January Minis Painting recap

I'm going to start doing my minis recaps/picture posts as monthly updates, we'll see how this works.

I started the month with 103 minis primed/unpainted.

I added 104 miniatures this month:

• 2 Mega-Minis cockatrices
• Mega-Minis ghost
• Mega-Minis Guthrie Druid
• 3 Mega-Minis dogs: bull terrier, Scottish terrier, German Shepard
• 2 unnamed Reaper monsters (Dark Ages campaign-specific)
• 92 HäT Sumerian infantry (1/72 DBA Army)
• 3 HäT Sumerian chariots (1/72 DBA Army - 12 donkeys, 6 figures, 3 war wagons)

I ended the month with 168 miniatures primed/unpainted.

The "Great Pendragon Campaign" in the 31st Century?

I like to tinker. That's what I do. I get ahold of things and I want to twist and bend them into new ways. That's probably why I'm not as successful of an independent RPG author as some of the OSR bloggers... I'm more in the "Oh, let me make this do that and something else."

Lately, I've been utterly fascinated by SirLarkins's posts on his blog RPG Corner about his solo Pendragon game with his wife. Pendragon is a game about life and family in the mythology of King Arthur - and it's one of the few games that assumes and encourages a campaign that spans generations of a family. I've found myself extremely intrigued by this concept, so much so, that I found the first edition boxed set on Ebay and got it for less than $10 - and now my wife and I have something new to try. I'm also going to pick up the PDF version of the "Great Pendragon Campaign" book which is essentially a chronological campaign setting that one can use to run their Pendragon campaign in tight context to the Authurian legends.

Add to this mix another bit - Erin and I have been discussing on comments and twitter about the old school concepts of Battletech and Mechwarrior - the fact that when first conceived, Battletech was similar to knights on their steeds coming to battle. 'Mechs were rare, extremely valuable and most often were family heirlooms to be passed down. If a family owned a Locust, it was likely that they'd always be Locust-drivers, even if they were fortunate enough to gain a bigger 'Mech somehow. I equate the training and 'loyalty' to their class similar to that of a light cav knight compared to a heavy cav knight.

The Battletech Universe is widely understood with a well documented canon to it, much like Arthurian mythology. It occurs to me that a grand campaign spanning generations of Mechwarriors across the Succession Wars as technology and governments reverted back to scavenging and almost 21st century technology would be fascinating! Add in the aspect of a family focus across generations and this could be a very interesting

Now it could be that this has already been done, to some degree. I don't recall all the supplements but I don't remember one that dealt specifically with family type issues or generations like Pendragon does. One could look at the Mercenary supplements to Mechwarrior for some inspiration. Still - creating a "Grand Mechwarrior Campaign" book/approach that follows the Succession Wars would be a fascinating exercise!

I don't have enough hours in the day to do all the neat crap I want to do. *sigh*

From Bad To Worse - Winter War Mechwarrior scenario

It was supposed to be a smash & grab mission - quick in and quick out. Everything went By-The-Book... Until Recon told us that everyone at the Steiner base was dead, and we saw that ancient Drop Ship circling the planet. What happened next... I don't want to talk about it. 'From Bad to Worse' combines a horror-sci/fi Mechwarrior RPG scenario with Battletech miniature battles. Pregenerated characters will be available.

The scenario is going to consist of three situations that I'd like to get through.

Situation 1:

The first is the opener. You're a member of a mercenary assault that attacked the small Steiner world of McFierney. Your unit's objective was to smash the small Mech outpost near one of the major cities. The jump to the pirate point was text-book and lucky, the landing unopposed. Then you saw them... all the dead bodies. Hundreds of them. Securing the base wasn't a problem, it was figuring out what the hell happened. Your lance dismounted to investigate the main base facility. You found more bodies, but none were decaying. That's when you saw it, a lab that held a strange piece of black metal that didn't seem to be there. Problem was, your presence there triggered a response and you found yourself locked in a sub-basement level, with only a "BIOHAZARD" flashing alert to keep you company. Then... about 30 hours later, the power failed and everything opened. That's when you noticed the bodies were moving...

The scenario objectives are simple - get something that will transport you across the city to the starport where your Drop Ship is. Will the players survive? This portion of the game will use the microMechwarrior rules.

Situation 2:

Now at your transport (Mechs, or tanks, or trucks or whatever the players have survived to find) you discover that things have gotten worse. This is where I'll be prepared with two different paths.

If the players made it to their Mechs or tanks, they have to make it through the city to get to the landing site. They will be opposed by a surprise Steiner Mech lance that had been out in the field. This portion of the game will use Classic/Intro Battletech rules. I'm prepared to go with QuickStart rules (heat, no internal structure) if most players are new to Battletech.

If players made it to other vehicles, it'll be a microMechwarrior encounter till they get to the star port, at which point, I'll have Mechs there that they can use to repulse the Steiners who've come upon them.

(In other words, we're having a Battletech fight at this point, dammit... how you get to fight big stompy robots is your decision.)

Once they reach the Star port...

The players will find out that there is a strange looking battered Star League era drop ship, sitting on the launch pad. They can go explore the drop ship, which will come to life and take them to Situation 3. If they choose to not go to the drop ship, or we're out of time, they will be taken up to their Jump Ship, where they'll be told there is a Star League Jump Ship in orbit around the planet. It's not responding to hails and it looks dead... and like it's been burned.

Situation 3 -

One of two deals - the Merc Leader wants to get that ancient drop ship with the possible Mechs AND he wants to explore the Jump Ship.

If the players want another Mech battle:

They go down in their Drop Ship only to find that the other Drop Ship has different ideas... and it's Mechs inside are rather protective of things. Undead Mechs. Ghosts in the Machine. Dont'cha love it? (no, I'm not using the Wizkids Undead Mech thing... no clue what that is and not sure I want to :P. However, zombie mechs will have an unusual twist or two... Oh yes. :> )

If the players want to do more RPG and explore the ship or they got into the ancient drop ship...:

Let's face it, you know what's coming. This ship has been to Hell and back and it's brought death with it. They'll dock at the Jump Ship and explore - they'll see other drop ships there full of Mechs, but no people, as far as they can tell. This is where the weird shit begins - and if you've watched Event Horizon, you'll know where I'm going... NPCs are going to start going nuts and yes, there will be real undead. The ship will begin prepping for jump... will the players make it out in time? (if they were shanghai'd there, will they survive/make it to the rescuing drop ship from the mercs?)

microMechwarrior Character Sheet

If you have a ruleset, then the unwritten rule is you have to have a character record sheet. So here you go: [mmwcrs.pdf]

It's pretty simple - like the rules. I got look at pics of a lot of cool military body armor while creating it, though. That was neat.

microMechwarrior

This post will serve as the permanent "link" location to the microMechwarrior rules. You can download the rules by clicking on this link: [microMechwarrior PDF].

What is microMechwarrior? It is an adaptation several rulesets: 1st edition Mechwarrior™ RPG, microlite20 and microlite20 modern. In 8 pages, it covers chargen, task resolution, combat, healing, equipment, advancement and conversions to use your characters within the Battletech™ boardgame.

From the designer notes:

These rules are best used for quickly adding an RPG “rules-light” component to a Battletech game, for playing a convention game that combines RPG and the Battletech boardgame, or if you simply wish to have a quick alternative to the current Mechwarrior role-playing games. The idea is that these rules are simple and that the Game Referee will usually say “Yes” or “Roll dice” to most situations. Not all situations are covered by these rules; a certain amount of flexibility and Game Referee creativity needs to be employed.

To have the best “rules light” RPG/board game experience, my recommendation that you combine these “micro” rules with the Classic Battletech Introductory Rulebook and the Vehicle and Infantry Combat rules from the Classic Battletech Quick Start. No attempt has been made to include any of the other vehicle types, such as conventional aircraft, Aerotech or Starships. The GM should employ their best judgement and houserule as they see fit to make the characters work within the boardgame in a straightforward fashion. I’ve also left out a lot of things that are going to be campaign dependent, such as creating a unit, figuring out Battlemech assignments, dealing with salvage and a 101 more things – but these are all things that you as a GM would want to figure out either on your own or from existing source materials.

These rules have had some playtesting and I'll be using them in my upcoming WinterWar convention game as well as any Battletech/Mechwarrior campaigns I might start. Your feedback and input are always welcome to help make the rules better. I'll leave this blog post up as the permanent home to the rules, as well as record any discussion on the rules in the comments.

A character record sheet is available here.

Further legalese - Battletech and Mechwarrior are trademarks and copyrighted IP of Whizkids, FASA and Microsoft. This is a fan-derived set of houserules that I'm sharing for the general interest of others and to bring value to the Battletech game universe. In other words, I ain't makin' a dime on this and please don't sue the crap out of me.

Announcing microMW

microMechWarrior is an adaptation of 1st edition Mechwarrior™ RPG, microlite20 and microlite20 modern. In 6 pages, it covers chargen, task resolution, combat, healing, equipment, advancement and conversions to use your characters within the Battletech™ boardgame. You can get the digest/booklet sized mMW.pdf here. (Update as of 10/9 - this link has changed as the file has been updated. Errata and skill/task resolution mechanic changes)

From the designer notes:

These rules are best used for quickly adding an RPG “rules-light” component to a Battletech game, for playing a convention game that combines RPG and the Battletech boardgame, or if you simply wish to have a quick alternative to the current Mechwarrior role-playing games. The idea is that these rules are simple and that the Game Referee will usually say “Yes” or “Roll dice” to most situations. Not all situations are covered by these rules; a certain amount of flexibility and Game Referee creativity needs to be employed.

To have the best “rules light” RPG/board game experience, my recommendation that you combine these “micro” rules with the Classic Battletech Introductory Rulebook and the Vehicle and Infantry Combat rules from the Classic Battletech Quick Start. No attempt has been made to include any of the other vehicle types, such as conventional aircraft, Aerotech or Starships. The GM should employ their best judgement and houserule as they see fit to make the characters work within the boardgame in a straightforward fashion. I’ve also left out a lot of things that are going to be campaign dependent, such as creating a unit, figuring out Battlemech assignments, dealing with salvage and a 101 more things – but these are all things that you as a GM would want to figure out either on your own or from existing source materials.

Now, having said all that, let me say that these rules ARE NOT FULLY PLAYTESTED! I've rolled up a few characters and run a couple of simulated combats, but I will be shaking these out over the next couple of months to prep for WinterWar. Your comments, suggestion and feedback will be immensely helpful and earn you some credits in the book. After looking at the size explosion of Mechwarrior RPG rulebooks, I wanted to go back to something simple and microlite-ish. So here you go. 6 pages of rules, 1 page of blah blah and one page with a paragraph of legalese.

Further legalese - Battletech and Mechwarrior are trademarks and copyrighted IP of Whizkids, FASA and Microsoft. This is a fan-derived set of houserules that I'm sharing for the general interest of others and to bring value to the Battletech game universe. In other words, I ain't makin' a dime on this and please don't sue the crap out of me.

Unrequited love

I'm going to take a break from OED&D for a minute and wax fondly about another old school love of mine, a love that has never quite been fulfilled - Battletech and Mechwarrior. With the recent announcement (and video) from IGN about the Mechwarrior video game reboot, I found myself in complete glee over how amazingly cool it all looked. It brought back a lot of memories for me.

Battletech and I go back to the mid80s, when I was deployed to Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi. There was a comic/game store just outside the base gates and I stumbled onto these really neat plastic models and boxed game. At the time, I was still deep in AD&D gaming, and this game about 30 ton human-driven warmachines was quite a tonic. I managed to persuade (with beer) a few fellow airmen to play the game, and we had a blast. Battletech quickly replaced AD&D as the game of choice, but I missed role-playing. I was completely overjoyed when I found that FASA (then the publishers of Battletech) had released a Mechwarrior RPG supplement.

The sad part is that I never got a chance to combine the two! The guys I played with didn't want to roleplay in the Battletech universe, they wanted to smash 'Mechs or go explore dungeons in AD&D. I had scoped out a little "sandbox" for a mercenary company, almost in Traveller-like fashion. Nobody wanted to do it. I never got to do the campaign I wanted - roleplay in the Inner Sphere and then have Battletech "map" combat when we had to get down to business. To me, that just seemed like the Reeses Cup of gaming!

As things go, my interest in Battletech waxed and waned. As I moved about, got married, had kids, I found myself playing it less and less. I did make it to the Battletech Center VR simulators in Chicago in the early 1990s. I played the "Crescent Hawks Inception" video game with much enjoyment, but I never got into the sequel, nor did I play any of the Mechwarrior games so much. When the Battletech world was shocked with the introduction of the Clans, I found myself buying the novels and sourcebooks, but I never played. Eventually, I sold all of my Battletech stuff, with the possible exception of the

At Winterwar this year, I picked up a fairly good copy of the first edition Mechwarrior rules. And just at lunch today, I found myself playing the "Green" scenario from the ClassicBattletech Quick Start rules. The defending Hunchback ravaged the attacking Enforcer with a hard, long range Autocannon hit, and the ENF 'Mech never really recovered and withdrew, rather than be destroyed. That was 30 minutes that passed by way too quickly.

I also find myself looking at both the Classic Battletech RPG book, and the Classic Battletech Introduction Box set and thinking: what if... some people would be tempted to play RPGs and wargaming like games like a BT/MW combo...

For your enjoyment, if you'd like to see what has reignited my long unrequited love for Battletech and Mechwarrior, watch the video below...