You remember Risk, right? Roll the dice, conquer you enemies, rule the world. Perhaps, like me, you enjoyed the game as a kid. Then, however, sometime around age 10 or 12, one of your friends showed up to play with the "South America" strategy.
You know the strategy: take over the four South American countries, put half your armies on Brazil and the other half on Venezuela. Then wait. And wait some more. Collect your five armies per turn and watch all the other players enjoy themselves by attacking each other. Perhaps they are having a good time participating in a game, but the strategic genius don't care. You wait some more. And more. Finally, when you've accumulated a boatload of armies and everyone else is spread thin by constantly attacking each other you methodically take over the world. The end.
When playing against someone employing this strategy it is typically frustrating. No one wants to hear Mr. South America continue to spout about how he is a strategic genius, but there really isn't a good way to counter the strategy. Players who are actively playing are at a huge disadvantage to the guy sitting there and collecting his armies. At this point your options are to pursue a similar strategy or make up a bunch of silly rules in an attempt to stop that strategy.
Eventually you decide to stop playing Risk. Most likely - like me - you moved on to different games like Diplomacy or Axis and Allies. More complicated to be sure but with a better set of rules. Rules that encouraged players to be active, to be bold, and to engage.
HBD certainly qualifies as a "more complicated" game to be sure. But, unfortunately, the strategic elements of the game more closely resemble Risk.
It is a pity that WIS can't work on the rules to encourage the kind of gameplay that we see - for example - in the more complicated war games as opposed to settling for - and aggressively defending - the gameplay encouraged by the current set of rules.