--- title: "Mech vs. Mech" subtitle: Big bots on the battlefield author: Seth Kenlon date: 2025-09-01 08:00 publish_date: 2025-09-01 08:00 hero_classes: text-light title-h1h2 overlay-dark-gradient hero-large parallax hero_image: header.jpg show_sidebar: true show_breadcrumbs: true show_pagination: true taxonomy: category: blog tag: [ gaming, scifi ] --- Lots of people like big giant fighting robots, at least in gaming. I have vague memories of BattleTech from childhood, and lately I've been playing the Harebrained Schemes video game **BattleTech**, and I'm a longtime Voltron and Evangelion fan. Basically, I like mechs, and I decided a long while ago I'd like to try a tabletop games with mechs. I have a few Imperial Knights for **Warhammer 40,000**, and I'm waiting on a Kickstarter shipment of BattleTech models, so all I thought I'd try out some rules in the meantime. I tried a few game systems, didn't love them, so I wrote my own instead. [Mech vs. Mech](LINK TO WARGAMEVAULT) is a simple mech tabletop wargame that's got just the best of the basics for fielding big bots on your battlefield. The **Mecha vs. Mech** rulebook is just 10 pages long. That's not many rules to get through or to remember, so if you just want to try a mech game without investing days of reading through rules, or even just try a wargame, this could be an ideal entry point. ## Setup To play, you need dice, an optional hex map (you can just measure in inches instead), and mech miniatures. ## Classing your mech In **Mech vs. Mech** you don't build a mech the way you build a character in an RPG, mosttly because the game assumes you have a physical mech mini that you want to play with. Your task before playing is to classify what you have. There are three types of mechs: * Nimbal * Regent * Destructor Essentially, a Nimbal class mech is fast (5 hex move speed, 180° turn) but relatively weak with just 25 HP while the Destructor class is slow (3 hex move, 60° turn) but resilient with 45 mHP. The Regent class is, predictably, exactly in the middle. What your mech miniature looks like doesn't matter to the game. You choose how you want it to play. ### Weaponry Next, you classify the weapons on your mech. The game assumes WYSIWYG, and has stats for all the usual weaponry, including a gattling gun, a laser gun, missile launcher, flame thrower, and an all-encompassing _melee_ attack. There are blank spaces left for you to stat out unique weapons, which you do in collaboration with your opponent to ensure some kind of game balance. Mostly, though, I think my basic weapons list covers 90% of the mech miniatures out there, even if "melee" in my chart translates to "giant mech ninja sword" on your specific model. As with mech classifications, each weapon has advantages and disadvantages. Ammo matters, range and damage amounts and targeting accuracies vary, and all weapons cause some amount of mechanical strain on your mech. ## Game loop Once you've selected the stats of your mech and its weapons, you're ready to play. You can add ground troops in later, but the simplest way to start is to just drop two opposing mechs onto a hex grid and let them try to destroy each other. Some terrain (tiny buildings, trees, and so on) is also useful so your mechs can hide behind things, but if you don't have any you can use cardboard boxes or coffee mugs or whatever. On your turn, you can Move and Attack, in any order or combination. At the end of your turn, you Repair (you have 1d6 Repair die). ### Attack You can make a number of Attacks equal to your Attacks points. To attack, you must in weapon range, and you must be facing your target, so you may need to also spend Movement points on turning first. 1. Roll your weapon's Targeting dice 2. Ranged succeeds on 4+ and Melee succeeds on 3+ 3. If your Attack is a success, your opponent chooses whether to take the average damage, or to allow you to roll your weapon's Damage dice ### Move For each Move point, move 1 hex (or inch), or turn up to your Rotation limit (defined by your mech class). ### Repair At the end of your turn, your crew has to maintain your mech. First, tally the Strain points of each Attack you've made this turn, and add 1 Strain point for each Move point you've used this turn. Then roll your Repair die, and subtract the result from your accumulated Strain. Subtract the remaining Strain from your Hit Points. ## Upgrades There's about a page of mech upgrades you can take before a game begins. You can take a number of upgrades equal to your mech's Rank. Before a game, you earn 1 Rank. Upgrades give you special bonuses or exemptions, and at the end of each game you turn them back over to the mechanics so you're free to slot in a different set of upgrades for your next game. You can't have two of the same upgrades installed at once. ### Army There's also rules for ground troops, including infantry and tanks. Adding army units to your mech is essentially an upgrade. You spend a Rank point on a unit instead of an upgrade. The rules for the army are admittedly minimal, but it the focus of the game is on mechs and I didn't want the support troops to overshadow the big stompy robots. The army forces are largely governed by the same rules as mechs, but instead of a Repair roll they make a Morale roll. ## Get the game If you like mech battles, or you're curious about it, you can download the rules at [](LINK). The rules, as you can probably tell, are designed to let you play with your toy robots rather than consult technical documentation. I've written just enough rules to govern a friendly robot fight, and I find it's exactly the right amount of rules for my games. You can play fast and agile anime-style mechs, or slow and lumbering buildings-that-walk-and-shoot. The size of miniatures is flexible, too. As long as you scale the movement, the game works just as well for Ninjago mechs as they do for **Warhammer 40,000** Imperial Knights, or **Legions Imperialis** Titans, or BattleTech miniatures. You can pit the two against each other. You can play with several players. It's a lot of fun, so grab a hex map or a ruler, a couple of mechs, and destroy!