According to Boardgame Geek stats the best board games have a lowerl random factor, this is not the case with Tannhauser. For example a bad first shock roll that gets a key character killed on the early game might end most chances to win a game, likewise in other "sensitive rolls". Basically the feeling I have is that the "Lucky silver bullet" that comes out of nowhere destroying your carefully laid strategy should be at least minimized.

There are several options to limit the random factor without altering too much the rules, the first that comes to my mind are rerolls, a very nice feature of BloodBowl: Each faction gets a number of rerolls they might use during an entire game (not a turn), thus preventing catastrophic rolls that can wreck a game and providing a bonus to a sound strategy.

So, how many rerolls do a team get? my first proposal would be as many as command points so 2-3 per game. Then I would add 1 bonus reroll per game to the team with highest initial initiative modifier (if both teams are tied no bonus reroll), this way we favor a bit more the hero's command packs that have an initiative modifier.

Another way to limit the random factor is changing the rules on duels, normally in case of ties the "defender" wins the duel. I would change it so the character with higest base value wins tied rolls, in case both characters have the same base value then the defender wins the ties. This affect mainly bull rushes, it is a bonus for these strategies in which a path is blocked on purpose and for choosing the right guy for the right task.

The same counters we use for the cps might be use to mark rerolls, using the ones belonging to the factions you are not playing with would help to avoid confusion as they have different backgrounc color.

Anyone willing to playtest this?

"Should Random Factor be reduced in Tannhauser?"

No, it's part of the fun.

I am talking about reducing it, for me sometimes too much random factoris frustrating, lessening the fun.

How do you see my proposed rules lower the fun? It just reduces the chances of things going awfully wrong in a critical moment.

I understand what you’re saying, but the fact that all your plans can go out the window in a second is part of the excitement, if you'd ever been in real combat you know a lot of the adrenalin comes from the unknowns, the what ifs, not the known dangers. Random factors always exists in real life, sometimes guns jam, sometimes the intel is off, sometimes thing just go really really bad.

In life there are no re-rolls.

But it’s just my opinion feel free to use whatever house rules you like.

So I guess what I’m saying is I don’t feel things are too random in the revised rules version; keep in mind BBG’s rating is mostly based on the old rules, which had a lot of issues, so it’s not an accurate representation of the revised rules rating.

I was basing my opinion on "randomness" on my own experience, not BGG rating. In lots of the games I have played I had the feeling at the end that luck took more part on the outcome than skill. In my case this is not desirable, I approached Tannhauser as a tactics/strategy game and if luck is more important than strategy it kind of defeats the purpose.

I was asking if others had the same feeling and proposing a way to try to reduce it.

I dont want my game to resemble real life, I am playing a game with Nazi Zombies, Demons and reincarnated gods after all. I want it to be fun, for me part of that fun is to feel that I had more to do with the outcome than my dice rolls.

I am not asking for chess either, I am looking for a mix where skill clearly outweights luck, not 50/50 or the other way round, the rerolls might be a way to get that.

Not a bad suggestion. I'm open for some more ideas. Random factor is good as it makes game more interesting, but I agree that currently Tannhäuser relies too much on lucky rolls. For example last game I detonated a dynamite, which dealt only one wound (soaked by a command point) and threw two grenades, which didn't wound targets at all (both were single targeted, but still). Then one grenade was thrown at my MacNeil, which failed the shock roll completely and died instantly.

It was a deathmatch game and after those incidents the game was pretty much over.

So those rerolls is one thing to fix it. Personally I would love some kind of system that made the attribute values more important as rerolls are also affected by luck.

I'll give this some thinking and would welcome other suggestions as well.

I agree that it can be frustrating when a well-placed strategy falls apart due to unlucky dice rolls (or unbelievably lucky ones for your opponent), but I also agree that it's just part of the game, and applies equally to both players. It's also how most of the games I play work.

That said, if you want to introduce a re-roll mechanism into your own games, I'd suggest that the easiest way to do so would be to incorporate it as one of your command point options. Personally, to prevent it from becoming too powerful, I'd make it that you can re-roll a single die per command point spent.

I agree that it can be frustrating when a well-placed strategy falls apart due to unlucky dice rolls (or unbelievably lucky ones for your opponent), but I also agree that it's just part of the game, and applies equally to both players. It's also how most of the games I play work.

That said, if you want to introduce a re-roll mechanism into your own games, I'd suggest that the easiest way to do so would be to incorporate it as one of your command point options. Personally, to prevent it from becoming too powerful, I'd make it that you can re-roll a single die per command point spent.

Yup. On the one hand, getting shockingly bad shock rolls is one thing (I couldn't roll more than 5 to save my life!)... but too easy re-rolling is another that can unbalance the game. So I'd go with the "re-roll a single die per command point spent" as the best compromise house rule.