Battletech: Battleforce Test Run Preparation

 

                                            

After playing or being interested in Battletech for over thirty years...yes bought my first book in 1990, I am going to try out Battleforce in its latest form (35006VB).  I have two of of these books because they changed the cover and I thought it was an update.  Stupid me.  Anyways, although I did bring the mini mechs with me, I decided to use the BF counters.  Note to others interested in getting in on BF counters, there are three good ways to get these, 1) From the Catalyst pack sold online, 2) Online there are some vendors who produce factional colored tokens and then last 3) on the Battletech bg.battletech.com site there are some homebrew factional and mercenary tokens you can print out. I used this last technique in 2011 while deployed and produced a crazy amount of tokens I have never used.  

I will say the counter pack by Catalyst is more than enough, maybe buy two for very large engagements.  I bought four...and that too much.  A lot of specialty units are not included, maybe they will produce one eventually.  Or produce a program to custom make your tokens and then order them as token punch out chits.

Heavy Gear (Virtual) Campaign Update after 1 month of play - Reunion Regulars (31 Spring TN 1918)

 

So after much trial and error and motivated by the constant stay at home orders here in Hawaii, I decided to try and get something going virtually.  A long time user of SLACK, the collaboration work tool, I recruited some friends locally...and now others globally too.  best thing about it is they can play anywhere with full access on their phone as well as their computers at home.

I began with trying to clearly delineate between in game and out of game requirements. So for initial setup, references, etc I have channels established topically. Also, with the Dropbox add in, I have the files uploaded so that players can access simply by clicking on them.  So data cards or finances, maintenance, etc. all have their own channels.

Then I have a campaign channel where the big (RPG) story unfolds in character.  An out of character and player chat rooms exist for discussions off script: 

Then for each mission, I use a separate channel to go through the mission. This allows for better sorting of the tactical information.  In this channel, players only communicate through radio traffic.  I do have some admin excerpts, like Attacks, Defense and Damage.  I use a "UAV view" for a couple turns to give the players some better situational awareness since they can't see the whole board.  A lot more fog of war compared to the normal HG game.  Also, each gear has a view point view.  It actually was quite simple to layer on cockpits and eventually added compasses and now sensors. A good amount of measuring and orientation awareness is necessary as GM, but I enjoy it.  I dont know how much the players are understanding their environment, but I can tell you they got the first kill.

The latest version of turns is noted with the latest cockpit versions to include sensors...

So in conclusion, after a month of play...I find I have to guide the game quite a bit, but I am still having fun.  i hope the players are too.  We seem to be gaining players as we go, so I take that as a good sign.

Heavy Gear (Virtual) Story Game Setup Instructions - Reunion Regulars (30 Spring TN1918)

 

30 Spring TN 1918

Welcome to the Reunion Regulars!  A small band of misfit ex-military mercenaries. You will serve as gear pilots to the best caravan escort unit money can buy.  No job too big, no pay too big! 

Moved to Slack:  https://join.slack.com/t/heavygearcamp-esl4812/shared_invite/zt-gmyspvj8-6akvaMmC7FLsJtyHWELztg

For Sale Post (updated 20SEP 2020)

A3 - $85

A4 - $70

A13 - $1-2 each

A16 - $10

A17 - $10

A18 - $15

A19 - $15

A20 - $15

A21 - $10

A22 - $5

A23 - $5

A24 - $5

A25 - $5

A26 - $5

         Paper Map Beach Pier - $5

                                               Paper Map Broken - $5

Paper Map Rail - $5

Ad Astra maps white/blue 1" 1/2" hex flip - $5 ea

Dropzone Commander 1st Game ....finally

So, an amazing thing happened last weekend.  For the first time, EVER, my wife decided to play a wargame with me.  My daughter and wife teamed up against me (what they do best) playing the evil Scourge in a starter Dropzone Commander game.  I played the UCM and we fought it out over 6 vicious turns.  Amazingly in the end, I won, by a fair margin, but payed for my victory in dropships.  Two lessons learned: 1) Mobility and timing moves are extremely important.  2) Units die quick if left exposed.

Endstate, I ordered a bunch more DZC stuff to flesh out big armies.  What an easy fun game to play. Laser ruler is a must for LOS.

 First infil complete.

Dropship 2 dies

Turn 1 Rushes for the OBJs.

 In the beginning when I had three dropships for a short while.

Hunting down the last Scourge Infantry to keep last OBJ safe. 

Victory!

Leviathan 3D Modeling Reloaded (Creating the Version 2 Models)

Through online forums I have come into contact with two very motivated and talented gentlemen and coincidentally lovers of Renegade Legion: Leviathan.  With several ships from the Capital Ship book outstanding, I wanted to start looking at ways to upgrade or rebuild the current models I had made and find ways to make them more detailed straight off my low quality 3D printer.  So far we have collectively made some strides forward and it feels very good to be in a team motivated more by love of the game and less by profit.  Here are some pictures from the work so far.

Our test ship is a destroyer class Renegade/ Commonwealth ship called the Exeter.

Painting my German Waffen SS BA/K47 Army

I got back to using my airbrush this last weekend.  Its really quite easy to setup, use and clean.  Im not sure why I have procrastinated so much, but I really needed to get these painted.  So, over the last six months I have been slowly, or maybe quickly, buying up clearance items here and there online to build a mechanized German force for use with Bolt Action or Konflikt '47(Same rules really).  The force could also be used for DUST, THW Weird War or even Secrets of the Third Reich.  I really like the alternate WW2 setting and think it is the right mix of pre-digital and historical war game for me.  A friend got me interested and we have had a couple duels so far, but not a full on battle.  Now that I have a fairly table ready force I may be able to draw him back out onto the field of battle.

Here are some of my walkers.

The walker armored personnel carriers are really cool, but very large on the table.  I guess we will just need to use a bigger table. Next is decals and then detailing.

I don't think I can field a German force without the trademark Tiger or Panther...so why not have both!

Konflikt '47

So, a friend asked me to get into Konflikt '47 and Bolt Action with him.  He is new to gaming and was sold on this game series.  I have been for a while been looking at Warlords Games and figured this would be a good entry point.  I dropped a good amount of money and built up fairly large German and American armies.  Still have a lot to assemble and paint, but good enough to play now.  I found quite a few deals on Dust walkers and chose to get those as proxies for K47 until later.  They are detailed and although not configured the same as the K47 walkers, they do the job just fine.  

So, as our first fully K47 game with walkers and advanced weapons, we tried out a K47 and BA2 scenario called "Top Secret".  This turned out to be a great pick.  The objective was to rescue/capture a downed pilot who had a briefcase with intel.  We used a lone Japanese bugler in the middle of the battlefield.  This became a personnel recovery mission from hell considering the amount of firepower we both brought to the fight.  Each of us selected 1050 points worth of forces , which ended up equating to around two walkers, one heavy tank and two full squads of infantry with a command team.

We started at opposite corners and proceeded to move toward each other.  Lesson learned was that certain weapons have minimum ranges.  If you get too close to fast, the weapons is useless.  The American M26 Pershing rolled in quickly to control the German approaches to the objective and one shot destroyed a German Tiger I blocking their approach.  After that, the infantry started to maneuver, but both sides felt the effect of the vehicle mounted machine guns and lost a lot of men trying to cover the open areas up to the objective.  In the end, the wife and mother in law forced the early conclusion to this battle with a phone call, so many German and American lives were spared and our fun cut short.  More to come in the future. 

American force moves to establish positions to counter German moves.  The near Dust Walker was a M9A2 Kodiak and the far Dust walker was a proxy for an M8 Grizzly.

The M9A2 overwatches the Japanese pilot as the airborne squad prepares to rush out to grab him.