BattleTech - The Board Game of Armored Combat
BattleTech Player Boards => Challenges and Gatherings => After Action Reports => Topic started by: sadlerbw on 28 October 2015, 17:51:28
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So I finally decided to introduce some new gamers to BT last night. They have been eyeing my minis for the past couple weeks and finally prevailed on me to set up a little skirmish. You can see a picture of the beginning of the game below. I'm not sure exactly how faction selection was done for this particular game, but I'm guessing it was in the FedCom civil war based on the mix of Steiner and Davion units with some obvious Kurita salvage thrown in. The young lady, having an age and experience advantage, allowed her opponent a tonnage and BV advantage with an Atlas, Grasshopper, Dragon, Guillotine, and Hatchetman facing off against her Orion, Banshee, Victor and Blackjack. This was probably a wise choice, as some tears were involved when the younger gentleman found out that 'the big, blue one' was originally her first choice. I tried to encourage them to select one whole lance each, explaining the advantages of complimentary skills and the potential for extra SPA's, but to no avail. Unit choice was largely made using the rule-of-cool instead. The hatchetman in particular was wildly over-valued in the selection process once the gentleman discovered it had a hatchet to chop people with. Deployment was the classic stand in a line and shoot at each other formation.
Force selection and initial deployment complete, I walked away to find some dice and returned to discover the battle had miraculously begun without me! It appears the players were using some house rules that used yelling and laser/gun sounds to determine hits. Pilot skills must have been pretty poor based on the number of knockdowns I saw in this game, which is odd considering the frequent jumping (even from mechs without jump jets.) didn't result in a single fall. While I originally planned this to be a 3025 tech game to keep things simple, it appears the new players were interested in more advanced technologies. I'm fairly certain all mechs involved were using HarJel, as they would frequently get 'kaboomed' and then proceed to stand back up shortly after.
When the smoke cleared and the two opponents left to get ready for bed, I'm happy to say that all of the mechs, though having participated in a savage and physical battle, will survive to fight another day. Well, except for one poor Stinger IIC who lost a leg before I figured out just how physical this skirmish was going to be!
8)
The kids have been watching me build and paint BT minis over the past few weeks and have been bugging me to 'see some robots' more frequently. While, at 4 and 6, they are a little too young even for alpha strike, I wanted to hook them while they were interested. I tried letting them play with some of my Pewter mini's, but that didn't work out so well. They simply couldn't resist getting a little too physical with the mechs. Luckily, when I decided to get back into the mini painting side of BT recently, I bought a couple of those Alpha Strike lance packs to practice on. Those suckers are not only one piece, with no joints to worry about, but they are also inherently less poky and more flexible since they are plastic. Plus, since I was mostly practicing with them, I don't mind as much if they get beat up. The kids loved it. They were zooming and booming all over pretty might right after I got the picture taken. I may have to come up with a super-simple kiddy-tech variant and see if I can get them to look at daddy's robots as part of a game and not just stand-in's when they don't have enough droids for Obi-wan to fight! Hopefully this is their first step to becoming certified mech-lovers, just like dad.
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Love it!
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Fantastic! I've been getting curious "what's that one?" questions from the better half's little girls when they've visited and looked at the shelves, so I'm hoping they'll go the same route and give it a try sometime with 'Dad' as well. Glad this went well for you! (This can be a great tool for determining household chores- one has to do the dishes, the other has to fold laundry. Winner of the Clan honor duel gets to pick their chore.)
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oldest youngling started at 5...
she is very nasty first game she had she beheaded me and killed me in 5 rounds
and still to this day is demon with dice seems to get the head shots a lot
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We have gotten them into some basic stuff like Sorry and the kid version of Carcassone, but the little guy is still not quite there on the 'taking turns' part of things and also the, 'not cheating all the time' part. He is a big fan of winning, and if the rules don't seem to give him a chance to win he makes his own. We are working on that, but I'm hoping to get him over the losing-gracefully hump before starting in with the REAL games. I think I might pick up an Intro box set or another lance pack and let them each pick some mini's to paint and keep for themselves. I'm pretty terrible at painting anyway, so it should be a nice confidence booster for them when I can legitimately say, "Look, yours looks nicer than daddy's!"
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If you can find the click based mechs they are perfect for kids of that age to play with. If you re-based them om 2 inch hexs they can be used to play standard Battle Tech. 2-1 scale on sheets
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Not safe for kids! But actually a nice history and synopsis from you tuber, rageaholic.
http://youtu.be/h92N63ElI4s