Well, really to Tabletop Wargaming generally. I brought the Beginner Box Set 35020 with some printed record sheets from flechssheets because I’m not brave enough to write on the cards it comes with. We grabbed extra minis from our D&D piles.
We played GRF-1N (PPC,LRM10) and WLV-6M (LL, 2ML) Versus GRF-1S (LL, 2ML, LRM5) and WLV-6R (AC5, SRM6, ML)
They agreed that criticals and physical attacks sounded fun, so we added those rules. No heat, though they thought it would be a fun addition for next time. We played on one included map sheet with some trees but no elevation.
They were frustrated by how often they missed, and how slim the to-hit usually was. (Aiming for 10+ most of the time. Once they got better at managing their movement, the game got more fun. I jumped around a bit and told them anecdotes from past games and lore tidbits. Once we got to start rolling clusters and criticals they got into it, trying to get side and rear facing shots.
It was fun, and they are willing to play again, but they were dismayedthat it took three hours. Maybe I should finally learn to play Alpha Strike. I have the book but not the box set yet.
Alpha Strike is really fast - it’s basically Battleforce with single units - but has almost all the TacOps rules in some form or another, just without hit locations (well, back arc still exists…)
You could probably play an AS game with the same number of people but each running their own lance, and still take less time. On the downside, it has all the same terrain requirements as any 28mm game (unless you play with hexes).
I just picked up the Alpha Strike box 35690 and I already had the Alpha Strike Commander’s Edition book 35680, so I’ll try a few games and get a baseline of experience with the rules before I try it with newbies.