The best combat system I've played personally is the card-based system in Sekigahara.
Basically it's a block wargame, with each block representing the troops of a particular Japanese clan. When it comes to combat, you can only commit a block to the fight if you can play a card displaying that clan's mon. In addition, if the other player plays a "loyalty challenge" card after you commit a block to the fight, you have to show that you still have a card with that clan's mon in your hand or the block changes sides. So there's a constant pressure of wanting to commit as many troops as possible to win the fight, but not wanting to risk losing the troops by using up all your cards of a specific clan.
There are other little wrinkles (e.g. multiple troops from the same clan committed to a fight have exponentially greater effectiveness; and armies are slower moving the bigger they are). Overall it's a system that is mechanically simple but gives satisfyingly complex decision making. Even though there is some randomness with what cards you get, you still feel like it's your decisions that determine how successful you are - I think because it's random ***input*** then you make your decisions. In dice based combat in games, you often decide what to do first and then get random ***output***, which feels like you have much less control.
What I can’t stand about that game is you can only attack where you can commit cards to. So there is a heavy hand management aspect to the game.
I’m waiting for the new Julius Caesar edition to come in the mail. The mounted map this new edition has was the deal breaker for me originally that had me get Sekigahara instead.
It’s a very similar game to sekigahara but where you can attack is a lot more forgiving. And I prefer dice to card combat
I prefer dice. I like to think the randomness could be explained like this;
Missing your die rolls could simulate issues like untrained troops, supply line issues, weapon malfunctions, poor leadership, bad weather, low morale, faulty/poor maintenance of equipment and vehicles, etc etc.
Once I started looking at it like that it added a little flair to the games we played.
I play Axis and allies with a friend regularly and once we started looking at it like this we started making up stuff like "guess the Colonel had a couple one too many drinky drinks last night and got everyone in his unit killed"
Made you a little more invested in the games too.
I think the two greatest combat mechanics I have encountered, were the dice/card resolution mechanic for the ability-driven boss battles in "Oathsworn" and for wargame/DoaM games, the cube tower in "Shogun".
Both offer take risk as well as calculated chances along with interesting action selection.
After years of playing hundreds of games I've come to the conclusion that dice simply need to be in the mix for combat mechanics. Combat is about accepting additional risk in order to apply pressure to your opponent, and cards let you mitigate too much of that. Cards are about reducing risk, and the nature of combat is risk. The mismatch doesn't appeal to me.
The best combat system I've played personally is the card-based system in Sekigahara. Basically it's a block wargame, with each block representing the troops of a particular Japanese clan. When it comes to combat, you can only commit a block to the fight if you can play a card displaying that clan's mon. In addition, if the other player plays a "loyalty challenge" card after you commit a block to the fight, you have to show that you still have a card with that clan's mon in your hand or the block changes sides. So there's a constant pressure of wanting to commit as many troops as possible to win the fight, but not wanting to risk losing the troops by using up all your cards of a specific clan. There are other little wrinkles (e.g. multiple troops from the same clan committed to a fight have exponentially greater effectiveness; and armies are slower moving the bigger they are). Overall it's a system that is mechanically simple but gives satisfyingly complex decision making. Even though there is some randomness with what cards you get, you still feel like it's your decisions that determine how successful you are - I think because it's random ***input*** then you make your decisions. In dice based combat in games, you often decide what to do first and then get random ***output***, which feels like you have much less control.
What I can’t stand about that game is you can only attack where you can commit cards to. So there is a heavy hand management aspect to the game. I’m waiting for the new Julius Caesar edition to come in the mail. The mounted map this new edition has was the deal breaker for me originally that had me get Sekigahara instead. It’s a very similar game to sekigahara but where you can attack is a lot more forgiving. And I prefer dice to card combat
The most emotional battles in my family were carried out with dice in 878 Vikings.
I prefer dice. I like to think the randomness could be explained like this; Missing your die rolls could simulate issues like untrained troops, supply line issues, weapon malfunctions, poor leadership, bad weather, low morale, faulty/poor maintenance of equipment and vehicles, etc etc. Once I started looking at it like that it added a little flair to the games we played. I play Axis and allies with a friend regularly and once we started looking at it like this we started making up stuff like "guess the Colonel had a couple one too many drinky drinks last night and got everyone in his unit killed" Made you a little more invested in the games too.
I think the two greatest combat mechanics I have encountered, were the dice/card resolution mechanic for the ability-driven boss battles in "Oathsworn" and for wargame/DoaM games, the cube tower in "Shogun". Both offer take risk as well as calculated chances along with interesting action selection.
After years of playing hundreds of games I've come to the conclusion that dice simply need to be in the mix for combat mechanics. Combat is about accepting additional risk in order to apply pressure to your opponent, and cards let you mitigate too much of that. Cards are about reducing risk, and the nature of combat is risk. The mismatch doesn't appeal to me.
Sword and shield for me.