Awesome, thanks topgun!

I guess imo, the best solution sounds like hex based movement (big fan of this in TBS computer games), but with minis. If I could make a table with a hex lightly spray painted across it via a template, that would rock -so- much.

Perhaps I am looking at this in too simple a light, but I am thinking as long as the hexes are consistant with a non mini hex map, but larger.. and you use minis, you can play the non mini rules but have a very nice looking table to do it on. Is that accurate? What sort of scale issues would I run into out of curiosity?

Thanks for the help, I really appreciate it. MWDA has frustrated me more than been fun, so far.. I think I would embrance a complicated (the more complicated the better) game where logic rules, not the weird whimsy of designers.

By the way.. I saw a pilot sheet once. Are there pilot skills? Do they directly affect your ability to pilot a Mech? Can you play campaigns over months where your pilot (if he doesn't die) can increase his skills, making him more valuable?

Geeze, I can think of so many ways at least in my head to play this, that would be so awesome. I hope there are rules to cover many of these flights of fancy I have. :)

fleabitfox

YES!

The basic rule in the Master Rulebook that I remember:

Pilots have gunnery/piloting skills, with 4/5 being the standard. This factors into your to-hit rolls when firing at targets, using jump jets, etc. In contrast to MWDA, the lower your gunnery/pilot skill, the better the pilot is.

If your pilot survives a battle, you get 1 experience point for him. After so many points, you can buy a pilot upgrade. Also, for every 1 point you get, you must assign another to your opponent's surviving pilots.

I believe I've quoted it more or less right, but if I left anything out, someone correct me.

I would highly recommend the CBT Boxed Set, available at FastForward Games, the official publishers of CBT stuff. Unfortunately, CBT.com is down for various reasons/problems, so you can't go check it out.

Pilot sheet as in a `Mech outline with little empty circles inside or is it a RPG-style character sheet with lists of skills, etc.? If it's the former, you have CBT record sheet. If it's the latter, you have yourself a CBT:RPG (previously known as the Mechwarrior RPG) character sheet.

Yes, there are piloting skills. In CBT, it's just piloting and gunnery. In the RPG, gunnery is broken down (laser, ballistic, missile). You can improve your skills in both games, but I prefer the RPG method as a more in-depth approach to character skill advancement.

As a sidenote, the CBT.com forums are down for the time being.
There's been some hosting issues which have resulted in the FanPro crew needing to look for a new host to cope with the major amount of bandwidth sucked up by the forums.

You summed up my position on MW right there with weak mechs, mongrel armies, and sloppy gameplay (who'd have thought that 1/8 or even 1/32 of an inch would make such a difference?). I'd play CBT as the rules are much better and you get to choose what you buy, but it takes a long time (to play and build/paint the pieces), it's expensive (miniatures and required paint cost around $10 per miniature), and I don't know anyone around here that plays.

I have also tried out MTG after giving up on MW, but since then I've come to the conclusion that all collectible games are evil, addictive cash sinks that don't make great games at all.

I have resigned myself to playing video games as they are cheaper. I buy only the exceptionally good games, so that's about 1-6 games per year, only $50-300 per year (rentals are also alot cheaper than any collectible game), whereas I used to spend about $300 per expansion of MW. Battletech video games (Mechwarrior/Mechassault/Mechcommander series) are also just more fun than a game of MW or CBT to me, especially Mechwarrior 2 and 3.

All solved via Megamek, the CBT fan's most valuable online tool.

Besides, you don't need minis to play. I remember the days when simple paper counters and a paperclip or two sufficed for a quick lance-on-lance game.

Hear, hear!

This is an interesting thread for those who look for an alternative for the current MW:DA-game. By the way, is it common for Collectible Miniature Games to have disappointing rules or are there also CMGs out there who are actually half decent?

I just love the atmosphere of the game as well. Little pieces of paper are ok I guess, but I love the thought of a 6' gaming table, with terrain, hills, and Mechs you can move around. :)

I may well try the hex paper version though, as well. I did download something called MegaMek.. is that right? Some computer version of CBT. I need to look at it again at home and see I think. Does that contain the complete and proper ruleset for CBT? And if so, what ruleset tier does it use? II?

"I have also tried out MTG after giving up on MW, but since then I've come to the conclusion that all collectible games are evil, addictive cash sinks that don't make great games at all."

M:TG is a great game imo. If you want to get into it, I would recommend the online version, if you have a decent Internet connection. You can trade in your cards for paper ones (I would never do this.. I use my online versions much more often) if you want. But online, the art, rules, players.. it's all good and handled very well. The coolest thing is there are always drafts and tournaments going on. If you are good, you can 'go infinate'. This means if you can win a draft or take 2nd place (out of 8 people), you win enough product to play in another one. So basically you never would have to actually say.. -buy- cards if you are good enough. No one can really 'go infinate', but many people can get a LOT of cards for very little cash, which is great. I can win more than I lose in drafts. It is just a matter of doing your homework and drafting smartly. You can win an awful lot of cards this way.

You also can buy commons in bulk online, which is VERY handy, something you can't really do with RL versions (it is a pain in the ###). You can buy 4x of commons from entire sets for a few bucks (tickets). This is very cool, and a great way to get your collection going to a point where you can make some neat decks.

I'll be playing quite a bit this weekend in fact, since it is the newest expansion premier events (big prizes.. 8x and so on).

"By the way, is it common for Collectible Miniature Games to have disappointing rules or are there also CMGs out there who are actually half decent?"

Well, Magic imo is the very best collectible game as far as rulesets go. The 'stack'.. LIFO.. all the rules that make it run the way it does makes it VERY balanced, and very fun. They still do have problems with unbalanced cards like MWDA or any collectible game has, but they actually will ban or limit cards that are overpowered. They just did ban one in fact (skullclamp). Very slick rules for Magic, and the best by far imo. But cards in general are very balanced. The different colors mesh together really well, and there are not any huge imbalances.

MWDA imo suffers from a serious lack of imagination on the developers part. When the Mechs need sprucing up and a way to deal with infantry, what do they do? Do they create a new mechanic to handle this? No. They take a rule from another one of their click games (MK), and tweak it, change the name, and call it a new mechanic. They even reference MK when they describe it on their site. This is PATHETIC imo. What sloppy, non imaginative, uninspired rule making. I'm 100% positive a group of the more savvy players here could be cloistered away from a weekend, and make a bevy of rules that would be a vast improvement over what they have created themselves.

In trying to make the game 'simple', they are killing it. They are catering to the lowest common denominator (younger kids it seems), and I don't understand why. I think older teens and adults probably spend the bulk of the money on this game. That is the crowd they should cater to. Trying to make the game dumb simple is not a good idea I think.

They are confusing 'complex' with 'time consuming'. Example: Magic rules are quite complex. You can get into all sorts of detail about the stack, timing, and everything else. A very intricate game. However, you can still complete a game in 5 to 15 minutes, every time, no matter how complex the rules are. And young kids play that game! They get the rules. This is what they should do for this game. Make the rules complex as necessary to make the game balanced (and Mechs more aligned with the power they should have), but streamlined enough so that play is quick.

That is the reason I am most disgruntled with this game I suppose. Even with improvements with Mechs, they are still making rules without thinking. Taking a rule directly from a fantasy wargame and using it in a futuristic version is just insane. That is lazy. I don't think I want to play a game where the developers have such a disregard for making this game unique and balanced. Just because you -can- swipe a rule from another game doesn't mean you should. In fact, well before they did this, I kept saying that MW seems like a game where they basically took existing rules for their Mage Knight game, and tweaked them to make a new one. They should have never done this. They should have taken the click concept, and that is ALL. Everything else should have been unique and fresh.

I'm glad the CBT has such a solid, believable ruleset though. Tell me, are the rules very realistic? Are the ranges, melee combat, and so on, believable? I think they probably are, but I'd like confirmation. :)

fbf

By default, Megamek is set to Level 2 rules (the tournament staple), though you can select additional Level 3 rules if you so desire.

If you're asking whether you can play CBT via Megamek without a hardcopy of the basic rules, then I'd have to say no. The progam handles the nitty gritty details for you (dice rolls, damage marking), but knowledge of the basic rules is still a must, so pick up a copy of the BattleTech Master Rules (BMR) at a game store near you.

Quote

I'm glad the CBT has such a solid, believable ruleset though. Tell me, are the rules very realistic? Are the ranges, melee combat, and so on, believable? I think they probably are, but I'd like confirmation. :)

To be honest, I wouldn't call anything in the big `Mech genre "realistic" at all. Ranges in CBT are relatively short by present day (2004) standards, but that was a concession to prevent the game area from stretching to mind-boggling proportions. It's definitely a big step towards quasi-realism compared to MW:DA, but I wouldn't go as far as to call it "realistic" just yet. ;)

The big factor with ranges, when you're talking a game as unrealistic as giant walking tankbots, is:

a) how they compare to the size of the board,

b) how they compare with the movement capabilities of the units

Weapons have varied ranges in CBT and the to-hit target varies depending on how far out in the range bracket you are. A Medium Laser, for example, considers 3 hexes or less Short range, 4-6 Medium, and 7-9 Long. (The ML is pretty much the "ballpark" weapon for CBT. Many weapons have longer ranges (LRM's out to 21 hexes), but the ML is the standard against which all other weapons are judged.)

Most light mechs (which could be crippled by 3-4 well-placed ML shots) can move, at maximum, 9-12 hexes per turn. As weight goes up, so does resistance to damage, but speed goes down.

Two other factors that you'll find important: Accuracy is impaired by the speed of the target, but rarely by damage taken. And, secondly, combat occurs simultaneously -- all units move, all units fire, damage is applied, begin next turn.

I'm back to playing CBT at home, I spent a lot of time trying to rework MWDA rules to resolve their counter intuitiveness and in the end I just stopped using the rules, bases and dials and played CBT.

My son an I enjoy CBT much more. He is in the "target" market for MWDA (nine) and he has trouble grasping MWDA. He's a terror with his Kodiak (outfitted with Jump Jets, just like its dossier).

For a quick start download the Drawing Board a freeware that does a good job in basic mech design. On my wish list is Maximum Tech and the books with the Dark Age Unit Stats.

I took that advice to "go play CBT"

Thanks you were right!
;)

Well guys I'm begining to think that we are going to be ushering in a new golden age for BattleTech.

And we can thank WK's incompetence for it.

Those who are still on the fence should just take a look at some of the CBT web sites, check out the rules, ask us old timers questions, down load MegaMech and try it out. You might be suprised how good the game is is!

Those who have just converted, remember that it will take a while to get the rules down, ask if there's something you don't understand. There seems to be quite a few players here already that will help you out.

You don't need mini's to play but they do add to the atmosphere of the game. You might even find out that it's as fun to assemble and paint as it is to play.

Well I took the plunge and downloaded Megamek.:) I'll look it over later tonight. Does knowledge of CBT TROs help in playing this?