My group was feeling nostalgic for Battletech (BT) so I downloaded the Quick-Start rules, but promptly remembered why we quit playing. Should get college math credit for playing that game, and now that I think about it a 4 player game with only 1 mech each normally took hours. I would really like to field some larger forces but who has the time?
Determined to do some mech bashing somehow so I bought some clicky Mechwarrior (MW) minis. They have gotten pretty cheap, I am impressed with quality and love that they are pre-painted.
Read through the MW rules. Best part of BT was designing our own mechs and seeing how well they did, which is missing from MW. Clicky MW also does not have the same feel as BT combat. I want to blow my opponents arm off, rip open his armor, cripple his leg, not do 2 clicks of damage. MW looks OK but was not what we wanted so I kept looking. Saw some MW players talking about Mech Attack. Heck, for $5 why not give it a try?
Played our first game tonight. Two players, each had 1 heavy mech, 1 vehicle and 2 infantry, 36 points per side. Last man standing. Used an upside down cup, some CD cases and a deck of cards for terrain. Used plastic MW minis so won't comment on print and play minis. Entire game was just over an hour.
Each turn players roll initiative. I like it for a 2 player game. Love it for 3 or more.
We really enjoyed the Armor Grid system. It had the same feel as Battletech, "Oh no! You blew away my right side armor!" or "Ha ha! Shot your arm off!" with less fuss to get there. It also added an additional element of strategy as I had to choose which weapon to use, and in what order to use them. Do I use a missile and clear away layers of armor, or a laser and punch a deep hole?
Infantry was surprisingly dangerous, but not surprising, very fragile. Am curious to see how they get used in future games. Spend the points on them, or just add the points to the mechs and vehicles? They need some bunkers and foxholes maybe?
I liked the balance of skill and luck. To much luck in a game and I figure I might as well leave my phone there to play, it can generate random numbers as well as I do. No luck and it turns into chess, challenging but with few, "Wow, did you see that?!" moments. There were a number of, "Wow!" moments in our game (like my heavy mech getting finished off by an infantry squad) but I never felt I was not helping to shape the outcome by my decisions.
Looking for areas of improvement I would say the game feels like a work in progress. Rulebook could be a little more clear and go into more detail to cover more circumstances. While I do not want it to get bogged down with rules I would like to see additional options. I have an attack helicopter figure I want to do something with and in the middle of the first game we started talking about the possible ways to handle artillery.
At the moment all we have is a rules set. No pre-built units with cool names and custom artwork, (Cauldron-Born, Mad-Cat, etc) and no back story reasons behind the conflict. I am going to be checking out the BT scenario books for possible use by my group.
While it may just be a foundation at the movement, it is a sturdy one that they could build something great on top of. I look forward to many more hours of glorious battle with my tiny giant battle mechs. If you have not purchased you copy yet, what are you waiting for?
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