Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Just bought the 25th anniversary boxset of battletech, pretty much a complete game in a box,

So how do I go about making mech lances(squads)? is it done by tonnage?

Second, do you make lances comprising of similar mechs that do a similar job? or do you do you make mixed lance(one that has assault, recon, and fire support mechs)?

Thanks guys

There are tons (hehehe) of ways to make a lance. Tonnage with 3025 tech is usually quite fair starting out, although you may wish to enforce a body count as well. Otherwise, you may find someone using 4 50 tonners against an Atlas and a Cyclops.

For your first few games, I think the best way is to sort the mechs by weight class, then roll off to see who chooses first and play a light, 2 mediums and a heavy.

Howdy i also bought the intro box it's awesome ! I painted and drew up these 200 ton lances and they are pretty fairly balanced we have run them against each other about 6 times and no one really seemed over powered.

Grasshopper
Enforcer
Commando
Dervish

Dragon
Hunchback
Trebuchet
Whitworth sometimes switched out with a Cicada

Take 4 mechs that have a similar role and/or speed and put them together. Instant lance

Wow, I really expected some more responses to this. We've usually got a fairly active Battletech subculture on here.

As far as some other fun sample lances, use sarna.net for some help with the lore, and which mechs go with which factions, then make some factionally themed lances.

For example, a Commando, Enforcer, Hunchback and Zeus make a great 205 ton Federated Suns or Lyran Commonwealth Lance. It shows the Federated Suns love affair with autocannons very well.

Put them up against a Jenner, Panther, Dragon and Catapult for a great Draconis Combine lance. It also shows the Combine's strong dislike for mediums. This lance is somewhat lighter, but not overly so. It is also composed of arguably more powerful mechs- the panther and jenner are both much more dangerous than their tonnage indicates.

I'd replace the Hunchback with a Centurion (I believe one of those is in the starter set?)

Hunchback is more a Marik Mech.

Dervish or Blackjack is a good mech in the lance. Both are Davion mechs.

Nah no Centurion.. I like the fluff of Battletech a lot but there are so many mechs and mercenaries floating around i don't like limiting myself to house colors or house mechs.Not to say that some of the houses don't kick ass they do but You maybe lucky and your Uncle Norm dies and left you his Jenner but you live on the otherside of the inner sphere..That's just me i have only been delving in the world of BT for about a year now. I use to play with my cousin and uncle when i was about 13-15 it was always a blast great to be back!

Where is the original poster of this thread haha

Hey thanks for the feed back guys, so I'll tell you guys how I split up the my mech starter force,

I decided to split up the forces based on tonnage and I made sure that every force got each type of mech, every force got an assualt mech, recon, fire support, brawler etc..., so far this has worked out pretty well will playing smallsimple 2 vs 2 games,
Here is a list of my forces
Cyclops, spider, whitworth, enforcer, dervish, grasshopper

Banshee, vindicator, jagermech, dragon, assassin, hermes

Atlas, zeus, clint, commando, trebuchet, Panther

Awesome, Quickdraw, Catapult, Cicada, Jenner, Hunchback

The two Omni mechs, haven't used these guys yet but they seem extremely overpowered,

I would like some feed back how to use these forces? Unfortunately I have already painted these guys so pics will be posted soon

One more question, how do I get the game to move faster, I know I'm still learning, but are there any tips to make it move faster?

thanks everyone

Clan Omni Mechs are very OP. When I eventually get my box set, I will be enforcing Zellbrigen. That should balance them out a bit more.

I would put them in balanced lances of 1 of each class, but that's just my preference as I play as a Mercenary.

Ah, the overpowered Omnimech problem... basically, Clan technology is twice as good as Inner Sphere technology from the 3025 era. You have 2 possible solutions to this- pit each clan mech against twice its weight in Inner Sphere mechs.

The second option is to use the upgraded variants of your mechs. http://www.solarisskunkwerks.com/
Solaris skunk works will provide you with rudimentary record sheets, and I believe they have the 3050 upgrade file.

Sarna.net will give you an idea of how many variants of the existing mechs there are, and where to look for them in the skunk works.

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Technical_Readout:_3050_Upgrade
That will give you the designation number for the upgrades.

As an example, the Clint switches from an AC 5 and medium lasers to an ER PPC and Medium Pulse Lasers, and gains double heat sinks.

If you use the 3050 upgrade versions of the machines, you ought to be able to put your Omnis up against any of your other groups on roughly equal footing.

The only exception I see is that Awesome led lance- that is one mean bunch of machines.

As for help speeding the games up a bit i recommend what i learned from here when i posted a similar thread. Photo copy off extra refrence sheet enlarged for every player so they can learn the mechanics as well ( Fed ex Kinkos are pretty awesome they refund your boo boo photocopies) . Copy your Mech sheets and cover with a plastic slip cover use expo markers so you can wipe clean at the end of the game. I decided to just go pencil and big pink erasers didn't have the cash for slip covers i also enlarged the sheets to 11x17 paper size while i was at kinkos so all the mechs internals and locations are easy to find. Movement dice d10s or d20s are a big help to remember what everyone moved for firing mods. PAPER CLIPS! if you do go with the pencil and eraser method on copied sheets a single paper clip to adjust heat quickly cuts down on the pencil marks. My last tip would be firing sticks i have yet to do this it helps to remember who fired what at who basically a small popsicle stick with the weapon type written on it. I am trying to figure out a colored tooth pick method.

I hope this helped out just passing on what all the folks here gave to me.
On a side note Clan mechs scare the hell out of me i have yet to use either of them from the box but i feel very afraid for my mercenaries as i gave the Loki to a member of my group he is painting it this week so i may have a problem on my hand come Sunday


GAME ON !

One thing I learnt from playing years ago was this:

If a mech goes over the heat sinks rating, it can't fire any weapons or use anything else that requires heat on the next turn as it vents the heat.

Made the games a lot faster and quite a bit tactical for us.

One of major disadvantage Inner sphere has if you are playing Lance vs Lance, is the clans use 5 mechs in their version of a lance called a "star" where as the Inner sphere use 4 mech per lance.

I will be enforcing Zellbrigen. That should balance them out a bit more.

That will certainly sort the problem out, one of the nasty tactics is to have a light mech like a spider calling out a challenge to heavy and slower mech then running away
as fast as it can, behind a hill is good the clan mech can't fire at any other mech par the one it's honour fightning, so you can have your heavy and assault mech give it a good mauling.

Only other thing i can think of is against clan mechs you need to close the distance with them as their weapons normally out range the Inner sphere weapons to negate their range advantage
but expect to lose mechs unless you can force him into playing cat and mouse with you.

There have been many ways to build Battletech armies/lances to face each other. I am suprised these ideas are not in the new book that was included in the set.

There has been

Battle Value
Battle Value Two
and
Combat Value
I think there are a couple more systems, and I remember the values being on the TRO entries for each unit. And then you can set a BV range, say within 100 points or 150 points being matched up.

Inner Sphere in lances of 4, Clans in stars of 5
Comstar in mixed forces of 6.

Found it!

There was a thread on the Battletech Forum that asked to split the mechs in the boxset. One of the posters:

LastChanceCav wrote:
I tried to balance it for BV by faction and alliance at the lance and company level - circa 4th SW.

FedCom (BV 12,888)
Davion (BV 4,257)
Jagermech
Dervish
Enforcer
Quickdraw

Steiner (BV 4,348)
Commando
Hunchback
Zeus
Banshee

Mercenary (BV 4,283)
Assassin
Cicada
Whitworth
Atlas

Concord of Kapteyn (BV 12,899)
Kurita (BV 4,196)
Jenner
Panther
Dragon
Grasshopper

Liao (BV 4,501)
Clint
Vindicator
Catapult
Cyclops

Marik (BV 4,202)
Spider
Hermes II
Trebuchet
Awesome

Cheers,
LCC

This is what I'm doing. Goes for good Lance v. Lance fights, or larger company v. company Quickstrike fights.

BV = Battle Value, the points mechanic for list building in the Battletech Universe

Goodluck

Ravenblade666 wrote:

I will be enforcing Zellbrigen. That should balance them out a bit more.

That will certainly sort the problem out, one of the nasty tactics is to have a light mech like a spider calling out a challenge to heavy and slower mech then running away
as fast as it can, behind a hill is good the clan mech can't fire at any other mech par the one it's honour fightning, so you can have your heavy and assault mech give it a good mauling.

Then the other mechs are fair game for the clan mech. Anyone who interferes with a duel is fair game for everyone under Zell.

I have not heard of zellbrigen until now since i have not used Clan mechs yet but i looked it up on Battle Tech Wiki and it states the following so i don't know how well that will work out like i said only been bashing Inner Sphere on Inner Sphere mechs for about a year now.

The proscriptions of zellbrigen consist of the following rules:
Each warrior will issue a challenge to a different enemy. If one side outnumbers the other, then the extra warriors on that side will stand aside until one of their comrades falls in battle. A warrior can challenge more than one unit at a time.
A warrior has right to refuse challenges from Inner Sphere units, especially if underhanded ploys are suspected.
A warrior has the right to refuse a challenge from an unit of differing weight class if other unengaged units are available.
No artillery or other Area-Effect Weapons shall be employed by either side.
Intentionally moving out of the line of sight of the opponent is prohibited.
Systems that requires multiple units to operate, like C3 and TAG, are forbidden.
Moving out of weapon range is prohibited.
Failure to fire a weapon when possible is prohibited.

Field Marshal Wiley wrote: I have not heard of zellbrigen until now since i have not used Clan mechs yet but i looked it up on Battle Tech Wiki and it states the following so i don't know how well that will work out like i said only been bashing Inner Sphere on Inner Sphere mechs for about a year now.

The proscriptions of zellbrigen consist of the following rules:
Each warrior will issue a challenge to a different enemy. If one side outnumbers the other, then the extra warriors on that side will stand aside until one of their comrades falls in battle. A warrior can challenge more than one unit at a time.
A warrior has right to refuse challenges from Inner Sphere units, especially if underhanded ploys are suspected.
A warrior has the right to refuse a challenge from an unit of differing weight class if other unengaged units are available.
No artillery or other Area-Effect Weapons shall be employed by either side.
Intentionally moving out of the line of sight of the opponent is prohibited.
Systems that requires multiple units to operate, like C3 and TAG, are forbidden.
Moving out of weapon range is prohibited.
Failure to fire a weapon when possible is prohibited.

I've been playing this game for ages, and we use all of those rules. It's pretty simple TBH and really evens out match ups against the Clans. But I don't know any of my opponents who have ever kept to Zellbrigen after I destroy hal the armour on a mech in an Alpha Strike.

Gotta love the classic Heavy Star:

Mad Cat
Vulture
Loki
Thor
Hunchback IIC - just because I really like the mech. Sometimes I replace this with a Daishi.

I only looked it up based on Ravenblade 666 post about hiding behind a hill, moving out of range and playing cat and mouse didn't seem in the spirit of a proper duel. Big game coming up tommorow well not a big one just a general bash up. To perezba7 I would also recommend buying tech read out 3039 and the record sheets 3039 great to expand your games gets tanks involved way more in depth that the intro rulesi got mine for xmas been reading through both of em and expanding my mech collection

Aye certainly not fairly play but from what I have read fluff wise and perhaps sneaky it's what the Inner sphere would do, sure you might get lucky but the average clan medium mech can stand toe to toe to most Inner sphere mech if not some
assault mechs, but to be fair if it's your first game then ignore the honour rules.

Then the other mechs are fair game for the clan mech. Anyone who interferes with a duel is fair game for everyone under Zell.

Not really since it's that particular mech that challenged the clan mech and if you hold to strict clan honour rules then he can only attack the mech
that challenged him but for sake of easy of play, then yeah Zell would be off, it's another reason clanners are hard to play if you use their honour system.
but then they did need a achille's heel.

Once you get the hang of the game, the Battletech: total warfare book has all the advance rules in.

Enjoy Battletech

Hey guys, thanks for all the feedback,

I recently picked up the Wolf dragoon lance off ebay,
What book can I find the data sheets for these guys?

I figured these mechs could bring the pain on the omni mechs in my collection plus I wanted some metal mechs, plastic is great but metal minis will always rule!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh yeah also pics should be posted soon, basing is almost finished

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Starterbook:_Wolf_and_Blake

I'd guess that's the only location for those particular variants. The Zeus should have a version of itself in your starter record sheets, the Griffin will be in any 3025 book, or in Project Phoenix. The Battlemaster will be in 3025 or Project Phoenix as well. The Uziel won't be found until Record Sheets 3067.

These appear to be highly customized versions of the mechs, using Jihad era equipment. They might be able to go toe to toe with those Clan mechs.

Hey guys I appreciate all the feedback on this post, I just posted
the pictures of the starter set all painted up, check it out!