Hello, I'm Fernando, known by my very amateur repaints and pretentious talks in this forum. I'm also a half-time semi-professional (for now) game designer and serial game modder. For the last 15 years I made free mods like
Battlefield Vietnam Arsenal and
Making History Deadlock (to name a few) and I'm developing my own indie video games (I will talk about my to-be-released long-time-in-development MMO game somewhere else).
Well, yesterday I had an epiphany, and I spent every free minute of the last 24 hours (yes, I didn't sleep) to plan this game, write the rules (almost done) and make the art. It's heavily inspired by the TT Battletech (with some BT CCG flavor and MWO feel) but it's played with cards, a chess board and mechs' miniatures.
I will be posting the detailed rules and more art as soon I can squeeze some time. I hope until tomorrow you can start playing my game.
...I give you the
MWO Card/Board Game!
Here is a sneak peek of the mechs' cards:
Update1 - Mechs' stats explained:
Update2: Rules (partial)
Starting the game
You will need a chess board, counters (or d6s), one deck of mechs’ cards for each player, 1 miniature for each mech in game (if you don’t have proper mechs’ minis, there will be paper mech minis to print in the Appendix) and one deck of faction cards.
(…)
Buying mechs
(…)
Turn Phases
- Initialize Phase:
- The player untaps all of his Tapped mechs.
- If he has a mech Shutdown, the mech becomes Tapped.
Mechs’ Abilities- Movement Phase:
- A player can move each of his untapped mechs up to the value of its Speed in squares.
- If a mech starts its Movement Phase inside an enemy Base square, it starts to Capture the enemy base.
- A mech can’t move in diagonal.
- Attack Phase:
- Each untapped player’s mech can deal damage to an opponent mech.
- The player will choose an opposing mech in range (Long, Medium or Short).
- A Long Range attack is dealt when the opposing mech is 3 straight squares of distance from the attacking mech.
- A Medium Range attack is dealt when the opposing mech is 2 straight squares from the attacking mech.
- A Short Range attack is dealt when the opposing mech is 1 straight square from the attacking mech.
- There must not be any other mech (even from the same team) or obstacle between the attacking mech and the target. If there is, the target is considered in Cover.
- A mech can’t attack other mech in diagonal.
- The attacked mech receives 1 Damage in its Armor for each point of attack in the range.
- If that mech’s damage points are equal or more than its Armor, it is Destroyed, thus removed from the game.
- A mech can’t attack more than once in a turn.
- Tap any mech that attacked.
- If a player can chooses not to attack with a mech. Even if a mech doesn’t attack in the turn it is tapped after at the end of this phase.
- Indirect Fire X
- Used in: player’s Attack Phase, when declaring an attack.
- Effect: a mech using Long or Medium Range attack can ignore Cover to deal X Damage in that range.
- Jump
- Used in: player’s Movement Phase, when declaring a movement.
- Effect: a mech using Jump can pass through any terrains or other mechs during its Movement Phase (but it still can’t finish its movement in an Obstacle terrain). A mech using Jump has its attacking Damage reduced by 1 (to the minimum of 0).
- Overheat X
- Used in: player’s Attack Phase, when dealing Damage.
- Effect: a mech using Overheat gain a bonus X in attack Damage for the range specified by the letter (L = long range; M = medium range; S = short range). After the attack, the overheating mech will Shutdown.
- ECM
- Used in: opponent player Attack Phase, just after receiving Damage.
- Effect: if a player has at least one mech in game with ECM, he can ignore 1 Damage received by one of his mechs during a turn. This ability is not cumulative if the player has more than one mech with ECM in game.
- Anti-Missile
- Used in: opponent player Attack Phase, just after receiving Damage.
- Effect: a mech with Anti-Missile can ignore once in a turn 1 Damage received from Indirect Fire.
- Commander (or Beagle, or TAG?)
- Used in: player’s Attack Phase, when dealing Damage.
- Effect: if a player has at least one mech in game with the Commander ability, he can choose one of his mechs to deal +1 Damage in a turn. This ability is not cumulative if the player has more than one Commander mech in game.
Update3:
ADVANCED RULES
Terrains
In addition to the Base squares, there can be special squares that affect mechs.
- High Ground
- A mech in High Ground can ignore Cover when attacking other mechs. Any mech can ignore cover when attacking a mech in High Ground.
- Obstacle
- No mech can pass (except when using Jump), occupy or attack through the Obstacle terrain. Mechs behind an Obstacle receive Cover against opponents.
- Difficult Terrain
- When a mech enters a Difficult Terrain, its Movement finishes.
- Water
- Mechs in a water terrain don’t Shutdown when using Overheat. Like in Difficult Terrain, when a mech enters this terrain, its Movement finishes.
Factions
At the start of the game, each player chooses a faction. When setting up his lances with only mechs of choice of that faction, a player has a discount of 1 in the total cost.
- Davion (Federated Suns)
- Color: gold (#FFD700).
- Mechs of choice: (…)
- Special ability (can use once per match): Luck of the Fox (choose one of your mechs that just received enough damage to be destroyed: that mech has Armor -1 damage points)
- Steiner (Lyran Commonwealth)
- Color: blue (#0000FF).
- Mechs of choice: (…)
- Special ability (can use once per match): Wealthy (the player starts with 10% more resources to buy mechs, rounded down)
- Marik (Free Worlds League)
- Color: purple (#800080).
- Mechs of choice: (…)
- Special ability (can use once per match): Never Ending War (during your Movement Phase choose one of your mechs: remove 2 damage counters of it)
- Liao (Capellan Confederation)
- Color: green (#008000).
- Mechs of choice: (…)
- Special ability (can use once per match): Subterfuge (during your Attack Phase choose an enemy mech: that mech receives 1 damage)
- Kurita (Draconis Combine)
- Color: red (#FF0000).
- Mechs of choice: (…)
- Special ability (can use once per match): Kamikaze (choose one of your mechs that was just destroyed: deal 2 damage to the attacker)
- Rasalhague (Free Rasalhague Republic)
- Color: aquamarine (#7FFFD4).
- Mechs of choice: (…)
- Special ability (can use once per match): Fiercely Independent (choose one opponent mech in one of your Base squares: that mech receives 3 damage)
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PS: This art was based in images of the MWO site. I claim no right for them or for the name MWO, Battletech and stuff.
PPS: if the use of the MWO art for this free game is forbidden, just let me know PGI. I will replace it by something else. I have nointentions to publish this game elsewhere - it will be available here for the members to print and play in their homes.