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Ok, so not technically battletech, but it is giant stompy robots in 1/56 scale.
This is a convention game that we ran a couple weeks ago at the Little Wars Convention in the Chicago Suburbs. We used the Mech Attack rules (streamlined battletech-lite-ish) and the vehicles are a mix of Robotech/macross kits and toys, russian Robogear mechs, Kryomek striders, AT43, and a few others. Without infantry (we removed them from this year's game) scale is a bit hard to judge, but these are mostly 5-9 inches tall. As a comparsion, the small round bases are frozen juice concentrate lids and the big bases are CD's
I have wanted to play a game of Battletech at this scale ever since I first stumbled onto Armorcast's old website and saw the resin Mad Cat, Vulture and Atlas models.
Darktraveler,
I've felt the exact same way since Armorcast brought those out. They were always a bit out of my budget though.
A real shame they aren't available anymore.
I saw a guy use a bunch of the old Exo-Squad Macross toys to build some sweet large scale Battletech stuff for Tomorrow's War.
Do you have a link to any of that? I'd love to see what he did. Some of the toys we used are the Macross/ExoSquad reissues. (the Warhammer, Longbow and Rifleman)
We've got plenty, but I do hope to add more mechs in the fugure. I've got three more macross model kits and a Squad (point) of the old 25mm Ral Partha Elementals and I'm hoping to persuade one of our club members to part with his Macross toys.
I am a fan of the rules for Mech attack. It's got just enough rules to be engaging, but also plays quite simple and fast. I'll have to try this sometime, as I have most of the old die-cast Mechwarrior figures.
Check around online, as there are many sources to get models of the actual Battletech mechs as papercraft models in this scale, too, though they can be advanced to put together.
I think I would have to keep infantry in my game, though.
"By this point I'm convinced 100% that every single race in the 40k universe have somehow tapped into the ork ability to just have their tech work because they think it should."
Though I have to wonder... why is the Gundam's model number written on the arm of a destroid?
That was a bit of an easter egg put there by the member of the club who painted that one. He says it's the model number of the first Gundam ever. He also painted the Chicago flag (a variant of which is our club's logo) on one of the shoulders.
AegisGrimm wrote:I am a fan of the rules for Mech attack. It's got just enough rules to be engaging, but also plays quite simple and fast. I'll have to try this sometime, as I have most of the old die-cast Mechwarrior figures.
Check around online, as there are many sources to get models of the actual Battletech mechs as papercraft models in this scale, too, though they can be advanced to put together.
I think I would have to keep infantry in my game, though.
Thanks for the suggestion, but I've got no love for papercraft anymore. Just not sturdy enough for my use. It also helps that over the years I've been able to source relatively cheap plastic mech toys and kits for this project. Most of these mechs cost me around the same price or less than a 6mm scale Battletech model (though a couple were about double that).
As for infantry, we used it in last years game (which you can see here: http://chicagoskirmish.blogspot.com/2013/05/epic-photo-dump-from-little-wars-2013.html ) which also had more light vehicles. Mech Attack is a nice combined arms game, but for convention play, where the players have to learn and play the game in 2.5 hours, the nearly-all-mech (we had one tank) approach worked much better. It did mean we had to prep 7 more mechs for this years game though. We do often use combined arms in our club games for which we most often use 10mm mechwarrior clix units that have been rebased on traditional wargaming bases.
Eilif wrote: That was a bit of an easter egg put there by the member of the club who painted that one. He says it's the model number of the first Gundam ever.
Close enough. RX-78 was the model number of the original series of Gundam proto-type mobile suits. #1-3 were all at the Side 7 colony being prepped for transport when it was attacked, and Amuro ended up in #2, which became the show's titular mobile suit.
Always loved seeing this game at Dragoncon but never got a chance to play since it ran concurrent with actual Battletech. A really cool game but far too big for play at the average home.
If you dont short hand your list, Im not reading it.
Example: Assault Intercessors- x5 -Thunder hammer and plasma pistol on sgt.
or Assault Terminators 3xTH/SS, 2xLCs
For the love of God, GW, get rid of reroll mechanics. ALL OF THEM!
I have wanted to play a game of Battletech at this scale ever since I first stumbled onto Armorcast's old website and saw the resin Mad Cat, Vulture and Atlas models.
For those looking for models and toys that are in scale with the Armorcast Mechs hrere is a pretty complete lising.
Robotech Defenders/ Macross/Dougram kits that fit with the Armorcast Mad Cat, Vulture and Atlas resin kits scalewise:
The following 1/48th scale kits were originally released by Takara and later released by
Revell as Robotech Defenders Kits. Three of the Robotech Defender versions of these kits are listed on the box front as 1/72 scale when they are actually 1.48th scale kits: Thoren, Zoltek and Condar
Interestingly enough, the kit engineering and mold designs for the Zoltek/
Shadowhawk are completely different, with the Revell kit being slightly
smaller, but not enough to worry about.
Robotech 1/48 Commando/ Takara Crab Gunner or Tequila Gunner
is just the right size for Goliath.
Robotech Thoren (actually 1/48) Zoltek/ Takara Dougram Jagd is perfect for Shadow Hawk.
Robotech 1/48 Gartan/ Takara Ironfoot is a good size for Thunderbolt.
Robotech Thoren (actually 1/48)
Takara Soltic/Roundfacer is perfect for Griffin
Robotech 1/48 Talos is too large for Wolverine, but the head could perhaps be
mounted on a Griffen body to make a Wolverine. The body size would work for making a Battlemaster.
Robotech Condar does not conform to any BattleTech Mechs and is smaller than the Griffen models.
Would work as a 40-45 ton Mech
Other Kits
Macross 1/72 Glaug Commander's Pod is a perfect size for Marauder
(The more common 1/100 scale kit is too small.)
Commander Type Tactical Pod Glaug 1/72: Arii (#AR309)
The ARII 1/72 Defender and Tomahawk (Warhammer, Rifleman) are a bit too
small to fit the the other Mechs, as is the 1/32 scale Crusher Joe Locust.
Takara Crusher Joe 1/48 scale Galleon kits a perfect for Galleons.
1/72 scale Valkyrie kits and toys
I have been looking more at the 1/72 Valkyries, both the plastic model kits and the vinyl toys. The vinyl toys are a bit smaller than the 1/72 scale plastic kits and are perfectly sized for Wasp and Stinger. The plastic kits also come in transformable versions for the building LAM variants.
Looking at the plastic Valkyrie kits next to the Takara and Revell Griffen
and Shadowhawk kits, I think adding some armor (and adding the center torso LRM 10) to the Valkyrie plastic kit will give it enough mass to represent a 30 ton BattleTech Valkyrie.
Add a bit more armor and the Super Valkyrie jump jets and you have enough mass to represent a 45 ton Phoenix Hawk
I finally got a 1/72 scale Armored Valkyrie to look at and with modification (adding mass and correcting the weapons) it is massive enough to work for a Crusader.
Toys
In addition to the Valkyrie vinyl toys, there are the old TYCO BattleTech toys and
the more recent Joyride diecast toys.
TYCO BattleTech toys
Bushwacker
Size is good, but much work needed.
Hunchback IIC
Size is good, but needs much work.
Axeman
Size should be smaller. Chopping it up might work.
Thor
Have not seen one in person, although it appears to be very large.
Mauler
Have not seen one in person...
Joyride MWDA diecast toys
These toys are listed as 1/55th scale, theoretically making them larger than the Armorcast 1/60th scale mechs, however this is not the case.
Mad Cat
About 1" shorter than the Armorcast kit-too small for a standard Mad Cat, but will work fine as a 55 ton MWDA Mad Cat III.
Jupiter
Much too small to be a 100 ton mech, but will work as a custom 60 ton "Jupiter Junior".
Legionnaire
Is a little small for its listed 50 ton weight.
Forestry Mech
Pretty small, but but we really do not know what the industrial Mechs look like.
Could be a "light" 15-20 ton version of a Forestry Mech.
Many of these kits can be found on ebay (Gotta check every week at least). This is pretty much the only way you can get any of the unseen Mechs in this scale, so get them while (and where) you can.
I saw a guy use a bunch of the old Exo-Squad Macross toys to build some sweet large scale Battletech stuff for Tomorrow's War.
Do you have a link to any of that? I'd love to see what he did. Some of the toys we used are the Macross/ExoSquad reissues. (the Warhammer, Longbow and Rifleman)
Huh this has me wondering if I can talk my friend into playing gundam at this scale >.> whatever scale it ends up being based on the kits heh.
- 1250 points
Empire of the Blazing Sun (Combined Theaters)- 1950 points
FUBAR Starship Troopers- Would you like to know more?
GENERATION 9: The first time you see this, copy and paste it into your sig and add 1 to the number after generation. Consider it a social experiment.
Eilif wrote: [Do you have a link to any of that? I'd love to see what he did. Some of the toys we used are the Macross/ExoSquad reissues. (the Warhammer, Longbow and Rifleman)
Also, I just found some awesome stuff in 28mm.
Thor's Mechworks. Check out the Blog here : http://wingnutscockpit.blogspot.com/ They make stuff like this :
My Blog: ski2060.blogspot.com
Occasional ramblings about painting and modelling.
I have wanted to play a game of Battletech at this scale ever since I first stumbled onto Armorcast's old website and saw the resin Mad Cat, Vulture and Atlas models.
For those looking for models and toys that are in scale with the Armorcast Mechs hrere is a pretty complete lising.
Robotech Defenders/ Macross/Dougram kits that fit with the Armorcast Mad Cat, Vulture and Atlas resin kits scalewise:
The following 1/48th scale kits were originally released by Takara and later released by
Revell as Robotech Defenders Kits. Three of the Robotech Defender versions of these kits are listed on the box front as 1/72 scale when they are actually 1.48th scale kits: Thoren, Zoltek and Condar
Interestingly enough, the kit engineering and mold designs for the Zoltek/
Shadowhawk are completely different, with the Revell kit being slightly
smaller, but not enough to worry about.
Robotech 1/48 Commando/ Takara Crab Gunner or Tequila Gunner
is just the right size for Goliath.
Robotech Thoren (actually 1/48) Zoltek/ Takara Dougram Jagd is perfect for Shadow Hawk.
Robotech 1/48 Gartan/ Takara Ironfoot is a good size for Thunderbolt.
Robotech Thoren (actually 1/48)
Takara Soltic/Roundfacer is perfect for Griffin
Robotech 1/48 Talos is too large for Wolverine, but the head could perhaps be
mounted on a Griffen body to make a Wolverine. The body size would work for making a Battlemaster.
Robotech Condar does not conform to any BattleTech Mechs and is smaller than the Griffen models.
Would work as a 40-45 ton Mech
Other Kits
Macross 1/72 Glaug Commander's Pod is a perfect size for Marauder
(The more common 1/100 scale kit is too small.)
Commander Type Tactical Pod Glaug 1/72: Arii (#AR309)
The ARII 1/72 Defender and Tomahawk (Warhammer, Rifleman) are a bit too
small to fit the the other Mechs, as is the 1/32 scale Crusher Joe Locust.
Takara Crusher Joe 1/48 scale Galleon kits a perfect for Galleons.
1/72 scale Valkyrie kits and toys
I have been looking more at the 1/72 Valkyries, both the plastic model kits and the vinyl toys. The vinyl toys are a bit smaller than the 1/72 scale plastic kits and are perfectly sized for Wasp and Stinger. The plastic kits also come in transformable versions for the building LAM variants.
Looking at the plastic Valkyrie kits next to the Takara and Revell Griffen
and Shadowhawk kits, I think adding some armor (and adding the center torso LRM 10) to the Valkyrie plastic kit will give it enough mass to represent a 30 ton BattleTech Valkyrie.
Add a bit more armor and the Super Valkyrie jump jets and you have enough mass to represent a 45 ton Phoenix Hawk
I finally got a 1/72 scale Armored Valkyrie to look at and with modification (adding mass and correcting the weapons) it is massive enough to work for a Crusader.
Toys
In addition to the Valkyrie vinyl toys, there are the old TYCO BattleTech toys and
the more recent Joyride diecast toys.
TYCO BattleTech toys
Bushwacker
Size is good, but much work needed.
Hunchback IIC
Size is good, but needs much work.
Axeman
Size should be smaller. Chopping it up might work.
Thor
Have not seen one in person, although it appears to be very large.
Mauler
Have not seen one in person...
Joyride MWDA diecast toys
These toys are listed as 1/55th scale, theoretically making them larger than the Armorcast 1/60th scale mechs, however this is not the case.
Mad Cat
About 1" shorter than the Armorcast kit-too small for a standard Mad Cat, but will work fine as a 55 ton MWDA Mad Cat III.
Jupiter
Much too small to be a 100 ton mech, but will work as a custom 60 ton "Jupiter Junior".
Legionnaire
Is a little small for its listed 50 ton weight.
Forestry Mech
Pretty small, but but we really do not know what the industrial Mechs look like.
Could be a "light" 15-20 ton version of a Forestry Mech.
Many of these kits can be found on ebay (Gotta check every week at least). This is pretty much the only way you can get any of the unseen Mechs in this scale, so get them while (and where) you can.
Also, I just found some awesome stuff in 28mm.
Thor's Mechworks. Check out the Blog here : http://wingnutscockpit.blogspot.com/ They make stuff like this :
That Warhammer needs to be painted up in Black Widow colors! I wonder if it could be posed like this:
I love seeing large scale mech games. The gems you see are so worth it, like that Gasaraki raiden.
To this day I am kicking myself for never getting off my ass and ordering an Armorcast Atlas. that kit was amazing.
For more mech porn, there was a dude making battletech mechs in 1:60 scale to match an Atlas he had, but he was using newer mechwarrior online art as the base. I think he was at one point selling very limited amounts of the casts.
Wow, even more custom mechs. I didn't realise how many folks were making these.
I used to be pretty preferential to the old designs, but I have to say that the MwO and Dark Age designs have really grown on me. I've now got an entire 10mm army of rebased Mechwarrior Dark Age clix.The paneling style many of these MwO and MWDA use really seems to fit in well with my favorite classic "Destroid" designs (Warhammer, Rifleman, Etc) even though some of those designs are nearly 30 years old.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2014/05/16 12:20:41
I was always a fan of the Forestrymech that came out in dark Age.
"By this point I'm convinced 100% that every single race in the 40k universe have somehow tapped into the ork ability to just have their tech work because they think it should."
AegisGrimm wrote: I was always a fan of the Forestrymech that came out in dark Age.
I would have loved to have the 1/55 scale version from joyride in my collection, as well as the Mad Cat and Jupiter for that matter. Unfortunately they all seem to command 75 bucks and up these days. The only one I've got is the Legionnaire and that was a lucky find at a FLGS auction. Currently my personal goal is to never pay more than $25 (and mostly much lower) for a single mech. It's kind of a low number, but I want to be able to provide the mechs for whomever is playing and this is far from the only game that I play so I can't let the budget run away from me. I've managed to keep pretty well to that via used deals, waiting patiently for model kits to show up at Hobbylink Japan, Robogear models and other such opportunities.
If anyone has any Robotech or similar styled mecha kits or models they'd to see resurrected on my gaming table -even if they're assembled, broken, poorly painted, whatever- let me know and we'll see what we can work out.
As an example, here's how the valkyries above looked before their repaint (which was handled by Dakka member jlopatin). Keep in mind that this is after I'd done quite a bit of filing and cleanup. They were pretty funky.
I really like giving old toys and models a new life on the gaming table and seeing other folks enjoying them at conventions is really the icing on the cake.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/05/16 18:30:44
I recommend 1/144 or if you want bigger 1/100 Gundam models, have to build them sadly but they can be used for a great table top experience. Also if want slightly more expensive prebuilt the Gundam Damashii spirits suits come fully ready.
We've got a tabletop system wip at moment and it's proving to be great fun getting to use your fave suits in combat.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/05/21 08:29:19
I feel that I should swing by you people if I ever cross the pond as that was amazing Those Mech kits that you use are damn impressive, and I take it that you each have a selection of Mechs and other units to bring. You people are very lucky indeed.
By the way, do you have a link to the rules that you used?
Free from GW's tyranny and the hobby is looking better for it
DR:90-S++G+++M++B++I+Pww205++D++A+++/sWD146R++T(T)D+
master of ordinance wrote: I feel that I should swing by you people if I ever cross the pond as that was amazing Those Mech kits that you use are damn impressive, and I take it that you each have a selection of Mechs and other units to bring. You people are very lucky indeed.
By the way, do you have a link to the rules that you used?
Shoot me a PM if you're ever coming to Chicago and join us for a game.
They're only about $8 and really do a great job of distilling down a battle tech-like experience (A damage grid, customizable mechs, carried weapon systems, heat tracking, etc) into an extremely fast paced and easy to learn game. We've been playing it in 10mm using rebased mechwarrior clix off and on for about 4 years now, but 28mm gets used for special events and conventions.
"Guys? Guys? Hey, dumb question here, but it's getting pretty warm in here - I mean, I know it's a mech so it's never really breezy - but even by those standards, quite warm... if I was, like, on fire, lets say; you'd tell me, right?"
"Oh."
"How much fire?"
lord_blackfang wrote: Respect to the guy who subscribed just to post a massive ASCII dong in the chat and immediately get banned.
Flinty wrote: The benefit of slate is that its.actually a.rock with rock like properties. The downside is that it's a rock
master of ordinance wrote: I feel that I should swing by you people if I ever cross the pond as that was amazing Those Mech kits that you use are damn impressive, and I take it that you each have a selection of Mechs and other units to bring. You people are very lucky indeed.
By the way, do you have a link to the rules that you used?
Shoot me a PM if you're ever coming to Chicago and join us for a game.
They're only about $8 and really do a great job of distilling down a battle tech-like experience (A damage grid, customizable mechs, carried weapon systems, heat tracking, etc) into an extremely fast paced and easy to learn game. We've been playing it in 10mm using rebased mechwarrior clix off and on for about 4 years now, but 28mm gets used for special events and conventions.
Thanks, i will do
Free from GW's tyranny and the hobby is looking better for it
DR:90-S++G+++M++B++I+Pww205++D++A+++/sWD146R++T(T)D+
"Guys? Guys? Hey, dumb question here, but it's getting pretty warm in here - I mean, I know it's a mech so it's never really breezy - but even by those standards, quite warm... if I was, like, on fire, lets say; you'd tell me, right?"
"Oh."
"How much fire?"
I see someone has been admiring our gallery! One of our members bought some tricolor cotton fluff and when he's playing he uses it not only for destroyed units, but when someone's mech gets it's arm blown off, a fairly common occurrence in games of mech Attack.
Those Mech kits that you use are damn impressive, and I take it that you each have a selection of Mechs and other units to bring.
A couple members have a few mechs, (One guy has two of the kryomek striders and a tank and another has the AT43 repaints and the custom), but nearly all these mechs are mine! I've been purchasing them over the years and to prepare for our convention games some club members have been nice enough to pitch-into the project and paint or base coat, or detail a mech (or mechs) for me. The result is that my collection just barely fits into a really big Pelican-style case that I got at a resale shop. I'll have to take a pic of it sometime. It's my box of wonders.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/06/05 17:37:21
A couple members have a few mechs, (One guy has two of the kryomek striders and a tank and another has the AT43 repaints and the custom), but nearly all these mechs are mine! I've been purchasing them over the years and to prepare for our convention games some club members have been nice enough to pitch-into the project and paint or base coat, or detail a mech (or mechs) for me. The result is that my collection just barely fits into a really big Pelican-style case that I got at a resale shop. I'll have to take a pic of it sometime. It's my box of wonders.
You sir are win
Free from GW's tyranny and the hobby is looking better for it
DR:90-S++G+++M++B++I+Pww205++D++A+++/sWD146R++T(T)D+
- 1250 points
