William's Wargames

What is MechAttack?

I dearly love all the crunch around BattleTech whenever I’m considering it as a system but the idea of bringing that much overhead to the table just fills me with a kind of existential dread. As such, when Karl of Chicago Wargaming on the Tabletop Miniature Hobby Podcast Discord group suggested that MechAttack by Armor Grid was a decent lightweight alternative, my interest was piqued.

MechAttack plays clear homage to the FASA/CGL BattleTech, but stripping away huge masses of fattened, bloated rules down to the simple minimum core gameplay required to simulate a combined arms battle with mechs, vehicles and troops.

A very simple playing-card datasheet is all that is required for upkeep, weapons and unit statistics, and fitting on a 3×3′ table with just a single D10 and ruler required, the barrier for entry is very low indeed.

Battle Report

I ran a simple clash scenario with two identical medium mechs (Stalker and Spider) up against a heavy mech (Behemoth) and a light mech (Commando) to dry run the rules and found it to be exactly the kind of game you THINK you’re going to play when you sit down to play BattleTech.

The battle started with Behemoth quickly dispatching Spider in a hail of missile and laser fire

At the midpoint, Stalker was making good use of terrain to block Behemoth’s LoS and managed to take out Commando with lucky initiative rolls.

The ineveitability of the heavy mech’s assuault was a foregone conclusion however, and after suffering a fuel cell explosion, a second missile strike blew Stalker to smithereens!

Closing Thoughts

MechAttack is a game with legs, for sure. I definitely did not explore the full breadth of the rules – for example there was no way for my Mechs to exceed their heat dissapation ability, so heat was not a factor in this game at all. There is support equipment that can be used (Electronic Countermeasures, Targetting Computers) for Mechs, as well as the use of vehicles and troops too.

I would have liked to have seen some pre-built mechs and armies in the rules, or the ability to generate them. I’m also not a huge fan of off-board bookkeeping but this game keeps it to the bare minimum required to keep the game going.

I think I need to invest in some thick card to print on, and some card sleeves and dry-wipe markers.