Playtest: 28mm Mech Attack Scenario for Little Wars

It's been our club tradition to run a multiplayer tabletop wargames scenario at Little Wars, an annual convention scheduled for April 26-28 in suburban Chicago. This year Karl had the great idea to run Mech Attack using 28mm figures. The game is normally designed for 10mm or 15mm mass combat figures. So at 28mm, we'll be using some truly enormous mechs alongside our vehicles and infantry. A true BattleTech fanatic, Karl has a nice collection of 28mm scale mechs that we'll be using in this game.

Here's the blurb Karl put together for the event listing:

In 2165 the defenders of St. Martin's Parish on Melk 3 successfully fought back expeditionary elements of the Unified Colonies. This pivotal battle reversed the momentum of the invasion and led to the eventual expulsion of the UC from the planet. Refight this small but historically significant skirmish which saw Mecha, Armor and Infantry engage in brutal combat in the confines of the village center. This game uses Mech Attack!, a fast-playing sci-fi combat system.

Last week was our first playtest. As you can see, we put together a really fantastic urban cityscape. Most of the terrain was crafted by Karl, Tim and Josh using small plastic crates to create simple, modular modern urban buildings. The streets are just regular asphalt shingles with yellow stripes painted down the middle.

The scenario is designed to accommodate 4 players, each commanding a medium-sized strike force of tanks, mechs and a couple squads of infantry. The objectives were a couple of multi-story buildings near the center of the village -- and these could only be seized by infantry. Because of that, Karl included a provision that allowed an annihilated infantry squad to respawn on its player's board edge at any point in the game, to give players a fighting chance at holding the objectives. Here's a look at one player's forces at the start of our game.

Those infantry dudes are from Pig Iron; the APC is from AT-43; the chicken walker is from Kryomek; the bulky tank beyond that is from Pig Iron; and the heavy mech barely glimpsed at the end of the line is actually a 28mm scale BattleTech Legionnaire. How about that for a mixed bag of sci-fi awesomeness?!

Mech Attack is a fast-playing game that abstracts a lot of minor details and uses a damage grid system very similar to Warmachine. The four players (organized into teams of 2) leaped forward to seize the objectives, prompting a running gun battle in the streets of St. Martin's Parish. Here are some photos of the carnage that erupted.

We found that the large vehicles and mechs created some traffic headaches as we attempted to maneuver through the narrow streets. I believe we're planning to spread out the city grid a little bit more to promote some mobility.

We included a small patch of scrub in the center of the city to encourage the infantry squads (which have pretty marginal combat stats in Mech Attack) to dig in and fight it out.

This huge tank (an Ironside model from Pig Iron Productions) leads the way down a narrow city street, followed by the lumbering Legionnaire mech.

A squad of defenders keep close to cover as they make their way down the street toward the fighting. In the midground, an APC prepares to unload a squad of mercenaries. In the background, heavy mechs strafe the asphalt with epic firepower.

Afterward, we discussed some tweaks to the scenario. Despite being a fairly simple system, Mech Attack is complex enough that giving each player more than 4 or 5 units to command is probably too much. So we'll probably be scaling back the composition and/or number of units that each player commands.

We're also considering altering the victory conditions to make sure that each side has a fair chance at winning.

What won't change, of course, are the awesome buildings and great 28mm sci-fi stuff we're putting together for this scenario. If you're in the Chicago area at the end of April, come on out and play with us at Little Wars!

-- Patrick, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member