General Observations and Suggestions

[FatherMorpheus]

After having my shipment sitting collecting dust due to me being way to busy, I finally have a chance to ask a few questions and add a few comments:

Indirect Fire: Who has this? It is listed as a Special Weapons system, yet no vehicle listed in the book has it. I assumed Monster Mk 2 would have it, but it doesn't have it. Any suggestions?

Suggestion: Mecha guide descriptions in the book should have the point values for the mecha in the descriptions (pages 34 to 65) like the Special Character's have on pages 51-53 and 66-68. This is a small thing, but super useful with the descriptions.

Sprue Guide: Bolt Action is another Miniatures game, which has awesome guide. The one included with the main box is nice, but just a little more work would help a lot. Everyone has their first Miniatures game, so making it just a little easier on people would be awesome. Perhaps even a few more detailed assembling instructions?
Example from Bolt Action:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4ISAUrm9QF4/U ... 00/006.JPG

Anyone else notice little things, which could be improved in the errata or 2nd printing?

[Axoid]

Weapons systems have indirect fire, not base Mecha. It's on the Scorpio upgrade for the Phalanx for one.

[FatherMorpheus]

Weapons systems have indirect fire, not base Mecha. It's on the Scorpio upgrade for the Phalanx for one.

Page reference please? While I may have missed it but didn't see it in the Robotech RPG Tactics book for the Phalanx. I did find it on the VEF-1 p37 (based on someone else's reply.) But nothing for Phalanx.

[Axoid]

It's on the Core Squadron card for both the Artillery and Fire Support squadrons, not in the rulebook. Under the Scorpio Advanced Artillery weapon upgrade it lists "Indirect Fire" as one of it's abilities.

[FatherMorpheus]

It's on the Core Squadron card for both the Artillery and Fire Support squadrons, not in the rulebook. Under the Scorpio Advanced Artillery weapon upgrade it lists "Indirect Fire" as one of it's abilities.

Adding Item:
All upgrades and modifications should be in the book, not just on the cards. Similar to point values for mech's.

PS Thank's for the information Axoid.

[Axoid]

No problem.

For me, I like the army building being on the cards and not in the books. It's easier to build a force by swapping out cards as opposed to flipping through pages in the rulebook and writing stiff down. And since you build by squadrons and support squads, it's useless to list individual upgrades and points for Mecha, since they really don't have any.

Thanks,

[FatherMorpheus]

No problem.

For me, I like the army building being on the cards and not in the books. It's easier to build a force by swapping out cards as opposed to flipping through pages in the rulebook and writing stiff down. And since you build by squadrons and support squads, it's useless to list individual upgrades and points for Mecha, since they really don't have any.

Thanks,

I see your point with the cards. But the books are supposed to be authoritative, someone should be able to go through the book with pen & paper (or spreadsheet) and point out an army they want to build. Both ways should work. Especially if they ever do a PDF of the book, you could do it all on a computer quick like. There is a list of upgrades you can apply to Mech's in the book, but they don't list these unit specific ones. Nor the overall point value of the mechs them selves next to the mechs. That part is the one that bugs me.

[Forar]

Ideally it'd be both. Slipping a page per faction to include the squads and their upgrades seems like it'd be a good way to have ALL the info in a concise place.

Obviously it's a moot point for now, but presumably there'll be revisions some day, and that'd be on my wish list for a version 1.5 or 2 or whatever it was called.

[Malcontent-Khyron]

All upgrades and modifications should be in the book, not just on the cards. Similar to point values for mech's.

Point Value simply Is never calculated per mech so it really can't be added in the book. there are some obvious general guidlines like a VF1-A usually rounds out to 20 points and so on. However A glaug special option costs 20 for zentraedi and 25 for Malcontents. and VF1-R cost is calculated as part of the mecha it upgrades. Also the additional weapon options can not Always be purchased by certain mech unless they are feilded in specific units so listing it on the base mech in the book may cause confusion.

[FatherMorpheus]

It seems that a quick table for each mecha with base cost and options cost would make it fairly clear. This is in line with the rest of the war gaming industry. To help encourage sales, they should leverage the standard ideas so players from Warhammer, WH40K, and War Machine can quickly follow how to build your armor points list.

Relying just on the cards seems limiting to me.

[PANZERBUNNY]

Game isn't playable out of the box. Surprised it doesn't come with its own dry erase marker so you can keep track of the myriad of things needed. Odd.

It doesn't even have a quick play guide with all the phases of the game and little rules for cover etc you can copy or is included by itself on a small sheet. One for each player.

Relying on the cards is odd, I agree, but so is the fact that model pieces were split. Cost saving measure? Not sure with the reason behind this. I can get over it, but the complexity of putting these things together isn't appealing to new or amateur gamers. The Glaug arms are simply an annoyance, but a combination of contact cement and normal super glue did the job. They still seem incredibly fragile. Similar to the old Marauder model from Battletech. Curious how 30 years of design hasn't yielded a solution to a joint which will surely break with even a moderate amount of play unless you treat it like the crown jewels.

Characters in the book which won't be available for use until Wave 2, whenever that arrives. I'm seeing lots of material in the nice looking book which could have been put off for other much needed content. The attractive colour guide at the back which takes up whole pages at the end may have been better suited to downloadable content from their website.

We can find niggling wrongs with any product.

I'm also curious if missiles are simply way too powerful, especially with the amount of ammo on some of these mechs. I'm curious if an abstract approach to the length of time per round and simply one use per missile weapon system would be better and create a more engaging game. We'll see.