MechaTon!

May. 23rd, 2006 10:03 pm
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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.
Cobalt Blitz Mk 1

Second mech )

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.
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Parisian underground cinema. Seriously underground:
Police in Paris have discovered a fully equipped cinema-cum-restaurant in a large and previously uncharted cavern underneath the capital's chic 16th arrondissement. [...]

Three days later, when the police returned accompanied by experts from the French electricity board to see where the power was coming from, the phone and electricity lines had been cut and a note was lying in the middle of the floor: "Do not," it said, "try to find us."

3-D chocolate printer made of Lego:
We've developed a print head that will print 5mm 'pixels' of the consumable. It basically acts as a pump. Its a medium sized lego gear (driven by a worm gear attached to the motor) with four axels that repeatedly squeaze and release a pipe attached to a funnel that holds the consumables. a half-rotation of this wheel yeilds a blob.

Monkey saves Indian democracy from other monkeys:
Mangal, a langur, has been hired by the Delhi Election Commission to rid its premises near Kashmiri Gate of nearly 60 monkeys which have been creating a nuisance there since the Assembly polls last year.

The monkeys had been terrorising visitors and officers at the commission office for over three months now. Their particular favourite was the Form 6, which is filled when one is applying for a voter’s identity card. The monkeys would snatch the forms from applicants before tearing them. Other files and papers have also been destroyed by the monkeys.

Real-time Worldcon blogging — I wish I’d known about this at the con! Hey, I think I know the back of that head.

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