Advanced Space Crusade And The need for Time Travel.

 I avoid complex games that claim to offer realistic simulation. I had to learn this the hard way though. Back in the late 70's and through the 80's designers passed off games claiming the level of realism offered justified the product's overly complex rules. I Give them their dues though most of these games came with a complexity rating on the box and an indication of time needed to play. If that didn't put you off, then you had been warned. I owned one or two of these behemoths that I naively believed were going to give me a totally absorbing experience, once I got my head around the rules. I invariably didn't and of course I then had to convince others to want to play them with me. This is where it all went horribly wrong.

Two stinkers that that I have not touched since my initial read through are Mech War 2 and Car Wars. Looking back now I can't imagine what I was possibly thinking. The level of complexity was high and the setup and preparation pre play was excruciating. I remember spending entire afternoons with a gamer friend plying the preparation for these games and just losing interest in the mired trudgery of the minutiae. Death by rule set.

Then in 1990, flush with the success of Milton Bradley's Space Crusade I was ready to take the leap to the more complex GW Advanced Space Crusade. I was confident a gaming friend would welcome this move as well. It turned out to be just another overly complex game that came with some (for its time) pretty miniatures. My friend and I lost interest plodding through the initial setup and uninteresting game progression trying to get to an ambush/skirmish game. We never made it and after many hours in a session, (or seemed like hours) shelved the game.

Flash forward 30 years and at a whim I took out the game and read in isolation the skirmish part of rules that I had not initially gotten too. A revelation, the skirmish game core mechanics were not bad, and I found myself putting the game back on the table to try out. Lacking any interested gamers, I had to solo it.

What a great little rule set by and of itself. Lots of new actions and consequences not previously considered in other skirmish rules. It played rapidly with fewer dice roles than you normally expect from GW. If only I could travel back to that afternoon in the southern hemisphere winter of 1992 and say to my gaming friend, "We don't need those list point value tables, Lines of force hive entry, complex setup and background. No, because that's all just fluff for an above half decent skirmish game".  

 Tyranid In Hive Markings.

Marine Scouts In Ambush, Note Heavy Eye Shadow, 'It Was The 90's.

With Death Spitter, fairly easy to dodge though.