It even more-or-less says so in the lists themselves!

(If you are being picky, it says "Feel free to vary troop classifications...", but not that quantities may be changed or that new troop types added. Perhaps the wording here could be made more explicitly permissive?)

I agree MeG is not simple - but I wouldn't call it over-complicated. If I wanted a simple ruleset there are plenty to choose from. I have tried a few and found them unsatisfying, and wouldn't choose to play them again.

There are definitely areas in the writing of the rules that could be improved. More attention could have been paid to making clear definitions of key game terminology. Proof-reading could have been better.

Well said that man!

I agree MeG is not simple - but I wouldn't call it over-complicated. If I wanted a simple ruleset there are plenty to choose from. I have tried a few and found them unsatisfying, and wouldn't choose to play them again.

There are definitely areas in the writing of the rules that could be improved. More attention could have been paid to making clear definitions of key game terminology. Proof-reading could have been better. But any rules not written in some sort of extremely formal language are going to suffer from some amount of inherent ambiguity.

Clarifications and errata are important to try to resolve mistakes or ambiguity, although clearly too clarifications/errata many become problematic in themself.

Rules as downloadable PDFs which can be modified more more quickly may help in this regard, but of course most of us have bought printed rulebooks and don't want to be replacing those too regularly!

...should be in a separate topic to the proposed list changes themselves. Amongst other reasons, most of us cannot comment in a pinned thread!

So here I go...

Whilst I can see the point of view that list changes are a disturbance,  my personal preference  is to change lists periodically. Maybe not as frequently as every year, but we should be able to address what come to be seen as mistakes in lists. Who makes that decision? Well I would rather place it in the hands of the official rules authors and list researchers than invoke some sort of democratic vote!

I don't agree that all changes should be optional, or that maximum and minimum quantities should not be adjusted. Options should be for where it is considered that different interpretations are equally valid, not simply to allow players to avoid changing existing armies.

Most troop reclassifications do not require figures to be changed IMO.

Changing maximum and minimum quantities is more impactful, but if I need to paint a few more figures as I reconfigure my army so be it. It's happened before and it will happen again.

I will also point out that there is nothing stopping players from agreeing not to stick to the latest list version in friendly games; the same goes for tournament organisers. I personally  wouldn't have a problem with an opponent using an older "version" of an army against me.

One suggestion - perhaps the older (deprrecated) versions of lists should remain available for download, to make it easier for players to reference and use them if desired. This seems like a better approach than cluttering all lists with enough options to allow players to build old or new interpretaions from one list (or even a mixutre of old and new interpretations for different troop types.

All my opinion of course, I realise there are people that disagree. But  we should all be heard

Hi Richard , as you ask for it, , let me put in writing the opinion of players in my local club relative to list changes. Not as fluent as me in English they borrowed my services.

List change are good and bad . Good as they bring to light some earlier elements left in the shade or maybe erroneous and complete an already fine work. But In most case lists are at best « educated guesswork » so historical accuracy and research is not so much of an argument. Maybe new lists . Maybe this creates more disturbance than it brings service.

Any list change that make player structurally change their actual armies and possibly borrow new figures and store away some other loved one ,  is , apologies for the harsh words , «  a pain in the ass » and likely to drive players away from MEG . To date after some years of existence , some armies are just 10 000 sharp on the shelf while other are being assembled in players sets.

List changes should be optional add on and no more . Thus allowing players to take advantage of those and not be punished by them or suffer from them.

Possibly changing non troops items and geographical regions is not much of an issue but mandatory troops minima/ maxima are « critical » .

Another game , imperfect as it be , survives with unchanged lists for decades , namely DBA. which by the way is much played, and not only as introductory game .

Present note is in a way a prayer to STOP mandatory list changes altogether as it brings more irritation than satisfaction; at least to a handful of MEG player down there in the Loire valley and to my knowledge to several others in the MEG community.

It’s a pain to write this as list updates is quite valuable work and hard work . Still net result is not positive .
Optional changes = YES
Mandatory changes = NO

All the best and thanks for your efforts