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After much last-minute faffing around and one minor glitch with the downloads (now all fixed), MechaWar is live and for sale!

http://precinctomega.co.uk/

MechaWar is the first publication from One Pound Wargames, a new imprint of Precinct Omega Publishing. As the name suggests, all the games released under the imprint will cost just £1.00. They will all only be available as PDFs (although I may have limited hard copies to sell at conventions... also for £1.00) and kept, as close as possible, to under 25 pages of concisely written rules. The idea is to accompany all of the games with free additional material, such as scenario generators, campaign systems and bolt-on rule packs.

MechaWar is our first offering: a mech skirmish game that lets you build and customize your army in minutes and use any convenient mech models you might have for Battletech, CAV, Heavy Gear or any other mech game (Bad Command, anyone?) at any scale from 6mm to 15mm. It offers a surprisingly deep tactical experience for almost no money (especially if you use our favourite models for the game, the plastic mechs from em4miniatures.com (£2.55 for enough mechs to play an average game of MechaWar!).

Check it out. Why not? It's only £1.00.

R.

Hmmm....as a Battletech player and fan of amechs in general, I find this interesting.

Just 1 GBP is great too, even with the US exchange rate, what forms of payment do you take...paypal by chance??

It's exclusively PayPal unless you meet me at a convention (unlikely, if you're in the States). Easier and safer than me processing credit details myself, even if Paypal does take 24p in every pound...

R.

Paypal is just fine, Ill be picking up a copy sometime soon.

Give us a review if you do, Mad4Minis. I am fine with the new stuff being put out by Catalyst, but options never hurt anybody

Please do! I heartily welcome all suggestions, observations and criticisms. Our second game is nearly ready for beta testing and I have a mission generator and campaign system in development for MechaWar that I want to release as soon as possible.

R.

Just purchased my copy. Haven't had time to review the rules themselves, but I was impressed to see a few nice bits of computer generated art and plenty of full-color pictures of painted EM4 mechs to illustrate game mechanics.

The game seems fairly well limited to mech combat, but the inclusion of some suggestions/guidelines for expansion and house ruling is a nice touch. Also there are a few succinct but well done appendices.

Simply, but neatly laid out and more than worth the 1 pound ($1.61 USD) price!

You'll like what we have in the pipeline, then.

Rules compatible with MW for aerial warfare are currently in play testing. And rules for the rest of your Battle Group are written in first draft, pending me acquiring enough minis to play test them too!

The colour illustrations were donated by the artist, but I will have to pay him in future, so if you want more colour illustrations, encourage your friends to buy their copies so I can afford to put more art in future publications.

R.

Hey! Look at that!

http://www.precinctomega.co.uk/omegablog/mechawar-mission-generator-beta-release

R.

It was great to meet up with new MechaWar player, Sam, to give the Mission Generator its first full-game run-out.

We took equal battlegroups of five mechs each: one MA3, two MA2s and two MA1s each, for a total of 9 points per side and decided that we would randomly generate open missions before designing our battlegroups in detail. Sam got "Withdraw in order to Destroy..." with the Checkpoints subordinate task. I got "Advance in order to Seize...", also with the Checkpoints subordinate task. Sam then elected to invest in his mechs' survivability, giving them a combination of reasonable mobility and high armour, whilst I went for a slightly more balanced design, biased towards firepower in my medium and large mechs and towards movement in my small mechs.

We distributed our terrain and quickly made up six location markers that were placed on or adjacent to terrain pieces, each secretly noted our checkpoint locations and I noted my "Seize" objective, choosing the location marker closest to the 16 square, to maximize my victory points. I elected to take a forward deployment for 4 points for a single MA2 mech and won initiative (a trend which would immediately end from the following turn).

I quickly separated my forces, sending my MA3 mech into the central urban area to waylay and harass his withdrawal, and pushing everything else up the right flank to roll up my three checkpoints on my way to the objective. Sam pushed around the opposite flank in a much more aggressive posture, sniping at my manoeuvring mechs before closing with them to finish them off (appropriate to his "Destroy" objective). My MA3 succeeded in stalling his advance and blasted to smithereens one of his MA1 scouts, but the close-supporting MA2 mechs behind it rushed forward, driving my MA3 away and rescuing the downed pilot before I could crush him.

The harassment action on my MA3 left it vulnerable as it moved around to confront his own, trailing, MA3, and Sam was able to not only destroy it with a couple of well-timed critical hits, but also stomp on the pilot before he could be rescued. This gave him a potent 6 VPs (1 for killing the mech, +3 for his Destroy objective, +2 for the "kill or capture" subordinate task) and gave him an appetite for destruction that encouraged him to move his MA3 to intercept my advance to the Seize objective.

This decision proved his undoing, however, as he had invested in his MA3's armour to the detriment of its firepower, running it into the teeth of my MA2s with FP 5 and 6 which were able to use Move & Shoot actions sequentially to dash forward and hammer his MA3 with a succession of crippling blows that didn't kill it but, rather, left it reduced to MP1. Sam grabbed a consolation prize by turning his MA3 to blast (critical hit!) an under-armoured MA1 I had sent up to grab the 16-point square for my Advance mission (gaining 2 VPs, but failing to squish the pilot before I could rescue him). But he was left too slow to complete his withdrawal alongside the other, faster-moving MA2s and remaining MA1 which had made it to the high point square - but to no avail, because the Withdraw mission only scores the mobile mech in the lowest scoring square. Meanwhile, I had three mobile mechs within 2" of my Seize objective, plus a presence in the 14-point square.

When the sixth turn ended, even though I had lost two more mechs than Sam, my more efficient use of the checkpoints and successful seizure of my objective with mobile mechs put me more than ten VPs ahead of him in the final count-up.

***

There were a few learning points. I think I should make cards that players can use to randomly generate secret missions if they want to do so, as you can't do random secret generation with dice. The Advance mission is a lot easier than the Withdraw mission, so I think it may get modified although I've not decided how yet - possibly applying -4 to the normal value of the occupied square. The way players manage and declare their checkpoints probably needs a second pass, too.

However, despite that, the Mission Generator was a huge success. It gave real tactical challenge to the game, encouraged players to make effective use of fire and manoeuvre and make genuine tactical choices about positioning, route and what was worth risking. Sam had a great game and I was again encouraged by how much fun MechaWar is to play, even with comparatively simple, easy-to-grasp rules.

R.

Ive given the early draft of their tank rules a look, and they look good. More complex than what we tend to play at home (house faves are Panzer 8 and Ganeshas Song of Blades) but they will likely satisfy the average wargamer who seeks something a bit more involved.

Cheers, M4M. The air warfare rules should be out in a month or so, at least in public beta. The rules you saw are scheduled for release in about April.

R.

Got these today, from Brigade Models:



These are to playtest the combined arms volume of the three sets of inter-locking SF wargame rules Precinct Omega is publishing (MechaWar being the first and AirFrame the second). In retrospect, they may actually be a little smaller than I expected - they look really quite tiny next to the mechs, so I might look at adding some 10mm to my collection to see how they look.

R.

http://precinctomega.co.uk/omegablog/mechawar-mission-generator

Merry Christmas, folks. If you would like your say as to what we concentrate on next for a MechaWar release, there's a poll on our forums:

http://www.precinctomega.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=476.0

Regards,

Robey

If you're still wavering over whether to part with a whole £1.00 to give MechaWar a test, there's a review in the latest Ancible magazine, free to download from here:

http://the-ancible.com/

R.

Here's a completed Light squadron/lance for the Long Knives Company, mercenaries in service to the Jade Caliph (for now):



These guys have been built and painted as a commission for a client and enthusiastic early adopter of the MechaWar system.

R.

They look great. I recently did a bunch of conversions of EM4 mechs, but never got around to painting them. I'll have to get them posted.

Congrats on the positive review in The Ancible.

If you want some 10mm tanks, I would recommend two soruces.
Reaper's CAV line is good. Also check out their Robot supply depot for good deals on vehicles that don't fit the current edition of the game but are still nice models. Also, Mechwarrior clix models are 10mm and can often be gotten for very little $.

Cheers, Eilif. The CAV tanks from Reaper are cool, but just a smidge pricey (although better value than the mechs). And Mechwarrior doesn't seem to be so regularly or cheaply available in the UK as it is on US eBay. But I have got my eye on both sources.

For now, we're pushing on with playtesting using 6mm minis and it seems to be working very nicely. I'd love to see your EM4 conversions, though.

R.

Have you tried putting an ad up here, or at Bartertown or TMP? There's alot of folks out there with Mechwarrior stuff just gathering dust in their closets just waiting for someone to aks about it.

Except for a couple batches of really cheap units via Troll and Toad, I got almost all my stuff in trades and sales through online forums. I rarely paid more than a buck a unit and usually much less.

All that said, if you're using EM4 mechs, the 6mm stuff is the right scale even if it feels a bit small.

I was inspired by your suggestion to go do a hunt and have, actually, found quite a good source for Mechwarrior stuff in the UK. At the moment, I have everything I need for playtesting, but we'll see how it goes. The rotary airframes from Mechwarrior would be pretty cool to supplement the EM4 spaceships, which don't really look like natural hoverers...

Oh, which reminds me - for those who didn't notice our announcement on the News & Rumours page, because stuff drops off there at dizzying speed - we've now released our second volume in the HorizonWar trilogy: AirFrame.

It runs as a standalone air superiority game, or you can use it to add air support to your mech forces (or even run mech-versus-airframe games). And, like MechaWar, it's just £1.00!

Watch this space. BattleGroup, the third volume, should be out in April.

R.

Here are the finished heavy infantry from Angel Barracks (part of my private collection) with an EM4 medium mech from the above commission (WIP) for scale:



I can't speak too highly of Angel Barracks's 6mm SF. It's early days, but these infantry minis are just the best I've ever handled when it comes to 6mm white metal SF. The only range that comes close in terms of detail is GW's old Epic plastics, which were rather poor in terms of variety.

http://angelbarracks.co.uk/

R.

 precinctomega wrote:
I'd love to see your EM4 conversions, though.
R.

And ye shall receive....
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/508436.page
...7 Conversions made only from EM4 parts and list descriptions of each conversion.

I sat down last night for the first ever Combined Arms playtest of the HorizonWar rules, incorporating MechaWar, AirFrame and BattleGroup, with my friend Will at the Gloucester Games Bunker.

We decided to go for a modest 10-point battle lengthwise along a 2'x4' table, with a dense urban sprawl in the middle 2'x2'. Will took a Special Forces element, with a Heavy Artillery element and four airframes. I took a MA2 mech, a Heavy cavalry element, three Mobile Infantry elements and two Light Infantry elements. The objective was for me to punch through to cross his table edge. I would get 1 VP for the PR/MA value of every element that left the table. He had to stop me, so he got 1 VP for the PR/MA of every element that he killed or immobilized.

I took the initiative in the first turn and moved up to the edge of the built-up zone, with the Mob Inf and mech on the left flank, the Lt Inf running up the centre and the Hvy Cav (it's a tank) on the right flank. Will revealed his Special Forces in an office block at the centre of the urban zone and used it to direct off-table artillery support onto my tank, but its AR4 meant that the attack did only a single point of damage, reducing the vehicle's FP.

His airframes, which began cruising at Alt5, all banked to Alt6 and disengaged, sweeping around to my left flank.

In the second turn, my light infantry launched an assault on the Special Forces. Will promptly cheered when his three dice produced a 12, but I laughed as my single dice revealed the same result. The infantry elements were locked in a bitter, room-by-room battle inside the office block (or, as Will had it, the SF were hiding!). His airframes all appeared on the left flank, one after the other, each zeroing on a surviving Mob Inf element as they pressed deep into Will's half of the table. Delivering strike after strike, his critical hits on the Mob Inf wiped out two of them (Lt and Mob Inf elements have AR1). But my mech, driving up to support the Mob Inf, badly damaged two of his airframes.

Turn three saw my light infantry put up a commendable effort against the SF (I rolled a 10) but Will rolled two 12s, so it can be fairly said that they wiped the floor with the poor bloody infantry. Nevertheless, my second Lt Inf element, which had taken some artillery hits previously, performed a magnificent recovery roll (much like repair) and used the opportunity to manoeuvre around the building and head for the objective. My tank threw several shots into the building which would have killed his SF (I had a critical hit and, like the Mob and Lt Inf, the SF have AR1), but I took pity on him in the name of a more interesting game. As it happened, the SF played little more role in the game after this.

The score after Turn three was 3 - 0 to Will.

In Turn 4, Will's artillery deployed from reserve to deliver some long-range hurt upon my surviving Mob Inf and Lt Inf, but my Mob Inf was, by this time, too close to his board edge for him to stop them with anything less than a critical hit, which failed to manifest and they zoomed off the board. Meanwhile, his airframes were manoeuvring to bring down the mech, but his DS4 served to negate the worst of the damage.

Will 3 - 1 Robey

My tank was now out of the urban zone and going as fast as it could for the table edge, but repeated artillery bombardments slowed his progress enough that it would take at least two more turns to reach the edge (hvy cav operate far ahead of their organic support, so cannot make Recover rolls, so there was no way to make him any more mobile once his FP was at 0!). The Lt Inf offered him a target too tempting to ignore and the arty did its best to hammer the guys into the ground. Their potent DS3 did a lot to help keep them moving but, eventually, it was all too much and they, too, fell. But on the left flank, my mech had managed to manoeuvre away from the airframes' assault long enough to stumble over the board edge itself.

Will 4 - Robey 3

It was all on the tank at this point, and Will sent all of his airframes and artillery in to do their worst. But having used too many strikes on the mech and opportunity shots against the Lt Inf, Will was left with a paltry effort that scarcely managed to land a blow. The arty managed to drop him to MP1, but by that point the tank was within 3" of the edge of the board and a single rapid move reaction took him over the edge.

The final score was Will 4 - 6 Robey and a victory to me. But my disruption force was in serious disarray and it was questionable just how much damage I could feasibly deliver to his rear echelon under the circumstances.

The game was incredibly fluid, fun and fast and took less than an hour, despite Will needing a lot of reminding of the rules at the start (as well as a complete introduction to the AirFrame and BattleGroup rules). All in all, again, it proved the resilience and tactical challenge of HorizonWar. I got some good ideas to add to BG, but the rules for ArF and MaW continue to be solid.

More on the Advanced Rules will follow very soon!!

Regards,

Robey

P.S. Sorry for the lack of photos. I meant to illustrate this game, but discovered my phone had run out of charge completely when I arrived at the club. Next time, gadget! Next time!!

Just in the selfish interests of bumping my own thread, I thought I'd share the MechaWar battlegroup I've just painted for the winner of the Roll Dice newsletter MechaWar competition:



Yes, I know the big guy in the middle needs his base finishing, but I didn't see any reason to hang about before taking photos, because the basecoat was still drying when I took this.

R.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Who wants in on the BattleGroup closed beta? And a chance to win one of two painted BattleGroup armies?? http://bit.ly/ZWTBUV

R.