I think one of the best abilities that could be assigned, is: You win initiative ties. Sometimes I think it would have been better if Bazooka Joe had this ability instead of additional die.

Even with the Allied extra die, I am amazed at the number of ties.

Or in my case losses. I must be cursed at dice rolling because I've managed to lose more initiative rolls with Joe than I should even with only three dice.

That would probably make his ability to powerful, playing the Germans, I find Joe's ability bad enough as it is! Might be an idea if they ever released General characters who suck at combat and sit at the back giving orders.

yeah i read this earlier and then played about four games today.

I use basooka Joe all the time and it works out well in about a third of the situations (there is only actually about a 8.3% chance of getting all four hits so the total shut out is rare)

ties are MUCH more common

Yes, there are an aweful lot of draws, often we have to re-roll 3 or 4 times in one test. In theory, Joes extra dice will convert a draw to a win 33% of the time.

This came up dozens of times during the demo day in Glasgow. I think the ability would be very (or too) strong. I thought we could call it "Superior Tactics" but Gerry suggested calling it "Get the Game Moving" (after re-rolling initiative for the fourth time)

To balance it I would suggest:

"Superior Tactics - When making an initiative roll, if the result is a tie, you win initiative if you rolled the same number or fewer dice than your opponent"

i.e. if you have Black Ops and your opponent doesn't then you don't win and carry on rolling. If neither or both of you have Black Ops then you win ties. I thought about allowing a character with Superior Tactics to roll fewer than their maximum dice if they wish.

the tie issue can be annoying at times , and were i the person in charge of the game , i would make and sell custom dice sets for each faction as a new item , and have the dice made so that one hit had a small 6 on it and one hit have a small 1 on it so that each hit had a numerical value as well , used only to break ties .

Of course for games without Joes influence you could just roll a normal dice 1-3 axis wins, 4-6 allies win. or both roll a die highest win and Joes ability allows them to win if result is a draw. Lets face it, the game only uses their special dice for consistancy and players do not need to conform to that if there is a better system that gives the same results. I actually like all the tie's it seems to add to the tension of the game.