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Cult Of Games XLBS: What Makes The Best Wargaming Rulebook?
September 21, 2025 by brennon
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Happy Sunday Backstagers, CoGs and OTTers!
SAGA presents a good all around core rule book. It hits all the major points of artwork (minis, illustrations and diagrams) and the chapter layouts in a comprehensive progression at a reasonable price for a soft cover. It has also only come out for an original and 2022 version with online errata being installed after playtests. Supplement Age books in hardback providing the spice of “codices” on single sheet cardstock for different factions make the rules easy to approach for special flair.
I like wgsf Nantic have done with Warpath with thd nsin rulebook and then the app has the rules where everything is clickable to take you to that part of the rules with what so far seems a good search engine
l also like Motem et Gloriums way of having the tules hole punched and come in a ring bi der so if they want to amend rules theg can supply them as a pdf and you can print out and replace ir or add the relevant pages into your existing rules
Stupid time limited editing windows… I meant Mantic of course
the problem with MeG is it hasn’t been that way in a long time before the Event! Plastic Soldier Company took over publication, it’s just a large hardback book now. But I’ll grant you it was nice while it lasted, shame about the lack of army lists though.
Well that’s crap
Corvus Belli is taking a bit of a strange road.
For Infinity, they have a physical lore book and a living rule book in pdf, that gets updated.
For Warcrow, they have lore and rules in book, the rules in pdf. But they have separate rule update pdfs that aren’t implemented in their rules pdf. Which is quite annoying, as you have to look in two documents.
Habbi Sumpday
00:00 KAFFEE
09:30 “Step on me mommy”? oO
13:33 There is no new Red Sonja movie
17:50 Ei?
23:00 I do agree with Justin. Hopping back and forth in books is just nerve wracking
27:00 learning by doing is the best
33:00 There is hobby in the hobby?
36:15 WAAALAAAAAAAAAD
40:00 Noooo, apps baaaaaaaaaaaaad!
54:00 Free stuff rules 8)
56:30 c*m sp*nklight?
58:30 three foot paintjng? I use two hands!
1:11:11 *silence*
1:13:00 BACKSTAGERS!
Also, I just realised: XLBS stands for “extra long bull sh*t”
I feel the “long” is a bit misrepresented. Not even close to 90 minutes! XD
Plus you’re all wrong!
HAPPY Sunday….
It’s like the discussion topics are picked by me at the moment, another fun and interesting show. 👍
What i got from your discussion especially John, is that i need to get an artist on board. I think the rulebook im working on covers almost all of your requirements, but my art is way too average to catch people’s imagination. Its also far too time consuming to be doing everything myself.
The manual im working on is completely hyperlinked, ive no idea why people wouldn’t do this anyway as its incredibly handy while writing the rules to jump backwards and forwards to different sections anyway.
I’m deciding currently between photos of game play examples, diagrams or a combination.
Next topic suggestion, what makes a good starter box. You’ve covered this a little in the past. So maybe what keeps you going back to a game.
I’d say a combination.
Photos set the scene, but diagrams can be easier to read.
And when you’re doing photos … they need to be consistent and look good, but the painted examples shouldn’t scare people into thinking that they couldn’t possibly do it themselves.
That was my instinct, im glad you agree. Maybe I should paint the ones in the rulebook, my painting won’t scare anyone 🤣
Ooh! Thanks for Golden Button.
Funnily enough Ben Wanted to see what Monsters are coming and on Friday I actually built one. So stay tuned!
Hi backstagers
Rulebooks definitely need to understand that they are competing against videogames and other ‘instant entertainment’ media.
I love it when there’s a quickstart/basic rules booklet that I can use to get familliar with the core mechanics before I start adding the ‘advanced’ stuff. This is something that Xwing did brilliantly. Forget looking at those damage cards, just focus on fire and maneuver (and stop crashing into things). Gimme the elevator pitch of how to play the game.
I think that’s what made Ambush for Kings of War a good concept. Finding a way to teach the basics and have that be fun is what a good rulebook should do.
oh … and for the love of all that’s holy : do not introduce fancy words so you can trademark them to heck and back (or to make them sound fluffy while hiding the fact that it is the exact same thing as another faction in the game).
Rules need to be logical too. Those ‘advanced rules’ ? They should be answering the kind of questions that you ask yourself when playing the basic game. Any system that allows you to gradually introduce new concepts into your game is one that is worth having. A game shouldn’t make you feel bad/inferior simply because you didn’t use all of the rules in your game.
oh … and if you’re going to do this digitally. Take advantage of all the features such a thing does allow. Hyperlinks, animated examples, tooltips, colours, etc. use them. But please make sure there’s a printer friendly version or a hardcopy option for those of us who like to preserve a version they like.
So a topic suggestion would be, what method of representing Friction do you guys like and why, ranging from rules that have command checks like Mersey Lion Rampant and successive rules, and Black Powder, or logistics, random movement, mixing up turn sequence ala Bolt Action Dice in the Bag, Billhooks Card Draw or alternate activation, or non at all your happy with IGOUGO and let the dice gods decide!
The starter booklet seemed like a brilliant idea in Guildball… But when I tried to introduce my son to the game using the booklet sadly it was still confusing for him. I think that Justin’s point that it supports well for someone having a good starter understanding of the rules already, but for someone totally brand new it didn’t really work for us.
The rulebooks with a good index, good contents page and intuitive layout are far more fun to engage with.
A rulebook that is hard to navigate can dampen an opening experience. Whenever I play games I inevitably end up in and out of the book on the first playthrough. If that can be a clean and easy look up with a clean and concise explanation I am far more likely to enjoy the game and get learning.
Great show. Great Golden Buttons.