Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

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!



======================

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