MechWarrior Hex based Movement Rules

[Using Renegade Legion: Centurion maps]

[Should be easily convertible to other maps]

Units may move a number of hexes up to their movement allowance paying the terrain costs
appropriate for their movement type. Clear, Light and Heavy Woods, Building and Lake hexes take
up the entire hex and may give combat modifiers.

Mech units do not gain as much of a defence bonus from woods as other unit types as they have a
tendency to stick out above the trees.

A unit moving along a road pays the road movement rate, essentially ignoring the other terrain in
the hex. It must still pay the cost for going up a slope if applicable.

Hover units may use a river as a road. Mech units may also use a river as a road but pay 2 MP per
hex. The +2 MP cost for Foot and Tracked units is the cost to cross the river. Wheeled units may
not cross a river. Any partial lake hex is treated as a river, the other terrain determines combat.

Treat contour 1&2 as level 1, 3&4 as level 2 and 5&6 as level 3. It costs a unit one extra MP to
climb each level except that Hover units pay 2 extra per level due to their lack of traction.

Infantry units may adopt any facing upon finishing their move.

Vehicle units occupy two hexes, when moving the rear of the vehicle always enters the hex that the
front of the vehicle just left. For combat purposes the terrain the unit is in is that at the front of the
vehicle. For one MP a vehicle may pivot on its front to any desired orientation, that is, it may flick
the back around to adopt a better position, however this rule does not allow the vehicle to occupy
otherwise illegal terrain for its movement class or place its rear on the wrong side of a river.

Mech units follow the same movement rules as vehicle units except that they are considered to
occupy a 4 hex diamond (with the front and rear hexes being the adjacent ones). If a Mech unit
chooses to take advantage of a “Free Spin” then it is spun in place by 180 degrees (reversed). Any
ram or charge attack is resolved using the terrain previously occupied by the Mech’s front hex.

A unit is in base contact if it is in an adjacent hex (remember vehicles take up 2 hexes and Mech’s
take up 4 hexes). When determining range always count the smallest distance between the hexes of
the two combatant units.

Any intervening terrain feature blocks line of sight (allowing for differences in elevation), as always
use common sense. Exception, if there is only one intervening light woods hex then the defender
gains a plus 2 bonus to his defence rating. Note that the +1 to defence for occupying the high
ground does not apply to indirect fire or artillery attacks.
 MechWarrior Three stupid rules and how to fix them.

This is not the Napoleonic period so the restricted infantry facings in the game are just plain silly.
The last time that one could justify giving infantry a facing would be the American Civil War but
even then you’d be looking at platoon level not infantry squads. So before firing or after being fired
upon Infantry may spin in place to face their target or attacker (any one of the attackers in the case
of a combat formation), this action does not require an order. This movement bonus is not available
while the infantry unit is in a building or heavy woods due to the restricted nature of the terrain.

Multiple Ranged Combat Targets: To use a World War II analogy this rule more or less states that
when you use your 20mm cannon to engage an infantry squad and a tank, you may, after finding out
you got a golden BB, tell your cannon shells to reverse course (healing the infantry as they
withdraw) and proceed to strike the tank in the same critical location as the other rounds. Hence
when resolving a multiple ranged combat order every unit targeted must be allocated (after rolling)
at least one point of damage. Basically you will lose one point of applicable damage for every unit
missed, note this change means you cannot target more units than your current damage rating.

Artillery: Sticking with WW2, the artillery rules as written mean that you are just as likely to
damage a King Tiger MBT as you are a VolksSturm (militia) squad, not exactly realistic. To fix
this problem the artillery unit now rolls twice when the attack is resolved. The first roll determines
whether or not the artillery hits the target hex and any scatter (unchanged). On a critical hit the
player may either add 4 to the second die roll OR increase the blast radius by one. On a critical
miss the opponent may place the blast marker anywhere within the maximum scatter radius (the
only thing more accurate than incoming enemy fire is incoming friendly fire). The second roll
determines which units within the blast radius are hit (use normal critical hit/miss rules).

I realise it could be said that these changes will affect the values of various units but I don't recall
WizKids putting out a revised cost list of heavily armoured units to account for their vulnerability to
artillery, whose addition (in my opinion) significantly alter the viability of certain units.