Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

How about after expected first turn losses?

lol

How far apart do they start? Could take hours for the things to lurch their way into range

I'd probably put it at about no more than maybe 6 Formations, depending on optional rules and familiarity with rules.

Remember that the nuclear missile armed Urbanmech is real and can hurt you. This will make the game much faster, though potentially slightly too fast.

Yeah, I have four of those

Though I didn't think there were rules for them in AS?

 Graphite wrote:
Remember that the nuclear missile armed Urbanmech is real and can hurt you. This will make the game much faster, though potentially slightly too fast.

If you're going to use nukes, let's just play Ogre or Nuclear Warfare where nukes are a core part of the game. Battletech is about giant stompy robots blasting each other, not 'nuke goes off, everyone dies, who wants to play again?'

Yes, there are rules for the UM-AIV on the Master Unit List. It has no weapons.

At least, no weapons that you can use at a tabletop scale.

I think it would work well as an objective. Hunt the Urbie before it launches

 Graphite wrote:
I think it would work well as an objective. Hunt the Urbie before it launches

Heh, I've been imagining a scenario where one group is escorting some Urbie AIVs in to firing position, while another is intercepting them. They start on one side of the map, and they need to get to the other for proper firing position.

I just don't have any Urbies at all to provide for that. Though, I'm pretty sure our group has enough scattered around to cover it.

My Comstar box, painted up last week, saw victorious action tonight. Well, not that victorious, my opponent's dice were against him all night so it wasn't really a fair fight.

The CGL rep in our group has been having us run Alpha Strike test scenarios, trying out variations on the rules. Lately it's been different missions with medium range reduced to 18", and long range kept at 42". It does put a little bit more emphasis on long range firepower, but units still close to medium and short range fairly quickly.

We've been doing a lot of the 'place 3 objectives on your opponent's side of the field and do something to them' type missions. I find that a lot of the games don't make it past the 2 sides meeting in the middle. It's pretty much decided then and there. If you send one mech running off on its own to get an objective it's just going to get blown away, and that's one less mech you have for the big fight in the middle.

Those look nice!
That yellow is striking on them.

It sounds like more terrain could mix it up also in those missions, Terrain can really change dynamics of the battlefield.
Especially if giving light mechs lots of hiding places to make close range attacks a bit more often.
Just making the battlefield different can be huge for the gameplay.

hotflungwok wrote:
The CGL rep in our group has been having us run Alpha Strike test scenarios, trying out variations on the rules. Lately it's been different missions with medium range reduced to 18", and long range kept at 42". It does put a little bit more emphasis on long range firepower, but units still close to medium and short range fairly quickly.

You might also consider the Long-Range Targeting optional rule as used in the DFA ruleset- instead of S/M/L being +0/+2/+4, it becomes +1/+2/+3. Makes long range fire a little more useful and knife fights a little less decisive, YMMV.

Working on some terrain for 10mm Alpha Strike. Walthers N Scale kits.

Those are super cool!

Apple fox wrote:
Those are super cool!

Thanks! More coming. I'm on a mission to replace all my urban card terrain with proper models.

 Eilif wrote:

Apple fox wrote:
Those are super cool!

Thanks! More coming. I'm on a mission to replace all my urban card terrain with proper models.

I do want to see all done, are all your mechs and everything scaled up as well?

Apple fox wrote:


I do want to see all done, are all your mechs and everything scaled up as well?

Yep, the club has been using 10mm/N scale Rebased MechWarrior Clix units for years for various games. We bought a ton of them a decade or so ago when the game had died and they were dirt cheap. We were able to trade amongst ourselves and get forces from a single faction for each member so for the most part we didn't even have to do any painting.
Mostly they get used for Mech Attack (our preferred Battletech alternative) and Alpha Strike.
There's a couple pics on the previous page of a recent battle.

Clearly incompatibility with other folks collections is a big downside, but the 6mm rules and measurements of Alpha Strike work fine with 10mm. With the proliferation of 3d printing and the wide availability of N scale structures, 10mm Alpha Strike is very feasible and IMHO it just looks alot better at the larger size.

 Eilif wrote:

Apple fox wrote:


I do want to see all done, are all your mechs and everything scaled up as well?

Yep, the club has been using 10mm/N scale Rebased MechWarrior Clix units for years for various games. We bought a ton of them a decade or so ago when the game had died and they were dirt cheap. We were able to trade amongst ourselves and get forces from a single faction for each member so for the most part we didn't even have to do any painting.
Mostly they get used for Mech Attack (our preferred Battletech alternative) and Alpha Strike.
There's a couple pics on the previous page of a recent battle.

Clearly incompatibility with other folks collections is a big downside, but the 6mm rules and measurements of Alpha Strike work fine with 10mm. With the proliferation of 3d printing and the wide availability of N scale structures, 10mm Alpha Strike is very feasible and IMHO it just looks alot better at the larger size.

Cool cool!
Those pictures were awesome as well, I like 6mm scale but I have been thinking of picking up Nscale for use with my Gundam as well.
Also it’s really cool having a close group that does stuff like that, sounds like fun group.

Apple fox wrote:

 Eilif wrote:

Apple fox wrote:


I do want to see all done, are all your mechs and everything scaled up as well?

Yep, the club has been using 10mm/N scale Rebased MechWarrior Clix units for years for various games. We bought a ton of them a decade or so ago when the game had died and they were dirt cheap. We were able to trade amongst ourselves and get forces from a single faction for each member so for the most part we didn't even have to do any painting.
Mostly they get used for Mech Attack (our preferred Battletech alternative) and Alpha Strike.
There's a couple pics on the previous page of a recent battle.

Clearly incompatibility with other folks collections is a big downside, but the 6mm rules and measurements of Alpha Strike work fine with 10mm. With the proliferation of 3d printing and the wide availability of N scale structures, 10mm Alpha Strike is very feasible and IMHO it just looks alot better at the larger size.

Cool cool!
Those pictures were awesome as well, I like 6mm scale but I have been thinking of picking up Nscale for use with my Gundam as well.
Also it’s really cool having a close group that does stuff like that, sounds like fun group.

Thanks for the kind words. N scale Gundam combat could be done incredibly cheaply and effectively with HG kits and the Dropzone Commander card buildings (you would need the big buildings!). I'm not so much into Gundam, but I've built a few just because they looked cool.

It really is a great club. Small, but great. We've had over a decade of gaming, mostly indie and miniature Agnostic games.

Alpha Strike is a slightly more recent game for us, but you can see a few pages of games we've done with Mechwarrior units here:
https://www.chicagoskirmishwargames.com/blog/?s=Mechwarrior

 Eilif wrote:

Apple fox wrote:

 Eilif wrote:

Apple fox wrote:


I do want to see all done, are all your mechs and everything scaled up as well?

Yep, the club has been using 10mm/N scale Rebased MechWarrior Clix units for years for various games. We bought a ton of them a decade or so ago when the game had died and they were dirt cheap. We were able to trade amongst ourselves and get forces from a single faction for each member so for the most part we didn't even have to do any painting.
Mostly they get used for Mech Attack (our preferred Battletech alternative) and Alpha Strike.
There's a couple pics on the previous page of a recent battle.

Clearly incompatibility with other folks collections is a big downside, but the 6mm rules and measurements of Alpha Strike work fine with 10mm. With the proliferation of 3d printing and the wide availability of N scale structures, 10mm Alpha Strike is very feasible and IMHO it just looks alot better at the larger size.

Cool cool!
Those pictures were awesome as well, I like 6mm scale but I have been thinking of picking up Nscale for use with my Gundam as well.
Also it’s really cool having a close group that does stuff like that, sounds like fun group.

Thanks for the kind words. N scale Gundam combat could be done incredibly cheaply and effectively with HG kits and the Dropzone Commander card buildings (you would need the big buildings!). I'm not so much into Gundam, but I've built a few just because they looked cool.

It really is a great club. Small, but great. We've had over a decade of gaming, mostly indie and miniature Agnostic games.

Alpha Strike is a slightly more recent game for us, but you can see a few pages of games we've done with Mechwarrior units here:
https://www.chicagoskirmishwargames.com/blog/?s=Mechwarrior

Oh! Lots of inspiration over there.
Not just mechs but tables of terrain, It’s all very cool.

I got all the dropzone commander buildings in card, but I wanted a big upgrade for a table.
Slowly running out of space for terrain, so it needs to perform for as many games as possible now.
And with the kickstarter I do want to be able to do a huge table for event games this year for alpha strike.

Planned fulfillment for the Kickstarter is due to start in June via Quarter Master Logistics, with retail planned to for August

looking at the counters pack they have put out for this, seen one review that indicates its largely, but not quite, a duplicate of the boxed set. e.g. objectives are sequential.

the movement chits don't bother me, use dice for that and plan to stay using dice.

Q: whats the rest of the set like?

looks like a not bad amount of buildings, the trees can sit on existing bases I have, roads/rivers enough to be worth the effort?

If you are talking about the 25 dollar set, it's worth it - I bought it for the buildings alone! I can't even imagine how much printer ink I would use up making that many papercraft buildings, and with them added to the ones from the Starter set, you can have a BIG urban game. The Alpha Strike buildings are definitely the best you can get from a miniatures starter set nowadays.

I never liked the look of the tree standees, though they will work perfectly fine for people with no scenery or no interest in making their own. I don't personally use them as not only are they a bit easy to tip over, I already had made my own tree stands for Alpha Strike from better looking model trees I bought cheaply on Amazon.

The area templates for the forests and rough terrain are pretty decent. I use them a lot for my games, and just stand my homemade tree bases on the Alpha Strike forest templates. Bonus points, they are double sided, so one side is "green world" and the other side is desert. I have played several demo games using both of them with different green/desert game mats at the LGS.

The water terrain is good enough to be used, thought the "desert" side is this really weird "red-oxide" water that is kind of jarringly RED on the table.

I feel like there isn't near enough roads included in the set. But they work.

yes thats the set, excellent, many thanks

Another 10mm Alpha Strike game in the bag. A bunch of new N scale buildings and trying out some 90s Hot Wheels World City roads. Will probably be keepers once I remove the wide yellow stripes.

Looks good, had a run with this last Thursday, basic rules only, no special abilities no overloading, just mechs, guns and murder

aim was to bring a few new players in, and as a refresher for the two of us who have played before. sadly the two newbies couldn't make it dur to traffic issues..

2 clan stars v 3 IS lances, clans won (as expected) as without some of the other abilities they very much have the edge - however it suited the purpose of the game.

ordered the tokens, which have now arrived. not sure the TMM tokens are that useful, I think it will be way faster to find a coloured die and use that, they are nice looking though, and some of the more specialised ones for altitude, stealth etc will get used.

the buildings are decent, I can see gluing them, and adding 2mm greyboard or 5mm foamcore inside them though, and perhaps a small base for rigidity (inside will be hollow and accessible though!). not a bad number, in various heights so a mix of cover and LoS blockers, indeed some that will be cover for smaller mechs and nothing for larger too.

roads look nice, no where near enough of them for general usage but enough to stick roads through woods. I do have some ground vehicles so likely will end up making some more roads, doubt that will be hard to do

the two lake/ponds are nice, though nowhere near large enough to be more than decorative ponds on a 6x4 table - the more "ohh yuck" side however as stuff like waste ponds/cooling ponds I can see trying.

trees are better than nothing as well

overall value is debatable, the reference sheets are good (especially if you have the hard backed rule book and not the main box set). For me it comes down to the buildings being good enough for what they are and easy to assemble - and with only a black & white laser printer printed versions are a non-starter really.

can 3d print stuff, which then wants paint, where as these take a couple of minutes to put together and are perfectly good enough

overall happy with it, though a pack that is only the buildings, with say twice as many would have been better

I made a bunch of alpha strike counters for tmm as I was finding the ones from the box too hard to see the numbers. The 5 and 3 on my ones are. Bit hard to distinguish, but it worked overall.

Multi-colour layering with FDM printers is so handy for game tokens

3d printers are golden for making tokens, only have a single colour here (PLA and Resin printers, all monochrome)

they looks good

Your FDM slicer should be able to let you do raised details on tokens in a different colour. It just pauses the print and lets you feed a new colour in.

 Flinty wrote:
I made a bunch of alpha strike counters for tmm as I was finding the ones from the box too hard to see the numbers. The 5 and 3 on my ones are. Bit hard to distinguish, but it worked overall.

Multi-colour layering with FDM printers is so handy for game tokens

They look pretty good.

I prefer 12mm dice, myself, simply because they are more compact and flexible. And if push comes to shove, I can even use spare ones for another pair of Dice on an Attack. (Biggest was when I popped a 295 Booby Trap underneath an Atlas' legs, in Classic that's a LOT of 5-point Hits).

 Flinty wrote:
The 5 and 3 on my ones are. Bit hard to distinguish, but it worked overall.

Possibly try Roman numerals on those two if you were to redo them?