Mecha miniature tabletop gaming

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Joshua
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Mecha miniature tabletop gaming

I just saw that someone here plays Battletech (presumably the modern, pre-painted variety). Does anyone else here play tabletop mini games? What do you play? What do you like about the systems you use? What don't you like?
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Vent Noir
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Re: Mecha miniature tabletop gaming

Interested in Heavy Gear Blitz, but never gotten to play it. It's based around smaller mecha (Votoms is apparently a major inspiration). Back in the day, I played a little bit of Lightning Strike, the wargame component of Jovian Chronicles, by the same company, which has been described as "American Gundam" (more accurately, Canadian Gundam), revolving around a conflict between the Jovian Confederation and the Central Earth Government and Administration.
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Red Comet90
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Re: Mecha miniature tabletop gaming

I play Table Top Miniature games and I've been looking into Heavy Gear. I really like it because the Heavy Gear universe was supposed to be Votoms. Not sure if you have heard the back story, but the Heavy Gear video game development team made a game wanting it to be a Votoms game. The people who own Votoms told the development team that they would not endorse the game or give them the rights to use the title Votoms. Because of this they changed the name to Heavy Gear since they felt they still had a good game.

Anyways I play Warhammer 40k and Warmachine. Both are fun systems and play completely different than one another. You should try them out if table top gaming interests you.

I've looked into Heavy Gear Blitz and I really want to get into it, but Warmachine and Warhammer are so expensive as it is. I would hope the Heavy Gear table top game is fun.
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Joshua
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Re: Mecha miniature tabletop gaming

I have a bunch of Heavy Gear and Jovian Chronicles books because I like the artwork, myself. The earliest Heavy Gear game was pretty neat. I always wished they'd gone with plastic models instead of minis, but there you go.

(In the interest of full disclosure: I'm involved in the publication of Mechaton, designed by my friend Vincent with my help, specifically to get around the overhead in both dollars and time involved in Battletech, Warhammer, and even Heavy Gear. R. Talsorian has asked us firmly to stop using the name, which, while admittedly confusing, doesn't come from their game at all.)

Interesting story about HG coming from VOTOMS. It certainly has a similar vibe.
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Joshua
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Re: Mecha miniature tabletop gaming

It just occurred to me to go check some copyright dates. the VOTOMS RPG came out in 1997. Heavy Gear came out in 1995. It's very likely that there was no weird behavior at all; that Animechanix already had the license by the time the Dream Pod 9 started talking to the right people. It's actually happened to me before, too.
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Red Comet90
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Re: Mecha miniature tabletop gaming

That is really cool that you helped with that game. I myself have never played the game since I'm relatively new to tabletop gaming, but if I see it at my local gaming store I'm tempted to pick it up.

I wish Heavy Gear has plastic miniatures rather than metal ones. Metal models are just such a pain to put together.
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Joshua
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Re: Mecha miniature tabletop gaming

It's around in a few game stores, but not many, at this point; it's out of print for the moment while we do some serious reassessment. You can get it as a PDF for cheap over here though.
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Joshua
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Re: Mecha miniature tabletop gaming

It turns out I'll be running two playtest games at Metatopia in a couple of weeks!

We'll be trying out our latest designs:

The Free Colonies' Hi-Leg and Commissar

The United Mars Foreign Legion's Chub (though the Chub Tub will likely not show up)

The "Scramblers" of the Ijad

I'm excited to try the new rules and robots! If anyone is going to be around Morristown, NJ the first weekend of November, I'd love to meet some folks from MAHQ!
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Ryujin
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Re: Mecha miniature tabletop gaming

Joshua wrote:It just occurred to me to go check some copyright dates. the VOTOMS RPG came out in 1997. Heavy Gear came out in 1995. It's very likely that there was no weird behavior at all; that Animechanix already had the license by the time the Dream Pod 9 started talking to the right people. It's actually happened to me before, too.
Incidentally, here's a few more relevant details from a recent interview with Tim Eldred:
[VF] Do you have any fond memories or interesting anecdotes from the projects you’ve worked on? Anything you’d like to share with us?

[Tim] My favorite story has to be this one: back in the mid 80s at the height of my Armored Trooper Votoms mania, I felt compelled to write the ultimate info-zine, the Votoms Viewer’s Guide. Spent several years building it, filled up well over 150 pages, and shared it with anyone who was interested. Slowly but surely that effort was rewarded in some very unexpected ways.

For example, I sent a copy to Central Park Media and it impressed them enough to go after the series. Everyone knows the result: they successfully imported it and I got hired to draw the graphic novel and work on the DVDs.

That alone would have been enough, but here’s something else that happened: Ianus Publications got a copy of my guide and was intrigued enough to go after the RPG rights. They developed a game on spec and tried to license it from Japan. Their effort was not successful, but they didn’t want all that development work to go to waste, so they changed some details and decided to rename it Heavy Gear.

By complete coincidence, I was working for Sony’s TV animation studio during the time that they licensed Heavy Gear as a TV series. Talk about right place, right time–I ended up directing nearly a quarter of the episodes. This was as close as I could have gotten to drawing a Votoms TV show for the US.

Then, a few years after that, R. Talsorian Games bought the rights from CPM to do a legitimate Votoms RPG, and they hired me to write material for that.

When I started writing that Viewer’s Guide, the only motivation was to share my passion with other fans. I was rewarded for it a thousand times over with real work and real money. Keep that in mind the next time you wonder if you ought to invest your time in your own labor of love.
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J-Lead
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Re: Mecha miniature tabletop gaming

I played Mechwarrior Dark Age once and never looked back.
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Joshua
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Re: Mecha miniature tabletop gaming

Ryujin wrote:Keep that in mind the next time you wonder if you ought to invest your time in your own labor of love.
That's a great principle.

J-Lead, what do you like about Mechwarrior?
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Joshua
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Re: Mecha miniature tabletop gaming

I just posted some picures of Mobile Frame Zero: Rapid Attack over at the Mechaton Flicker Pool! There are a lot of really excellent mecha over there.
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YokozunaBulldozer
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Re: Mecha miniature tabletop gaming

I think it's about time we got a tabletop Gundam or Macross game.
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Joshua
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Re: Mecha miniature tabletop gaming

Well, there's no way I'd ever shoot for those licenses, but I'm working on both of those as ideas for Mobile Frame Zero: Rapid Attack.
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Soren
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Re: Mecha miniature tabletop gaming

Hi. I'm the guy doing mechanical design for the game. I've been using MAHQ as a reference for a long time - almost since the site was launched.

YB, that's one of the cool things about this game. It's so abstract that you could run it in either setting. My first game with Joshua, I was fielding a team of Union Flags and they worked out great. Adding Gundam- or Macross-flavored rules is mostly a matter of finessing idiosyncrasies like the Protoculture's effect on Zentraedi, or remote weapons and other Newtype weirdness - if all you want is straight up grunt-brawling, the system supports that like a champ.

You don't need Lego, either. You could double the size of your measuring units and run it with HGUC models just fine. I'd love to be a fly on the wall for that game.
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RavenFeast
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Re: Mecha miniature tabletop gaming

Our group uses MEKATAC: GSRE.

http://home.dejazzd.com/broadsword/Gian ... _Page.html

It's generic and scalable, can be played on hex maps or open table with terrain, and it's FREE for download. Use whatever mech figures you want.

Also just whipped together a VOTOMS mod. http://ravenfeastsmeadhall.blogspot.com ... dirty.html
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wyrdhunter
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Re: Mecha miniature tabletop gaming

I'm a longtime gamer (of all sorts), starting with Battletech and paper stand ups in the mid-80's. Quickly touching upon some topics brought up, Heavy Gear Blitz is a fun gam but with a good amount of depth. It's faster than Battletech and works off of the combined arms tactics of combat with squads of sifferent purposes working together. For something closer to the duels of the first Votoms series I would auggest thwir HG Arena game. Smaller investment needed plus you get to manage your own team.

I played Mechaton a few times at Gencon and it was fun. I would love to see a resurgence.

Currently, the closest mech game I'm playing is Infinity with its robotic weapons platforms. I am looking at putting together some simple, narrative rules for play by post mecha rpg.

And if anyone's in the Miami/Broward area and down for some mecha wargaming, let me know
I still have my HG Blitz figures and know the rulea for many other games (Battletech, Iron Tyrants, Mekton, etc.).
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Joshua
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Re: Mecha miniature tabletop gaming

Wyrdhunter, it looks like I'll be running Mobile Frame Zero: Rapid Attack again this Gen Con! I'm hoping to be running it a bunch at PAX East in March, too, though it won't yet be ready for sale. I'd love to play with you (again?)

I started off playing Battletech in the Controversial Age of the plastic model kits. The kits were the reason I played. We wrote our own rules based on the stats in the scenario sheets.

RavenFeast, that's a neat little game! It reminds me a bit of MS Era.
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steeltamashii
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Re: Mecha miniature tabletop gaming

Been playing Warhammer 40k since 2003 off and on, been looking into trying to get into some other tabletop games, moreover, something that plays up the modeling aspect as much as the actual game. Any suggestions? (obviously sci-fi or mecha would be preferred)
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Joshua
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Re: Mecha miniature tabletop gaming

If you consider Lego models, Mobile Frame Zero plays in 2-3 hours with skilled adults and you use an army completely built of Lego. (see the Flickr group and my recent blog post.)

I'd like to write about doing it with Bandai models, too; their modularity would work really well for the game. You'd need 4-8 of them for a squad.
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