I just readthe 3.0 rules and its probably too late to change things but i noticed that the games gotton more complecated. it used to be so commpelling because how cheap and simple it was. i cant just sit down and teach someone how to play in 10 minutes aneymore. not to mention the first turn rules are a bit confuzing. im a newbie on here so if this sounds stupid just disregard it. one last thing WHY THE HECK IS THEIR EXTREME RANGE ranged units were alredy severly nerfed from th long range rule so what the crap! i say that with respect
While these are both potentially interesting complaints, I just want to state for the record that both the first turn rule and the extreme range rule date from version 2.0, so it is several years late to fix that
On the complexity side: the historicals increased the complexity of the game because they had "loaded" keywords that don't just mean "check the modifiers on the card" in Skirmishers and Pila/Javelins. We also potentially increased the complexity a bit by adding Low Arc, though only two units in the game have it, and you won't go too far wrong if you just play those two as written.
I believe that's the only thing that's gotten more complex in 3.0, though in some cases that's a matter of opinion; I think the new more permissive final rush rules scan better, but others have disagreed. (As opposed to a general complexity creep, which is certainly something that's occurred but also something that is almost certainly unavoidable and was often highly popular, eg introducing rules for spells.) I haven't changed my demo "script"
at all based on the new rules, unless I'm working with the Historicals and need to eventually go over Pila/Skirmishers.
What
has changed is the rate at which we introduce people to the full rules in the rulebook. The old version had arguably three different "levels" you could go to as a newbie: the super simple starter game that doesn't even have standing orders, the full "Basic Rulebook" game which lacked Colossal, Flying, a few orders, terrain, and some other random assorted stuff, and then the "Advanced Rulebook Included" game, which is the game 99% of us have been playing since game 1. That's going to be more daunting for newbies, but it is still quite easy to get someone sat down and playing their first game, and then you explain the nuances as you go - which is basically the way I've had to do demos since the dawn of time, and continue to do them now.
That said, you're right there's a perception issue with having one big, long rulebook as opposed to a "here's the really basic version" few paragraphs and then a relatively small booklet to read over. That said, I think there are also a lot of benefits to one rulebook that everyone is going to rely on, and to having the single large box that the Dark Elves are going to ship in. The Battleground rulebook does still compare favorably in length to, for example, the Warhammer Fantasy rulebook, the newest version of which could kill a man in trained hands and costs more than a year's food supply in certain countries! And joking aside, Battleground is still a real wargame; any game with maneuvering and similar considerations has a pretty reasonable minimum complexity unless you add a grid.
Anyway, I certainly hope I'll have the chance to revise the rulebook again for the next release, and when I do one of my big targets for improvement is the introductory stuff. I think it is better than it was before, but still could ease newer players in a bit more. That said, the vast majority of people I've showed how to play Battleground (and I definitely have a statistically significant sample size by now
) want to learn how to play the "real" game on their first run, not go for some watered-down version. So I'm pretty sure I don't want something like the starter game to come back in that form. But of course suggestions are always welcome
