BattleTech Infantry Paradigm 2

Last time I talked about how I was creating a paradigm for deploying infantry in BattleTech and have them deployed on a one-to-one basis, just like battlemechs and vehicles. This time I want to talk about simple rules that add flavour, but don't slow down the game. These rule suggestions are based on using the models to represent numbers of men attacking, and from that easily calculate their attack value.

Sound too good to be true? No, not really, and here is how to do it.

If you look at the classic BattleTech rules one can see that pretty much a platoon of 30 men does an average of 15 points of damage. Yes, the numbers vary, but if you add them all up and divide by the number of choices it really is an average of about 15 points. Interesting that, and I wrote about this earlier here.

Modern infantry today came generally attack with a wide variety of weapons, bringing considerable firepower to bear on their targets.

So, to calculate the damage the infantry will inflict divide the total number of figures by two and that is your usual damage at the standard ranges for infantry of one, two and three hexes.

Now we can play around and assume that infantry come with anti-vehicle weapons, and to represent that attack divide the total number of men by four and round down to an even number to calculate the number of two point attacks. I'm using the same range bands as SRMs, which are three, six and nine hexes for this .

Finally, to allow for a longer range LMG attacks against other infantry we can use the same divide by four metric and again use the same ranges, but no longer need to round down to an even number.

So for example a 28 man platoon will do 14 points of attack at one, two and three hexes, which now represent a close assault melee. At ranges three, six and nine they can do seven points of attack against infantry representing normal firing. Finally, they can do six points of attack at a vehicle, or mech at ranges three, six and nine, in the standard groups of two.

Okay, this is a lot less detailed than the current CGL expanded infantry rules, but it is a lot simpler and gives the flavour of modern infantry. We shall be play-testing these in the next game.
 

BattleTech Infantry Paradigm 1

At the top are three bases each with three figures, which I think makes a good representation of a squad/section of infantry for the game. In front, on the left, is a single figure on a base to allow for casualty removal during the game.

 

One of my desires in my current campaign is to play games with more stuff on the table than the typical BattleTech game, where it is mostly mechs with the occasional vehicles, or infantry acting as speed bumps. I also want more battlemechs too, don't get me wrong, but I want infantry, vehicles artillery and air support as well. If we can have combat engineers, medics, bridging units, and other specialist toys too that would be even better.

Not that every game has to have all the toys on the table, but I want the game to be fun when they are. More stuff is after all more stuff to play with.

I'll be honest as say that infantry in BattleTech aren't much fun, unless you are an infantry gonk.

I would consider myself an infantry gonk, but my current players aren't. This makes me sad, as I want them to see the fun to be had by playing infantry. So I want to work towards a paradigm for deploying infantry when playing BattleTech on the tabletop. A paradigm being a fancy way of saying a pattern, or model of how to deploy infantry so as to act as an example that can be copied, and therefore be an exemplar for others.

I also want to have the infantry models in my games to cover the area that real infantry platoons would be expected to cover. More info on infantry platoon frontage here. You will note that a squad in real life is expected to defend an area that is about the same size that a platoon in BattleTech would occupy. However, I want to just move on to basing figures, rather than talk about the rules this time around. How I want to organise them, to meet the needs of the the game, and increase the players enjoyment when using them?

Everything else in BattleTech is represented by one model except for infantry, and I just don't like the way it looks on the table, and it puts me off playing with infantry. Therefore I base my figures on coins, and can comfortably fit three conventional infantry figures to one base.  However, I have had to base my battle armour, and jump infantry as two figures to a base, because of their size. I also use two figures on abase to represent the platoon commander, and single figures on a smaller base for casualty removal. So quite a lot of variants when you think about it, and all because I don't like one base equaling one platoon, because to me it looks wrong.

Then it is a matter of deciding what number of bases make up a squads/section? I'm thinking a minimum of two bases, and a maximum of four bases. This would allow players to face Word Of Blake six man squads/sections, or 12 man larger squads/sections, for when one wants to represent contemporary practice e.g.: British Army sections, or US Army A teams. I'm thinking two three man bases with one small mortar section of two bases for House Steiner platoons, because it allows for one up front and two back formations.

Platoon size can then be based on a minimum of two squads/sections per platoon, up to a maximum of six squads/sections, per platoon. This is really only to allow for Word of Blake/ComStar forces in BattleTech, as historically three, or four squads/sections are more usual in the real world. Generally I would expect to see platoons organised as two to four bases of figures per section, with two to four sections, giving a range of platoon sizes from four bases up to a maximum of 16 bases.

This as it stands is quite a lot of figures, but it does bring infantry into the game on an equal representational footing by keeping to the one-figure-equals-one-man basis that BattleTech uses for both vehicles and battlemechs.

Once this is in place it is easy enough to count bases and add up the attack value from that, but how I intend to do that is for the next post.
 

Epiphany & Omega

Quite recently Randall Bills blogged that 12 years ago that he had worked for a year on producing a set of tabletop miniatures rules for BattleTech quote:

"Not to mention I still have on my hard drive, 12 years later, the fully play-tested and developed BattleTech Omega rules set that utterly reshaped BattleTech into a pure tabletop miniatures game, tossing the entire current game system out the door.  A rules set a year in the making and at the end I spent almost a month of 12+ hour days finalizing…all that work and effort and it never saw the light of day."

No CGL employee wants to comment on Omega, other than to say Quick Strike is better and trust us, we are professionals.  Fair enough, but that rather leaves Omega open to idle gossip and speculation.

My own experience of writing a rule set is that one can easily spend a year working on a book, have something that plays well with the play testers, then take it to print only to find that one has produced a game that no one really wants to buy and play.

Rick Priestly, funnily enough, has written a piece in Wargames, Soldiers & Strategy this month on why there are so few second editions of rules?

I quite like WS&S, though I prefer Battlegames for my wargame magazine fix. However, I always browse WS&S, and buy it when a good article catches my eye.

However, I don't think that Mr Priestly is right, because I can think of lots of games that have gone into multiple editions.  BattleTech and Ogre just happening to be two of my favourites, and neither can be written off as garage/back of shed productions either.

Anyway, coming back to CGL and Omega, I interpret "trust us" means that they didn't think the rules would sell, and "good reasons" stands for "this wasn't the game we wanted."

I say this because I think that the thing that stood out for me was when Randall Bills said that the "rule set utterly reshaped BattleTech into a pure tabletop miniatures game...".

That rang several warning bells to me.

First off, while the BattleTech miniature rules that were printed in the past make a fair stab of converting the hex based wargame into a tabletop wargame, to me it is very clear that the writers backgrounds are in board-games.

The next thing that springs to mind is that when BattleTech was originally designed it was inspired by Japanese animation. I'm currently watching a fansub* of Fang of the Sun Dougram, and it is interesting to compare the game with one of the shows that were around at the time.

My partner and I find ourselves making comments while watching Fang of the Sun Dougram like, "oh look a death from above attack just like in BattleTech", or "oh look a head hit" etc., etc.. The story of Fang of the Sun Dougram has those elements that Jordan Weisman didn't like, namely the youngish cast of characters that typifies the Japanese obsession with youth, and the changing of society values.

So, my point here being that BattleTech was inspired by anime** and captures the essence of what made such shows attractive to audiences. If one forgets to touch base with what makes something attractive, one can easily forget the core values.

So what are the core values of BattleTech? In my opinion they are:

It is a game where you play the pilot of a giant walking combat machine.

It is a game where the heroes are game changers, even if defeated, or broken by events.

Hence from the start BattleTech has the feel of an RPG. It is a universe where armour is better than guns, because that was a way of keeping the heroes alive in the game. The whole weapons range thing that bugs so many people is again driven by the need to keep things up-close and personal.

Change these things and one is in peril of losing the things that makes the game appealing.

All of this serendipitously connects to what I've been writing about in three recent blog posts. The first on scale conundrums, followed by more about scale, and hexes versus terrain all discuss the various problems that come from trying to convert a hex based board-game into a tabletop miniatures wargame.

Nothing I'm writing is particularly novel, or even Earth shatteringly inspiring, but it remains something that is worth discussing all the same, because taking it all for granted just leaves us playing mindlessly.

Bottom line it all comes down to what is the game all about? What is the story being told?

The answers to these questions will determine ground and time scales, combat resolution, and how the game feels and plays. This is why I started my own BattleTech house rules called Epiphany, because it came from a light bulb moment "Keep It Simple".

*fansub: a fan produced subtitled translation of the original Japanese language broadcast.

**anime Japanese animation shows.

Mummerset Reflection & Overview

It has been more than a year since I last ran a game, which makes me ask what do I and the players want, or expect from playing the game? A better question perhaps is what makes it so hard to run regular games? 

I guess that as I no longer go to a games club each week the opportunity to play games is reduced, and that all of us have jobs and family commitments, which all leads to less games played. I will have to think about a new plan of action that addresses this problem, as the current one is not delivering the goodies.

Some of players have asked me is the Mummerset campaign based on Vietnam? 

No, not really, though it has some shout outs to Vietnam, like airborne formations and riverine operations. The genesis of the Mummerset campaign is rooted in the inter war period, especially the Spanish Civil War, with bits taken from the Russian Civil War. 

I like the whole feel of the period with its ad hoc use of armour, and mix of old and modern tactical doctrines. And yes House Steiner is a nod towards the German support for Franco, as played by General Whales. 

Saying that though, the campaign is not meant, or set as a Nazi Germany parable. The real villains are a blast from the past that have only just been revealed.

The campaign falls under Operation Sandbox, because it is my sandbox where I can kick around ideas. 

I use BattleTech rules, but these really focus on battlemech combat, and presents a vision of combat that is rooted by the constraints of being board game based. My goal is to develop rules to help speed up the amount of time each turn takes, and play games where the focus of the game is on combined arms where the battlemech is important, but doesn't work alone. 

The focus is also on playing with the miniatures on nice terrain too.

Currently I want to polish up the artillery rules, and write them up for the blog.

Then I want to work more on the infantry rules, which are proving to be problematical. This seems to be down to a combination of the size of the figures, which makes them hard to see clearly, and a lack of understanding of how to deploy infantry in BattleTech? 

The basic BattleTech rules for infantry are really rather simple, all things considered. Platoons get an attack value based on size and weapons. It all leads to rather bloody combat. 

I want to get players to enjoy deploying infantry, rather than them being some after thought that gets in the way of the battlemech action. I can see that I'm going have to rethink the organisation into squads/sections and make it easier for the players to understand and use.

When we do the next AAR role-play debrief, and plan the next phase of the campaign, I will sit and talk through the problems the players are having with using infantry. Meanwhile I shall go and jot down some notes and think about how to base the figures so that the organisation tracks both the number of casualties, and allows one to calculate the attack values without having to use a record sheet.

Finally, I've been thinking about using the BattleTech introductory rules from the box set that eliminates all the critical hits and internal structure from play. 

However, a part of me loves the detail, so I'm caught by the desire for fast, yet at the same time, detailed games of giant battlemechs fighting it out. I know that if you reduce the stats for the battlemech too far you end up with something like BattleForce. 

Quite frankly this doesn't satisfy me as it seems to me that there is still too much paperwork, with none of the atmosphere that comes from the details of playing a regular game of BattleTech.

I enjoy the feel of a game where the battlemechs are having bits & pieces shot off and degrading slowly under fire. If I can keep that, and get the game to run with a battalion per side in under four hours per game, I will have cracked it.
  

BattleTech 3.0: Epiphany Update

 

  
Previously on Paint it Pink I did a post called BattleTech 3.0: Epiphany that laid out some ideas that are worth repeating when it comes to making a fast play variant of the game.

This update is driven by the recent Catalyst games Battlechat with Herb Beas, the Line Developer for BattleTech, where he made it know that in 2015 there will be a new box set with quicker play rules for small actions. Now whether this will be combined arms games was not clarified during the Battlechat, but I can't see how it would be unreasonable to assume that the rules wouldn't allow for for this.

Anyway, no point speculating too much on what was a very sparse, one-liner.

More important I need to update my campaign groups experience from the number of games we have been playing over the last couple of years where we have fielded what are quite large numbers of model and played games to a full resolution within three to fours hours over an afternoon. As a reminder you can find all the Operation Sandbox Mummerset Campaign reports here.

Reviewing the Guidelines

1. For board games keep movement as cost per hex, but double the firing range. 

No, we didn't stick to that. Instead we had one movement point equal two inches, and ranges of weapons were based on the same metric.

2. For movement now all units just count the number of hexes (board-game), or inches moved (tabletop), and add a free facing change at the end of the turn only. 

We never played the quickplay on hex maps, as I've always set the game up on my terrain boards, but otherwise yes this worked.

3. Roll one pair of 2D6 (change to 4D6 and discard two results) for combat to calculate whether or not all the weapons that the unit has hit or miss. 

No, this didn't work out, because it was skewing results in the short term with either all hits, or all misses being generated. Instead ended up I colour coding all the weapons on the players record sheets and gave them matching pairs of dice to use.

4. Roll one pair of 2D6 ( change to 4D6 and discard two results) for all the missile weapons fired to get an average of number of missiles hit.

Didn't work out, and instead we used the simpler mechanic of using dice with the number of faces equal to the number of missile e.g.: use a D4 for and SRM4 etc., half a D10 for a D5 for an LRM5 and so on.

5. Ammo explosions are calculated as the value of one round of the ammo cooking off when they explode. However, after applying the internal damage, roll again on 2D6 (the usual roll of plus eight) to see if more critical damage is done to the mech (if the ammo bay is hit again, this too will explode one round and so on). 

This worked pretty much as expected.

6. Ferro-fibrous armour, endo-steel count and empty slots count as valid locations for an internal hit and need not be re-rolled.

Still out for the count. What we do is roll a D12 for the internal locations to save all the time having to re-roll D6s for results that are invalid.

7. Head hits do not automatically kill the pilot, instead the auto-pilot is assumed to eject the pilot, unless of course there is no ejection system or auto-eject is turned off for some reason. Pilots only die from wounds received. 

No problems.

8. Initiative to be governed by using cards, which will randomise what moves when during a turn.

Of all the things we did, this was the one that really changed the dynamic of the game by removing the optimum move search, as players realised that there was no longer an optimum move, as one had to make the most of the tactical situation as it was handed to you.

9. Introductory Rules to be used as the jump off point with the minimum amount or rules from other books as necessary.

Definitely the thing that drives quicker games.
   

Card Decks for Epiphany

  

I was asked in the previous blog how I decided what cards to design for using with BattleTech?

The answer is actually by trial and error, though at the time I started I thought I had worked out what I needed and that it wouldn't need correcting. How wrong can one be? Hubris I'm sure. Anyway, I thought that the question deserved an answer, if only so that others can make their own mistakes and not repeat mine, which is always a good things to do.

I started by having a pack of cards that were made up for TooFat Lardies Through the Mud and the Blood and Charlie Don't Surf games that I got from ArtsCow that had been graciously posted as being freely available to anyone who wanted to buy a set. Unfortunately, I don't think I can return the favour as I've used some imagery for my sets from Catalyst Games Limited, and therefore my sets fall under personal use only, so you will have to make your own. Having a pack of cards to look at allowed me to at leat think about what I might need.

So the first thing I did was make a list of all the mechs I had and to what factions they belonged.

Obviously, if you are not fussed about factions, or just want a card for very mech you own as a generic card, then I can't see why one couldn't just make up a deck with all the different mechs you own, or want to play with. Though I'm not a big faction fan, I do have all my mechs assembled into units that I think match each other in some way. So all my Dougram bipedal mechs are in my Pink Panthers Battalion, while the Dougram quads are in my House Steiner unit, along with faction specific mechs like the Zeus.

My House Kurita unit is made up from models from the Macross show UN Spacey forces, while my House Marik unit has Marauders from Macross and Locusts from Crusher Joe, mostly because I think that a unit should look like all the units came from one design philiosophy. YMMV.

So, where was I? Ah yes, making lists. I then added some extra cards to the pack. These included two what I call "vent" cards. When both of these are drawn the turn ends. Given that they are shuffled into the pack at random this means that some turns can be very short, or you can run through the whole pack on occasion, but by and large you only get through about two thirds of a deck. So not every unit in the deck will move every turn.

This mechanism generates a lot of extra tactical problems for players, and yet at the same time it simplifies things. The first thing is that you can't be sure when the vent card is going to appear, but as soon as one does then you know that the turn could end on the next draw of the cards. This strangely makes it a lot easier to move units as over planning stuff by micro managing doesn't work when you can't guarantee what you will be able to move in a turn. This also speeds up the turns.

At first I planned on giving all units a card, but since this is BattleTech, a game about battlemechs, I decided to make all vehicles and infantry move by platoon. However, after the first game it became apparent that battle armour is better moved by squads, as each squad is effectively equivalent to an infantry platoon in defence and offensive capabilities.

For artillery I again had a card per battery, but wrote on the cards that they could either move or fire. Now most of the time artillery will be off board, but given I was going to allow counter battery fire, adding in the option seemed like a good idea at the time. Unfortunately, not yet play tested, but I imagine it will happen at the next game. I also added a forward observers card so that one could call in the artillery. This allows one to dispense with tracking how many turns the fire takes to arrive, as all too frequently what happens is that the artillery cards are drawn before the forward observer card and when it is drawn no more artillery arrives before the vent cards are drawn to end the turn. Neat huh?

Finally, I added special cards. First of were cards blind movement, again not yet play tested, but in principle one will be able to move units as blinds, which are not revealed until spotted, fired upon, or when they fire with a certain amount of dummy blinds to add to the confusion. Then I added a special event card that could be scenario specific, and a faction specific card. For the House Steiner unit this was the "wall of steel" that makes all the units fire when it is used at the expense of being able to move, and of course the units can fire again at the end of the turn as well. Assuming the player manages the heat build up of course. I plan to have a House Kurita "banzai" when I make up a pack for them at some point. I will have to think what special stick I can assign House Marik though? Suggestions welcome if anyone has any ideas. And I think that is it?

Not quite, I remembered I also made cards for air strikes, which we play tested as if they were artillery strikes. That didn't work out all that well, so the use is going to be changed to when the card is drawn it can be used there and then, but afterwards it has to be discarded from the deck. This is to represent the limited amount of air power available in the campaigns and the fact that aircraft have to go back to re-arm and refuel between sorties.

So, I made a couple of decks up and I then had to go back and make a couple more decks up from the refinements that came from play testing the idea. Ideas for variant cards become quite addictive as one thinks if I had a card that did this? So this is not something for people who want a ready to go answer as making cards, by whatever process, will require some play testing and modifications to meet your needs, but I for one will not be going back to games without cards for controlling movement and length of turns, because for me it has just made the game so much more fun to play.
   

Epiphany Cards

As I said in an earlier blog entry I would come back and describe the card system that we have implemented for playing with BattleTech. The goal for using the cards was to remove the control players had over the order they move their units in and too replace the certainty of knowing one would always have one spare unit to move last if one had won the initiative.

By replacing the you move one unit and then I move one unit with a random order of movement system one has to deal with the battle developing from chaos into order, rather than having control from the get go.

The way the cards work was shamelessly stolen from TooFat Lardies games, in particular their Charlie Don't Surf  and Through the Mud and the Blood rules. At first I found the need for cards off putting. Why oh why not have some simpler mechanism driven by dice? However, after playing Terrible Sharp Sword, an American Civil War supplement for their Sharp Practice at Salute this year I was taken by the flexibility that the addition that cards bring to a game.

So I set out to make some cards of my own, and not satisfied with using standard playing cards with sticky labels stuck on them I took advantage of a Hong Kong based playing card maker called ArtsCow who do print on demand cards set to one's own specification.

So I made up a list of all the units that I wanted to be able to field for my campaign, used ArtsCow's online Silverlight design package and got my first two sets of cards made up for my Mummerset campaign, which you can see a selection of in the picture at the top of the post.

I also stole another idea from TooFat Lardies, the idea of a variable length turn that is governed by what they call the "tea break" card, but for BattleTech I'm calling the "vent" card. I use two of these for the game shuffled into the pack. One ignores the first draw, but the turn ends when the second one is drawn. This means that turns can have lots of units being moved, or very few units being moved, and it is all down to the luck of the cards.

Besides the vent cards and the various different unit cards each side has, I also added other specials. For instance artillery barrages that need a forward observer to be called in, and again the order that the cards are drawn in matters. If the forward observer card comes first then the players keep it until the time when the artillery barrage card is drawn, and can then use it to designate a target. If on the other hand the artillery barrage card is drawn first and there is no forward observer card to use, then the artillery barrage doesn't happen.

I've also added a House Steiner "Wall of Steel" card that allows the Steiner side to fire when the card is drawn, and fire again at the end of the turn, but at the cost of losing movement for all battlemechs that haven't yet moved that turn. However, this is a very powerful special card and after the game we decided that once the Steiner player uses it, the card is then discarded from the deck.

Other cards include "airstrike" and moving on "blinds". Airstrikes work a bit like an artillery barrage and a special event, so the airstrike doesn't require a forward observer card to use, but once used is discarded from the deck. Blinds are for hidden movement. Each side will be able to deploy as hidden identity, with a number of dummy blinds as well. Units on blinds are revealed if observed on a roll of 8+ on 2D6, when the unit on the blind fires, or if it is fired upon.

No doubt I will think of other special event cards, for instance "Banzai" for House Kurita, and add them to packs of cards I will need to design for my other BattleTech forces I have, but at the moment I'm concentrating on only adding stuff I need for the campaign, so I will need to think about House Marik next.
   

Epiphany Play Test Review

   
This is a review of the Epiphany game rules we used to play the Battle for South Boring with notes and amendments from our discussion on how the game went.

Guideline 1: Amended to movement and range now to be two inches per hex/movement point equivalent. Needs further play testing.

For the game we used two inches per hex for movement, and doubled the range of the weapons to four inches per hex. This played a lot better than using one inch per hex for both weapons and movement, which is what we had done in earlier games, but it had the effect of putting everything into short range.

Guideline 2: No changes were deemed necessary as the game played well with this house rule. So movement is now just measuring the distance and having a free facing change at the end for all units.

The modified movement rules really sped up play a lot with minimal loss of tactical flavour.

Guideline 3: Amended to we will colour code the weapons on the record sheets, use one matching die for each colour, plus one die for the base roll that all the weapons will share for their targeting solution. So still one roll, but many dice, so needs to be play tested.

We started the game by rolling 4D6 and discarding the two lowest results to calculate whether or not all the weapons for a unit has hit or missed, but it became apparent we didn't need to stack the rolls for the players. However, on reflection we didn't on balance like the all miss, or hit effect this produced.

Guideline 4: Roll 4D6 and discard highest and lowest results for all the missile weapons fired to get an average of number of missiles hit e.g: you fire five LRM launchers of say three fives, and two 10s, you would then roll on the 35 missile to hit table, rather than for each launcher in turn.

We kind of fumbled this, so it needs to be properly play tested, which we will do next time.

Guideline 5: Ammo explosions are calculated as the value of one round of the ammo cooking off when they explode. However, after applying the internal damage, roll again on 2D6 (the usual roll of plus eight) to see if more critical damage is done to the mech (if the ammo bay is hit again, this too will explode one round and so on).

Not tested as no mech suffered a critical hit to the ammo, so again this guideline needs to be properly play tested, which will hopefully happen next time.

Guideline 6: No change to Ferro-fibrous armour, endo-steel count and empty slots count as valid locations for an internal hit and need not be re-rolled.

Happened a few times, didn't seem to affect the game balance either.

Guideline 7: No change to head hits do not automatically kill the pilot, instead the auto-pilot is assumed to eject the pilot, unless of course there is no ejection system or auto-eject is turned off for some reason. Pilots only die from wounds received.

People like this, even though the only pilots that ejected were the enemy, when Dan was hit in the head he appreciated the fact that had it all gone terribly wrong his pilot character would have survived.

Guideline 8: Initiative to be governed by using cards, which will randomise what moves when during a turn.

While there were some problems with some of the special cards, and how to use them without unbalancing some aspects of the game, but in principle this was the outstanding success of the Epiphany game guideline changes, as it really was a game changer.

For instance I lost count of how many turns we played after we got to turn seven in the first 90 minutes of playing. What was really good was that it eliminated up the tactical dithering that plagues most games of BattleTech, as you really didn't know when the turn would end as the it was based on the draw of the cards. I will explain the cards more in a separate post.

Guideline 9: No changes needed to the idea that we just use the Introductory Rules as the jump off point with the minimum amount of extra rules from other books as necessary.

If you can't remember a rule, or it can't be added to a record sheet, or quick reference sheet, then for all practical purposes it doesn't happen in the game, as it slows down the game to be constantly referring to rule books during a game.

BattleTech Infantry

I've been painting infantry today, and yesterday, and the day before. Surprising how long it takes to paint a load of infantry, when it the bigger scheme of things I'm only painting a couple of hundred troops per side. Mind you in BattleTech terms that is a pretty large infantry force, but when one steps back not so much in the broader scheme of things.

Anyway, not going to write about the numbers being painted, rather about some thoughts I've had on playing with said infantry tomorrow. If you play BattleTech you kind of know that everything has a record sheet.  I'm okay with that for mechs, can live with it for vehicles, but even then I want to simplify the records sheets down some more, but plain infantry it just bugs me to do the paperwork.

So I had a thought, like one does when one is cogitating stuff as one is painting, and I think I can simplify the paperwork for infantry by throwing it out. See it doesn't get simpler than that does it? No seriously, use the bases to keep track of the infantry, and either use dice as casualty markers, or base the infantry so that one can remove bases. I mean this is done all the time as standard in miniature wargames, so let's apply the idea to BattleTech is what I say.

As for calculating damage I'm going to use the rule of thumb that each infantry man is worth half an attack point, add up by squad, section or platoon and round down, and that is the number of attack points they do; in groups of two as per the standard rules. The difference between a rifle armed infantry versus rockets launchers, or laser armed men will be range, mg units will get a 1D6 bonus against other infantry, and flamers will catch stuff on fire as per the standard rules. Swarm attacks are calculated exactly the same way, but the damage is applied to the legs of the mech, or the transmission of the vehicle. I think this keeps infantry nice and simple, but still effective when used properly, but we shall see tomorrow what happens when the guys go to it.

As a result of this brainwave I realise that I now have to make up some infantry bases for my militia with two figures per base and mix these with the three man bases I have, which will double the number of platoons that I have. Now the question is would it be reasonable to treat four platoons as two Company's and therefore call them Battalions? Especially considering I'm going to be adding APCs, and helicopters for transporting the troops with integral artillery and some tanks to make a fairly formidable combine arms team. Let me know your thoughts on this?
 

BattleTech 3.0: Epiphany

   

This is not a review of the 25th Anniversary box set, as quite frankly it doesn't need a review from me to add to what has already been said by others. 

However, if you are thinking of getting into BattleTech then this is the current entry level product. In short it has everything you need to play BattleTech in one big box, which is full of goodies to get you going. I can't recommend it more highly than that. Everything else the CGL do is just icing on the cake, and can be dipped into if you are so inclined.

After that plug I'm bringing this blog back down to playing BattleTech. So going back, or round-and-round like a gerbil in a hamster wheel (depending on how you look at what I write here in my blog?), are some of the ideas on how to play quicker games of BattleTech, as I've talked about in previous blog posts that have evolved out of playing the game for more years than I care to remember. 

The manifesto for any House rules for speeding up the playing speed of BattleTech were:

1. Must not conflict with BattleTech's construction rules.

2. Must use BattleTech record sheets.

3. Must feel like a simpler version of BattleTech.

4. Must be compatible with all pre-generated unit designs that exist now.

5. Must allow two or more players control six units each, and play four turns an hour.

6. Must cater for combined armed games that play quickly.

Guidelines

1. For board games keep movement as cost per hex, but double the firing range. For miniature gaming make each hex equal to four inches, but movement points only equal to two inches.   

Reason: to balance the emphasis on manoeuvre from simplified facing changes with firing range while speeding up play.

2. For movement now all units just count the number of hexes (board-game), or inches moved (tabletop), and add a free facing change at the end of the turn only. Quad mechs can move sideways down the line of the hex, or just step side-ways in tabletop miniature games, effectively retaining their side-slip advantage.  

Reason: taking a leaf out of MechWarrior: Age of Darkness quick play.

Addendum: this effectively adds three movement points to all mechs and vehicle, which compensates for doubling the range of the weapons.

3. Roll one pair of 2D6 (change to 4D6 and discard two results) for combat to calculate whether or not all the weapons that the unit has hit or miss.  

Reason: reduce number of die rolls, which means quicker fire resolution. 

Addendum: modified in light of discussion below.

4. Roll one pair of 2D6 (change to 4D6 and discard two results) for all the missile weapons fired to get an average of number of missiles hit e.g: you fire five LRM launchers of say three fives, and two 10s, you would then roll on the 35 missile to hit table, rather than for each launcher in turn.  

Reason: replaces boxes of dice with one table and remove design artifacts that can affect game balance from game play and resolve damage quicker.

Addendum: modified in light of discussion below. 

5. Ammo explosions are calculated as the value of one round of the ammo cooking off when they explode. However,  after applying the internal damage, roll again on 2D6 (the usual roll of plus eight) to see if more critical damage is done to the mech (if the ammo bay is hit again, this too will explode one round and so on).   

Reason: reduce number of times dice need to be rolled and therefore speed up the game, but still allows for catastrophic explosions.

6. Ferro-fibrous armour, endo-steel count and empty slots count as valid locations for an internal hit and need not be re-rolled.

Reason: to again reduce number of times dice need to be rolled and therefore speed up the game.

7. Head hits do not automatically kill the pilot, instead the auto-pilot is assumed to eject the pilot, unless of course there is no ejection system or auto-eject is turned off for some reason. Pilots only die from wounds received.  

Reason: emphasis on heroic RPG, rather than pure wargame play.

8. Initiative to be governed by using cards, which will randomise what moves when during a turn.

Reason: stop gamesmanship and calculating the best unit to move last, which slows down the game.

Addendum: further discussion on principles to be dealt with in a future blog entry.

9. Introductory Rules to be used as the jump off point with the minimum amount or rules from other books as necessary.

Reason: when in doubt, less is more.

Let the discussion begin...

Reflecting Progress 3

  

I've been working on some of the serried ranks of toy soldiers that I have on my shelf awaiting some brush love. This includes the MechWarrior: Dark Age/Age of Darkness clix figures that are a good match for Pendraken's 10mm range, which I'm now using for my infantry in BattleTech games. What I have is 9 platoons of figures waiting for me to progress them further along the route to being deployed in a game. That's about 300 figures, give or take.

Four of the platoons are made up as specialist weapons. Either snipers, rocket launchers, heavy lasers, and flame thrower platoons. I just finished basing the remaining sniper and flamethrower figures this weekend, and when I have primed them, added a bit more texture to the bases, and drybrushed the base coat, all of the platoons will be at the same stage of incompleteness.

BattleTech works around 28 men platoons, but I've only used 27 figures, as my feeling is that two sections of 13 men, with a commander feels right to me. However, part of me thinks that a platoon of specialist weapons is not the way they would be fielded in real life. Okay, BattleTech is not real life, but what I mean is how does on deploy such assets on the field of battle?

My instinct suggests that one would assign either squads, or sections as support to generic infantry platoons. Squads being six men, and sections 13 men. However, this may be a bit too 20th Century of me, and perhaps I need to think a bit more laterally about the ORBATs?

Anyway, I also have two 21 man jump infantry platoons, and two 21 man, and one 36 man, battle armour platoons. at the same stage of the painting production line that I have. The latter 36 man platoon is a Word of Blake Purifier battle armour unit. So, all in all, quite a lot of infantry requiring painting.

My original plan was to use all the infantry with my Demi-Brigade armour formation that I have, but my intent now is to have only battle armour or jump troops to go with the vehicles and all the plain infantry will form the basis for a generic planetary militia defense force. With this in mind I have assembled support platoons for the specialist infantry platoons, and plan to expand my generic infantry from one platoon, to as many as I need.

A figure I've not yet worked out, but probably at least one generic platoon per specialist platoon, but I might end up having two generic platoons per specialist one. We shall see how I feel in due course, after fielding some formations in a game or two. Another option is to have Company combat groups with generic infantry, specialist and integrated support and artillery assets all together. Might work quite well in fact.

The support platoons will be made up of mechanised infantry. These are defined under the BattleTech rules as infantry who fight from light vehicles; jeeps, quad bikes etc. The artillery assets will be made up of sections of mortars, heavy machine guns, light towed artillery auto-cannons, and gauss rifle battery's. In addition, I have a rocket battery's based up too. All a bit ad hoc, but this only adds to the charm of planetary defense militia.