Another Skirmish

Since yesterday's skirmish I've been pondering mecha rules. Samurai Robot Battle Royale seemed a little slow for my tastes. I looked into a couple of other rules sets from Wargame Vault but they weren't exactly what I was looking for either.

This morning I had an inspiration. Use Bob Cordery's 20th Century rules from the Portable Wargame and adapt them for sci fi battles incuding mechs. Inspired by SRBR, I tracked damage by body part (head, right arm, left arm, torso, and legs) for the mechs.

Here is my experiment - another skirmish between robot (gray) and human mechs. Once again, tanks are standing in for mechs.

The human mech is trundling up the road to the town. The robot mech jumps out from behind the rocks and fires, damaging the human mech's left arm

Note - For activation, I used the Ganesha Games mechanic. When a body part is damaged, its Quality becomes 1 higher. Thus, if my Quality is 3, I would need a 4 to activate that body part.

The human mech makes it into the town, giving it cover. The robot mech launches a missile salvo. A huge explosion engulfs the human mech. Its right arm and head are damaged!

The two mechs trade torso hits. The robot mech wants to move back to the cover of the rocks, but its systems could not handle multiple actions (not enough activations). It decides to launch another missile salvo, which misses!

The human mech unleashes hell. Cannon fire and missiles spew forth, ripping into the robot mech. A shot penetrates its torso and rips through the engine room. The engines explode!

I must say that this gave a quick (about 20 minutes) and intense game!

A Mecha Skirmish

As war rages on Zirconia, the robot invaders and human defenders have taken to mechs to patrol the lines. In this skirmish, opposing mechs clash. Both are MAIMs (Mechanized Armored Infantry Module) as outlined in Samurai Robot Battle Royale.

Note: I don't have any mech models so I pressed a couple of scratch built tanks into service.

The robot mech (top) is progressing down a road. The human mech receives word of the incursion and moves to stop the enemy.

The robot mech reaches the town. The human mech crests the ridge and the opponents both shoot but miss.

Realizing the odds were against him, the human rushes into close combat. The robot mech strikes the human, causing engine damage.

The robot mech punches and kicks its opponent to no avail.

The robot mech destroys the human's shield. The human mech rips away the robot's shield.

This began a flurry of ineffective strikes (my dice rolling was pitiful). Eventually, the mechs broke off the indecisive action. (I tired of the constant misses)

Thoughts
What did I think of SRBR? Here are a few thoughts after my short trial:

• It has a number of interesting mechanics, especially treating each part of the mech separately for activation. There are also tons of different features (weapons, attack modes, etc.)
• I liked that the mechs did not feel like tanks; having a variety of close combat options gave them a different flavor.
• However, in my case, combat did drag. It could be my bad dice rolling, or it could be a feature of the opposed die roll mechanic (I've had similar issues in the past with DBA).
• There is quite a bit of detail, which is good if you want to design unique mechs. However, it means that it is not practical to have several mechs on the board when playing solo. I think I'd prefer a higher level game, with a couple of mechs + some support units per side.
• Nevertheless, I think I can mine SRBR for a ton of ideas.

For now, I am not sure where I am going with my mech project. I'll continue to experiment.

What About Miniatures?

You'll notice that I used a couple of tanks that I scratch built a few years ago. I have some sci fi minis from Germy (sold by GZG) but I have actually packed them up and may sell them off. Even before I went on a mecha kick, I was leaning toward using my scratch built forces. Now, I am even more determined to go that route.