A Primer on Good Sets for Parts

It seems lately that some people are confused about why I recommend certain Lego sets as being "good for parts" and not others.  And, to be honest, I was a little annoyed by these questions.  After thinking for most of the day I realized that not everyone sees things the way I do and I've been involved in this hobby for a number of years while others are new to it.
 
So, on to the questions.

"What are "fiddly bits?""

These are all the fun pieces that we use to build mechs.

"There's really no note about which of those are really best."

This is subjective.  The one that is best has the parts you need right at that moment.

"How many Mech you can really make from it.", "How many mechs can I build if I buy just one set?"

This is also subjective.  What's your skill level?  What are you trying to build?  What scale are you building in?  Different designs take different amounts of parts.  If you want to build a more complex design it's going to take more parts.

"How many different sets will it take to build one of the mechs in the book?"

I don't know.  I haven't done the research.  If you're looking to build mechs from the book why not try the Garage Kit?  It was designed to create five mechs from one of the factions in the game.

"What parts will I be missing?"

Again, I don't know.

You wrote "Where do I actually buy these?"

Toys'R'Us, Target, Walmart, Barnes & Noble, 5 Below, etc.  are all stores in my area that carry Lego.  It depends where you live and what the retail presence in your area is like.

"The link sends me to bricklink but there's no option to actually buy these things?"

The link to Bricklink is there so you can look at the inventory of the set and decide for yourself if it's worth buying.  If you click on the Set number on the inventory page it will bring you to another page where you can then navigate to "lots for sale".

"I went to the nearest toy store I could find and when I asked for the first list linked they didn't have anyof the sets. The woman behind the counter said that they'd all been discontinued."

The list was started a year before the blog even existed.  I've been posting for a year and a half.  Lego releases new sets and discontinues old ones every six months.  Which means that we've gone through at least five inventory cycles since this list was started.  So, yes, those first sets are discontinued.  I'll try and update the list to make it a little clearer.

"I'm getting really frustrated with people just tossing me links without any actual explanation about why these sets are good."

They're good because they contain good parts for building in microscale at a good price.  That's it.  The most I can tell people is "look at this set, it has good parts for a good price".

"There's a local Lego store not that far from my place. Am I better off just going there and rummaging through the pick-a-brick section?"

You can try, but in general the Pick-A-Brick wall is aimed more at kids than the adult builder.  You will be able to pick up a lot of bricks for terrain and cover though.

I hope these answers help people understand my GSfP posts.

MFZ Primer 2

I started laying out the basics of MFZ in another post, here.  One thing we didn't touch on was the number of attachments you are allowed on a mech.  You can have two of any one attachment.  This leads us into special cases and the d8s.

If you have two weapons at one range, instead of rolling 4d6, you roll 2d6 + 1d8.  See below for how this looks at different ranges.

is Overloaded Hand-to-Hand and is written 2Rh+d8.
is Overloaded Direct Fire and is written 2Rd+d8.

  is Overloaded Artillery and is written 2Ra+d8.

is a Single Shot Rocket (SSR) and you may have three of these for your entire unit. They are a 1d8 attack at Direct Fire range.

Now, if you don't have or you get one of these , a free Green d8.  You can have by itself, which is written 1Gd8.  Or  which is written 1G+d8 or which is written 2G+d8.

Beyond this we start getting into rule book territory, so unless people have a lot of questions this will bring the MFZ Primer series to a close.

A MFZ Primer

Talking to a friend last week made me realize that I write mostly for people who are familiar with the game.  He said a lot of the shorthand in the mech write-ups went right over his head.

So let's change that.

We'll look at the dice and the attachments they represent first.

Red Dice come in three types.  They represent the offensive capabilities of your mech.
Hand-to-Hand. These are written as 2Rh. These have a range of 0 to 1 unit on the Ruler.
Direct Fire.    These are written as 2Rd.  These have a range of 1 to 8 units on the Ruler.
Artillery. These are written as 2Ra.  These have a range of 8+ units on the Ruler.

Blue Dice  represent the defensive capabilities of your mech.  These are written as #B. # = 1 or 2. 
Green Dice  represent the movement capabilities of your mech.  These are written as #G. # = 1 or 2.
Yellow Dice   represent the communication/targeting (Spotting) capabilities of your mech.  These are written as #Y. # = 1 or 2.

All mechs have two White Dice.    These are written as 2W.  White dice can be substituted for any dice you normally roll during the course of the game.  They can also be used for defense if you do not have a Defensive attachment, movement if you do not have a Movement attachment, or spotting -- at a limited range -- if you do not have a Spotting attachment.

All these dice are d6s.  There are also d8s, but I might wait for a second post before covering those.