Techpriest
New Member
Looking for players in KC
Posts: 34
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Post by Techpriest on Apr 26, 2015 8:46:10 GMT -5
While I am very impressed with the paper miniatures created for use with Mech Attack I find painting 3D figures a very enjoyable part of the hobby. We use the Mech Attack (MA) rules with the classic Battletech (BT) figures and setting. The Battletech Introductory Boxed Set from Catalyst Games can be found on Amazon for under $50 and comes with 26 plastic mech figures as well as a number of books, charts and high quality maps.
I wanted to convert BT mechs to MA rules. While I like custom designing mechs, it would be nice to have pre-generated stats for all the mechs to save time building forces. I did some comparisons and came up with the following guidelines.
BT Weight - MA Rating 0-45 tons - Light 50-75 tons - Medium 80 - 100 tons - Heavy
BT Walking - MA Move 3 - 3 4-5 - 4 6-7 - 5 8+ - 6
BT Torso Armor - MA Armor 0-8 - 40 9-16 - 50 17-24 - 60 25-32 - 70 33-40 - 80 41-48 - 90 49-56 - 100
Weapons are just a judgement call, too many rules in conflict for a direct conversion. In MA you are limited by 1 mount point in each of 4 body parts, a build point total and the mechs can only have weapons their class or smaller. The Battlemaster has 10 weapons, my MA version has LA-Light Laser, RA-Heavy Cannon, LT-Heavy Missile, RT-Medium Laser.
I know others like the Jump Jets house rules but I have avoided them so far, they are simply ignored when converting.
I start with the above then adjust as needed.
I am in the process of converting all the mechs from the Introductory Set and will share their stat cards when done. Hopefully sharing my charts will save some others some time.
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Post by Dagger on Apr 26, 2015 11:56:23 GMT -5
While I am very impressed with the paper miniatures created for use with Mech Attack I find painting 3D figures a very enjoyable part of the hobby. We use the Mech Attack (MA) rules with the classic Battletech (BT) figures and setting. The Battletech Introductory Boxed Set from Catalyst Games can be found on Amazon for under $50 and comes with 26 plastic mech figures as well as a number of books, charts and high quality maps. I wanted to convert BT mechs to MA rules. While I like custom designing mechs, it would be nice to have pre-generated stats for all the mechs to save time building forces. I did some comparisons and came up with the following guidelines. BT Weight - MA Rating0-45 tons - Light 50-75 tons - Medium 80 - 100 tons - Heavy BT Walking - MA Move3 - 3 4-5 - 4 6-7 - 5 8+ - 6 BT Torso Armor - MA Armor0-8 - 40 9-16 - 50 17-24 - 60 25-32 - 70 33-40 - 80 41-48 - 90 49-56 - 100 Weapons are just a judgement call, too many rules in conflict for a direct conversion. In MA you are limited by 1 mount point in each of 4 body parts, a build point total and the mechs can only have weapons their class or smaller. The Battlemaster has 10 weapons, my MA version has LA-Light Laser, RA-Heavy Cannon, LT-Heavy Missile, RT-Medium Laser. I know others like the Jump Jets house rules but I have avoided them so far, they are simply ignored when converting. I start with the above then adjust as needed. I am in the process of converting all the mechs from the Introductory Set and will share their stat cards when done. Hopefully sharing my charts will save some others some time. I like where your head's at... The 2.0 construction rules are a bit adjusted to allow for more WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) unit construction using third-party figures; so you will be able to have more than 1 weapon per hardpoint.
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Post by chicagowiz on Jun 2, 2015 8:47:06 GMT -5
I'm in the same boat, wanting to not only use the miniatures, but also the 'Mech types and loadouts themselves. The BT universe is just too much fun! There was an interesting conversion done in 2014 on TheMiniaturesPage forum - theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=333557 - which my friend and I will be testing out on Friday. We'll see how it goes! I've been wrangling with what I want to do for Heat Converters - with the more weapons that the BT 'Mechs can carry, I think I might need to adjust the conversions of numbers of HC as well.
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Post by Dagger on Jun 2, 2015 20:07:19 GMT -5
Chicagowiz - Great work! I'm very interested to see how converting BT mechs to Mech Attack works out. Just be weary of trying to do a full 1-for-1 conversion; BT leans more to the simulation side than I like. Mech Attack, like Alpha Strike, is meant to be more abstract...so some of the BT mech's equipment may need to be simplified. For example, where a BT mech has 4 small lasers a Mech Attack mech might have a single twin-linked laser. My problem with Alpha Strike is that they went way too far with making things abstract... it makes very large scale conflicts possible, but most games aren't very large scale conflicts.
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Post by chicagowiz on Jun 3, 2015 8:39:17 GMT -5
Chicagowiz - Great work! I'm very interested to see how converting BT mechs to Mech Attack works out. Just be weary of trying to do a full 1-for-1 conversion; BT leans more to the simulation side than I like. Mech Attack, like Alpha Strike, is meant to be more abstract...so some of the BT mech's equipment may need to be simplified. For example, where a BT mech has 4 small lasers a Mech Attack mech might have a single twin-linked laser. My problem with Alpha Strike is that they went way too far with making things abstract... it makes very large scale conflicts possible, but most games aren't very large scale conflicts. That's a very good point. For weaponry, I am following the lead on the gent's post from TMP - the weapons are still 1:1. That might be why the number of freezers look small. I haven't played Alpha Strike. Truth be told, I don't play past 3025/Introductory rules. The advanced weapons and such just never interested me as much as just having balls-out robot smash-ups. My campaigns always exclude the Clans and Kerensky's return.
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Post by Dagger on Jun 3, 2015 18:53:59 GMT -5
That's how I felt about the introduction of the Clans... it was just information overload; the game became way too bogged down for me at that point.
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Post by chicagowiz on Jun 7, 2015 7:39:41 GMT -5
Chicagowiz - Great work! I'm very interested to see how converting BT mechs to Mech Attack works out. Just be weary of trying to do a full 1-for-1 conversion; BT leans more to the simulation side than I like. Mech Attack, like Alpha Strike, is meant to be more abstract...so some of the BT mech's equipment may need to be simplified. For example, where a BT mech has 4 small lasers a Mech Attack mech might have a single twin-linked laser. My problem with Alpha Strike is that they went way too far with making things abstract... it makes very large scale conflicts possible, but most games aren't very large scale conflicts. Thank you for that note about the design. When I went back and reconverted so that the Battletech conversion only allowed 4 weapons, the number of freezers now makes more sense. I didn't do any twin linked weapons yet, I think we'll try the stock ones first. I think we'll definitely give it a shot the next time we play. BTW, do you allow custom versions of your record sheets to be posted here? I made one for my Battletech conversions with the 'Mechs that I have minis for. I didn't want to cause any copyright issues and no artwork is on the sheets.
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Post by Dagger on Jun 8, 2015 14:27:19 GMT -5
I'm fine with you posting conversions of the record sheets...
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Post by chicagowiz on Jul 24, 2015 23:40:31 GMT -5
Just wanted to revisit this post - my friends and I finally had the schedules align and sat down for playing Mech Attack with my Battletech conversions. What fun! We had the feel of each 'Mech (Locusts are still annoying survivors, Hunchbacks with that damn AC/20 still punched everyone's lights, Marauders and Warhammers overheated quickly when firing both PPCs and rolling 1s/2s still is bad...) and yet we got through 2 scenarios in less than 5 hours. One was 4x4 Lance combat, the second was a 2x2 "Take The Hill" scenario. That was the best part. We all left thinking that Mech Attack will be our standard game, with saving Battletech for those rainy days when we want to spend a full 6 to 8 hours rolling the "Box of Death" d6s... (Edited 2/7/2016): I have updated record sheets available for the conversions that I did for the 'Mech miniatures I do have. This is not the full 3025 catalog, but I have quite a few of them converted. The updates from Feb 2016 include some minor corrections and more Unseen 3025 Mechs added.
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Post by Dagger on Jul 26, 2015 22:06:21 GMT -5
You've done a great job here. I'm glad the Mech Attack rules are working for you, it sounds like you've found a good balance between complexity and play-ability. I'm really liking the record sheets, thanks!
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Post by chicagowiz on Jul 27, 2015 8:55:39 GMT -5
Thanks. As I get more minis painted up, I'll convert more Mechs. You'll have almost all the Unseen 3025 Mechs when I'm done, as I'm working through 3 sets of the 3rd Edition plastic miniatures - you, the really bad looking ones, but all Unseen. (or formerly Unseen, if the new announcement from Catalyst Labs is any indication...)
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Post by chicagowiz on Feb 7, 2016 21:33:55 GMT -5
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