One player starts with the round dial and every turn that player turns the dial to the next digit and hands it over to the other player.

The only situation ive found in the rules when this has any significance is in the command phase when both players play a card of equal priority. When this happens, the player with the round marker rolls a red defense die to determine who gets priority for that round. A dieroll that can be done by either player and aside from some form of etiquette I cant see it matter at all.

Tracking rounds through use of the dial is all good and whatnot, many will probably have their own form of dials or markers to track rounds anyway, but handing it back and forth seems completely unnecessary to me.

Am I missing something that makes it important or can it just as easily be left out?

I’m with you, there’s no real point for the most part. Just roll a die and keep the tracker in the middle. That’s what we’ll probably do

I think that the passing the round counter rule comes from RuneWars, where it actually has a significant role. The player with the counter is the "first player", he activates unit first if they have the same initiative, and he resolves effects with the same timing first. In Legion it indeed seems unnecessary.

It determines who rolls the dice in case of a pip tie. It is also a helpful reminder to turn the wheel. That is about it.

I thought I heard somewhere Imps get initiative? Or lowest points army?

Ok so at least I havent missed anything then

Right, currently, it does not matter. But consider future expansions; it's very possible a Commander might come out one day with an ability like "When you roll for tied Priorities, you may re-roll the die." In that case, it WILL matter whether or not you are the one rolling the die.

10 minutes ago, Rocmistro said:

Right, currently, it does not matter. But consider future expansions; it's very possible a Commander might come out one day with an ability like "When you roll for tied Priorities, you may re-roll the die." In that case, it WILL matter whether or not you are the one rolling the die.

Indeed! Actually a cool idea, I like it!

TBH when I first read the rules I was surprised that the round dial itself wasnt the tiebreaker for priority which would explain handing off the dial every turn and also eliminate the dieroll altogether. IMO this made so much sense I had kind of assumed it to be the case until I read the rules.

20 minutes ago, Nihm said:

I thought I heard somewhere Imps get initiative? Or lowest points army?

The lower points cost army gets to pick blue or red player. This impacts game set up (terrain placement, mission selection, etc). When actually playing the game, it has very little impact.

1 hour ago, blkdymnd said:

there’s no real point for the most part

Someone at FFG got drunk years ago and bought an unholy number of circle cutters and the plastic bits used to hold the dials together. That's the only conceivable explanation I've been able to come up with for why so many of their games have them. It's to the point that when I open an FFG game and DON'T see a dial, I'm convinced that the designers based the final QC schedule on when Rick is on vacation so they can slip a game past his watchful eye, since his only note is ever, "why are there so few dials in here?" I would bet my life that there's a Mansions of Madness 2nd edition prototype somewhere at HQ that has a round dial just to throw him off the trail...

3 hours ago, Soulless said:

Indeed! Actually a cool idea, I like it!

TBH when I first read the rules I was surprised that the round dial itself wasnt the tiebreaker for priority which would explain handing off the dial every turn and also eliminate the dieroll altogether. IMO this made so much sense I had kind of assumed it to be the case until I read the rules.

The die roll is there to prevent guaranteed initiative i.e. you can't just know that if you play a 1 pip this turn, you have initiative. The die roll is a 50/50, so who rolls it is the most superfluous of distinctions, but whatever.

3 minutes ago, MasterShake2 said:

The die roll is there to prevent guaranteed initiative i.e. you can't just know that if you play a 1 pip this turn, you have initiative. The die roll is a 50/50, so who rolls it is the most superfluous of distinctions, but whatever.

I thought the red die had better odds? Unless it excludes surges

Just blocks unless I misread something

It is a little ceremony that provides both players to ensure they are ready for a new turn. Double check that suppression tokens and such have been removed and that the new turn can begin. Perhaps it is mostly unnecessary, but I kinda like it as, by making both players involved puts them in that mode of thought for finishing the turn and starting a new one.