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Madcat...it's the like the Ultramarine of that game .
Though, the only things I have of Battletech genre are:

-Cards from the old card game.
-Cliks, for bitz
-The old Battletech Box game with the board, rulebook and paper cut outs that you put on hexbases...not sure how old that thing is, but I still has it .

BattleDroids
I have to Box Set for every Edition, but the most current.
BattleTroops/ClanTroops
MechWarrior RPG 1st, 2nd & 3rd
BattleForce 1 & 2
Arospace 1 & 2

AND

robertsjf wrote:

Guitardian wrote:Now according to origional rules, each lance consists of 1 light, 1 medium, and 2 heavy.

I thought it was 1 light, 2 medium and 1 heavy. The medium class mech is the workhorse of the inner sphere. Granted, I've long ago misplaced my original copy....

Nope. In the origional book it had a section of fluff at the end with rough descriptions of the five major houses, prominent mercenaries, and the origional 3 bandit kings, as well as a sample 'standard' regiment (Yamashita's Regiment) where it boils down the reg=3xBatt=3xComp=4xMechs standard structure, and specifically states that the Lance usually consists of 2 heavy, 1 medium, and 1 light... as it is intended to be independant and self sufficient, much like the early mechs, for mobility/firepower/ranged support/etc.

They actually had a diagram of the standard lance structure in one of the early books that has a Warhammer, Crusader, Griffin, Wasp combo. 'Grey's Lance, Yamashita's Regiment'. This setup kind of makes sense as you have one heavy bruiser, one armored firebase sitting around in back firing LRMS untill needed up close, one flanking pesky medium mech, and one for pursuit/harassment jumpiness and rearshots... So they work as a whole. This was the early succession wars standard lance format as they were expected to be self-contained to accomplish any kind of mission. On the company level, the Captains would often reassign lance members for dedicated rather than self-sufficient roles, that's where you get oddball matchups of mechs like the origional Black Widow, Cranston Snord's, Sorenson's Sabres... all those early books... and the origin of concepts like 'command lance'/'fire lance'/'recon lance' and so on, but they still had a 2/1/1 ratio in the early book. This was also back during the day when assault mechs were considered extreme rarities, and if you were lucky enough to have a Battlemaster (the only true assault mech published at the time) it would stand in for one of the heavies performing the same role.

With the publication of Technical Readout: 3025, suddenly 14 mechs became 55 and with multiple optional variants for most of them, which created a lot more leeway in what mech is used for what purpose, and you start seeing a lot more oddly assigned mechs (the Panther for instance in an assault lance with its PPC and thick armor, the Charger as a recon mech, Hunchback as a stand-in assault mech, Vindicator as a stand in for an all-purpose heavy because Liao was too poor to make actual heavies, and so on).

Prior to the tech:3025 book, there were only the origional 14, plus the extra mechs introduced as 'house mechs' in the origional 'mechwarrior' RPG... these were the Victor, Enforcer, and Valkyrie (Davion)... Jenner, Panther, Dragon (Kurita)... Zeus and Commando (Steiner)... Vidicator (Liao)... and Hermes II (Marik). That was it, not even variants, a total of 24 mechs... most of which were still kind of multi-purpose... and you'd never see a Vindicator in the same lance as a Dragon because of house faction fluff.


When 3025 got published we little middle school kids went wild with all the possible variants and new possibilities, but in the early succession wars you're stuck with the lance format they detailed in the book if you wanted to roleplay it 'right'.

The Victor wasn't one of the original house mechs. Neither was the Jenner.

Gimmie the good old Axemen with that right torso mounted AC-20 and meduim laser arms... I took many heads off with that axe in mt day...

I created a Hatchetman variant that was only gruesome in one pilot’s hands known as Death Stalker.

I took the old 1st ed HCT and ripped out 2 Heat Sinks and upgraded the AC/10 to an AC/20. Death Stalker’s Player stole my concept and the rest of the group has yet to stop cursing for coming up with it. To make it in later editions you remove a HS and the ML on the Right Arm.

After killing a Victor and a Awesome in his 1st game he racked up 15 more [Nothing under 80 Tons] in the next 4 games including 3 in 2 turns.

He found himself in base contact with a Stalker, Cyclops and a Atlas.
Turn 1: He puts the AC/20 in the head of the Stalker and Smacks the Atlas in the side of the head.
Turn 2: He puts the AC/20 in the head of the Cyclops and then finishes off the Atlas.

jep'ray wrote:Gimmie the good old Axemen with that right torso mounted AC-20 and meduim laser arms... I took many heads off with that axe in mt day...

Except the mediums are in the arm with the hatchet, so you can't fire them AND use the hatchet. What a stupid weapon placement. Heaven forbid they put them in that EMPTY left torso...

Mattlov wrote:Except the mediums are in the arm with the hatchet, so you can't fire them AND use the hatchet. What a stupid weapon placement. Heaven forbid they put them in that EMPTY left torso...

Ah-hah. Yuss the Hatchetman and et cetera.

A lot of people seem to be fans of IS 3025 classics. I have to say I prefer Clanner junk. Favorite mech is probably the Blood Asp. It boasts an -impressive- amount of firepower, if a little light on the forward armour. Range should make up for that though.

And, of course, the poster boy. The Timber Wolf. That's what the pilot calls it. Mad Cat is what the poor IS pilot getting nuked refers to it as.

What I like about ClanTech is how short the games can be with all of the Head Hunting Weapons floating around
Ulta-20
LB-20X
Guass Cannon
ER PPC

LB-20X isn't a head hunter

Of course, with the amount of firepower being brought to bear with Clan mechs, along with the better pilot skills, the games tend to be shorter anyways

skyth wrote:LB-20X isn't a head hunter quote]
It is with Slug Rounds

Slug rounds are a mass hallucination. They don't actually exist...At least for the 20

Really, if you're packing a LB-20X, I can think of very few times when a slug round is superior to a cluster round. This is amplified by the limited amunition supplies that are carried for a 20.

skyth wrote:Slug rounds are a mass hallucination. They don't actually exist...At least for the 20

Really, if you're packing a LB-20X, I can think of very few times when a slug round is superior to a cluster round. This is amplified by the limited amunition supplies that are carried for a 20.

If I want to sandblast 20 (less, after the 'number of missiles hit' chart gets done with it) points of damage off a mech, I'll use an LRM-20. It's lighter, takes less space, generates less heat, gets more shots per ton of ammo, and has almost double the range.

If I take an AC/20 of any flavor, it is for the massive crushing power of doing 20 points of damage to one location. Sandblasting armor is for the approach battle, it means squat in the finishing knife-fight. Internals (or complete amputation) is where the game is won and lost.

I disagree. You want the sandblasting done after you've hit with heavy hitters for the crits. LRM's don't really sandblast as they hit in 5 point amounts.

For range/approach, it's better to have the ERPPC's, Gausses, and Large Lasers to punch through the armor exposing the internal structure for the sandblasting weapons (LB's, and SRM's) to cause critical damage.

LRM's do soften up the enemy on the approach, but often don't cause a weak area to exploit. 20 points of damage will probably go internal or not regardless of a couple volleys of LRM's. Having a weak area of your armor is also a psychological weapon because it makes you more cautious with your mech.


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Also, if you want to 'crush' someone with an AC, that is what the Ultra/20 is for.

Sandblasts are for the endgame, after the PPCs and AC/20s and such have plowed thtough this or that armor point. LRM 20 is spreading all over the place and getting many possibilities for crits. PPC and AC/20, once the armor is punched through, still only have one possible crit. Once those kind of weapons have done their job of punching a hole in the armor, the LRM/SRM support has far better chance of getting that crit, and we suddenly remember why Archers, Catapults, and Crusaders are cool.

If I have an LB-X I usaly like to have at least one Ton of Slug.
As far as SRM/MRM/LRM all have thier uses

SRMs [Not including Streaks] are just range 9 Machine Guns, but that extra 4-8 point you get out a SRM-6 can force a Piloting Roll or get a "Double 1 Crit" which can get really ugly if you run the floating Crit.
Infernos are also fun to run out of a SRM. Put Infernos on a Harasser Missile Platform, Wasp, Assassin, Commando or Panther and it will cause it to gather more fire than you think was possible

MRM are just fun, put a pair of MRM-40s on a Atlas [Mine has a C3] with plenty of Ammunition and watch Medium Mechs wither under its fire. Squeeze a pair of MRM-10s oin a Whitworth and you have a nasty Urban Combat Mech. I also like shoving a MRM-40 on a UrbanMech, its both a range increase and you can double it damage output.

LRMs also have their place. On Clan Mechs they are almost brocken, do you know haw easy it is to put 6 LRM-15s on a Heavy Mech and have no Minimum Range.
The LRM-5 even has a place. I put them on Jenners and Panthers. If the game allows them I use DFM ammunition. Think of it this way “A LRM is just a 2 ton AC/3” [1 Ton for Clans] if you can use DFM it becomes a AC/4 or AC/6 [YMMV]

I still think the slug ammo is a waste on a 20-X.

With the shorter range on them, your longer range weapons should have already opened up holes in the enemy's armor for the cluster rounds to do nasty things to.

Chuggy G wrote:
A lot of people seem to be fans of IS 3025 classics. I have to say I prefer Clanner junk. Favorite mech is probably the Blood Asp. It boasts an -impressive- amount of firepower, if a little light on the forward armour. Range should make up for that though.

I find Clan level stuff too easy. It's far too easy to design a Mech/Lance that can do everything. You don't have to make tradeoffs or take lots into consideration - you just max armour, max movement, stack massive amounts of weapons. And when playing, you don't have to make tradeoffs with range and firepower either - everything's fast enough to make range irrelevant, everything reaches far enough to make range irrelevant, and everything hits hard.

3050 IS is where it's at. There are some perks, some fancy toys to play with that can really make for interesting lances, and the presence of FF and Endo Steel makes light and light-medium Mechs viable. But there are still tradeoffs to be made. I'd be happy also with the inclusion of whatever that next supplement was that introduced toned-down IS versions of more Clan weapons, where IS had small and medium pulse lasers and the like but they still were nowhere near as good as Clan ones.

skyth wrote:I disagree. You want the sandblasting done after you've hit with heavy hitters for the crits. LRM's don't really sandblast as they hit in 5 point amounts.

For range/approach, it's better to have the ERPPC's, Gausses, and Large Lasers to punch through the armor exposing the internal structure for the sandblasting weapons (LB's, and SRM's) to cause critical damage.

LRM's do soften up the enemy on the approach, but often don't cause a weak area to exploit. 20 points of damage will probably go internal or not regardless of a couple volleys of LRM's. Having a weak area of your armor is also a psychological weapon because it makes you more cautious with your mech.


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Also, if you want to 'crush' someone with an AC, that is what the Ultra/20 is for.

Why worry about getting a crit roll or two when you can just rip the offending limb off along with part of the torso as well? I find the slug shot is far more useful, because a 20 point THWACK hitting an armorless location WILL destroy it, where plopping a couple clusters into MIGHT destroy something.

Now, if said target has a crap ton of ammo or an exposed Gauss rifle, them I'll think about clustering.

Because likely you won't hit the unarmored part with the slug Whereas, you are pretty likely with a cluster round.

Do the math though. Your LRMs Don't do dinky squat to anything with a decent armor (I'm still talking 3025 tech here, but the idea still applies). AC/20 or PPC knocks holes in things. LRM mech sitting in the back follows up by getting the killshot crits because of the spread. LB10X as we get more advanced, is even cooler, as every single point of damage is a potential crit. Still you need your front line full of PPC or LL or AC/10-AC/20 to knock that first hole.

There is a wierd damage curve in Btech. A PPC has just as much chance to crit as a machinegun or single SRM. Howereverer the PPC also has a decisive bang against armor values and structure values, yet it still only gets one crit attempt. I dunno how many games I played through with my warhammer banging away at a legless mech, just hoping for that final crit hit, and wishing I hadn't taken the SRM-less variant.

You can tell this is parmarily a 40K forum from just this thread.

Battltech is all about taking ther rough with the smooth, accepting that some weapons just dont make sense but deploying them anyway.

If your prized ye olde mech is a Jagermech, a Jagermech it is, prepare to face the firepower of my AC/2's!

With 3050 regained tech base and clanas everywhere it becomes harder to forgive bad mechs, but then most of them are fixed. There isnt much wrong with a rebuilt Charger.

Hey man that one-legged jagermech still shuffled around and kept firing in one of our games. I guess in retrospect it was pretty survivable despite the lack of armor just because nobody really bothered to shoot at it much they were all far more worried about the Centurion coming at them. So AC/2 have their place I guess.

I once saw a Jagermech roll two criticals and a regular Ac5 hit from a salvo of four attacks. The victim, a Warhammer which was rather intact up to that point was pretty much wrecked.

The JagerMech is a solid SUPPORT design. Not all 'Mechs are meant to get in a brawl. The Jager just sits on a hill, minding it's own business, raining AC shells down on a target.

In a perfect world, that target is FAR more worried about someone else than the Jager.

Worst game ever:
first turn of the game, center torso crit, ammo explosion on my Warhammer. Second turn, my Crusader gets it's head blown off by a PPC... He was supposed to be the reliable one to stand and take it and still stand up no matter how battered. I'd never seen such bad luck in a row. Both my heavies out in 2 turns. Ugh... crits... THAT is what the Jager seems to pull off. If it's just meant to sit on a hill and shoot, I would think to drop its speed to 3/5 and use the saved space for some armor or an AC upgrade size.


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All yall Battletech guys really need to check out sarna.net it is the ultimate Btech website... pics of everything... storylines... serious fluff for the nostalgiac

I do that kind of thing with my Mauler all the time.
In one game I put 2 AC/2 shots into the Ceter Torso of a Axeman with 2 Pair of Snake Eyes, I get 5 Crits total, 3 Gyros and 2 Engines.
Two turns later I put a AC/2 into the head od the 2nd one that had already been hit in the head with a Large Laser and roll Box-Cars.

One of the number one killers when I was playing in College was the Kraken (10x Ultra AC 2s, IIRC). That mech seemed to always wreck something from crits about every other turn. That many shots really ups the odds on rolling snake eyes or box cars, and the range is so long that nothing can really even shoot back.

yeah but the board is only so big. sooner or later you run out of a corner to back into when anything halfway decently armored that moves at 4/6 is just plowing towards you while you plink a couple points here and there. The probability curve for crits is 1/18, 1 chance for boxcars and 1 chance for snakeeyes out of 36 possible dice outcomes... multiply by chance to hit modified up worse and worse for movement, woods, range often a 'good' shot being 9+ (1/4 approx) means an AC/2 has roughly 1/74 chance of the lucky crit... THEN you divide that by the amount of possible crit rolls that could occur, so really it has a slim chance of pulling it off, like about as likely as rolling up a dungeons and dragon character with straight 18s in all his stats. Theoretically possible but very unlikely (1/356 of a single 18, times 6)

Throw 10 ultra AC2 like the kraken, or the overloaded Mauler, and the chances get slightly better, but ultimately, that weapon sucks for its tonnage, low damage output, ammo necessity, and anyone who says otherwise probably will get eaten by an Ostscout with its one medium laser as they desperately try to get the crucial crit on it. Its just not viable probability.

AC/20 yes, obvious hole-puncher
AC/10 yes, good heat/damage ratio
AC/5 not so good but not terrible. Definitely good as support because of heat management
AC/2 just plain wimpy and too heavy for its damage potential

All of them require an ammo slot that could just outright kill a mech anyways. Why Hans Davion was obsessed with autocannon mechs is a mystery to me. lasers and heat sinks are much safer.

Guitardian wrote:All of them require an ammo slot that could just outright kill a mech anyways. Why Hans Davion was obsessed with autocannon mechs is a mystery to me. lasers and heat sinks are much safer.

Because they are Cheep in 3025 Tech.
From a Game Mechanics point of view I can also see that point, but here is something to think about.

To fire 2 PPCs requires and run requires 22 Heat sinks which is 26 tons total.

For that same tonnage you can get 2x AC/10 with 20 shots and 2 Heat sinks to spare.
Or
3x AC/5 with 40 shots and still have 5 Heat Sinks to Spare.

Your average 3025 Mech has to consider Heat, Lasers Put out a lot of Heat so you have the choice of Running Cool and Lots of Sustained Firepower.
With Auto-Cannons, you have a lot of Sustained Firepower, but only for a limited time.

If you really want to see the difference, Look at the Dragon.
In its base model it has a AC/5 with 40 shots and it takes effort to Overheat.
The Grand Dragon exchanges the AC/5 with a PPC, ML and Heat Sinks, but is easy to overheat.