"Best and Worst rules you've ever bought?" Topic

Best – Wings of Glory office and Fury

Worst – probably Warhammer Trafalgar (I can think of worse rules but I've never bought them, only had the misfortune to play them)

Best – Corner Kick (but I am definitely partial)and Wally Simon's Pillow Fights (He called them 20th Century Modern Skirmish Warfare). Right now I like playing By Fire and Sword.

Worst were probably George Jeffries – Variable Bound Game, which was a pretty interesting concept, but didn't work at all on the table. Second would be Newberry Fast Play Rules closely followed by Empire 2nd, 3rd or 4th.

Best: Early Featherstone and Bath rules, Gettysburg Soldiers, Bloody Big Battles

Worst: Empire (any edition), Newberry Fast Play, There was one that I could not even get through reading but I can't remember the name. Maybe it's because I could not get past the title page?

I never posted on the 'five' best sets thread because my essentials extend to 19 rules sets…….I could not pick a best 5!.

Since I manage to avoid buying even the average rules, the Worst set I ever bought was actually a pretty good set of rules!.

EDIT:

Probably the worst set was Bruce Quarrie's Napoleons battles in miniature….and although really old school and need a lot of amendments, they are not that bad.

Most used, way back, WRG Armour/Infantry 1925-75.
Most hated, WRG'S next version of those rules, which I found impossible to assimilate.Part of the 80's trend for over complex rules. Hooray for Rapid Fire, which reversed the trend.
Another favourite, the old version of "Full Thrust" spaceship rules.

I'm just relieved none of my games are on the "Worst" list so far :-)

Best: Silent Death, Fire & Fury, X-Wing

Worst: Any of the aforementioned *.Wars games such as Vampire Wars, Cowboy Wars, etc.

tb

Worst – Age of Might and Steel

Best was Armati – I just found them so refreshing when I got them about 15 years ago and still my favourite set.
I probably have bought some rules that are really bad but I would not know having not played them! But of the worst that I have bought and played it is a tie:
Cambrai to Sinai – I have Martin Rapier to thank for reminding about these rules a few years ago. I had managed to purge them from my memory for 25 years.
Battlestandard Ancient Rules – there is a set of rules in there somewhere but it was so long and so descriptive I found it the most difficult ruleset to play for very little return. It could possibly have been ok had the rules been better laid out.

Best:
probably crossfire

worst? too broad a criteria.
There are rulesets that I've really liked and were brilliant but were virtually unplayable (Empire napoleonics, CDIII)
Rulesets that were perfectly ok but written for a 13 year old audience which made them unbearable (FOW+ a myriad of GW knock-offs)
Rules that were fine but spoilt by a single, clumsy or ludicrous mechanic,
rules that were just plain boring,
rules that were terrible but popular "because everyone plays them".
Rules that had hideous competiton army list exploit potential (WRG ancients)
and rules that were simply genius (anything I've ever made up!)

Volley and Bayonet: Best

Cossack Wars (Old Glory): Worst (more holes than rules).

Best: Hard to say, but I have to give a nod to "The Old West Skirmish Gunfight Rules" especially for the dynamite rules. Irregular Wars and Glutter of Ravens also get high marks.

Worst: "The Highest Level of All Fantasy Wargames", ok it isn't actually the worst, but it is a monster to try and play.

Shock of Impact were my first Ancients rules and I survived them. Barely.

Best: Impetus. plays like history reads i.e. no certainty
Worst: Foundry's Napoleon, "invented" history to justify game mechanics.

I have given this a lot of thought and I am stilling thinking about different eras. I did not consider any of my rules for the worst or best set though I considered a few.

In the tank to tank combat level for WW2, I would have to say the best rules are Tank Charts.
In the sailing ship category, I have not played Sails of Glory. My old fashion favorite is a tie. I played Ironclad as a miniature set of rules with Houston's ships and enjoyed them. I also played the Pre-Wooden SHips and Iron Men version titled 'Ship of the Line" by Juggernaut. Great set.

For skirmish gaming longevity I would have to say TSATF by Larry Brom.

Unit level combat for pre-WW1, I do not answer.

Enjoyment level for counting hits would be the Classic Star Fleet battles, Car Wars and Classic Battletech. These were all higly enjoyable back in the 1970-90s.

Yes I played car wars, SFB and battle tech in miniatures so they do count. Lol.

90's nothing, Battle Tech is still great but we never play with more than 3 or 4 mechs on each side :-)

Very subjective of course. I have a habit of enjoying rules that have huge holes in them but can readily be fixed with some tinkering( I am looking at you Kryomek) :)
Love everything from AHs" Tobruk" and "Wooden Ships and Iron Men" converted to miniatures to " BladeStorm" and AD&D "Battlesystem Skirmish"
I won't talk about worst as I know rules are not easy to produce but I will say I bought several sets of rules that are just unplayable or at least I have yet to figure out what the author was trying to do……" Cobalt 1" and a few others by the same company.

Worst are Harpoon. Great rules but almost "unplayable". You spend hours gaming a few seconds of combat.

Second worst rules: Phoenix command. Although they are more RPG rules. Same problem, took hours to game a few seconds.

Best Entertainment: For me, if I am judging off my of joy and entertainment, Bolt Action. It is not the best system, but of all the other WWII skirmish sets I own it has been played the most and has mostly been a joy every time.

Worst Entertainment: Well, I found Field of Glory to be a completely boring and dry game. I can see its value, and it is very well written, but is not for me. Therefore, I cannot in good mind call it the worst set of rules I have purchased as it does hold some other value to me.

Best Rules: The rule set that I have come to adopt and enjoy the most is the newer set "Bloody Big Battles". Very good fun and has brought a lot of figures out of the closet and rekindled my interest in my 10mm Nap figures.

Worst Rules: While well written, "Fist Full of Tows 3" is a disaster in game design, my opinion of course. It reads as if it is a detailed 1:1 game, plays clunky, dry, and does not feel like I am moving platoon stands. Very expensive PDF to really find all of this out. At least the data is useful…

I know some will most likely disagree with my worst rules choice, but we are all looking for different things in our gaming adventures and there are just some that don't work well with a person or persons aesthetic.

Best for me? I've gotten the most enjoyment using 1st Edition Warzone, Fast and Dirty, TSATF, Mighty Armies: Fantasy, WAB, Basic Impetus
Worst- I'd have to say the least enjoyment came from several games of Piquet I played in.

Worst: Newbury 'fast play'. Never played such a slow, tedious set of rules. Command Decision (2nd edition) run them a close second.

Best: Lots of good ones, but Maurice, Longstreet, Blucher, Saga, Chain of Command, To the Strongest and Sharp Practice would have to be the stand-outs.

Another thread rises from the dead! Interesting though.

By the mid-80s,I,like many others,found my Zulu War collection starting to overwhelm TSATF,and wanted to find something more streamlined. At one of the early HMGS cons(Towson) someone was selling "fast play" rules. "Just the thing",thought I.

Yep,Newbury Fast Play Colonials. Yipe! Read through them when I got home,and remember wondering if "fast" meant something different in England. To be fair,I never got around to trying them.

And,also in the interest of fairness,in later years,I picked up some pre-Newbury era English rules,which featured procedures such as:

"Bugle Calls: It requires one phase to bring the bugle to the lips"
And:
Officers may call orders at the rate of three words per phase".

"Put that bloody--"

"cigarette out,you--"

"bloody fool!"

PS: Points if you can name the speaker of those words.

(Hint:May not have completed his sentence).

Capt Flash – Always makes me smile when someone mentions Fast And Dirty. It did come out rather well didn't it? :)

I really like the Warhammer fantasy engine. It's historical games are fun. Including the Cowboy/Old West games. "TSATF" are also great fun. I would add in "Gnome Wars" too.

Don't really care for FoW. I don't like the multibasing of figures that treat them as skirmish troops…I have a hard time wrapping my head around that. Maybe do a single base system 1:1 ratio…