1. I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum! / Troops, Weapons & Tactics:

I love these games equally! They share the base mechanics and thus it’s hard to say which is better. TW&T has it’s emphasis on platoon level conflicts while IABSM is company level. Both are free form World War II.

They don’t have points values and they don’t hold your hand. It’s games for enthusiasts who acknowledge that the friction of battle is more than a leadership roll and that timing is everything and chaos is always a factor.

Random card-drawn, sudden-end turns, clever initiative-dice system and a very nice system of “fog of war” ensures that your games are never the same.

2. Epic Armageddon:
If you ever wanted to bring the stories of the 40k universe to the gaming table - this is the game!

40k is not about skirmishing at a 100 paces between the armies with one or three armoured vehicles in support (as 40k seems to be) but about the VASTNESS of everything in war in that universe.

The innovative activation system provides good tactical gameplay and makes the game a challenge to play.

Only flaw = the game is currently being stalled by GW whose doing a halfarse job on it giving it a slow death. If you stick to Orks, IG and SM in the main book though it’s a great game. And do away with the points.

3. Victory at Sea

The game in itself is very simple and the rulebook is quite thin. As a historic game it has little value, but I think that WW2 naval actions are ok to make contrafactual. In fact it’s good fun to see what would happen if the German fleet got it’s way to the atlantic and met the American fleet! I love it.

4. Gloire/.45 adventures:

While not much of anything I do appreaciate this as miniatures roleplaying game. It’s a great game in that much is achieved with few workings. The playing area is 2×2 feet if it’s large!

5. Warmaster

I really like the basics of this game. I think it’s best suited for the Warhammer world as it’s very abstract. I like it mainly because of the “friction” and the unaccountable way your troops activate.

Kryømek
A great and robust rules system with alternating activation and d20 based mechanic that I’ve adapted for everything from scifi mass combat to super-detailed fantasy with action points bolted on… also used it as a base for a pulp adventure game and sin-city type game… And the original miniatures & background were superb. Very fond of this one.

Warhammer Realm of Chaos
Both these original books for 40K & WFB are amazing in terms of their scope. The warbands system was enormous fun with your troops gradually growing more and more mutated- and its a real shame GW went down the road of tournament play rather than this. Also helped establish the 40K storyline as we know it.

Space Hulk
Why hasn’t this been reissued??? A classic.

AT-43
Streamlined but effective rules… with Rackham’s flair for making things look pretty…

Vor
Included a build your own points system - superb! More games should be this generous.

I think I misunderstood this topic completely?

You meant what BOOK I liked the most.. layout and image wise?.. not nescessarily the rules in it?

EDIT: AND I numbered the picks! HAHA!

Sorry about the clumsyness.

Slaves to Darkness/Lost and the Damned - Im not fortunate enough to own hard copies of these books but even just as pdfs they are fantastic and twisted (and should I ever be able to find them cheap or have the money to buy them I ABSOLUTELY will)

Rogue Trader - like Zac says (except for introducing me to wargaming) these are delightfully twisted and fun reads - the rules are clunky at times but the kernel in them is a pretty amazing concept for the time.

Battletech Total Warfare - this is the newest and most amazing version of the game that got me into minigaming

AE:WW2 - great little system that is fun to read, though when the occult expansion comes out it will probably knock the core rules out of the top 5

Stargrunt 2 - with virtually no fluff (a major flaw to me) I think the rule system is pretty impressive as it is one of the few games I know where the units may do something other then what you plan because they get scared or suppressed

You meant what BOOK I liked the most.. layout and image wise?

You can like the book for whatever reason you want. :-) I just have a fondness for good layout

- Hordes: Primal
Great looking book with a really strong and aggressive set of rules. A very easy-to-find layout as well.

- Warmachine: Prime Remix
Full colour, pretty artwork, interesting storyline and great ruleset.

- Monsternomicon Vol.1
I just love the dark gothic/horror style of this book. It changed our D&D gaming experience.

- Chronopia
Not a fun of the layout and ruleset, but I greatly appreciated the artwork and the storyline.

- Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader
Twisted images and background of a nightmarish future.

OK – as a graphic designer who specialises in layout, this is a topic close to my heart so forgive the passion of this reply.

Any of the GW “Golden Era” publications.
Face it – GW shook up the wargames and RPG industry with level of graphic design and illustration that is still a benchmark today. The sheer number of great pictures in thinks like Rogue Trader and Fantasy Battle 3rd edition outstripped anything else in that era. Don’t believe me? Grab any other publisher’s ruleset from the late 80s or early 90s and laugh at the amount of truly dreadful artwork that was used! I heartily agree that the RoC double tome was a pinnacle of opulence that we will possibly never see again in this industry.

They are still producing top notch stuff, but I don’t think their rulebooks are pushing the boundaries any more.

Rackham
Rackham’s stuff is slick and gorgeous and even the quality of their printing and binding demonstrates the attitude of the French – that this is Art and not simply instructions for toys. The level of their enthusiasm even goes down to the tiny but beautifully rendered icons you find on their cards. What’s astounding is that all their publications are so unified in their look, with the “vintage paper” texture and grid design being used throughout their range.

Tannhauser
Nice layout which really evokes the Weird War II atmosphere and the use of the scrapbook layout is really refreshing. Shame about the flimsy pamphlet nature of the physical rulebook.

Battlefleet Gothic
I swear, it was a GENIUS move on GW’s part to make the rulebook landscape. So genius, in fact, that it just seems perfect sense. And all the artwork is landscape too!

Imperial Armour
They look pants…until you look at Janes and realise that it’s supposed to be like that…and then it takes on a whole new meaning.

Planescape for AD&D
OK OK – it’s roleplaying and not miniatures but this was a real benchmark in the industry too. The fractured verdigris was beautiful and Tony DiTerlizzi’s arwork merged with this perfectly. It’s part of the reason copies go for so much on ebay.

Urban War
OK – so I chose this only because of Clint Langey’s work, but they had the smarts to pick him so they get my thumbs up!

DUST Strategy Board Game
Can someone tell me if the rulebook is any good? Paulo Parente is an awesome artist and I really hope his debut in the gaming world lives up to my expectations.

Advances in desktop publishing over the past decade mean that it’s easy to throw together the nice textured backdrop and spiky fonts that has become the industry standard. Publishing itself can now be free with PDF. This means there is no longer any excuse for boring layout. However, the bar has been raised and, consequently, things like the Hell Dorado and Hordes rules leave me a bit numb. I think you need a definite flair now to stand out from the crowd, and that is elusive.

From Best on down to fifth best:

Fire and Fury - I just love how good this game is at recreating the American Civil War. I like the fact that units don’t always do what you want and that the underdog still has a chance for an upset.

Command & Colours/Battlelore (and Memoire ‘44) - These games by Richard Borg are great systems. I love the command cards! Again, a good attempt to get rid of the 200′ general!

Fantastic Worlds - good retro-sci/fi game. The best in it’s series of “pulp” games. Still had to “tweak” it slightly, but overall very good.

Warrior Heroes - The 2HW Reaction system makes for a great battle where you have about as much control as a real general!

Age of Reason - the best game I’ve found for doing Seven Years War battles.

my five favourite rule books at this time would be;

1. flames of war 2nd edition

2. warhammer fantasy

3. warhammer ancients

4. traveller - 1st edition

5. warhammer ecw

Realm of Chaos, Slaves To Darkness
Realm of Chaos, The Lost and the Damned
Quite a bit of explanation of these already. The progressive warband “league” system featuring random mutation (and subsequent conversions of your models), is my favorite part of these very deep and varied books.

Blood Bowl (2nd Edition)
I prefer this edition not so much because of the rules (I only played a few games under this system), but because you could feel the time and creativity that the authors had put into it. 3rd edition was much more attractive and balanced, but it didn’t have the same feel.

Warhammer Armies (1991/WFB 3rd Edition)
This narrowly edges out Rogue Trader for me. It was great to have so many concepts and army lists all in one volume. I spent much more time looking at this than I actually spent playing the game.

Confrontation 3
Definitely some faults in organization and translation, but a beautiful book containing one of my favorite game systems. Really, the most exciting games book since the first release of 40k. Reading the rules and small bits of background, I couldn’t wait to start playing this game.

1) Warhammer 40k (RT era) Great fluff, and the one most of us started with when it came to table top gaming.

2) Infinity
3) Confrontation Rev 3
4) Warmachine: remix / Hordes
5) Mutant Chronicles, once again interesting fluff, not so great game.

WarMachine: Superiority It is hard to pick one. In some ways, I am tempted to make my list just 5 Warmachine and Hordes books. This one is probably my favorite of the lot, as it expands its focus to larger units and armies.

Space Marine ((Epic) + Renegades, Ork & Squat Warlords, Armies of the Imperium, Titan Legions & Hive War)
I suppose everybody remembers their first. For years I had these books with me pretty much all of the time. They were my introduction to the 40K universe, and are stuffed full of little details and fluff about units and vehicles that didn’t make into 28mm 40K until years (decades?) later.

Warzone
I’ve read this book many times purely for the Mutant Chronicles fluff and gorgeous artwork. I have never played the game, and never even tried, though it seems like it might be kind of fun.

Battletech Compendium
This was an excellent resource compiiling all of the Battletech rules into one hardback, nicely illustrated book. I have spent a lot of time leafing through its pages.

Blood Bowl (2nd Ed.)
I agree with Gitteau’s comments above. I prefer 3rd Edition and the Living Rulebook as games, but the 2nd Ed. books really gave a sense of the league, the players and the game’s storied history (complete with bad NFL puns).

I should note that there are probably some rulebooks I would like better, I just haven’t seen them yet. I have never really had much time to look through the Flames of War book, but it looks impressive. Infinity, if it is laid out and illustrated like its website, would also probably make this list. I am also really interested in the Hammer’s Slammer’s rules. From what I have seen, they have some very detailed illustrations and fluff drawn from David Drake’s stories.

1. Advanced Squad Leader Rulebook. I always thought this was a magnificent rulebook. Presented in a binder, so that pages could be replaced with updates. New chapters could be added as new supplements came out. Chapters separated by quick reference dividers for the chapter. Great cross-referencing and indexing for looking up rules. And great examples and diagrams. I always wondered why others didn’t follow suit.

2. Confrontation 3rd Edition. Not technically as good as ASL as a reference product (ie. no index!), but absolutely beautifully produced and came in either hard or soft cover. Great pictures, fluff and had evverything you needed to play.

3. Flames of War 2nd Edition. Another great rulebook. Indexed, great pictures, examples, diagrams. Everything you need in it and a hardback book too.

4. Confrontation Age of the Rag’Narok. The new Confrontation rulebook is just as nicely produced as the previous one. There is just a little less packed into it, but now there are equally beautiful and fantastic supplements to go with the rules and provide the lists, scenarios and race-specific fluff.

5. Warhammer Fantasy. As much as the rules themselves often lack some clarity and are pretty simplistic, GW produce damn fine rulebooks. Nicely illustrated with lots of diagrams and hobby sections.

bish

My picks are based on the books/layout and how much I enjoyed reading them, fluff, examples of play and how I felt about the game based on reading just the books.

Fairy Meat — WOW! The books will not make it based on layout, production or rules alone but the way they are written has yet to be equaled by any other rule set I have ever read. They are a fun read all by themselves, you don’t have to play the game to enjoy reading these rules. Pure reading enjoyment hands down.

AT-43 — Rackham does an excellent job of layout and picture presentation. The fluff is great and I love the rules. Topnotch rulebook production, I would expect nothing less.

Flame of War — Another rulebook with topnotch production. Nice bits of history and info here and there with tons of pictures of minis and terrain to make any player jealous.

Warmachine — I started with the original and every book after has out done the last. Layout and production quality are great. The fluff is always a treat and it evolves with each new book.

Fairy Meat (PDFs) — Yes I’m voting for the same books twice. These are the same as the print edition but you can purchase them as a PDF. I had such a great time reading these rules that I just had to vote for them again.

My 2-4 place picks are really all tied for 2nd place and to be honest so many other rule sets are done so well these days it’s hard to choose one over the other based on production value alone. Granted shiny books don’t make great games but they do make for wonderful eye candy that makes me feel better about spending my hard earned cash.

In no particular order:

GWs Realms of Chaos Books I guess we can all wax lyrical about these. Steve Tappin & Adrian Smith artfest with absolutely fantastic depth to the system. Glorious publications.

GWs Rogue Trader - my copy is battered, the pages falling out all over the place and the spine is suffering big time but the book and game still stands as one of the best. The games community have since been treated to many game systems which are slicker, more refined and balanced but Rogue Trader beats them all hands down in my opinion for the sheer magnitude of ideas and inspiration you can get by opening this book.

Legends of the High Seas I know this is a recent publication but it’s eye candy heaven for pirate minis and the game itself has completely blown away my initial feeling it would be a bit flat. Full of all the hollywood cliches and stereotypes that you want to play a ‘gamers’ pirate game…it be a beauty it be and make no mistake about it! ha arghhh!

GWs Golden Era games Back when GW produced games by the truck load one thing that has stayed with me is the humour that used to be applied to their writing. Not particularly PC in some cases but one of the main things I think they ‘got into your head’ as a company. Chaos Marauders - just read the sidebars. Bloodbowl - just about any part of a 2nd ed. publication. The list could go on. That fun and cheeky aspect has been replaced by the core games taking their worlds seriously - which is fine and a natural progression for the IP but it’s something that seems to have been lost and not picked up on by many other companies.

Fantastic Worlds Poor layout but great ideas - lots of fun this game although you do need to invest a lot of time from your imagination to squeeze the best out of it by creating scenarios after the initial samle in the book have been played out.

Hordes Eye Candy - not played the game but I like flicking through the book at the artwork.

I’m a designer so a lot of what KitFox hits home to me.

I think I agree that there is a bit of overload on the eye candy front now (despite the fact I like it) it strikes me a lot of companies feel they need to do what everyone is doing to even compete.

And I guess to an extent that may be true but I would say that with more and more companies releasing games as PDFs I’d argue they need to take a step back and have a stripped down version without the fancy backgrounds etc. for home printing and leave the ‘all singing all dancing’ versions for the printed rullebooks.

It’s simply a case of different media, different approach in my head.

Well Pulp City has done just that with their recent rulebook so someone is listening :-)

Confrontation v3 - Great game and tons of factions to get unique games.
Ragnarok - Has my favorite addition to any set of rules, Order distribution before movement along with alternating activations.
Anima Tactics - This is the only game I’ve ever considered because the rules look good and I wasn’t taken by the models. I really like the idea of Action points to create a unique feel.
Warhammer 40K - The rules are not the best, but it is a solid game.
Confrontation v2 - Something appeals to me about a rules that are simple enough to be included with every blister. There are so many things that could/have been improved on this version, but still a solid, simple ruleset.

For looks and layout:

1. Helldorado (please release english soon!)
2. Dark Age
3. Hordes: Primal (though I pretty much hate anything PP, this has to be good to be ranked on my list)
4. CaoR/AT-43 - I absolutley love the style and the layout they’ve used for the new books
5. Warmachine Redux (very good looking visual book)

For clarity of rules and textual layout:
1. Dark Age
2. CaoR/At43
3. Mighty Armies
4. Alkemy
5. Any GW

Well better and better modern layouts scews my list to the present.

1. AT-43 - mainly it’s just pretty- with neat simple rules for mass combat
2. Prime Remix- PP press learned a lot since the first version… clean well explained writing for a detailed skirmish game. With color coded pages, glossary, index and all the trimming. Great all around with better fiction this time and nicer illustrations. An overall better rule book but loses out to Rackham for pure goooey beauty- and for PP only using boring primary colors based paint schemes. (red vs blue, blaa)) but great fun to study.
3. Hordes- see prime remix- but some stinkers Illustrations - with obvious digital painting fx.
4. Warhammer 40K rouge trader- An oldie but still a goodie. Sure it’s only black and white- but even the later books never captured the crazy bloodlust and humor of this book.
5. This place is reserved for DUST ( or quite likely a higher spot.) but currently goes to Confrontation Age of Ragnorak- easily beating out ver 3
because unlike ver 3 CAGOR made some sort of since when I read it. (both rules and fluff of ver 3 were so badly thought out and/or translated I had trouble making heads or tales of that game)

1. Wargods of Ægyptus, great hardcover, good rules, fun game.
2. Anything Dark Age, basically any of the books fits in here, and they are all to the same high level of quality
3. Rezolution, great rules and I loved Ross Campbell’s art
4. Warmachine: Escalation, my favorite PP book to date
5. Warhammer 40,000: Orks: Freebooterz, had all the fun stuff for orks, from genestealer hybrids, to khorne worshippers.

W40K Rogue Trader-Main Rulebook
Bags of character, fluff and even gamer humour. A much better read and game, than today’s pale offering. Its just a shame that from this version onwards that things went so far downhill . Also famous for its semi-generic nature and creature design rules. Great stuff.

W40K Rogue Trader Compendium (The Red Book)
Back in the 90s and today, this was my must thumbed through book, lots of character, fluff and packed with additional rules for the main game, puts all modern codices to shame.

Kryomek - Rulebook
Super fluff, nice rules, super artwork. I have this and Hivestone and they are really good as a sort of super-cyberpunk setting with aliens. Very much Aliens inspired, but how can this be a bad thing.

W40K Rogue Trader Compilation (The Yellow Book)
Again back in the 90s very well used by me, all sorts of nifty stuff for the Eldar and Genestealers too, a must have for any RT player. Still a great read.

Full Thrust II - GZG
Simple rules but evocative of the whole sci-fi space combat setting, still prefer this one over the 2.5 versions, although the artwork and fluff is superb in these.

Fighting Fantasy Game Books - Steve Jackson & Ian Livingstone
This is where it all started for me, when I was Ten or Eleven. Like all of them but my three favourites are Citadel of Chaos, Forest of Doom and Space Assassin. The books where YOU are the hero.

Ogre/GEV board game booklet.
Just miisses out on my top 5. Nice set of simple yet very nice rules, that produce a superb tactical game and the short story contained within is quite chilling coming from the viewpoint of stopping an Ogre attack.

BattleTech - FASA.
This also just misses my top 5, because the clunky rules (like `em for small games) do not quite live up to the fluff generated by the countless novels written for this game.

I have become a recent convert to the The WarEngine rules at the moment but will have to see how they pan out.

SW

1. Warmachine Prime Remix
2. Hordes Primal
3. Heavy Gear Blitz
4. B5 A Call to Arms
5. Warmaster

I hadnt even thought of RPGs - I have to toss in another set of votes then
1) D&D Rules Cyclopdeia - its got all the original rules for the grand daddy of RPGs all in one spot, gotta love ebay - looking at the possibilities of using this book to run an RPG some time in June

2) Gurps Viking - my favorite of the Gurps supplementals, has as much interesting knowledge about Vikings packed in as many historical books on them

3) DMG 1st edition - never got to use it much but it has some fantastic details and extras for any fantasy game

4) Dark Heresy - fantastic book just dripping with fluff, havent played it yet but the rules look good for doing a 40k universe game

5) DMG supplementals, the blue books for 2nd edition, nothing spectacular but alot of nuggets of useful info hidden away in here

1. Paranoia 2nd edition- Ok it is a RPG, but there were minis for it. Very funny stuff.

2. Slaves to Darkness- Artwork alone is work the price of admission

3. Lost and the Damned- Ditto

4. Hordes Primal- Rules, layout, artwork…

5. Warhammer Armies- Army lists for nearly every army in one book!

Do an RPG list next, maybe?

ASL: Great layout, easier to read through and understand than the size of the rulebook implies, and some great information in the chapter footnotes and chapter H vehicle notes.

Cadwallon Secrets Vol 1.: Most of the Rackham rulebooks are stunning to look at, but this has great artwork and enough information to make an adventure detailed and interesting - without nailing down every single denizen of each part of the city, or boxing the GM into doing things in only one way.

Flames of War 2ed.: While the game itself (IMO) has very little to do with WWII tactics (aside from the models being period-correct), the rulebook and attendant supplements are well thought out in terms of layout, color, and photography. Nice eye candy.

Dirtside II: Having a hardcopy of the book is great for thumbing through and coming up with your own conjectural units, scenario designs, and game mods. Great for players that like to tinker within game frameworks.

SFB: Just reading through the ship development histories and scenario introductions is entertaining - even if you don’t play the game! Lots of thought went into the background materials presented (not to mention the game rules as well…).

Inquisitor I love the look of that book, the little stories and background infos and the great descriptions of the classes/characters. Unfortunately I never played it. Note: Now it’s free, go get it!

Warmachine:Prime Nice drawings and the first piece that sucked me into the iron kingdoms.

Confrontation 3 Best pictures of models in a rulebook so far.

Warmachine: Superiority Down to the troops - that was a nice change.

One left, so I choose the Warhammer O&G Army Book. My first army and my entry in the whole hobby. And the covers were always eye candy.