Battle Games Books

This was a fascinating book! I read it in one day because I could not put it down! This book, based on a true story, would make a great movie because you could not make up a story this good. This is a great glimpse into the power of big corporations, unethical lawyers at their disposal and perhaps even then judge! There are probably many more stories like this because families don't have the means to fight a 9 year legal battle against a major oil corporation. Thank goodness for this book because this needs to be made public! If you only read one book this year, you should read this one.

The Firaxis Guide to Sid Meier's Gettysburg is a helpful tool for the gamer who wishes to know more about each scenario the game offers.

Each scenario contains the following information: objective for both North and South, terrain features, brigade strengths, and suggested strategies for both North and South.

Reading this guide will help the gamer to better understand and enjoy the nuances of this wonderful Civil War game!

This is very helpful guide if you stuck in the game you need this guide or it is almost impossible to beat the game.Tells who to use in what levels it is great.

A combination of 2 strategy guides for less than 13 dollars? What a deal. I got this in the Battlechest, and I must say that on some of the expansion set levels it has been helpful. The maps at the end of the book are an added bonus.

By far the most intuitive, fun to play, and original wargame I have played (and I've played a lot). Not only that, but there are LIMITLESS possibilities, since every player can make their own armies!

This seems like its been done before...its like the Taoist version of the Matrix, but a lot less exciting. The book is listed under "thriller" but I found nothing thrilling about it. I kept reading waiting for something exciting to happen, but was left with disappointment.

Ahlgren seems to write a fictitious auto-biography. Indeed, the first half of the book is very slow...he plays chess, he gets into financial markets, lives in durango & austin, and likes existentialism. Any research into Ahlgren's life reveals these facts, so he's taking "write what you know" a little too far.

I highly doubt any further publications from the author would have different topics, character types, or inspiration. I didn't care about the characters and saw the ending a mile away. I kept reading waiting for something to happen. A few things did, but they weren't exciting.

The Taoist concepts, though well researched and laid out in layman's terms, could probably be found on any Wiki. Like I said, skip this and watch the Matrix trilogy.

Reminds me of a joke: Why did the Buddhist refuse Novocaine at the dentist? He wanted to transcend dental medication!

I've just finished DISCIPLINE, which along with my beloved SIDDARTHA, engages both my brain and my emotions, and titillates my endless curiosity about how things really are and what might happen "if."

DISCIPLINE was a challenging book to read in some aspects, because it amalgamates physics, chess, music, eastern philosophies, and high finance. I know nothing about the first two and a modicum of the last three. If the story of Douglas Cole's unfoldment and the suspense surrounding Jefferson and Jackson had not been so engaging, I might have given up as my seventy-one year old brain sloughed through uncharted seas of subjects beyond my reading experience.

As I read this astonishing boook by a fledgling writer, I was at first impressed by his excellent vocabulary and fresh metaphors. Then I became amazed at the way Ahlgren effortlessly wove complex and difficult subjects into an intriguing story.

But what really kept me reading was the recognition of states of mind/emotion that ring true in Ahlgren's descripition of multiple universes. And the tantalizing realization that he is not depicting science fiction, but rather the true state of mankind.

I suspect that each person, according to his/her experiences, will come away with a different perception of this extraordinary book, so unlike anything else in popular fiction.

Paco, I eagerly await your next book. May it be even more astounding so that your readers will stretch their perceptions far beyond what we think we know.

I'm 15, and I will honestly say that I did struggle with some of the ideas in this. They're absolutely mind-boggling, and it's hard to describe the quiet reflection this book made me feel long after I had read it. It is unique, and one of a kind, I promise you wont find another book like this that is of the same quality or with such a staggering blend of story elements. Despite this being Paco Ahlgren's first book, you would never know it. He has a talent for writing that I'm quite honestly jealous of. I highly reccomend it for those who want to be challenged in their believes of the universe, and how it works, and then our place in it. Whether you agree with views, hate this book, or absolutely find it amazing (I'm one of them!) DISCIPLINE is a novel not to be ignored.

However, in my mind this book also does get 4 1/2 stars for the reasons of what I would say is an excessive use of language in some parts of the book, for most of the story it is quite clean, but if you frown heavily on swearing this is a book that you read at your own risk. I would say that this book isn't for the faint of heart.

As I hungrily browse the new release aisles I usually find nothing but detective/murder stories, political/terrorist thrillers, or stories of love lost, yawn! I'm always looking for great new novels but rarely find any that offer new ideas, life lessons, and philosophy. This book was exactly what I was looking for. It's thought provoking, challenges beliefs, and it empowered me to learn more about the economic and spiritual concepts in the book. I want to be inspired when I finished reading a book, and that's what happened when I read Discipline, thanks Paco. I can't wait for a sequel, but until then, I'll just keep rereading and rereading this one and it'll be time well spent, thanks!

The book opened really well, and beyond the opening were some really engaging scenes. Unfortunately they were intermixed with flat introspection, plot points that could have been much more deftly handled, two-dimensional-to-the-point-of-caricature supporting characters, five pages of a family friend explaining quantum physics, and a narrative voice that was too often intrusive.

A major tragedy early on in the book failed to reach me on an emotional level. How could that happen? I was interested in those characters--I cared about them, or thought I did until the tragedy happened and I had no response to it. I read on for a while after that, but the antagonistic characters became overdone to the point of making me say, "Okay, I'm just not interested in this anymore." A little subtlety (or finesse) would have done a world of good.

The most disappointing thing is that the good stuff in this novel was GOOD and showed that Ahlgren had the potential to make this a fantastic book, but it's not a fantastic book; it's an uneven book that failed to hold my interest.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks there's nothing more epic and exciting in a RPG than war. Well this book does a pretty good job of laying the groundwork for a campaign based around battles. It's not all straightforward battlefield stuff either, a lot has to do with different tactics during war.
Things like cutting the enemy's supply lines, battlefield espionage, siege weapons, arrow volleys, etc. It also has what is definitely the best and simplest system for battlefield morale that I've seen (and it's compatable with the D&D miniatures rules) and explains how Leadership and one's rank in the military play into things.
Most of the feats and prestige classes are boring (though the combat medic is excellent) and some of the spells are very interesting. Overall it is an excellent resource.
The only reason I am giving it 4 stars is that it's all very situational, and in a standard campaign none of this will get used. For a campaign that involves medieval warfare and big battles, it earns its pricetag, which I can say for less and less of WoTC's product line of late.

Generally speaking, I dislike books that have adventure ideas and other DM material. Usually I am just looking for the 'meat' as in new monsters, spells, feats, etc...This book was an exception. I wanted to take the campaign in a little bit different direction than the norm, and thought a battlefield oriented game might be novel. This book has quiet a bit of ideas for adventures and scenarios related to large scale warfare. I found the sample ideas to be both creative and interesting. I would definately recommend the book if you are going to run that type of game. If you don't plan on running that type of game this book will have much less value to you.

It's a fine complement. There is a lot of rules you can take out of military context and use it in a regular D&D game, for example arrow volley... never again understimate the goblin archer team.
The Feats sección is commited to the main theme but I don't see it like a fault. The prestige classes are enjoyable.
A good work.

I didn't know it. I've substitute improvisation, miniatures rules, everything in its place. I didn't know this gap existed in my gaming repertoire before this book showed up on my doorstep. It was only when I opened it and skimmed the table of contents for concepts that I suddenly realized that this was it. The book I was waiting for. I almost didn't want to read it. I have no particular history with David Noonan, Will McDermott or Stephen Schubert. Maybe I've read books by them before, but they've never appeared on my radar. Wizards can put out some uneven stuff, so I wasn't sure if I even dared read it. I mean, here's a book I didn't even know I waited for and when it shows up, Bruce Cordell had nothing to do with it.

I skimmed it once very quickly. I'm a bad speed reader, but I can get the general gist of a book fast. What I found prodded me to go onward, so I started snatching at random bits that seemed to solve long standing problems in my games. I read more carefully now, probing, sussing out potential problems, trying not to get my hopes up.

So what was the answer? Did I like it? Well, to know that you'll have to skip to the end. I'm not sacrificing my own sense of drama for someone I haven't even met.

You know, even though this is a review, that last line begs for an emoticon.

Ah, well, you'll just have to take my sly humor as read and push on. You really have no choice. Go ahead. Keep reading. I dare you.
So the book starts with your standard chapter one fare. This is a book about adventures on a battlefield. What does that mean? Well, you know. Adventures. On a battlefield. We're in chapter one, so we'll go slow, but try to keep up. (My sarcasm).

So we talk about pacing, planning a campaign, general advice. Nothing here is earthshattering. Most of it is guidance in subjects like how to handle downtime in the middle of Agincourt. How militaries are organized. What a Frenchman originally meant when he called someone a "lieutenant."

From there, we move on to chapter two, and the book begins to pick up. Here they teach you how to design a battlefield (they start with remedial studies) then move on to flow charts. Now the flowchart idea for an adventure isn't exactly earthshattering, but just glancing at their two example flowcharts is enough to set straight any confusion you have about what a battle might look like from the POV of a few confused characters. Personally, this was the single biggest advantage of the book for me. Suddenly I can see clearly why so many of my past battlefields lacked luster.

The chapter doesn't end there, however. Next it teaches you how to build the enemy army in 60 minutes. Then it talks about encounter maps. Then it introduces the concept of victory points and explains how to use them to influence the battle.

Basically, you predetermine the battle outcome. This is what will happen if the PC were never even there. Then you base a best and worse case scenario on how much you think the PCs can matter in the battle. Then you use their victory points the PC's earn on the field to determine where in that specturm of possible outcomes the battle eventually falls. It's simple and its elegant and there's nothing about the system that is tied to the D&D rules. That's the biggest beauty of the book. So much of it could be used with any game system.

Next we have chapter three. Here we explore specific battlefield encounters with examples. Then we have specific example units. Then we discuss experience. So this chapter is only useful to you if you play D&D, but honestly, you got almost everything you needed in chapter two. We're into bonus material now, and we're only up to page 62.

The next chapter is a mix of D&D specific info. You could adapt some of it to other games of course. It has rules like how to handle siege engines and aerial bombardment and arrow volleys. We also deal with morale checks and commander ratings and radii, but after that we're into non game-specific materials again.

The chapter introduces a way to abstract strategic advantages to help determine who has the upper hand on the battlefield in the big view. We get into specific victory point allotments , how many points to assign to cutting a supply line, for instance. Then we wrap up with a method of handling battlefield recognition such as promotion and medals.
Chapter five deals with the military character. Now, if you've read any of my reviews, you probably know I'm going to be upset by all the prestige classes. You're right. WotC is out of control. We need to have an intervention.

The rest of the chapter is various D&D specific rules. We treat with skill applications and new feats. The best section of this chapter are the teamwork rules. In too many games, you send your characters to some sort of training an unless you want to force the players to multiclass into a level of fighter, assuming they have the xp. You really gain nothing from the experience. I've always hated that. The teamwork rules, however, fix that. These are specific tasks and abilities that require no allocation of precious character advancement resources like feats or skills. Do you want the benefits of training as heavy cavalry? Well assuming your team leader meets his prerequisites (some handle animal, some more ride, mounted combat and trample) and the team members all meet their minimum requirements as well (A single rank in ride), the characters need only train together for a time. After that, they can act as a unit and gain benefits such as stopping opponents from avoiding your overruns. One of the nice bits in here is that each teamwork benefit has a list of tips at the end. These alert the DM to potential rules he might want to brush up on or things he might want to consider. Some of it is obvious, but it's nice nevertheless.

Next we have the obligatory chapter on magic, which was fine (spell glut is almost as bad as prestige class glut, though). The book then wraps up with sample armies, sample soldiers and battlefield steeds.

You skipped to the end, didn't you? Well that's all right. I loved this book. At least a third of it is useful in any campaign and much of the rest can be converted with a little work. This book might not have as big an impact on your campaigns. Maybe you've been doing fantastic battlefield adventures for years. But if you haven't, this book can help remake your game. I'd recommend it for anyone whose game, even now, has the dark and fervent whisperings of war.

Now go back and read the rest of this review.

This book has been vital to my weekly D&D game. The book rises and falls on the idea of epic clashes between giant armies that your players influence. The Victory Point system is increadible, it has really helped my players to get into the game. It lets even low level charactes feel that they are vital. It is easy for the players to fall out of the spotlight in a giant army, this book makes that a thing of the past.

The prestige classes don't over run the book and that is a rarity in some of these supplements...a welcome rarity.

A surprising aspect of the book is the appendix which gives you monster stats for monsters of different ranks. (Orc general, drow priestess)

This book is almost as important as the Player's Handbook if you are running a war themed campaign.

I was expecting this to be a dry informational book. But it briefs you on the basic of tanks, and throws you into battle in an interactive, sectioned book where you choose what will happen next.
You learn a lot from the story, from your mistakes, and from appendixes in the back. If you end up dying in combat, or even succeeding, there's is a section which tells you what you did right or wrong with quotes from famous generals and military theorists like Patton and Sun Tzu.
Great book, great read, and cheap! Love it!

www.aaronsinfo.com

I wish I could use this series of books on new platoon leaders. It would teach them to manage resources, be tough when they have to be and no try to be everyone's friend (and the consequences that come with that). Get the other two in the series first.

This book is fun and interactive. You are thrust into an immediate combat situation and are given a company of tanks, you have very little time to organize and to get to know your men. So how do you find success? Who do you rely on? What kind of information do you need before you can make your decision? This book will challenge your assumptions, preconceptions, and your skill in making sense out of information in battle.

Good luck and Enjoy!

An  unusual book that deals with leadership at the tactical level.  "Combat Team: The Captain's War, An Interactive Exercise in Company Level Command in Battle, is by John F. Antal, an Army officer presently serving in the office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The premise of the book, which the author describes as a "scrambled text"; is that the reader commands a company-sized combined arms team and leads it through a series of combat situations. The "scrambled text" requires an action at the end of each section of the book. Readers will jump to specified sections of the narrative based on a roll of the dice or decisions they have made while working through each section. This replication of a profoundly nonlinear process illustrates the passage from Clausewitz's On War with which Antal introduces the Foreword: "Everything in war is simple, but the simplest thing is difficult. The difficulties accumulate and end by producing a kind of friction that is inconceivable unless one has experienced war." From PARAMETERS, US Army War College Quarterly, The United States Army's Senior Professional Journal,  Winter 1998, pp. 143-44.

I read Antal's other book (Infantry Combat) a number of years ago and felt like I actually learned some valuable insights (albeit as an "armchair" expert). This book however seemed too binary and simple. I finished it to the "best" outcome in one pass and most of the potential for bad outcomes relied on a dice roll. By binary, I mean that if you made the right choice (which seemed obvious) things went very well, if you made the wrong choice, you were dead within a couple of pages. Overall, I would say that this text oversimplifies the decision making process in combat too greatly by limiting the number of choices and with the abundance of information available. The best plans are truly simple (overly complicated plans almost never work), but if you've read anything about armor tactics, this book isn't worth much for educational value. There is no real information quandary and the fog of war seems very thin in this text. I would expect that any commander would make the right decisions in these situations, thus the limited value of this book. It would seem obvious that sometimes in combat, there is no perfect solution with an ideal outcome, just a choice about how to deal with a deadly situation in the best possible way.
That being said, I did enjoy reading this text and it was a nice entry-level exam that, in my own mind, validated what I felt I understood about armored combat.

This is a great little game most people have never even heard of. An import from Europe it follows games like Age of Empires. While this is in no way as great a game as that, it is fun and very absorbing. If you love RTS and have played everything out there, this might be a nice game to pick up to pass the hours.

I love Real-time strategy. I read mixed reviews on this game and thought it sounded interesting and worth spending a few hours on.

There are some wonderful elments, including:

1. I love the inter-connectivity of the buildings in the city. I love the dependence of one good to produce another, then another, and so forth. (Example: To build a bowman you need a suit of leather armor, a longbow, and a recruit. To get the recruit, you train him in the schoolhouse for 1 gold. To get a gold, you need a metallurgist to produce it from gold ore and coal ore, which come from a gold mine and a coal mine, respectively. For the longbow, you need two timbers, which comes when a sawmill takes the raw timber from a woodcutter's shack and cuts it. Leather armor has similar requirements from different buildings working together). Everything is very interconnected and very fun.

2. The graphics are very fun (and funny) to watch the townmembers doing their jobs. The sound is really neat as well, as you can hear everything happening when your screen is looking at the town (houses being built, horses in the stables, anvils being struck, trees being chopped down, etc) and it gets softer as you move your field of vision outward. It gives it a very active and immersive feel when you are in the town and when you look elsewhwere it feels like you are leaving to go into the woods! Very well done on both graphics and sound.

3. Very addictive when you first start playing it. The town-building is thoroughly entertaining and keeps you involved for a pretty good stretch of time.


And now for the things that make it a 2 instead of a 4 or 5:

1. Combat control is not good. It is hard to get your units to attack, as they will walk around randomly after you have instructed them to attack an enemy and often the enemy kills your soldier while he is walking around for no apparent reason. The AI on units is awful! Sometimes your soldiers attack enemy units who approach and sometimes they will allow the enemy to walk up to them, past them, even fight them without attacking back! Too often you click for your unit to attack and they do nothing. Once your units are involved in attacking, you cannot bring them back. This is bad if you realize the enemy force is too big, they have a tactical advantage, etc. Once you click on attack, your units are committed to be there until they are dead or they have killed the enemy squad. This makes it difficult to change tactics once you have engaged. Very frustrating.
The combat element of the game in the weakest part of the game, and unfortunately critical in solving every mission I played.

EXAMPLE from my own experience in the game that illustrates many of the problems:

During one mission, I had an enemy archer standing in the middle of my town, IN THE MIDDLE OF A SQAUD OF MY OWN ARCHERS, shooting my units while nobody attacked him. I did not see the archer sneak in to town, and my own archers did not shoot him when he approached. The enemy archer walked past a solid line of my archers, to the point that my archers moved to let him through, and started shooting at my townspeople. The only way I became aware of it is because I checked on the tannery and found an enemy archers in town shooting away. When I noticed him, I ordered my archers to attack him and they shifted positions around him but did not fire on him. Thinking it was a range issue, I moved the units away and ordered them to attack. My squad moved back around the enemy archer and continued to do nothing. I could not control my townspeople to keep them away and they continued to die while the archer kept shooting them! I created another archer in the barracks, moved him down to the enemy, and this archer shot the bad guy! Very frustrating lack of combat control and a very frustrating example (of many) of why it made the game frustrating.

3. Some elements of the game are just too slow and you will almost assuredly find yourself waiting for periods of time. If I want to build a new building, I need to build the road first, which means I lay out where the road goes, then wait for serfs to brings stones to the laborers to complete the road. If you lay out three different buildings, you need to build three different roads to the buildings, and ALL UNFINISHED ROADS MUST BE COMPLETED before laborers will start work on buildings. Too often you are waiting for a road to be finished before you can do anything else. You have no control over townspeople either. I cannot manually tell a serf to bring gold to the schoolhouse if needed. Instead, I have to wait until that comes up on their queue of tasks. Once you start to get a large city, you will find yourself waiting for serfs more than anything else. Even if you have an excess of serfs, you will wait for them to complete tasks for 5-10 minutes sometimes. Very frustrating.

4. Did I mention how poor the AI is? The enemy would not be difficult to defeat in battle because of the poor AI, except for the poor combat control mentioned above.



BOTTOM LINE: The game has SO MUCH POTENTIAL, but a few elements made it just too frustrating for me. THe town building section is super fun, and the game would be a 5 if combat wasn't required. Since combat is integral to the game, it brings the overall score down and makes the flaws in the town stand out.

This is one of the best games I've played. Besides the fact that it is very realistic when it comes to food production and building it is very funny just to see the small workers do thier job. Compared to Warcraft and Starcraft this is outstanding in this sector. When it comes to battle there are some thing that could be changed. The strategic is great, pikemen shuold only attack knights and so on, but feeding the troops not the better part of this game. If youre planning a big attack, which is very fun to plan, with 100 - 150 soldiers, it is hard, not to say impossible, to get food to the troops before the attack and run the village at the same time. But I can live with it. I have completed all the 20 missions twice, so it is possible to do attacks in spite of this. The key is just to fill your barrack with recruits and weapons and then train all the soldiers in a matter of minutes. Then you might not have to feed them at all before the attack. Now, back to the subjekt; This is a really good game and I'm looking for Knights and Merchants II. (If there already is such game please mail me and tell me where to find it)!!!

Well, I first found this game about 2 years ago, and it's such a fun and yet aggravating game to play. Be forewarned, do NOT attempt to play this game unless you have several hours of free time available, preferably multiple blocks of several hours of free time. The game is so completely absorbing that six hours can disappear without you ever realizing it. You play several scenarios, each one adding in new units and new buildings, so you can slowly develop your use of these items. Unfortunately, the opposition seems to have access to all of these items right from the start, so sometimes things feel a little lopsided. But if you're clever and pay attention, you can prevail.

My only complaint is that everything depends on your serfs doing what they're supposed to do, and they seem to have the collective IQ of a box of rocks. I don't know how many hours I've spent literally screaming at my computer (like they can hear me... duh!) because something is going wrong because the serfs are off doing something completely stupid instead of what I want them to be doing.

Altogether an incredible game, and I hope that eventually there will be a sequel.

This is a great game as far as village building. The economics are very realistic (unlike AOE, Warcraft, Starcraft, etc.), the graphics are good (although I don't think that's very important), but the combat is pretty bad. First of all, feeding the troops is a pain. Especially when there's a group with different hunger levels, and you have to break up the group to feed them at different times. This takes up a lot of time and is very annoying. The combat makes no sense - In many of the levels, the enemies just sit there and die... The strategy involved with combat isn't bad, but it's much more difficult to get single units of small groups of units to attack a specific group of units or unit. In most RTS games, you can just click on the unit(s) and right click on another, but not in this. Although, it is really fun to set up a big attack. Now, back to the village. The peasants are incredibly stupid. There are only two things to complain about in the villages - the peasants not building buildings that they are told to build and the time it takes to build roads (which need to connect every single building - you can't start another village far off without building a long road). Basically, the way the villages work is absolutely stupendous, but a few changes need to be made (roads and peasants' AI). If the way the villages work was combined with the combat of, say, Starcraft or AOE, the result would be the best RTS ever.

The AT-AT looks great on a shelf, but as far as a supplement to the Star Wars Miniatures game, it is lacking.

Wait until they can't sell them then snatch them up for less.

The AT-AT is a must have for any Star Wars Miniatures Fan. This thing is huge! It is highly detailed, and is made of rigid plastic so it is much more durable than the standard mini. I am very pleased.

I was very impressed at the quality and detail of this model.
It's fantastic and was delivered to me on time and at half the price I could buy it for in the UK...thank you Amazon.com

This game is very enjoyabale. It takes about an hour to play a round with the standard rules. The pieces are pretty indestructable. They are pre-painted so the out-of-the box time to play time is low

As collectibles, many of the pieces are worth a lot right out of the box. Each box is a suprise as to what you will find. A decent collectible if you want something harder to damage than cards, but still want to be able to play with the collectible item (as opposed to say, coins)

"Universe" is the fourth expansion set in the Star Wars Miniatures Universe, which started with the Rebel Storm Starter set back in September, 2004 (see more about the minis game itself in my addendum below). There are 60 different figures in this set. These are the first "huge packs," so each booster comes with seven durable, pre-painted figures (including one rare OR one very rare figure), one of which will be a large OR very large figure.

The first thing I look for in any expansion set are how many characters I recognize from the movies (vs. those that appeared only in the books). I am particularly interested in figures from the original trilogy, and am happy to say there are at lest 22 figures from the original trilogy in this set. Most are simply more powerful versions of earlier figures (for example, Lando Calrissian Rebel Hero, Darth Vader Jedi Hunter, Admiral Ackbar, Chewbacca Rebel Hero, Han Solo Rebel Hero, Luke Skywalker on Tauntaun, Princess Leia Rebel Hero, and Luke Skywalker, Jedi Master), but some have never been released before (for example, B'omarr Monk, Lobot, Nien Nunb, Wedge Antilles, and Rancor). Notably, there are even a couple of great new common and uncommon figures from the original trilogy in this set (for example, Gonk Power Droid and especially the Stormtrooper Commander).

Further, though I am not a big fan of the prequel, there are several figures from these movies as well (say 5-10 - though none of them stood out as particularly amazing/useful). The rest are either from the books (including some that are very powerful), or generic/minor characters that I have never seen or heard of before (some of which are also pretty good and may be particularly useful in the Star Wars RPG).

In sum (and as of the time this review was written), this is perhaps the second best expansion set for those interested in the original trilogy since Rebel Storm was first released in 2004 (with the Bounty Hunters expansion set being the best in this regard). Those who like the Star Wars minis game and those who use the figures for the Star Wars RPG will likely be very happy with this set.

ADDENDUM: (Please note that I include this addendum at the end of all my Star Wars minis reviews, so if you've read it before, there is no need to read it again.) If you want to play the Star Wars minis game as it was designed to be played, it is best to have at least one starter (each starter comes with game instructions, a map, a D20, terrain tiles that are very helpful and add great variety to the game, and more). I like the Rebel Storm Starter the best because it's from the classic era/trilogy, but the Clone Strike and Revenge of the Sith starters from the newer movies will also work. If you don't want to invest in a starter, you can also get one of the three "Ultimate Missions" books, as each comes with a double sided map and a few smaller terrain tiles (again, I like the Rebel Strom Ultimate Missions book the best because it is also from the classic era/trilogy). Or, you can buy the "Attack on Endor" scenario pack, which comes with TWO double sided maps (in addition to a scaled AT-ST that is fully usable in play). The main point here is that you'll need some type of map/grid. If you don't want to buy a Star Wars one, generic ones are also available at most gaming stores (you can use your imagination to set the scene, or draw terrain with an erasable marker right on the grid). Of course, the minis are also useful for the roleplaying game (RPG) - in which case you may not need a starter or map, but will likely need the "Core Rulebook" instead. Finally, they are just fun to collect for those who like all things Star Wars!