Hello all,
I recently picked up the two new boxed sets and played the Griffin vs Wolverine starter match with a friend of mine (using the beginner box rules of course). The game was fun and I am now going to go over to a local miniature gaming club and see if anyone would be interested in playing there. But before I do, there are some things that popped up about the miniatures and the game itself.
Welcome.
So first off, does anyone know if the mech record sheets that come with the Game of Armored Combat box are available as a pdf file somewhere? The booklet format of them makes it difficult to laminate for dry erase markers and I am really hesitant on just cutting the pages off it.
I'm sure one of the other denizens will pull this up for somewhere. The previous box set the sheets were released as a PDF. I just don't know where the new set one is yet.
Next up is the mech lances. I'd like to have two ready made lances to take to the club but I have absolutely no idea how to make balanced groups from these. The idea is to have maybe 2-3 hours or so for game length with people who haven't played Battletech before. So if anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.
You want to look at what is called Battle Value (or BV or BV2 for short).
http://masterunitlist.info (official site) has this listed for all designs. It is best when you are using similar era (eg: succession wars, clan invasion), and similar numbers on each side (eg: 4 v 4). It does work with differing eras, but you will end up with a numerical difference.
Then the box set pilot cards. How are these supposed to be used? I mean they are all from different units and have cost values. Have I just missed some part when reading the rule booklet from the boxed set?
They are optional, but the idea is each side would get the same "cost" of cards. So if one side gets a cost 5, the other side would get a cost 5. This is a fairly new way of presenting this, so there isn't a ton of information about using them.
Coming up is rules questions and more specifically where to ask them. So questions about rules are bound to pop up so if playing just the basic game with boxed set stuff, where should I ask the questions? The rules questions forum has several subsections in the rules questions so which one should I use?
This forum. Rules questions is good for esoteric stuff, but you can post general questions about how to learn here in GD or in Combat.
Also gridless combat. Is there any place/book to read on that?
BattleMech Manual is the easiest one, but Total Warfare has a section that covers this, as does Alpha Strike (This is a different system which has no hexes, and simplifies combat). But I recommend the BattleMech Manual. Great book and gives you all the mech-related stuff for lots of advanced tech.
Miniatures. Going from bottom up first subject is the bases. Having looked around the boxed set minis seem to be on new type of bases that are not available anywhere yet. And being a guy who likes uniform design in basing I ended up wondering how it is going to work if I buy new mechs. Does anyone know if these same kind of bases are available somewhere for sale or should I just rebase the boxed set minis for something I can buy later on? The bases also feel a little cramped for some of the mechs but I imagine that is because of the hex maps.
Iron Wind Metals sells hex bases which are the same size, and fit all the metal battletech minis that have built in baseplates (normally these are shallow and small), and work great for non-based minis if you add some putty to them to fill them in.
Modifying miniatures also seems something that I might get into as I like wysiwyg models and the record sheet booklet has a catapult variant with PPCs instead of LRMs. So are there places that sell conversion pieces or do those need to be scratchbuilt? Just in case I end up buying a second boxed set later down the line.
There are not conversion kits. That said, Iron Wind Metals does sell some omnimech pod pieces, and they have a wide variety of mech designs, including the Catapult K2 (in several variations). However this is not in the new sculpt design yet (which just came out in the box set).
That's all for now. I am certain I forgot something so I may add to this.
Much appreciation and gratitude is given for any and all answers :)
Feel free to also post where you are located, as if there are any Demo Team agents around you, we can direct you to places where you can get further assistance in person. Also, the big conventions for Catalyst where there are tons of Battletech Demo Agents are Origins, Gen-Con, and Mech-Con, so if you are at one of those, come by.