The United Mars Foreign Legion

Show off your armies and weaponry and stuff.

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Joshua A.C. Newman
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The United Mars Foreign Legion

Post by Joshua A.C. Newman » Fri Dec 30, 2011 2:54 pm

FIRTS POTS

Here are my United Mars Foreign Legionnaires. Led by Captain Estar and Lieutennant Cuvie, they're a slow, crushing force on any planet claimed by the Free Colonies. They're an extension of the foreign policy of the United Nations of Earth, of course, but they don't care about that. They care about finding Cuvie's identity in the rubble of the torn cities they fight across.

Captain Estar:
Image

Together with PFC Kevlan (armed for assault) and "Doc" Raeger (armed for artillery support):
Image

Lt. Cuvie is forward on the table at this point.

(These are for Mobile Frame Zero, not Brikwars. Is that kosher?)
Last edited by Joshua A.C. Newman on Fri Jan 27, 2012 12:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The United Mars Foreign Legion

Post by Zahru II » Fri Dec 30, 2011 3:43 pm

I dunno what's kosher, but these are awesome.
Image
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Re: The United Mars Foreign Legion

Post by Robot Monkey » Fri Dec 30, 2011 4:04 pm

I like the 'bots! Any chance you can post a pic of their frames?
Image

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Re: The United Mars Foreign Legion

Post by RagnarokRose » Fri Dec 30, 2011 4:09 pm

Joshua A.C. Newman wrote:(These are for Mobile Frame Zero, not Brikwars. Is that kosher?)
This is so much kosher that you have no idea. Wow. Excellent pictures, I seriously want to see more.

...any chance you'll fill us in on MFZ's particulars? :D
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Joshua A.C. Newman
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Re: The United Mars Foreign Legion

Post by Joshua A.C. Newman » Fri Dec 30, 2011 4:18 pm

Thanks, my dudes! You'll find breakdowns of them over at No B.S. Just ABS.

You can see a staggering array of truly amazing robots over at the Mobile Frame Zero Flickr group. I'm the publisher of the game, which ironically means I don't get to make as many robots as I want. Instead, I write stuff and negotiate with editors. Which is fun, but not as much fun as sitting in a pile of Lego and making robots.

I've got a little project I want to do, though, and I'll be sure to post here when I've got it together.
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Re: The United Mars Foreign Legion

Post by Joshua A.C. Newman » Fri Dec 30, 2011 4:37 pm

Oh, about MFZ! I didn't see your question before.

It's a game of small squad action. It's designed to play in about 2 hours, relies on the Legoness of your robots because every hit knocks off useful parts. It's very tense — there's time pressure built into the turn structure — and it's very much a game of objectives and meaningful tactical decision.

If anyone is in the New England/New York area, I'd love to get together and play! It's so much more fun to explain that way.

We've been playing and publishing the game for about 10 years under the name "Mechaton", but we recently got a Cease & Decist letter from a cranky publisher with a defunct game under a similar name, so we took it a sign that it was time to build the game into something new and better. So we are! I'll be running a Kickstarter project in March, if all goes well, to publish the thing in a respectable way.

I'm playing the game in public a lot these days. You can see a couple such games from last month in the Flickr group, there's a game with prizes and everything happening at Conpulsion in the UK, and I'll be running it in a few weeks at Dreamation in Morristown, NJ. I'll also be playing at PAX East in April, Connecticon in July, and Gen Con in August. I say this because I'm kinda hoping I'll get a chance to play with some of the folks here at some point.

I'd also like to hit up some Lego cons and would love to meet some Brikwars folks there. Any recommendations? It's a community I'm not really a part of yet (though I was at the one in Connecticut last year) and I don't really want to go without a local guide.
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Re: The United Mars Foreign Legion

Post by RagnarokRose » Fri Dec 30, 2011 4:59 pm

-um. Mechaton's ruleset was the reason I found Brikwars, about two or three years ago. I'd just like to thank you for that.
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Re: The United Mars Foreign Legion

Post by Joshua A.C. Newman » Fri Dec 30, 2011 6:48 pm

Wow, dude. You're as welcome as can be.

So, I gotta tell you: I've seen some hilariously brazen hazing in this forum and I'm a little disappointed now. This has been complimentary and even respectful.

What, my dudes, the fuck? Step that shit up!

...
So, here's a funny story.

About 10 years ago, I was working on a game of giant Lego robots called Roroga. It had some neat specifications, but not very neat rules. They were clunky and pondrous.

About that time, I ran into my college friend Vincent. He had this sleek little game called Mechaton that was pretty much a fun way to tactically play with Lego. We got to talking, and eventually we put my ideas about objectives together with his sleek on-the-ground tactical rules, and the 2006 edition of Mechaton was born out of that.

But during that initial part, where we didn't know we were going to synthesize our games, we were looking at the existing ones on the Internet. BrikWars came up a lot. We looked at gigabytes of photos of people's armies and the enormous cities that you guys play in and marveled. It gave us a lot of inspiration and I'm happy and proud to see that it's working both ways.

Eventually, Vincent and I started talking about where to take the game. Between the C&D and the weight of the rules we wanted to change, and the need for full instructions (and kits to go with them), he got frustrated. He's the publisher, after all. All I do is make Lego robots (you can see some of mine in the book, actually, and there are more over here and elsewhere on my blog) and play the game from time to time, making offhand suggestions that I didn't have to answer for. He had to do the stuff like printing, writing, and answering unreasonable requests from players. So I offered to do that (I publish a bunch of other games anyway) and he laughed at me, which I took as a challenge.

So I'm really happy to be here. I love all the stuff you guys create and I love the joy with which you do it. It feels like home.
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Re: The United Mars Foreign Legion

Post by Ex_Bajir » Fri Dec 30, 2011 8:09 pm

Joshua A.C. Newman wrote:Wow, dude. You're as welcome as can be.

So, I gotta tell you: I've seen some hilariously brazen hazing in this forum and I'm a little disappointed now. This has been complimentary and even respectful.

What, my dudes, the fuck? Step that shit up!
You prolly haven't been hazed becasue of your awesome hardsuit building skills.

Also this has inspired me to try to build a harsuit or two for my as-of-yet unposted fórces.
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Re: The United Mars Foreign Legion

Post by stubby » Fri Dec 30, 2011 9:09 pm

Joshua A.C. Newman wrote:About 10 years ago, I was working on a game of giant Lego robots called Roroga. It had some neat specifications, but not very neat rules. They were clunky and pondrous.

About that time, I ran into my college friend Vincent. He had this sleek little game called Mechaton that was pretty much a fun way to tactically play with Lego. We got to talking, and eventually we put my ideas about objectives together with his sleek on-the-ground tactical rules, and the 2006 edition of Mechaton was born out of that.
I'll go on record to say that the sleek dice mechanics in Mechaton were a huge inspiration to me, especially as I was trying to streamline BrikWars from the 2001 rules down to what's still going into the 2010 set.
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Re: The United Mars Foreign Legion

Post by BFenix » Fri Dec 30, 2011 9:32 pm

Played Mechaton before got into Brikwars.

Both games would fit Brikwars like a glove, believe me. Nice armor frames btw.
Image

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Re: The United Mars Foreign Legion

Post by Joshua A.C. Newman » Fri Dec 30, 2011 10:41 pm

Ex_Bajir wrote:
Joshua A.C. Newman wrote:Wow, dude. You're as welcome as can be.

So, I gotta tell you: I've seen some hilariously brazen hazing in this forum and I'm a little disappointed now. This has been complimentary and even respectful.

What, my dudes, the fuck? Step that shit up!
You prolly haven't been hazed becasue of your awesome hardsuit building skills.

Also this has inspired me to try to build a harsuit or two for my as-of-yet unposted fórces.
Well, I ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD
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Re: The United Mars Foreign Legion

Post by Ex_Bajir » Sat Dec 31, 2011 12:12 am

Joshua A.C. Newman wrote:
Ex_Bajir wrote:
Joshua A.C. Newman wrote:Wow, dude. You're as welcome as can be.

So, I gotta tell you: I've seen some hilariously brazen hazing in this forum and I'm a little disappointed now. This has been complimentary and even respectful.

What, my dudes, the fuck? Step that shit up!
You prolly haven't been hazed becasue of your awesome hardsuit building skills.

Also this has inspired me to try to build a harsuit or two for my as-of-yet unposted fórces.
Well, I ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w94GQyLqfIM
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Re: The United Mars Foreign Legion

Post by Joshua A.C. Newman » Sat Dec 31, 2011 12:17 am

IT'S SO BEAUTIFUL
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Re: The United Mars Foreign Legion

Post by heavyfishcannon » Sat Dec 31, 2011 12:26 pm

Really nice hardsuits. Although, since their from mars, I can't shake the metal image of them running around going Ack-ack-ack like in the mars attacks movie. Also, why do you want to be hazed?
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