I've been intending to look at Battletech Alpha Strike rules for a while now. The quick start rules are free to download from the Battletech site. Alpha Strike is intended to be a faster and simpler version of Battletech and it is also a terrain and not hexed based rule set. I found that it played very quickly and easily. My 7 year old son participated in this game and did pretty well with it.
Also I'm playing with our new city terrain we've been working on. It's still a work in progress but I think it's coming together nicely. We chose to have pirates raid a city defended by two Draconis (Kurita) Legion of Vega mechs and a mercenary. I played the pirates and the rest of my family played the Draconis forces. My Blackjack died in the 2nd turn and did no damage. My Warhammer hit the Catapult hard.
I sent my Commando in to try and finish off the Catapult but the Centurion ran up and took the Commando down. Light mechs are extremely fragile in Classic Battletech but they seem even more so in Alpha strike.
My Warhammer started chewing up the Trebuchet but it took some nasty hits from the combined Draconis force.
Eventually I lost a weapon which took my damage down by 1 point. In Alpha Strike mechs do damage based on their total fire power and range to the target. This greatly speeds thing up over Battletech because only one attack roll is needed per mech.
By the end of the match I had killed the Trebuchet but I had taken a lot of damage in the process and was forced to retreat. I thought the game played out really well. We played at least 6 turns in less than two hours being unfamiliar with the rules. I think this would be a really exciting way to get mech combat done in a Battletech RPG especially with a practiced group. It still felt enough like Battletech and it would be much easier also to play really large scale engagements this way. The only thing it lacked was some of the thrill of Classic Battletech. Damage is handled in a very basic fashion and it didn't quite have the cinematic feel of having parts of your mech get blown off during battle. I'm definitely sold on this system as a quick alternative to the core game.
1 comment:
I'm just trying it out myself for the first time. Worth noting, in the advance rules, there is a rule for variable damage. The damage listed on the mech is actually their 'maximum' damage in each range bracket. It slows the game down a bit, but adds a nice element of uncertainty to attacks - which in turn makes overheating more interesting as well (it can be used a little two scientifically in the standard game).
Post a Comment