#Tabletop Wargaming

[ordheist]

tech priest commission

[the-god-of-hellfire]

Ever since seeing this meme...

...I haven't been able to get the idea out of my head.

So with much ado, behold:

My magnum opus of wargaming terrain.

[ironglorfindel]

BEHOLD

A Catapult!

Tryin my hand at magnetizing a mini. Got magnets, a pin vise, a little micro-saw attachment for my X-acto, and appropriate drill bits.

The body magnets are in already, buuuut I gotta let the glue set before making sure the arm magnets are in place correctly. (The magnets may or may not have been sucked from their sockets by my attempts. Twice.)

[ross-hollander]

I am currently attempting...

...to create the worst possible mecha TTWG.

Currently, I have a few central concepts:

Individual mechs, units, and your overall army all have different stat systems. All of these affect each other.

Combat will be done on a grid, with effects mapped out by how many squares they extend to.

As many things as can be randomized should be.

Everything that can be rolled for will be, up to and including issuing an order for a unit to move.

[oldschoolfrp]

From Wargames illustrated 11, July 1988: Some lovely historical armies made from Citadel fantasy miniatures, with appropriate architecture and landscape modeling. Figures are C26 Men at Arms by the Perry twins from 1984, still in production today by Wargames Foundry as their "Wars of the Roses / 15th Century Men at Arms" line.

Miniature banners often are oversized for better visibility on the tabletop, but here the editor offers a different explanation:

Four pics of Wars of the Roses figures from Tim Hall's and Roger Needham's large and varied collections. The figures are the old Citadel range, formerly marketed as fantasy "Men-at-Arms"! The photos demonstrate the military doctrine of the time: the banners were so big, that lots of heavy plate armour had to be worn to keep the bearers stable in the breeze. With the coming of gunpowder -- more accurately, with the coming of personal handheld firearms -- opponents' volleys usually shot the flags full of holes, allowing the breeze to pass through, thus rendering armour obsolete, save for members of the aristocracy having their portraits painted. (Warning to young readers: don't quote this theory in your history exams!) The buildings are by Hales Models.

[verdigrhys]

Now with fancy scenery!

[eldoniousrex]

Due to a sudden tax man attack, Big Red has to indefinitely postpone a video on the Waco Rangers and the death of Jaime Wolf. Here is a series of images I created to depict the faithful confrontation.

Prints are in the works! However, in the meantime, give Big Red’s YouTube channel a follow and show him some support. He can use it.

[skunts-own-truth]

Y’all… I think I really like Quar. Once the starter box gets here and I get the little guys painted up, I’m gonna post some battle reports and talk about the game a bit.

How can you not be charmed by these little anteater guys? I mean, look at those snouts, and the sad little way they look to the ground. Just gotta get some games and feel it out!

[drunkenskunk]

Been thinking a lot about Lancer lately, in case you can't tell. And a thought has crossed my mind.

The various military powers that exist in the world of Lancer. Union. The Karrakin Baronies. The Aunic Ascendancy. The corpro-states like Harrison or SSC or IPS-N. Even the smaller independent nations in the diaspora outside the control of Union or anyone else. How are all the various armies of these different powers organized, and what are their respective doctrines actually like?

Let me explain.

When you play Lancer, the book makes it VERY clear that what you, the players, are doing when you're in the combat part of the game is... the exception and not the rule. 3 to 5 people in absurdly customized and overpowered mechs is not normal. You are exceptional people, piloting exceptional machines, constantly being thrust into exceptional situations.

So how are the armies of regular mechs organized, and how are they deployed against one another in actual war?

By way of an example: Battletech. When it comes to the armies of the Inner Sphere (at least during the Succession Wars), forces of mechs would typically be organized like:

4 mechs in a Lance

3 Lances in a Company

3 Companies in a Battalion

3 to 5 Battalions in a Regiment

Now, obviously I'm oversimplifying here. There's gonna be some variations, depending on the time period and the Successor State in question, and anything larger than a Regiment has it's own problems... but that tends to be the starting point. Usually. And there's also many different variations when it comes to the organization of things like aerospace assets, armored vehicle elements that are NOT mechs (like tanks and artillery), and infantry units. Because even in a setting dominated by heavy metal, the humble footsoldier has never truly gone away.

But that's just how the Successor States of the Inner Sphere do things. Mostly. The Clans have a very different way of organizing their armies:

A Point is the smallest unit for the Clans, either being a single mech, two aerospace fighters, two armored vehicles, five power armored infantry, or a 25-man platoon of conventional infantry.

5 Points in a Star

2 Stars in a Binary

3 to 5 Binaries in a Cluster

3 to 5 Clusters in a Galaxy

The Clans like thing to be simple and organized, which... can be both a good and a bad thing, depending.

In terms of battlefield doctrine, the way the Successor States wage war is an absolute clusterfuck. Tactics can vary wildly depending on which house you're talking about, and when, but for the most part? They're going to employ some form of combined arms, with mechs spearheading an assault, supported by infantry, armor, artillery, and aerospace assets. The Clans, on the other hand, have a completely different doctrine: their Batchall, or "Battle Challenge."

See, the Clans treat war like a game. It's a sport. It's not (usually) about annihilating the other side; it is (supposed to be) a means of settling disputes in a "civilized" manner. Clan Wolverine would probably have some choice words to say about that description, but that's a topic for another day. See, they want things to be an even fight. A test of skill, rather than a test of who can buy the biggest weapons or field the largest number of troops. For example: if your side has warships, and your opponent does not have warships, then you're expected to bid away your warships and you don't get to use them in that fight.

It is a very fair, but very stupid, way of waging war, and that battlefield doctrine came to bite them in the ass in 3052 when the ComGuard beat the shit out of them at Tukayyid.

... I think I may have drifted slightly off topic.

Right, yes, Lancer, that's what I was talking about.

What got me thinking about this? Well, I was reading through the rulebook earlier; specifically, going through the GM part of the book where it has the list of all the different NPC types and the templates you can apply, and how to build encounters and such. And I was also fucking around in Comp/Con. Doing things like trying to figure out how strong I could make the "squad" NPC using the rules available (is it even possible to make a squad of infantry a threat to mechs?), and trying to see what stats a tank would have, that sort of thing.

And as I was futzing around with all this, I noticed that the way you build encounters reminded me a lot of... well, building a Lance of mechs to fight an opponents Lance of mechs in the tabletop wargame version of Battletech. And then that got me thinking about organizational structures and battlefield doctrine, and...

I suppose the point my autistic ADHD-addled mind is trying laboriously to get to is: would it be possible to modify the rules of Lancer to play it like a tabletop wargame instead of an RPG? Y'know, like...

Well, Battletech, I suppose.

And, y'know, from a lore side of things: what would an army of mechs in Lancer actually look like (beyond the squad of player characters who are special by dint of the narrative), and how would those armies be organized?

[professionalscrublord]

Stone Rhino

This is one of those mechs with no short designation, so I made up "SRH-N" to put on the back, in red since it's non-canonical. (Omnimechs Clan mechs tend not to have short designations, thanks @agbpaints)

Dat Big Bootayyyyy with angry red jump jet vents. (JJs on a 100 tonner? Incredible.) The basing took much longer than expected due to my superglue bottle gluing itself shut, I used gorilla glue instead, didn't like the look, then finally got pliers to crank the superglue lid off and do it right.

Held it up to get better lighting on the underside. This is my biggest and last mech until the Merc kickstarter arrives! (Aside from a duplicate Gargoyle which I'm not counting)

[rhynerd]

My friends ended up talking me into giving Legion Imperialis a shot, on the idea that I could take one warhound from the box they’re splitting and run that as my army. Being a fan of Graia, I decided to paint the warhound as a member of their personal legion, Legio Astraman.

The base was largely painted by the friend that handed the model off to me.

[ordheist]

do you like my bugs????

[corvidous]

If GW had a dollar for every miniatures agnostic rulebook I had read...

...they'd still be trying to figure out ways to charge people more money for less plastic and make you pay for another codex again.

[ironglorfindel]

I initially wanted to save this for later, until I had a good idea for a paintjob, as it's my last Urbie, buuuuut I had a good idea. Or at least a blursed one.

Gaze upon...

The UrBlingMech

The absolute most ostentatious paintjob I could imagine.

Pretty simple paintjob, but satisfying, as painting urbies often is. Brown wash over gold looks great. I wanted to try it out after I saw it mentioned/demo'd by Uncle Atom from Tabletop Minions.

Urbutt

[ross-hollander]

Modified play mode...

...probably best for Alpha Strike but likely suitable for classic Battletech if you really want: everybody starts with just infantry. Maybe six squads per side. Then, spaced out across the center of the map are some randomly chosen 'mechs.

Crewing up a 'mech takes X turns, where X is one-half its size class, rounded down- so instant for lights, two full rounds for Assaults. A squad that's crewing a 'mech can't move or shoot. Once a squad has been used to crew a 'mech they are removed from play.

Obviously, you can try and shoot down an enemy squad before they crew a 'mech. You can also attack unused 'mechs, leaving your opponent with damaged 'mechs if they want to crew them. Maybe there should also be repair kits- any infantry squad can pick them up but it freezes both them and the 'mech they're applying it to for it to be used.

I would say start with ten 'mechs on the table. If you wanted to raise the stakes from randomly picking, you could sort out two Lights, four Mediums, three Heavies and a single Assault that you could race for but is obviously very exposed and takes longer to get to.

[wolframtheregulator]

Regulators “Butcher” Badulf

Transferred to the Mors Dictares Joint Task Force in response to the recent development of a mutation that has made him “unpopular” with his fellow battle brothers.

vvv more pics below vvv