To hell with 300+ page rulebooks.  I just want to play a game and be done in an hour.

My first recommendation is BattleTech Alpha Strike.  It simplifies the game down quite a bit.   I've been playing it with my 5 year old son.  He gets antsy towards the end of the game and keeps trying to invent rules or weapons for his own robots to make them OP because he's 5, but he can get it and play it.   

The bad news is the 300+ page rulebook.  Mostly it's for all the other gear and edge-case scenarios aka hover tank in a volcanic lava field using smart guided artillery rockets.  We just play mechs from 3025 AD, so our game is easy.

Interestingly, I found a copycat BattleTech game that fits on 8 pages called MechaForce Tactical Combat Game.  It's BattleTech.  But, again it's only 8 pages. 

https://www.wargamevault.com/m/product/107836

Another game is Starmageddon by Matt Wolf.  Hex maps and space ships. It's free, fits on 3 pages, let's you design your own ships as well.  We played it using Star Trek Attack Fleet minis on a hex star field map borrowed from BattleTech Battlespace game I own and don't play.

https://freewargamesrules.fandom.com/wiki/Starmageddon

I don't know what's more fun.  The game, or the site I found it on that's jam packed full of more free games to try.  Freewargamerules.fandom.com is great. 

Are you looking for miniature game or boardgames?

For miniature games of the mech variety, the guy at the Guerilla Miniatures YouTube channel made a miniature agnostic Mech game called Gamma Wolves. You can get the rulebook for about $20. He's got several videos detailing the rules.

For boardgames, they just announced a Mech version of the Undaunted game coming out next year. Undaunted is a pretty decent WW2 board game. Simple and fun but not that realistic (just in terms of number of combatants). The game is about 4-5 characters per side which isn't great for WW2 but should be perfect for mech-vs-mech.

Bot War. 80's cartoon flavor, played on a 3'x3' board and intended to be played in under an hour. Digital rule book is free to download. As for the company, the FB Group clearly states "This group is not a place for activism, politics, or religion at all. Posts of this nature will be immediately reviewed by admin and deleted if necessary. Traders Galaxy maintains an apolitical and areligious stance on all issues."
https://tradersgalaxy.com.au/product/bot-war-2-turbo-edition-pdf/

There is also it's hex based areal combat counterpart, that use the same miniatures; Broken Skies.
https://tradersgalaxy.com.au/product-category/resources/broken-skies-resources/

Quote from: hedgehobbit on October 07, 2023, 11:19:16 AM
Are you looking for miniature game or boardgames?

Miniatures games mostly, but cheap.  I have a 3D printer and some skill at 3D modeling, so I can make my own minis. 

Mech games and warship games are my favorites. 

Steve Jackson's OGRE scatches both itches.  Ogres are essentially landships engaging convetional armies in nuclear battles.  They've got some great plastic sets, but sadly, with current prices on shipping, one of the sides may never get produced in plastic.

Quote from: David Johansen on October 22, 2023, 08:46:44 PM
Steve Jackson's OGRE scatches both itches.  Ogres are essentially landships engaging convetional armies in nuclear battles.  They've got some great plastic sets, but sadly, with current prices on shipping, one of the sides may never get produced in plastic.

I was about to recommend the entire Metagaming Series.  Chitin I is a cool simulation between 2 ant-like colonies,with a 20 page rule book. Each page is 4x7 inches.  I was going to offer the series as an alternative to Ogre, since I no longer endorse SJW Games. But Ogre's rules are now freely available online on the SJW Games web site if you look hard enough, as are the images for a counter set you can P&P.  Rules are notoriously simple but very playable.  I suggest trying it if you don't pay for it.  But You can find Metagaming games for $10 on ebay if you're patient.   Some good ones,like Ice War or Invasion of the Air Eaters, never get that cheap anymore,but snag them at a good price.  I'm actually in the process of reconstructing counter sheets,maps and rule books for Metagaming games in my collection.  (I have most)

Other good titles are most of spi's "Capsule game" series, especially "The Creature that Ate Sheboygan" Kaiju game, Task Force Games' series, especially Intruder, an ALIENS movie clone, and the Starfire series (and other games) from Operational Studies Groups.  TSR has 8 such games, and I recommend "they've Invaded Plesantville", kind of a Invasion of the Body Snatchers scenario.

Duck Duck Go Dwarfstar games.  they made a series o f 8 such games in the early 80s.  Six are available as free P&P games on their web site.

Microgames aren't larger than 6x9 inches and are often smaller, 4x7.  They have 24 page or shorter rule books most pf the time, but usually lots of play value.  It's my favorite type of wargame and I have a large collection of them.

Anyone play anything from Dark City Games?

https://www.darkcitygames.com/samplegames.php

They have some free P&P ones. I haven't had time to look into them in detail. They're also setup to be one-player games.

Quote from: Tod13 on October 27, 2023, 09:26:02 AM
Anyone play anything from Dark City Games?

https://www.darkcitygames.com/samplegames.php

They have some free P&P ones. I haven't had time to look into them in detail. They're also setup to be one-player games.

I have some of their TFT clone adventures,which I use with my TFT modules, a SJW game, so i no longer patronize,and i think is about done its course ,but I have enough material to last a lifetime.  The rules to the combat module, Melee, are FREE on the SJW site.  For magic and anything else, Dark City Games' rules are a reasonable substitute.

Quote from: Cathode Ray on October 27, 2023, 09:38:52 AM

Quote from: Tod13 on October 27, 2023, 09:26:02 AM
Anyone play anything from Dark City Games?

https://www.darkcitygames.com/samplegames.php

They have some free P&P ones. I haven't had time to look into them in detail. They're also setup to be one-player games.

I have some of their TFT clone adventures,which I use with my TFT modules, a SJW game, so i no longer patronize,and i think is about done its course ,but I have enough material to last a lifetime.  The rules to the combat module, Melee, are FREE on the SJW site.  For magic and anything else, Dark City Games' rules are a reasonable substitute.

Thanks! Do the games run pretty quickly? How much memorization of the rules is needed? (I have a horrible, horrible memory, so I tend to gravitate towards simple, rules lite games.)

Quote from: Tod13 on October 27, 2023, 09:45:04 AM

Quote from: Cathode Ray on October 27, 2023, 09:38:52 AM

Quote from: Tod13 on October 27, 2023, 09:26:02 AM
Anyone play anything from Dark City Games?

https://www.darkcitygames.com/samplegames.php

They have some free P&P ones. I haven't had time to look into them in detail. They're also setup to be one-player games.

I have some of their TFT clone adventures,which I use with my TFT modules, a SJW game, so i no longer patronize,and i think is about done its course ,but I have enough material to last a lifetime.  The rules to the combat module, Melee, are FREE on the SJW site.  For magic and anything else, Dark City Games' rules are a reasonable substitute.

Thanks! Do the games run pretty quickly? How much memorization of the rules is needed? (I have a horrible, horrible memory, so I tend to gravitate towards simple, rules lite games.)

The good thing about Melee, other than the P&P edition being free, is that it was originally a Metagaming Microgame, one of th eones I mentioned in an earlier post in this thread.  It's one of the first RPGs, but it's also a tactical combat game.  It takes about 10 minutes to create a character, five minutes after some experience doing so, and the rules are very easy to learn.  Movement is a breeze.  Facing determines who you can attack.  Roll 3 dice under your DX stat to hit an enemy; roll for damage.  Shields block a certain number of hits.  hand-to-hand combat is a bit more complicated, but use Melee to play some arena battles, get comfortable with it really quickly, and then buy some DARK CITY GAMES modules, and use Melee rules, adding in DCG's magic rules.  (You can also optionally substitute DCG's melee rules for SJG's, but they're very similar.)

Steve Jackson designed Melee in 1977 specifically as a rules-light alternative to D&D's convoluted mess.

You really don't have to memorize much.  I'm also casually developing a TFT type system for my own use, using 2d12 as a base.

If you're in to Warhammer style competitive games, with a simpler and better balanced system you could try One Page Rules.  The base game is free, with the Advanced versions being available for cheap.

There's a lot of good skirmish games available on Wargame Vault these days.  With Space Weirdos/Sword Weirdos, Planet 28, Space Station Zero, and most of the stuff from Wiley games and Nordic Weasel being particular favorites.

Here is a guy who wrote a bunch of games, including some funny ones. The one about fighting aliens using only the state of New Jersey stands out.

http://www.cke1st.com/m_games1.htm

Described here.

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2016/06/09/close-little-wars-featherstones-simplest-rules/

The Pub Battles series from Command Post games is an interesting middle ground between a miniatures game and a board game.  Units are represented by Kriegsspiel style wooden blocks but is has miniatures style movement on a map.  They are simple and don't take a lot of time to play.  The rules are a bit on the imprecise and work best for casual games rather than highly competitive ones.  The canvas maps you can get are really nice but they are also pricey.  With the canvas map, several of their games cost in the $140-150 range.

I recommend the Command & Colors series. Memoir 44 is my favorite of the lot.