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One of the key take aways to remember about Battletech is that there is little reason why Force X couldn't use Force Y's units given enough time.

Salvaging Battlemechs, and even Combat Vehicles, has been a matter of course for centuries, for both the Inner Sphere AND the Clans. It's the ultimate example of recyclying in warfare.

Because of this recyclying, it's not unheard of for Spheroids to be using Clanner 'Mechs, though, though that is much more rare than them using units their nation creates or are created across several nations.

Really unless it's a cutting edge design, something that is exceptionally rare (ie. a 2nd Line Clan 'Mech from the Homeworld clans that never came to the IS) or has some particular hang up (ie. the Clans would never use a 'Mech called "Wolverine"), then really anyone should be able to field just about anything.

Yeah, file Celestial Mechs under that "no no" list, too.

Of course, one could just toss such things as "Era" and "Faction" and just set to Technology Levels and Types and go from there. Saves a LOT of headaches.

Good call on the Celestials. I doubt many people could be bothered to refit them to work with non-cyborg pilots either. Ditto for Society 'Mechs.

The only thing less likely to show up in various places would be a LAMs.

There is a list on Sarna as well with % of mechs used in each faction.
It’s probably the best way to get a solid idea of where each faction is on some of the weirdest combinations possible if you want to stick with the faction lore.

 Charistoph wrote:
One of the key take aways to remember about Battletech is that there is little reason why Force X couldn't use Force Y's units given enough time.

Salvaging Battlemechs, and even Combat Vehicles, has been a matter of course for centuries, for both the Inner Sphere AND the Clans. It's the ultimate example of recyclying in warfare.

Because of this recyclying, it's not unheard of for Spheroids to be using Clanner 'Mechs, though, though that is much more rare than them using units their nation creates or are created across several nations.

I agree to an extent, but the lowest common denominator of "use whatever" can be the fast track to the sort of narrow optimization that strips the BT universe of what makes it so interesting. Play how you want of course, but far better I think to pick an era and faction and build to that. You can always include a few units outside that scope as salvage or some such.

Even an invented mercenary company can have some basic guidelines for force creation based on era, where/how it was created and who/where it has served.

Put another way: when not guided at least somewhat by narrative, Battletech/Alphastrike are likely to devolve into two players playing what is"best".


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Charistoph wrote:

Of course, one could just toss such things as "Era" and "Faction" and just set to Technology Levels and Types and go from there. Saves a LOT of headaches.

Ugh. Now that's the freeway to min max optimization hell.

I mean, it can if you want, certainly.

I haven't usually found it to be an issue, but that's down to the players, most certainly.

Thing is, I don't think that enforcing faction limits would help if a player wants to be an ass, as all factions have access to optimized stuff at any given period.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Good call on the Celestials. I doubt many people could be bothered to refit them to work with non-cyborg pilots either. Ditto for Society 'Mechs.

The only thing less likely to show up in various places would be a LAMs.

Well, the biggest problem is that they are designed with Small Cockpits, and while that is annoying, it isn't any more difficult than dealing with the Cramped Cockpit of the Stinger or Wolverine. It's not like they were designed with no Gyros and thus requiring DNI or EI to operate.

Still, it could boil down to someone pulling off a Tenshi or file it under "A Dezgra Battlemech is better than NO Battlemech".

And I believe the Septicemia was repurposed by other Homeworld Clans, but as Sarna notes, it is more due to the fact that it doesn't have the Nova CEWS hardwired in to it like its brother 'Mechs the Osteon (which actually is otherwise a great 'Mech) or Cephalus (which would only be considered bad by Clanners due to its teamwork focus).

Eilif wrote:I agree to an extent, but the lowest common denominator of "use whatever" can be the fast track to the sort of narrow optimization that strips the BT universe of what makes it so interesting. Play how you want of course, but far better I think to pick an era and faction and build to that. You can always include a few units outside that scope as salvage or some such.

Even an invented mercenary company can have some basic guidelines for force creation based on era, where/how it was created and who/where it has served.

Put another way: when not guided at least somewhat by narrative, Battletech/Alphastrike are likely to devolve into two players playing what is"best".
....
Ugh. Now that's the freeway to min max optimization hell.

Sorry, but after having played almost weekly (and a little bit more thanks to a narrative campaign) for the last 2 years, I have found the exact opposite to happen. While there are some who like to "optimize" by having Jumping Hunchbacks with Precision Ammo or run nothing but Timber Wolves (he REALLY likes them, even if he overheats them all the time), we haven't seen too many shenanigans, and that's even allowing for Custom designs.

A lot of that comes in to trusting your fellow gamers to obey the first rule of sportsmanship, "Don't be a D***". If you can't trust them to not be a jerk, why are you playing with them?

Albertorius wrote:I mean, it can if you want, certainly.

I haven't usually found it to be an issue, but that's down to the players, most certainly.

Thing is, I don't think that enforcing faction limits would help if a player wants to be an ass, as all factions have access to optimized stuff at any given period.

And that's true, too. There are times to enforce Faction and Era, and times where it really doesn't matter. It's not like there's hard lines in the rulebook about using Faction lines in Total Warfare like there are in every other wargame.

 Gitzbitah wrote:
The Ghost Bears tend to favor very heavy mechs, a few very light designs (Dasher and Dragonfly) and use lots of Elementals. Everything in the Alpha Strike Box works great for Ghost Bear, except maybe the Pouncer until the Late Republic Era. Isorla would easily justify its presence though, so I wouldn't be concerned.

Also, later on in the timeline most of the designs can be used by mercenary force- if you're really not interested in the Clans, you may want to just give them to the ELH.

Thanks for the further replies. I've C&P'd Gitzbitah's above reply into my 'mech inventory list, and will try Sarna.net again for the list Apple Fox mentioned. I'll also remember the advice about isorla and being flexible.

For the moment, I'll focus on the IS mechs, but at the least I'll keep the five from AS for teaching the game. Possibly adding the Heavy Striker Star and a Elemental Star for Clan Invasion scenarios. But that's a maybe. Albertorius, I did note what you mentioned about the elementals earlier. OTOH, elementals are part of the culture shock the IS experienced in the early phases of the Clan Invasion.

Later tonight I'll play the first scenario in AS, and the second if time allows. I'll try it on my BT maps and halve movement and distances as suggested earlier.

An aside. Looking at the mechs included in the forthcoming Eridani Light Horse and Hansen's Rough Riders Force Packs, I can't but think they should have reversed the names, being that the former unit prefers Light/Mediums while the latter Heavy+. Of course, a core of Assault could serve as a fire base for cavalry mechs as well as the rearguard, and even Hansen's will need Light/Mediums for recon and flanking.

 Ancestral Hamster wrote:
So I guess the easier and cheaper path is not to sweat the small stuff: I don't like the Clans enough to bother with the details.

Other than totem mechs this is generally my approach to my Clan forces as well

 Ancestral Hamster wrote:
An aside. Looking at the mechs included in the forthcoming Eridani Light Horse and Hansen's Rough Riders Force Packs, I can't but think they should have reversed the names, being that the former unit prefers Light/Mediums while the latter Heavy+.

The Eridani Light Horse earned that name during the Star League, 300 plus years before the Clan Invasion. It's become something of a myth that a preference for light and medium 'Mechs means that they don't field a significant number of heavy or assault 'Mechs as their entry in Combat Manual: Mercenaries shows otherwise:

LIGHT HORSE COMAND
General Ariana Winston leads the command from a dedicated, independent command company. The company normally attaches itself to the Twenty-first Striker, her former regiment. The company is made up entirely of assault ’Mechs. The company includes jump infantry as well as heavy and assault tanks for headquarters security. The fighter wing often splits into squadrons to support the individual regiments.

TWENTY-FIRST STRIKER
The Twenty-first contains the Third, Fifth, and Seventh Striker Battalions, plus the First Armored Infantry Battalion. The Third and Fifth use mixed light and medium ’Mechs, while the Seventh comprises medium and heavy ’Mechs. The First Armored is a company of fast wheeled tanks and hovertanks, plus three companies of jump infantry.

SEVENTY-FIRST LIGHT HORSE
The 151st, or “Dark Horse Regiment,” contains the Sixth and Eighth Recon Battalions and the Fiftieth Heavy Cavalry Battalion. The Sixth uses light and medium ’Mechs, the Eighth fields medium and heavy ’Mechs, and the Fiftieth consists of heavy and assault ’Mechs.

Since you most likely will only be playing with anywhere from a single Lance to a Company, there is plenty of heavy and assault 'Mechs in their TO&E to field a canonical force.

Dominion Divided is out now. Very good sourcebook, especially for anyone who's into Ghost Bears, Kuritans, Federated Suns.

Standouts are a FedSun exclusive Superheavy variant, and Ravens bearing some very mysterious iconography.

Overall, it's a great story of 3 realms going through some really turbulent times. Much better than Empire Alone, not quite as good as Tamar Rising- but well worth the money.

Good to see the Davions kicking the Snakes back into their own territory and retaking New Avalon.

So over the last two days I've played three games of Alpha Strike. Playing scenario #1 twice was not that fun, but I did learn the mechanics, and see the difference between "All or Nothing" and rolling for each damage point. I prefer the latter. In scenario #1 only the Nova Cat T could delete light mechs in one shot, and delete it did, but quantity has a quality all its own, and so the Inner Sphere mechs put paid to those dezgra Jade Falcons, although they lost two mechs and the Phoenix Hawk was crippled.

Scenario #1, play 2: I rolled for each point, and it hurt the surat Jade Falcons, as they shot worse than the freebirths they so despise. So only the Wasp and Phoenix Hawk melted this time. To paraphrase a quote, "Falcons, I'm laughing at the supermen!"

The second scenario was much more fun as it felt like a battle. Inner Sphere beat the dezgra Jade Falcons again. Lost the Recon Lance and the Blackjack, so it was not cheap. The Archer was the MVP, even at long and medium range it would hit with at least 75% of its damage.

So at the moment, the expected Clan tech superiority I expect from the regular game is not there. I've used the MUL to build the Black Widows Command and Fire lances, as well an Eridani Light Horse Assault Lance and Recon Lance, 250 each side, and I'll see how that goes.

A question. Can you use all your Battlefield Support cards in one turn? That's how I played it, but in the Quick Start rules there's nothing preventing it.

 Ancestral Hamster wrote:
So over the last two days I've played three games of Alpha Strike. Playing scenario #1 twice was not that fun, but I did learn the mechanics, and see the difference between "All or Nothing" and rolling for each damage point. I prefer the latter. In scenario #1 only the Nova Cat T could delete light mechs in one shot, and delete it did, but quantity has a quality all its own, and so the Inner Sphere mechs put paid to those dezgra Jade Falcons, although they lost two mechs and the Phoenix Hawk was crippled.

Scenario #1, play 2: I rolled for each point, and it hurt the surat Jade Falcons, as they shot worse than the freebirths they so despise. So only the Wasp and Phoenix Hawk melted this time. To paraphrase a quote, "Falcons, I'm laughing at the supermen!"

After trying out the different variants, I really like the version where you roll one 'pilot' die and then a separate die for each damage point, each one combining with the pilot die to form your 2D6 pairs. I think it strikes a good balance between the all-or-nothing of the base rules and the more predictable output of rolling for each point individually, and scales well since you never need more than two colors of dice.

 catbarf wrote:

 Ancestral Hamster wrote:
So over the last two days I've played three games of Alpha Strike. Playing scenario #1 twice was not that fun, but I did learn the mechanics, and see the difference between "All or Nothing" and rolling for each damage point. I prefer the latter. In scenario #1 only the Nova Cat T could delete light mechs in one shot, and delete it did, but quantity has a quality all its own, and so the Inner Sphere mechs put paid to those dezgra Jade Falcons, although they lost two mechs and the Phoenix Hawk was crippled.

Scenario #1, play 2: I rolled for each point, and it hurt the surat Jade Falcons, as they shot worse than the freebirths they so despise. So only the Wasp and Phoenix Hawk melted this time. To paraphrase a quote, "Falcons, I'm laughing at the supermen!"

After trying out the different variants, I really like the version where you roll one 'pilot' die and then a separate die for each damage point, each one combining with the pilot die to form your 2D6 pairs. I think it strikes a good balance between the all-or-nothing of the base rules and the more predictable output of rolling for each point individually, and scales well since you never need more than two colors of dice.

Is this a common house rule or an option in the AS rulebook? I'm getting ready to sit down and read the quick start rules for our first AS game and was already thinking about doing damage rolls based on discussion I've seen, but this pilot die approach also sounds neat.

I haven't seen it in the Commander's Edition, but seen a few people talk about using it, so I believe it is a semi-popular house rule.

The Pilot die does reduce the amount of dice you have to roll. It can even make the rest of the rolls rather pointless, though (ex: if you roll a 1, and need 8, for example).

Does anyone know if the AGoAC box set still includes Alpha Strike cards? I’m seeing mixed info on different websites.

It sure does.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
It sure does.

Yeah, I saw that it says they are included there, but when I’ve looked at listing on some e-shops (including Catalyst’s), they only list the 8 pilot cards and don’t mention anything about the AS cards.

AH, our group has found clan mechs to not be better than IS balance wise. It’s just that clan mechs are more points efficient in AS : )

Also I highly recommend the following sequence for every attack (seriously):

-Declare attacking unit and its target
-ROLL THE DICE
-if dice result is laughably low, congratulate yourself for not bogging down the game with both of you clicking through a bunch of modifiers
-If dice result is not an obvious miss or an obvious hit, then figure out the modifiers

Rolling first has really sped up our play. It can really slow down the game if every dice roll is preceded by the calculation of every possible modifier involved. Both players start double checking, second guessing, etc.

I've been having better luck since I reorganized the modifiers into Warmachine's RAT/DEF system. It's not that complicated, its just set up in a way that has you checking several states of both mechs multiple times to feel more similar than its clunky big brother.

cpugeek13 wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
It sure does.

Yeah, I saw that it says they are included there, but when I’ve looked at listing on some e-shops (including Catalyst’s), they only list the 8 pilot cards and don’t mention anything about the AS cards.

Odd. The one I got last year has them. And it's not like one cannot use the MUL to get more. It's the Beginner Box that doesn't carry the Alpha Strike Cards, so that might be what is causing the confusion.

 privateer4hire wrote:
AH, our group has found clan mechs to not be better than IS balance wise. It’s just that clan mechs are more points efficient in AS : )

Also I highly recommend the following sequence for every attack (seriously):

-Declare attacking unit and its target
-ROLL THE DICE
-if dice result is laughably low, congratulate yourself for not bogging down the game with both of you clicking through a bunch of modifiers
-If dice result is not an obvious miss or an obvious hit, then figure out the modifiers

Rolling first has really sped up our play. It can really slow down the game if every dice roll is preceded by the calculation of every possible modifier involved. Both players start double checking, second guessing, etc.

Our group uses a little dice we leave next to each unit after it moves. It helps track who has moved and is still left, and you leave it on the TMM for the unit so target acquisition is easy for the opponent. The most you usually add is range and terrain. We usually add the BA, STL, MAS, VTOL and other such mods into the TMM marker die.

 Gitzbitah wrote:
Our group uses a little dice we leave next to each unit after it moves. It helps track who has moved and is still left, and you leave it on the TMM for the unit so target acquisition is easy for the opponent. The most you usually add is range and terrain. We usually add the BA, STL, MAS, VTOL and other such mods into the TMM marker die.

We do similar as well. It's mostly a holdover from our Classic Battletech play, which includes the colored dice for Attacker Movement type.

STL is hard to add to the TMM die if you're dealing with different ranges, though.

cpugeek13 wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
It sure does.

Yeah, I saw that it says they are included there, but when I’ve looked at listing on some e-shops (including Catalyst’s), they only list the 8 pilot cards and don’t mention anything about the AS cards.

As a recent purchaser of both the current Beginner's Box and Battletech: AGoAC, I can confirm that the former has no Alpha Strike cards and the latter does include the AS cards and Pilot cards. Between the two boxes there are no duplicate plastic mechs.
EDIT: However, the pack of cards I got must be from the original release as it had a Griffin card instead of an Awesome card.

So now I have 35 IS mechs and 10 Clan mechs. [Miniature Market got me with another one of their sales. The Battletech: AGoAC box was marked down from $47.99 to $35.00 at the time, and MSRP is $59.99. So I put it and the Clan Heavy Striker Star in the cart, plus some non-BT products from my Wishlist, and a Hold from a previous sale for the free shipping. I have to stay away from their website, or they'll suck me in again.]

 Ancestral Hamster wrote:

cpugeek13 wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
It sure does.

Yeah, I saw that it says they are included there, but when I’ve looked at listing on some e-shops (including Catalyst’s), they only list the 8 pilot cards and don’t mention anything about the AS cards.

As a recent purchaser of both the current Beginner's Box and Battletech: AGoAC, I can confirm that the former has no Alpha Strike cards and the latter does include the AS cards and Pilot cards. Between the two boxes there are no duplicate plastic mechs.

Awesome, I just ordered AGoAC, another box of clan mechs, and the commander’s edition book. I am really tempted to buy the Clan Invasion box, but it’s a bummer that it doesn’t include cards for the elementals (I know they’re online, but I like using nice shiny cards).

Have my first full game of Alpha Strike this weekend, but I’ve already had a lot of fun painting up the AS box minis.

Does the Elemental Star box come with cards?

The unboxing video I saw doesn't show them having any.

I never got it because I'm still behind on my Mech collection (but I'm getting closer, just 2 Clan Stars and the Level IIs left aside from the Merc Packs). And even with that, I'm not a fan of the size of base they are on. I've gotten some of the old metal Elementals (and IS Standard BA) and put them on 3/4" Fender Washers, and they can fit in a hex easier with the Mechs they are Mechanized with or going to be doing Anti-Mech Attacks with.

Here's a perspective picture with one next to a CGL Mech and Ironwind Protomechs:

I've got all my BA on proper hex bases, but at a lower density to the plastic ones (so 3 Elementals per base, giving me two stars, as the blister had 30 in there).

The bigger ones - Kanazuchi, Golum, Hauberk, Grenadier - are two to a base to avoid the "Elemental Mosh Pit" problem. I tried putting four Kanazuchis on a base when I first got them but no, that was never going to work.

The hardest ones were the Gnome suits. The metal strip they're on is far thicker than the others, so cutting that off took ages and my hand actually hurt by the end of it.

I also have one star of the newer plastic ones (getting 2 bases in the Clan box twigs my OCD, so I had to order 3 more from Fortress to make up the full unit! ).