Thursday, July 12, 2018

Battletech - Terrain Update

Hi everyone,

Recently we've started up a Battletech campaign (earlier posting about that).  And, we've been working on how to have fun terrain (earlier posting with terrain thoughts).

We've seen some nice responses to our earlier write-up that 3D printed terrain is a fun way to go.  That certainly does sound good.  In the meanwhile, we are posting a quick update after our first session using the HeroScapes terrain.

Some thoughts:

- It was really cool to create 3D structures.  We chose to put the "bad guys" for our campaign in a cave fortress with a turret gun for defense.

Here you can see our Heroscapes 3D set-up on our battlemat.  It was nice that we could slide the Heroscapes around and reposition during the session -- when we figured out that it would be better for the players to view things from the other 180 degree perspective.

- The turret gun was a nice balancing element.  As the GM we could choose it's armor level to help to ensure sufficient challenge for the team.

We used a tank as a "jury rigged" turret -- mounted on a pedestal of stone and structure.  The players could have attacked the structure if they had chosen - but instead attacked the turret until the large laser on the tank suffered a critical hit and was out of action.

- The transition from the HeroScapes to the smaller-scale battlemat was annoying.  The players put up with it - but it was not idea.  Going to think about how to do this better.  Do feel that if we had turned the battlemat by 90 degrees (so that it better aligned with the 60-degree orientation we had selected for the Heroscapes tiles, things would have been better.

- Oh - and how cool that with the 3D structures we created, our team's Crab pilot backed his way into a crevace -- just like a real life marine crab -- so that nobody could get behind him -- and so that his pincers were facing outward!!

The 'mechs up on top of the hill (Centurion and Wolverine) are attacking the turret -- their assignment was to take it down!  Down below the team's Dervish and Crab are tackling a Trebuchet and Cicada.  And, please note the fun position of the crab in the rock crevice!!

- We used the thin green Heroscapes tiles for trees.  This worked pretty well, and it was easy to place the trees quickly in a fun way.  Thinking we may need some to be either lighter green - or maybe more splotchy to signify level 1 versus level 2 trees. 

- Lastly, our painting has made the larger Heroscapes tiles difficult to get apart.  Planning to sand on those a little bit so that they are just a little bit more loosely fitting.

We'll post further updates.  In our next session we're going to use the fortress walls we built -- so that the team can assault a House Kurita weapons depot.

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