MechaTon!

[avram]

So it looks like I may be developing a new addiction, or relapsing into an old one: Lego! Vincent Baker (of Dogs in the Vineyard fame) has come up with yet another game, this one a tabletop wargame with do-it-yourself miniatures — MechaTon. He posted the alpha version of the rules a while back, but more recently has kicked them into something more final. Unfortunately, those final rules haven’t been all gathered into one document yet; they’re scattered across a bunch of posts in his blog, and I suspect some may not have been written down yet at all.

But that’s not gonna stop me from indulging my inner eight-year-old and putting together some Lego mechs! Best part is, I can design them in a specialized Lego CAD environment without having to buy the bricks till I know just what I need. (Though I have bought a few small, sub-$5 sets.) Here are my first couple of designs:

This first one isn’t complete — I don’t know what sort of weapon to put in that left arm yet. But with those rocket-studded wings, this clearly gets two green dice for movement.


This one here gets two blue dice for all that shielding, and probably two reds at artillery range. (I’m still not sure how the new ranges work.) No green; it looks slow. Note how I built out the backs of the feet to make sure that big launcher on top doesn’t make it fall over backwards.


So, once the final rules are published, I’m hoping enough CUGC people are interested that we can get a game together. Vincent explains his process for buying a mech here (design in a CAD program, list the parts, order from one of the very many online Lego vendors that sell individual bricks). As far as the CAD programs go, LeoCAD runs on Linux and Windows, and Bricksmith on MacOS X.

Comments

[lumpley.livejournal.com]

Awesome! Those rocket wings on the first one are fantastic.

Now I'm going to have to buy some of that piece.