At least Chaos in the Old World got an index. So I hope for some index in Runewars too.

Hem said:

You are obviously a fan of thick rulebooks. In the 90ties I was too. In those days I was playing - among others - two of the most complex games one could imagine. "Advanced Squad Leader" and "The longest day" from AH (with about 3.500 counters). One of these wargames is more complex than all FFG games ever made together and 1 game of TLD could last for 1 full week or more. But nowadays I am older, dont have much time and I just want to play simpler games. So I am enjoying the simple small games of FFG and I even detect that a 48pager (at which I would just have snobbily loughed at in those days) is more than enough for my current taste. I had my part on some of the most complex games mankind created, in my life. I dont want to repeat this.

Wow holy poo, one week ? what are these ! tell us more, that sounds plain crazy. But I understand the time limit, obviously.

I hate these counter games. Not due to their complexity, but to their apparent lack of asthetic qualities. The eye has its fair share playing with FFG games, while with those counter-monsters, it's a very boring sight.

Stefan said:

yes of course its not the production quality of FFG games. But some of these complex games are quite beautiful to look at. (at least IMO) Not the older ones of course. :)

For hem:

just try out the following links

http://grognard.com/#intro (this is one of the most complete collections of wargames available on the net, alphabetically just look for "longest day" and Advanced Squad Leader)

http://www.locknloadgame.com/ (a more modern wargame, a little bit simpler but still crunchy games)

http://www.gmtgames.com/s-2-p500.aspx (a traditional wargaming company)

I hope this helps a little bit understanding of WHAT monsters I am coming from and why I prefer nowadays the simpler games of FFG.

I remember the first (and only) time I played Fed and Empire.  I fell asleep after an hour of set up, slept for a good three hours and when I woke up my buddies were STILL SETTING UP.  We hadn't even reached the point of buying starting units yet.  That was a game that was clearly designed to be played over a course of weeks.  On the one hand I can respect the kind of detail a game like that must go into, but on the other hand I don't have the attention span to keep current in something like that.  So there definitely are upward limits on how big a game can be, at least for me.  But I don't think a 40-page rulebook is necessarily too much.  Nor do I think that the length of the rulebook is necessarily a good indicator of whether a game is too long or not.  To be sure, more rules = more options = more play time, but depending on how those rule interact, the game could move very slowly or surprisingly quick.

There is not necessarily a connection between complex rules and gametime. Diplomacy, for example, has very very simple rules, but takes a long long time.

Wow, I saw pictures from The Longest Day game from 1979.....man.... it really looks more like some cartographics works, like, in napoleon times... I don't think I could have any fun with that nowadays...

Just looked up some pictures at BGG. Man, never ever would I try this one! I'm often called crazy by my environment for the complex games I'm playing, but this is too much even for me. It's more simulation than game, and I never could abide them in videogames already, much less in boardgames. That stuff is really more than complex.

Stefan said:

In the 80ties and 90ties I knew alot of people which played these games. They were never as much popular like say risk, but had their hardcore fans. I fondly remember playing a World in Flames game with each available expansion with another 2 friends. Each corner of the hobby room of one friend was covered with giant maps, counter pools, rulebooks and pizzaboxes etc. for one whole week. Thankfully he had no dog or girl friend at this time, so this was not much of problem. The experience to play such a game was absolut phantastic in those times. Today I would not want to play wargame monsters again. Maybe I am just to old for this. :)

Maybe. Perhaps I would have played those monsters too back in school.

Stefan said:

Take a look at one called "Campaign for North Africa" then :)  Supposedly a full game of that takes 1200 (yes, twelve-hundred) hours, and the rules are almost on an "individual soldier" level.

That's just crazy    Napoleon would have loved, I AM telling you !

Stefan said:

Yes, many of those games are REALLY complex. Eg. the rulefolder of Advanced Squad Leader is more like a technical readout than a rulebook. In those days I grew slowly into these games. I began with simpler ones like North & South, and after a few years ASL was not that much problem for me to understand anymore. If everyone was firm with the rules and prepared himself for the gaming session then everything ran smooth and it was a fine experience.

But if you played with players with bad memories or pseudo-know-it-alls the game became bogged down because you spent more time reading the rulebooks or controlling the other sides military moves than playing. I guess it was in the mids of the 90ties as I came to the conclusion that wargaming is for me not fun anymore. I sold off my wargames (not all - some of them, like GDWs Imperium or North&South I still own today) and spent my time with family and roleplaying from then on.

From time to time we play boardgames too, but they should not that complicated. So today I prefer a good game of Axis&Allies to any wargame of the past. I hoped that Runewars is similar to the streamlined approach A&A has, but after reading the extensive list of the non-plastic components I am not so sure anymore. I think that the hobby needs such a kind of light fantasy game with beautiful plastic minis (like A&A is for the WW2 topic), but I guess Runewars will not go this avenue.

wow everyone s complaining about a 40 page book. that is not that bad. i prefer something of this length because i know that they went over all the rules, when i get a board game and see a 5 page rulebook i think, this is it; this cannot be all the rules. If you think that is long try the Warhammer rule book (140 pages not to mention the army books, there are over a dozen of those all over 100 pages in length) i've read it.... 5 TIMES! pft 40 pages.... i would eat that for breakfast.

or try an RPG, hundreds upon hundreds of pages for the core rules alone.

I can see how some people could be to busy so i understand, but seriously, i expected this to be at least 60 pages (not quite =)