Damanor’s Lair: a Gaming Blog

 Some links that I keep going back to ** Commander’s Handbook ** Mechatonic Strategy Four Player Brawl Mechaton Strategy Mechaton Strategy (Part Two) Mobile Frame Hangar Battle Simulator Strategy Discussion - Company Build Toolbox Approach to Squad Design Strategy Discussion - Frame Builds It’s a Game Too - Tactics Discussion How to Win When Attacking Weapon System Discussion Artillery Loadout and Strategy Troll Scout Setup Balanced Scenario/Matchup Suggestions ABIJ Must Die Favorite Build/Loadout Removing Systems Demo Companies Interesting Company Compositions Favorite Team and Strategy Mobile Frame Garage MFZ Archetype Archive ** War College ** Orion 6 Builds and Tactics Tactics 101 - Playing the Numbers Game Tactics 101 - Maximizing Damage Tactics 101 - On the Offensive Tactics Talk - 11/13/13 The Transit Gate Table Talk - Playing as the Defender Frame Foundry - Efficiency in Odds

I don’t know why, but I seem to be focusing on Mechs from House Liao’s Capellan Confederation. First the Cataphract, and now - well, this time I’m talking about the Raven . This is another new Capellan Mech design, this one based around electronic warfare. Capellan scientists developed a new ECM suite and probe system they hoped would be close to Star League electronic warfare systems. Unfortunately, the new system was so heavy and bulky that they couldn’t fit it into an existing design. Rather than give up on the technology, they built an entirely new Mech around it in 3024. The new Raven was designed to be a scout for command units. It was supposed to be attached to battalion command lances, usually as a fifth Mech. Unfortunately, the EW system in the RVN-1X Raven had some flaws. Its range was shorter than Star League era ECM and Probes, and it took up much more space in the Mech. When it took damage, the ECM system would actually make it harder for the Raven’s pilot to target enemie

 (I love the work of Pasukaru76. They are better at building lego sets than I will ever be. Check out their work on Flickr .) In many ways, I prefer Francisco Duarte’s earlier adaptation of the Mechs from Battletech to Mobile Frame Zero. The later one has some appeal, but it actually changes the rules for light and assault Mechs to give them abilities you can’t normally get in vanilla MFZ. By contrast, the earlier version doesn’t change the actual rules at all. You can build any Battletech Mech or other vehicle and use it in a regular MFZ game purely run with the rules as written. Consequently, I’m going to switch to using those rules for my adaptations. If you want to switch to his updated rules, just give light Mechs the green movement D8 and say they’re destroyed when they lose the first white die, and give assault Mechs with a blue defensive system one blue D8 replacing a blue D6, and don’t ever give them the green movement D8. Light Mechs have up to three systems, usually includ

One thing about Mobile Frame Zero is that games are much more interesting and tactical with three or more players. Most war games that I know of, including Battletech, usually assume there are two forces fighting each other. My first game of Battletech was a three way game against two of my brothers, though, which made it a game of alliances and talking other people into destroying your enemies for you. There are a few examples of three-way fights in Battletech fiction. First, near the beginning of the novel Lethal Heritage by Michael Stackpole, Phelan Kell of the Kell Hounds is going after Kenny Ryan and his band of pirates. They are somewhat overmatched, a Wolfhound and Blackjack against a Locust, Panther, Griffin, and Rifleman. (The remaining two Mechs of the Kell Hound lance are away for this battle.) Then it turns out Ryan’s Mechs are being chased by three mysterious Mechs from an unknown source (spoiler: it’s Clan Wolf) who have already damaged their Mechs. Kell and Tang (his lan

 Here are some pics I found online that fit the Fey In Black feel I’m going for.

. I’m going to be honest, when I was really into Battletech 20+ years ago I thought the Clans were awesome. I wanted to play the Inner Sphere against the (I liked the underdog even then), but I thought they were pretty cool. My opinion of the clans has become less favorable for what it did to the whole setting. Even so, one of the things I thought was cool was the Elemental , or Toad in Inner Sphere parlance. A group of five infantry in power armor, each armored well enough to withstand a medium laser, they were my introduction to a whole sub-genre of science fiction that was established by Heinlein in Starship Troopers and expanded on in John Steakley’s Armor . They were so cool that when my brother (12 years younger than me) saw the Toad toy from the animated series for sale, he called it an elemental and insisted on getting one. That led me to collect all of the toys, but that’s another story. Mobile Frame Zero actually has a simple way to deal with miniature power armor in Interce

  The FIB is a multinational espionage taskforce using tradecraft and advanced magical tech to police and monitor Fey activities and protect the world. Although individual members may be part of their respective countries’ intelligence agencies, militaries, or other forces, FIB as a whole is accountable only to itself. The primary goals for all FIB personnel: To protect visiting Fey from humanity To protect humanity from visiting Fey To keep the agency secret To prevent the annihilation of the world To locate and monitor gates and access points connecting our world with the feywild To find those capable of performing the duties required of FIB agents in order to maintain a constant level of agency personnel As members of the Feywild Investigation Bureau, your job is to monitor, police, protect, and conceal Otherkin refugees As part of this, you should: Keep it secret - don’t want to start a panic or reveal too much (how many people can make wishes with fae all at once?), want to keep b

  The TRP-1 Trooper was a Marik mech first built in 2475, the first light scout mech designed in the Free World’s League. Unfortunately, it was plagued with design flaws. Based on their Workmech industrial design, the Trooper lacked an ejection system and its legs could not endure heavy combat. It overheated easily and its knees and ankles tended to lock up. After Toddlette Industries spent 25 years correcting significant flaws with the lightweight design, they upgraded it with newer battlemech technology, changing the name in an effort to distance it from the Trooper’s bad reputation. The FLE-4 Flea was the result. The Flea became increasingly rare during the Succession Wars until the appearance of Wolf’s Dragoons, who had a large number of Fleas of both the FLE-4 and FLE-15 models and made an exclusive production agreement with Earthworks. Eventually the exclusivity clause ran out and it became more widespread. The FLE-4 was the original model of Flea developed from the Trooper in 2

  https://www.amazon.com/Mobile-Seller%C2%A1%C2%AFs-Designs-Little-Building/dp/B07DJ44XWL LetMay Original Design Mecha Series DIY Building Block,Mini Robot Assault Squad(Yellow) fit for Mobile Frame Zero Game (Note: I am not affiliated with this manufacturer and do not get any money for my review or you following the link.) Found this on Amazon and I picked it up to start building more frames. I’m not the most creative LEGO builder so it helps to have someone else’s ideas to work from. It contains parts to construct four frames and costs $38.96, for a cost of $9.74 per frame. It was fun to build with my kids and has a lot of joints and useful pieces. Each frame contains over 100 pieces, so price per piece is below $.10. The Assault Squad is also available in purple at the same price. (The frame images show slightly different weapons for one of the frames, but that’s because in one color it has swords in hand and guns on the back and in the other color it’s switched.) There are other sq

  My kids and I played through a few small fights over the past few weeks as we’ve learned to play MFZ. I think of them as “micro-skirmishes.” They’re quick and dirty fights that are short enough that my second son (who has a condition that makes it hard to focus) can understand and pay attention long enough to play a round or two. For these skirmishes, it’s usually one on one but sometimes with a third player, and we’re starting with 2-5 frames and 1-2 stations each, 0-3 SSRs, and a DDC at 5. (I’ve also had a four-way skirmish with all three of my kids. It only lasted one round before two of them started protesting that it wasn’t fair for reasons they couldn’t explain. The final score was practically a four-way tie at around 28 points each.) I recently had a quick micro-skirmish with my son, letting him use the new Legos he got at Legoland and letting me get some use out of my new Gundam Converge #21 set. Team Lineups Me - Defender, 35 points Red Soldier (2w2rd1b1y1g) Black HtH Specia

 I was working on a setting for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition. I still plan to get back to it, but for now I thought I’d share some of what I have. Protecting the World from the Scum of the Feywild You  are humanity’s unseen protectors. You’re a rumor, recognizable only as deja vu. Anonymity is your name. (You don’t want to know what otherworldly creatures can do with your true name.) Silence is your native tongue. Sometimes Fey cross the line, and sometimes humans know too much. We never know when a Fey incursion will happen, but we’re always ready. We are the Feywild Investigative Bureau. We are the Fey in Black. Protecting the world from the scum of the Feywild.

 Sarna.net  has an entertaining new feature called Bad Mechs. Their first victim: the ASN-21 Assassin. I admit that this is not one of my favorite medium mechs. This 40-tonner really is significantly worse than a lot of light mechs. Yes, it’s faster and more heavily armed than a Wasp or Stinger , but that’s not saying much. Much smaller mechs such as the Commando out-gun it. The Jenner has almost as much armor, as much speed, and more firepower. A Valkyrie or Panther has more armor and is much more powerful at long range. But I have a certain affection for underdog mechs, and the Assassin is definitely an underdog. If you can win a battle while piloting an Assassin, you’re doing well. In Mobile Frame Zero terms, I think the Assassin has a chance to redeem itself. ASN-21 Assassin: Weight: Medium (40 Tons), Speed: Fast, Armor: Light, Laser Cannon, Antenna, Jump Jets, Missile Rack (2RD/1Y/1G/2W/1Rd8S). Against clan or advanced technology: [2RD/1G/2W/1Rd8S] I decided to just combine t

 I love FrankenMechs . Whether it’s Samual “Shorty” Sneed’s hybrid Rifleman/Warhammer/Archer/Phoenix Hawk in Snord’s Irregulars,  or Professor Burke Kale’s Prometheus in the adventure Unbound,  or the way Rifleman and Warhammer legs look the same, or the way the various original Clan Omnimechs seemed to be built with the same few arms and legs, it was always cool to me. Like hacking a physical system to work with something else, or building with LEGOs. I don’t have enough engineering know-how to build anything complex, but I like how it looks. During the Third Succession War, the Capellan Confederation and House Liao found themselves short on factories to produce heavy battlemechs. Their big factory on Carver V was taken by the Free World’s League, and in the three years spent fighting over the planet, the factory was destroyed. To make up for this shortfall, their engineers designed a “new” mech in 3025 by combining features of existing designs. They took the legs, right arm, and part

Way back in the day, I was into Battletech . Really into it. Like, I had a copy of every novel ever published and all the rulebooks, supplements, and games I could find. I spent thousands of dollars on this game. There’s just something very cool about giant robots destroying each other. I played other games, like Dungeons and Dragons, Shadowrun, Werewolf: the Apocalypse, and some others, but Battletech was my first gaming love. I eventually lost interest. It happened about the same time that the company FASA went under, so it was a good time for a breakup. I started college and didn’t have enough time to play a tactical game that takes hours to get through. Cue 20+ years montage. My interests in different games grew and shrunk over time. I played various editions of Dungeons and Dragons, Mutants and Masterminds, and Hunter: the Vigil, and I picked up a ton of other RPGs and tabletop games, including more obscure ones like Sorcerer, Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies, Burning Wheel, Continuum

Once upon a time, decades ago, I created a blog. There were lots of random thoughts and very little of substance. I recently found myself wanting to blog about tabletop games again. I did some digging and found that my very first blog URL is still available after being shut down for well over a decade. Time to come back. Despite previous blogging content, this blog will have pretty much no political, economic, or personal content. It’s mostly just me talking about whatever game interests me at any given moment. So are you interested in random gaming content? In that case, let’s do this.