Texture Sheet Animation ....on a mesh?

So i need to 'play' a Texture Sheet animation as the material of a mesh. The mesh can be inside a particle system...i've tried using the Renderer -> Render Mode -> Mesh, but the animation stops playing. When I change it back to 'billboard' of course it animates again.

Has anyone else run into this problem? Can anyone recommend a specific solution (besides writing a custom shader of course)...

thanks in advance,