To add a bit of a story element to our games at home, my wife and I came up with our own role play battleforces. We started with 300pts (back during DFA) and change the pt total depending on how the last battle went. Winner gets more, loser gets less.

I wondered what many of you would choose as your personal command. Here's the rules and my original force:

All units must be from the same regiment/merc company.

no uniques

your avatar must be a battlemech (if your regiment doesn't have a common battlemech, an industrialmech MOD must be chosen.
If there are no ICE MODs, then a vehicle is chosen.
battleforce must be 450pts (new rules) or less.

Here's my original:

Republic of the Sphere
Principes Guards
"Davey's Daggers" battleforce

Lt. "Thumper" Davidson, Ghost battlemech
2 Balac Attack VTOL
2 Guila Suit
2 Longinus Battle Armor

how has that worked, with the winner getting more and the loser getting less? Doesn't it put the loser at a disadvantage, and in a game or two the winner has an insurmountable point advantage? I mean.. if you start at 300, and after a few games one person's at 400 and the other's at 200... 200 points isn't going to win unless the 400 person makes some really bad mistakes. So how does that work? Or are your increments small enough that in the short term the differences don't throw the balance? I'd like more information on how you've run the role play, what difference the avatar makes, whether or not you can re-use destroyed/damaged figures in the next battle, etc.

And btw, that's awesome having a wife that plays wargames with you :) It'd be nice to have a wife...

That's exactly what happened initially. Each unit you lost decreased your pt total by half the cost of that unit. Each unit you killed added to your pt total by half the cost of that unit. And VC3 points added to the total on a 1-to-1 basis. We figured it would balance out. Not so. After a decisive victory on her part, I was at a severe disadvantage, and a couple of games later I couldn't handle what she was throwing at my depleted forces. So we've dropped that idea and just change the totals by 10-20 pts, depending on how badly someone was beaten.

Due to the fact that our collections are limited, units can be reused each new battle. We've decided once we can each field about 1000pts, damaged units will have to wait out a game to be healed, and destroyed units are replaced after 2 or 3 games.

As far as the avatar goes, it just represents the mech your piloting. It's usually the first thing my wife tries to kill. :eek: We've toyed with the idea of improving stats of the avatar over time (at the cost of your pt total), but we don't want paper stats complicating things.

We're also trying to work out a map with claimed territory and such.

Sounds like good idea to me. Only thing is that there should be some kind of change to get reinforcements during campaing.

I used to name all of my armies, back in the day.

For example, I used to have the 14th Heavy Assault Lance (Regan's Roughnecks) as a 300 pt army that included Caden Senn. They were tag-teamed with the 367th Support Company (The Fighting Six-Seven), which was a bunch of infantry and vehicles with a few repair and MASH type units, and the 10th Artillery (The Guns of Navarrone) which was basically Malcolm, a HL Sniper and some infiltrating units like :^^^: Hauberks and Peasants to tie things down so I could shell them to death.

Ahhh... Those were the days.

- GhostPony

I developed my own Merc fighting unit and even have pilots and such and keep track of their performance in each battle. It's kinda fun and was one of the ways early on that I invested myself into the game to make it more my own. Also, every game I play is faction pure as I am playing my own Merc unit against whatever units the enemy throws at me. :) The figs WK makes for us to play are merely avatars in the larger game in which my Merc unit fights for its survival and the mighty C-Bill (or whatever currency happens to be the norm).

I think those of us who do the role-playing part of it may experience greater satisfaction when it comes to winning and experience greater frustration when we lose. We invest ourselves in the game to a little more depth than the huy who merely plunks down 2 SS Arrow IVs, a Balac, and Arnis Drummond, or whatever the predominant cheese for the month is.

Chris

I'll have to get some Kell Hounds Tanks and Infantry....this could be interesting....

how about if before each game you each roll for outside circumstances?

roll 1d12:

1: minor reinforcements - add 10 points to your build total
2: minor mechanical failure - subtract 10 points from your build total.
3: forewarned - expand your deployment area by two inches on all sides
4: familiar territory - you may place an additional piece of terrrain of your choosing.
5: dug in - all your pieces receive a +2 to their defense, this bonus disapears as soon as the figure is given a movement order. (initial infiltration does not count as a movement order)
6: local help - choose a single infantry piece under 15 points that does not have "battle armor" in it's name and add it to your force.
7: minefield - whenever a unit is given a movement order roll 1d6, on a one give that unit a click of damage, if it is an infantry piece give it two clicks of damage. Units with the Hovercraft movement type do not take this damage.
8: poor visibility - all ranges except for artillery are reduced to 8" tripple the drift for all artillery.
9: happy hour - both sides are drunk. -4 to all rolls for the first three turns. this can result in a critical miss.
10: difficult terrain - all movement is reduced to 6", this does not apply to units with the Jumpt Jets SE.
11: Graphiti - local hooligans snuck in in the night. -1 to defense on all mechs and vehicles.
12: good battleplan - you receive an additional activation each turn for the first five turns.

everyone feel free to add to this list.

I do some RPing with my people also...

Ive made my own little faction and I made a story that describes the main characters and various other things about the faction...
which btw if you havnt read my story yet they are called Risko's Raiders... since the general's name is Risko Vinsheen...

ive got:

Alpha Lance
Warrior's Assault (Elite regiment)
Risko Vinsheen, General : Mad Cat II
Shina Zean, Leutenant : Catapult
Claymore (he hides his real name) , Leutenant : Shadow Cat II (was a Zeus but in my story it gets destroyed so he has to get a new mech)
Aaron Morco, Seargant : Blackhawk


Beta Lance
Warrior's Sword (Veteran Regiment)
Nicaru Penn, Corporal : Dasher II
Mencon Niter, Lance Corporal : Mad Cat III
Mark Shooter, Lance Corporal : Blade
Kiner Reese, Lance Corporal : Firestarter


Supporting Troops (most are in Warrior's Shield, the Green regiment)
Ken Morris, Private : Condor Tank
Kyle Morris, Private : SM1 Tank Destroyer
(Ken and Kyle are brothers, as you may have guessed)
The Armed Farmers (members unknown)
- Consists of multiple ICE Mechs:
-- 2 Forestrymech MODs
-- 1 Constructionmech MOD
-- 1 Raider MKII


and their homeplanet isnt on the Inner Sphere map, it's called Warrior's Castle... hence the name of the regiments...

yes i know i went all out on this... but this is nowhere near all the info ive come up with for them... ive got sidestories and backgrounds on some of the more major characters and all sorts of stuff...

:noid: :rolleyes: SO WHAT IF I HAVE WAY TOO MUCH TIME ON MY HANDS!!!
:p

My personal force would probably look something like this, using the character I had in the old RPing BTech days.

Faction: Swordsworn
Regiment: Ghost Legion

'Wraith Company'

Commander, Lt Justin Night, Centurion Battlemech (146)
Gnome Battle Armor, 3 squads (57)
Uller Omni-Mech (123)
Pegasus Light Hovertank, 2 units (106)
Gray Death Battle Armor, 1 squad (16)