Kickstarter campaign has been launched!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gangfightgames/mechadrome-heavy-metal-combat

New Update! As requested, here are the pics of the 3D print for the 28mm scale Terran Light Mech This is available now in the campaign, not a stretch goal!



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Mechadrome is a fast paced skirmish game for 2 or more players, set far in future when man and alien have come together to watch as their favorite teams do battle with giant robots in brutal arenas. The game has been under development for the last couple of years, and some of you may have seen the WIP post I have going in my Gangfight Games forum here. Now I'm ready to start showing it off to the world, to start building a little buzz prior to the Kickstarter campaign coming in March

The game features a variety of races, each with their own Mech designs. We're starting with the "Terran Light Mech" which is pictured above. There will be 4 different bodies with different leg positions, plus a variety of different weapon arms so you can design your own mechs easily, or use the cards in the starter sets and build your models based on the official teams and pilots. It's a "heroic 15mm" scale game, but the light mechs will all be around 30mm tall, and go up from there. The light and medium mechs will be metal models, the heavy mechs will most likely be resin.

You can download the rules on my site at http://www.gangfightgames.com/mechadrome/, and you can also find more info about the official teams and races. The first 2 teams in the game will be the Terran Titans, a ranged team with lots of guns and Team Bushido, a melee oriented team. Here are some 3D renders showing the mechs & weapon loadouts you'll get in each set:





Also, here's some concept art for the other races in the game..

Martian Medium Mech


Aphid Light Mech


Bionic Heavy Mech


I'll be sharing more info as I get more stuff together for the Kickstarter campaign. I'll also be posting more info on my site as well so feel free to follow along there too

The Terran Light Mech is adorable. If I had a 2' tall version of one of those to put in our living room my wife probably wouldn't want a third kid.

Is it going to be arena based, or do you have free reign with terrain etc. ?

Is there going to be a 'season' team building mechanic? Something like bloodbowl?

I like the Terran titans, but why are the bushido exactly the same. Japanese based would look differently.

I am not impressed by the alien mecha, they look generic.

It's going to be arena based, but you also have free reign with what you make your arenas out of. I'm going for a "city fight" feel, most arenas are old blown up cities. But they could also be martian or moon canyons, alien forests, ice mesas, whatever you want

I was planning to do seasons, but they would be expansions basically. There would be a small book and a couple of new races or mech designs. But the future seasons will depend on what gets unlocked in the first campaign, since that will be "season 1"

As far as the 2 team's mechs, they are both human-based teams thus they drive Terran (human) mechs. I'm thinking of it like space marines in 40k. You can have Ultramarines and Blood Angels both wearing the same power armor, but they are painted different colors and have different fighting styles. Its kind of the same idea here. There will also be multiple martian teams, and other races.. and if you build your own team from scratch you can use whatever mechs you want to use.. even mechs from other games if you want to, though I prefer you use mine

I don't know about anyone else, but the alien concept art has my interest. Hoping to see an option to get just the aliens and rulebook, or trade terran stuff for more aliens.

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
I like the Terran titans, but why are the bushido exactly the same. Japanese based would look differently.

I dunno about "look differently". If modern Japan is any indication, could be as simple as adding an imperial seal or dressing one of them up like Domokun.

 solkan wrote:

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
I like the Terran titans, but why are the bushido exactly the same. Japanese based would look differently.

I dunno about "look differently". If modern Japan is any indication, could be as simple as adding an imperial seal or dressing one of them up like Domokun.

I see but even if they are just different teams they should have some extra bits to differentiate them. (how about sponsors? maybe differentiate them that way)

 Necros wrote:
. It's a "heroic 15mm" scale game, but the light mechs will all be around 30mm tall, and go up from there.

That's disappointing. If those mechs were around SM Dreadnought-sized, I would be all over them.

Yes every team has a sponsor or are owned by someone, just like a sports team now. The Terran Titans are sponsored by the Terran Confederation, basically earth's government & military. Team Bushido is sponsored by the Mitsufuji Corporation. Some planetary governments sponsor teams to show off their latest weapons, some sponsors are just in it to make money.

For the sizes, a light mech will be 30mm tall, mediums around 40mm and heavies 50mm. So heavies will be about the same size as a dreadnought or Warmachine jack. And, some day, maybe we can do superheavies too But I don't want to get too far ahead of myself.

What I'm planning to do with the Kickstarter is start with these light mechs for the funding goal. The first stretch goal will be the terran medium mechs, followed by the heavy mech, then we'll start a new race and do light, medium then heavy and rinse & repeat. You'll be able to pick whatever starter sets you want at the end or add-on for other models.

Also when we do unlock the medium mechs then every starter set will get an automatic upgrade to have 1 medium & 4 lights, rather than 5 lights like now. That was how I wanted the sets to be at first but I want to make sure I offer what I can afford to at the beginning, and that'll keep the funding goal lower too.

I'm also going to be working with Proxie models to get some plastic terrain kits done, and I'll be using their bases too.

 Jehan-reznor wrote:

 solkan wrote:

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
I like the Terran titans, but why are the bushido exactly the same. Japanese based would look differently.

I dunno about "look differently". If modern Japan is any indication, could be as simple as adding an imperial seal or dressing one of them up like Domokun.

I see but even if they are just different teams they should have some extra bits to differentiate them. (how about sponsors? maybe differentiate them that way)

Then again, if you look at the PDF sample rules, the illustration on pages 34 showing Team Bushido does look differ remarkably from the "team shown by different logo patch" sample renders. It'll be interesting to see if that's a character model option or something else.

Originally, each team was going to have their own mech designs, but when we got to the sculpting phase I decided it would be best (and most affordable for me) to have the mechs based on the race. So now Bushido drives human mechs since they're a human team, and the Voidspace Buccaneers are going to be a 3rd human team with a space pirate theme. I left the bushido art in the book for now but that's going to be replaced either with renders or all new art soon.

But, their mech art isn't going to waste. I'll be using them for some of the first Free Agents, who are pilots who can join any team and each free agent will have their own custom mech or special upgrades or weapons you don't see in the standard teams.

I did have the light bushido sculpted originally, but I just liked how the Terran came out so much better. Here's what the bushido looked like before. I'm going to be reworking the sculpt a bit to try and get it to match the look & feel dave did for the terrans a little more

Necros, this looks really good. How many arms / missile pods are you going to offer with each Mech?

Have you thought about a mouse-pad-like playmat for the arena?

I'm going to grab the rules, but do you have campaign growth in the rules?

Thanks, this looks interesting!

Thanks I am planning campaigns actually, but more like an escalation league. You start off with a starter set and after each battle you gain 1 fame point if you lose or 2 if you win, and you use those fame points to add new mechs to your team. This could be done like XP though, where you have the same pilot upgrading to a fancier/heavier Mech. I'm still playing around with campaign ideas, I wasn't going to have that in the main rulebook, it was going to be an optional PDF or booklet. I want to keep the main book short & sweet so the game is easier to get into for new players.

Currently there's 5 guns and 4 melee weapons, I'll put together a pic with 3D renders of all the bits But for guns we have 2 versions of Chainguns (long & stubby barrel versions), plasmaguns, railguns and blaster pistols. Melee weapons are the Crusherfist, Buzzsaw, Jackhammer and Siege Drill. There's just 1 top turret for a missile pod right now, eventually I'll add more as we unlock new sculpts. I'd like to do a stubby mortar turret, and maybe a double-blaster turret. Also planning to do RPG style missile arms and a Powerblade that will be like a sword.

There's also optional Booster Jets pieces that you can stick onto the backs, so you can hop over terrain or land on rooftops, but they would take the place of one of your weapon slots. And for the shoulder armor plates there are 2 plain plates, and a right plate with the Terran Titans emblem and the Team Bushido emblem. Also thinking about doing optional left plates too, like maybe military ranks or something like that?

I'm still trying to think up ideas for arena floors. I was thinking of doing a printed 6-panel fold out game board that would be double sided. Or maybe separate 12" board squares? I looked into the mouse matts before and they seemed kind of expensive.. but then the printed boards are pricey too unless I can print them in the thousands. So that's all kind of up in the air right now. I want to get started focusing on the minis and then modular buildings and then take it from there

Some folks have asked to see all of the components that will be a part of the Terran Light Mechs. I will probably have my 3D prints in hand on Wednesay or Thursday, so in the meantime I did some 3D renders of every piece. Here they are You should be able to click it to zoom in.



Also, in other news, the new domain name is finally up and running, so you can just go to http://www.mechadrome.com to get my site, but also gangfightgames.com and blackwatergulch.com will also all take you there too like always

I'll take some photos of the 3D prints as soon as I get them. More to come!

Minor update.. I just got the art for the new Aphid Medium mech. Here he is. I also updated the rulebook PDF with the new art on the aphid race page.



I was hoping the 3D prints would have come today, but UPS decided to be slow. Oh well, hopefully tomorrow

Those terrans would make some VERY interesting proxies for 40K Centurions!

Eric

These guys might actually be a little too small for dreadnoughty sized things, they'll be more about as tall as a space marine but bulkier. They would probably be better not-terminatores. The medium and heavy mechs will have a similar design though, and they will be bigger, so those may be a better option. We're going to keep the basic body we have now, but add bigger legs and broader shoulders, so like the medium and heavy will have space on top for 2 missile pods with one over each shoulder, but the same weapon arms. The light & medium arms will fit on heavies too, but they might look too small, so we'll be doing separate heavy weapon arms too.

I've been kind of thinking about how to handle the heavy weapons though, and was thinking they might look better as 2-handed weapons, kind of like a space marine with a heavy bolter. So standard weapons would be a whole arm, heavy weapons would need 2.. and that works for the rules too since a 1 heavy weapon counts as 2 standard weapons when you're building a mech.

Hm, I'm not sure that even having these light suits holding a single weapon in two hands would be good. I definitely don't think medium or large should be holding something in two hands. All weapons should be held in one hand, as the bionics in the arms should be beefed up enough to support whatever they are holding...

Yeah that's true .. I guess something like a 2-handed wepaon would really only work with a more humanoid shape.

One other idea for the heavy weapons was to have them be whole arms. Each heavy weapon takes up 2 slots, and heavy mechs have 5 slots total.. so they could have 2 heavy weapons, but I was also thinking of doing double-barreled versions of the standard weapons. You could fire each barrel separately as 2 actions, or if you have the Salvo upgrade you can fire both together in 1 big blast.

So I've been thinking, theme wise, maybe it would be better to have just 1 unique heavy weapon per race (or per team?), and have the double-barrel guns be more common. Since all of the mechs and weapons will have the same connector we can make the other race's heavy weapons available to all as we unlock em.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Well I got the 3D prints today. They came out great, but they are smaller than I expected. They're actually exactly the right size, it's a 15mm scale game. I think I spoiled myself doing so many high res renders



So, about 28mm tall without missile pods, 32mm with it. About as tall as a Space Marine, slightly smaller than BWG figures I couldn't get the shoulder armor to stay on, those are small pieces that you'll have to glue on, so that's why these guys look a little skinny. If you really love magnetizing stuff, these guys will be perfect for it

I've been getting a lot of requests about using these for dreadnoughts... I think the heavy mechs would be better for such a thing as they will be "dreadnought sized".. but if there's an interest I may consider getting these printed up twice as big, and making some resin "showcase" models if enough people want it, maybe as a limited special thing some day.

Anyway, wadaya think?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Cruse you, auto append!

Yeah. They're definitely too small for Centurions. That's a shame.
Centurions stand a head or so taller than Terminators.

Eric

Ah ok .. well then the mediums should be perfect for them then. They'll be around 40mm tall will be tougher looking.. all of the terran mechs will have a similar look though. The cockpit area will tie them all together kind of, and the plan is to carry that over to other models like tanks and fliers when we eventually move on to those too

Seeing how small the arm weapons are for the lights though, we're definitely going to have to do new medium mech arms. I thought I could have saved on molds and used the light arms for the mediums if we design the mech right, but it'll just be better to make new ones so they look like they fit better.

After I went and inspected all of the pieces closely I decided not to include the team emblem shoulder plates. The pieces are so small that it's really hard to see the detail of the emblem and it will be even harder to paint those emblems with a brush that has more than 3 bristles. So, the light mechs are going to all just have standard "plain" shoulder plates. We'll include the team emblem plates for the medium mechs that will be much bigger so they will look a lot nicer.

I also asked Iron Wind to make separate sprues of weapons so we'll have a gun sprue, melee sprue, and then an accessory sprue that has 2 missile pods, 2 booster jets and 2 sets of shoulder plates.

So that has me wondering about how I'm going to package these guys. The starter sets will stay as is, but I was planning to also sell light mechs in pairs in a blister/clamshell for retail. There's a total of 8 light mech pilots on each team, so that would be 4 packs per team with 2 pilots each.

Now I'm kind of wondering if it might be better to sell those light mechs as generic mechs and not include any team cards at all. It might just be easier to have 1 pack of 2 "Terran Light Assault Mechs" that come with 2 bodies, melee sprue and accessory sprue, and then "Terran Light Ranged Mechs" that have 2 bodies, gun sprue and accessories. Medium & heavy mechs would be the same way, packaging based on race and not teams. But then sell separate "team packs" that come with all 14 pilot cards and any extra team emblem bits, and maybe some special team objective markers and things like that. And I would still sell team starter sets too, just thinking that for the other mechs maybe it would be better to keep em generic based and on race.

Think that would be a good way to go? Or would it be weird if you're getting pilot cards in starter sets, but none in the other packs?

I like the idea you selling the mechs as race based. I take it the staterteams will be 5 bodies, 2 melee sprues, 2 gun sprues and 3 accessory sprues? Sounds great. Can't wait to see the bigger mechs, as these are small compared to other miniatures.

However, are you saying that each team will only have 14 pilots, and they'll be predetermined? So no making your own pilots and growing them?

You're going with Iron Wind Metals for your casting? (assuming from your mention of asking Iron Wind for things)

gl;hf. Not a fan of them.

You can make all the pilots you want I meant for the official teams. So both Terran Titans and Team Bushido will have 14 pilots on their roster (15 some day when we can make super heavies ). Each will have 8 official light mech pilots, 4 medium mech pilots one of which being the team captain, and 2 heavy pilots. I was also going to put together a Team Playbook for each team that will be a full roster with fluff and pictures and model galleries, probably around 20 pages, and that would be a PDF and also a print-on-demand book through Wargame Vault.

And yes the team starter sets will be 5 light bodies, and all the necessary sprues to build em. However, if we get the medium mechs unlocked then every starter set will automagically get a free upgrade to have 4 lights and 1 medium for the team captain, rather than 5 lights. That's how I wanted the starters to be originally, but I want to make sure the mediums will be funded first so I don't break my bank They'll work fine as a starter set either way, I just would like to get a medium mech in there for variety.

I think what I'll do is when the heavy mechs are unlocked I can offer full team sets of all 14 pilots & mechs, maybe with the team playbook included too and all the cards and stuff. Or, 2 separate "league sets" that are 4, 2 & 1, and you can buy both for a complete team?

A full team set might end up being kind of pricy with all those models, but I won't know the prices for sure till I get the molds made. I'm hoping the starter sets will be around $30 like BWG.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And yes Iron Wind will be doing the figures I've been using them all along, never had any issues or anything and they've been super helpful ever since the beginning.

Some new news

I'm going to have a new rulebook update in the next couple of days. Adding in some new upgrades and also I changed the Power attribute to control the power of all weapons, not just melee. all standard weapons will add +1 power, and all heavy weapons +2. So, if your power attribute is 3 and you have chainguns, they will have a power of 4. The way it is now, your mechs power is kind of useless outside of melee combat, so I thought this would be a good way to make it more valuable and also prevent min-maxing on custom mechs.

I also added in new rules for free agents, which will be like special characters all with unique mechs, like Hired Guns in Blackwater Gulch. You can have 1 Free Agent on your team for every 10 fame points you have. Free Agents will have a unique upgrade or weapon not available to standard mechs. And, I added in the rules for All Star Teams, where you can mix and match pilots & mechs from whatever teams you want as long as both players agree to play an all star game.

Lastly, I decided I'm going to just start out with the 1 medium mech and 4 light mechs for the starter sets, rather than 5 light mechs. It's how I wanted them to be in the first place, and I'm having the medium mech sculpted anyway. My first plan was to go with a lower funding goal just to fund the light mechs, with a stretch goal for mediums and then when we hit that goal every starter set will get the automatic upgrade.. that was just in case the campaign didn't go so well and I couldn't fund the mediums, i wanted to play it safe. But, I don't want things to get too confusing so I think I'm going to have to go with a higher funding goal to cover both sizes. I wanted to keep the initial funding goal lower, but I think it will be better and less confusing in the long run. But that also means I won't have a physical model of the mediums to paint up prior to the campaign, so I'll just get the light mechs done and go with 3D renders for the rest. So this way I think the funding goal will have to be around $15k, and then most new sculpts will end up being in 10k increments.

I'm also planning to have a lot of add-on items for extra minis and also stuff like terrain or resin bases. Rather than having gimmicky freebies I was going to offer bonus credit for add-ons. My first idea was to give $5 bonus for add-ons when funded and then $5 for every 150 backers.. but I think that might be confusing having 2 different types of stretch goals.. so that will probably all be based on the amt of money we raise and go up by $5 when we hit certain amounts. I just want to keep it easy to follow, and I don't want to give away dumb logo items like patches or challenge coins that no one really wants, I'd rather people got minis to play with

What I think I'm going to do for the pledge manager is to set up a special online store rather than a big web form, and pledges + bonus cash will become store credit you can use to select whatever models you want, and I'll add them to the online store as soon as they're ready, rather than forcing people to wait months and months for that 1 little item they want that's at the end of the list that's holding up the rest of their order. So I'd also add in a shipping credit, and if people want to do multiple orders over time, they'll be charged normal shipping for the extra orders later on.

I'm hoping I'll have the metal masters in my hands by the end of the week, if not early next week. Once I can get a few painted up I'll be ready to start the campaign

That sounds good Necros, I like the 4 & 1 starter idea. I also don't think that the stretch goals and backer goals are too difficult to understand. Lots of other KS have done it. But most of those petered out when the backers total got way higher than they thought it would, and so they quit doing those goals, which seemed completely douche-y.

Do you have an idea what a team of 5 is going to run? Thanks!

Can I play this game with Imperial Knight Titans?

No idea what the prices will be till I get the metal minis. And since I won't have the medium sculpts done for a while I'm still gonna have to guess. When I get my prices for the metals figured out I'd just count the medium body as 2 lights and figure the price from there. I'm expecting it to be around $30 for a starter set just like BWG. But later on the retail price might end up being more once all is said and done. I'm kind of it will be $5 for a light mech, $10 for a medium and $20 or $25 for a heavy for add-ons in the campaign just to make math easy.

I think I may also offer a "full team" pledge level that will be 2 heavies, 4 mediums and 8 light mechs + a printed rulebook and team playbook for whatever team you want.

 Cryptek of Awesome wrote:
Can I play this game with Imperial Knight Titans?

Sure, I just have to finish the rules for super-duper heavies

The Public Playtest Rulebook has been updated! You can download it at Mechadrome.com.

Newest changes were:

1. Mech's Power attribute now effects ranged weapons, instead of just melee weapons. All standard mech weapons add +1 to your Mech's power, and all heavy weapons add +2.

2. Terrain rules were updated. A covered target now gets a +1 shields bonus, a concealed target now gets a +2 bonus.

3. Added rules for Free Agents, who are pilots driving unique mechs who can join any team and also rules for All Star games where you can use pilots from any team or race.

4. The following new upgrades were added:

- Assault Mech - Combine 2 melee attacks into 1 big roll, like Salvo for shooting. Has to be either basic attacks, or 2 of the same melee weapon.
- Recon - If you have line of sight to an enemy, it won't get a cover bonus if your teammates shoot him, and concealed targets will only get a +1 shield bonus rather than +2.
- Infiltrator - You are always considered concealed when you're in cover.
- Strider - +1 speed, light mechs only.
- Last Laugh - Your escape pod has a hidden missile port, when your mech blows up and your pilot ejects you can get free shot at whoever blew you up, treated like a missile pod attack.
- Deflector Shields - If you get shot and make a successful saving throw you can deflect the blast at any enemy within 6".
- Combat Drop - If your Mech has Booster Jets, you don't deploy with the rest of your team. On the 2nd game turn you can land anywhere on the board. Landing uses 1 energy, so you can use remaining actions to attack or move into cover or anything else.

I'll be finishing up the rosters for the Terran Titans and Team Bushido shortly, but in the meantime you can just build your own mechs for test games


Next up .. master molds for the Terran Light Mechs are being done now. I hope to have master metal minis in hand next week. Dave is going to start sculpting the Terran Medium Mech next week. It will look mostly like the light mech, only 40mm tall and a little beefier, but all Terran mechs will have that same overall look to them. The medium mech will have space on top for 2 missile pods or small turrets up over the shoulder, rather than 1 in the middle.


Since I've decided to have a medium mech included in all of the starter sets, and in light of the fact that there's a bunch of higher profile mini/wargame kickstarters going right now, or about to launch, I'm wondering if I should push everything back and do my campaign in April? The bills are adding up from all of the preliminary work, I'd like to start sooner rather than later, but I think it might be better to wait since the starter sets will be more complete. But even pushing it back I don't think I'd have metal mediums to show off or paint by April anyway, we're probably still going to have to rely on screenshots. I probably wouldn't have Medium minis ready for paint until mid-late April. So I'm kind of torn. It might be better just to stick with mid-March and if we don't fund every mech on the list, I can always do a 2nd campaign after the rewards from the first have all been shipped out (not before ).

Little preview of something else I'm working on



I'm doing the 3D sculpting for these wall panels myself, kind of teaching myself 3D modeling in the process. These would be resin wall blocks that are around 2"/50mm tall.. there will be a bunch of different designs, like windows, doors, plain walls and more, and you can glue them together however you want using the smaller connector walls and corners between each bigger panel.These are also about 5mm thick, I can make them thinner but I want to make sure they won't warp easily.

I have to finish the first set of walls and get them printed and molds made before I'll know what they will cost, so I'll if I don't finish them before the campaign is done I'd just sell them in separate kits afterwards in the pledge manager or something like that.

I'm also going to have other terrain options in the campagin though, I'll have some ruined walls and prefab plastic buildings from Proxie models along with some road blocks and barriers too

This is definitely being added to my watch list. When you do get the kickstarter up and running, I'd be very interested in the "full-team level"... Just saying. I love printed rulebooks. I might even get two.

Cool Well what I plan to do with pledge levels is keep them basic so to start with there will be one for just the rulebook, a pledge for just one starter set, then pledge for 2 starters and a rulebook and probably 1 plastic terrain kit for $100 for the "sweet spot" .. and then I'll add the whole team pledge after we get the heavy mechs unlocked. I think the full team pledge will be around $150 and will include 8 light mechs, 4 mediums, 2 heavies and rulebook and a team playbook for the team you select.

And then what I'll do for the free stuff is any pledge over $100 gets the bonus cash to spend on add-ons, so you could use it for terrain or extra minis or just put it toward shipping or whatever.

I want to keep the pledges simple, no need for 20 different ones like some campaigns do.. just pick one and add extra cash if you want extra add on goodies

Necros,

Nice walls! Hey, to make those cross-conmpatible, would/could you make some 28mm door pieces, or some "hangar" doors, as those would probably be a great way to push those to other games too.

Can't wait for your KS!

I was thinking that too.. I was going to make a "mech bay door" piece that will be big enough for a light mech to fit through.. or a space marine

Yes, and then just partner with one of these laser-MDF groups for some diamond plate or cross-hatch flooring to put those walls around for a reconfigurable field, or even some space ship action perhaps...

You could probably work with Burnindesigns or the guys doing the T5 KS, Firebucket. Do 12" by 12" pieces, either 4 or 9 depending on your field size.

Actually I've been talking with Ken from Proxie models about doing plastic terrain. Will probably take time to sort it all out so I doubt that would make it into the campaign. I would like to basically do a 15mm version of cities of death or deadzone tiles and all plastic, and he's got similar ideas for 1/72 scale stuff. So for now to get the ball rolling I'll be offering the ruined brick walls and other stuff he already makes and then we'll see what we can do later on. Also going to be using the proxie bases for all of the models rather than the rounded edge warmachine style.. I think they fit the smaller scale a lot better.

More news .. Apparently I updated the rulebook but forgot to upload it, but just fixed it. So you can download the current version with the new upgrades and other stuff now. I think I may do 1 further change before the KS campaign and remove all of the team info, but do separate PDFs for each team with a bio and roster.

Was just talking to Dave and he's going to start the Terran medium mech tomorrow and should have something to show around the end of the week. The medium will be similar to the light mech, but taller and bulkier with hips that can pivot so you can do different poses with it. He'll be kind of around the bulkiness of a space marine terminator, but slightly taller.. but probably shorter than a centurion.. kind of right in the middle. Lots of folks have been asking about using these models for 40k proxies, so I'm trying to please

We'll probably have the Terran heavy under construction during the campaign, so I'm getting updated art for that so it will match the look & feel of the other 2.

Looking at the calendar, I'm thinking of launching the campaign around the week of the 23rd, unless I can get stuff painted sooner.. and depending on how long it takes KS to approve the campaign page and all that stuff. I might try and do the week before if I can. It all depends on when I get metal masters so I can start painting some. I know I won't have full painted teams for the campaign since the medium mech won't be done yet, but I want to have a few painted samples to show off the minis with color schemes for a few different teams.

Here's the first WIP for the Terran Medium Mech.. bottom half shows the size in relation to the light mech.. this one should be about the size of a space marine terminator, maybe slightly taller.

Still a lot more detail to add especially in the shoulder area, those will wrap around and cover up the front a bit, and the missile pods will get updated a bit. He'll have all the same weapons as the light mech, but we'll also be adding a blaster turret for the top, RPG style missile arms and an optional blast shield for the cockpit to give your mech +1 armor Those will get shrunk down for light mech versions too.

So here he is, you can click for the gallery version to zoom it in and stuff

Nice. Looking forward to the Heavy

Heavy is gonna take a while But he'll be an even bigger & fatter version of the medium, with big cannon arms

Been thinking about packaging and how to sell the different models that make up the teams, for retail and for the Kickstarter. At first I was going to have a 5 man starter set, an then sell light mechs in blister/clamshells of 2 per, medium mechs solo, and heavy mechs solo. Doing it that way I'll end up with like a dozen or so different products to keep track of for each team, so I've been thinking about consolidating things a bit. I'd drop the rule for minimum team size to 3 mechs, and keeping with the Team Organization rule where you need 2 lights for each medium on your team, and 2 mediums for each heavy... I'm thinking now I'll change it to where there would be no more starter sets, instead there would be 4 different "Squad" sets for each team consisting of 1 medium mech and 2 light mechs, that would be kind of like positions on a sports team. Assault Squads, Support Squads, Guardian Squads and Recon Squads.

Each squad would be based around the kinds of weapons they use, like assault squads are melee oriented, support squads are ranged, etc. They don't have to stick together, there's no unit coherency rules or anything like that, it's more for theme and fluff. There's 14 pilots on a team, and 4 squads will take care of the first 12, so heavy mechs will be sold with the weapons to build both types of heavy mech for each team and come with both pilot cards.. so you can build the guy you want. So that drops it down to 5 different items per team, 6 if you include a full team box set.

Since there are no more starter sets, new players can just pick any 2 squad sets and can start playing small games with that. Doing it this way I think the squad sets would be $20 each, so it's a cheaper price to get into the game, and it's easy to grow your teams too. I would do pledge levels for 1 rulebook or 1 squad for $20, 2 squads and a rulebook for $60, 4 squads and a rulebook for $100 for the sweet spot.. any pledge over $100 gets you bonus credit for add ons.. and the amt of bonus credit goes up as we get to different stretch goals. So I was thinking that would make things a lot easier to follow and collect a team, rather than having dozens of little clamshells to keep track of.

Necros, that Medium is awesome!! And more weapons are always cool. It is great to hear that there will be more options for on top of the mechs, and tell me that the "power fist" he's got will get ported down to the Juniors' too! That's probably my favorite of the melee arms you've shown so far.

I think your teams work out great Necros, and the idea for the squad boxes is a good one, and will help with your storekeeping. However, I'm a round numbers guy, and think that you should up the team to 15 people. That your "Captain" could have a "free" Medium in that last slot, or only have 3 mediums total, and bump that last slot to another Heavy. But, I'd want Battletech like campaign rules, where some mechs aren't ready for the next match after damaged, and you fight underdog style, or the other team matches your mechs, but gets a bonus in money for that game. I would like to grow teams from an initial 3 or 5 man team, purchasing mechs and weapons, and growing the sport in a league. Have teams field more mechs as they can buy them in the game, have that dictate match sizes and have teams gearing their games towards profitability in game. Your squad boxes would make the expanding of mechs very easy, as a 5 man team would be 2 squads, and the next purchase in game would be the medium you already own. Then either a heavy or that next squad box, depending on play style and local meta.

But, great idea and great mechs, Necros. This is looking really good. I have to get the updated rules and give it a run through, but it was interesting reading for sure. While I like the customization, I am hoping you have some abilities or upgrades that can only be reached through campaign growth or experience. Your mech building system really allows for a wide range of play style and dynamics inside of a team. I'm just hoping there is more there to add depth and growth to the pilots, both beneficially and detrimentally. Some guys become special because they accumulate scars.

There is a small Crusherfist for light mechs, it's on the mech on the left hand side in the pic in the first post, but I guess it's kind of tough to tell since it's a clenched fist.

There will be 15 mechs per team actually, since you will need 2 heavy mechs to field 1 superheavy The superheavies are a long ways off though, i want to get the 3 sizes for the main races done first, and a nice select of free agents. I'd also like to do tanks and flyers too some day.

I have lots of campaign ideas, but I don't really have the rules together yet. What I was thinking of is basically you start with 10 fame points to make a team. A light mech costs 1 point, and has 2 free weapons, after that you pay 1 point for each additional weapon or upgrade. A pilot starts in a light mech, and you can upgrade to a medium mech for 2 fame, and upgrade from a medium to a heavy for 4 fame. Weapons and mech upgrades are on the mech, not on the pilot, so if your mech gets destroyed your pilot has to start over in a light mech. But that's rare, usually your mech will be damaged and you can pay fame to repair them after a game. If you don't repair you might suffer -1 speed or energy. After each battle each mech that survives earns 1 fame, and it will be a pool that you can spend on any mech, not only for the mech that earned it. There will be other objectives that earn you extra fame points too. And like in BWG, every mech that was out of action has to roll on a chart to see if's wrecked or salvageable, it'll be a 2D6 roll and snake eyes means wrecked.

Anyway that's the gist of it. Still working on it


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Here's what I put together for the squads..

Artillery Squad - Long ranged weapons make these Mechs a force to be reckoned with. Often equipped with dual weapons and salvo upgrades to unload a hail of bullets, beams and plasma at your enemies.

Assault Squad - These feature Mechs equipped with vicious melee weapons, and equipment like booster jets to quickly get up close and personal with your enemies.

Guardian Squads - A Guardian’s job is to defend vital objectives on the battlefield. They are often equipped with Shield Generators or Reinforced Armor, if not both.

Recon Squads - These squads are usually dropped behind enemy lines to relay enemy positions back to the rest of the team.

Support Squads - Equipped to handle a variety of battlefield roles, Support Squads are the most common and most versatile.

I might put together a couple more. What I'm thinking is with only 4 squads per team for the official roster, not every team will have access to every squad... and some teams might have more than 1 of the same squad. Like, Team Bushido is mostly a melee oriented team, so they might have 2 assault squads, 1 recon squad and 1 support squad. Terran Titans might have 2 support squads, 1 artillery squad and 1 guardian squad. Wrecking Crew might have 2 guardians and 2 artillery, etc.

And then Heavy Mechs will also get the same squad roles, so there will be heavy artillery mechs, heavy assault, heavy guardians, heavy recon and heavy support.

I don't think that will impact gameplay at all, for custom teams you won't need to form squads. It's more for packaging and fluff reasons.

Love the fame idea. Keeps everyone on an even playing field, while also giving everyone plenty of customization. A pitfall to avoid would be always making it a no-brainer to take an extra mech over better weapons. Easily remedied by severely limiting the free options.

Yeah good point. I could probably change it to 25 pts to start your team, and it costs 5 pts to hire a new pilot, then you still have to pay for the mechs. So a squad pack would have 3 models, so there's 15 points there for the pilots, each light mech is 1 point, but the medium mech will cost 3 to start with since you have to buy 1 light mech, then upgrade it to a medium. That leaves 5 more points to add some upgrades or extra weapons, but not quite enough to add a new mech.

or I guess you could look at it like a new light mech costs a total of 6 points, new mediums cost 8 and new heavies cost 12. You still have to honor the team organization rules though so you need at least 2 mechs for each medium on your team and 2 mediums for each heavy. All new mechs just get their 2 free weapons or 1 free heavy weapon since they count as 2, and then everything else costs extra points.


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Oh, and here's the concept art I just got for one of the Free Agents, Lilly Hammer. She's in a medium mech with a Heavy Jackhammer, wrist mounted blaster and booster jets. Gave this one more of an anime-ish look so there's a little something for everyone

That Medium mech is what I would have liked a Centurion to look like. Great work there! I can't wait to see this in the flesh/metal/resin.

I have the Terran Titans and Team Bushido rosters done, I'm going to put them together in a little mini-codex PDF for each team.. should have them done soon.

Just got the art for the next anime-ish Free Agent, Omega Centauri. Like Lilly his rifle will be a 2-handed heavy weapon, and he'll also have booster jets and a shield generator.



Next I'll be getting new art done for the Terran heavy mech, since that sculpt likely won't get started until the campaign is underway.. I'll need to show how he's gonna look.

Hmm, I am mixed on the manga feeling Free Agents, as they clash with the clean lines and sci-fi feel of the Terran Mechs. I hope your digital sculptor can un-cartoon them. I'd much rather see special weapons/arms for the standard mechs to make Free Agents. Like a Heavy with a wrecking ball arm and a top mounted alien weapon.

 Necros wrote:

More of this please.

There will be some free agents that are in the same mechs as the other teams with special weapons, but I also want some that will be in totally different unique mechs so there's a bit more variety. Actually my first idea for Team Bushido was to have them all be anime-themed mechs, but after I started figuring out all of the costs I decided to make the mechs based on pilot races.

The same sculptor is going to do everything so these guys will still have the same armor plates and rivets and stuff. They have to be made to look like they fit in together in a team.. so we'll see how it goes. I just wanted to have a couple of more humanoid mechs that use weapons like handheld things rather than as whole arms. I'm kind of wondering if I should just do a whole race & team like this, rather than a couple free agents.. but I think that would just be if the campaign went crazy and I started running out of stretch goals

So I'm setting a tentative date for the KS launch to be March 20th. I'm going to have a kind of far off delivery date though, just to be safe. I'm thinking around October or November. I'd rather have a distant date send hope to stuff sooner, then guess a date too soon and have people upset if it's late. We'll see how it goes, I should be getting the light mech sample minis later this week and I'd like to get a few of them painted up before the campaign. I also need to get the medium mech sculpt finished, at least the body and a couple of weapon arms so I can do 3D renders to show off how the squads will look.

I'm also going to just offer the rewards as generic models, not teams. So you'll be able to pick a "Terran Support Squad" or "Martian Artillery Squad" and each one will be 1 medium and 2 light mechs with whatever weapon sprues they need for the squad type. Then, separately, as an add-on item I'll have team upgrade packs that will come with shoulder armor emblem bits for each team, a couple of custom objective markers like banners with the emblem on it, and all 14 pilot cards. And the team upgrade pack will be included if you want to get a full team box set after the heavy mechs get unlocked. I think having the cards and emblem bits separate will be easier for people that want to make up their own teams, and also keep the main sets cheaper and the delivery time sooner since I won't have to wait for cards and stuff to be printed first, I can start sending most rewards out as soon as the models are made.

Speaking of heavy mechs, I got this new rough sketch for the terran heavy .. should have the finished version in another day or 2

That heavy looks sweet. Looking forward to your kickstarter.

Here's the finished terran medium body. Weapons and other bits will be done in a couple of days



The body is actually in 2 pieces, might be hard to tell. There's the top torso area, and there will be a legs & hips in a couple of different positions.

Now I have a favor to ask I'm more seriously considering doing limited "KS exclusive" 28mm versions of the light and medium mechs, in resin. So many people are asking for them. So, since I don't have a space marine army anymore, can anyone give me the measurements for a dreadnought model and a centurion? Just average #'s, don't need to include banner poles and stuff.

I was thinking I would just get them printed at 2x bigger. The light mech is 28mm tall now, so he would be roughly 60mm tall. The medium will be around 40mm, so then that would be 80mm tall. I wanted to make sure they would be good and similarly sized proxies for centurions and dreadnoughts.

Problem is, I have no idea what they would cost. My best guess is maybe $20 for the light and $30 for the medium? But I've never had resin models made before, so I have to get them printed and cast first before I'll know what the costs will be. So I might not be able to add them to the campaign till a couple weeks in. I was thinking I would pick 1 body position for each, and get every weapon option printed too.. so all the extra arms will add to the price a bit, but I'd rather just do them all rather than selecting a few and then having a bunch of people tell me "you should have done this one or that one instead". Anyway, I'd probably just offer them for the campaign and maybe have them available as a direct-only thing or at cons, not for retail. I'll have to see how the timing works, maybe I can postpone the launch by a week.. but i really need to get it started since the bills are adding up

Been chatting with a bunch of folks today and based on their feedback I'm going to be making some minor changes... This mostly will be for final retail products. Rather then sell a bunch of different squad box sets for each team, I'm going to base the box sets on the races and then make team upgrade packs. There won't be multiple squad sets, instead there will just be 1 Mech Squad and 1 Heavy Mech box set per race. Each set will come with all weapons and equipment and no pilot cards. This is mostly to reduce the number of retail boxes I need to print, since those costs add up real quick. Then there will be team upgrade packs that include all 14 pilot cards along with armor emblem pieces and other things. And I'll also still offer the full team box sets that will include the upgrade packs for free. I thought it would be good to keep the upgrade packs separate like that, since a lot of people I'm sure will want to make up their own teams from scratch. And this will also make it so that no matter what you'll have everything you need to build your mechs however you want right out of the box (or ziplock bag for Kickstarters ). This should also help with the KS delivery time too, since we won't have to wait for cards to be printed first if all you want is regular models.

Next up, I'm having a 28mm version of the Terran Light Mech printed now.. well, I guess it will be more like 30mm since he's taking the original 15mm model and just printing it 2X bigger. This will be done in resin and will include all weapon options. I'm going to call it a "showcase" model, since it's something you can't use in the game. If there's an interest, I'll print the Medium Mech 2x bigger too. This kind of got me wondering if I should plan to update the rules to accommodate both scales, so you can play with 15mm games for battles with more mechs, or 30mm battles on bigger tables with bigger models. Essentially all you have to do is double the movement and gun ranges. I decided to hold off on that for now though, I'd want to wait until those larger mechs are made so I can really test the game and make sure it's fun. So that might become an expansion kind of thing later (Mechadrome Extreme? ). I still want 15mm to be the primary version of the game though, because I really want the game to be all about having lots of mechs running around beating each other into scrap. Anyway, I'm hoping to have the 30mm 3D print in hand next week so I can show it off in the campaign, but it will probably have to be an early stretch goal to unlock it.

Last but not least, I just got the new finished art for the Terran heavy Next up I'll be getting a new Martian medium mech done, the pointy top martian medium I have now will become the light and the beetle head body light martian will be going away. And then I'll be getting a couple more Free Agents done, Johnny Danger and the evil bionic mech DED 902. I'm hoping to have the Medium mech sculpt finished around the end of the week or early next week. Here's the new heavy

Ooh, yeah, that's sweet.

And here's the next medium update It's pretty much done now, just a matter of updating all of the weapons. These weapon arms will also be 2 pieces split at the elbow, so there will be more options for poses and also for later on when we do other mechs, they can all use the same gun bits so everything will match. Just the light mechs will have full gun arms just because they are smaller.

Wow, I really like that Heavy! I love the different feet, and just the "thick, ponderous" feel of it. I think you could have a "medium +" Free Agent that looks like an ED209, kind of a hunched Warhound look to it, but with the Terran elements. I see some shark mouths and a wolf face being painted across the cockpits of the medium and heavies. Great stuff Necros!

Ha .. yes, I'm planning a free agent named DED-902. He's a cyborg piloting a modified terran mech. So it'll be like ED-209 with a terran cockpit for the main body, like the middle part of the medium mech's torso, big chainguns and chicken shaped legs

 Necros wrote:
Ha .. yes, I'm planning a free agent named DED-902. He's a cyborg piloting a modified terran mech. So it'll be like ED-209 with a terran cockpit for the main body, like the middle part of the medium mech's torso, big chainguns and chicken shaped legs

Boom, that is awesome. I didn't correlate the name, 'Well played Sir, well played!' I like it a lot. I think the hunched, big shoulder silhouette will be awesome on the terran torso. Are you going to go for oversized mini-gun/gau-19 looking chainguns, vs the current ones you have? Can't wait to back this one!

Well I was just going to include whatever weapon sprue has the chaingun bits on it, plus the new body.

Depending on costs, what I might end up having to do is use the standard terran medium legs & hips, rather than sculpt new chicken shaped legs.. so then it would just have the different horizontal style body piece. That would make it a lot cheaper for me to produce, which would also mean a lower stretch goal for the campaign. And then, people could also buy him to count as a different looking terran medium if they want, since all of the pieces will be compatible

Got another updated medium render. He's pretty much done now, just have to finish doing the enlarged versions of all of the other weapons. This guy has 2 missile pods, a Railgun and a Crusherfist



Lots of things coming together now for the campaign. I'm still hoping to launch it on the 20th. I'm going to build the page over the weekend and hopefully KS will approve it in time, if not I'll launch it as soon as they do. I expect to have my metal master minis delivered on Friday, so I'll have a few painted examples when the campaign launches plus pics of the 3D print for the 30mm terran light mech. I'll also have 3-4 different plastic terrain kits from Proxie Models for add-on items and we're chatting about making other plastic stuff too

In other news, I'm going to be publishing the game myself, but working with Game Salute for warehousing and retail distribution later on, and KS shipping using their new ShipNaked service. So I'll build everything, and they'll ship it wherever it needs to go. That means shipping will be much cheaper all over the world since they ship lots of stuff and get volume discounts. Here's a chart of what the shipping charges will be like. I think the average sweet spot pledge of 4 squads and a rulebook will be around 2-3 pounds but I'm not totally sure just yet... I'll weigh everything when I get the masters on friday



What I'm going to do is when the campaign funds, everyone who pledges $100 or more gets $5 bonus credit that you can use for shipping charges or for add-ons. Then there will be stretch goals mixed in to add another $5 here and there, so the more funding we get the more bonus credit you get to use on whatever you want. So, you'll still be charged shipping, you can just apply your credit toward that, or toward extras and just pay for shipping later in the pledge manager. The bonus credit will be treated like store credit in the pledge manager.

That's it for now. I'll post more pics when I get them. I'm going to do some high res 3D renders when I get the files for the medium mech and put together some squad shots

Quick update .. I was talking with Iron Wind last night about the 30mm Terran light mech, I haven't gotten the print just yet for them to give an accurate quote, but based on similar models they produce and the 15mm sized mechs they think it would be best to do the big ones in metal rather than resin. And then the price will likely be around $20 each. It's a little higher than I hoped but should still be OK.

I finished a new rules update last night, but I'm going to hold off on posting it till next week when I get some more background stuff and other rules to add to it. I mostly just changed some of the wording around and moved the custom mech building rules toward the front of the book, since the sets won't come with pilot cards now. So now it basically says "You can use pilot cards from the web or our upgrade packs to build a sanctioned team, or design your own mechs from scratch with these rules."

I've been talking with a bunch of folks who have been playing test games and many think the weapons are overpowered. I really wanted them to be, so there would be a lot of carnage, but I'm starting to agree now.. stuff dies too fast, and because of that the smaller squad level games with 3 mechs aren't as fun. So also in the next big update I'll be removing the power bonus for all weapons, though some will still have a bonus as part of their special ability, like Blasters will still have +1 Power for close range. I'm also going to remove heavy weapons, meaning bigger guns that take up 2 weapon slots. I'll keep the different weapons like the Ion Cannon and others, but they will all be standard weapons. Since the power of your weapon is based on the power of your Mech, you can still have powerful guns if you allocate your points properly. I'm also going to add a Ranged or Melee Combat requirement for a lot of weapons too, so some weapons will need a 2 in the proper attribute to wield, or 3 or 4. I'll probably group them up as Common weapons, uncommon and rare... or more like Standard Issue, Specialized and Experimental?

So that's where I'm at now. I should be getting the metal light mech samples today and the weather tomorrow will be perfect for spray priming outside. Gonna be busy painting for the next few days

Necros,

One quick question. Want to ensure I am reading, comprehending and playing correctly. For ranged and melee combat, if I have Salvo or Assault Mech, I get to roll double the attack dice, half for one weapon, half for the other (obviously 2 ranged or 2 melee, not 1 and 1). But then I can make that same attack again (double the dice), if I have another energy (action)?

I'll have the final background to you by Monday Necros

Salvo and Assault Mech combine the attack dice like you say, but after you make that attack both weapons are used up, so you can't attack with them again until your next activation. But, you can make an additional attack with another weapon that hasn't been used yet.

I kind of picture it as a final blast at the end of your turn that will make it easier to hit. So for example if you moved really far and have a to hit penalty, on your last action you can turn around and blast the carp out of something with all those extra dice helping to offset the to hit penalty for moving fast. Or it could be used like if you're a light mech but you really need to land a hit on heavy that's stomping everything, you blast em with a salvo and all of the extra dice give you a much better chance of getting through their powerful shields.

 JP1138 wrote:
I'll have the final background to you by Monday Necros

yay!

So on a medium with 4 weapons, it would only be two actions out of 4 to fire all of them then? Got it. Tactics adjusted.

Just got the samples for the light mech .. here are all the parts



You can click on it for the gallery pic to zoom in.

Top row from left to right we have Missile pods, chainguns (2 styles), plasma guns, railguns, blasters, booster jets. Next row is Booster Jets, Jackhammers, Siege Drills, Crusherfists & Buzzsaws. Then all 4 bodies and the shoulder armor plates. They have the plates reversed on the sprue though with the right pad on the left and the left pad on the right.

I was surprised that there are pretty much no mold lines and just a few little bits to file off. Gonna clean these 4 up and start painting!


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Oh .. also.. I got the prices for these minis and, of course, they're going to cost a lot more than I thought, like twice as much. So rather than a big squad box full with every single weapon, I'm going to have to break things up more. It's basically going to be a pack of 2 mediums or and pack of 1 light mech for $20, and probably $25 for retail. Heavy mechs will likely be in the $35-40 range.

So the pack of 2 light mechs will get 2 random bodies, 3 different weapon sprues including missiles or booster jets, 1 sprue of shoulder plates and 2 25mm bases for $20. Medium Mech will be 1 torso, 1 leg sprue, and then also 3 kinds of weapons and a 40mm base.

The KS sweet spot bundle will be 2 packs of lights, 2 mediums and a rulebook for $100. That'll be a nice sized team, and could also work as a 2 player starter set for small squad vs squad games.

So, not to be dismissive of the actual game and intent of this project (which I am interested in) but will any of the light or medium mech options that you've described be Ogryn sized?

As a matter of fact, quite a few models will be ogre/ogryn/centurion sized. This was totally by accident and not intentional at all whatsoever

So, the Medium Mechs will be a good choice. They might be a half a head shorter, but should still work quite well. The other option will be the 28mm scale light mech, that will be slightly taller than the 15mm medium.

There will be lots of other options too as we unlock other mechs

nice, I'll be watching this one.

Put a few together and now I'm about to go a-priming.

One thing though, I think I'm going to have the shoulder armor plates be an equipment piece for Reinforced Armor. So each pair of mechs will come with 3 sprues of weapon arms, 1 equipment (missiles, jets or armor) and 2 bodies. This was mostly because as I was building them, before I added the plates on I decided I kind of like the look without them. It makes the mechs look a little more slender and agile. Here's a quick pic I took of both kinds.. wadaya think?

These look awesome. Very much looking forward to painting some up.

Been working on the KS page all day! I think I have it all set now, I'm going to submit it to KS soon. If anyone would like to check it out early, here's a preview link

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gangfightgames/1206348501?token=09a8ec54

Let me know if you have any quests/comments/concerns

Once I finish painting the first few minis I'll be replacing the artwork at the top of the page with a photo of the painted minis in an action shot.. I figured seeing the actual finished minis would "sell" the game better.

After getting the final mini costs I came up with $25 for a pair of light mechs or 1 medium mech, $45 for a squad of 3, and then a starter set "sweet spot" for $100. I want to keep the pledge levels simple rather than having tons of them. I will probably add a "Leage Team Set" for $140 that will be rules, 2 squads and a heavy when the heavy is unlocked. And maybe a design your own official team pledge for maybe $300, that will include a league team set, and the extra cash will cover the costs of getting an emblem designed professionally and extra emblem bits for the models.

anyway let me know what you think

Only thing I saw was you spelled "Light Mechs" as "Lighte Mechs" in your pledge levels image under $25 Get Some Models. Everything else looks great!

Oops.. thanks, fixed it

Maybe a softball question, but as someone trying to work out a pledge in advance...

How big are those plastic terrain pieces? Big enough to hide a light behind or big enough to hide a heavy?

Page looks good Necros. I'd show the shipping calculator graphic so people know how much it will be and can add to their basic pledge accordingly.

Now when do we go live?

I'll have some of the terrain in the photos when I get the minis painted so you can see them better. But it's all good for light mechs and mediums too. Heavies will have a tougher time hiding because they're so big, but it will still provide good cover for them.. and will make for some good obstacles either way since you can't cross over terrain unless you have booster jets to jump over it

The arena walls are pretty tall though, and you can also stack them up 2 or 3 high if you want. Same with the prefab buildings. They're just flat wall panels so you can build square buildings like the pic, or stack them up and make towers or make long rectangular buildings or whatever you want to do.

I'll see how long it takes for KS to approve the page, I'm thinking I'll launch it on thursday, or earlier if I can. Maybe wednesday night I'll add in the shipping info at the bottom though. I was going to put that in a FAQ, but it won't let you add that to the page till after you make it live for some reason.

Well the campaign was approved already I still have some things to finish up with the rules (including campaign rules now) and I'll have the painted minis done tomorrow. I just did 4 for now. Also kind of stalling for my 28mm light mech print to show up.

I'm going to remove one of the stretch goals I had for the team emblems and cards and just make them an add on right off the bat.. but just the cards for now. I'll put one of the Free Agents in it's place.

So I'm gonna stick to my plan for making Thursday the official day, but I'll probably press the launch button wednesday night

How long will the campaign run? Hoping close to end of April for that payday.

*sent the bg doc last night.

It'll go for about 30 days.. planning to end it on April 20


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And, I just got some new screenshots of the medium. He's just about done and I should have the final 3D files today or tomorrow, then it's off to the printer with him.

This pic has 2 new weapons, the wrecking ball melee weapon.. and it's also a ranged weapon, since the chain is retractable and you can launch the ball at your enemies faces if they get too close enough. And also the blaster turrets up top, they will be turrets for the medium and heavy, but like pistols for the light mechs

Will you feature any shots of your painted minis on a game board with the Proxie Models terrain? That might help sell more of both.

Yep! I'll be finishing up 4 paint jobs tonight. I did 2 Terran Titans colors and 2 Team Bushido. And then I have some painted ruined brick walls and arena barriers. And I just got my 15mm Warboard last week, so that will be the arena floor

The arena barriers are actually 28mm scale road blocks, but I thought they looked great as is for arena obstacles, they're as tall as a light mech.

I like the warboard a lot, it's a good size for an average game with 2 squads and a heavy on each side. Some day I'd like to try and do my own board though, maybe the mouse matt kind. I'll save that for the Season 2 Kickstarter next year :p

Campaign has been launched!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gangfightgames/mechadrome-heavy-metal-combat

Expensive... Even more expensive when you figure in shipping sometime down the road. I'll pass on this one.

As an aside what made you decide that now was a good time to launch a kickstarter?

There's a lot of campaigns going on now, but I figured why wait? There's always going to be other campaigns. That and also the fact that I spent all I can afford to spend to get to this point, now i need to hopefully make my money back before the credit card demons drag me away I can't really afford to sink any more into the preliminary part, so I need the funding if I want to continue.

I wish the prices were lower :( but these are bigger and heavier than they look and metal is just pricy, but I just can't afford plastic. I hope to some day, just not yet.

Wow those are pretty pricey.. :/

It's the extra weapons that are driving up the costs actually. I guess I could offer it like 1 body and 1 weapon pair, but I want to be able to give folks lots of options for conversions or magnetizing. And it's a low model count game anyway.. a 3 mech squad and a 2x2 board is really all you need to play. Most teams will max out at 2 squads and a heavy for "big" games.

Have you looked into Resin? It might not do much to the price of the lights, but it'll probably halve your costs for the Mediums and Larger.

You might want to list out the extra parts that come with things, until your post just now I was under the impression there wasn't any optional bits.. it was just picking a loadout when you buy them.

 Necros wrote:
It's the extra weapons that are driving up the costs actually. I guess I could offer it like 1 body and 1 weapon pair, but I want to be able to give folks lots of options for conversions or magnetizing.

In that case, I would go with offering a couple of 'default' loadouts, and offer extra weapons as add-ons. (Edit -As Cyporean pointed out, right now your listing actually reads like you only get one pair of weapons anyway)

And if you haven't already gone that route, maybe look at casting the torsos in two pieces with a hollow center to reduce the amount of metal in each. That will help somewhat with both the cost of the cast, and with shipping.

And it's a low model count game anyway.. a 3 mech squad and a 2x2 board is really all you need to play. Most teams will max out at 2 squads and a heavy for "big" games.

Your price for a Starter Squad puts you into the same ballpark as a Warmachine Battlegroup - except the WM box is in most cases giving you the equivalent of one of your light mechs, 2 medium mechs and a heavy.

I wish you all the best with it (not least becaue I want to see those 28mm versions happen ), but I think you're going to struggle with those prices.

I was going to do some 3D renders and do a big update showing all of the different payloads, but you're right I better add that to the main page.

Basically each type of mech gets 3 weapon sprues and 1 equipment sprue. The sprues for the light mechs have 2 of each piece. Artillery mechs get Railguns, Plasmaguns, Chainguns and Missile Pods. Assault gets Buzzsaws, Siege Drills, Jackhammers and Booster Jets. Support gets Chainguns, Blaster pistols, Crusherfists and Extra Armor plates.

So yeah, the costs of all those extra pieces ends up being about the same as another mech or 2.

I am looking into resin though, the heavies and other larger mechs will be resin. The medium and light terrans will be metal, but the heavy will be resin. It's going to depend on the model. Some might be mixed, like if I already have metal railguns, but the body is resin, you'll get the resin body and a metal railgun sprue for example.


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Hmm.. well what I could do is offer single light mechs with just 1 weapon sprue for like $6 as an add on. You would be stuck with 2 of the same weapon arms though. I was doing them in 3's for variety.

I was planning a stretch goal of "every order over $100 gets 1 additional light mech body for each squad you order" kind of thing. Since there's 3 arm sprues and 2 bodies, this would let you use up all your weapon bits. I wasn't sure what price level to add that in.. maybe I'll have to add it in early

Well, you made a backer out of me! I look forward to watching where this kickstarter goes!

Really liking the second medium mech render on the last page, looks awesome.
Backed btw. Not sure what got yet, but hey.

 Necros wrote:

Get this (and/or the model and weapons image elsewhere in this thread) on the front page of the Kickstarter, and in an update. Otherwise, people are likely to look at the three models and think that's all they're getting.

Then post images and size information about the plastic terrain! Because if those modular prefab buildings are five panel glue together pieces and they're decent sized, that's a good deal.

And the "Terrain Only" pledge is a really good idea. My Deadzone pledge started out as a terrain only pledge that crept over into "Hey, maybe I should spend a few extra bucks and get the game to go with this terrain."

Thanks guys

And yeah I can do a terrain pledge. Maybe I can do something like $50 and you can pick any 5 terrain sets?

And yes I was going to show off all of those pieces. I have to do some new 3D renders and they take a while. I was going to do a diagram like that pic above, but showing all of the pieces you get in each of the 3 kinds of squad sets. I just got the final medium mech files so I'll be doing those renders next

So, I crunched some numbers and I'm trying to make things more affordable.. So I'm going to do the light mechs as add ons for $7, 1 body and 1 weapon arm pair. Rather than 2 light mechs for $25, you'll get 3 and I'll change that pledge level to $20. Squads will now have 3 lights, and 1 medium for $45 since I can't change that price since people have pledged for that level.. so I'll include extra bits. I'm also going to have to wait till I get the 3D prints for the medium, but maybe I can include 2 medium bodies in a squad rather than 1.

Anyway I'm updating the graphics and stuff now. Hopefully this will make it a little better. Also the stretch goal for an extra light mech still stands so when we get that high, squads will get 4 lights instead of 3

Day 1 Recap!

It's been a great first day though a little rocky on my end. There were some complaints about the prices, and rightly so, they were higher than I wanted too. But, I crunched some numbers and did some reorganizing. Now, all Squad sets will include 4 light mechs rather than 2, and still 1 Medium Mech, and a bunch of extra weapons for conversions too.

I've updated the stretch goals a bit as you'll see on the Kickstarter page. So depending on the funding level we may also be able to upgrade the squads to have 2 mediums. And I also added a goal for a 28mm scale Medium Mech as well. I expect to have the 3D prints for the 28mm light mech tomorrow and I'll post photos as soon as I get them!

I also got the final 3D files for the terrain medium mech, and also the first Free Agent mech, Trion. I'll be sending those files out for printing asap. Free Agents are like special characters in unique mechs or with unique weapons or skills. Trion is medium mech armed with 2 Particle Cannons, which are similar to Railguns, but fire more rapidly. And he's also got booster jets and a missile pod. His guns are compatible with other mediums as well. He'll be $15 and you can also get him in a squad set instead of another medium if you prefer. Here he is!

Looks cool.

Well dang... you have my attention!

The prices look just fine to me now. If I were you, I'd make a new $45 pledge level and ask people to move to that one- just title it in such a way that people know it's the one to select even if the other stays around due to backers not vacating it... such as "NEW"

If you make the above mercenary mech available, I may back just for that. That and the alien mechs concepts are extremely interesting to me (Bionic in particular, or possibly Aphid, which unfortunately aren't the first ones it looks like you'll be adding! I'd prefer "Martian" be called something else, at least... that is overdone!).

I don't need the Terrans, as I've got a number of paulson's human 15mm mechs... one thing I commented to him about, though, was that yours look much smaller (and correct, imo) even though both are listed as 15mm. He was thinking of downsizing his to 6mm, which then look to be about the same size as yours... but his 6mm ones tower over Dropzone Commander's 10mm models. So, your "15mm" is what I think of when I hear that scale... I think he should consider just calling his 6mm as 15mm... they'd match up nicely with yours in that case, too!

Anyway, I will be watching and possibly jumping in later for cool add-ons if you make them available

----------

Edit: Oh, I see that model is already available to add-on! If I selected the $1 pledge for now (just add-ons) would I adjust my total to $15 or $16 to pledge just for him? Also, would you be adding different pledge levels for the other races if they unlock, or just using the same pledge level to select a different starter set? The reason I ask is, it seems like not all races would necessarily have the same ratio of light to medium mechs.

Hmm.. adding the new pledge sounds like a good idea.. and I could msg ever backer in the old one to ask them to change. Honestly I was thinking about canceling and restarting with all the proper info.. everything else would be the same but I could go with a lower funding goal.. and just keep the stretch goals starting at 10k as is. I think I picked a rough week to launch the campaign with all the other big boys doing theirs... but, I kind of need to run it now because the bills are adding up

The new free agent is available now, he's auto-unlocked. You can do the a la carte option and just raise your pledge to cover it. I'm hoping in time I'll have dozens of different races, but I'm starting with humans and I'll take it from there. I was actually thinking of doing a lot of different mini-campaigns, 1 for each race (and launched after the previous one is fulfilled). They would have a finite amt of stretch goals to just unlock the light, medium & heavy mechs plus a few free agents and team emblem packs. I'd get them sculpted ahead of time so there wouldn't be a super long wait to send out the rewards. Hopefully after a few I'd get to the point where I won't need campaigns anymore and I can just release what I want.

Paulson's mechs would be great for heavy mechs in Mechadrome. You can design your own mechs in the rules, you don't have to use my models (even though I want to sell them .. he's got some nice stuff.

What I basically did with Mechadrome is I took the Blackwater Gulch rules which is for 28mm scale stuff, since Mechs are big I went with 15mm for the game's scale but made the light mechs the same size as BWG minis.. So in Mechadrome the light mechs are basically infantry in an oversized power suit. The more proper mechs with a pilot sitting in a chair and controls would be more for the mediums and heaves (and some day super heavies)


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You would just make your pledge be $15

I may add an option to select multiple copies of his body, with other medium mech weapons.. but it will be just the 1 pose.

And yes all races that get unlocked will be the same squad sizes.. so if we do martians you would get 4 light martian mechs and 1 medum martian in a squad.. but then if we get that high, we'll have already hit the goal for 2 mediums in a squad instead of 1.

In the game rules a squad is actually 1 medium and 2 lights, so at that point it would actually be 2 squads I think for the retail versions I'll be sticking to the 1 & 2 size, with a slightly cheaper price tag. Mostly since 3 mechs will fit better in a blister pack

Working on the free agent background at work Necros. Expect an email from my work address so check your Spam box

And sent

Okay, well I pledged for the Free Agent, and will be watching if you get to the Aphids / Bionics. And yeah, I think just messaging those 7 backers in the $45 tier is the way to go! And making a new pledge level for that same amount, but with the correct description.

Got the 28mm light mech prints today Here's the new update!

Well, it's the end of day 2 and things are moving right along. Today the 3D prints for the 28mm scale Terran Light Mech arrived and I took some photos. This thing is actually pretty huge. It's exactly 2x bigger than the 15mm scale, so I guess it's more like a 30mm scale mech, but who's going to nitpick over 2mm when the model looks cool? Here's the pics!



So, since he is bigger than I expected, I'm going to have to have him done in resin. I was planning on a $15 price tag but due to the size it's going to have to be $20. It will come with 1 pair of matching weapon arms of your choice plus 1 upgrade which would be either a missile pod, booster jets or extra armor plates. A lot of folks asked for this guy, at first I was thinking this would make a good proxy for a Warhammer 40K centurion, but it's actually more like dreadnought sized. If we can unlock the 28mm version of the Medium mech, that will probably be dreadknight sized

Also, this mech won't be a stretch goal after all, I'm going to add it in to the campaign as an add on item now since I was going to get it done anyway. The $15,000 stretch goal is going to change to unlock one of the other light mech body positions in 28mm so there will be more variety

Lastly, this mech is a "showcase model", since Mechadrome is a 15mm game. If there is enough interest I may put together rules for large scale games, mostly just doubling the movement and shooting ranges.

You should update the title of this thread with a giant "28mm Mech Unlocked!!" I think a lot of folks would be interested in seeing the above pics, if they knew to look!

Done

I also added a new pledge level for 2 28mm light mechs for $40.. or people can just do single add-ons for $20 each.

That's a pretty sweet deal for the 28mm mech, I think! I'm sticking to the 15mm ones myself, though

Have pushed this on FB - that 28mm looks sweet. Did you get the email Necros?

Yep I got it I think what I'm going to do for Free Agents is have a 1 page PDF with the fluff and special rules.. and then a printable pilot card for page 2.

28mm mechs are getting a nice response I sent the photos in to some of the news sites too but they haven't been posted yet. Trying to get the word out but I'm mostly just hitting all the forums I can find.

I decided I'm going to update the rules and have rules for 28mm games in addition to 15mm, rather than just having large mechs for the fun of it. The 15mm scale games will be for higher model count games with an average of around 10 or so models. 28mm are for small squads, you need at least 3 models to play, but I think 6-7 would be the max. Well, you can go as big as you want in either scale, but that would be like the most common levels.

Do you think you'll have a print of the 15mm medium mech before the campaign is over?

Yep! I'm going to be sending that out for printing in the next day or so, along with Trion too so it'll be like a week to 10 days or so before I have it. It will end up being somewhere inbetween the 15mm and 28mm light mech in size

Also, I did some stretch goal shuffling. The extra 28mm light mech body seemed like a waste of a goal, I can just get another print done later for a 2nd body. So I moved the 28mm medium mech up in it's place and the new $35k goal will be for the first Mechadrome novel

Who will be the author for the novel? Also, how long are you shooting for it be?

Jonathan Peace will be the author He also wrote all the background fluff in the rulebook. I'm thinking it will be around 100 pages or so, maybe a bit more, depends how the story pans out

I also just realised that the small mech reminds me of one of the old Imperial Robots.

I'm finding some of the front on render shots of the small mech a bit confusing, the cockpit just seem to be tilted back pretty dramatically. Is is just a weird 'camera' angle?

 Necros wrote:
Got the 28mm light mech prints today Here's the new update!

Well, it's the end of day 2 and things are moving right along. Today the 3D prints for the 28mm scale Terran Light Mech arrived and I took some photos. This thing is actually pretty huge. It's exactly 2x bigger than the 15mm scale, so I guess it's more like a 30mm scale mech, but who's going to nitpick over 2mm when the model looks cool? Here's the pics!...

And sold. Looks freaking awesome.

The front windshield is actually kind of vertical.. there's a slope but not much.. it's probably the angle of the pic. I can take some new pics when I get a chance later.

I'm going to get the rulebook updated today and add in the 28mm rules. I need to come up with a catchy name for the 28mm games.. Mechadrome Extreme? Beyond Mechadrome? Mechadromeasaur? Mechadrome Colossus? Mechadrome - Extra Heavy Metal Combat?

Hmm...

MegaMechadrome?

Mechadrome Plus?

Mechadrome: Stadium 28

Mechadrome Amped.

Mechadrome XLR?

Mechadromeosaurus

hehe good ideas I just updated the rulebook with all the 28mm rules. For now I'm just calling it Standard Arenas and Colossal Arenas

Been thinking about this now that the 28/30mm mechs are a reality.. and because I've been playing Titanfall lately ... should I add infantry to the game? I'm not sure if it's something I could add to the Kickstarter.. maybe as a stretch goal? At first I didn't really want to, I wanted it to be all Mechs.. But, I think it could be kinda cool.. you'd have a squad of maybe 3 men with heavyish weapons. They would work like a squad in 40k, they all shoot at the same target 1d6 to hit for each guy in the squad. 30mm scale would be single figures, but 15mm scale would probably be a 40 or 50mm base with all 3 guys on it?

I would personally stick to all mechs, infantry at this small scale doesn't always come out well, and there are plenty of 15mm infantry alternatives on the market, but not plenty of equivalents to these mechs.

Using those same funds to make more mechs / unlocking new kinds of mechs sooner would be the path to take, imo.

I think stick with the Mechs for now

You can always add in troops later,

but you need a bunch of play testing to make sure they don't end up being the go-to choice or completely useless

Stick to the mechs- it's Heavy Metal Combat, not Metal and Soft Squishy Bags of Meat Combat.

Get the mecha gladiator game out the door first, then see about adding squishies, I say.

So, I finished up all of the renders to show each different weapon for the Terran Medium Mech. Unlike the light mechs, the medium's arms will be in 2 pieces so you can easily swap just the forearm or gun around, so there will be more options for poses, and you can see there's 2 different leg posses, you can just glue em right into the torso.



I'm getting the 3D prints done now, I will probably have them late this week or early next week And of course, I'll post pics as soon as I have em!

So there's a few things I just remembered, that I forgot about. I'm going to be giving a $5 "bonus credit" to Mechadrome backers who backed a previous Blackwater Gulch campaign. So if you did 1 campaign, you get $5, but if you did both campaigns you get $10. You can use this credit to spend on add-on items, or put it toward shipping charges

And I also, all MD backers get their name in the rulebook too.

I'll get the MD page updated with this info in a bit

Are you planning to have weapon arm packs as add-ons?
Specifically interested for the 15mm mediums, but I'm sure people would be interested in those for any of the scales.

Yep! I'm not sure how much the mediums will be, so I haven't added them yet. I was going to do a pack of all weapons & equipment sprues for $20, you'll get 2 of everything, so that will be 22 pieces in all. Or I could do all guns or all melee for $10, haven't decided yet.. but that's for the light mech. Hopefully I'll get the medium prints soon

Such an interesting game. What size boards do you envision this played on? Will there be a black water gulch crossover mech?

It depends on the scale.. for 15mm games, a 2x2 is good for smaller games and a 3x3 for really big ones around 10 mechs per side or more. For a 28mm game you'll want a 3x3, and 4x4 or bigger for large games

For 15mm games I've been using my 15mm scale Warboard that I got from their Kickstarter 28mm games I think the city boards from Secret Weapon would be perfect

 Necros wrote:
So there's a few things I just remembered, that I forgot about. I'm going to be giving a $5 "bonus credit" to Mechadrome backers who backed a previous Blackwater Gulch campaign. So if you did 1 campaign, you get $5, but if you did both campaigns you get $10. You can use this credit to spend on add-on items, or put it toward shipping charges

And I also, all MD backers get their name in the rulebook too.

I'll get the MD page updated with this info in a bit

For a Kickstarter Campaign that supposedly had such tight margins at the beginning your finding an aweful lot of wiggle room as the campaign goes on... This worries me.

Not much wiggle room at all, more like sacrificing a bit in the hopes that it'll get the game out there in front of more people who might share it with more potential backers

I posted a pic of Trion the other day, but here he is again, with his bio. We'll be doing one of these for all of the Free Agents Eventually I'll have each one as a PDF with a printable pilot card.

Trion will be a Medium Mech, armed with 2 Particle Cannons, 1 Missile Pod and Booster Jets. Like other Medium Mechs, he'll be a $15 add-on.



There are many mysteries and surprises within the varied arenas of MechaDrome, but none as perplexing as the free agent known as Trion. Free agents were introduced as a way to spice up what had become line-up-knock-down matches, where one team had outgrown the rest in the league due to increased revenue streams (image rights and licensing had become big business thanks to the uptake of the World Network). Quickly, these Free Agents became like the movie stars of Old Earth - crowds flocked to grab a single glance of their hero, and where there were crowds, there would also be big bucks.

No one knows exactly where Trion came from. His race is a unknown, as he never steps outside his sleek mech. His name is also a mystery - TRION is etched down the left side of the mech torso - whether this is the make of the Mech, his name or a designation from some as-yet unknown military unit. He appeared during a match between Team Bushido and the Terran Titans, joining the Titans as they struggled under the speedy attacks of Bushido. With blistering attacks from his twin particle cannons, and moving with lightning speed thanks to the booster jets fastened to his legs, Trion took out three Bushido’s in rapid succession. But it was when a previously hidden missile pod raised from his shoulder section, blasting the final heavy mech into metal shards that the name Trion began to be chanted throughout the arena observation zone as well as across the many World Network bars that had been created for the general populace. The legend grew from there.

Trion is now a regular appearance at most matches, with teams doing everything they legally can (and illegally can’t) to secure his valuable services.

Looks great and the sentry guns intrigue me, too. Will they be in both scales or just 15mm?

 RiTides wrote:
Looks great and the sentry guns intrigue me, too. Will they be in both scales or just 15mm?

Pretty sure he mentioned both.

Edit: Yep, just double-checked the e-mail.

Also, was the question just a sly way to ask him to post about the turrets in this thread?

Yep sorry, I thought I posted the turret info here too!

They will be in both scales. Each will have 1 body piece, and one of the top shoulder turrets from the terran medium mech, so there will be missiles or blasters. If we get the heavy mech unlocked, then we'll be able to add a chaingun turret too. And there will be 3 different bodies, one is a fixed stationary turret, one will have little tank treads and the third will be a mini walker.

You can add them to your teams, 2 turrets = 1 light mech for team organization. I'm also working out some optional solo play rules for 1 team vs automated turrets.

I got the first of the turret renders today. This is the stationary turret that will come with a base, but can also be added to terrain pieces like bunker roofs. Hoping I'll get pics of the other 2 turrets tomorrow

Patiently waiting for the tread-turret...

Yeah, I'm all about a tread turret, too . Any idea of cost on those in the two scales? And will they have different weapon load outs? Not pushing for that, just asking

I just got pictures of the new turret sculpts. We're going to be calling these "Arena Hazards". There will be 3 types. Fixed Hazards are stationary, they don't move but they have better targeting systems. Roving Hazards have tank treads, and Crawling Hazards are small walkers that are the fastest moving hazard (but still slow by Mech standards).

Some teams may add hazards to their roster to pressure their opponents or defend vital positions, but they are most often used in by the Arena itself to add an extra level of difficulty (and get the crowds roaring). These hazards will attack any Mech, seeking & destroying the closest target, often denying the other team of valuable points. These automated hazards will activate at the beginning of each Game Turn, before any Mechs may be activated, and they will always attack the closest target.

Arena Hazards will be available in 15mm and 28mm. They will be packaged in pairs, both of the same type, including 2 bodies, 2 missile pods and 2 blaster turrets. 15mm scale hazards will be 2 for $8, and 28mm scale hazards will be 2 for $15. They will be added to the add-ons menu this evening.

Here are the pictures! They look huge, but keep in mind these will be about half the size of a Light Mech.

Roving Hazards




Crawling Hazards




Fixed Hazards

I think I actually like the fixed ones the best! I will definitely be picking up 2 of those in 28mm, should make a nice little terrain feature

Cool Yep I will be using them to add to some buildings and bunkers myself. I was also thinking about doing a kind of trap door hatch that you can lay place around the arenas for hazard "spawn points".

So, I've done some stretch goal adjustments. Moved some things up, and decided to unlock the new races sooner so we can get some more variety. So I'll do the light & medium mechs for all 4 races, then move on to heavies after the 4 races are done. So we're starting with the Bionic light mechs at $15,000, and then a new sculpt every $10k.. both 15mm and 28mm

Well, I'm thrilled about the Bionics moving up. They'd make excellent "enemies" for your Terran mechs. Just don't go bankrupt on us (but seriously!)

Yep. you got me with those roving turrets...I'm unable to resist little track units I'll add a couple of those to my pledge.

Thanks

And no worries.. by pushing back a more costly sculpt like the heavy mechs, I can bump up all of the other lights and mediums, and they're still in the order I planned on anyway, just happening sooner

Whelp, it just hit the halfway funded point. So far so good.

Yep we're getting there

Wish I had more news at the moment. Right now I'm waiting for the samples of the resin 28mm light mechs that I should have soon, and the 3D prints for the medium mech will probably come next week

I did some updates to the campaign page that will hopefully make it easier to see what's included in a squad set. Since I'm getting the 3D prints for the medium mech in both sizes, I added the medium mechs to the add-ons menu, and also made a new pledge level for $70 for a squad of 2 28mm light mechs and 1 28mm medium.

Here are the 4 different human teams along with the squad payloads they favor

So how do we select our teams after the kickstarter is over(at the $100 level)? Can we choose from all unlocked races(say if we unlock the bionics), or do we choose from Team Bushido and Terran Titans(and the other human teams)?

Yep you can select the teams or races you want in the pledge manager. It will be set up like an online store where your $100 pledge would be like store credit, so you can actually spend that on something completely different than what your pledge level says if you want to.

For the 15mm squads, they get 4 light mechs.. but squads are meant to be 1 medium & 2 lights in the game, so the 2 extras are bonus minis. you'll select the squad you want, and then it will ask you what extra weapons you want for the bonus mechs.. so they don't all have to be the same if you want to mix them up.

Cool, so how are weapons and equipment chosen? Could I choose extra armor and railguns, or are they set up in packs as the teams have them? Such as Bushido has jetpacks and melee weapons, wrecking crew has wrecking balls and extra armor.

It will just be a little drop down menu I think .. so you select the first pair of weapons, then the 2nd pair, and then 1 of the 3 upgrade packs which will be a sprue of 2 missile pods, 2 booster jets or 2 armor plates. And the weapons will have to be in pairs just because that's how they're made.. so you'll get a right hand and left hand version of each on a little sprue.

that's also how it will work for adding on single extra mechs too, you select the pair of weapons you want from the list.. kind of like selecting a size & color if you order a t-shirt online

Thanks for the clarification. I was wondering how that would all play out.

I have some new artwork to show off for the Aphid Biomechs. Here is the updated Light Mech and Medium Mech. They're more humanoid looking now, and will be a combination of metal and heavy, chitinous armor plates. They will use the same weapons as other mechs, plus they have their own special weapon, the Acid Gun.

These are just rough sketches, I'll have them cleaned up when we get closer to sculpting them. They'll be the 4th race, so they likely won't be able to be in the current campaign, but you never know





In other news, I'm still waiting on the next batch of 3D prints and resin samples. My printer guy was away all last week. hopefully I'll have them in the next few days

Love the look of the medium mech. Looks menacing.

So, i'm going to be canceling the current campaign and relaunching it in about a month or so. Here's the new update I just posted with all the info!

Hi folks

First off I wanted to thank you for your support, but unfortunately I'm going to be canceling this campaign. But, I will be re-launching in about a month, so all is not lost!

It became pretty clear that most people were interested in 28mm mechs, so that will be the new focus for the game. The new campaign will focus on these bigger mechs, and will also only focus on Terran mechs and getting the game started.. rather than having a huge list of stretch goals. This will make everything more clear and best of all easy and quick to fulfill. After those first rewards are sent out, I'll be focusing on small and easy to follow campaigns for each new race separately.

Like I said, I'll be launching the "Mechadrome Reloaded" campaign in about a month. I'm going to wait until I have the resin sample models for the light and medium mechs fully painted, and I'll also put together a how to play video first as well, so I can present the game in a more "finished" state. Since I'll be focusing on 1 size, I'll also be able to have a lower funding goal of $5000. The stretch goals will be similar to now, I'll do the free US shipping as a $10,000 goal and I will have the Terran Heavy Mech as a $15,000 goal. I'll also have some mini-goals mixed in, with alternate poses for the light mechs at $7,500 and the Arena Hazards at $12,500. And, that's pretty much it. I think keeping the goals small and manageable and having a finite amount, will make the campaign fulfillment much easier for me, and you'll get your models much sooner. I'm still looking at November for a delivery date, and it will mostly likely be sooner, hopefully August or September for real, but I want to give myself extra time in case something goes wrong along the way.

I may still add the 15mm scale minis back in, but they would have to be a stretch goal as the production molds for them will be expensive due to all of the pieces needing their own separate molds. I still do plan to do 15mm scale minis, but I would want them primarily for the squad-based wargame I'm planning for the same game universe, but that is a year or 2 off. I want Mechadrome to remain as a small model count skirmish game with the sports theme, but now using big models that I think are much more fitting and will be more fun to play with

So, that said, I wanted to thank you again for pledging your support and I hope to see you back for round 2! Please don't drop out of this current campaign, I'll still be posting updates here as I get the new models ready and rules updated. And you can also sign up for my newsletter on my site at Mechadrome.com for updates, and as usual I'll be posting on my DakkaDakka forums as well

Tim

Good to know that the ship date will remain unchanged. Best of luck. No hard feelings here about waiting another month to spend money.

Agreed, relaunching with a much narrower focus on the 28mm terran mech is a smart decision, imo. I think a lot of folks will be interested, and now is just a very bad time in kickstarter land with the behemoths that were finishing.

Yeah, I was in it for the 28mm, and pushing it back just means my wallet may even let me pledge a bit more Streamlining the campaign can't help but be a good thing.

Yep I think it will go much better next time around.. and with a lower funding goal, it will fund quicker, which will look better to new folks that come along.

Another one of the reasons was I was really hoping to have 3D prints and resin samples last week, and now it will be more like earily next week.. so I just had no real new news to post around the web. 3D screenshots only do so much... folks want to see the real thing (myself included).

So in the meantime I'm painting up lots of terrain so I can focus on painting the models when they show up

And here's a little update.. been working on the pilot card layout, here's what they'll be like now.. only with a pic of the big mini in the end Depending on how well the new campaign goes, I might see if I can afford to get full color artwork done for each pilot instead of model photos.. that's going to cost like $100 each, and with so many different pilots.. I might be better off sticking with photos for now. But I guess we'll see how it goes

If you can afford, artwork would be much better IMHO.

May was looking nice and quiet when I originally planned to run the EFT Expansion kickstarter then...

And now Mechadrome and Mecha Front to go against...

Smallish indy campaigns can coexist, but with all these hundreds of thousands campaigns (dwarven forge, mercs, super dungeon, CMON) it was a tight month this past.

Yeah I don't think it's as big of a deal for little guys like us At any rate I'm gonna be a good 4-6 weeks away from relaunching anyway.. It will take a while to paint all the big mechs, and I'm also going to paint up all the weapons and stuff too. I'm going to magnetize the arms so I can have a photo of every pilot's mech, but just painting up 2 bodies and swapping out the weapons it will take way too long to paint up each full mech when there's 12 different pilots on a team.

I'm also going to be getting the heavy mech sculpted, so I'll want to make sure that's done so I can at least show off 3D renders for it ahead of time.

Well, good luck with the relaunch

From curiosity, how big is the heavy mech likely to be in 28mm?

Everything is pretty much double the size of what it was in 15mm.. so I guess it's more like 30mm scale but anyway.. the heavy will be around 100mm tall Mediums are around 80mm and lights around 60mm.


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I just got the 3D files for the Arena Hazards, so I put together some 3D renders to show how big they will be. As you can see, they're half as tall as a light mech or less, but kind of wide. I think they will end up being on 40mm bases.

Here they are, left to right top to bottom we have the Crawling Hazard, Roving Hazard, Static Hazard and then a banner pole with the static hazard bottom will be objective markers I should have the 3D prints for them in a couple of weeks.

The arena hazards look good! I'd like to see a side shot of them, too.

I just got the 3D prints for the Terran Medium mech. This is the 28mm scale version. I'll have the 15mm done soon. He's held together with sticky poster putty, so he's not posed very well. But, as you can see, he's pretty huge. Here's some pics!


Armed with a Railgun, Plasmagun, Missile Pod and Blaster


Armed with 2 Chainguns, Blaster and Missile Pod


Armed with a Wrecking Ball and Jackhammer



All of the pieces top to bottom, left to right, we have the Siege Drill, Wrecking Ball, Jackhammer, Buzzsaw, Torso, Legs Position 1, Plasma Gun, Railgun, Left & Right Chainguns, Left & Right upper arms/shoulders, Left & Right Crusherfists, Legs Position 2, Missile Pod, Blaster Turret and Booster Jets.

I'll be sending him out to get the resin molds made shortly!

In other news, I just released a new version of the rulebook. You can download the new PDF from my website! I've updated everything to cover 28mm distances more clearly, and I've also added a lot of new stuff such as campaign rules and a chart you can use to simulate drawing Arena Cards... those cards will be optional, but will be a deck of cards and both players draw at the beginning of each turn to give you random objectives, powerups and arena conditions to keep everyone on their toes

I'll post a new update with more photos when I get the first batch of resin samples in, probably next week. Then I have a lot of painting to do!

That is seriously cool in 28mm!

Imo, you might want to make a new thread when you relaunch, so people can see that awesomeness and not get confused the prior stuff in different scales. That model looks like a winner to me!

That looks nice how tall is it around 120mm?

Yup, I want at least 5.
These will be part of the relaunch right?

I think they will pretty much be the relaunch. Necros said he'd be focusing just on these (terran) mech in 28mm, and maybe the arena hazards. I think that's totally the way to go! I'd be tempted to pick up some myself, although I am soooooo tapped out right now.

Will they come with all arm options? Are they designed for magnets? This seems like the kind of thing that would be perfect to magnetize.

Yep I'll do an all new news post when the new campaign is ready but just using this one for updates for now

He's about 80mm tall, pushing 100 with the missile pod or blaster turrets.

And yes the new campaign will be focusing on this guy, plus the light mech, in 28mm. I'll still offer the 15mm versions as add-ons for the folks that want them, but the whole game is all 28mm now. If there's an interest I'll do the 15mm stuff later on as more of a traditional squad based wargame, just with squads of mechs. 28mm works great for the sports theme, low model count but big stompy mechs Most teams will max out at 7 models, and that will be 4 light mechs, 2 medium mechs and 1 heavy mech. The focus will be on these Terran mechs, but if the campaign does really well I'll add in other races.. but I'm going to be careful and not get too far ahead of myself like last time. I'd rather focus on getting the models done and some extra funds so I can get some nice art done for the cards and rulebook.

And at this rate I think it will be late may or early june for the new campaign. I still haven't gotten the resin samples I was hoping to have last week.. Then I have to send the mediums in and it will likely take 2-3 weeks to get those resin samples. I'll have 2 starter sets fully painted for the campaign and I'll see about doing a how to play video as well.

The models will be pretty easy to magnetize The arms have a kind of ball & socket joint, so if you want to use magnets you might have to cut off the ball part but that shouldn't be a big deal. But I'm going to be selling the models as named characters, so they will come with the pilot's card and the just weapons his mech uses (to keep the prices low). I'll have pics showing what each pilot's mech is armed with, so in the pledge manager you'll be able to pick whatever pilot you want.. and I'll also be selling the weapons in separate packs too for conversions and stuff.

Well, if that ends up being the timing, I may end up going in for a half dozen of these! I had originally planned to use my Dreamforge Mortis (the 15mm ones) as Ironclads, but I've finally admitted they're too big. So I'll mount them up on terrain and use them as Knights instead .

That means I need some mechs for Ironclads, and while these are still tall, they look great on that 60mm base.

So count me very interested! Are the close combat hands for either side? I think I like the drill the best.

What cost are we looking at for a medium mech? They're in resin, not metal? And will there be an all medium mech pledge level (choose your pilots in the pledge manager?)?

I'm pretty stoked for this now

For the medium, there's right and left hand versions of the chainguns and the crusherfists. The rest are universal so the same piece could go on either arm.

I have no idea what the prices will really be though. I have a general idea I guess, but I won't know for sure till I get the samples all in hand. But, last time I was going for $20 for a light mech and $35 for a medium mech, but that was including lots of extra weapons.. so I'm hoping I can go for something more like $15 for a light and $25 for a medium. That will make squads $55, and then I could hopefully do a 2-squad starter set bundle with the rulebook for $125 if all goes well

If we can get the heavy mech unlocked I'm hoping that will be around than $40, but I'll have to see how it goes, I'll be able to guess that price better when I know how much the other 2 will cost. He'll probably be 100ish mm tall

I'm going to set up the pledges pretty simple to follow.. a $1 a-la-carte pledge, then whatever for 1 light mech, then 1 medium mech, then 1 squad, then 2 squads and a rulebook.

If you can do mediums for $25 I'm sold. I'd definitely be interested in the weapon packs, too. If it was $35 including all weapons that would work fine.

Might want to consider an all medium pledge since there are a few here who mentioned interest in that already . You'll be making a new thread when you reboot in late May / early June, right?

You're on my calendar for much more than I was in the first campaign for.

Yep I'll make a new post, probably when I get painted models to start showing off then I'll start plugging the new campaign. I'll also have printable pilot cards then too.

I'm hoping for $25 for the medium, but we'll see how it goes when I get the molds done The most it will be is $35. I want to do discounted prices for the campaign, the retail price for the light mech will probably be $25 so I'm hoping to get that under $20 for the campaign. Since the medium is only a little bit taller and less pieces overall thanks to how the arms are done, I think about $10 more than the light mech will be about right.

I was going to hold off on sending the medium prints in to get molds done, since I'm supposed to get light mech samples early next week.. I wanted to take some pictures of the 2 together.. but I'm just going to send it in now, the sooner they get it the sooner I can get new samples to paint.

I'm thinking about the heavy mech now.. if the medium is on a 60mm base, I think the heavy's base will probably have to be like the oval bases GW has for their bigger stuff. either that or like an 80mm round base. I will probably have to get that custom made so that might increase the cost a little. Proxie makes a 120mm round base, but I think that will be too big, but I'll use that for the super heavy mechs .. someday

There might be an 80mm base made elsewhere, I'll have a look around for that.

I'll go back to lurking on this but just wanted to say how excited I am by the medium sculpt, and looking forward to when you make a new thread to showcase it and the light in 28mm for the new campaign

Just one point of feedback if I could give it- I appreciate your openness, but you might want to be rock solid on the prices before you start the next campaign (or thread, although I would like to see these beauties in their own thread as soon as possible). It's nice seeing your thought process but to give people the impression that things are "finished", you don't want to toss around 40% price differences . Make sure you don't go broke, but as long as there's a way to get medium mechs with all weapon options, I'll totally be on board

Yeah, the prices are me just guessing right now, based on guesses from the mold makers. One of the other reasons for the longer delay is because I want to get as much done ahead of time as I can, so I'll have concrete prices for everything. And that's another reason I don't want to get ahead of myself and offer tons of extra stuff. So I guess it will be more like a pre-order campaign at that point, but still

I think that's very smart, and focusing on the Terrans (light / medium / possibly heavy as a stretch) and a working game.

Oh, and delivery solidly in 2014, preferably by mid-fall! "December 2014" always seems like a pseudonym for "whenever we get it done"... so at latest putting November would be appreciated.

I think with being sure about your offerings and keeping in mind the above it will do quite well

Mierce does 80mm plastic bases but they are a custom style

http://www.mierce-miniatures.com/index.php?act=cat&cre=tpf-bas&sou=cat#80mm bases

(not sure who makes them for them, but worth asking them if they would suit)

Just shoot proxie an e-mail asking for 80mm, he'll likely do it.

Yep already asked I'll be using Proxie bases for everything. I think I'm just going to have to wait till I get the model made though, so I'll know if the 80mm will work or if I should go with the oval shape.

For delivery, that's not going to change.. so I'm still going to have November for my date, for the light and medium mechs at least.. and then stretch goal items will come later. The heavy mech sculpt won't be finished till July. Dave will be able to get a preliminary sculpt done around the next week or 2, so I'll be able to show it off in the new campaign, but he's going to be too busy with another project, so it won't be finalized till the end of June or so. So I'm going to say January or February for the heavy mech, and hope to have it done much sooner if all goes well.

As long as the mediums will still ship by November, that sounds great to me! Splitting out the heavy mech into a later "wave" soas not to delay the earlier mechs is much appreciated

I've always been willing to pay for split shipping so if I did end up getting a heavy mech, I would be more than happy to pay an extra $10 or the like to have it sent separately later, and have the medium mechs sent on time.

That heavy is pretty impressive.

Would it be resin?

will definitely try to convince my brother to go halvsies with me.

Him and mecha go together like peas in a pod.

That's not even a heavy, that's a medium!

Quoting the pics over to the new page:

 Necros wrote:
I just got the 3D prints for the Terran Medium mech. This is the 28mm scale version. I'll have the 15mm done soon. He's held together with sticky poster putty, so he's not posed very well. But, as you can see, he's pretty huge. Here's some pics!


Armed with a Railgun, Plasmagun, Missile Pod and Blaster


Armed with 2 Chainguns, Blaster and Missile Pod


Armed with a Wrecking Ball and Jackhammer



All of the pieces top to bottom, left to right, we have the Siege Drill, Wrecking Ball, Jackhammer, Buzzsaw, Torso, Legs Position 1, Plasma Gun, Railgun, Left & Right Chainguns, Left & Right upper arms/shoulders, Left & Right Crusherfists, Legs Position 2, Missile Pod, Blaster Turret and Booster Jets.

I'll be sending him out to get the resin molds made shortly!

In other news, I just released a new version of the rulebook. You can download the new PDF from my website! I've updated everything to cover 28mm distances more clearly, and I've also added a lot of new stuff such as campaign rules and a chart you can use to simulate drawing Arena Cards... those cards will be optional, but will be a deck of cards and both players draw at the beginning of each turn to give you random objectives, powerups and arena conditions to keep everyone on their toes

I'll post a new update with more photos when I get the first batch of resin samples in, probably next week. Then I have a lot of painting to do!

Yeah this is a wimpy little medium, the heavy will be much bigger.. and some day I hope to do even bigger and stompier super-heavies but not until I can get all of the main races done first, so that's a long ways off.

What I'm thinking about doing for the pledge manager is to just use online store software rather than a big web form. So your pledge will become store credit that you can use to order things like you do in any other online store. So for example, you could use your credit to order a few lights and mediums, and then place a separate order for "wave 2 items" ... then your rewards will get shipped as soon as they are all available. I'm also going to offer the $10 shipping credit for pledges over $100, so then if you pledge $100, your total store credit would actually be $110.

I just thought the store would be a good way to keep track of everyone's rewards and allow folks to change their rewards if they decide they want something different than what they pledged for. and it will be easy to add on extra models if you want, and set up multiple shipments too if you want to do that. It'll also make it easy for me to print shipping labels and all that stuff too, since it's all built in.

Crap, that was just a medium!?!?!?

Those heavies are going to be Mierce- scale sized figures!

Please tell me those are going to be resin or plastic or something other than metal, because that's going to be a hell of a time pinning all that metal!

I've still got one of those Khador Extreme Destroyers sitting in it's box due to me not wanting to deal with all the pinning I'll need to do in order to keep it stable.

That's seriously impressive though. 25~35 for something of that size? I'll definitely be in, even if it's just for a single piece.

These mechs give me such an Exo Squad vibe. I consider that a good thing! I was too old for those toys when the show was on, but myself and my father secretly loved messing with my little brother's, so we kept on making sure he was well stocked!

Yes the 28mm stuff will be resin. Traditional resin, not restic or any of that other newfangled stuff. I thought we might have some smaller weapon pieces in metal, but they're all pretty big and chunky so they will likely be all resin too.

Plastic will be way too expensive for these big guys.. but I might look into that later on for the 15mm stuff, since they will end up in a squad-based wargame, and metal might be too pricey for that. That's a couple of years off though. I want to focus on 1 game at a time, but I'm always planning ahead

Yes, 1 game at a time, please! But I think you are on the right track here

Good call.

You've definitely got my interest locked down now.

I had the previous project starred, but May is looking way more safe since all the big names should be cleared out of the KS system by then.