[Mechaton] - First Sortie Questions

[Nev the Deranged]

So, I tricked my friend Karin into playing Mechaton with me, by just dumping a bucket of Legos out in front of her and not telling her it was going to eventually lead to a game. I built my 2 sets of stumpies from the kits I got at GenCon while she built... Things... horrible Things. And then I gave her half the stumpies and explained how attachments worked, and she went to town.

I built more or less standardish attachment sets and put together a pretty basic squad of mechs... except that for melee weapons, I gave each of them a gem-topped Pimp Cane. And thus their names were Onyx, Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald.

Karin built attachments that would put Chaos Space Marines to shame. They had fangs and claws and nails and totem pole thingies, and one of them had a half a minifig wearing some kind of cyclotron on it's own head. It gave her squad a somewhat tribal vibe. We decided that her squad had conquered a planet of primitive people with psionic powers, but the battle was so costly that their own weapons and memory banks were compromised. So when they rebuilt their arsenals, they copied the primitive style of the natives, and even incorporated some of their psychic/shamanistic powers. Nevertheless, time would prove that their weaponry was more than sufficient. Her mechs were Xerxes, Perseus, Andromeda, and Raymundo.

I think I set up Attacker/Defender status backwards, but the point is, she annihilated me swiftly and with only minor losses with her unconventional and bizarre accoutrements.

I jotted down all of the queries we came up with during play. Some of them were answered after several re-readings of the rules. Others I am still not sure about, and so, I am asking here. The ones I answered myself I am just looking for confirmation of my understanding, the others... yeah, no clue.

1)  When a mech is targeted, and starts its "reaction" turn, it only goes up to assigning dice, but does not actually carry out any actions, correct? So, if it loses dice that have been assigned (whether attachments or white), the action the die was assigned to is... cancelled? or still carried out? 
 
1a) Is it kosher to prioritize the removal of unassigned dice over assigned ones to prevent losing upcoming actions?

2) Just to confirm, artillery CANNOT attack targets INSIDE medium (direct fire) range; and direct fire weapons CANNOT target mechs within close (HTH) range, yes?

3) Movement attachments only let you bypass obstacles, not actually move farther (except for the increased chance of a higher roll to assign to movement). Only a green d8 for not having ranged weapons lets you actually move FARTHER. Right?

3a) A mech DOES get the green d8 once it has lost all ranged attachments, correct?

3b) But a mech does NOT get the bonus INIT dice for losing attachments.

4) Spotting:
a) A mech MAY use a spot die on a target, but does not HAVE to
b) If a target is Spotted, and gets Spotted again, is it now spotted twice, or does the new one just replace the old?
c) A spot that is not used during an attack STAYS, yes? Or is it removed even if the attacked didn't use it?
d) Spots do NOT carry over between rounds?

5) Defense dice only last until the round ends, right? They are not carried until replaced?

6) Mechs can ALWAYS attack at close/HTH range using white mech dice, correct?

7) Do rockets have an area of effect? (IE any mechs within HTH of the target also defend)? If not, this could totally be an optional rule.

7a) Ditto for exploding mechs, exploding terrain features and obstacles.

7b) Line of fire is ignored if target is missed, I assume... meaning shots do not follow the vector once they have passed the initial target, therefore mechs behind the target are not threatened by them. Because that'd just be friggin' complicated.

If you declare an attack, but for whatever reason cannot follow through, does the target's "reaction" turn still get triggered? I'm guessing no on this one, but I'm not sure.

Pictures may be forthcoming, or not, depending on my level of distraction over the next several days. K's crazy tribal-mechs are certainly a sight to behold.

Thanks!

[lumpley]

Great!

1) The targeted mech assigns a defense die and that's all. After the attack's resolved it goes on to assign the rest of its dice.

You get all your rolled dice, even if you lost attachments in the attack. Lose your walkie talkie, you still get that yellow die just this one last time.

1a) n/a

2) Confirmed.

3) Um, right. You move a number of units equal to your movement die. If you rolled a green die, you can bypass cover.

3a) Correct.

3b) Correct.

4a) Correct.
4b) The higher spot die stands. Discard the lower.
4c) Stays, yes.
4d) Correct.

5) Only until the round ends. After every mech has gone, clear all dice from the table.

Yes, this means that if you're going last, you can safely assign a low die to defense.

6) Correct.

7) It could indeed totally be an optional rule. Ditto for 7a).

7b) Correct. Lord.

You guess right! A mech's only triggered if you need to know its defense number.

So, cool! I hope you post some pictures.

-Vincent

[Uriel]

About 4b: The rules doesn't say anything about this as far as I know and I've always played with multiple spot dice allowed. I think I prefer that since it promotes what I call the Joshua Swarm, many small mechs with sensors, spotting for each other.

Here's another question for you: Can you only seize a station as a the last thing a mecha does, i.e. as step i., or can you seize a station then move away from it to attack?

[Nev the Deranged]

Thanks, Vincent!

Spotting is already pretty powerful... I am working on some tentative house rules:

Command Attachment - Each army may have 1 Command Attachment, worth 1 Purple die. Once this die has been rolled, it may be swapped out for any die rolled by any friendly mech, not counting the one it is attached to.

Repair Attachment - A Repair Attachment has no die associated with it. At any time you may detach and discard a Repair Attachment to replace one Attachment or one White die on any mech in HTH range of the mech with the Repair Attachment, including the attached mech itself.

Salvage Attachment - still working on this one... the Repair rule above is my stopgap filler rule until I get this worked out to my satisfaction.

Now I need to go buy more legos!


Xerxes, the leader of Karin's Psychic Neo-Tribal Mech Squad. Note the Totem Shield, lethal Eviscerating Fang Stick, and medium range Rending Fang Launcher. Badass.

In the rear you can see Perseus hiding behind a wall, wielding his Bashy Mace, long range Twin Harpoon Gun, and unfortunately you can only see the Psychlotron on top of the head of the half-a-shaman that has been cybernetically wired into the chassis of the mech so as to make use of his psychic abilities, which of course mecha can't access with their positronic brains.

[Nev the Deranged]

Another question!

*) Do single-shot rockets count as ranged attachments when considering eligibility for the green d8 and bonus initiative dice?

I have, in my mind, the Model N021 "Hellskate", featuring 1 Movement Die, 1 Spot Die, 1 Defense Die, +1d8 Movement Die, +1d10 Initiative Die, and my entire army's allotment of rockets. Purpose: First round hit and fade using all rockets to guarantee a single crippled if not destroyed enemy mech, followed by high-speed spotting and Station grabbing.

Also, I note that Mechaton has no engagement rules. As in, mechs fighting at HTH range may disengage with no penalty. Hmm.

I have a real bad problem where I love simple things, and then I f*ck them up by adding more complicated rules to appease my aesthetic need for simulating cool minutia.

[lumpley]

Single-shot rockets do not count as attachments at all, under any circumstances.

(But I think you may be disappointed in the performance of your Hellskate, when it comes to it. A single guaranteed 8 attack roll will inflict, what, probably 3 hits upon target standing in the open with defense 0. Spreading out your rockets will probably result in more damage over the course of a battle.)

-Vincent

[Nev the Deranged]

Yeah, I knew that was going to take some testing to see how effective it was.

But that's actually good, because it means I do that much more damage over the course of several turns while remaining agile. Enemy mechs may be less likely to try chasing down the 'skate if it can still defend itself with a rocket or two.

I dropped 35$ on a toolbox for Legos today.

Damn you, Vincent. Damn you to hell.

[Mantisking]

I dropped 35$ on a toolbox for Legos today.

Damn you, Vincent. Damn you to hell.

I spent $8 on a small tacklebox for some of my more commonly used parts the other day.  I'll be getting a larger on for the others soon.