I think Memoir is the easiest option. Familiar theme, very few rules.
Many say Ancients is the best, but at the cost of a lot more units and unit-specific rules along with more complicated battle-back mechanics.
BattleLore 2e is maybe the best compromise - asymmetry and interesting rules with some of the lessons learned from older games, but with an attempt to re-streamline.
Hoth is going to end up in my house no matter what I do. It is…unavoidable.
I have ALL of Memoir, which I got when my best friend lived 2 miles away but then he moved 40 minutes to the other side of DC and we haven’t touched it since. I may trade it out for BattleLore one day.
It’s in two boxes - base and flight plan. One box I glued strips of foam core to make rails and did a marker on the side to color the hexes, so they are all stacked. The other box has maps and manuals. Units split pretty easily between the two. It’s… less impressive than you might think?
I need to take a picture of my updated sell pile, so I’ll maybe dig it out at the same time?
I have all of Memoir 44 except the Equipment Pack and New Air Plan. All the tiles, counters and paper maps are in 3 binders on a shelf. The combat decks are in a single small expansion box. Everything else is in the base game box. It is exactly as unimpressive as you might think.
Note that the printed rules got badly messed up for the new Meltwater release. The components certainly look very nice, and I’m sure the game is as enjoyable to play as ever; but if you’re picking up the new version then my impression is that you want to ignore the supplied rules and go immediately for an online replacement manual.
Im so hyped! I hope Allplay gives us the full amount of containers like in 1e. In 2e, it was Mercury Games’ genius idea to cut down the number and so your 5 player is screwed up.
