2.7 beta version

New version (with added omphalos) at the usual place:

https://quirkworthy.com/2017/01/24/mythic-battles-v2-7/

One thing that keeps coming up is suggestions to remove sections of the turn sequence, or to roll the two activation steps into one. I'm resisting this because my experience leads me to think that such changes will increase the number of questions we end up with. Remember that you guys are at the top end of the spectrum when it comes to understanding the nitty-gritty of rules. The rules need to be written so that they are clear to someone at the other end of the spectrum, with far less experience (and who aren't programmers). Whilst it's not especially slick, plodding through the steps one at a time is more difficult to misinterpret - and any opportunity to interpret, or a requirement to rely on common sense, is an invitation to problems.

Common sense isn't all that common

I'm still happy to consider suggested changes, and I do consider each comment. I'm sure this isn't perfect - it's just the least problematic in the long run that I can see so far.

Mighty Throw - the way I'm rewriting ATTACK should make it clearer that it works with ranged ones too.

Book order - I've experimented with a different sequence for the sections. Obviously you're still missing stuff. Let me know what you think.

Actions - the simple/complex split is a rules requirement. The families are a division based on how people look things up. In the middle of a game you're likely to have a discussion based on a family, not a simple/complex split. Having both the omphalos actions (for example) in one place, potentially on one page, makes is faster and simpler to check rules.

Unit breakdowns - a component section at the start of the book will explain how to read the various types of card.

Talent symbols - a symbol to show whether a talent can be used with powers might, I think, not be possible. I don't think this is a binary. A talent might apply to some powers and not others, which is ahy a general rule about what bits don't mesh is the way forward.

Maneuvers (going with the American spelling for this explanation as to not drive myself mad typing this out.)

I know we discussed this before but I think you can remove the art of war card cost column and do the following.

Change: “A player must pay for each maneuver by discarding the specified number of art of war cards from their hand.”

To: Each maneuver cost one art of war card except for *Invoke Power which cost varies. A player must pay for each maneuver by discarding the specified art of war cost from their hand.

I would also in the table for the Invoke Power maneuver place an asterisk * in front of the maneuver name.


The sentence –“Each Maneuver can only be bought once per turn (regardless of whose turn it currently is). However, note that each different power that is invoked counts as a different maneuver.”

Something about it is bothering me, I think the however makes it unclear. Perhaps something like the following: Each Maneuver Type can only be used once per turn. Each different power that is invoked counts as a different maneuver.

I would also then ad Maneuver “Type” to the column name for the table.

As for the table:
It looks like you have enough room to include in the when allowed column direct references to the turn name and still include the letter reference.

Example of Draw Cards: “During steps B and C of the players own turn.”

To: During the Activation Phases (steps B and C) of the players own turn.

I would also consider this change as well for the Draw Cards.
The active player may use this during their Activation Phases (steps B and C).


Small change to the Recall – when allowed area.

“During step D1 of a players own turn if their divinity’s area is not full.”
To: During the End of Turn Phase (D1) of the active players turn. This may not be used if the divinity’s area is full.

Again I think it is good to get players using the game terms like End of Turn Phase. This will help them get the vocabulary of the game in their head instead of only an alpha numeric reference to something which is more difficult to recall for the learning process.

Comments on 2.7 :

p3 wrote:

The scenario will also determine the lead player

Lead player will be determined by a dice roll 99% of the time, no ? Isn't it more efficient to write the general rule here and to add the exception in the 1% scenarii ?

p3 wrote:

Lay out the dashboards and troop cards of the available units on the table

No reference to recruitment cards ? (I know they are SG...)

p3 wrote:

Starting with the lead player and moving clockwise

(now that I played the pnp, I can have an enlighted feedback !)
The general feeling in the french community (on trictrac) is that the Z order works OK for 4 players. It is also much better to be placed on the side of your deployment area and to move your units forward.

p7 wrote:

A unit can do either 0-2 different simple actions, or 0-1 complex action per activation

As there is a "or" should we simplify to "or 1 complex action" ?
Or not ? Can I declare I am performing a complex action but not doing any (to bypass baneful Powers maybe) ?

Wouldn't it be more reader friendly to write step 3 (page 5) as : "chose between performing a) 1 or 2 simple actions or b) 1 complex action or c) no action" ?

On page 7, I would rephrase : "A unit can do up to 2 different simple actions, or 1 complex action per activation"

p9 wrote:

A unit that has not taken an ENTER action cannot use either talents or powers

Too many negations. I can't understand the sentence anymore. For me it means the exact opposite of the intent.

p8 : you saw my questions in 2.6 beta thread about flying unit & terrain ;-)

p10 wrote:

place the omphalos on the divinity’s dashboard

No reference to divinity cards ? (SG) (and during setup also)

I think my question is where will the rules concerning SG be available ? Note that with references to flying and aquatic unit, you are already stepping out of the "retail" core box.

p16: can you clarify the intent for Torment and Powers ? (torment is numerical but it affects the enemy stats...)

I wanted to take a minute to look at the draft section as listed. I think these changes may help for readability sake. QW, these suggestions are just for you to ponder the value of them not sure if the gain is worth the change at this point.


Follow these steps section I would change to Draft as a sub heading
Just going to write up my suggested changes as is without reference to what is currently there.



Draft
1. Chooses the dashboards of the units to be included and lay them out in the play area.
2. Starting with the lead player and moving clockwise around the table players choose a single divinity dashboard for their army and subtract that amount of Recruitment Points from their total Recruitment Points. Any unselected divinity are returned to the box and not used in this game. (Setting order should be explained here if not given in every scenario) example: in a 4 player game players on the same team sit in every other seat.
3. Starting with the last player to select a divinity and moving counterclockwise players each selects a unit’s dashboard to add to their army subtracting its Recruitment cost from their Recruitment Points. If the player does not have enough Recruitment Points to recruit a unit they are not allowed to add that unit to their Army. If the player cannot afford any of the reaming units they must take 1 omphalos card per remaining point and reduce their Recruitment Points to zero.
4. If a player has 0 remaining Recruitment Points they are the draft skips over the player until all players have exhausted their Recruitment Points.
5. All players then collect the corresponding troop cards, art of war cards and figures for the units recruited into their Army. All other dashboards, troop cards and figures may be returned to the box.

I have a couple of questions about the rules:

1. The manoeuvers table tells me that I can search for a card at any time. Does this mean that I can do this even if I am not involved in the action at all - ie not being attacked, not retaliating, etc ?
   
2. If all of the 3D terrain elements are thrown out of an area (by someone like Heracles), does the terrain become standard terrain, or does it retain its character (eg forest) ?
   

@Elrich - yes, you can search for a card when you like.

Areas revert to clear when there are no 3D elements in them.

Activation : "the opportunity within a turn for a unit to act."
I think "To act" is not enough precise. A unit who retaliate, does it act ?
Proposition : Activation : "the opportunity within a turn for a unit to have (to play) an activation phase."

Mighty Throw : three different things can happens. The attack itself which deals damage, the throw, the drop of omphalos.
"the target unit drops any claimed omphalos before it is thrown". But when the damage happens ?

In Talents section : "Using part or all of a talent is optional and at the owner’s discretion."
Not only. Exemple : If my attack affects a whole zone, I think my opponent can use the talents of my unit like mighty throw.

Sorry if the point has been raised but :

Quote :

If the owner discarded sufficient blanks to throw the target unit , the n the target unit drops any claimed omphalos before it is thrown. Then the owner of the throwing unit moves the target unit one area . A unit cannot be thr own into Cliff or Rocks area s .

Can a mighty throw ranged attack "pull" the opponent ?

I am having difficulty with the use of the word "Enter". It is a keyword for beginning a battle, but it is also used a lot in movement. In particular, the definition of Aquatic Units is made ambiguous by Enter, which is overloaded. It seems like enter is used well in the movement descriptions, but is somewhat artificial in it use of initiating engagement. I think that you'll be a lot more clear if you use "Engage" or "Initiate" instead of "Enter" for joining a battle. Probably engage, since it seems possible that the battle has already been initiated.

Update: realized I totally misinterpreted the meaning of Enter. I'd thought it was an action one took to join a fight. Now I understand that it is an action to deploy a unit. Why not call it "Deploy"? Enter is still overloaded, since it is frequently used to describe movement, unless I'm misinterpreting that as well.

Clarify: Each manoeuvre can only be bought once per turn (regardless of whose turn it
currently is).

Is this once per turn per player? (assuming yes, but a strict interpretation would say that only one Invoke Power is allowed per turn, so one could prevent another player from invoking).

a few terms are used before they are defined. The most notable one I saw was surroundings. Geographic-related terms might have a nice home in the Movement section Actions. For example:

The collection of areas that are adjacent to your current area is called your surroundings. During your standard movement, you can move to any area that is a part of your surroundings. This may be done once for each of the unit's Movement (points?).

(I see you address exactly this above, and see your perspective as well)

Regarding Sequence of Play, I think there's opportunity to simplify the Activation phase parts B&C. This is mostly my preference to reduce repetition.

The first option would be to break the Activation phase items out into the Activation phase section,moving B 2-7 to a different section, adding something like:
B2) Do first unit activation phase (p. xxx)
B3) Complete first unit activation phase. Continue to C1.

And similar for C.

========
The second option would be to consolidate into a single Activation Phase, and specify:
B)   Activation Phase

You may activate a single unit at this time. Once that activation is complete, you may activate one additional unit by discarding an Art of War card. No additional activations are available. A unit is limited to one activation per turn.

re: Mighty Throw - I don't see a section on ATTACK in the current version, but it would probably be worthwhile to address explicitly in the ability definition if a unit can throw a friendly unit, and if an attack or damage is necessary.

Thathane wrote:

Can a mighty throw ranged attack "pull" the opponent ?

In the current rules, yes you can (very useful as a range 1 unit (Hydra) might grab its opponent and then block it for instance).
It's up to QW to check if this is the intent.

the book section order is much better like this... good job!

QW, I understand your points, but I still prefer all the suggestions made concerning the draft and turn sequence made on 2.4 and 2.5, but as you said, here we know the rules quite well so won't have to check the rule before playing a game in décember.

December... It's so damn far...

Telgar wrote:

Thathane wrote:

Can a mighty throw ranged attack "pull" the opponent ?

In the current rules, yes you can (very useful as a range 1 unit (Hydra) might grab its opponent and then block it for instance).
It's up to QW to check if this is the intent.

In that event, I think the term "throw" is, for the less, a bad wording and could lead to some misinterpretation of the power.

Question for you QW, under Art of War Cards why are troop units excluded from the list? It seems like a strange restriction. I would think burning two troop cards to be able to recall or some other action would be a sufficient cost to balance the troops. Can you speak to the intention here?


Suggestion for you.
Under Absorb(Complex Action)
After “The owning player then takes an omphalos card from the supply and adds it to their hand”.

I know you have not yet included the omphalos card rules, this seems like the right place to do it with an additional sentence like.

Omphalos card acts the same as an Art of War Card, it can additionally be removed from the game and placed back in the supply at any time to increase your divinitys health by 1. Health gained may not exceed your divinity’s maximum health as shown on their dashboard.

Also I would like to agree with the previous suggestion that Deploy may be a better phrase than Enter for the Complex action. A bit more intuitive and removes the confusion of an often used word.

Benoit's thought is that as troops can always be recalled, they are never really destroyed.

When you destroy any other unit their activation cards are dead weight in your hand, so this gives them something to do.

AAh ok I follow you, but in some of my play on Table Top Simulator we did this wrong. There were of course times when you did not have an Art of War card in your hand, but you may have the dead troop cards. In that case I still do not see the need to limit this unless you are balancing against someone recruiting a lot of troops, suicide them to then have more maneuver options. This just seems like a bad strategy though to do that so I am still a little hesitant on the restriction. Is there something I am still not seeing?

It seems to me that not allowing you to use the troop cards as ersatz AoW actually encourages you to do more with them, not less. If you can use the activation cards then you're encouraged to not recall them, and leave them off. This is a vicious circle as it makes them less useful, which means you're less likely to bring them back, etc.

The ability to be recalled can be very powerful.

Ok thanks for clearing that up, I have not played as much as you and was not seeing that as being as big of an issue more of an option in play style. I could see why that would need to be discouraged if it would create problems and devalue troops.

RichC wrote:

Example of Draw Cards: “During steps B and C of the players own turn.”

To: During the Activation Phases (steps B and C) of the players own turn.

I would also consider this change as well for the Draw Cards.
The active player may use this during their Activation Phases (steps B and C).


Small change to the Recall – when allowed area.

“During step D1 of a players own turn if their divinity’s area is not full.”
To: During the End of Turn Phase (D1) of the active players turn. This may not be used if the divinity’s area is full.

Again I think it is good to get players using the game terms like End of Turn Phase. This will help them get the vocabulary of the game in their head instead of only an alpha numeric reference to something which is more difficult to recall for the learning process.

I think these are good ideas.