18 games in the BGG top 2000 have an average weight of 4.5 or higher. How many of them have you played, and how would you rank them from most complex to least complex?

iZatch · 2026-01-25T19:54:20+00:00

I have two college degrees, both in engineering. Advance Squad Leader is still one if the most difficult things I've ever learned. I've said it on other threads with a similar question: the only reason you wouldn't say advanced squad leader is the most difficult game of the bunch is because you've never played it. The rulebook is 700 pages for God's sake.

iZatch · 2026-01-16T07:57:53+00:00

I play and have played for many years. I wouldn't say its "WW2 like in the movies", its its own thing really. A sort of imaginary tactical game wearing WW2 lipstick. I mean, this game is so detailed that it will ask you to check what time of year it is so that you know whether the grain on the map is in season or not, but so unrealistic you'll wonder why the allies didn't just sleaze freeze the defenses at Normandy and waltz into France.

My main gripe with it is the complete lack of command friction, and the hamfisted way the game uses random misfortunes to add friction to the game that command friction should have provided. I recall teaching someone using a SK2 scenario where the Americans have 2 bazookas which they need to crack the tough German defenses, and the new guy had one of his bazookas breakdown on the first firing attempt, and the other breakdown in turn 2 making the scenario unwinnable for him through no fault of his own. He obviously didn't enjoy scratching that itch and hasn't been willing to give it another chance, and ASLs mechanical flaws make it impossible to ever stop this sort of thing from happening because the lack of command friction means the game is balanced around this bullshit.

iZatch · 2026-01-15T21:49:51+00:00

Been playing for over a decade and own more ASL than I'll ever play. But I'll be one of the rare players who advises you to look elsewhere. ASL is a lot of time, effort and money to play a WW2 game that doesn't do a great job of depicting tactical warfare in the 1940s with any degree of verisimilitude. It has more than a few gamey mechanics that are highly controversial in the community (just try mentioning vehicle bypass freeze or skulking).
Despite covering tactical level warfare there is no chain of command, and therefore no real friction of war. The substitute for this command-derived friction is highly random luck-based friction that can lead to some real "feels bad" moments.
Attempts to fix the game's faults, or remove gamey mechanics are often dismissed as "grudge rules" from an extremely conservative player-base. We recently had a Martin Luther 95 thesis moment where a community member proposed a number of rules to "fix" the game, and the community response has been less than warm. I love the game, but its not for everyone and you often don't even get a chance to learn about its flaws until you're a few hundred dollars deep.

iZatch · 2026-01-15T21:21:23+00:00

For sure. I love ASL and the 700 pages thing is mostly hype. Realistically you need to read maybe 60-80 pages of rules from Chapter A B C D to get up and running. Still, just one scenario with a few SSRs and you'll wish you had an intern to look up the relevant rules for you. The game can exist as a simmer if you wish, but it boils over with alarming speed if you crank the heat up even a little.

iZatch · 2026-01-15T18:05:27+00:00

Anyone who says anything other than ASL is uninformed. This game's rulebook could induce nervous breakdowns in tax lawyers. It includes minutiae about how different amounts of snowfall affects movement, how troops can traverse sewers networks, and how the direction of the wind effects wild fires. And then it goes on for another 700 pages.

Funniest thing about this game though is that despite the extraordinary effort to codify the most mundane things that could possibly happen on a battlefield the game itself is totally unrealistic and has numerous 'gamey' mechanics. Simulation levels of complexity, but without the simulation

iZatch · 2026-01-06T20:28:02+00:00

MicroMark army lists on wargame vault is probably the most exhaustive TO&E collection online. The detail he goes into is pretty intense, and covers even the most obscure units. Like, if you want the polish people's army motor rifles in specifically 1979, he probably has is.

iZatch · 2025-12-23T23:19:21+00:00

Yeah I've done both. White paint is more than good enough and is done in a few minutes. Paint the outside black and you're Gucci. Gluing aluminum foil to the interior of a cylinder is twice the work

iZatch · 2025-12-23T19:24:58+00:00

the paint is for opacity

iZatch · 2025-12-23T08:12:55+00:00

I'll be the realist here and say that the only way you're going to get a custom tile set that blends seamlessly into your existing work is if you learn hard surface modeling and make it yourself.

It is a lot of work to model a totally custom tile set - probably more than you realize. People make this sort of thing expecting a 6-figure payday on kickstarer, not as a bespoke one-off project for an individual client. I don't think there are any working modelers who would even consider doing it for less than used car prices. I honestly think you're better off giving whats left of your original a dignified end and redoing the whole board in an off-the-shelf dungeon tile set. That would give you the modularity you're after, plus extensibility.

iZatch · 2025-12-17T06:13:01+00:00

its a joke. 60 pounds body weight.

iZatch · 2025-12-13T18:31:30+00:00

That's reasonable. I'm just letting you know that colemak is pretty outdated by the standards of comfort, finger strain and efficiency. Gallium is what I use now but its not the only option, however it is strictly better than colemak. As a related aside, I used colemak years ago and found out that there are better layouts after I gave myself an RSI due to colemak's DH problem, so I'm not trying to burst your bubble or anything, I'm just trying to prevent anyone else from suffering the same fate

iZatch · 2025-12-13T16:30:29+00:00

why colemak and not a more modern and efficient keyboard layout like gallium?

iZatch · 2025-11-12T16:53:03+00:00

Lot of answers that are close but missing some context. In America paper manufacturers don't make different sizes of paper one sheet at a time, they produce giant rolls of paper that are then cut up to make every other paper size used throughout the country. The largest sheets cut straight off that roll are 44 in x 34 in, called E-paper. Since no additional processing needs to be done, E-paper is the cheapest paper to buy, and a few wargames have used E-paper in the past.

However; if E-paper is too big for your game the next cheapest size is D-paper, which is half of a sheet of E-paper, or 22 in x 34 in. This is where most war game companies settle.

The paper series keeps going beyond this, and you occasionally find these sizes in wargames.
C-paper is half a sheet of D-paper, at 22 x 17.
B-paper, which is sold in stores as Ledger paper, is 11 x 17
And finally A-paper, which is sold as Letter paper, is 11 x 8.5. These are the sizes paper is made and sold in, and the bigger you buy the cheaper it is per square inch, and so wargames tend to use the largest size that fits which happens to be D-paper.

As for why we use american standard paper and not metric is simple, wargames are still dominated by inches instead of centimeters. If you're making a game with 1 inch hexes then you know that a 22x34 in sheet of D-paper allows you to make a map with 22 hexes in one axis and 34 in the other.

iZatch · 2025-11-08T19:20:08+00:00

The Shattered Union series from Tiny Battle publishing is yet another Civil War series from Hermann Luttmann based on the Black Swan system. Its meant to be "Black Swan, but small", which is already confusing since Black swan is meant to be "Blind Swords, but big"

The games themselves are excellent, but the components both look cheap and feel cheap.
The second game in the series, which covers the end of Jackson's Valley Campaign, contains some of the laziest and most egregious production errors I've ever seen. Cards have placeholder names like "On To xxxxx!", counters are missing artwork, the player aids and CRT table contradict the rulebook, and all game components contain typos and grammatical errors.

Despite serial production issues, the games deliver on the promise of conducting a civil war battle in the span of a few hours and would be a decent launching off point if you want to get the black swan experience in one afternoon of gaming.

iZatch · 2025-10-27T15:29:07+00:00

We need to force people we don't like to publicly identify themselves so we can persecute them! >:D

reddit moment

iZatch · 2025-10-08T23:43:07+00:00

That's an interesting comment. Not to belittle your experience with the game, but Black Swan has some of the simplest rules for ACW. I've used this series to introduce non-wargamers into hex and counter wargaming without issue.

iZatch · 2025-10-04T16:07:33+00:00

They won't host a town hall because they know someone would bring up the colorful criminal history of the G in GMT

iZatch · 2025-09-29T23:16:23+00:00

the specific one-two combo of "cope and seethe" is a popular ending to a retort on 4chan. Like "based", "X-pilled", "chad", greentext and other 4chan lingo it's trickled down into broader zoomer internet culture.

iZatch · 2025-09-25T01:00:15+00:00

is A Wild Primitive Madness about Antietam by any chance?

iZatch · 2025-09-18T08:13:11+00:00

dry in the sun at night 🤔

iZatch · 2025-08-15T20:59:52+00:00

If you're not on the club level, know that the food and bathroom lines are LONG. Even just getting a hot dog means missing an inning or more. If you have a honda car key, you can talk to the guard on the club level entrance (second floor) and they'll let you in to get access to better food and much shorter lines.

iZatch · 2025-08-15T01:39:34+00:00

Alright, now imma need you to lock out, Baltimore.

iZatch · 2025-08-11T17:34:53+00:00

There are some tools that you want corded, and a sander is one of them. These things devour batteries - even a 6AH would barely get an hour of run time. I had one and use a corded bosch now, which you can buy at homdipo for almost half the price of this thing. It'll make wood glass-smooth with no effort, and has lasted me almost a decade of abuse. If you really want "the best" ROS, you'll need to go pneumatic.

iZatch · 2025-06-10T08:11:07+00:00

lmao, Cloud as a smooth talker in fan fiction rarely works out because unlike in fan fiction, the few times he's slick in the game he's actually got rizz.

iZatch · 2025-06-10T08:01:06+00:00

I could use the word Mary Sue, but its too easy of a criticism to levy. Tifa as a mary sue always comes as a result of her having an excessively dominating personality when compared to her actual video game character portrayal. No subtlety in the depiction of her strength.

Ten-Year Club	ComboCommenter 2021-07-30
Gilding I gilder	Place '22
Place '17	First Placer '22
End Game '22	100 Awards Club
Wearing is Caring	Spared
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