TIL some old Avalon Hill games had rules that were literally impossible to follow

Was digging through my dad's basement last weekend and found a copy of 'Squad Leader' from 1977. I looked up a forum post about it and found out the original rulebook had a contradiction in the fire phases that made the game unplayable unless you house-ruled it. The designer admitted years later that they rushed the printing. Has anyone else run into a classic game with broken rules straight out of the box?

2 comments

2 Comments

james9212d ago

Man that is WILD. I gotta ask though - did the rules actually make the game STOP dead in its tracks or was it more like you could kinda figure out what they MEANT if you squinted hard enough? Because I've heard of old wargames having typos but a straight up contradiction in the fire phases sounds like someone just didn't give a damn that day. Like did the designer ever spell out exactly which part they screwed up or did he just wave it off as "eh, you'll figure it out"?

terryr4612d ago

Wait, did your buddy end up house ruling it on the spot or did they just flip a coin every time a fire phase started? I had a friend who tried to play that thing once and he said they spent more time arguing about the rules than actually moving any little plastic tanks.