So this weekend we decided to try out some Advanced Rules that we had avoided.
We each spent about 150pts. David accidentally spent over that for sure due to confusion about crew/hero costs, but he knows better now. We also weren't sure about Monster costs so we used Health to purchase them.
Here's what we bought...
Dragonmech Battles (May 10-11)
David's Team [~168pts]
Mechs: 1
Name: Roscoe
Model: Talent Scout
Source: Arcane
Maneuver: 3
Armor: Arcanium 15/21
Speed: 7
Hold: 30
Base Cost: 75
Damage Bonus: +3
Crew Minimum: 3
Available Hold: 6
Structure: 150
Weapons
Spellthrower of Disease (left leg), size 1
Spellthrower of the Spider (right leg), size 1
Spellthrower of Acid (back), size 1
Sling Saw (front), size 1
Catapult (top), size 1
Flail (left arm), size 2
Sword (right arm), size 3
Other Parts
Responsive Controls (+1 to Piloting), 2pts
Heroes: Mel the Wizard (Alter Fate, Portal Master, and Mending) stationed on Roscoe, and Bob the Fighter (Squad Tactics and Savage Infighting) stationed with the Boarding Squad on Larry the Lunar Dragon.
Monsters: 1
Larry the Lunar Dragon
Model: Half-Moon
Source: Self
Maneuver: Infinite
Armor: 12
Speed: 8
Hold: NA?
Base Cost: 50?
Damage Bonus: +10
Crew Minimum: 0
Available Hold: ?
Health: 50
Weapons
Lunar Fire: 15pts, target's armor is halved.
Flight: Ignore Terrain types.
Trample: Like a Mech
Other Parts
Rider Platform (not sure on cost)
Boarding Squad: 5
Robyn's Team [~150pts]
Mechs: 1
Name: Binga Binga
Source: Arcane
Maneuver: 3
Armor: Steel 13
Speed: 7
Hold: 30
Base Cost: 60
Damage Bonus: +3
Crew Minimum: 3, but had 7 crew
Available Hold: 2
Structure: 150
Weapons
Maul (left arm), size 2
Chain Harpoon (right arm), size 2
Javelin Rack (top), size 2
Spellthrower of the Spider (right leg), size 1
Other Parts
Rider Platform (left leg)
Secure Hatches: x2
Damage Bonus: x1
Monsters: 1
Name: Booga - Booga
Model: Mammoth with Cannons
Source: Self
Maneuver: Infinite
Armor: 4
Speed: 4
Hold: NA?
Base Cost: 15?
Damage Bonus: +4
Crew Minimum: 1?
Available Hold: NA?
Health: 15
Weapons
Steam Cannon (top), size 3
Heroes
Mech Jockey (pilot): Mech Reflexes, Light Foot
Sorcerer on mech: Alter Fate, Mending, Countermagic
Coglayer: Find Weakness, Mech Rat
Figher with Artillery Squad: Squad Tactics, Artillery Captain
Squads
Boarders x2 on mech
Artillery x1
Saturday night
Spent over an hour making our teams. Played for about an hour or so. David got a lot of good rolls that let his Dragon unload his Boarding Squad who killed the enemy's crew and left the mech crewless, thus winning the game. The Mammoth was killed easily earlier. David's team took some damage but nothing important along the way. More to do with a run of good rolls versus any brilliant tactics on his part. It made Robyn feel robbed given all the effort into creating her squads and heroes. To date, this is the only game we actually conclusively finished.
Sunday night
Used the same teams with Robyn tweaking some things. Spent a long time shooting and moving closer, though little melee. David's Mech succeeded in teleporting, tripping and falling to be boarded, but his base crew killed the highly skilled invaders in one action. The Dragon was mostly ineffective (repeatedly failing to do anything useful on Trampling attempts) except for going after the Mammoth. Forgot that the fire halved an enemy's armor Sunday. The dragon never made it close enough to unload the boarders this time--maybe brilliant tactics on Robyn's part. The two battling mechs took some damage now and then but after two and a half hours we called it quits. No winner decided.
Overall
Robyn had some good ideas but they fell apart due to bad dice rolls. David's only cool attempt to close in via teleportation was robbed due to the occupied hex (the squad) behind the enemy mech and he couldn't get his dragon into a good position or succeed on any trampling or melee due to die rolls. Heroes more mostly add ons with little staying power compared to the armored mechs.
Here are a few observations:
1. Creation took over an hour. Maybe because we were trying the new and advanced rules and still don't have things memorized.
2. For whatever reason even though David mentioned most of his stuff in passing to Robyn, she still made a similar mech and David had no idea about this until play began. They both were aware of each having a Monster. Arcane Mechs of around 30 hold are popular with the M-Ks.
3. We weren't sure on the maximum number of weapons/locations so David loaded up to test it out.
4. Ranged Weapons rule the game because you can also use most of them in Melee range with a slight penalty.
5. New Armor rules have improved things.
6. Creating and using only one boarding party doesn't result in much fun considering how difficult it is to get a boarding party on an enemy's mech. Especially since you make one Boarding roll and the party is dead. What about routing them out of the mech or not dead so quickly?
7. Monsters were vague to use. The Mammoth with Cannons (which only comes with one cannon, or are there three size 1 steam cannons on it?) was easy prey for most ranged weapons.
8. Trampling was dangerous to the trampler in our sessions, especially when attempted by the mech versus the opponent's squad on the ground (bad dice rolls).
9. Portal Master only worked once and couldn't be used to teleport on top of an enemy's squad because of the rules (the squad occupied the hex). David wanted to have his mech teleport and land on the squad but wasn't able to. He also couldn't trample them or figure out how to attack them in any way so Robyn let him shoot them.
10. Range on the Lunar Fire wasn't specified so we made it 10 hexes. We usually forgot to half the enemy's armor so they were less affected by the auto 15pts.
11. Didn't know if the Mammoth with Cannons needed crew to be driven or to run the guns so Robyn gave them three crew for that.
12. Didn't know if we could add a Rider Platform to the Lunar Dragon but David did that to make it a Boarding Party carrier.
13. Spellthrower of Acid and of the Spider may be too similar. Why not have the Spider one be oozy gooey sticky and leave the Acid one for Acid?
14. Spellthrower rename as Caster?
15. Swivelmount and other new features were not on the equipment chart with clearly labeled costs.
16. It still takes too long to score criticals and to wear down the structure of a Mech through weapon damage, maybe because we both add lots of Armor and didn't get to melee very often. David didn't up his size on any ranged weapons so this could have helped.
17. Retrofitting the hold of a mech was necessary in both times David created his mechs. He begins the creation with the hold and then starts adding weapons and equipment to the mech, and then due to having lots of points but not enough hold has to redo the hold to allow for buying all the stuff. Is there a way to streamline this or create an online mech creation interface that does the math for you?
18. We both like that the phases can be moved around and having the winner of Tactics determine who goes first for each phase makes winning that roll very important.
M-Ks versus Advanced Rules
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Re: M-Ks versus Advanced Rules
Excellent! Thank you!harleqwn wrote:So this weekend we decided to try out some Advanced Rules that we had avoided.
Yeah, no monster costs yet, but good improvising. Did they seem worth the price that way, or should they be cheaper/costlier?We each spent about 150pts. David accidentally spent over that for sure due to confusion about crew/hero costs, but he knows better now. We also weren't sure about Monster costs so we used Health to purchase them.
By my calculations, David's team equals 181 points, and I'll try to explain why. The base cost of the mech is correct, 75 points for 30 Hold arcane mech with Arcanium armor.David's Team [~168pts]
Each spellthrower costs 2 (cost 2 x Size 1) and requires 1 crew.Weapons
Spellthrower of Disease (left leg), size 1
Spellthrower of the Spider (right leg), size 1
Spellthrower of Acid (back), size 1
Sling Saw (front), size 1
Catapult (top), size 1
Flail (left arm), size 2
Sword (right arm), size 3
The sling saw costs 3 (cost 3 x Size 1) and requires 3 crew.
The catapult costs 1 (cost 1 x Size 1) and requires 2 crew.
The flail costs 4 (cost 2 x Size 2) and requires 1 crew.
The Sword costs 6 (cost 2 x Size 3) and requires 1 crew.
The total cost of weapons (not including crew) is 20 points, and require 10 additional crew to run, and take up a total of 10 Hold (not including crew). I'll get to the crew in a minute. Running total so far = 95 points (base 75 + 20 weapons).
Right on. Total so far = 97 points.Other Parts
Responsive Controls (+1 to Piloting), 2pts
Each character costs a base 5 points, with additional abilities being an additional 5 points. So Mel is worth 10 points, and Bob is worth 5 points. Total so far = 112 points.Heroes: Mel the Wizard (Alter Fate, Portal Master, and Mending) stationed on Roscoe, and Bob the Fighter (Squad Tactics and Savage Infighting) stationed with the Boarding Squad on Larry the Lunar Dragon.
Now for crew...each crew member costs 1 point and takes up 1 Hold. You need a base crew of 3 and 10 additional crew for the weapons, so that's another 13 points and 13 Hold taken up. (If you decide that Mel is acting as crew as well as being a Wizard, you can get away with 12 regular crew, but I'm assuming 13 for this analysis). Total so far = 125 points, and 25 Hold occupied.
Assuming 50 points, the total is now 175 points.Larry the Lunar Dragon
It requires a level 1 rider platform to carry 1 squad, so 1 point and 1 Hold. I don't think we really considered putting extra things on lunar dragons, so we don't know how much Hold they have. Anyway, total cost = 181 points.Other Parts
Rider Platform (not sure on cost)
Boarding Squad: 5
Dieter Zimmerman
[[Faceless Minion of the Dark Master]]
[[Faceless Minion of the Dark Master]]
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Re: M-Ks versus Advanced Rules
By my calculations, Robyn's team is exactly 150 points, but I'm not sure you arrived at it the same way I did. The base cost for a 30 Hold Arcane mech with steel armor is 66, not 60 as you have listed. The Damage Bonus should also be +4 since you bought an extra point.harleqwn wrote:Robyn's Team [~150pts]

Mech design can be time consuming if you're not used to it. I can create a good 300 point team in 10-15 minutes now with all the practice I've had.Saturday night
Spent over an hour making our teams. Played for about an hour or so. David got a lot of good rolls that let his Dragon unload his Boarding Squad who killed the enemy's crew and left the mech crewless, thus winning the game. The Mammoth was killed easily earlier. David's team took some damage but nothing important along the way. More to do with a run of good rolls versus any brilliant tactics on his part. It made Robyn feel robbed given all the effort into creating her squads and heroes. To date, this is the only game we actually conclusively finished.

I don't think a game with 150-ish points per side should be lasting that long, though dragons halving armor probably would have sped things along a bit. Next time try using fewer but larger weapons and see if that makes a difference. Most of the mechs I've designed have weapon sizes between 5 (for small weapons) and 10. We already have plans to make the portal master ability a bit more useful.Sunday night
Used the same teams with Robyn tweaking some things. Spent a long time shooting and moving closer, though little melee. David's Mech succeeded in teleporting, tripping and falling to be boarded, but his base crew killed the highly skilled invaders in one action. The Dragon was mostly ineffective (repeatedly failing to do anything useful on Trampling attempts) except for going after the Mammoth. Forgot that the fire halved an enemy's armor Sunday. The dragon never made it close enough to unload the boarders this time--maybe brilliant tactics on Robyn's part. The two battling mechs took some damage now and then but after two and a half hours we called it quits. No winner decided.
Yeah, I think that's one of those things that will become quicker with practice.Here are a few observations:
1. Creation took over an hour. Maybe because we were trying the new and advanced rules and still don't have things memorized.
On page 28 it says no mech can have a single piece of equipment larger than 1/5 the mech's total Hold, so for your 30 Hold mechs you couldn't have any weapons larger than Size 6. Page 31 states that there can only be one weapon mounted on each arm unless the combine weapon option is purchased. Other than those two stipulations, there are no limits.3. We weren't sure on the maximum number of weapons/locations so David loaded up to test it out.
For small mechs like you have been using, yes. A large steam powered mech can have a Damage Bonus of +15 to +20, which is added to the damage of every melee attack...you can rack up damage much more quickly that way.4. Ranged Weapons rule the game because you can also use most of them in Melee range with a slight penalty.
Glad to hear it!5. New Armor rules have improved things.
Interesting idea...maybe we can work that in. The boarding rules definitely still need some work I think. It's more effective if you more than one squad invading at the same time, yes.6. Creating and using only one boarding party doesn't result in much fun considering how difficult it is to get a boarding party on an enemy's mech. Especially since you make one Boarding roll and the party is dead. What about routing them out of the mech or not dead so quickly?
One cannon of Size 3. We haven't really worked out the details of monsters yet, but we included a couple so people like you could playtest them for us. Was using Health as the point cost a good guideline, or do you they should be costed differently?7. Monsters were vague to use. The Mammoth with Cannons (which only comes with one cannon, or are there three size 1 steam cannons on it?) was easy prey for most ranged weapons.
8. Trampling was dangerous to the trampler in our sessions, especially when attempted by the mech versus the opponent's squad on the ground (bad dice rolls).
Yeah, I think that was probably just an effect of the dice...pretty much every time I've used trampling in my games it's been bad new for the tramplee.
Noted to add range. 10 hexes seems reasonable to me.10. Range on the Lunar Fire wasn't specified so we made it 10 hexes. We usually forgot to half the enemy's armor so they were less affected by the auto 15pts.
Yeah, it probably should need some crew. 1 to drive and 2 for the cannon seems good to me.11. Didn't know if the Mammoth with Cannons needed crew to be driven or to run the guns so Robyn gave them three crew for that.
Normally lunar monsters wouldn't be combined in forces with mechs, but since you guys don't really have any of the flavor info yet you wouldn't know that. Not a big deal, but we didn't include info on adding stuff like that to lunar dragons because, well, it probably wouldn't happen in the setting. But we may end up including some non-lunar monsters you could do stuff like that with, so it's good to think about.12. Didn't know if we could add a Rider Platform to the Lunar Dragon but David did that to make it a Boarding Party carrier.
The primary purpose of a spellthrower is to do damage, so I wanted a way for the spider webs to do damage as well as being sticky. Acid seemed the way to go. Every spellthrower is similar in that they do damage and a have a secondary effect. The secondary effects of the Spider and the Acid are quite different, even if they both do acid damage.13. Spellthrower of Acid and of the Spider may be too similar. Why not have the Spider one be oozy gooey sticky and leave the Acid one for Acid?
Noted...mostly because I was in a hurry and couldn't think of nice convenient ways to sum up the combined weapon and linked weapon options on a chart.15. Swivelmount and other new features were not on the equipment chart with clearly labeled costs.
Your mechs were both on the higher end of the armor scale with small weapons. A lot of your weapons are ranged weapons that will only do a total of d20 + 2 (or so) for an average damage roll of around 13...not enough to damage either mech. Getting in melee and using your Damage Bonus will help some, as will purchasing larger ranged weapons. You will also score critical hits faster if you use tactics/terrain/etc to get an Accuracy bonus so you're rolling 19-20 more often.16. It still takes too long to score criticals and to wear down the structure of a Mech through weapon damage, maybe because we both add lots of Armor and didn't get to melee very often. David didn't up his size on any ranged weapons so this could have helped.
I intend at some point to create an Excel-based mech creation sheet, but that won't happen until after the game is written.17. Retrofitting the hold of a mech was necessary in both times David created his mechs. He begins the creation with the hold and then starts adding weapons and equipment to the mech, and then due to having lots of points but not enough hold has to redo the hold to allow for buying all the stuff. Is there a way to streamline this or create an online mech creation interface that does the math for you?
Thanks again! Your feedback has been very helpful.
Dieter Zimmerman
[[Faceless Minion of the Dark Master]]
[[Faceless Minion of the Dark Master]]
Re: M-Ks versus Advanced Rules
Dieter, thanks for the math review.
You are welcome. Battle on!mythfish wrote:By my calculations, Robyn's team is exactly 150 points, but I'm not sure you arrived at it the same way I did. The base cost for a 30 Hold Arcane mech with steel armor is 66, not 60 as you have listed. The Damage Bonus should also be +4 since you bought an extra point.harleqwn wrote:Robyn's Team [~150pts]Other than that this one looks good to me.
Mech design can be time consuming if you're not used to it. I can create a good 300 point team in 10-15 minutes now with all the practice I've had.Saturday night
Spent over an hour making our teams. Played for about an hour or so. David got a lot of good rolls that let his Dragon unload his Boarding Squad who killed the enemy's crew and left the mech crewless, thus winning the game. The Mammoth was killed easily earlier. David's team took some damage but nothing important along the way. More to do with a run of good rolls versus any brilliant tactics on his part. It made Robyn feel robbed given all the effort into creating her squads and heroes. To date, this is the only game we actually conclusively finished.
That is for sure. I guess this is why we still want to have pregen stuff or easy to modify rather than creating from scratch.
I don't think a game with 150-ish points per side should be lasting that long, though dragons halving armor probably would have sped things along a bit. Next time try using fewer but larger weapons and see if that makes a difference. Most of the mechs I've designed have weapon sizes between 5 (for small weapons) and 10. We already have plans to make the portal master ability a bit more useful.Sunday night
Used the same teams with Robyn tweaking some things. Spent a long time shooting and moving closer, though little melee. David's Mech succeeded in teleporting, tripping and falling to be boarded, but his base crew killed the highly skilled invaders in one action. The Dragon was mostly ineffective (repeatedly failing to do anything useful on Trampling attempts) except for going after the Mammoth. Forgot that the fire halved an enemy's armor Sunday. The dragon never made it close enough to unload the boarders this time--maybe brilliant tactics on Robyn's part. The two battling mechs took some damage now and then but after two and a half hours we called it quits. No winner decided.
Is it impossible to teleport into a hex that has crew/squads occupying it?
One of the obvious good things about having so many weapons (especially ranged) is that you increase the odds of actually hitting your opponent(s) at least once per round if not phase, making it feel like a worthwhile investment, even though you may not do so much damage.
Yeah, I think that's one of those things that will become quicker with practice.Here are a few observations:
1. Creation took over an hour. Maybe because we were trying the new and advanced rules and still don't have things memorized.On page 28 it says no mech can have a single piece of equipment larger than 1/5 the mech's total Hold, so for your 30 Hold mechs you couldn't have any weapons larger than Size 6. Page 31 states that there can only be one weapon mounted on each arm unless the combine weapon option is purchased. Other than those two stipulations, there are no limits.3. We weren't sure on the maximum number of weapons/locations so David loaded up to test it out.For small mechs like you have been using, yes. A large steam powered mech can have a Damage Bonus of +15 to +20, which is added to the damage of every melee attack...you can rack up damage much more quickly that way.4. Ranged Weapons rule the game because you can also use most of them in Melee range with a slight penalty.Glad to hear it!5. New Armor rules have improved things.Interesting idea...maybe we can work that in. The boarding rules definitely still need some work I think. It's more effective if you more than one squad invading at the same time, yes.6. Creating and using only one boarding party doesn't result in much fun considering how difficult it is to get a boarding party on an enemy's mech. Especially since you make one Boarding roll and the party is dead. What about routing them out of the mech or not dead so quickly?One cannon of Size 3. We haven't really worked out the details of monsters yet, but we included a couple so people like you could playtest them for us. Was using Health as the point cost a good guideline, or do you they should be costed differently?7. Monsters were vague to use. The Mammoth with Cannons (which only comes with one cannon, or are there three size 1 steam cannons on it?) was easy prey for most ranged weapons.
The cost should be specified on the Monsters. Maybe a little more armor on the Mammoth or actually have it have more than one weapon? I know Robyn had issues with it from a user standpoint. The Dragon needs more clarification too on uses during a battle. Can a Dragon pick up mechs, tail sweep them, divebomb, throw rocks at squads, etc.? Criticals on Monsters are vague. I thought that 50pts for the Dragon was alright given its armor, but it was odd to have it always deliver 15 points of damage which makes the damage unusually predictable. I would suggest 2d20 or something like the other weapons. (I know the enemy's armor is halved.)
8. Trampling was dangerous to the trampler in our sessions, especially when attempted by the mech versus the opponent's squad on the ground (bad dice rolls).
Yeah, I think that was probably just an effect of the dice...pretty much every time I've used trampling in my games it's been bad new for the tramplee.Noted to add range. 10 hexes seems reasonable to me.10. Range on the Lunar Fire wasn't specified so we made it 10 hexes. We usually forgot to half the enemy's armor so they were less affected by the auto 15pts.Yeah, it probably should need some crew. 1 to drive and 2 for the cannon seems good to me.11. Didn't know if the Mammoth with Cannons needed crew to be driven or to run the guns so Robyn gave them three crew for that.Normally lunar monsters wouldn't be combined in forces with mechs, but since you guys don't really have any of the flavor info yet you wouldn't know that. Not a big deal, but we didn't include info on adding stuff like that to lunar dragons because, well, it probably wouldn't happen in the setting. But we may end up including some non-lunar monsters you could do stuff like that with, so it's good to think about.12. Didn't know if we could add a Rider Platform to the Lunar Dragon but David did that to make it a Boarding Party carrier.The primary purpose of a spellthrower is to do damage, so I wanted a way for the spider webs to do damage as well as being sticky. Acid seemed the way to go. Every spellthrower is similar in that they do damage and a have a secondary effect. The secondary effects of the Spider and the Acid are quite different, even if they both do acid damage.13. Spellthrower of Acid and of the Spider may be too similar. Why not have the Spider one be oozy gooey sticky and leave the Acid one for Acid?Noted...mostly because I was in a hurry and couldn't think of nice convenient ways to sum up the combined weapon and linked weapon options on a chart.15. Swivelmount and other new features were not on the equipment chart with clearly labeled costs.Your mechs were both on the higher end of the armor scale with small weapons. A lot of your weapons are ranged weapons that will only do a total of d20 + 2 (or so) for an average damage roll of around 13...not enough to damage either mech. Getting in melee and using your Damage Bonus will help some, as will purchasing larger ranged weapons. You will also score critical hits faster if you use tactics/terrain/etc to get an Accuracy bonus so you're rolling 19-20 more often.16. It still takes too long to score criticals and to wear down the structure of a Mech through weapon damage, maybe because we both add lots of Armor and didn't get to melee very often. David didn't up his size on any ranged weapons so this could have helped.I intend at some point to create an Excel-based mech creation sheet, but that won't happen until after the game is written.17. Retrofitting the hold of a mech was necessary in both times David created his mechs. He begins the creation with the hold and then starts adding weapons and equipment to the mech, and then due to having lots of points but not enough hold has to redo the hold to allow for buying all the stuff. Is there a way to streamline this or create an online mech creation interface that does the math for you?
Make one Flash or JS based online and you'll have people like me more eager to build their own.
Thanks again! Your feedback has been very helpful.