I posted this to General Discussion in hopes that more people would see this and comment on it. I am quite curious to read what you, my fellow players, think of this.

With all of the proposed rules fixes floating about lately I thought that I would propose one of my own rule change ideas. (To the best of my knowledge, this has not been proposed before. If it has, I apologize.)

Before I do so, I just want to interject that I have (unfortunately)not been able to play-test this. . . all of my units are packed away as I am moving. I am also not looking to solve all of the problems that were brought to light in Warflail's insightful "What is Wrong with Mechwarrior" thread. Basically, I am just looking for some intelligent conversation and evaluation.

Here goes. . .

Proposed Addendum to Heat Rules

At the end of any turn that a Mech unit is given an order to Walk, give the Mech a click of cooling.

All other heat rules still apply.

At a glance:

I believe (and I hope) this would allow Mechs a degree of greater flexibility than they currently have - no more heating up, shutting down and blowing up from simple movement alone (Walking).

You still take heat from pushing, but if all you did was walk you would take a click of cooling at the end of your turn. Mechs with touchy dials (SH Warhammer) or Mechs deep in their dials would still have to be careful, but that is perfectly acceptable.

Passing is still viable as it allows you to clear your Mech of order tokens.

Currently, water effects would stack. This should not be a factor. (Let me think about this further.)

Yes, this does counter artillery somewhat, but not overly so. This is not a move and shoot dynamic so artillery may still make you dance. Dancing around the artillery, however, need no longer be detrimental due to heat effects and shutdown.

All-in-all I think this would help give back some degree of flexibility and usefulness to Mechs. It may also make some Mechs more viable in day-to-day use. (Currently, I feel many are crippled by heat.) I do not feel that this removes or severely limits the viability of any other units in the game. (Something all rules must bear in mind.)

Thank you for listening. Let the discussion begin! :)

It makes perfect sense for that but Arnis could have a bit of an advantage (then he could run around the board forever with no heat).

But, and this is what I like, it makes a lot of the heat restricted mechs much more capable, then people can take their Ken Roos out for a spin and not have to use it like a 207 point tank.

Unless I am reading this wrong, it would actually have little affect on Arnis. Arnis already does not take heat from running, but would still take heat from pushing. The wording there says the 'Mech would get a click of cooling if it only walked, not ran. So Arnis could walk around and stay cool, but move slower, or run and generally behave exactly as things are now.

Oops, I was looking at it wrong, he actually would be about the same.

He could either
Walk------Walk------Walk------Walk and basically no heat

Or
Run------------Run------------Run and take 2 heat, just like before.

Actually it makes a lot of sense, big nasty mechs with poor heat like Diane Jameson, Dereck Hasbani, and Ken Roos could put up a pretty good fight and could move around pretty well, while some of the really explosive mechs like Tadaka would be able to use their impressive speed to hunt down their enemy and then take a click to drill them.

I like it, another possible rule change is to make heat effects harder to fail ie yellows fail on 1 reds fail on 2. This idea has been tossed around alot by people i know and makes the heat effects much "safer"

This could actually make Ken a beast. It could move or fire, thus getting a token. Move again, roll for shutdown, fail, then cool a click and start back up and lose the token. So it would be a mech that could essentially move and LOSE the action token for doing so.

Well, Ken can do that right now with water and he's pretty beastly.

Hmmm. . . true enough, I suppose. Given that Ken has a Minor Shutdown roll on his first click of heat the above scenerio could occur roughly 33% of the time. Any further into his dial and this would not be the case. Heaven forbid poor Ken take a hit from an energy weapon as well.

Still, when all is said and done, if this gets Ken off of the bookshelf and into a few games that would be a good thing. As he is now, he is all but unplayable.

I like it. Smooth and subtle.
You would still get the click in, but cool at the end of the turn, so:

It would still be dangerous for a mech with the heat dial 1 click before a shutdown roll (malisa nova cat in its 3th click) - because it would move, take a click of heat from pushing, and (possibly) shutdown. End of turn, 1 click of cooling, and now its shutdown in its 3rd click.
Heat dials would still be dangerous, but a cool mech would have better flexibility. I think it might work. Someone playteste this, please. I'll try it @home, and I ask someone to this at your venue, to playtest it.

funnily enough I like this it's astonishingly subtle probably one of the subtlist rule changes I've seen proposed, it doesn't negate the dangers of over use, improves the best points of mechs and as far as I can tell doesn't break any units.

Can anyone think of any units this would break?

No, Arnis woulden't becuse he RUNS when he uses evade. Thus, while he might not take two clocks of heat, he would still keep one becuse he RAN, as opposed to WALKED...
It does make it safer to run larger point mech in 300 pts ames, becuse you can advance them to a good position, and still have heat left to shoot... However, in larger point games, this rule would make mech VERY dominant... For game-balance, this would be a bad thing... But where or not that really matter (mechs being the begin-all-end-all unit), or if it even a good thing is another issue.

"Still, when all is said and done, if this gets Ken off of the bookshelf and into a few games that would be a good thing. As he is now, he is all but unplayable."

Ken Roos is very playable. Just remember he's a boat, never take him outta the water, and he's just fine. He was my centerpiece for my 5-and-1 Record SH Faction Wars army. I always had at least two water pieces within 5" of eachother so there would be no question on whether he could walk from one piece to the other, and he shot at everything in 14".

He did something on every turn, usually something nasty to the other guy...

Thanks for the feedback guys! This has been an idea I have been mulling over for a while now. Anyone out there who wants to play-test this, please do so and share with the rest of us how it works out.

I have sat and thought about this and I really do not see this as "tipping the balance" toward Mechs in higher point games. I do think more Mechs would see play given the heat change and the fact you have (in a higher point game) more points to potentially field Mechs with, but I do not see an inheirant balance instability in this rule.

What we also may see in a high point game is an increase in points spent on a single Mech as some of the Heavy and Assault Mechs regain viability and hit the table. Considering the high point cost of these units I feel this hardly unbalancing. Mechs like Atlas and Jupiter are very powerful, but they are still incredibly expensive and a huge percentage of your army in any large point game.

The single fattie will still be at a disadvantage in a 300 point game. He may be harder to pin down, but he is still outnumbered and out-ordered. In a higher point game he will not be alone, but he is not going to have the amount of support a cheaper Mech would have. True, we may see a large amount of cheap light Mechs fielded in a high point game, but they (as light Mechs) have their limitations as well. I do not see a balance breaker here. . . man, I wish I could play-test this!

All-in-all, if this helps Mech viablity and helps put more Mechs back into the game then I think we are making a stride forward.

That is great for those times you can take water or have water in the scernerio. Outside of that. . . Ken is a walking kiln. ;)

with vtols in the game mechs with their higher defences are begging to be played, at the moment only mega damage artillery keeps them from being played,when it's going to cost 100 points to do three clicks of ap damage (assuming elite sniper and towed aaa)plus the 60 for transports, this rule would make mechs extremely attractive.

"Yeah my 140 point mech has just taken three cliicks of damage but I can still hit your low defence units and I still have my support and the infantry you used to hold me in place can't grapple any more, I'm just going to walk inside you artillery range and go back to green. I hope you brought a lot of bin bags."

It'll also add some new rhythm to the game, mechs will probably smack break(green) shoot repeat and still be useable while support will base break shoot, and get loaded with tokens.

Swordies woulf get teh best out of this... and having been once a player of that faction I can say they could use that rule. One of the reason's I fianly walked away from them was mechs like Alice's vulture becoming the standard for heat dials. I can LIVE with heat dials like Scott's Lego. They are very workable, but with the current rules he's the ONLY mech I'll feild half the time. If I get higher points and want an assulat I generaly have to put in a merc! Or use my hopscotch tactic that actully made Tadaka a excellent unit to back Scott with