Battletech - Also known as Trannytech

[Snekposter]

Space Franco-Texans, with how much weird Napoleonic shit they have. Ecole Militare, their uniforms, force tables. But they don't like our precious space anglos, so they must die.

Should have figured out a way to nuke New Avalon.

 

[RSU 1741]

The Recguides seem to point towards something like this as the end goal, with the whole premise of the narration being that the Ilclan is still going strong a century later

The blurbs stating that in 3250 the IlClan is still going on with Periphery rebels and arena fights have been quietly dropped, methinks. The basic message is now "we don't know what will happen". Remember that a lot of developments and story ideas got shot down and retconned (the role of the Fidelis, the siege of Terra ending with Alaric and Stone dueling that even had cover art made).

Why would you play custom mercs

Because Mercs are boring. I have made peace with the fact that Btech's lore is completely retarded but cool nonetheless, but the Merc companies at times feel like .... a forced theme that doesn't make much sense in the setting itself (Mechs are rare equipment that require an huge logistical and industrial effort to the point that they were going extinct in 3025 BUT John Battletech and his friends can easily get a Merc company going when massive interstellar states struggle at it). It helps massively with Your Dudes theme, I presume, but again, mercs are boring.

There are dozens of more interesting sub-factions and groups in Btech that vanilla mercs, I find nothing wrong with people preferring playing something with a bit more.... theme behind it than the usual "grizzled merc with Original Backstory number 568".

 

[Detective Carey]

A long time ago nostalgia struck hard, and I built a full collection of the cleanest/uncracked spine novels I could manage, both original cover art and rerelease cover art. Took a good crack at doing the same with tech readouts and sourcebooks and all of that too till I caved to reality and gave it up around the time Catalyst leaned harder into ePubs for a while. May get back into collecting/archiving since they seem to be doing more printing again.

Reading through those pulp sci fi novels again as adult as opposed to a spergy teenager was brutal, but I just love the setting even if it's retarded sometimes and a bit derivative of things that came before. Personally I prefer the original "Mad Max BUT IN SPACE WITH RUSTY MECHS"/Fang of the Rising Sun aesthetic era the best out of them all, but they all (for the most part) have their good points.

Does anyone know of a BT2018 mod to remove fucking Darius and his useless tips during missions? I've put a lot of miles on the game itself due to various mods and the whole procedural generation angle, but I swear every time he chimes in about "this looks like a good spot for an ambush" when I've already made contact and am responding is the fucking worst. YES DARIUS, THANK YOU. Fuck Darius.

I also don't like that goody two shoes tatted up Saracen who whinges about morality constantly. BITCH DON'T BE A MERCENARY THEN!

 

[MMO_Faggot]

Mercs are boring

If you're totally uncreative, sure. But to say it's "forced" is disingenuous. And also, you are aware that there's nothing stopping you from having multiple forces to play with? Anecdotally, everyone I've played with has their collection divided between a healthy mix of /theirdudes/ and canon stuff. Whatever floats your boat though man.

 

[RSU 1741]

Whatever floats your boat though man.

That's the correct position. I personally find Mercs completely boring and borderline immersion breaking, but I can't deny their role in the fiction/lore nor the fact other people can enjoy them. Like a lot of Btech's stuff, they're a somewhat unwieldy old element of the base canon that doesn't blend well with the setting economics and is clearly needed as a gameplay/painting/collecting excuse.

It's just me.

Also, there's nothing stopping you from having "your dudes" from an established faction, be they Comstar/WoB deniable operation teams, Clan Dark Caste bandits, Scorpion Seekers or whatever. If my opponent merely wants to paint his Kuritans red and doesn't care about the sperg rivet counting, that's great for me.

 

[4chanJanitorDefenseForce]

There is only one faction.

 

[William Murderface]

The blurbs stating that in 3250 the IlClan is still going on with Periphery rebels and arena fights have been quietly dropped, methinks. The basic message is now "we don't know what will happen". Remember that a lot of developments and story ideas got shot down and retconned (the role of the Fidelis, the siege of Terra ending with Alaric and Stone dueling that even had cover art made).



Because Mercs are boring. I have made peace with the fact that Btech's lore is completely retarded but cool nonetheless, but the Merc companies at times feel like .... a forced theme that doesn't make much sense in the setting itself (Mechs are rare equipment that require an huge logistical and industrial effort to the point that they were going extinct in 3025 BUT John Battletech and his friends can easily get a Merc company going when massive interstellar states struggle at it). It helps massively with Your Dudes theme, I presume, but again, mercs are boring.

There are dozens of more interesting sub-factions and groups in Btech that vanilla mercs, I find nothing wrong with people preferring playing something with a bit more.... theme behind it than the usual "grizzled merc with Original Backstory number 568".

I don't think Mercs are boring. I think giant micro-state in an of themselves merc units that never die merc units are boring. Wolf's Dragoons going from barely a regiment after Takashi Kurita's tantrum to back to a full five regiments plus Nasty K's battalion plus an unstoppable Wolfnet and 7th Spec Ops plus transportation assets plus an entire world with factories that nobody knew about plus warships plus a gajillion orphans and dependents and iron womb babies in the space of 20 years. Or the Kell Hounds who end up with a break away semi-state. Or the Northwind Highlanders. Or the ELH. I know those units are the exceptions rather than the rule, but know a unit will go from on the ropes at the end of this book but back and better than ever by the next book just bores me to no end. As much as I disliked seeing the GDL destroyed (since it was the first unit we ever say in action) at least seeing them destroyed outright kept them from being one of those super units that can't be stopped.

At least until they were resurrected.

 

[I'mma real anime gurl]

That's the correct position. I personally find Mercs completely boring and borderline immersion breaking, but I can't deny their role in the fiction/lore nor the fact other people can enjoy them. Like a lot of Btech's stuff, they're a somewhat unwieldy old element of the base canon that doesn't blend well with the setting economics and is clearly needed as a gameplay/painting/collecting excuse.

It's just me.

Also, there's nothing stopping you from having "your dudes" from an established faction, be they Comstar/WoB deniable operation teams, Clan Dark Caste bandits, Scorpion Seekers or whatever. If my opponent merely wants to paint his Kuritans red and doesn't care about the sperg rivet counting, that's great for me.

To call Mercs boring is to call vanilla boring because it doesn't have extra goodies. There are ways to make the mercs unique like maybe they've been company stored by either Kurita or Davion (perhaps another IS faction), maybe they're Solaris 7 mech jocks who decided to go mercenary, or hell maybe they're a bunch of outcasts from a clan. Honestly, I get your point but there are other mercs who use tanks, battle armor, or infantry.

 

[Corn Flakes]

To call Mercs boring is to call vanilla boring because it doesn't have extra goodies. There are ways to make the mercs unique like maybe they've been company stored by either Kurita or Davion (perhaps another IS faction), maybe they're Solaris 7 mech jocks who decided to go mercenary, or hell maybe they're a bunch of outcasts from a clan. Honestly, I get your point but there are other mercs who use tanks, battle armor, or infantry.

Pretty much.

Mercs are literally there to be Your Dudes™ so people aren't locked into the rosters/paintjobs/war fronts of any specific faction. The ones that do exist and aren't there for plot purposes like the Wolf's Dragoons are there as examples of what you can do with your gimmicks. Do you want your mercs to be Extremely Scottish? Northwind Highlanders. Punky History Nerds? Snord's Irregulars. Absolutely Whitebread Boring? Eridani Light Horse. Mad Scientists in Mechs? Team Banzai.

Sure, they don't make that much sense in the original description of the setting in 3025, where the only units available in the game were BattleMechs, and those were hallowed machines passed down from generations after three wholeass Succession Wars. But even FASA realized that state wasn't sustainable and started tossing 'Mechs around like the CEO of Defiance Industries had just been binging millennia-old Oprah Winfrey tapes. Ever since the Fourth Succession War mercenaries made perfect sense to the setting. Sometimes you just don't want to mobilize your military when you can just pay some cash to a bunch of lunatics to cross the border and break shit on your enemy's backyard.

 

[Moja Zemlja]

I personally find Mercs completely boring and borderline immersion breaking,

Think of the SuccWars less as modern conflicts and wars in African shitholes and the use of mercenaries and well equipped they become makes far more sense.

 

[Snekposter]

To call Mercs boring is to call vanilla boring because it doesn't have extra goodies. There are ways to make the mercs unique like maybe they've been company stored by either Kurita or Davion (perhaps another IS faction), maybe they're Solaris 7 mech jocks who decided to go mercenary, or hell maybe they're a bunch of outcasts from a clan. Honestly, I get your point but there are other mercs who use tanks, battle armor, or infantry.

I've posted about the Killer Bees before. Aerospace/spec ops combo, even captured a JumpShip but the upkeep costs damn near bankrupted them for obvious reasons.

Think of the SuccWars less as modern conflicts and wars in African shitholes and the use of mercenaries and well equipped they become makes far more sense.

Pretty much, yeah. Don't forget that when the Star League collapsed it was an outright fire sale for everything Kerensky and ComStar didn't manage to snag, and boy was there a lot they missed.

Or the Northwind Highlanders. Or the ELH.

At least those guys have an actual reason they've managed to stick around for so long, and its because they've managed to maintain old, old traditions that date back to before the Star League, and in the case of the Highlanders all the way back to before the current modern day. God knows the Scots are stubborn enough to stick around and together come hell or high water. Plus while the big names get all the attention, for every Morgan Kell who manages to make it despite the odds, there's at least a few dozen groups that are nothing more than a lance of light 'Mechs that are 50% duct tape by mass thanks to the careful ministrations of what few techs they've managed to get their hands on, scraping together whatever shit-ass work they can find in the ass end of nowhere with no greater aspirations than hoping their current employer doesn't fuck them over like their last one did.

 

[BlackDragoons]

Think of the SuccWars less as modern conflicts and wars in African shitholes and the use of mercenaries and well equipped they become makes far more sense.

I always thought of them having close ties with the style of Mercenaries during the Golden Age Arc of Berserk.

I've enjoyed Mercs because it feeds my stupid autistic brain. I created my guys based around some dude who lost his shit when the Star League fell and wanted to collect all the Battlemechs because he thought they might go extinct.

 

[The Bogwater Rises]

Yeah I love people having faction lists and paint jobs. That's awesome. I plan on having a few faction specific lances in my back pocket, but I paint my minis (poorly) literally however I want. Some have Gundam paint themes, some have random shit that came to me in a vision, some have camo patters, my Commando is painted using a "Commando Green" and then using Arnold from Commando as a reference.

I want to play mercs so I (and my guys) don't have to be autistic about adhering to lore of their faction. If you pay them they will fight. If you don't pay them they will fight you (or fuck off).

 

[StevieLasVegas]

Maybe I'll revive my old merc lance from RogueTech one of these days for a small lance of medium mechs. Just need some time off for once to print & paint some minis

 

[HTTP Error 404]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3463200/MechWarrior_5_Clans__Ghost_Bear_Flash_Storm/

It's out. $20. Still no mod support or career mode.

MechWarrior 5: Clans – Ghost Bear: Flash Storm

Leo Showers is dead. As Ulric Kerensky changes the rules of engagement, Clan Ghost Bear khans Bjorn Jorgenson and Aletha Kabrinski plot their next moves as they strive to take the lead in the race towards Terra. Take command of the Silveroot Keshik, an elite unit tasked with proving Ghost Bear’s strength and reclaiming lost glory.

Engage in a Trial of Possession to claim the powerful Ebon Jaguar and Night Gyr ‘Mechs. Face off against the legendary Second Sword of Light in a battle for control of Alshain, a world replete with ‘Mech factories and orbital shipyards capable of producing warships.

Unleash 4 new OmniMechs and 4 new BattleMechs, and command Elementals as you take the fight to space and beyond in this thrilling expansion!

Key Features

New 12 mission Story Campaign – Lead the Silveroot Keshik in a relentless campaign to restore Ghost Bear’s honor and dominate the battlefield.

4 New OmniMechs – Night Gyr, Ebon Jaguar, Fire Moth, and Huntsman, all with full Omnipod customization.

4 New BattleMechs – Wield the legendary Kodiak, Jenner IIC, Hunchback IIC, and Rifleman IIC.

Expanded MechLab – Fine-tune your BattleMechs with enhanced customization options including engine swapping.

Elementals – Star Commander Rook leads his Elemental point in support of your star. Direct Rook and his point using the command wheel while facing the elemental squads of Jade Falcon and Smoke Jaguar.

Evolved Combat Features – Fight on the hull of the Grizzly, the Ghost bear command ship, and face the Iron Talon a powerful new boss in the most intense MechWarrior combat yet.

 

[Snekposter]

The fuck is the Iron Talon?

 

[HTTP Error 404]

The fuck is the Iron Talon?

original parhanna games character doughnut steel

Edit: Looking into it, no fucking clue. Talons are a specific type of extinct mech AND a specific type of foot weapon. A claw for kicking and death from aboves.

 

[BlackDragoons]

original parhanna games character doughnut steel

Edit: Looking into it, no fucking clue. Talons are a specific type of extinct mech AND a specific type of foot weapon. A claw for kicking and death from aboves.

Was extinct. Talon came back after 3056.

 

[More AWS-8Q Than You]

As a House Marik loyalist you have my sympathies. My Captain General is a literal fraud incompetent in the contemporary setting. And worst part is everyone thinks it's funny instead of stupid.

The irony of one our best captain-generals being an imposter is about the most Marik thing ever. It's mostly because the FWL never had a staff writer who was a fan, so always the short end of the stick. Like our Navy that forgot what armor was, or someone post-Jihad being all "Naw, we don't need the Wraith, there's no place in our militaries for a 7/11/7 backstabber with pulse lasers." It hurts a bit to know you're lower on the priority list than the nation of Space Hookers and Catgirls.

Buddy, imagine what it feels like to be a Clan Blood Spirit enthusiast. Derpy little autistic purists who just can't catch a break, ever.

The Stooping Hawk is one of my favorite Clan mechs. The Spirits got done dirty.

 

[M3xus]

Well, some really nice news regarding the DLC. The new 'Mechs can be used in the base campaign if you're bought the DLC, so there's more choices on what to field and you're not stuck with just Daishi spam in the final stages. Haven't gotten to the DLC proper, but I've heard good things about the story.