Criticisms of rules / Rules Book

[miffedofreading]

OK, it's been long awaited, and overall is a good set of rules and I think will be a big success, I hope it is. I would like to discuss a few areas where simplification may help.

Good bits.
I very much like the idea of impact and melee phases being separate, allows flexability of how you handle impetuous chargers like gauls etc so much better than traditional approaches.

shooting and hand to hand combat mechanisms - quite different, interested to see how well these work.

The Rules book is well on the way to being 200 pages!! That is a lot for a newby to read.

The POA etc tables all seem quite long, I think this may appear off putting at first, though most of them are going to become second nature...

So what is the bit that concerns / confuses / scares me the most?
Anything to do with movement. I have not added up the total number of pages committed to rules and examples that relate in some way to movement, but I don't think I am exaggerratting by much to claim 50 pages (it felt like that much)

I am pleased to see that the authors are trying to avoid the ludicrous situations that were so common in DBx but to try and ensure the rules stop all of these cheesy moves it seems to have become a huge section of the book.

Could someone give me a small paragraph of the classic basic movements along the lines of

You can move forward and wheel
If you want to do something fancier pass a test
skirmishers and cavalry one rank deep can evade
etc

Not covering every weird example, but covering the basics??

OK I just wrote this and I realise I am not explaining myself very well. I don't know yet, but I suspect the movement rules MAY be quite simple and common sense?? but they don't at first appearances LOOK that way.

I would be interested in hearing of other areas where the rules are perhaps difficult to understand if you have never played before.

It is very difficult for authors and experienced players to spot things that are difficult, because like so many things it is easy when you know how. However at the moment we are going to be having a LARGE number of people playing these rules for the very first time, with a bunch of other people who have never played them. A recipe for chaos if ever there was one. Some people with short attention spans (I can be guilty of this) will play once, get confused and give up.

We need some kind of simple 10 page pull out with the rules that gives you "basic rules, use these for first couple of games" you could probably lose half the POA's etc if they don't come up very often like chariots, elephants etc. You could deffinitely lose 48 of the 50 pages of movement rules.

In 6 months time a newby would be able to get a vet to show them the ropes, today though we have thousands of newbys and no vets......

Only my humble opinion, feel free to disagree. I really would be interested in a simple para from the authors or a vet as to what (in english not rules speak) was intended by the movement rules. If I understand what the author is trying to allow or not allow then I have a context to put all the detailed rules within??

Andy

[hazelbark]

I held a similar view on my first reading. but have found it works much better on about 3rd game.

[marshalney2000]

I think you will find with a few game sthat the question of when and where a complex move test is required will be second nature. AS a simple guide for you first games look at the chart if you want to wheel or turn. Unless you are moving to within 6 inches of the enemy no tests are required for wheels.
The poa chart also quickly becomes set in memory