177 replies to this topic

[Ulric Kell]

Fond memories indeed. I won the Friday event at Gencon the year MW:DA was released (Back when Gencon was in MKE). Played for 11 hours to win it. Was crazy awesome. Stopped collecting when power gamers started owning the venues I was at and when it was super expensive to stay competitive. Being in college at the time meant my money was limited.

About 1.5 years ago I started perusing Ebay and picking up lots of MW:DA and AoD. I now have a few thousand and proceed to run games for a few groups locally in MKE.

CBT purists hate MW:DA/AoD but what I’ve found is that I can use a mix of CBT/MW:DA rules with MW:DA/AoD figures and people pick up the game way faster and enjoy it much more than CBT. A clickable figure is much easier to follow and participate in that a sheet of paper filled with oodles of information especially for people new to the Battletech universe.

I’m getting ready to start a new campaign so I’ll post the rules from this and some pictures of the board in a new thread in a couple of days.

The biggest challenge now is finding 10/12MM terrain/buildings to use. Gale force 9 makes a bunch of good stuff but there’s only four sets. I need a lot more to get an active feel for how things run.

[Striker1980]

'i remember you get 1 order for every 150 points you play.'

Cheers for that Grayson, I played another friend in an epic session the other day we played the full rules and it made a lot more sense, I was aware of the formation rules but when played with a 600 point build on the full rules it made a lot more sense! Was far more fun too.

[Piotr]

The game looks like a lot of fun i purchased quite a few boxes just have not had anyone to play with. This is a game i been collecting for years now but again i started really late when it was past its prime so noone around the Chicago land area to really learn from or play with. Also major lack of comic stores/gaming shops where i can kind of setup and garner interest for the game again. Overall the few games with simple rules i was able to play i found enjoyable.

[RyannVonDoom]

Refused to play this game because it was a bastardization of the Battletech table top, still feel this way. Some people said it was fun.

[Vincent Vascaul]

After reading this stuff and getting antsy for my BAttletech box set to arrive I pulled out my old DA stuff and got 3 buddies and we started a game tonight. Its 4 faction loyal 2000 point armies on a 4x10 foot table. In the middle is a lost cache of weapons (calling it a Brian Cache if my BT memory serves me well) We have a Spirit Cat Army, a Steel Wolves Army, A Davion Army (Something swords is what they are called) and me playing with a Republic of the Sphere Army supplemented with some Mercs. Within the Cache are 7 Assault Mech and the First one to blast their way in ( I have assigned hitpoint values to the doors) and get their infantry in grabs the mechs as reinforcements. The terrain is just books and boxes with water hazards marked out ect... We got through 3 turns tonight along with building our armies. Its shapping up to be a fun game, we start up again tomorrow at 5:00. Its not the same as my battletech days but I am introing 3 people to Mechwarrior and its way easier for them to follow plus I found my battletech trading cards which I thought I had lost so bonus!

[Ulric Kell]

RyannVonDoom, on 08 January 2012 - 05:35 PM, said:

Refused to play this game because it was a bastardization of the Battletech table top, still feel this way. Some people said it was fun.

It depends on how you play it. If you follow Wizkids rules it's "not really" Battletech. It could be any game for that matter. World War 2/Sci Fi/Dungeons/Super heroes. The clix make it easily accessible and followable.

If you however use the clixs and their ease of use to pick up and immediately grasp while applying more in depth dynamics and rules you wind up somewhere in the middle. Where anyone can walk up and start playing yet strategy is required more than just dice rolling.

[Grayson Pryde]

It might be a "bastardization" and i know many people that hated the "trading box system" of Mechwarrior Dark Age. And i hate the story myself but the game was realy easy to learn until the freaking new colours arrived and i had to watch every 5mins on the rule sheet what it was.(Maybe because i havent played a lot since this edition). Another big advantage is that you have good models that arent that small like in classic battletech. The only thing i had to is recollering some of the mechs and vehicles.

[RotS Targe]

AoD is how I discovered the Battletech universe, and I still play it. I actually came in with Wolf Strike, when MechWarrior was about dead. I also plan to go to GenCon this year, and play some there.

[Ezeekiel]

I got into Mechwarrior DA when it first started out, and then took a break when the new expansions came out. Just picked it back up recently *ebay is my friend* and started building up a nice Steel Wolves/Wolf Hunters/Clan Wolf army. Was wondering if anyone is in the SoCal area that still plays.

[KingCobra]

i have some sets left have you ever thought of starting a live game room environment with game rooms and cams and chat to still see each other and play live games? i know its hard to all get together in the real word like chess tournaments etc for some but just trying to help revive tabletop to a new level with some suggestions.

Edited by KingCobra, 27 January 2012 - 02:38 PM.

[WiIIiam]

I stubled accross the MW:DA one day just by coincidence. I'd been playing MW2 I was 10 or so and saw these guys playing at the local comic book store and was like hey I know what those are!! After that...there went a large chunk of my movie theater job money. Still have tons of these things, atleast 100 pieces from every faction and over 1000 pieces of Inner Sphere.

We had one of those powergamer guys at our shop but when I started to get better I would win tourneys and then I'd start getting the LE's from the tourney. The powergamer was no big deal then, I just had to play whatever faction I had the strongest army for, which in the end wound up being ROTS, Firepower xpansion was awesome for me as ROTS. Oh the good ole days.

[Perfecto Oviedo]

Bought one of the DA novels and a figure of what I think was an IndustrialMech. Don't remember what it was called. I think the book was "Flight of the Falcon," or one of those involving Melvina Hazen. Couldn't get into the story, which means I never really got into the game.

I find the story behind DA/AoD to have potential, but first impressions weren't good, so I haven't really touched it. I will say this though, Johanna was right about Jade Falcon changing, and I guess clan society as a whole. Going from reading "I Am Jade Falcon" to reading "Flight of the Falcon" showed two very different JF Clans...and I was just as annoyed by the change as Johanna was.

[Christopher Pryde]

I still have all my pieces, focused mostly on CJF and CNC/SC but have complete sets of all but Wolf Strike. I ran touraments and did playtesting. Had so much with that game. I wished it had been given a proper ending, not just left to linger and die. The last official event I ran was a massive all-day kill-n-keep. Good times and good friends.

[Alaric Wolf Kerensky]

Unfortunately, I never managed to convince anyone to play it... and the two times I dragged (hell almost bribed) my sister into it, they were brief. Damn my workaholic father, and everyone else being pacifist...

[The Smith]

I started buying them just because of my love of BT/MW. I managed to get a bunch of friends into it as well. We played for a year or two on a regular basis, then AOD came out and it wasn't really fun anymore. I still have a tone of Nova Cats and Spirit Cats stuff gave the rest away to friends as we divided up by faction.

[Tadakuma]

Brinxter, 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 thought the first expansion was ok, but as soon as artillery became part of the game I stopped playing. I also hated the force construction rules (or lack there of) and got annoyed by seeing min maxed mixed force armies when it was being played.

Part of the problem was that I kept on thinking, this is a nice substitute for BattleTech.

[Jonboy]

I was really into Mechwarrior: Dark Age for a few years. I played in Nationals at Origins 2004 - 2007.

I've played both Classic Battletech and MWDA. MWDA is different. It is a quick play game. No record sheets, no charts, and a typical game can be played in about an hour. I understand CBTers don't like it, but it really has to be thought of as a different game. There was always a CBTer hanging out at one of the stores I played at. I understand that he preferred CBT, but he was always just hanging out in the venue, sometimes playing Everquest on one of the computers. We were playing.

Wizkids was really good at creating rules. The original game rules were really good. The Age of Destruction rules were also really good. The only rules I think really had a problem were the artillery rules. Wizkids' problem was set design. 80+% of the pieces were useless in competitive play. This is a very strange problem to have in a game that can be balanced simply by changing unit point costs. This problem plagued some of Wizkids' other games too. The big example of that is Pirates of the Spanish Main. The core game rules were brilliant. The set design was so terrible as to completely negate the game rules. The combos were ridiculous. I always liked playing Pirates sealed because it pushed the game back towards the brilliant core game rules.

Mechwarrior died in my area a few years before the game's official demise. I blame the demise on set design, as it made it hard to recruit new players when they would get stomped by veterans playing the small number of competitive pieces. "You mean if I just buy a booster, the pieces in it will be awful?" "Yes, almost certainly." Wizkids tried to fix it with retirement, but I don't think they ever realized the set design problem they really had.

The other problem the game had was factions. Too Many! The Battletech Universe contains a huge number of factions. MWDA started with 6 (plus the LE Republic of the Sphere faction). Wizkids gradually added more factions, and never stopped. I don't think anyone was really happy with the faction situation. It ended up being ridiculous.

[HJ Maverick]

I was wondering if anyone from Melbourne Aust still plays this, As I would like to dust off my collection and get them into battle again

[Karyudo ds]

I loved that game. Much as I liked Battletech MWDA's rules and tournament system made it pretty easy to actually find games to play. There was one guy I really hated to play though, he always got pissy if he wasn't winning and overjoyed if you were losing. He wanted to roll my dice once because my super range Catapult (if you'd call it that) nailed his Madcat. Overall I did like that game but the power gamer comment mentioned earlier was very true for me, I only ever saw people use ONE of the artillery units for its super accuracy and only ONE of the VTOLs for its long range untouchableness...I had none of that, just the Highlander Zeus, that thing could take lots of punishment though, never worried about first strikes.

I actually liked the pilot/gear concept that came with AoD. Though I will agree, some pieces felt useless (mechs that insta shutdown etc) and the story was mediocre and unfinished to top it off. Would not mind playing some Battletech though I don't know anyone around that plays it...and 40k just feels faster

[Neo-Buzzard]

I still have all my pieces and a friend of mine, who is also very excited about MWO, wants to learn to play. So I figure I'll teach him, me using my Steel Wolves (my favorite faction in DA) and him using my Dragon's Fury. another friend of mine still has his peices and we play occasionally, but we mostly play warhammer 40k now.