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The
last stand of the Crimson Phalanx. (Courtesy of mobileframezero.com)
Miniatures
Gaming on the Cheap: Mobile Frame Zero
by
S1/c Arasin T.M. Staubly,
HMS Saladin (DD-515)
2014.04.16 CE / 346.01.30 AL (MNB) – Back in March, Nuklear
Comix put together the first Sumter FanCon, a gathering of several hundred people for a lot of
fun. As the convention was winding down,
I'd shucked off the heavy bits from my costume to take a break, when a fellow
named Matt McAllister came over and asked me if I wanted to play Mobile Frame
Zero. Normally, miniatures war games
call for buying a lot of STUFF, and I avoid that, but I'm always up for at
least trying a new game.
Right off the
bat, this one looked different – the Mobile Frames ('mechs)
were made from LEGO building pieces, as were the terrain features. While LEGOs aren't free, you can get a batch
of them, and make/remake different figures for a few bucks for each mech.
You've got your figures (which can actually be just about anything), some
terrain, the rulebook (a donation-optional download), a sort of ruler, and some
dice; all of which is less than the price of many miniature “starter sets.”
The first
stage is to 'build' your Mobile Frame team (three teams per game is apparently
the norm). Three to five is the normal
team size. Mobile Frames have four slots
to fill, six systems to choose from, and a limit of two of any one kind of
system. The systems are hand-to-hand,
direct fire, artillery, mobility, defense, and sensors. The rulebook uses slightly different terms
but that's how I remember them. Your
basic frame (with no add-ons) gets you two 'wild dice'—more on these later—and
you'll get to slap on some 'free' one-shot missile launchers at the end. The range for hand-to-hand is one segment of
the ruler, direct fire is from greater than one segment on out to the end of
the ruler, and artillery is anything NOT reachable with the ruler. Mobility gives you more dice to roll for
moving and lets you move "through" things instead of having to go
around. Defense gives you more to roll
for your 'don't hit me' value, plus having two of them lets you 'block for' an
adjacent Frame without taking damage.
Sensors are for your Spotting dice - Spotting is awesome and can be a
game-changer! Extra Spot dice remove limitations on which Frames you can Spot.
The pre-game
numbers part is to compare teams and calculate your unit values. Then you next
set the field and place your figures.
All the players have to agree that field is okay before you move
on. Having the highest starting score
(and the weakest team) gives you the advantage of best defensive choices. The lowest score (strongest team) has the
worst ability to choose good defensive positions, to include a requirement to
stick one frame out in the open. This felt
sensible - the force that came most strongly loaded for bear is pushed to be
aggressive and the weakest gets the option to be defensive.
That’s right, hide behind a
leaf. No one’s gonna find a ‘mech
there. (Courtesy of mobileframezero.com)
Time to bring
it on. The turn order mechanism was the
hardest part for me to understand.
There's tactical order and there's combat order and they intermix. The easiest way for me to explain is that the
highest score team activates a Frame and opens fire on an enemy Frame. Resolve that, and then the Frame that got
shot at gets to pick a target. If it's
one that has already been activated then the combat order ends and you give
choice back to the team with the current highest score. If not, you keep rolling along with things in
combat order. Once I got used to the
mechanism, the game felt more dynamic, and I could envision the action ripple
around the field of play as Frames fired and returned fire. On top of that there's a Doomsday Clock for
each game that starts at 11 and ratchets down at least one notch at the end of
each turn (each player can also choose to click it down another notch or not at
that time).
The dice are
another cool mechanic. When a Frame
activates or has to respond to an attack you roll a small fistful of
color-coded dice – one color for each system you have plus two white dice (the
“wild dice”). If you don't have a
specific color dice (i.e., no more movement dice), but want to do that action
anyway, you use one of your white dice to get the action done. You can also use the white die to replace a
color-coded die when the results just aren't good enough, but once you use a
die that's it - you can't use it elsewhere until your next turn. The system is easy and versatile and has a
fun feel to it.
Combat is
also simple. You put your best attack
die roll against their defense die roll minus any Spot tagged to that Frame
(targeting laser, ECM, etc). Ties go to the defender. The difference between attack and defense
tells how many damage dice you roll on the damage chart (varies by attack type
and cover). When a frame takes damage
the owning player has to pull off a piece for each hit, which means you lose a
system (and its die). The visual you get
from seeing the pieces scattered around the battlefield is a nice touch,
especially since you can blow up terrain features like walls and trees as
well. Each hit on terrain lets you pull
off six bricks, so a lot of little bricks means a strong wall, and a few bigger
bricks means a fragile wall. Again, that
added fun to the game... and the Doomsday Clock keeps counting down every turn
– twice if your opponent is winning!
Overall, I
really like this game. I get a good
initial impression of balance, such as stronger teams get a weaker initial
position, a good splash of realism vs. ease of play, a range of choices but not
too many. I like the flavor of rolling
the dice, sorting the colors, and making choices for the Wild Dice. The mechanics are fairly simple, but I really
feel like a unit commander when I work out movement probabilities vs. weapon
ranges vs. Spot options and decide whether to blow away covering terrain or finish
off an opposing frame. Finally, the
rulebook itself points out that your Mobile Frames can actually be any number
of things from any number of genres. I
don't want to buy a bunch of LEGO pieces to build Mobile Frames, but I am
absolutely going to print out some "paper-box Frames" and system
stickers to make some 'foldable teams'.
In the end,
you can enjoy all the things you love about miniature gaming, but at a fraction
of the price. Really, though, the big draw for me is that Mobile Frame Zero is
just plain fun!
The article’s over? It’s Old
Tilman time! (Courtesy of mobileframezero.com)
Article
Copyright © 2014, Bureau of Communications, The Royal Manticoran
Navy: The Official Honor Harrington Fan Association, Inc.
MCPO Marcus Johnston,
RMN – Acting Director, Manticoran News Bureau. All
pictures used with permission or used in a way that qualifies as fair use under
US copyright law.