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For some years I've been cobbling together Mech forces in 28mm for the various convention games that I run and usually posting my progress here. It's not a new phenomenon or something that I've in any way created. Big-Scale Battletech has been done for a couple decades now, usually with resin or 3d printed garage kits that are quite expensive (and rightfully so) but a bit out of reach of most gamers. For a budget gamer like me, keeping it affordable involves alot of hunting for used deals, special sales, etc and this kind of time commitment also puts it out of feasibility for many gamers. However, it occurs to me now that -possibly for the first time ever- such a project is in easy financial reach of almost anyone. Hear me out...

RULES:
Now clearly this involves a bit of DIY/proxying at least in finding models that fit the stats you are playing with or making new stats, but whether your mecha rules prefference is Battletech, Mech Attack (similar to BT but with 1/10 the rules and plays in 1/4 the time), Alpha Strike, CAV, WarDogs, Gruntz 15mm, Robotech RPG Tactics, etc big-scale mech gaming may now be an option. All of those rulesets have either a strong unit-customization mechanic or have enough unit profiles to cover virtually any kind of mecha. Once you find a ruleset you like, it's usually not more than doubling ranges and movements (or simply substituting inches for cm) to make them work in 28mm.


MINIATURES (or BIGATURES?)
Of course as has been said implied above the biggest difficulty is finding large scale mecha that won't break the bank when bought in numbers high enough for unit wargaming. Cheap sci-fi soldiers are relatively common (Sedition Wars boxed sets, Denizen, Mantic, EM4, a ridiculously large used minis market) but Mechs and vehicles can be more difficult. Fortunately today's buyer has some very solid options for large mecha models that are available for the price of a standard Battletech 6mm model ($12-16 each). That's right big stompy robots for the price of tiny stompy robots!

-Dust Tactics. Yes the MSRP is higher, but the disaster that is the current game situation means the average price for NIB mechs seems to be around $15, or as low as $8 on supersale (there's one on the Miniature market daily deal right now...). Perhaps the easiest point of entry since they're wodely available, nicely detailed models that come already assembled and base-coated.
-Robogear. Mech kits from the Tehnolog company Still widely available via ebay for $8-$14.
-Mecha kits from Bandai and others. Availability varies from sites like Hobbylink or Hobbysearch, but when they're in stock, there's a wealth of models available from Macross and Gundam that are remarkably affordable. (Check the actual size though as some are better suited for 20mm than 28mm) This is especially the case for older model kits (1/100 Gundam and older Macross) from the past that are still in-print today.

If you're willing to bump up to the 20-30 range and do a bit more searchign, there's alot of options from companies like Soctia Grendel (Kryomek and Void lines), larger used Robotech Macross and Battletech toys on Ebay and your options for more modern model kits expands alot.

Anywho, my main curiosity is does this kind of thing catch the fancy of other gamers or am I'm the only one? Anybody else have hints or suggestions on how they do projects like this?

For more idea of what I'm on about, here's links to some of my big mech games.
Adepticon 2016 http://www.chicagoskirmishwargames.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=116 (scroll past the 10mm practice game)
Adepticon 2015 http://chicagoskirmish.blogspot.com/2015/03/mech-attack-at-adepticon-2015.html

Ok that looks pretty awesome

Oh yes, I've always watched your blog posts with a lot of interest, as I'm still looking for some simple rules that allows for an Imperial Knight or two to take up arms against hordes of monsters.

Mr Morden wrote:Ok that looks pretty awesome

Thanks!

BrookM wrote:Oh yes, I've always watched your blog posts with a lot of interest,

Glad to hear it! I don't want to bore folks with more of Eilif's obsession with big mechs, but I'm stoked at the idea that this kind of gaming may finally be viable for "regular" gamers.

BrookM wrote: I'm still looking for some simple rules that allows for an Imperial Knight or two to take up arms against hordes of monsters.

Have you tried the Mech Attack rules? They have combined arms (mechs, infantry, vehicles) and the next edition will also have flyers, bikes and drones (beta rules are at the armorgrid games forum). Titans are even bigger than the "heavy" mech which tops out at around 20 Build Points (BP) and 100 armor or so. However the build process is entirely modular so there's nothing stopping you from from making a mech with a BP of 40, more than 4 weapons (the usual limit) and Alot more Armor. The standard unit card already goes up to 150 even though It'd be very hard to build a standard mech with that much armor.

The infantry rules are fairly abstract, but it should be more than enough to represent hordes of orcs or somesuch. For larger monsters a Scout or light mech profile might be best.

I used to play it - about 25 years ago.

Mates and I had a collection of 1/72 or so scale Macross, Crusher Joe and Dougram mecha kits and we'd fight battles with toy soldiers and them using dice and a pre-40k ruleset that handled Leviathan walkers as well as everything else. I was also still playing BT in those days.

Due to the size of the vehicles, it was played on the floor.

It still arouses my curiosity to watch the games these days (see pictures, watch a video batrep) but I'm not as in love with the mecha genre anymore.

Still, love your work anyway.

I'd totally play that. I wouldn't mind buying a few Gundams to horse around with my buddy's collection.

28mm designed and built.

Rules and full line of products.

The name of the game is TechCommander.

http://blog.sailpowergame.com/

Sea Dog Game Studios attends Adepticon, Origins, and Gen on as well as some of the smaller regional cons.

Follow them on Facebook, new stuff coming out this year.

chromedog wrote:I used to play it - about 25 years ago.

Mates and I had a collection of 1/72 or so scale Macross, Crusher Joe and Dougram mecha kits and we'd fight battles with toy soldiers and them using dice and a pre-40k ruleset that handled Leviathan walkers as well as everything else. I was also still playing BT in those days.

Due to the size of the vehicles, it was played on the floor.

It still arouses my curiosity to watch the games these days (see pictures, watch a video batrep) but I'm not as in love with the mecha genre anymore.

Still, love your work anyway.

Sinful Hero wrote:I'd totally play that. I wouldn't mind buying a few Gundams to horse around with my buddy's collection.

Gundams are probably the most plentiful and most affordable of the mecha kits. I think the 1/144 scale figs look a bit small next to 28mm figs (great for 15 or 20mm though) but some folks think they're fine. They're also ridiculously affordable with at least a few dozen commonly kits available for between $1.50 and $5. The Yen is low, buy now!

I think the older 1/100 models look great alongside 28mm though and there's quite a few available for between $5 and $15!
https://hlj.com/scripts/hljlist?Scale=100&searchpage=gun&Dis=2&qid=1FL5N2LIZ7&GenreCode=gun&q=1&DisplayMode=images&Word=gundam&inStock=1&set=1&Sort=price+asc
My buddy bought some for our games and you can see them in the games I linked in the first post.

xraytango wrote:28mm designed and built.

Rules and full line of products.

The name of the game is TechCommander.

http://blog.sailpowergame.com/

Sea Dog Game Studios attends Adepticon, Origins, and Gen on as well as some of the smaller regional cons.

Follow them on Facebook, new stuff coming out this year.

I've checked these out a few times over the years (It's been over a decade, yes?). They always looked a bit rough but maybe it was just the paint jobs?. Also, my buddy brought me a couple of their tire stacks from Gencon and they were really crude. However, the pictures in this new guide http://blog.sailpowergame.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/TechCommander-20-for-NOOBS-06-2016.pdf look alot better. Are these new models?

I'll be keeping an eye out for them. The big ones are a bit out of my pricepoint, but maybe a splurge is in order if they're particularly good.

Yes, new stuff is 3d printer/cad prototype.

The older stuff is very hand made, it's all cast up in Brian's basement. It's great for customization.

The game as it is began development around 2007 or 08. Sailpower has been around longer (2005 iirc)

Actually the tire stacks aren't all that crude, hell man they're tire stacks what do you think they are supposed to be, GEM-LIKE OBJECTS OF WONDER?

xraytango wrote:
Yes, new stuff is 3d printer/cad prototype.

The older stuff is very hand made, it's all cast up in Brian's basement. It's great for customization.

The game as it is began development around 2007 or 08. Sailpower has been around longer (2005 iirc)

Actually the tire stacks aren't all that crude, hell man they're tire stacks what do you think they are supposed to be, GEM-LIKE OBJECTS OF WONDER?

That's kind of what I figured/remembered. As for the tire stacks actually they're oddly crude and unless I've figured wrong they really don't have to be. Near as I can tell, it looks like he cast one tire 4 times in an open mold, then glued them together without sanding off the excess on the bottom of the tire, and then made a mold of that. So what you end up with is this stack of tires with a weird wafer of resin sticking out between every single tire.

It looks fine painted up, especially since I dug most of the excess wafer out of mine...

...but it's a bit annoying and a pretty silly way to make a mold when a minute or so of effort on each of the first "master" tires would have resulted in a much better product.

Still, I'm looking forward to new developments. It could be a very interesting niche product as it is priced (assuming it's priced similarly to the old models) quite a bit under most of the other 28mm mecha garage kits out there.

Hmm, never noticed that about those stacks, I'll mention it next time I see him. I agree, having to clean so much out is a bit annoying.

I'm interested, but he space requirements scare me!

I'm a huge fan of Gundam, and I've been looking for ways to game with 1/144 scale (or even 1/100 scale) Gundam models, but a lack of decent rules and interest from anyone else in my local scene prevents this.

Easy E wrote:I'm interested, but he space requirements scare me!

It is definitely a factor. We've done a few big battles at home, but usually it's just conventions where we play in 28mm and on regular club nights we play in 10mm. We have considered (and I hope to sometime do) a big battle at a local game store sometime. They have plenty of big doublesized tables that we could use.

whitedragon wrote:I'm a huge fan of Gundam, and I've been looking for ways to game with 1/144 scale (or even 1/100 scale) Gundam models, but a lack of decent rules and interest from anyone else in my local scene prevents this.

There have been a few efforts towards making gundam rules, but I'm not sure if any have really stuck. Most rules seem to be more Battle-tech'ish (CAV, BT, Mech Attack, etc) with Mechs that lumber rather than dash.

A couple that you might want to check out.
-"MS Era" http://www.ironhands.com/MSera.htm A rather simple beer and pretzel system, but I happen to like his games. Not played this one I've played his "Starcrashers" game extensively with my son and they all use a similar dice mechanic which is quite functional.

- http://www.ganeshagames.net/product_info.php?products_id=228 Another that I've not played myself, but I've had endless fun with other rulesets (Song of Blades and Heroes mostly) by the same author. Though reportedly flexible enough for various mecha genres, this one seems aimed squarely at Gundam style fights.

Of course your final observation is entirely correct. While it shouldn't be hard to find a player if you get a nice batch of mechs and scenery painted up, it's almost for sure that you'll have to provide both sides.