Author Topic: Battletech Gaming Maps (and a bit of Heroscape)  (Read 18110 times)

Mister_Bruce

  • Recruit
  • *
  • Posts: 21
Battletech Gaming Maps (and a bit of Heroscape)
« on: 12 March 2018, 05:28:03 »
Well I'm going back to Battletech which I've played on and off since it was first released. I just thought I'd share some of the things that I've learned so far, gleaning from others and also discovering some things that I think are new:
  • Catalyst has all of the standard maps on DriveThruRPG. I have bought the map packs and scaled them up to 1.75 inch (Heroscape size) and the test prints look very good
  • Battlemaps on DriveThruRPG has a number of good looking printable maps with 1 inch and 1.5 inch hex maps. I have downloaded some of these and scaled them up to 1.75 inch (Heroscape size) and they look good.
  • Wargameprint on DrivethruRPG also has very good looking maps which I'm very tempted by given that DrivethruRPG is currently having a sale. One thing that the maker does offer is hex grids for different sizes. I'm going to contact him.
But then the next interesting thing is GIMP which is a graphic modification tool. I found a Hex Grid overlap plugin but it was dated 2009 so I thought there was no way it would work. The good news is that it does work. So you can create your own overlays and print them.

I'm also doing a bit of exploration with 3D printing but I'll share that later.

My maps currently look like basic Heroscape, but they will improve. Pics from today....





I forgot to mention. I'm using ordinary dice to remember whether a mech is walking ("1"), running ("2"), jumping ("3") or is stationary ("6"). I haven't thought of anything better yet.

Colt Ward

  • Lieutenant General
  • *
  • Posts: 28957
  • Gott Mit Uns
    • Merc Periphery Guide- Bakunin
Re: Battletech Gaming Maps (and a bit of Heroscape)
« Reply #1 on: 12 March 2018, 14:05:40 »
Typically folks will use different colors with the total mods on them.

Where I live, walking are white dice and a six equals no movement/mod.
Red is for running with the same from above.
Green is for jumping
Black is for sprinting
For BA some folks use green (I am lazy) others use yellow and we include the +1 for being BA.
VTOLs also get the +1 added into the THN represented on the die and elevation tends to be a blue or large die, depending on what the person has available.

Colors vary by region, but they are the small dice, typically about half the height/width/depth of the normal dice.

I see your nice 3D printed bridge that works with the Geohex, our Agent here has one and seems to really like it.
Colt Ward
Clan Invasion Backer #149, Leviathans #104

"We come in peace, please ignore the bloodstains."

"Greetings, Mechwarrior. You have been recruited by the Star League to defend the Frontier against Daoshen and the Capellan armada."

Mister_Bruce

  • Recruit
  • *
  • Posts: 21
Re: Battletech Gaming Maps (and a bit of Heroscape)
« Reply #2 on: 13 March 2018, 04:42:06 »
Cheers Colt. Thanks for the info on the dice. I'll give that some thought.

Regarding the bridge, that's actually from Deadzone. Here are some pieces that I have used for Heavy Gear Blitz but I think they could work well with Battletech as well:

Deadzone Bridge with two half-painted mechs for size comparison:


Deadzone Building (half-height) with mechs for size comparison. The radar disc is not attached:


Deadzone barriers which make reasonable defensive walls even for 6mm scale:


And lastly here was an accidental gem. The bases for the turrets are from Heavy Gear Blitz, but the turrets are from The Ion Age (15mm scale) - see IAF015 Hab Dome Mounts I and II. Unfortunately the Hab Domes from The Ion Age themselves don't look very good with 6mm scale models, but they seem to be okay on the Heavy Gear Blitz bases.

Colt Ward

  • Lieutenant General
  • *
  • Posts: 28957
  • Gott Mit Uns
    • Merc Periphery Guide- Bakunin
Re: Battletech Gaming Maps (and a bit of Heroscape)
« Reply #3 on: 13 March 2018, 06:16:48 »
Ah, from the distance it looked like the 3D printed bridge I had seen.  Unfortunately I cannot find the topic with the picture of that bridge.  The guy who did it shared the file with my agent.  Those turrets do look very nice.
Colt Ward
Clan Invasion Backer #149, Leviathans #104

"We come in peace, please ignore the bloodstains."

"Greetings, Mechwarrior. You have been recruited by the Star League to defend the Frontier against Daoshen and the Capellan armada."

Ronin Actual

  • Warrant Officer
  • *
  • Posts: 716
  • Bad Day?
Re: Battletech Gaming Maps (and a bit of Heroscape)
« Reply #4 on: 13 March 2018, 17:20:11 »
Looks good!

Mister_Bruce

  • Recruit
  • *
  • Posts: 21
Re: Battletech Gaming Maps (and a bit of Heroscape)
« Reply #5 on: 22 April 2018, 01:20:18 »
Some more 3D prints to add:


This one comes from MyMiniFactory (https://www.myminifactory.com/object/3d-print-6mm-scale-office-building-60234) and was first brought to my attention by Ronin Actual in the following link: https://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=60797.0


The next one comes from https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/224185/6mm-SciFi-Terrain-Refinery-Complex?. I think the tanks are a bit too large (I would have preferred smaller), but it still looks okay. I think I will rescale downwards when I get access to a 3D printer again.

Colt Ward

  • Lieutenant General
  • *
  • Posts: 28957
  • Gott Mit Uns
    • Merc Periphery Guide- Bakunin
Re: Battletech Gaming Maps (and a bit of Heroscape)
« Reply #6 on: 22 April 2018, 01:29:18 »
Actually, those are I think spot on for some LNG tanks.
Colt Ward
Clan Invasion Backer #149, Leviathans #104

"We come in peace, please ignore the bloodstains."

"Greetings, Mechwarrior. You have been recruited by the Star League to defend the Frontier against Daoshen and the Capellan armada."

Mister_Bruce

  • Recruit
  • *
  • Posts: 21
Re: Battletech Gaming Maps (and a bit of Heroscape)
« Reply #7 on: 14 May 2018, 06:51:48 »
Progress report.....



Repainted Heroscape tiles. Flocked. Added trees.
I'm still prototyping what I'm after. Playing around. Still, I thought it was worth sharing.

Colt Ward

  • Lieutenant General
  • *
  • Posts: 28957
  • Gott Mit Uns
    • Merc Periphery Guide- Bakunin
Re: Battletech Gaming Maps (and a bit of Heroscape)
« Reply #8 on: 14 May 2018, 10:36:10 »
The grass is interesting . . . is it normal or considered a field?
Colt Ward
Clan Invasion Backer #149, Leviathans #104

"We come in peace, please ignore the bloodstains."

"Greetings, Mechwarrior. You have been recruited by the Star League to defend the Frontier against Daoshen and the Capellan armada."

Ronin Actual

  • Warrant Officer
  • *
  • Posts: 716
  • Bad Day?
Re: Battletech Gaming Maps (and a bit of Heroscape)
« Reply #9 on: 15 May 2018, 15:34:10 »
That looks really good!

faithless

  • Catalyst Demo Team
  • Lieutenant
  • *
  • Posts: 1310
  • I am a meat popsicle.
Re: Battletech Gaming Maps (and a bit of Heroscape)
« Reply #10 on: 23 May 2018, 11:42:39 »
Ah, from the distance it looked like the 3D printed bridge I had seen.  Unfortunately I cannot find the topic with the picture of that bridge.  The guy who did it shared the file with my agent.  Those turrets do look very nice.


The guy actually scaled the bridges to 1.75in hexes for me and printed them. His original file was on thingaverse at one time.
Demo Agent #715
Game HQ Oklahoma City, OK
Carolina Comics Lawton, OK
Oklahoma Battletech Group on Facebook

Mister_Bruce

  • Recruit
  • *
  • Posts: 21
Re: Battletech Gaming Maps (and a bit of Heroscape)
« Reply #11 on: 25 May 2018, 20:18:04 »
Continuing to work on my BT maps with Heroscape.

The BT map is printed at 135% scale so that it is the same size as the Heroscape tiles.
The other bits and pieces I've just included for a bit of mucking around - trying out what works and what doesn't. Some things aren't quite the right scale yet.





It's a work in progress. The good news is that I've received a 3D printer so I can start making my own stuff rather than rely upon others. The bad news is that I still haven't found anyone in Canberra (Australia) to play Battletech with.

I'm working on building the forces to play through the original Black Widow Company scenarios. That's my current target.

(And an odd thing - I tried to contact Hotzmats and gave up after repeated requests. Maybe Eric isn't operating any more.....)

Ronin Actual

  • Warrant Officer
  • *
  • Posts: 716
  • Bad Day?
Re: Battletech Gaming Maps (and a bit of Heroscape)
« Reply #12 on: 29 May 2018, 16:10:50 »
Your board is looking great!

faithless

  • Catalyst Demo Team
  • Lieutenant
  • *
  • Posts: 1310
  • I am a meat popsicle.
Re: Battletech Gaming Maps (and a bit of Heroscape)
« Reply #13 on: 31 May 2018, 12:15:38 »
It is looking good. Someone rescaled the bridge  Colt was talking about to 1.75in and posted it on thingaverse.
Demo Agent #715
Game HQ Oklahoma City, OK
Carolina Comics Lawton, OK
Oklahoma Battletech Group on Facebook

faithless

  • Catalyst Demo Team
  • Lieutenant
  • *
  • Posts: 1310
  • I am a meat popsicle.
Re: Battletech Gaming Maps (and a bit of Heroscape)
« Reply #14 on: 01 June 2018, 12:59:12 »
I ordered some vinyl mats from gamematz.com with 1.75in hexes. I ordered a 4x6 tundra mat and a 4x3 cracked asphalt. I will post pics in a thread after I get them and try them out. I emailed hotz but have not heard back and was under a deadline.
Demo Agent #715
Game HQ Oklahoma City, OK
Carolina Comics Lawton, OK
Oklahoma Battletech Group on Facebook

Papabees

  • Lieutenant
  • *
  • Posts: 952
Re: Battletech Gaming Maps (and a bit of Heroscape)
« Reply #15 on: 04 June 2018, 22:46:32 »
Where are you having the Btech maps printed at? And what is the rough cost to do so?

Mister_Bruce

  • Recruit
  • *
  • Posts: 21
Re: Battletech Gaming Maps (and a bit of Heroscape)
« Reply #16 on: 05 June 2018, 08:28:04 »
Where are you having the Btech maps printed at? And what is the rough cost to do so?

I got mine printed at Officeworks, B1 sized. AUD $30 per sheet. It costs additional to laminate.

These map sheets are scaled to 135% of normal size because I wanted to use Heroscape-sized tiles for the hills, forest and rough tiles.

Cheers, Bruce

Mister_Bruce

  • Recruit
  • *
  • Posts: 21
Re: Battletech Gaming Maps (and a bit of Heroscape)
« Reply #17 on: 06 June 2018, 03:15:07 »
And more mucking around on the 3D printer.

"My Lord, I have reached the main power generators. The shields will be down in moments." (Quoted from The Empire Strikes Back). The power generators from Star Wars, scaled at 50% seem to work reasonably well. They are 9cm long, perfectly sized across two Heroscape sized tiles.


Unfortunately about 20 seconds before taking a photo of the power generators, my daughter dropped them and they split neatly into two halves. The halves don't look too bad actually. I've also included a pic of another building that I've joined together from two parts.


Will paint these up shortly.

Colt Ward

  • Lieutenant General
  • *
  • Posts: 28957
  • Gott Mit Uns
    • Merc Periphery Guide- Bakunin
Re: Battletech Gaming Maps (and a bit of Heroscape)
« Reply #18 on: 06 June 2018, 09:00:15 »
Wonder what they look like larger, since IIRC they were supposed to be bigger in scale . . . or always seemed that way to me.  Neat find, change my perception of the power generator . . . I will have to think about some bits now.
Colt Ward
Clan Invasion Backer #149, Leviathans #104

"We come in peace, please ignore the bloodstains."

"Greetings, Mechwarrior. You have been recruited by the Star League to defend the Frontier against Daoshen and the Capellan armada."

Mister_Bruce

  • Recruit
  • *
  • Posts: 21
Re: Battletech Gaming Maps (and a bit of Heroscape)
« Reply #19 on: 10 June 2018, 04:05:36 »
I'm continuing to work on my hex tiles.....

Some full height and half height tiles.....


Painted and flocked. (I used two types of static grass)


And with trees. Hexes have 1-3 trees on them. I'm thinking 2 trees for Light Woods, and 3 trees for Heavy Woods.


I still want to add some foliage onto these hexes....

Mister_Bruce

  • Recruit
  • *
  • Posts: 21
Re: Battletech Gaming Maps (and a bit of Heroscape)
« Reply #20 on: 14 June 2018, 02:35:51 »


Little by little. I'm getting there.

The mechs are the Command Lance from the Black Widow company. I'll take a better pic when they're fully painted. I have more work to do on them.

Papabees

  • Lieutenant
  • *
  • Posts: 952
Re: Battletech Gaming Maps (and a bit of Heroscape)
« Reply #21 on: 14 June 2018, 05:55:15 »
Where did you get those hexes with the flat tops?

Mister_Bruce

  • Recruit
  • *
  • Posts: 21
Re: Battletech Gaming Maps (and a bit of Heroscape)
« Reply #22 on: 14 June 2018, 16:59:40 »
Where did you get those hexes with the flat tops?

I made them.

The base hex tile is here. I then sliced off the bottom 5mm to make thin versions of the tiles. (ie: I chopped 5mm off with a graphics tool, and then printed them 5mm shorter, not that I filed 5mm off)

These thin tiles are designed to sit flat on the gaming mat, and are not designed to stack. I plan to use them for Woods (Light and Heavy) and Rough terrain.

These hex tiles will link up with Heroscape tiles, but they don't interlock with each other. The Heroscape tiles have a more complicated locking mechanism which I have not attempted to copy.

Hope this helps,

Bruce

DarkSpade

  • Major
  • *
  • Posts: 3650
Re: Battletech Gaming Maps (and a bit of Heroscape)
« Reply #23 on: 14 June 2018, 19:46:38 »

These hex tiles will link up with Heroscape tiles, but they don't interlock with each other. The Heroscape tiles have a more complicated locking mechanism which I have not attempted to copy.

If you ever do successfully copy it, don't share publicly.  Hasbro has a patent on it and they have a history of enforcing it.
Space Marines are guys who look at a chainsaw and think, “That should be balanced for parrying.”

Mister_Bruce

  • Recruit
  • *
  • Posts: 21
Re: Battletech Gaming Maps (and a bit of Heroscape)
« Reply #24 on: 15 June 2018, 19:50:33 »
If you ever do successfully copy it, don't share publicly.  Hasbro has a patent on it and they have a history of enforcing it.

Thanks for the warning DarkSpade. I definitely am not and will not be copying Heroscape.

I didn't want to drill holes in my Heroscape tiles to add trees, so I wanted something else. Also, many Light Forests / Heavy Forests are on Level 0 which means that I didn't want a raised Hex. I wanted something thinner.
The Hex Tile design which is on Thingiverse enables someone to print a tile which interlocks into Heroscape tiles, but it's not a Heroscape tile and it doesn't interlock to other 3D printed tiles. There is a gap between the 3D printed tiles which means that they won't lock together, which is something that the Heroscape tiles do.
So effectively I'm leaving the Heroscape tiles as the base building blocks, and then adding some 3D printed 'icing on the cake' around the Heroscape tiles. For example, adding a tile on top, adding a tile beside.
For my 'thin tiles', they're just going to sit flat on the gaming mat. I've already realised that this means that they won't interlock to one another, but that's okay. If it's really a problem, I'll blue-tac (sticky-tac) them together for the game, and them remove later.
Yes, I could design a completely new type of 3D tile (like Warhex) but it'd be a lot of mucking around. Maybe one day....

Tangoforone

  • Master Sergeant
  • *
  • Posts: 300
Re: Battletech Gaming Maps (and a bit of Heroscape)
« Reply #25 on: 29 June 2018, 14:44:28 »
I ordered a mat off of HotzMats about 2 months ago.  It took approximately 5 weeks to ship.  I emailed him multiple times to see what the status was and got no response.  In the end, if you order from him expect 4 to 8 weeks shipment and no email contact.  Nice mat though. 

DarkSpade

  • Major
  • *
  • Posts: 3650
Re: Battletech Gaming Maps (and a bit of Heroscape)
« Reply #26 on: 29 June 2018, 16:44:16 »
I ordered a mat off of HotzMats about 2 months ago.  It took approximately 5 weeks to ship.  I emailed him multiple times to see what the status was and got no response.  In the end, if you order from him expect 4 to 8 weeks shipment and no email contact.  Nice mat though.

Yeah, there's a whole thread about them around here somewhere.  Basically his customer service is horrible and I think some people had to wait months, but he does deliver and the quality is there.
Space Marines are guys who look at a chainsaw and think, “That should be balanced for parrying.”

Mister_Bruce

  • Recruit
  • *
  • Posts: 21
Re: Battletech Gaming Maps (and a bit of Heroscape)
« Reply #27 on: 20 July 2018, 05:07:37 »
I now have enough of the Forest Tiles for 2 Battletech maps. I haven't yet decided how to differentiate between Light and Heavy Forest - I have been thinking of adding some clump foliage from GaleForce 9 to the Heavy Forest bases but haven't done that yet. The mechs can be put onto the hexes with 3 trees. Just bend them apart, insert mech and they flick back into place.

Anyway, here's my update - I think I want to do something about the 'plain' Heroscape grass tiles as it looks a bit odd going from flocked Forest tiles to the basic green Heroscape tiles. I also need to do some more tidying up about the colour on the side of some of the tiles.

Also in these pics are my (almost completed) Black Widow Company from 3025. I need to do some work on the cockpits and the bases but they're almost done.













Tangoforone

  • Master Sergeant
  • *
  • Posts: 300
Re: Battletech Gaming Maps (and a bit of Heroscape)
« Reply #28 on: 20 July 2018, 14:22:00 »
That looks really good!  What I've heard a few people do, and what I will probably do myself when I get around to making terrain, is they differentiate light and heavy forests by the number of trees on the tiles (2 trees for light, 3 for heavy).

Bedwyr

  • A Sticky Wicket
  • Global Moderator
  • Lieutenant Colonel
  • *
  • Posts: 10181
  • RIP. Again. And again. And again.
Re: Battletech Gaming Maps (and a bit of Heroscape)
« Reply #29 on: 20 July 2018, 14:24:21 »
That is some goooood Heroscaping. Very well done; I am jealous of how it turned out.
Alas poor Photobucket. I knew him Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.

 

Register