Paintball

[ScrapIron]

I'm thinking of writing a scenario using the factions and settings from the Mechwarrior / Battletech universe.

I'm somewhat partial to the "dark age" setting but even using that chunk of time I've still got a huge # of possible factions to pit against each other.

I was considering writing it as a "Draconis Combine seeks to retake worlds from the Rasalhague Dominion." which would pit clan Ghost Bear against House Kurita, or perhaps put Dragon's Fury against the Ghost Bears.
or I could do something from one of the Dark Age novels like the Northwind Highlander's defense of Terra from Anastasia Kerensky's Steel Wolves.

Anyway, there's a ton of choices, so from a scenario stand point...

Which factions would you like to see go toe to toe in a scenario event?

[Marauder_Pilot]

Oh, do I have ideas for you!

Personally, I think 'Clans vs IS' is WAAAAAYYYYYYY overdone. I mean, it's been the focal point of every Battletech video game except Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries and Battletech: The Crecent Hawk's Inception (And Inception was only because it was set pre-Clans).

There are loads of good battles to pick from. I'd like to see some old-school stuff-Steiner vs Kurita, Davion vs Liao stuff. Or even go further back-a Fall of the Star League scenario-I think an especially cool one would be based around General Kerensky's departure. One team plays as Kerensky, they have to hold a Starport for X time while they get ready to GTFO of the Inner Sphere while the rebels attack them. Alternately, some of the Clan vs Clan stuff would be fun.

Something to consider might be having a Clan-based game where all the players play as Elementals. I could see some really entertaining anti-tank rules there-say, the only way to take out a tank is for 5 different players to run up and stick something to it (Or, in the interests of safety, hand something to a Ref acting as a walking guide). I think an Elemental-themed game would be the best way to go, since theming each player as a 'Mech is...well, kinda silly. Counts-asing tanks as 'Mechs is a bit better.

[ScrapIron]

My plans were to build at least 4, probably 6 walking tanks.
1 styled after an Atlas, 1 bushwacker, 1 summoner/thor, & (my favorite) 1 vulture/maddog
possibly doing a catapult and a madcat/timberwolf as 5 & 6

[thundertb]

Just an idea, as I wrote the story and cards when MXS did this in MI a few years back. You can simulate mechs with football pads and such. Repoman, Weltman and Conan did an awesome job of pulling off mechs. It makes it a little easier to move and such, and it does cut down on the costs.



I am assuming you would be writing this for Lucky 7, Red Dog should remember that game, in fact I think he reffed it, I know H20 and a few others of his group played it. I am not the expert on the Mechwarrior universe, but any help you might want of me, I will gladly help you out with. Pretty cool to see someone wanting to move back into the realm of fantasy vs WWII

[ScrapIron]

Thanks for the suggestion Tb
I'm thinking I'd rather go much more ascetically accurate representation for the mechs.
Kind of based off of a Robbie the robot costume that I made when I was in high school.
Granted it'll consume more time and more of my limited $ to do what I want to do, but at this point I wouldn't anticipate this game running until the 2010 season, so at least I've got some time to space things out.

Idealy I'm going to try to have 2 mechs completed by this February.
I figured I'd start this thread to get an idea of what factions I would write the story for and know what paint to buy for stenciling on the faction's logos.

Kind of mostly want to know which faction most players would associate themselves with. Personally I'm a fan of the clans, Wolf and Ghost Bears particularly.

[ScrapIron]

Back to the topic of the mech costumes,
here is a couple of examples of what they'll resemble (with a few exceptions)

This guy's madcat costume
In my opinion he made this far too large, and should have used thinner PVC for the frame. The missle racks also didn't need to be nearly that large, and for the purposes of keeping things simple I'd plan on putting nerf launch tubes in the arms and dual paint guns in the nose, leaving the missle boxes just be decoration.
His chicken legs work but he made them too long and a bit too fat.

Kid's madcat costume
This kids costume looks good standing still but he didn't really do the joints too well, hence it only wobbles around.

[spymongoose]

Originally Posted by ScrapIron

Kid's madcat costume
This kids costume looks good standing still but he didn't really do the joints too well, hence it only wobbles around.

ROFL wow I don't know if that kid was just overly hyper or if the camera speed was accelerated, that kid moved around a lot. It did look good. In my experience a paintball would go straight through that costume though.

<nerd content> was that a wolfs dragoons emblem on that clanner? Thats a flashback to my days at high school (I survived the clan invasion in my junior year) where we just painted mechs to look awesome without any regard to any affiliation. A clan ghost bear marking would have been more appropriate and far more baddass. I got love for the wolfs dragoons, its just this kid probably didnt google very hard.

The great thing about scenario games is that everybody is too drunk to care if they are fighting roman legions or space marines. The only difference is in the props and costumes, and for the most part those seem to look more alike than different.

[ScrapIron]

yeah, the lighting was pretty bad and I think the video was sped up when they added the music to it, so I couldn't tell if it was a emblem for wolf's dragoons or maybe house Kurita.

As far as paint penetration at 300fps I figured I would use Coroplast for the body of the mech, since other people have used that for their walking tanks and it seems to hold up for a couple years of playing before panels show signs of stress.