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 auticus wrote:
Alpha strike is as much Battle Tech as classic is.

They don't share a common rules base. It'd be like saying that the 40k RPGs are as much 40k as 40k Proper. Or that Necromunda is. Or Adeptus Titanicus. You know they're not. They're spin-offs. Side games. Side games can even become more popular than their originators (hell, 40k spun off of GW's work on Fantasy, and look where that is now!), but don't act like they're the same.

 auticus wrote:
I was roasted pretty tastily by several people on one of the big BattleTech FB groups for saying I enjoy infantry and vehicles and hope that the new material they release starts including those again.

That's not really indicative of much. There are still tons of BattleTech players who lose their gak completely if you even suggest playing a game set any later than the 4th Succession War.

Yeah, some of the BT community are worse than the anti-Primaris guys here on Dakka.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 auticus wrote:
Alpha strike is as much Battle Tech as classic is.

They don't share a common rules base. It'd be like saying that the 40k RPGs are as much 40k as 40k Proper. Or that Necromunda is. Or Adeptus Titanicus. You know they're not. They're spin-offs. Side games. Side games can even become more popular than their originators (hell, 40k spun off of GW's work on Fantasy, and look where that is now!), but don't act like they're the same.

I'd say they are as close as 40K 7th and 40K 8th Edition are. Many of the principles are the same, just adjusted here and there, then constrained in other areas to speed up gameplay.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 auticus wrote:
I was roasted pretty tastily by several people on one of the big BattleTech FB groups for saying I enjoy infantry and vehicles and hope that the new material they release starts including those again.

That's not really indicative of much. There are still tons of BattleTech players who lose their gak completely if you even suggest playing a game set any later than the 4th Succession War.

That is true. Our "Battlemaster" prefers Introtech, and it is nice to go with such simplicity than worrying about fancy ammo, armor, and equipment considerations.

Personally, I think things get interesting with with the pre-Invasion Inner Sphere or what Inner Sphere tech is in Total Warfare and Tech Manual. A lot of decisions are much harder with that then they are with Clan Tech (for a variety of reason), and it even shows up in Alpha Strike translations where an Introductory is actually tougher than a Standard Mech. Heck, the last few configurations I did with "Anything Goes" basically just did minor upgrades to 3025 'Mechs to fit in advanced ammo and CASE II, with maybe an ECM suite. That was it. Though a favorite with some is putting an AC/20 in a 55 ton mech and putting as much Precision Ammo in it that they can.

 aphyon wrote:
The very concept of classic battletech being a tournament minded game for hardcore 40K players will quickly go away when they actually start playing the game.

40k players will quickly go away when they actually start playing the game. CBT just doesn’t work like 40k or other miniatures games. The plastic mechs will start hitting ebay in a big way soon enough.

 Manchu wrote:

 aphyon wrote:
The very concept of classic battletech being a tournament minded game for hardcore 40K players will quickly go away when they actually start playing the game.

40k players will quickly go away when they actually start playing the game. CBT just doesn’t work like 40k or other miniatures games. The plastic mechs will start hitting ebay in a big way soon enough.

As long as it just the power gamers, we can pretty well manage the one guy we have that does that by forcing him to use stock designs, using forced withdrawal rules and call him out when he tries to use some of the optional rules that we do not like to play with. the game gets stupid to the point you are just throwing dice at each other if you allow to much "one up" rules outside of campaigns like the quirks.

For the new players we seem to be having some good results from the 40K players coming to the system fresh.

That’s great news. Hopefully, they will come to love the game and will form the next generation of BattleTech fans.

 Manchu wrote:

 aphyon wrote:
The very concept of classic battletech being a tournament minded game for hardcore 40K players will quickly go away when they actually start playing the game.

40k players will quickly go away when they actually start playing the game. CBT just doesn’t work like 40k or other miniatures games. The plastic mechs will start hitting ebay in a big way soon enough.

Depends why they are playing, (Europe is different here I know) but there are those who come to BT because they want more from a game and welcome the complexity

Others that switch because of the fluff don't really care about the rules anyway (neither in BT nor 40k)

And those that want a better 40k but without GW in the back, never stay long no matter what the other game is or offers

The players that desire combo chaining that are hallmarks of GW games tend to have the most problems though there are some ways to do combos and buffs in BT as well - its just not as off the charts.

GWs misteps are battletechs gains.


Did a solaris match with 1 new player that already bought his first star, and a brand new interested player who has only ever played 9th ed 40K (he may be appearing agains as he showed some interest in joining out 5th edition 40K group).

I loaned the new guy a Hauptmann and i took an awesome and we did a small 4 way brawl.



In this game we learned that heavy gauss to the face at short range tend to end things quickly.



The next game after that the new player with the new star did a game to destroy an objective (command vehicle) assaulting a city.....the clanners assaulting an IS city *shocked pikachu face*

this was the full table-





The battle commences-



The clanners started out strong, effectively destroying an entire lance in one turn for the loss of 2 mechs.......and then dice happened.

2 lucky head hits put the clanners on the back foot.


The last game of the night was part of the ongoing 3061 campaign adventures of the brown shots mercenary company. this was mostly a roleplay session so there wasn't much action to speak of.

well aside from the comms interaction between the players and the lance commander.

That train is asking for it.

M.

 Manchu wrote:

 aphyon wrote:
The very concept of classic battletech being a tournament minded game for hardcore 40K players will quickly go away when they actually start playing the game.

40k players will quickly go away when they actually start playing the game. CBT just doesn’t work like 40k or other miniatures games. The plastic mechs will start hitting ebay in a big way soon enough.

some will, some won't. if they're looking to roll a ton of dice and sweep models off the table, they'll hate it. if they're looking for a game with greater depth and tacticvs where there is randomness, but intelligent manuver etc can really chnage up the odds they'll love it

 kodos wrote:

 Manchu wrote:

 aphyon wrote:
The very concept of classic battletech being a tournament minded game for hardcore 40K players will quickly go away when they actually start playing the game.

40k players will quickly go away when they actually start playing the game. CBT just doesn’t work like 40k or other miniatures games. The plastic mechs will start hitting ebay in a big way soon enough.

Depends why they are playing, (Europe is different here I know) but there are those who come to BT because they want more from a game and welcome the complexity

Others that switch because of the fluff don't really care about the rules anyway (neither in BT nor 40k)

And those that want a better 40k but without GW in the back, never stay long no matter what the other game is or offers

Seems most of the GW to BTech exodus was done over politics and feelings of entitlement over who and how IP gets used more than anything else. I imagine some segment of the "refugee" crowd will stay, but most will move on to other games or back to GW.

 Manchu wrote:

 aphyon wrote:
The very concept of classic battletech being a tournament minded game for hardcore 40K players will quickly go away when they actually start playing the game.

40k players will quickly go away when they actually start playing the game. CBT just doesn’t work like 40k or other miniatures games. The plastic mechs will start hitting ebay in a big way soon enough.

So... what changed? I remember a LOT of hardcore-tournament focus on BT back in the day (early 90s). The general attitude was the stock designs were stupid, and you absolutely had to do custom mechs and all the trivial accounting for BV (or whatever the system was at the time).


Also a lot of attempts to 'fix' it. At one convention I got involved a huge game with an organized that decided to incorporate phased initiative turns and weapon recharge rates (adapted from Starfleet Battles) that made it stupidly complex. It was a nightmare, especially with ~30 people, all controlling a lance or star, using a completely unfamiliar system. But everyone seemed to think the attempt to 'salvage' or adapt the rules to be pretty normal.

that is interesting, in Europe it was only stock designs for tournaments, and you were not allowed to use the same chassis twice (except for a bloodname tournament were you had to use the same single Omni Mech in all games)

chaos0xomega wrote:
Seems most of the GW to BTech exodus was done over politics and feelings of entitlement over who and how IP gets used more than anything else. I imagine some segment of the "refugee" crowd will stay, but most will move on to other games or back to GW.

from my personal impression, I think the US community is experience now the same situation as Europe did ~2015/2016, were a lot of people came over from 40k to other games in general because of the personal problems they had with the company behind 40k
and as soon as the company announced that they changed and the new 40k is coming, most left again

yet a lot of people stayed with BT, specially the older ones and now the new plastic models give a big push to BT on its own with the struggles of 40k being a side effect (at least here)

Voss wrote:
So... what changed? I remember a LOT of hardcore-tournament focus on BT back in the day (early 90s). The general attitude was the stock designs were stupid, and you absolutely had to do custom mechs and all the trivial accounting for BV (or whatever the system was at the time).

For only doing Mech v Mech, a lot of stock designs ARE stupid. The Firestarter is practically worthless and the number of Machine Gun Ammo Bins with no where near the guns to use half of it in a game is quite ridiculous (unless you use the Advanced BRRRT rules for MGs).

However, if one is looking at doing Combined Arms, where Conventional Infantry can show up and be annoying, then having a unit like the Firestarter to hunt them down and burn them out makes sense. The Machine Guns on a TDR-5S also work great, and you can stick Infernos in to the SRM-2 to help destroy them, too.

Maybe once CGL starts looking at allowing Combat Vehicles and Conventional Infantry in to tournaments (which means providing free Record Sheets), having those more generalized Mechs might work better.

Stupid stock designs represent both the bureaucracy and politics that go into designing just about anything.

I like that the game has inefficient designs, where compromises were made, where corners were cut, where people went for the lowest bidder, where nepotism or rivalries got in the way of efficient design. Shows the world is more real.

Without it everything would be a 5/8 max armour 75-ton Clan 'Mech with Gauss Rifles, Medium Pulse Lasers, Streak 4's and a TargComp.

Agreed, inefficient designs with weird and silly quirks is a feature more than it is a bug. F-4 Phantoms being torn apart in air combat maneuvering because they were reliant on missiles which didn't work as advertised and lacked guns as a backup and Hurricanes and Spitfires stalling in negative-gs because of the design of the Merlin engine are real world examples that come to mind. I appreciate those small details as helping make the tabletop game more of a simulation/representation of the setting, whereas other games just seem to want to handwave away those design inefficiencies and problems and represent everything as a successful and efficient combat system with a flawless production history, etc.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Stupid stock designs represent both the bureaucracy and politics that go into designing just about anything.

I like that the game has inefficient designs, where compromises were made, where corners were cut, where people went for the lowest bidder, where nepotism or rivalries got in the way of efficient design. Shows the world is more real.

Without it everything would be a 5/8 max armour 75-ton Clan 'Mech with Gauss Rifles, Medium Pulse Lasers, Streak 4's and a TargComp.

Charistoph sort of hinted at it but the reality is that in universe many of these designs make perfect sense because they were built to do certain jobs, not every battlemech is designed to face off against other battlemechs (thus not making sense for the tournament mech on mech battle some players are after). the wealth of information on to the history of how and why certain models were designed also fills out the setting. TROs are fantastic for this.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I like that the game has inefficient designs, where compromises were made, where corners were cut, where people went for the lowest bidder, where nepotism or rivalries got in the way of efficient design. Shows the world is more real.

Beautifully explained, agree 100%.

So what is people's preferred era to play in and why?

Been playing some games, and I think I am starting to favor the 2901-3019 part of the Succession Wars. A lot less tech, and a lot more brawling. Really like how inefficient the mechs feel.

3050+ that way we can play any era and pit clans VS inner sphere. we always encourage all players to pick a faction from both sides so they can get the full battletech experience.

We use the old ammo explosion rules, anything during the succession wars era tends to cause the Michael Bay effect, that doesn't mean they do not still show up from time to time.

I have really been enjoying the new ilClan era 3150+. In a weird way, it levels the playing field for new players, and the seasoned veterans who know which side of a 3025 mech the ammo's stored on, and bracket fire while they're going to sleep. Partial wings, more armor types than you can shake a stick at, and exotic weaponry galore makes for strange games. Tamar Rising has been a perfect setting for running it, and easily explains why you'd have relics of 3025 tech going up against these high tech marvels.

 Manchu wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I like that the game has inefficient designs, where compromises were made, where corners were cut, where people went for the lowest bidder, where nepotism or rivalries got in the way of efficient design. Shows the world is more real.

Beautifully explained, agree 100%.

It bugs me how some players zoom in on stats, and add the useless tag to mechs and vehicles at the drop of a hat. Of course a Manticore MBT is going to be more effective than a Po at 60 tons. That is if you ignore that the Manticore is a state of the art SL design that costs 2.6 millions , and the Po is a stop gag tank designed to be as cheap as possible at less than half the price (also 993 bv2 vs 719).

M.

The lore/game experience sweet spot for us is right around the FedCom Civil war and WoB invasion.

It introduces all the best (imo) themes from the BT universe: clan invasion, inner sphere drama, WoB treachery. Narratively and thematically it is (again imo) BT's golden era. Never quite got into anything that happens after that lorewise.

Some of the books are ok, I guess. But man some of the Dark Age novels...what a slog to get through.

 Miguelsan wrote:

 Manchu wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I like that the game has inefficient designs, where compromises were made, where corners were cut, where people went for the lowest bidder, where nepotism or rivalries got in the way of efficient design. Shows the world is more real.

Beautifully explained, agree 100%.

It bugs me how some players zoom in on stats, and add the useless tag to mechs and vehicles at the drop of a hat. Of course a Manticore MBT is going to be more effective than a Po at 60 tons. That is if you ignore that the Manticore is a state of the art SL design that costs 2.6 millions , and the Po is a stop gag tank designed to be as cheap as possible at less than half the price (also 993 bv2 vs 719).

M.

I also agree. And that is why the best games for me are game mastered and not letting players cherry pick whatever they want. Inefficient designs are a part of warfare. Sometimes you have to get that jury-rigged vehicle out onto the front line because you only had a day or so to get it ready and you don't have the super efficient mega unit available.

Part of being a good commander is being able to use less effective equipment and doing so well.

I'll continue to echo the vibe hear and say that I'm glad that seems to be such a large part of the CBT community's focus. I see BT games as a storytelling opportunity and have been writing scenarios and campaign ideas in a way that I have ever engaged with a game before. The idea of competitive BT using 'optimized' designs could not be further from what I am looking for. My next game is going to be the first major engagement of the Clan Invasion campaign I've been writing and I'm the OpFor IS player. I'm going to get rocked, but that's the point and we'll see what exciting moments come out of the battle even if the outcome is all but inevitable. Showing up for pickup games with degenerate custom designs sounds miserable.

 NH Gunsmith wrote:
So what is people's preferred era to play in and why?

Unless one is playing in a campaign, I find eras too restrictive to regular game play, especially for new players. Total Warfare has MMLs, but they aren't available till the Jihad, as an example.

So for our group we just use tech levels to establish an easy standard. Introtech is what's available in AGAoC. Standard is what's available in Total Warfare and Tech Manual. And then there's Anything Goes where if you can find the rules, you can use them. We also often limit unit types, such as only doing Mechs, not allowing for Artillery, that sort of thing. For a weekly gaming group, this is best way to manage those expectations.

That being said, I don't really have a favorite era. Some of us are doing a campaign track originally set in the Auregan Reach of HBS' Battletech game. The GM even gave us opportunity to acquire LosTech, and even a few Clan Wolverine designs, out from underneath the nose of the Black Widows and ComStar. I'd have been as happy if it was Clan Invasion, FedCom Civil War, Jihad, or even facing off in the ilClan War.

 NH Gunsmith wrote:
So what is people's preferred era to play in and why?

It is always 3058. We are always beating back the Clans.

For me it is 3025, because of nostalgia and the post apocalyptic post war feeling of the setting.

 Prometheum5 wrote:
I'll continue to echo the vibe hear and say that I'm glad that seems to be such a large part of the CBT community's focus. I see BT games as a storytelling opportunity and have been writing scenarios and campaign ideas in a way that I have ever engaged with a game before. The idea of competitive BT using 'optimized' designs could not be further from what I am looking for. My next game is going to be the first major engagement of the Clan Invasion campaign I've been writing and I'm the OpFor IS player. I'm going to get rocked, but that's the point and we'll see what exciting moments come out of the battle even if the outcome is all but inevitable. Showing up for pickup games with degenerate custom designs sounds miserable.

That's what I love about BT.

You're going to get absolutely spanked, but if you manage to take out more than one Clan mech, you'll be a hero and get to declare yourself the winner!