Here we go...
The Main Board
Battles took place on a world map, which was divided into 4 regions (for 4 players), with each region separated into 6 areas. This is where the enemies cards were placed.
Turn tracker - Three waves, with five turns each wave. Each wave brought harder enemies but opened up better mech upgrades for the players.
Victory Point Line - for recording players' VPs.
Threat level line - If enemies were still on the board by the end of the turn, they were placed on the threat track. The more enemies that landed on the track, the more buffs they would get. Depending on the number of players, if the threat level rose too high, the players lost.
The Workshop / Gym board
This is where the Mech Mod parts were placed. Four at a time. Every turn, they would be shifted down and a new set of mods would be added. The lower set were cycled out after a second round if there were any left.
Player skills were placed on the right. Every player started with one skill at the beginning of the game and obtained a new skill at the beginning of waves 2 & 3.
The Engagement Track - Players tracked their position to the enemy and which attack dice they'd use. (Range or Melee)
Resource Cards
These cards were drawn at the start of every round by the players. Resources would allow them to buy mods for their mech. There were five different level of resources from common to rare. (white - yellow - blue - purple - red)
Mech Tableau
4 warrior Tableaus representing the 4 regions. Each had a starting build and a starting skill. There were spaces to put resources, uninstalled mods, recalibrate tokens (more on that below), and 10 mech part places to enhance their mech.
Mech mods
123 separate mods, each showing:
which slot they filled
Which dice they added to
Their abilities
their Resource cost
Their Power bonus
Their cool name!
The reverse of the card showed the weapon art (placeholder here) and the power and abilities.
The idea is that the mech template would slowly build with all these call looking weapons and armor, making for a different looking tableau every game.
Power/Speed Dial
This allowed players to track the power (health) of their mech and adjust the speed (independently). The rule was, speed increased with power but players could forgo an amount of power to increase their speed.
Enemy cards
4 different types of enemy per wave, up to 25 per wave. They spawned on the board - one enemy per player + 1. In Wave 3, it was ramped to player +2
Each enemy card showed:
It's name and level. Each enemy had 3 levels, becoming progressing harder the higher the number, but more Victory Points awarded for defeating it
It's Victory Point (VP) reward
It's speed
Where it started on the Engagement track
It's shield and health
What damage it did at range and at melee
Any special abilities
A place to put the marker token if they moved onto the threat track
The number of players. (The enemy decks are adjusted to suit)
Dice & powers
16 different types. 8 Attack and 8 defense.
Skill Cards
24 possible skills. Each player was given one at the start of the game based on their warrior, and then an extra one at the start of the each wave. They were dealt two and then kept one.
Counters
Engagement Track counter
Enemy spawn dice
Victory Track player markers
Spawn point counters
Resource cubes
Recalibration Counters
Versions 1-3: What I learnt
Dice are random. very random. First time I played the game, i couldn't hit anything because the starting dice were too light. I ended up having to increase the starting builds and adding the Recalibrate mechanic, which gives the player the limited ability to bump the dice to another face.
Way too much stuff. As you can see, too many assets, too many parts. There are very few tables that could contain the amount of gear. And because of that...
Difficult to track everything. Tokens everywhere but we were still unsure how damage the enemy had taken.
Way too long to play. By version 3, I'd managed to play test the game up to round 7. It took 2 hours.
Unbalanced. Enemies way too hard.
I had a lot of work to do. However, parts of it were fun. The dice rolling and the mech building were solid.
However, I needed to do some serious reduction going forward...