Super Brief History. Played the old rules, found the game too overly confusing to ever get played with anything but a repeat core group.. Shelved indefinitely.

Got New Rules. SOOO Much Better but still found game a bit too unwieldy to teach all new players for lack of useful players aids for the equipment.

Individual Pages were good but even If I got one Rulebook per player its such a pain to keep finding your page etc and everyone is fumbling for rules at same point during rules explanation and early play without multiple copies.

So, I started separating my rulebook pages (they split out pretty easily). then I could hand the right pages to the right players. Only problem is the way the book is laid out the page backs are then mismatched once separated. So rather than scan and print the HUGE number of pages for characters it was way simpler and cheaper to just buy another $7 rulebook and then back match the pages in a sheet protector. Now I have a stack of character sheets to pass out and throw the unused characters back into the box.

BONUS: The scenario sheets are now also separate as are the color coded map guides, bonus equipment sheet and more. Rules work great this way. Leave the front core section still in book or just rebind it.

This all would work with just 2 copies of the rules but I bought a 3rd just to have a fully intact rulebook should someone want to look through several characters for strategy reasons or whatever (Not to mention that destroying the integrity of such a beautiful brand new book just felt wrong without having a crisp one left!).

Anyway just wanted to share that after much thought I didn't think there was a better way to make a player's aid than to use the pages just as is. The price is VERY reasonable and not worth wasting your own paper, ink, and time on anything else.

Just a thought. My players loved it.

Have you seen the reference cards Plageman is making in the "Sum. Cards" thread? Those seem like a much more reasonable option to me. I don't know how printing and assembly prices out compared to $21 for three rulebooks, but even if it's not cheaper I don't see it being too much more expensive either. They're also smaller to store and use less table space during play.

Maybe I'm just biased, but tearing apart any book makes me wince, extra copies or no. =)

You've misrepresented the cost a bit. Anyone is already going to have bought at least one rulebook so for the non-anal types that don't need an intact one (which I do myself) your talking about a total additional cost with my method of $7. One that also gets some money back to the designer/publisher. With almost no effort and no printer/ink/paper/etc.

Anyway its just an option especially since right now there is no other completed option. And you can either spend life reading rules and wishing you could play a game or just get out there and make it happen. Thats what I chose to do and this is how I had to do it.

I don't know. Wouldn't it be easier just to photocopy and reduce the equipment sections to put the two on one page ? And for the scenario / maps only one is truly necessary.

I think TOYback then sould have split the original rulebook in three smaller books: rules, union equipment and reich equipment. this woul d certainly have been a whole lot easier to work with.

Also a small complaint I have with the new rule book is that they decided to make the single pack characters section separate from the "basic" ones. Same goes for the bonus tokens. I think all the same reference type should have been written in the same "Equipement" section.