Now that you have seen the full battle report of our Mecha Battle at Nashcon, here are the casualty markers I made. ActionMan brought me two plastic mobile suit that he found at the bottom of the toy chest, possibly from when I was young. Since they were a little different size from the rest of the MS we were to use, I decided to chop them up and create these objectives/ markers. I painted them as a zaku or as Gundam.
For the afternoon, I planned a game of Mecha Battles using my 1/400 Gundam models. As I said in my Nashcon 2017 Part 1 post, this game is the one ActionMan was really getting excited about. Ever since I bought the Gundam Dynasty game for the Xbox, he has been very interested in the series. While I doubt that he understands all the subtleties of its universe, he loves the big mechas fighting each other to a pulp.
In a previous post about the development of Mecha Battles, I commented that the game runs too fast. It still does. I was caught in a cunnundrum: how to speed up a game whose best element is the speed.
I decided NOT to go through with my suggestions and embrace the speed of the game.
How did I managed to run a 4-hour game you asked?
A great question indeed. What I did was I split the slot into five "episode". This would allow me to show the game without making too complex too quickly.
So I came up with the idea of the "Battle of Winnipeg". This little town in Canada would serve as the background for the duel of the fates. Actionman took the side of the Principality of Zeon and Nick the Federation. I'm not too sure why he prefers Zeon (as I do). I like Char.
ActionMan once told me he liked Char because he doesn't talk all the time for no reason, like other characters.
"You have been patroling this peaceful section of Central Canada, at the start of what would be known as the Battle of Winnipeg. The enemy is near, so say military intelligence. However, they remain hidden so far. Your orders are simple: find and destroy any enemy mobile suits you encounter."
Both forces spot each other and move in for the kill.
ActionMan checks the distance for his burst gun as he tries to help his axe-wielding zaku is involved in a life and death struggle with a Federation GM.
Zeon zakus move forward to take out the enemy GM.
A firefight between the GMs and the zakus.
In the end, the Zeon won, having cleared the Federation from the field.
"The battle rages on in the woods around Winnipeg. Having scored an early victory the Principality of Zeon consolidates its gains but at that time Amuro Rey arrives leading a small force of mobile suits."
Reinforced, the Zeon had one of the new Dom, three zakus, and two mobs of infantry. Meanwhile, the Federation had Amuro in the Gundam, a Guncannon and two GMs. The Federation moved in and took advantage of the cover.
The Zeons took a lot of damage, but kept up the firefight.
This lone zaku took on the might of the Federation, but he was eventually take out, forcing the Zeon to withdraw.
Victorious, the Federation left the woods for the outer limits of Winnipeg itself.
"It is time for the big push against the city itself. Zeon High Command has a plan: take out one of the city's electrical generators. They hope to disrupt the military efficiency of the enemy. A surprise: two of the world's top aces: Amuro Rey of the Earth Federation and Char Aznable of the Principality of Zeon face off. "
The Federation forms a strong defensive line to protect the two generators.
"During the previous battle, one of the destroyed mobile suit is reported to have possessed a new prototype computer that could greatly increase combat effectiveness. Both sides move in to seize the computer and gain its valuable information for themselves! Once again Amuro and Char face each other.
Zeon moves in and finds a lot of destroyed technology! Char himself found not one, but TWO special tech.
Zeon keep up the pressure on the Federation. The two large rockets are part of the city's defense system.
This episode ended as soon as every tech elements were examined and the next episode started.
"As the fighting continues, the people of Winnipeg have banded together and built an enormous mobile suit. Their hope was to use it to destroy both enemy forces and prevent the military takeover. "
The massive mecha is destroyed as both the sides fired a massive barrage at it.
A huge firefight breaks out as char and Amuro traded shots. Amuro eventually shot down Char.
Amuro moving in to support his allies, who were in a good position.
Winnipeg was thereafter occupied by Zeonist forces.
When I started working on Mecha Battles, I needed to get some type of infantry. I looked at many of the great stuff available out there, asking my good buddy Rob from Gamers' Haven in Colorado Springs (Shout-out to Rob, Troy and Ed, miss you guys). He provided me with a number of great options and I went through and began shopping.
A day later, I happened on a number of Battletech elementals (armored infantry) in a clearance bin at a local store. For less than 5$ (incl tax) I got all the infantry I needed. I did a simple paint job on these guys: a primary color, a few highlights and a moon rock base. Simple, quick and effective.
One unit was painted in green (for the Zeon) and one unit in white (for the Federation) but they are effectively both the same.
I will tell you that I have yet to make up good rules in Mecha Battles. These guys still suck too badly. I will have to keep working on them.
Just a quick update amid the craziness of the painting and preparation for Nashcon. I really like the final design... Looks pretty appealing...
Writing this one-pager, I further simplified the rules, particularly with the use of shields.
After many many playtests of the Mecha Battles rules, the rules play very well and very fast. We played a number of games: one-vs-one, one-vs-many, many-vs-many, few-vs-many. The game runs pretty much the way I intended it to. It is fast and rather furious. And worked decently for up to 5 mechas a side, beyond that, it slows down.
We played a three mecha vs one with Kitty and the game took less than a half-hour, a good quick-game point. I was able to destroy her three mechas due to a good series of initiative cards.
The initiative system with the limited number of activations really ups the pace of the game. When playing, I find that this works very well for small-scale actions: up to 3-5 mecha per sides, more than a full-on large-scale battle. This is fine for most of the games we play at home. However, I wonder how I could use it for a larger-scale event.
So I have about two months to figure out how I can deal with this difficulty. How can I keep producing a game that mimics the dynamism of the battles found in anime shows without bogging down the game?
I have a few ideas that could accomplish this without changing the feel of the game too much. The skirmish-scale really does what I wanted to accomplish.
Could a large-scale game represent major engagements between two or more forces?
I will have to try those ideas out.
I have been toying with the idea of publishing a series of "pilot" cards that would add flavor to the game and allow a given mecha to be made better by the addition of a unique pilot. For example one could give a +1 bonus to ranged attack while another give a +1 damage, etc.
I am also toying with the idea of putting the mecha sheet on cards too, but I have to investigate how to make those and now is not the time for me to do so (cons, writing, painting) but it will happen.
This game keeps getting better and better.
JP
For this year's Nashcon on June 2-4 in Franklin Tennessee (litterally 1 exit north of my work), I am planning big! I will be putting together two miniatures games, with hints of role-playing elements. I designed these games to be played by kids (such as my own), to be quick, fun and filled with action.
It seems Nashcon is the one minis-only conventions I attend and it already has a special place because I can attend with ActionMan who served as my helper last year! We had great fun together and he remembers it fondly. Let's see what we can bring back this year. Perhaps we will do some shopping...
Lost Treasure of King M’koto
First Ones Entertainment’s JP Chapleau is bringing 16th-17th century action using 28mm miniatures using a simplified game based on "The Sword and the Flame". This game for 3-8 players is centered around bands of conquistadors, pirates and native forces searching for the Lost Treasure of legendary King M’koto. This game can be cooperative or not, and is accessible to all. The rules are quick, simple and will be explained.
Saturday June 3rd Morning 9-1
Mecha Battles: Gundam
First Ones Entertainment’s JP Chapleau is bringing the Mecha Battles rule set to the Gundam universe using 1/400 models. This game for 3-8 players who will take the side of either the Earth Federation or the Principality of Zeon fighting each other. This game can be cooperative or not, and is accessible to all. The rules are quick, simple and will be explained.
Saturday June 3rd Afternoon 2-6
It would stand to reason that most games have an initiative system based on two players where all get to do the same number of move such as Warhammer/40k and Warmachine/Hordes leading the way.
When thinking of Mecha Battles, I keep seeing these sequence where the main character goes all out and smashes like a hundred of the bad guys going on a massive tear. This is very much inspired by anime. And well, I HAVE been watching a fair amount of Gundam...
So what would be a good way to design an initiative system that would be quick and simple and allow for these random bursts of awesomeness from one character?
I came with a simple system: drawing playing cards. A system inspired by one of my favorite miniature game: Larry Brom's The Sword and the Flame. Whereas TSaTF forces a reshuffle after a joker is drawn, I decided to keep drawing from the deck, with a joker allowing the winning player (red or black) to get an extra action or bonus to all dice roll for the turn.
After play-testing this rule, I found that the player got to choose whether or not to spent his actions on one mech or spread their actions. This worked surprising well, and led to the following sequences:
- Kitty moved forward with her GMs firing into me, and downing my pink Zaku.
- I won initiative three times in a row and destroyed two of her GMs with my cannons.
- Kitty used her Gundam to rocket boost and close the distance with my Zakus. (That's the situation outlined in the picture)
- Then as she drew the next card, she thrashed me.
- My Zaku retreated and shot into Gundam
- Gundam charged again and destroyed my Zaku
- Winning initiative, I used my large cannon to destroy Gundam.
This flow of event mimics scenes from an anime show. So that part of the system does what I want to do. This lucky happening makes the game extremely dynamic.
JP
For the past few weeks, I have been revisiting and looking a number of old animes, particularly Gundam and Robotech. I have always been a big fan of big mecha fighting, the first ever show I really loved the Goldorak/ Grendizer. The animation may have been terrible, but it was still great.
A half-formed idea for an adventure quickly formed in my head. Thoughts and ideas of revisiting some of my old settings for Robotech and/or Macross II. Hopefully get the gang back together for one more hurrah. Going through my books, I reviewed the my Palladium material but found it heavy and very old. I remember even in those days, the rules were complex. With mech battles being ridiculously long (especially with mecha with auto-dodge). Then I imagined trying to explain how the game worked to the kids. So Palladium was out.
Or was it? I looked at their Robotech Tactics miniatures game. I sought to buy a few sets to see if that system could be used. However, I failed to want to drop the money to buy it. The reviews of if I
Then I did a quick check at Savage Worlds. Savage Worlds was good. But I could not find a Savage Mecha game I could quickly adapt.
I looked at the old '80s Battletech but I really hated that game... It was so slow and every game I played ended up with mechs being partially damaged all over but never a killing blow. However, I liked the simplicity of the "character sheet" with the little boxes.
Privateer Press Horde/Warmachine has a very simple and cool system to keep track of damage.
I looked at an online Gundam Battle product but found it overly complicated. Very detailed but it did not please me, I wanted something simple and quick and that was definitely not it. I wanted something that would not be specifically tied to a product (I doubt Bandai would allow me to create a Gundam Battles).
As I was looking at these, I began to wonder quite simply. Do I really want to make this a role-playing game, or a miniature game with some role-playing elements ? And the latter idea made more and more sense.
I spent time thinking about how I could make a game that would:
- Mimic the battles in Gundam and/or Robotech
- Focus on mecha vs mecha combat.
- Be quick
- Be explainable to a 7-10 year old, so simplicity.
- Although not an initial goal, the game should be expandable through the addition of pilot-specific rules.
Using a small text file, I put notes down. Added random things. In the end, I ended with something that could best be described as a proto-set of rules. Not enough to be a serious game, but enough to do a few simple game play tests.
After dinner, I called the kids to see if they wanted to play something new with my Gundam 1/400 miniatures.
They wanted to play, being very excited about this. Here is a first picture of the play test... Here, Kitty using her Command GM charges my Zaku forces. It seems dire, but she would go on and destroy two of my mobile suits and greatly damaging the next one.
