I'm all in on simpler games. I want narrative experiences, I don't want to do homework for a week before meeting my friends to play, and I want to be able to bring new friends who haven't played before.
Yeah i mean, when you have to know all the rules and enforce them yourself its a very large amount of brain load to under take and frankly when playing a table top game i just want to enjoy it in a sensible time frame - Don't want to learn a tech manual as thick and complicated as War and peace. It's supposed to be fun, i should be allowed to enjoy the actual play time itself!
Same but more so I want to play shorter games like 30min to 60min games. So instead of playing one game over 4 hours I can play 2 or three games in roughly the same amount of time and if the rules are easier to understand and remember the actual play is faster and cleaner. Like I want to play checkers sometimes not always chess.
MIddle Earth SBG is pretty straightforward with small armies and simple mechanics that can get more and more complex involving heroes, artillery etc as you go on. You have 3 orcs and 1 gondor solider in a fight and the gondor soldier wins the combat pushing 3 orcs back - epic narrative moments happen all the time in that game.
you should have tried I.C.E. (iron crown enterprise). the M.E.R.P. rules were very involved. the world information is still some of the best material - if you can find it.
The problem of course is that everyone has a different idea of what that perfect balance would be. Some people want more simulation of war zones, some want more of a game. Heck even the same person can have different opinion at how much they like at different points and different reasons.
I like to draw a distinction between "Crunch" and "Clunk" ... "Crunch" allows for tactical decisions, units that are equal but different, and all that stuff people want in a simulation. "Clunk" gets in the way of the fun. Games can be crunchy without being clunky, though it's a lot harder than the inverse. Streamlining is usually meant to clean up the clunk, though crunch is often caught up in that, and clunk finds its way back in over time anyway. So much of the 40k FAQ is dedicated to tightening up the clunk that the tournament scene has found, which has left the game a lot harder to grok for newbies.
Another video where you’re speaking to my soul. I’ve grown out of the 3-4 hour games. They give me a migraine and just take too long. Underworlds is my favorite even though I’m home hyper competitive. I’ve been really getting into the GW/Barnes and Noble games. They are quick, small and anyone can play them. I’m very excited for the B&N light warhammer quest game. Keep up the great work! 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾🤩
The only problem I have with long games is if it's a foregone conclusion but I'm committed to stay through to the end regardless. Winning and losing are just as bad for me if I'm checked out and bored. Games are supposed to be an engaging pastime, and a good game for me comes from that engagement, not being the winner.
Totally agree. My preferred skirmish game is normally 1v1, but the last game I played was a 4-way free for all. By turn 3 or 4 I was checked out. Most of my units were either heavily damaged or already removed as casualties. I even stated to the table that in a normal game at this point I would have conceded the game but felt compelled to play on just because it was a 4 way.
Battletech comes to mind for a chunky rules set that is also beginner friendly. If you play lance vs lance, it can be a pretty simple game. The moment you start adding certain weapons and equipment and additional units, then it gets a whole lot crunchier. The rules layer in complexity depending on what units are on the field
on reflection, Alphas strike is a step further in that direction. a streamlined version of battletech that is also a bit crunchy the more types of units you use. You can play a company level (3 lances per side) in 2 hours
It's good to see people discuss this topic with the Battletech Renaissance going on and people weighing the pros and cons of things like Battletech Classic vs Alpha Strike.
I have cats they are a big commitment! I have started playing necromunda which is ridiculously dense but is better for it. The learning curve however is vertical.
Streamline has become such a "buzz" word in the gaming industry now that sometimes you see a new ruleset for something and it talks about streamlined streamlined streamlined but when you read it, it's very clunky. Anyway, I like a bit of both, I really enjoy Warcry and the rules for that, but I also enjoy Age of Sigmar for all it has. There is an interval where I enjoy streamlined and slightly cruncy games but they can for sure go too far in both directions, too bland to be fun and too complicated to be fun.
Hi Uncle Atom, great video, and great topic. You asked for entry-level games with great crunch. So let me give you my list, but before, may I add one little caveat: I define crunchy as a set of game mechanichs, that give me interesting choices. When a ruleset gets oveburdened with stuff though, I call this bloat, a measure that can exist independently from crunch. So WH40K for me is still crunchy, especially in 9th edition, but is also very bloated, which takes away from the fun for me in the ways you described. So back to my list: 1) OnePageRules: the king of this discipline. As soon as you've selected your army, the grand total of rules, that you need to read, is 7 pages long. 2 pages of rules, 2 of special rules and 2-3 pages for your army, which includes army composition rules. And this is a crunchy boy! It's the very definition of easy to learn, delicious to master. 2) Infinity Code One: a little heavier on the rules side (100 pages, including all special rules and army composition rules), but a more crunchy game you will not find, my friend! 3) Mythic Battles (Pantheon/Ragnarok): This is half board game, half wargame, with a grand total pages to learn of 42, and all special rules handily referenced on your unit cards. The interactions between the different units make this one of the most beautifully crunchy games on the market. There is a big drawback though: it isn't freely available yet. Its a Kickstarter exclusive, with the publisher promising to get it to retail sometime. There is though one other alternative: Super Fantasy Brawl, which for me is a close fourth in the category. Hope you like my list. Cheers!
My friends and I created our own rules system for Risk, it was fluffy and crunchy since you could treat it like a grab-bag, picking and choosing which rules to play, so long as the super simple base rules were there it works. Essentially a lot of modifiers that can be toggled on and off, even during play.
I think one page rules Grim Dark Future, does a good job with it. There is the standard rule set which is easy to understand, then if you want more there are additional modules that can be plugged in to the main core rules to increase complexity.
Buddy and I have been playing 40k since 2nd edition. 9th edition broke us. The OPR games have completely replaced Warhammer for us; Grimdark and Age of Fantasy are far more enjoyable, way less bloated and exhausting to learn and play.
Back in my 20s I was super into the mega-crunchy games (both tabletop and rpg) and would spends hours poring over books, taking notes, thinking of character/army builds or strategies or whatever. Now I'm in my late 30s and I love an elegant, lightweight ruleset. I play games to get away from work, not do more work!
This is why I love the newer version of Titanicus, it's crunchy and fluffy, but can still be played relatively quickly. I never get the feel bads when I lose either, just because each game just has loads of those memorable visceral, cinematic moments that define a good gaming experience.
Great video! We've had more or less this exact conversation in our Napoleonics group. We play Black Powder because its accessible and everywhere, but there are other rulesets that give more of the 'simulation' feel of period.
Brutality Skirmish War game is one of the best streamlined systems and has fantastic lore and setting while allowing you to use whatever minis you want.
Thank you for this content. I got into warcry for the exact reason you described. 3 small kids, full time job, wife, household ect....I love Age of sigmar and still play when the stars align. 3rd edition has come and I think total I have got 5 games...warcry I can play every weekend and get 3 or 4 games in and still tells a narrative story...thanks uncle Adam!
A game called unmatched (a board game with miniatures) has totally transformed my thinking of complexity Vs replayability and fun. I used to think the more complex the game the more strategy and fun there is. But this game has tonnes of replayability and depth. It just has really clever (simple) and immersive mechanics and characters. For this reasons, and the awesome models, I will be giving warcry a go soon.
Another distinction: from a competitive perspective, I think that a more streamlined game is easier to balance than a crunchy one. The more rules, the more potential game breaking "exploits."
Great topic! In my opinion, harmony of crunch and fluff is one of the most important things in rulesets. But there is no general rule for it, everybody has to decide for himself, and try different rules.
Completely agree with the thesis that streamlined games are often built for a specific experience rather than as a gateway product. Our group was formed around casual, streamlined, miniatures-agnostic gaming yet composed primarily of experienced gamers. We played Song of Blades and Heroes for the better part of a decade. It didn't lead to allot of crunchy gaming. Rather it mostly lead to other streamlined rulesets like ITEN, KoW, Dragon Rampant, etc, etc... Game hoping, multi game nights and campaigns are all more manageable with streamlined games.
Hi Uncle Atom! Great video... I used to like the really complicated rules - until I realised that it just slowed the game down too much for me. Even if I knew the rules then, if my opponent didn't, we were always looking them up. Now my memory is worse so I'm looking up rules even in the streamlined games! One thing I thought of, you said about simpler rules for beginners to learn - its also easier to teach. The warhammer club I used to run had a lot of young players and they wanted to play the game not read the rules... so I had to teach them and the simpler set was fast for them to pick up but also less of a bind for me to teach. When a new player came along in 7th ed I was like 'oh no, I've got to teach all these rules again' whereas in 8th it was quick and easy for both me and the person learning to play.
Kings of War is really streamlined but the tactical depth is huge. Easy to learn (we played after a single read through with barely any queries), quick to play (hour and a half roughly), tough to master Rules lawyering is radically reduced from any other system, rc is responsive on social media but are rarely needed.
wh40k 8th and 9th looked more streamlined but in reality it just added so many books and rules for your hq and detachment bonuses that changes every turn and stratagems scattered in 5 different books and artifacts and what not
@@WarpedMindFilm If they want Warhammer+ to succeed, they ought to include a subscription to the entire rules for their games. I'd pay $5 or $10 a month to subscribe to the rules, but I can't make myself spend $50 several times a year and still NOT have all the rules to the game. You shouldn't have to buy all the codexes if you want to prepare strategies against every army--that should be part of the subscription. And if GW could cut out the overhead and uncertainty of printing high-dollar hardback books in China, they'd probably make as much money selling their rules as a service as they do selling them as a physical product (or, more accurately, a vast and ever-expanding collection of time-limited physical products).
@@printandplaygamer7134 That's just it, the overall cost of printing in China is low compared to the UK. It probably cost them less than $10 a book to print them there including shipping back to the UK. What irks me most when it comes to the Codexes is how many times they have simply reused old art and photos from the previous editions to sell a book that cost more than the previous ones. GW is on the edge of a knife right now despite what the Supporters say. Besides the obvious recasting and 3D Printing losses they have better games starting to appear like Star Wars Legion and Bolt Action(Seems to finally be getting the traction it deserves). Also the denial from GW on the fate of the First Born is infuriating. I finished listening to Devastation of Baal and now on Darkness in the Blood and they are once again repeating the theme that the First Born Marines are going to be phased out. It may not happen in 10th but I can definitely see if done by 11th so more than like about 3 to 4 years from now you will only be able to get them via third party sources and not usable for competitive play or possibly in FLGS.
I've posted this once or twice before but I could not care less about tabletop gaming of any kind but I watch every tabletop minions video because Adam has a great narration voice and a funny sense of humor and it's just nice to listen to.
One interesting point where I have different opinion (but of course, it depends). When there is a rule lawyer you mentioned that they might be interest in more crunchy system. I think It's the other way around, when playing complex system I found out that too many interactions between models, too many edge cases appear that makes it harder to play "precisely" as authors intended, making the necessity of errata and FAQ more prevalent with complicated games.
This was a really great video! I have lately have been leaning to more streamlined skirmish style games. I’ve been on a WarCry kick lately because of the easy rules, the low model count, and I’m trying to get some of my friends into it. I play AoS too, but the new edition just has so many rules to remember now in my opinion. With the universal command abilities, the hero stuff, monster stuff, and your own faction specific rules it gets to be too much for me. I also like the hobby side of this hobby. Seeing a unit of 10 - 20 models get wiped off the board in one turn that I worked really hard on is really defeating to me. See one single model get wiped of the board in skirmish games, not so much.
A lot of times it depends on the experience I'm looking for. Taking Battletech: if I've got a few players who want to do a Solaris showdown, we'll use the classic rules because with one mech per person, it's not difficult to keep track of everything on the sheet. But if I want to reenact the Battle of Tukayyid, Alpha Strike is a much better experience for a large scale battle.
@@ABUBBA22 Even the Beginner Box is a good start for BT. It keeps it relatively simple & playable. I've rpg'd since 89 but never got into wargaming until last year when I picked it up.
I like the base ruleset like in kill team of 40k, or age of sigmar, but all the special rules of every little unit and character become tedious when you have 40-80 models and don't constantly play, you keep forgetting or reading what this one unit can do, that's a bit meh, also I can't be bothered to constantly buy the newest addition to an existing codex, I buy the game and I play that game, I don't want a new update to a boardgame every 2 weeks, if I wanted that, I would have stayed with pc games
I know exactly what you mean. Still have not played KT Octarius,but I assembled and primed everything. Have to catch up on my Warhammer Underworld backlog before I tackle KT.
I have to say, the older I get, the more I like the faster, more streamlined games. They are usually cheaper to get into, and more fun and casual. Plus spending a whole afternoon on one wargame can be a bit anticlimactic, whereas if I can 3-4 or more in the same period, I get to try different units, tactics, and I'm not so locked in.
Great video, lots of food for thought for new players. New AoS edition seems to be going down the path of a more crunchy core rule set but more streamlined battletomes and warscrolls (each units rules) for each faction.
Personally i hate that. In AOS 2.0 you could choose the complexity of your games via which army you played and how you built your list, now its complex all the time with no option around it. We also had free warscrolls that were not pay walled back then. :(
For the crunchiest I remember...Squad Leader.... one of my high school friends had many wargames. Although quite engaging, it was super long and I don't think we ever got to play more than a couple of turns because we'd simply run out of time. I have time for all sorts of games and often it's more the opponent and "fun factor" that determines whether I enjoy a game or not.
We had a 4 player Blood Bowl 7s tournament in a day, 3 matches each. I personally prefer it over Blood Bowl 11s any day of the week. The ultimate streamlined game is De Bellis Antiquitatis (DBA). 45min games of 12 bases per side of ancients warfare. The Osprey Lion Rampant or Dragon Rampant games are streamlined games that you can use any historical or fantasy miniatures to play. The factions end up not differentiated by rules, but they are all about quick ways to move models around.
I remember the first time I played Kings of War (2nd ed) after years of Warhammer. Myself and my opponent thought we must have missed a heap of rules because the game took half as long as our usual games of Warhammer. . The same thing happened when we played Warcry after years of Mordheim. It was glorious. I hope they do something like that when they do Old World. Sometimes less is more.
I am a simulationist gamer. The more stuff to remember and keep track of, the more interesting the game is for me. On the other hand, there is that sweet spot where the simulation cuts off as well. I don't feel like having a Dwarf Fortress level of detail to my army wargames, but I would love to play the old Star Trek games, because there you have a few complicated ships to keep track of, as opposed to hundreds of models. The scale should be reversely-propotrional to the number of rules and detail put into individual units. Your talk also reminded me of a Polish RPG called Dzikie Pola (Wild Fields/Wild Steppes), where the whole combat encounter was resolved with a single roll, and then the players were free to weave the narrative of the fight however they pleased.
As always, good topic. I think a point can be made that there is a bit of a...not spectrum...more of a Venn diagram of overlapping circles regarding how "crunchy"/detailed/streamlined a game can be. Certain games seem to add Clunk in place of Crunch, which is not really desirable. Example - Instead of 27 special rules for all the different sorts of troops while being wedded to using a single d6 for every mechanic, one can streamline that by using different sorts of dice based on troop quality/morale/etc, keeping the target numbers the same but allowing better troops to have a higher chance of achieving them. They need far fewer rules at that point...it becomes obvious that the elites rolling, say, d12s are way better at doing things than the raw recruits rolling d4s or d6s. It achieves crunch and streamlining all in one. Many paths to get to a fun game, not just one correct answer for certain. Cheers!
I really like how you broke that down. I think another big aspect of crunchy vs streamline is how long your player group has been into war gamming. If your group has played a ton of games, you can probably bring in something complicated and everyone will get it. But you don't want a group of noobs trying to figure out a complicated game.
I do understand the appeal of very simulating board games, but I do not think random dice rolling gives you the best medium for that. It just makes the process longer and your opponent wait. My worst experience in wargaming was waiting half an hour for an opponents turn, which mainly consisted of harrassing me with spells and then measuring endlessly for where to summon his daemons, so they can optimally block my path. I could have played a whole game of AoS Underworld in that time. Maybe not an example for crunch, but the importance of time spent actively playing the game.
You're totally right that having nothing to do for half an hour while your opponent takes his turn is boring, frustrating, or both, but I don't think simulation or even crunch is the main problem. The two main factors that contribute to this negative aspect of play experience in both AoS and 40K are initiative rules and scale. As for scale, each side in AoS or 40K has about 50-150 separate models (unless you're playing Sons of Behamat or Imperial knights!) to activate each turn, which takes time; this is less of a problem in a rank-and-flank game like WH Fantasy or Kings of War, where each large unit is effectively a single model, and each side has only a dozen or so units to physically move on the board. As for initiative systems, both AoS and 40K are sticking with legacy initiative mechanics that boil down to, you move all your units in a row while I watch, then I'll move all mine while you watch. This was just the way games worked in 1985 (when Warhammer armies and games were much smaller, btw), but game developers have come up with many innovations since then that allow players to move models or units alternately in different ways, all of which cut player downtime to a minute or two at a time, making the game feel faster and more engaging. I don't expect GW to change the activation systems in AoS or 40K any time soon, for fear of backlash from the existing player base, but more modern games with alternating activations are more fun to play, in my opinion, at least.
Start : 1st edition > bloat >bloat >bloat >bloat >bloat >bloat >bloat >bloat >10th edition = too bloated to be playable. > streamline >. Go Back to Start, repeat until forever, all the while players feel obliged to keep buying each edition. I jumped off that crazy train years ago, and never regretted it.
My short experience with current Kill Team is that it’s pretty easy to get into (at least with compendium lists). Once you get through the LoS/cover rules you are god to go. And it feels plenty strategic to me. Love it !
All great points but let's not forget that not just from a marketing standpoint more crunchy games mean not just more books and rules to sell but more lore to provide and more images to show off but more to the overall game to highlight. Time to play is definitely one of the key factors for everyone involved however I personally like to just have more to read,whether it is the rules or the lore or battle reports I just like to have something to read when I dont have time to paint or play it get a little boring to reread a 50 page rules set as opposed to have several volumes of information to choose from.
Uncle Atom! Good vid... I agree, I would like to play a whole game under an hour.... If it''s longer than that... errr.... I'm sorta hoping I win, or else I feel like it was a waste of time...
Then I really hope your gaming buddies don't feel the same way! Having one part always walk away feeling it was a waste of time doesn't sound very appealing...
Another fun video to watch! Thank you Adam. I look forward to your videos. A couple of notes: My cats take a TON of time for both my wife and I! You might want to do a video about that :) That streamlined 8th edition is what really got me into the hobby. It worked to lure me in. Which is a good thing. Oh, right - Battletech, the kickstarter got us back into Battletech (alpha strike mostly) and it doesn't have shields, but then it doesn't need anymore complexity! :) As always, thank you again for your videos.
I think clearly defined rules with examples, diagrams, and accessible refrences, are the key factor that makes a game good for new players. That and scalable complexity. Where you don’t get all the crunch in one bite.
It is worth mentioning with some of these games, that when they streamline the core rules it can mean making more unique special rules for units to keep faction flavour in the more streamlined set. Meaning the rules bloat is just shifted
This is actually worse than core bloat. Core bloat gets more or less learned away after a while because you constantly use it and you just get faster and learn shortcuts with repetition. Special rules bloat is a combinatorial explosion of things you don't actually use often individually but always must keep track of to stay up on matchups/meta/what have you, and all the nuances of how it interacts with every other special rule.
I love the granularity of Classic Battletech and the ease of play of Alpha Strike. The Battletech: Destiny rule set is proving to be a wonderful sweet spot between them.
I would say an intro designed game that is still fairly crunchy would be Infinity: Code One. Its the into ruleset of N4 for Corvus Belli's Infinity. The big difference I've seen is that there isn't the skills and such. The core rules of Code One directly transfer over to N4, its just N4 has even more options in factions (not all factions are set up in Code One yet) and things you can do.
I loved the slow zoom in when you were babbling at the end. 😂 And I’m very much on the same page as you. Been selling my 40k stuff as I just don’t have mental energy or time for it anymore, still doing Kill Team as that’s shorter and easier to play as a ‘boxed game’ (and to ignore some of the bloated extra rules). I’m really good at remembering rules to so many games but I draw the line at having to remember absolutely everything my opponent’s army does to have a chance of winning. Crunchy games have a critical mass for me where the rules start getting in the way of fun and immersion. Like you, I find those streamlined games to actually help with the cinematic feel and imagination rather than detract.
@@colinmack8655 not in the market to add a new game just now but when that inevitably changes I’ll be sure to check it out. 😊 I do quite like some of the models.
I've found that as I've gotten older, I prefer simpler, faster games. I would generally prefer to play 2-4 games in a four hour time span than just one. Yeah, when I was 18 I could spend all day (or days) learning the rules for a game, but I don't have the time or patience today to do that. 44-year-old me has to pass on Advanced Squad Leader, where 18-year-old me jumped on it. But I still have dreams of playing a complete World in Flames game as I look longingly at it on the shelf. I also feel the scale of the game helps determine its level of simulation vs abstraction. A game where each player only has 10 models or less that act individually can have more rules to better govern the actions of individual models. A game where each player has 50+ models that act as groups should focus on the abstraction of how groups of models function, as opposed to individual models.
I play a system called DBMM which can take up to 4 hours to play, also from from the same company they have a system called DBA which takes between 45-60 mins. I do play both often and it does depend on the time available which system we play.
It’s because of tournaments. That’s why newer rule books read like a lawyer wrote them. As far as beginner level - When I started Kill Team 2.0 with area players; we cut out a bunch of rules until we got comfortable and ready to Level Up. If the rules a are too “Crunchy” cut out what you don’t need. I find that speed of combat is more important to me than all the dense stuff to replicate reality.
@@colinmack8655 - for tournaments the rules have to be rigid (crunchy), like laws, to eliminate potential differences in interpretation and understanding. Tournaments aren’t like playing with your buddy, everyone wants to win, and they will seek out every possible advantage.
Gas lands is pretty stupid simple for beginners, but has huge potential and depth in areas outside of dice rolls. (There's still a lot of depth there) I think it helps when you can add or remove that stuff. Like campaigns, or customization. I mean it's not like some spread sheet wet dream, but you honestly don't need that much to tell someone that big hunk of lead is a minigun. Just some unique stats. That's what's important with crunch. Just enough acknowledgement to small things that make whatever unique. Streamlining it is making it simple to play and keep track of.
Not incredibly dense introductory wargames: Grimdark Firefight and Age of Fantasy by One Page Rules, Battlesworn by Ganesha Games (skirmish). The latter can be adapted for historical, sci-fi, anything. Also Starfight by Beer& Pretzel Games for sci-fi ship to ship combat (it has shield management!), and MechaForce by Robertson Games (heat management). I prefer more crunch, but it's quite difficult to find a proper balance, as game size (skirmish, platoon, company, even bigger) often makes a mess of otherwise fine rulesets. Too much detail and you take away the purpose of a skirmish game, not enough and a platoon level game feel just inadequate.
I'd say that a really good game for beginners, while still offering insane levels of granularity, is Chain of Command from Too Fat Lardies. This is WW2 (although I heard someone did a 40k-version) and you can just play with the simple stuff from the rules and have a great game because the basics are really simple and easy to grasp but still very, very exciting when it all "comes together" on the board. We play it in 15mm which gives more maneuvering but 28mm is common as well. The really cool thing is that losing is not that big of a deal because the chaos of combat in CoC allows for moments of heroism for all units. You can walk away from a game you lost and still feel you had an absolutely awesome time playing. Caveat: Competitive players need not apply, this is not the game you are looking for. :)
What any set of rules really need is to understandable to the point of playing by the 10 to 15 minute read mark. That is understanding the fundamentals and the core rules of play. Games like Kings of War and Bolt Action do this quite well for me. I felt I understood the basics and started making armies by 20 minute mark. However, mastering the games is taking me much more longer 🤣🤣
I think there needs to be 2 rulesets for a game. A fast paced for the tourney players who can't seem to agree on something simple like how a template gets places and another more detailed ruleset. One of the reasons I don't care for 40K 8th/9th edition is because it neglects basics like armor facing and weapon facing and lack of templates neutered a lot of the bigger models like Warhound Titans and made others like Vindicator tanks near worthless.
Beginner-friendly? Mantic Deadzone (3rd edition just came out). It's quite streamlined and apart from "keyword rules" that are attached to some troops the basic movements set is very easy to catch.
@@colinmack8655 I am just gluing some GCPS and Veer-Myn for painting, and tomorrow I'll have a match with my brother :) I hope it will get more attention.
I'm really in that time constraint situation you decided. So it's important that my games are simple enough to learn as I don't get to practice that often. Best case you get to that chess point where the rules are simple but the game has a big strategic depth.
I went to index card rules and character sheet. the entire game mechanics fits on a 3×5 index card. the character sheet is on the front and equipment/notes on the back. there you go, entire game on two index cards!
By what I understand it seems that Infinity CodeOne will simply the very crunchy game to help people learn. What you learn in that game will apply To full size N4 Infinity, but the complexity ramps up.
Historical games can go a bit far into the crunchy zone. I remember a half dozen of us playing all day with the Battles for Empire Napoleonic rules set. We had a great time and the tables were gorgeous with all the 15mm minis and terrain, but we had fought less than an hour of the actual battle! Every game ended with a friendly discussion as to who would've won if we'd been able to play it out. That was in the ;80s and '90s. Now we can get a game of LaSalle or Blucher to reach a conclusion in a couple of hours. MUCH better! (I've played a couple of games of Black Powder, and am less than impressed, though I really like Bolt Action, also by Warlord).
I think Tanks (GF9) is a great starter war game, the rules are not too complicated and the strategic advantages are intuitive, then if you want to take the next step and get into "the hobby" you can paint the tanks and upgrade the terrain... aaaand you're hooked
Good topic discussion as always. I have always been one to keep lots of systems running at any one time. Partly so I am never shy of opponents, but mainly because as an amateur games designer, I want to learn about as many game mechanics, influences, methods and opinions etc. That designers have used to 'build' a game. It could have been that simple but I also am actively involved as an events organizer for my local community amongst other things 😅
As I've gotten older (hitting 40) I've found that I want simpler rules sets. I started on WFB, played some Warmachine/Hordes, and now play Bolt Action. I like other games, but there's too many rules; in BA, I know pretty much what everything can do, regardless of faction. I tried Mechwarrior once and noped out after seeing all the table rolls and damage tracking. I'm getting to the same point in TTRPGs, too.
The economics of tabletop gaming is not just about the cost of the models. The time it takes to get table top ready and learn a game is where the rubber meets the road. I want to play more but the “big boy” games as it were, really strain on details. A better option would be: for quick play do this or lots of dice rolling and rule knowing do this.
I love a good streamlined game, I don't have the time to throw 501 dice every turn to determine whether or not the bush is concealing the leg of my model. The point of the dice throw is to abstract all the weird luck shit that happens in combat.
An aspect related to the crunchy/streamlined continuum is what I call clunky/elegant. A clunky game makes up new mechanics--often fiddly ones--for every situation without regard for the mechanics already existing in the game, while an elegant game uses a small handful of consistent mechanics throughout most or all aspects of play. A great example of this is 1e AD&D vs. 5e D&D. In 1e, most thief class abilities were resolved by rolling under a certain value on percentile dice, while non-class-based tasks (eg, searching for secret doors) were resolved by rolling low on a d6, and combat hits were resolved by rolling high on a d20, and all tasks required virtually all tasks required looking up the target value on a table. In 5e, (nearly?) all tasks are resolved rolling high on a d20, with simple modifiers based on character stats. Tables are necessary only when rolling to select a random result from a list, never to determine success or failure. 5e is still a very crunchy game, but it's far more elegant than 1e, which makes it easier to teach and faster to play, because the rules are more consistent and less time is spent at the table flipping through books. I think the big difference between Kill Team 18 and Warcry is that KT18 is seriously clunky, while Warcry is far more elegant. This difference is in large part because KT18 committed to using 40K datasheets (almost) unaltered, while Warcry tossed out the AoS rules entirely, bringing over only the models and lore from the bigger game. That GW is a learning organism (or it's design team, at least; the marketing department seems much less so) is evidenced by the fact that KT21 abandoned its subordination to the 40K rule set, and invented a new set of data and mechanics appropriate to a skirmish-level game. You can argue that KT21 is better or worse than KT18--that's a matter of taste--but it is objectively more elegant than its predecessor. Elegance and streamlining are related, in that both of them make a game play more smoothly and quickly, especially when played by relatively inexperienced players, but they are not the same thing. Crunch vs. streamlined has a lot to do with what you call "granularity," while clunkiness vs. elegance has to do with consistency of core mechanics throughout the game.
Great video! I want to play a game for 1 - 2 hours, 3 max and have a winner, about the length of a movie. Longer than that and I get ants in my pants and frustrated. That's why I can't play TI4 or ASL, although I'd love to. Even to get another player to sit that long is difficult. Who has that kind of time? The worst is to play 2 or 3 hours and end without a winner (or a proper draw), just because we ran out of time or brain power. Streamlined or crunchy is a balancing act for me. Too streamlined and it feels too simple, I like a certain amount of crunch to make me feel like I'm making important decisions or managing resources. I prefer "light crunchy " if that's a thing.
ASL scenarios tend to be limited to about 10 turns, which you can usually finish off in that 2 hour time window (obviously the better you know the rules the faster it goes - and that also allows you to ignore rules that don't really impact game play/outcome [looking at you dense woods terrain rule]).
In my opinion, standard Classic Battletech is pretty newbie friendly. I can have a game with a handful of models, the individual mech sheets (in a document protector, so I can just draw on it with a dry erase), and a single quick reference sheet. A little preparation can go a long way for bookkeeping so you can tell at a glance what any modifiers are. Early 8th edition 40k was pretty damn good when we all had an index. Every following release has made it less so.
I've noticed as I've gotten older I don't like complicated rules anymore. It has nothing to do with not understanding them, but everything to do with the availability of time. I want to play games, not memorize several books worth of rules. This applies to both my miniature gaming and my roleplaying. When I was younger I loved games like Battletech, for example, tracking all the armor points and heat sinks. I even liked mathing out the tonnage to design my own mechs. Roleplaying would be games like Mutants & Masterminds or D&D. Now I don't want a ton of rules. Now that I'm older I focus mostly on rules that will help set the tone of whatever I'm playing, gives me a good resolution system, just enough crunch for some added details, but enough streamlining to make the game my own. I'm the same way for my roleplaying now. I want to focus on roleplaying, setting the tone of the game, the plot, and the characters. I want a game that will let players make up characters fast, but with enough crunch to differentiate them, but not have to spend an hour+ making one character. I want to game, not join a college math class or have to invest half a day into just creating a character. In the last 10 years, I've actually gravitated more towards indie-style games for both miniature gaming and roleplaying. I won't play 40k simply because of the time a game can take. I can play This Is Not A Test, Space Weirdos, Reigh In Hell, or even games like Blitz Bowl in half or less the time, which then allows me to play more games. It all comes down to a matter of time invested vs. returns in actual gaming time.
I’m with you Uncle A! Very little time and mental energy available. And you nailed the benefits of streamlined games! PLUS I feel streamlined games allows a more balanced and strategy focused game. Look at Chess!!
Food for thought. Idea, check out the 'rules' for military wargames (exercises) and see how Armies rationalise various activities/actions e.g Artillery, weather, casualty calculations etc - that offers an interesting perspective as to value of granularity in tabletop game rules. Perhaps you don't actually have to dig foxholes when you're 'dead' though.
I think that’s an “it depends” situation. The exercises I’ve seen are mostly focused on practicing command post operations, where what is happening on the battlefield is largely imaginary, scripted, or simulated with a computer and the goal is to get the various levels of staff some training on how to do their jobs. Sometimes the lower level units are doing actual training missions too, and that gets reported up to the staffs, but those generally happen only at the big training centers. For the big staff training exercises I’ve seen computer simulations run as the way to track what and react to what is happening out in the imaginary battlefield. For the big training centers I don’t think there are a lot of rules that would be similar to what we use in wargaming. It’s sort of a big game of laser tag, with the equipment running as the equivalent to the real world weapons. All the weather and other effects are real, and those provide more than enough friction on the battlefield to give people a challenging experience so that no one has to roll on a table and say that hey, according to the rules it’s snowing right now so you’re not allowed to drive faster than 30 mph. That would just be too difficult to manage and coordinate across a bunch of real world units. Even when units get killed at the big training centers they generally have to send casualties through the process back to the rear, when they eventually get resurrected and sent back to their units to continue training so the individual Soldiers don’t miss out on getting their training experience because someone “killed” them early on. The goals of a military exercise and a tabletop war game are so different that I don’t see a lot of useful parallels. Sometimes staffs will “wargame” their planned orders before issuing them, but that’s really a verbal rehearsal combined with the mental exercise of saying if they were the enemy what would they do to poke holes in their own plan. I don’t recall a ton of rules around that, it’s more like an application of common sense.
there is a game about ww2 i belive that tracks medical supplies food ammo fuel down to unit lvl and people brag about actually finishing it. it is to axis and allies what axis and allies is to risk. i cant for the life of me remeber the name of it right now but im sure someone will.
In my head, it's always been about two factors: Complexity and depth, vs speed to play. However, they are not opposites. That's the big fallacy. You don't have to lose detail and simulation depth to streamline a game. I've seen some games (such as Dream Pod 9's Silhouette rules) which still have a lot of technical depth and detail, yet just the mechanics of rolling the dice is far simpler. The way you 'read' the values on the dice just tell you a lot more than 'hit or miss'. You can get not only hit/miss but also how much damage, and even scaling critical damage in a single toss. There's also games where if you missed a rule or need to adjust something, each die has a specific meaning, so you can just pull that offender out, or add another. Sure, this might require custom dice, but if it adds enough value, that might be worth it. The problem is most games are kind of dumb. If something is more, add more dice or more numbers. And then they always have this back and forth..attacker rolls, defender rolls, attacker rolls, defender rolls. Warhammer 40k is pretty ridiculous with how much rolling is needed to resolve a single outcome. Not to mention the massive number of rules. And having to know all the rules for not only your army, but your opponents. And most of them don't add much real value to the game. Every trait, strategum and datasheet is another rule. It's a standard design problem: How do you optimize the detail in outcome while reducing the time spent, be it rolling unending streams of dice, looking stuff up in rule books or tracking volumes of numbers about each unit. The problem is, to be blunt, most game designers do a bad job of this. In today's day and age you have to compete with computer games. Systems designed for number crunching and stat tracking. So you have to focus on making a game that gives you a lot of detail, imaginative story, and fun in a single toss of the dice.
Tactical depth != complexity. 40k is bananas complex but very shallow ito in game player tactics and strategy. Simpler games can be very deep, I hate to use the cliche of chess but there it is. Other than that you make a solid point
@@saulsmith2939 True, I guess in my head I think of complexity in a positive fashion, but that's certainly not always the case. Indeed, what I really enjoy is a simple game that allows for complex choices. But instead we have complex games that only have simple choices.
A game can have streamlined rules and still feel crunchy. Love the streamlined LoS rules of Marvel Crisis Protocol but having a team of 4-5 characters with five or six powers each can be intimidating to new AND vet players.
I love warcry and I when I play 40k or AoS I don't want to play matched play because it is too much to keep track of. Gimme a simple goal and I can focus on that and make non-tactical decision that are cool or make sense for my faction. But most of my friends that play with me don't have kids and/or are younger and they don't mind long, crunchy games that focus on numbers instead of unit/model names and stories (some even play with unpainted models). Everybody has its own fun, and I have to compromise...but your logic makes sense, that each period in life has its own priorities and type of games that fit into those priorities.
More elegant rules, that are not simple, is what I would like to see. Where the "Crunch" is more baked in the rules. The player should have more options and less there is only one real option each turn. I feel the main rules are in a rut. Like deployment in Chain of Command, from Too Fat Lardies, it takes what could be a lot of rules and makes Deployment a large part of strategy for the game. Need more of this type of thing. Also drop the d6, dice are easy to get!
There are crunchy games that are also fast. Infinity comes to mind. Lot's of details, options, skills, rules, abilities and equipment - and it usually takes no longer than 90 minutes to play a game, assuming both players know the game.
Usually what puts me off is the game taking 4 hours long. So a lot of games not all games but a lot of games, have with called an unstable equilibrium. If you start winning early in the game it's harder for your opponent to catch up. Every time you take one of their models away, they are less able to take one of yours away. That's fine. Something with a stable equilibrium would be something like basketball where scoring baskets doesn't really impair the other team's ability to also score baskets. Chess has an unstable equilibrium. Where an unstable equilibrium really becomes a problem is when the game is 4 hours long. That's when you get Monopoly.
All very true! Which to add to some of your points you can have differnt rule books rules for the same minis... Like what Battletech does with alpha strike, standard and advanced or even what Chess does with simple movement and how to play to complexe hidden rules like cashling... Or even Pokemon TCG where the base rules are like 36 pages long but the tornment rules are hundreds... And their is always the make up your own like Pokemon TCG's Playground rules. Which I am working on a game meant for beginners and veterans alike and making it realistic... So I need steamline and crunch how I did it is just add tons of optional rules and make the core rules simple, open and flawlessly intergrate them as I can... So they are easy to learn and find quickly or you won't need to as all the rules you need during play sans definitions are on 2 pieces of paper... If you just have one models if you have more you'll need one for each or if playing low level you can fit 20 models on one peice of paper less if they share weapons and armor. And I've made the core rules in a way that makes bugs the what do you do moment rare but still open to do any thing you want on a table. Still working on it though and making alot of head way... having to balance Crunch and Streamline is hard and I have a tendency to lean crunch which is bad for me... Still fun though.
40k needs less streamlining and more clarity. Too many of the rules are in the game and not on the units, making it harder to learn all the "basic rules", before even starting. AoS is much better in this regard and is just easier to understand, even if the rules can be longer, they are easier to understand, for me at least.
"Too many of the rules are in the game and not on the units" I'm curious what you mean by this. I got burnt out by 9th edition specifically because of the amount of special rules that were spread over codices with similar functions but different names. A list of universal special rules like we had in past editions (rules like Deep Strike, Furious Charge, Feel No Pain etc.) would absolutely improve the game for me.
I'm very new to war hammer 40k, and have bought and painted my Custodes Army, and began playing as the new 9th ed codex came out. Then I learn embarrassingly at the game store that specific rules in the codex are over ruled by general rules in the core book. As a 38 year player of DnD this boggles my mind. Certainly in 5th ed. The specific always over rules the General. So for instance, It is an action to Dash, but Rogues have cunning action that lets them do it on a bonus action. So in 40k, I have a warlord trait that lets me spend cp to use strats, but if I roll a 5+ on a d6 I get it free....each time. But The core book says..wait- you can only regen cp once a round. Having Invested in 40k, to now having little confidence in its rules integrity and concerns over the rules being found in multiple books and FAQ's and even magazine articles....jeez. Seems like I wasted my money.
@@acm4bass Sorry to hear that. The rules conflict rises from the aspect that army rulebooks are updated over an edition, not all at once. So you invariably end up using codices designed for 8th edition in 9th edition. You example of a Command Point refund is a good one, because in 8th edition you could spam such abilities that you were generating much more command points than the game was balanced around. Because of that, it was errata'd and later made a core rule that you could only regenerate/refund a command point once per round. 9th edition is a mess.
@@bartholen I agree, in principle that the limitation is acceptable, but the Brand new Custodes codex that has the warlord trait, doesn't even refer to the core book limitation. I'm more unnerved by the design principle. The game has examples of both specific over general and the reverse. So its okay for Gene stealers cult to have a deepstrike 5" away and I have to be 9". If it was up to me, all specific rules would overule general, and if it caused a balance issue they could be changed. Another thing DnD has is unearthed arcana- temporary rules that can be used to test out ideas before making them permanent. 70% positive Community feedback is required to add features or rules. Or Sage advice- which is like a FAQ, but specific questions can be asked of the designers to determine intent. If you search a 40k rule you get reddit opinions that are way more wrong than right, and often apply to older material.
@@acm4bass Well, there are fundamental differences between the systems that make comparisons between them a bit shaky. 40k is a competitive game, DnD is a storytelling game. 40k's editions change every 3 to 4 years, DnD's last change was... 8 years ago is it now? This means changes in the meta are far quicker, meaning there can't really be an unearthed arcana, because if there was, the imbalances in those would be abused endlessly. 40k's balancing is also far more complicated than DnD's, because in DnD the DM can always homebrew, change stats and use DM's mandate. In 40k there's no such thing outside of closed friend groups. So in theory every unit in every codex needs to be balanced against every other unit in every other codex. Don't get me wrong, GW's game design has always been very poor. It's a neverending cycle of releasing the new edition to "balance and improve" from the previous one, and then breaking that meta within a year of the edition's release with some new codex. They also have a history of extremely hostile relations with their costumer base, so a 70% positive feedback rate is a pipe dream. Asking the playerbase to keep up with playtest material on top of the constantly updating meta is a pretty tall order. Plus GW is one of the most ruthlessly greedy companies ran by a gaggle of crusty boomercunts, meaning that shifting to the modern age with things like free digital rulesets are far, far in the future. With DnD you can download the core rules for free and start playing without investing in anything more than dice. In the past it used to be that GW released the rules, and the competitive scene created their own score systems, mission structures and additional rules based on the official material. The casual and competitive scene stayed separate. Where 9th edition feels have gone wrong is that GW has tried to make the competitive rules a core component of the game, and blundered it in their usual manner.
I am completely with you on this. If people like crunchy rulesets, that’s good for them. Cool. But I’d rather play something simpler and more streamlined. I’ve had more fun playing Warcry than Infinity. Is Warcry objectively a better game? Probably not. But much more to my taste.
1 minute in and Ill put it this way. There are 2 different versions of "Streamlining". First is things that should be simplified as there are easier ways to get the same info/result without so much extra steps. Then there is Streamlining for Streamlinings sake where your doing it JUST because you want to be able to say "This product is different" when people complain its the same as last years. Biggest example is Apple and removing the Headphone Jack. Did it NEED to come out? No, Android did similiar to same size battery and kept the jack. Apple did it cause its obsessed with Streamlining for Streamlinings sake For 40k from 7th to 8th I can think of ONE good change and about 6 BAD ones, but will just go one to one for simplicity. Good, Making Ballistic Skill a simple number on the sheet. Why have to remember that you need a total of 7 to hit, or have a chart, and write it as BS4 on a Marine and BS3 on a Tau when it can simply be written as BS 3+ or BS 4+ respectively. Nothing was lost, you basically do have the same old BS just eliminating those extra steps to get there. BAD, Making WEAPON SKILL a simple number on the sheet. Making a Marine hit Abaddon or a GROT on the exact same number removes the nuance of Abaddons skill with a weapon and the Grots braindead IQ and makes them equal. Same with Jain Zar trying to hit a TANK or hitting Lelith Hespirax, she is going to hit that tank ALL DAY LONG, but Lelith is going to give her a challenge. The WS change was streamlining for streamlinings sake. Also in that category that I wont go into, unless someone wants more of my opinion, Vehicles going to T/W/S models instead of Armor Values, as well as reducing Templates to Xd6 shots as opposed to Templates. Simply put these both removed nuance and detail from the game for static numbers and the game has suffered for it. Also now at where Adam mentions the "Added Crunch" with 9th and AoS 3rd. The addition of lots of Strategems in 8th/9th is added Complexity Id argue over Depth/Nuance. Does having Trans Human or a Auto Wounding or a strat that allows a vehicle to opperate on top bracket instead of where its wounds say more Deep/Nuance than Vehicle facing/Weapon firing arcs/damage tables or is it simply more Complex? Meaning does it add more to the ILLUSION and imaginary story of the game or does it just mean more shit for the player to remember to do. Id argue the later. I know a LOT of newer players probably are here JUST for the game, IE the numbers and abilities. But I think thats the most superflous part of 40k or any mini game. The most integral part is the Background/Story/Lore/etc. Without that we might as well sit down and just roll the dice with paper cut outs or just math hammer out movement, "I set up 5 inches from my board edge you set up 9, I move 10 inches and have a 30 inch weapon range". Without the "Fluffy" stuff none of these games mean ANYTHING and many of the old rules where there to represent this stuff.
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I'm all in on simpler games. I want narrative experiences, I don't want to do homework for a week before meeting my friends to play, and I want to be able to bring new friends who haven't played before.
Yeah i mean, when you have to know all the rules and enforce them yourself its a very large amount of brain load to under take and frankly when playing a table top game i just want to enjoy it in a sensible time frame - Don't want to learn a tech manual as thick and complicated as War and peace.
It's supposed to be fun, i should be allowed to enjoy the actual play time itself!
Same but more so I want to play shorter games like 30min to 60min games. So instead of playing one game over 4 hours I can play 2 or three games in roughly the same amount of time and if the rules are easier to understand and remember the actual play is faster and cleaner. Like I want to play checkers sometimes not always chess.
MIddle Earth SBG is pretty straightforward with small armies and simple mechanics that can get more and more complex involving heroes, artillery etc as you go on. You have 3 orcs and 1 gondor solider in a fight and the gondor soldier wins the combat pushing 3 orcs back - epic narrative moments happen all the time in that game.
I'm my dream someone would homebrew MESBG rules for age of sigmar models
Setting up before the lines crash and positioning for when they do makes lotr so amazing. Plus you don’t lose months of painting in 30seconds!!😂
you should have tried I.C.E. (iron crown enterprise). the M.E.R.P. rules were very involved. the world information is still some of the best material - if you can find it.
Man, how i wish someone played MESBG near me
the fact that Atom literally never talks about MESBG is almost criminal
The search for the perfect ruleset continues - the flunchy - fluffy enough to be fun while crunchy enough to keep you interested!
The problem of course is that everyone has a different idea of what that perfect balance would be. Some people want more simulation of war zones, some want more of a game. Heck even the same person can have different opinion at how much they like at different points and different reasons.
Flunchy. New word accepted.
@Tapio Piuva Art First I've heard of it. Looks interesting and I love Paolo's art
I find Infinity totally keeps me engaged, it can go pretty quickly and is a lot of fun
It's the Holy Grail of tabletop gaming.
I like to draw a distinction between "Crunch" and "Clunk" ...
"Crunch" allows for tactical decisions, units that are equal but different, and all that stuff people want in a simulation.
"Clunk" gets in the way of the fun.
Games can be crunchy without being clunky, though it's a lot harder than the inverse.
Streamlining is usually meant to clean up the clunk, though crunch is often caught up in that, and clunk finds its way back in over time anyway. So much of the 40k FAQ is dedicated to tightening up the clunk that the tournament scene has found, which has left the game a lot harder to grok for newbies.
Another video where you’re speaking to my soul. I’ve grown out of the 3-4 hour games. They give me a migraine and just take too long. Underworlds is my favorite even though I’m home hyper competitive. I’ve been really getting into the GW/Barnes and Noble games. They are quick, small and anyone can play them. I’m very excited for the B&N light warhammer quest game. Keep up the great work! 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾🤩
The only problem I have with long games is if it's a foregone conclusion but I'm committed to stay through to the end regardless. Winning and losing are just as bad for me if I'm checked out and bored. Games are supposed to be an engaging pastime, and a good game for me comes from that engagement, not being the winner.
Totally agree. My preferred skirmish game is normally 1v1, but the last game I played was a 4-way free for all. By turn 3 or 4 I was checked out. Most of my units were either heavily damaged or already removed as casualties. I even stated to the table that in a normal game at this point I would have conceded the game but felt compelled to play on just because it was a 4 way.
Battletech comes to mind for a chunky rules set that is also beginner friendly. If you play lance vs lance, it can be a pretty simple game. The moment you start adding certain weapons and equipment and additional units, then it gets a whole lot crunchier. The rules layer in complexity depending on what units are on the field
on reflection, Alphas strike is a step further in that direction. a streamlined version of battletech that is also a bit crunchy the more types of units you use. You can play a company level (3 lances per side) in 2 hours
It's good to see people discuss this topic with the Battletech Renaissance going on and people weighing the pros and cons of things like Battletech Classic vs Alpha Strike.
I have cats they are a big commitment! I have started playing necromunda which is ridiculously dense but is better for it. The learning curve however is vertical.
Streamline has become such a "buzz" word in the gaming industry now that sometimes you see a new ruleset for something and it talks about streamlined streamlined streamlined but when you read it, it's very clunky. Anyway, I like a bit of both, I really enjoy Warcry and the rules for that, but I also enjoy Age of Sigmar for all it has. There is an interval where I enjoy streamlined and slightly cruncy games but they can for sure go too far in both directions, too bland to be fun and too complicated to be fun.
Hi Uncle Atom, great video, and great topic.
You asked for entry-level games with great crunch. So let me give you my list, but before, may I add one little caveat: I define crunchy as a set of game mechanichs, that give me interesting choices. When a ruleset gets oveburdened with stuff though, I call this bloat, a measure that can exist independently from crunch. So WH40K for me is still crunchy, especially in 9th edition, but is also very bloated, which takes away from the fun for me in the ways you described.
So back to my list:
1) OnePageRules: the king of this discipline. As soon as you've selected your army, the grand total of rules, that you need to read, is 7 pages long. 2 pages of rules, 2 of special rules and 2-3 pages for your army, which includes army composition rules. And this is a crunchy boy! It's the very definition of easy to learn, delicious to master.
2) Infinity Code One: a little heavier on the rules side (100 pages, including all special rules and army composition rules), but a more crunchy game you will not find, my friend!
3) Mythic Battles (Pantheon/Ragnarok): This is half board game, half wargame, with a grand total pages to learn of 42, and all special rules handily referenced on your unit cards. The interactions between the different units make this one of the most beautifully crunchy games on the market. There is a big drawback though: it isn't freely available yet. Its a Kickstarter exclusive, with the publisher promising to get it to retail sometime.
There is though one other alternative: Super Fantasy Brawl, which for me is a close fourth in the category.
Hope you like my list.
Cheers!
My friends and I created our own rules system for Risk, it was fluffy and crunchy since you could treat it like a grab-bag, picking and choosing which rules to play, so long as the super simple base rules were there it works. Essentially a lot of modifiers that can be toggled on and off, even during play.
I think one page rules Grim Dark Future, does a good job with it. There is the standard rule set which is easy to understand, then if you want more there are additional modules that can be plugged in to the main core rules to increase complexity.
Buddy and I have been playing 40k since 2nd edition. 9th edition broke us. The OPR games have completely replaced Warhammer for us; Grimdark and Age of Fantasy are far more enjoyable, way less bloated and exhausting to learn and play.
Back in my 20s I was super into the mega-crunchy games (both tabletop and rpg) and would spends hours poring over books, taking notes, thinking of character/army builds or strategies or whatever. Now I'm in my late 30s and I love an elegant, lightweight ruleset.
I play games to get away from work, not do more work!
This is why I love the newer version of Titanicus, it's crunchy and fluffy, but can still be played relatively quickly. I never get the feel bads when I lose either, just because each game just has loads of those memorable visceral, cinematic moments that define a good gaming experience.
Great video! We've had more or less this exact conversation in our Napoleonics group. We play Black Powder because its accessible and everywhere, but there are other rulesets that give more of the 'simulation' feel of period.
You always pick such good topics and do well talking about war gaming without getting into the specifics!
Brutality Skirmish War game is one of the best streamlined systems and has fantastic lore and setting while allowing you to use whatever minis you want.
Thank you for this content. I got into warcry for the exact reason you described. 3 small kids, full time job, wife, household ect....I love Age of sigmar and still play when the stars align. 3rd edition has come and I think total I have got 5 games...warcry I can play every weekend and get 3 or 4 games in and still tells a narrative story...thanks uncle Adam!
Battle Tech now has an intro to the game box, that is easy to get into. Then you can buy the "we have a rule for that" TotalWar Book
A game called unmatched (a board game with miniatures) has totally transformed my thinking of complexity Vs replayability and fun. I used to think the more complex the game the more strategy and fun there is. But this game has tonnes of replayability and depth. It just has really clever (simple) and immersive mechanics and characters.
For this reasons, and the awesome models, I will be giving warcry a go soon.
Another distinction: from a competitive perspective, I think that a more streamlined game is easier to balance than a crunchy one. The more rules, the more potential game breaking "exploits."
Great topic! In my opinion, harmony of crunch and fluff is one of the most important things in rulesets. But there is no general rule for it, everybody has to decide for himself, and try different rules.
Completely agree with the thesis that streamlined games are often built for a specific experience rather than as a gateway product. Our group was formed around casual, streamlined, miniatures-agnostic gaming yet composed primarily of experienced gamers. We played Song of Blades and Heroes for the better part of a decade. It didn't lead to allot of crunchy gaming. Rather it mostly lead to other streamlined rulesets like ITEN, KoW, Dragon Rampant, etc, etc...
Game hoping, multi game nights and campaigns are all more manageable with streamlined games.
Hi Uncle Atom! Great video... I used to like the really complicated rules - until I realised that it just slowed the game down too much for me. Even if I knew the rules then, if my opponent didn't, we were always looking them up. Now my memory is worse so I'm looking up rules even in the streamlined games! One thing I thought of, you said about simpler rules for beginners to learn - its also easier to teach. The warhammer club I used to run had a lot of young players and they wanted to play the game not read the rules... so I had to teach them and the simpler set was fast for them to pick up but also less of a bind for me to teach. When a new player came along in 7th ed I was like 'oh no, I've got to teach all these rules again' whereas in 8th it was quick and easy for both me and the person learning to play.
Kings of War is really streamlined but the tactical depth is huge. Easy to learn (we played after a single read through with barely any queries), quick to play (hour and a half roughly), tough to master
Rules lawyering is radically reduced from any other system, rc is responsive on social media but are rarely needed.
Man the sound is recorded so well....audio butter (also great vid as usual!)
wh40k 8th and 9th looked more streamlined but in reality it just added so many books and rules for your hq and detachment bonuses that changes every turn and stratagems scattered in 5 different books and artifacts and what not
Don't forget the DLC aspect of 9th edition.
@@WarpedMindFilm If they want Warhammer+ to succeed, they ought to include a subscription to the entire rules for their games. I'd pay $5 or $10 a month to subscribe to the rules, but I can't make myself spend $50 several times a year and still NOT have all the rules to the game. You shouldn't have to buy all the codexes if you want to prepare strategies against every army--that should be part of the subscription. And if GW could cut out the overhead and uncertainty of printing high-dollar hardback books in China, they'd probably make as much money selling their rules as a service as they do selling them as a physical product (or, more accurately, a vast and ever-expanding collection of time-limited physical products).
@@printandplaygamer7134 That's just it, the overall cost of printing in China is low compared to the UK. It probably cost them less than $10 a book to print them there including shipping back to the UK. What irks me most when it comes to the Codexes is how many times they have simply reused old art and photos from the previous editions to sell a book that cost more than the previous ones. GW is on the edge of a knife right now despite what the Supporters say. Besides the obvious recasting and 3D Printing losses they have better games starting to appear like Star Wars Legion and Bolt Action(Seems to finally be getting the traction it deserves).
Also the denial from GW on the fate of the First Born is infuriating. I finished listening to Devastation of Baal and now on Darkness in the Blood and they are once again repeating the theme that the First Born Marines are going to be phased out. It may not happen in 10th but I can definitely see if done by 11th so more than like about 3 to 4 years from now you will only be able to get them via third party sources and not usable for competitive play or possibly in FLGS.
I've posted this once or twice before but I could not care less about tabletop gaming of any kind but I watch every tabletop minions video because Adam has a great narration voice and a funny sense of humor and it's just nice to listen to.
One interesting point where I have different opinion (but of course, it depends). When there is a rule lawyer you mentioned that they might be interest in more crunchy system. I think It's the other way around, when playing complex system I found out that too many interactions between models, too many edge cases appear that makes it harder to play "precisely" as authors intended, making the necessity of errata and FAQ more prevalent with complicated games.
This was a really great video! I have lately have been leaning to more streamlined skirmish style games. I’ve been on a WarCry kick lately because of the easy rules, the low model count, and I’m trying to get some of my friends into it. I play AoS too, but the new edition just has so many rules to remember now in my opinion. With the universal command abilities, the hero stuff, monster stuff, and your own faction specific rules it gets to be too much for me. I also like the hobby side of this hobby. Seeing a unit of 10 - 20 models get wiped off the board in one turn that I worked really hard on is really defeating to me. See one single model get wiped of the board in skirmish games, not so much.
A lot of times it depends on the experience I'm looking for. Taking Battletech: if I've got a few players who want to do a Solaris showdown, we'll use the classic rules because with one mech per person, it's not difficult to keep track of everything on the sheet. But if I want to reenact the Battle of Tukayyid, Alpha Strike is a much better experience for a large scale battle.
This entire video is a good summary of the difference between classic Battletech and Alpha Strike.
Which I'm surprised that more games don't do what battletech did and release different rulebooks that are essentially arcade mode and simulation mode.
@@ABUBBA22 Even the Beginner Box is a good start for BT. It keeps it relatively simple & playable. I've rpg'd since 89 but never got into wargaming until last year when I picked it up.
I like the base ruleset like in kill team of 40k, or age of sigmar, but all the special rules of every little unit and character become tedious when you have 40-80 models and don't constantly play, you keep forgetting or reading what this one unit can do, that's a bit meh, also I can't be bothered to constantly buy the newest addition to an existing codex, I buy the game and I play that game, I don't want a new update to a boardgame every 2 weeks, if I wanted that, I would have stayed with pc games
I know exactly what you mean. Still have not played KT Octarius,but I assembled and primed everything. Have to catch up on my Warhammer Underworld backlog before I tackle KT.
Summoners from Neverrealm Industry! Such a unique game with such a unique gamer freindly entry and enormous decisions and choices in the lategame!!!
40K (and AoS before it) were two games that got very streamlined, and then they forgot why they streamlined and added unneeded complexity again.
Agreed, it sucks.
I have to say, the older I get, the more I like the faster, more streamlined games. They are usually cheaper to get into, and more fun and casual. Plus spending a whole afternoon on one wargame can be a bit anticlimactic, whereas if I can 3-4 or more in the same period, I get to try different units, tactics, and I'm not so locked in.
Great video, lots of food for thought for new players. New AoS edition seems to be going down the path of a more crunchy core rule set but more streamlined battletomes and warscrolls (each units rules) for each faction.
Personally i hate that.
In AOS 2.0 you could choose the complexity of your games via which army you played and how you built your list, now its complex all the time with no option around it. We also had free warscrolls that were not pay walled back then. :(
For the crunchiest I remember...Squad Leader.... one of my high school friends had many wargames. Although quite engaging, it was super long and I don't think we ever got to play more than a couple of turns because we'd simply run out of time. I have time for all sorts of games and often it's more the opponent and "fun factor" that determines whether I enjoy a game or not.
We had a 4 player Blood Bowl 7s tournament in a day, 3 matches each. I personally prefer it over Blood Bowl 11s any day of the week.
The ultimate streamlined game is De Bellis Antiquitatis (DBA). 45min games of 12 bases per side of ancients warfare. The Osprey Lion Rampant or Dragon Rampant games are streamlined games that you can use any historical or fantasy miniatures to play. The factions end up not differentiated by rules, but they are all about quick ways to move models around.
I remember the first time I played Kings of War (2nd ed) after years of Warhammer. Myself and my opponent thought we must have missed a heap of rules because the game took half as long as our usual games of Warhammer. . The same thing happened when we played Warcry after years of Mordheim. It was glorious. I hope they do something like that when they do Old World. Sometimes less is more.
Have you played 3rd Ed I find that to be the ruleset I wish fantasy had been.
Yeah I did, I loved it. That was a great description. It was tighter and better but I’m more into skirmish games at the moment.
I am a simulationist gamer. The more stuff to remember and keep track of, the more interesting the game is for me. On the other hand, there is that sweet spot where the simulation cuts off as well. I don't feel like having a Dwarf Fortress level of detail to my army wargames, but I would love to play the old Star Trek games, because there you have a few complicated ships to keep track of, as opposed to hundreds of models. The scale should be reversely-propotrional to the number of rules and detail put into individual units.
Your talk also reminded me of a Polish RPG called Dzikie Pola (Wild Fields/Wild Steppes), where the whole combat encounter was resolved with a single roll, and then the players were free to weave the narrative of the fight however they pleased.
As always, good topic. I think a point can be made that there is a bit of a...not spectrum...more of a Venn diagram of overlapping circles regarding how "crunchy"/detailed/streamlined a game can be. Certain games seem to add Clunk in place of Crunch, which is not really desirable. Example - Instead of 27 special rules for all the different sorts of troops while being wedded to using a single d6 for every mechanic, one can streamline that by using different sorts of dice based on troop quality/morale/etc, keeping the target numbers the same but allowing better troops to have a higher chance of achieving them. They need far fewer rules at that point...it becomes obvious that the elites rolling, say, d12s are way better at doing things than the raw recruits rolling d4s or d6s. It achieves crunch and streamlining all in one. Many paths to get to a fun game, not just one correct answer for certain. Cheers!
I really like how you broke that down. I think another big aspect of crunchy vs streamline is how long your player group has been into war gamming. If your group has played a ton of games, you can probably bring in something complicated and everyone will get it. But you don't want a group of noobs trying to figure out a complicated game.
I do understand the appeal of very simulating board games, but I do not think random dice rolling gives you the best medium for that. It just makes the process longer and your opponent wait.
My worst experience in wargaming was waiting half an hour for an opponents turn, which mainly consisted of harrassing me with spells and then measuring endlessly for where to summon his daemons, so they can optimally block my path. I could have played a whole game of AoS Underworld in that time. Maybe not an example for crunch, but the importance of time spent actively playing the game.
You're totally right that having nothing to do for half an hour while your opponent takes his turn is boring, frustrating, or both, but I don't think simulation or even crunch is the main problem. The two main factors that contribute to this negative aspect of play experience in both AoS and 40K are initiative rules and scale. As for scale, each side in AoS or 40K has about 50-150 separate models (unless you're playing Sons of Behamat or Imperial knights!) to activate each turn, which takes time; this is less of a problem in a rank-and-flank game like WH Fantasy or Kings of War, where each large unit is effectively a single model, and each side has only a dozen or so units to physically move on the board. As for initiative systems, both AoS and 40K are sticking with legacy initiative mechanics that boil down to, you move all your units in a row while I watch, then I'll move all mine while you watch. This was just the way games worked in 1985 (when Warhammer armies and games were much smaller, btw), but game developers have come up with many innovations since then that allow players to move models or units alternately in different ways, all of which cut player downtime to a minute or two at a time, making the game feel faster and more engaging. I don't expect GW to change the activation systems in AoS or 40K any time soon, for fear of backlash from the existing player base, but more modern games with alternating activations are more fun to play, in my opinion, at least.
Start : 1st edition > bloat >bloat >bloat >bloat >bloat >bloat >bloat >bloat >10th edition = too bloated to be playable. > streamline >. Go Back to Start, repeat until forever, all the while players feel obliged to keep buying each edition. I jumped off that crazy train years ago, and never regretted it.
GW's built a huge business out of monetizing that cycle.
My short experience with current Kill Team is that it’s pretty easy to get into (at least with compendium lists). Once you get through the LoS/cover rules you are god to go. And it feels plenty strategic to me. Love it !
All great points but let's not forget that not just from a marketing standpoint more crunchy games mean not just more books and rules to sell but more lore to provide and more images to show off but more to the overall game to highlight.
Time to play is definitely one of the key factors for everyone involved however I personally like to just have more to read,whether it is the rules or the lore or battle reports I just like to have something to read when I dont have time to paint or play it get a little boring to reread a 50 page rules set as opposed to have several volumes of information to choose from.
Uncle Atom! Good vid... I agree, I would like to play a whole game under an hour.... If it''s longer than that... errr.... I'm sorta hoping I win, or else I feel like it was a waste of time...
Then I really hope your gaming buddies don't feel the same way! Having one part always walk away feeling it was a waste of time doesn't sound very appealing...
Another fun video to watch! Thank you Adam. I look forward to your videos. A couple of notes: My cats take a TON of time for both my wife and I! You might want to do a video about that :)
That streamlined 8th edition is what really got me into the hobby. It worked to lure me in. Which is a good thing. Oh, right - Battletech, the kickstarter got us back into Battletech (alpha strike mostly) and it doesn't have shields, but then it doesn't need anymore complexity! :)
As always, thank you again for your videos.
I think clearly defined rules with examples, diagrams, and accessible refrences, are the key factor that makes a game good for new players. That and scalable complexity. Where you don’t get all the crunch in one bite.
It is worth mentioning with some of these games, that when they streamline the core rules it can mean making more unique special rules for units to keep faction flavour in the more streamlined set. Meaning the rules bloat is just shifted
This is actually worse than core bloat. Core bloat gets more or less learned away after a while because you constantly use it and you just get faster and learn shortcuts with repetition. Special rules bloat is a combinatorial explosion of things you don't actually use often individually but always must keep track of to stay up on matchups/meta/what have you, and all the nuances of how it interacts with every other special rule.
@@liveware3926 definitely, and that problem can feel like a trap to people getting into what is advertised as streamlined
damn that's a cool intro bit with the sounds and the logo and yea I liked it
Sums up why I went to Mantics Kings of War they write really good rules.
I love the granularity of Classic Battletech and the ease of play of Alpha Strike. The Battletech: Destiny rule set is proving to be a wonderful sweet spot between them.
I would say an intro designed game that is still fairly crunchy would be Infinity: Code One. Its the into ruleset of N4 for Corvus Belli's Infinity. The big difference I've seen is that there isn't the skills and such. The core rules of Code One directly transfer over to N4, its just N4 has even more options in factions (not all factions are set up in Code One yet) and things you can do.
I loved the slow zoom in when you were babbling at the end. 😂 And I’m very much on the same page as you. Been selling my 40k stuff as I just don’t have mental energy or time for it anymore, still doing Kill Team as that’s shorter and easier to play as a ‘boxed game’ (and to ignore some of the bloated extra rules). I’m really good at remembering rules to so many games but I draw the line at having to remember absolutely everything my opponent’s army does to have a chance of winning. Crunchy games have a critical mass for me where the rules start getting in the way of fun and immersion. Like you, I find those streamlined games to actually help with the cinematic feel and imagination rather than detract.
Try Deadzone 3.0 best sci-fi skirmish game ever tm.
@@colinmack8655 not in the market to add a new game just now but when that inevitably changes I’ll be sure to check it out. 😊 I do quite like some of the models.
I've found that as I've gotten older, I prefer simpler, faster games. I would generally prefer to play 2-4 games in a four hour time span than just one. Yeah, when I was 18 I could spend all day (or days) learning the rules for a game, but I don't have the time or patience today to do that. 44-year-old me has to pass on Advanced Squad Leader, where 18-year-old me jumped on it. But I still have dreams of playing a complete World in Flames game as I look longingly at it on the shelf.
I also feel the scale of the game helps determine its level of simulation vs abstraction. A game where each player only has 10 models or less that act individually can have more rules to better govern the actions of individual models. A game where each player has 50+ models that act as groups should focus on the abstraction of how groups of models function, as opposed to individual models.
My dream is a six player game Twilight Imperium in one sitting.
I play a system called DBMM which can take up to 4 hours to play, also from from the same company they have a system called DBA which takes between 45-60 mins. I do play both often and it does depend on the time available which system we play.
It’s because of tournaments. That’s why newer rule books read like a lawyer wrote them.
As far as beginner level - When I started Kill Team 2.0 with area players; we cut out a bunch of rules until we got comfortable and ready to Level Up.
If the rules a are too “Crunchy” cut out what you don’t need.
I find that speed of combat is more important to me than all the dense stuff to replicate reality.
Actually I have a solicitor friend who plays 40k who says the problems are caused because no one legal has reviewed the book
@@colinmack8655 - for tournaments the rules have to be rigid (crunchy), like laws, to eliminate potential differences in interpretation and understanding.
Tournaments aren’t like playing with your buddy, everyone wants to win, and they will seek out every possible advantage.
It's not a 0 or a 1, it a grey in-between.
Fantastic!
Gas lands is pretty stupid simple for beginners, but has huge potential and depth in areas outside of dice rolls. (There's still a lot of depth there)
I think it helps when you can add or remove that stuff. Like campaigns, or customization.
I mean it's not like some spread sheet wet dream, but you honestly don't need that much to tell someone that big hunk of lead is a minigun. Just some unique stats. That's what's important with crunch.
Just enough acknowledgement to small things that make whatever unique.
Streamlining it is making it simple to play and keep track of.
Not incredibly dense introductory wargames: Grimdark Firefight and Age of Fantasy by One Page Rules, Battlesworn by Ganesha Games (skirmish). The latter can be adapted for historical, sci-fi, anything. Also Starfight by Beer& Pretzel Games for sci-fi ship to ship combat (it has shield management!), and MechaForce by Robertson Games (heat management).
I prefer more crunch, but it's quite difficult to find a proper balance, as game size (skirmish, platoon, company, even bigger) often makes a mess of otherwise fine rulesets. Too much detail and you take away the purpose of a skirmish game, not enough and a platoon level game feel just inadequate.
Prefer Kings of war myself
I'd say that a really good game for beginners, while still offering insane levels of granularity, is Chain of Command from Too Fat Lardies. This is WW2 (although I heard someone did a 40k-version) and you can just play with the simple stuff from the rules and have a great game because the basics are really simple and easy to grasp but still very, very exciting when it all "comes together" on the board. We play it in 15mm which gives more maneuvering but 28mm is common as well. The really cool thing is that losing is not that big of a deal because the chaos of combat in CoC allows for moments of heroism for all units. You can walk away from a game you lost and still feel you had an absolutely awesome time playing. Caveat: Competitive players need not apply, this is not the game you are looking for. :)
What any set of rules really need is to understandable to the point of playing by the 10 to 15 minute read mark. That is understanding the fundamentals and the core rules of play. Games like Kings of War and Bolt Action do this quite well for me. I felt I understood the basics and started making armies by 20 minute mark. However, mastering the games is taking me much more longer 🤣🤣
I think there needs to be 2 rulesets for a game. A fast paced for the tourney players who can't seem to agree on something simple like how a template gets places and another more detailed ruleset. One of the reasons I don't care for 40K 8th/9th edition is because it neglects basics like armor facing and weapon facing and lack of templates neutered a lot of the bigger models like Warhound Titans and made others like Vindicator tanks near worthless.
Beginner-friendly? Mantic Deadzone (3rd edition just came out). It's quite streamlined and apart from "keyword rules" that are attached to some troops the basic movements set is very easy to catch.
Deadzone is amazing my group picked it up and damn it is fun.
@@colinmack8655 I am just gluing some GCPS and Veer-Myn for painting, and tomorrow I'll have a match with my brother :) I hope it will get more attention.
I'm really in that time constraint situation you decided. So it's important that my games are simple enough to learn as I don't get to practice that often.
Best case you get to that chess point where the rules are simple but the game has a big strategic depth.
I went to index card rules and character sheet. the entire game mechanics fits on a 3×5 index card. the character sheet is on the front and equipment/notes on the back. there you go, entire game on two index cards!
By what I understand it seems that Infinity CodeOne will simply the very crunchy game to help people learn. What you learn in that game will apply To full size N4 Infinity, but the complexity ramps up.
Historical games can go a bit far into the crunchy zone. I remember a half dozen of us playing all day with the Battles for Empire Napoleonic rules set. We had a great time and the tables were gorgeous with all the 15mm minis and terrain, but we had fought less than an hour of the actual battle! Every game ended with a friendly discussion as to who would've won if we'd been able to play it out. That was in the ;80s and '90s.
Now we can get a game of LaSalle or Blucher to reach a conclusion in a couple of hours. MUCH better! (I've played a couple of games of Black Powder, and am less than impressed, though I really like Bolt Action, also by Warlord).
I think Tanks (GF9) is a great starter war game, the rules are not too complicated and the strategic advantages are intuitive, then if you want to take the next step and get into "the hobby" you can paint the tanks and upgrade the terrain... aaaand you're hooked
Good topic discussion as always. I have always been one to keep lots of systems running at any one time. Partly so I am never shy of opponents, but mainly because as an amateur games designer, I want to learn about as many game mechanics, influences, methods and opinions etc. That designers have used to 'build' a game. It could have been that simple but I also am actively involved as an events organizer for my local community amongst other things 😅
As I've gotten older (hitting 40) I've found that I want simpler rules sets. I started on WFB, played some Warmachine/Hordes, and now play Bolt Action. I like other games, but there's too many rules; in BA, I know pretty much what everything can do, regardless of faction. I tried Mechwarrior once and noped out after seeing all the table rolls and damage tracking.
I'm getting to the same point in TTRPGs, too.
The economics of tabletop gaming is not just about the cost of the models. The time it takes to get table top ready and learn a game is where the rubber meets the road. I want to play more but the “big boy” games as it were, really strain on details. A better option would be: for quick play do this or lots of dice rolling and rule knowing do this.
I love a good streamlined game, I don't have the time to throw 501 dice every turn to determine whether or not the bush is concealing the leg of my model. The point of the dice throw is to abstract all the weird luck shit that happens in combat.
Have you ever had a loot at Five parsecs from home? I would love to know your opinion
An aspect related to the crunchy/streamlined continuum is what I call clunky/elegant.
A clunky game makes up new mechanics--often fiddly ones--for every situation without regard for the mechanics already existing in the game, while an elegant game uses a small handful of consistent mechanics throughout most or all aspects of play. A great example of this is 1e AD&D vs. 5e D&D. In 1e, most thief class abilities were resolved by rolling under a certain value on percentile dice, while non-class-based tasks (eg, searching for secret doors) were resolved by rolling low on a d6, and combat hits were resolved by rolling high on a d20, and all tasks required virtually all tasks required looking up the target value on a table. In 5e, (nearly?) all tasks are resolved rolling high on a d20, with simple modifiers based on character stats. Tables are necessary only when rolling to select a random result from a list, never to determine success or failure. 5e is still a very crunchy game, but it's far more elegant than 1e, which makes it easier to teach and faster to play, because the rules are more consistent and less time is spent at the table flipping through books.
I think the big difference between Kill Team 18 and Warcry is that KT18 is seriously clunky, while Warcry is far more elegant. This difference is in large part because KT18 committed to using 40K datasheets (almost) unaltered, while Warcry tossed out the AoS rules entirely, bringing over only the models and lore from the bigger game. That GW is a learning organism (or it's design team, at least; the marketing department seems much less so) is evidenced by the fact that KT21 abandoned its subordination to the 40K rule set, and invented a new set of data and mechanics appropriate to a skirmish-level game. You can argue that KT21 is better or worse than KT18--that's a matter of taste--but it is objectively more elegant than its predecessor.
Elegance and streamlining are related, in that both of them make a game play more smoothly and quickly, especially when played by relatively inexperienced players, but they are not the same thing. Crunch vs. streamlined has a lot to do with what you call "granularity," while clunkiness vs. elegance has to do with consistency of core mechanics throughout the game.
Great video!
I want to play a game for 1 - 2 hours, 3 max and have a winner, about the length of a movie. Longer than that and I get ants in my pants and frustrated.
That's why I can't play TI4 or ASL, although I'd love to. Even to get another player to sit that long is difficult. Who has that kind of time? The worst is to play 2 or 3 hours and end without a winner (or a proper draw), just because we ran out of time or brain power.
Streamlined or crunchy is a balancing act for me. Too streamlined and it feels too simple, I like a certain amount of crunch to make me feel like I'm making important decisions or managing resources.
I prefer "light crunchy " if that's a thing.
ASL scenarios tend to be limited to about 10 turns, which you can usually finish off in that 2 hour time window (obviously the better you know the rules the faster it goes - and that also allows you to ignore rules that don't really impact game play/outcome [looking at you dense woods terrain rule]).
In my opinion, standard Classic Battletech is pretty newbie friendly. I can have a game with a handful of models, the individual mech sheets (in a document protector, so I can just draw on it with a dry erase), and a single quick reference sheet. A little preparation can go a long way for bookkeeping so you can tell at a glance what any modifiers are. Early 8th edition 40k was pretty damn good when we all had an index. Every following release has made it less so.
I've noticed as I've gotten older I don't like complicated rules anymore. It has nothing to do with not understanding them, but everything to do with the availability of time. I want to play games, not memorize several books worth of rules. This applies to both my miniature gaming and my roleplaying. When I was younger I loved games like Battletech, for example, tracking all the armor points and heat sinks. I even liked mathing out the tonnage to design my own mechs. Roleplaying would be games like Mutants & Masterminds or D&D. Now I don't want a ton of rules. Now that I'm older I focus mostly on rules that will help set the tone of whatever I'm playing, gives me a good resolution system, just enough crunch for some added details, but enough streamlining to make the game my own. I'm the same way for my roleplaying now. I want to focus on roleplaying, setting the tone of the game, the plot, and the characters. I want a game that will let players make up characters fast, but with enough crunch to differentiate them, but not have to spend an hour+ making one character. I want to game, not join a college math class or have to invest half a day into just creating a character. In the last 10 years, I've actually gravitated more towards indie-style games for both miniature gaming and roleplaying. I won't play 40k simply because of the time a game can take. I can play This Is Not A Test, Space Weirdos, Reigh In Hell, or even games like Blitz Bowl in half or less the time, which then allows me to play more games. It all comes down to a matter of time invested vs. returns in actual gaming time.
I’m with you Uncle A! Very little time and mental energy available. And you nailed the benefits of streamlined games! PLUS I feel streamlined games allows a more balanced and strategy focused game. Look at Chess!!
My take on Streamlined v Realistic:
It's all a matter of scale!
If it's a skirmish game where you control
I know it's not the same but I remember getting age of empires in 1997 and it coming with a 100+ page manual.
Food for thought. Idea, check out the 'rules' for military wargames (exercises) and see how Armies rationalise various activities/actions e.g Artillery, weather, casualty calculations etc - that offers an interesting perspective as to value of granularity in tabletop game rules. Perhaps you don't actually have to dig foxholes when you're 'dead' though.
I think that’s an “it depends” situation. The exercises I’ve seen are mostly focused on practicing command post operations, where what is happening on the battlefield is largely imaginary, scripted, or simulated with a computer and the goal is to get the various levels of staff some training on how to do their jobs. Sometimes the lower level units are doing actual training missions too, and that gets reported up to the staffs, but those generally happen only at the big training centers. For the big staff training exercises I’ve seen computer simulations run as the way to track what and react to what is happening out in the imaginary battlefield. For the big training centers I don’t think there are a lot of rules that would be similar to what we use in wargaming. It’s sort of a big game of laser tag, with the equipment running as the equivalent to the real world weapons. All the weather and other effects are real, and those provide more than enough friction on the battlefield to give people a challenging experience so that no one has to roll on a table and say that hey, according to the rules it’s snowing right now so you’re not allowed to drive faster than 30 mph. That would just be too difficult to manage and coordinate across a bunch of real world units. Even when units get killed at the big training centers they generally have to send casualties through the process back to the rear, when they eventually get resurrected and sent back to their units to continue training so the individual Soldiers don’t miss out on getting their training experience because someone “killed” them early on. The goals of a military exercise and a tabletop war game are so different that I don’t see a lot of useful parallels. Sometimes staffs will “wargame” their planned orders before issuing them, but that’s really a verbal rehearsal combined with the mental exercise of saying if they were the enemy what would they do to poke holes in their own plan. I don’t recall a ton of rules around that, it’s more like an application of common sense.
there is a game about ww2 i belive that tracks medical supplies food ammo fuel down to unit lvl and people brag about actually finishing it. it is to axis and allies what axis and allies is to risk. i cant for the life of me remeber the name of it right now but im sure someone will.
In my head, it's always been about two factors: Complexity and depth, vs speed to play. However, they are not opposites. That's the big fallacy. You don't have to lose detail and simulation depth to streamline a game. I've seen some games (such as Dream Pod 9's Silhouette rules) which still have a lot of technical depth and detail, yet just the mechanics of rolling the dice is far simpler.
The way you 'read' the values on the dice just tell you a lot more than 'hit or miss'. You can get not only hit/miss but also how much damage, and even scaling critical damage in a single toss. There's also games where if you missed a rule or need to adjust something, each die has a specific meaning, so you can just pull that offender out, or add another. Sure, this might require custom dice, but if it adds enough value, that might be worth it.
The problem is most games are kind of dumb. If something is more, add more dice or more numbers. And then they always have this back and forth..attacker rolls, defender rolls, attacker rolls, defender rolls. Warhammer 40k is pretty ridiculous with how much rolling is needed to resolve a single outcome. Not to mention the massive number of rules. And having to know all the rules for not only your army, but your opponents. And most of them don't add much real value to the game. Every trait, strategum and datasheet is another rule.
It's a standard design problem: How do you optimize the detail in outcome while reducing the time spent, be it rolling unending streams of dice, looking stuff up in rule books or tracking volumes of numbers about each unit. The problem is, to be blunt, most game designers do a bad job of this. In today's day and age you have to compete with computer games. Systems designed for number crunching and stat tracking. So you have to focus on making a game that gives you a lot of detail, imaginative story, and fun in a single toss of the dice.
Tactical depth != complexity. 40k is bananas complex but very shallow ito in game player tactics and strategy.
Simpler games can be very deep, I hate to use the cliche of chess but there it is.
Other than that you make a solid point
@@saulsmith2939 True, I guess in my head I think of complexity in a positive fashion, but that's certainly not always the case. Indeed, what I really enjoy is a simple game that allows for complex choices. But instead we have complex games that only have simple choices.
A game can have streamlined rules and still feel crunchy. Love the streamlined LoS rules of Marvel Crisis Protocol but having a team of 4-5 characters with five or six powers each can be intimidating to new AND vet players.
Kill Team 21 ticks all the boxes for me.
The densest game I can think of is also a game that's incredibly newbie-friendly (when not played at tournaments):
Magic: the Gathering.
I love warcry and I when I play 40k or AoS I don't want to play matched play because it is too much to keep track of. Gimme a simple goal and I can focus on that and make non-tactical decision that are cool or make sense for my faction. But most of my friends that play with me don't have kids and/or are younger and they don't mind long, crunchy games that focus on numbers instead of unit/model names and stories (some even play with unpainted models).
Everybody has its own fun, and I have to compromise...but your logic makes sense, that each period in life has its own priorities and type of games that fit into those priorities.
More elegant rules, that are not simple, is what I would like to see.
Where the "Crunch" is more baked in the rules.
The player should have more options and less there is only one real option each turn.
I feel the main rules are in a rut.
Like deployment in Chain of Command, from Too Fat Lardies, it takes what could be a lot of rules and makes Deployment a large part of strategy for the game.
Need more of this type of thing.
Also drop the d6, dice are easy to get!
There are crunchy games that are also fast. Infinity comes to mind. Lot's of details, options, skills, rules, abilities and equipment - and it usually takes no longer than 90 minutes to play a game, assuming both players know the game.
Usually what puts me off is the game taking 4 hours long. So a lot of games not all games but a lot of games, have with called an unstable equilibrium. If you start winning early in the game it's harder for your opponent to catch up. Every time you take one of their models away, they are less able to take one of yours away. That's fine. Something with a stable equilibrium would be something like basketball where scoring baskets doesn't really impair the other team's ability to also score baskets. Chess has an unstable equilibrium. Where an unstable equilibrium really becomes a problem is when the game is 4 hours long. That's when you get Monopoly.
All very true! Which to add to some of your points you can have differnt rule books rules for the same minis... Like what Battletech does with alpha strike, standard and advanced or even what Chess does with simple movement and how to play to complexe hidden rules like cashling... Or even Pokemon TCG where the base rules are like 36 pages long but the tornment rules are hundreds... And their is always the make up your own like Pokemon TCG's Playground rules.
Which I am working on a game meant for beginners and veterans alike and making it realistic... So I need steamline and crunch how I did it is just add tons of optional rules and make the core rules simple, open and flawlessly intergrate them as I can...
So they are easy to learn and find quickly or you won't need to as all the rules you need during play sans definitions are on 2 pieces of paper... If you just have one models if you have more you'll need one for each or if playing low level you can fit 20 models on one peice of paper less if they share weapons and armor. And I've made the core rules in a way that makes bugs the what do you do moment rare but still open to do any thing you want on a table. Still working on it though and making alot of head way... having to balance Crunch and Streamline is hard and I have a tendency to lean crunch which is bad for me... Still fun though.
Song of Blades and Heroes has a stat-line of 2 stats... pretty streamlined, hahah.
40k needs less streamlining and more clarity. Too many of the rules are in the game and not on the units, making it harder to learn all the "basic rules", before even starting.
AoS is much better in this regard and is just easier to understand, even if the rules can be longer, they are easier to understand, for me at least.
"Too many of the rules are in the game and not on the units"
I'm curious what you mean by this. I got burnt out by 9th edition specifically because of the amount of special rules that were spread over codices with similar functions but different names. A list of universal special rules like we had in past editions (rules like Deep Strike, Furious Charge, Feel No Pain etc.) would absolutely improve the game for me.
I'm very new to war hammer 40k, and have bought and painted my Custodes Army, and began playing as the new 9th ed codex came out. Then I learn embarrassingly at the game store that specific rules in the codex are over ruled by general rules in the core book. As a 38 year player of DnD this boggles my mind. Certainly in 5th ed. The specific always over rules the General. So for instance, It is an action to Dash, but Rogues have cunning action that lets them do it on a bonus action. So in 40k, I have a warlord trait that lets me spend cp to use strats, but if I roll a 5+ on a d6 I get it free....each time. But The core book says..wait- you can only regen cp once a round. Having Invested in 40k, to now having little confidence in its rules integrity and concerns over the rules being found in multiple books and FAQ's and even magazine articles....jeez. Seems like I wasted my money.
@@acm4bass Sorry to hear that. The rules conflict rises from the aspect that army rulebooks are updated over an edition, not all at once. So you invariably end up using codices designed for 8th edition in 9th edition. You example of a Command Point refund is a good one, because in 8th edition you could spam such abilities that you were generating much more command points than the game was balanced around. Because of that, it was errata'd and later made a core rule that you could only regenerate/refund a command point once per round. 9th edition is a mess.
@@bartholen I agree, in principle that the limitation is acceptable, but the Brand new Custodes codex that has the warlord trait, doesn't even refer to the core book limitation. I'm more unnerved by the design principle. The game has examples of both specific over general and the reverse. So its okay for Gene stealers cult to have a deepstrike 5" away and I have to be 9". If it was up to me, all specific rules would overule general, and if it caused a balance issue they could be changed. Another thing DnD has is unearthed arcana- temporary rules that can be used to test out ideas before making them permanent. 70% positive Community feedback is required to add features or rules. Or Sage advice- which is like a FAQ, but specific questions can be asked of the designers to determine intent. If you search a 40k rule you get reddit opinions that are way more wrong than right, and often apply to older material.
@@acm4bass Well, there are fundamental differences between the systems that make comparisons between them a bit shaky. 40k is a competitive game, DnD is a storytelling game. 40k's editions change every 3 to 4 years, DnD's last change was... 8 years ago is it now? This means changes in the meta are far quicker, meaning there can't really be an unearthed arcana, because if there was, the imbalances in those would be abused endlessly. 40k's balancing is also far more complicated than DnD's, because in DnD the DM can always homebrew, change stats and use DM's mandate. In 40k there's no such thing outside of closed friend groups. So in theory every unit in every codex needs to be balanced against every other unit in every other codex.
Don't get me wrong, GW's game design has always been very poor. It's a neverending cycle of releasing the new edition to "balance and improve" from the previous one, and then breaking that meta within a year of the edition's release with some new codex. They also have a history of extremely hostile relations with their costumer base, so a 70% positive feedback rate is a pipe dream. Asking the playerbase to keep up with playtest material on top of the constantly updating meta is a pretty tall order. Plus GW is one of the most ruthlessly greedy companies ran by a gaggle of crusty boomercunts, meaning that shifting to the modern age with things like free digital rulesets are far, far in the future. With DnD you can download the core rules for free and start playing without investing in anything more than dice.
In the past it used to be that GW released the rules, and the competitive scene created their own score systems, mission structures and additional rules based on the official material. The casual and competitive scene stayed separate. Where 9th edition feels have gone wrong is that GW has tried to make the competitive rules a core component of the game, and blundered it in their usual manner.
I am completely with you on this. If people like crunchy rulesets, that’s good for them. Cool. But I’d rather play something simpler and more streamlined. I’ve had more fun playing Warcry than Infinity. Is Warcry objectively a better game? Probably not. But much more to my taste.
Great discussion on it!
1 minute in and Ill put it this way. There are 2 different versions of "Streamlining". First is things that should be simplified as there are easier ways to get the same info/result without so much extra steps. Then there is Streamlining for Streamlinings sake where your doing it JUST because you want to be able to say "This product is different" when people complain its the same as last years. Biggest example is Apple and removing the Headphone Jack. Did it NEED to come out? No, Android did similiar to same size battery and kept the jack. Apple did it cause its obsessed with Streamlining for Streamlinings sake
For 40k from 7th to 8th I can think of ONE good change and about 6 BAD ones, but will just go one to one for simplicity. Good, Making Ballistic Skill a simple number on the sheet. Why have to remember that you need a total of 7 to hit, or have a chart, and write it as BS4 on a Marine and BS3 on a Tau when it can simply be written as BS 3+ or BS 4+ respectively. Nothing was lost, you basically do have the same old BS just eliminating those extra steps to get there. BAD, Making WEAPON SKILL a simple number on the sheet. Making a Marine hit Abaddon or a GROT on the exact same number removes the nuance of Abaddons skill with a weapon and the Grots braindead IQ and makes them equal. Same with Jain Zar trying to hit a TANK or hitting Lelith Hespirax, she is going to hit that tank ALL DAY LONG, but Lelith is going to give her a challenge. The WS change was streamlining for streamlinings sake.
Also in that category that I wont go into, unless someone wants more of my opinion, Vehicles going to T/W/S models instead of Armor Values, as well as reducing Templates to Xd6 shots as opposed to Templates. Simply put these both removed nuance and detail from the game for static numbers and the game has suffered for it.
Also now at where Adam mentions the "Added Crunch" with 9th and AoS 3rd. The addition of lots of Strategems in 8th/9th is added Complexity Id argue over Depth/Nuance. Does having Trans Human or a Auto Wounding or a strat that allows a vehicle to opperate on top bracket instead of where its wounds say more Deep/Nuance than Vehicle facing/Weapon firing arcs/damage tables or is it simply more Complex? Meaning does it add more to the ILLUSION and imaginary story of the game or does it just mean more shit for the player to remember to do. Id argue the later. I know a LOT of newer players probably are here JUST for the game, IE the numbers and abilities. But I think thats the most superflous part of 40k or any mini game. The most integral part is the Background/Story/Lore/etc. Without that we might as well sit down and just roll the dice with paper cut outs or just math hammer out movement, "I set up 5 inches from my board edge you set up 9, I move 10 inches and have a 30 inch weapon range". Without the "Fluffy" stuff none of these games mean ANYTHING and many of the old rules where there to represent this stuff.