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Cult Of Games XLBS: Wargame Mechanics That Need To Go!
March 8, 2026 by crew
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A good episode and I agree the Illegal Procedure rule was a pain in BB. I disagree that the d6 is a die that must be chucked out. SAGA does a decent enough job in making factions different in how varied the abilities played out. As far as manufacturing I think I’d dig into the history of Chessex.
SAGA, for example, proves the point though it’s such a bland dice it requires a second set of d6 and specific boards for each faction to make it work. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing I love the game, but the d6 is so limited in granularity you require either a ton of keywords and special rules or in this case a whole A4 of specific rules and abilities to make it interesting and viable.
I think if GW would change away from a D6 the community would go into full melt down.
I don’t know if the overall perception is still, if it is not a D6 it is a bad game? I remember that some games were shot down before they came out because they didn’t have the D6 and others changed the development of their dice system to D6 because of the feedback that people didn’t like it.
I agree with Gerry that the random movement rule is a pain in the ass.
I don’t like the rule “what you see is what you get”, it just forces you to buy more minis and sometimes those minis don’t exist (I am not talking specifically about GW). Just be open to your opponent up front.
WYSIWYG came in from tournament play from what I remember. It was always in rules packs, so your opponent didn’t get surprised by a unit’s loadout, over time it has become a way to force a larger model collection to cover all the bases. I like how SAGA, for example, do their units. You don’t declare what the unit is armed with and how it is split until deployment, so that unit of warriors could have any weapon available depending on opponent and scenario, and while some people will have multiple units to cove,r that a lot of players don’t bother, there’s so little bookkeeping in the game, it’s easy to remember
I remember where it came from and why they did it and I understand that it makes it clear for your opponent and avoids discussions while playing the game. If I can I always try to make or buy the models with what they are equipped as it is also easier for me. I know that some game systems don’t enforce it in the rules like Battle Tech and Infinity. But the most annoying thing about this rule is when they make a new edition of the rules or faction/army book and your options get invalid or they overhaul or change the weapon equipment rule/points and a quarter of your models get useless. Luckily I have opponents that don’t care. I rather not have the rule in the standard rules.
As everyone probably predicted, I have a list.
1. 360 degree line of sight. I like facing. Round bases 🤣
2. Anything Completely random (movement is the biggest offender)
3. Death by tokens.
4. Anything that makes you miss a turn.
5. Exploding dice
6. D20 doesn’t belong in wargames
7. Maths heavy modifiers that get out of hand.
8. Custom dice that don’t streamline play. Block dice in bloodbowl is an example of custom dice that work well. Some just don’t add anything.
9. Convoluted line of sight rules. Massively up to debate and wooly true line of sight rules.
10. Units that are so expensive or OP they can not be realistically fielded in the game (German late war armour as an example)
11. Ability to alpha strike. I go you go has its place in some very zoomed out strategic games, so won’t be on my list.
12. Weapons ranges being so short. Shooting accuracy and effective ranges are what it should be. Although it can give the storm trooper affect (can’t hit anything even at close range)
I also have some things that I personally hate but I understand it’s just my opinion.
1. Models that are not wysiwyg.
2. Save rolls
3. Hobbled units, units that survive but are effectively useless. Wasting an activation on a unit that should have been eliminated.
4. huge numbers of modifiers
5. massive use of keywords or icons to indicate a rule you have to keep looking up in the rulebook.
6. Bucket o dice.
The last thing I will say is that D6 isn’t the best but it also isn’t the worst. The main problem is uninspiring use of the dice. The bucket of dice method is definitely in this camp.
Hah love it
I think Gerry and Richard Clarke need to have a debate about movement. Rich is pretty much wedded to the D6 as well.
It’s been easy enough to get percentile dice (the classic twenty-siders numbered 0 to 9 twice) since the 1970s, and the other platonics since the 1980s once Lou Zocchi stopped being the only manufacturer who made decent ones (even then, I had no trouble buying a set of Zocchi poly dice in London in 1977, six months before GW opened their first shop).
I don’t have a real problem with D6 though I’d prefer to use them to give a bell curve (as in HERO system or GURPS) than as the bucket style dice pools. The Featherstone derived roll a D6 to hit then another to save should have gone many years ago.
D20s are fine if you want a percentage roll but don’t need to go beyond a 5% increment.
Actual line of sight only works if your figures are to the exact same scale as the terrain and have very thin bases. Getting the old reverse periscope out and looking at the terrain from ground level was fun though.
I always feel the best defense of “I go you go isn’t fundamentally broken” is Infinity.
Hello Sunday
00:00 Skynet Gerry = Skerry!
07:00 “D6 based” … but the thumbnail for the video… OH NOES!
26:30 Honey I shrunk the minis!
45:00 longer range = miss more easy.
56:00 TO is a tuff titty?
and gone again.
Happy Sunday and Friday evening double dunt watch on my hobby sunday
I want to scrap the term “I go you go”. I find it confusing. It describes almost every system. I move/activate my whole army, then you do. I went, then you went. I moved 1 model, then you did. I went then you went. It’s such a vague phrase I never have any idea what anyone means by it.
The D6 has it’s place, but it definitely hampers GW. Their systems could expand so much if they used a d10 or something else, and moved away from bucket-o-dice play. They also need to consider writing a fresh set of rules for 40k from the ground up, rather than writing an evolution of the current rule set. They’re tied to too many outdated or clunky rules and concepts that are hanging on from the very early days of wargaming, like the dependence on the D6. I don’t play 40k, but every time I try it I always end up feeling like they cannot decide if models are treated like individuals, or like rank and flank blobs, and often seem to switch back and forth within a rule.
Here’s a rule that needs scrapping I’ve seen in GW books: Diagonal deployment zones on a table full of terrain. Good luck working out where that line is.
I also hate the rule that says I must go to work and stay there for 8 hours in order to get paid enough to afford food. I really think that one needs scrapping. Not entirely relevant here though.
I generally agree with you on the D6 but may I suggest multiple D6?
Classic BattleTech has always used 2D6 and that gives you a nice bell curve. Theres only one way to roll a 2 or a 12, but there are multiple ways to roll a 7, or more. Using a D12 gives you an equal chance of rolling any number and contributes to that feeling of being swingy. But 2D6 gives you pretty a pretty consistent bell curve.
Melee/Wizard/The Fantasy Trip (Metagaming Cincepts). back in the 70s used 3D6. Now published by Steve Jackson games, it still uses 3d6. There’s about a 1% chance of rolling a 3 or an 18, but there’s about a 50% chance of rolling a 10 or less.
Bell curves, love them.
yeah I remember the 3d6 SJG used it for GURPs because of that.
XLBS show is now folk’s 👍
Interesting topic. I’m broadly in agreement with many of the points raised and subsequently here in the comments. My biggest bugbear is the need to have too much of anything in a game. By that I mean that a D6 based system can be okay but not when it then becomes a “bucket-o-dice” system where you need 40+ of the things to resolve a single squad’s shooting.
Likewise I don’t mind a tracking token here or there but I don’t want a whole constellation of tokens orbiting every squad (SW Legion, etc.). Even too many of one type of token ruins it for me. Bolt Action pin markers are just hateful. Please just kill off all of my tiny fighting dudes instead of giving them a stack of pin markers that I’ll never be able to remove and then make me just stare at my squad stuck in game mechanical aspic for the rest of the game.
Congratulations to the GB winners. Well deserved.
Only topic adjacent, but badly translated rulebooks can get in the bin too. It is bad enough when the system is complex but when the translator doesn’t play the game or is working in a second rather than first language the translated rulebook is at best confusing and at worst useless. I’m sure many here will tell me translations from English into their languages have been pants for years. From my position French to English seems to have been en vogue for some time now and often it isn’t great. Studio Tomahawk I’m looking at you with a very hard Paddington stare.
Perhaps that’s what COVID was ?
Thanks for the golden button!
Sylvester McCoy was the other Scottish Doctor. Unfortunately the show was really on it’s last legs during his time — I think he could have been another Tom Baker or Patrick Troughton if he hadn’t been so let down by bad production values (even by Doctor Who standards).
I can’t take credit for the stripy pants, that was textured so all I had to do was paint them red and then drybrush white. I did have to freehand the Second Doctor’s pants and Jamie’s kilt though.
Great show guy’s 👍
That last project I really need to check over to get motivated to get on with my Relearning to paint with Daleks Project of my own. Started off ok, then stalled after back to work from a Christmas Break start of the year.
Daleks can be challenging to paint. I’ve been following your project — yours look great!
I agree that rolling for movement needs to go — how many modern games still do that? I would like to add that rolling for damage is similarly frustrating, especially if it’s an opposed roll. That’s what put me off Warlord’s otherwise pretty good Judge Dredd game. Damage should either be a fixed amount, or determined by how successful the attack roll is. There’s nothing worse than making a spectacular attack roll and then rolling minimal damage, or worse, having it blocked all together by a lucky save.