The rules may seem daunting, but the rule book is very well laid out and understanding Mage Knight seems to be mostly about retaining a lot of data (and of course the pertinent exceptions) more than anything being unclear or hard to comprehend, though the combat is cluttered and my least favorite thing about the game. The variables in each turn are cool and the limited progress on the board and the acknowledgement of terrains and time of day give nice sense of scope. At it worst, which is the combat part, this game has the same problem of playing a high level character in an RPG: too much time dealing with modifiers and not enough time in the world making character-driven decisions.
Yet ideas like wounds limiting a player's options (hand size) and resurfacing if not properly tended (in the next round in a new deck) and the alteration of day and night and the handling of the units are all very good conceits, as is the ability to explore certain sites deeper or chose to forego such explorations while sticking to a different agendum.
Mage Knight is not as good as my favorite game, which is Cave Evil by a significant margin, but I appreciate the well conceived solo mode of this thing. Grand, patient fantasy from Vlaada Chvátil when things aren't getting too bogged down with modifier accounting.