Rusty Ballinger
United States
Arcata
California
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These are notes on playing Mechwarrior: Dark Age with activation & reserve fire rules taken from Shock Force. The general idea: all units get to move and attack every turn, and units which don't attack can fire during enemy movement. There are no order tokens, and no "pushing"; instead there are Activation markers (indicating that a unit has already "gone" this turn) and Reserve markers (indicating that a unit can fire during an enemy unit's move).
Turn sequence
 In initiative order (high roll goes first or whatever), the first player places a target token for an artillery attack. ("Artillery attack," not a "ranged combat attack" or "indirect-fire attack.") Then the next player places a target token for an artillery attack, and so on, until all players have placed target tokens for all artillery attacks. An Activation marker is placed on each artillery model which fires.
 In initiative order, the first player activates one unit; then the next player activates one unit; and so on, until all players have activated all units.
 Resolve indirect fire for all indirect fire tokens which were marked at the start of the turn.
Activation
A model may always activate by itself. Base-to-base groups of 3-5 (or whatever the normal rule is) may also activate as a group. To activate a model or group, announce that you are doing so, and remove any Reserve markers it might have.
When activating a group, each model in turn must perform all its actions before moving to the next model. Models activating as a group must also end the turn in base-to-base contact if possible. (One case where this might not be possible is if a model is damaged or eliminated during its move.)
A model may move its full movement allowance. It may also make one attack; this can be done before, during, or after its move.
If a model doesn't attack, place a Reserve marker on it. This indicates that it can attack during an enemy's move; see below.
Mechs: in addition to moving & attacking normally, mechs may do each of the following once per turn, for one click of heat each.
 "Run" (double movement)
Attack with a different weapon, if available
Cooling: when activated, a mech which neither moves nor attacks may vent. (If you vent, you don't get a reserve marker.) Rotating in place counts as movement.
After being activated, the unit is marked with an Activation marker to indicate that it may not be activated again until the next turn.
Reserve Fire
Reserve fire may be taken any time a model has a Reserve marker. Reserve fire interrupts any action except another attack. (In the case where two models have the same maximum range, and the first model moves into range of the other, the second model can take its reserve fire before the first can declare its attack.)
Reserve fire is handled like any other attack. After a model makes reserve fire, remove its Reserve marker.
Blather (not needed for play)
The point cost of helicopters are now probably too low, since all units have the ability to move & fire. But on the other hand, helicopters' generally very high movement rates, and ability to ignore terrain for LOS, are still advantages which other units don't have.
I'm not sure how these rules affect the point cost of artillery. Certainly being able to drop shells every turn is great for being able to deny someone an area, but these rules prevent artillery from being able to target a unit which pushed last turn, or which will have to push this turn to avoid being hit. (But this approach seems more realistic than the normal rules, which let artillery target vehicles on the move. With these rules, the target will have one chance to move before the shells hit.)
I tried to keep some silly rules to artificially inflate the value of mechs, but they may not be severe enough. (But they might--you can now run, and fire both of your weapons, for a total of only two heat.)
(Shock Force doesn't have indirect fire, so that stuff is new. Shock Force armies are also organized into specific units, unlike the Mechwarrior stuff; the business about activating groups is an attempt to preserve the Mechwarrior-ness without adding Shock Force stuff like command radius and leaders. Shock Force also has bonuses for not moving, but Mechwarrior doesn't, so we don't need a third kind of marker for that.)
I wrote these notes in 2005 because several of my friends had big Mechwarrior collections they wanted to get some use out of, but the game itself was lousy; meanwhile, we were having a lot of fun playing Shock Force with Legos. I've gone looking for these notes a couple times recently, so here they are.
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Lance McMillan
United States
Lakebay
Washington
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Okay, I'm confused...
Step 1 is to alternate placing "Artillery" tokens (ranged combat and indirect fire are specifically excluded)
Step 2 is to alternate activating units
Step 3 is to resolve "Indirect Fire" tokens
When did the "Indirect Fire" tokens get placed?
When do you resolve the "Artillery" tokens?
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Rusty Ballinger
United States
Arcata
California
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Lancer4321 wrote: Okay, I'm confused...
Step 1 is to alternate placing "Artillery" tokens (ranged combat and indirect fire are specifically excluded)
Step 2 is to alternate activating units
Step 3 is to resolve "Indirect Fire" tokens
When did the "Indirect Fire" tokens get placed?
When do you resolve the "Artillery" tokens?
These:
kuhrusty wrote: In initiative order (high roll goes first or whatever), the first player places a target token for an artillery attack
are the same as these:
kuhrusty wrote: Resolve indirect fire for all indirect fire tokens which were marked at the start of the turn.
(I guess Mechwarrior distinguished between artillery and other indirect fire attacks, and one or both may have used some indirect fire markers or scatter tokens? I don't remember.)
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Michael Roden
United States
Danube
Minnesota
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It sounds playable, although I'd make one small adjustment:
"If a model doesn't attack, place a Reserve marker on it. This indicates that it can attack during an enemy's move; see below."
I'd change "doesn't attack," to "doesn't attack or move,".
Michael
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Lance McMillan
United States
Lakebay
Washington
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In MW artillery tokens (aka "pogs") are placed as an action during your turn, but aren't resolved until the start of the next turn (before you take any actions). This gives your opponent a chance to move away from the impending barrage's impact area.
Direct and indirect fire are resolved the same way, as a "ranged combat" action during your turn. Units targeted by indirect attacks get a +3 bonus to their defense values and only suffer a maximum of 2 damage, regardless of the firing unit's damage value. There are no "tokens" involved in indirect fire attacks.
I'm also unclear on which version of the MW rules you're referring to: Dark Age (DA) or Age of Destruction (AoD). This is important because the primary difference between the two (that would be effected by your proposal) is the new "Assault" order in AoD. Assault orders allow 'Mechs (only, vehicles & infantry can't conduct Assaults) to move up to half their speed value (no running) and then conduct a ranged combat attack; units targeted by Assault attacks receive a +1 bonus to their defense values. So I'm not sure how an Assault order would be integrated into your proposed variant since you're already allowing units to both move and shoot. Could you clarify?
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Rusty Ballinger
United States
Arcata
California
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GornTC wrote: "If a model doesn't attack, place a Reserve marker on it. This indicates that it can attack during an enemy's move; see below."
I'd change "doesn't attack," to "doesn't attack or move,".
Well, in the game we were trying to emulate, it was "doesn't attack." From the start of one unit's activation until the start of its next activation the next turn, it would get to move and shoot once, and it didn't matter whether that shot was taken during its own activation or during another unit's.
Lancer4321 wrote: In MW artillery tokens (aka "pogs") are placed as an action during your turn, but aren't resolved until the start of the next turn (before you take any actions). This gives your opponent a chance to move away from the impending barrage's impact area.
(Unless they had "pushed" the turn before, I guess.)
Lancer4321 wrote: I'm also unclear on which version of the MW rules you're referring to: Dark Age (DA) or Age of Destruction (AoD).
If only one of them was around in 2005, then that's the one we were using.
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Lance McMillan
United States
Lakebay
Washington
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MW:DA came out in 2002; MW:AoD was released in 2005. Whether pilot and gear cards came with your boosters is the biggest indicator of which set you have (cards weren't introduced until MW:AoD). If you bought your figures off the secondary market rather than in booster packs, check the heat dials on your 'mechs -- MW:AoD 'mechs will have two small slots on the side of the heat dial to accept "paddles" showing which cards are associated with that particular figure when in play.
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Rusty Ballinger
United States
Arcata
California
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I'm guessing it was DA, then, because I don't remember any pilot & gear cards. (I never bought any of the stuff myself, though.)
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Lance McMillan
United States
Lakebay
Washington
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Ah, now your proposed variant make a bit more sense. It's been a loooong time since I played using the old MW
 A rules.
The rules revisions in MW:AoD took care of some of the biggest objections players had with the original version of the game, most notably the inability of units to both move and shoot in the same turn. The introduction of the "Assault Order" restored 'mechs to a position of primacy in the game -- vehicles and infantry still had their uses, but point-for-point a 'mech was now far more powerful.
Another thing that WK introduced when they debuted their special 'Solaris VII' rules was the idea of damage only taking effect after both sides had an opportunity to fire. It was an interesting idea, but the rules felt like it should have had more development before they implemented it. Some players were hoping that they'd transport a modified verison of the concept over to the standard MW game (i.e. not limit it strictly to Solaris) but WK folded the product line before anything was done with it.
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Mike Holyoak
United States
Idaho Falls
Idaho
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Thanks for the notes!!
Hope to put them to use this weekend. 
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