Simplified rules

[roversaurus]

I would suggest to entirely drop the Movement Categories part. It's nice and "romantic" in its purpose, but honestly, everyone has a tape ruler at home and I hardly believe someone is going to actually use cards to take measurements in the game. Getting distances increase and decrease by a fixed amount, instead of the silly L and S values would simplify the life of new gamers.

:-)
And I found the movement categories really, really easy. It was nice to have everything measurable in card lengths.
And I love the bookmarks measuring tools. That was one thing I missed in my kickstarter package. There wasn't a new bookmark!

Someone else described my problem better than I did. I think all the errata is what confuses me. I've never really looked them up but I know they exist ... of course which version of the errata is the correct one? I think I own almost all the factions and it seems like each one came with a different version of the rule book. I really don't get to play often so I have to look at the rules every time I play. I know things have changed for cavalry and ranged units so I really don't know if a faction like Hawkshold can battle the Persians. The Persian cards describe all the impact hits and fast moving and vs. archers stuff ... but the Hawkshold don't, do they ....  they have some stuff on the card and some stuff you're supposed to add in based on the rule book. So I get confused on when I should add something from the new rules to a unit and when I shouldn't.

I own almost all the factions.
I play games a lot.
I like BattleGround but I don't get to play it much.

The fact that I get confused seems like a problem. For the makers of the game and for the players who want it to be popular so that we have more opponents and we get newer factions.

[RushAss]

There was a lot of discussion on errata a few months back that may clear some things up for you here:
http://ymgforum.com/index.php/topic,10114.0.html

I'd also like to echo Hannibal's statement that you can just play the game with all cards as printed and be just fine.  A good deal of the errata where tweaks, not complete overhauls.

Say there roversaurus, where are you located anyways?

[roversaurus]

There was a lot of discussion on errata a few months back that may clear some things up for you here:
http://ymgforum.com/index.php/topic,10114.0.html

That link doesn't work for me "The topic or board you are looking for appears to be either missing or off limits to you."

[RushAss]

Oh poo

[Lance OCasey]

Then, please make available as pod the updated command cards and the few units with updated fronts (skeletons, scrutarii).

This. A thousand times, this.

As a new player, I haven't had too tough a time learning the rules, but trying to determine whether I had out-of-date cards or not, then figuring out what to do about it, has been a major pain.

Sell me reasonably priced PoD packs of all the changes to each faction, or one big PoD pack of all the card changes in the whole game. I'll buy it.

[Gabbi]

Yeah. If no more qualified person has time to do it, I volunteer to do the editing (for free, of course).

[roversaurus]

Then, please make available as pod the updated command cards and the few units with updated fronts (skeletons, scrutarii).

This. A thousand times, this.

As a new player, I haven't had too tough a time learning the rules, but trying to determine whether I had out-of-date cards or not, then figuring out what to do about it, has been a major pain.

Sell me reasonably priced PoD packs of all the changes to each faction, or one big PoD pack of all the card changes in the whole game. I'll buy it.

Yes, I would buy a pack of card updates. I would hope the updated card would include some "version #" information so I could clearly see that one care was newer than another.
That seems like it would be cheaper to go to market with than a new faction. You've still got the print run to deal with but you don't really need any play testing or artwork

[Hannibal]

When the Erratas get sorted out, there will be a PDF of all of them free on the website so that people can do a POD of them if they want.

[Gabbi]

When the Erratas get sorted out, there will be a PDF of all of them free on the website so that people can do a POD of them if they want.

I hope we'll have a PDF with some "bleed" for this purpose, then.
Also, setting up an album on one of the printing services available, would take very few time and would grant a share to YMG, so why not?
No investment of money, no minimum quantity to be printed. There's also one from the "DriveThru" network, a network of websites specifically dedicated to selling games in both digital and printed formats: http://www.drivethrucards.com/index.php

[gull2112]

I have often thought about a simplified rules version. One that gets you playing but at the same time gives you a full flaver experience. Here is one suggestion:
Final Rush: If there are multiple units within range you may choose which unit to charge.
As an experienced player, I applaud and appreciate the clear process for considering all the permutations that are presented in the rulebook, but for most situations simply choosing which unit of those in range is adequate and requires about 5% the rules space.

My other suggestion for teaching new players is to play a game or two with an early faction, one that doesn't include magic, skirmishers, or complex/subtle special abilities (i.e. Cathage's foresight is pretty much wasted on newbies).

Also, I think a plain speaking explanation of the direct path rule would add a lot. One of the hardest things for a new player to wrap their head around is that a unit can be voluntarily blocked by just the smallest sliver of a friendly unit, but it must ignore that for a FR, and then mesh all that in with a clear path determination just to add another consideration into the mix. Experienced players may understand this intuitively, but many newer or infrequent players will find themselves wasting fun game time with desultory rules checking.

[gull2112]

 I believe I am going to take a run at some simplified rules. My aim will be to make them as bare bones as possible and then se what needs to be added in. The biggest hang up I can see immediately going into it is that the points cost of some units are going to be a little off. The rewrite should be doable because the basic sense of the rules make it fairly easy to get started, but when a rules question comes up, that's where the trouible starts. I think the issue is in trying to have a rule for every eventuality, not unlike the precision required in writing a computer program. I'm imagining a little looser rules architecture that allows for a little variance, yet still remains tight enough to allow for competitive play.

My friend Joe and I have been playing minis for many years and neither of us are much in favor of precision in measuring, just to make an example. If we measure and it's within a quarter inch or so, then that is enough. If I am angling a unit so that it can't be hit on the flank by another unit, then I state my intention and we let it go.

With that in mind, I'll see if I can come up with something. It may not satisfy the grognards, but that's there issue, not mine!

[Joe Kundlak]

HI guys,

as Gull has stepped away from BFW earlier this year, has there been any torch-passing here for the simplified rules (if Gull made any progress)?