[Mechaton] ConQuest Eyegrabbing (+ Questions)

[cdr]

There's a bunch of questions at the bottom.

After I ran 3 games of DitV at ConQuest (which has a lot of board and miniature and historical wargamers, with an icing of RPGers) I had nothing to do Sunday evening, so I found an empty table near a high-traffic area and set up the 4 Mechaton mechs that came in the set I bought at Gen Con, and taught and demo'ed it for anyone who wandered by with a 30-minute 2-on-2 fight, two stations each, 9" direct range, with me taking an extra click on the doomsday clock every turn.  It's very quick to teach.  One guy ran off afterwards to fetch his camera to record the carnage, and quite a number of people stopped to ask what it was, and where could they get it, and were pretty excited at the idea of using LEGO brand building blocks to blow stuff up.  The little chunks of debris scattered about were very alluring.  I told them it sold out at GenCon and to check Google in a couple of weeks to find where they could buy the rules in PDF or printed form -- very clever of Vincent to use a made-up word that returns unique hits (now over 2000, including a Wikipedia entry).

I ran a HARD and MMhDr+ (attachment groups 1 and 2, with one rocket added to the latter) vs. a RADS and RADS+ (attachment groups 3 and 5, with one rocket added to the latter, and the AR-2 attachment treated as artillery since the flamethrower was already a direct fire weapon - another possibility would have been to consider the flamethrower a HTH weapon and the AR-2 as a direct fire weapon, making it a DASH+).  (I'm not sure what proper nomenclature is for the trick where one gun gives one die at HTH (h) and direct (d) and the other gun gives one die at direct and artillery (r) range, so I'm calling that an hDr -- I eagerly await improved nomenclature).

We found it useful to note the loss of the first white die by removing one sloping toe from the mech base hull, after it had lost all 4 attachments.  That's what my HARD was reduced to in the 3rd game, after being totally unscratched in the first two.  Darn that Pilot X, who was secretly my pilot's brother!

We used teensy silver d10's for initiative, placing each one next to the mech it was for, although maybe that would get unwieldy for bigger games.

A few questions came up, and we made up answers and rolled on, but I wanted to ask them here.

1) Can you spot even if you have no spotting equipment?  We thought yes, if you assign a white die to it. 

2) Can you spot vs. any mech on the field?  We played it that way, but it seemed kind of strange, and I was wondering if maybe spotting should require direct range and line of sight without cover?

3) Do stations count as cover?  (And if so, in the new edition when 5's on the damage dice vs. cover damage the cover, what happens to the station you're taking cover behind?  Fried peaches?)

4) Do direct fire range weapons work at HTH range?  We played that they do not (just as artillery doesn't target at direct range or less), but I don't see a rule explicitly stating they don't.

5) If you have unfired rockets but no other direct or artillery weapons do you get the green d8, or not?

6) Can you have two weapon attachments with the same range?  You'd still only get two red dice.  Page 4 (of the Gen Con edition) says you "may have up to 3 weapons - 1 for each range", but attachment group 5 on page 26 has a direct fire flamethrower and an AR-2, which according to page 28 is also a direct fire weapon.  Is that intended just to swap out for the flamethrower?

OK, those were all just warm up questions for the biggie:

7) If you're attacked before you've had your turn and roll your 2 red attack dice as part of finding out your defense, but then that weapon gets blown off in the attack, do you lose those dice, or your entire attack, or get to keep them?  Reading "What happens in a turn?" on p10 it looks like that when you're attacked you name your target, roll, and assign dice, then you take the incoming damage and wait to do the rest of your turn after your attacker finishes his turn, so your assigned attack die is still valid even if you no longer have that weapon by then.  Is that correct?  What if you're firing back at your attacker and he changes range by moving after he does to you the great hurt?

8) Mmm, peaches.

It was a lot of fun, and on the way home I picked up some of the LEGO kits others have recommended so I can build 2 or 3 full sides, and I'm hoping to demo it at Endgame in Oakland sometime.  It seems like it would lend itself really well to tournaments too, since there are so many different strategies to explore.

Thanks for writing such a great game, Vincent!

[rafial]

I picked up some of the LEGO kits others have recommended

Which kits?  Where were they recommended?

[Nathan P.]

I have some answers that I'm pretty sure are correct. Non-addressed ones, I don't know. Vincent will, of course, correct me if I'm wrong....

1) Can you spot even if you have no spotting equipment?  We thought yes, if you assign a white die to it.

Thats correct. You can use a white die for anything. 

2) Can you spot vs. any mech on the field?  We played it that way, but it seemed kind of strange, and I was wondering if maybe spotting should require direct range and line of sight without cover?

You can only spot a mech thats in range of you.

6) Can you have two weapon attachments with the same range?  You'd still only get two red dice.  Page 4 (of the Gen Con edition) says you "may have up to 3 weapons - 1 for each range", but attachment group 5 on page 26 has a direct fire flamethrower and an AR-2, which according to page 28 is also a direct fire weapon.  Is that intended just to swap out for the flamethrower?

When I played prior to the Gen Con rules, you could have two weapons of the same range. But that same thing confused me in the rulebook. Vincent?

7) If you're attacked before you've had your turn and roll your 2 red attack dice as part of finding out your defense, but then that weapon gets blown off in the attack, do you lose those dice, or your entire attack, or get to keep them?  Reading "What happens in a turn?" on p10 it looks like that when you're attacked you name your target, roll, and assign dice, then you take the incoming damage and wait to do the rest of your turn after your attacker finishes his turn, so your assigned attack die is still valid even if you no longer have that weapon by then.  Is that correct?  What if you're firing back at your attacker and he changes range by moving after he does to you the great hurt?

Yes, you can still use all the dice you rolled on your turn, even if that attachment is destroyed. And I'm pretty sure that if there's a circumstance where you end up out of range of your target when your turn to shoot comes around, you can't shoot, same as usual. Picking a mech as your target doesn't garauntee that you can hit 'em.

[rafial]

You can only spot a mech thats in range of you.

But what does that mean?  There is no such thing as "out of range" in Mechaton, anything that is longer than direct fire range is artillery range.

[Nathan P.]

Sorry....when I play, I just use the word "range*" to mean direct-fire range, and my verbal shortcut made its way out to the intarweb. So, as far as I know, you can only Spot a mech thats in direct-fire range.

*So I'll say that a weapon is either artillery, range or melee - I'm lazy like that.

[lumpley]

Nathan's right.

It's not in the rules but you can double up weapons. Get your gun shot off, you have another gun. You'd still only roll 2 red dice per turn.

At GenCon I played with an alternate rule: if you have two weapons at the same range, the first one is worth its 2 red dice, and the second one is worth a red d8. This rule worked great in the 2-turn demos I ran at the booth, kept things lively, but I haven't tried it in the full game. Give it a shot and tell me what you think!

-Vincent

[rafial]

So let me clarify, 'cause this is new information for me:

- Spotting only at direct fire range or less
- Does spotting require LOS?

[lumpley]

Nothing requires line of sight; it's not a concept in the game.

You can spot someone who's in cover to you.

-Vincent