Version 9 — Motherlode Games

I finally made the leap to reduce the number of rounds. This had a knock effect to game balancing, and the components.

I took this version to the next Design Workshop in Wellington...

The new wave number was now reflected on the board.
Due to the number of reduced rounds, I had to adjust the resource costs for upgrades in the Workshop.
I reduced the number of steps on the Threat track as well.
In the last version, I added an area for multiple players to 'lock' their dice, but it didn't really work. A friend of mine (Thanks Luke!) suggested I moved the 'lock' function onto the enemy cards, which i did, but that in turn increased the size of the cards slightly. So I had to move some bits around on the board.

With less rounds, I had to reduce the number of enemy cards.
As stated above, I put 'lock' templates around the damage icons so they could be covered by the players' dice during an engagement.
I also slimmed down the Shield and Health tracks.

I hadn't really messed with the Tableau layout, other than adding the recalibiration functions. However, due to dropping the rounds, I needed to reduce to the number of slots. I never really felt comfortable with the 'Wings' and foot 'Boost' spaces. They were in pairs and it looked odd just adding one at a time. So the no brainer was to get rid of them and add a single 'Core' slot.

Because of the reduction of mod slots, I had to revamp all the mech mods peices. Again.
I also reduced the number of mods down to 108.
I added a red border around the advanced mods to make them easier to see.

Again, the design workshop players were fantastic. Paul Tobin from Weta Studios (Also working on a big mech game! - GKR: Heavy Hitters) gave me some great pointers on making improvements.
The big takeaway was the mech warriors themselves. Up until now, they were lonely portraits stuck at the top of the mech tableau, serving real no function other than adding a little flavor. Paul suggested either expand on them and make them a bigger part of the game, or remove them entirely and let the players 'be' the mech warriors.
The Threat track didn't bother the players too much during the game. He recommended finding other ways to incorporate it into play.
Making the resources claimed from defeated enemies static. That way, players could bargain better with each other on what they knew.
Although the Sidekick die was fun, it wasn't thematically correct. After all, sidekicks don't tend to swap between heroes.