To the Strongest Quick question

[LouieN]

Hello,

I just looking for a quick clarification.  In the "To the Strongest" game system are Aces = 1 in the activation card draw. 

Also do you reshuffle the deck when moving between commands on each side?

Thanks

[SJWi]

Louie, I use chits not playing cards but I would interpret aces as being "1" ie a fail. I wouldn't re-shuffle the deck.

[LouieN]

SJWI,

You have experience with the game and let me ask this question. 

Assume, you are playing 3 people per side each with one command.  Does the first command to go have a advantage as they have the full 80 card deck to start?  With the following commands having lesser range of options? It may work both ways.  Maybe the first guy took all the "1s"  and there is nothing but high numbers left in the deck. Very good for the next guy.   

Have you ever experienced the deck running out before play turns to the opposing side?

Thanks

[fred]

With multiple players you may want a bigger deck. I went with 6 packs of mini cards, split into red and black for each side. Used this with 3 players a side, at the start of the turn would split each side’s deck into 3 roughly equal decks.

More recently we have moved to d10s for combat resolution - not least to keep it clear for some of the players the distinction between orders and combat.

[LouieN]

Using D10 is an interesting solution. 

Why not use it for Activations and mark the current "activation level" on the unit with a marker?

The only deference is the odds are constant vs ever changing with a reducing deck.

hmmm interesting

[fred]

We quite like the split between cards for activation - makes it easy to see the target number, and to mark which commands / units have activated already. using small (probably quarter sized) cards make them fairly un-obtrusive.

But yes dice, or chits would both work. When you are using multiple decks of cards, counting the aces is much less of a thing, so makes less of a difference on odds vs dice.

[SteveBurt]

The deck is shuffled at the end of the turn, not between commands. With 80 cards in the deck, the odds don’t shift that much over a turn. You could use dice, but it is amazing how much faster cards are; some players take forever to throw dice, and cards are never cocked.

[Galtisant]

In large multiplayer games with several players a side, give each player a deck of cards as this will speed up the gameplay. It is also the way Simon runs his large TTS! games at wargames shows.

[SJWi]

Louie, the rules say each player uses 2 decks of cards, or in my case a set of 80 chits, one red one blue. Yes you can have a case where the first command uses all the low cards, or all the high cards, for me that's part of the beauty of the game. Most of my games are 150-170 points as those armies fit on my 6 x 4' table, but I have run bigger games of double that size and I've never run out of chits.

[Emperorbaz]

2 decks of cards per player, even in multiplayer games - each player uses their own card decks and shuffles at the end of the turn.