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Post by WaffleM on Jul 29, 2009 10:23:10 GMT -9
Battle Mecha, a game that Dagger has written and I have been working on miniatures for, will soon be ready for testing. If you would like to become a play tester stay tuned here for more information! Thanks, -WaffleM
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Post by WaffleM on Jul 29, 2009 15:39:11 GMT -9
The play test package is complete! It include the Battle Mecha rules written by Dagger, a set of basic mech models, and all the tokens needed to play the game. The game incorporates an amazing Armor Grid that gives the game a unique weapon damage system. Designed to have simple rules, the Battle Mecha game combines fast gameplay with strategic weapon choices to create a fun wargame of 15mm mecha combat.
Please PM me or Dagger if you would like to be part of the game play test. All testers will receive a complimentary copy of the game and miniatures. Please note, as part of the play test you have to complete a simple feedback form and email us a photograph of the Battle Mecha game in progress.
Thanks! -WaffleM
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Post by WaffleM on Jul 29, 2009 17:52:24 GMT -9
I forgot to mention: If your interested in being a game tester, please PM me or Dagger with your email address so we can send you the game files. Thanks!
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Post by hc on Jul 29, 2009 20:02:51 GMT -9
This looks to be a neat game. What is your time frame for play-testing, how many players does the game support, and what is the average length of play?
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Post by Dagger on Jul 30, 2009 5:13:11 GMT -9
WaffleM is putting together the last of the models now... so I was hoping to get some constructive criticism and have the rules nice and polished in the next couple of months.
Like any skirmish game, it works best with two players... but the game can accommodate more players and still keep everyone interested because of the alternating turn sequence.
The length of game play averages about an hour... but it really depends on the size of the game. You can plan a small tactical skirmish or an all out strategic battle royal.
It's going to be worth getting the game just for the models alone... WaffleM has done an amazing job putting them together.
I think everyone will like the Armor Grid too. It makes it so that your game-strategy begins the moment you start deciding which weapons to put on your Mecha.
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Post by Sirrob01 on Jul 31, 2009 15:24:14 GMT -9
Is it okay to post test build and gaming picy's etc into your forum or do you want to keep it all under wraps so to speak?
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Post by Sirrob01 on Aug 1, 2009 17:26:26 GMT -9
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Post by WaffleM on Aug 1, 2009 19:28:51 GMT -9
Is it okay to post test build and gaming picy's etc into your forum or do you want to keep it all under wraps so to speak? That's fine by me. Posting pics helps generate excitement for the project and it can also help illustrate any questions that you may have. I like that you made your own game tokens too. This will help facillitate your game testing on a larger scale than I anticipated.
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Post by Sirrob01 on Aug 2, 2009 1:05:00 GMT -9
Just finished my first game, played against myself...yes sad ..took 1.30 hrs not bad for all the referencing and checking I had to do, would be much quicker as 1vs1 did a 2hvy and 2 Med mecha (red) vs 3 Light and 2 med mecha and 2 tanks (blue). In the end the red crew won, but it was close they got two lucky crits while there mecha kept getting same crit area destroyed rolls. the two tanks both survived but both had there turrets blown off so they were no good for anything. The red crew had a almost fresh med mecha and one fairly heavily damage heavy mecha left at the end. The game flowed quiet well and early on it looked like blue was going to stomp red but those heavy mecha can take a pounding and they dropped a med and light blue mecha in the 3rd and 4th round with single crit mecha destroyed rolls after that it was all down hill for blue. It did raise a couple of questions. I assume crit rolls and results occur straight away so a mecha/vehicle can lose weapons before it gets a turn? If a mecha is equipped with all laser weapons can it's ammo explode? Missiles blow armour out but what happens if they hit a high spot does the splash damage do nothing or flow down into the holes? (hope that makes sense). If a missile hits slot 10 or 1 the side splash damage is lost? I made the assumption if a vehicles turret is destroyed so is it's weapon, hope that's correct. the map didn't favor light mecha as no cover just a few big buildings, although they did get a couple of rear shots in.
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Post by Dagger on Aug 3, 2009 16:47:53 GMT -9
Sorry... I've been moving this weekend... so I was without internet for a couple of days... it was horrible...(grin)
Yep... weapon damage is resolved immediately. Because of the alternating turn sequence it's highly unlikely that your team will lose much before you get a chance to fight back.
Yep... it's pretty much an exploding battery...
Simply apply the damage template as is. Basically the explosion comes into contact with less of the mecha, so destroys less armor.
Yep... it was a glancing shot, not a solid hit.
Yep... no turret, no weapon. If play testing shows that turrets are too fragile I can adjust the critical hit table accordingly...
Sneaky, aren't they?...(grin)
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Post by hc on Aug 5, 2009 21:56:58 GMT -9
I am not sure if this is the question Sirrob01 asked re. damage flowing down into the holes, but:
Suppose a vehicle is hit with a medium laser in Hit Location 3:
. X . . . X . . . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 3 4 5
The same vehicle is then hit with a light missile in Hit Location 4. Would the left-most damage block be wasted, since there is already damage there, like this:
. X X X . X . . . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 3 4 5
or would it go down to the next available spot on Hit Location 3, like this:
. X X X . X . . . X . . . X . . . . . . . . . . 2 3 4 5
(Please let me know if this is giving away too much information about the game. If so, I will delete this post, and send future queries via e-mail.)
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Post by Sirrob01 on Aug 5, 2009 23:42:29 GMT -9
Hc yep that was what my rather vague question meant
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Post by Dagger on Aug 6, 2009 5:44:49 GMT -9
HC - You had it right the first time. Except that the damage is not "wasted", it's just that the missile blast expanded into an area that was no longer occupied by armor plating. Simply apply the damage profile of the weapon at the hit location and remove any good armor under the "template" of the damage profile.
Feel free to ask any questions here... it's no problem...
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Post by Sirrob01 on Aug 8, 2009 14:14:18 GMT -9
Played a few games now about 4, with others, so I'll send through the feedback document today. It's quiet big but please don't take this as an indication that we didn't enjoy the game . Most of it is thoughts and ideas on ways to improve the rules from our point of view. The game was very enjoyable and reasonably fast, we seem to average between 90mins and 3 hours for a game with bp's in the realm of 50-70, A lot of time was spent discussing mechanics and thoughts etc so those times will be a little bloated. cya
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Post by Dagger on Aug 8, 2009 16:03:34 GMT -9
That's great! I can't wait to see what ideas and thoughts your group has. Thank You...
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Post by Sirrob01 on Aug 8, 2009 20:42:54 GMT -9
Well "group" is stretching the word a little theres four of us . I was going to do some picys of in game battles but they didn't turn out...flat tokens moving around a poorly lite board dosen't work photographically... But I did take some picy's of my blue mecha that i've built. I've got a matching set of coloured red ones but haven't built those yet . The photo's washed the blue out a bit there a deeper richer blue in person (more vivid? I tried to get them back to rl colour but no luck...) For those curious there based to circles (force of habit) but you can see one's sitting on hex magnet adapter base for gameplay. Game play wise my fav config is twin missile racks and twin Mgs or Twin Missile racks and one Mg and a piece of special equipment edit: built a lightbox from the photo thread and re-took the picy definitely helped, i'll re-do the group shot later
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Post by Sirrob01 on Aug 16, 2009 2:13:54 GMT -9
Unfortunately no game testing this weekend, everyone was out sick or away, I spent most of today building a wolverine tank, by next weekend I should have enough stuff constructed for 2 full armies so I'll take some picy's and post them after the game/s was looking forward to another few games as well
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Post by Dagger on Aug 16, 2009 9:49:34 GMT -9
Bummer... awesome pic of the 18mm tank though. I'm wondering what it would look like if you built it small enough to fit on a double 40mm or 50mm base though...(Grin)
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Post by Sirrob01 on Aug 16, 2009 15:06:53 GMT -9
the 18mm Wolverine came out a little bigger than I expected, so much so I can see that for template based damage I'm going to suffer some major penalties in one of my other wargames... I'm going to try a 15mm scaled version in theory that should be about 7cm wide and I can't remember how long (at work at the mo). That would almost fit on 2x 50mm bases with a little overhang, the wolverine seems to be a very heavy tank but you could drop it another 10% and get it down to about 60mm across (13.5mm scale?). With the niceness of the layout and construction I'd say you could probably comfortably build down to 10mm scaled version without to many problems (use an earbud for a cannon) and with some difficulty down to Btech scale 1/300...I might have to try that could be fun I may retire my 18mm version to my whiteboard at work for holding up bits of paper
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Post by Sirrob01 on Aug 19, 2009 0:53:41 GMT -9
15mm version will fit on 2 x50mm hex's and it looks about the right scale with mecha (assuming I scaled them close to the correct size :
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Post by Dagger on Aug 19, 2009 4:59:18 GMT -9
Those look great together. It's hard to tell about the scale though... without some 15mm Troops sitting next to them...(hint, hint, wink, wink) The tank is a bit larger than I imagined though. I'm still waiting on WaffleM to finish up some of his vehicle prototypes to see what base configurations work best... but I'm leaning toward 2x40 or 2x50 for vehicles and a single 40 or 50 for Troops. Our vehicles will be more 2.5d than 3d so they should fit better on the bases...
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Post by WaffleM on Aug 19, 2009 9:48:39 GMT -9
I'm still waiting on WaffleM to finish up some of his vehicle prototypes to see what base configurations work best... but I'm leaning toward 2x40 or 2x50 for vehicles and a single 40 or 50 for Troops. Our vehicles will be more 2.5d than 3d so they should fit better on the bases... I'm still waiting on me to finish those too! The delay has been due to packing and getting ready for the big move this weekend. I should be able to crank these out in the next two weeks, as my commute will be changing from fifty minutes down to five! Yay! Free time again!!! I love the look of the 3D tank, but my plan is to have everything be 2.5D for simplicity and uniformity in design. As it stands now, the troops will be on a 2x30mm base, the vehicles will be on 2x40mm base. Once the basic designs are finished and the printer is unpacked, I'll know better. I'm trying to keep the tank on a 2x40mm base, instead of a 2x50mm, because the game stats do not warrant such a large size. Why would a Heavy Mech that is much more powerful than a tank, be smaller than that tank? At least that's my reasoning...
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Post by Sirrob01 on Aug 19, 2009 17:30:59 GMT -9
The Big mecha actually is more intimidating in person vs the tank, I stuck him at the back so perspective is making the tank look more forbidding than it really is. Hmm to put it another way if I was in a light mecha I'd think twice before taking on a tank, but in a medium or heavy bring it on. (purely from a looks view point not a stats view). Tank bigger than mecha easy one to explain away. Mecha use cutting edge technology in there construction which is smaller lighter and more compact and more expensive (hence lots of guns). Tanks use older but bigger components but there overall cheaper hence the tanks come out larger. But trust me the hvy mecha looks more than intimidating enough against a tank (mecha is as tall as the tank is long)...I'll try and get a better picy tonight . That does raise another question from me, are you planning on releasing rules and minis all as 1 game pack (similar to wwg>wormhole) or more standalone rules with some card elements to get you going but then sub in any miniatures you want card/plastic/metal? Depending on the end goal i'll adjust all my future feedback to match as the two end uses do have slightly different requirements. 2.5D vehicles sound interesting and good luck with the unpacking
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Post by WaffleM on Aug 20, 2009 6:44:20 GMT -9
Tank bigger than mecha easy one to explain away. Mecha use cutting edge technology in there construction which is smaller lighter and more compact and more expensive (hence lots of guns). Tanks use older but bigger components but there overall cheaper hence the tanks come out larger. But trust me the hvy mecha looks more than intimidating enough against a tank (mecha is as tall as the tank is long)...I'll try and get a better picy tonight . Just wait until you get the "real" Heavy Mecha. I added extra dose of menacing to them... The plan is to release the basic rules and miniatures together for one low price. That way if you really like the rules, but would rather use your own miniatures you are free to do so. Rules expansions will also include the miniatures related to those rules (for example: new variations and customizations for mechs and vehicles will be released in sets containing both the rule expansions and miniatures.) Thanks! It's a good thing that I found One Monk Miniatures; paper minis are so much easier to pack! ;D
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Post by Sirrob01 on Aug 23, 2009 1:57:57 GMT -9
Only got 1 game in, I took some photos but you'll have to forgive the terrain as all my current terrain is in 25mm scale only just recently decided to jump across to 15/18mm for everything . Battle report We wanted to test out troops with the changes. We also incorporated a move/fire or fire/move option. You simply declared for each unit what your going to do then did it ie Fire/move or move/fire or standfast and fire. It worked very well and made them gameplay slightly more tactical but didn't slow gameplay down noticeably. All Troopers were standard light infantry unfortunatly I took a mix of weapons something that contributed to the troopers losing th game. The Light mecha were customized builds (and assuming we interpreted the rules right) had all missiles and 4 rows of extra armour, very tough. Rd One and Rd TwoFirst round - we were all out of range Second Round - Light red mecha won imitative but the troopers dished out a massive 12 box's of damage for some light damage in return. Troops are running for the trees as cover. Rd Three and Rd FourThird Round - Mecha won initiative and proceeded to kill 2 units of troopers, the troopers dished out about another 12 box's of damage Fourth Round - Troopers won and received no damage and dished out light damage to one fo the mecha Rd Five and Rd SixFifth Round - Troopers won and received light damage and dished out a moderate amount of damage in return. Sixth Round - Mecha won and killed another unit of troopers and recieved only light damage in return. Rd Seven and Rd EightSeventh Round -Mecha won and kileld anothe runit and dished out damage to several of the other troop units they recieved no damage in return. Eight Round - Both LM1 and the troop unit close to it fired at each other but missed. Rd Nine and Rd TenRound Nine - Troopers won and recieved a few more hits against them mostly knocking out crew served weapons . They got lucky against one of the mecha peeling out 7-8 boxs of damage. Round Ten - Troopers won and one hit with a MG it was enough to knock one weapon of off LM-1 but the mecha killed another one of the troop units. Rd Eleven and Rd TwelveIt was pretty much all over for the troopers in these last two rounds but they made suicide attacks against LM-1 trying to knock it out but the extra armour was just to hard to penetrate. The game flowed very well again and the changes that were made worked well: Crit table - re-rolling was really good as there was quiet a few times were the mecha scored multiple crew served weapon destroyed. Troopers to Lower Tp - Softened them enough but they were still hard to hit. Build Rules for mecha very nice although we have some questions, is it okay to post them here or rather via email? The light mecha were deliberately built as troop killers with extra armour and weapons they could fire at max range. The ability for the mecha to fire and them move really enabled them to make the most of there movement advantage and shoot the troops and then move out of range, suffering minimal return damage, although one almost died, if they'd not had extra armour Lm-1 would have definitely been dead and Lm-2 seriously damaged. Although it looks like from the above the troops got stomped it was actually fairly close and if the troopers had taken more missile weapons and less messing around with er other weapons it may have been a different story. Still not sure about tanks, pretty certain they would have got stomped by either of the above two forces but we'll try that next weekend .
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Post by Dagger on Aug 23, 2009 17:23:07 GMT -9
Very good battle report... thank you. It looks like the Bp values are pretty balanced. I do think you may have misinterpreted the Mecha construction rules though... a Mecha skeleton does not come with any armor to start with. A light Mecha has an 8 Bp limit, so you would need to spend 4 for the missile racks and 4 more to get 40 points of armor... not 40 ADDITIONAL points of armor...(grin)
Moving/Firing or Firing/Moving - I like the added tactical flexibility that option provides... but it does complicate a couple other aspects of the game. 1)The combat modifier table applies a -1 for running... did you apply it if the unit fired before moving? 2)Firing before moving allows a unit to fire on a target and then take cover denying the target the opportunity to fire back. However, because a round represents a short period of time in which both sides are moving and firing simultaneously... the target would actually have had an opportunity to fire back at the same time it was being fire upon. Obviously for game playability that action has to be divided up into alternating turns... restricting units to moving and then firing just keeps the games alternating turns more inline with what would happen if both sides were acting simultaneously. I'm trying to keep the basic game as simple as possible to selective moving/firing might work best as an optional rule.... or maybe some kind of upgrade...(Hmmm)
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Post by Sirrob01 on Aug 23, 2009 19:46:33 GMT -9
Yep we definitely messed up on those mecha...no wonder I struggled..hmm we'll re-do that game over and get back to you ...we'll do stock fire/move. Thinking about it, it definitely would have slide the game back into troopers favour, not sure if it would have been to much, I'll check the photo originals and see what round/turn LM-1 would have started taking crits. Ahh didn't realize it was all simultaneous, figured it was just one unit getting a slight edge/drop on another etc. Yes if you declared a Fire/Move which was to be a run you took a penality, this wasn't much extra effort about the same as tracking your heat so you don't overheat. I'm not looking forward to being a tank pilot next week so any tweaks in that area much appreciated
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Post by rjstacey64 on Aug 28, 2009 4:49:05 GMT -9
Just got the files! I give it a go this weekend and let you know what I think. Ray
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Post by onemonkeybeau on Aug 29, 2009 19:53:20 GMT -9
Hey guys! Just got done with our first trail run of the game. We had a BLAST! To get a handle on the rules we (there were four of us) decided to each take control of 1 medium mech and deck them each out with a variety of medium-sized weapons. We did this mainly to get a handle on the Armor Grid system and mechanics. Let's just say that the Armor Grid system is ingenious! We had such a great time waiting with bated breath each time a weapon hit to see where it landed and what damage was caused. Great job on this! We did have a few questions that came up while we were playing: 1. Say a laser hits althe way to the Critical Systems Area in area 4. Then a missle finds its way into the hole left by the laser and begins its damage IN the CSA. Do we roll three separate times on the crit table or only once? I hope this makes sense 2. Could you explain how the "Ammo Explosion: D10 Damage (Random Hit Location)" on the Mecha Critical Heat Table works? The way we played tonight was we rolled a D10 and then took away one Armor Grid square where the die indicated. Is this right? 3. We didn't see much difference between the different weapon designations (Light, Medium, and Heavy). The only difference on the majority of these was the Damage Profile only. For example, it seemed to us that a Heavy Laser should be rated at a Hv3 while the Medium and light Laser at a Hv2 rather than a Hv2 for all three. We just thought that there should be more of a difference between the light, medium, and heavy. Even though we only played with one mech each we still had some questions about the rules for the next time we play: 4. Say your mech equipped with the Remote-Guided Missile System is activated first and scores a lock-on. But before you next activation that mech is destroyed (lucky shot)... Is the RGMS effect still good for the rest of the round or does it go up in smoke with the Mech? 5. When choosing weapons, is there a specific cost to each weapon or are the costs factored into the Bp already? Could I choose to have for HardPoints of Missles and then on another mech have 4 HardPoints of Lasers? And then on the next mix and match? I think that's all the questions I have for now... We'll be playing again very soon, so look for actual pictures and more questions next week! onemonkeybeau
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Post by Dagger on Aug 30, 2009 5:54:50 GMT -9
I'm very glad that you enjoyed it... and thanks for taking the time to try it out. I have version 2 of the playtest rules ready based on some feedback from other playtesters... I'll send those over to you. You have some very good questions... and I think you've pointed out some sticky points in the rules that I need to clarify. 1. Say a laser hits althe way to the Critical Systems Area in area 4. Then a missle finds its way into the hole left by the laser and begins its damage IN the CSA. Do we roll three separate times on the crit table or only once? I hope this makes sense The Critical Systems Area is not part of the Armor Grid... it is not made up of blocks that are scratched out when hit. The Critical Systems Area is one big area that generates a roll on the Critical Hit Table each time it is hit. It doesn't matter what weapon hit it, it only matters that it was hit. So if the Critical Systems Area is hit, simply make a single roll on the Critical Systems Area. Keep in mind that Machine Gun damage is made up of multiple hits, so may generate multiple critical hits. 2. Could you explain how the "Ammo Explosion: D10 Damage (Random Hit Location)" on the Mecha Critical Heat Table works? The way we played tonight was we rolled a D10 and then took away one Armor Grid square where the die indicated. Is this right? "D10 Damage" means that you roll a D10 and the result is the amount of damage done. With an Ammo Explosion damage is applied to the Armor Grid in exactly the same way as a Machine Gun so you would roll multiple hit locations. For example if my Mecha overheats and suffers an Ammo Explosion I roll for D10 Damage. Let's say I roll a 4... because Ammo Explosion damage is applied like a Machine Gun I would roll 4 hit locations for 1 point of damage each. (Very scary if my Critical Systems Area is exposed) 3. We didn't see much difference between the different weapon designations (Light, Medium, and Heavy). The only difference on the majority of these was the Damage Profile only. For example, it seemed to us that a Heavy Laser should be rated at a Hv3 while the Medium and light Laser at a Hv2 rather than a Hv2 for all three. We just thought that there should be more of a difference between the light, medium, and heavy. Because of the Armor Grid and the fact that you are trying to blast your way through it, you have to take into account the shape of the damage and not simply the amount of damage... so the Damage Profile can make a big difference. Hv values are relative to the size of the weapon... heat sinks on a light laser are smaller than the heat sinks on a heavy laser. So while a heavy laser does in fact generate more heat than a light laser, it has much larger heat sinks to dissipate that heat so the relative amount of heat the Mecha has to deal with is the same. Bp cost is the primary tool for balancing the weapons... 4. Say your mech equipped with the Remote-Guided Missile System is activated first and scores a lock-on. But before you next activation that mech is destroyed (lucky shot)... Is the RGMS effect still good for the rest of the round or does it go up in smoke with the Mech? That's a very good question... one that I hope to answer with playtesting. I like the potential of both situations. If the RGMS effect ends when the Mecha is destroyed I like how the RGMS equipped Mecha becomes a "high value target" for the rest of the round. If the RGMS effect lives on when the Mecha is destroyed (the target location data has already been sent to all friendly units) then that increases the value of an RGMS... but does it increase it too much? Feel free to play it both ways and let me know which you prefer. 5. When choosing weapons, is there a specific cost to each weapon or are the costs factored into the Bp already? Could I choose to have for HardPoints of Missles and then on another mech have 4 HardPoints of Lasers? And then on the next mix and match? In the base game you simply choose weapons within the appropriate size of your Mehca... their price is included in the price of the Mehca. You may certainly mix and match... You should be mixing and matching and thinking about how the weapons work together to help you get through the target's Armor Grid. There is an Optional Rule for building custom mechs which would allow you to take smaller or fewer weapons and upgrade armor or the engine.
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