right there and I can still do cool powers and things right really cool system battle or second edition the symbology on dice I guess is what I would use all right is it me yep all right my number three is from it's a combat system from an old ccg actually a collectible card game from 1996 I want to say the game called Dark Age feudal Lords and it's a post-apocalyptic game in which I am calling this uh uh combat strings the way it works says each character has a string of numbers and you roll two six-sided dice okay so the string for that character might be 6 7 11 12 and then you roll two dice if you surpass or hit six you get one hit if you also get to Seven that's two hits if you got all the way up to 11 that's three hits and if you roll 2 six that's four hits that's really interesting because it gives you a ton of variability some guys have just two numbers on the string but they're low enough where you're probably going to get two hits every time some guys have a lot of numbers but they're spread out enough where he's uh you're shooting in the dark you don't know if he's going to come through real strong or if he's going to you know uh mess this shot up and the other thing it allows you to do is you have equipment cards which add numbers to the strings and so I might have a character that I can play this equipment on and I've just added an eight to his string you also have strings for blocking which are very interesting and again you roll back you your guy might be door has open shut the door don't listen to me say it Tom say it no it say he's like two anyway um so I like that I like that system a lot I think the that string that combat string idea gives it a lot of uh gives the game designer a lot of variability it's very interesting that is my number three Dark Age feudal Lords that's really a obscure system that's interesting yeah it is interesting it sounds fun but it's really good all right my number we're on threes right we are hit me totaling the power of ships present which can be altered by hard play come on there's got to be a better way to say that uh 1:00 people I was going what I could the ships no no there's there's P Star Wars ccg is is the one that I'm I'm coming to so at a planet you would have you know if if on the rebels I have a monom Mari Cruiser two Corvettes and uh a squad of x-wings three x-wings and they each have a power thing on them so you total up that power and that's how much your power is then you can add in like pilots and all this other kind of stuff and they add power power to it as well the Empire does the same thing with their ships on that side but then you can play cards out of your hand that are interrupts or something like that that will say well you you know your pilot had a brain fart or whatever and he's like flying off in a different direction so his power doesn't actually count to towards the battle and and the other side can do the same thing you play multiple rounds of card play no uh I can't remember I I don't think so it's usually um you can you can play interrupts your person can react you go one you did already cuz I'm thinking it might be Cosmic Encounter but not if it's not simultaneous it's not Cosmic Encounter it's more of a here's the battle we're playing modifier cards to make things happen that's pretty much oh and then there's the destiny draw right Destiny draw on top of that which which simulates a die roll yes really um and the destiny draw can really mess you up or it can help you win the battle right uh so that was the you know you'll have to figure out a different way to say it uh rather than my 1:00 in the morning version but Star Wars ccg is is the combat resolution system actually the destiny draw itself was something I almost put into mine I like the destiny drill because yes it simulates a die roll but you can set your deck up yes to have a whole bunch of high numers then yes right yeah that's it's an interesting mechanism in any game where you have built your deck ahead of purpose cuz you can have weaker cards with better rols and Ne and Star Wars was really good about that cuz those fives and sixes were some pretty terrible cards usually yes number two all right my number two is the combat system as seen in Lord of the Rings the confrontation it's deterministic mostly two units meet you figure out what their strengths are this guy's a seven this guy's a five and then you simultaneously play a card on top of that as a modifier because again it's quick it's clean but it leads that double think thing where you're going I'm losing any anyway I'll just throw away my one on this fight but if my opponent's thinking that I'm going to throw away my one also they'll throw away their one which means if I play the four I could actually win with a weaker creature it's like strategio stro it's like stro the card on top of it right exactly and it say used in other games um it's a lot of games but the one I think dungeon twister uses the same exact thing it's very similar right um and so I like it a lot because again it's mostly deterministic and it's quick 5 seven whatever and then that card playing on top of it is a mind game I typically like games where combat resolution includes some sort of mind game also it's not just the system it's getting in your opponent's head a little bit so that's my number two Lord of the Rings the confrontation it's a lot of extra teego mhm with then boom a little something on top cool all right my number two is um truckload already already been mentioned by a big Die the game is just one big die uh it's already been mentioned by Tom and that is the rolling the unit that you are attacking mechanism in Memoir 44 yeah um so uh it is and the reason it's number two is because it is incredibly simple there's no questioning there's no this some of the cards that you can play can use that star to uh be a positive effect but the star side is usually in negative effect um the grenade is always a cool side to come up because it's always a hit no matter what you're shooting at so that whole system uh taking that CRT and putting it onto the dice like we've already said before is ingenious uh so I really enjoy that mechanic of course it's number two we've already talked about it so I'm not going to be labor the point but rolling the silhouette that you are attacking in M 44 now I'm just curious what his number one would be yeah I thought that was your number one too m all right my my number the one thing I don't like um in combat games is the lack of a chance for things to happen now I get it that a guy with a spear shouldn't be able to take out a tank I know what this is um okay but I mean we when we used to play Warhammer there were times where you had like an armored vehicle and there's some Squad is out there and there was nothing they could do you roll the numbers you do this and it just the numbers don't happen a holy hand grenade man so I like the opportunity to be able to win at All Odds so my number two is what I call the burst system from Arcadia Quest and did you write it exploding dice yeah same thing exploding dice I love that thing where you roll the dice and you get it oh I can roll again and there's a chance you could get again and yes you probably will lose but there's always that outside chance that you shot the fuel line and it blew up the whole thing yes I like that doesn't actually blow up anything it just shoots the F fuel line I saw a movie won't be able to get there movie where it happen you need to watch Mythbusters more often no but I I I the exploding dice the biggest one is Arcadia Quest but there are other games too where the you you roll the dice and some symbols you get to roll them again and I love that because yeah I might have one die against Z five he will Mo most likely win but you never know and that's what I love right and finally number one all right you ready here we go ready all right here we go one two three shoot so you're out yeah go one two three shoot one two three shoot such a good combat resolution mechanic wait I should use a chart wait no if this Z said this and you're sitting in a slightly different chair the red shirt gives me a plus one for no reason I'm wearing red so I get to move an extra inch sorry go ahead all right my number one has already been mentioned by both individuals sitting at the table with me and uh you want to take a guess take a gander oh the cube the cube Tower yes the cube Tower in Shogun SL wallenstein uh the cube Tower is one of the most Innovative I guess you could say definely ways of of resolving combat and I do think it's thematic because when you throw a bunch of Cubes down to that Tower and the more battles you have lost the more cubes you have in that Tower still MH which means that you're learning from past losses that's like a serious extrapolation of what happens man when you throw it in there and more of those things comes out you have learned and now you are the master I if you assume that what you're throwing in there is experience and not people then yes I guess I agree with you again this is at 1:00 in the morning other normally though what happens is I did think about this people fight some get lost in the battle they apparently reappear several months later when two other armies are fighting and they just kind of like come out of the it is thematically representing the General's prowess in battle he's learning from his past either that or alien abduction yeah yes one got give them credit because honestly what does a d mean a d means that when you hurl rocks at the end continue so my Cube Tower my number one is the cube Tower from Shogun uh it's the most memorable in my case and that's why I put it as number one because really rolling dice is rolling dice with different variations between game to game but this Cube Tower was just like wow this is out of the box and so I had to include it my number one the cube Tower and Shogun very good choice I feel very bad for my number one because of this is the Dice Tower and there's no dice in my number one but that's card combat now this is a larger category but I really like it in games like blood rage I really like it in Cosmic Encounter I really like it in Kemet and I like it in Lord Rings confrontation although that's slightly different but I like the idea of out guessing your opponent I'm going to play card they play a card but at the same time usually the number of forces you have matter and if in Cosmic counter I have 30 ships and Sam has two probably I'm going to win that battle although in Cosmic Encounter all sorts of things can happen kemet's more straightforward right I have a bigger Force you have a smaller Force I'm probably going to win now the question is what damage is going to happen in that battle kemet's probably my favorite of the card combat systems I really like the the fact that you have the attack the defense and the damage M that works pretty well so that that would be my token game for this I just like card combat very cool all right my number one is what I'm calling ranked waves of combat and this uh the game I'm using for this which I really can't think of any other game right off top of my head anywhere there might be some is Nexus Ops and in Nexus Ops okay you will have units fighting other units the units are among themselves ranked in the order in which they fight Shogun the original Shogun it's akuza now okay I never played it so and so you know this character is faster so he attacks before anyone else and you roll and they probably hit better than the people after them okay the interesting twist is that Defender chooses the victims they they pick the losses which leads to an interesting sort of give and take because you can kill one of the weak guys that would fight all the way at the end they're easy to buy again they're easy to replace but they won't fire cuz they're gone by the time you get there or you can kill a unit that has already fired meaning you don't need it anymore for this fight but it's a stronger unit it's more costly it would fire earlier in an upcoming battle but you still get everybody else to to shoot and so it's a great system of sort of like give and take you you need to look at the situation and figure out I really want to save that character just for one more die roll cuz I could technically wipe you out here if things go my way M or you could go man I'm losing anyway I'm going to get rid of the cheap guy and just forget the end of the combat you know really interesting I think it's a brilliant fighting system I I I haven't really like I said you say it's in that game but I haven't seen it in anything else well I mean there's a lot of games that do this where they have ranged and not ranged there several games where the range people hit first and you're like okay do I kill my own range guys now or do I kill some of my other guys who yeah it's sort of yeah it's sort of a variation on that but I really like that whole you know loser picks uh targets and ranked waves of combat which if you think about it is pretty it's pretty un themematic the whole the loser picks what gets killed you shot me ah um he's dead it is it is definitely yeah well no one mentioned risk no and no one mentioned the ax as an allies where you have to roll certain numbers per unit yeah I mean just where you have to roll a number they're just I mean I thought of them they're just not I mean they're so I guess vanilla maybe that's why they didn't make my list I mean they're they're they're streamlined systems they're they're not bad they're just not there's a lot more exciting systems now I think they're not as exciting I mean they're they can be especially when you have that one guy that's standing up against the horde of people that are that are Onslaught but uh it can be exciting but it just usually isn't tell you one system that almost made my list the fighting in Deadwood the the work replacement game okay cuz when you go into a space that someone else is taking over it's like it simulates a gunfight perfectly cuz you roll one die you well you first spend some bullets right which means you might be able to boom boom roll a couple of quick ones but on a five you wound them and they go away on a six you kill them and they lose that worker yeah and you roll don't get it then you shoot back then I shoot then shoot and it's a great dual system very tense all right folks well what do you think is the best way to fight in games um tell us in the comments um we hope that you enjoyed this we'll be back in a couple weeks with another top 10 until then I'm Tom vassel I'm zeria thank you folks I'm Sam Healey see you on the flip side w

Channel: The Dice Tower

Views: 104,533

Keywords: board game, board, game, dice, card game, cards, catan, monopoly, tower, dice tower, vasel, review, tom vasel, vassel, settlers, gaming

Id: OXIbeurJetw

Length: 54min 16sec (3256 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 14 2015