Mobile Frame Zero quickie battle report

For all those games that happen to not be BrikWars

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CADmonkey
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Mobile Frame Zero quickie battle report

Post by CADmonkey » Mon Dec 30, 2013 8:08 pm

My friend Stéphane and I had a couple of quick games of MF0, plus a demo game for a new player, yesterday at Fandom II in Ottawa. I didn't take notes, so I can't give a detailed report, but here's a brief Overwatch:

Since we hadn't had a game together since the days of Mechaton, we used a demo format which Vincent Baker had posted on G+. I'll quote his post below.

It worked quite well, we had two short, tense games and then gave a demo for a fellow who had been playing warhammer. And that fellow has already said that he's built himself some frames and is looking forward to another game.

And here's some photos, my frames are the blue & gray ones:

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Mobile Frame Zero: Game 1 by Bryan Rombough, on Flickr

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Mobile Frame Zero: Game 2 by Bryan Rombough, on Flickr

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Mobile Frame Zero: Game 3 by Bryan Rombough, on Flickr[/quote]

Vincent's demo rules:
One objective in the middle of the battlefield. Everybody gets two frames, one soldier and one hand to hand or one soldier and one artillery, nothing weird. I set the frames up myself in appropriate places on the battlefield, by eyeball*. Some in cover, some out. It's important that everybody has a frame at 5-6 away from the objective, but nobody has one closer.

Because everybody's sides are equal, everything on the board is worth 5 points to everybody, so I just say that: "in the full game, things are worth different points to different players, but here, everything's worth 5 points. You each have 2 frames so you each have 10 points. If you lose a frame, you lose 5 points. If you grab the objective, you gain 5 points."

Set the doomsday clock to 3. Expect to play 2 turns. "When the doomsday clock hits zero, whoever has the most points wins."

Since everybody's sides are equal, nobody has initiative. "In the full game, initiative depends on how many points you have, and maybe we'll see that next turn, but since everybody's equal, we'll just start on the dealer's left and go around."

If you're quick with the rules, this is a 15- or 20-minute demo for 3 players, maybe a 30-minute demo for 5. If somebody's not getting the rules, I try to just talk them clearly through the decisions their dice are asking them to make. "First choose your target. Now gather your dice: you get [these]. Roll 'em! Okay, now you need a defense number. Choose a blue or a white. Perfect. Now, do you want to move first, then attack, or attack first, then move? Great. Here's what we do..."

* Basically in roughly equilateral triangles whose sides are the length of direct fire range. Some of the triangles include the objective as a corner point, some don't. The idea is to put every frame at a moment of decision, and an easy way to do it is to put them just within direct fire range from an enemy or a goal. 
Edit: added MF0 link

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Ben-Jammin
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Re: Mobile Frame Zero quickie battle report

Post by Ben-Jammin » Fri Jan 03, 2014 8:43 am

Everytime I see someone post some MF0 stuff it makes me want to go and spend a rediculous amount of money on bricks to build several factions of mini-mechs. Those pics are beautiful.

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morganm
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Re: Mobile Frame Zero quickie battle report

Post by morganm » Wed Feb 12, 2014 3:58 pm

Thanks for sharing these fellow MOF0 =^.^=

Nice table there; looks like a blast to play on!

Ben: Yes, yes you should... it's totally worth it! Justfiy the cost of the builds by the fact that the rules are technically free =) Although I'm really glad I bought the book; it's high quality and supports indie game devs like these guys. They totally deserve to get paid for giving unto the world a truly brikwarsy game of giant tiny fighty robot destruction.

Actually I'm betting you have most everything you need to build two squads. About the only really rare piece you need are some travesty bricks (1x1 block with studs on all sides) and even then you can find designs that don't use them.

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Ben-Jammin
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Re: Mobile Frame Zero quickie battle report

Post by Ben-Jammin » Sun Feb 16, 2014 8:19 am

I used to have several groups of units already assembled, at one point I had like sixteen classic frames, as well as a squad of chubs and a few high-legs. I even built little vehicles and everything, but I only played the game once.

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