Unfortunately Melbourne (Australia) is still in Coronavirus lock-down which means that there will be no club meetings for the foreseeable future. Faced with the prospect of not rolling any dice for some time, I have offered to umpire a “Play by Mail” Battletech game with slightly modified rules to allow for a multi-player game with orders sent either by email or SMS.

Four players will compete in a Solaris VII style Mech Combat League game where the winner is the last man standing. Each round is broken up into Movement, Shooting and Close Combat phases where players get to see the results of the preceding before issuing orders for the next phase. (ie: you get to see where they have moved before they shoot)

The map we have used in for this first trial is the introductory Map included in the basic box set so players can easily keep track of movements, refer to the Hex numbers and even set up a map at home if they want to.

Rules have been modified slightly – there is no initiative. In addition to Shooting and Close Combat, movement is also being considered to be simultaneous. Players write their order sequence; from their starting hex number, through a series of forward / backward & left / right orders to their final hex location & hex facing. These are sent to the umpire who plots the movement on the updated master game map.

The four mechs we will be using in this game are Wolfhound, Clint, Whitworth & Javelin and the game is a four-way “Battle-Royale” with the last mech left standing declared the winner.

Anyway – here is the Turn Zero map deployment. GAME ON!