errrr.... so if I put a commander 7 in reserve I could use him for map initiative and not place him ?

Why not? Your commander allowed you the advantage of deciding where the battle was going to take place, but if you're not going to keep it in your active warband for turn initiatives and morale checks, then you're not getting full value for the piece anyway.
/*condensed*/
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Pauper

ah, yeah just as a heads up, I tend to run bands that don't use commanders quite often. their biggest weakness tends to be the losing of map initiative.

But now you could have maruth + 7 sacred watchers and a really good shot ar getting your map :)

But now you could have maruth + 7 sacred watchers and a really good shot ar getting your map :)

Sure, but then your opponent brings his Cleric of Lathander or Half-Giant Psychic Warrior up out of the reserve and kicks your butt.

I disagree with Felagund that the format has no potential benefits - allowing different kinds of warbands and getting figures into play that don't normally see play are both big bonuses in my book. And I don't see that it'll take all that much extra time - most folks would likely build their warbands in 'modules', so if you want to bring up the Cleric of Lathander, you swap him and a Man-at-Arms in for your Village Priest and an Arcanix Guard, for instance.

Still, we won't know for certain until some folks try it out and report back. I hope to be one that does.

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Pauper

allowing different kinds of warbands and getting figures into play that don't normally see play are both big bonuses in my book.

Sure, you'll make some things more viable, but at the same time, you'll make others less viable. Just look at your own examples of all the easily-accessible Sacred Watcher hate. Furthermore, this concept is going to be much more beneficial to certain warbands than to others. For example, bands like Korducopia or Gith Monks really don't have a lot of flex room in their builds. The reserve concept really favors multi-hitter type bands.

And I don't see that it'll take all that much extra time - most folks would likely build their warbands in 'modules', so if you want to bring up the Cleric of Lathander, you swap him and a Man-at-Arms in for your Village Priest and an Arcanix Guard, for instance.

I'd like to think it would work out that way, but I've played games that haven't rolled first round initiative until over 15 minutes of time have passed. While it may only take 30 seconds for you to tweak your warband, it may take much longer than that for your opponent. And they may end up costing you, rather than him/her.

I think that 25% isn't enough for what you want to acomplish.

try putting it at 45%. this is clsoe to magic now (25 lands, out of 60 cards. 15 sideborad on 35 core cards.)

The problem is that 45% means that you have a huge amount of variaty now. This creates more choice, more options for those choices, and it will slow things down.

Now you really can bring 1-2 figures per expected dominant archtype to try and equalize things.

try putting it at 45%. this is clsoe to magic now (25 lands, out of 60 cards. 15 sideborad on 35 core cards.)

Ah, but one of the little-known secrets of Magic was that you could actually put land in your sideboard! I did, back when it seemed our local area was all goo-goo over land destruction.

I think 25% is the right amount, though some in-play examples will either confirm or refute that thought. What I'd rather not see happen is people use the reserve as simply a way to bring in a more appropriate titan ("Oh, so you're not playing anything with energy resistance? Then I'll swap my Aspect of Kord and other piece for my Marut.")

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Pauper

Sure, you'll make some things more viable, but at the same time, you'll make others less viable.

True, but generally a piece that becomes 'less viable' is already viable, and is likely being played. Again, use Sacred Watchers as an example - right now any LG band with an extra 19 points is tempted to play one, simply because he's so useful as a flanker, tile-grabber, etc. Make it easier to bring in something against him without requiring that piece to be good against 'the field', and he's not as automatic a play, which means that other pieces will likely see more play.

There are plenty of pieces that don't see play that would certainly see potential play in reserve if the rule were used. In addition to those I've mentioned above, you can add figs like the Dwarf Caver (against Orcs), Wrackspawn (against Invisible/Conceal bands), the Sahuagin Ranger (Elf Bane), and I'm sure there are plenty more I'm missing. I can't see that the number of viable pieces in the 'main game' would collapse so far as to outweigh the addition of all of these other pieces to potential viability.

Furthermore, this concept is going to be much more beneficial to certain warbands than to others. For example, bands like Korducopia or Gith Monks really don't have a lot of flex room in their builds. The reserve concept really favors multi-hitter type bands.

Well, I could quibble over whether or not GAS counts as a 'multi-hitter' band, but I don't think that's your point - I think your point is that tightly-designed, highly-synergistic bands would seem to be hurt by the change, and that this would mean that warband building skill is thus penalized rather than rewarded by this change.

I'd argue that this, too, is flawed reasoning - sure, GAS and Korducopia are strong bands, but they have their weaknesses. The reason they do so well is partly because the bands that would expose those weaknesses aren't viable against the rest of the potential 'field', or weren't when they were at their peak. Currently the only way to 'dethrone' those bands is to wait for R&D to release a piece specifically designed for the task. Why not do it ourselves?

And if you believe that 'reading the metagame' (as much as it dismays me to have to type that phrase) is part of the skill in warband design, then the change rewards design skill more than it penalizes it - after all, anybody can put together a Korducopia, run it through a half-dozen practice games, and expect to do well in a small tournament. Finding a way to swap out pieces like the Warforged Bodyguard to deal with Kord-hosers? Requires much more thought and skill, IMO.

I'd like to think it would work out that way, but I've played games that haven't rolled first round initiative until over 15 minutes of time have passed.

If these are tourney games, it sounds like you need to get your local judge involved more quickly. And if not, why complain?

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Pauper

errrr.... so if I put a commander 7 in reserve I could use him for map initiative and not place him ?

Hrm ... good point. I guess my idea doesn't work so well. Oh well.

Maybe declare a commander RATING before map initiative so that you get that bonus to your roll, but can use a commander with that rating or higher only when you declare your figures.

from a lot of the examples we are talking about: 1-2, 3 figures max.

most of the fringe figures mentioned wouldn't even make it into those bands because the bands that they do affect are too small.

Models that can go in there are things like dwarf arteficer. Great against contructs, good against low attack bonus figures. not always worth using otherwise. But he would be in the sideboard, not a ogre psychic warior for 40+ points. So it will probably be used for magic weapon, coutner song, etc.

Or dumb things like warband building effects while not actually playing the commander.

oh, and epic will be dumb. Since you can now bring the tailored support for your titan. for whatever titan they are bringing.

So what would the likely effects of this be? There is at least a good chance that it could serve to reduce the amount of diversity in the game rather than increase it. Let's consider some possibilities:

You're running an LE Quad. Ordinarily, you have to choose your hitters beforehand. Some people want to kick SWarm's behind. They put in two Zakyas and two Duergars. Other players might prefer to be better against other LE Quads. 3 duergars and a chrall are better against LE quads than 4 non-breath weapon/non-death burst hitters. Firebelchers a problem? You put in an Efreet. There are quite a few LE quad configurations out there. Now, enter the reserves. 50 points is enough for you to change out one hitter and all of your fodder or to change out your commander. So what are you going to do? Since I would no longer need to choose between the various LE quads, I could switch between a chraal and a zakya rakshasa as the fourth member of my quad. With the fodder, I could switch between a timber wolf and a greenspawn and still have room for my three pointers to be kobold miners, goblin skirmishers, or warrior skeletons, as it proved advantageous.

The end result here is that, at least in LE quads, the actual variability in the kind of LE quad an opposing player faces would be decreased. A shuluth band would never come up against kobold miners. A chraal band would never come up against goblin skirmishers, etc. In the beater department, SWarm bands would be a lot more likely to face down a zakya rakshasa (or multiple rakshasas than they are now).

How about an oldie but goodie: dual hill giants. The 50 point variation doesn't allow for the hill giants to trade out for anything else, but there would be room for the remaining 5 activations to change completely every match. Still, that wouldn't enable nearly the kind of customization that the LE quad is capable of. Bye bye hill giants.

How about frenzied beserker bands? Fortunately, a frenzied beserker is just over the point limit so a player couldn't decide on the fly whether a third beserker or a commander is more advantageous. He could, however, trade out the inspiring marshal for a gnome trickster. That kind of flexibility would render the trickster much more difficult to counter--if you make sacrifices to pack blindsight, he just doesn't show up; if you don't have a counter for him, or he counters you, he shows up every time.

How about SWarm? The only obvious answer is: ummm. be able to swap a warforged scout in whenever you don't need the standarbearer? With the 50 points, you could also replace two sacred watchers, but there aren't really many ways to mitigate the obvious weaknesses. You could pack Pippy to help against Zakya rakshasas (she can't be turned and she would enable the sword archon to engage more freely), but that wouldn't be enough to even up that matchup. (Though I think it probably would help a LOT against a Rikka Snake Eyes band which is another one of SWarm's bad matchups). The long and the short of it is that a strongly themed band like SWarm probably can't mitigate its weaknesses sufficiently to be helped more than it is hurt by the reserves rule.

From these thought experiments, I see a couple themes emerging:

1. Quads and trifectas have the room for customization that titan--and especially dual titan--builds lack. This would be a significant disadvantage for the quad builds.

2. Bands that have a counter would be significantly hurt. SWarm, for instance, would be much more difficult to play with a reduced opportunity cost for countering it and no really obvious countermoves for itself.

3. Factions that have cheap but game-changing pieces--like the gnome trickster would gain a pretty dramatic advantage in that it would become nearly impossible to counter both variations of their band.

In the end, I think the first question to ask is "is this a good idea" before we ask "how would we do this?" Based on the reduction in the diversity of warbands that would actually be faced (since you become dramatically more likely to see the counter piece to your band turn up and can include counters to other bands in your own band without the usual opportunity cost), I don't think it is a good idea.

Really, which do you think more when you're playing: "man, I could have really p0wned his a$$ if I'd been able to put a zakya into my band for just this game" or "man. Another freaking gnome trickster?!? My ranged band is worthless." The first doesn't seem like nearly the problem for the game that the second is. Do you really want more of the second in return for less of the first.

I don't like the idea at all.

first of all you'd have to make up proper procedures because (using the previous example) the swarm player would just include the proper counter to obvious counter to his watchers. So if there were no procedure in a tournament setting you'd have people playing the mini's form of slapjack(or speed), waiting 'til the last second to implement their sideboard. That could create some really heated moments in a tourney. Then if there were an order to it the guy to place second is at a distinct disadvantage.

the 'commander 7' idea that has be discussed is also bad IMO. There's a reason why mini's are costed as they are and the 'commander 7' idea as discussed here is just a way to try to work around the concessions you made when making your warband.

just like any good story it's the character flaws (in this case warband) that makes it interesting. The pursuit of the 'perfect warband', the analytical process of the game is another level of fun for some people. How many times have you tweaked a warband to come down to it not doing well against 1 or 2 types of bands...and now you've got your answer in the ability to swap out the vulnerable pieces, rather then having to adapt your strategy and play differently.

I'll argue that you'll be missing out on what some other people consider fun, and that's having to adapt your strategy to any given situation. In DDM there are only two, opponent and map. Overcoming a bad mathup has it's own rewards as well.

If there were a change in DDM (i've said it before but wth) I'd like to see random map selection. Since the maps are double-sided each person could just bring one and you'd have 4 maps to randomly play on. Maps like grotto and hellspike could be balanced by the map on the opposite side. I like the randomness of having to adapt to a different map all the time. and I'd still use CoDA even if the CR7 didn't get me my best map all the time because I like the MC's.

I'm curious if any of the game designers have put this through the same kind of analysis that some of the board members here have. If so, I'd like to see their notes.

Dave

Ok - how about the following:

Use the 25% rule, but also include a rule saying that any commanders you have listed must be played. That way you get around many of the issues that have been brought up - CR7 then not including the figure, warband building, etc.

Then we can still have the standard roll for maps and sides. A player chooses the final makeup of his band when he sets up. This will actually even the playing field a bit because there are many maps where one start area is better than the other. In such cases, if you win setup initiative, do you take the side you want or do you defer and choose your band after your opponent has committed to what he is going to field?

Depending on matchups, I can see arguments for both sides.

I do agree that this format tends to favour bands that have more flexibility in their makeup (LE or CE quad) but I don't really know if that's a bad thing - it's just different from what we're used to.

It's still a rock-paper-scissor type game with respect to matchups. Do I spend my 50 extra points putting in anti-sacred watcher tech? In this format, are there really going to be many SW bands? You still can't prepare against everything. Some obvious sideboards I can think of off the top of my head would be: Anti-invisibility, Anti-{elemental type}, Anit-SW, Anti-high AC, etc...

Much like magic, the best sideboards were the ones that got you the most bang for your buck against a particular colour. WAY back in the day, my favourites were red and blue elemental blasts in a mostly black deck.

Just when R&D seems to be getting most of the costing of figs in line, this gets thrown in and changes everything? No thanks - the game wasn't designed for sideboards or excess figs. But if it does come to this then adjustments should be made before the matches start and before warbands are revealed. Finish your match quickly and scout the others, make your adjustment(s) and hope they don't.

Nevermind just keep the game the same.

If there were a change in DDM (i've said it before but wth) I'd like to see random map selection. Since the maps are double-sided each person could just bring one and you'd have 4 maps to randomly play on. Maps like grotto and hellspike could be balanced by the map on the opposite side.

What about the maps that don't have anything on the reverse side (Drow Outpost) or the maps that have a RPG-only map on the reverse? Random maps don't sound all that appealing to me, even if all maps had legal maps on the reverse side.

Personally, I'm neutral on the whole "sideboard" topic. I can see where it might be interesting, but I can also see where it'll just bog down the setup phase of the match, and we'd pretty quickly be back where we were when we had tiles, at least in terms of the time it takes before you start moving figures.

1) You must have a legal warband registered.

2) You then get 25% cost in reserves, which may be swapped after warbands are revealed, but before map initiative is rolled.

3) Any effect you use to boost your map initiative (commander rating, Large Copper Dragon, etc. must be included in the warband.

4) Time limit. You have 3 minutes to decide the contents of your warband. Any illegal figures will be removed after first initiative (like the DCI rules, but no match loss (unless this gets to be a DCI sanctioned format, in which case, bring a good calculator)).

I don't think I want this to replace the current format for DCI tournaments. I think it might be fun to try. I think it helps modular and titan bands equally. Modular bands get an additional module or two for special cases and titans get to modify their support in the same way. The only bands I see truly hurt by this are the over-specialized, like Quad Gith, but even then, there are so many ways to fill that last 20 points, that you may even have *more* options than the other style bands.

How about this:

You register 3 different warbands, all of them with at least 75% of their point cost the same fixed figures.

That way you can make the core of your warband the same, but with 3 different options of supporting figures, or even change one of your beater (you can swap 50pts in 200. For epic play we might want to strech the total to 60%)

Some rules might have to be arranged such as:
- Your commander with the higher commander rating must be present at all versions of your warband.
- If you bring other creatures via warband building, the corresponding commander must be present at all versions of your warband.
- If a creature in your warband has Requires: Creature, the corresponding creature must be present at all your warbands.
- Any bonuses you might get for your iniative roll due to creature`s abilities may be applied to map selection, but you must choose a version of your warband containing all those creatures during setup.

Then players can declare wich warband version they are going to use during the setup. Since your higher commander must be present in all versions of your warband there's no problem with that, creature`s that boost itnit (Satyr) are a;so covered.

I belive this adds a lot of versatility and keeps the setup time at a minimum (all both players must do is decide what combination of figures to use). All the math, planning and thinking is done before you even register to the event.

errrr.... so if I put a commander 7 in reserve I could use him for map initiative and not place him ?

Hrm ... good point. I guess my idea doesn't work so well. Oh well.

Maybe declare a commander RATING before map initiative so that you get that bonus to your roll, but can use a commander with that rating or higher only when you declare your figures.

To clarify this a bit more: Say you have both the Cleric of Lathander and the Sword of Heironeous, you must declare your commander rating before map initiative. If you declare a "7", then teh sword MUST be used. If you declare a "4", then either can be used.

To look at this issue from a "philosophical" standpoint, it doesn't make sense to me:

Magic represents wizards preparing spells in advance of a duel. I can understand preparing slightly different spells once you've seen what your opponent can do (this also ties in with the best 2 out of 3 issue).

DDM represents an already-formed squad of units who engage another squad. They don't have reinforcements/reserves. It's just them, and they have to face whatever comes. They can't say "wait just a few minutes while we call our pal over." There are no relief hitters.