Mecha War in the jungle

In anticipation of the upcoming Horizon Wars ruleset, I decided to reexamine the basics of that game through it's original version, Mecha War.

Mecha War uses the same basic rules that will be found in HW, so I thought it would be a exellent time to get reacquainted through some stompy robot action. Having played some MWO and reading battletech novels recently did little but encourage big mechs slugging it out anyway :)

The piece of jungle that was about to be a warzone.

From the northeast a patrol arrives. It's two Crimson heavies and a light mech.. 

 ..And from the south east comes a Cerulean strike force of two heavies and a light mech as well, hoping to take the enemy mechs by surprise.

In Mecha War your mechs have a simple stat line consisting of movement, firepower, armour and defence.

All the mechs surge forward, looking for good angles of attack. Both light mechs heads towards the caves, hoping to outflank the main body.

A lucky laser blast strikes a Crimson heavy, knocking off some of it's armour!

 In Mecha War, like HW, you roll a number of d12's according to your firepower, trying to beat the enemies target number. this number is based on the range between the attacker and defender plus the armour and possible cover of the defender. The attackers dice can be added together to form groups of hits, while the defender rolls a number of dice according to their defence stat, trying to match these dice exactly to cancel out some of the attackers dice.  

A duel starts up by the cave, as both lights starts tearing into one another. Some Cerulean missiles strike the Crimson light..

..But the Crimson light is quick to strike back with autocannon fire, damaging the lights missile launchers. 

Attempting to pull off a decisive blow, the Creulean light close the gap between the units, firing all of it's weapons..

 In the heat of the moment the pilot failed to realize that one of the Crimson heavies were moving to support their damaged light mech! Gauss-cannons and a particle cannon make short work of the Cerulean light!

Having taken a severe blow, the Cerulean heavies now aim to keep the enemy at bay. One of the heavy mechs launch a volley of missiles at the pair by the caves to keep their back clear.

The other heavy is engaged in a duel with the second Crimson heavy, taking several blows to his drive train and damage to his weaponry as well!

Start of the 3rd turn. Things are looking grim for the Ceruleans.

 Right here is the moment that ultimately decides the fight, as the Cerulean missile mech turns to add his fire to that of his comrade, the remaining Crimson mechs close the distance, zeroing in on the damaged heavy. Missiles, gauss rounds, particle blasts and lasers hit the mech from all three Crimson mechs..

..Under fire this intense not even a heavy armour can hold out for long, and the heavy mech is taken out of action!

Even though heavily damaged, the three Crimson mechs now surround the lone heavy. His mech is captured and the Crimson have won the engagement!


Easy to get the hang of and with more tactical depth than I remembered, Mecha War is a good stompy robot game, as long as you can accept the level of abstraction involved in building your mechs.

From what I've come to understand though, Horizon Wars will contain special traits to further customize your units, so hopefully that will allow for more variation in that department.

Even so I had a blast (no pun intended) and I'm now looking forward to Horizon Wars even more!
For those of you that thinks mecha and stompy robots are a silly idea, never fear, the game can just as well be played without mechs. I know I have a few battles I'll probably play sans mechs already..

I hope you've enjoyed it, Til next time!