One other thing. I like how you represent wooded hexes, but how do you differentiate between light and heavy woods?
JB
I use the old Geohex hexed terrain, with hexed hills and even buildings and over the years I've developed a hybrid set of rules that blend the Hex-based boardgame rules from Total Warfare and the miniature rules from the miniature rulebook. These rules would equally apply to those using Heroscape terrain tiles as well. One question that arises most often is what to do about light/heavy woods in these games? How do yo fit a little tree & a mech model in the same hex? Even with the larger Heroscape Terrain this is difficult and many remove the trees as you move in to the hex or make little trees that go in to the corners of the hex. I found these solutions clunky and unrealistic for a miniature game (you can't move terrain around in a miniature game!), so these rule have evolved during our plays. (I may have missed a few rules that we use in certain situations, so I will be adding to this list as I go, any suggestions are welcome of course.)
Rules:
To use this variant, you'll need to acquaint yourself with the Total Warfare or Introductory Rules and the Battletech Miniature Rules.
Since there are hexes on the map, I use the movement, facing and distance rules from total warfare (its there you may as well use it.), you just count hexes and use the hex faces as you do in a normal game, BUT I use miniature rules for LOS and stacking (stacking exception: see below), this really simplifies these aspects of the game and solves the light/heavy woods problem to boot.
1) You simply can't occupy a space with a tree model (just place any old tree model in the center of the tile, easy!).
2) Trees block line of sight like buildings in the miniature ruleset (Just get down to mech level and see if you can see your target).
3) You can shoot at anything that you can see the whole (or at least 90%) of (settle any arguments with a fist-fight): You can only see half the left arm, then you can't fire at it. You can see the whole (or at least 90%) of the left arm, then you can fire at it. Roll on the hit-allocation table normally and if you don't hit the arm you can see, then you miss and hit the trees in between. (optional rule: you can rule that the trees are now on fire and producing smoke that can be represented by some cotton that block line of sight further.) If a tree is partially blocking a figure (same rule as that in the miniature rulebook for obstacles blocking LOS, in this case the trees are just another obstacle.), the attack gets a +1 modifier to hit (no matter if there are lots of tree hexes in between).
4) I use different size trees to differentiate heavy and light woods, light or heavy woods make no difference in actual LOS calculation as noted above (it makes a difference only in melee combat, see below).
5) Here is a house rule we use that I haven't seen anywhere else: If your figure is adjacent to 2 light or 1 light & 1 heavy tree hexes, the attacker gets a +1 if they attack in melee, If your figure is adjacent to 2 heavy tree hexes or 3 or more (any) tree hexes, the attack gets a +2 to attack in melee. This rule is in the spirit of those rules in Total Warfare and adds quite a lot of tactical options to this hybrid miniature game.
6) Optional: Mechs (both friendly or enemy) block LOS like the trees and if you get a hit, but miss the arm (or whatever) you were firing at, you end up hitting the mech in the front. (if there are more than one mech blocking, the mech closer to the attacker gets hit. This rule makes positioning your mechs a much more important tactical option without complicating things much.
7) Stacking is not allowed for anything except: things at different elevations such as a VTOL that is flying above the mech or tree in question AND infantry is allow to stack as per the rules in Total Warfare.
The advantages of this system is it greatly simplifies LOS, arguably more realistic too and speeds up play. There is no stacking (mostly) in these hybrid miniature rules which really simplifies that aspect quite a bit and doesn't detract from the overall experience. All the while keeping the hexes which greatly facilitates movement, facing and distance and you have a combo set of rules that takes the best of Total Warfare boardgame rules & Battletech miniature rules and mixes them together.
