Ways to simplify the round phases

[Attackmack]

Hi guys, im new here and a beginner to BT in general, just got the 25th anniversery box last winter and havent really got into it yet.
Been posting a little on the terrain forums since im building a 3d hexboard for this winter as i will make a try to get my friends interested in BT.

So lately ive been playing some small games by myself just to get a hang of the rules and what not, and looking for ways to make the game easy to overlook and eliminate as much issues as possible that might arise due to we not keeping track of "all the tiny things".
I personally love games with detailed rules, but my friends arent all as intrigued by it as me, and to keep them interested we cant have a game that turns front and back due to someone not remembering to adjust heat or what weapon was fired at which mech.


Ive read some good advice here and there, and one thing im doing is making sticks to keep track of firing announcements.
Im making red sticks to show laser fire, and blue sticks to show projectile/missile fire. Will this work or do i need to differ PPCs from projectiles from missiles and so on?


I also want to ask for advice on how people keep track of everything and how you guys do to make sure your not missing heat adjustements, pilot skillrolls, ticking of ammo and so on.

I am beginning to love BT the more I deal with it, but I really need to get my friends hooked =/

Thanks in advance

[Scotty]

The way my group does it is generally declare and resolve fire at the same time, and one at a time.  Yes, it loses something when you can decide not to fire at an already destroyed unit, but it also considerably speeds up the game.

[Thantos13]

One of the things we have done is to make "range sticks" for use in the declare fire phase. Our sticks are made from 1/8" wood dowel.
For instance an LB2 X-AC (4/9/18/27) would be 27 hexes long. The first 4 hex lengths are painted Grey (to signify minimum range), the next 5 hex lengths are painted Lt. Blue (for standard range), the next 9 hex lengths are painted Yellow (medium range) and the final 9 hex lengths are painted Red.

No longer do we have to count hexes to determine the adjustment to the "to hit" for ranges.

I've made at least 4 complete sets of all available (for our campaign) so that we all have our own sticks to use. Each weapon type uses a different color group: Ballistic use Blues, Missiles use Browns, Energy use Green. with in each group I use a different shade to distinguish between the different type of weapon (ie. LX ? X AC, AC, Ultra AC etc.) To set the clan weapons apart from the IS Sphere weapons, I've used a different color Red (Barn Red and Brite Red).

We have, in the past, created a chart of movement modes vs weapon range to give a combined adjustment to the "to hit" number for each player:
                                           In Range        Medium Range      Long Range
                  Stationary               4                     6                       8
                  Walk                       5                     7                       9
                  Run                        6                     8                       10
                  Jump                      7                     9                       11

Edited to add what I used to make the sticks from.

[MadCapellan]

I'll be honest with you - I've been playing this game for over two decades, and I can count the number of times the strict d
order of fire declaration was observed on my finger.
In most games, players generally work up their fire and heat simultaneously and declare them as their attacks are rolled. 

The written rulea for firing order are designed to prevent two situations of unrealistic abuse - players switching their targets if the unit they were firing at was destroyed before they got a chance to fire, and cripple or destroyes units "alphastriking", ignoring their heat levels and simply firing all their weapons, in their final turn.

If you find your friends reasonably trustworthy, I don't see any harm in just handling it all in an ad-hoc order. I trust my friends to be honest if they had planned to shoot a dead unit.

[Sartris]

The way my group does it is generally declare and resolve fire at the same time, and one at a time.  Yes, it loses something when you can decide not to fire at an already destroyed unit, but it also considerably speeds up the game.

Yes. I like that my group does this as well.

Not related to firing, but we also do movement by lance when the game gets around company v company size. I think this speeds up gameplay a good deal as well.

[theothersarah]

I feel that it's important to make all declarations before resolving attacks, but I don't feel that going back and forth between players during the declaration phase is really all that important. I just declare all attacks for all my units all at once because I can just rattle it off pretty quickly.

While I feel that declarations should happen before resolution because I feel that overkill/underkill is an important part of the game, I don't think it adds much strategic depth to be able to respond in initiative order to enemy attack declarations. I've never, ever felt like I've missed any opportunities by playing fast and loose with the declarations like that.

Same goes for Megamek games, it greatly speeds up the game if you turn on simultaneous attack declarations so both sides are putting in their orders at the same time instead of waiting for the other.

[foxbat]

Im making red sticks to show laser fire, and blue sticks to show projectile/missile fire. Will this work or do i need to differ PPCs from projectiles from missiles and so on?

I had the chance in our yearly BT meet to have agen2 as a player, and to let him use some common plastic pique-olives (sorry I do not remember the name in English). We used one per targt per mech, however many weapons were fired, and the various colours were helpful in remembering primary & secondary targets.

[Deathrider6]

I had the chance in our yearly BT meet to have agen2 as a player, and to let him use some common plastic pique-olives (sorry I do not remember the name in English). We used one per targt per mech, however many weapons were fired, and the various colours were helpful in remembering primary & secondary targets.

Cocktail skewers for fruit and the like if I am not mistaken. Good idea.

[hive_angel]

When there are a lance or two lances worth on opposite sides I think everything should go as the rules go. When there is a company on opposite sides moving in lances might be good and characterful as lance movement.

When it comes to the choosing target phase I think it should be left as is or maybe use the suggestion I mentioned earlier for the target choosing only (maybe). I say maybe as one side can use a whole lance at a time to move and then fire on one target over and over again.

All targets should be chosen and weapons chosen before resolution to avoid taking advantage. If one unit kills and enemy before another unit does perhaps its a kill steal.

Using counters is a great way to keep track of movement modifiers, attack modifiers, etc.

Keep talking about random subjects very low. One person stopping to talk especially on his turn can draw the attention of all players thus losing time. Plus you get the "where were we" question.
Keep outside game watchers from interfering if you are on a time budget as they can interrupt a game easily.

[Diablo48]

One common trick I have heard a lot of players do is bring a bunch of extra dice and set them up to represent the movement modifiers of the 'Mechs during the movement phase so you do not have to worry about remembering it later.

I feel that it's important to make all declarations before resolving attacks, but I don't feel that going back and forth between players during the declaration phase is really all that important. I just declare all attacks for all my units all at once because I can just rattle it off pretty quickly.

While I feel that declarations should happen before resolution because I feel that overkill/underkill is an important part of the game, I don't think it adds much strategic depth to be able to respond in initiative order to enemy attack declarations. I've never, ever felt like I've missed any opportunities by playing fast and loose with the declarations like that.

Same goes for Megamek games, it greatly speeds up the game if you turn on simultaneous attack declarations so both sides are putting in their orders at the same time instead of waiting for the other.

This is ok for the most part, but it can cost you opportunities if you have lots of heat generating weapons on the field, especially Clan Plasma Cannons.  Generally speaking, a good Plasma Cannon 'Mech will have enough other weapons to bracket it out of their firing pattern if they want to, so the ideal way to use them is to hold them for last in attack declaration so they can threaten every unit in range with a heat spike and then either make someone pay for riding the heat scale with the Plasma Cannons or drop them for the other weapons to do more damage.  Other heat generating weapons like Inferno SRMs and Plasma Rifles can also do this to some extent, although they are not as good at it due to the reduced range of the SRMs and the relatively low heat generation of the Plasma Rifle.  You simply cannot do this without strictly following the attack declaration rules, however as you mentioned it is really not an issue if these weapons are not on the field.

[Weirdo]

To speed things up, my group often does the declaration phase semi-silently. We'll write down the target in a margin of the record sheet, as well as the to-hits needed for all weapons being fired. No shots are taken until everybody is ready. This makes the weapons phase go much faster, and we tend to trust each other enough to be honest about it if a unit's assigned target is destroyed prior to our turn for shots. About the only times we'll allow mid-firing changes is if someone makes a mistake and prepares what turns out to be an impossible shot, or if someone thinks a unit had no viable targets, but remembers one later in the phase. Obviously, that possiblity would be revoked if we felt someone was abusing this.

[Saint]

Movement modifier dice are a big help, my group likes d10s because of the 0 . One of our players even has run, walk, or jumped tokens .

We generally declare a target, and weapons fire one side at a time, this seems a little faster and you avoid the "That mech is dead so I'll shoot your other one instead."  problem. While that could speed up the game it can also lead to a players feeling a bit cheated in the end.

Most importantly keep on task, don't be a task master we are all here for fun after all.  O0

[theothersarah]

This is ok for the most part, but it can cost you opportunities if you have lots of heat generating weapons on the field, especially Clan Plasma Cannons.  Generally speaking, a good Plasma Cannon 'Mech will have enough other weapons to bracket it out of their firing pattern if they want to, so the ideal way to use them is to hold them for last in attack declaration so they can threaten every unit in range with a heat spike and then either make someone pay for riding the heat scale with the Plasma Cannons or drop them for the other weapons to do more damage.  Other heat generating weapons like Inferno SRMs and Plasma Rifles can also do this to some extent, although they are not as good at it due to the reduced range of the SRMs and the relatively low heat generation of the Plasma Rifle.  You simply cannot do this without strictly following the attack declaration rules, however as you mentioned it is really not an issue if these weapons are not on the field.

I kind of feel silly for not thinking about that so thanks for pointing it out. I'm going to have to consider it for the next time I'm using a bunch of heat weapons.

[Diablo48]

I kind of feel silly for not thinking about that so thanks for pointing it out. I'm going to have to consider it for the next time I'm using a bunch of heat weapons.

I am glad I was able to help. :)

[Attackmack]

Thans for tips guys, next weekend im hoping to get a game together with a friend and Im gonna take his help in designing a flow of play that will suit the other players for games to come.

[garhkal]

Ive read some good advice here and there, and one thing im doing is making sticks to keep track of firing announcements.
Im making red sticks to show laser fire, and blue sticks to show projectile/missile fire. Will this work or do i need to differ PPCs from projectiles from missiles and so on?

That should work fine.  Alternately make "Weapon bracket sticks"..  So all the long range, all the short range, or one for an alpha strike" for each mech should work.

I also want to ask for advice on how people keep track of everything and how you guys do to make sure your not missing heat adjustements, pilot skillrolls, ticking of ammo and so on.

Usually we have each mech that fires, record the heat, ammo and other such stuff as each one 'takes its turn'.  Same with piloting rolls.  As soon as that mech takes the needed damage/actuator destroyed/kicked result, the controlling player makes his roll.

The written rulea for firing order are designed to prevent two situations of unrealistic abuse - players switching their targets if the unit they were firing at was destroyed before they got a chance to fire, and cripple or destroyes units "alphastriking", ignoring their heat levels and simply firing all their weapons, in their final turn.

Yup.  But if you play with people you can trust to NOT abuse that, then i think the order as wrote can be ignored.

I feel that it's important to make all declarations before resolving attacks, but I don't feel that going back and forth between players during the declaration phase is really all that important. I just declare all attacks for all my units all at once because I can just rattle it off pretty quickly.

Same.  Heck one group i gamed with, the people there were good enough to actually work everything out PRIOR to their turn..  So they knew what weapons were being fired, what heat that generated them/moved them to, and what rolls were needed, so all they had to do was when their turn hit, they just rolled the dice.  Some times we even had others who were there watch the rolls.  So if you had say a 4 player game going on (say it was a free for all), and P3 was making his movements/declarations, but player 1 (who was shooting two P4 mechs and a P2 mech) could have Player 4 watch his rolls/check his numbers, while P2 was doing the same for P3.

Some other suggestions, is to get small dice, 3 colors.  Use these to mark the movement each mech has done (say green for walk, white for run and yellow for jump) with the 1-4 on the die representing their movement modifier.  So i as an opponent can look at your mech and see it has a 3 turned up, i know my 4 gunner needs a 4+3+my movement+terrain (lets say i walked, but have a heavy woods in the way) for 9 to hit you.

[Hellraiser]

I'll be honest with you - I've been playing this game for over two decades, and I can count the number of times the strict d
order of fire declaration was observed on my finger.
In most games, players generally work up their fire and heat simultaneously and declare them as their attacks are rolled. 

The written rules for firing order are designed to prevent two situations of unrealistic abuse - players switching their targets if the unit they were firing at was destroyed before they got a chance to fire, and cripple or destroyes units "alphastriking", ignoring their heat levels and simply firing all their weapons, in their final turn.

If you find your friends reasonably trustworthy, I don't see any harm in just handling it all in an ad-hoc order. I trust my friends to be honest if they had planned to shoot a dead unit.

This is how my GM does it.
Everyone rights down there target & shots fired on their RS each turn.
Then we just pair off with whatever opponent is free & get the rolls done.

I recently realized that we had been doing something wrong all along by not doing initiative order fire because according to the rules you will know if your getting hit by twin Plasma-Rifles that turn & can remove some of your fire so you don't heat up.
As this flies in the face of your second statement about not Alphastriking after finding out that your going to die, and is unrealistic, I don't feel too bad about how we've been doing it.

[garhkal]

One thing i love having is egg timers, or stopwatches..  Give everyone say a minute max to decide what / where a mech is moving to.

[dirty harry]

Several methods of speeding up the game:

Initative phase:
Draw cards from a poker deck. Highest value wins the initative (the more players at the table the more it speeds up as no rerolls for a tie are needed).

Movement phase:
Time limit for unit movement. Chess clock works really good, egg timers or stopwatches are a close second.
Small dice as movement counter close to the mini. All dice are removed before the start of a movement phase. A die lieing next to a mini declares it has already moved. D6 are normally sufficient. If you want to determine its own movement type during this turn, you can decide between three different die colors (walking, running, jumping. Mechs playing turret tech are mostly well known, otherwise a fourth color would be needed). If color doesn't indicate movement type it simplifies distinguish the faction of a mech (or proxy).

Fire declaration:
Fire declaration sheets (sometimes) simplify fire declaration, especially in loud areas like a con hall. Relocating fire is (mostly) impossible. To hit numbers can be recalculated if someone distrusts the math.

Fire phase:
Although it should be faster if more than one player rolls its dice simultanously, it has shown that a more silent one by one is faster and more constructive.
If cluster rolls are necessary, roll more than just a single pair of dice at once. Of course the second (and third and so on) pair must be distinguishable from the first. Box of doom is the advanced solution (small parts bit box filled with a pair of dice in each compartment. Shake box once and read as much compartments as needed).

Heat phase:
Write heat down instead of using the thermometer scale on the side. If fire declaration sheets are used, there.

Record sheets:
Most construction programs like SSW or HM software can add additional tables to the record sheet. If you don't use pdf record sheets, add at least the cluster missile table and hit locations to your record sheet. Afaik those programs highlight those cluster columns which could be interesting for the relevant mech.

That is what speeds up our games.

[Diablo48]

Several methods of speeding up the game:

Initative phase:
Draw cards from a poker deck. Highest value wins the initative (the more players at the table the more it speeds up as no rerolls for a tie are needed).

To speed this up further, you can cut it down to just the minimum cards you need.  For example, if you have 5 players, you could pull the Ace, 2, 3, 4, and 5 of clubs so the number directly says what turn number you have and guarantees no conflicts (e.g. I get the two of hearts, you get the two of spades).

I would also designate one person to hold the cards, shuffle them while others are taking their turns, and fan them out for other players to pick from when it is time to make it go even faster.

Movement phase:
Time limit for unit movement. Chess clock works really good, egg timers or stopwatches are a close second.
Small dice as movement counter close to the mini. All dice are removed before the start of a movement phase. A die lieing next to a mini declares it has already moved. D6 are normally sufficient. If you want to determine its own movement type during this turn, you can decide between three different die colors (walking, running, jumping. Mechs playing turret tech are mostly well known, otherwise a fourth color would be needed). If color doesn't indicate movement type it simplifies distinguish the faction of a mech (or proxy).

You do not need a fourth color for standing because there cannot be a TMM there so any token like a coin or scrap of paper will do to indicate that the unit has been declared to be stationary.

[Nahuris]

For our games, we have found some things that work.

Limited times for movement.
Declared fire.
Movement Dice
Per side fixed initiative --- when we have more than one player on a side, we have them each roll a D6, and they always move in the order from lowest to highest.
It avoids the players on one side arguing over who has to move first, and also gets rid of the "I forgot to move" syndrome.

Also, in big games, we group weapons ---- as an example, if I have a PPC, 2 medium lasers, and 2 SRM4's --- I'll break it down into 3 sets of dice.... PPC, lasers, and then srms..... or, for variety, one laser and one srm as a fire group. This is only for the "to hit" roll.... and it was added to counter the player using an Archer with 8 LRM5's over the two LRM20's. Rather than have him roll 8 times, we asked him to group each torso of LRM's as one dice roll.... over the course of a game, it tends to balance out fairly well.

Nahuris

[Attackmack]

Using multiple pair of dice with different colors is something ive already decided upon.
At least two pairs, and rolling them together will give both "to hit" and "hit location" (cluster hits if a missile weapon).

Ive also printed out the sheets for all the intro-box mechs and placed them in plastic sleeves and we will be using whiteboard markers to write on them so they can be easily modified and later reused.
Though I used the mechsheet appp from appstore which doesnt feature the tables and options available on the skunkwerks sheets so I might have to reprint these instead!
Im wondering how this will work though since its very easy to accidentally swipe the marker from the plastic.

How I would love digital mechsheets for use with iPads  :D

[Nahuris]

I've used the dry erase marker method, and it works fine.... with reasonable care --- grease pencils also work, and take a bit more effort to "accidentally" swipe off.......

Nahuris