It doesn't seem conducive to the concept of "Your Dudes". I'm fine with restrictions on mechs by way of tonnage, or time period, or even agreements between players not to use power-gaming shit- I've never been interested in "power-gaming" or being super competitive- but I'm not interested in having a GM and some rules that say "Oh, you're playing X faction, and we're going to go through these pre-determined battles based upon this story/event." It's not even campaigns I'm against, it's "you are these guys". Most people want to be "their guys", and make their own story, and I'm no exception. Maybe if it came down to "Jim has his own little contingent of Pink Pigeons, while his friend Ted has his own little Merc group, and Steve and Bobby are friends and have similar parties of different natures. Why don't we come up with a little campaign between them, where it happens, and then see where it takes us?"
Matthew Walker
>Why don't we come up with a little campaign between them, where it happens, and then see where it takes us?
If you're playing in 3063, set it on Galatea and you're good to go!
Jayden Hall
What you want is literally how anyone runs a campaign. Nobody is there watching over your shoulder to make sure you play the game a certain way. You make up your own shit.
BV2 gives you relative balance of forces for any kind of match.
It's like DnD or whatever. Your feet aren't bolted to the floor. There's scenarios if you want them, but most people just play their own ideas like any RPG sort of game. The reason the other guy was harping on RAT's and unit/scenario books to you is those are training wheels for the universe where you can turn your brain off and avoid all the hard work of putting together your own campaign or fluffy forces. If you want to jump in with both feet, then go right ahead.
Lincoln Baker
Honestly unless your going for a campaign arc set in the time pwriod of choice (everyone has their favs and the eras are more for unit selection/theme) Otherwise you and jim can pick what you want and have at it. Im a big fan of battle.armor infanty. Im also a sucker for dueling assaults with light mechs (i have issues and love hard challenges) but theres nothing saying you can't pick a fwl lance and jim a combine lance and figjting it out. BV is.more like a general idea of hoq it might go. Dont think of it as a historical wargame, its a game of stompy robot thats been around for over 30 years. Really try playing some pick up gamea in megamek and try it out.
Aiden Cooper
>to you I'm not that /b/ user. Just elaborating that I'm someone different. Don't want to make people think we're one in the same so it's harder on him later because people have the wrong idea or something.
Moving along, yeah, it just didn't sound anything like that from what I was seeing. I'm someone that's played the games for most of my life, but never got into table-top (beyond some of the WizKids minis when I was a child- even then never had people to play with), and recently decided "Fuck it, why not? It's cheaper to start than Warhammer, has a lower model count, they're not so tiny you have to use a jewelers lens to paint them, and I could probably get the nerds I know into it easier than other games for those very reasons." Maybe I blew things out of proportions a bit (on Veeky Forums? Overreacting? What a time to be alive) but if the game really was beholden to the "RAT's and unit/scenario books", there'd be no chance at all. I'd be stuck, staring at a half-painted Cyclops, telling him it's his fault we got into this mess.
Kayden Adams
Nah, BT is extremely conducive to "Your Dudes", that's how lots if not most people play their BT campaigns. Hell, it's probably one of the major reasons mercs exist, and why the small raids and shit are a staple of the setting, always gives you something to do.
The main issue in the historical simulationist styling is the simple fact that BT units aren't strictly balanced against each other even with similar sized things. Just like playing a WW2 game might see you with an early model Panzer III up against T-34, in BT you might find yourself fielding a Jagermech staring down a Thunderbolt. And in both scenarios, victory isn't impossible, but the odds are not in your favor.
Nicholas Jones
>Im also a sucker for dueling assaults with light mechs (i have issues and love hard challenges)
reminds me of the time i took advantage of the raven's 360 degree torso twist in mech 4 to slowly murder an atlas with a single large laser by staying in its back arc until the pilot self destructed out of rage.
probably the only moment in mw4 MP that i enjoyed, aside from the time i did that escort game mode thing and racked up a retarded amount of points solo, also with a raven, by taking advantage of ECM and having my active radar off.
Camden Gray
Sup senpai I am back
Reading Mercenary's Star while on break and telling my buddies about the setting and how it's a baller game, too
I was thinking about scenarios and campaigns and what some anons told me in the last thread and I know what I am doing until we get our shit sorted. Maybe it will help too
Put it at the edge of all the claimed space where the little pirate kingdoms are. Just say a bunch of randos are fighting over some worlds and you are the mercs they hired in to give them an edge. I was looking at the master list for the years I find cool and it looked like mercs had access to all the robots anyway?
BAM! There is your campaign
Jason Carter
>where the little pirate kingdoms are
It's good to be the pirate king.
Julian Evans
You're like that comic where the black dude goes into the game store like "EY YO YOU NIGGAS GOT A GAME WITH LIKE... WIZADS N' SHIT?"
Juan Reyes
well do you got a game with wizads n shit or not?
Brayden Russell
>I was looking at the master list for the years I find cool and it looked like mercs had access to all the robots anyway? One of the cardinal rules of BT: SALVAGE EXPLAINS EVERYTHING. Especially for mercs since they wander all over, and part of the fun of the campaign is when the dice gods smile and you score a sweet head shot and salvage an almost pristine heavy or assault when you were running mostly mediums. And pirate hunting is always a simple and easy way to start to campaign.
But as far as availability usually the main issue isn't what you use but how much of it. Like having one primarily Combine mech in even an FWL or CC unit isn't outside the realm of possibility, it's when you start having several of them is when it gets unusual.
William Powell
First off why does this board censor f am?
Second my nigga. I just think your board is cool af. Blows my mind
James Mitchell
Just SPACE WIZARDS.
Aaron James
god bless this crazy game i wish fasa hadn't imploded
Gavin Bell
Don't the FWL buy most of their shit off other people, what with how their industry is weak but their economy is strong?
>why does this board censor f am? >do_you_know_where_you_are.jpg Most people on Veeky Forums are going to be your rock and power-metal listening folk, who met their wife at a D&D game, if they have a wife or significant other at all, and who spend most of their time arguing about paints and tiny plastic men and what edition is best edition.
Brayden Lopez
Complete newfag here. Just downloaded Megamek and started some sample campaign. I have NO clue how to play this game. Where can I find out how the fuck to play this?
Wyatt King
...
William Lee
Dude, it's right in the OP. Get Against_the_Bot_Instructions_v2-5.pdf and start stomping giant robots.
Andrew Murphy
kek, but: You mean OP's stuff? What of it? I'm looking for somewhere to start, but I'm just completely confused and overwhelmed. hlp, pls.
And no, I don't own anything official of the game. Again, noob.
Benjamin Howard
Thx.
Ian Flores
Old ComStar and Word of Blake were the best. The game and its universe just wouldn't have been the same without them.
Caleb Miller
# >Don't the FWL buy most of their shit off other people, what with how their industry is weak but their economy is strong?
??? The FWL is famous for having a powerful industry and *selling* to other states, almost as much as the Lyrans.
Connor Turner
I know there's myriad reasons they didn't, but I wish Word of Blake had sent a force along with Task Force Serpent. We could have seen their feelings towards Clanners. Plus, story wise it would have been a great opportunity to introduce the early Manei Domini as a secret contribution on the vein of the Drac ninjas.
Blakist cyborg commandos operating operationally on Huntress would have been badass.
Logan Sanders
Dumb question but is the Davion's Assault, Heavy and Light Guard a play on Napoleon's Old, Middle and Young Guard?
Austin Ortiz
I'm thinking it was just a punny name, I mean I can see the Heavy Guards and the Light Guards but Assault Guards? I think someone's taking the piss.
At least it's not as bad as the J Edgar Hovertank.
Brayden Watson
What's the pun? And what's the story with the J Edgar?
Wyatt Thompson
>And what's the story with the J Edgar?
Angel Wood
Light Guards and Heavy Guards could be taken as someone repurposing old military terms, but Assault Guards sounds like purposefully using a game weight class for the unit name.
As for the J Edgar, the long time director of the FBI was named J Edgar Hoover.
Robert Watson
How is that a pun? Just sounds like the evolution of military terminology and names.
Gabriel Allen
J. Edgar Hoover. Think vacuums. Hovercraft.
Aiden Scott
That's the best part. It sounds like a logical unit name when parked next to the Light and Heavy Guards, but it works on both levels.
Then again, this IS the setting where there's an entire unit based on the classic film Buckaroo Banzai and an entire Wolf's Dragoons battalion is crewed by Gundam characters.
Brandon Martinez
>Urban Williams >Not piloting an Urbanmech My actuators...
Jacob Brooks
Let us not forget the venerable Mercenary group "Wylie's Coyotes"
Samuel Cook
Was the Locust and Marauder the beginning of using the bird-legs design? I know they came from Macross and Crusher Joe.
Michael Collins
Given that they were in the first wave of mechs, yeah, pretty much.
Dominic Rodriguez
Pretty.
Aiden Hernandez
>It doesn't seem conducive to the concept of "Your Dudes".
On the off-chance you're still reading, I wanted to share an example of "your dudes" and the almost uniquely emergent gameplay BattleTech is capable of.
The current campaign Cincy BattleTech is running is based around a multi-player merc unit. Each player controls a lance of Mechs, and is solely responsible for their maintenance and upkeep (ie, no sharing between lances). The whole unit acts as a kind of co-op; the Unit CO's main power is that he can assign unit-owned support forces (ie, non-Mechs) to missions when he feels it's needed. Each player can OWN up to 8 Mechs in their "stable" (and 8 pilots), but may only ever deploy a maximum of 4 at one time, and also has a Battle Value cap on the deployed lance, to keep games from being "all assaults, all the time". The cap raises as the campaign goes on and new technologies are introduced; it's currently 5800 BV2. The campaign started in 3044; we're now on our 3rd contract late in 3045.
Each player rolls out a basically complete MechWarrior 3 RPG character; this is their avatar, their "Lance Leader". Lance Leaders either roll on Xotl's RATs (more detail than the standard ones), or can outright choose a starting Mech if they have the right Advantage from the RPG creation. Each player starts with 3 Wingmen for the Lance Leader (so they start with a complete, 4-Mech lance). These Wingmen are locked to a weight class (can add more weight classes via spending XP), but will otherwise gain XP and grow just as the full RPG character does. Wingmen *must* roll their Mechs randomly from Xotl's RATs for their faction.
While I'm GMing, the real hard work is done by Against the Bot; it generates contracts, marketplaces for personnel and spare machines, handles travel time, and generates "balanced" missions during the contracts (which I then translate to a tabletop format).
This the current (and mostly final) version of the rules we're using. >1/2
Austin Barnes
This is what the unit looks like after 19 months. Dragon and Skaraborg Lances JUST joined up (ie, the players just jumped into the campaign). You can see some significant differences between lances as some have had good luck, some have had bad luck, some have been well-run and some have...not. The 4th man in Crusher Lance keeps getting headshot; and totally randomly, the people who AtB is generating in the marketplace whom Crusher has hired have all had the same last name, 3 times straight. So the line is now that they're all from the same family, and Crusher Lance has hired and gotten killed - in their 1st battle, each - almost the whole generation from this obviously cursed MechWarrior-ing family.
You can also see the current contract and an AAR of the last battle (granted, I was lazy with this AAR because the whole match became a giant furball almost immediately and I wasn't doing a detailed breakdown of that). You can ALSO see that we've got a lot of missions in a very short period of time; this is affecting our ability to send reinforcements into battles because we have to take time to repair between them, and so it's very likely that we're going to end up sending damaged Mechs into battle on 9-24, because we "used" a total of 4/10 lances on 9-22, we're going to use 3/10 lances on the second 9-22 battle...and the conditions of the 9-24 convoy attack necessitate using at least 4 lances (probably 5), so if a unit deployed on 9-22 isn't fixed yet, well, it's likely to go anyway.
This isn't saying that what we're doing is the "right" way or "only" way to play BattleTech. It's *A* way. This is just meant to show you what a campaign in progress can look like, and that if you're worried about not enough "your dudes" or "emergent gameplay", then you can really rest easy. That's what BattleTech does BEST.
Ian Jenkins
The original chicken-leg is the Valkyrie in Gerwalk mode. From that came the designs for those other things and then Battletech reproductions.
Oliver Hill
Out of idle curiosity, are you still using that triple PPC 5/8 marauder?
Jeremiah Martinez
No, I swapped out characters. The character who was running the MAD was built to be the Unit CO so the rest of the group could learn what that entailed. After the 2nd contract, the character "stepped down" and retired and a new PC took over as CO so I didn't have to GM and be Unit CO simultaneously. I'm got a new character now.
I'm keeping that old PC in my back pocket though. She'll likely be seen again. It's a small Inner Sphere.
Matthew Carter
That campaign start date...
>Good luck. >your former commander, >Colonel Holly Harris
Ayden Morales
"The economy of the Free Worlds League, historically lacking in heavy industry, was long defined by its dedication to technological innovation and free trade, built on the strength of the M-Bill." House Marik: The Free Worlds League, p. 123
"The Free Worlds League has traditionally lagged behind the other Great Houses in manufacturing, using trade to make up the difference." House Marik: The Free Worlds League, p. 114
Jayden Ortiz
>Don't the FWL buy most of their shit off other people, what with how their industry is weak but their economy is strong? That was in the old Star League times. Things have changed since then, especially with them becoming the "Arsenal of the Inner Sphere" during the Clan Invasion.
Juan Nguyen
Times have changed since then. The Blood of Kerensky trilogy made a big deal of the FWL being the 'arsenal of the Inner Sphere'.
Jack Richardson
That sounds awesome.
Joseph Nelson
I don't recognize your argument as being valid. If it happened after the publication of the SLSB it's not canon.
Therefore, no. The FWL makes up it's deficiency in manufacturing via trade. That's all there is to it. Post a recognizable canon source or cede the argument.
Logan Carter
If you go through the FWL's manufacturing in 3025, you see that they have the largest number of producers. But the classic BT problem is that there's 0 correlation between factories and amount of mechs, since boutique manufacturers that make as little as 4 a year are known to exist, so that Davion's single Valkyrie factory cold be making more mechs than another ten other factories with different machines. The FWL has at least two boutique producers; it's entirely possible it could have more.
In the future (3050+) it's easy to speculate that each of these factories receives heavy expansion or repair to jump up to full production, thus explaining why they go from near-last to first: they had the base infrastructure, and just needed the tech rebirth to return to Star League mass production standards.
Josiah Smith
help I can't stop making overpowered Mary Sue units
Aiden Brown
So, any mercenary unit using Battlemechs?
Lincoln White
I just made a Zeus with more BV than a Timber Wolf, because I went full clan tech with it. It's basically only a Zeus because it's still built on the IS Standard skeleton of one (it'd be endo-steel if literally anyone produced endo-steel Zeus skeletons)
Luis Cruz
>novels >not canon sources
Good troll, got me to respond.
Easton Anderson
You seem like a massive grog faggot.
Choke on dicks.
Adrian Cook
In BT canon hierarchy, novels trump sourcebooks. The novel's title is Blood Legacy, book 2 of the Blood of Kerensky Trilogy.
Now kindly neck yourself to expiate the shame from your bloodline.
Gabriel Martin
For the record, is not me, the one you responded to.
Isaac Barnes
Don't give a shit who posted it. You seem confused in any case.
Henry Thomas
Oh God, it's this guy again
Owen Lee
The point was that, for the majority of their existance, the FWL has had a relatively weak industry but a strong overall economy, a trend that only started to change around... what, the 3040-3060's? The "current day" really isn't that far from it if you're looking at the FWL's lifespan. Most people play around the Succession Wars and invasion anyway.
Christian Foster
Bitch more about being contradicted by source material. It's amusing.
Ian Smith
The old house books are infuriatingly uneven on the number of giant robots produced. House Marik has the list per factory, whilst House Steiner didn't have one, only the list of what factories where produce what 'Mechs, etc.
Ayden Cruz
Yeah. In hindsight this was smart, because those numbers have largely been ignored in canon (because they're inconvenient, and because sometimes the very factories they list don't exist). But there's still scattered refs in later TROs that are still cited in canon (or at least, haven't been explicitly discarded).
Elijah Brown
>FWL Orions outclassed by Zeuses and Goliaths Except that's wrong. I'd take an Onion over a Zeus any day and it's basically on par with a Goliath.
Anthony Hernandez
Depends on the Zeus.
Lincoln Long
I've got a shogun from getting Alpha Strike lances that I don't know what to do with. I wanted to stick them in with either FWL or Fed Suns, where all the other mechs I have work without a problem, but the Shogun is weird and rare and no one seems to use them. Does anyone have suggestions?
Grayson Nguyen
Stock on Stock? Onion every time. PPC Zeus is pretty good but runs ass hot and I think it still has shitty armor.
Noah Stewart
Yeah them including it is basically CGL admitting they don't actually care about who gets what lore-wise anymore and just want people to play the game with their favorite robutts and have fun. So paint it in your favorite colors and have at it, user.
Matthew Allen
scout mechs don't use armor to stay safe user.
Parker Ward
I guess Marik is getting a Shogun. Still, it feels... -wrong-.
Adam Young
Well, the Shogun was a terrible inclusion into that lance pack and no one seems to have a good reason as to why it was included. Your best bet is to claim it was salvage from some clash with the Dragoons and paint it in whatever scheme makes you happy.
Your only other alternative is to make a Wolf's Dragoons force and paint it up in red and black (which looks cool, admittedly). Once you have a larger collection, painting up a lance of Dragoons is pretty appealing if I'm honest (it's what I did). I kinda like the Dragoons though, so that's probably why I did it. If you don't like the 'goons, you don't really have a use for the Shogun.
Cooper Carter
>PPC Zeus is pretty good but runs ass hot and I think it still has shitty armor. The PPC Zeus is extremely well sunk, I dunno what you're saying. Especially compared to the stock Orion.
Ryder Adams
>Marik = Space EU? >Steiner = Space Germany >Davion = Space Britain >Liao = Space China >Kurita = Space Japan >Rasalhague = Space vikings Am I getting this right?
Jose Lewis
Assuming we're discussing the -6T here, given the era and all, it's decently sinked, not amazingly though. It mounts 19 singles with a PPC, a Large, an LRM-15, and 2 Meds. At close range, it's totally fine with the lasers. At long range, the PPC, Large, and LRM make 24 heat, which is a little much, but you can cycle the PPC in and out and do fine.
Brayden Evans
Marik isn't one nation, its a few (so EU sort of counts) but apart from that you got it pretty correct
If you wanted to go deeper into FWL...
Marik = Space Czech Oriente = Space Greece Regulus = Space India Andurien = Space Italy Tamarind = Space Spain Stewart = Space Scotland Coalition = Space America Rim Commonality = Space Turkey
William Price
I always felt like Purple Birds were more Space Netherlands, if you really want to make a national analogue. I don't think they have a 1-to-1 (well, no one does, but Liao and Kurita for example are literally Chinese and Japanese), but I felt like the traditions line up well; mercantile, fairly liberal as far as personal freedoms go, and both, despite having similar qualities to republics, have nobility.
I think wrastlehogs are more Space Scandinavia than explicitly "vikings". They're weird though. A functional democratic republic in the middle of the Inner Sphere with Nordic qualities, spawned from a Japanese space empire, and then consumed by a Clan of communist furries.
Evan Peterson
Read a TRO, or a novel. Doesn’t matter which, just pick one that looks cool. The rest will come naturally.
Blake Foster
that shit is virtually P1E-tier. it's nonsense to think the FWL has lagged behind the Capellans, Dracs or Feds given their industrial and economic issues and then comparing them to the myriad industries we're shown in the FWL. In fact Handbook: House Marik only puts two houses over the FWL: the Lyrans for their manufacturing (a given) and the Feddies for their technological innovation (a given, and notable for not including manufacturing).
Jose Lee
>which is a little much, but you can cycle the PPC in and out and do fine. Usually you're cycling the LL in and out, actually. Until you run of of LRM ammo.
Adrian Morgan
Fair enough. The point was that you can just cycle some weapons and do just fine.
Adam Cruz
How do we make the bugs actually fun to use instead of just a anchor dragging anyone who wants to run fluffy forces down?
Christopher Young
It's weird, I can't actually find those blurbs at all in the book.
Jason Davis
Fight other bugs.
Parker Williams
This is closer than I've seen many anons get here. Good job. However, technically it is one nation. It is a federation of provinces. It's more accurate to say it is not one culture like the other Successor States are usually presented.
Evan Moore
I have to wonder, was the original point of Battletech back in the day to prove that Asians were evil, and also inferior to white people?
Colton Parker
I don't know, and I hope not. I don't really like real-life racism being forced into my games.
Zachary Harris
Locust is fine, really, but the stinger and wasp desperately need to be about ~30 tons and also have meaningfully different loadouts
Evan Gomez
I highly doubt it was as deliberate as that, but in the 80s the Chinese were actual commies (no coincidence, I think, that they were lumped together with the Russians in the Confederation), and the Japs were buying up America and their war against the States was only 40 years back. In that context, they're a natural to pick as a foundation for your space baddies.
Get Rising Sun and Rocky IV and you'll have your primers on 80s American Asia/commie paranoia.
Alexander Reyes
>in the 80s the Chinese were actual commies As opposed to now...?
Joseph Moore
Well thats what was intended. And obviously those cultures listed above are only the broad strokes - Oriente and Andurian have some Chinese flavour due to being close to Capellans, Marik has generally a west/south Slav deal going on, Regulus has some Britishness to it as well.
I've always wondered about some of the FWL states without as much information given though. Zion I guess can be seen as Space Israel given its flag and name. But the Sirian Concordance and Protectorate I've always wondered about - each big enough to toss in two or three regiments into the mix.
Ryder Barnes
Now they're fascists, essentially. More emphasis on nationalism, military and money than communism.
Camden Smith
Yes, as opposed to now, when they're a hyper-capitalist oligarchy that slaps some images of Mao about but otherwise makes the Gilded Age look like the Paris Commune.
Luis Cox
Zion might be Mormons, since the FWL is said to be the biggest concentration of Latter-day Saints in the Inner Sphere. Just guessing. Jews seem to be concentrated more around Robinson and in the Lyran state.
The Sirian Concordance and Border Protectorate are Terran Hegemony successor states, so their cultures would be Hegemony-ish. Space America and Canada and etc.
Gavin Turner
Well, the Locust is basically ok. It's got speed on its side and some decent loadouts available to it as time wears on.
Unfortunately, the Wasp and Stinger really aren't quite as good due to spending tonnage on jump jets which, while useful, do take weight and on a small mech like they are it is relevant amounts of weight. The easiest, if kinda bad, solution is to strip the JJs and do something else with the weight. A better solution is to probably tack 5 tons onto each of them and give them more serious mech-fighting loadouts, probably involving med lasers. Think about the Spider, basically. It does "bug mech" right.
Easton Bennett
Sirian Concordance is most likely Space Canada given that the major city there was called Calgary. It makes sense given the Hegemony located as well.
Also - I note there's a Protectorate and a Border Protectorate - I assume the BP is the one that supplies the regiments right?
Thomas Wood
The capellans were originally a more general Red Menace faction, with strong Russian influences along with the more general Red China theme. Of course they lost all that when the king of wank and embezzlement got his hands on them, but they weren't ALL CHINA ALL THE TIME at the start
Jacob Parker
They've always been that way. So was the USSR, too.
>hyper-capitalist oligarchy My Chinese friend said otherwise. Oligarchy, perhaps, but really not any different from the Soviet Union there. He isn't around anymore, though. He's not dead or anything- at least I hope not- he just cut contact with me one day. It was really strange; he started acting hostile and patronizing to me all of a sudden, despite having known me for five years, and being aware that I knew plenty about China. Helped him through some tough times, too. I think that's why I don't like Liao. They make me think of our relationship.
Lincoln Wilson
Yeah, the Protectorate Guard are all from the Border Protectorate. It's interesting since the BP consists of Alula Australis, Zosma, and Denebola. Since Zosma is described as barely habitable and resource-starved, and Denebola is intermittently invaded by and occupied the Lyrans, A-A must provide the bulk of the manpower and resources.
Carson Torres
>I have to wonder, was the original point of Battletech >The original point of Battletech >Point of Battletech
I usually use Stingers and Wasps as low level security mechs for private companies and such with a small budget. Also if there is a situation where you ONLY have bugs, I might put on the map a few targets that are accessible to them in terms of defensive strength.
However one thing I did a long time ago was the "fake bugs" campaign. Basically someone with the ability to produce bugs and also Phoenix Hawks made a version of the Pixie with a more Stinger or Wasp loadout. This always involved sacrificing the LL. However usually there was an extra ton of armor, and in the Stinger variant, 3 x the firepower of the original Stinger. So you had 3 x the firepower, 3 times the armor, more than twice the IS with a Stinger's movement profile. The key to the campaign was that the Pixies were reworked so they resembled Stingers or wasps and so those huge backpack jump jets were replaced and moved around to make the faint more believable. Someone sees a lance of Stingers guarding a supply cache, they send something capable of dealing with that threat and ends up with a serious fight on their hands. It was fun for ages 8 to 80.
