Any particular era? Are they also infantry transports or just tanks? Just IS or are you doing Homeworlds or Invasion Era Clans too?
Generally anything in TRO 3026 (https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Technical_Readout:_3026) is going to be pretty widely available regardless of era. Classic OPFOR choices include things like Scorpions, Maxims for APCs, Vedettes, Hetzers (AC/20 in a cheap cheap package) and the hover trio of Saladin/Scrimitar/Saracen. Warrior is another one if you want to include VTOLs.
For clans my hands down favorite tank is the enyo strike tank. it has decent armor for a clan tank, it's extremely fast and rock a large pulse laser and 3 streak 6's ...but then i am a hells horse player
in the same vain the tyr infantry transport and epona pursuit hovercraft are also on my list.
If you want ridiculous amounts of firepower....but no armor there is always the XL engine variant of the mars assault tank.
On the inner spehere side there are lot more viable options
hovercraft that stand out are the regulator-the flying guass rifle, and the musketeer with it's RAC 5
When it comes to tracked vehicles the Manteuffel rates up there. it is fast decently armored and has a RAC 5, some lasers and most importantly a C3 network slave computer. a buddy of mine runs it in a C3 lance with 3 ajax assault tanks another fine tank
I am a huge fan of the challenger X as a good all around assault tank and one cannot forget the alacorn MK VI triple gauss tank when you want to bring the pain.
i like using goblin infantry support tanks for my battle armor.
for wheeled vehicles the typhoon and shiltron variants are very good.
I would advise against the schrek, it may look good on paper with triple PPCs, but the amount of armor they gave up to fit all those heat sinks makes it less durable than a clan tank.
All are available from iron wind metal , hope that helps out some
I've always viewed vehicles as secondary, and far more likely to be varied by the individual world's manufacturers... so I'm not worried about official versions. With that in mind, Kenner Megaforce is durable, about the right scale and generally pretty cheap. I see 6 tanks shipped for 20 on ebay right now. Micro Machines stuff is a bit too big. They are limited to main gun using tanks though, so you'll probably want something else for your APC and laser and rocket style tanks.
Ogre miniatures make great hovercraft proxies.
Otherwise, the clickytech versions work great and are generally available on the cheap. Bv trader has them for about a buck a vehicle.
So did the clans, until comstar taught them differently on tukayyid.
Gameplay wise while mechs are generally the main focus of the game for coolness factor. the reality is game mechanics wise vehicles are just as viable as mechs (especially if you use the optional max tech level 3 vehicle damage chart like they game designers suggest to keep vehicles from turning into pillboxes).
Lore wise is another matter. vehicles are easier to produce for cash strapped smaller powers. the downside is unlike mechs they require a large trained crew to operate and are limited in their ability to multi-terrain. as an example hovercraft cannot navigate forests, tracked vehicles cannot traverse water hazards etc...
NewTruthNeomaxim wrote: So I have about $100 to burn on vehicles to add to all my BT mechs. Any suggestions on what to get?
Its the wife and my first foray into adding non-Mechs, but as we're starting a campaign, I want a bunch of stuff to represent op-for on missions etc.
Any tips for buying in scale, getting bang for my buck, and any staple vehicles I will definitely want?
Stick to the common generic ones first, with a wide smattering of capabilities.
I will assume you are getting these from Iron Wind metals, if not you might get a better deal. This is how I would spend $100 on generic vehicles. All these will be classic 3025/6 designs.
J-27 carrier plus towed Thumper
https://www.ironwindmetals.com/index.php/categories/cat-battletech/cat-bt-cv/product/battletech-20-741 Basically a vignette you need not use them together, you get some basic artillery (not in 3026) and a generic ammo carrier (i.e objective) that is. Nice bit of background colour and a cost effective and non broken way to get artillery in your games. Hint, pay for the Thumper but leave it off board for easiest use.
All this totals to $102.40. I do not know if you add shipping to that.
Frankly I think you need four Hetzers and Manticores for full platoons of them. I would be comfortable with the numbers of the other units listed above. For further expansion I would suggest Saladin, Scimitar and Pegasus hovercraft, total 8-12 hovercraft, choose which to duplicate. Hovertanks are supposed to be used in numbers, I would sticks to the above basics before adding anything more exotic. I would get the hovertanks in stage 1, but you set the budget.
The last thing to add would be infantry and APC's. Again you don't need many as they are just background colour. I use old Epic Imperial Guard and Rhinos, you may or may not be able to source this, it will require some luck, but Epic sells at random prices, wait until a lot comes up and passes cheaply before buying.
As i said previously BV is irrelevant outside of sanctioned events. the only 2 things that matter or standardized pilots for both sides (clan 3/4 IS 4/5) and the 1.3/1 variable between clan mechs and innersphere forces.
As far as your clan star makeup....looks almost like your playing ice hellions LOL
Especially considering you went for an all close range brawl list with fast lights/mediums (not familiar with the TC loud, out it isn't listed in heavy metal pro). could work well on your built up city map. especially considering all your "medium" lasers are on par with his standard large lasers in range and damage.
My preference for the dragonfly is always the B model(i have had my ass kicked by it enough times by our nova cat player) combined with it's speed it's like a free ERPPC sniper since it will almost never get hit with a (hex) movement of 7/11/7
Also i see no stats on any mech with a CS designation there are 5M's 5S's etc.. but the bolt and champion are set up for brawling as well.
4x Tukayyid Premium BattleMats
2x Strana Mechty Premium BattleMats
2x Comstar Command Level II
2x Comstar Battle Level II
1x ForcePack Legendary Mechwarriors
1x Clan Command Star
1x Clan Heavy Striker Star
1x Clan Fire Star
1x Clan Support Star
2x Clan Heavy Battle Star
2x Clan Heavy Star
2x Clan Striker Star
2x Clan Ad Hoc Star
1x Clan Elemental Star
1x Inner Sphere Command Lance
2x Inner Sphere Direct Fire Lance
1x Inner Sphere Heavy Lance
2x Inner Sphere Heavy Battle Lance
2x Inner Sphere Battle Lance
2x Inner Sphere Fire Lance
2x Inner Sphere Urban Lance
2x Inner Sphere Support Lance
1x Inner Sphere Striker Lance
9x UrbanMechs (+3 Included with Pledge)
Also includes 12 regular savlage boxes and 2 legendary salvage boxes, alongside some assorted miscellany.
Did I mention that the only thing I own for the game so far is AGoAC and have yet to actually play a game? LOL
Wow. Even if the stars align with USPS, by this Saturday I will only have two opposing IS forces of 6-7 mechs each, with 4 of each side being from AGoAC....
I have yet to decide if I do some clan stuff as a third faction.
aphyon wrote: As i said previously BV is irrelevant outside of sanctioned events. the only 2 things that matter or standardized pilots for both sides (clan 3/4 IS 4/5) and the 1.3/1 variable between clan mechs and innersphere forces.
I don't really care about BV. I just think it's interesting as a comparison. As far as pilots go, it's pretty much that, but with a bit of variation, with the leaders of each side being a bit better, and the Rifleman pilot being 4/4 as I feel sorry for that 'Mech (it's not very good! ).
aphyon wrote: As far as your clan star makeup....looks almost like your playing ice hellions LOL
Literally using many of the lighter 'Mechs from the Kickstarter. I wanted to put a Shootist on the ComStar side, but that mini is buried in a case that is buried in my gaming room. The Champion was already out, so it gets to be part of the Level II instead.
aphyon wrote: Especially considering you went for an all close range brawl list with fast lights/mediums (not familiar with the TC loud, out it isn't listed in heavy metal pro). could work well on your built up city map. especially considering all your "medium" lasers are on par with his standard large lasers in range and damage.
TC is a new one from the Battle of Tukayyid book. There are a few Omnis that get it, but in the case of the Ryoken it's a Gauss Rifle, 4 ER Meds, and a Targeting Computer. The TC doesn't stand for Targeting Computer though, it is 'Temporary Configuration'.
aphyon wrote: My preference for the dragonfly is always the B model(i have had my ass kicked by it enough times by our nova cat player) combined with it's speed it's like a free ERPPC sniper since it will almost never get hit with a (hex) movement of 7/11/7
I wanted something with lots of ER Meds, hence the A. And it's even faster than you remember - 8/12/8. I'll see if I can ensure it never gets hit.
aphyon wrote: Also i see no stats on any mech with a CS designation there are 5M's 5S's etc.. but the bolt and champion are set up for brawling as well.
The CS designs are, again, new ones from the recent Tukayyid book. They're "ComStar" configs!
For the Rifleman it's 2 LL and 2 UAC/5's. Doesn't have overheating problems, which is a first.
For the Whammy it's got max armour coverage, ditches the Small Lasers and Machine guns, has double heat sinks, ER PPCs, 4 MLs, 3 Streak 2's rather than an SRM 6 and has 4 JJs.
Finally the Marauder 5CS fiddles with the standard armament to give it DHS, ER PPCs and an LB-10X. Has a pair of Med Pulse Lasers as well. Hilariously the LB-X ammo is in the CT.
Ah CT ammo....that makes ammo explosions "interesting"
That calls for firing off as many shots as you can rather or not you have a good chance of hitting, to dump the ammo. "just in case"
We use the ammo explosion rules form max tech, it makes playing succession wars mechs death on a stick. we killed 17 mechs in one turn via chain ammo explosions and not a bit of C.A.S.E. around to save anybody
Had another game where i was playing the op4 in a scenerio and i tried to get back up after a gyro hit and repeatedly failed my pilot check until i critted my SRM ammo.....destroyed one player mech and severely damaged 2 others.
the player back and forth went like so-
"he you want to surrender (after watching me fall down multiple times)?"
Me-"no i got this!" fall+ammo crit "oops" and WIN! did more damage in one go than i could every do in an alpha strike
The amount of times I've seen a K2 die thanks to it's CT machine gun ammo.
Anyway, the first game is progressing. The speed of my 'Mechs is really playing into my favour, as my opponent has done very little damage to me in about 6 turns (the Koshi is almost done, having lost an arm and with no armour left).
The Dragonfly is about to run off the table to complete part of my objective, and I reckon my Ryoken can take down the Thud this turn (it has almost no CT left).
The Rifleman died much as I expected it would. I tore off a side torso, killing the engine, but we rolled criticals anyway. Ammunition went up. That 'Mech is a crater.
I've been lucky with the Archer as it's only been in a position to fire it's 4 LRM15's three times so far, always hitting on 12+. So no hits thus far.
Puma's a bit beat up thanks to being the only stationary target for a while. The 7 and 8 jumps on the Grendel and Dragonfly (respectively) are very helpful.
Opponent is making good use of partial cover, whereas I'm jumping from woods to woods. We're up very close now, so the +4 from Long Range plus my movement isn't going to help for much longer. That Whammy has a lot of guns.
The Ryoken TC is amazing. 4 ER Mediums is managable heat, and with the Gauss Rifle it just makes that TargComp worth every ton it takes up.
I really wish the Grendel had something with more oomph than the ER Large.
In 3025 I prefered CT ammo, what I didn't like was side torso ammo with no other items in the location. The centre torso never has that problem.
IIRC if the centre torso goes you don't have time to eject, and if you have naked ammo in a side torso your centre torso will still go unless the bin is nearly empty.
Oh, and since the 80's we played a house rule that MG ammo is inert, probably caseless with seperate propellant, with gas expansion provided from the reactor. This also accounts for the crappy range.
ComStar losses were the Rifleman (ammo go asplode!), the Thunderbolt (drilled that thing until it fell over, taking out the last of its CT structure), and the Archer (2 ERML hits to the head). Warhammer and Marauder were quite damaged, and I believe the Champion eventually lost a leg.
Clan losses were the Koshi (it fought the Marauder and Warhammer by itself... it did not survive), and the Puma is near crippled (no armour, into internals everywhere, missing an arm, on 25 heat at the start of the turn.
The Puma is actually lucky, as the Champion managed to get up into its rear arc, at kicking distance, alpha strike (needing 8's for everything), proceed to miss with every shot, and then kick me (needing a 7) and miss with that as well.
Dragonfly made it off the table, and the Ryoken and Grendel (both lightly damaged) were near the edge, choosing to fight on against the Marauder and Warhammer rather than run away like Spheroid cowards.
I am so impressed with the Ryoken TC. I'm very happy with the tiny oven that is the Puma, as being able to put 30 damage down range so accurately is great, even if it can't handle the heat.
Overall the big winner here was speed. 7 jump is lethal when combined with woods and partial cover. Even at short range the ComStar goons were hard pressed to lay a finger on me. The Archer, the thing I was worried about most, never scored a hit all game.
Hopefully we can get to the second game in a few days, where a Level II consisting of a Griffin, Wolverine, Shadow Hawk, Valkyrie and UrbanMech can hold out against a Mad Cat TC, Executioner Prime and a Daishi W.
I think I played a few games of Battletech in the distant past, but I couldn’t really say which version, or whether it was an imitator.
What I do remember is PPG, heat sinks, and models made from an awful wangy, greasy feeling plastic/resin/restic. And the board had a hex grid.
I kinda enjoyed that game, and am hoping someone can point me in the right direction of its rules, and suitable modern models (because I am not dealing with the material described above!)
Edited because I’ve no idea what’s happened to my spelling and grammar today. It seems I forgot how to English gud.
yeah LRM missiles are much less scary in actually game play than they are on paper, unless you got a whole lot of them.
Glad you had fun, i did something similar to a guy who power gamed a lance V lance game with nothing but the biggest assault lance he could take, when i told him there was no BV, i ran my kurita fast heavy /C3 lance, never had less than a +3 mod .
He on the other hand could never get anything better than a +1 if he had a move mod at all.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: I think I played a few games of Battletech in the distant past, but I couldn’t really say which version, or whether it was an imitator.
What I do remember is PPG, heat sinks, and models made from an awful wangy, greasy feeling plastic/resin/restic. And the board had a hex grid.
Sounds like you played the real Battletech!
Although, your description of the minis doesn't narrow it down between 3rd edition or the anniversary box versions...
That would be 3rd edition. The one with the vile plastic Unseen minis; nasty as they are, decades of tweaking and repainting them has made me rather fond of them.
Oh yeah, it has PPCs, not PPGs... You're not on Babylon 5 anymore, Mr. Garibaldi...
Could'a been the PlasTech minis. Those were far worse than anything in the 3rd Ed box (and the Warhammer from that box is awesome, and one of the first minis I owned!).
3rd edition plastics were ok. Not up to other manufacturers of the time even then, but there was a good range of mechs and the sculpts were servicable. I still have mine, with some citytech and Plastech mechs included. I removed the plastic Battlemaster, even though it was a good sculpt, because I included metal assault mechs for theme. So i had two well painted companies of mechs all plastic except for the assaults. It has served as the core of my Battletech collection for best part of three decades and for a long time were the only mechs I had.
Hey, I asked in the Modelling and Painting section as well, but does anyone use any special techniques to prep their 3D printed resin mechs for priming? I just received a great pair of mechs (Atlas, Thanatos) from a seller on Etsy, and they have kind of a "filmy" feel to them, which I immediately noticed while I was going over them to remove any support dots. Should I give them an overall brushing with an Isopropy-soaked toothbrush like how I prep my normal plastic models?
Figured I'd ask in this thread as I see a lot of you guys and gals go the 3D route for some of your mechs, and while I'm a 25+ year painter, I'm brand new to these here new-fangled 3D models.
If there's any sort of film or greasy/soapy feeling to them, I'd give 'em a wash. As long as the cleaning substance doesn't actually dissolve the material they're made of (test on some cut-offs first!), then I think it would be better overall even if it turns out you didn't need to.
AegisGrimm wrote: Hey, I asked in the Modelling and Painting section as well, but does anyone use any special techniques to prep their 3D printed resin mechs for priming? I just received a great pair of mechs (Atlas, Thanatos) from a seller on Etsy, and they have kind of a "filmy" feel to them, which I immediately noticed while I was going over them to remove any support dots. Should I give them an overall brushing with an Isopropy-soaked toothbrush like how I prep my normal plastic models?
Figured I'd ask in this thread as I see a lot of you guys and gals go the 3D route for some of your mechs, and while I'm a 25+ year painter, I'm brand new to these here new-fangled 3D models.
I use lukewarm water and some dish soap with an old, soft toothbrush. Isopropyl alcohol seems really, really harsh on resin or plastic.
No problems on the cleaning front. IPA and a toothbrush took all the tackiness away and now it feels dry as a bone. Now I need to get the big monster painted in the colors of my "probably some sort of Lyran" unit. Even better, the seller sent a failed print of a Thanatos as a freebie, which only needed a quick greenstuff job to resculpt half of a missing heel to make battle-ready. That'll probably end up in my green Capellan Op Force.
Thanks! Unfortunately, I am terrible at quick cell-phone pics unless I have access to my wife's great digital camera, so the lighting washed out all the details and make the mechs look really monotone. The pics don't show it, but on top of drybrushing a couple layers of color over a black primer, I went through with black contrast paint and blacklined every panel line, to hearken back to the old days when I knew some guys who would do it with black India Ink.
Here's some (slightly) better pics of my Liao force, actually inspired by wanting to paint the old studio- official BFG Imperial fleet scheme again:
Kids Logic are doing a new Robotech / Macross Miniatures Game. Details are still thin on the ground, but I know some people use their other models for Battletech.
Easy E wrote: I will wait until it hits retail thanks!
I think many of us have learned hard lessons....
It should be a safe bet - Kids Logic already sell some of the models (store link) and they're carried by other stores such as Aries Games & Miniatures.
Yeah, I mean obviously value depends equally on price as it does content but that's not much in the grand scheme of things. Low model count starters can work spectacularly (X-wing by FFG) though but that seems like the exception rather than the rule.
warboss wrote: Yeah, I mean obviously value depends equally on price as it does content but that's not much in the grand scheme of things. Low model count starters can work spectacularly (X-wing by FFG) though but that seems like the exception rather than the rule.
To be fair, a X-Wing like Macross game would be pretty cool.
warboss wrote: Yeah, I mean obviously value depends equally on price as it does content but that's not much in the grand scheme of things. Low model count starters can work spectacularly (X-wing by FFG) though but that seems like the exception rather than the rule.
To be fair, a X-Wing like Macross game would be pretty cool.
Agreed. But I don't think VF-1 vs Glaug (despite that happening in the cartoon) is the best way to go about that. Maybe a Glaug and two Regults? That way you have three models technically for both factions for set splitters or at least two Glaugs since they're both phsyically bigger and independently usable. Admittedly, I'm coming at this from a decidely consumer perspective.
So 2020 turned out to be a bit of a productive year in working off my pile of shame.
With the Battletech Clan Invasion Kickstarter, I decided to dust off some old Battletech miniatures I had lying around and added some new ones to round out my forces. These were all painted this past year during the great COVID lockdown of 2020.
2nd Sword of Light
Spoiler:
I picked the 2nd Sword of Light because of their involvement in the Kentares massacre, particularly members of the 2nd Battalion who have the Kentares flag painted on their mechs as a reminder of there forebears' actions.
Warrior House Imarra
Spoiler:
I ended up with several suits of Fa-Shih battlearmor when I picked up some Elementals off eBay. I didn't want to take the effort to sell or trade them so I used them to make some augmented lances. The white/green/gold being a welcome change from the red Sword of Light machines.
15th Lyran Guards
Spoiler:
I then decided to do a desert camo scheme. Since there are several FedCom designs, this became a garrison unit on Hesperus II and historically, the 15th Lyran Guards have consistently been there.
Eridani Light Horse - 50th Heavy Cavalry Battalion
Spoiler:
I've always liked the Eridani Light Horse, but I still have a few pieces to round this force out. I've got a Black Hawk, Orion and Victor in the queue. These are the fugly 2nd ed CityTech plastics so they need a little work to make them more presentable.
Team Banzai
Spoiler:
What can I say, I got bored with painting the same colors over and over so I built up a unit with a wild variety of schemes. I still managed to get Macross, Dougram, Star Wars and Transformers inspired schemes into the mix.
I like the PXH painted up like Jetfire. I had plans to do the same thing with my new one as well. It's great when you paint mech unit where you can get away with things like that.
I think the 2 funniest ones were an urbie painted up like the love bug and a classic stalker painted as a large throbbing purple headed .....uh well i think you an figure it out.
I once painted a ryoken like a construction mech. some of the best cammo i ever did because it worked. it became a running joke in our group....oh that, don't worry about that it's just a construction mech with a rivet gun and some laser cutters.
Thanks for the comments. I feel like your opponents only have themselves to blame if they disregarded the Ryoken. The thing is a beast regardless of how it is painted and you need to treat it with respect.
Anyways, here is the rest of the mechs I completed in 2020.
Black Widow Company/Battalion
Spoiler:
I started with the core from the original Tales of the Black Widow book and built up from there. The assaults are detached from Zeta Battalion.
Ghost Bears Omega Galaxy
Spoiler:
Some frontline clan units
Ghost Bears Tau Galaxy
Spoiler:
Some secondline clan units
Planetary Militia
Spoiler:
Some leftovers and mostly crappy units that don't fit anywhere else.
As someone who's been interested in battletech as a setting and a game for a couple years now I've gotta say that reading up on the current storyline with ilclan coming up I'm thoroughly less interested.
it isn't like 40K where everybody is forced to play the new edition because the core rules set does not change and has not really changed in over 30 years aside from a few charts and a few fixes like making AMS systems go from using 1 ammo for every missile it shoots down (out of like 12 ammo)to 1 ammo for every time it engages a flight of missiles for a fixed -4 on the cluster table.
Our favorite era is towards the end of the fedcom civil war since the options for clan and IS units as well as theaters of combat are expansive.
aphyon wrote: you do realize you can play any era right?
it isn't like 40K where everybody is forced to play the new edition because the core rules set does not change and has not really changed in over 30 years aside from a few charts and a few fixes like making AMS systems go from using 1 ammo for every missile it shoots down (out of like 12 ammo)to 1 ammo for every time it engages a flight of missiles for a fixed -4 on the cluster table.
Our favorite era is towards the end of the fedcom civil war since the options for clan and IS units as well as theaters of combat are expansive.
Yes, and everything that you do now feels hollow and meaningless because you know the ultimate outcome. That's the inherant issue.
I want to like Battle Tech, but the narrative decisions that they have made really rub me the wrong way.
I understand that's somewhat petty, but it's the way I feel.
The trick with approaching BT is to act as if it's a historical game.
People play Bolt Action, Flames of War and Axis and Allies, even though we all know what the end result is. Hey, enough people turned out to watch Titanic, even though they knew how that was going to end. I'm not a meanie, so I'm not going to spoil it here...
Personally, I only care for the 3025-3060 ish period in BT. I have no interest in this Dark Age/ilclan stuff and that's fine. I'm not doing it "wrong", some people are even more restrictive on the time period that they're into - they're not wrong, either. This is why I love BT.
Plasma Cannons? Witchcraft, I tell you! Witchcraft!
aphyon wrote: you do realize you can play any era right?
it isn't like 40K where everybody is forced to play the new edition because the core rules set does not change and has not really changed in over 30 years aside from a few charts and a few fixes like making AMS systems go from using 1 ammo for every missile it shoots down (out of like 12 ammo)to 1 ammo for every time it engages a flight of missiles for a fixed -4 on the cluster table.
Our favorite era is towards the end of the fedcom civil war since the options for clan and IS units as well as theaters of combat are expansive.
Yes, and everything that you do now feels hollow and meaningless because you know the ultimate outcome. That's the inherant issue.
I want to like Battle Tech, but the narrative decisions that they have made really rub me the wrong way.
I understand that's somewhat petty, but it's the way I feel.
It's all about perspective. I totally agree, playing through something that has already happened, and is fully known like Tukkayid is technically challenging because of the maps and special rules, but feels meaningless- it's not like they can win!
But then take a look at the HBS Battletech game. We take a tiny periphery nation, that we know won't be around in 3050, and will never matter on a galactic scale. Then we get caught up in the drama of the deposed dynasty attempting to seize their tiny little star nation back. There's room for everything out there in the edges of space, or on dozens of minor worlds that never saw a Davion or Kurita. Shrapnel is a really good read to get in that mindset- it's all canon, yes, but ultimately meaningless to the larger storyline. And it is still compelling and exciting!
First minis painted this year are two sets of the ten mechs available in AGoAC + Beginner Box. Some pals had been painting the old starter box mechs for fun and it motivated me. So we got together a played a bit last night, too.
What is this Fedcom civil war everyone keeps talking about, there is no lore after Tukayvid, everything else is an illusion.
For those who don't know, happened after Victor Davion went off to war against the Clans and Refuse their Invasion.
One of the Steiner-Davion sisters thought she should be ruler, and took on the duties of Archon after Mommy died. Victor let her since he didn't want a scuffle while the Clans were eager to play patty-cake.
After Victor got back, their brother who was sitting on New Avalon's Princely throne apparently got dead through obviously nefarious means. Victor blamed sister. Sister blamed Victor. Many people who supported either decided that something needed to be done and so much shooting happened till Sister left Tharkad to run off and have fun times with a Wolf Khan.
I really want to get to work on painting my 'Mechs. They seem, at least on the outside, to be something that should be relatively simple.
Plus it'll be fun getting them into the different factions I have. My plan is to take my IS 'Mechs, split them into 5 groups (so, if I have 5 of a specific 'Mech, I put one in each group).
Two groups get painted blue (Davion), two groups get painted red (Kurita) and the third (and smallest) group gets to be green (Liao).
Only exceptions would be faction-specific 'Mechs (ie. I'm not going to paint one of my two Sha Yu's in Davion or Kuritan colours).
Same applies to my Clan stuff, except there it's more a case of most of the Omni's get to be green (Falcons), and some of the Omni's and all of the 2nd Line get to be light blue (Bears).
HBMC, your plan is essentially what I did with my plastic mechs above.
I painted one set a bluish green and gave them some blue trim while the other set is a dusty desert color with some red trim. This means they are not necessarily locked into House colors (e.g., bright red Sword of Light) but they are pretty identifiably on different teams and could more or less represent a Davion or Lyran force on one hand and a Kurita force on the other.
From washing the minis to sealing them, I finished on Saturday afternoon after starting Friday night — and I am no speed painter. You can see the pic above in greater resolution from gallery page (as Dakka automatically resizes them in-thread).
This was a variation on the third scenario in the AGoAC rulebook. In our version, the defenders had a Thunderbolt and Catapult at the far side of two map sheets laid end-to-end and two Commandos at the other. The attackers had an Awesome, Griffin, and Wolverine and got to choose which map sheet to start on, i.e., which group to fight first. The objective was to destroy or cripple all the mechs of the opposing force.
Attackers chose to take on the heavies, leaving the Commandos to barrel across the field for the first handful of turns. The Awesome tanked the lion’s share of the damage but the Thunderbolt and Catapult didn’t take any particularly big hits. The Commandos made it into action just in time for the Awesome to go down but not before the Awesome nearly melted half of one of the Commandos. Meanwhile, the Wolverine piled in on the Tbolt for a big right hook but got focused fired by nearly everything on the field.
We had to wrap up there as it was getting late.
I would really like to find some scenarios (note: NOT campaign tracks) that involve something other than destroying each other. Raiding a resource depot, holding an objective, escorting a convoy, whatever — anyone know specifically where I can find generic (i.e., not tied to a specific campaign, “historical” or otherwise) scenarios like these?
I would really like to find some scenarios (note: NOT campaign tracks) that involve something other than destroying each other. Raiding a resource depot, holding an objective, escorting a convoy, whatever — anyone know specifically where I can find generic (i.e., not tied to a specific campaign, “historical” or otherwise) scenarios like these?
I miss any night of Battletech Blast you COVID!! Anyway, yeah so I have my sourcebooks at hand. Lots of tables, lots of charts, much player and GM involvement. The big book (Total Warfare) gives you a list of general encounter types (Standup Fight, Hide and Seek, Hold the Line, Extraction, Breakthrough, and Chase). You can narratively explain almost anything and have it fall into the above.
Field Manual: Mercenaries (Revised) lists contracts as: Covert; Special; Planetary Assault; Riot Duty; Extraction Raid; Pirate Hunting; Security Detail; Objective Raid; Garrison Duty; or Cadre Duty. It then goes on to tell you to just roll on the Total Warfare list for the actual scenario to be played.
The first edition Mechwarrior RPG book has some...narrative-like tables and charts that 'could' be used. Frequency of encounters: Garrison-every 2 weeks, Assault-every week, Raiding-every week, Relief-every week, Pacification-every 2 weeks. There's a Battlefield Encounter table that can generate a random narrative descriptions. It includes: Enemy patrol, Enemy assault force, ambush, water source, aerospace fighter attack, intelligence report, artillery attack, equipment malfunction, attack by natives, interesting NPC, Natural disaster, Bad weather, Assault mission, Recon mission, and Static Anti-Mech. Honestly the original Mechwarrior RPG book is great if you want to have a more narrative feel to your games/campaign. The book even has the tables and means for you to totally throw out the cannon universe and roll up a whole new timeline. I've run multiple campaigns like this and can attest that it's a lot of fun.
You can also just use the videogames as a point of inspiration. Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries, Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries, Mechwarrior 4: Black Knight, and the Hairbrained Schemes Battletech are great for anything inner sphere. MegaMek's MekHQ is a fabulous resource for running a merc campaign. It can randomly generate all sorts of scenarios and victory conditions. You just need to fudge the unit lists obviously for what units you actually own (or just proxy whatever you need).
Hope that gets some creative juices flowing. Shoot me a PM if you want more opinions or info.
(TLDR; Everything you need is in the Total Warfare book.)
I would really like to find some scenarios (note: NOT campaign tracks) that involve something other than destroying each other. Raiding a resource depot, holding an objective, escorting a convoy, whatever — anyone know specifically where I can find generic (i.e., not tied to a specific campaign, “historical” or otherwise) scenarios like these?
You can always make your own. i did a custom scenario where a light force had to raid a research facility. it required the attackers to get infantry via IFVs into the base complex and hold it for a specified number of turns to "recover" the intel. they only had a couple of medium mechs backing them up against a security force of perimeter walls, light vehicles and 3 or 4 urban mechs.
It was a blast.
if you want something with a bit more framework there are many books that have "historical" battles you can choose from.
with (historical turning point) books for places like galtor, glengarry and misery to name a few.
1 v 2 players. Clan Nova vs two ComStar Level II's, defending a supply base. Quite a close game, tipped in our favour by a lucky double PPC headshot to the Star Captain's Gladiator (and then again later on to their Thor).
Will post the full details (and a couple of quick photos) when I get home. All I'll say for now is that Elementals make approaching Clan 'Mechs really tough (Elementals are also very hard to kill).
Clan Ghost Bear: Gladiator F Mad Cat Prime Thor Prime Loki B Vulture Prime 5 Points of Small Laser Elementals
ComStar:
1st Level II AWS-9M Awesome MAD-5D Marauder TDR-9SE Thunderbolt GRF-3M Griffon PHX-XXXX Phoenix Hawk (MixTech with a Clan ER PPC and SSRM4) COM-2D Commando
2nd Level II BLR-3M Battlemaster WHM-7CS Warhammer ARC-4M Archer WVR-7M Wolverine VLK-QD Valkyrie UM-R65X UrbanMech (Custom design with DHS, ENO, LB-10X and 2 MLs - no faster than normal though!)
Scenario was pretty simple:
We are defending a munitions base, half our forces our out on patrol, arriving at the start of Turn 4.
We started with the Awesome, Marauder, Thunderbolt, Battlemaster, Warhammer and Urbie on the table. All the Elementals were using the Omnis as taxis.
The dice weren't with the Clan player for a lot of the game, and we had some good luck on our side (like double head-shotting the Gladiator with PPCs). We did eventually start to get whittled down, my Whammy going first, but by the time the Elementals got into range our reinforcements had arrived. I also couldn't pass a piloting check to save myself.
The Thor also good some good shots to the head and went down, and the Loki got cored by the reinforcements lining up behind it. Elementals managed to detonate the SRM ammo in the Awesome's legs, taking that out. Elementals are very dangerous. Amazingly, despite being targeted more than once, the Urbie survived. Missing a hip, and with armour only on its right arm, but still alive.
A couple of pics of late in the game (just before the Thor went down and the Awesome was turned into a mushroom cloud):
Spoiler:
Things I learnt from the game:
1. Never count an Urbie out! 2. Elementals are the ultimate screen for stopping melee attacks on 'Mechs. 3. There are no good Valkyrie variants. 4. LRM20's are always dangerous. 5. Despite being a terrible 'Mech, the Loki stood up to way more than it was meant to. 6. The speed of those original 4 Clan heavies gives them such a major advantage over the IS, even with the updated technology. 7. I tend to favour PPCs over ER PPCs on IS units, but I'm beginning to think that the lack of minimum range on the ER version is worth the extra heat. 8. The WVR-7M Wolverine is a bloody weird thing. Two ERLLs in one arm?
I'm more of a fan of the kurita loadouts for the wolverine.
The 7K for in close brawling with jump jets and all those pulse lasers. my overall favorite the 8K has good heat management and a good mix of weapons. but then again i run them in my 2nd deiron regulars force so it lends itself to the mountain fighting style of the unit.
Also when you said valkyrie...i was thinking of the unseen full armored valkyrie AKA the crusader, specifically the 8s...65 tons with a heavy gauss rifle...so much love steiner style.
H.B.M.C. wrote: So far the suggestions for a better Valkyrie have been:
1. Crusader.
2. Locust.
... neither of which are a Valkyrie.
So that kinda proves my point, right?
What's the problem with the Valkyrie, though? For a 30-tonner FS mech, it's not that bad... 5/8/5, nine points of armor short of full coverage, 12 shots for the LRM and a med laser just in case... I mean, yes, you could strip the eleventh HS, for example, and get more ammo and/or full armor, for example, but for what it is, the SucWars version doesn't really seem too bad. The Clan Invasion refit is basically exactly the same but with full armor and adding nonsense as na Artemis-IV for a LRM-10 and the MPL instead of two meds... but still, I wouldn't call it total garbage. The QD1 with a LRM-15 with Artemis and 16 shots should also work as a FS solution, even though it has a XL engine...
H.B.M.C. wrote: So far the suggestions for a better Valkyrie have been:
1. Crusader.
2. Locust.
... neither of which are a Valkyrie.
So that kinda proves my point, right?
What's the problem with the Valkyrie, though? For a 30-tonner FS mech, it's not that bad... 5/8/5, nine points of armor short of full coverage, 12 shots for the LRM and a med laser just in case... I mean, yes, you could strip the eleventh HS, for example, and get more ammo and/or full armor, for example, but for what it is, the SucWars version doesn't really seem too bad. The Clan Invasion refit is basically exactly the same but with full armor and adding nonsense as na Artemis-IV for a LRM-10 and the MPL instead of two meds... but still, I wouldn't call it total garbage. The QD1 with a LRM-15 with Artemis and 16 shots should also work as a FS solution, even though it has a XL engine...
I mean, what are we expecting, here?
Not all light mechs are created equal
If i have to bring a 30 ton light mech i much prefer to bring an anubis 3t
ER large laser/X2 ER medium lasers, 1 ER small laser and an ECM
If i have to bring a 30 ton light mech i much prefer to bring an anubis 3t
ER large laser/X2 ER medium lasers, 1 ER small laser and an ECM
Or a slightly slower razorback 9t
ER PPC, X4 ER medium lasers.
MechCommander 2 fan?
aphyon wrote: Remember with ironwind they have HUNDREDS of battetech minis, many that have been moved to the "archive" online only made to order status page.
H.B.M.C. wrote: So far the suggestions for a better Valkyrie have been:
1. Crusader.
2. Locust.
... neither of which are a Valkyrie.
So that kinda proves my point, right?
What's the problem with the Valkyrie, though? For a 30-tonner FS mech, it's not that bad... 5/8/5, nine points of armor short of full coverage, 12 shots for the LRM and a med laser just in case... I mean, yes, you could strip the eleventh HS, for example, and get more ammo and/or full armor, for example, but for what it is, the SucWars version doesn't really seem too bad. The Clan Invasion refit is basically exactly the same but with full armor and adding nonsense as na Artemis-IV for a LRM-10 and the MPL instead of two meds... but still, I wouldn't call it total garbage. The QD1 with a LRM-15 with Artemis and 16 shots should also work as a FS solution, even though it has a XL engine...
I mean, what are we expecting, here?
Not all light mechs are created equal
If i have to bring a 30 ton light mech i much prefer to bring an anubis 3t
ER large laser/X2 ER medium lasers, 1 ER small laser and an ECM
Or a slightly slower razorback 9t
ER PPC, X4 ER medium lasers.
No, they're not. Would the game be better if they were? For starters, the Valk is a fire support light, whereas the Anubis 3T is, funnily enough, a laserboat. Direct fire versus indirect fire support. It is also a fast mech, but with no jump capability, less armored and ports a very delicate XL IS engine. And well, in-setting it's many centuries more modern.
Razorback is once again a new tech laserboat from TRO 3067. I personally find that era's designs uninspired and samey, TBH.
I kinda fail to understand what would make these two comparable, to be honest. Wouldn't it have been better to compare the Valk with the regular Anubis, which ports 4 LRM/5s? Of course, it can only shot six times each, but it's much more comparable, filling the same niche and all.
Well i have never been a fan of putting ammo based weapons on light mechs aside from streaks and machineguns (piranha i love you) especially not small LRM salvos given how random the damage output is with LRMs.
So i would be hard pressed to give a comparison to the valkyrie to fill that role. close would be the arctic fox D but it lacks any backup weapons to make up for its large salvo size.
aphyon wrote: Well i have never been a fan of putting ammo based weapons on light mechs aside from streaks and machineguns (piranha i love you) especially not small LRM salvos given how random the damage output is with LRMs.
So i would be hard pressed to give a comparison to the valkyrie to fill that role. close would be the arctic fox D but it lacks any backup weapons to make up for its large salvo size.
That is of course another thing altogether ^^, but setting wise those are battlefield roles that are used, and mechs are designed for ir, so I was under the assumption that the idea was that the Valkyrie was a poor mech for that role.
aphyon wrote: My favorite mix is 3 mech points, 1 protomech point and 1 point of (2)vehicles. i usually switch between my enyo stike tanks (best tracked clan tanks IMHO ), garuda helicopters, or my xerxes aerospace fighters.
Sorry for going back to an old post, but what models are you using for the Garuda?
Is that the plastic variant by the spin-off company that they were discussing in the kickstarter updates a couple months back? Looks awesome, whens it go up for sale??
chaos0xomega wrote: Is that the plastic variant by the spin-off company that they were discussing in the kickstarter updates a couple months back? Looks awesome, whens it go up for sale??
Yes - Blaine Lee Pardoe & Brent Evans' company. The last update was 27th Jan:
A quick update from the brain-trust at Creative Juggernaut. We are working on getting the molds perfected for the limited run BattleMechs. Quality is key with us so we appreciate your patience.
I'm a little concerned that as they're a limited run and distributed by CGL they won't be widely available.
Yeah, I did some digging, they are "limited production" but not "limited edition" - i.e. they will keep producing the minis (and expand the product range) as long as people keep buying them, but each production run will be small so as to not produce more minis than there exists demand for them.
Really hope this is a new TRO and not a collection of bits from previous TROs or a rehash like the recent three (Succession Wars, Clan Invasion and Jihad).
Statistics and Record Sheets are included for 25 new IndustrialMech MODs, Security- and MilitiaMechs, support vehicles, and their variants ready for play.
... plus it coming out alongside an Era Digest make me think this is brand new material
Also, seems like this will be POD, so probably not aimed at the same market as the rehash TROs.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Really hope this is a new TRO and not a collection of bits from previous TROs or a rehash like the recent three (Succession Wars, Clan Invasion and Jihad).
It's a bit dated, but thank you so much for this recommendation. My mess of tanks and other vehicles arrived from Khurasan today. I ordered them on the 25th of February, so that was less than a week from purchase to delivery. I was delighted to discover that they are completely metal, and the perfect size. I highly recommend them.
Speaking of companies that make tiny miniatures, does anyone know if this place still takes orders? They make some interesting things, but their website makes me feel like they're a relic of the Geocities days.
I believe so, HBMC. DFA Wargaming mentions getting stuff from them in their vids and I think they pay for ad space on Sarna.net. Speaking of DFA Wargaming, there is another small company (with a very similar name) that you may want to check out, depending in what you are after (terrain right?):
Manchu wrote: Speaking of DFA Wargaming, there is another small company (with a very similar name) that you may want to check out, depending in what you are after (terrain right?):
H.B.M.C. wrote: Speaking of companies that make tiny miniatures, does anyone know if this place still takes orders? They make some interesting things, but their website makes me feel like they're a relic of the Geocities days.
Yes - they've been advertising the new version of their Mech Hanger on Facebook recently.
aphyon wrote: currently i get most of my stuff from brigade miniatures.
If you mean, Brigade Models, this is the route I took as well. Got a big mess of their 10mm buildings because I also want to use them with Heavy Gear and my 10mm Horizon Wars project. And some 10mm plastic CAV terrain, which is super great stuff and very affordable.
H.B.M.C. wrote: So far the suggestions for a better Valkyrie have been:
1. Crusader.
2. Locust.
... neither of which are a Valkyrie.
So that kinda proves my point, right?
I like the Valkyrie, it had it's place in 3025, which is where I spend most of my time. Fast enough and with a fair bit of throw weight yet not broken. LRM10 is heavy, but is the price you pay for not cheesing the design and taking 2x LRM5 which is superior in every way. Locust M gets a pass as 'arm' weapons must be symmetrical, its part of the Locust design and the mech pays for it with paper armour. The Howler is not forgiven it's cheese though.
BattleTech wrote:Continuing our series of print-on-demand revivals of long-out-of-print sourcebooks, we're pleased to offer one of our longtime favorites, Historical: Operation Klondike - now available in PDF and POD at http://ow.ly/mjpl50DPqls
I have to admit that I have never been a fan of the really humanoid mechs. They just look like 28mm power-armored figures, to me. Especially the Black Knight. It looks like some of the scifi games where the footsoldiers have techno-medieval body armor.
The humanoid mechs with asymmetrical weapon features lessen the effect for me (like Thunderbolts, or a Shadowhawk), but I usually gravitate more towards the digitigrade mechs, like a Timber Wolf, Locust, etc. They feel more like walking tanks.
That being said, the new Black Knight is a really neat looking figure, as far as details and proportions are. Is it resin, or restic, like the other Catalyst mechs?
Just got an email from CGL about them launching their new web site, and the first four ForcePacks are on there:
Inner Sphere Command Lance: Marauder, Archer, Valkyrie, and Stinger.
Clan Command Star: Dire Wolf, Summoner, Stormcrow, Mist Lynx, Shadow Cat
Inner Sphere Battle Lance: Warhammer, Rifleman, Phoenix Hawk, Wasp
Clan Heavy Striker Star: Gargoyle, Hellbringer, Mad Dog, Ice Ferret, and Viper
Heck yeah, it'll be nice to see them hit retail. I was able to get all of the IS Lance Pack mechs (other than an Archer) from an online seller selling them individually, but his stock is very infrequent. I've been waiting for stock to come back long enough, I am probably just going to get a 3D printed Archer off Etsy, instead.
- prime with Tamiya white
- all-over single base coat with Apothecary White
- watered-down Army Painter Dark Tone
- drybrush with Wraithbone
- drybrush with Ceramite White
I’m sure TAP white primer would work fine. As for Nuln Oil, it’s an actual black wash whereas TAP Dark Tone seems to really be a very, very dark brown. It may not be the biggest deal but the reason I went with the later is to give the models some color. This is the same reason I drybrushed with Wraithbone before Ceramite White. The overall effect is, it looks more “real” (for lack of a better term) because it isn’t so stark/greyscale.
Army Painter tone washes are great, but 'watered down dark tone'. What's the difference between that and soft tone?
Tamiya
H.B.M.C. wrote: Could Army Painter white primer and diluted Nuln Oil substitute in there?
Tamiya Fine White is the best primer on the market for preserving detail, but it's a little expensive and the cans are small. I have some but reserve it for special projects. Army Painter cans are almost as good.
I do recommend you get Army painter tone washes, but if you want to replicate Dark Tone mix Nuln Oil with Agrax Earthshade, then dilute. It wont be quite the same though. GW washes have a specific purpose to them, and are very good at what they do and this is not it.
TAP Soft, Strong, and Dark Tone are all IME better at creating the impression of shadow than Agrax Earthshade or Nuln Oil. I used the latter two for grime, soot, grease, and yes oil. GW’s sepia is close to Soft Tone. I don’t think GW has a Dark Tone equivalent.
If you are unaware, our little company (Creative Juggernaut) is working on producing variant ‘Mechs for BattleTech in limited production runs. To address your questions up-front – I do not have a date when they will be available yet (though rumor has it that the Black Knight’s are done. Don’t tell Brent I told you that though – that’s our secret!) They will be sold through the Catalyst website – we have to for licensing reasons. No, I do not know what the final price will be. In many respects, I am a cog in this machine, and in the case of minis, a pretty insignificant cog.
Brent sent me along a Stormcrow kit so I could paint it up. This comes with the arm fitted with the pulse lasers, and the option of fitting it out with the gauss rifle or the autocannon. I opted for the AC20 because I like using one when I play.
You will see the production baggie (ohh…ziplock!) and the components.
Its like the prize inside the cereal box when you were a kid
The only clean up I did to the parts was with my bare hands, rubbing off a tiny bit of flash. I wanted to duplicate what a gamer might do if he wanted to put in the minimum effort and get the mini into battle quickly.
It fit together pretty well. I uplifted one leg slightly, I like the look of my mini’s as if they are moving. I angled the arms a little on-purpose. Not sure if I like that or not. I’m sure some Senior Tech in the Clan will have my hide for that.
For paint, I used the airbrush to do a layer of black, then gray on the bottom, dark blue, with the top being light blue. I was going for a Ghost Bear look, doing a reversal of the Omicron Galaxy paint scheme. Why Ghost Bears? Because they have some wonderful colors to work with…and they are Ghost Bears! Seriously, I would love to tell you there was some reason for this, but there wasn’t other than I thought it was a neat look. The layering of the paints did a lot of the work for me and the base coat of black took care of the recessed areas. I avoided doing a wash simply because I liked the effect I came up with.
Total paint time for this mini was 22 minutes – the vast majority of which was cleaning the airbrush between color changes. I added some decals, but right now I lack Ghost Bear decals, so I kept it simple.
Overall, I love the results. The ‘Mech is very airbrush friendly and can be posed with little effort. Let me know what you think in the comments below. Enjoy!
Automatically Appended Next Post: The main thing from this for me is: "They will be sold through the Catalyst website – we have to for licensing reasons". I'm in the UK so they might be a pain to get hold of.
So, in another step in my quest of using the crappy RRT plastic mechas for something (because I have a ton, dammit), I've started to play around with meklab to design appropiate designs for the VFs.
...because you can't really use them as Stingers and Wasps. I mean, FFS:
Just no.
So I've decided to create suitable 3025 era "Super Stinger/Wasp" designs that are big enough but mainly port the little guys capabilities on a heavier frame. For now I've decided on 55 tonners, mostly because that's the upper limit of mediums and because 55 tonners give you the most options.
My current versions are these:
"Super" Wasp:
Spoiler:
Trying to keep the movement as close to the 20 tonners as possible while upgrading the weapons, but keeping everything mostly in the same place.
"Super" Stinger:
Spoiler:
Same idea, but exact same movement rates and better armor than the above one.
What do you think, would these work? I mean, they aren't horrible or anything as such, but mayb it would be worth to lower the armor and make them kinda flimsy for 55 tonners, while upgrading the jumping distance for the wasp and heat sinks for both.
Albertorius wrote: So, in another step in my quest of using the crappy RRT plastic mechas for something (because I have a ton, dammit), I've started to play around with meklab to design appropiate designs for the VFs.
...because you can't really use them as Stingers and Wasps. I mean, FFS:
Just no.
So I've decided to create suitable 3025 era "Super Stinger/Wasp" designs that are big enough but mainly port the little guys capabilities on a heavier frame. For now I've decided on 55 tonners, mostly because that's the upper limit of mediums and because 55 tonners give you the most options.
My current versions are these:
"Super" Wasp:
Trying to keep the movement as close to the 20 tonners as possible while upgrading the weapons, but keeping everything mostly in the same place.
"Super" Stinger:
Same idea, but exact same movement rates and better armor than the above one.
What do you think, would these work? I mean, they aren't horrible or anything as such, but mayb it would be worth to lower the armor and make them kinda flimsy for 55 tonners, while upgrading the jumping distance for the wasp and heat sinks for both.
Probably would be better if I spoilered iy myself too, come to think of it.
Anyways, @Theophony, not a bad idea, actually xD.
My idea, though, would be to make designs that would fit with the TRO 3025 mindset of not-at-all perfect machines with interesting defects: right now they look like decent recon lance commanders, underarmed, but nimble and decently armored (but retaining the ammo traps: the stinger can blow up spectacularly with that ton of MG ammo in the CT).
Just picked up the new IS lance packs(not like i need more mechs...but they are re-release of unseens ) and did a quick paint up for the 10th lyran guards, 2nd swords of light and 2nd deiron regulars.
Easy E wrote: @Aphyon- Dang, that made me want that Lance pack now too! Good work on them!
Yeah being an old school player i have a bunch of the original un-seens but i never had the original rifleman, archer, warhammer or marauder. so picking up these packs was a thing i could not resist. especially with the quality of these new plastics.
I already picked up the starter box with 8 mechs to get more un-seens like the (another) wolverine, shadow hawk, thunderbolt etc...
The nice thing about battletech minis is they don't take long to paint unless you want to do some serious detail like the guys on cammo specs.
So a fun little thing tonight-using heavy metal pro and a bit of gundam reseach i made gundam compatible record sheets for playing battletech gundam in the larger toy scale.
Are those the same size as the current action figures.
My son has some of those and they're in the same scale as the 1/144 HG kits.
Its fascinating that you its the same cost to play with 6 inch posable HG kits as with 1.5 inch metal miniatures.
They are the mobile suits in action toy line.
I just went online, checked the stats and used heavymetal pro to build the mechs to the best assimilation of the loadouts and performance of the mobile suits in the battletech system.
the GM customs for example is 60 tons with an ultra AC5, a head mounted set of machineguns, a sword and a torso mounted cockpit, XL engine and jump jets.
keeping in line with the fact that gundam mecha are incredibly agile and lightly armored for their tonnage compared to classic battletech.
We then just run them using the 3d terrain rules (1 hex=2") as heavy metal pro allows you to automatically print the sheets out in that scale.
I have also seen players re-purpose the hero clicks version of the battletech minis using the same system.
Are those the same size as the current action figures.
My son has some of those and they're in the same scale as the 1/144 HG kits.
Its fascinating that you its the same cost to play with 6 inch posable HG kits as with 1.5 inch metal miniatures.
They are the mobile suits in action toy line.
I just went online, checked the stats and used heavymetal pro to build the mechs to the best assimilation of the loadouts and performance of the mobile suits in the battletech system.
the GM customs for example is 60 tons with an ultra AC5, a head mounted set of machineguns, a sword and a torso mounted cockpit, XL engine and jump jets.
keeping in line with the fact that gundam mecha are incredibly agile and lightly armored for their tonnage compared to classic battletech.
We then just run them using the 3d terrain rules (1 hex=2") as heavy metal pro allows you to automatically print the sheets out in that scale.
I have also seen players re-purpose the hero clicks version of the battletech minis using the same system.
Thanks for that!
Do you have an aproximate height for those guys? Looks like they are different (and possibly differently sized) than the current Tamashii Nations brand figures my son has.
I'm a big fan of the Mechwarrior Clix figures myself but I rebase them and use them for Alpha Strike or the rules-lite generic "Mech Attack!" rulesets. They're great for club and home play, though I prefer to break out my big (approximately 25-28mm) scale stuff for conventions.
Even more impressive, Blaine Lee Pardoe confirmed that they can create more when it sells out- for once in their life Catalyst Games will have a regular restock.
Gitzbitah wrote: Even more impressive, Blaine Lee Pardoe confirmed that they can create more when it sells out- for once in their life Catalyst Games will have a regular restock.
Yes - one of the reasons they were looking for a US manufacturer was to increase availably.
I've just noticed he's said they "are plastic resin" - hopefully they're better than Mantic's stuff!
Pretty, but i don't have to spend any cash on those since i already own most of them, and they are not un-seens that got me to buy the first 2 IS packs.
Oooh! Another chance to salivate I mean research over the impending glories of the kickstarter.
So Inner Sphere Assaults in the kickstarter, by package
Direct Fire Lance
Atlas, Marauder II
Heavy Lance
Banshee
Fire Lance
Longbow, Stalker, Zeus
Batlle Lance
Nightstar
Urban Lance
Victor
Support
Cyclops, Thug
Comstar Command Level II
King Crab, Highlander
Comstar Battle Level II
Crocket
All told, 13 new plastic sculpts of Inner Sphere Assault Mechs. What I won't do is go find pictures- there's too many updates, and kickstarter's interface is not friendly enough for that.
Gitzbitah wrote: What I won't do is go find pictures- there's too many updates, and kickstarter's interface is not friendly enough for that.
One of the weaknesses of this KS is their photography skills and image management. Anthony Scroggins' Patreon has a lot of the sketches and renders on it.
Gitzbitah wrote: Oooh! Another chance to salivate I mean research over the impending glories of the kickstarter.
So Inner Sphere Assaults in the kickstarter, by package
Direct Fire Lance
Atlas, Marauder II
Heavy Lance
Banshee
Fire Lance
Longbow, Stalker, Zeus
Batlle Lance
Nightstar
Urban Lance
Victor
Support
Cyclops, Thug
Comstar Command Level II
King Crab, Highlander
Comstar Battle Level II
Crocket
All told, 13 new plastic sculpts of Inner Sphere Assault Mechs. What I won't do is go find pictures- there's too many updates, and kickstarter's interface is not friendly enough for that.
And when did those become available to purchase?
They may have been in the Kickstarter, but for general sale? The heaviest Inner Sphere mechs outside the starter boxes have been the Warhammer and Marauder.
I look forward to those new boxes coming out, but until then, the only way to get the new inner sphere mechs on Assault weight is to pretend that Marauder is a Marauder II.
Ah, my apologies then, Christoph, I misunderstood your question. You are correct that none of the force packs presently at retail include Inner Sphere Assault mechs.
Nurglitch wrote: Superseded by Total Warfare, first published back in 2006.
More like Tactical Operations. Total Warfare (gameplay rules) and Technical Manual (construction rules) are the modern equivalent of the Battletech Compendiums.
That book's 24 years old! I think things have progressed since then.
Incorrect the only difference is a change to the damage chart for vehicles. mostly moving the 4 locations for motive critical hits from location #3 on each side for a grand total of 4 to 3 per side for a grand total of 12 making vehicles almost instantly immobilized and not worth taking.
Even the rules in total warfare explained that they re-did the vehicle damage chart to make them purposely LESS effective to focus more on the mechs, even going so far as to recommend using the old rules for players that want to make vehicles more effective such as max tech level 3 charts.
TL;DR - the multi-part Black Knight “Clanbuster" "will go on sale later today, Thursday, June 10"
Spoiler:
The Com Guards created a special version of the Black Knight, known as the "Clanbuster," to face the Clans on Tukayyid. Wielding a special sword-shaped hatchet and an all-energy weapons array, this 'Mech proved effective in thwarting the Invading Clans' quest for Terra.
This premium variant, featured on the cover of the Battle of Tukayyid sourcebook, will soon be available as an all-new multi-part unpainted miniature to join your BattleTech force!
The miniature includes multiple optional parts--three hands, three arms, and three legs--allowing you to choose one of dozens of poses. This Black Knight miniature employs new modeling techniques which we hope to apply to many BattleMech designs.
A first-of-its-kind item for us, we're offering these Black Knights as a test case. They will go on sale later today, Thursday, June 10 through the Catalyst Game Labs store and are limited to one per order while supplies last.
As we work with the supplier of the Black Knight “Clanbuster" on their next design (and plan other potential 'Mechs to get this treatment), we invite our customers to take a brief survey below to help us gauge interest on this miniature and other great new products.
Until next time,
Ray Arrastia
BattleTech Line Developer
So here’s a somewhat random question. Is there a term for the style of cockpit/head that looks more like a helicopter or airplane? Such as what you see on the Madcat or Puma?
AduroT wrote: So here’s a somewhat random question. Is there a term for the style of cockpit/head that looks more like a helicopter or airplane? Such as what you see on the Madcat or Puma?
There is no name designation it is just a matter of your taste in mech design.
AduroT wrote: So here’s a somewhat random question. Is there a term for the style of cockpit/head that looks more like a helicopter or airplane? Such as what you see on the Madcat or Puma?
If you're using the Mech traits rules, some of the Mechs with that style of cockpit have the Weak Cockpit trait. This basically means that they have one less point of armour on the head.
AduroT wrote: So here’s a somewhat random question. Is there a term for the style of cockpit/head that looks more like a helicopter or airplane? Such as what you see on the Madcat or Puma?
Absolutely gorgeous, I love what they can do when they have a uniform design team.
In anticipation of ilClan, I've started collecting Jade Falcon Dark Age and later mechs and the variation in style is huge. Something like the Pinion (fat guy in a little coat) standing next to a work of art like the Jade Hawk is quite jarring.
I think it's forever altering my aesthetic.
Heck, between the Matador and Jupiter I might actually grow to appreciate Minecraft.
Quality of sculpts and the scale of the sculpts are the actual issue there. IWM has always been all over the place with scale, even if sculpt quality has been improving.
Also worth pointing out that artwork has also suffered from this, with some 'Mechs getting a basic sketch in a 300 year old Technical Read-Out book, and a mini that vaguely kinda resembles that art, and then nothing for a decade.
This recent effort to redesign everything without changing the aesthetic, but instead rationalising everything (combined with making all the plastic minis in scale with one another) has improved things greatly. Not only does it make everything look better, but it also makes the game an easier sell to new people.
The product is so much more credible to new players to have everything looking like it actually comes from the same IP. I have always found that one of the crucial elements to enjoying a sci fi or fantasy setting is immersion and the unified aesthetic sensibility of the new plastic range extensively contributes to that.
One of our regular players is diving into the game and wanted to test out a fully mechanised combined arms clan force without mechs so we threw him up against 2 inner sphere tank lances.
There are several ways to play Battletech on an open table (a couple that are not Battletech-branded, but still excellent ways to have mech-on-mech combat that you can just theme in the BT universe). Although I see that Tablewar also has a section of the store that sells clear printed sheets that allow you to overlay black or white hexes onto any battlemat.
There is no need, the core rules include the rules for using 3d terrain
.2"= 1 hex
.simplified facings
.more fluid movement as you can turn up to a full hex facing or just a little if you need it(it uses the same amount of MP)
.a larger play area
and of course-it looks really good.
I stopped using hex maps decades ago and never looked back.
I was wondering if anyone here still plays older versions of Battletech? My go-to version is the Battletech Compendium: Rules of Warfare, which is firmly set in the Clan Invasion era of the game and is connected to MechWarrior 2nd Edition, BattleSpace and the animated TV show (what can I say, I was a 90’s kid...). I don't actually play Total Warfare when I run the game.
KommanderKong wrote: I was wondering if anyone here still plays older versions of Battletech?
Given that BTech is almost completely the same now as it was back then, just with some small refinements and clarifications, what would be the point?
Well yes i love the dragon fire, and our davion heavy guards player almost always has a templar, the comstar player forgot his mechs so he was using stand ins for the black knight and others.
As for the rules, yes total warfare is the basic set we use with a few small differences.
.optional rules from tac ops-
.ghost imaging for ECM (thats what the extra marker dice was for)
.alternate ammo types
.rapid fire machineguns
.fire as you bear(no declare fire phase for speed of play)
.forced withdrawl rules(also for speed of play).
Other optional rules-
.ammo explosion rules
.max tech level 3 damage charts for vehicles-TW main rules note they nerfed the vehicle damage chart on purpose to make mechs the focus of the game and recommend using the old charts if you want vehicles to be a bit more resilient...so we do because heavy metal pro has the options.
One of the best rules changes/improvements was for the way AMS uses ammo.
Our next match i am going to toss some swords of light at him with a C3 heavy lance. i am giving some of the new plastics some love....but i will have a shugenja(C3 master) in there, not a pretty mech or one you see often, but i like it.
KommanderKong wrote: I was wondering if anyone here still plays older versions of Battletech? My go-to version is the Battletech Compendium: Rules of Warfare, which is firmly set in the Clan Invasion era of the game and is connected to MechWarrior 2nd Edition, BattleSpace and the animated TV show (what can I say, I was a 90’s kid...). I don't actually play Total Warfare when I run the game.
Pardon me as I am a relative newbie, but isn't that kind of the same as restricting games to a specific era (like Succession Wars-only)? Considering the rules haven't changed much in 30 years.
Also with the BattleMech Manual and latest Total Warfare, there is the Enhanced Flamer rule which allows them to do both damage and add heat to the target. Total Warfare also changed how shooting over partial cover works: instead of using the punch table, all leg hits are nullified instead.
KommanderKong wrote: I was wondering if anyone here still plays older versions of Battletech? My go-to version is the Battletech Compendium: Rules of Warfare, which is firmly set in the Clan Invasion era of the game and is connected to MechWarrior 2nd Edition, BattleSpace and the animated TV show (what can I say, I was a 90’s kid...). I don't actually play Total Warfare when I run the game.
Pardon me as I am a relative newbie, but isn't that kind of the same as restricting games to a specific era (like Succession Wars-only)? Considering the rules haven't changed much in 30 years.
Not quite. You can still play 3025 with Total Warfare, but you can't play IlClan (with all the new no-longer-experimental/advanced gear) with 3rd or 4th Edition. The Clan Invasion started in 2nd edition along with all the Star League gear, so you would need TRO: 2750 or 3050 to use any of that. That's unlike GW where you really can't go back to using Armor Facing rules with 40K 9th or ranks in Age of Sigmar.
KommanderKong wrote: I was wondering if anyone here still plays older versions of Battletech?
Given that BTech is almost completely the same now as it was back then, just with some small refinements and clarifications, what would be the point?
AegisGrimm wrote:Pardon me as I am a relative newbie, but isn't that kind of the same as restricting games to a specific era (like Succession Wars-only)? Considering the rules haven't changed much in 30 years.
It reaaally depends upon how you define "not changed that much." In a broad sense, every edition since 2nd is pretty much the same (1st Edition is a bit wonky but I can see the argument that it is similar enough to count as the same). In a narrower sense, no, they are not the same... there are lots of little differences in each edition.
I should clarify though: the primary reason I play BC:ROW is NOT because I prefer the "differences" of that edition over the "differences" of Total Warfare. I play it mostly because I'm a nostalgia gamer... if I didn't have my old 90's games, I wouldn't game at all... I'd take up a different hobby, maybe hiking or something? I'm into the older versions primarily because they are a total retro experience for me and take me right back to the 90s when I play them.
But that doesn't mean BC:ROW doesn't have things to recommend itself. Here are some interesting features:
1) BC:ROW is basically Battletech 3rd Edition. 3e was a boxed set that only had the Level 1 rules in it and was actually set in 3025. BC:ROW is the "complete" version of the game and adds Level 2 to the mix and updates the timeline to the end of the Refusal War (3057). This was a very interesting time in general, with the Refusal War, the Chaos March and Battle of Coventry (basically the Falcon's attempt to start up the invasion again).
2) It is connected to the cartoon show and the Mechwarrior II computer game from Activision, both of which were huuuuuge influences on me. These things even get supplements for BC:ROW.
3) It has nice, simplified rules for aerotech and artillery which were never reprinted in later editions. (I mean, there are simplified aerotech rules in later editions, but they are not the same as THESE simplified aerotech rules.)
4) It still had the Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3 rules distinctions (which I like).
5) It had the old punch location table for attacks made at hull-down 'Mechs (I preferred these rules)
6) It was designed to support both MechWarrior 2nd Edition and Battlespace (my favourite iterations of those rules).
7) The rules are shorter... much much shorter. I don't know if they are simply written more concisely or if the font is smaller or something, but Total Warfare is an enormous book in comparison. It's closer in size to the Battletech Manual but covers the complete game (including the construction rules and a mini TRO).
8) I prefer the handrawn black and white artwork and clean design over the colour backgrounds and Photoshop art of the newer editions.
9) It's supported by the Tactical Handbook, which has rules and equipment that was never reprinted.
10) If I recall, infantry work differently (but I don't remember how TW handles this so I can't be certain)
I actually owned Total Warfare... I ended up dumping it on eBay for a pretty penny because I realized it was physically preventing me from playing Battletech. The books were enormous, way longer than they needed to be, I found them ugly and uninspiring... they were just killing my interest in the game. I picked up my old copy of BC:ROW from my shelf, dusted it off, and fell in love with Battletech again. That's why I play BCROW
KommanderKong wrote: It reaaally depends upon how you define "not changed that much."
I think we define it in the sense that BTech's rules haven't changed that much across its entire life.
KommanderKong wrote: 1) BC:ROW is basically Battletech 3rd Edition. 3e was a boxed set that only had the Level 1 rules in it and was actually set in 3025. BC:ROW is the "complete" version of the game and adds Level 2 to the mix and updates the timeline to the end of the Refusal War (3057). This was a very interesting time in general, with the Refusal War, the Chaos March and Battle of Coventry (basically the Falcon's attempt to start up the invasion again). 2) It is connected to the cartoon show and the Mechwarrior II computer game from Activision, both of which were huuuuuge influences on me. These things even get supplements for BC:ROW.
Yeah but... nothing about the rules stops you from doing that with the Total Warfare rulebook, or even the more concise BattleMech Manual. If anything this seems like an imposition you've placed upon yourself to use an older source of the rules simply because it's an older source.
KommanderKong wrote: 3) It has nice, simplified rules for aerotech and artillery which were never reprinted in later editions. (I mean, there are simplified aerotech rules in later editions, but they are not the same as THESE simplified aerotech rules.)
Fair enough I suppose.
KommanderKong wrote: 4) It still had the Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3 rules distinctions (which I like).
Distinctions that don't really mean anything. I mean it's BTech - you can play with as much of it or as little of it as you please.
KommanderKong wrote: 5) It had the old punch location table for attacks made at hull-down 'Mechs (I preferred these rules)
You are the first person I've ever heard say that. Hull Down is something you do to protect yourself. The original partial cover rules made it easier to head shot you, which makes no sense. It made cover a detriment, rather than an advantage. Surely you can see why this is one of the few major changes the rules have experienced in 20+ years.
KommanderKong wrote: 6) It was designed to support both MechWarrior 2nd Edition and Battlespace (my favourite iterations of those rules).
I have no comment here as the BTech RPG has never interested me, and, against type (given my love of all things naval combat), I actually don't like BTech capital ships. So I have nothing to add here.
KommanderKong wrote: 7) The rules are shorter... much much shorter. I don't know if they are simply written more concisely or if the font is smaller or something, but Total Warfare is an enormous book in comparison. It's closer in size to the Battletech Manual but covers the complete game (including the construction rules and a mini TRO).
Total Warfare is an enormous book, I'll give you that. So is the Tech Manual. Both are attempting to cover all the rules for all the main unit types and all the construction rules for said unit types. Those aren't strictly necessary to play, so much so that they straight up made the BattleMech Manual to alleviate that problem.
KommanderKong wrote: 8) I prefer the handrawn black and white artwork and clean design over the colour backgrounds and Photoshop art of the newer editions.
Ok, but, that seems like an odd reason to use older rules to me.
KommanderKong wrote: 9) It's supported by the Tactical Handbook, which has rules and equipment that was never reprinted.
Can you elaborate on this for me?
KommanderKong wrote: 10) If I recall, infantry work differently (but I don't remember how TW handles this so I can't be certain)
I think I've used infantry in one game about 8 years ago, so I can't comment here.
KommanderKong wrote: I actually owned Total Warfare... I ended up dumping it on eBay for a pretty penny because I realized it was physically preventing me from playing Battletech. The books were enormous, way longer than they needed to be, I found them ugly and uninspiring... they were just killing my interest in the game. I picked up my old copy of BC:ROW from my shelf, dusted it off, and fell in love with Battletech again. That's why I play BCROW
Despite owning the TW book, I found that the book I used the most when actually playing games was the rulebook that came with the starter boxes (be it 4th Ed, or the one after that, or even the most recent one) as they're the most succinct set of rules that contains all the things that we need to look up the most (water hex rules, some terrain effects, water hex rules, critical hit effects, water hex rules and also water hex rules).
As far as the “total retro experience” theme here goes, there’s not a thing wrong with playing Battletech out of an older iteration of a rulebook. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with doing that for any decades-old game (or game system). But I will say, with Battletech (unlike, say, D&D) the actual design itself, as it is currently still published, has truly not changed much at all. And this is where we stop talking about some particular gamer’s idiosyncratic sense of nostalgia and we start talking about what I think must now be recognized as one of Battletech’s core features: as a game that has been extensively developed over the course of thirty plus years it is nonetheless radically coherent across its entire lifespan so far. Unlike just about every other game or game system with a similar lifespan of active development, Battletech has proven extremely reliable in those terms. Even if I did not like Battletech as a game, I would still hold it in reverence for that achievement alone.
KommanderKong wrote:9) It's supported by the Tactical Handbook, which has rules and equipment that was never reprinted.
10) If I recall, infantry work differently (but I don't remember how TW handles this so I can't be certain)
Out of curiosity, have you checked out the Tactical Operations books? I have found a lot of the updated rules for a lot of things in the Tactical Handbook in those tomes, as well as a whole bunch more.
H.B.M.C. wrote:
KommanderKong wrote: 5) It had the old punch location table for attacks made at hull-down 'Mechs (I preferred these rules)
You are the first person I've ever heard say that. Hull Down is something you do to protect yourself. The original partial cover rules made it easier to head shot you, which makes no sense. It made cover a detriment, rather than an advantage. Surely you can see why this is one of the few major changes the rules have experienced in 20+ years.
I think it's a matter of opinion based on whether one spends more time shooting at someone using Partial Cover or spending more time using Partial Cover. If you don't use Partial Cover much at all, I could see why using the old rules is much better.
H.B.M.C. wrote: I actually don't like BTech capital ships. So I have nothing to add here.
You've sparked my curiosity. What do you not like about BT Capital Ships? Aesthetics, Construction, rules, or a combination?
Personally, I never played BattleSpace when I had it. Too busy with the Mechs, and the more realistic movement style was intimidating. However, setting up a spreadsheet to do the heavy lifting of calculations was oddly satisfying.
Manchu wrote: As far as the “total retro experience” theme here goes, there’s not a thing wrong with playing Battletech out of an older iteration of a rulebook. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with doing that for any decades-old game (or game system). But I will say, with Battletech (unlike, say, D&D) the actual design itself, as it is currently still published, has truly not changed much at all. And this is where we stop talking about some particular gamer’s idiosyncratic sense of nostalgia and we start talking about what I think must now be recognized as one of Battletech’s core features: as a game that has been extensively developed over the course of thirty plus years it is nonetheless radically coherent across its entire lifespan so far. Unlike just about every other game or game system with a similar lifespan of active development, Battletech has proven extremely reliable in those terms. Even if I did not like Battletech as a game, I would still hold it in reverence for that achievement alone.
Is that an achievement though? Chutes & Ladders has that, and so does Monopoly.
KommanderKong wrote: 1) BC:ROW is basically Battletech 3rd Edition. 3e was a boxed set that only had the Level 1 rules in it and was actually set in 3025. BC:ROW is the "complete" version of the game and adds Level 2 to the mix and updates the timeline to the end of the Refusal War (3057). This was a very interesting time in general, with the Refusal War, the Chaos March and Battle of Coventry (basically the Falcon's attempt to start up the invasion again).
2) It is connected to the cartoon show and the Mechwarrior II computer game from Activision, both of which were huuuuuge influences on me. These things even get supplements for BC:ROW.
Yeah but... nothing about the rules stops you from doing that with the Total Warfare rulebook, or even the more concise BattleMech Manual. If anything this seems like an imposition you've placed upon yourself to use an older source of the rules simply because it's an older source.
I think you missed my meaning though, to be fair. Of course, any edition of Battletech can be used to play any era... you just need the proper TRO and any rulebook and you're good to go. Occasionally, there are era-specific gear rules you need to look up, but other than that you can get by with any rulebook and any TRO.
But BC:ROW is steeped in that late Invasion era. It has the storyline of 3057 written on nearly every page of the rulebook, from the introduction "The Story So Far..." to the Wolfnet dispatches that feature in the margins, to the mini-TRO at the back that features many of the iconic Mechs of the TV-show. BC:ROW is dyed in 3057. TW is much more generic in comparison.
H.B.M.C. wrote:
KommanderKong wrote: 4) It still had the Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3 rules distinctions (which I like).
Distinctions that don't really mean anything. I mean it's BTech - you can play with as much of it or as little of it as you please.
I suppose, but I like the distinction. It's a matter of organizing material... if I want to play a simplified game, I'll bring the thin booklet from the 3e box set and maybe I won't even use pilots... just a basic 6+ to hit at medium range and so on. That's great for quick games, for large convention games and so on, as the little 3e booklet is very easy to reference. If I want a more advanced scenario, I'll break out BC:ROW. That's kind of my core for gaming. If I'm running the RPG though, I'll gradually introduce Level 3 rules as special things the players find, pulling from various sources like the Tactical Handbook or the Unbound adventure. Players cannot expect to get Level 3 whenever they want because it is literally something that is not in the rulebook... that's all behind the DM's screen and introduced at points appropriate to the campaign.
H.B.M.C. wrote:
KommanderKong wrote: 5) It had the old punch location table for attacks made at hull-down 'Mechs (I preferred these rules)
You are the first person I've ever heard say that. Hull Down is something you do to protect yourself. The original partial cover rules made it easier to head shot you, which makes no sense. It made cover a detriment, rather than an advantage
True, you have a better chance to hit the head, but also a better chance to miss the attack overall. I'll admit this breaks down at very, very high Mechwarrior skill levels (which can absorb the +3 to hit for the partial cover), but for the vast majority of situations with normal pilots, it actually doesn't make sense for the attacker to use partial cover. I suspect that the rule was changed mainly because those fringe cases of very low to-hit numbers were getting more and more common (due in part to special rules, weapons and equipment that gave bonuses becoming more common in later TROs).
H.B.M.C. wrote:
KommanderKong wrote: 6) It was designed to support both MechWarrior 2nd Edition and Battlespace (my favourite iterations of those rules).
I have no comment here as the BTech RPG has never interested me, and, against type (given my love of all things naval combat), I actually don't like BTech capital ships. So I have nothing to add here.
Oh you're missing out, Battlespace is wonderful. You get the real feel that you are chewing through a ship's hull, knocking out compartment by compartment as you go. It's incredibly visual and cinematic and the vector rules are simply the best I've ever encountered. It's one of my all time favourite space battle games.
H.B.M.C. wrote:
KommanderKong wrote: 7) The rules are shorter... much much shorter. I don't know if they are simply written more concisely or if the font is smaller or something, but Total Warfare is an enormous book in comparison. It's closer in size to the Battletech Manual but covers the complete game (including the construction rules and a mini TRO).
Total Warfare is an enormous book, I'll give you that. So is the Tech Manual. Both are attempting to cover all the rules for all the main unit types and all the construction rules for said unit types. Those aren't strictly necessary to play, so much so that they straight up made the BattleMech Manual to alleviate that problem.
Right, but BC:ROW covers a lot more than the Battletech Manual and is about the same thickness. If I'm reaching for a table-side reference, it's BC:ROW.
H.B.M.C. wrote:
KommanderKong wrote: 8) I prefer the handrawn black and white artwork and clean design over the colour backgrounds and Photoshop art of the newer editions.
Ok, but, that seems like an odd reason to use older rules to me.
Yeah, I get that, but honestly I find it is quite inspiring to look at that stuff, especially when I'm prepping a scenario. It's also just a lot cleaner layout and easier to read during games... the black text on white background is very easy on the eyes.
H.B.M.C. wrote:
KommanderKong wrote: 9) It's supported by the Tactical Handbook, which has rules and equipment that was never reprinted.
Can you elaborate on this for me?
Charistoph wrote:
KommanderKong wrote:9) It's supported by the Tactical Handbook, which has rules and equipment that was never reprinted.
10) If I recall, infantry work differently (but I don't remember how TW handles this so I can't be certain)
Out of curiosity, have you checked out the Tactical Operations books? I have found a lot of the updated rules for a lot of things in the Tactical Handbook in those tomes, as well as a whole bunch more.
Yep I owned TacOps and got rid of it with my other TW books (I think that is why I was able to sell the lot for so high). Since I no longer own it, I cannot be super accurate with my remembrances, but I seem to remember some random things like the Computer Voice Circuit didn't feature in the later books (this was one of the things that tied the computer game to the TV show to the tabletop game for me). It also had a neat little campaign system that gave you a framework for linked scenarios (there was probably an equivalent somewhere in the TW series of books, but I cannot remember where that would be or how it would have differed from the THB rules). There were also rules for fieldworks, fortifications, different types of bunkers and so on... I forget if those ever featured in TW but I don't seem to recall seeing them. There were also rules for SLDF Neurohelmets and other Mechwarrior gear items, which were always some fun pieces of "loot" to give to the players in a campaign when they discover a small cache of Lostech.
But again, I'm not here to say that BC:ROW has MORE rules than the TW series of books (TacOps, StratOps etc.). It clearly doesn't... it has fewer rules. I am thus certain that there are MORE special gear items and equipment in TW than in BC:ROW or 3rd Edition more generally. It is more the case that I am happy with the "state of the art" of Battletech technology that existed by the mid-90's and the 3057 to 3067 timeline. I like the game being grounded in a particular period as this gives the game more flavour for me and it just so happens to a favourite era of mine and an excellent one for setting an RPG campaign. The mid-90's is a great point in Battletech publication history... it has (IMHO) the best version of the RPG tied into the best version of the tabletop game (cleanest, most minimalist, steeped in a setting) tied into the best version of the space battles rules, the TV-show and the video game. It's like a whole multi-media experience. If I had to play TW, I probably just wouldn't... I'd do something else with my time. I don't like ATOW, I don't get any feels from the timeline-neutral positioning of the rules, I don't like the big books nor their layout and design or the new style of art, I am definitely not a fan of the current Aerotech rules (nor the bowlderized version of Battlespace in them that removes the best features of Battlespace) and so on and so forth. I'm not judging others for liking the newer games... in fact I would fully expect new players would have nostalgia for the version they started with and if that means TW, then they should prefer TW. I wouldn't at all be surprised if they found the 2nd Edition of the RPG to be clunky, the TV-show to be cheesy, the old video games to be laughably primitive and the black and white artwork of BC:ROW to be amateurish. But it is what I came up on in the 90's and it is what still works for me... it all comes together as a glorious, complete experience.
Also a side question... did TW have rules for enhanced imaging and the Clan Mechwarrior tattoos? I forget honestly. There are nice rules for that in MW2e (I think in the Companion book).
Manchu wrote: As far as the “total retro experience” theme here goes, there’s not a thing wrong with playing Battletech out of an older iteration of a rulebook. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with doing that for any decades-old game (or game system). But I will say, with Battletech (unlike, say, D&D) the actual design itself, as it is currently still published, has truly not changed much at all. And this is where we stop talking about some particular gamer’s idiosyncratic sense of nostalgia and we start talking about what I think must now be recognized as one of Battletech’s core features: as a game that has been extensively developed over the course of thirty plus years it is nonetheless radically coherent across its entire lifespan so far. Unlike just about every other game or game system with a similar lifespan of active development, Battletech has proven extremely reliable in those terms. Even if I did not like Battletech as a game, I would still hold it in reverence for that achievement alone.
Is that an achievement though? Chutes & Ladders has that, and so does Monopoly.
I would say that is an achievement, whether for Monopoly or Battletech or Chutes & Ladders. It means these games have achieved the status of "classic" games, they are entered into the canon of gaming history because it is understood that any major change to them would be met with a great deal of backlash. You could argue (rightfully so in my opinion) that Monopoly (e.g.) is a terrible game and doesn't deserve to be considered a classic and get that same treatment (never changing rules because it is considered a "timeless" classic), but you cannot deny giving Monopoly credit for nevertheless being widely considered a classic and treated as such. I hate Dickens' writing and I'll happily dispute the quality of Oliver Twist, but I'll give credit where credit is due.
Also a side question... did TW have rules for enhanced imaging
are you referring to protomechs?
In that case they are ballistic/gunnery 2+( should add the piloting uses the ballistic skill for checks but since they cannot fall down as "infantry" there are only a few special places a skill check is required) but every time they take internal damage they take a pilot hit as they "feel" every bit of internal damage the protomech takes. as if it was to their own bodies
We do not use the BV system for casual play as it is meaningless outside of organizing structured events. all pilots are standard vets 4/5 for IS and 3/4 for clan with the unit commander being an elite with one better stats.
The critical hit system and the chance for pilot kill is more than enough to balance things out. we like to focus more on thematic force elements......if a lyran force had the options in say the fedcom civil war to take a RAC 5 or a heavy gauss/AC 20 /gauss rifle variant of a mech chassi we already know which one the davion and the steiner side is going to take.
I mean "steiner scout lance" is a meme for a reason .
Do you mean, how can not doing something be considered an achievement?
I think here we are actually talking about doing something rather than not doing something. It could be framed as resisting the urge that publishers of many other long-running game systems give into, to fundamentally re-work the game design (under whatever rationale). This might also be framed as having abiding confidence that the game’s identity and success are well and truly a matter of its original basic design. In either case or both cases, the result is that Battletech has been extensively developed without really changing.
KommanderKong wrote:9) It's supported by the Tactical Handbook, which has rules and equipment that was never reprinted.
Out of curiosity, have you checked out the Tactical Operations books? I have found a lot of the updated rules for a lot of things in the Tactical Handbook in those tomes, as well as a whole bunch more.
Yep I owned TacOps and got rid of it with my other TW books (I think that is why I was able to sell the lot for so high). Since I no longer own it, I cannot be super accurate with my remembrances, but I seem to remember some random things like the Computer Voice Circuit didn't feature in the later books (this was one of the things that tied the computer game to the TV show to the tabletop game for me). It also had a neat little campaign system that gave you a framework for linked scenarios (there was probably an equivalent somewhere in the TW series of books, but I cannot remember where that would be or how it would have differed from the THB rules). There were also rules for fieldworks, fortifications, different types of bunkers and so on... I forget if those ever featured in TW but I don't seem to recall seeing them. There were also rules for SLDF Neurohelmets and other Mechwarrior gear items, which were always some fun pieces of "loot" to give to the players in a campaign when they discover a small cache of Lostech.
But again, I'm not here to say that BC:ROW has MORE rules than the TW series of books (TacOps, StratOps etc.). It clearly doesn't... it has fewer rules. I am thus certain that there are MORE special gear items and equipment in TW than in BC:ROW or 3rd Edition more generally. It is more the case that I am happy with the "state of the art" of Battletech technology that existed by the mid-90's and the 3057 to 3067 timeline. I like the game being grounded in a particular period as this gives the game more flavour for me and it just so happens to a favourite era of mine and an excellent one for setting an RPG campaign. The mid-90's is a great point in Battletech publication history... it has (IMHO) the best version of the RPG tied into the best version of the tabletop game (cleanest, most minimalist, steeped in a setting) tied into the best version of the space battles rules, the TV-show and the video game. It's like a whole multi-media experience. If I had to play TW, I probably just wouldn't... I'd do something else with my time. I don't like ATOW, I don't get any feels from the timeline-neutral positioning of the rules, I don't like the big books nor their layout and design or the new style of art, I am definitely not a fan of the current Aerotech rules (nor the bowlderized version of Battlespace in them that removes the best features of Battlespace) and so on and so forth. I'm not judging others for liking the newer games... in fact I would fully expect new players would have nostalgia for the version they started with and if that means TW, then they should prefer TW. I wouldn't at all be surprised if they found the 2nd Edition of the RPG to be clunky, the TV-show to be cheesy, the old video games to be laughably primitive and the black and white artwork of BC:ROW to be amateurish. But it is what I came up on in the 90's and it is what still works for me... it all comes together as a glorious, complete experience.
It could be that you just looked for those things in the wrong place (or maybe CGL hadn't yet updated a system when you did have them)? The Computer Voice Circuit is Mechwarrior Gear, so wouldn't be found in Total Warfare or Tactical Operations, but possibly in Mechwarrior: Destiny. Tying Campaigns together would be in Campaign Operations, and so on. That's one advantage of coming in and resetting the works is that they can be put in cohesive packages.
KommanderKong wrote:Also a side question... did TW have rules for enhanced imaging and the Clan Mechwarrior tattoos? I forget honestly. There are nice rules for that in MW2e (I think in the Companion book).
This might be answered by using the same answer above. Total Warfare, the Technical Manual, and Tactical Operations are focused on the Battletech level of play, not the Mechwarrior level of play.
Is that an achievement though? Chutes & Ladders has that, and so does Monopoly.
Ignoring the unrelated family game references...
I think for wargames -where extensive revisions are very common-such continuity is an accomplishment and one with real benefits. Just a few aspects...
1. It shows the quality of the core original game that the authors do not feel the need to reinvent the game with successive editions.
2. It reflects the same quality that the players have not demanded such changes.
3. It reflects a certain amount of respect for the players that the moderate developments have kept nearly all supplements (besides rules supplements) ever published still playable. Compare that to games that require a player to rebuy their army books every edition.
4. The stability of supplements means that the writers can instead explore both new timeline events and take a deeper dive into the universe setting.
You all know that I'm not a big fan of the BT rules. However, I definitely respect them for what they are and how they achieved their aim so well as to be so similar today. I especially appreciate how this foundation allowed relatively small writing teams over decades to create a massive amount of coherent, still useable, mostly-non-repetitive material for the setting I so enjoy.
I often speculate what would have happened if FASA had sold the entire IP to a single company instead of breaking it up among so many different buyers.
If it had stayed true as it has today with solid rules and a mostly intact lore (original dark age nonsense aside) what kind of juggernaut it could have been compared to what GW has become over roughly the same time period.
Considering it is the one war gaming IP that easily rivals GW in fan loyalty, faction loyalty, longevity, depth of lore and cross platform spread.
Is that an achievement though? Chutes & Ladders has that, and so does Monopoly.
Ignoring the unrelated family game references...
I think for wargames -where extensive revisions are very common-such continuity is an accomplishment and one with real benefits. Just a few aspects...
1. It shows the quality of the core original game that the authors do not feel the need to reinvent the game with successive editions.
2. It reflects the same quality that the players have not demanded such changes.
3. It reflects a certain amount of respect for the players that the moderate developments have kept nearly all supplements (besides rules supplements) ever published still playable. Compare that to games that require a player to rebuy their army books every edition.
4. The stability of supplements means that the writers can instead explore both new timeline events and take a deeper dive into the universe setting.
You all know that I'm not a big fan of the BT rules. However, I definitely respect them for what they are and how they achieved their aim so well as to be so similar today. I especially appreciate how this foundation allowed relatively small writing teams over decades to create a massive amount of coherent, still useable, mostly-non-repetitive material for the setting I so enjoy.
Well, I would not call it exactly a fallacy, and also I don't think it fits the case.
Thing is, Battletech rules have changed over the years. I was even a clicky game, for a time. But the original rules, with small tweaks, have proven to be much more resilient and enduring. Even when the game changes into other systems, like in the case of MW: DA or AS, the original rules chug on unfazed.
So I would not equate it with "Every time that rooster crows, the sun comes up, so the rooster makes the sun go up". More like "even though Battletech as a franchise has been through a lot of changes, the original rules endure". That doesn't seem to be a logical fallacy.
That wasn't BattleTech. That was MechWarrior: Dark Age, a game that shared the universe and some aesthetics, but was not BattleTech.
BattleTech didn't cease existing whilst the clicky game existed. That's like saying that BattleTech was a computer game at one stage in its life because they made Mechwarrior 2.
The motivation is the quality of the new plastics and the fact they are doing well known classic models and more importantly unseens in their original form. the latter being the only reason i bought the 2 sets i did.
aphyon wrote: Well that's why there is "classic" battletech and then everything else
.clicky game
.card game
.video game
.online video games
.apocalypse scale simplified game
.RPG
We are back to the fact that something like 6 different companies own parts of the IP.
More like it has been licensed to hell and back. But in and of itself, that's not really any different from GW. I mean, there's no clicky games, but there's at least one of all of the others . And still, GW games' rules tend to have the longevity of fruit flies.
aphyon wrote: Well that's why there is "classic" battletech and then everything else
.clicky game .card game .video game .online video games .apocalypse scale simplified game .RPG
We are back to the fact that something like 6 different companies own parts of the IP.
More like it has been licensed to hell and back. But in and of itself, that's not really any different from GW. I mean, there's no clicky games, but there's at least one of all of the others . And still, GW games' rules tend to have the longevity of fruit flies.
Sabertooth did a clicky GWLOTR under license, so yes, GW had that, too.
That wasn't BattleTech. That was MechWarrior: Dark Age, a game that shared the universe and some aesthetics, but was not BattleTech.
BattleTech didn't cease existing whilst the clicky game existed. That's like saying that BattleTech was a computer game at one stage in its life because they made Mechwarrior 2.
It wasn't Battletech the game, but it was Battletech the IP. It was also the only miniature-style game under production for its time. There were some very good ideas in there, particularly in regards to encouraging Combined Arms, but I'm just not a fan of some of the Clix aspect of MechClix.
That wasn't BattleTech. That was MechWarrior: Dark Age, a game that shared the universe and some aesthetics, but was not BattleTech.
BattleTech didn't cease existing whilst the clicky game existed. That's like saying that BattleTech was a computer game at one stage in its life because they made Mechwarrior 2.
...Ok. And?
I mean, the point is "there were other games made of similar scale and scope for this universe, but the original one is still enduring, with very little changes". Can we agree on that?
I liked "Clikcy-Tech" until it went off the rails like most Wizkids games. Most Wizkids games definitely have a fixed end date where Wizkids does little to no support afterwards. In this case, they got to a certain point, and basically said "We're done. No more new models, no more new tournament kits." If you are lucky, they will continue to answer some questions about rules and such, and might even throw out an FAQ.
While I wasn't too keen on the Dark Age story line, I did like some of the mechs and characters that came out of it.
You can say what you want about whatever version of Battletech you are playing. It's all in the same universe, and it's all good.
Well, I would not call it exactly a fallacy, and also I don't think it fits the case.
Thing is, Battletech rules have changed over the years. I was even a clicky game, for a time. But the original rules, with small tweaks, have proven to be much more resilient and enduring. Even when the game changes into other systems, like in the case of MW: DA or AS, the original rules chug on unfazed.
So I would not equate it with "Every time that rooster crows, the sun comes up, so the rooster makes the sun go up". More like "even though Battletech as a franchise has been through a lot of changes, the original rules endure". That doesn't seem to be a logical fallacy.
To be fair, Dark Age is to Battletech as Warcry is to Age of Sigmar. I don't consider in-universe spin-offs to be an alteration of the core game. Battletech's core rules are probably one of the most static game systems, while still being given new production, in my lifetime. It's as if GW was still making new models and material to be used with Rogue Trader.
Well, I would not call it exactly a fallacy, and also I don't think it fits the case.
Thing is, Battletech rules have changed over the years. I was even a clicky game, for a time. But the original rules, with small tweaks, have proven to be much more resilient and enduring. Even when the game changes into other systems, like in the case of MW: DA or AS, the original rules chug on unfazed.
So I would not equate it with "Every time that rooster crows, the sun comes up, so the rooster makes the sun go up". More like "even though Battletech as a franchise has been through a lot of changes, the original rules endure". That doesn't seem to be a logical fallacy.
To be fair, Dark Age is to Battletech as Warcry is to Age of Sigmar. I don't consider in-universe spin-offs to be an alteration of the core game. Battletech's core rules are probably one of the most static game systems, while still being given new production, in my lifetime. It's as if GW was still making new models and material to be used with Rogue Trader.
Rather, it's more like if the core ruleset of Warhammer 40k would still be mainly Rogue Trader with little changes while at the same time releasing other games ala Kill Team, Necromunda, Epic...
I mean, the point is "there were other games made of similar scale and scope for this universe, but the original one is still enduring, with very little changes". Can we agree on that?
You said that BattleTech rules had changed over the years, and cited Dark Age as an example of that.
Dark Age wasn't BattleTech changing its rules. Dark Age was a completely different game. It didn't supplant BattleTech. It is not an example of BTech changing its rules.
I mean, the point is "there were other games made of similar scale and scope for this universe, but the original one is still enduring, with very little changes". Can we agree on that?
You said that BattleTech rules had changed over the years, and cited Dark Age as an example of that.
Dark Age wasn't BattleTech changing its rules. Dark Age was a completely different game. It didn't supplant BattleTech. It is not an example of BTech changing its rules.
Never been much of a fan of the Marauder II, but that is sexy.
Nurglitch wrote: Interesting to see how attempts at a more accessable game result in games like Dark Age and Alpha Strike though.
Games that fail to capture the essence of what BattleTech is, or mangle the lore so badly that people look back on it with nothing but disdain? I mean, there are grogs who act like the Clans killed their mothers, but the Click Age is almost universally reviled. People hate the Jihad as a result, because it forced the hands of the writers into trying to shoe-horn Dark Age into the ongoing story. The Jihad could'a been much cooler if they werne't given a timeline deadline.
Nurglitch wrote: Interesting to see how attempts at a more accessable game result in games like Dark Age and Alpha Strike though.
It's worth noting that these two games came from completely different design teams at different companies. They technically share a common origin in Battletech, but had already been split off corporately and developmentally.
Dark Age was produced by Wiz Kids under Wiesmann and was as much a spinoff from Mage Knight and other clix games as anything. It was an intentionally differentiated product in scale and setting and was never designed as a gateway to "Classic Battletech", it was just a way of using the IP to build a clix game. I would even go so far as to say that it was as far from CBT as the various Mechwarrior computer games.
Battletech the game had already been licensed away to FanPro (the German-language licensee) before Dark Age was released as Wiesman headed Wizkids and had turned his attention entirely to clix games.
Alpha Strike on the other hand is an in-house development by Catalyst (the current post-FanPro licensee for Battletech material publishing and creation) and as a game it actually has a long lineage. As has been mentioned, it's simply a port and expansion of the long-running "Battleforce"(first appeared in the 80s) and Battleforce 2 games and it's more recent "Quick Strike" tabletop miniatures rules (as appeared in "strategic Operations") into their own game as "Alpha Strike".
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H.B.M.C. wrote: , but the Click Age is almost universally reviled. People hate the Jihad as a result, because it forced the hands of the writers into trying to shoe-horn Dark Age into the ongoing story. The Jihad could'a been much cooler if they werne't given a timeline deadline.
I'm not a big fan of the Dark Age or the Jihad as far as story, However, I like alot of the mech designs that came from the Dark Age. I am looking forward to what comes next.
I will always be thankful for MWDA though. Not because of the clix game -which I never played- but because the aftermath of that game it enabled members of my club and I to acquire absolutely massive amounts of prepainted 10mm/1:144 sci-fi miniatures for pennies on the dollar. Once rebased, those figs fueled our exploration of so many sci-fi rulesets including Mech Attack, Future War Commander, Panzer8, Alpha Strike, etc.
H.B.M.C. wrote:Never been much of a fan of the Marauder II, but that is sexy.
Indeed. About the only issue I have with it is the muzzle on the Large Laser. Makes me think of an Autocannon.
H.B.M.C. wrote:
Nurglitch wrote: Interesting to see how attempts at a more accessable game result in games like Dark Age and Alpha Strike though.
Games that fail to capture the essence of what BattleTech is, or mangle the lore so badly that people look back on it with nothing but disdain? I mean, there are grogs who act like the Clans killed their mothers, but the Click Age is almost universally reviled. People hate the Jihad as a result, because it forced the hands of the writers into trying to shoe-horn Dark Age into the ongoing story. The Jihad could'a been much cooler if they werne't given a timeline deadline.
Still, even as badly coordinated the fluff was (almost as much as the timeline given for Disney Star Wars), one can appreciate the challenge of redefining a game in to the ruleset you want to sell and somewhat represent what the original game had. Not talking about the level of success of either property in doing so, just appreciating the challenge.
And oddly enough, our local Battlemaster and his roommate really enjoyed the MechClix game.
Eilif wrote:I'm not a big fan of the Dark Age or the Jihad as far as story, However, I like alot of the mech designs that came from the Dark Age. I am looking forward to what comes next.
Some of the equipment extrapolated out of it is pretty good, too. I like the MML concept and the Plasma Rifle the most.
Eilif wrote:I will always be thankful for MWDA though. Not because of the clix game -which I never played- but because the aftermath of that game it enabled members of my club and I to acquire absolutely massive amounts of prepainted 10mm/1:144 sci-fi miniatures for pennies on the dollar. Once rebased, those figs fueled our exploration of so many sci-fi rulesets including Mech Attack, Future War Commander, Panzer8, Alpha Strike, etc.
"Always look on the bright side of life. *whistling*" It's always a breath of fresh air to see someone getting something positive out of a less-than-welcomed system.
Eilif wrote:I still stand by my assessment, though that CBT and MWDA were different teams, different products and MWDA was not designed as a gateway to CBT.
That much is true. There is no reason to think that WizKids were not thinking about having a huge system eventually if it sold well enough. As a semi-side note, it seems that Star Trek Clix worked only a little better such that they took the models from it and used them for Star Trek Attack Wing after getting the rules licensed from FFG.
New today in the store are Alpha Strike cards for WarShips, JumpShips, and DropShips and other small craft–completely FREE to download, or pay what you want. And, don't miss our next AMA with the factchecking team tomorrow, Sat 7/17 at 2 pm EST. http://ow.ly/a05P50FxSVh
Charistoph wrote: You've sparked my curiosity. What do you not like about BT Capital Ships? Aesthetics, Construction, rules, or a combination?
Personally, I never played BattleSpace when I had it. Too busy with the Mechs, and the more realistic movement style was intimidating. However, setting up a spreadsheet to do the heavy lifting of calculations was oddly satisfying.
A lot of it does come down to aesthetics. I like the spheroid drop ships (for the most part), but in a ground-combat/in-atmosphere context, not in a space combat context. I don't think that most BTech ships look good. I think that, of everything that BTech has, they're the things that have suffered the most from the old art style as they look like a jumble of random angles and shapes.
I also like 'age of sail' style naval combat, which is why I like Star Wars capital ships and especially 40k capital ships. Big ships letting off broadsides with lots of different classes. SW and 40k ships tend to have a unifying aesthetic to them depending on faction, but BTech, like is said, is more jumbled. They also lack the big line of cannons. Naval combat in BTech, by design, is something that does not happen all that much so seems to have been given less attention. It's different to my general disinterest in aircraft; that's universal. The 40k fighter game and X-Wing hold no more appeal to me than BTech Aerospace fighters.
I mean there are all sorts of space ship games that I've loved - Homeworld, Sins of a Solar Empire, SW Battlefront, Battlefleet Gothic. I love the naval combat in Assassin's Creed 4/Rogue. I love big ship battles in everything from Star Trek to Stargate. BTech has just never done it for me. The weird ships never illicit the same response in me.
H.B.M.C. wrote: A lot of it does come down to aesthetics. I like the spheroid drop ships (for the most part), but in a ground-combat/in-atmosphere context, not in a space combat context. I don't think that most BTech ships look good. I think that, of everything that BTech has, they're the things that have suffered the most from the old art style as they look like a jumble of random angles and shapes.
I also like 'age of sail' style naval combat, which is why I like Star Wars capital ships and especially 40k capital ships. Big ships letting off broadsides with lots of different classes. SW and 40k ships tend to have a unifying aesthetic to them depending on faction, but BTech, like is said, is more jumbled. They also lack the big line of cannons. Naval combat in BTech, by design, is something that does not happen all that much so seems to have been given less attention. It's different to my general disinterest in aircraft; that's universal. The 40k fighter game and X-Wing hold no more appeal to me than BTech Aerospace fighters.
I mean there are all sorts of space ship games that I've loved - Homeworld, Sins of a Solar Empire, SW Battlefront, Battlefleet Gothic. I love the naval combat in Assassin's Creed 4/Rogue. I love big ship battles in everything from Star Trek to Stargate. BTech has just never done it for me. The weird ships never illicit the same response in me.
Interesting.
I can understand that stand point. Oddly enough, while the Warships do have a lot of broadsides in them in the stats, they definitely don't SHOW them in the imagery, old or new.
And yeah, there is no real cohesive faction design, but oddly enough most of the Mechs are that way, too.
And yeah, there is no real cohesive faction design, but oddly enough most of the Mechs are that way, too.
Well with mechs generally speaking it is not (well except for kurita) the look of the mech that is the focus of the factions design but rather it's preferred combat style or weapon load out.
Most davion variants or home specific designs will favor an autocannon of some sort with RAC 5s becoming the new iconic davion weapon. comparably you will see steiner with heavier mechs sporting gauss, heavy gauss or AC 20s of some sort. kurita tends to lean heavy on PPCs on fast heavy chassis
As for capitol ships, i really do love the design of several ships and i own a few of the minis. my favorites being the
tatsumaki
As far as game play goes, i have been really spoiled by playing B5 wars for my battle tech-esc space combat system. as such i never really got into the warship combat side of the game relegating aerosapace fighters to ground map combat rules.
Charistoph wrote: And yeah, there is no real cohesive faction design, but oddly enough most of the Mechs are that way, too.
I figured you might say that, and I know the criticisms of of BTech artwork both new and old (I mean, what is this? What is this???) but even those monstrosities read as BattleMechs.
I go through the list of BTech startships some of them don't even look like something that fights in space.
As far as game play goes, i have been really spoiled by playing B5 wars for my battle tech-esc space combat system. as such i never really got into the warship combat side of the game relegating aerosapace fighters to ground map combat rules.
The problem with the BT ships isn't a "faction design" problem, it's that there's no cohesive design principle at all. As an example, If I didn't know what we were talking about or the context of it, your list of favorite "BT ships" looks more like a "my favorite anime/generic sci-fi ships" list than it does a list of ships from the same setting. And I understand that's part of the history of how BT came along, but BT fleet stuff has always looked more like space battles from Futurama(where you have literal flying limos, slightly altered pop culture references, et al next to actual military ships like the Nimbus) than the military fleets of two houses/clans battling it out.
Charistoph wrote: You've sparked my curiosity. What do you not like about BT Capital Ships? Aesthetics, Construction, rules, or a combination?
Personally, I never played BattleSpace when I had it. Too busy with the Mechs, and the more realistic movement style was intimidating. However, setting up a spreadsheet to do the heavy lifting of calculations was oddly satisfying.
A lot of it does come down to aesthetics. I like the spheroid drop ships (for the most part), but in a ground-combat/in-atmosphere context, not in a space combat context. I don't think that most BTech ships look good. I think that, of everything that BTech has, they're the things that have suffered the most from the old art style as they look like a jumble of random angles and shapes.
I also like 'age of sail' style naval combat, which is why I like Star Wars capital ships and especially 40k capital ships. Big ships letting off broadsides with lots of different classes. SW and 40k ships tend to have a unifying aesthetic to them depending on faction, but BTech, like is said, is more jumbled. They also lack the big line of cannons. Naval combat in BTech, by design, is something that does not happen all that much so seems to have been given less attention. It's different to my general disinterest in aircraft; that's universal. The 40k fighter game and X-Wing hold no more appeal to me than BTech Aerospace fighters.
I mean there are all sorts of space ship games that I've loved - Homeworld, Sins of a Solar Empire, SW Battlefront, Battlefleet Gothic. I love the naval combat in Assassin's Creed 4/Rogue. I love big ship battles in everything from Star Trek to Stargate. BTech has just never done it for me. The weird ships never illicit the same response in me.
In general, faction-based aesthetics seem non-existent in the setting, in part because I think most tech seems to be available to just about everyone. Im still a noob, but I've yet to find any sort of "design language" that can be interpreted to point at a mech or ships relationship to any sort of faction. With regards to spacecraft the aesthetics of it are especially jumbled. Some portion of spacecraft have a semi-realistic design approach with multi-lateral symmetry and spinning sections that simulate gravity, etc. and then the other portion has an "airplane in space" type design approach where theres a clear top and bottom, etc.
so I guess I am the only one who likes this "mess"?
I mean Mechs are not produced by factions but companies that sell to everyone
while some factions buy by only their own companies, and the specific design are that special that no one else wants them, while others are found everywhere
and in addition there are those leftovers from before the wars that are not really produced any more but some still have them
and this turned up to 11 for space craft as everyone just grabs what he can find, modify it for their need and be done
if there would be a specific design, it would mean the faction can produce them in masses and the others can't get them
just like the wars during the 60ies to 80ies
you would still find factions operating WW2 tanks from different nations because they had them available (Panzer IVs fighting next to IS-3s against Pattons and Centurions)
Right, but military hardware in the 60s through 80s for 1st and 2nd rate powers was overwhelmingly visually identifiable as matching certain design tendencies. Generally you knew where it came from just by looking at it. Its only when you hit 3rd rate powers that sourced their hardware from a mixture of domestic and foreign built kit that the "mess" comes into play.
Battletech, at least from my view as a newb who still doesn't know much about it, treats even the 1st/2nd rate powers as being part of this hodgepodge sourcing strategy. The major players/Houses don't seem to have their own domestic industries producing their own domestic designs that are only used by them exclusively or by close allies (yes I know theres examples to the contrary like the Totem mechs, but these are exceptions to the rule).
Put another way, in the real world, the first rate powers all had their own domestic industry going. The US bought aircraft from Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Fairchild Republic, Lockheed Martin, etc. The Soviets had Mikoyan-Gurevich, Sukhoi, Tupolev, Ilyushin, Antonov, Yakovlev, Myasishchev, etc. The US didn't get fighters from Sukhoi and the Soviet Union didn't get fighters from Lockheed Martin.
Likewise, the "second tier" powers followed suit. The Warsaw Pact nations (Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, etc.) overwhelmingly used Soviet made equipment or localized variants thereof, peppered with occasional domestically produced equipment. Major NATO powers overwhelmingly used their own domestically sourced equipment (Dassault, Breguet, Aerospatiale, etc. for the French, BAC, Hawker Siddeley, Avro, Blackburn, Handley Page, Boulton Paul, etc. for the Brits, etc.) or NATO partnership equipment (Panavia, Eurocopter, etc.) supplemented with imported equipment from the US and other NATO powers.
You don't see things like Soviet equipment being used side-by-side with American/NATO equipment until you get into those third or fourth rate powers whos alignment fluctuated over time or were neutral enough to acquire kit from both sides or were small enough that taking possession of kit captured from enemies was a necessity (i.e. Iran flying Grumman F-14s and McDonnel Douglas F-4s side-by-side with Chengdu J-7s (i.e. MiG-21s), India flying MiG-23s alongside SEPECAT Jaguars). Even then most 3rd/4th rate powers remained in one sphere of influence or the other and didn't really crossover much (i.e. Israel using a mixture of domestic, American, British, French, and German kit, North Korea using Soviet and Chinese equipment, etc.).
The way the Great Houses operate is like if the US bought equipment from China and the USSR to field alongside its own domestic equipment, and the Soviet Union and China did the same.
I mean Mechs are not produced by factions but companies that sell to everyone
It's a bit more complicated than that, actually. Factions do produce their own mechs, but the ubiquitous ones were created for the Star League Defense Force. The collapse of the Star League, along with the 5 houses gobbling up as much of the Terran Hegemony and SLDF regiments as they could, lead to the companies being in different nations and then providing the different variants based on national preferences and parts manufacturing (like the Marauder 3M).
The rest of the spread comes from the salvage culture that came out of the 3rd Succession Wars and Mercs crossing state lines.
and this turned up to 11 for space craft as everyone just grabs what he can find, modify it for their need and be done
For Warships, that's pretty much only applies to the Clans and ComStar/Word of Blake. The Houses started their own designs once they started learning how to do it again.
New dropship designs are also being manufactured to fit new standards, especially the Assault Dropships and Pocket Warships, and when they are designed for combat, they tend to be on a national basis.
However, aesthetic-wise, they aren't nearly as cohesive all around. Maybe its because that in Battletech, it's only humanity all sharing a similar tech-base, meanwhile Star Wars, Star Trek, and 40K all have different races with very different approaches (and effectiveness) to things like propulsion and weaponry.
Well in regards to Star Wars its less about different races, etc. and more just different corporate entities having different design philosophies and tech specializations, etc. Incom Corporation, Sienar Fleet Systems, Kuat Drive Yards, Corellian Engineering Corporation, etc., all have clear design language.
If it has an X-Wing style cockpit, its made by Incom. If it has a pod-shaped cockpit with a circular multi-panel window and large solar-cell wings, its a Sienar design, if its triangular in shape its from Kuat Drive Yards, etc. They are all principally human or near-human lead, so its not really a "racial" thing.
chaos0xomega wrote: Well in regards to Star Wars its less about different races, etc. and more just different corporate entities having different design philosophies and tech specializations, etc. Incom Corporation, Sienar Fleet Systems, Kuat Drive Yards, Corellian Engineering Corporation, etc., all have clear design language.
If it has an X-Wing style cockpit, its made by Incom. If it has a pod-shaped cockpit with a circular multi-panel window and large solar-cell wings, its a Sienar design, if its triangular in shape its from Kuat Drive Yards, etc. They are all principally human or near-human lead, so its not really a "racial" thing.
You forgot the Geonosians, Mon Calamari and the Verpine. The former had those pods in Attack of the Clones. The Mon Cals the capital ships in RotJ, and the Verpine made the V-19 Torrents and helped design and build the B-Wing with the Mon Cals.
I mean theres like another dozen corporations I could refer to beyond even those, I didn't forget them so much as I didn't feel the need to go into that much detail - I think the 4 I chose made my point clear enough.
chaos0xomega wrote: I mean theres like another dozen corporations I could refer to beyond even those, I didn't forget them so much as I didn't feel the need to go into that much detail - I think the 4 I chose made my point clear enough.
Except you excluded the non-human lines as if they didn't matter when I was pointing out the lack of it in Battletech.
One of the reasons our designers create very unique design schemes for different races is to set them apart and LOOK like alien craft. Battletech is under no such constraints, and all share the same technology (roughly), so there is no impetus to create such defining designs.
Which is irrelevant, because I was demonstrating 4 explicitly human corporations jn Star Wars that all have very strong and very clear and recognizable design languages with their own specific technological masteries. By your rationale, this shouldn't exist, because they are all human.
chaos0xomega wrote: Which is irrelevant, because I was demonstrating 4 explicitly human corporations jn Star Wars that all have very strong and very clear and recognizable design languages with their own specific technological masteries. By your rationale, this shouldn't exist, because they are all human.
Except there ARE other races whose influences are there to be compared to. Battletech doesn't need to have any such distinction.
But in the real world we have different aesthetics, design language and priorities in different countries in a comparable small world to any of those sci fi universes.
Battletlech is the way it is because the original designs where ripped from 3 different animes and paid no attention to why they where like that, and then the ugliest american mechs designs came because the creators had to dump the nice looking anime mechs for legal reasons.
After all that the only rationaly the fits is because of the Star League era, in Battletech first rate powers are like the small nations that got all the older soviet war equipment after the Soviet Union fell, they all use the same stuff, even if some of them got to fight each other.
Pointman wrote: But in the real world we have different aesthetics, design language and priorities in different countries in a comparable small world to any of those sci fi universes.
True. But when one has to think about the varying capacities of different races, one tends to make them more distinct to set them apart. When one doesn't, or they all have the same backlog, having distinct characteristics doesn't come across as that important. The Battletech artists (or developers who organized them) did not have a need for distinctions that other sci-fi franchises with aliens inherently do so human equipment is separated from Klingon, Verpine, Peacekeeper, Turian,Chig, or whatever.
Even as it is, it takes a good eye to tell the difference between most of the WW2 battleships apart between nations.
Pointman wrote: Battletlech is the way it is because the original designs where ripped from 3 different animes and paid no attention to why they where like that, and then the ugliest american mechs designs came because the creators had to dump the nice looking anime mechs for legal reasons.
Not all the designs were Japanese designed by the time Harmony Gold started their suits. TRO:3025 carried 34 designs that didn't end up in an anime, while 20 of them did. TRO:3039 conveniently separates them out.
Pointman wrote: After all that the only rationaly the fits is because of the Star League era, in Battletech first rate powers are like the small nations that got all the older soviet war equipment after the Soviet Union fell, they all use the same stuff, even if some of them got to fight each other.
This was a point I brought up. Even the Warships are still based on core concepts developed for the Terran Alliance, Hegemony, and then Star League.
Seems like space combat in the BT universe would be really boring to translate to the tabletop. It's just too dry and realistic, and for lots of the setting I have read fiction set during, it's too destructive to risk dwindling space resources.
Think the "all-positioning for a few seconds of combat" battle scenes from the Expanse, but then add in how most people with a ship, especially during the Succession era, are terrified to get that ship damaged for fear of having to find parts to replace it. At least the three big powers of the Expanse all have stable shipyards.
It was a night of gaming that turned into the battle of the electronic warfare
Kurita C3 lance VS capellan stealth lance.
Special rules from tac ops -ghost imaging for ECMs
The table-
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
The forces
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
The battle
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Kurita started out strong with the C3 network countering much of his stealth bonuses at range however when he got closer and started mixing his ECM duties jamming my C3 on top of some units using ghost imaging, and my complete failure at passing piloting checks to see through it, The game swung very hard in favor of house Lao at the end.
Yes a Shugenja, it runs a little warm but it is an excellent mech, i even scored a near max damage hit with the MRM 30 this game
I was giving a bit of love to the new plastics in this game, normally when i run a C3 lance i have a ninja-to, grand dragon and daikyu in there.
I have set up a super C3 lance for when i have to fight clans. i added in a battlemaster command with double C3 masters, a hatamoto 28T the above mechs (minus the ninja-to) and swapped out the catapult for a wolverine.
chaos0xomega wrote: Which is irrelevant, because I was demonstrating 4 explicitly human corporations jn Star Wars that all have very strong and very clear and recognizable design languages with their own specific technological masteries. By your rationale, this shouldn't exist, because they are all human.
Except there ARE other races whose influences are there to be compared to. Battletech doesn't need to have any such distinction.
Which is, again, irrelevant. If Star Wars can have a half dozen or more *human* factions/corporations each with their own distinct tech base and stylings, so can Battletech. The fact that Star Wars also has aliens doesn't negate that - especially when for the most part alien tech is the same as human tech owing to the fact that its largely a single galactic society.
H.B.M.C. wrote: A Shugenja?
I like how you bring obscure 'Mechs.
Is it really obscure if you were able to immediately recognize it?
AegisGrimm wrote: Seems like space combat in the BT universe would be really boring to translate to the tabletop. It's just too dry and realistic, and for lots of the setting I have read fiction set during, it's too destructive to risk dwindling space resources.
One of the CGL fact-checkers said on the AMA the other day that's there's very little enthusiasm for the space side of things - he's interested in it as he's got an interest in naval things (IIRC).
Charistoph wrote: Except there ARE other races whose influences are there to be compared to. Battletech doesn't need to have any such distinction.
Which is, again, irrelevant. If Star Wars can have a half dozen or more *human* factions/corporations each with their own distinct tech base and stylings, so can Battletech. The fact that Star Wars also has aliens doesn't negate that - especially when for the most part alien tech is the same as human tech owing to the fact that its largely a single galactic society.
And all those stylings are indications of a desire to separate the factions by their designs. Battletech doesn't have that. Partly due to the previous unification of the Star League, partly because of the salvage mentality, and partly because the people doing the drawings were under no pressure to have such distinctions like they would if there were alien factions at play.
Yeah, but where they found interest in updating the 'mech designs, there's fewer ships and probably fewer legacy Battlespace players despite the smaller number of ships.
Charistoph wrote: and partly because the people doing the drawings were under no pressure to have such distinctions like they would if there were alien factions at play.
This is just an incredibly fallacious argument and stance to take. The presence of alien tech is not the reason why artists create visual and aesthetic distinctions. There was no "alien tech" or "alien factions" in A New Hope, the concept of things like the Mon Calamari was non-existent, it was just the evil empire and the rebels and nothing else, yet there was already a clear design language created to differentiate the mostly human good guys from the mostly human bad guys. Mobile Suit Gundam franchise? No aliens in any of the series, clear design language in all of them to differentiate the Earth Federation/good guys from Zeon/the bad guys - and when the series start adding in additional third party factions they *also* have clear design language to differentiate them from everyone else. Theres lots of fictional properties that are basically 100% human and still find a way to strongly visually differentiate different factions from one another. Command & Conquer? 100% human, clear design language across all the factions. Killzone (video game franchise)? All humans (okay technically one of the factions is a slightly mutated evolutionary offshoot, close enough) - still clear design language. Iron Harvest? All human, clear design language to differentiate the factions. Eve-Online? All humans (or human evolutionary offshoots) - clear design language. Homeworld? As far as I know, all human, and clear design language. Endwar? All human, clear design language. etc. etc. etc.
Charistoph wrote: and partly because the people doing the drawings were under no pressure to have such distinctions like they would if there were alien factions at play.
This is just an incredibly fallacious argument and stance to take. The presence of alien tech is not the reason why artists create visual and aesthetic distinctions. There was no "alien tech" or "alien factions" in A New Hope, the concept of things like the Mon Calamari was non-existent, it was just the evil empire and the rebels and nothing else, yet there was already a clear design language created to differentiate the mostly human good guys from the mostly human bad guys. Mobile Suit Gundam franchise? No aliens in any of the series, clear design language in all of them to differentiate the Earth Federation/good guys from Zeon/the bad guys - and when the series start adding in additional third party factions they *also* have clear design language to differentiate them from everyone else. Theres lots of fictional properties that are basically 100% human and still find a way to strongly visually differentiate different factions from one another. Command & Conquer? 100% human, clear design language across all the factions. Killzone (video game franchise)? All humans (okay technically one of the factions is a slightly mutated evolutionary offshoot, close enough) - still clear design language. Iron Harvest? All human, clear design language to differentiate the factions. Eve-Online? All humans (or human evolutionary offshoots) - clear design language. Homeworld? As far as I know, all human, and clear design language. Endwar? All human, clear design language. etc. etc. etc.
First, I am saying this is part of the situation. There isn't the impetus to have them readily identifiable, especially when everyone has access to the same equipment.
And another part was having the Star League as the common point of origin.
And one other thing. Yes, there are numerous corporations building Mechs all scattered across the Sphere and most created during the Star League. The starships less so.
chaos0xomega wrote: Is it really obscure if you were able to immediately recognize it?
Yeah but I'm me.
I get what he means, a hardcore Btech fan will know it but a casual player will see many of the same classic mechs-warhammers, atlas's, awsomes, madcats etc.... show up in games and media before something like a lynx or a komodo.
chaos0xomega wrote: Is it really obscure if you were able to immediately recognize it?
Yeah but I'm me.
I get what he means, a hardcore Btech fan will know it but a casual player will see many of the same classic mechs-warhammers, atlas's, awsomes, madcats etc.... show up in games and media before something like a lynx or a komodo.
I am a fan, but many of the later designs get mixed up together in my mind... of course, the fact that TRO releases got faster and faster didn't help either.
).
Blast you COVID!! Anyway, yeah so I have my sourcebooks at hand. Lots of tables, lots of charts, much player and 
) and did a quick paint up for the 10th lyran guards, 2nd swords of light and 2nd deiron regulars.
