Maybe you won’t believe it, but I did something else besides playing Sharp Practice! (Truth be told, I do play other games, but I usually don’t write about them on the blog…).
Soon after What a Tanker! was released, Virago started talking about making a variant for Battlemechs instead of tanks. I always liked the idea of Battletech – the German edition of the boxed set was my first hobby boardgame and I read a number of novels.
However, the original game is rather unplayable, especially nowadays, when I’m much too old for long-winded, extremely detailed and convoluted rules. What a Tanker!, on the other hand, is a great fast-paced game I like very much, even if I’m not interested in tanks at all.
Well, a couple of weeks ago, Virago announced that he was ready for some What a Mecher! action (incidentally, WaM is a working title…). He had put down some ideas on how to convert WaT to the Battletech setting, which basically means replacing tanks with giant robots. Which is much cooler in my opinion.
So far, we had a couple of games which worked really well. Sigur has written detailed reports here and here, so I’m not going to repeat myself and just show you some images from our games.
The game has everything a Battletech game needs. Virago, who has an encyclopedic knowledge of Battletech lore, has devised very clever mechanics for heat management, which is one of the core mechanics of the original Battletech and also features prominently in the novels. There are also rules for different kinds of weapons and mechs and of course for close combat – what would giant robots be without punching each other up?
The game is great fun and I really enjoy playtesting it!
The Raft 