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> What is the most complex rule set in miniature wargaming you have encountered?
BattleTech — it has an encyclopedia of rules because the rule maintainers and many grognards want ridiculous amount of fidelity. At times some of the rules book themselves have had 50+ pages of errata and the errata keep coming. While you are not required to play with all the rules, when you meet someone at a game shop that wants to play you need an hour negotiation as to which rules will be used. It is a game with a rule set made in the 80s which has a community that is rabid and unforgiving nor wishes to change. I now just play the video game. Second place and third place for me is Reality’s Edge Cyberpunk Skirmish and Zona Raiders. These games have very thick rules manuals but worse have creators who do not seem to answer in the various available forums rules clarifications. These are also games where you are told you can use whatever rules you want but since there is no official set it takes forever to play because first you need to decide what rules you are using. Ridiculous.
> What was the most simple rule set in miniature wargaming you have encountered?
I find I can teach X-Wing, Star Wars Legion or Frostgrave to anyone and you can start playing immediately and add nuance and additional rules over time without complicating the game too much. I hope I can add Oak and Iron to list in a few months.
> Which rule set in miniature wargaming have you played that much that you feel very confident in almost never needing to
> look up the rules?
It changes because my group gets bored and then we switch to something else. At one time it was Guild Ball. Then we switched to Frostgrave and I know most of the spells without looking them up. I can play Rangers of Waterdeep now without flipping through the pages. Star Wars Legion and Frostgrave are weekly so they stick. Still learning Ragnarok so I may have a different answer once my group gets into that game. In general, if more than a month goes buy I start forgetting rules if I do not play often. I feel like was able to keep more in my head in my 20s and now in my 50s less so and it is why I keep more player aids or cheat sheets with me.
My job is as a software developer so I am used to keeping a lot of rules and programming languages in my head but for games there is a limit.
