Classic Battletech: Moving you with my Song

Previously on Classic Battletech: The Itano Circus came to town, we talked missiles, cluster hits and shooting in general. Today we take on a request from one of my players; movement. Their brief was simple:

Make it simpler, get rid of hexes.

Can do boss. Not that I have any massive problem with hexes. They are a very Battletech component of the game, but not so much that I think replacing them would be removing a central pillar of the game. Plus taking it off the maps (as lovely as they are) does give me license to do something of a deeper cut into how the movement system works.

So, how does movement work in Battletech?

Every mech (and vehicle and drop ship etc etc) in Battletech is built around an engine and every engine has a rating. The more powerful the engine the heavier it is and the bigger and heavier the mech the bigger an engine it needs to move it. Small mechs throw out everything including the kitchen sink to get as light as possible so they can go like the proverbial off a shovel. Big mechs use huge engines to barely move at all as they lumber along, weighed down by armour and big guns.

Every mech when they want to move generates a number of Movement Points. Each movement point lets them move forward a hex. If they wish to turn each hex side they turn costs one movement point.

Hope you enjoyed the simple break down, from here on out it gets complicated. Not that it doesn’t make sense, but there’s a lot to remember. Going uphill or down hills costs extra MP, so does moving backwards, or into a forest, or down hill. If your mech decides to wade through a river you’ll pay for entering the water hex and also the step down into the river.

Again, it all makes a kind of sense, but everything has a different value and remembering them all is… Ugh.

Oh, you can’t walk backwards uphill. If you run on a road you might slip and fall. That’s before we even discuss running or, god forbid, Jumping. The issue here is there’s too many rules and exceptions and different numbers to keep track of, so let's cut through it and try and find some basic, simple rules to make life easier for everyone.*

The first is to make a simple conversion:

1MP = 1 Hex of movement = 1” on a game board.

This keeps everything in line as it also converts weapon ranges into inches.** The second step is to simplify the taxation for moving in unusual ways, by making everything cost the same: 2MP

Why 2MP? Well it’s arbitrary and largely comes from unit turning. See on a hex grid a complete 180 degree turn costs 3MP, in theory any system I can make should do the same, but that’s a big tax if you apply it to every turn,*** and that is before we even get to what defines a complete 180? 

2MP is enough for an Assault Mech to move into a forest, for example, which brings me to the other change: MP is taxed when entering a piece of terrain or climbing up a level. Moving down a level or moving into the open is not taxed, similarly staying in terrin and moving around doesn’t incur the movement tax. This is mostly to stop damaged mechs from becoming quagmired in forests when they no longer have the MP needed to move around them, but also to stop assault mechs from having to treat any kind of terrain as effectively impassible.

Part of my thinking behind this is that each mech’s movement can be treated as the strategic positioning component of their turn, with MP representing not just the raw horsepower of the engine they’re running, but also the thinking time required to use it. Entering a forest or climbing up an escarpment require more focus and time and as such cost more MP over the course of the turn.

So what else could this time be used for? Let’s talk about Support Actions.

During this movement each mech may use one Support Action. This is an addition to the rules to smooth out some of the kinks. For example Running (or using Flank speed) is a Support Action and because of this running, and gaining position, is a choice you make as opposed to doing something else like using a Beagle Active Probe, for example.****

The idea is to create tactical choices and from them drive more varied gameplay. As the current iteration of Battletech exists the only limitation on moving is Heat, maybe. If you’re a Light Mech you want to run every turn, if you’re an Assault Mech even your run isn’t going to help you dodge much fire, but the idea of being able to use that choice for something more interesting appeals to me.

Now, I’ve been putting this off, but to close out I want to talk about facing.

I feel like this will be one of the more controversial decisions, but with a shift away from hexes the issue of facing has become more important. Classic Battletech has four facings, effectively all weapons could fire forward (or whichever way your torso was twisted) and weapons on either side could fireroughly out to the side but not to the other. This left a wedge to the rear of the mech where incoming shots had a chance to hit the vulnerable rear torso armour, a tactical advantage, especially against heavier mechs.

Managing this on hexes is quite easy, there’s clear lines to help guide you, but on a tabletop is a different matter. I did consider facings, angle of attack, even templates to help decide what was and wasn’t an attack in the right arc, but in the end I came down with a 50-50 split. Literally.

The Mech’s front arc is anywhere covered by the front three hexes of its base, effectively the front half of the model. The mech may fire any of its weapons against enemies in its front arc. An attack will hit a Mech’s rear armour if the attacker is wholly within the rear arc of the mech. Wholly is important. If a mech’s base touches that imaginary half and half line then the defender has the right to allocate hits to the front armour.

It’s a little janky, but let me explain that there is some method to my madness. As you’ve seen almost all of the changes, tweaks and cuts I’ve made in the rules have been with the intention of making things faster, easier to read and more accessible. It’s my hope that with a simpler arc system means that players are always informed about where there arcs are, where they need to protect themselves and (with the simplified turning) can make the moves needed to protect themselves from the increased chance of back hits.

So there’s a basic overview of ground movement and my thinking around how it’s going to change. The once movement type for ground units not discussed is Jumping which I’m still thrashing out but is most likely going to have a placement mechanic.

Next on the big ol’ to do list is sexy, sexy initiative and after that we’re finally going to get to probably one of the biggest changes: Pilots.

See you then!

-JP

*So, fair warning, these rules are experimental and not fully playtested. If you find something you like then that’s great, but be under no illusion this is a first draft of something that might work.

**It does however throw up two problems, which are line of sight and where to measure from. Where to measure from when drawing lines of effect is easy in theory, we default to the base as this is as close a facsimile as we have to the original hex, except of course that not all bases and sculpts are the same. Line of sight has similar issues. In Classic Battletech hexes have their heights written on so you always know if your shot crosses terrain. Things are much less clear cut on a game table and there’s only so much you can write into the rules to foil overly litigious players who just want to spoil everyone’s fun.

***My two points of reference were the ridiculously fast Snow Fox and the incredibly slow Annihilator, which with 4MP a turn if it runs is… Yeah.

****This really is pending playtest. Asking a Light Mech to choose between running and performing their scouting ability is a hard choice, as for light Mechs speed is key to their survivability. There is an option with Mechwarrior Perks (another idea to be implemented) to bring in the option to do both as an ability, but it depends how essential that ability would be. If Light Mechs can’t survive without it, it’s likely that the ability is needed for everyone.