I saw that Clash UK have opted out of Command Dice for their event. I imagine this is the end for command dice in KoW in their current form?
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Also no command dice in Champions.
Ronnie said that Command Dice have not really worked in an interview, the recent Counter Charge episode iirc.
Sounds like command orders as in Champions are the thing going forward.
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The reason they aren’t in Champions is that they are too random for the given game size and 3 fixed orders for 3 units works better
If there will be Command Dice in 4th is unknown and I can still see them there if the game is built around it
Same as there is no Waver in Champions, but this doesn’t mean it will be gone in 4th KoW as well
I think Ronnie’s comments in that interview were the clearest indication that they won’t continue into the next edition in their current form.
He said that they would be worth it if they were good fun, but they aren’t fun enough.
I’ve never been a “frothing-at-the-mouth-I’m-quitting-KOW-over-these” hater of command dice, and we played with them a good bit, but I must admit they are just a bit lacklustre and don’t add enough to the game to justify the couple of extra minutes a round.
I’m sure there will be some new rules or mechanics in 4th, I expect some faction-specific stuff, maybe army rule upgrades are replaced by faction orders that are played once a game or something (Just not based on command dice pools).
Ronnie did reference them working in Deadzone and Firefight because they’re baked into the rules from the beginning. I suppose 4th could be a redesign on a scale that would allow for that, but I feel like the community complaints have probably become enough to sink them.
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Think issue with command dice at present is that the faction orders seen slightly unbalanced, with some getting better ones than others, while a couple of the generic ones are pretty unusable.
They also just add an extra layer of randomness - so in a massive event like Clash I’m glad they decided not to use them
Linking commands to specific heroes seems to me a far better approach.
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I’m glad they’re going away. Scope creep occurs in every system, and they take away from the elegance of the game without a meaningful increase in the benefit. They seemed somewhat superfluous and a waste of time for the benefit they brought.
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That sounds reasonable and would be my bet.
I also think proprietary dice goes against the spirit of Kings of War and that they’re generally a bad idea in general.
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