MEST 1.61 Basic Rules available

I corrected a number of gaps which I inadvertently introduced in version 1.60 back in the year 2015! The corrected version is dated 2017.06.13

EDIT: 20171224 - Apparently I left out the Victory Conditions section, and so this is added to the page 12 now at the bottom of the Quick Reference Sheet.

Overview

Most of the changes are within the full-color rules.

1. Initiative rules altered; who wins, and how many IP tokens are awarded and to whom
2. Added Common Effects and explained how to read, create, and use armor and weapon effects.
3. Added traits for Night-vision, Insane, Slippery, Trample, and Thrower.
4. Added 16 pages of Assembly information under sample genres.
5. Also updated Table of Contents.

Effects

With the new section for the sample genres I introduce "Effects" which are ways of renaming armor and weapons.  So an Average character with Sword could be renamed as "Wolverine" with "Synthetic Claws". This already existed as a concept but I made it more formal by declaring it within the sample genres section.

Additionally, I listed "Common Effects" which are combinations of useful traits that can be assigned to weapons, armor, or to characters directly. For example, the effect "Tactical Genius" can now be assigned to Acrobats or Brawlers to provide those characters +1 INT and +1 Tactics. Or, the effect "Swift" could be assigned to ... perhaps some character as "Magical Boots" and provide it +1 MOV and +1 REF.

Advanced Rules

I realize that the rules for Magic and Suppression, two rules I have been using for MEST, are not included in the Basic Game rules which I think is the correct choice. I also realize that the points-costing system I have the MEST 2.0 (Basic + Advanced Rules) is dramatically different than what is available for MEST 1.61; this is something that will need to happen because some traits are just too powerful. Until that set gets released, I hope everything else is acceptable for play.

Download

see here https://sites.google.com/site/mesttactics/downloads and also at the menu at the right for direct links.

Preparing for Mech, Beast, and Infantry - Part 1

Mech, Beast, and Infantry

see Part II here.

I'm building out Mech, Beast, and Infantry as a pre-game to Absolution War. It is in late-alpha early-beta and I'm setting it up on Delta Vector forums right now. Both games are 10MM (1:160) scale rules systems. I will need at least two in order to support Mech, Beast, and Infantry. I'll need at least two more to make Absolution War interesting.

The key feature of Mech, Beast, and Infantry is that there aren't that many unit types; the key three are walking battle-mech roboto stuff, infantry with their limited ordnance weapons, and huge cybernetic beasts. I'll probably bring in some drones, vehicles, and artillery later but probably also not. I want the setting to be very limited.

Any how, here's some of my early effort on building my armies. I've been purchasing Mechwarrior Clix figurines and converting them. Those are roughly 10MM. What I'm finding difficulty in locating are light infantry ... most of the models I find are power armor or heavy infantry.

The Infantry. I'm WIP with adding fine-grained sand to their new bases. I'll then cover it with Elmer's glue. These are Mechwarrior Clix units. I've taken some of the original clix and clipped them into two or even three new units after rebasing them. These are 30MM bases except for the solos which are on 25MM bases.

Some of the Beasts. In the background you can also see my Objective markers. I can use these for MEST as well.

Nearly everything here is prepped with the Elmer's glue at the top layer. I'll just need to spray them with black primer paint and then color them. More later ...

This is all that I have at present.I tried to group the units into Squads (using the MBI Formations nomenclature). There's something like 15 Squads here.  I ordered some more clix from eBay.