The maneuvre tool is a way to simulate the limited turn radius of vehicles. But for an infantry game? What's wrong with measuring tapes?

They arent exact. Sounds weird, but when people hover with a tape measurer, they often add quite a bit of movement.

Fair question; I suppose so one tool can work for both unit types and is a bit easier to use when measuring around terrain perhaps?

Board game people tend to place much higher value on measurement precision than miniatures gamers.

The tools are jointed. Hopefully this is more like Armada and less like X-Wing/Rune Wars

It's FFG, they are all in on movement tools and templates.

A lot of miniature war games could use a measurement tool. Most units tend to move a certain distance anyways. 40K it's mostly 6" or 12", basically 6" sections. I like the idea of the squad moving centralized around the squad leader's movement.

As far as I have read, which is perusal at best, one figure moves with the template and the rest simply join in with cohesion not further than it went.

That could be a fine balance. I love my tape measure games, but in this instance it sounds fast and furious. Keen on the concept thus far.

Does the template force a minimum move for squads? Could a squad that was tucked behind a barricade easily hop to the other side of it or would the template make this impossible? The templates and minimum move work for ships in xwing, but would be a bit odd if applied to squads.

3 hours ago, Rumar said:

The maneuvre tool is a way to simulate the limited turn radius of vehicles. But for an infantry game? What's wrong with measuring tapes?

I read someone from FFG saying that their market research indicates that things like maneuver templates, custom dice, set range rulers and so on are more popular with players than "traditional" rulers and dice. I can see the point, but from my casual glance at the demo today, I'm not sure they aren't taking it too far.

1 hour ago, Blutsteigen said:

As far as I have read, which is perusal at best, one figure moves with the template and the rest simply join in with cohesion not further than it went.

That could be a fine balance. I love my tape measure games, but in this instance it sounds fast and furious. Keen on the concept thus far.

Fast and furious is an illusion. You measure once for the squad leader. And if distance is really critical you measure the distance to the squad leader for every single trooper.

On 8/19/2017 at 6:40 PM, ryanabt said:

They arent exact. Sounds weird, but when people hover with a tape measurer, they often add quite a bit of movement.

Indeed, I've often seen players move the tape measure forward as they move the model. While its often done unintentionally, I know some people use it to cheat slightly (sad but true).

When moving infantry the "movement tool" is simply used as a measuring tape BUT with a small thing to note: The measuring tool shows the max distance from the front of the base before move to the back of the base after move, so the measuring tool's distance is actualle the distance BETWEEN the base of the model before and after movement.

You could by all means measure up this distance in inches/cm and use a regular tape for it but there is no point if you already got a tool for the job.

The jointed part only comes into consideration when moving vehicles.

13 hours ago, Rumar said:

Fast and furious is an illusion. You measure once for the squad leader. And if distance is really critical you measure the distance to the squad leader for every single trooper.

Well it IT fast no doubt, much faster then other miniature skirmish games where you have to measure first every miniatures movement individually, then every miniatures cohesion individually. In Legion, you do one measurement and MAYBE a second measurement and thats it. Some dont like it but personally I love the idea of only measuring the leader and having the rest follow up! There was some other game that did this, or had plans to do this, and I loved the concept but I think sadly they fell back on old standards and changed it before implementing it. Cant remember what game, I want to say it was one of the Warpath versions but im not sure.

2 minutes ago, Soulless said:

Well it IT fast no doubt, much faster then other miniature skirmish games where you have to measure first every miniatures movement individually, then every miniatures cohesion individually. In Legion, you do one measurement and MAYBE a second measurement and thats it. Some dont like it but personally I love the idea of only measuring the leader and having the rest follow up! There was some other game that did this, or had plans to do this, and I loved the concept but I think sadly they fell back on old standards and changed it before implementing it. Cant remember what game, I want to say it was one of the Warpath versions but im not sure.

There is not difference. You don't have to measure every miniature individually, if it is not critical and that depends on the tactical situation and not on wheter you check movement or cohesion, and you have to, if it is likely to make a difference.

1 minute ago, Soulless said:

Well it IT fast no doubt, much faster then other miniature skirmish games where you have to measure first every miniatures movement individually, then every miniatures cohesion individually. In Legion, you do one measurement and MAYBE a second measurement and thats it. Some dont like it but personally I love the idea of only measuring the leader and having the rest follow up! There was some other game that did this, or had plans to do this, and I loved the concept but I think sadly they fell back on old standards and changed it before implementing it. Cant remember what game, I want to say it was one of the Warpath versions but im not sure.

Me and my brother generally did this for games of 40K. It definitely speeded up the gaming, and always kept close to the same formation. If terrain, or other units, got in the way we'd reduce the distance and/or bunch up a bit.

Worked great.

3 minutes ago, Tommy Blunderbuss said:

Me and my brother generally did this for games of 40K. It definitely speeded up the gaming, and always kept close to the same formation. If terrain, or other units, got in the way we'd reduce the distance and/or bunch up a bit.

Worked great.

I'd say that's how most people play 40K or similiar games, I can't remember when I last measured movement for every trooper in a squad perhaps when I was new to 40K. Tournaments might be different of course.

Just now, Iceeagle85 said:

I'd say that's how most people play 40K or similiar games, I can't remember when I last measured movement for every trooper in a squad perhaps when I was new to 40K. Tournaments might be different of course.

Yeah, but that's Tournaments.

Even in the stores, back in the good olde days when GW staff were still fun, games went the same with even the staff doing it. It was like an unwritten rule between gamers.

Most of us are reasonable chaps with common sense.

Can't say I've ever met a strict "by the book" player who demands every model is measured.

19 minutes ago, Tommy Blunderbuss said:

Me and my brother generally did this for games of 40K. It definitely speeded up the gaming, and always kept close to the same formation. If terrain, or other units, got in the way we'd reduce the distance and/or bunch up a bit.

Worked great.

Yes thats how I play usually too, only when it might be important I do the exact measurements to be sure. AoS close combat for example.

But Legion making it rules is a great idea IMO and just removes a lot of possible discussions that might come up.

1 minute ago, Soulless said:

Yes thats how I play usually too, only when it might be important I do the exact measurements to be sure. AoS close combat for example.

But Legion making it rules is a great idea IMO and just removes a lot of possible discussions that might come up.

I agree.

Making it official rules is definitely best.

One more thing in the tape measure vs movement tool discussion , while it is true that nearly all movements done in games that use tap measure can be substituted by a movement tool other factors like terrain have to be considered. In many games there are terrain rules that could double or even triple the movement you spend there so if your movement is 8 inch and you move 3 through a terrain that doubles the movement taken you would have 2 inch left to move, same for buildings if again have an movement of 8 you could walk 3 up to a ladder, climb 4 to the first floor and then still have 1 inch to move around, doing this with Legions movement tool would be pretty difficult.

And then there are some games like Infinity where might want to do a movement a movement tool can't make because your opponent has laid some mines and if your troopers see your move they can react, doesn't happen that often but it can.

So it depends on the game mechanics which way of movement is best, same thing applies to many other things miniature wargames make, it all depends what kind of game you want to make and what feel it should have.

Speaking of movement tools, that is one of the things about both Armada and X-Wing that I like.

2 minutes ago, Tommy Blunderbuss said:

Speaking of movement tools, that is one of the things about both Armada and X-Wing that I like.

And those who I show x wing to also like (I.e. Non gamers).

1 hour ago, Iceeagle85 said:

One more thing in the tape measure vs movement tool discussion , while it is true that nearly all movements done in games that use tap measure can be substituted by a movement tool other factors like terrain have to be considered. In many games there are terrain rules that could double or even triple the movement you spend there so if your movement is 8 inch and you move 3 through a terrain that doubles the movement taken you would have 2 inch left to move, same for buildings if again have an movement of 8 you could walk 3 up to a ladder, climb 4 to the first floor and then still have 1 inch to move around, doing this with Legions movement tool would be pretty difficult.

And then there are some games like Infinity where might want to do a movement a movement tool can't make because your opponent has laid some mines and if your troopers see your move they can react, doesn't happen that often but it can.

So it depends on the game mechanics which way of movement is best, same thing applies to many other things miniature wargames make, it all depends what kind of game you want to make and what feel it should have.

He manouvre tool has links in it that could be used to shorten distance for difficult terrain. As for moving up 1 level this could also use up 1 tool link. It's all translatable. Its just a different language you haven't fully learned yet.

I want everything I need to come in the box. Spending extra money is a turn off, and breaks the immersion. It's not fun to use a tape measure. And custom tools make things impossible to fudge. If your figure has to touch a custom template at both ends, you can't "accidentally" go half an inch too far. Customs are always better, no matter the game. A llows you to be precise and prevents fudging.