"Map Scale" Alpha Strike?

[EDG]

In Alpha Strike, 1 hex of CBT movement is 2" of AS movement, right? One CBT hex is 30m across , so 30m is 2" (50.8mm) of movement. So at that scale, a 10m tall (light?) battlemech should actually be 16.9mm tall (about 2/3") and a 15m tall assault battlemech should be 25.4mm tall (1 inch), which is about half the size of the Catalyst plastic minis... but that actually seems to be the same sort of height range as the old BattleForce minis. It also means that 1 level of height should really be 12.7mm (1/2 inch) to scale properly with the horizontal distances.

So was AS originally designed for use with BattleForce scale miniatures? Or this is just coincidental? I think it'd be interesting to play AS with minis (and terrain) at that scale, at least to see everything consistently scaled (it'd undoubtedly be easier than changing all the other ranges and distances in the game to match the existing plastic mech scale - a Locust would have more like a 38" move in that case!).

[Richard S.]

2" = 1 hex is just a very quick and dirty conversion to let people bash mechs together with tape measures, I doubt a terrible amount of worry went into the exact scale of things. 1" is also 1 level, aka 6 meters, so the math falls apart rather quickly from that alone.

[Kerfuffin(925)]

The vertical and horizontal scales have never been equal. Don’t try to make it make sense. It just is

[glitterboy2098]

much of alpha strike was originally derived from Battleforce, particularly the unit stats, so it sharing the same map scale isn't too surprising.

[worktroll]

I play AS on a 5'x6' surface, which seems on the bigger end. And works well for me and my group - room for maneuver, etc. But "true mapscale AS" would mean 6" move per MP - eg. a Vindicator would move 24"/24"j, have short range of 18", and so on - knife-fighting room!

[EDG]

I play AS on a 5'x6' surface, which seems on the bigger end. And works well for me and my group - room for maneuver, etc. But "true mapscale AS" would mean 6" move per MP - eg. a Vindicator would move 24"/24"j, have short range of 18", and so on - knife-fighting room!

Yeah, but that is not what I'm saying. I'm saying keep all the physical distance scales as they are, just shrink the mechs (to Battleforce size) to match those. As it is the mech minis are way over-sized compared to what they should be in AS.

[Kerfuffin(925)]

Yeah, but that is not what I'm saying. I'm saying keep all the physical distance scales as they are, just shrink the mechs (to Battleforce size) to match those. As it is the mech minis are way over-sized compared to what they should be in AS.

I’m not buying two sets of minis for two slightly different variations of the same game. To paraphrase the best referee of all time, “This isn’t GamesWorkshop”

[EDG]

I’m not buying two sets of minis for two slightly different variations of the same game. To paraphrase the best referee of all time, “This isn’t GamesWorkshop”

Nobody's asking you to? (and if you have Battleforce minis already, you wouldn't have to anyway!)

[Descronan]

First editions of Alpha Strike had 1" = 15m. So that fit the 2" per hex conversion. However, they have changed that to 7.5m/inch. That gets you incredibly close to accurate 6mm scale. Unfortunately, that means you would need to double movement and/or ranges too.

Personally, I kind of like that idea. Just change the range modifiers to Shord 0, Med +1, Long +2, Extreme +4 and change the ranges to 12"/24"/48"/84". Your blast and strafe templates would need to be doubled as well.

However, if you assume each round is 5 seconds instead of 10 seconds, you don't actually need to modify movement.

Anyway, random thoughts...