I've talked of this in the 'Starting In' thread & listed what we've played. My son is playing Dragons Fury/Kurita & is learning basics at moment. I'm behind on the rules so we're playing Dark Age with a hint of AoD rules. His bane has been artillery so far. We went over how artillery works & that using a VTOL or fast mech to base it quickly will shut it down. I wanted to show him how to stop artillery & how to use infantry & support the big cool lookin stuff.

I put this together after he tried to play Erin Johnson, 2 Mars Tanks, a Donar VTOL & 2 Gnome BA. Try to use his idea with more support.

1 Hellstar, 2 Marksman Tanks, 1 Maxim Transport, 4 Shock Troops, 4 ATV Squad & 3 Salamander BA.

He wants to play this against an artillery army to see if he can shut it down. I built a Steiner/Stormhammer army & am not sure if its a good challange, too much or too little.

Eisenfaust, LE Regulator Hover Tank, 2 Bellona Tanks, 3 DI Towed Artillery, 8 Cavalier BA & 4 Simian BA.

How do the power levels look, does he have a chance? I would think I'd get slaughtered with this build but it'll be my boys 4th game so I don't know. These are supposed to be 600 point armies so let me know if I screwed that up as I have before (I've told my wife my heads had enough blunt trauma without her thumpin me with random books, she dont listen).

I'll find out what terrain is when we play as I have him build the field. I have random shaped colored paper for terrain, though my wife is painting WK shaped pieces for us.

Also any thoughts on best way to teach a 12 year old this game would be much apreciated.

When you say you're using "Dark Age with a hint of AoD rules" what do you mean?

The biggest anti-artillery change in AoD was the introduction of the assault order, allowing Mechs to move and attack, which was something they weren't able to do before, and thus was one of the things artillery exploited.

The other thing that helped Mechs in AoD was allowing units to fire into and out of base (though not both at the same time). That way if he did get his Mech down into range, he could still attack the artillery, even if you based his Mech with an infantry piece.

Of course, the most direct change to artillery with AoD was that artillery damage no longer stacked, so the SH DI Towed Field Artillery can do, at most, 2 damage to any single unit.

In general, my observation was that Dragon's Fury are one of the more difficult factions to play well. His ATVs could potentially slow down your artillery while he closes, but I don't have a particularly high opinion of the DF Hellstar.

Having an actual Kurita mech that starts with Hardened Armor, or gear that adds Reactive Armor (L and H only) or Heavy Armor (L, M, A) would definitely give him a leg up against that sort of artillery.

We're usin the AoD artillery rules & the firing in & out of base. Using what I can remember as I've lost the AoD rule book but still have several DA books around. I have the pdf file, my friends & I have just stuck with what we're used to mostly.

That DF build is something I had intended to play but he wants to play it & requested I build a heavy artillery army. He has faced DI Toweds (SH & ROTS) before but not in large number . The main idea of the DF army was getting more speed & support than the Jupe/Mars combo he made as his first army. Lack of support & speed was his down fall the 2nd game. I gave him some rough guide lines for building his army as he gets to know it, 300-350 in mechs, 100 in infantry & rest to vehicles for our 600 point games. I don't remember his army after this but it would have done better if he'd got his Thor into action. Big mistake neglecting his bigger mech.

Other than the range issue I didn't think DF were difficult to play. Need to be a bit agressive & use terrain well. He has Kurita/Dragons, ROTs, Nova/Spirit, Bansons, Davion/Sword & Steelwolves (HS/SH is mine) to choose from but is stickin with HK/DF. There are some Kurita units in the DF box available if he wishes to use them but he has ignored them so far.

I like the Hellstars personally and had ment to use the DF army while he tried a different faction. Not sayin this Hellstar is great, I just like the mech.

When he wants to we'll get out the pilots & gear. For now I'm tryin to teach him mechs like I did MTG, basic game now & combos after. May or may not be right & thats why its one of my questions.

google warrenborn
you can get the AoD rulebook there
You can also get the scenario handbook there, which is great once you get the rules down pat as it provides a little more variety than standard games.

My kid and I are just starting off, so we haven't used artillery against each other yet. I think when we do though we may house rule limit arty to 2 vehicle + 3 infantry max per team.

The assault orders and formation move rules of AoD helped, but 2 artillery can still control a lot of the field.

My guess, you'll crush him. I he plays slow and tries to move his entire army up as a group, you nickle and dime him with arty. If he tries to move quickly against your arty to lock them down he's going to spread his army all across the board allowing the rest of your forces to pick him to pieces. You have him outranged in most cases, and he only has a few units that can base early and nothing to support them.

I'm not saying it can't be done, or can't be done with that army, but I wouldn't bet on someone fairly new being able to take out the arty army.
He'd be better off building an army around reactive and hardened armor, then he could simply ignore your arty and just keep your infantry from basing.

My boy learned to play faster after that Jupe/Mars game & did well having more than 6 units on field. I'm headin to work. I'll try to tone this down, drop an artillery piece & some infantry. I'd wanted to run the little (Danni?) Support Vehicles instead of the Toweds but misplaced their box.

Always good to have father-son gaming bonding. I loved playing games with my dad.

I put that DF army together more as a way to show how I would build/support an assault mech flanked by 2 large tanks.

I had intended to build my artillery army using the SH Sphinx as my mech & some other units I don't typicaly use for support. My box of substanderd units has gone mia though. I think I will try to mirror his force with my HS/SH army as well as I can using Kingcrab & Glory Fires so I don't have a range advantage.

We can try the heavy artillery battle later after my boy gets some more experiance. I'd like him to play some artillery so he can see how I deal with it. Would like to see him try another faction but he seems intent on sticking with HK/DF.

Took saturday off. Maybe we can play some mechs before going over to my grandparents for a family get together. I work 6 days a week & am on nights for a bit so haven't had time to interact at home. Also I got married in April & this 12 year old boy I speak of was part of the package. We have been using games & books to bond, washin dishes & doin yard work together. Got him interested in trying mechs by playin Armored Corps together. He thought the mechs looked like ACs & wanted to try it out. Kind of scary learnin to be a dad.

Obviously this isn't a parenting advice forum, but thought I'd throw in my experiences as I'm in a relatively similar situation. The kid I'm currently playing with was part of a package deal also lol.

Video games, board games, card games, and miniatures are all great ways to connect. I was around in my kid's life since he was 3 months old, but didn't really start in as full time dad until he was 6 (his mom and I were going to college in seperate towns and what not). The Gundam video games on the PS2 were great and easy enough he could start playing them at 6. We built the gundam models together and watched the cartoons too.

Later on, board games became a big thing for us. Heroscape, Risk, the various versions of Axis and Allies. The WoW boardgame is pretty cool, although expensive, and even the cardgame is fun. Man, at 12 he was able to put together some amazing characters in the WoW boardgame by combining skills in ways that I probably would have missed. I even still have my old Battletech/Mechwarrior cardgame that we've played. I find that deep tactical board games create a better bond than the same ole same ole monopoly/life kinda stuff.

Video games are still a big thing too. He got into playing WoW with me, and games like Boarderlands are good due to the cooperative nature.

Books are great too. Both of you can read the same series of books and talk about the interesting parts and what not. The Battletech/Mechwarrior books are pretty solid for the most part. The Dark Age books, while not always a fan favorite of the battletech universe are even pretty decent for the most part, and they connect to the game you are playing. If he gets into the game at all, the books may really work for him. The Dinosaur World series (based off a bradbury shortstory) is aimed at kids about his age, but still interesting to older readers. Orson Scott Card's Ender series is amazing. Ender's Game is a great book and kicks off several different series of books about this futuristic setting of Humans meeting aliens, starting wars, forming alliances. Written more for an adult reading level, but a 13 year old shouldn't have a problem. Nothing graphic or adult themed, just some of the concepts may be slightly above his head right now. Bonus to this series is they just opened casting for the Ender's Game movie recently, so you guys could get into the books, and in a couple years see the movie together. So far my 13 year old, my wife, and even my father have enjoyed both the Ender's game and the Dinosaur world series of books.

Due to some flooding recently, we had to do some cleaning in our basement, and thats when he came across my mechwarrior minis. He vaguely remembered me collecting them back in the day, and even remembered some of the trips to the local venues to play matches. He got really interested and wanted to start playing. Funny part is my 6 year old daughter has even enjoyed it. She's far too young to understand the game, but she likes the minis and she's had a blast opening the boosters from cases, organizing them, and cataloging them. She'd get super excited when we'd get an LE from a booster.

I found my box of seldom used units! My Sphinx & Danai Support Vehicles were in that box & I wanted them for this game.

My artillery army with a lousy defense & heat dial mech:

Dean Lanos Sphinx 245
Carmen Hern Regulator II Hover Tank 63
DI Towed Field Artillery 43
Danai Support Vehicle 44 x2 = 88
Cavalier Battle Armor 13 x6 = 78
Longinus Battle Armor 20 x4 = 80
If I added right comes out to 597

How does this look for the challenge my son requested? This is what I orinally had in mind but couldn't find my toys. That other army would have been devistating if I got to go first now that I think about it. Now I just have to find a game board. We were using a board my wife was planning a painting for. She has started & is close to finishing that painting since I started this thread. Time to by a sheet of plywood & make a couple battle fields

Game went pretty well. My boy didn't base my artillery with the ATV for some reason. He used the Salamanders wich took 3 turns. My Sphinx missed its first shot at the 2 Marksman which ment it got blasted, it did enough in next 2 turns to hurt them though. All in all it ended almost even after a hour & a half. He took my Sphinx & DI Towed. I got both Marksman, 3 ATVs, 1 Salamander, scrapped the Maxim & captured the 2 Salamanders that based my artillery. Probably his best game yet.