Demos from The Mechanicon

   So I had a very good time at the Mechanicon Tourney. I need to say this first that the staff at the Tourney were very accommodating and put together a great convention experience for the vendors, players and people trying to get their games out there like me. Tony and his staff are a great group of people and I hope to see this event grow even bigger for next year.
   I want to thank the people that took the time to try out Robotech Battles, Its very humbling when someone says that they really enjoyed your game that you spent many hours developing. I really tried to get some criticism of the game but there wasn't much.. 
   I got to play some quality demo games and pushed to really see what my game can do. I learned alot... The outcome of my games showed that the current tweeks that were done to the zentraedi from Version 1.2 to 1.3 were a bit much. I think that there was some great flying done by all the people that played the game over the weekend but the RDF veritech jets were shot down pretty quickly from massed laser fire from the Zentraedi. Based on several discussions and a few hundred dice rolls later.. I feel that the Zentraedi are starting with too many Action points and too strong heavy lasers.. Things were a little unbalanced. Battles were done too fast, shooting rarely lasted further than two rounds, and very little close combat could be started.. Light lasers were determined to be overpowered in Hand to Hand combat also and there is just not enough that a pilot can do versus lasers.. A dodge vs lasers seems like it should come into play.
Another minor thing to add that will make gameplay a bit more cinematic is to allow for elevation changes when you transform in gravity. Last but not least it was discussed that there should be a base movement of 6 or 9 inches to engage into Hand to Hand combat. These changes and a few more enhancements will be going into the revision 1.4. This is all good news because It brings me closer to a publishable game.

I had the opportunity to speak with Chric AKA "Jawaballs", last years Mechanicon winner and all around nice guy. I chatted him up on Friday briefly and tried to set up a demo game.. Alas life got in his way and he had to cancel his Tourney games and travel back to CT for family health reasons. Things turned out OK for his wife so I'm glad for that.
You can check out Jawaballs' blog here http://warhammer40kbloodangels.blogspot.com/

I finally caught up with a longtime friend of mine Tim who is developing his own skirmish game set in the Old West, called Blackwater Gulch. Gunfights run rampant in this game and I hope to get a game in of that soon also. It looks like alot of fun.
http://www.blackwatergulch.com/

Prep for Demos



Minmei's uncle's restaurant on Macross Island

 Ok so I'm building a portable table for Game Demos. Actually what I building is a game mat that can be put onto a 4'x6' table. The design is based on the first episode of the Robotech Series "Boobytrap" where the Zentraedi are invading Macross Island. The table will have a large landing strip down the middle of the board with cityscape on one side and open areas on the other. To all a quick note on painting indoors.. Always let your spraypaint dry outside or use a spray booth or something.. The wife was not happy that I was spraypainting.. The fumes were pretty bad.
Back to the table.. I have alot of work to do to get a few blocks worth of buildings.. And I'll need to make alot of 3, 6 and higher story buildings so that the people trying out the game will have enough stuff to blow up.. I'm going to probably build alot of 3 story sections that I can stack to get lots of varying levels. I have three weeks and no time, it should be interesting..
I recieved in the mail BUSINESS CARDS.. {insert happy dance here} The cards look great and I have a good amount to pass around. Also the CorSec Engineering telescoping flight stand that I ordered.. It will work out great. Just the thing to allow Mecha to change elevations effectively. I'm still waiting on missile stands that I ordered from Litko. I'm looking forward to seeing those on the table also. I plan on getting alot done this weekend starting with (hopefully) a release of version 1.3 of Robotech Battles Rules and then the release of the remaining Mecha paper cutouts. Currently there are 1/144 scale cutouts and smaller "battletech" or hero scale models for download.
For the cutouts, I would suggest printing the cutouts on a heavy paper or cardstock, or you can mount paper copies on plasticard to get a stiff standing mini that can then be mounted on a round or square base. When dealing with the minis, it's a good idea to denote the front of the mecha for determinig Front Line of Sights.
Let me know what you think of the progress and let me know if you will be attending the Mechanicon on November 4-6 and I'll be demoing Robotech Battles Friday and Saturday in the evening. Let me know and I would love to discuss the game with anyone thats interested.
-Tom