The Painted Thumb

Our Tuesday night gaming group was looking for more games to add into the weekly rotation. I offered to host a session of BattleSworn - Bid for Victory from Ganesha Games . I had reviewed the game before but never actually played a game. So, this was a great opportunity to get some real player's reactions to the rules. Most miniature games resolve combat by assigning a probability based on the individual stats of the units and situational modifiers, and then rolling a die to determine success or failure. Initiative is often nothing more than a randomized die roll.  However, BattleSworn uses a bidding mechanic for initiative and combat. For initiative, the players secretly bid a number between 1 and 6. The players reveal this number and the player with the lowest bid wins the initiative. The initiative player gets as many actions as his bid.  The other player gets the difference of the two bids in re-actions. In combat, the players bid just like with initiative. Low bidde...