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Mechwarrior; Dark Age / Age of Destruction


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#1 Brinxter

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Posted 23 November 2011 - 01:21 AM

I still have very fond memories of this game.
There still is (a little) activity on the classic battletech and cmgrealms forums.

Next year, theres supposed to be a meetup at Gencon Indy, which i might even attend.


Anyone else remember (or still play) this game?

#2 Atlas3060

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Posted 23 November 2011 - 03:22 AM

Though I don't play anymore the stuff is still in my collection.
I use the infantry for my Battletech gaming and the other pieces are good for Quick Strike games. <_<

#3 Rohan Pony

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Posted 23 November 2011 - 04:53 AM

Remember fondly, yes. Play, no.

I still have forces for Liao (twin Elite Targes of doom!), Dragon's Fury (almost all of the uniques, gotta love them!), Stormhammers (including the most brutal artillery and VTOLs), Bannson's Raiders (so many powerful cheap common pieces) and Steel Wolves (hard to play, but fun).

#4 Threat Doc

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Posted 23 November 2011 - 06:51 AM

View PostBrinxter, on 23 November 2011 - 01:21 AM, said:

I still have very fond memories of this game.
There still is (a little) activity on the classic battletech and cmgrealms forums.

Next year, theres supposed to be a meetup at Gencon Indy, which i might even attend.

Anyone else remember (or still play) this game?
I have memories of playing this game, though I wouldn't call them fond, to be honest. My sons and I have played a couple of games, but about 130 or so mini's, six plus sets of dice, tapes, and colored stones, are sitting on my shelf and, typically, remain there. I'm a packrat gamer, I'm afraid, so what I collect I keep, but I need to make a decision whether or not I'm going to try and sell them off. The bad part is, they're still all Dark Age, never got into Age of Destruction, hated the story line for Dark Age, only played because I hadn't been able to get a tabletop group together in some time.

#5 VEDRFOLNIR

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Posted 23 November 2011 - 09:13 AM

Definitely fond memories. Played and ran several Mechwarrior PnP campaigns through the '90s through about 2003. Put MW/BT aside for a couple of years and when I decided to investigate again I read the Dark Ages synopsis off one of the new sourcebooks and went 'Huh?' MW: Dark Ages is definitely not a favorite of mine.

I'd be happy to get back into a Mechwarrior PnP campaign again (with BattleTech TT goodness) but alas, there's been a serious drought of gaming groups in my area for the last few years. <_<

Edited by VEDRFOLNIR, 23 November 2011 - 09:13 AM.


#6 Dihm

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Posted 23 November 2011 - 09:28 AM

That's why we need to find a GM and do it online Vedrfolnir. <_<

#7 VEDRFOLNIR

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Posted 24 November 2011 - 07:14 PM

View PostDihm, on 23 November 2011 - 09:28 AM, said:

That's why we need to find a GM and do it online Vedrfolnir. ;)


Hmmmm.... Lemme give that some thought Dihm.

#8 kevin roshak

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Posted 24 November 2011 - 09:39 PM

I still have a massive Spirit Cat/Nova Cat contingent
i think it is over a cluster or battlemechs with support

#9 MAXrobo

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Posted 25 November 2011 - 09:33 AM

I still have all my mechwarrior stuff. I dont play much any more though.
Steel wolfs were always my favorite.

#10 h1tl3r1t3

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Posted 09 December 2011 - 02:57 PM

I have a huge Spirit Cat army, with a large selection of named units, a small Jade Falcon set, and a small Steel Wolves set, but mostly, I am all about the Spirit Cats. No one to play against though. So mostly, they are just packed up. Easily over 200 units in Spirit Cats. But mostly from Dark Age.

Edited by h1tl3r1t3, 09 December 2011 - 02:59 PM.


#11 RoundTop

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Posted 09 December 2011 - 03:33 PM

MW:DA... had good and bad aspects.

Full disclosure: I have played TT for a couple decades. I played DA from launch until just after AoD. I was a battlemaster at my FLGS too for it.

The first game and expansion (fire for effect) were the best time for this game. Not too many units, emphasized combined arms, and everyone was learning the system. It felt that mechs were powerful, but unsupported were dead meat.

Then a few things happened. Power gamers started buying LE pieces which were much more powerful, the every 3 months expansions got very expensive (unless you had $$$$, see: Power Gamers), and the number of units increased substantially. The rules got more and more complicated as they added abilities and new options, and tried to fix "broken" rules.

By the time v2 of the rules came out (AoD), the game was dying, and the pilot cards / abilities did not help matters.

Our group, which had approx 10 people normally at least once/week had fewer and fewer players as the power gamer of the group pissed them all off. (He would go to several stores to get the LEs in games then ebay them off afterwards. He would customize his army for each player he faced too).

I don't really miss it. I'll go and play TT again.

#12 h1tl3r1t3

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Posted 10 December 2011 - 12:31 AM

Well, I just indexed all my pieces. If we say each infantry unit is a squad, and every two vehicles count as a point... Then I have, 173 Spirit Cat Pieces, 43 Mechs, 50 Vehicles, and 79 Infantry units. Which comes out, to, with those calculations, roughly a Galaxy. If we just want to count the Mechs, and then throw in support, then I also have about a Cluster, with support. I really enjoyed the game, that might be because I only played in a small gameshop, in a small town, so we didnt really have power gamers.

Jade Falcon, I have a Binary of Mechs, no support, and Steel Wolves, 2.6 binaries, with support.

#13 Links432

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Posted 15 December 2011 - 08:55 AM

Unfortunately, I missed the boat when it was popular. I had started collecting packs this year and I still have yet to learn how to play. I have no friends that are interested. I have got my wife who is going to learn and play with me but I just have not had the time to sit down to start. I really hope that I can soon because it seems like great fun.

#14 Todd O Connor

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Posted 16 December 2011 - 06:34 AM

My nephew got into the boxes of them at my parents house about a year ago so now sadly I have 1 Condor tank left lol

#15 David Decoster

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Posted 22 December 2011 - 01:32 PM

Had a fairly nice collection, including the LE dropship you could get at some point. Used a Steel Wolf team to play most of my competitive matches. God how I loved Anastasia Kerensky in her Mangonel...

#16 Wavelength

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Posted 22 December 2011 - 01:50 PM

I have to echo what roundtop stated. I got into it with a couple of friends when it 1st came out, just cause it was BattleTech/MW! I'm a teacher, and one of the students found out I was into it. He got into it, and many others followed. We had weekly tournaments after school. It was great because it showed that you could use math to do fun things! I even let them play in class sometimes *shhhh* ;-)
But yes, when AoD came out and rewrote the rules and added the pilot/gear cards it made it so complicated it turned some off of it. But some of the older one dove in deeper! We just played by the original rules. Some of us did go to local tournys and ran into the eBay gamers that did what you said. Our local places dried up and when I left that school I didn't play as much. So I quit collecting(right after AoD), played less, and then put it up all together...until now! the news of MWO got me to thinking about all the 'mech-goodness I've experienced over the years, So I pulled the collection off the shelf and started playing with my 2 kids (girl 9, boy 4)! We did some SUPERsimple rules for when my son plays, but my daughter wants more, so I'm going to teach her the official DA ruleset!

I know some don't like the clickmechs, but I feel it served a good purpose of exposing kids/people to gaming in general and the existance of the BT/MW universe! Plus, it's the world's coolest math lesson! ;)

#17 Stinger

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Posted 22 December 2011 - 02:53 PM

I played for a little while, only had my brothers and a neighbor to play with. I only had a modest collection (compared many others here) a dozen mechs and maybe a dozen vehicles, at most. I had a lot of fun with it initially, I got into it when I was what, 13? Good times though, still have them sitting on a shelf....

#18 Vincent Vascaul

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Posted 02 January 2012 - 10:40 AM

I played through I think death from above then stopped I still have a pretty massive collection lots of Republic of the Sphere, Mercs tons of LE's (I really like just collecting the rarer ones) my group would have a limit on how many name char. you could use in a match so the players with smaller collections could still compete.

#19 Striker1980

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Posted 02 January 2012 - 03:01 PM

I just bought the starter set for M.W. age of destruction from ebay, I'm loving the quick game play

Recently a friend brought over allies vs axis, it was an excellent game but took ages to set up.

As we set it up I played another mate in a MW match, him having never played before and me having just read the quick rules with my wife (who was a most dis-interested opponent I can tell you! LOL) and within minutes we were having a great time!

Not sure how far I'll get into the complex rules and collecting arty and other mechs, (baby incoming) but I'll be really looking forward to playing when I can.

One newbie question though.

The rules seem a little ambiguous though as the first thing they state is that you can only issue two orders per turn.

does this mean that technically you could have a mech and a tank in ranged combat with 3 other vehicles never using their initiative and attacking despite having line of site?

I ended up playing the third game such that you could only issue two move orders per turn but if any unit had Line of site on a target it could attack without being issued an attack order due to using their common sense. (I modified this further to allow the LRM rack to offer indirect fire provided a unit had LOS on a target). I'm prob. way off but this seemed to be the only way to get through a round in 50 mins.

I'd love to hear peoples thoughts on this.

Edited by Striker1980, 02 January 2012 - 03:02 PM.


#20 Grayson Pryde

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Posted 02 January 2012 - 03:31 PM

Nope,

i remember you get 1 order for every 150 points you play. So if your army has about 300 points you have 2 orders. You should read the rules about sticking tanks and infantry together or at least tanks. If you do so you can save some orders. I played alot of tournement in my hometown and won a lot of them through the 16" range of the Spirit cats. I think my 450points tournement army was 1 Marauder II(the unique one), 1 Behemoth assault tank and 2-3 Purifier Battle Armors.

I had a uge collection of Spirit Cats and nearly every Unique. I stoped playing after i read the Jade-Falcon books and saw the jade falcon miniatures. and their ornament wings i had to facepalm. And then the recruits that ride on the hoover tanks into battle...

Edited by Grayson Pryde, 02 January 2012 - 03:32 PM.






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