The Marik unit is very dangerous. Two hard hitting, heavy armor powerhouses and a pair of flankers that can do some damage.

Hello everyone.

I recently became interested in this game. I was always a Battletech/Mechwarrior fan, through the books and games, but I NEVER played this game. I am new to miniature gaming, so I was wondering if I wanted to play this where do I start? Is this still supported? Do new edtions, models, etc still come out?

Sorry if this isn't the right place to ask, but I LOVE mech style sci-fi in general, and being able to take mechs and duke it out is very very appealing to me.

So, if I understand this right, are you taking squads based on weight limits or credits spent? It is squad based, right? Not just one on one mechs? Sorry for asking such questions, but this has only recently caught my attention.

Just point me where I can get some info! Thanks!

Generally people play lance on lance which is 4 on 4.

New stuff is constantly coming out, but it is additions. Changes between editions are pretty minimal, and you can still use the original mechs.

You can take lances based on weight (very unbalanced), creidt cost (Never tried it) or BV (Battle Value - The most common form of balancing. It's a complicated forumla, but the canon mechs are already done and easily found.

@Vision...

Everyone plays it differently. The origional game was more as a board game than a miniatures game, using hexgrids and precise facing and movement rules. It is much less ambiguous than a 'miniatures wargame' about things like distance, line-of-sight, and other such stuff. Years ago a company called Ral Partha (which unfortunately went out of business) made an entire line of every mech design that existed at the time, giving the impression that it was a 'miniatures wargame', but really they were just fancy playing pieces. The actual game used carboard cutouts origionally as playing pieces. All things battletech can be found at this website, including the origional basic rulebook PDF download and loads and loads of cool pictures of giant killer robots... check it out:

www.sarna.net

Vision:

Best resources for Battletech are unsurprisingly the company sites:

http://www.classicbattletech.com

Also includes forums, free downloads of Quick Start rules, and a metric buttload of information. Jump on the forums and introduce yourself.


http://www.catalystdemos.com

Official Demo Agent site. You can find local players and demo agents who can help you learn the game. I'm an Agent myself, but not for your area according to your profile.

From 3025 i loved the Ostroc and BattleMaster
From 3050 i loved the Timberwolf but used the Warhawk much more frequently.
From 3055 the Vixen was my fave by far.
But my absolute fave mech was one my brother designed. 75 Tons, 4-6 move, 26(52) heatsinks, and 12 Medium Pulse lazers. He called it the "Chain"
it was a sometimes a pain to get in range, but once you did you peeled a mech to shreds in short order.
At close range with it I have taken out 100 ton Mechs, in one volley. One game i actually managed to knock out 2 timber wolves with it. I admit freely i got lucky surviving the shootout and at the end i had massive damage. But it was still awesome.
Another he made was also very impressive, 100 tons, 3-5 move, 20(40) heatsinks, and armed with 3 ERPPC and 2 Gauss cannon. He smoked me plenty of times with this monster. Hes beat me with a heavy star with this mech on several occasions. he named it " Thunder Hawk" He named it and built it before the 3060 book where another mech with the same name appeared. But FASA has the licensing, he never changed the name however.

Thanks for the info and links. I stopped by my shop today (for 40k) and found that they had ALOT of Battletech goodies. Lots of rulebooks, lots of mechs, a bunch of different starters (I know atleast 4, maybe more) and best of all there is a small group that meets on thursdays that consists of 4-5 people. I will go check them out, get some insight, then go downstairs and start grabbing what I need.

Thanks again!

Jay-Man McDougall wrote:
But my absolute fave mech was one my brother designed. 75 Tons, 4-6 move, 26(52) heatsinks, and 12 Medium Pulse lazers. He called it the "Cheese"

Fixed.

Orlanth wrote:

Jay-Man McDougall wrote:
But my absolute fave mech was one my brother designed. 75 Tons, 4-6 move, 26(52) heatsinks, and 12 Medium Pulse lazers. He called it the "Cheese"

Fixed.

Indeed. That is one of the most boring, silly 'Mechs a person could design. It is a sign that while you understand the game of Battletech, you don't understand the universe. Not much different than giving a Carnifex a pair of twin-linked lascannnons.

Mattlov wrote:

Orlanth wrote:

Jay-Man McDougall wrote:
But my absolute fave mech was one my brother designed. 75 Tons, 4-6 move, 26(52) heatsinks, and 12 Medium Pulse lazers. He called it the "Cheese"

Fixed.

Indeed. That is one of the most boring, silly 'Mechs a person could design. It is a sign that while you understand the game of Battletech, you don't understand the universe. Not much different than giving a Carnifex a pair of twin-linked lascannnons.

Never claimed to have all knowing super knowledge of the universe regarding battletech.
The thread is called "favorite Mech designs" sounded to me like someone was interested in learning about other people interested in the game. I had no idea it would be Battle tech canon quiz.
An opinion was asked for, and it was given.
With regards to your opinion of it. Thank you. Its an opinion thread.

@Guitardian: I'm going with Mattlov on this one, that Marik lance could be a big surprise indeed. I hope you actually run the simulation, it would be interesting to see the results.

Sorry I forgot to post them. It came out pretty much as expected. It takes a couple of hours to set up a program called 'MegaMek' to play itself with 4 bots versus 4 bots on a 'standard' map, each lance from each house played 1 battle against each lance from the other houses. I ran it in fast foreward just to watch the action, instead of just the results(still took a couple of hours). If I ran it again I'm sure the results would be slightly different but one thing was clear, Marik DOMINATED, often only losing their Locust (although they lost the Orion in one battle against Davion - That Awesome and Valkyrie combo saved Davion from fail)

Marik 4/0 (the Battlemaster/Orion combo was just unstoppable)

Liao 3/1 (only beat by Marik, Vindicator seemed to be doing most of the work but that is unsurprising)

Davion 2/2 (Awesome and Valkyrie were its strongpoints, 2 out of 4 games the Awesome went down to headshots, bad luck, otherwise they may have come out with better results)

Kurita 1/3 (The Dragon seemed kind of useless, which surprised me, maybe just bad dice but it never really did much damage)

Steiner 0/4 (not surprisingly. But the Zeus did seem to take forever to take down and the Commando did most of their killing, scoring 3 kills in 4 games, but goes down kind of early)

---- so anyways... You guys were right, Marik was pretty sick and performed outstandingly well. It was like there was no question... battle after battle it just seemed like it was won before it started.

MegaMek is the name of the simulator I used. It's a neat freeware program. You can play it against the computer, on a LAN, or just have the computer play itself (which I did to avoid any personal bias in the outcome) It's more or less an exact computerized version of the board game. I gave each lance one 4/3 pilot, one 5/4 pilot, and two 6/4 pilots and had it randomly assign them between each battle so sometimes a 4/3 would wind up in a Locust or something and be kind of wasted... but hey, luck of the draw, right?

The sim keeps track of everything from total damage output to hit percentage and so on, but I didn't save all that kind of info I wasn't thinking at the time. The game was played for total attrition, 'last mech(s) standing' kind of scenario, you can't program it to do any kind of 'victory conditions' it's not sophisticated enough. It should be noted though that the A.I. is not nearly as sophisticated or capable of trickery and subterfuge as one of us. If it were humans playing the results may have been different too just due to our more natural ability to outwit the other guy, minimize our weaknesses and so on.

The megamek bot is notoriously bad at using tactics, and varying more than the mechs (The pilots) makes it for a bad sample.

Indeed. If you run the games again, put all the pilots at 4/5.

Agreed. I don't know which version you use, but mine occasionally locks itself up incapable of 'thinking' straight. Most of the tactics involve trying to find elevations, woods to hide in. It's fine with heat management, but it must be difficult to teach a computer how to make the kind of decisions a human might make (for instance it never deliberately takes a chance to overheat in order to get in a good shot when the opportunity arises).

Also it has a hard time juggling the tradeoff between movement and accuracy that we all instinctively understand. It won't take risky shots at -3 from jumping, even with things like Assassin and Spider, for whom jumping all around is really their only defense... It sometimes keeps them grounded in order to get a better shot (which to me is just stupid). I have to say though that Marik Hermes II...

the bot went wild with that flamer and to really good effect, that thing had the board lit up. I've never liked that mech because I think an AC5 is too big a gun for its size and it would have been better off with a LL or something, but the bot was doing some interesting tactics just using it to set all the woods on fire while the two heavies were just standing out in the open waiting for everyone to come out. I don't know if that situation a was randomthing or if the computer could actually 'think' like that.

Well, that said, is it surprising? Humans will always beat the bot because we can make the decisions of when to take calculated risks, where it can only be predictable. I would have liked to play out all the games with 8 real players just to get the real feel, but around here there's nobody to play with, so I guess MegaMek will have to suffice.

Okay, now that is very interesting.

That is the one thing I like about MegaMek over the regular game: I can do some setups and rules that I don't normally use because they bog down the game. Fire is one of those things which I don't normally see on the table, but al the time when I played Megamek.

The only real problem I have ever had with MegaMek is the Random Number Generator. It quite simply is flawed, and much closer to a linear distribution than it is a bell curve like 2d6 should be.

REM dicerollsubroutine2d6
randomize timer
x=int (6*rnd) +1
y=int (6*rnd) +1
diceroll=x+y

How hard can that be to make a computer understand? I never noticed the dice rolls I just assumed they were using the standard random number generator command that bases itself off of the computers internal clock milliseconds. Random numbers over and over and over have a good much chance of having ridiculously improbable outcomes when done enough in succession, and also a good chance of turning out like 'mathhammer' too, but it is never precision probability. I dont know if they used a 2 x d6 routine or if they just made a number between 2 and 12... which is vastly different probability. I shall observe.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'm running sims now of mech vs mech in each weight category from the different house 'standard' lances. So far the Hermes II and Locust have sucked. The Valkyrie beat the Panther in a tough slugfest which I expected the Panther to win... hey dice are dice... and the Battlemaster has beat everything except the Awesome. I have yet to try the Vindicator but I am expecting a close matchup between that and the Davion Enforcer, and a win over all the other mediums. One on one is never very accurate assessment of a mech's full potential though as it gives the advantage to hitting power rather than maneuver, and there's only so far you can run around on the playing field.

Other bets being taken: The Cyclops will probably lose to every matchup but maybe stand a chance over the Zeus. The Dragon will dominate the riflemen and get hosed by Orion, who has a clear advantage over all of its peers (in all fairness it is just a lot better armored and armed than the sixty-tonners so it's hardly fair), the Locust will continue to suck versus all the other house lights in the contest, and the big toss up is between Vindicator and Enforcer. (edit) never mind, the Enforcer isn't their 'average' 7 on the 2d6 standard mech its a Dervish (with its ammo up its lightly armored sleeves... I'm pretty sure how that matchup will go... boom!)

Taking bets...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@ Mattlov...
I think you're right. It does seem to get a very disproportionate number of very high or low rolls. I wonder if the programmers just told it to generate a number between 2 and 12 instead of 2 numbers between 1 and 6. That would be serious oversight on their part. Hey can't really complain about freeware though I guess.

Jay-Man McDougall wrote:

Mattlov wrote:

Orlanth wrote:

Jay-Man McDougall wrote:
But my absolute fave mech was one my brother designed. 75 Tons, 4-6 move, 26(52) heatsinks, and 12 Medium Pulse lazers. He called it the "Cheese"

Fixed.

Indeed. That is one of the most boring, silly 'Mechs a person could design. It is a sign that while you understand the game of Battletech, you don't understand the universe. Not much different than giving a Carnifex a pair of twin-linked lascannnons.

Never claimed to have all knowing super knowledge of the universe regarding battletech.
The thread is called "favorite Mech designs" sounded to me like someone was interested in learning about other people interested in the game. I had no idea it would be Battle tech canon quiz.
An opinion was asked for, and it was given.
With regards to your opinion of it. Thank you. Its an opinion thread.

Remember this is a 40K forum at heart, and above all Dakka where substandard lists are critiqued heavily and many options are eschewed from army lists under the category 'not worth it'. To appreciate Battletech properly you have to do the equivalent of giving your 40K squads the crap guns that noone uses along with the lascannon and autocannon. Learn to love the heavy stubber shotgun and grenade launcher. learn to love krootox, multimelta devastators, pariahs and all the other things normally not seen. This seperate attitude is what seperates Battletech from 40K. Because not only are there decent guns as well as poor guns, and decent designs as well as poor designs sometimes the decent guns are cheaper than the poor guns. If a heavy stubber cost 10pt and a lascannon 5pts would you stomach taking the heavy stubber every now and then because it fits the army theme? This is how Battltech is, autocannon are too heavy for what they do, and LRMs start to lose efficiency if the launcher is larger than a five missile rack. There isnt any good reason to take an LRM20 over four LRM5's, it weighs a lot more is more vulnerable to critical hits and has a poorer missile spread, yet the LRM20 exists, and thrives.
Battletech breaks down as soon as someone tries to apply to the philosophy of force organisation used in games of 40K. I can see room for a 'gladiator tournament' for Battletech, though there would probably be only three or four designs on the battlefield and about as many actual weapon options.

amen brotha!

Battletech mech designs from 3025 were intentionally flawed. All of them had some kind of weakness. Just as no marine commander in his right mind would use anything but las/plas at least in some squads, and nobody would ever want to leave a meltagun behind, or a landraider that isn't full of thunderhammers.... No battletech commander in 3025 wouldn't want to take an Awesome, Marauder, Griffin, Panther combo lance either but those are the no-brainers. The funnest games were the ones where you just get a random pilot in a random mech just like all the other guys in the beer-n-pretzels circle and learn to make the best of its janky ass. "Yay I get a firestarter! well.. at least I know what I need to get busy doing..."... or... "I get a Warhammer! I'm pretty sure I'm the first priority target for all the other guys and will probably sit out the latter half of the game with a leg blown off from fire on all sides of my dumb machinegun ammo blowing up on me, but at least I scare the crap out of people with my big arms!... sucks for me..."

Btech wasn't meant to be a streamlined matchup between well matched forces, all with perfect speed/armor/heat/mediumlaser combos which obviously can dominate on a restricted map where sooner or later you will get in range. It was meant to represent a 'dark age of technology' before the comstar cache was found or the clans showed back up. All the mechs were flawed (well.... not the Awesome but that's a subject all by itself) and you just make do with the junk you were lucky enough to inherit.

Well said you guys.

Battletech is a game about flavor and fun, more than just winning. Some of the best games you can play involve the worst units in the game because you have to think more and be smart. But not just for a short time! You have to strategize for turn after turn of fighting that may or may not even hurt the enemy that much! It's great.

@Guitardian: Yes, the Awesome is flawed. It is very slow, and all of it's firepower has annoying minimum ranges (at least in 3025). It is easily flanked by faster machines who can exploit the minimum range issues and lack of speed. Closest thing to an unflawed design (to me) in 3025 is the Grasshopper 5N. No situation it really can't deal with. I don't like the medium laser boat aspect of it, but it can fight most anything of the time and have a chance to come out on top.

@Mattlov:

Awesome is indeed flawed against multiple opponents as it will inevitable get backshot if it is double teamed. Using it with any almost any other mech to guard its back though it is the way to go.

Grasshopper... as a brawler, it is peerless I agree. It is the closest thing to a medium laser/heat sink cheesy ubermech for 3025. But that LRM5 always seemed out of place though, sort of useless, and given the rest of the mech's energy/heat sink basis, adding the possibility of an ammo explosion just to get a couple of points at long range when the guy is clearly intended to close in and just jump around blasting away, what's up with the LRM? So yeah, even the most efficient mechs when it comes to heat, firepower, mobility, protection all balanced out... they still come with some kind of flaw.

Dumping the Awesome's arm mounted PPC in favor of a LL, and rear mounting the SL would turn it into a near-perfect mech, with less minimum range, perfect heat management, and nearly as much damage output (especially since its an arm mount so with some torso twisting and arm fire arcs it can protect the rear).

You can't really put any more armor on it than it already has and it would have the perfect number of heat sinks for firing its main weapons every turn. what to do with the two tons of space saved by the weapon switch? umm... rear-mounted medium lasers! Now try flanking my slow ass! Mwaahaahaaa...

I prefer to not play modified mechs though, and just deal with the flaws inherent in them all in one way or another.

Guitardian wrote:@Mattlov:
Grasshopper... as a brawler, it is peerless I agree. It is the closest thing to a medium laser/heat sink cheesy ubermech for 3025. But that LRM5 always seemed out of place though, sort of useless, and given the rest of the mech's energy/heat sink basis, adding the possibility of an ammo explosion just to get a couple of points at long range when the guy is clearly intended to close in and just jump around blasting away, what's up with the LRM? So yeah, even the most efficient mechs when it comes to heat, firepower, mobility, protection all balanced out... they still come with some kind of flaw.

Ah ha, but I said the 5N not the 5H.

The Grasshopper 5N has a PPC and 5 mediums, along with a metric buttload of heat sinks. Still has near maximum armor, and still jump. Basically drops the large and LRM 5 for a PPC and a medium laser. It is BRUTAL.

Due to fanatical insomnia and boredom that ensued... I got the results of all the 'house standard' mechs from the sim. I actually watched the battles play out too and questioned my sanity while doing so, as I am doing now by posting them. I ran 4/4 pilots in all mech and matched up a single mech of each weight class against the 'standard' of each other house. the results were somewhat predictable, but not very pretty. I ran it 3 times over for each matchup and came up with exactly the same results:

Gold Medals goes to....
Davion (Awesome and Valkyrie both 4/0)

Light:
Davion Valkyrie 4/0 (I was shocked when it beat the panther 3 times in a row. lucky shooting i guess)
Kurita Panther 3/1
Steiner Commando 2/2
Liao Stinger 1/3
Marik Locust 0/4

Medium:
Liao Vindicator 3/1 (its only loss was a headshot)
Kurita Whitworth 3/1
Steiner PhoenixHawk 2/2
Davion Dervish 1/3
Marik HermesII 0/4

Heavy:
Marik Orion 4/0 (that one should be obvious)
Liao Catapult 3/1
Kurita Dragon 2/2
Davion Rifleman 1/3
Steiner Rifleman 0/4

Assault:
Davion Awesome (4/0)
Marik Battlemaster (3/1)
Steiner Zeus (2/2)
Kurita Victor (1/3)
Liao Cyclops (0/4) the one between cyclops and victor was pretty intense since they both have crap armor and a huge gun, but the jump jets pulled the victor through

I actually perfer the Valkyrie to the Panther. Panther is too slow for a light mech.

I am half surprised that the Catapult didn't come out on top. Then again, I don't think the bot would use one right.

Here's an idea...Try lances from each weight range...a 6, 2 7's, and an 8.

skyth wrote:
I am half surprised that the Catapult didn't come out on top. Then again, I don't think the bot would use one right.

The Catapult has the dual problems of light ammo and a bit low in terms of armor. While it is a decently rounded 'Mech, it is average in almost every catagory while not really standing out in any of them. It is almost TOO generic. Most 'Mechs are better at in in some way, and worse in others. Depending on what the enemy better at drastically changes the effectiveness of the Catapult. It is a much better team player than an individual 'Mech.

I'm pretty sure that's the same reason Marik's Hermes II got so badly hosed 1-on-1. Catapult will run out of ammo before it ever breaches the armor on another well armored heavy, it should be weakening it before you get into that 9 hex range where all the gak hits the fan. On its own it's a schizophrenic jumping/indirect/ML with too few sinks and the heat becomes a problem using the medium laser/JJ combo which can work up close... So far away, it runs out of ammo pretty fast, and up close, it can't compete due to heat issues. It's a mech that just doesn't work well on its own. Flamer isn't useful on the Hermes II either without a lance to take advantage of the flushout, which is why it died of suck 3 times in a row on the 1-on-1 sim, but when part of a lance, completely changed the battle to its favor.

Guitardian wrote:@Mattlov:
Grasshopper... as a brawler, it is peerless I agree. It is the closest thing to a medium laser/heat sink cheesy ubermech for 3025. But that LRM5 always seemed out of place though, sort of useless, and given the rest of the mech's energy/heat sink basis, adding the possibility of an ammo explosion just to get a couple of points at long range when the guy is clearly intended to close in and just jump around blasting away, what's up with the LRM? So yeah, even the most efficient mechs when it comes to heat, firepower, mobility, protection all balanced out... they still come with some kind of flaw.

Shame, shame. The idea of has ammo therefore its weak is very poor indeed. The only way out is a mech entirely equipped with energy weapons, yawn.
I like the head mounted LRM launcher, this says to me 'trick shot' I can see a Grasshopper pilot with a mobile heavy mech sometimes working as a 70 ton skirmisher, the LRM rack is what gives it that role. Its head mounted so its fires at what the pilot is looking at. I could see the missile rack being a snapfire weapon. The lasers being for main engagements.

Mattlov wrote:
The Grasshopper 5N has a PPC and 5 mediums, along with a metric buttload of heat sinks. Still has near maximum armor, and still jump. Basically drops the large and LRM 5 for a PPC and a medium laser. It is BRUTAL.

Its a mod, while it may be a 3025 orginal mod its still a mod. I would restrict those in most cases. Besides, I see your Grasshopper 5N and raise you Banshee-S.

How is the Grasshopper N a mod? It is a tournament legal, published design.

The Banshee-S is good, easily the best assault 'Mech of 3025. I wish it had dropped the small lasers for heat sinks, armor, or both, though.

Hell, I'd take machine guns in their place for anti-infantry work.

Personally, I consider anything that isn't the actual mech stats shown in the TRO to be a mod

I'm softening in my old age...I just love the Archer-S.

@Orlanth

I don't consider ammo carrying to be a flaw. All energy is indeed 'yawn' but with something like the Grasshopper, The choice of a LRM for a head is just kind of silly given its intended usage, and the truth that a single LRM5 is not going to give it much in the way of hitting power. That thing was meant to be up-close and personal. If you are hanging back firing your wimpy LRMs you will be outmatched by a Valkyrie, Whitworth, Dervish, Griffin heck the list goes on... all smaller mechs that would take you apart if you actually play outside the minimum range of that weapon instead of taking advantage of its close range brawler ability. Who really wants their Grasshopper hanging back launching 2 or 3 points of damage per turn when it can be unleashing hoppy zappy crazy hell just by closing in for a turn or two? It is mentioned in the technical readout that the strength and intent of the design is the heat efficiency and staying power, so while comparatively under-armed to other mechs in its class, its movement, jets, and medium laser spam make it ideal at 3 hexes, which rules the LRM launcher out completely when the mech is doing its job like it does best. When I used them (only a couple of times in group games mind you, so I am by no means an expert on them) I would just ammo-dump the LRM as soon as I got into ML range, just to be on the safe side.

In some mechs, ammo style weapons are just fine. Commandos come to mind, as does Zeus, as does Centurion. None of them keep it in the center torso either, and all of them are somewhat heat efficient and rely on their missiles and cannons heavily. I don't think of ammo as a failed mech, just where it's put and how it's used is a bit iffy. If there's no infantry on the map, just playing mechs versus mechs, who wants to risk an ammo explosion just for a pair of gimpy little machineguns? That's what the ammo dump ability is for. 2 tons wasted just to be dumped on your first turn so your warhammer doesnt blow up to a CT crit roll. Has anyone ever actually gone through 200 rounds of machinegun ammo in a game firing 2 per turn only once you get close enough? If you have, I salute your gaming endurance.

Hello again. I just wanted to say thank you for talking about Megamek. I have been playing it nonstop for several days. I was just wondering a couple of things in relation to the tabletop version.

First thing is, how close is Megamek to the actual game? Meaning, would I be able to jump into a real game now that I know how to play the PC version or are they vastly different?

Second thing is, I see the different time lines 3025, 3050, and so on... what do people normally play?

And lastly, you've already told me that BV is the perferred way people set up as opposed to tonnage or cost, but whats the "average" BV people play with for 4 or 5 mech games. And for that matter, do most players take only mechs or is there alot of support craft and infantry on the board?

I am sorry for so many questions, but I am really really liking this game! Been doing alot of random armies using on canon meks to get a feel for different configurations.

I think at most FLGS they play the modernized version, which is a lot more cheesed out than the stuff us old schoolers play (which is usually 3025-3050 era). As soon as clan technology hit the fan, a whole new can of worms opened. Newer players ate it up and older players hated it for the same reasons that 40k players hate "codex creep". MegaMek is a very good emulation of the actual board game though, at least at earlier tech levels. Things like NARC beacons, C3-equipped lances, and indirect fire tactics are a bit out of its league as an A.I. but the rules are true to the origional game. The modernized Btech is more miniatures-oriented and less of a board game, but the old school rules still apply. It isn't like 40k where they just change the rules every year or so with a new codex or rules release every few... all they really did was add more rules as the tech level was rising. More technology = more special rules you have to tack on. That's why a lot of us old timers prefer to keep it simpler.

The origional Battletech 3025 plus Citytech 3026 for the vehicle rules and the various tech readouts from that era were enough for a good board game and many people I have met or talked to online like to stay back in the dark ages because when the Clan stuff showed up, all the old rules started getting twisted:

it was hard to tell what equivalent a "Star" of clan mechs could be evenly matched against however many inner Sphere mechs due to the vast tech advantage of the clan stuff, instead of just playing lance versus lance all on the same tech level. That was, in many people's opinion, the beginning of the end.

But it was the future for battletech I guess. It kept the game going, kept it morphing into something new and (again, in many people's opinions) kind of an overblown marketing fix to a game that didn't really need fixing.

Careful when playing MegaMek that you keep your tech levels even, otherwise, no, it isn't a good trainer for playing the actual game. A 3065 mech with extralight engine and ferro fibrous armor and double heat sinks will be far different from its 3025 equivalent.

Another game that is good if you want to learn the real boardgame is called 'mechwar'... it is VERY dry and with minimal graphics and it runs off of dos. You cannot play against the computer, and every single phase of the game is run through JUST like the board game, so it isn't exactly action packed, but it is good practice at learning the strengths and weaknesses of most mechs. It also has a database of the exact stats of hundreds and hundreds of mechs. The interface is awkward, but the amount of data if you learn how to dig well enough, is phenomenal. That game is freeware too and a true labor of love from its creator, just given the amount of time he had to put into it cataloguing so many mechs and variants.

Guitardian wrote:@Orlanth

I don't consider ammo carrying to be a flaw. All energy is indeed 'yawn' but with something like the Grasshopper, The choice of a LRM for a head is just kind of silly given its intended usage, and the truth that a single LRM5 is not going to give it much in the way of hitting power. That thing was meant to be up-close and personal. If you are hanging back firing your wimpy LRMs you will be outmatched by a Valkyrie, Whitworth, Dervish, Griffin heck the list goes on... all smaller mechs that would take you apart if you actually play outside the minimum range of that weapon instead of taking advantage of its close range brawler ability. Who really wants their Grasshopper hanging back launching 2 or 3 points of damage per turn when it can be unleashing hoppy zappy crazy hell just by closing in for a turn or two? It is mentioned in the technical readout that the strength and intent of the design is the heat efficiency and staying power, so while comparatively under-armed to other mechs in its class, its movement, jets, and medium laser spam make it ideal at 3 hexes, which rules the LRM launcher out completely when the mech is doing its job like it does best. When I used them (only a couple of times in group games mind you, so I am by no means an expert on them) I would just ammo-dump the LRM as soon as I got into ML range, just to be on the safe side.

You are focusing way too much on the gamestats and not enough on the style. If you are going to calcultate it by points of damage at various range brackets you might as well just minimax.
Autocannon (for example) are good because they are fearsome shell spitters, even the AC/2. The fact that we know most autocannon suck is something we should ignore. Mechwarriors are not in possession of the stats, they have the mechs instead.
A head mounted LRM launcher is a trick shot weapon tied into the pilots occulus, its a nifty piece of gear suitable for a multirole mech like the Grasshopper. Which because it can jump can skirmish in certain conditions dancing around with a large laser and LRM 5, fearsome firepower. Furthermore if the foe happens to catch this 'skirmisher' they have hell to pay. My mechwarrior wants to know what all this three hexes and two or three points of damage are all about. Are you on drugs? His Grasshopper has a missile launcher with a 120 round bin capable of firing salvoes of five missiles, thats rather impressive yes. Many smaller mechs put that type of weapon in the chest!
Of course we all know the Grasshopper is an infighter most of the time with so many 5cm lasers why wouldnt it be. But the jumpjets, 8cm laser and missile rack open up opportunities to be exploited from time to time.

Vizion wrote:Second thing is, I see the different time lines 3025, 3050, and so on... what do people normally play?

Nothing is really 'normal' from where people play. I think most people will either play whatever they want (and ignore what year it is) or just play whatever we are currently up to in the time line (3085 as of... well as of today!). There are time periods that some groups prefer - I myself like 3058 and all that happened around that time - and there are groups that simply refuse to play anything past the Succession Wars and 3025.

It's a mixed bag really.

thanks guitardian and H.B.M.C, that helped me out alot. I was letting the computer random pick. I took out anything non-canon, but I didn't specify the age range so it was doing 2600 up, so some were more than a few centuries outdated.

I will add this into the discussion, I really like the idea of playing the old stuff, instead of "how many Lasers can I put on this thing??". Its kind of like if you picked up a comic book and everyone was Superman. Who was give a gak? Mek with flaws are Mek with character.

But at the same time, its a technology based game, so its supposed to advance. I loved the MechWarrior games, and any good Pilot is going to pimp his ride so to speak.

I am all for playing with restrictions or without them, but I guess in the likely hood I have to fight a 90 ton mech with 12 Pulse Lasers coming at me, I should have my own Laser Totem Pole of Doom too.

Sigh, war is no fun when everyone has a nuke...

@Orlanth agreed 100% about the funny odd LRM in the grasshopper.. from the role-playing point of view it absolutely has a place, and our mechwarrior is not exactly thinking in hexes and range bracket/damage ratios like his god-like controller looking up from above the action. Still, as gamers these thoughts natural cross our mind as we play whether we like it or not. It's like deliberately trying to be bad at chess. You just can't NOT see things and pretend you dont notice them in your decision making.

@Vizion... I like what you said about most mechwarriors wanting to 'pimp their ride' and agree. When playing in a 1 off game scenario I would prefer using the canon mechs and established legal variants, but playing a more campaign-style game where you keep the same pilot and mech between battles, we would gradually get to upgrade a little here or there. Some things are just absurd and you have to look at the pics to figure out what may or may be possible. Replacing an arm mounted autocannon with an arm mounted large laser pockmarked with heat sinks is one thing. Re-routing the amunition feeds across the torso or replacing torso mounted weapons in general is, from a roleplay point of view, stretching it a bit.

Remember a mech is a lot more complicated than its stats on paper. There's a lot of strange and hard-to-fix technology involved in routing weapons and myomer bundles to the neurohelmet, configuration of jumpjets, fusion reactor power plants and gyros, all that wierd stuff we don't really understand because it doesn't exist (yet!) so I imagine "pimping your ride" would be more tricky than it seems on paper for the actual techs that have to work on it. It's one thing to replace a medium laser with a flamer for instance, but removing it from the torso, making room for it to be mounted in the head, and routing another feed of Autocannon ammo in the hole where it used to be would be much more complicated. That is all from a roleplaying style of approach to the game where that kind of consideration is taken. Our happy little high school group years ago had a kind of 'referee' like dungeonmaster who arbitrated just what we could salvage and realistically mount on our mechs. Replacing LRMs with SRMs is one thing, replacing them with a PPC is totally different as the weapons are simply mismatched in shape. The LRM15 from a Thunderbolt could easily be switched with the LRM10 from a Griffin, just as the pictures suggest, but it would be hard to use one of those barrel-cannon style launchers in the torso of an archer as an internal mount. May the pictures be your guide when it comes to customization. My Crusader "Lionheart" (cheesy I know but I was 15) ended up 5 tons heavier over the course of our 2 or 3 years playing the same mercenaries campaign due to adding the LRM launcher from a captured Thunderbolt and riddled with heat sinks. Armor plate is easy to add or remove as are certain weapons, heat sinks, but let the pictures be your guide. Btech is visualized with imagination and played with mathematical probability curves, but without the 'realism' of what is imagined, we may as well just be rolling dice.

Vizion wrote:
But at the same time, its a technology based game, so its supposed to advance. I loved the MechWarrior games, and any good Pilot is going to pimp his ride so to speak.

That fun for a PC game but its not batletech. It is forgivable because your character is expected to reguarly pull off impossible wins in a similar manner to Kai Allard-Liao, so you need any edge you can get.

However please remember that the mech outfitting gives weapons options equal to the versatility of omnitechs while also allowing armour tonnage, jump range and engine rating to be swapped. While such changes are possible amongst private mech owners in the Inner sphere the process would take weeks to plan. Clans ironically for all their interchangability of weapons forfeit much of their advantage with the set configurations everyone is expected to keep to. We know you can stray beyond them if you have the will, but very few try to buck the system this way. Only Aidan Pryde comes to mind, and Nataaha Kerensky, both were mavericks who didnt bother with configurations, Aidan Pryde was a complete oddball and not only ignored configurations but got the Falcon Guards to join him in this, hence eveyone in the unit being equipped with jump jets. All ther mechs can but many designs will not let you, if configurations are allowed to get in the way.

Please do not expect the same sort of levity in most Battletech games that you see in Mechwarrior. We could put in a general excption for the Dark Age because if you have a mech then anything goes.

The old MW Roleplaying game was so much fun when mixed with the tabletop game.

When we really got the RPG group together our campaign started at appx 3030. Many good times were had -- me in my Rifleman (Still an all time favorite of mine), the lance leader in a Warhammer, and rounded out with a Shadow Hawk and a Jenner.

We didn't care (well, didn't even know) what the good mechs vs back mechs were. The custom salvage mods were awesome too -- the Jenner pilot was so excited when he got to upgrade to a salvaged Griffen that was missing the PPC

Thanks for the info. If money wasn't so tight I would start making purchases for this game. I am going to check out the local Battletech group in my area this week as they get together at the same shop I play 40k at. But I am still trying to pay for all the things I still need for that.

But I will be there soon, this is cheap to get into if I am looking at it all correctly compared to Warhammer.

Vizion wrote:
But I will be there soon, this is cheap to get into if I am looking at it all correctly compared to Warhammer.

Yes, it is ridiculously cheaper, since you don't actually need minis to play Battletech. As long as you have some sort of counter that identifies what the unit is and what way it is facing, you can play on mapsheets without a problem.

Mattlov wrote:

Vizion wrote:
But I will be there soon, this is cheap to get into if I am looking at it all correctly compared to Warhammer.

Yes, it is ridiculously cheaper, since you don't actually need minis to play Battletech. As long as you have some sort of counter that identifies what the unit is and what way it is facing, you can play on mapsheets without a problem.

For a miniatures gamer (i.e. someone here) cardstock asnd maps just wont cut it.

Buy the intro boxset if you can find it 24 mechs inside. Otyherwise just see what turns up on eBay, and mechs will do, the more the merrier. Divide your mechs into IS and Clan and then allocate them as needed.

For terrain look for Heroscape, buy as much Heroscape terrain (dump the game) as you can find on eBay, junk shops etc

You can play this game with a pen, some notebook paper, and a couple of dice and counters (which you can also make from notebook paper). It is played for the mind-excersise, not the visuals. It's nice to get your mech in a figure form and snazzy terrain and all and paint it all customized, but not really necessary. Battletech matches don't involve 'best army composition' or 'best painted army' scoring or any of that stuff GW competitions have. It's just about who wins. If the basic game comes with mapsheets and standup cardstocks, then that's good enough. It's just more fun to get the actual mech model and paint it for its own character... but that is not a necessity, just a fun thing to do.

random mech rolls, I used to love when I rolled up an Catapult, Trebuchet, or a Phoenix hawk. I loved them even more in 3050. When I got to yank off the axe for a pair of LRM 15.
And i agree with you Guitardian, a mech is far more complicated to evaluate than it appears on paper. On 4 separate occasions I literally smoked an Awesome with a Firestarter. Id charge into the forests, set them on fire and lure the big mech in close to keep the heat on. Im a huge fan of taking the light mechs against the heavy mechs. My brother built the Chain I mentioned earlier to kick my ass when I was running around in a locust 2c, or a Puma. He built it, he kicked my ass with it. I tried it and I loved it. It looks cheesy on paper. I agree, I had to lose to that thing almost 50 times before I would even acknowledge it was a good mech. Try it.
Its a great mech to 'play' with. Call me crazy but if the game wasnt fun it wouldnt have lasted as long as it has.
The Clans are cheesy, they are also fun. Their omnis are pretty good, but their second line mech were Great. Star League designs with model refits, I can understand people who got in before I did not liking the Clans. But I love them, their fluff, their flavor. They were to me just plain fun.
My very first game was a 3025 Firestarter, against a Kraken on the Ice fields Solaris map. I was roasted before I crossed half the field, I digested the game. I learned to play, and I played the same guy again in a duel in a pair of Galahad, on a desert plain two weeks later. I kicked his ass. But above all I had fun. I played Clans for the most part, and only in the last 8 years or so really enjoyed playing Inner Sphere.
The Wardog, the Komodo, the Bandersnatch, the Apollo, the Grim Reaper. Love them all. The Fireball, fun at speed man. The Dervish, the Crusader, the Ostroc, the Locust and Wasp oh man the fun Ive had with these absolute pieces of crap. I love clans, but sometimes being armed with a shortest range weakest piece of junk energy weapon and protected by a toilet paper rolls worth of armor made you adapt to the mechs weaknesses. That was fun, but my idea of fun was also to take a Warhammer 2c against my brother in his five fingers of death ( Hollanders) was fun too.
I love battle tech, I got the models with the crappy testor paint that more than a decade later hasnt chipped or faded. I love it.

all of mine were done in testors too. it was the de facto modeling paints before polly-s acrylics. and yeah none of them have chipped a bit.

I have to thank you guys again. Not only for getting me to look into the classic battletech game, but getting me back into the universe itself. Sarna.net is an awesome place to read about each mech, event, group, or timeline. I went to the shop for 40k saturday and brought this game up later in the night when we were all sitting around talking, and I was surprised how many people said they still mechs sitting at home, or how much they used to love playing.

Three of us agreed that we would pick the game up, and there is already a group that plays every other week from what I was told by the guy who owns the place. He said he used to play it too and love it. There are around 5 guys that meet up for it, so maybe with the 3 of us joining in we can get them to come weekly and possibly expand the group some after that.

They all play the newest rule set from what I was told, so I guess thats 3085 now. Is that only downloadable? I was up there today and was told the only thing he had coming new for battletech was the hexpack on the 4th.

I have been putting together squads based on tonnage, point value, etc and don't want to get set on a design if the new rules gak it all up.

Oh, and a shout out to the Battlemaster. Played all assault mechs with nearly equal BV, first 4 on 4 then 4 on 5, and he alone scored 7 of the 9 kills. Simply amazing.

And for some reason, I really really want to field a Raven. Just always loved that little guy running around, even if he isn't going to do much as firepower goes.

Vizion wrote:
And for some reason, I really really want to field a Raven. Just always loved that little guy running around, even if he isn't going to do much as firepower goes.

Probably a Mech Commander 1 affliction, it happens.

BAWTRM wrote:

Vizion wrote:
And for some reason, I really really want to field a Raven. Just always loved that little guy running around, even if he isn't going to do much as firepower goes.

Probably a Mech Commander 1 affliction, it happens.

I have seen a stock 3050 Raven defeat a Thunder Hawk in single combat. It was AMAZING.

Well, considering in Battletech, it's possible to one hit kill any mech with any weapon, I am sure that every mech has been defeated by every other mech at one point or another

Just like the story in the Challenge magazine about the Afterburner taking out an Atlas.

The MechCommander game had an great flaw to exploit in it. I don't remember what number it was it was years ago... but it was the one with the Raven in it. There's a mission very early in the game so you're running around with little Commandos and blowing up some facility or other, then you have to get back to the dropship. On your way back a MadCat starts chasing you. The intent here is to just get away because the thing is mighty and just chasing after you. However if you station one of your mechs to blow up the fuel cans as it runs by them on the way to the dropship, bang! Now you have a Madcat salvage of weapons and if your lucky, the actual chassis itself, this in one of the first few missions in the game. I don't think the designers intended for us to have such a powerful mech so early in the game, but then again, maybe they made it possible on purpose just to see if anyone would pick up on it instead of just running to the dropship like the mission criteria told us to do.

the old PC games were pretty cool werent they?
Mech warrior 3 was my fave. I loved how the game seemed to integrate every aspect of the table top game into it and then let you run around in your own mech design.
I never did get death from above to work right in that game though.
I had mech commander 1-2, i wish i could still use them. My new tower has vista and wont touch anything that old. Add to that im not computer savy enough to jury rig it so i can still play it.
Bummer but oh well.
Hey Guitardian
Would you take an 3050 Archer and a 3050 Raven against into combat against 5 Hollanders on a jungle world?
I know its a silly question but I love geeking out about Battletech.

That would be a wierd matchup. If the Raven does the targetting and the archer just sits back doing IF, the Hollanders trudging through dense terrain. It has a lot of ammo. Just don't lose the raven.

Yeah geeking out on battletech old school is quite amusing for me too since I really only played it heavily back when I was in high school. I'm 35 now, so there's quite an age gap between the game they do nowadays and the one I grew up geeking out to... but I reminisce about old matchups, play computer sims, remember past battles with old friends each with a randomly assigned mech and pilot and just expected to deal with it.

One of my favorites was a Commando who popped a battlemaster in the head with a shot and made the pilot pass out, fail his unconsciousness roll... the odds there are up there with rolling up the perfect D&D character.... hahahaa... never drink while driving.... the rest of my lance dudes my buddies on my team moved in and blew the gak out of it while I ran my lightly armored ass the hell out of there, but the ref still gave me the kill credit. Even when your mech sucks, you just figure out how to make it work, or hope for the dice gods. Those are the best games.

Guitardian wrote:The MechCommander game had an great flaw to exploit in it.

That wasn't a flaw, that was the intent. The Mad Cat in the game's third (it was third, right?) mission was there as a very big threat that you could either deal with, losing most of the 'Mech, or risk fighting, and possibly salvage.

Given it was a Mad Cat W (ie. the 'More Guns' variant in MC1), it was quite a danger to your little band of Light and Medium 'Mechs.

You couldn't really fight that Mad Cat, it was armed with Clan PPCs, any shot would most likely destroy the location of the puny mech it hit. Blowing up the gas storage containers was indeed the way. However, if the Mad Cat blew up because of that it usually ended up unsalvageable, or otherwise without any of its nice weaponry in working order.
The best result was the gas explosion cripppling it and then swarming it with your mechs and taking it apart. If you were able to salvage it then, you would have a fearsome mech indeed. It wasn't easy though, I believe I had to try 15-20 times to actually obtain it. This was on my second play through, I just ran the first time.

It sure makes many of the follow up missions rather easy but it surely doesn't mean a cake walk up to completing the game. Once other front line Clan mechs join the fray things change again. Also, you had to watch out for shots destroying your nice Clan weaponry.

I have never had to fight against Daishi but I'm running a sim right now of a whole lance of IS 3025 tech level mechs versus it... Commando, Centurion, Warhammer, Zeus... The Daishi is mopping up and none of them are holding up at all to the ridiculous firepower it just bathes them in. It's pretty amusing watching them strive and hope for the crit when they are just being blown apart as this thing just sits there. This is why I don't like clan tech. The 200 tons versus 200 tons sort of matchups just don't apply any more when a single mech can take an entire lance apart without batting an eyelash.

That's because a Daishi carries in one arm what most Inner Sphere Heavy 'Mechs carry on their entire body.

And it has two arms.

Yup. Daishi won. No contest. Its worst injury was a damaged leg actuator so I guess it must have limped away a bit afterwards. It blasted both legs off the commando in one turn, it took down the warhammer's leg in two turns, the Zeus took a bit longer but wasn't doing much damage in return as it was getting its arms blown off and stumbling around with a gimp leg. Centurion seemed to be its primary target, probably because the A.I. noticed that there was a medium armored AC/10 on the board, so that guy was the first to get hosed. Those IS guys never stood a chance and the Daishi only moved once, just to position for a fire angle.

Again, this is why I don't like clan tech.

To be fair, wouldn't it make more sense to run 3050 IS mechs against the Daishi? Isn't running 3050 Clan mechs against 3025 IS mechs kind of like running Fokker Triplanes against P-40 Warhawks? If you don't like Clan tech, okay fair enough, but it just seems kind of strange to say you don't like Clan tech because they can rock mech designs that are 25 years older than they are.

Also, I bet the bot never even tried to get the lance into close combat. That is how you win in a fight like that, kick the damn Dire Wolf's legs off or punch in it's head.

Kicking route works a little better, because it WILL eventually fail a piloting check.

I wish I knew a was to post a replay of the match.

The bot for the IS wasn't really that bad, just completely outclassed. But FOUR MECHS!? The only thing Zeus is good for is staying at a distance, so it wasn't about to close given its weapons array. Centurion plodded foreward predictably but just couldn't hold out long enough to get there since all the fire was directed at it first. Maybe if the Daishi hadn't been making it plan A to get rid of it first it could have done some damage. The Commando performed predictably too, sort of skirting around the edges, but once the Centurion was knocked out, all it took was 1 turn and Daishi put a stop to that. Besides, what's a 25 tonner who can't jump really going to accomplish trying a punch at a gigantic hundred tommer, other than get whacked with a single punch? I think the bot was smart not to try engaging in hand-to-hand... but in the defense of the IS bots, their only assault mech was a long range fighter. Maybe next time I'll load up a Charger instead and let it just play battering ram.

i was always a fan of a TAG/Arrow combo. in my most recent games ive done this with light TAG mechs and Arrow from tanks.

my favorite mech is the Catapult.

I have to say Archer. It isn't really perfect, but it's the mech of choice for Jaime Wolfe and Cranston Snord, two of the best commanders in early IS history. The reason being that it was the ideal design to just take a high vantage point and oversee everything from a commander perspective, but up close it could still feth you up with those big 70 tonner fists. I don't like that all those designs from that era got banned for wierd copywrite reasons. Get a later version with a TAG mech and you have a sicko combo, but even in the early days, they represented a kind of overseer role for the field, and had armor enough to just stand there and keep dishing it out.

Crusader was what I did best with though as it was almost as armored and had more of a mid-range punch with the awkward leg SRMs and yeah I pushed the heat on that thing so many times because that's how we roll yo. No guts no galaxy. I think thats the only reason my crusader survived... not because it was a great design, just because I thought it was a tough piece of gak so risked it all the time. I seriously survived so many 4 vs 4 games with that piece of gak specifically because I was suicidal with it and everybody knew to stay away from it.

For those of you that do MegaMek, do you participate in The Shack's MekWars Role Playing version? I just started last night and I have to say its alot of fun. You play it with the same game engine but you join a House or Clan or whatever they are doing for the next several month and try to get your group to take over the galaxy doing raids, assaults, etc.

Anyone else do this?

Guitardian wrote:I have to say Archer. It isn't really perfect, but it's the mech of choice for Jaime Wolfe and Cranston Snord, two of the best commanders in early IS history. The reason being that it was the ideal design to just take a high vantage point and oversee everything from a commander perspective, but up close it could still feth you up with those big 70 tonner fists.

It's funny that you list Clan warriors as he best commanders in early IS history

The biggest flaw with the Archer is the mediums mounted in the arms. This makes it not as good as a brawler.

Granted, the Archer is my favorite mech, though I perfer the Archer S. (Or my custom Archer II or III based off of the REF Gladiator...The original Archer is based off of the RDF Gladiator)

It is true that as the game timeline changed, it was eventually "revealed" (or invented) that they were both clanners, both the Dragoons and the Irregulars were existant long before all the new tech existed. Im my mind, Cranston Snord will always be remembered as the leader of a gang of misfits in half-broken mechs who pulled off amazing and improbable victories back during the succession wars, before the clans were even an idea for the writers.

I didn't like the mediums on the arms either. With a good pilot though (and we'll assume most company commanders are) kicking is far more brutal, even if it is a bit risky. Sweep the leg bobby. Punching is for the less skilly pilots and while the 1-in-6 chance for a headshot is kind of tempting to go for, more often than not you just end up swinging at their arm or torso and only doing a little damage. A couple of good kicks from a heavy will take out a leg. Especially on some of the mechs with very disproportionate armor values (warhammer has more on its arms than on its legs for instance). An Archer could knock a leg off a warhammer with 2 or 3 kicks. That's two fall risks, but a good pilot would be unlikely to fall.

Kicking while you're 1 elevation level higher is fun though. All that massive kick damage using the punching table. And of course there's the whole imagery of kicking another mech's head clean off.

I just imagine a mech going like an American Football umpire with his arms after something like that.

BAWTRM wrote:Kicking while you're 1 elevation level higher is fun though. All that massive kick damage using the punching table. And of course there's the whole imagery of kicking another mech's head clean off.

I just imagine a mech going like an American Football umpire with his arms after something like that.

We used to have a Epic Eldar Jet Bike running around the field pained like a Ref just for those events

Hordini wrote:To be fair, wouldn't it make more sense to run 3050 IS mechs against the Daishi? Isn't running 3050 Clan mechs against 3025 IS mechs kind of like running Fokker Triplanes against P-40 Warhawks? If you don't like Clan tech, okay fair enough, but it just seems kind of strange to say you don't like Clan tech because they can rock mech designs that are 25 years older than they are.

The TRO 3050 mechs were just starting to reach the frontlines when the Clans arrived and the frontlines were no where near where the Clans actually invaded. Realistically until the ilKhan got capped by Tyra the Clans were primarily facing 3025 designs. Even after that 3050 designs weren't plentiful and most of the ranks were made up of 3025 mechs upgraded to various degrees with some 3050 mechs interspersed. Not until Tukkayyid could you really claim most of the IS mechs were 3050 equivalent designs.

Tyyr wrote:

Hordini wrote:To be fair, wouldn't it make more sense to run 3050 IS mechs against the Daishi? Isn't running 3050 Clan mechs against 3025 IS mechs kind of like running Fokker Triplanes against P-40 Warhawks? If you don't like Clan tech, okay fair enough, but it just seems kind of strange to say you don't like Clan tech because they can rock mech designs that are 25 years older than they are.

The TRO 3050 mechs were just starting to reach the frontlines when the Clans arrived and the frontlines were no where near where the Clans actually invaded. Realistically until the ilKhan got capped by Tyra the Clans were primarily facing 3025 designs. Even after that 3050 designs weren't plentiful and most of the ranks were made up of 3025 mechs upgraded to various degrees with some 3050 mechs interspersed. Not until Tukkayyid could you really claim most of the IS mechs were 3050 equivalent designs.

Actually exceopt for CASE you can miss out on all the IS tech upgrades and still give the clans a good kicking. 3025 mechs are significantly cheaper whether costed in C-Bills or points. Ammo explosions are the kicker, single heat sinks full weight engines and no special structure materials, you can do withoput that, and many of the upgraded weapons augment failure as much as success. Unless you minimax horribly that is. For every laerge pulse laser you are delighted to receive you might get a grossly heat inefficient ERPPC.

Numbers count and many solid 3025 designs are available en masse, the ammo carrying designs do need CASE, but thats all you really need.

Not really what I was speaking too but in a BV balanced game I have never failed to slap 3025 designs around royalty in all but the most advantageous terrain for them, namely very very congested maps with short lines of sight that let them get close. If I can find long shooting lanes and keep the IS mechs in them they're butchered.

If the IS guy lets you do that, then you outgeneraled him. If the IS guy is smart, he makes you come to him by keeping out of LOS.

That would be a pretty prolonged standoff. Any IS player would be stupid to take his mech out from behind LOS facing off against a bunch of ER LL and so on whacking him the moment he steps out. And any clanner would be stupid to go in and face all the ganging up fire when he gets himself into the ugly range to find his target.

This is why I liked playing with a group where each player just has his own mech. There is a lot more psychology coming into play... like"Andy go draw that Vulture out from its dominating cliff position so I can make it over to those low hills"... Andy says "Hell no, you're just gonna have to run for it and hope because that thing will tear me to pieces"... Real conversation in a 8 person game. My Commando did not survive the next two turns and I was out of the game pretty early on.

This is why my Crusader consistently did well. Every other player was scared to engage it because they knew how much I just didn't give a feth with how I used it. Once it died, I could have a chance of getting a cooler mech for the next game. It just didn't die though, because nobody wants to engage the guy who will just blindly charge at you and thinking feth the consequences because you know he hates his mech and wants a different one for the next game. Nobody wants to provoke the completely suicidal guy.

If I was playing a full lance by myself, I would never think like that, I would play a lot more conservatively. But in a big friendly group game where you only get your one mech, it scared all my opponent friends when he showed up, all wild crazy swinging punching kicking overheating at their only mech they had in the game. Sorry buddy, you picked the wrong suicidal lunatic to mess with...

So he became like our team's Khorne Berserker of the unit and everybody knew it on both teams. That was the only mech I never had shot out from under me. Not once in two years of weekly games where he probably showed up at about a good third of them. Those results couldn't be emulated if I was playing a whole lance of my own. Only feats of heroism like "Lionheart" performed could happen because we had 1-pilot-1-mech games. Although there were teams, everyone (except me) was out for themselves and to keep their mech and pilot for the next game, whereas I just didn't care because I was angry about being assigned a stupid Crusader. And therefore he kept going and going and going because of the fear my playing style put into everyone else.

"Don't even start pissing that Crusader off, just let him sit back and do his thing with the shoulder missiles... don't get near him that guy's crazy... worry about this guy instead".

Hence the suicidal king Lionheart survived time and time again because by the time everyone else had beaten each other bloody and he had run out of LRM ammo, he could just punch the gak out of their wounded arses with only a bit of surface armor damage when he engaged.

Psychology is a lot more important when everybody just has their one mech but you are still supposed to work as a team.

Unfortunately, all those friends are scattered, married, dads, etc and live in different states. Can't pull together 8 battletech fans at the same time where I'm at now.

http://theshack.freeforums.org/

if anyone is interested in an online campaign. I've been loving it myself. Just have to download TheShack client to go with mekwars and get the updates and such.

Right now I believe the campaign is at 2777

Vulcan wrote:If the IS guy lets you do that, then you outgeneraled him. If the IS guy is smart, he makes you come to him by keeping out of LOS.

If the map is set up for that. There are typically precious few pieces of terrain on most maps where you can actually hide and ensure the other guy has no LOS to you at all and all the terrain around it makes them come right up next to you before he can get LOS. The other big benefit the Clans had in the early going was speed. My heavies can run like mediums making it trivial to flank you and turn your cover into a big limit on where you can move. And just sitting and waiting for your opponent to come to you might work if your just playing an annihilation game but in most scenarios that's a very good way to lose.

City fights are about the only place 3025 IS mechs can take on Clan mechs with any hope of winning, unless you're playing on a map that's solid hills and forests. The BV system is actually pretty good at balancing things given how incredibly diverse units can be in CBT but it doesn't handle those big leaps in technology base very well and 3025 IS mechs vs. 3050 clan mechs is a pretty huge tech jump.

Scenarios help balance the early IS vs Clan games. Clan should always be the attacker and it helps if the IS side is dug in and at a minimum of a 10% BV advantage. Destroy the Ammo Dump in 10 turns was a popular mission for me back in the day where the clan mechs would have to pass through a city or dense forest to get to the ammo dump. The IS guys would be setup behind buildings, in trenches, etc. We also forced the clans to use the honor system so if my archer shot at your black hawk, it was one on one until that battle was over. Of course, the IS guys always used that to their advantage, as long as it suited them anyway.

Oh, yeah, if you've convinced me to let you do Clans aganinst my 3025, you are going to play by Clan ROE until I open things up by multi-targeting. If you are enough of a 'TFG' to ignore Clan ROE in that scenario, I pick up my mechs and go.

Please save the 'You're a bad person if you don't play the way I want' arguments for the 40k section.

skyth wrote:Please save the 'You're a bad person if you don't play the way I want' arguments for the 40k section.

Well, to be fair the fact remains that if you pitch Clan forces against IS 3025 tech during the early Clan Invasion era without enforcing Zellbrigen ugly things will happen.

I had the misfortune to take part in one multi-player game during the early days of the coming of the Clans. A Clan Star vs a IS Company without Zellbrigen in effect. It was brutal,short and not at all fun for the IS side. The after action "discussion" got a bit too heated and personal for everyones comfort.

I wasn't aware we were argueing, just sharing ideas. Playing 3050 clans against 3025 is a 'realistic' scenario for the timeline. I would hate to be on the IS team without clan honor as an assumption. It is not a rule though, just that there is a small role-playing aspect to the game that many people enjoy. If you want to be the clan mechwarrior who loses honor then go right ahead. You'll probably kick some butt, and become the butt of all the jokes from your peers during the next game.

It would be a short game and not very fun at all for either player. The best the IS player could hope for is to do some damage; he is NOT going to win. And given that we already know the Clan player is going to win, and win cheaply, what is the point of even playing?

At least under Zellbringen I can bait the clan player into a bad position (or, more likely, just a less good position) before combining fire on one guy and taking him out...

Just before he does the same to me in the aftermath.

If it's a scenario and part of a campaign, then maybe there is a point to it. More likely, I'll just go looking to play someone who doesn't thrill on cheap victories. If that seems harsh to you, sorry. I play to have fun too; the fun should NOT be restricted to your side of the table.

That's why the power imbalance of different tech levels when clans were introduced had a lot of players scurrying off to other games. BV in Classic Btech is a flawed system as it can't take into account lance combos that work well together (just look at that Marik 'house mech' matchup as an example. I would never want a stupid stock Hermes II unless I was in a lance with some bruisers to knock em down as I flush em out, for instance.) But it worked great for the lance as a whole.

Just adding up the value of each mech does not give an adequate representation of that mech's potential usefulness. I remember my horrible game where I had a few savanah masters, a lot of mediocre tanks, various infantry and my only mechs were a upgraded gauss cannon cyclops and some light mech I don't remember. He had an equally BV force comprised of entirely Wraith spam. He mopped the floor so bad I didn't have a chance. However we both had the same total BV.

You don't play Btech to win, you play it to try to figure out how to win. So many times I got stuck with a flawed mech and had to figure out how I could make the best of it. It's no fun if you can just claim a Madcat for every game. Clan tech, light engines, ferro fibrous, endo steel, lighter weapons, double sinks... etc... just screwed up that balance, drove away a lot of old players and recruited a bunch of new ones. Literally second generation Btech. That's why Classic is still so appealing. It's balanced by the fact that, barring a couple of competent exceptions we have already brought up, who you might be lucky enough to get, all the mechs have a bit of a janky side to them and force you do think hard to pull off how to use it.

Stamping a heavily armed Vulture to the top of a cliff and raining down death on the inferior IS punk is a no brainer, but figuring out how to use an Urbanwreck, Hermes II or a Vulcan or Jagermech in a lance together effectively, that is a challenge. It's never about who wins, it's about who figures out the coolest use for a flawed tool to win, or at least put up a good fight in an otherwise one-sided battle of mixed matchups.

We have had few 3025 vs. Clan games that worked. The trick we found was a IS Company vs. a Clan Star with 3-4 Mechs and 1-2 Elementals.

Guitardian wrote:Clan tech, light engines, ferro fibrous, endo steel, lighter weapons, double sinks... etc... just screwed up that balance, drove away a lot of old players and recruited a bunch of new ones. Literally second generation Btech.

I wonder on what generation we're now? I'm probably 2nd generation. I was introduced to the Battletech universe through the Mechwarrior 2 PC game which a friend had and which we literally played to death (take care of your CD-roms kids, scratches are bad). There was actually a load of fluff incorporated into that game through the mission background material and the library, but if you only played the battles you could completely miss out on that.

I loved all that material but didn't make the link with Battletech yet. Untill me and some friends were on a visit to our nearest game store (1 hour travel back then) and a pocket novel title and cover caught my eye. I believe it featured the iconic Timberwolf on its cover. But this was called Battletech, not Mechwarrior and I was a little confused, though a quick browse made it clear this was exactly the same universe.

But wait, wasn't there some kind of boardgame with the name Battletech in this store? Don't know if I bought the box on that particular visit (probably had my pocket money slated for some RPG materail) but that was the beginning really.

Despite my 'Clan upbringing' and being '2nd generation' I'm a big pre-3050 fan though. Exactly for the reasons stated by Guitardian. Playing battles with quirky mechs gives great satisfaction.

Vulcan wrote:It would be a short game and not very fun at all for either player. The best the IS player could hope for is to do some damage; he is NOT going to win. And given that we already know the Clan player is going to win, and win cheaply, what is the point of even playing?

Well first off all you should never play a pick up BV balanced game and pit 3025 IS vs. 3050+ Clans. The only time you pit those sides agaisnt one another is in a scenario and in most of those scenarios the IS player should DRASTICALLY outnumber the clan player. Remember in the early going the clans were assualting multiple regiments with what amounted to reinforced companies and short battalions. So unless an IS player outnumber the clan player 3 to 1 or has incredibly advantageous terrain then its not a good scenario.

At least under Zellbringen I can bait the clan player into a bad position (or, more likely, just a less good position) before combining fire on one guy and taking him out...

Just before he does the same to me in the aftermath.

If it's a scenario and part of a campaign, then maybe there is a point to it. More likely, I'll just go looking to play someone who doesn't thrill on cheap victories. If that seems harsh to you, sorry. I play to have fun too; the fun should NOT be restricted to your side of the table.

The problem is that Zell has multiple levels and only under the most restrictive can you actually pull that off and make it work. You might swing it against a Smoke Jag or Jade Falcon player who plays it to the nines but vs. a Wolf or Ghost Bear player they'll catch on to what you're doing, declare that you're violating the rules of zell (it's a two way street), and blow your ass away like the bandit scum you are. I've played too many games where the IS player assumed I was playing the most restrictive level of Zell and he could abuse it all he wanted and I wouldn't do anything about it. The old use an LRM Locust to distract the Dire Wolf trick. They were shocked when he ran off and I'd turn my Dire Wolf and level some mech he'd been about to try and back shot me with.

Guitardian wrote:That's why the power imbalance of different tech levels when clans were introduced had a lot of players scurrying off to other games. BV in Classic Btech is a flawed system as it can't take into account lance combos that work well together (just look at that Marik 'house mech' matchup as an example. I would never want a stupid stock Hermes II unless I was in a lance with some bruisers to knock em down as I flush em out, for instance.) But it worked great for the lance as a whole.

Just adding up the value of each mech does not give an adequate representation of that mech's potential usefulness. I remember my horrible game where I had a few savanah masters, a lot of mediocre tanks, various infantry and my only mechs were a upgraded gauss cannon cyclops and some light mech I don't remember. He had an equally BV force comprised of entirely Wraith spam. He mopped the floor so bad I didn't have a chance. However we both had the same total BV.

Which is why the BV system isn't one you just blindly use. It's meant to balance out roughly comparable forces when the people playing know what they're doing. Throwing together a random list vs. a specialized list is going to get the random list torn up no matter what the BV says.

You don't play Btech to win, you play it to try to figure out how to win. So many times I got stuck with a flawed mech and had to figure out how I could make the best of it. It's no fun if you can just claim a Madcat for every game. Clan tech, light engines, ferro fibrous, endo steel, lighter weapons, double sinks... etc... just screwed up that balance, drove away a lot of old players and recruited a bunch of new ones. Literally second generation Btech. That's why Classic is still so appealing. It's balanced by the fact that, barring a couple of competent exceptions we have already brought up, who you might be lucky enough to get, all the mechs have a bit of a janky side to them and force you do think hard to pull off how to use it.

I have to point this out every time it comes up but "Classic" Battletech lasted only 4 years before the Clans were introduced. We have literally played with Clan mechs and tech for five times longer than we did with just the old 3025 style. There weren't exactly a lot of "old hand" players to drive away by the time the Clans came out and anyone who left because of them completely missed the point where the 3025 level of play was style perfectly valid. Even today there's absolutely nothing stopping you from playing a 3025 level game.

"classic" came out around 1980. clans joined in the fun around 1991. I think you got your timing off a tad. The only thing stopping a 3025 hexmap board game is that everyone else at the FLGS is into new supertech mechs and doesn't want to regress to the simpler, more balanced times. Now that all your mechs are good, all of your models are essentially plastic toy versions of collectors cards, why would any new player want to go back to before they were born to pilot a mech which isn't a deadly awesome high tech killing machine?

Close enough, 1984.

The original box set only had 13 mechs in it though, right? When did TRO 3025 come out? Battletech doesn't feel like battletech before TRO 30250 IMO.

Endgame wrote:The original box set only had 13 mechs in it though, right? When did TRO 3025 come out? Battletech doesn't feel like battletech before TRO 30250 IMO.

That’s funny our group thought that the 3050 destroyed the feel for the longest time.

Endgame wrote:The original box set only had 13 mechs in it though, right? When did TRO 3025 come out? Battletech doesn't feel like battletech before TRO 30250 IMO.

It had 14. The 'hidden' mechs that they later had to change the images of for copywrite reasons.

L: Stinger, Wasp, Locust (Gimme a Wasp, at least it doesn't suck quite as bad as the machinegun lights)
M: Phoenix Hawk, Shadowhawk, Wolverine, Griffin (Griffin FTW, Phoenix for the jumpy game)
H: Rifleman, Thunderbolt, Crusader, Archer, Warhammer, Marauder (Marauder of course, but they are all actually pretty good)
A: Battlemaster

Shortly after, the 'citytech' expansion came along with the Orion, Centurion, Javelin, and Victor mechs in the box, and the origional vehicle, infantry, and building rules, plus a new map, and added varieties of AC weapons unseen before. Origionally AC/5 was the only one and it was just called "autocannon".

Mechwarrior RPG book added a lot of the origional House Mechs: Zeus, Commando, Hermes II, Panther, Enforcer, Valkyrie, Vindicator, Dragon.

Add those sets up and you have 26 mechs in the origional releases.

Finally FASA came out with the tech readout:3025 that conglomerated all that stuff in one and added a few new designs and variants bringing the number of mech designs up to 55.

I remember the City Tech boxset, and I think that we started playing just before that. We really started playing with TRO 3025 and thats that era that really felt like battletech to me. 2750 and 3050 were excellent additions and really felt cannon IMO. After that it was kind of hit or miss, especially as the glut of soft, rounded edge mechs started coming out (I hate the new Warhammer Art BTW). The loss of Michael Stackpole as the lead author for the timeline and then the Word of Blake stuff kind of ruined it for me and I quit paying attention after that.

Stackpole is an appalling writer, he makes his adversaries stupid because he cannot write an intelligent plot and makes his heroes alloying glib to the point you end up rooting for their adversaries no matter how doomed they are.

If it wasnt Battletech I wouldnt read his gak. I prefer any of the other writers to him.

What's with the Stackpole hate? I admit, I have not read any of his Battletech stuff, but I really enjoyed his Star Wars X-Wing books and I didn't think of of his heroes in those books, original or otherwise were annoyingly glib or his adversaries stupid....

Corran Horn is probably one of the best new Star Wars heroes, and a lot of his adversaries like Isard or Kirtan Loor didn't seem stupid or doomed.

I'm not saying all his stuff is like high brow literature, but I would certainly not call him an appalling writer. Maybe just his Battletech stuff is not as good?

I read all of the battletech books though anything published in 1999. Stackpole was by far the best of the B-tech writers in comparison (like Far Country... Seriously who wrote that gak?)

Compare Stackpole to other Starwars / 40k writers and I find he comes out quite favorably.

There's nothing really wrong with his BTech stuff. He's not the best writer to every touch a pen or keyboard but he does pretty well. There are certainly many CBT writers who are much, much worse.

Personally I checked out with the Jihad. The FedCom civil war was somewhat interesting but the aftermath is just such a clusterfeth that I just don't care. The WoB turning into a horrific threat for the whole Inner Sphere was such an asspull that no one should have taken it seriously. Of course it all started with the Twilight of the Clans series that was one long continuous "feth you," to every clan fan.

The jihad was envisioned as part of the storyline, but recent events werre packed too close together and with no reasoning to them. At least after the 4th succession war they moved forward a generation, it wass time for that to happen again.

However the jighad changed was accelerated and made a lot worse in order to set the stage for the crud that was/is Dark Age.

In the Dark Age every factiion is the same and they all have good mechs bad mechs indusrial mechs tanks light vehicles and all types of infantry. To get a rebel faction like Bannsons raiders like that meakes sense, but not whole fething clans and successor states.
Talk about dumb down. Dark Age gutted the factions and kiddified the mech designs. A cheap shot to sell the short lived clickytech crap.

Stackpole is my favorite Btech writer, though I do like Victor Milan.

I read Warrio En Garde and Warrior Coupe and that other one so long ago I don't remember who the author was. I really liked how it was mostly political maneuvering and scheming and not so much centered on the actual combat, which I thought was very cool. I find 'action' novels very boring that's why I don't read much black library gak. But does anybody know that author of the origional 'warrior' trilogy?

I believe it was Stackpole.

skyth wrote:I believe it was Stackpole.

Yes, Stackpole wrote both the Warrior Trilogy and the Blood of Kerensky Trilogy. Pretty much the two iconic BT book series.

Outside of the Warrior Trilogy and Blood of Kerensky Trilogy, my favorite set was the Grey Death Legion series. There were a few other hits here and there (Main Event) but in general, if I were recommending B-Tech reading, the 3 trilogies above would be my call.

Edit

I'd probably have to recommend the Jade Falcon books as well, at least the first 3.

Endgame wrote:Outside of the Warrior Trilogy and Blood of Kerensky Trilogy, my favorite set was the Grey Death Legion series. There were a few other hits here and there (Main Event) but in general, if I were recommending B-Tech reading, the 3 trilogies above would be my call.

Edit

I'd probably have to recommend the Jade Falcon books as well, at least the first 3.

I find the Grey Death novels awful, along with the Jade Phoenix trilogy. I can't stand either writer. William Keith didn't seem to understand the universe particularly well, and Thurston's writing is nothing but the horrible abortion of Battletech and the English Language's love child.

Mattlov wrote:
I find the Grey Death novels awful, along with the Jade Phoenix trilogy. I can't stand either writer. William Keith didn't seem to understand the universe particularly well, and Thurston's writing is nothing but the horrible abortion of Battletech and the English Language's love child.

And yet, they are still all miles better than anything I've read from the black library. I guess it depends on the measuring stick you're comparing to. I've recently been reading Jack McDevitt and much prefer anything I've read from him over almost any "universe driven" authors I've read, but unfortunately you have to deal with the writers chosen to write B-Tech / Starwars / 40k / whatever.

My main complaint about the GDL series what how the Locust and Shadow Hawk kept overheating... I mean, how? The Locust literally CANNOT overheat; it would need to lose 6 heat sinks to do so, by which time the thing is gone anyway. And while the Shadow Hawk builds a bit more heat, well... 3 Jump, M-Laser, SRM-2, LRM-5 and AC/5 all together don't generate 10 heat, so again we are looking at major battle damage to overheat the bloody thing.

Just picky of me, I suppose.

Vulcan wrote:My main complaint about the GDL series what how the Locust and Shadow Hawk kept overheating... I mean, how? The Locust literally CANNOT overheat; it would need to lose 6 heat sinks to do so, by which time the thing is gone anyway. And while the Shadow Hawk builds a bit more heat, well... 3 Jump, M-Laser, SRM-2, LRM-5 and AC/5 all together don't generate 10 heat, so again we are looking at major battle damage to overheat the bloody thing.

Just picky of me, I suppose.

You forgot about the posibility of each might have had 2 Engine Hits

What REALLY bugs me about decision at thunder rift, is how did a Shadow Hawk, and a couple 20 tonners fight off a marauder and a couple heavies (Or was it mediums?). No way that should happen.

skyth wrote:What REALLY bugs me about decision at thunder rift, is how did a Shadow Hawk, and a couple 20 tonners fight off a marauder and a couple heavies (Or was it mediums?). No way that should happen.

Not as improbable as what the Black Thorns did in Main Event.

I had a lance known as The 115 that was 3x 25 ton Mechs and a 40 ton that would tackle assualt Mechs successfuly, until they started to run into 2 Gunneries.
It was called the 115 becouse that was its tonage.

Problem is, it wasn't one Marauder...It was a Marauder and friends. Plus that these were suboptimal designs (Shadow Hawk, Locust, and I think a Stinger) and they weren't moving.

What part of Main Event was not believeable?

The fiction is much different than the game. Although, there are the random ammo explosions, frequent hits to the same leg location, and headshots in the game that could still explain a complete upset in the 'Marauder-and-friends' example. I guess if you rolled it out as a game it would be highly unlikely, but it could happen.

I knocked out my buddy's battlemaster with a turn one headshot from a PPC on my 45 ton Vindicator. Improbable? of course. Impossible? no. Heroic? Not really, it was just lucky dice.

In the fictional world of authors however such an unlikely turn of events could be turned into some kind of description of heroism against all impossible odds sort of theme. That's why the average and predictable battletech game is not the focus of the fiction, just the 'heroic' actions which everyone loves in any genre in any universe, triumph against the odds is a standard fictional theme.

skyth wrote:Problem is, it wasn't one Marauder...It was a Marauder and friends. Plus that these were suboptimal designs (Shadow Hawk, Locust, and I think a Stinger) and they weren't moving.

What part of Main Event was not believeable?

Two lances of Inner Sphere 'Mechs (and not so great ones) taking down a Jade Falcon Trinary with only one KIA pilot, and successfully salvaging a full Star of Falcons. With no actual full technicians in the unit.

Mattlov wrote:

skyth wrote:Problem is, it wasn't one Marauder...It was a Marauder and friends. Plus that these were suboptimal designs (Shadow Hawk, Locust, and I think a Stinger) and they weren't moving.

What part of Main Event was not believeable?

Two lances of Inner Sphere 'Mechs (and not so great ones) taking down a Jade Falcon Trinary with only one KIA pilot, and successfully salvaging a full Star of Falcons. With no actual full technicians in the unit.

I belive it, I had this happen to me in a Mechwarror RPG game more than once.

Given how crappy the Mechs the Thorns had and how good Clan mechs and their pilots are the Thorns were outgunned about 6 to 1 in that engagement. Still, it's fiction.

Twilight of the Clans, that pretty much killed CBT for me.

Mattlov wrote:
Two lances of Inner Sphere 'Mechs (and not so great ones) taking down a Jade Falcon Trinary with only one KIA pilot, and successfully salvaging a full Star of Falcons. With no actual full technicians in the unit.

Falcons getting buttkicked by author fiat, I can beleive that.

Apparently the only one the Falcon's are allowed to defeat are the Steel Vipers!

And the Wolves

But only by cheating.

Tyyr wrote:But only by cheating.

A win's a win, and if the other guy is dead no one can argue...

Too bad you botched that part up and got both your Khan's killed.

Tyyr wrote:Too bad you botched that part up and got both your Khan's killed.

That's OK. It let us get a couple of GOOD Khans instead.

Back to the OP, my favourite 'Mech design was the Archer.


It was one of the original classic BattleTech designs ripped right off RoboTech. In RoboTech the Archer design was called the Gladiator. It was always green with grey hands.

I still have the original BattleTech pewter model. At 70 tons it was a good 'Mech with two LRM-20's and a few medium lasers for in close. It could fire indirectly and had decent enough firepower to cause even assault 'Mechs some worry.

I started playing in 1988 and thus became a diehard fan of the original game. The Clans were okay but stuff after that just got overcomplicated and ridiculous. I played the WizKids' MechWarrior too but nothing ever matched the old classic BT. Even the older books and novels were far superior to the newer BT universe books and novels.

Archer was great for 3025 because of so much ammo. If you did the 2/1/2/1 kind of spread for your LRMs you could just dominate from a cliff top and still keep your heat kind of low, gaining an average of 3 per turn. Sooner or later I had to take a break for a turn, often at a very inopportune moment, because my opponents were smart like that. LRM 15s on the Catapult or Crusader were far more heat efficient for a constant barrage, and at the cost of 1 ton of armor, Crusader had just as much ammo and better short range capability. Besides that I always hated drawing the Crusader so I played it suicidally, so it always came out on top because nobody wanted to mess with it.

The ARC-2S was aslo a fun one
2x LRM-15 & 4 Tons of ammo and you only overheated when you move.

Now with the Infernos are Ammo rule those 2 SRM-4s are real fun. One Ton Standard Ammo and One Ton Infernos

The 2S is probably my favorite Mech (That and the Wolfhound).

Btw, I was talking about the Falcons beating the Wolves pre-invasion...I believe it was in Bloodname.

I'm starting up a once a month Battletech campaign tonight. Taking a break from 40k for a while.

Setting: Port Arthur, 3059, Operation Bulldog.

I'll be running the Smoke Jags against the 10 players.

Made a blog about the campaign, so you can watch the progress of the players and how the campaign unfolds. Battle reports will be posted to the blog as well.

http://operationbulldog.blogspot.com/

Loosely basing the campaign on the original Mechcommander PC game. Smoke Jag forces will have a lot of bondsmen IS tanks units and Solahma warriors in IS mechs to start. Players will face off against the front line omni-mechs later in the campaign.

Oh come on, be meaner than that. Make those poor players face Clan tanks with Elemental support. Make them FEAR a Clan battlefield without an Omnimech on it.

Mattlov wrote:Oh come on, be meaner than that. Make those poor players face Clan tanks with Elemental support. Make them FEAR a Clan battlefield without an Omnimech on it.

Ha! Got to start out small...No worries they will find out what elementals are all about next month.

Nice looking campaign Rangerrob! I've even read through all the posts on the blog. Great mood enhancers with using all of those images. Gotta tell me though, where did that wacky 'female' tech picture come from (maybe the same place as that Zimmer pic?)?

So, how did you determine who would ride what mech?

BAWTRM wrote:Nice looking campaign Rangerrob! I've even read through all the posts on the blog. Great mood enhancers with using all of those images. Gotta tell me though, where did that wacky 'female' tech picture come from (maybe the same place as that Zimmer pic?)?

So, how did you determine who would ride what mech?

Female tech is a screen capture from Farscape. Zimmer pic I made myself.

How did I determine the original mech selection? I had emailed all the players asking them what "skill" they wanted their mechwarrior to have. The order in which they responded to my email, was the order they picked thier mech...but they didn't know that until they all had sumbimitted their skill.

Clan vehicles are 95% gak. Total fething gak. They only way to really get their worth out of them is to play them aggressively. They might have kleenex for armor but they mount things like gauss rifles and large bore auto cannons like they're going out of style.

Tyyr wrote:Clan vehicles are 95% gak. Total fething gak. They only way to really get their worth out of them is to play them aggressively. They might have kleenex for armor but they mount things like gauss rifles and large bore auto cannons like they're going out of style.

That's why I love them. They are balls-out death machines. On a Clan battlefield they MIGHT survive a third turn of fire, but probably not. But boy can they do stupid kinds of damage to a less powerful Inner Sphere force.

And I will stand by the Morrigu as one of the best tanks of all time.

Can't argue with a cheap vehicle with a one-two punchout weapon, even if it dies shortly after you know it made its mark.

Rangerrob wrote:
How did I determine the original mech selection? I had emailed all the players asking them what "skill" they wanted their mechwarrior to have. The order in which they responded to my email, was the order they picked thier mech...but they didn't know that until they all had sumbimitted their skill.

Not telling them untill afterwards, I like that.

Problem for me if I'd try the same with my gaming group though is that there is a great deal of variance in internet access for people. Some are almost wired into it, others can't check regularly (one is a teacher for instance) and a few have such restricted internet access that the management starts to frown when they want to use Google.
So I could probably predict in which order I would receive my answers.

It would probably have to be random grabs out of a hat or something for me.

Another question, this one about supply in your campaign. Have you just completely reduced that to the 'regular damage get's repaired before next mission' and 'gyro/engine hits take another session of repair'?
Or do you actually have something of a stock of sorts? So that players might not have certain weapon replacements, half-empty ammo bins or insufficient armor to patch the holes in their mechs.

This whole supply issue has been something of a nightmare in previous (small) campaigns I ran to be honest.

BAWTRM wrote:
Not telling them untill afterwards, I like that.

Another question, this one about supply in your campaign. Have you just completely reduced that to the 'regular damage get's repaired before next mission' and 'gyro/engine hits take another session of repair'?
Or do you actually have something of a stock of sorts? So that players might not have certain weapon replacements, half-empty ammo bins or insufficient armor to patch the holes in their mechs.

This whole supply issue has been something of a nightmare in previous (small) campaigns I ran to be honest.

1) If you liked the not telling them until aftert you may like what I did my last campaign. I asked all the players to tell me which light inner sphere mech from 3067 or earlier they would like to pilot to start the campaign. When they showed up to play, there was a table set up with a bunch of mech to choose from...none of them being the ones they chose. The mechs they picked made of the opposing force for the first mission. If they really wanted that mech they were going to have to salvage it.

2) I've always played the "all your stuff short of major (engine gyro sensor) damage gets repaired by the next mission". I don't have the time to keep track of supplies and such. I'm trying something mew with this one keeping track of Clan Salvage. you can see the deatils in the latest post on the Blog. Pretty much lets players collect 5 parts to get a clan mech. meaning Salvage a Mad Cat Chassis, Engine, Gyro, Head and Weapon Loadout then they will get a Mad Cat added to their Mechbay.

3) I might throw a raid or surprise assault at the players base later in the campaign where they have all the damage from the prior mission. But I will keep it unscripted so I can throw it in right after a really successful mission by the players. But to be honest my players just want to roll dice and could care less about the details like that.

Here a pair of my home made designs. I would take 3 Lukust and a single Fire Daemon against Heavy and Assault Lances all of the time and win more than half the time, at least until I started to run into 2 Gunneries. One of them and the Fire Daemon would load up with infernos.

Type/Model: Lukust LKS-2S
Mass: 25 tons
-Walking MP: 8
-Running MP: 12
-Jumping MP: 0
Heat Sinks: 10 Single
(Heat Sink Loc: 1 HD, 1 RL)
Armor Factor: 80 pts Standard [5.00 tons]
Location: Internal [Armor/Rear]
-Head: 3 [9]
-Center Torso: 8 [10/3]
-L/R Side Torso: 6 [8/3]
-L/R Arm: 4 [7]
-L/R Leg: 6 [11/11]

Weapons and Equipment
-1x SRM 2 [RA]
-(Ammo Locations: 1 CT)
-1x SRM 2 [LA]
-1x Medium Laser [CT]

Type/Model: Fire Daemon CLT-S2
Mass: 40 tons
Armor Factor: 120 pts Standard 0 7.50
Location: Internal [Armor/Rear]
-Head: 3 [9]
-Center Torso: 12 [14/5]
-L/R Side Torso: 10 [14/4]
-L/R Arm: 6 [10]
-L/R Leg: 10 [18]

Weapons and Equipment
-1 Flamer [RA]
-1 Medium Laser [LA]
-1 Autocannon/2 [RT]
-(Ammo Locations: 1 RT)
-1 SRM 2 [LT]
-(Ammo Locations: 1 LT)

How on earth did you pull that off? 3 fast light mechs with SRM2s and center mounted ammo and only 80 armor, no jump jets, plus one 40 tonner with the laughable AC/2 and a flamer... versus a bunch of 80+ tonners???!!! What did you do, make them laugh themselves to death? I just don't see much damage output, make you got lucky with a lot of headshots or crit hits on ammo or something but I can't envision them taking on even ONE assault mech (well, charger doesn't count) let alone 4. What's your secret?

Guitardian wrote:How on earth did you pull that off? 3 fast light mechs with SRM2s and center mounted ammo and only 80 armor, no jump jets, plus one 40 tonner with the laughable AC/2 and a flamer... versus a bunch of 80+ tonners???!!! What did you do, make them laugh themselves to death? I just don't see much damage output, make you got lucky with a lot of headshots or crit hits on ammo or something but I can't envision them taking on even ONE assault mech (well, charger doesn't count) let alone 4. What's your secret?

1] Never stop Running
2] Find One and Isolate it, by getting it to chase you
3] Just keep them on fire
4] Always make sure at least one is behined hit
5] Never let the front ones get closer than 7 Hexes.
6] Don't count on the Quick Kill.

It's alot like African Wild Dogs taking down a Cape Bufflo, just keep nipping in the rear.

nicely done

Guitardian wrote:Can't argue with a cheap vehicle with a one-two punchout weapon, even if it dies shortly after you know it made its mark.

That's the problem though. BV wise they aren't cheap, at least not cheap like you'd expect a Vee to be. The BV calcs have never given defense a huge weight so all that tonnage they take from armor and put into guns sends their BV through the roof. In a clan setting they're not terribly good but against IS forces they can be brutal just because of the sheer volume of fire they can put down range.

BAWTRM wrote:

Rangerrob wrote:
How did I determine the original mech selection? I had emailed all the players asking them what "skill" they wanted their mechwarrior to have. The order in which they responded to my email, was the order they picked thier mech...but they didn't know that until they all had sumbimitted their skill.

Not telling them untill afterwards, I like that.

Problem for me if I'd try the same with my gaming group though is that there is a great deal of variance in internet access for people. Some are almost wired into it, others can't check regularly (one is a teacher for instance) and a few have such restricted internet access that the management starts to frown when they want to use Google.
So I could probably predict in which order I would receive my answers.

It would probably have to be random grabs out of a hat or something for me.

Another question, this one about supply in your campaign. Have you just completely reduced that to the 'regular damage get's repaired before next mission' and 'gyro/engine hits take another session of repair'?
Or do you actually have something of a stock of sorts? So that players might not have certain weapon replacements, half-empty ammo bins or insufficient armor to patch the holes in their mechs.

This whole supply issue has been something of a nightmare in previous (small) campaigns I ran to be honest.

I created a type of "Supply Points" that boiled everything down to simple numbers for repairs and such. It should be mostly complete, covering most siuations if you are interested in it. Tweaking is fully allowed as well.

Rangerrob wrote:1) If you liked the not telling them until aftert you may like what I did my last campaign. I asked all the players to tell me which light inner sphere mech from 3067 or earlier they would like to pilot to start the campaign. When they showed up to play, there was a table set up with a bunch of mech to choose from...none of them being the ones they chose. The mechs they picked made of the opposing force for the first mission. If they really wanted that mech they were going to have to salvage it.

Honestly I would hate that. I play to play things I like.

I like repairs coming only from stripped stuff in the dark ages of succession wars 3025. Armor points can be stripped, weapons that match your own, and so on. Structure would be easy enough to fix, Engines/Gyros/Sensors have to just be fixed (unless you can salvage a duplicate engine or whatever to install) which could take time between missions. Eventually you end up with some ramshackle snord-style mechs that have character, as the pilot gets better the mech gets more and more broken down and yet upgraded from time to time too. a bit of leeway could be considered (like putting a salvaged srm4 in place of a ruined srm6, or adding a regular ML in place of a ruined ER ML, or switching up arm cannons (like an AC5 from a clint can take up the same arm as a PPC on a vindicator or something) but thats kind of up to imagination.

Rangerrob wrote:
1) If you liked the not telling them until aftert you may like what I did my last campaign. I asked all the players to tell me which light inner sphere mech from 3067 or earlier they would like to pilot to start the campaign. When they showed up to play, there was a table set up with a bunch of mech to choose from...none of them being the ones they chose. The mechs they picked made of the opposing force for the first mission. If they really wanted that mech they were going to have to salvage it.

Ok, that was just downright mean and funny! I'd probably add a little disclaimer to the original request saying that 'it wasn't entirely sure they'd get the mech but I'd look into it'.


I think your supply system looks very elegant and the lack of stress for the GM sure makes it attractive.

Unfortunately I always tend to go for the detailed solution in order to gain 'more realism'. So yes Mattlov, I would indeed be interested in the supply system you designed.

And just to illustrate my penchant for administration heavy campaigns: I once ran a Birthright campaign (AD&D 2nd Ed. 'be a king' kind of campaign for those unfamiliar with it) with 4 players. It took part in the main setting of that world iirc it was called 'Anuire'. Each player ran some kind of realm or hold and me, I ran all the others. Every country, guild, church, wizard domain etc. and ran them through their turns as well. I had a stack of paper (didn't have a computer back then) comparable in height to a pack of printer paper.

Mattlov wrote:

Tyyr wrote:Too bad you botched that part up and got both your Khan's killed.

That's OK. It let us get a couple of GOOD Khans instead.

We had at least one good khan before that. Elias Crichell was toted as a political and tactical genius, if a mediocre warrior. However Stackpole cant write intelligent fiction, he can only make his chosen heroes seem clever by making their adversaries act with transparent stupidity.

BAWTRM wrote:

Rangerrob wrote:
1) If you liked the not telling them until aftert you may like what I did my last campaign. I asked all the players to tell me which light inner sphere mech from 3067 or earlier they would like to pilot to start the campaign. When they showed up to play, there was a table set up with a bunch of mech to choose from...none of them being the ones they chose. The mechs they picked made of the opposing force for the first mission. If they really wanted that mech they were going to have to salvage it.

Ok, that was just downright mean and funny! I'd probably add a little disclaimer to the original request saying that 'it wasn't entirely sure they'd get the mech but I'd look into it'.


I think your supply system looks very elegant and the lack of stress for the GM sure makes it attractive.

Unfortunately I always tend to go for the detailed solution in order to gain 'more realism'. So yes Mattlov, I would indeed be interested in the supply system you designed.

And just to illustrate my penchant for administration heavy campaigns: I once ran a Birthright campaign (AD&D 2nd Ed. 'be a king' kind of campaign for those unfamiliar with it) with 4 players. It took part in the main setting of that world iirc it was called 'Anuire'. Each player ran some kind of realm or hold and me, I ran all the others. Every country, guild, church, wizard domain etc. and ran them through their turns as well. I had a stack of paper (didn't have a computer back then) comparable in height to a pack of printer paper.

Birthright was HUGELY cool. We all also had stacks upon stacks of notebooks when we played that. I loved the idea of being a chaotic good ruler of a fiercely independant nation and arguing with all the lawful players all the time. We had 6 sometimes 7 guys playing and all co-ordinating a kingdom. I think that was the highest point of DnD creatively speaking.

Oh yes, it was a great setting. My friends bought up every new book/expansion/whatnot that came out for that game and gave it to me as gifts, just so that it might get used.

There was even talk about starting campaign in the 4 other realms of the continent as well.

But then I went to university and other people started to folllow studies in different cities as well, and it just wasn't very practical to play anymore.

I still have all that stuff though and I hope I'll be able to use it again in the future.