13thWarrior wrote: I really am hoping to make BT my new game. Outside of AoS, and KT/BB I dunno if I wana keep going with GW. Blood Bowl and Battletech have been the most fun I've had on the tabletop with in ages.
However I def am not used to the scale. I bought the starter set, Clan Invasion and the Alpha strike box. Plus a handful of boxes. I'm def used to 40k and it's scale. I've way more then I need. So I'm trying to organize my mechs into various lances and the Clan equivalent.
I really like the Ghost Bears, Draconis Combine, Rasalouge and the Northwind Highlanders.
Any of the factions can be a lot of fun to try and work with, are you going for specific lore faction style play? Or just a what feels right at this point.
For myself I enjoy working within the idea of a military and what’s available, making each of mine feel different to play even when it’s all the same rules.
One of the nice things about Battletech is that thanks to the acceptance of proxying in general, what you need is a very small amount.
There is also less faction-only focus in this environment as well. Outside of the Elementals, the only units that are really "faction-only" are in metal, 'Mechs like the Celestials or Society designs with locked in Nova like the Osteon. From there, if it exists, it can be salvaged. If it can be salvaged, you can use it in your army. This even applies to the Celestials and Society Mechs (it's just most of the people didn't WANT to salvage them due to really bad blood).
That being said, it is nice to have the models to match the models that you will want to bring.
Not every match will be the same. What tournament concepts are out there vary in the size and power of the force you can bring, so having those options available when you want them is very nice to have.
Some of the bigger tournaments lately have wanted players to match the chassis, too, such has if you want to use a Mad Cat M, you need to have a Mad Cat model there and not a Marauder or Catapult.
I'm still too green to really know what's what. I know the Clan's add a whole other layer to the game. What with how much stronger their tech is. I know there's a series of ways to play by date. But I just haven't absorbed enough to play.
I guess...So far? I've painted my guys up as a Sword of Light, my Clanner's as Bears and a small force of Highlanders.
I really just need to play more and absorb some rules/lore. I do like how you can equip your mechs as you see fit. Like how the Catapult can go from being a walking missile boat to replacing them with two big ol' lasers.
Lorcan Nagle wrote:So Catalyst are streaming all weekend again, and there doesn't seem to be much discussion of it on the boards. Or, to be fair much promotion of it on their social media as far as I can see. They went for about 8 hours yesterday and seem to be planning the same all weekend. And here's yesterday's streams timestamped. It's mostly Shadowrun Takedown because the Kickstarter is closing out in 7 hours as of the time I'm typing this.
*There should be an Aces update in the next few weeks
*Hour of the Wolf Audiobook is almost complete
*No plans to move the GoAC mechs to Forcepacks at present. It'll only happen when and if new minis are swapped in for a new edition.
*Ongoing global shipping issues mean Randall doesn't want to commit to any solid dates for Kickstarter fulfilment, but things are still looking good.
*BattleTech COMMAND is still progressing through development. It's designed by FASA veteran Jim Long, of Black Thorns fame.
*Randall didn't want to say much about the 40th anniversary but he did reveal that they'll be issuing a reprint of The Succession Wars, like how they're reprinting Shadowrun 1st edition for the 35th anniversary.
*The new grand strategy game is "about 85% done", needs 2-3 playtest cycles.
*They're still working on getting con swag onto the store as a standard thing.
*Kickstarter stuff should start hitting stores 2-3 months after backer fulfillment.
*Force Manual: Draconis Combine is heading into layout, art review is just complete
*Universe is finished now, Randall is very proud of it.
*Discussions for Kickstarter 3 have begun, it'll probably be 2-3 years before we see it
*The PoD program is still getting back on its feet, the guy they hired to do this got dragged into working on Universe
*House Arano will probably get more products - an advantage of the Kickstarters is they can get a good look at what factions people love, and Arano are in the top 10.
*Samples of a lot of material including the first 7 forcepacks and the 2 mercs boxes are on their way to Randall at the moment, he'll be taking photos as soon as he can.
*John Helfers will hopefully be putting out a new fiction announcement in a few weeks, he's at Dragoncon this weekend.
*No plans to return to the Homeworld Clans at present. They're still waiting for the right story to come along.
*Den of Wolves has only a couple of chapters left to complete.
*There will hopefully be an update for the Clan Invasion Kickstarter digital products soon.
*The GenCon mugs will hopefully be on the store in a month or so
*They are continuing to have problems finding a partner for the EU store, they're in discussion with some new people now. But when Kickstarter fulfillment ramps up it's going to take up most of the company's bandwidth for a few months.
*Randall's been too busy to write recently but he's still working on his Nova Cat/Spirit Cat novel.
Additional info from today's chats (there was a lot of joking around and repeat questions):
*ilKhan's eyes only will be out next year at this stage
*CGL are 99.9% locked in to do UK Games Expo, pending a meeting at Essen
*Aces development will be "full bore" after the Kickstarter fulfills
*Randall would love to do more variant mech minis, the Hunchback 4P was specifically mentioned
*Alpha Strike Commander's Edition reprint is on a boat, hopefully be available before the end of September
*The Universe book will hold a hint on the new financial normal for the ilClan era
*Half the Clan Invasion forcepacks have gone back for a 4th printing.
*When the Mercs Kickstarter fulfils, CGL will have shipped 10 million plastic minis in the last 5 years.
*No definite plans to do anything pre-Amaris civil war at present, but they want to write more in every era.
*Tamar Rising is probably Randall's favourite of the new campaign books because of how fresh and new it makes the universe feel. He's very proud of the big map as well, he talked about the campaign he's running in Zulus and how he pulled the map out, laid it down and said "you guys are here, where would you like to go?" Randall plotted the course on the map and one of the players said it felt like he was in the HBS game at that point.
*There are plans for ForcePacks next year outside of the Kickstarter, Randall was unwilling to give any more details at this time.
I'm still too green to really know what's what. I know the Clan's add a whole other layer to the game. What with how much stronger their tech is. I know there's a series of ways to play by date. But I just haven't absorbed enough to play.
I guess...So far? I've painted my guys up as a Sword of Light, my Clanner's as Bears and a small force of Highlanders.
I really just need to play more and absorb some rules/lore. I do like how you can equip your mechs as you see fit. Like how the Catapult can go from being a walking missile boat to replacing them with two big ol' lasers.
All sounds great, I am trying to get my hands on a horde of light mechs now.
It’s great that so much of the force building is left to the background, lets new players learn at a better pace I do feel.
I just get a lot of fun from that immersive list building so I enjoy listening to others as well.
Also news happenings makes me happy and excited, I spent to much money and I have too many mechs. So campaign time is coming up!
There are several meanings of "unlikable" when it comes to villains.
There are some which you are meant to hate, and they do the job well in getting you to hate them. Delores Umbridge in Harry Potter is one of these characters.
There are others where you just hate them for what they did, but how they come across one just hates to have on the "screen". I think Katherine is one of these.
Lorcan Nagle wrote:So Catalyst are streaming all weekend again, and there doesn't seem to be much discussion of it on the boards. Or, to be fair much promotion of it on their social media as far as I can see. They went for about 8 hours yesterday and seem to be planning the same all weekend. And here's yesterday's streams timestamped. It's mostly Shadowrun Takedown because the Kickstarter is closing out in 7 hours as of the time I'm typing this.
*There should be an Aces update in the next few weeks
*Hour of the Wolf Audiobook is almost complete
*No plans to move the GoAC mechs to Forcepacks at present. It'll only happen when and if new minis are swapped in for a new edition.
*Ongoing global shipping issues mean Randall doesn't want to commit to any solid dates for Kickstarter fulfilment, but things are still looking good.
*BattleTech COMMAND is still progressing through development. It's designed by FASA veteran Jim Long, of Black Thorns fame.
*Randall didn't want to say much about the 40th anniversary but he did reveal that they'll be issuing a reprint of The Succession Wars, like how they're reprinting Shadowrun 1st edition for the 35th anniversary.
*The new grand strategy game is "about 85% done", needs 2-3 playtest cycles.
*They're still working on getting con swag onto the store as a standard thing.
*Kickstarter stuff should start hitting stores 2-3 months after backer fulfillment.
*Force Manual: Draconis Combine is heading into layout, art review is just complete
*Universe is finished now, Randall is very proud of it.
*Discussions for Kickstarter 3 have begun, it'll probably be 2-3 years before we see it
*The PoD program is still getting back on its feet, the guy they hired to do this got dragged into working on Universe
*House Arano will probably get more products - an advantage of the Kickstarters is they can get a good look at what factions people love, and Arano are in the top 10.
*Samples of a lot of material including the first 7 forcepacks and the 2 mercs boxes are on their way to Randall at the moment, he'll be taking photos as soon as he can.
*John Helfers will hopefully be putting out a new fiction announcement in a few weeks, he's at Dragoncon this weekend.
*No plans to return to the Homeworld Clans at present. They're still waiting for the right story to come along.
*Den of Wolves has only a couple of chapters left to complete.
*There will hopefully be an update for the Clan Invasion Kickstarter digital products soon.
*The GenCon mugs will hopefully be on the store in a month or so
*They are continuing to have problems finding a partner for the EU store, they're in discussion with some new people now. But when Kickstarter fulfillment ramps up it's going to take up most of the company's bandwidth for a few months.
*Randall's been too busy to write recently but he's still working on his Nova Cat/Spirit Cat novel.
Additional info from today's chats (there was a lot of joking around and repeat questions):
*ilKhan's eyes only will be out next year at this stage
*CGL are 99.9% locked in to do UK Games Expo, pending a meeting at Essen
*Aces development will be "full bore" after the Kickstarter fulfills
*Randall would love to do more variant mech minis, the Hunchback 4P was specifically mentioned
*Alpha Strike Commander's Edition reprint is on a boat, hopefully be available before the end of September
*The Universe book will hold a hint on the new financial normal for the ilClan era
*Half the Clan Invasion forcepacks have gone back for a 4th printing.
*When the Mercs Kickstarter fulfils, CGL will have shipped 10 million plastic minis in the last 5 years.
*No definite plans to do anything pre-Amaris civil war at present, but they want to write more in every era.
*Tamar Rising is probably Randall's favourite of the new campaign books because of how fresh and new it makes the universe feel. He's very proud of the big map as well, he talked about the campaign he's running in Zulus and how he pulled the map out, laid it down and said "you guys are here, where would you like to go?" Randall plotted the course on the map and one of the players said it felt like he was in the HBS game at that point.
*There are plans for ForcePacks next year outside of the Kickstarter, Randall was unwilling to give any more details at this time.
And the final two days...
Lorcan Nagle wrote:Timestamps for today's bits. There wasn't a lot on!
*CGL are intending to sell the buildings that were seen at Adepticon and other streams (including PAX) which were based on the renders made for the new city maps and Randall printed out for the con. They haven't worked out the way this will happen, but hopefully it'll be announced late this year/early next year.
*Randall fought hard to get unseen art into the Remembrance book that's part of the Precentor Martial edition of the Universe book. He didn't want to get further into the nuances of the decision.
*New swag will be in part based on how items sell in the Kickstarter. For example they see the Star League is selling very well and they didn't do a Star League dice tray, so they're now intending to do ones for when the trays hit the store.
*The inflatable UrbanMech is called Ralph, Randall wants to make a kill stamp and put a mark on Ralph every time they tell a Kickstarter fulfillment company how many SKUs the Kickstarter has and they're taken back.
*The top 10 factions by swag choices in the Kickstarter: Gray Death, Star League and Wolf's Dragoons are the top 3 in that order, the rest of the top 10 in no particular order are are ELH, Kell Hounds, Northwind Highlanders, Rasalhague Dominion, Sea Foxes, House Arano and Taurians. Randall assumes this is because loads of people got the Clans and Great Houses in the last Kickstarter
*Vesper Marches is the lowest selling swag.
*There are more Spotlight on... books in the pipeline
*The main product Randall wants to get out there which hasn't happened yet is a grand strategy/4X one, and it's a big part of why he and Bryn are still working away on one. Their current version is "halfway between Risk and 4X games"
*When asked about WoB's return, he said "don't hold your breath"
*The last con they'll be streaming from this year is probably gonna be PAX Unplugged.
*They hope to do more RPG support in the future
Charistoph wrote: There are several meanings of "unlikable" when it comes to villains.
There are some which you are meant to hate, and they do the job well in getting you to hate them. Delores Umbridge in Harry Potter is one of these characters.
There are others where you just hate them for what they did, but how they come across one just hates to have on the "screen". I think Katherine is one of these.
Vlad Ward was a character I loved to hate. Like Gul Dukat or Kai Winn, the sacred cows of perfectly written villains I love to hate.
Kathrine I just hated. It didn't help that most of her so-called political expertise was kind of an informed trait and most of her success really came not from her own ability but the slow response Victor had to realizing how dangerous she was. And that after she'd done even more bs, he chose to ignore her until one of his sibling's died.
Charistoph wrote: There are several meanings of "unlikable" when it comes to villains.
There are some which you are meant to hate, and they do the job well in getting you to hate them. Delores Umbridge in Harry Potter is one of these characters.
There are others where you just hate them for what they did, but how they come across one just hates to have on the "screen". I think Katherine is one of these.
Vlad Ward was a character I loved to hate. Like Gul Dukat or Kai Winn, the sacred cows of perfectly written villains I love to hate.
Kathrine I just hated. It didn't help that most of her so-called political expertise was kind of an informed trait and most of her success really came not from her own ability but the slow response Victor had to realizing how dangerous she was. And that after she'd done even more bs, he chose to ignore her until one of his sibling's died.
not only that but a lot of her sucesses where simply illogical
Vlad got burned severly when he came for Katherine. Nuke level burn by Victor saying "You bargain well and done" pretty much calling him a merchant
Following the civil war's end, Vlad traveled to Arc-Royal in August 3067, where Katherine was being transferred to a prison there. Meeting Victor and Phelan Ward, Vlad pointed out that the Truce of Tukayyid had expired and his Clan was free to attack the exhausted Lyran Alliance. In exchange for peace, the Wolf Khan demanded that Katherine be turned over to him. Victor agreed without protest and Vlad left Arc-Royal with the former Archon.[36]
Some brutal games tonight. the first was a game that lasted less than an hour. we were doing late era.
I ran-
.trebaruna
.goliath
.stalker II
.barghest 4T
i was heavy gauss across the board except the stalker 2
His side had
.Regent
.gunslinger
.sagittaire
.penetrator
the reason it went so fast was head capping 3 of his 4 mechs with heavy or improved heavy gauss and the last mech took an AMS ammo crit center torso that took out his internal structure.
Spoiler:
We then moved on to an urban fight and everybody wanted to do vehicles and such.
My side
C3 kurita lance with
.schiltron
.manteuffel
.typhoon
.tokugawa
My ally
.X2 demolishers
.X2 alacorn MK VII
The clan side-
.X2 tyr IFVs with gnome battle armor
.X2 enyo strike tank
.X2 garuda VTOL
.Mars XL
.Heimdall ATM.
This game was also pretty fast with 6 turns, and a stupid number of crits. the IS side lost the typhoon and an alacorn with heavy damage to the other alacorn and one demolisher. the clan side lost a garuda, both enyo, and the turret got blown off the mars.
I find that issue with a lot of the sculpts. Art looks amazing, renders look decent, production mini looks ok. I think some stuff is being lost in the sculpting process as a result of adjustments to proportions and perspective translating a 2d image to 3d, and then the production process is softening some details up and further exacerbating the issues IMO.
Charistoph wrote: It just doesn't have that Assault Mech feel. It feels more like a Heavy. The torso and legs and upper arms need to be thicker, imo.
Catalyst has been using volumetrics to insure the new 'Mechs are an appropriate size for their tonnage (note the 100-ton Crucible in front of the Blood Asp in the second pic).
As a noob to Battletech, the model looks great to me. I think the issue when comparing models to the art, is that the best artwork has things in the background that bring a sense of scale to the model. A photo closeup of the model only, doesn't give that sense of scale and (imo) makes it look a lot less impressive. A pic of the model showing it towering over a 2 story building would make the model look vastly better. I'm no expert though.
Charistoph wrote: It just doesn't have that Assault Mech feel. It feels more like a Heavy. The torso and legs and upper arms need to be thicker, imo.
Catalyst has been using volumetrics to insure the new 'Mechs are an appropriate size for their tonnage
At best it is feeling like the Ymir, and only the length of its legs gives one the idea that it could be an Assault, otherwise it still feels like a leggy Heavy.
Meanwhile, its original line art is quite intimidating in a chunky way.
Still, reviewing its stats, it IS a 4/6 90 tonner, so I guess some leanness should be expected?
Wohoo. Locally one guy popped to discord wondering about players so suddely mujtiple interested responded. Got myself box of wolf dragoons for that sweet sweet timber wolf that warms my heart(can tell i found bt from mw2 )
Now to paint to clan wolf(yea mw2) colours and 1st game next week.
Had a game Monday. My Catapult sure got it's work in, but it single handedly saved a Shadowhawk from a Hunchback, then gave a Jenner a death from above.
that's the spector, always been one of my fav light mechs, it'll be packed with an ostscout, javalin and firestarter. proably one of the best packs you can buy if you want a lance of light mechs
tneva82 wrote: How accurate battlevalues generally are? Is vs is, is vs clan?
And how pilots affect those? Are clan mech bv's on assumption they have clan pilots or should they be factored up?
In short it isn't.
I know you come from a 40K background where points/power level have been a thing forever. classic battle tech however has many ways to set up games.
it is up to the players to choose the framework-era, battle value, tonnage, cbills, standard formations or any combination there of.
Where BV specifically is useful is in setting up frameworks for leagues and tournaments or when somebody wants to do some crazy mismatched force say a lance of mechs VS equal BV in savannah masters and foot infantry.
In a basic pickup game with standard pilots (4/5 and 3/4- IS/clan) inner sphere lance VS lance (4 v 4) of mechs, vehicles, vtols etc/clan star VS clan star ( by 5s) or 2 inner sphere lances VS a single clan stars (especially post 3055) is pretty well balanced where either side can win.
The big factor in the game is the crit system or the fact you can just decapitate the pilot without having to fight the mech itself very much. this is compounded even more if your group uses special ammo.
The key is to keep it fun for all players. an example of something i would not do in a normal pickup game outside of request or scenario is bring multiple arrow IV artillery equiped units and a TAG spotter. doing 20 point hits on a 4+ on a tagged unit from across the table is not a fun game.
This lends itself well for thematic forces using weapons, chassis and equipment in the manner each faction or specific unit prefers to fight.
Right off the bat you start noticing things-Davions love autocannons and RACs, Kurita loves fast heavies, c3 networks and PPCS, Marik has a weird obsession with light gauss and LRMS, while the cappellans love thier electronic warfare and stealth.
The core mechanics of the game have only had slight modifications since the late 80s some of them very needed (fixing AMS), but mostly minor. but there are entire books of optional rules you and your group can choose from if you so desire.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Just a couple small games-
the first was a second swords lance on lance fight against taurians. got to break out my cronus for the first time. great medium mech. it is also a super fast lance aside from the master in the shugenja.
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
the second game was a bunch of clan second line mechs against an oddball mix of things....a longbow with double U/AC 20s for example.
Battle Value is USEALLY good for a quick game, but yeah it's not perfect, certain things tend to be over BV'd (anything that has both jump jets AND MASC is one of the more obvious ones) it's certainly better then 40k's "throw a dart at the wall" points stragety though.
and yeah the thing about battletech is due to the way luck works, sometimes a game that SHOULD be even just goes weird, if you have a BV balanced game and lose two mechs turn 1 to Gauss slugs to the head, you've got a MUUUUCH harder game.
that said......... I've seen people have that happen and STILL pull out a win. Battletech really is a game where tactics matter.
tneva82 wrote: How accurate battlevalues generally are? Is vs is, is vs clan?
A little better than GW point-costs because of the consistency in Construction Rules. As others have said, it isn't perfect, but nothing really is unless you're doing a Mirror Match.
Clan equipment is practically cheating. It's generally smaller, lighter, and in the case of energy weapons, more powerful and longer ranged. but also costs much much more in Battle Value.
As an example, the ER Large Laser in the Inner Sphere weighs in at 5 tons, takes up 2 Critical Slots, does 8 Damage for 12 Heat out to a Long Range of 19 hexes (or 38"), and has a BV of 163.
The Clan version weighs in at 4 tons, takes up 1 Critical Slot, does 10 Damage for that same 12 Heat out to a Long Range of 25 hexes (or 50") for a BV of 248.
So the Clan laser costs more, but weighs less, that means you have 1 more ton to add something else in to the mix, which is adding some more Battle Value on the unit.
That isn't the end story of it, though, as a lack of capacity for the unit to consistently dispel all of that 12 Heat could reduce the cost of that ER Large Laser, too, depending on what else the unit is carrying.
tneva82 wrote: And how pilots affect those? Are clan mech bv's on assumption they have clan pilots or should they be factored up?
Pilots modify the BV based on their Gunnery Ability as well as their Piloting or Anti-Mech Ability, and quite possibly the biggest change one can make. No matter what their origin is or their "status" among that group, it is their Skills which define their end cost.
Here is the method of calculating Battle Value. How pilots affect them is pretty much the very last page, #23, for their Skill Rating chart. In fact, unless you're designing your units by hand (which you shouldn't when there are a few good programs that will do it for you), this last page (and the introduction on the bottom of page #22), is all you really need to focus on, and even then, it's often only the Pilots that matter.
As an example, The Average/Regular Inner Sphere Pilot is 4 Gunnery & 5 Piloting (or 4/5). This is a 1.0 modifier (base value). The Average/Regular Clan Pilot is 3 Gunnery & 4 Piloting (or 3/4). This is a 1.32 modifier, and it would affect Clan Mechs with Clan Pilots of that same rating.
If you had 2 of the same Mech, that was valued at 1000 BV, the above Average Inner Sphere Pilot would be presented as 1,000 BV, while the above Average Clan Pilot would be presented as 1,320 BV.
To give a practical example, if you have an AWS-8Q Awesome from the Game of Armored Combat box with that Regular Inner Sphere pilot of 4/5 would start with 1,605 BV, and remain at 1,605 BV.
The slightly lighter Clan Timber Wolf starts at 2,737 BV. Putting the Regular Clan pilot of 3/4 would then make it 3,613 BV.
And BV values certain things over others. You can make 'Mechs that have a base BV of just over 4000, but they're essentially useless and only have that high BV because you've taken a bunch of mis-matched high-BV items (like TSEMPS and whatnot).
Imagine if a Devastator Squad was 150 points with 4 Lascannons, but 250 points with 1 Lascannon, 1 Missile Launcher, 1 Heavy Bolter and 1 Multi-Melta.
The latter squad has a load of mismatched weapons all designed for different roles, and isn't as effective as the one with just 4 of the same weapon, yet it costs more.
H.B.M.C. wrote: And BV values certain things over others. You can make 'Mechs that have a base BV of just over 4000, but they're essentially useless and only have that high BV because you've taken a bunch of mis-matched high-BV items (like TSEMPS and whatnot).
Imagine if a Devastator Squad was 150 points with 4 Lascannons, but 250 points with 1 Lascannon, 1 Missile Launcher, 1 Heavy Bolter and 1 Multi-Melta.
The latter squad has a load of mismatched weapons all designed for different roles, and isn't as effective as the one with just 4 of the same weapon, yet it costs more.
That's BattleValue.
Meanwhile, in GW, that Devastator Squad with Codex Marines was 250 points, but with the Blood Angles its 225 because they came out later, but 275 for Dark Angels because it came out earlier, and the Chaos Marine Havocs are 300 points because they're still from the previous edition.
The TSEMP with BV is the same BV no matter what it's on and which faction made it. Yeah, it's probably over-costed because it requires a REALLY high Roll for it to do its best, but it is consistent for everyone.
Or if you want to keep it easy and skip all that math breakdown of every weapon and system for a quick pickup game-
.pic an era-my favorite is 3050-3070
.pick 4 mechs/vehicles/battle armor etc.. you want to play with for a lance on lance fight
.give them standard pilots
.your opposite does the same
.play a game.
We like to add the additional flavor of using units and weapons the factions are known for. IE the Atlas with the RAC 5 is used by Davion primarily, the one with the heavy gauss is used by Steiner primarily etc... and if you feel the need to go deep into the lore. there are field manuals for all the factions so you can play specific units with their own minor battlefield rules. for example-2nd deiron regulars are mountain fighters. if you are fighting in a mountain setting they get +1 to their initiative roll. or the 2nd robinson rangers- +1 to long range shooting penalties but a -1 for melee attacks and -2 for pilot checks in urban settings. etc...
The nice thing about BattleTech is that none of them are either/or. Use as many of them in any combination that you want. Personally, I like era (or sometimes even a specific year) BV, tonnage, # of 'Mechs and occasionally Formations.
I have gotten into a group that plays locally and we have been playing two modes. One we call 4,000BV Duos, where you just bring a pair of mechs totaling 4,000 BV, with modified Gunnery or Piloting to make them fit. (more or less, like going over a small bit like 4,050 is fine)
I have been playing that format as I learn the game. The only oddity is that it tends to see both players bring a pair of heavies, or an assault and a medium. Lights don't really show up much, other than the time I got my first solid win by using a Marauder and a Thunderbolt against a Timber Wolf and a Wolfhound.
Then there is another larger format that is I think either 8k or 10 BV, more geared towards complete Lances/Stars, but It's too much data for me to keep track of at the moment.
But yes, Battletech sees some weird things happen even with "balanced" forces. In one 4K Duo game I found out how incredibly nasty going up against a force with a Nightstar is and it took 6 turns for me to even force a crit on it, but then the next week, I watched the same Nightstar die in turn two by taking two Gyro hits in a single round of firing.
Or when I was trying to teach a newbie to play the game, and got my first classic Battletech insta-kill by having my Awesome firing two ER PPC's at a Hunchback on the second turn. One misses with snake eyes..... and the other goes through the Hunchback's head.
So this is kind of my fault. about 6 months ago i started corresponding with the owner of -Baron of Dice- because he was making some fantastic 40K and infinity dice sets. i talked him into jumping into battle tech dice, and he just released the first wave of boxed sets.
He was running
.atlas-S3
.fafnir
.zeus
.gauntlet-B
By the end the hatamoto was down on my side with some decent damage to the akuma and archer, he lost the gauntlet, zeus and some decent damage on the atlas so his forces withdrew.
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
Game 2 was a clan battle.
My forces-
.Turkina-d
.doom courser (thunder stallion proxy) prime
.glass spider 2
.storm crow A
.adder-A
His forces-
.iron cheetah-B
.nova cat-E
.timber wolf
.vyper-B
.locust IIC
It was a a pretty even exchange most of the game, my opponent came out on top mostly through multiple gyro hits across a couple mechs. and a single head cap.
Announcing this year's BattleTech World Wide Event!
This year's event will be run by Catalyst Demo Agents between Halloween (October 31st) and New Year's Eve (December 31st).
The World Wide Event consists of narrative based scenarios that Agents run during the allotted time period & then submit results back to the team. The scores are totaled & final results are released after the event has concluded so everyone can see how the battle played out globally.
Looking for a game? Check out the official BattleTech Forums
Love that the only way to find out about games is to check a forum thread and hope that someone near you posts details? I'm already pretty sure we have no nearby demo presence but a boy can dream.
There also doesn't seem to be a post for the actual event game? It takes multiple forum link clicks to get to the game posting thread, but I don't see anywhere they've posted the actual game.
Well, that's for the demo agents to handle locally.
This is what the Phoenix demo agent posted on his Facebook entry:
SITUATION:
NEW EARTH
STAR LEAGUE
13 DECEMBER 3151
When Alaric and his Wolves left their staging grounds on New Earth to take Terra and become the ilClan, the Capellan Confederation claimed New Earth for themselves. Now the clans want it back.
Schedule TBD, but I'll be running this at a few different stores.
Play as either the clans (mostly Wolves, but some Falcons, Jaguars, and Snow Ravens will be on the field) or as House Hiritsu of the Capellan Confederation. As with all CDT Worldwide Events, everything will be provided by the demo agent (me).
Charistoph wrote: Well, that's for the demo agents to handle locally.
This is what the Phoenix demo agent posted on his Facebook entry:
SITUATION:
NEW EARTH
STAR LEAGUE
13 DECEMBER 3151
When Alaric and his Wolves left their staging grounds on New Earth to take Terra and become the ilClan, the Capellan Confederation claimed New Earth for themselves. Now the clans want it back.
Schedule TBD, but I'll be running this at a few different stores.
Play as either the clans (mostly Wolves, but some Falcons, Jaguars, and Snow Ravens will be on the field) or as House Hiritsu of the Capellan Confederation. As with all CDT Worldwide Events, everything will be provided by the demo agent (me).
I don't know if the rest will match up.
This looks to be the same conflict as the 2023 GenCon Diorama as seen on Camo Specs Facebook page.
This looks to be the same conflict as the 2023 GenCon Diorama as seen on Camo Specs Facebook page.
Or that was just a convenient image to sell the event.
From the Facebook post, dated August 6th:
GenCon 2023 Diorama - A coalition of Clans Wolf, Smoke Jaguar, Jade Falcon, and Raven Alliance engage Capellan House Hiritzu on New Home, 3151
There was a post on the BattleTech forums that the name on the Facebook post was wrong and should have been New Earth (the BattleTech forum's search function is worse that Dakka's). Regardless, they are the same conflict.
Death_from_above wrote:MechForce Germany (present at Spiel Essen) managed to snag Christopher Frye from Liya International for a couple of minutes.
It would seem that we are still on track for 2023 shipping..
Timestamp 00:58 - more IlClan Mechs : 100% yes. Possibly in 2024, more probable in 2025 though.
Timestamp 01:12 - Randall has a meeting on Saturday to "determine where to localize the German language"
(So German game material quiaff ?)
Timestamp 01:16 - ProtoMech minis : Randall does have a soft spot for them, but don't hold your breath
(i.e. never say never, but definitely not in the next couple of years)
Timestamp 01:23:45 - More Campaigns books (à la Tukayyid) : Randall would love to see more of them.
They had a Luthien Campaign book planned for the Mercenaries KS, but decided to hold back. They're
also working on a Hinterlands Campaign.
Timestamp 01:25 - German Audiobooks : "spam J. Helfers e-mail"
Timestamp 01:29:20 - Audiobook with/by Tex (BPL) : good question for John H. again.
Timestamp 01:37 - Faction Packs will have IlClan-era Mechs in them.
Timestamp 01:50:43 - something something (packaging ?) BattleTech Aces : multiple (5) options on the table.
Timestamp 01:57:35 - European CGL store : worldwide shipping is still challenging. They're looking into Asmodee
Netherlands with their EPM network and another company. They'd like to offer a setup whereby one can order
via the website, but picking/shipping takes place within Europe.
Potential partners are often taken aback upon learning the number of SKUs.
as the attacker i was trying to get my battle armor to a central building to grab some intel, and then get them out again.
The goblin got destroyed...in the ammo explosion that killed the cyclops....that died the same way as the banshee-cumulative pilot hits from head shots and ammo explosions. the biggests LOLS was when the LBX 10 typhoon nailed the banshee in the face with it's rear firing small laser and put the pilot to sleep. the sagittaire got engine killed. the tokugawa took quite a bit of armor damage as did the shiltron.....but with only a single thunder bolt left the eridani light horse surrendered the field.
No, it's not an ad for Camo Specs. It's for the $1.75M stretch goal for the Clan Invasion Kickstarter.
So this?
Is that a pdf for the backers of that kickstarter? Or something us noobs that just started have access to?
It's right there in the image you posted. It will be a 'freely available PDF'. Any changes to that most likely wouldn't be announced until October 20th (next Friday).
No, it's not an ad for Camo Specs. It's for the $1.75M stretch goal for the Clan Invasion Kickstarter.
So this?
Spoiler:
Is that a pdf for the backers of that kickstarter? Or something us noobs that just started have access to?
It's right there in the image you posted. It will be a 'freely available PDF'. Any changes to that most likely wouldn't be announced until October 20th (next Friday).
I read it. I just wasn't sure if it meant freely available to the backers rather than a paid addon for them.
a guy in a discord server I'm in went all in on the mercenaries kickstarter. I hope they start bringing back a lot of classic vehicles and battle armors. I'd love to see the gnomes get the same treatment as the toads as well as more metals getting the plastic treatment.
The only new battle armor is the Inner Sphere Standard and I doubt we’ll see more anytime soon. Next up is the Faction specific ForcePacks so no new vehicles for a while.
If they're doing releases by something resembling timeline of eras, we'll probably see an eventual work up in to Operation Bulldog or the FedCom Civil War.
If they do it that way (which the Faction ForcePacks are supposed to have at least one Dark Age/IlClan design in them like the Grey Death), then we may see a few different Battle Armors, though maybe not a whole lot. There are quite a few that are basically just Inner Sphere Standard, but shaped to fit the aesthetics of the House making it.
Still, the larger BA like the Gnome, and Kanazuchi would be interesting. My guess it will be based largely on the reception of the Elemental and ISSBA box sets (the first they have).
Charistoph wrote: If they're doing releases by something resembling timeline of eras, we'll probably see an eventual work up in to Operation Bulldog or the FedCom Civil War.
Occurring in 3059, Operation BULLDOG is part of the Clan Invasion era (3050-3061).
A lot of the 'Mech from TRO: 3055 and 3058 are faction specific and may be showing up in those ForcePacks.
Charistoph wrote: Still, the larger BA like the Gnome, and Kanazuchi would be interesting. My guess it will be based largely on the reception of the Elemental and ISSBA box sets (the first they have).
New battle armor is unlikely. Added to the large number of BattleMechs needing to be updated to plastic, the small scale makes them a challenge to design and manufacture using the equipment that Liya has available (which is why we won't see plastic Infantry Squads - they're too small). The best bet for Battle Armor would be updated sculpts from Iron Wind Metals.
IWM has a lot of mechs that they will neither reprint nor will they update or let CGL make plastic versions of. I would love to see them revise a lot of their sculpts, but that might be a problem on their end.
Takanashi Kiwawa wrote: IWM has a lot of mechs that they will neither reprint nor will they update or let CGL make plastic versions of.
It's not Iron Wind Metal's decision on what 'Mechs CGL can make. Plus you're totally missing the relationship between the two companies. They're good friends, not competitors. From Update #56 of the Mercenaries Kickstarter:
Ironwind Metals are some dear friends and partners of ours, and one of their core team are going through a terminal medical issue. We’ve partnered with them to bring 3 new Drop Ship miniatures to the pledge manager. All profits from these minis gained from the pledge manager will go directly to Ironwind to help cover medical expenses. Once the pledge manager closes, we’ll purchase the minis from them to keep producing under the Catalyst flag.
Charistoph wrote: If they're doing releases by something resembling timeline of eras, we'll probably see an eventual work up in to Operation Bulldog or the FedCom Civil War.
Occurring in 3059, Operation BULLDOG is part of the Clan Invasion era (3050-3061).
A lot of the 'Mech from TRO: 3055 and 3058 are faction specific and may be showing up in those ForcePacks.
I wasn't saying that Operation Bulldog was a different era. I was more trying to imply that there were a lot of new designs that were used in Operation Bulldog that should be made BEFORE leaving the Clan Invasion space completely. Even the FedCom Civil War isn't that big of an era, and most of the designs used there were technically from the Clan Invasion Era.
Charistoph wrote: Still, the larger BA like the Gnome, and Kanazuchi would be interesting. My guess it will be based largely on the reception of the Elemental and ISSBA box sets (the first they have).
New battle armor is unlikely. Added to the large number of BattleMechs needing to be updated to plastic, the small scale makes them a challenge to design and manufacture using the equipment that Liya has available (which is why we won't see plastic Infantry Squads - they're too small). The best bet for Battle Armor would be updated sculpts from Iron Wind Metals.
True, which is why I'm saying it will depend on how those Battle Armor Forcepacks sell. If they don't sell well, there will be no reason to bother making more. While the sculpts are great, I don't like them on full-sized bases, as it makes it hard to indicate which hex they are in when mounted or preparing to Leg/Swarm a unit. I feel the same way about the Vehicles, too, but I'm pretty sure I can pop those off reliably (except the Warrior which needs it).
What I was saying in what you quoted is that it would be interesting (not expecting) to see Heavy and Assault Battle Armor units in plastic.
Charistoph wrote: I wasn't saying that Operation Bulldog was a different era. I was more trying to imply that there were a lot of new designs that were used in Operation Bulldog that should be made BEFORE leaving the Clan Invasion space completely. Even the FedCom Civil War isn't that big of an era, and most of the designs used there were technically from the Clan Invasion Era.
We already know that the Force Manuals will be set in the Succession Wars/Clan Invasion eras from some of the Adepticon AMA's and that the Faction-specific ForcePacks will support those Force Manuals. Although there's no indication how many Force Manuals there will be, the announcement mentioned Kurita, Mercenaries and Davion. I would also expect Steiner, Liao/St. Ives, Com Star/Free Rasalhague Republic and one or two Clan books. That will get a good number of 'Mechs out, but it will take some time.
There's also been mention of a few new Mercenary ForcePacks being pushed back in favor of the Faction ForcePacks along with rumors of some ilClan era 'Mechs being mixed in with the forthcoming Faction ForcePacks. We'll just have to wait and see how those rumors pan out.
Charistoph wrote: I wasn't saying that Operation Bulldog was a different era. I was more trying to imply that there were a lot of new designs that were used in Operation Bulldog that should be made BEFORE leaving the Clan Invasion space completely. Even the FedCom Civil War isn't that big of an era, and most of the designs used there were technically from the Clan Invasion Era.
We already know that the Force Manuals will be set in the Succession Wars/Clan Invasion eras from some of the Adepticon AMA's and that the Faction-specific ForcePacks will support those Force Manuals. Although there's no indication how many Force Manuals there will be, the announcement mentioned Kurita, Mercenaries and Davion. I would also expect Steiner, Liao/St. Ives, Com Star/Free Rasalhague Republic and one or two Clan books. That will get a good number of 'Mechs out, but it will take some time.
There's also been mention of a few new Mercenary ForcePacks being pushed back in favor of the Faction ForcePacks along with rumors of some ilClan era 'Mechs being mixed in with the forthcoming Faction ForcePacks. We'll just have to wait and see how those rumors pan out.
First off, you missed the "If they progress this way".
However, that being said, they have also said that at least one Dark Age/IlClan design will be the Faction ForcePacks, like the Grey Death.
As well, there is NOTHING stating that these Faction ForcePacks will be the end of the situation. They are just the next step. In many ways, a lot of those CI designs which don't make it in to Faction ForcePacks could very well be put in to non-Faction Forcepacks just like a lot of the previously faction-focused designs were, like the Panther and Blackjack.
Charistoph wrote: First off, you missed the "If they progress this way".
That’s a given that always applies when talking about the future plans of a manufacturer, hence it’s not something that really needs to be mentioned.
Charistoph wrote: However, that being said, they have also said that at least one Dark Age/IlClan design will be the Faction ForcePacks, like the Grey Death.
Yes. I touched upon that as well in my previous post when I mentioned some rumors of ilClan era 'Mechs being mixed in with the forthcoming Faction-specific ForcePacks.
Charistoph wrote: As well, there is NOTHING stating that these Faction ForcePacks will be the end of the situation.
It's kind of hard to talk about what's NOT being said as it would just be speculation. Until Catalyst gives us a hint as to what will happen, all we know is that they're working on Faction-specific ForcePacks at the present time. What happens afterwards would just be speculation on our part.
Charistoph wrote: As well, there is NOTHING stating that these Faction ForcePacks will be the end of the situation.
It's kind of hard to talk about what's NOT being said as it would just be speculation. Until Catalyst gives us a hint as to what will happen, all we know is that they're working on Faction-specific ForcePacks at the present time. What happens afterwards would just be speculation on our part.
Indeed, but I think it is equally bold to consider to consider theses Faction ForcePacks as an end point or that they will completely skip over the second half of the Clan Invasion.
the defenders were send to take out a couple artillery tanks that were firing at an off board asset. they had 10 turns before the attackers finsihed their fire mission and withdrew.
As the defenders i was using 2nd line mechs-stone rhino, bowman 2, rifleman IIc and a point of minotaur protomechs. the attackers brought in a heavy mech lance and a mixed heavy/assault vehicle lance. the game made it to turn 6 before the attackers conceded. having lost their thunderbolt to a pilot kill and their warhammer to leg removal and one tank taking an engine kill. for the loss of a few protomechs on the defenders side with moderate damage to the rifleman.
Are protomechs particularly broken? They seem to be listed on the winning side an awful lot, and its hard to tell if its player skill or if the rule set gives them a natural advantage
I mean player skill translates into correct unit choice, and then effective use of those units as well.
Flinty wrote: Are protomechs particularly broken? They seem to be listed on the winning side an awful lot, and its hard to tell if its player skill or if the rule set gives them a natural advantage
I mean player skill translates into correct unit choice, and then effective use of those units as well.
Only in large numbers. as a general rule i will only bring a single point (5). we have done games with up to 3 points of protos (15) in a star and they just wrecked clan assault mechs, granted i was using some of the best designed protos, but it was pretty savage.
protos are a double edged sword. every internal hit causes pilot damage so they tend to die that way instead of just destruction. on the flip side via the rules if you are just using standard pilots they are gunnery 2 because of the same EI interface that makes them susceptible to pilot damage. the big things that make them harder to deal with is the fact they are in the line between being both infantry and mechs. they move and shoot like mechs but cannot fall down like infantry, and they do not overheat. you also have to target each one individually instead of like shooting and a point of battle armor then randomizing the damage. then there is the "near miss" chart. against anything except area effect (think artillery) if you score a hit and then roll locations 3 or 11 it is counted as a near miss (area effect weapons get re-rolled) because of the agility of the proto...think of it like they kind of do the matrix thing.
Last not all protos are created equal. some can soak a ton of damage like the svartalfa who can tank an AC 20 to the chest and still have armor to spare. others like the ROC rely on speed as they have given up quite a bit of armor to pack around a single clan ER medium while moving as fast as a timber wolf.
There are plenty of things that can be abused in battle tech with just the standard rules, outside of scenarios for example i avoid bringing TAG units with multiple arrow IV support units in my lances/stars as it quickly makes the game less fun for the opposing player. Nothing ends a game like getting red dotted and then having 4 arrow IV homing missile volleys hit you on 4+ for 20 damage a pop.
When playing clans as a hells horse i tend to try and bring combined arms, as such i always try to bring something infantry related. instead of protomechs, packing along a point of Gnome battle armor riding a TYR IFV is still a pretty decent threat.
Flinty wrote: Are protomechs particularly broken? They seem to be listed on the winning side an awful lot, and its hard to tell if its player skill or if the rule set gives them a natural advantage
I mean player skill translates into correct unit choice, and then effective use of those units as well.
Not as far as I've noticed, but it could be due to who I play with, too.
The biggest problem people seem to have, at least initially, is how many units they provide and the Near Miss mechanic. Which leads to what my opponents do to deal with them. They hit them like they were an Ultralight Mech, rather than if they were Battle Armor. So, unlike Aphyon, I've never lost a Protomech due to Pilot Damage (though, I haven't run any Ultra-Heavies, so that may be why). I've had one knocked out exactly once (SRMs or LB-X once the Armor was gone), and had a couple get Legged. Most though, get the Torso punched out PDQ with Large Laser and heavy Autocannon fire.
I've never played more than 2 Points, though. My usual configuration is one having a Satyr 4 (TAG and AP Gauss) and 4 Gorgon Standards (LRM-10) with the second being another Satyr 4, 2 Roc Standards (ER Medium Laser), and 2 Basilisk 3s (which are almost identical to Roc Standards if you always Jump).
In our normal games, we have an objective to have an opponent get points for having units in the opponent's deployment zone. The Satyrs, and maybe a Firemoth, Icestorm, or Dragonfly, take on this duty. When Mixed Tech is allowed, the Satyrs take on another roll in TAGging for the Gorgons which are loaded with Semi-Guided LRMs.
In the last game I played, though, I used 2 Roc Standards, and 3 Gorgons with a Dragonfly and Ice Ferret to ferry 2 Flamer Elementals with a Gargoyle D backing them up. The Rocs kept a couple hopping Warhammers busy while the Ice Ferret and Dragonfly raced up to drop off the Elementals near an Infantry Thumper and a Sagittaire. The Ice Ferret died (bad terrain), but not before dropping off the Elementals. After dropping off the other Elemental, the Dragonfly went to try and kill another Infantry unit on the side that was covering another Saggitaire.
Interestingly enough, I've never lost a Gorgon. Satyrs, Rocs, and Basilisks, sure, but not a single Gorgon. Probably because I never play them with anything but the LRM-10, so they are always saying back.
Are they the ultimate in MSU then? Mech grade weapons and manoeuvrability, leading to target saturation? Should they be able to combine Voltron style to form one larger mech?
Flinty wrote: Are they the ultimate in MSU then? Mech grade weapons and manoeuvrability, leading to target saturation? Should they be able to combine Voltron style to form one larger mech?
When a point of proto mechs activate they activate as if they were a single mech as in they all must move and shoot in the same activation, however they can directionally move and target independently. as you said however the true strength is in combined fire. a point of 5 minotaurs can fire all 10 of their clan er mediums at a single target without overheating. for a potential of 70 damage every turn. return fire however must be directed at each proto mech individually.
Flinty wrote: Are they the ultimate in MSU then? Mech grade weapons and manoeuvrability, leading to target saturation? Should they be able to combine Voltron style to form one larger mech?
Not quite, but they are better than Battle Armor in most cases in terms of shooting or mobility. Battle Armor have the advantage of being able to Swarm or Leg another unit, while the Protomech just flails around doing 1-2 Damage.
As with any military asset, how you use what you have is important. I probably wouldn't send a Star of Protomechs against a Star of Mechs on their own, but use them to harass and whittle at targets while my heavier units do the real pounding.
aphyon wrote: When a point of proto mechs activate they activate as if they were a single mech as in they all must move and shoot in the same activation, however they can directionally move and target independently. as you said however the true strength is in combined fire. a point of 5 minotaurs can fire all 10 of their clan er mediums at a single target without overheating. for a potential of 70 damage every turn. return fire however must be directed at each proto mech individually.
Yeah, but while those Minotaurs may hit like a Nova who doesn't care about their Heat Level, they only move like a Marauder II. The Rocs may move like a Nova, but only hit like one of their Arms as a full Point.
Pros and cons- return fire against a single nova is a bit different than having to spread the fire across 5 different targets.
The minotaurs specifically were designed for the situation i used them in-defensive ambush, so being slow wasn't really a problem for them.
My personal favorite proto is a mech force UK variant that combines the best of worlds-the demon tick-9 tons with max engine, max armor with 2 clan er smalls. with a 7/11/7 move it more than makes up for the reduced range and can soak more damage than a minotaur. putting out constant 50 damage from an equivalent 45 ton mech is hard to come by.
The premium Rifleman and premium Phoenix Hawk have been updated to fix their problems (e.g., no more Rifleboy} and are up for sale in the Catalyst web store.
I was running a bushwacker (the lyran one with the LBX20), falconer, gunslinger and trebaruna. (10th lyran guards)
i was facing a blackjack (omni), catapult, sagittare, banshee (he is taurian not sure which unit)
Even though i was loosing initiative almost every turn for most of the game i was ahead because my opponent couldn't see to hit with most of his shots, then things took a wild swing. it was mostly due to crits-the bushwhacker lost a torso with engine hits putting him into forced withdrawal, likewise the gunslinger took a single crit on his right leg and my opponent rolled double 6s severing the leg, the falconer took a crit in the left leg and lost his hip.making him a sitting duck for the sag and cat. and the treburuna took multiple gauss rifle crits that put the pilot to sleep. i di manage to kill the banshee and blackjack and nearly killed the cat, but i didn't manage to do much to the sagittare as it spent a good deal of the game hiding and trying to close the range for all it's pulse lasers.
my guess is the first two force packs announced will be Davion and Kurita, in that order, to coincide with the force manual (or whatever they're called) releases
BrianDavion wrote: my guess is the first two force packs announced will be Davion and Kurita, in that order, to coincide with the force manual (or whatever they're called) releases
Not necessarily. They could be additional Mercenary ForcePacks (e.g., the Gray Death Legion Heavy Battle Lance or the Snord's Irregulars Assault Lance) or generic Lance or Star ForcePacks.
BrianDavion wrote: my guess is the first two force packs announced will be Davion and Kurita, in that order, to coincide with the force manual (or whatever they're called) releases
Not necessarily. They could be additional Mercenary ForcePacks (e.g., the Gray Death Legion Heavy Battle Lance or the Snord's Irregulars Assault Lance) or generic Lance or Star ForcePacks.
sorry I was specificly specificly faction force packs, they wanna do em and the general consensus is that CGL is going to release them to tie in with the force manuals.
Charistoph wrote: They already have plans for the Faction Forcepacks (FFPs), and have said they will each include a Dark Age or ilClan Era design in each.
So far, that's all they have announced. So I think the FFPs are the given.
The question is will they have more that will include more TRO: 3055 and TRO:3058 designs beyond them.
Then there are more Vehicle Support Packs being possible, too. TRO: 3026 carried a LOT of interesting designs.
Found this at Sarna purportedly from Spiel Essen.
And finally, there’s demand for Catalyst to release more faction packs a la ComStar and the specific mercenary regiments rather than the generalist Inner Sphere and Clan packs that have been released in the two Kickstarters. Catalyst is looking into faction packs for various nations, Clans, and other major groups, but no timeframe on when we can expect an announcement.
And there was mention of a Black Widow Command Lance earlier in the thread.
Charistoph wrote: Then there are more Vehicle Support Packs being possible, too. TRO: 3026 carried a LOT of interesting designs.
I wouldn't expect any more Vehicle Support Packs until they see how well the ones coming in the Kickstarter do in general retail.
True, but those will likely hit retail pretty early in the year (optimistic is in February, realistic is probably by April), which can lead to enough data before the end of the year.
I just was leaving room for the capacity of them being delivered or announced rather than just immediately dismissing the possibility.
One should also consider that Hell's Horses have been in the story a fair bit lately and antagonistic to self-styled ilKhan Alaric Ward, so seeing Clan Vehicle Packs could be in the Design Queue as well. Though, I admit that is probably more likely in 2025 or later than in 2024.
As a Hell's Horses guy, I'd love a Clan Vehicle Pack. Gimme my combined arms!
Also, fairly new to the game. Trying out Arrow IVs for the first time. What's the use case for the default ammo?
Without homing, it doesn't seem to do a whole lot between the massive hit penalty (7!) and taking time to hit the point. Do you just bully immobile enemies? Do area denial?
Should I just ignore the non-homing ammo and bring a few TAGs?
Charistoph wrote: True, but those will likely hit retail pretty early in the year (optimistic is in February, realistic is probably by April), which can lead to enough data before the end of the year.
Backers first, then the hobby trade will be somewhere within three months after all backers are fulfilled.
So if they do fulfill the backers in February, general retail may not see the product until May. If they give it six months to see the sales results that would be next November.
Charistoph wrote: Then there are more Vehicle Support Packs being possible, too. TRO: 3026 carried a LOT of interesting designs.
I wouldn't expect any more Vehicle Support Packs until they see how well the ones coming in the Kickstarter do in general retail.
I'd be delighted to help with that, if they ever DO reach general retail.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Rihgu wrote: As a Hell's Horses guy, I'd love a Clan Vehicle Pack. Gimme my combined arms!
Also, fairly new to the game. Trying out Arrow IVs for the first time. What's the use case for the default ammo?
Without homing, it doesn't seem to do a whole lot between the massive hit penalty (7!) and taking time to hit the point. Do you just bully immobile enemies? Do area denial?
Should I just ignore the non-homing ammo and bring a few TAGs?
Non-homing ammo is just an artillery rocket. it's for area saturation, not pinpoint damage. Blowing up infantry positions, bunkers, maybe eliminating the odd light building the enemy is hiding behind, that sort of thing.
Rihgu wrote: As a Hell's Horses guy, I'd love a Clan Vehicle Pack. Gimme my combined arms!
Also, fairly new to the game. Trying out Arrow IVs for the first time. What's the use case for the default ammo?
Without homing, it doesn't seem to do a whole lot between the massive hit penalty (7!) and taking time to hit the point. Do you just bully immobile enemies? Do area denial?
Should I just ignore the non-homing ammo and bring a few TAGs?
I would caution you to not use to much artillery as it makes the game less fun for your opponent, especially homing arrow IV. i ended a game in 2 turns because i brought 2 mechs with 2 arrow IVs as part of my lance just to prove the point to somebody, the other 2 mechs had TAG. As for the HE ammo, it has the benefit of doing massive damage to grouped up or stacked units, units that have predictable movement, or things like infantry and fixed defenses. the base rules are gunner +5 for direct fire, gunner +7 for indirect fire. i always bring a ton of it for each unit carrying it for versatility just in case TAG units are out of position.
Charistoph wrote: Then there are more Vehicle Support Packs being possible, too. TRO: 3026 carried a LOT of interesting designs.
I wouldn't expect any more Vehicle Support Packs until they see how well the ones coming in the Kickstarter do in general retail.
I'd be delighted to help with that, if they ever DO reach general retail.
The Kickstarter hasn't fulfilled its backers yet (it's still in China but is expected to ship before the end of the year). Considering the estimated delivery date given when the Kickstarter launched was June 2024 we're still looking at an earlier fulfillment than that date.
Rihgu wrote:Also, fairly new to the game. Trying out Arrow IVs for the first time. What's the use case for the default ammo?
Without homing, it doesn't seem to do a whole lot between the massive hit penalty (7!) and taking time to hit the point. Do you just bully immobile enemies? Do area denial?
Should I just ignore the non-homing ammo and bring a few TAGs?
Homing with TAG is great for hitting single targets hard, or prepping dropped off Infantry for more hurt. To put it simply, if you hit a Dragonfly who just dropped off their Elementals, that Dragonfly would take the 20, but each of those Elementals will take 5 points of Damage, allowing a Large Laser to easily take one out.
As for non-Homing, there are a few reasons to use it. The non-Homing (HE) would delete that Elemental Squad (or pretty much most any other Infantry unit), or cripple them if it just barely misses. There are other Ammo options as well, too. Want to block off a path, drop an Inferno IV in the middle of it. Worrying about Cover? Toss in Cluster Ammo.
And if you're worried about flight times, have them be on the field. At most, that Artillery will only have a 1 Turn travel time, until they get closer.
Ghaz wrote:
Charistoph wrote: True, but those will likely hit retail pretty early in the year (optimistic is in February, realistic is probably by April), which can lead to enough data before the end of the year.
Backers first, then the hobby trade will be somewhere within three months after all backers are fulfilled.
So if they do fulfill the backers in February, general retail may not see the product until May. If they give it six months to see the sales results that would be next November.
Which will still be by the end of the year. I'm sure that someone will have plans of what they want to do next, either because some art has already been drawn or they have objectives towards a direction they want to go with.
Are we really expecting the KS by the end of the year, or are they expecting to receive everything by the end of the year and then distribution will be next year?
H.B.M.C. wrote: Are we really expecting the KS by the end of the year, or are they expecting to receive everything by the end of the year and then distribution will be next year?
I think they are expecting the latter. I don't think anyone outside the office should expect to see anything before New Year's Day. Honestly, I'm kind of expecting about March, personally, so I can be happy if it's earlier, and the following month has my birthday, so I get a present if it's a little later. Either way I'm happy.
Charistoph wrote: True, but those will likely hit retail pretty early in the year (optimistic is in February, realistic is probably by April), which can lead to enough data before the end of the year.
Backers first, then the hobby trade will be somewhere within three months after all backers are fulfilled.
So if they do fulfill the backers in February, general retail may not see the product until May. If they give it six months to see the sales results that would be next November.
Which will still be by the end of the year. I'm sure that someone will have plans of what they want to do next, either because some art has already been drawn or they have objectives towards a direction they want to go with.
Yes. I was being more specific in my dates and how I reached them.
I had
.warhammer 6k
.archer 2k
.wolverine 6k
.the old stock jenner d
my opponent forgot his stuff so he borrowed a few of my mechs and chose his own variants.
.awesome
.catapult
.wolverine
.shadowhawk.
As one would expect from the era it turned into a bit of a knife fight that led to ammo explosions that daisy chained from shadow hawk to wolverine killing 3 mechs and doing a bunch of no good to the awesome. it died shortly after leaving only the cat to fight off 3 mechs, or run away.
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
the second game was one of nova CEWS, variable speed lasers, I-ATMS, streak LRMs, er pulse lasers and the like. the inner sphere started out not being able to hit much but turned it around at the end with critical hits. taking down or forcing the entire star to withdraw for the loss of 5 mechs. a 1 to 1 trade is not good for the clanners.
My force
.tomahawk II B
.turkina Z
.osteon prime
.thunder stallion 4
.storm crow Z
Another "hey I'm new" question - how common is it to mess around with Pilot and Gunnery skills? I've been playing an opponent who is equally as new as me and he likes to bring IS mechs/pilots with 3/3 where IS "should" be, apparently, at 4/5 (or is it 5/4? Using P/G)
I'm not sure if that's a thing we "shouldn't" be getting in a habit of doing or not.
It does feel a little bit like IS mechs are more efficient, BV-wise at least, than Clan mechs when given the same (or better) pilot skills. Especially at 5000 BV where he gets a couple mechs, including at least one 70+ tonner and I can barely fit 4 light mechs!
Pilot ratings can be a good way to "balance" BV if one side is ahead - make a few opposing pilots better.
You can also set everyone to a higher base level (3/4 rather than 4/5) if you want to have games where people can actually shoot effectively from beyond knife-fighting range.
Rihgu wrote: Another "hey I'm new" question - how common is it to mess around with Pilot and Gunnery skills? I've been playing an opponent who is equally as new as me and he likes to bring IS mechs/pilots with 3/3 where IS "should" be, apparently, at 4/5 (or is it 5/4? Using P/G)
I'm not sure if that's a thing we "shouldn't" be getting in a habit of doing or not.
It can work either way, really. There are a few Inner Sphere pilots who could run rings around the average Clan pilot. Morgan Kell and Dan Allard being two notable examples.
Pilot Skills can be adjusted, and there is a multiplier for each of those changes. This is addressed on the last page (#23) of the Battle Value Errata found here.
Since it is a multiplier, when everyone is at the same Piloting and Gunnery Skill, then you can use the base BV instead of calculating it all around. We do this a lot in our group, and it is easier to handle figuring out a forces size. You also don't have people abusing things like having a Gausszilla pilot with 0 Gunnery and 6 Piloting just shooting everyone down from the back.
It doesn't work with Alpha Strike, though, since it is additive based on the initial PV of the unit.
Rihgu wrote: It does feel a little bit like IS mechs are more efficient, BV-wise at least, than Clan mechs when given the same (or better) pilot skills. Especially at 5000 BV where he gets a couple mechs, including at least one 70+ tonner and I can barely fit 4 light mechs!
I don't know about "efficient", but they certainly are cheaper. Even more so when one considers they can downgrade farther than Clan Mechs in to "Introductory" territory, which is what sounds like the other guy is doing.
5000 BV is fine for what is called "Introtech" or Introductory Rules Level. It's not good for what is considered "Standard" Tech Level or Rules level. Clan Mechs are stuck at Standard level and have no "Introductory" level equipment. So, in order to play at that level with any notable weight, you have to go to that level yourself.
Adding on to that, because Clan equipment tends to either be lighter, more powerful, or both, it is more expensive. Clan equipment tends to work better at BV higher than 10K, and can easily work at 18K, as you've noticed.
Rihgu wrote: Another "hey I'm new" question - how common is it to mess around with Pilot and Gunnery skills? I've been playing an opponent who is equally as new as me and he likes to bring IS mechs/pilots with 3/3 where IS "should" be, apparently, at 4/5 (or is it 5/4? Using P/G)
I'm not sure if that's a thing we "shouldn't" be getting in a habit of doing or not.
It does feel a little bit like IS mechs are more efficient, BV-wise at least, than Clan mechs when given the same (or better) pilot skills. Especially at 5000 BV where he gets a couple mechs, including at least one 70+ tonner and I can barely fit 4 light mechs!
if you want to just do it the easy way aka pick up game and just take whatever you like- the ratio is 2 inner sphere lances(2 groups of 4 mechs) of 4/5 pilots VS one star of clan (5 mechs) of 3/4 pilots. this is a very fair fight especially post 3055 era mechs.
Look at the last of the previous batreps i posted. we used this method-era republic of the sphere. clan assault star VS a mix of inner sphere heavies and assaults. no BV or tonnage limits just era and standard formations. the inner sphere won that one, and it was a good close fight.
And say it's like 8000 BV, where I struggle to even fit a 'proper' clan star in that amount.
How can I even contend with that level of activation superiority?
I know in a Clan Star, vehicles and infantry have a varying amount that constitutes a "point". Does IS have anything like that? Or is his force 4.5 Lances?
If his force is 4.5 Lances, would I take 2-3 Stars using the "pick up game" method above? Or is that really meant for just 2 Lances of Mechs vs 1 Star of Mechs?
Even if we upped it to 10k BV or 12k BV (it costs over 10k for just the Clan Striker Star box...) it feels like he'd just add even more stuff! And sure, most of the infantry won't be contributed to the battle in a meaningful way but just being able to pass turn with them and force me to expose my plan feels insanely powerful.
What are tactics I should be using to deal with such force disparity? Are there optional rules (like Called Shots, a problem I'm having is my attacks will rarely if ever hit the same spot twice, so after my mechs are cored out, he'll have 3-4 fully functional mechs with armor stripped from every location but little to no critical damage!) we should use that swing things in my favor?
That's definitely a cheezy list. Bringing cheap Infantry just to cheese out Activations is low-brow.
Realistically, if you're still at an early stage of learning, you should be using Mechs only, or maybe a tank or two. Outnumbering you with Battle Armor is definitely cheezy.
Rihgu wrote: And say it's like 8000 BV, where I struggle to even fit a 'proper' clan star in that amount.
So don't. He's not really bringing a proper Inner Sphere Infantry Company, so don't feel constrained to only using a Star.
Still, Elementals and other Infantry options can help pad out your list.
Still, I wouldn't play Clan, especially for a new player, at such a low BV value for precisely the reasons you mentioned without doing some reciprocation, either doing Clan myself, or if Inner Sphere, only doing Mechs with maybe a Tank or two.
Rihgu wrote: How can I even contend with that level of activation superiority?
There are several ways, depending on the Era you're working with. If he doesn't set an Era, just assume its ilClan and bring units with Plasma Cannons. Neither Fenrir or Mechanized Infantry will survive long taking 3D6 Damage per hit, especially if they are in the open.
A-Pods will work against the Mechanized, but requires you being in the same Hex.
Clans can still use Inferno SRMs, so anything with a regular SRM rack can do brutal Damage to the Mechanized Platoons. Each Inferno does 3 Damage to a Conventional Infantry, and all the SRMs will hit. That means an SRM-6 will do 18 Damage to a PBI unit in Cover, and delete outright if its in the Open. Its less effective against Battle Armor, as you have to do a Cluster Roll, but for every 3 that hit, 1 suit goes bye-bye.
If it's late enough, look up the Arctic Wolf where the Standard has 6 SRM-6s and 2 SRM-4s, as well as a NARC, on a platform that moves 7/11 (basically outmanuevering everything he brings). The 2 Model trades some of that SRM action for a Large Pulse Laser.
There's also a few Light Mechs, like the Piranha (12 Machine Guns), which are deadly fast and designed to take out Infantry. They can also be brutal backstabbers, especially against a force whose best movement is 6/9/0 or 4/6/4. You're not looking at strong TMMs here. Even better if they are an Omnimech, like a Fire Moth, which can bring in an Elemental Point, burn a Platoon, then run off to Backstab a Mech.
And of course, non-Homing Arrow IV does nasty things to Infantry, provided you actually hit them. Can you say "Naga"? I knew you could.
Rihgu wrote: I know in a Clan Star, vehicles and infantry have a varying amount that constitutes a "point". Does IS have anything like that? Or is his force 4.5 Lances?
If his force is 4.5 Lances, would I take 2-3 Stars using the "pick up game" method above? Or is that really meant for just 2 Lances of Mechs vs 1 Star of Mechs?
They do, like 3 Battle Armor Squads is a Platoon, 2-3 Platoons is a Company, but like you they aren't require to stick to a specific formation for a pick-up game any more than you are.
Rihgu wrote: Even if we upped it to 10k BV or 12k BV (it costs over 10k for just the Clan Striker Star box...) it feels like he'd just add even more stuff! And sure, most of the infantry won't be contributed to the battle in a meaningful way but just being able to pass turn with them and force me to expose my plan feels insanely powerful.
So reciprocate. Clanners have regular PBI, too, either Freeborn or Solahma. If you really want to get cheeky, deploy them as Squads so a single Point suddenly becomes 5 Activations.
Rihgu wrote: What are tactics I should be using to deal with such force disparity? Are there optional rules (like Called Shots, a problem I'm having is my attacks will rarely if ever hit the same spot twice, so after my mechs are cored out, he'll have 3-4 fully functional mechs with armor stripped from every location but little to no critical damage!) we should use that swing things in my favor?
Look up the rules for the Targeting Computer (Total Warfare pg 143, or Battlemech Manual pg 114 for better detail). They allow for Aimed Shots at locations other than the Head with any Direct Fire Weapon that isn't Cluster or Pulse.
Then look up the Warhawk. The Prime comes with 4 ERPPCs and all the configurations have a Targeting Computer. Nothing like coring the Salamander when it is still struggling to get close, and maybe just scattering Damage on you. Not as scary with Aimed Shots is the C Variant which trades 2 PPCs for 2 Large Pulse Lasers.
As a side note, aside from the Sentinel, those other 3 Mechs have Inner Sphere XL Engines. That means taking out a Side Torso will take out the Mech, which also usually has lower Armor. So, I'd recommend focusing on the Left Torso consistently. The Sentinel carries its big gun in the Left Arm, so even though it has a Standard Engine, you drastically cut his firepower by taking that out (Ammo is in Left Torso, too, as a bonus).
In short, if he wants to play that game, use it against him.
Right now we're playing up until Civil War era (3067 latest, right before Jihad). The funny thing is is I'm the one who is more interested in the Combined Arms style myself - I just can't fit anything but mechs in if I'm trying to compete (the one time I took 2 omnis, 2 elemental points, some infantry, and a vehicle against his 4 mechs + vehicles was not great!)
I'll look at the Masakari, the targeting computer sounds very interesting and exactly what I'm looking for.
I also did a test battle on MegaMek (vs the AI) with the Clan Striker star vs his proposed force. Besides the 3k BV difference, it felt not so bad. The 12 machine guns of the Piranha were taking down a point of Fenrir at a time and the Vixen provided long range fire support with it's Large Pulse Ranger from a mountain in my deployment zone (always running back and forth 5 hexes to get the hit modifier - at least that's how I think it works... harder to keep track of everything that's happening when MegaMek is doing all the work for me!)
Sadly, the AI broke right on the cusp of victory. Sure my entire force sans the Vixen was destroyed, but all they had was the mechanized infantry and Fenrir approaching my mountain, which could only be accessed from a natural ramp on the back of it. Any Fenrir that got close got machine gunned and the lasers dealt enough damaged to the mechanized units.
clanners replace each mech point with 2 vehicles. as they consider them inferior. on the down side the official pilot skill of clan vehicle crews is terrible (5/6) unless you are clan hells horse with washed out mech pilots (4/5) re-assigned to vehicles.
The base Enyo strike tank is one of my favorites-large pulse X3 streak 6 and a 6/9 move. with decent enough armor for a medium clan tank.
or you could just ask him for a standard game. as i explained above.
clans generally have the range and pilot advantage. if you want to go by the numbers large pulse lasers/ER larges and er PPCs can keep him at range and out damage him. artillery not withstanding to deal with infantry.
other options-
piranha with 12 machineguns (or even better the one with the micro pulse/targeting computer that is slightly cheaper) will wreck infantry and it is super fast. the vyper/dragon fly can jump extreme distance and can carry an ERPPC. the battle cobra can carry 2 large pulse or variant loadouts 4 medium pulse and goes super fast. the fire falcon is small but carries 2 er large lasers and a targeting computer, a conjurer prime with a large pulse among its weapons-7,842 points under BV2
With the Striker Star comes the Vapor Eagle as well, and that is an annoying b****** that has a 6/9/6 movement profile, Pulse Lasers, and a Targeting Computer.
That was a devil to take down along with a Conjurer for our Pirate hunting team that just happened to come across a Goliath Scorpion Seeker that was much farther out than one would think.
He had a Conjurer accompanying him against us 5: a Hunchback 4P (slightly modified), Wolverine 6M (modified to remove SRMs), BJ-1 Blackjack, BJ-1DB Blackjack, and a Cicada C3 (modified to swap MGs out for SPLs).
We cored out the Conjurer, but managed to knock out the Vapor Eagle Pilot. Doing a Back-hand to the noggin by the Hunchback early on helped start his decline.
I mean... if they wants to play stupid games, let them win stupid prizes.
Fill the board with protomechs and leave just enough for some mechs with targeting computers to core their guys.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Additionally, here you can filter by faction/factions and availability era... you might be surprised by what you can field
As to "regular" mechs... well, the Adder is a light all comers that uses a targeting computer and 2 ER PPCs in the prime configuration, but for the same reason is a bit pricy for 2.083 BV... but the TC variant is an infantry killer (10 MGs and a small pulse laser) with an active probe to detect gak, it's well defended against missiles (AMS), and carries a LPL with a targeting computer for a mere 1.247 BV... as I said, win stupid prizes.
Slight segway/partial off topic - I'm helping liquidate a friend's estate, he owned a local shop. I have over 200 new iron wind metal minis I need to shift - what's the demand like for them and what's the best way to try selling them? Any bulk buyers out there? Trying to move this quick and get decent value for it to help the estate cover legal bills and moving/storage fees.
Its a messy situation, a former employee basically came out of nowhere with her BF who owns a competing store and offered to help out while my friends grieving family worked through the probate process because of the lack of a will and all the messiness with his financial situation, they then lied to the landlord and signed a lease for the space and broke off contact with the family while pretending they owned it. Once probate was through, the estates administrator showed up at the store and basically said "hey, we'll be taking our stuff back now, thanks", things hit the fan and now lawyers and police are involved, etc. The interlopers have recently agreed to surrender a portion of the substantial inventory that was taken by basically saying "please remove your stuff from our property by the end of the month or we are throwing it all away" so now it's a scramble to get the stuff out of there and raise whatever money we can to cover the costs to remove and store all that stuff (at least a full 26' box trucks worth) and make some payments against the legal bills that have started racking up while the family tries to fix the situation.
And say it's like 8000 BV, where I struggle to even fit a 'proper' clan star in that amount.
How can I even contend with that level of activation superiority?
I know in a Clan Star, vehicles and infantry have a varying amount that constitutes a "point". Does IS have anything like that? Or is his force 4.5 Lances?
If his force is 4.5 Lances, would I take 2-3 Stars using the "pick up game" method above? Or is that really meant for just 2 Lances of Mechs vs 1 Star of Mechs?
Even if we upped it to 10k BV or 12k BV (it costs over 10k for just the Clan Striker Star box...) it feels like he'd just add even more stuff! And sure, most of the infantry won't be contributed to the battle in a meaningful way but just being able to pass turn with them and force me to expose my plan feels insanely powerful.
What are tactics I should be using to deal with such force disparity? Are there optional rules (like Called Shots, a problem I'm having is my attacks will rarely if ever hit the same spot twice, so after my mechs are cored out, he'll have 3-4 fully functional mechs with armor stripped from every location but little to no critical damage!) we should use that swing things in my favor?
Shame you're not playing it the Jihad era. A pair of Hellstars and a Piranha fluffed out with infantry would be a fun counter to your cheesy friend...
I don't think Battletech International Trade & Sell (on FB) handles large amounts of stock, but a lot of stuff gets sold through there and you do see big lots of IWM blisters there from time to time among all the built/painted stuff.
You might try Aries games and miniatures, they tend to keep all ironwind metals stuff in stock. it is where i go when i need an odd mech or vehicle and do not want to wait for IWM to make it for me.
P.S. going back to dealing with infantry......bring a point of slayer protomechs....nothing but machineguns, light machineguns and flame throwers.....the thought of a full star of protos (5X5=25) might make him reconsider his life choices. last time we ran 3 points worth it decimated a clan assault star-5 ROCs, 5 minotaurs and 5 demon ticks and 2 actual mechs-
Succession wars part II. this time my lance was facing off against a stalker, hatchet man, wolverine, hunchback
it ended in an even more spectacular chain of ammo detonations. with only the enemy hunchback surviving with about 50 points worth of blast damage.
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
The second game was ilclan era. snow raven VS hells horse-with
Me-
.osteon C
.turkina Z
.storm crow Z
.hell star 3
.jackalope
My opponent
.mad dog G
.X2 war crow (A&B)
.X2 carrion crow (prim&A)
This one started out in favor of the birds, as all of his stuff had ferro lamellor
i turned it around at the end with just one carrion crow and the mad dog left on his side with the osteon and turkina left on my side. the osteon was undamaged so the ravens withdrew.
Spoiler:
The third game was a training game agianst a regular hwo has seen up playing and went out on a buying spree to get stuff to learn the game.
I gave him a combined arms force to fight to teach him the different aspects of the game.
I was running
.stone rhino 3
.warhawk C
.enyo strike tanks
.storm crow C
.a points of gnome battle armor riding in a TYR IFV
He was running
.stone rhino
.marauder IIc
.warhammer IIC
.supernova 4
.timberwolf pryde
As he was unfamiliar with how the game worked he started out thinking he was behind when i forced the warhammer to withdraw and head capped his stone rhino, but he got surprise when he turned the tides with head caps of his own.
It went from 2 mechs, 2 vehicles, and some battle armor VS 2 mechs......to a point of battle armor in about 1 turn. he learned a valuable lesson on how important the crit system is in the game. the new guy getting a victory wasn't a bad thing either.
Charistoph wrote: Hmm, that Atlas III will probably be in the Davion ForcePack, right?
Looking at the MUL for the Atlas II, the Republic of the Sphere used four variants, the Federated Sun and Draconis Combine each used two variants and the Word of Blake used one.
The Atlas III is used by both the Federated Suns and the Draconis Combine (once they captured Robinson in 3144). It doesn't seem to show up in the MUL for any other Successor States.
Ghaz wrote: Personally the Atlas II in plastic is the big surprise as Anthony just redesigned the 'Mech for Iron Wind Metals last year.
I don't believe this will be the first instance of that happening. AFAIK IWM and Catalyst have some sort of agreement in place to share designs, they've released a lot of the plastic based designs in metal already
Ghaz wrote: Personally the Atlas II in plastic is the big surprise as Anthony just redesigned the 'Mech for Iron Wind Metals last year.
I don't believe this will be the first instance of that happening. AFAIK IWM and Catalyst have some sort of agreement in place to share designs, they've released a lot of the plastic based designs in metal already
Except this is going the other way and with a mini that IWM has only had on the market for a year. The only difference I can see is that IWM has the AS7-D-H Devlin custom variant and the plastic one will probably be the standard AS7-D-H.
Why is the assistant developer linking people ordering a bunch of Star League swag with the 3rd iteration of the Star League during the Ilclan era? I understand that they might want to push the newest stuff, but hopefully they won't make the mistake that people only want Ilclan era stuff because they are misreading the numbers.
Miguelsan wrote: Why is the assistant developer linking people ordering a bunch of Star League swag with the 3rd iteration of the Star League during the Ilclan era? I understand that they might want to push the newest stuff, but hopefully they won't make the mistake that people only want Ilclan ear stuff because they are misreading the numbers.
M.
err what exactly did the assistant line dev say Miguelsan? not wanting to sit through a video for a single line.
Ahh yeah, to be honest I think I disagree with his read on that. the original SLDF is just a nice "neutral" choice after all. it can represent anyone.... except the Taurians! bloody Taurians
That said I don't think this is going to see a major change in how they push product. Battletech has, largely, had an "eyes forward" approch, hell it was only AFTER FASA closed thatw e got a historical product in the form of the war of 3039 sourcebook
He said that the Star League Defense Force has been gone for hundreds of years, but with the ilCLan, we're at the 3rd form of the SLDF, with the 2nd showing up at the end of the Clan Invasion.
The Star League Command Lance will include four Mechs:
ON1-Kb Orion (Kerensky) - new pose, pre-painted PXH-1b Phoenix Hawk "Special" - new pose AS7-D-H Atlas II - unpainted TDK-7X Thunder Hawk - unpainted
We actually had these to show on stream yesterday, but Randall was extremely ill and could not join. In heat of the moment, it was not clear what I could and could not show (or even say in some cases), so we did the best we could. I realize they showed the image of the Thunder Hawk painted by Savage Coyote on stream as I was talking about pre-painted miniatures, so things got a little conflated. We should all be so lucky as to get a SC-painted Thunder Hawk, no such luck unfortunately.
Randall says he's going to try to a) rally and be on stream today and b) show off these minis and anything else we missed.
So the prepainted Orion should look a lot like this image from the 'BattleTech Legends' book:
EDIT: Randall spilled the beans on the three other ForcePacks:
Second Star League Assault Pack:Daishi Prometheus (prepainted), Emperor, Argus, Helios, Coolant Truck
Third Star League Striker Pack:Lament, Jackalope, Kintaro, Hammerhead II, Havoc, J-27 Ordnance Transport
Third Star League Battle Pack:Savage Wolf, Wendigo, Excalibur, Peacekeeper, Malice, Savior Repair Vehicle
the third SL pack is intreasting, might want a few of thsoe to pad out some ilclan era stuff, guessing that the savage wolf is gonna be the pre-painted one and it'll be Alarics
Xotl wrote:Planned for late next year, the MechCommander's Handbook is intended to be one part small-scale campaign book (rooted in Chaos Campaign), one part overview of warfare and tactics (i.e. both in-universe and pure gameplay), and one part a guide to the product line and world of force building. It's a standalone book, not meant to replace or require any other book (besides a rulebook). This is all still tentative as it is a work in progress, but that's the plan anyways.
The part I want to discuss with you all is the era overviews. Planned at the moment are five or six chapters of this type:
* Early Succession Wars (tentative: a more obscure era playwise, and we'll see if there's enough mech selection available to make this interesting)
* Late Succession Wars
* Clan Invasion
* Jihad
* Republic
* IlClan
Chapter Goals
I have multiple aims for these chapters.
1) Provide a quick overview of the era in question. The focus is high-level, light on lore, looking primarily at military developments. As you'll see when you check the preview, any dedicated era sourcebook does a far better job. The idea here is simplicity--enough to place the rest of the material in the chapter in some sort of context. This is aimed at new players.
2) Provide a quick guide to the products available for that era. BT's product line is deep, and there's a lot of questions as to what is relevant to when, especially for the many new players we've picked up in the past five years. This will guide readers to the books and PDFs available, for those who want more depth for that era.
3) Provide a guide to mech-based force building for that era. This will give players a way to create Battlemech Formations applicable to the tabletop that are simultaneously faction-, role-, and era-appropriate. The focus is low-level, aiming at gameplay you can finish in a single session: 8 mechs on a side maximum (and even then, that's only if you want to fight an IS vs Clan battle; otherwise the focus is 4-6 mechs per side). The idea is that this is for helping set up pick-up games. As with the era overview, a dedicated faction or era book will tend to do a better job than this. For example, this will let you make a DCMS force, but it won't guide you to making, say, a Sword of Light force. And as the Clan Invasion chapter is a snapshot of the year 3050, it won't do 3057's Operation Bulldog anywhere near as well as a book on that conflict. So things like the Force Manuals will be far better at their specific job than this comparatively broad and high-level approach, but this covers a lot more ground.
Forcebuilding
The forcebuilding is the most complex part of these chapters, so I'll spend a bit more time on it. Forcebuilding is broken into three methods, in order from least to greatest complexity.
1) RATs. Generally works as normal, except I've scaled them like I have my fan RATs by making them ordered from low to high BV. Beyond that there's no rhyme or reason, other than an attempt to create faction distinctiveness whenever possible. The idea is if you're rolling on a random table, you're not after accuracy but speed. The BV beside each mech lets you get the quickest idea of balance, and instead of rolling a flat 3D6 you can roll 2D6 and apply unit quality modifiers if you're vaguely aiming at a dirtbag militia force or something top of the line. If you're looking for granularity beyond that (especially with the Clan RATs, which freely mix first- and second-line mechs), you want one of the next two methods.
2) Standard Formations. These are pre-built lances, Stars, and Level IIs, appropriate to the faction, era, and formation type. What units belong in a Formation is largely determined via roles (Ambusher, Brawler, Juggernaut etc, as seen on the MUL). All Formations of a given era are balanced by BV against all other Formations of that era and type (to within 2%). So, for example, all assault lances in the preview chapter aim for 6,000 BV. While Clan and IS Formations are slightly different in category as well as composition, this has been also scaled against Clan equivalents: all Clan Assault Stars aim for 12,000 BV, so that two IS Assault lances equal out to one Clan Assault Star, two IS Cavalry lances equal out to one Clan Cavalry Star, etc. Many Formation types use the same point totals, so that you can be more free in mixing and matching opponents. For example, all lances of the Heavy Battle, Heavy Fire, and Cavalry types aim for 5,000 BV, and all lances of the Medium Battle, Medium Fire, and Support types aim for 4,000 BV. This means that you don't have to limit yourself to the same Formation types if you're aiming for balanced matches: my Heavy Fire lance can fight your Cavalry lance.
A bonus for most Inner Sphere lists are the faction lances: upgraded lances meant to reflect a faction's preferred style. These also are designed to match up with enemies, in this case with the BVs from taking standard lances but with Gunnery 3. For example, a Gunnery 3 Marik Assault lance is the equivalent in BV to an upgraded (but still G4) Lyran Assault faction lance; again, quick mixing and matching was the goal. The Clans don't have these special Formations, and instead of giving Gunnery 3 BVs, they have values for Gunnery 3/Piloting 4. Those only mix and match amongst other Clan forces, as the BV multiplier for G3/P4 is too different to make it swappable with IS forces.
Formation types are something you may have seen in Campaign Operations, but while those are broadly used here, the Formation building criteria for this book (found in the Introduction) are much simpler than the rather granular requirements of CO. This is to make it easier to use method 3.
3) Availability. Okay, you're tired of the Standard Formations. Or you have certain minis and you want to swap those in for others you don't have. Or you want to make your own Formations from scratch. Or you're just plain curious as to what's common and what's not in a given faction. This section is for you. The most specific and time-consuming, it provides four categories for chassis: Iconic, Common, Uncommon, and Rare. Each chassis generally available to a faction in that era is listed and put into one of those four categories. If you're building your own Formation, you choose from the number of slots for a given rarity level given to each Availability category, written besides each category. For example, if building a lance, and assuming the faction has one Iconic unit for that era (not a given: most faction/weight categories don't have one):
1-2 slots can be Iconic (min 1, max 2)
2-3 can be Common (min 2, max 3)
1-2 can be Uncommon (min 1, max 2)
0-1 can be Rare (min 0, max 1)
Not every Each Iconic pick takes the place of a Common pick (so if I take one Iconic, my Common picks are now 1-2 instead of 2-3). Salvage lets you take any other faction's Iconic or Common units (but as it's a Rare choice, you can only take one, and that means giving up your own faction's Rare).
The Availability method requires the MUL to use properly, as while it gives the mech chassis, it doesn't give the specific variants/configurations, and doesn't list the roles for all those chassis, which you need to use to keep a given Formation type legal (no slow Juggernauts in the Pursuit lances, sorry). This method also works a little different from the MUL, in that the aim is more of a faction feel than what the MUL provides. The Availabilities are thus more restrictive, in the interest of flavour. The Introduction explains all of this at length, so the only thing I want to add is that this isn't a rival/alternate MUL: it's doing a different thing. The MUL remains the one true determinant of canon for BT unit access. So when you see, say, the Lyran Availability section single out the Centurion -AL as a faction unit, that's just a suggestion that if you're going to take any of the available Centurions at that time, you should focus on the -AL if you're particularly interested in being fluffy; it's not trying to override the MUL which says everyone has the -AL (since "focus on" and "available in general" are different metrics).
Of course, you don't have to use this method strictly as intended. You can just take a quick look at the rarity listings it provides, go "hey, the Dracs apparently like Jenners", and start partitioning your pile of minis if you feel like it. It can be as simple as an off-the-cuff guide.
What's It All Mean?
The most important part here is that this book does not in any way signify a change on the part of CGL towards how the game is "supposed" to be played. As anyone who has been part of BT for any meaningful amount of time knows, this is a game filled with choices: choices of scale, choices of rulesets, choices of rules within rulesets, choices of unit types, choices of era. The MCH simply gives you a few more. In particular, people have been asking for this sort of list-building advice for a good 20 years (if not more). So here it is. But in the same way that the release of Interstellar Operations did not signify a shift on the part of BT to an all-mass combat game, the MCH's listbuilding element is meant simply to give BT fans one more tool in the chest. Even after the release of this book, you can continue to ignore all faction, era, and role requirements and just thrown down whatever you want at the table. But if you did wish for guidance on how to play the game in a more lore-accurate way, or simply wished that there was a readily available source of pre-made fluffy, BV-balanced table-scale formations available, now you'll have that. The tl;dr is that this gives list-based support, but does not mandate list-based play.
The Introduction chapter, not included in the preview, spends most of its time explaining the core concepts, so the preview will be somewhat unclear in a lot of the finer details. Feel free to ask questions if something is vague, but otherwise if I didn't cover it here it's probably outside the scope of what I want to talk about and so I may just say "you'll have to wait and see". Feedback, errors spotted, ease of use suggestions, ways to make it better (within scope/practicality): it's all welcome. Previews like this are as close of a beta as the book is liable to get. Final content may differ strongly from what you see here.
Additionally, a collation of all recent information:
Lorcan Nagle wrote:OK, collating statements:
Force Manuals
-A rewriting and completion of the Combat Manual series, these are up to date with current Alpha Strike - not just a reissue for Kurita and Mercs. -- As per Joshua Franklin in the chat, they are also completely BattleTech compatible, including record sheets and Alpha Strike stats for unique units.
-Publication order is Davion in Q1, then Kurita Q2, and Mercs in Q3
-The Combat Manuals were the first of what Aaron calls the new layout, the books that didn't look like the traditional BattleTech books.
-Geoff "Doc" Smith had a draft for Combat Manual Davion submitted in 2017
-books are set in the Clan Invasion era.
-Each of the three books will have a PDF companion for the ilClan era.
-Davion is "done", Kurita is "almost done"
Hot Spots: Hinterlands
-Due out in Q3-ish
-Harkens back to the FASA-era Hot Spots book in terms of being a collection game hooks
-Set in the Hinterlands (of course)
-Has an expanded version of the Chaos Campaign rules, designed to be a step-up from the campaign rules in the Mercs box set.
MechCommander's Handbook
-Currently expected for Q4
-the campaign play book
-[Aaron] "we had campaign ops which was sort of an all in one campaign book, but it didn't have an all in one system but this does"
-Keith Hahn, who developed the BattleMech Manual is developing it
-There will be some previews dropped on the forum, a sort of "stealth playtest"
RecGuide Volume 2: ilClan
-due out "middle of 2024"
-all the "new new" stuff
-there will be a volume 33 PDF to fill it out, due out in "the next few months"
-Johannes Hiedler convinced Cubby we need "a few more pieces".
-some of the units in volume 33 will be from the Mercs Kickstarter.
ilKhan's Eyes Only
-still in development
-they're working closer with fiction so the sourcebook and related novels come out close together and don't contradict each other.
-currently hoping to be out for Q3
-story is broken, they just need to make the book
-story details have been shared with contributors for more fiction ideas
-plan is in place now for the next 3-4 years
-no time jumps!
40th Anniversary Reprints of Beginner box and GoAC
-Star League branded
-Of all the factions for Swag in the mercs Kickstarter, Star League was the most popular. Aaron's exact quote was "Of course in the ilClan era there will be a new Star League, and I think that's a sign that people are buying into the ilClan era... the new stuff. They're excited for the chance to see a third Star League in the setting. So we're playing into that"
-contents of the boxes are the same.
-Beginner's box retains the Vindicator.
-when the boxes came out originally, there was a mindset of "don't buy them, leave them on the shelf for new players", but this kills sales velocity and they were hard to restock anyway, but it's far better now to buy them and create desire for restocks now that they can do reprints relatively quickly.
-Hopefully be out in the first half of the year
-Covers are by Anthony Scroggins
SLDF forcepacks
-One per quarter
-separate from the Kickstarter
-will be on the CGL store for sure, unsure about distribution
-image of painted Thunder Hawk shown
-Star League Command Lance out Q1. Contains Atlas II, Thunder Hawk, Phoenix Hawk Special, Orion.
-Other packs themed along other lines
-Second Star League pack will have Civil War designs
-One mini per forcepack will be pre-painted
-The Pre-paint will be a notable unit in each case
-Victor Davion's Daishi will be a pre-paint.
-They showed the Thunder Hawk photo again at this point, but this seems to be an error
-The minis will be easily repaintable, either by prime over or repaint.
-the pre-paints will all be minis that have variants available elsewhere
Randall added the following on Sunday:
-he showed the prototypes of the Command Lance, including a painted Orion. Orion is a hand-painted sample by a friend of Randall's named Jared. Randall said it's 90% of what you'll get from the factory.
-Randall reiterated the prepaints will be easy to paint over or strip.
-they will put out the pantone colours for the prepaint minis online if you want to match the colours on the rest of the lance packs.
-confirmed the prepaints will all be variants or reposes of existing mechs
-Second Star League Assault Lance: Daishi Prometheus (pre-paint), Emperor, Argus, Helios, Coolant Truck
-Third Star league Striker Forcepack: Lament, Jackalope, Kintaro, Hammerhead 2( or II), Havoc. J-27 Ammo Transport
-Third Star League Battle Star Forcepack: Savage Wolf Prime (Randall said basically Alaric's Mech so presumably this will be the pre-paint, which means a plastic Savage Wolf elsewhere as well?), Wendigo, Excalibur, Peacekeeper, Malice, Saviour Repair Vehicle
-They were signed off a few weeks ago, sketches and renders will be shared soon.
Faction forcepacks
-not part of the Kickstarter
-"we have many coming"
-Not just the Star league
-Will publish in 2024
-specifics will be forthcoming, Ray didn't let Randall give more detail.
-are being worked on in between the SLDF packs.
Mercs box set
-Unboxed on stream
-fiction by Michael Ciaravella
-Battlefield support deck
-Alpha Strike cards
-Support Vehicle cards
-Pilot Cards for the 'mechs
-minis
-Rulebook contains chaos campaign
-primer book is mercs themed and includes 3151 map
-record sheet book, will also be downloadable from the website
-2 token sheets of vehicles, infantry, BattleArmour and support units
-laminated Merc Contract worksheets
-Mapsheets look to all be reworkings of classic maps - Scattered Woods, River Valley, Lake Area (all MS2) and Woodland (MS6)
-2-sided poster map of the Inner Sphere, one side is 3151, the other is 3058
-box is heaver than Alpha Strike and Aaron thinks there's more in there
-LE box's only difference is the lid. Which is very nice, Rem says it feels really nice.
Mercs forcepacks
-They unboxed Assault & Cavalry (Condor, Pegasus, Schrek, Demolisher) and Recon & Hunter lances (Skulker, Warrior VTOL, Ontos and Behemoth) boxes
-Warriors come attached to the bases but the box includes clear plastic stalks to mount them above the base as well.
-Randall showed the 5 Inner Sphere and one Clan forcepack on-screen, did not open them
-The Viper/Black Python is probably Randall's favourite redesign, he thinks the original is terrible (I disagree!)
Official Terrain
-They're still working on how to offer the 3D terrain based on the map assets
updates to other units
-There's thoughts towards collating the Shrapnel designs in another product, not as a RecGuide
-This was said in answer to "any updates for the Proliferation Cycle units, maybe in Recguide 33?"
Mercs Kickstarter swag
-Will be available after the Kickstarter
reprints of old books
-Asked about the historicals specifically, they have some POD capability, they're talking about doing Brush Wars and Wars of the Republic Era. The first few new Brush Wars PDFs were originally going to be Brush Wars II. Layout remains a bottleneck, they wanted to have Liberation of Terra out in POD to coincide with the last Founding of the Clans novel and that didn't happen at all.
Kickstarter posters
-McCarron's Armoured Cavalry poster has the deep space scene from the cover of the most recent Strat Ops cover (among other places) on the back.
-Eridani Light Horse one has the recognition chart on the back
Map Packs
-Savannah is RRP $30, City is $35. This is because City comes with three punchboard sheets of building/rubble counters of various sizes
-Randall showed off one mapsheet from City where one side is half of a HPG station.
Premium Record sheets
-combination of half-page and full-page sheets
-all mechs in the Kickstarter have full-page sheets, not all get Beginner box half-size ones though.
BattleTech universe
-a massive labour of love for many people, but "especially Ray"
-a book they've always wanted to have for people who want to know about the background
-Randall thinks it's one of the best-looking books and feels it can stand with the best of the industry
-initial print run of 10,000 which is one of the highest they've ever done, and Randall expects they'll be ordering a reprint before the end of the year.
-they showed off a lovely 2-page spread of the exodus fleet
They also showed off a hand-built preview copy of the Precentor Martial edition
-"This is what happens when Randall is not really given a budget and Randall decides to make the most gorgeous thing he can get away with"
-Randall had to cut a few things from the set for time
-Has a sound chip in the box lid that plays the MechWarrior 2 startup sequence
-Metallic ink print of the GDL Marauder art which homages the 4th Succession War Atlas cover.
-2-sided blueprint with a Warhammer on one side and Mad Cat on the other
-The version of the main book has cutaway diagrams of clear acetate pages showing interior layers of the different unit types
-the most detailed interior of a DropShip (Randall keeps saying JumpShip here, but he's showing the pages for an Overlord-class Dropship at the time). Anthony Scroggins rendered the ship out to ensire it matched the published dimensions correctly.
-Randall teased a piece of art he described as a "Dak present to you guys". I couldn't make out much detail but there seemed to be a lot of mechs
-3-page gatefold art pieces, the one shown was the ELH tryptich. the other side is clean copies of some of the best BattleTech art.
-Remembrance book. Randall can't remember if it was his or Ray's idea
-The book contains short essays by various contributors to BattleTech down through the years.
-Randall and Ray both got quite emotional reading the stories.
-There's a lot of Unseen art in the book. This does not mean the art will appear elsewhere, it's a special self-contained thing.
-the front endpaper is the MechWarrior 1st edition cover
-the cover to the 4th Succession War Atlas is the frontispiece
-contents page has the BattleDroids/BattleTech 2nd&3rd edition cover
-David Deitrick did a new piece of art for the book as well as an essay. He's in his 80s now and offered to do some new art but he has issues with his hands so asked for extra time to complete it, and it made the book.
Fiction
-In the Shadow of the Dragon by Craig Reed. Due out before the end of the year, about Yori Kurita consolidating her power
-Letter of the Law by Phil Lee. Late December/Early January release. A follow-up to Hunting Season
-Without Question by Bryan Young. Q1 2024, a sequel to A Question of Survival, focused on the Ghost Bear sibkin who were taken by the Falcons. "There is action on Sudeten"
-Trial by Birthright by Michael Ciaravella. Q2 2024. Set on Terra, catching up with the Wolves while everything's been going on in the rest of the Sphere. "What if you had a Star League and nobody came?"
-Voidbreaker by Bryan Young. Q3 2024. "Whatever happened to Tucker Harwell?" A different take on a BattleTech novel, more of a spy story.
-Tom Leveen is doing a House Liao-centric novel to be set simultaneously with Trial by Birthright. Should be out in Q3
-A Skulk of Foxes by Jason Hansa. Sea Foxes up to their usual tricks.
-War of Reaving Trilogy is progressing now.
-Shrapnel 15 is on schedule. New Kell Hounds cover and Stackpole story, Jason Schmetzer story, some new authors, two parts of Bryan young's Fox Patrol serial will be in it.
-Tales of the Bounty Hunter. Most stories are in, a few are outstanding.
-Cookbook is about to enter layout.
-Art of War is in progress as well.
-Will there be Jihad fiction? Tentatively yes. More info in the coming year.
-There are multiple Audiobooks in production. John is hoping that he can start putting out at least one per month from 2024 onwards. Lots in the pipeline, had to iron out issues with the production timeline. Close Quarters is done, should be with Kickstarter backers in December or January. Hoping to get Hour of the Wolf out in Q1
-Michael Ciaravella is working on a a Snow Raven book called A Treachery of Ravens.
-Den of Wolves has had some progress. First draft unlikely to be complete before the end of year though, John wanted him to prioritise Art of War and now that's done he's cracking his editorial whip. Once he's got the manuscript he said we'd know because his yell will be audible across the entire US
-They've "got to hit a bunch of things to hit" before doing a follow-up to Damocles Sanction. Mike Ciaravella's plate is loaded up for the next 12-18 months
-One of Daniel Isberner's German novels will be translated and hopefully released in 2024.
-John is looking into getting books translated into German as well.
-The Twilight of the Clans novels should be getting the Legends treatment next year, John liked the suggestion from Chat that there could be a Task Force Serpent anthology.
-If the War of Reaving books do well John is considering doing more event-specific trilogies
-If Jason Schemetzer had the time, John would love for him to do a 5-book series about each of the original Dragoons contracts.
-3rd GDL novella is actually a short novel, waiting on cover art. There will be a PoD Omnibus when it's out.
-There will be Shadowrun and Leviathans fiction (including a Mike Richie one about Ireland, woo, a Michael Ciaravella one about Italy and a Mike Stackpole one too. And possibly ones by people not named Mike)!
Sorry for the huge info dump, but I figure it's better to have it all in one place.
Charistoph wrote: The funny thing about that Orion is, it's not the Kerensky model.
The Kerensky model doesn't have an LRM suite. It was replaced with a Snub-nose PPC.
And that Phoenix Hawk is more than a new pose. It has a gun on its right shoulder.
From Aleksandr Kerensky's entry in BattleTech Legends:
Kerensky first chose to pilot an Orion in 2718, and ordered multiple upgrades performed over the years. Always seeking an edge in combat, Kerensky’s Orion was the subject of frequent tinkering and substantial modification. In one such modification, the launch tubes for the LRM launcher were replaced by a blister of sensors and a microwave transceiver linked into an Artemis fire control and guidance system for the SRM launcher. Located under the SRM launch tubes was the shielded barrel of an advanced snub-nose PPC. The weapon included gimbal mounting controlled by myomer bundles, allowing Kerensky to skew the PPC system toward the centerline of his ’Mech and deliver precision fire at point-blank ranges. Extensive torso reinforcement allowed the mounting of a Gauss rifle and its sizable capacitor bank, along with a honeycombed reactive structure that enmeshed the Gauss rifle and missile ammunition, protecting the general from the detonation of either.
So that was just one modification that Kerensky used, and the base ON1-K is still a valid loadout for his Orion.
BrianDavion wrote: IIRC it was returned to standard ON1-K by the time of the exodus
Nope. It was stripped and left a shell on some random asteroid or junkyard till it was found by the Keeper of Honor of the House of Kurita. She had it rebuilt and refreshed to a normal ON1-K as Theodore Kurita's graduation present. This is specifically mentioned in Heir of the Dragon, which I just started reading again.
case in point, Heri to the dragon specificly has Teddy K state the ship was restored to the state it was in when Kerensky owned it or something along those lines.
Miguelsan wrote: Though you got it totally right it won't be the first time later material contradicts the lore.
M.
Possibly, but that material hasn't come out yet. It may come out in RecGuide #33, but we'll see.
BrianDavion wrote: case in point, Heri to the dragon specificly has Teddy K state the ship was restored to the state it was in when Kerensky owned it or something along those lines.
obviously not true
Not necessarily. It may not be true from an omniscient stand point, but it may have been true for the Keeper of Honor who knew of no other variants, nor the tech staff she hired to restore the venerable Mech.
The ON1-K (Kerensky) was a custom job created in 2753 (per MML) with possibly no records remaining of its changes (much less replicating the Gauss Rifle, Snub-Nose PPC, or DHS), and the normal ON1-K was the most advanced variant as of the SLDF Exodus.
The ON1-V series didn't come around until the Succession Wars were in full swing.
Now, it wouldn't be too hard to make a Succession Wars design that looks similar to the Kerensky model. When fiddling with some Refits for our unit, I pulled the Missiles out and replaced them with a PPC and 5 Heat Sinks. Pull 3 of those Heat Sinks, and you have room for the SRM-4, and you're as close as you can get, but we have no indication that happened with Theodore's Orion, either.
we got a new player who has jumped in with both feet and a bathtub ( he first got 3 catalyst boxes then got 10 others) into classic battle tech from 40K.
This was his 4th game and he wanted to try smaller/faster mechs as most oof his games have been with clan assault stars-
this time out he ran
.cauldron born
.storm crow
.helion
.black lanner
.battle cobra
we threw together a couple lances to face him
the lyran player brought-
.axeman
.bushwhacker
.centurion
.wolfhound
My kurita force
.shugenja
.cronos
.grand dragon
.wolverine
The black lanner was the MVP never getting hit even once as he did the scout thing very well.
The game came down to dice rolls going badly for the IS side, only managing to kill the battle cobra and spread damage across 3 other mechs with the cauldron born taking the majority of the damage.
the IS side was down to the shugenja when we ended things.
Unless the ON1-Kb is indistinguishable from the ON1-K.
Same point about the ON1-Kb and ON1-K regarding a (Kerensky) variant applies.
That's like believing that the Daishi (Prometheus) will look like the model in the Command Star just like the Dire Wolf (Widowmaker) matches it.
Note that on every Clan OmniMech, the T Configuration matches the Primary Configuration when it comes to weapon type and location, number of missile ports, etc. For example, the Summoner Prime has an ER PPC in the right arm, a LB-10X autocannon in the left arm and a LRM-15 in the left torso. The T keeps the ER PPC, has a ProtoMech AC/8 in the left arm and a Streak LRM-15 in the left torso. With that, the ON1-K and the ON1-Kb being the same miniature is not so far-fetched (especially seeing as Cubby calls it a new pose and not a new 'Mech).
As for Victor's Prometheus? You'll have to ask Catalyst about that one.
Unless the ON1-Kb is indistinguishable from the ON1-K.
Same point about the ON1-Kb and ON1-K regarding a (Kerensky) variant applies.
That's like believing that the Daishi (Prometheus) will look like the model in the Command Star just like the Dire Wolf (Widowmaker) matches it.
Note that on every Clan OmniMech, the T Configuration matches the Primary Configuration when it comes to weapon type and location, number of missile ports, etc. For example, the Summoner Prime has an ER PPC in the right arm, a LB-10X autocannon in the left arm and a LRM-15 in the left torso. The T keeps the ER PPC, has a ProtoMech AC/8 in the left arm and a Streak LRM-15 in the left torso. With that, the ON1-K and the ON1-Kb being the same miniature is not so far-fetched (especially seeing as Cubby calls it a new pose and not a new 'Mech).
The reference to the T variant is pointless. It is a standard configuration, not one tied to a specific name or variant like the (Kerensky) or "Prometheus".
The point is both are named variants, just like the ones in the Legends boxes, and where appropriate, they have provided a modified sculpt like the Timber Wolf (Pryde) and Dire Wolf "Widowmaker".
Of course, it's also possible that the ON1-Kb is patterned from the (Kerensky), with Gauss Rifle and PPC (just not a Snubbie), provided that they haven't presented what this ON1-Kb looks like of course.
Charistoph wrote: The reference to the T variant is pointless. It is a standard configuration, not one tied to a specific name or variant like the (Kerensky) or "Prometheus".
It;s not pointless, you just missed my point. Catalyst can and has already statted out 'Mechs based on the artwork/sculpt with the T configurations. With Cubby confirming that this is a new pose and not an entirely new sculpt, it means the ON1-Kb will have a loadout that matches the original artwork/sculpt. That means an autocannon, two lasers, a group of missile launchers with 15 tubes and a group of missile launchers with 4 tubes.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Whatever happens, I won't say no to more Orion variants, especially a royal!
Before talking about this, I never really thought about a Royal Orion, but you're right, there definitely should have been one.
I mean, THE Commanding General of the entire SLDF piloting a Mech that has 5 points of explosion without CASE is kind of odd. It doesn't even have the Command Quirk, just the Anti-Aircraft Quirk.
Still, I think the ON1-K (Kerensky) is only about 12 years old, being released with Record Sheets: 3050 Unabridged (Inner Sphere), which has a release date of December 2011.
Charistoph wrote: The reference to the T variant is pointless. It is a standard configuration, not one tied to a specific name or variant like the (Kerensky) or "Prometheus".
It;s not pointless, you just missed my point. Catalyst can and has already statted out 'Mechs based on the artwork/sculpt with the T configurations. With Cubby confirming that this is a new pose and not an entirely new sculpt, it means the ON1-Kb will have a loadout that matches the original artwork/sculpt. That means an autocannon, two lasers, a group of missile launchers with 15 tubes and a group of missile launchers with 4 tubes.
I didn't miss your point. I understood it and addressed it. You seemed to have missed mine, though.
The equivalent of a "T" variant here would be the ON1-Kb, but this is listed as the ON1-Kb (Kerensky), just like the ones in the Legends box.
In addition, the Phoenix Hawk was also listed as a new pose, but has a large laser on its Right Shoulder (which no other medium-sized Phoenix Hawk model has). So, "new pose" doesn't necessarily mean "without any other modifications".
One of the guys wanted to try out the omega so we tossed together some inner sphere mechs to fight the clanners.
The clan side was
.stone rhino 3
.super nova 2
.warhammer IIc 13
.marauder IIc
and a point of tanks-XL mars/Heimdall A
My team mate
.Omega
.marauder II
.nightstart
My force
.dragon fire
.tempest
.thunderbolt 7se
.thunderbolt 10se
the first half of the battle the clanners were doing real well, uncluding doing minor head hits across 3 different mechs. they focused the omega and di over 200 damage to it in a single turn eventually forcing it to withdraw. my thunderbolt 7se went down first to HE ATM fire. but near the end we got into a brutal exchange.
the super nova was destroyed and both the IIcs were forced to withdraw and the stone rhino took a gyro crit.
While the 2 tanks were formidable and the rhino was still in fighting shape we decided to end it as it was going on 2am and we had 3 undamaged mechs left on the table and a 4th with some fight left in it.
Does Battletech have any in lore excuses for factions to cross great distances to battle each other?
Trying to figure out how to add a more narrative slant to our games than "meet up and shoot each other", and step 1 is figuring out what our factions' goals are.
Problem is, we've decided Civil War era (specifically 3067), and I'm Hell's Horses (no planets in the Inner Sphere at that time?), one guy is FedCom (Really Federated Suns at this point, from what I understand) and the last is the Marian Hegemony...
So, 3 different parts of the Sphere...
Would Hell's Horses even have any capability to getting through/around the entire Sphere to battle those guys? Can we blame it on a bad dropship jump from 1+ parties and now they're stranded?
Just trying to come up with fluff justified missions to run, like "destroy the factory" or "assassinate the Lance Leader" that make sense for the sort of conflicts this factions would be fighting.
Rihgu wrote: Does Battletech have any in lore excuses for factions to cross great distances to battle each other?
Trying to figure out how to add a more narrative slant to our games than "meet up and shoot each other", and step 1 is figuring out what our factions' goals are.
Problem is, we've decided Civil War era (specifically 3067), and I'm Hell's Horses (no planets in the Inner Sphere at that time?), one guy is FedCom (Really Federated Suns at this point, from what I understand) and the last is the Marian Hegemony...
So, 3 different parts of the Sphere...
Would Hell's Horses even have any capability to getting through/around the entire Sphere to battle those guys? Can we blame it on a bad dropship jump from 1+ parties and now they're stranded?
Just trying to come up with fluff justified missions to run, like "destroy the factory" or "assassinate the Lance Leader" that make sense for the sort of conflicts this factions would be fighting.
Interstellar travel in the BT universe is accomplished by Jumpships, which... well, jump between stars. It's a bit like the Dune Highliners; they go from here to there so fast no one has been able to measure the amount of time taken. Granted, the jump range is pretty limited and it takes dozens of jumps to cross the Inner Sphere, not to mention a dozen or so jumps to get from the Pentagon Worlds to the Inner Sphere. Jumping takes vast amounts of energy, which is generally gathered by enormous solar panels.
However, deep raids are easily possible, especially for the Clans. For every inhabited system, there are dozens of uninhabited ones that can be used to recharge the jump drive. The Inner Sphere can use them, but centuries of lost technology has rendered much of their transport fleets old and not terribly reliable. At least in an inhabited system you can ask for help if you break down.
So yes. the Clans absolutely can do deep-strikes into the Inner Sphere at need. And Operation Bulldog, basically a deep raid on a grand scale, showed that the Inner Sphere can do the same to the Clans with sufficient motivation.
Most campaigns don't worry about it overmuch. If you get detailed about it, there's should be the risk of running into the other side's naval forces, and in that time period that often means capital ships. A lone jumpship carrying a company of mechs at most is little more than target practice for a full Warship, and where's the fun in playing THAT out?
Clan Hell's Horses were looking to set up some worlds in the Sphere around the end of the FedCom Civil War. Good thing, too, as the Wars of Reaving pretty much would have tore them apart.
As for a reason? Who cares? You're all there. That's reason enough.
During the Harvest Trials in 3059, Clan Hell's Horses reached an agreement with Clan Wolf where Crusader Horses troops would be bid directly into the invasion force under Wolf Command, avoiding wasteful fighting and providing the Wolves the Horses' elite forces while allowing them to fight for the honor of their own Clan. Khan Ward agreed and ceded three worlds in the Clan Wolf Occupation Zone: Stanzach, Vorarlberg, and Engadin to Clan Hell's Horses. In 3064, they had lost these worlds to Clan Ghost Bear and had been pushed out of the Inner Sphere until late 3070 with them taking Nyserta and Oberon VI from Clan Wolf.
back in 3025 the major factions (the houses) all converged around terra so any faction could fight any faction. that's less the case now, that said there's nothing forcing you to stick to a single faction, battletech is nice that way, what you guys could do is each of you has your own force and you swap off being op forces, or run merc units
Rihgu wrote: Does Battletech have any in lore excuses for factions to cross great distances to battle each other?
Trying to figure out how to add a more narrative slant to our games than "meet up and shoot each other", and step 1 is figuring out what our factions' goals are.
Problem is, we've decided Civil War era (specifically 3067), and I'm Hell's Horses (no planets in the Inner Sphere at that time?), one guy is FedCom (Really Federated Suns at this point, from what I understand) and the last is the Marian Hegemony...
So, 3 different parts of the Sphere...
Would Hell's Horses even have any capability to getting through/around the entire Sphere to battle those guys? Can we blame it on a bad dropship jump from 1+ parties and now they're stranded?
Just trying to come up with fluff justified missions to run, like "destroy the factory" or "assassinate the Lance Leader" that make sense for the sort of conflicts this factions would be fighting.
Interstellar travel in the BT universe is accomplished by Jumpships, which... well, jump between stars. It's a bit like the Dune Highliners; they go from here to there so fast no one has been able to measure the amount of time taken. Granted, the jump range is pretty limited and it takes dozens of jumps to cross the Inner Sphere, not to mention a dozen or so jumps to get from the Pentagon Worlds to the Inner Sphere. Jumping takes vast amounts of energy, which is generally gathered by enormous solar panels.
However, deep raids are easily possible, especially for the Clans. For every inhabited system, there are dozens of uninhabited ones that can be used to recharge the jump drive. The Inner Sphere can use them, but centuries of lost technology has rendered much of their transport fleets old and not terribly reliable. At least in an inhabited system you can ask for help if you break down.
So yes. the Clans absolutely can do deep-strikes into the Inner Sphere at need. And Operation Bulldog, basically a deep raid on a grand scale, showed that the Inner Sphere can do the same to the Clans with sufficient motivation.
Most campaigns don't worry about it overmuch. If you get detailed about it, there's should be the risk of running into the other side's naval forces, and in that time period that often means capital ships. A lone jumpship carrying a company of mechs at most is little more than target practice for a full Warship, and where's the fun in playing THAT out?
To add to this, attacking jump ships is also considered an extreme action in the setting since they're very hard to replace. If everyone just started destroying their enemies jump ships, interstellar travel would end. So they generally don't attack jump ships which means deep raiders can often get away if they can avoid boarding actions.
LordofHats wrote: To add to this, attacking jump ships is also considered an extreme action in the setting since they're very hard to replace. If everyone just started destroying their enemies jump ships, interstellar travel would end. So they generally don't attack jump ships which means deep raiders can often get away if they can avoid boarding actions.
"Attacking" meaning using heavy weaponry from Fighters, Dropships, and Warships. Attacking via boarding actions were quite normal. Sometimes through deceit and sometimes through threat of attack, attacking via marines was still quite common.
To add to this, attacking jump ships is also considered an extreme action in the setting since they're very hard to replace. If everyone just started destroying their enemies jump ships, interstellar travel would end. So they generally don't attack jump ships which means deep raiders can often get away if they can avoid boarding actions.
Well, it's an extreme action for most IS factions for that reason. I think the Clans have their own manufacturing resources, so they'd be far less reluctant to blow away an invading jumpship.
That reminds me I have finished doing some potato painting, too.
Gray Death Heavy Battle Lance:
Jumping Shadow Hawk in my Fetid Claws color scheme, Regent, Gargoyle C, and Catapult K2 in my Brown Pants Legion colors (with a slight change in tertiary color).
Bandits and Badgers, APCs used by the Clans and Wolfs Dragoons, provided by IWM:
Color scheme a mix of my Inner Sphere Brown Pants and Clan Purple Shirts schemes.
Elementals from IWM on 3/4" Fender Washers:
Inner Sphere Battle Armor, IS Standard in front, Gray Death Standard in back:
And a perspective shot, because it can be hard to tell how big (small) something is:
Miguelsan wrote: I see that you are another member of Clan Painted Pants
M.
Funny thing is that when I first started painting, My Clan mechs were like the Elementals above, Clan Purple Pants. That can works for the metal models, because they don't really have a lot of detail. However, it's too dark for the plastics, so I inverted the color scheme, but only for the plastic models.
Here are the 3 schemes I have used with Clan Mechs.
The Dragonfly on the right was the first scheme. The Dragonfly in the middle is my second scheme. The Dragonfly on the left is the latest scheme, and used for some variety and because I got a 3rd Salvage Dragonfly. I should have just altered it's tertiary color like I did with the Elementals, but I was feeling a "Purple Vest" concept for it and used it for a Salvage Conjurer.
I really do need to get a picture of my various schemes to represent everything. It would be better if I had the same model for all of them, but... *shrug*.
bullisariuscowl wrote: Started playing the game today. Love the movement but jesus GATOR is so hard to learn as a beginner
Let me just say as a grognard, GATOR makes it soooo much easier to learn! The only real hard part is remembering everything that goes under Other!
Sure, it's not as easy as 40K, or a lot of other games which keep things down to a single die roll, but I like how it sets expectations on the roll. Warmachine isn't much different, just that you often have opportunities to add dice to the roll to help.
With my ADD, the math phases of Battletech have royally been kicking my butt lately. 6-10K BV games give me too many options to balance out. In a loud gaming store after a day of work, it's like 4 hours of analysis paralysis.
I spend too much frustrating time trying to best choose which brackets of weapons to fire, then figuring out, forgetting, and re-figuring my Gator requirements. I start really hating math by the end of the night.
At least I use Flech's Sheets, which organize mechs so much better than Catalyst record sheets.
I played a guy on a megamek (computer BT) campaign server years ago that knew zero about the BT background. He was a maths geek and loved the game as some kind of fun probability puzzle. He could play really well.
BT isn't a random event (luck) game once you understand the basic maths and the 2D6 Bell curve. Good maths nearly always wins.
It comes nearly automatically once it clicks. I'm not a hex counter by any means - I make "pew pew" sounds when I roll to hit my pulse lasers. So knowing the core mechanics of the game really doesn't suck out enjoyment - only improves it. I played for a while thinking "why am I so unlucky". Then I realised luck plays near zero part of BT just basic maths and I improved exponentially and my engagement with the game did as well.
Once you 'get' the maths you can then learn about tactics. Then the game starts getting really deep and interesting.
Vulcan wrote: There is a certain amount of luck in Battletech. After all, the first turn through-armor critical taking out an engine or gyro or cockpit is a thing.
But yes, once you understand the probabilities and the math involved your game will improve significantly.
I agree there can be low probability rolls that can swing things a bit. But they are major outliers that effect very few games. They just stick out in the mind.
I always thought of BT like poker. Luck is there but skill will nearly always shine through. I find it an immensely deep game. There is always more to learn - new tactics, new force builds, new twists to your movement or fire orders, learning about randomness (and avoiding it). A good opponent will also throw massive curveballs into the way you look at the game.
And the fun thing is once you get the basic mechanics there are a million ways to tactically play the game. The even funner thing is most of these tactics and play styles will work if used correctly. There are no 'auto win' builds, tactics, factions in BT. That makes for a very interesting game.
I agree there can be low probability rolls that can swing things a bit. But they are major outliers that effect very few games. They just stick out in the mind.
You should never play with our group. we have one guy that tends to hit the majority of his shots in the same general locations but can almost never confirm crit rolls. another guy who constantly kills his pilots(and anybody near him) through falls and ammo explosions. and people like myself that routinely head cap or confirm a half dozen or more through armor crits every single game. i have been playing since 1987 and very actively playing for the past 20 years or so.
The crit system is one of the reasons i never care about BV, battle tech games are incredibly swingy. i focus more on era and faction correct units, weapons and formations.
niall78 wrote: And the fun thing is once you get the basic mechanics there are a million ways to tactically play the game. The even funner thing is most of these tactics and play styles will work if used correctly. There are no 'auto win' builds, tactics, factions in BT. That makes for a very interesting game.
There are a couple people at our FLGS which can somehow manage to consistently roll -1 the To-Hit number. It doesn't matter if it is a low number or high, it's almost always -1 the To-Hit number.
Then when we they DO hit, it's always on a location that is covered with Armor.
Then add in I have a tendency to roll 2s with PSRs (even when I have 2 Piloting), and Luck can affect a lot of things.
I strayed away from my Clan instincts and played pirates last night... I think I'm addicted to speed. Specifically - fast jump jets.
I was playing a pirate force trying to prey on isolated FedSun cities, assuming that with the Civil War in full swing the armed forces would be distracted. Well, turns out, a lance (+1 extra) of Islamabad Periphery March Militia were in the area and able to respond...
5k BV
2 Brigand 1s
1 Brigand X2
1 Hunchback 4G (the commander. thought the AC20 was intimidating enough)
3 Wasp 1As
1 Stinger 3G
vs
(don't remember any specific variants)
Marauder (enemy commander)
Panther
Wolfhound
Jenner
Valkyrie
Mission objectives:
Complete both:
1) Destroy 75% of the enemy forces
2) Destroy the enemy commander's mech.
Started off strong by having one of the Wasps skid on pavement, right off the map (RIP) and pushing the Stinger into a building... but the rest of the force advanced through the city using buildings as cover.
The FedSuns forces were uh, clearly not used to city fighting, as early on their Marauder slipped on pavement and crashed prone, and their Panther tried to jump on top of a 5 story building and fell down through to the basement.
Using my forces jumpjets and the buildings I was able to surround his mechs, trap them, and pick them apart with SO MANY tiny ineffective weapons.
This is also where I learned that Wolfhounds are uh, apparently very good at destroying lights. Because I sent the Stinger and a Wasp to take it down and the Wasp was annihilated as soon as it got into range. Needless to say, the Stinger decided to join his buddies in the main fight (this was on the outskirts of the city, most of the rest of the forces met in the center).
It was a game long game of cat and mouse with the Marauder, because I knew if I let it draw a bead on any of my 25ish ton mechs they'd be mission-killed pretty much instantly. I was lucky enough with initiative rolls that I usually had the last moves and could respond to his movements. 6MP Jump Jets are a dream on a heavy urban map, omg.
The game ended when my Hunchback finally showed itself to the Marauder. Assuming we'd blast each other to bits but I'd put enough damage for the rest of the swarm to finally take the monster down, he rolled bad LB-X clusters and spread his huge amount of damage over too many surfaces of the Hunchback, and the AC-20 knocked the Marauder over and did the final damage to the CT's inner structure.
At the end of the game, I had captured his Jenner pilot, and the Wolfhound and Valkyrie withdrew.
I had 2 Wasps, all 3 Brigands, and the Hunchback left. And now all I want to do is spam jump jets all day and use crappy light mechs to chip down monsters.
Vulcan wrote: Fast light spam can work in heavily built up terrain, but not so well on open ground.
Yea, I figured. I've been thinking "if there was just woods and plains between us, I would've been toast from turn 1". None of my mechs were fast enough to cross open ground in 1 go. It was purely the jump jets making navigating city streets a breeze. Still wildly fun, though. Going to need to find a way to uh, set up more city games...
Don't underestimate Woods. They are the most common form of cover a Light can seek to have. And if you can get in to Heavy Woods with a high TMM... *muah* that's the chef's kiss.
And yeah, Wolfhounds were designed to counter the Panther and Jenner, the most common Mechs of the Draconis Combine. But they can't Jump, so if you can get THEM to Skid...
Vulcan wrote: Fast light spam can work in heavily built up terrain, but not so well on open ground.
Yea, I figured. I've been thinking "if there was just woods and plains between us, I would've been toast from turn 1". None of my mechs were fast enough to cross open ground in 1 go. It was purely the jump jets making navigating city streets a breeze. Still wildly fun, though. Going to need to find a way to uh, set up more city games...
It's worth remembering stuff like Phoenix Hawk, Exterminator, Griffin, Shadow Hawk, Wolverine, Grasshopper, and Victor all have similar city maneuverability... and way better armor and firepower.
So one of the guys wants to make a dedicated house lance for each faction so he was trying out a Kurita C3 lance so i put my 10th Lyran guards up against them.
Force allocation-
My opponent.
.cyclops (master)
.katana
.grand dragon
.spider.
My force-
.Cerberus
.gunslinger
.tempest
.talon.
It was a good fight with my gunslinger being knocked out by pilot shock, by the end it was a damaged katana and mauled spider facing a talon and the Cerberus. both hardly damaged, so the Kurita force withdrew.
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
The second game was introducing a new player to 3d terrain rules.
His force-
.warhammer
.thunderbolt
.wolverine
.phoenix hawk
My force-
.bushwhacker
.night sky
.RAC typhoon
.AC20 typhoon.
It turned into a very tough fight with only the RAC typhoon surviving to the end and withdrawing in defeat.
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
Now something completely different-
Refreshing ourselves with Aero Tech II-
Had a clan force
.Mckenna
.liberator
.conqueror
.York
Spoiler:
the other side-
.Mjolnir
.feng huag
.avalon
.tatsumaki
Spoiler:
The game started strong for house Steiner, scoring multiple hits to the clan liberator's bridge. but even so the clanners got their revenge with the liberator hitting most of its return fire the next turn even with the big +4 penalty
The york and tatsumaki were the first ships to go down followed by the Feng and conqueror.
With a crippled liberator and facing an untouched Avalon backing up a very capable Mjolnir, the clan Mckenna decided to fight again another day
My first game was an inner sphere battle with my 10th lyran guards doing some "heavy scouting"
My force-
.fafnir
.atlas S2
.viking 2
.battle master 4S
My opponent was running-
.atlas
.nightstar
.flashman
.thunderbolt.
Since it was a desert setting this lance aside from the battlemaster was very heat neutral and packed loads of gauss.heavy gauss.
after legging the flashman and pilot killing his commander in the night star through crits. he surrendered.
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
The next game was a raid mission and since both of use favor hells horse. i decided to break out my blood spirits units we both ran novas with a support star of toads.
My side-
.blood asp
.blood kite
.crimson langur
.stalking spider
.blood drinkers protomechs.
His side
.timber wolf
.gargoyle
.mad dog
.summoner
.epona/enyo
Since we were using full rules his units ignored 1 point of my movement mod. and my unit got its faction all elite pilots with strict zellbrigan. as well as a bonus to initiative based on how many turns in a row i win (which i never did )
our two commanders dueled an entire one turn with me hitting with a single LRM 15 from my blood kite scoring a through armor crit that game him 2 engine crits and forced him to withdraw. my commander then had to sit around the entire game as no other mechs were available to engage. since i was fighting HH we were in a bit of a pickle as he considered his tankers deserving of Zell and my side did not. so we both chose not to risk breaching it because alpha galaxy is strict honor and the spirits are even more strict.
his mad dog took an ammo crit that forced him to withdraw from engine damage. and as i had bulked up my battle armor on the objective he decided to call the game as it was going on 1 am.
CatalystGameLab wrote:
We have been hard at work updating our community guidelines. These guidelines will be in effect across all platforms that are operated by CGL.
We will have more information for the community in the coming weeks.
I find points 2, and 3 reasonable. Nothing out of the ordinary for a corp to want for their corporate media.
Point 1 is problematic due to point 4. A reasonable person would think that being an donkey-cave is not the right thing to do, alas we have many unreasonable persons after all. Even more, the mods can be just as unreasonable as the regular forum members, and the way I read point 4 is "If we feel like banning you, we will, and you can go take a walk" thus I'm pretty sure that when insult X is hurled to person A mods will be fast as an upgraded Locust to the ban, but when it's insult Y against person B they won't lift a finger. Arbitrariness will be the name of the game.
Point 5 puts in place an appeal system, but my experience with appeals to the same organ that banned you almot never work if only due to the natural inclination to defend your own side.
In short, I see stormy weather ahead for the company, but honestly the only thing I want from Catalyst right now is that they keep producing miniatures. I stopped consuming fiction long ago.
M.
Edit: One of the Btech Discords I'm member of mentioned that there were mass bans in X, formerly known as Twitter, suggested by the reddit gang. Cannot say if it's true as I don't use X.
The funny thing about the 3D printing is that most of it currently either created locally or are reconstructions of Mechwarrior units, which CGL does not have IP access to.
Flinty wrote: Well something is going on, as there are a couple of people posting things like
“I would like to cancel my pledge, recent actions by your company are disturbing and I do not feel your values are compatible with mine.”
On the Kickstarter comments section. Seems like that particular statement is not likely to end in refund.
At this point of time it might be difficult to cancel the KS. Hell, I don't even know if KS allows for a refund in their terms of service. But if the kerfuffle continues long enough it might chill down the next KS, and I'm not sure if Catalyst is at the stage of being to operate without a KS every couple of years, or if, like Reaper, their business depends of a big influx of money every X months while regular sales just keep the lights on.
In general KS offers no refunds themselves, that's on individual creators to uphold. In general its hard because much of the money is often spent on development (which is the intent of a KS) so there isn't some golden pot of cash.
Many firms will offer refunds because its good customer support and community relations and all, but I don't believe they are required. Part of the risk with backing a KS is the potential for your money to be lost.
Sometimes you can get a chargeback through your bank (esp if you used a credit card).
The only 3d printed mechs i have are for ones that were never created or no longer exist, like the doom courser, or original stompy grand crusader etc... otherwise i get them from ironwind or catalyst. the vast majority of my collection is ironwind, but then i have been collecting them for something like 30 years.
Edit: One of the Btech Discords I'm member of mentioned that there were mass bans in X, formerly known as Twitter, suggested by the reddit gang. Cannot say if it's true as I don't use X.
If there were, it's because those people broke the rules of Twitter? It isn't like CGL can ban people from there. They're blocking some of the usual concern-trollers that seem to have cropped up since BLP did not have their contract renewed.
There's currently a pants-on-head daft campaign of accounts saying things similar to what Flinty observed, mostly from relatively new Twitter accounts that have bought blue-ticks to get their commentary boosted.
Then probably I misunderstood block for ban. As I said I don't use Twitter, nor have an account, so I thought that like in FB the owner of the account can delete delete messages posted on their timeline or block somebody for posting anymore.
aphyon wrote: @Charistoph
The only 3d printed mechs i have are for ones that were never created or no longer exist, like the doom courser, or original stompy grand crusader etc... otherwise i get them from ironwind or catalyst. the vast majority of my collection is ironwind, but then i have been collecting them for something like 30 years.
I have 5 printed 'Mechs, all designs which were based off of the MWO models. 2 of which CGL currently have variants in plastic, 2 of which CGL has plastic variants coming in the KS, and one that is still waiting on any announcement. That doesn't include the 13 others I've ordered for gifts. 12 of them were variants of the Bull Shark, which is HBS design, and another was a Cicada which I modified in to a 3C, which has since been lost since the day I gave it away. I also have 6 Vehicles which are the same, and 2 original designs from Metal Core Collections. I also use some DropZone Commander Shaltari Hovercraft as proxies at times.
The thing is, anything designed for Mechwarrior Online or the HBS Battletech game falls under the video game license. That puts it under Microsoft's IP, not Topps'/CGL's.
Of course that doesn't include the 14 models I have in the original FASA-style plastic, the 95 Ironwind models (50 Mech, 45 Auxiliary), or 117 CGL plastic Mechs I have (1 of which I traded my Clan Invasion Elementals for a replacement after my dog shredded the first I got), much less the 46 CGL plastics I have coming in the Kickstarter.
I also fully plan on getting most of the Forcepacks from the Kickstarter (never was a fan of Legends boxes or the big hexes of the plastic infantry) and the Mercenary Packs (only GDL so far), as well as assorted Ironwind models I need for campaign reasons along the way.
Miguelsan wrote: Then probably I misunderstood block for ban. As I said I don't use Twitter, nor have an account, so I thought that like in FB the owner of the account can delete delete messages posted on their timeline or block somebody for posting anymore.
M.
To be fair, it doesn't sound as dramatic to say "I said something trolly and got blocked!" when you can say "I posted my concerns and was banned from twitter!"
The whole 3D printed thing, by the by, is them just asking people not to post it on their official channels.
Miguelsan wrote: I find points 2, and 3 reasonable. Nothing out of the ordinary for a corp to want for their corporate media.
Point 1 is problematic due to point 4. A reasonable person would think that being an donkey-cave is not the right thing to do, alas we have many unreasonable persons after all. Even more, the mods can be just as unreasonable as the regular forum members, and the way I read point 4 is "If we feel like banning you, we will, and you can go take a walk" thus I'm pretty sure that when insult X is hurled to person A mods will be fast as an upgraded Locust to the ban, but when it's insult Y against person B they won't lift a finger. Arbitrariness will be the name of the game.
Point 5 puts in place an appeal system, but my experience with appeals to the same organ that banned you almot never work if only due to the natural inclination to defend your own side.
In short, I see stormy weather ahead for the company, but honestly the only thing I want from Catalyst right now is that they keep producing miniatures. I stopped consuming fiction long ago.
M.
Edit: One of the Btech Discords I'm member of mentioned that there were mass bans in X, formerly known as Twitter, suggested by the reddit gang. Cannot say if it's true as I don't use X.
What do you mean? Not being allowed to disparage people for their sexuality or ethnicity or what have you is a long-running common clause in codes of conduct for forums, certainly it's something I've been running into since I started posting on them over 20 years ago. So's pointing out that no one has a specific right to post in one. None of this is cause for concern. Your points seem oddly vague.
Did you bother to read, or did you reply to my post with your mind already decided? I have the feeling that it was not the former.
I'll repeat it for you. If people were reasonable not disparaging somebody should be a given, but people on the internet, including mods, are often not, and when you put together oddly vague codes that literally say "including, but not limited to" on bold letters with a "Participation is a privilege, not a right" you have the perfect brew for what I am complaining about. That there is a risk, and not a small one in my eyes, that Battletech online spaces will turn into a place were the moment you step on the toes of a mod they will ban you for whatever excuse they come up with, and call it a day.
And it won't just stop with people that call something nasty to other participants. It will be arbitrary.
Miguelsan wrote: Did you bother to read, or did you reply to my post with your mind already decided? I have the feeling that it was not the former.
I'll repeat it for you. If people were reasonable not disparaging somebody should be a given, but people on the internet, including mods, are often not, and when you put together oddly vague codes that literally say "including, but not limited to" on bold letters with a "Participation is a privilege, not a right" you have the perfect brew for what I am complaining about. That there is a risk, and not a small one in my eyes, that Battletech online spaces will turn into a place were the moment you step on the toes of a mod they will ban you for whatever excuse they come up with, and call it a day.
And it won't just stop with people that call something nasty to other participants. It will be arbitrary.
And that's what concerns me.
M.
That's how every website with moderation works - including Dakka.
Participation is not a right. They are private communities and you don't have a right to be part of that community. You can be ejected.
On good sites the moderators follow rules and regulations; they make sensible choices; they review situations; they follow codes of practice; the firm/group they aid/volunteer/work for oversees them etc...
Yes there will be mistakes from time to time - or cultural differences - or differences of interpretation and so forth, but with a good staff and good setup they will be rare events and each one will be a learning experience.
YES there are bad sites with poor moderation; there are bad mods and poor setups. These are not exclusive to paid companies, free reddits to paid firms can all fail or succeed on moderation.
Yes. Nothing new under the Sun, but I don't care if the mods of ResetEra come straight from the looney bin, have the same ethics than a ferret, and use a code of practice written by Tzeentch itself I don't participate there. I'm concerned that there are new mods in Btech spaces where I do participate, and that those mods have been given new marching orders that don't seem to be the get along with the community, and that reportedly (this is hearsay I will delete it if proven otherwise) they are using block lists to decide who is worth of participating in the Twitter account.
Miguelsan wrote: Yes. Nothing new under the Sun, but I don't care if the mods of ResetEra come straight from the looney bin, have the same ethics than a ferret, and use a code of practice written by Tzeentch itself I don't participate there. I'm concerned that there are new mods in Btech spaces where I do participate, and that those mods have been given new marching orders that don't seem to be the get along with the community, and that reportedly (this is hearsay I will delete it if proven otherwise) they are using block lists to decide who is worth of participating in the Twitter account.
Again, arbitrary much?
M.
First off, I'm gonna apologize if this seems like trying to start a fight or drag things off-topic.
But Miguelsan, serious question:
Why are you taking people saying they're being blocked "arbitrarily" at face value?
As of right now, there's no way (outside of someone saying so) to see if someone else is blocked by another on Twitter. It requires the individual who was blocked to post screencaps of it. The one person who I'm seeing throw up screencaps of being blocked "just for asking a question" was asking that Catalyst and others "not showcase their kinks or fetishes, we don't need to know you're LGBTQ"...and when told that isn't a kink/fetish? They started calling Catalyst and others groomers.
I can't speak for you, but that doesn't really sound like someone making a mistake and getting blocked. That's fething around and finding out.
Call me naïve if you want but I take them at face value because they don't have any reason to lie to me.
And the 2 persons that posted screencaps of being blocked by catalyst on a Discord I'm member of claim they didn't interacted with Catalyst but one was a Razorfist follower, and another claimed that was because he followed Mage Leader, 2 very anti-Catalyst figures. You can say, again, that I'm silly for believing that was the real reason, and not another. But if they are not lying it doesn't get more arbitrary than cancelling somebody using lock lists using guilt of association.
Miguelsan wrote: And the 2 persons that posted screencaps of being blocked by catalyst on a Discord I'm member of claim they didn't interacted with Catalyst but one was a Razorfist follower, and another claimed that was because he followed Mage Leader, 2 very anti-Catalyst figures. You can say, again, that I'm silly for believing that was the real reason, and not another. But if they are not lying it doesn't get more arbitrary than cancelling somebody using lock lists using guilt of association.
M.
I would say that it is unlikely that people are going to be blocked by CGL just for following someone controversial - that would be unreasonable behaviour from CGL.
Without knowing the accounts of the people who were blocked, I'd be inclined to suspect they have either posted to CGL or retweeted something from the controversial accounts that crossed a line CGL want to hold true to - but I'm not inclined to do the digging to prove things either way.
And from Kan's reaction, I'm not going to go looking at those two people you've referenced, especially while I'm eating my lunch.
No, I'v only seen his latest video about the situation. But even if Mage Leader was posting all kinds of bigoted stuff, that's no cause to block his followers unless those followers join the fray, and say bigoted things in turn.
Well, you can block them all for whatever reason you want after all it was the core of bullet point 4, but then you cannot claim that Btech is for everybody because you just violated your own principles.
I would say that it is unlikely that people are going to be blocked by CGL just for following someone controversial - that would be unreasonable behaviour from CGL.
It should be unlikely, but if CGL's mods feel pressured, or under attack the easy way out is to use block lists, put everybody in the same bucket, and call it a day.
Miguelsan wrote: No, I'v only seen his latest video about the situation. But even if Mage Leader was posting all kinds of bigoted stuff, that's no cause to block his followers unless those followers join the fray, and say bigoted things in turn.
They don't have to "say" anything. Liking, reposting, whatever is effectively them "saying" it.
Well, you can block them all for whatever reason you want after all it was the core of bullet point 4, but then you cannot claim that Btech is for everybody because you just violated your own principles.
M.
Is it really violating your principles if the people being excluded were not interested in being beholden to the principles you asked them to follow in the first place?
Gimgamgoo wrote: I must have read it wrong. All I could really see, was;
1. Be kind to each other 2. Don't post pirated material on CGL forums and CGL social media sites or you'll get a CGL forum ban.
Is everyone reading something else into it?
Not really. Miguelsan's posting about stuff from a discord they are in.
Battletech, since Blaine Lee Pardoe's departure, has had a lot of culture warrior drama centered around it in social media spaces.
To be on topic though, point #2 also includes 3D printed material not just pirated material.
Miguelsan wrote: No, I'v only seen his latest video about the situation. But even if Mage Leader was posting all kinds of bigoted stuff, that's no cause to block his followers unless those followers join the fray, and say bigoted things in turn.
They don't have to "say" anything. Liking, reposting, whatever is effectively them "saying" it.
Well, you can block them all for whatever reason you want after all it was the core of bullet point 4, but then you cannot claim that Btech is for everybody because you just violated your own principles.
M.
Is it really violating your principles if the people being excluded were not interested in being beholden to the principles you asked them to follow in the first place?
Gimgamgoo wrote: I must have read it wrong. All I could really see, was;
1. Be kind to each other
2. Don't post pirated material on CGL forums and CGL social media sites or you'll get a CGL forum ban.
Is everyone reading something else into it?
Not really. Miguelsan's posting about stuff from a discord they are in.
Battletech, since Blaine Lee Pardoe's departure, has had a lot of culture warrior drama centered around it in social media spaces.
To be on topic though, point #2 also includes 3D printed material not just pirated material.
So at the end of the day it's guilt by association, right?
Let's make it easy for you, Kanluwen. I follow Arch on Yotube. He can be an ashhole of an edgelord with an inflated ego, and a dramaqueen on how he presents his videos about lore, and the other more political 40K videos about barbarian at the gates, and gatekeeping. But I enjoy it, even on occassion I have clicked the up vote button, sometimes the dislike too, does that mean that I agree with everything he says, his political positions, etc? Well, as per your stated quote above I seemlingly do, and apparently my opinions must overlap 100% with Arch's opinions. Thus I'm a horrible person.
Accordingly, if you truly think that of me I invite you to click the ignore button, because due to the taint of association my arguments are invalid no matter what I write.
Answering your other question: Yes, excluding people because they follow somebody on social media, and you built a strawman of them not being beholden to certain principles just because of that sole reason is a violation of Btech is for everybody.
I asked for clarification because it seemed that your concerns boiled down to "what if the mods do a bad job?" which 1) applies to absolutely everything ever and 2) is not implied by the guidelines. Language such as "not limited to" is usually to forestall rules lawyering.
Answering your other question: Yes, excluding people because they follow somebody on social media, and you built a strawman of them not being beholden to certain principles just because of that sole reason is a violation of Btech is for everybody.
When the person they're following makes a specific point of opposing queer people it isn't really a strawman as much as it is a reasonable suspicion.
Your continuing vagueness is increasingly odd because at some point characterising following a bigot who thinks queer people are infiltrating and destroying Battletech as "following somebody on social media" "not beholden to certain principles" becomes lying through omission. What principles? Why do they follow this person?
Intolerance of the intolerant is not actually a paradox.
Rosebuddy wrote: I asked for clarification because it seemed that your concerns boiled down to "what if the mods do a bad job?" which 1) applies to absolutely everything ever and 2) is not implied by the guidelines. Language such as "not limited to" is usually to forestall rules lawyering.
Not only that, but its actually insanely complicated and drawn out to define human behaviour in very specific terms and to have a policy for each one. That's why lawyers don't even cover all law, they have specialist areas of it and there are VAST volumes of law out there in just one nation alone. And even within that we have to have judges and juries to interpret the law and apply it to cases and so forth.
No forum or online community is going to invest that much in creating a set of rules for itself. So they will establish very broad and general guidelines, with a few specifics. The moderators/admin then use those to enforce their view of order on the site in question.
Rosebuddy wrote: I asked for clarification because it seemed that your concerns boiled down to "what if the mods do a bad job?" which 1) applies to absolutely everything ever and 2) is not implied by the guidelines. Language such as "not limited to" is usually to forestall rules lawyering.
Answering your other question: Yes, excluding people because they follow somebody on social media, and you built a strawman of them not being beholden to certain principles just because of that sole reason is a violation of Btech is for everybody.
When the person they're following makes a specific point of opposing queer people it isn't really a strawman as much as it is a reasonable suspicion.
Your continuing vagueness is increasingly odd because at some point characterising following a bigot who thinks queer people are infiltrating and destroying Battletech as "following somebody on social media" "not beholden to certain principles" becomes lying through omission. What principles? Why do they follow this person?
You keep saying that I'm vague, I wonder if it's your way to insinuate that I'm a bigot, but I don't think I'm being vague. I've been beating one drum: terms will be applied in an arbitray manner by CGL's mods, actually if I'm not being deceived terms are being applied in an arbitray manner because they are blocking people not due to what they said, but rather for following the wrong people. It can be argued as you said (also Overread said mostly the same in the next post) that having objective terms, and applying them in an even, fair way it's insanely difficult. And I will agree that I might be overreacting to a few isolated instances, and that in the long run everything will sort itself out.
You seem to have a very all, or nothing position with your guilt by association stance. Let's agree that Mage Leader is a bigoted person, Kanluwen read his X posts, you seem to say the same, so he is a bigot that opposes queer people. Guess what? His political position is his right, and agree, or disagree with said position I wouldn't want Mage Leader to lose his freedom of speech. But before you jump on my throat, I also agree that if CGL wants to block this person from their social media they have the right to do so. But that was not the issue. My problem with this situation is that Catalyst reportedly, wants to expell people from Btech for the mere sin of following Mage Leader, and you seem to agree because guilty by association. You don't know if they share Mage Leader's anti-queer stance, you don't know what principles they espouse, you don't know why they follow him, you just know that they follow him. Thus if you claim as a principle that Btech is for everybody, you cannot block somebody from Btech media until they break the terms of the agreement, otherwise it makes you a hypocrite.
I found out about Mage Leader because YT suggested one of his videos about the IS about a year ago, I found out about Arch because of his Siege of Vracks video years ago. I wasn't aware of Mage Leader's political positions until this week, I knew about the accusations against Arch, but I separate the author from their works so I didn't have issues enjoying the occasional 40k/Btech video from them . And when any of them uploads another video I will watch it on its merits, not on Mage Leader's current political position. If that casts me in yours eye as a dangerous current thing hating bigot... it's your right after all, but I'm not going to shut up.
Intolerance of the intolerant is not actually a paradox.
Then go read what Karl Popper, and others said about tolerance instead of following a half-arsed pictoline. Or watch a video about it. Popper, and Rawls after him, posit that altough societies can set limits to freedom to defend themselves, those limits should be the last resort, and intolerance needs to be fought with reason first and foremost for otherwise society will become intolerant itself, and only when those limits are crossed by violent means should the liberties of the intolerant be curtalied.
Have you taken the time to look at the accounts of those who claim that the only reason they have been blocked by CGL - if they actually have - is because of who they follow, rather than what they've posted?
Overread wrote: Gotta say it seems like a lot of work to go blocking people who follow someone else on twitter
Yes, if I were the social media guy for a company then someone would have to be causing a lot of trouble before I bothered trawling through the list of people who follow them. It isn't even a matter of banning people from the company-run forums (which is at least a practical matter of shaping the enviroment for your other users), it's literally twitter.
Dysartes wrote: Have you taken the time to look at the accounts of those who claim that the only reason they have been blocked by CGL - if they actually have - is because of who they follow, rather than what they've posted?
No, as I said I don't use X so I cannot check their accounts, or rather I can check a given tweet, but I cannot see the whole thread. All I know is through Discord, a couple you are block screen shots, and complains that they got blocked before even interacting with CGL.
And mass blocking on Twitter is really easy, you import a block list, or have an app to create a block list for you, and done. No need to check one by one if that person was causing trouble, or not. It's very popular in Spanish X
And due to that is why I'm complaining about the very high possibility that the CGL mods are being arbitrary, and unfair.
One thing I've noticed with moderating is that many times the kind of person that works themselves up to a ban by mods, will often not recognise their behaviour as a problem and will often cry-wolf on the mods for "abuse of power" and so forth.
Because in general if they recognised that their behaviour was an issue, most would change their behaviour.
So by the time the ban button is hit for some, they already have an axe to grind with a "mods on site XYZ are abusive and power mad and whatever"
It's not every case of course and mods DO make mistakes or get heavy handed or firms can take the wrong direction.
Overread wrote: Gotta say it seems like a lot of work to go blocking people who follow someone else on twitter
At least on the comics side years ago, someone makes a list and people just blindly use it so that they don't end up on it. I'd imagine that Catalyst will automate the process as well to be as inclusive as possible.
It's too bad to see Catalyst starting to crack down on 3D printed material, or at least rumors of a crackdown.
One of the main comments I always get from people about Battletech is how Catalyst is freaking awesomely chill about 3d printed models as long as you aren't pushing them as a way to "stick it to Catalyst". About half my models are 3D printed, but nearly all of them are ones that are not available in the modern plastics, like a Maulers, a Highlander IIC, a Catapult K2 before the Grey Death Legion box came out, aerospace models, helicopters, etc. If a plastic version is available, I usually buy that instead.
I know Battletech is extremely casual on WYSIWYG, but 3D printing allows for some *really* cool models for oddball variants, like my Shadowhawk 2K with a recognizable PPC on the shoulder instead of an autocannon, or a Shadowhawk 2D2 for those crazy enough to take to the field in one. Or my Hunchback 4SP with SRM-6's in each shoulder.
Dysartes wrote: Have you taken the time to look at the accounts of those who claim that the only reason they have been blocked by CGL - if they actually have - is because of who they follow, rather than what they've posted?
No, as I said I don't use X so I cannot check their accounts, or rather I can check a given tweet, but I cannot see the whole thread. All I know is through Discord, a couple you are block screen shots, and complains that they got blocked before even interacting with CGL.
And mass blocking on Twitter is really easy, you import a block list, or have an app to create a block list for you, and done. No need to check one by one if that person was causing trouble, or not. It's very popular in Spanish X
And due to that is why I'm complaining about the very high possibility that the CGL mods are being arbitrary, and unfair.
No, you're giving the benefit of the doubt to those you share a Discord with - without doing any due diligence - and then complaining about CGLs stance without doing them the same courtesy.
AegisGrimm wrote:It's too bad to see Catalyst starting to crack down on 3D printed material, or at least rumors of a crackdown.
One of the main comments I always get from people about Battletech is how Catalyst is freaking awesomely chill about 3d printed models as long as you aren't pushing them as a way to "stick it to Catalyst". About half my models are 3D printed, but nearly all of them are ones that are not available in the modern plastics, like a Maulers, a Highlander IIC, a Catapult K2 before the Grey Death Legion box came out, aerospace models, helicopters, etc. If a plastic version is available, I usually buy that instead.
I know Battletech is extremely casual on WYSIWYG, but 3D printing allows for some *really* cool models for oddball variants, like my Shadowhawk 2K with a recognizable PPC on the shoulder instead of an autocannon, or a Shadowhawk 2D2 for those crazy enough to take to the field in one. Or my Hunchback 4SP with SRM-6's in each shoulder.
As for point 3 of their announcement, I think it is worth asking CGL to clarify/expand on what they are referring to. Are they talking about, for a hypothetical example, someone posting STL files which are just 3D scans of CGL models? Are they talking about pirate releases of rulebook scans, etc? Do they not want 3D prints posted/talked about on their forum?
A bullet point alone lacks nuance, basically, and should be taken as the starting point for understanding, not the whole of thing.
I'm not on the CGL forums, so I don't know if such discussions have started over there.
Dysartes wrote: Have you taken the time to look at the accounts of those who claim that the only reason they have been blocked by CGL - if they actually have - is because of who they follow, rather than what they've posted?
No, as I said I don't use X so I cannot check their accounts, or rather I can check a given tweet, but I cannot see the whole thread. All I know is through Discord, a couple you are block screen shots, and complains that they got blocked before even interacting with CGL.
And mass blocking on Twitter is really easy, you import a block list, or have an app to create a block list for you, and done. No need to check one by one if that person was causing trouble, or not. It's very popular in Spanish X
And due to that is why I'm complaining about the very high possibility that the CGL mods are being arbitrary, and unfair.
No, you're giving the benefit of the doubt to those you share a Discord with - without doing any due diligence - and then complaining about CGLs stance without doing them the same courtesy.
I'll grant you this point, something in the way CGL wrote the announcement made me not extend the same politeness I did to the persons on Discord.
Probably a combination of points 4 (we will get to decide who belongs to Btech, and who doesn't) and point 3 (now that we are selling a bunch of miniatures the laissez-faire about 3d prints is off) as seen in my eyes.
That bullet point does just say "protect the IP" and 3D printing itself doesn't inherently violate intellectual property law any more than sculpting the old-fashioned way does. People like to use video game models for prints and CGL is likely legally compelled to disallow that on their forums. One of the many reasons to why IP law sucks.
I guess you could test the grayzone by hand-sculpting a legally distinct Warhammer and post pictures but I'm not sure they'd appreciate someone probing the limitations.
Rosebuddy wrote: That bullet point does just say "protect the IP" and 3D printing itself doesn't inherently violate intellectual property law any more than sculpting the old-fashioned way does. People like to use video game models for prints and CGL is likely legally compelled to disallow that on their forums. One of the many reasons to why IP law sucks.
I guess you could test the grayzone by hand-sculpting a legally distinct Warhammer and post pictures but I'm not sure they'd appreciate someone probing the limitations.
On the forums they have specifically stated NO 3D printed models of units. Buildings and terrain are fine. Bases are fine. But there is no way to know if a printed unit was created by the person posting it, so instead of trying to allow for such nuance, they have a blanket ban on it.
Charistoph wrote: On the forums they have specifically stated NO 3D printed models of units. Buildings and terrain are fine. Bases are fine. But there is no way to know if a printed unit was created by the person posting it, so instead of trying to allow for such nuance, they have a blanket ban on it.
Question - is this new following the announcement, or was it there beforehand?
The road into the city was a highway of death in the true succession wars style. the dire wolf detonated the wolverine he was engaging at point blank. that killed both of them and a nearby wolverine. the timber wolf then took out the archer behind them that also detonated, killing the jenner and the storm crow behind him.....we lost an entire lance but took down 2 clan mechs soo things were hopefull.......for a little while.
Then there was the awesome...he made a pilot check to run on pavement before he moved base 5+-failed, fell, failed to avoid pilot damage, attempted to stand back up, failed again, fell, failed his pilot roll again for another hit. a few turns later took a PSR +1 from damage (including 10 to the face), fell, tried to stand back up, fell again and hit himself in the head for an additional 5 points of damage.
At this point we had a damaged wolverine, a damaged atlas and a damaged catapult K2 left on the table. facing off against a nearly un-touched dragonfly, badly damaged timberwolf and a slighly damaged summoner......the K2 pilot took that cue to bug out and everybody who could followed suit.
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
There was a dire wolf standing there just a minute ago....
Charistoph wrote: On the forums they have specifically stated NO 3D printed models of units. Buildings and terrain are fine. Bases are fine. But there is no way to know if a printed unit was created by the person posting it, so instead of trying to allow for such nuance, they have a blanket ban on it.
Question - is this new following the announcement, or was it there beforehand?
Well, the pinned post has been up since November 2014, so I'm going to say that it's been the policy since before this latest post by a notable amount of time.
Charistoph wrote: On the forums they have specifically stated NO 3D printed models of units. Buildings and terrain are fine. Bases are fine. But there is no way to know if a printed unit was created by the person posting it, so instead of trying to allow for such nuance, they have a blanket ban on it.
Question - is this new following the announcement, or was it there beforehand?
Well, the pinned post has been up since November 2014, so I'm going to say that it's been the policy since before this latest post by a notable amount of time.
I'd agree that after over eight years we can probably say that this particular element is well-established, and reacting to it like it is new and shocking is probably going a little overboard...
Dysartes wrote: ...that would be the same Mage Leader that Kan commented on earlier, right?
Yes, that's also the video I watched. He presents his theory about what's going on, gives some evidence backing his claims, goes ranting torwards the end. It's up to you if you want to watch it.
My enemy was running-
.gladiator
.timber wolf
.summoner
.shadow cat
.adder
it was the first run out with the shamish's they die super easy but are fun to play. thanks to my enemy falling down again i was able to force most of his units to withdraw....except the adder i smacked him in the face good. the shadow cat was the only actual survivor on the other side.
Spoiler:
He wanted a rematch so i went with a heavy star and he went a bit heavier.
My side
.ebon jaguar C
.ebon jaguar B
.mad dog C
.glass spider 2
.enyo strike tanks
I was up against-
.dire wolf
.super nova
.nova cat
.timber wolf
.shadow cat
This battle was up close and brutal. it came down to the 2 assault mechs facing off against the mad dog and a single surviving enyo's i pulled off a massive number of crit rolls in the final moments narrowly pulling off a victory. it was a full connect with all the enyos weapons into the already damaged back of the dire wolf. and the mad dog took the super nova from behind, scoring 7 crits in the center torso.
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
We also did an aero tech game. the battle was clans VS inner shere.
The Mjolnir got on the wrong side of the Mkenna's broadside. to devastating effect. the clan conqueror was almost dead with only 6 internal structure left but after loosing his most powerful ship in the coalition fleet he fell back.
Have you tried crafting a huge planet out of styrofoam and placing it on the middle of the board? Add some gravity vectors like in Aerotech 1, and you got an interesting scenario
we actually have a planetary landing scenario planned, we were going to do it this weekend, but it got put off.
the guy i was supposed to be playing against was caught up in another game and had to go afterward. i do have a rounded food tray cover i painted up as a small planet we use from time to time.
Next weekend we already have a clone wars era star wars armada scale game using the B5 wars rules.
Dysartes wrote: Have you taken the time to look at the accounts of those who claim that the only reason they have been blocked by CGL - if they actually have - is because of who they follow, rather than what they've posted?
No, as I said I don't use X so I cannot check their accounts, or rather I can check a given tweet, but I cannot see the whole thread. All I know is through Discord, a couple you are block screen shots, and complains that they got blocked before even interacting with CGL.
And mass blocking on Twitter is really easy, you import a block list, or have an app to create a block list for you, and done. No need to check one by one if that person was causing trouble, or not. It's very popular in Spanish X
And due to that is why I'm complaining about the very high possibility that the CGL mods are being arbitrary, and unfair.
No, you're giving the benefit of the doubt to those you share a Discord with - without doing any due diligence - and then complaining about CGLs stance without doing them the same courtesy.
AegisGrimm wrote:It's too bad to see Catalyst starting to crack down on 3D printed material, or at least rumors of a crackdown.
One of the main comments I always get from people about Battletech is how Catalyst is freaking awesomely chill about 3d printed models as long as you aren't pushing them as a way to "stick it to Catalyst". About half my models are 3D printed, but nearly all of them are ones that are not available in the modern plastics, like a Maulers, a Highlander IIC, a Catapult K2 before the Grey Death Legion box came out, aerospace models, helicopters, etc. If a plastic version is available, I usually buy that instead.
I know Battletech is extremely casual on WYSIWYG, but 3D printing allows for some *really* cool models for oddball variants, like my Shadowhawk 2K with a recognizable PPC on the shoulder instead of an autocannon, or a Shadowhawk 2D2 for those crazy enough to take to the field in one. Or my Hunchback 4SP with SRM-6's in each shoulder.
As for point 3 of their announcement, I think it is worth asking CGL to clarify/expand on what they are referring to. Are they talking about, for a hypothetical example, someone posting STL files which are just 3D scans of CGL models? Are they talking about pirate releases of rulebook scans, etc? Do they not want 3D prints posted/talked about on their forum?
A bullet point alone lacks nuance, basically, and should be taken as the starting point for understanding, not the whole of thing.
I'm not on the CGL forums, so I don't know if such discussions have started over there.
Sounds a little like the Helm Memory Core discord is leaking. They're....an odd bunch, but a large community for battletech. The general vibe there is outdated and kinda leans towards 4chan and edgelord stuff. They seem to not police their general chat channel, which leads to it being nuked and remade every few days.I imagine CGL is taking a blanket stance against the more...vocal...members of that (and Twitter/X, which has always been a cesspool).
As for 3d prints, I can imagine CGL being against them as a) it competes with minis they want to sell, b) many people just straight-up rip assets from the video games. I'd imagine they'd not want people who pirate stuff from the games to profit as the designers of the ripped videogame assets aren't getting that money.
I've got a bunch of stls for terrain and smaller vehicles for set dressing, but nothing that would be a stand in for a combat vehicle or 'mech. The general stance on 3d printed mechs is 'you can use them, but do not show them off' as again, CGL sells mechs and would like your money pls and thx. That's just the basis of capitalism for better or worse.
SpinCycleDreadnought wrote: As for 3d prints, I can imagine CGL being against them as a) it competes with minis they want to sell, b) many people just straight-up rip assets from the video games. I'd imagine they'd not want people who pirate stuff from the games to profit as the designers of the ripped videogame assets aren't getting that money. .
Except CGL and Topps have nothing to do with any 3D prints derived from video game designs. Microsoft does. The IP has been split on this front since before FASA closed its doors. CGL literally loses no money nor loss of IP from 3D prints of MWO units.
However, there is the concept of respect for IPs in general that they do enforce, and I posted a link earlier.
Here's what they've said previously and it just reiterated what is said here:
Worktroll wrote:
Folks,
We're seeing more and more of this, and please - it needs to stop.
Short form - the company running MWO has given permission for people to use the 3D models in the game for the purpose of printing 3D minis for their own personal use. This means that people:
- extract the model by themselves - print the mini on a 3D printer they own - do not share the minis with anyone else.
Personal use is exactly that - you only. It doesn't mean you can send the 3D models for printing anywhere else, and it doesnt mean you can sell, trade or give away models - physical or electronic.
In these forums, we have rules, including 10. Respect copyright. Any minis based on MWO IP which are not made under the very limiting conditions above are not authorised reproductions.
We know where these minis are coming from. But we of the BattleTech forums are not interested in what people do in their own homes, with their friends, or on other forums. We will not be despatching lawyers to exact retribution. But we won't have unauthorised reproductions posted on our forum.
So please don't.
Where it's likely that this is an innocent mistake, we'll pull the post and provide some friendly advice. If someone kept doing this, or really should have known better (eg. they've been posting minis here for years), we reserve the right to issue formal Warnings under the forum Rules (although this is usually not our preferred action).
We don't believe there's a lot of confusion whether a mini is IWM metal, CGL plastic, or 3D printed in origin. At the moment, one has to go out of one's way to pick up the MWO-derived minis, and it's unlikely that spivs are sidling up to people in game stores hissing "Want to buy a cheap Cataphract for the weekend, guv'ner? Nudge, nudge?". So please respect the Rules here.
Happy to answer reasonable questions. However, defences of the right to post images of unauthorised reproductions or other unlicenced minis, no matter how spirited, will be pulled due to their status re Rule 12.
Worktroll, Administrator
for the BattleTech Forum Management Team.
« Last Edit: 26 April 2018, 11:07:32 by Bosefius »
When asked if they can post work from their own printer, this was the response:
worktroll wrote:How can we tell?
We'd ask you not to, thanks. We really don't want to spend our time being IP commisars.
OTOH, any original designs are OK.
Cheers,
W.
You can believe them or not, but that IS what they've said on the matter, and it is a reasonable standard to maintain all things considered from a business perspective in a world of litigation and copyright protection.
As far as they are concerned you can post it on your personal page on Facebook, Instagram, wherever else, just not posted on anything they run.
a company cannot tolerate people selling pirated stuff no matter if is their IP or not
it is that easy, because if they know about it they must do something about it or the IP owner will go after them
kodos wrote: a company cannot tolerate people selling pirated stuff no matter if is their IP or not
it is that easy, because if they know about it they must do something about it or the IP owner will go after them
Only if you're presenting it or advertising it. If the topic never comes up on something you manage, they have nothing to go after.
But CGL will not be sending people to arrest owners of 3D printers for violating MWO IP nor sending them C&D orders. They have no standing in these cases.
It's more of a "we can't stop you, but please don't".
I can see where they're coming from- a 3d printed MW5-style Centurion is a bit different to both the CGL plastic mech and Iron Winds metal one. I think the concern comes down to the ethics regarding where the STL was sourced from, and a (rational from a corporation's point of view) fear that those who 3d print their mechs won't buy the forcepacks. While CGL doesn't hold the rights and licenses to the MW5/PGI mech designs, all of those have a design for a mech called the Centurion. That, I think, is where they derive their blanket 'please don't'. Doesn't matter if the STL was ripped from MW5, MWO, or bought in the aforementioned forcepack, the mech is intended to be used as a Centurion mech.
In an ideal world, game developers would put out the models for games as downloadable STLs for a small sum, and we'd all be able to not worry about the morality and ethics of ripped designs.
Ultimately, I support 3d printing minis, but I'd rather they be original sculpts or significant transformations of existing designs. Straight-up ripping a mech design from a game that someone else designed is kinda a 'no' from me- I'd rather the original artist be credited and receive some money from the sales of those. I see both sides of the argument, as this issue feels like a battletech-flavoured reskin of the Limeware/pirated music debate from the mid 00's.
SpinCycleDreadnought wrote: In an ideal world, game developers would put out the models for games as downloadable STLs for a small sum, and we'd all be able to not worry about the morality and ethics of ripped designs
In this case, the game developers don't own the IP and probably wouldn't be able to get Microsoft to sign off on it.
There are places they can stop someone from posting such images or STLs, such as a Facebook page or a forum where they have administrator rights, or sponsored events like a convention tournament.
However, they've long acknowledged that they have no control over what you do at home.
SpinCycleDreadnought wrote: I can see where they're coming from- a 3d printed MW5-style Centurion is a bit different to both the CGL plastic mech and Iron Winds metal one. I think the concern comes down to the ethics regarding where the STL was sourced from, and a (rational from a corporation's point of view) fear that those who 3d print their mechs won't buy the forcepacks. While CGL doesn't hold the rights and licenses to the MW5/PGI mech designs, all of those have a design for a mech called the Centurion. That, I think, is where they derive their blanket 'please don't'. Doesn't matter if the STL was ripped from MW5, MWO, or bought in the aforementioned forcepack, the mech is intended to be used as a Centurion mech.
Except that Battletech has long been proxy-friendly. In a situation where you can use a potato chip or a coin to represent that Centurion, having a 3D-print from a different IP holder doesn't matter.
SpinCycleDreadnought wrote: In an ideal world, game developers would put out the models for games as downloadable STLs for a small sum, and we'd all be able to not worry about the morality and ethics of ripped designs.
In an ideal world, such a question wouldn't even need to come up.
SpinCycleDreadnought wrote: In an ideal world, game developers would put out the models for games as downloadable STLs for a small sum, and we'd all be able to not worry about the morality and ethics of ripped designs
In this case, the game developers don't own the IP and probably wouldn't be able to get Microsoft to sign off on it.
In this case, it would be Microsoft, and/or Piranha Games, that would be selling the MWO STLs, while the CGL would be managing the STLs of their designs.
kodos wrote: a company cannot tolerate people selling pirated stuff no matter if is their IP or not
it is that easy, because if they know about it they must do something about it or the IP owner will go after them
Only if you're presenting it or advertising it. If the topic never comes up on something you manage, they have nothing to go after.
But CGL will not be sending people to arrest owners of 3D printers for violating MWO IP nor sending them C&D orders. They have no standing in these cases.
hyperbole does not help here, if you talk openly on their FB channels about buying/selling 3D prints from MWO, it is not on them to send you C&D, but it is on them to remove it and report it to Microsoft so they can send the C&D
if they allow the discussion about it, it is them who will get letters from Microsoft
hence why they say that you are only allowed to bring up stuff that falls under fair use
don't know why this is so hard to understand that it is not CGL trying to send 3D printers to jail but simply they protecting themselves from other companies because some people think just because CGL cannot hinder people from using/selling 3D prints, everyone can openly talk about those via their channels without CGL getting into trouble
kodos wrote: a company cannot tolerate people selling pirated stuff no matter if is their IP or not
it is that easy, because if they know about it they must do something about it or the IP owner will go after them
Only if you're presenting it or advertising it. If the topic never comes up on something you manage, they have nothing to go after.
But CGL will not be sending people to arrest owners of 3D printers for violating MWO IP nor sending them C&D orders. They have no standing in these cases.
hyperbole does not help here, if you talk openly on their FB channels about buying/selling 3D prints from MWO, it is not on them to send you C&D, but it is on them to remove it and report it to Microsoft so they can send the C&D if they allow the discussion about it, it is them who will get letters from Microsoft
hence why they say that you are only allowed to bring up stuff that falls under fair use
don't know why this is so hard to understand that it is not CGL trying to send 3D printers to jail but simply they protecting themselves from other companies because some people think just because CGL cannot hinder people from using/selling 3D prints, everyone can openly talk about those via their channels without CGL getting into trouble
What hyperbole? All I talked about was that they manage what they directly control and nothing else. That's not hyperbole, but stating the facts as they are. Meanwhile, if anyone was presenting hyperbole, it was you with your statement of a lack of toleration.
Nor is CGL under any obligation to notify Microsoft, Piranha Games, or Hare-brained Schemes when someone posts a 3D print of designs they own in something CGL controls. All they have to do is remove it.
I'm just gonna dip on the argument as it's going to go round right round like a record (sheet) baby right round round round.
As for Battletech related discussion, I found an STL of a bunker door designed to be stuck on the good old XPS foam hills/cliffs to act as a facility entrance. It makes me want to make a few pieces of terrain that when combined, create an excavation site of an old SLDF cache/fortress. Having the board provide the 'why are we fighting?' reason for the players. I figure some of the multipart iron wind metals combined with foam 'rocks' in various stages of excavation/disrepair will help sell that look of hasty abandonment from the Exodus fleet.
But CGL will not be sending people to arrest owners of 3D printers
Why should someone even make the connection here that CGL is going physically after people owning 3D prints when they just kindly ask people of not posting/bringing stuff to places CGL owns/operates/host
they make a public announcement that is very clear so they are legally save if anyone else comes up claiming that CGL supports IP violations
the whole thing is pretty much a standard "company wants to be save on social media from other companies because user do stupid things" post and nothing more
But CGL will not be sending people to arrest owners of 3D printers
Why should someone even make the connection here that CGL is going physically after people owning 3D prints when they just kindly ask people of not posting/bringing stuff to places CGL owns/operates/host
Because some people take things to extreme, and that you said,
kodos wrote:a company cannot tolerate people selling pirated stuff no matter if is their IP or not...
That statement of "cannot tolerate" is a bit of hyperbole of your own, and it can be taken to mean more legal action than just removing your posts.
Dysartes wrote: ...that would be the same Mage Leader that Kan commented on earlier, right?
Yes, that's also the video I watched. He presents his theory about what's going on, gives some evidence backing his claims, goes ranting torwards the end. It's up to you if you want to watch it.
M.
keep in mind that while Blaine Pardoe claims he was fired for his politics that's not something that's been confirmed. In fact given what I've been told from those close to the situation, it sounds like it was more Pardoe developed a MAAAAJOR chip on his shoulder and became impossiable to work with.
There was as always many battle tech games happening this weekend but this is the only one i got into. i was requested to be the clans for this fight and a later era was chosen
my side-
.hellstar
.tomahawk
.doom courser (fantastic 3d print i found since the model has not been made officially yet)
.heimdall/XL mars tank point
.protomechs
the Davion lance-
.highlander
.banshee
.thunderbolt
.regulator hover tank
The Steiner lance replete with gauss-
.atlas
.king crab
.marauder II
.thunderbolt.
My tanks and tomahawk flanked left in the open ground and engaged the Davions. while the quad protos and hellstar played hide and seek in the terrain.
An immediate lucky crit took the regulator out of the game. so the banshee ran forward and after a couple turns of alpha strike it detonated it's ammo killing itself, both my tanks and his own thunderbolt. my return fire finished off the highlander.
The other side of the table started a bit harder for my force as the doom courser could not shoot straight for the first half of the game.
The protos really saved the game for me scoring internal damage that cause pilot hits. the crab fell after it's pilot went to sleep taking its final 6th pilot hit, the atlas pilot was asleep on the ground with 5. the marauder II fell and got savaged by the remaining proto mechs.
leaving me with a pretty damaged hellstar and 3 protos facing a single thunderbolt. the bolt decided it was a fight he could not win.
)
