Your House Rules?

[Jonas Albrecht]

What do you use for your non-sanctioned games?

We're really only got one.

*If the Black Joker is drawn during the Draw Control Cards step, fill your hand to its maximum and then discard the Black Joker without replacing it."

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

Really I love having black joker in hand it means I won't flip. I would not utilize this. We don't really have house rules we just don't always play with the right rules.

[Stargazer]

I'm curious why do you have this house rule? For us it's a conscious decision to effectively have a disadvantage by having it in your hand but then you know where it is and aren't going to get a nasty surprise

[micahwc]

We typically offer to let the opponent cut the deck when we shuffle, I don't know if it is a house rule or not. Most of the time they don't bother, but we offer.

We play with a lot of new people who have never played before. We tend to play "nice" when we realize mistakes unless it is a declared "mean" game, in which case we enforce rules more. (for example, if someone didn't explicitly state that they were using companion in an nice game we would let them get away with it. In a mean game we would not. ) We play this way because we introduce the game to a lot of people who have never played , and it is a more enjoyable experience for them.

We typically give a brief synopsis on the powers and abilities of our models to our opponent if we are playing a new person. This keeps fun-ruining surprises from happening as much.

We don't usually follow the terrain placement rules. We just set it up however we want, and ask if its okay.

If a measured distance is really close I try to ask an impartial third party to make the decision. This also works for whether a model has line of sight, or cover, or other things.

Basically all of these are summed up in the paraphrase of the second greatest commandment, "Don't be a d!#k".

Edited April 15, 2011 by micahwc
still probably offensive

[Wodschow]

Hmm.. I don't quite get why you have this rule.. Care to explain the reasoning behind it?

Edit: That was @Jonas.

[JayBarlekamp]

I rather like this house rule. It means there is more of a chance of cool random stuff happening. I always like the hope of strange things happening and forcing the Black joker back into the deck certainly has this effect.

As far as our house rules, the only one we really have is that our games are Master oriented rather than faction oriented. In other words, we know exactly what master we are playing against before we even start. It's not really a "rule" per say, but rather the way the game has evolved in our area.

[nix]

We go with Nix always wins....

Unless Zephir is around.. then its Nix always wins except against Zephir.. but no one likes Zephir so its a wash.

:bitchslap

[JayBarlekamp]

@ wodschow: i believe it is to force the black joker back into your deck so you can't hold it the entire game.

As a side note, I think it would be fun to force both jokers back into the deck after drawing your control hand. you could show your opponent the joker(s) and shuffle them back into the deck and draw replacements. That way the Jokers are more of a random "wild card" element rather than a "I'll hold this card so it can't hurt me" thing.

[Murphy'sLawyer]

Hey Genetic you want to tell them about the Pass Rule you had?

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

Yeah, that pass rule was awesome against Kairi and gremlins

[Dark Alleycat]

I dont want to say it might have had anything to do with the fact that often he had small model number crews *grins*

Nah,it honestly did make sense and tended to work out pretty well in my opinion.

basically you counted the number of models in your army,and compared it to yoru opponent. so if you had less models,you got a number of passes to use to prevent being outactivated automatically.

[Hansel]

The only thing I can think of that I've done that's not strictly by the book is to alternate terrain placement until one player passes, then the last player gets to place another piece of terrain. I don't know if I'd call it a "house rule", though, it's really just a method of agreeing on terrain.

Also, on the pass thing: I don't get it. How would passing help a small crew? If I'm understanding passing, it's just forfeiting an action, right?

[magicpockets]

None, we play it just as it was intended

[Dark Alleycat]

Well say for example,I have 4 models. you have 12. rather then spending my 4 actions at the start of the turn,leaving you with 8 models to do things that I couldn't do anything about,with passes,I could wait till I was ready to act,using passes to bide my time and thus still present a credible threat.

[Hansel]

Well say for example,I have 4 models. you have 12. rather then spending my 4 actions at the start of the turn,leaving you with 8 models to do things that I couldn't do anything about,with passes,I could wait till I was ready to act,using passes to bide my time and thus still present a credible threat.

ah, I see.

[Jonas Albrecht]

Hmm.. I don't quite get why you have this rule.. Care to explain the reasoning behind it?

Edit: That was @Jonas.

Being able to hold on to the Black Joker is incredibly silly. We want it to be a much more dire force than suddenly becoming a minor inconvenience because you managed to draw it.

Edited April 16, 2011 by Jonas Albrecht

[Wodschow]

Being able to hold on to the Black Joker is incredibly silly. We want it to be a much more dire force than suddenly becoming a minor inconvenience because you managed to draw it.

I don't know if I agree with you in that.. It's a choice..

Being a card down throughout the game can be a significant disadvantage..

Some people prefer to keep it in hand, some discard it asap.

[nilus]

Being able to hold on to the Black Joker is incredibly silly. We want it to be a much more dire force than suddenly becoming a minor inconvenience because you managed to draw it.

I don't agree with this, being one card short is a huge disadvantage imho.

[Jonas Albrecht]

I don't agree with this, being one card short is a huge disadvantage imho.

I agree that being -1 is a disadvantage, but much less of one when weighed against being able to neutralize your deck's bogeyman. And really, that's what I take issue with, being able to remove that element from the game simply by drawing it.

[tadaka]

More I have played the game the more I have held on to it. Honestly I would like a rule that says you cant play a joker from your hand. All most every time a joker gets played from the deck it is exciting. When some one plays it from there hand it just is not as fun.

[goldenjester]

As far as the black joker in hand goes, I love it there. I use to discard for things like flurry. That way, I don't lose anything of value when I flurry.

As far as house rules go, we usually allow pre-measuring. For my group, this is our first skirmish game, and if we didn't some of us would be at a huge disadvantage. One of my friends was an architecture major, and thus is excellent at eyeballing distance, and my girlfriend is a graphic design major, so she's awesome at it too. For the rest of us, pre-measuring is a great way for us to be on more equal footing until we learn how to eyeball.