Mecha Battle Royale

[Carda]

Having been a fan of the Exo-Force sets since the first time I picked one up, I decided to put together some rules for GIANT ROBOT MECHA FIGHTS GO! I thought I'd throw out a few ideas for rule variants and get some input on them. ^_^

Physical projectile weapons may be fired in place of a dice roll. Hits and misses are determined by whether the projectile strikes the target.

A pilot on foot has standard minifig stats. If a pilot is within 3 inches of a battle machine, he may roll 1d6 in an attempt to hijack the machine. On a roll of 3 or better, he succeeds, and the current pilot is thrown roughly out of the cockpit to the ground below. The new pilot spends the remainder of the round familiarizing himself with the controls.

A battle machine may roll 1d10 to attempt to step on an on-foot pilot. A roll of 7 or better succeeds, and the victim becomes a greasy smear on the pavement.

And my favorite idea of the bunch:

Because it wouldn't truly be a giant robot fight without massive swarms of missiles erupting from all over a robot's chassis, I now present the rules for performing an Itano Circus.

Performing an Itano Circus costs the battle machine's entire complement of missiles (and counts as a full-turn action), provided the number remaining is greater than 1. The player removes the remainder of the missiles from his battle machine and rolls that many d10s. The result is how many guided rockets you now have screaming around the arena in search of a target.

You may divide these rockets amongst as many targets as you wish, and each defender rolls that many d6s. Rolls of 3 or lower fail, and the rocket hits for 1 damage.

Note: While you can, as stated, divide your damage amongst as many targets as possible, it's entirely possible -- and quite cinematic -- to aim every single rocket at a single target.

It's also worth noting that once you have declared targets, there's no going back. If any one target explodes before expending all the rockets headed its way, those rockets are lost for good.

Any thoughts or suggestions on how I can improve or expand on these ideas?

[PlasmaWrath]

I'd suggest that at least the Hijacking rule be an opposing dice roll instead of just a roll on the attackers side, or maybe opposing skill rolls, seeing as that would make it harder for a standard fig to hijack the Mecha belonging to the opposing teams hero.

[Carda]

My initial thought on hijacking was that it would be totally absurd (and therefore hilarious) to watch two minifigs yoink each other out of the pilot seat of a mech over and over again, but you're right: that would definitely delay the death and destruction. Here's an edit (also tweaked for Brik-ification):

A pilot on foot has standard minifig stats. If a pilot is within 3 inches of a battle machine, he may make a skill check in an attempt to hijak the machine. The intended hijakee makes an opposing skill check; the winner takes command of the robot while the loser is thrown roughly to the ground. Should either party roll a 1, the robot automatically steps on him after he hits the ground (see the Pankake Rule below).

If, on the other hand, there is a tie, then the minifigs struggle over the controls. Both parties may treat the robot as a friendly unit for the purpose of movement and attack, though this may result in significant casualties on both sides (and since when is that a bad thing?). At any point during this exchange either player may attempt to evict the other player's pilot, in which case another opposed skill check is made. If the player who asked for the check fails, but neither player rolls a 1, they continue to fight for control, thereby causing more mayhem than either would likely be capable of by himself.

I do believe I'm getting back into the spirit of BrikWars again.

[Olothontor]

Wonderful ideas, all! May I use these on my Brikwars group to test them out?

[DarkWolf]

You are so damn lucky to have a Brikwars group to play with.

[Carda]

Go right ahead! I'm curious to see how it turns out.

I had originally created stats and abilities for all the different robots and pilots I had in my collection, but as my collection grew, it eventually became way too unwieldy, so I put the idea on a back burner until I could figure out how to account for different weapons on the mechs and such.

Now that I'm looking into this again, I think it might be more effective to group everything into melee, ranged, and shield categories. Then I can figure basic stats for each size category of mech, since the smaller ones are likely more agile but less armored.

Edit: Ooh, I almost forgot! I'd also created a rule where a robot with one hand free (no weapon equipped to it) could grab a minifig and use him to soak up damage from one attack, killing the minifig in the process.

[IVhorseman]

yeah, i'd say hijacking would be fine with just opposing skill rolls. 3" could also be tweaked- GOT IT. Okay, it's possible at 3", but for every inch closer than that, the attacker gets +1 to his hijack roll (max +3)

[Carda]

That would definitely help even the odds against potential Hero pilots. I approve of this improvement! ^_^

[DarkWolf]

This sounds alot like what Mech Assault: Lone Wolf had, the ability to hijack mechs. I really wish they had put that into other games, or at least designed the interior of the mech/tank/jeep/whatever so that you could pry open the hatch of a tank, throw in a grenade, and let the crew die, then jump in yourself. But, alas, we have to settle for mining the roads with C4 or RDX (depending on which game you play) wait for them to cross it, then blow them up Or, take another tank, and blow theirs up! (To prove what a nerd I am, in Battlefield 2142, I have named my Baur assault rifle 'Sasha' my M8-Tiger Tank 'Throne of Terra' and my L-5 Reising Battle Walker 'Ragnarock')

[Carda]

I guess realistically you could expand the Hijacking rule to include other vehicles as well, since the language is vague enough.

I'm still rather proud of the Itano Circus rule, personally; it's a very good way to have massive dice rolls and obscene amounts of damage all at once. It could probably be adjusted to apply to anything capable of launching tons of missiles at once. If I did that, I'd probably need to add in stipulations regarding size differences; say, you can't target anything that's 3 or more size categories smaller than you, or something like that.

[Moronstudios]

Very nice ideas, to bad one of use here at moronstudios (not me) doesn't like big battles. (most likely because of the train bomb incident)

[DarkWolf]

I guess realistically you could expand the Hijacking rule to include other vehicles as well, since the language is vague enough.

I'm still rather proud of the Itano Circus rule, personally; it's a very good way to have massive dice rolls and obscene amounts of damage all at once. It could probably be adjusted to apply to anything capable of launching tons of missiles at once. If I did that, I'd probably need to add in stipulations regarding size differences; say, you can't target anything that's 3 or more size categories smaller than you, or something like that.

Yes, I can definatly see this being applied to fights armed with insane amounts of missiles. I can just seem them spinning in a circle, firing all their missiles at, say, a frigate (sea-borne or space-borne, I care not) Ka-boom!

[Carda]

The obvious downside to USING this ability, of course, is that you use up every last one of your missiles, making you a sitting duck if you haven't got any other armaments equipped to your battle machine. But it's SO WORTH IT. The one time I beta tested these rules, I had someone use this on me and it took my robot out of commission. I made the Bailout roll but was subsequently grabbed and used as a minifig shield against a third player's attack, killing my pilot instantly.

EDIT: I should also note that in my original concept document, the basic scenario set up by these rules is that each player controls one pilot, and each pilot starts with one battle machine. Which is an ideal setup for quick games involving lots of players. Fewer players could possibly control 2 or 3 pilots apiece.

[Moronstudios]

What do your mechs look like by the way, Carda.

[Carda]

I haven't done much of anything in the line of customization yet, so they all look like the ones on the Exo-Force boxes. I'll probably look into designing some unique mash-up models in the near future. Might even give me more and better ideas for my webcomic...