The X result gives really nice game moments. You remember the games well, which is part of the purpose I think. Look at all popular games, even thriving competition based games (that famous CCG is based on skill AND luck. Remember that too deck slam? Gaming history!)

That being said, I wish FFG was more creative in their dealing with the result. I actually dislike Deadly removing the result completely, making it from the best side of the die, to the worst.

What if Deadly was 'if an opponent rolls a dodge or 3 defense, he must change the die to another result of his choosing'

Or 'if opponent rolls a dodge, instead of preventing all damage, the attack deals half damage, rounded don't

Those abilities still make the dodge result desirable.

Just my 2 cents

I'e seen all three of these cause problems in competitive games, when a weaker player still wins just because of luck on one of these rolls.

Exactly! That's fantastic! A weaker player can still win against a stronger player, and a player who is far behind can come back into the game. The better player will still win most of the time, so there is reward for skilled play, but you have improved accessibility and sustained the tension and drama of the game by providing a way for the weaker/losing player to still sometimes win.

Randomness of the dice does mean a weaker player can win, however TOO MUCH randomness, which is exactly what the dodge is, destroys the game.

My last game I had 1 dodge in 12 rolls. My opponent had 5 dodges in 7. I lost. There was no decision I could make to change the outcome, in fact none of my decisions mattered. In effect it was an hour long "game" of flipping a coin to see if heads or tails came up.

It's great you enjoy spending an hour flipping a coin Stomp, but it's a lousy game and a horrible waste of my time if not yours. If my decisions aren't going to matter, I'll go down and play some slots or something, it's cheaper and faster.

IA doesn't have enough die rolls to even out such an impactful result on the die. If we had 400 point armies and the white die got rolled enough that a cluster of 3 or 4 dodges in a row wasn't game deciding, it would be fine. But for the amount the die gets rolled, a cluster of 3 or 4 dodges WILL decide a game and it WILL come up frequently enough that people who play a lot are going to see it more than a few times.

My last game I had 1 dodge in 12 rolls. My opponent had 5 dodges in 7.

A single game, unless there is nearly 1,000 rolls in it, means nothing, and is not prove of anything, especially how much randomness there is in a single side of a single d6.

Yeah, that really sucks, but it's just one game. I guarantee that most games aren't like that, and if you're at all experienced in this game you'll know that as well.

Guys thank you for all the well thought out reponses. In part I wrote the article to spark additional convesation on the subject. There are some comments that I will specifically quote to clarify some things, and we will certainly talk about the topic more on the next podcast.

My last game I had 1 dodge in 12 rolls. My opponent had 5 dodges in 7.

A single game, unless there is nearly 1,000 rolls in it, means nothing, and is not prove of anything, especially how much randomness there is in a single side of a single d6.

But exactly that is the problem. If there were nearly 1,000 rolls in a single game, than an effect like this wouldn't matter. Statistics would even out over the course of the game.

In Imperial Assault a Player can have 1 Grenade or 2 Tramples per game, and around 30 defense rolls. Extreme results can't even out over the course of the game.

I think there are some really good points for and against it.

My view is, it is how it is and it's not changing, so might as well find ways to like it, or at the very least come to terms with it.

If you spend every game hating on an inevitable element of the game, your overall enjoyment is going to decrease. You're playing the game (I assume) to have fun and enjoy yourself.

You can't change the mechanic, but you can change how you feel about it.

If you really want to homebrew it out, Jonathan Ying (IA Designer) suggested just using the X result to remove one attack die of the defender's choice.

My last game I had 1 dodge in 12 rolls. My opponent had 5 dodges in 7.

A single game, unless there is nearly 1,000 rolls in it, means nothing, and is not prove of anything, especially how much randomness there is in a single side of a single d6.

But exactly that is the problem. If there were nearly 1,000 rolls in a single game, than an effect like this wouldn't matter. Statistics would even out over the course of the game.

In Imperial Assault a Player can have 1 Grenade or 2 Tramples per game, and around 30 defense rolls. Extreme results can't even out over the course of the game.

And I think that's where both sides disagree. People who support Dodge like that it matters, they're not saying that it's irrelevant. The point is that a successful dodge can indeed have an impact on the game. It's hardly a pointless occasion.

However, what Vanor was saying is that while a dodge can be a big thing, it's not something to count on. In the grand scheme of thing, such as a full campaign, things will even out a little more. Dice mitigation isn't too common in IA, and when it is it's often the offense forcing the defense to reroll- so, it's reasonable to think that dodges are going to be even less than 16% common.

In the grand scheme of thing, such as a full campaign, things will even out a little more.

That was my point in the article, even if maybe not well communicated. Dodges are fine in the campaign. Both the actual result, as well as the result of the mission has no great impact. It's the aggregation of all of that that tells the story of the campaign. And this is fine really.

In Skirmish it's different. Losing a game there has a direct impact. In store tournaments you play an average of 4-5 swiss rounds. Losing only one game might cost you the cut. Or it might even cost you top 8 and thus rewards that are sometimes unique and even worth some money if sold on ebay (I know no one wants to hear this, but it's undeniable). Sure, it would average out over many tournaments, but realistically players attend 2-3 tournaments a year. Getting worse results in 1 or 2 of them can kill motivation really quick.

But what I also wanted to get across in the article is that dodge almost completely transcends game mechanics and thus lies outside of player agency. If you lose because you didn't draw a specific command card, you can include it twice in your deck (if you only took one). But even better, you can adjust your list or your play style to more reliably draw more command cards. This is player agency. It also creates a meta game where your opponent can hinder you from doing so if he suspects you need a good draw. This is creating positive tension. The dodge doesn't provide for this.

An important part is also that it is handled differently from all other symbols on the dice. It does technically enter the symbol pool, but it does effectively annihilate it. Affecting other symbols in the pool doesn't matter (aside from recover). No decisions can be made on spending surges or triggering effects that change the symbol pool. I think that's really bad, which my proposed solution was a translation of the dodge into normal defense symbols for skirmish. This way, even if the amount of symbols gained through the dodge seems overwhelming, it could be overcome by great effort within game mechanics. Discarding command cards for pierce would be one of these mechanics that is already in the game. It would not be feasable to get through every dodge, so you still need to make decisions on which dodge to cancel and how to get the resources for that. And now ... BOOM! Player agency is back big time.

Sour grapes, and I'm hearing alot of 'blah'.

If dice are involved, there's going to be mixed results. I don't know if there are any Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game people out there, but in most games we ended up relying on the Priority dice roll, that d6 roll to see who goes first. because when all the Might, Will and Fate points have been spent, that priority suddenly becomes important.

Anyone heard of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 1st edition? Your Hit Points are a single dice roll. That's it, 1d6 for Thief, Assassin, 1d8 for Cleric/Druid and 1d4 for a Magic User. You have 1 Hit Point? welcome to sudden death gaming.

I notice the troll who started it has his/her own 'podcast' which he/she is spruiking, can't be too much of a coincidence is it?

It's a game mechanic, like it or leave it. I enjoy this game and I hope others get enjoyment out of it also, I also would love to see this game move forward. This kind of trash talk takes it backward.

so much for promising myself to not get involved

FYI: Stephan is not a troll.

Is it really heresy to want a little less variance in a strategy game?

Clearly the developers agree, as they continue to give ways to even out the variance through abilities and command cards. Like the brand new +1 damage, +1 block, +1 surge command cards. And another Hunter card to remove a die.

All fantastic additions to the game, in my opinion.

My last game I had 1 dodge in 12 rolls. My opponent had 5 dodges in 7.

A single game, unless there is nearly 1,000 rolls in it, means nothing, and is not prove of anything, especially how much randomness there is in a single side of a single d6.

You've done nothing to address my point that the likelihood of this sort of game coming up is far too high.

In reality is should never come up because the dodge result shouldn't have gotten past testing. But they don't even use the dice to test with.

I doubt all playtesters are using dice card decks.

I'm here to squash this notion that is ok in campaign, but no okay in Skirmish. In campaign you don't get very many mistakes, and 1 or two dodges can very much affect the outcome of a mission negatively. I actually it hurts more in campaign because a couple of matches lost due to bad rolling, and that is in no way exclusive to dodges, you will be way behind the imperial player power curve. The only reason skirmish players think it matters more is because they want to win stuff at store tournaments. You knew the mechanics of the game, but because a game goes against you, you're all sour-faced and blame it on a white die with no more than 1 block and one evade, but that 1/6 chance of dodge, and completely discount the blank pip as "essentially" one block, because to argue otherwise is contrary to your narrative that "it just isn't fair."

I've watched many skirmish games, and played a few, and I frankly don't see the dodge all that often. I've also seen a dodge happen when the attack roll was crap, and the attacker wasn't bothered by that. It is only when they it happens when they go all in on one huge attack that they've been planning for 3 rounds, and the dodge affects it. It's like baseball teams who rely on home run hitters rather than playing the short game. I read a comment that said, "the white dice doesn't affect your axis and allies game" How condescending. Anyone who has played dice games for as long as I've played them has had plenty of opportunities to be extremely frustrated by dice rolls. I've set up great attacks in Star Wars minis only to roll a 1 on the d20. I've had people who couldn't hit me roll a 20. Boba Fett died one time because an Imperial Officer rolled a 20 and took out my last 20 HP. You don't think I wasn't furious? I lost that match.

While we are on that subject, the same people complaining about the dodge were complaining about the 20 and the 1 in Star Wars Miniatures, and do you know what inevitably came of it? General Obi Wan Kenobi. He ushered in a new meta were every unique character, almost, had some type of save to force their opponent to reroll their attacks. After a while, one attack would take 20 minutes after you figured in double-attacks + twin attacks versus Soresu style mastery. It didn't make the game any better. Trying to have player have a way to mitigate every dodge won't make you feel any better when you lose a match. It sucks when the dice gods go against you.

My last game I had 1 dodge in 12 rolls. My opponent had 5 dodges in 7.

A single game, unless there is nearly 1,000 rolls in it, means nothing, and is not prove of anything, especially how much randomness there is in a single side of a single d6.

You've done nothing to address my point that the likelihood of this sort of game coming up is far too high.

In reality is should never come up because the dodge result shouldn't have gotten past testing. But they don't even use the dice to test with.

Says who? Most miniatures games have an auto-hit and/or auto-miss mechanic. And honestly, you'd see a lot more dodges in a dice deck. 2 in 12, without fail, not a "probability number." Every 12 draws of the white dice deck will contain 2 dodges. They could be just as unforgiving as a random roll.

I notice the troll who started it has his/her own 'podcast' which he/she is spruiking, can't be too much of a coincidence is it?

Look. All the stuff I do, the podcast, the image db and the pack reviews actually cost me money. Ad revenue on the site recently just barely can't cover the hosting and all the giveaways are completely on my money. On top of that, the discussion on the dodge was sparked during a conversation I had with other hosts of the podcast. And we will talk about it more during the podcast. So of course I am going to mention it.

But let's get into the actual argument.

Anyone heard of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 1st edition?

Have you ever played PvP games in 1st Ed.? It's fun, but just nothing you could do in a tournament. D&D was constructed as a cooperative game guided by a game master. The IA campaign is losely based on that, but the skirmish is nothing like it.

If dice are involved, there's going to be mixed results.

That is not the argument. The argument is that the dodge has somewhat of a special role on all dice. It does not adhere to normal dice symbol conventions, but overrides all other symbols. This creates too large spikes in resource trading. Imagine the robbers in Settlers of Catan would not only block resource generation on one tile but block a single player from receiving a specific resource via tiles or trading for a round. That sounds horrible. Yet it's a good analogy to what happens in IA with the dodge. And Jonathan has already said on twitter that the dodge does cause headaches for Paul and Todd sometimes. So there is something to that symbol that seems to need attention.

Now why did I spark this debate? Because I thought (and I was right on that IMHO) that participants here and elsewhere try to form consistent and civil arguments for and against this mechanic. And that it reflects somewhat of a slice throughout the playerbase as a reference for the designers (who I know read the forums from time to time) and might spark some creative thoughts for them to work around the dodge symbol in ways that surpise us. This is also why I specifically mention that the ways to remove the symbol from the symbol pool via game mechanics might not be the solution.

so much for promising myself to not get involved

Maybe try less negativity and more civility next time?

Jacenat- in regards to your reply to me on Skirmish v Campaign- fair enough.

I've barely played skirmish, so I can't really respond on it. I suppose in a friendly setting (such as two friends who meet every Sunday afternoon for a few Skirmish sessions) the dodges would easily even themselves out statistically- but I could totally see the frustration of this in a tournament setting.

Still, I guess it should be noted that you should never count on hitting your opponent, much less destroying them. I'm sure it's frustrating to see an attack so easily brushed aside, but players always need to be adaptable.

To paraphrase Luke, any player who counts on dealing significant damage to an opponent with an attack will find that their overconfidence is their weakness.

Coming from a Blood Bowl background, where a 1/6 on almost every single die roll can ruin your day, I think it's perfectly fine with the white dodge. It's a calculated risk to both bring and fire at white-die figures. Last week I played a couple of games, one with my scum squad and completely demolished the Empire player (sure, there was some mistakes from him, but I still only lost two figures in total). That squad is mainly black-die. Then I played a rebel squad against him and got demolished myself, because, on average, he just got more damage through.

He played 2x eISB Infiltrators, which certainly helped ruin the white-die. Couldn't even hope for a dodge against those.

Jacenat- in regards to your reply to me on Skirmish v Campaign- fair enough.

I've barely played skirmish, so I can't really respond on it. I suppose in a friendly setting (such as two friends who meet every Sunday afternoon for a few Skirmish sessions) the dodges would easily even themselves out statistically- but I could totally see the frustration of this in a tournament setting.

Still, I guess it should be noted that you should never count on hitting your opponent, much less destroying them. I'm sure it's frustrating to see an attack so easily brushed aside, but players always need to be adaptable.

To paraphrase Luke, any player who counts on dealing significant damage to an opponent with an attack will find that their overconfidence is their weakness.

Just for perspective

Let's say you lose every game in a tournament because every white die roll is a dodge, EVERY ONE. What are you playing for? Your firstborn's college tuition money? Your left hand? Guaranteed embarrassing social media posts every week of the rest of your life?

Nope, just a cheap coin, maybe some acrylic and pieces of cardboard. Life-altering stuff. I'd wager this is one of the reasons FFG doles out prize support like they do, to keep everything in perspective. Fantasy Flight Games. We're playing games of fantasy guys - - enjoy yourselves, don't take it so seriously.

Shoot Casual!

Jacenat- in regards to your reply to me on Skirmish v Campaign- fair enough.

I've barely played skirmish, so I can't really respond on it. I suppose in a friendly setting (such as two friends who meet every Sunday afternoon for a few Skirmish sessions) the dodges would easily even themselves out statistically- but I could totally see the frustration of this in a tournament setting.

Still, I guess it should be noted that you should never count on hitting your opponent, much less destroying them. I'm sure it's frustrating to see an attack so easily brushed aside, but players always need to be adaptable.

To paraphrase Luke, any player who counts on dealing significant damage to an opponent with an attack will find that their overconfidence is their weakness.

Just for perspective

Let's say you lose every game in a tournament because every white die roll is a dodge, EVERY ONE. What are you playing for? Your firstborn's college tuition money? Your left hand? Guaranteed embarrassing social media posts every week of the rest of your life?

Nope, just a cheap coin, maybe some acrylic and pieces of cardboard. Life-altering stuff. I'd wager this is one of the reasons FFG doles out prize support like they do, to keep everything in perspective. Fantasy Flight Games. We're playing games of fantasy guys - - enjoy yourselves, don't take it so seriously.

Yeah, I wonder if they have played poker for money and felt the real pain of losing because of bad hands.

My last game I had 1 dodge in 12 rolls. My opponent had 5 dodges in 7.

A single game, unless there is nearly 1,000 rolls in it, means nothing, and is not prove of anything, especially how much randomness there is in a single side of a single d6.

You've done nothing to address my point that the likelihood of this sort of game coming up is far too high.

In reality is should never come up because the dodge result shouldn't have gotten past testing. But they don't even use the dice to test with.

Says who? Most miniatures games have an auto-hit and/or auto-miss mechanic. And honestly, you'd see a lot more dodges in a dice deck. 2 in 12, without fail, not a "probability number." Every 12 draws of the white dice deck will contain 2 dodges. They could be just as unforgiving as a random roll.

Huh? Giving you the average isn't as unforgiving as a random roll, it's average.

In 12 attacks there is about an 11% chance your opponent rolls 0 dodges, and about a 13% chance they roll 4 or more.

A game where 1/3 of your attacks miss or a game where every attack hits are dramatically different games and about a quarter of games falls into one of these two categories. This is particularly true where the hit means the model leaves the board and can't attack back while a dodge means it will get one or more attacks in.

Honestly 1/4 of games being that swingy isn't all that great, but that isn't as bad as it can get either. You're rolling defense too. If the opponent ends up dodging 1/3 of the time and you end up never dodging, you're pretty much getting crushed regardless of what decisions you make, basically the game has just decided you're a loser and you're losing and screw you. That will happen about 2% of the time. Which I've played enough games to have that or close to it happen several times. And that could have been avoided with a more sensible result on that one face.

Let me also pose this- It does indeed really suck when a big attack fails from a dodge. Seriously, that's not a fun feeling.

HOWEVER, how does it feel when you successfully dodge an attack? Does it feel like you're cheating the game? Does it feel broken? Or does it feel like a rare and fortuitous respite from a looming attack?

That's the thing about multiplayer games- sometimes, someone loses. Now, truly brutal mechanics can sometimes not be fun (for instance, Eldritch Horror's Carcosa inhibit abilities mechanic that serves nothing but to decay characters ability to play the game) but a single dice side that makes one player truly happy and the other upset is far from broken. I get the sour grapes, but just remember the times it's actually worked in your favor, and remember- each team gets units with white die. It's balanced at least in that regard.

Jacenat- in regards to your reply to me on Skirmish v Campaign- fair enough.

I've barely played skirmish, so I can't really respond on it. I suppose in a friendly setting (such as two friends who meet every Sunday afternoon for a few Skirmish sessions) the dodges would easily even themselves out statistically- but I could totally see the frustration of this in a tournament setting.

Still, I guess it should be noted that you should never count on hitting your opponent, much less destroying them. I'm sure it's frustrating to see an attack so easily brushed aside, but players always need to be adaptable.

To paraphrase Luke, any player who counts on dealing significant damage to an opponent with an attack will find that their overconfidence is their weakness.

Just for perspective

Let's say you lose every game in a tournament because every white die roll is a dodge, EVERY ONE. What are you playing for? Your firstborn's college tuition money? Your left hand? Guaranteed embarrassing social media posts every week of the rest of your life?

Nope, just a cheap coin, maybe some acrylic and pieces of cardboard. Life-altering stuff. I'd wager this is one of the reasons FFG doles out prize support like they do, to keep everything in perspective. Fantasy Flight Games. We're playing games of fantasy guys - - enjoy yourselves, don't take it so seriously.

Yeah, I wonder if they have played poker for money and felt the real pain of losing because of bad hands.

They are completely different games, you're comparing apples to lawnmowers. But sure, great point! Or whatever.