9 replies to this topic

[Grey Black]

So I've been playing the TT with a gaming group for the past couple months and everyone's starting to really enjoy it. So I posed the question as to who wanted to play a Risk style TT using the Battletech rules. Basically, we'd all control a house, all would have to take over planets/areas/marches/w/e and have the game run like that. Problem is that I can't even begin to wrap my head around how to make it work 100%. Anyone feel like helping a guy out? What sorts of rules would I need to implement? Is it even worth it?

[Pale Horseman]

If you can get your hands on Combat Operations, it may help.
http://www.sarna.net..._Strategic_Game

(I have not read it though, so take what I said with a pinch of salt.)

[Sychodemus]

A long time ago there was a boardgame that basically did that: The Succession Wars. Later, The Inner Sphere in Flames rules set found in Combat Operations attempted to reintroduce the concept but due to broken rules it did go so well. Interstellar Operations, a forthcoming release, will have new and improved rules.

But for a Risk-style game, divide the houses into their marches and key worlds (representing continents and countries respectively.) We used this concept a long time ago and worked fairly well (though the specific maps have long been lost.)

Cards: BattleMech (artillery), Conventional (infantry), Aerospace (cavalry)
Single planets: Number of planets divided by three determine the number of armies gained each turn.
March Capitals (or important worlds): can be counted as double when calculating armies per turn.
House: +5 armies (modify for the different eras of power)
Capital worlds (plus Terra): Each capital you hold (besides your own) is worth one additional card at the end of your turn (or every turn depending on your tastes.) Since Capital worlds are also March capitals this makes them very important.

[OberSchutze]

Or just have battles like normal table top and say they take place a on a specific planet and then move house tokens accordingly.

[Seriann]

There is a Table top game emulater that you can find online. I can't remmeber what it is called but they have a medule for the succession wars game. The only problem I had with it is that it is set up so each computer is a player, and nothing is automated so you need to do all the work like crediting yourself c-bills and spending them yourself.

The game its self plays more like Axis and Allies than Risk. I couldn't talk anyone I know into a game, but just messing around with it myself made me want to play.

[Khaymaer]

You could always combine TT battletech battles with a Battletech risk style game called The Succession Wars. It is long out of print, but was fun to play for people who liked games like Axis & Allies and Risk, etc. I still have my box somewhere with all the bits, going to have to drag it out and find some friends to play it.

~K

Edited by Khaymaer, 14 July 2012 - 07:26 AM.

[JHare]

The simplest way is to actually play Risk. Except find some sort of correlation between tonnage/BV and the number of armies. Add some rules for defender/attacker roles like artillery access, starting positions, etc.Maybe add that mech selection is only popular house designs or common designs to everyone.

Example (may be broken) - 1 army equals 20 tons worth of equipment. Defender gets artillery access and choice of starting location.
Black (DC) attacks Western Europe with 7 armies (140 tons), Red (FS) defends with 5 armies (100 tons, has off-map artillery).

Black chooses 4 Panthers, Red chooses a pair of centurions. Now go do battle. Winner gets remaining tonnage converted back into armies. If someone retreats, both sides get their remaining tonnage back in form of armies.

This is off the cuff. I always wanted to try this but never had someone living nearby to try this with.

[Grey Black]

Well, we wanted to combine TT with the risk style, using Risk only for the larger overworld map. Instead of having matches done by seeing whoever can roll the most 6s, battles take place in the Battletech field, where you have to play lance (or whatever) on lance (or whatever). Larger forces could call in artillery/air strikes, smaller forces might have to dig in and use different tactics etc.

[Beazle]

We tried this when i was younger.

We adapted rules from a game called Supremacy.

We made our own "decks" for researching LVL 2 tech items, and tried to come up wit a system for determining maintenance costs on a scale of that size.

It all ended up being too complicated to be fun.

In the end, we came to the conclusion that any game complicated enough to have any degree of realism was too much like work, while anything simpler didn't really feel like Battletech.

We then turned out efforts to coming up with a decent set of rules for a planet-sized theatre of war, and did a fair job. Since then i've never had any real desire to try to manage anything bigger than a planetary conquest.

If i want to play a game like Risk, i just play Risk.

[Morashtak]

Not to necro-post but was going through some old BT print outs (yes, some of them were printed on a dot matrix printer) and stumbled across a couple of articles copied out of two old Dragon magazines.

Dragon #161 and #162, look for the rules in the "Through the Looking Glass" section.

If anyone is from the Antioch, IL area and/or knows if the authors are still with us it might be good to make sure they know of this game. Would be nice to see their inputs in the Community Warfare posts.