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chaos0xomega wrote:
They were, in fact, mass flagged in the past year or so.

Ah, well.. that sucks then.

I'm finally playing my first game of battletech tonight. It took me way too long to convince my friends to play it. and all it took was wave 1 of clan invasion finally showing up.

We are still gonna start slow with the beginner box though. Don't want to overwhelm ourselves

 aphyon wrote:

How long does it usually take your group to play Lance-vs-Lance?

Usually say 3 hours. it really depends on variables. some times the game is a forgone conclusion but we drag it out to see the final result. thus dragging out the game long past the time it was necessary to play. or there are those times that you just score tones of crits that force withdrawls or pilot kills.

That confirms my memory of how long the game took, on average. I've had my share of games cut short by lucky headshots.

Thankfully if a game is taking too long you can write down where everything is thanks to the hex numbers and pick it up at any time.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Thankfully if a game is taking too long you can write down where everything is thanks to the hex numbers and pick it up at any time.

We play with 3d terrain rules, in those cases we just take a picture of the table and reset it later.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Thankfully if a game is taking too long you can write down where everything is thanks to the hex numbers and pick it up at any time.

I didn't even think about that. May be worth doing when I get home. We played 2 games of the beginner box rules and 3 rounds of the AGoAC box scenario 1. It really is insane how different the game plays once heat and multiple mechs are on the table.

one question/gripe though. Do the weapons come with one round in the chamber? The catapult according to the sheet we had only had to ammo bins with 8 LRMs each in them. but is equipped with 2 LRM15s so either he has 46 missiles or 16 missiles and 16 total doesn't seem right or what's the point of the second LRM15?

Ammo is always listed in the number of shots the gun can fire.

For example, a ton of LRM-15 ammo provides 8 shots (8x15 missiles). It can fire all 15 missiles 8 times over.

I'd also recommend coming up with a simple method for tracking your movement and heat. We tend to use different coloured dice. White for your own penalty (ie. my 'Mech ran, so I put a white '2' on my record sheet up near it's movement to indicate the -2 penalty), blue for their penalty (eg. My 'Mech ran 4 hexes, therefore I put a blue "1" on my sheet so you can easily see what penalty you have for shooting).

Then for heat it's just red D6's, never going higher than a 5 so it's easy to track. I have fired and got 16 heat? I put 3 5's and a 1 near the heat track. This makes things quicker for multi-'Mech games.

If we're playing very large games (ie. anything 8v8 or higher), then I actually have a summary sheet where we keep all the dice so we don't have multiple record sheets with dice on them strewn about the table.

Well, the number of times the weapon can be used to attack...

You can also use dice like these:



That you can get here.

I've got a set of these (without the text) and they're great for keeping track of mech movement.

 aphyon wrote:

How long does it usually take your group to play Lance-vs-Lance?

Usually say 3 hours. it really depends on variables. some times the game is a forgone conclusion but we drag it out to see the final result. thus dragging out the game long past the time it was neccessary to play. or there are those times that you just score tones of crits that force withdrawls or pilot kills.

The thing about battletech is there comes a point were you don't need to keep going, but you can if you want. the forced withdrawl rules also fit into the universal axiom-sacrifice the meat-save the metal-mechs are expensive.

We had one game that lasted maybe an hour, one of the weirdest and worst games (on dice rolls) one of my long time friends ever had. he scored a grand total of 35 points of damage to me and i head capped 3 of his 4 mechs and engine critted the last.

On the reverse side we had a player that was a regular once upon a time that overthought his movement to the point it would take him 30 minutes to decide where to move each turn with only a single lance or star. that really drags the game out.

One of the most fun ways to run large multi-player games is run solaris. everybody gets 1 inner sphere mech of each weight class starting out with lights and moving up to assaults as they get destroyed/forced to withdraw with the last mech standing being the winner.

3 hours Is a good time for lance vs lance. I switched to Mech Attack for Battletech universe combat to get the time well under 2 hours.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Ammo is always listed in the number of shots the gun can fire.

For example, a ton of LRM-15 ammo provides 8 shots (8x15 missiles). It can fire all 15 missiles 8 times over.

I'd also recommend coming up with a simple method for tracking your movement and heat. We tend to use different coloured dice. White for your own penalty (ie. my 'Mech ran, so I put a white '2' on my record sheet up near it's movement to indicate the -2 penalty), blue for their penalty (eg. My 'Mech ran 4 hexes, therefore I put a blue "1" on my sheet so you can easily see what penalty you have for shooting).

Then for heat it's just red D6's, never going higher than a 5 so it's easy to track. I have fired and got 16 heat? I put 3 5's and a 1 near the heat track. This makes things quicker for multi-'Mech games.

If we're playing very large games (ie. anything 8v8 or higher), then I actually have a summary sheet where we keep all the dice so we don't have multiple record sheets with dice on them strewn about the table.

We use small dice to represent our movement mods (distance traveled) so our opposite players can easily add the modifier to their to-hit rolls . we also use the optional ghost imaging rules for ECM that can add up to a hit modifier of (d)4 if they fail the pilot check to see through the jamming.

It's funny to see modifiers in Battletech being handled. The dice seem like a good idea.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Ammo is always listed in the number of shots the gun can fire.

For example, a ton of LRM-15 ammo provides 8 shots (8x15 missiles). It can fire all 15 missiles 8 times over.

I'd also recommend coming up with a simple method for tracking your movement and heat. We tend to use different coloured dice. White for your own penalty (ie. my 'Mech ran, so I put a white '2' on my record sheet up near it's movement to indicate the -2 penalty), blue for their penalty (eg. My 'Mech ran 4 hexes, therefore I put a blue "1" on my sheet so you can easily see what penalty you have for shooting).

Then for heat it's just red D6's, never going higher than a 5 so it's easy to track. I have fired and got 16 heat? I put 3 5's and a 1 near the heat track. This makes things quicker for multi-'Mech games.

If we're playing very large games (ie. anything 8v8 or higher), then I actually have a summary sheet where we keep all the dice so we don't have multiple record sheets with dice on them strewn about the table.

I had heard of the dice thing to mark modifiers before and we did end doing that. it was super helpful. The ammo thing makes a lot of sense. I don't know why I didn't realize that.

When it comes to ammo, a general rule of thumb is that you want something to be able to fire 12 times.

So LRM15s and 20s nees 2 tons of ammo per launcher if you intend to use them as a primary weapon.

The Catapult, as it happens, is not a missile 'Mech. Sure it has two LRM15s, but it's strength comes from the 4 medium lasers and its jump jets.

Depends on which cat your using. i play kurita with mine(2nd swords of light) so it is either K2s or the C3/MRM variant.

If i want really good missile artillery i bring out the 2nd deiron regulars and their Obakemono's

That reminds me....what faction/units do you guys play?

Our group always encourages players to pick at least 1 clan and 1 inner sphere faction. we have the field manuals as well so we can do units with their lore rules quirks.

For me

Inner sphere

Kurita
.2nd swords of light
+2 initiative bonus, auto win initiative if they outnumber by 2:1 or higher. must always go to battle in parade colors to show off the pride of the combine
.2nd derion regulars (mountain fighters)
+1 initiative bonus if fighting in mountains, preference for jump capable units.

Lyran
.10th lyran guards (it's victors old unit...could not stop myself)
If they are defenders in the scenerio they gain 1 minefield for every point(unit) in the force.

Clans
Hells horse
.Iota galaxy (the 9th ring of hell) -61st battlemech cluster "fire & brimstone"
misfits, off board movement, never honor zellbrigan, paint their units with outlandish paint schemes (think legion of the damned)

 aphyon wrote:
Depends on which cat your using.

Well duh. I'm obviously talking about the C1.

 aphyon wrote:
If i want really good missile artillery i bring out the 2nd deiron regulars and their Obakemono's

Which is great. Because it's a missile support 'Mech, unlike the bog-standard Catapult, which is deceptively a support 'Mech, when it's really more of a brawler. That was the point I'm making.

 aphyon wrote:
That reminds me....what faction/units do you guys play?

FedCom - 1st Davion Guards.
DC - 2nd Sword of Light.
Jade Falcons - 5th Battle Cluster, Epsilon Galaxy.
Ghost Bears - 7th Bear Regulars, Sigma Galaxy.

So as I'm splitting up my KS forces and deciding who goes where- what is the average BV of a pick up game? I used to mostly work with tonnage balancing, but that's not going to cut it with Clan vs Inner Sphere action.

I've seen 6k-8k talked about as the standard amount of BV for pickups.

 aphyon wrote:

Clans
Hells horse
.Iota galaxy (the 9th ring of hell) -61st battlemech cluster "fire & brimstone"
misfits, off board movement, never honor zellbrigan, paint their units with outlandish paint schemes (think legion of the damned)

Do you bring vehicles along, or stick with mechs?

As for factions:

Vollone Lancers - Mercs, mixed vehicles/mechs for the Succession Wars and Clan Invasion

Jade Falcons - Delta Galaxy, from the kickstarter

Comstar - from the kickstarter

Federated Commonwealth - 8th Crucis Lancers, Dark Age Alpha Strike demo

Capellan Confederation - Death Commandoes, Dark Age Alpha Strike demo

Vescovi's Minotaurs - ex-RAF mercenaries, Dark Age

infinite_array wrote:I've seen 6k-8k talked about as the standard amount of BV for pickups.

BV is meaningless outside of setting up some standard control of a tournament setting.

The crit system pretty well destroys it. we assign all pilots as standard veterans (4/5 or 3/4 for clan) with the lance/star commanders being the one elite in the force (3/4 or 2/3 for clan). we also focus more on theme forces. bigger is not always better.
Had one guy who never played with our group for the first time. i said bring whatever you want so he "powergamed" it up with his lyrans with an assault lance chock full of gauss and other big guns.
i countered with my combine fast heavy PPC/C3 lance as is the preference of the way kurita likes to fight-
.grand dragon
.ninija to
.daikyu
.shugenja (C3 master/lance commander)

If he hit me it really would hurt....but with a +3 movement mod on almost all my units +C3 network against his mechs that were getting at most a +1 his "BV advantage" didn't help at all.

Additionally with the standard 1.3 /1 variation when clans fight IS it is one star VS 2 lances and it balances out just fine without BV even considered.

beast_gts wrote:

 aphyon wrote:

Clans
Hells horse
.Iota galaxy (the 9th ring of hell) -61st battlemech cluster "fire & brimstone"
misfits, off board movement, never honor zellbrigan, paint their units with outlandish paint schemes (think legion of the damned)

Do you bring vehicles along, or stick with mechs?

Combined arms every time. i mix it up, but i always bring a squad of protomechs (they count as an "infantry" point and in the rules for all HH forces without an infantry element i am at a -1 initiative penalty)

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.

Played my first learners game, my marauder vs an awesome. I used terrain very well, but he hit me with two PPC which both hit the head and nuked my pilot . Very intuitive system. I’ve seen it for decades, but never bothered learning for some reason. The LGS is starting a league in the next couple weeks (waiting on more stock). I have almost all 10 models I picked up painted and based now.

I have no idea of clans or spheres, so painted how I felt like it.

4 marauders, an archer -all inner sphere

a madcat, and a loki -both clans


If you want official paint schemes here is where you look.

cammo specs online-

http://www.camospecs.com/Faction/Index

Choose a clan and an inner sphere faction. they have tons of lore, enjoy!

 Gitzbitah wrote:
So as I'm splitting up my KS forces and deciding who goes where- what is the average BV of a pick up game?

I've never used BV for a pickup game. I've never even heard of people using BV for pickup games.

BTech really isn't like 40k. Most people don't care about "points".

Mostly FedSuns (see the profile pic). Painted in generic Crucis, also working on some Hussars.

I do have some other OPFOR with painted Sword of Light, Lyran Jaegers and Comstar. Personal favorite to break out for that is WoB though. The Celestials with iC3 is a delight.

With the CI out I am also getting through a Jade Falcon trinary.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
For game size 6 to 10k is the BV I tend to find games at, based on how long the opponent and I want the game to last.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Gitzbitah wrote:
So as I'm splitting up my KS forces and deciding who goes where- what is the average BV of a pick up game?

I've never used BV for a pickup game. I've never even heard of people using BV for pickup games.

BTech really isn't like 40k. Most people don't care about "points".

As i said before

With alternating movement, simultaneous fire, and most importantly the crit mechanic BV doesn't have any real impact on the game outside of a framework for events.

You could spend a boatload of BV on a pilots skills and mech loadout and he is still instantly dead if i shoot him in the head with anything that does a minimum 12 points of damage (or 10 and get a crit hit on the cockpit), or a floating torso crit that takes out 3 engines or 2 gyros in a go (or a bin of ammo without C.A.S.E. with the ammo explosion rules).

I received a bunch of 3d printed buildings I got from ebay today. They all look great. It's a combination of hardened bunker-like buildings and more civilian looking stuff. A quick layer of grey primer and some blue on the windows and I'll have plenty of built up area to fight around. Maybe I could make some parking lots out of plywood.

When it comes to 6mm terrain for epic 40K and battletech i have a bunch of stuff from both the old JR miniatures line as well as some ruined factories from novus studios but my main source for terrain is these guys-

http://www.brigademodels.co.uk/6mmSF/index.html

They make some fantastic stuff in many scales and it is reasonably priced.

...so yeah, I finally "closed" my Btech pledge manager and ended up with a Star Colonel pledge. I now have to wait for the canon character buyback to add even more stuff to it ^^

...seriously though, looking at all the stuff I'm supposed to get, the amount of money I'm pouring over it, and then looking at GW page, and...

It is a stark contrast, that. xD

 Albertorius wrote:
...so yeah, I finally "closed" my Btech pledge manager and ended up with a Star Colonel pledge. I now have to wait for the canon character buyback to add even more stuff to it ^^

...seriously though, looking at all the stuff I'm supposed to get, the amount of money I'm pouring over it, and then looking at GW page, and...

It is a stark contrast, that. xD

Well DUH, you take the most expensive of all game companies (GW) where it takes around $500 to get a decent start on an army that may be invalidated in the next update compared to a game company where 4 or 5 minis of say $60 makes an entire army and the rules have been consistent for over 30 years. where you are free to play any era you want and the rules work for all of them.

Then the added bonus is that battletech lore is just as deep as anything GW has written.