Adaptaing Galactic Heroes - Starfighters: A Fistful of Mecha

[Maniac]

Opposing forces, first up is the evil Capellan lance:  Cougar, Hollander, Locust, and Griffin.



Then the dirty mercenary scum of the Black Sheep Squadron:  Wolfhound, Raven, Bushwhacker, and Shadowhawk.

[BaronVonJ]

Looking forward to the Fistful of Lead Mecha rules. Liking what I see here. Need to give this a go...

The official rules will be out later this year. We ran 4 games at our local con, and it was well received and we've got a couple of the play test games up on our Youtube channel.

[Maniac]

Thanks, I will look through that.

For now, here's mine with some sample mechs, quick reference, and rule tweaks from Star Fighters.  I will note that I have the hardback GH2.0 when looking at page references.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1SHmnxcZ57GiVLWKJ-EqdFJzGz8zFVYsDMc7acF3551s/edit#gid=2096476990

Bases are intended to be hex bases, but you could modify that to suit your needs.  To handle facing we used glass beads to show which way the torso was rotated.

Love to hear thoughts, criticisms, critiques.

[Elbows]

When I bashed together an alternate Battletech rule set, similar to Baron, I just gave mechs a heat value...and every point over it (weapons were grouped, running or jump jetting generated a heat, etc.) applied damage to the internals of the mech.  Made it very easy without having to track stuff beyond the turn, etc.

[Maniac]

I've tried merging heat and shock into one line, and we'll see how that goes during the next match.

[Maniac]

Still struggling to get my kids to play.  Grandma across the road is too much fun.  In the meantime I've finished up a city park, and painted some Capellan infantry and a proto-mech.

I'm thinking of having the infantry only get one action/move per card, but let multiples go ala grunts from Fistful of Lead.  D8 with a laser and a single shot SRM per stand.  Probably also let them either have no facing, or turn two facings as a standard instead of the 1 for mecha.  Then maybe let power armor turn up to 180 degrees.  Figure each base is about a squad of guys

The proto-mech I haven't decided on, but might run it like a tank once I decide what I want to do there.  Likely give it small size, making shots from mecha -1 against it.

The park will give light cover as per normal fistful of lead rules.

Scale shot of the infantry/proto:



Scale shot of the park:

[BaronVonJ]

In the rules I'm writing, infantry units are made up of 3 stands. The activate and move as a single thing. They have whatever quality die the player slots them for (default d10). They also get an Infantry Save:

"Infantry throughout the modern era has become adept at finding every inch of cover. In the future, where giant walking tanks stalk the battlefield, this has become even more true. Even though your tabletop may look flat and featureless, in the game reality, it is full of dips and folds allowing the poor infantryman a chance to seek cover.

When an infantry unit is hit by a Shoot action (not Close Combat), they are allowed a special Infantry Save. The Unit must roll an 8 or more using their Quality die. If they do, the Damage roll is ignored, unlike an Armor Roll, where the damage is reduced. If the Infantry Unit is in any kind of cover, the save becomes a 6 or more.

If the Infantry Save fails, roll on the Damage chart as usual. Each point of Damage removes a stand of Infantry."

The way I have the build system set up, the infantry can hurt mechs, (assumes they have missiles, etc) but not much. Its a game of mechs, not infantry. But to take certain objectives, you need them.

[Maniac]

Yeah, I don't anticipate running infantry a lot, but I can see myself using them occasionally for scenario games.  However, something simple for them/tanks/etc will be good.  If I ever build some vtols, I'll just use the vanilla rules for star fighters.

Kind of in keeping with your logic, such things should be kind of weedy, not terribly difficult to kill, but a potential nuisance.  I did watch your battle report, thanks for that. 

It's kind of funny in a way, I played Battletech when it first came out in the 80s with 2nd ed, played Crescent Hawk's Inception, MW1 on the PC, MW2, 3, 4, and the rest.  Yet the overall fiction for the universe I've always found kind of mediocre.  I guess the kid in me just like smashing through building to step on a tank while shooting man made lightning at my foes.

[eilif]

Yeah, I don't anticipate running infantry a lot, but I can see myself using them occasionally for scenario games.  However, something simple for them/tanks/etc will be good.  If I ever build some vtols, I'll just use the vanilla rules for star fighters.

Kind of in keeping with your logic, such things should be kind of weedy, not terribly difficult to kill, but a potential nuisance.  I did watch your battle report, thanks for that. 

It's kind of funny in a way, I played Battletech when it first came out in the 80s with 2nd ed, played Crescent Hawk's Inception, MW1 on the PC, MW2, 3, 4, and the rest.  Yet the overall fiction for the universe I've always found kind of mediocre.  I guess the kid in me just like smashing through building to step on a tank while shooting man made lightning at my foes.

Different system, but in Mech Attack we made infantry useful by making some or all objectives holdable only by infantry.  That simple change turned them into vital elements of the game and increased the value of APCs, all while not seeming to detract from the power or position of Mecha as the kings of the battlefield.

[Maniac]

Different system, but in Mech Attack we made infantry useful by making some or all objectives holdable only by infantry.  That simple change turned them into vital elements of the game and increased the value of APCs, all while not seeming to detract from the power or position of Mecha as the kings of the battlefield.

I like that, depending on what the scenario is, that keeps them interesting and necessary.

[BaronVonJ]

As I said, to take certain objectives, you need them (infantry). Makes them necessary but not the focus of the game.