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Bought the intro box and have painted up two different 200 ton lances for my first game with three other buddys who have never played before i havn't played in ten years haha but want to get back into it so here are the lances

Grasshopper
Enforcer
Commando
Dervish

Dragon
Hunchback
Trebuchet
Whitworth

We are gonna be playing on a 4x4 board with scattered natural terrain hills, rockss, scrub, etc ( no water eek) . Any ideas to help this game run smooth so we arent fumbling around with 8 mechs for 5 hours any pick up scenerios to speed up the game ? Thanks Again

Laminate the record sheets or put them in slipcovers and use dry erase markers. Other than that, smash away!

Use dice behind the miniature with the movement modifier for that unit. Differing colors for different modes of movement also help. This speeds up the to hit target number figuring a little.

Movement dice are a big help, as are firing sticks. Firing sticks take some time to make though.

Take a popsicle stick, and write down each weapon a 'Mech has. When you declare fire, point each weapon stick at your target, that way you don't get confused with multiple targets.

Don't be afraid of heat. Heating up is not the end of the world.

Play on the map sheets, not 3D terrain, especially if people are new to this. Having to deal with 'flexible' movement and LOS is not something you need to add to an already complicated set of rules.

Map sheets make everything digital - 5 hexes is 5 hexes is 5 hexes, no 'flexible' movement measuring - and binary - you're either in LOS, or you aren't. No arguments.

Mattlov wrote:Movement dice are a big help, as are firing sticks. Firing sticks take some time to make though.

Take a popsicle stick, and write down each weapon a 'Mech has. When you declare fire, point each weapon stick at your target, that way you don't get confused with multiple targets.

Or just position your units with only one potential target. If everyone is shooting the same thing you can't forget what you are shooting.


Really good Idea Mattlov, I never thought of that, but you can have a really big stack for some units.

I would flip the Commando and Witworth, this will give you one all Jumping Fire Lance and one nasty Close Combat Lance.

How about buying a bunch of colored toothpicks and using those for weapons types and cut them down for different classes. Say all blue are auto cannons and the short ones are AC20's and the long are AC2's.

Print the to-hit modifiers in a big, giant table that is readable by anyone who is playing. That way you don't have to squint and fumble with the rulebook to figure out what is needed to hit, and people can start doing the math ahead of time.

Maybe even impose timed turns, or work it into the scenario somehow (like a nuke is about to go off so as the end of the game approaches they have less and less time).

I don't recommend imposing timed turns for new players.

Another good thing to do is download Solaris Skunk Werks. Then you can print off sheets with modifiers on them already., so everyone has very quick access to them.