Battletech - Also known as Trannytech

Since I'm the GM for this weekend's game, tomorrow's game is laid out like this:

We use the BMR(r) rulebook. (We all agree the rules for vehicles revisions that came out later undervalues them BV-wise) .

Each side gets 15,000 BV2 to spend on any IS force. It can be any combination of 'Mechs, vehicles, infantry, VTOLs, or BattleArmor, but it has to be Inner Sphere canon units that would be found in 3067 or earlier. The side leader can break it up how ever he wants among his two players.

No artillery. Minefields from Thunder/BattleArmor deployed minefields are okay. Infernos are okay.

Terrain and environmental conditions are drawn at random off (we put them on cards and draw them out of a hat).

Each side's mission and victory condition card is drawn randomly (again, on cards).

The new ilClan recognition guide (#32) is out. There are vehicles, Mechs, but the biggest surprise for me was a new variant of the IS Standard BA that has magnetic clamps and jump boosters and a MG. It's strictly for anti-infantry, but I like the idea of it.

And if I recall correctly that is the last of the ilClan Recognition Guide series. I'm sure CGL will have another series like it in the not too distant future. I like the series as a whole, although I would have preferred an actual TRO with just new designs and record sheets for them (and new variants of old favorites) but something like the ilClan Rec. Guides or the XTROs aren't unwelcome.

Unless I'm missing something, the next released product book will be something called "For the IlKhan's Eyes Only" that will presumably deal with the end of the Wall and the Cappies and maybe the Raven Alliance. We'll see.

Also, remember the silhouette mech from the original record sheets that kind of looked like a Crusader but not entirely? We finally have a name and design to go with it. It's called the Viper.
 
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William Murderface said:
The new ilClan recognition guide (#32) is out. There are vehicles, Mechs, but the biggest surprise for me was a new variant of the IS Standard BA that has magnetic clamps and jump boosters and a MG. It's strictly for anti-infantry, but I like the idea of it.

And if I recall correctly that is the last of the ilClan Recognition Guide series. I'm sure CGL will have another series like it in the not too distant future. I like the series as a whole, although I would have preferred an actual TRO with just new designs and record sheets for them (and new variants of old favorites) but something like the ilClan Rec. Guides or the XTROs aren't unwelcome.

Unless I'm missing something, the next released product book will be something called "For the IlKhan's Eyes Only" that will presumably deal with the end of the Wall and the Cappies and maybe the Raven Alliance. We'll see.
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I actually love the new Blood Asp Design.
 
One thing I wish they would have had more of in the ilClan RG series was ASF and DS variants. I know there were some, but I love new fighters and ASF stuff.
 
So the battle went down like this:

Side A had a nice mixture of heavier Mechs and vehicles and a couple Yellowjacket VTOLs and drew a "protect the convoy" mission, which meant they had to get six out of ten tanker trucks off the other side of the map just to get any level of victory.

Side B had much the same thing but with a totally unexpected twist that we will NEVER allow again. More on that in a moment. Their mission was to eliminate at least 50% of the opposing force Mech and vehicles.

Environmental conditions were windy and dry so fire would spread nicely.

Side A loses initiative and sets up first. Then Side B breaks out their secret sauce: four AC/2 carriers with AP ammo and G2/P7 crews parked on top of a hill. They are firing 20 AC/2s every turn, and they have enough ammo to do this for 18 turns so pretty much as long as they have LOS and something is in range they are taking a shot, and while they need to roll a 12 to get a critical, it's a 1 in 36 chance of doing that so they should be scoring crits every other turn or so and with such low gunnery skills, they are going to hit an awful lot. Which they do. Turn 1 they tap the Side A Awesome-8Q right in the head, they get the crit roll and it goes internal, and kills the pilot outright. Two turns later a Crud gets hit in the ammo. This goes on until Side A gets a Javelin loaded up with Inferno to the hilltop and although it takes a few turns, puts the AC/2 Carriers out of commission. But it's too little too late for Side A.

It was a total rout for Side A. They didn't even come close to getting those tankers off the map.

It was a lot of fun to GM and even the losing side thought it was hilarious.

All told, four AC/2 Carriers with G2/P7 crews only came out to just over 2000 BV2 points, so that tank platoon was cheaper than some 'Mechs on the table.

And we're never letting that trick happen again.
 
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William Murderface said:
So the battle went down like this:

Side A had a nice mixture of heavier Mechs and vehicles and a couple Yellowjacket VTOLs and drew a "protect the convoy" mission, which meant they had to get six out of ten tanker trucks off the other side of the map just to get any level of victory.

Side B had much the same thing but with a totally unexpected twist that we will NEVER allow again. More on that in a moment. Their mission was to eliminate at least 50% of the opposing force Mech and vehicles.

Environmental conditions were windy and dry so fire would spread nicely.

Side A loses initiative and sets up first. Then Side B breaks out their secret sauce: four AC/2 carriers with AP ammo and G2/P7 crews parked on top of a hill. They are firing 20 AC/2s every turn, and they have enough ammo to do this for 18 turns so pretty much as long as they have LOS and something is in range they are taking a shot, and while they need to roll a 12 to get a critical, it's a 1 in 36 chance of doing that so they should be scoring crits every other turn or so and with such low gunnery skills, they are going to hit an awful lot. Which they do. Turn 1 they tap the Side A Awesome-8Q right in the head, they get the crit roll and it goes internal, and kills the pilot outright. Two turns later a Crud gets hit in the ammo. This goes on until Side A gets a Javelin loaded up with Inferno to the hilltop and although it takes a few turns, puts the AC/2 Carriers out of commission. But it's too little too late for Side A.

It was a total rout for Side A. They didn't even come close to getting those tankers off the map.

It was a lot of fun to GM and even the losing side thought it was hilarious.

All told, four AC/2 Carriers with G2/P7 crews only came out to just over 2000 BV2 points, so that tank platoon was cheaper than some 'Mechs on the table.

And we're never letting that trick happen again.
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Alt ammo can be very cheesy if people are allowed to abuse it, I doubt they will but be careful they don't try something similar using SRM tandem-charge.
 
William Murderface said:
So the battle went down like this:

Side A had a nice mixture of heavier Mechs and vehicles and a couple Yellowjacket VTOLs and drew a "protect the convoy" mission, which meant they had to get six out of ten tanker trucks off the other side of the map just to get any level of victory.

Side B had much the same thing but with a totally unexpected twist that we will NEVER allow again. More on that in a moment. Their mission was to eliminate at least 50% of the opposing force Mech and vehicles.

Environmental conditions were windy and dry so fire would spread nicely.

Side A loses initiative and sets up first. Then Side B breaks out their secret sauce: four AC/2 carriers with AP ammo and G2/P7 crews parked on top of a hill. They are firing 20 AC/2s every turn, and they have enough ammo to do this for 18 turns so pretty much as long as they have LOS and something is in range they are taking a shot, and while they need to roll a 12 to get a critical, it's a 1 in 36 chance of doing that so they should be scoring crits every other turn or so and with such low gunnery skills, they are going to hit an awful lot. Which they do. Turn 1 they tap the Side A Awesome-8Q right in the head, they get the crit roll and it goes internal, and kills the pilot outright. Two turns later a Crud gets hit in the ammo. This goes on until Side A gets a Javelin loaded up with Inferno to the hilltop and although it takes a few turns, puts the AC/2 Carriers out of commission. But it's too little too late for Side A.

It was a total rout for Side A. They didn't even come close to getting those tankers off the map.

It was a lot of fun to GM and even the losing side thought it was hilarious.

All told, four AC/2 Carriers with G2/P7 crews only came out to just over 2000 BV2 points, so that tank platoon was cheaper than some 'Mechs on the table.

And we're never letting that trick happen again.
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Yep, that's a lesson you learn the hard way: vehicles are very cheap firepower, particularly with special ammo.

Although in my group we don't let vehicle crews have gunnery lower than 4. SRM carrier memes are great fun, and LRM carriers are just great indirect fire platforms to give your light 'Mechs something to do if you're into that sort of stuff, but vehicles can pretty quickly displace 'Mechs if you're not careful. And we're still here for the stompies (even the Hell's Horses player still fields 'Mechs), so there's a bit of a gentleman's agreement going on there.
 
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Corn Flakes said:
Yep, that's a lesson you learn the hard way: vehicles are very cheap firepower, particularly with special ammo.

Although in my group we don't let vehicle crews have gunnery lower than 4. SRM carrier memes are great fun, and LRM carriers are just great indirect fire platforms to give your light 'Mechs something to do if you're into that sort of stuff, but vehicles can pretty quickly displace 'Mechs if you're not careful. And we're still here for the stompies (even the Hell's Horses player still fields 'Mechs), so there's a bit of a gentleman's agreement going on there.
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Which is why I've said before that when the developers changed the rules to make vehicles more survivable, they screwed up by not adjusting BV2 to go along with it. And it could have totally backfired if the mission cards had required the side to do something more than just park on top of a hill and lob a ton of rounds at folks. AP ammo isn't great for AC/2 or AC/5, but when you fling enough of it, you're going to get crits just based on the sheer number fired. And at twenty of them firing every turn, it was inevitable that a bunch of them would do what they were designed to do.

Of course, we were playing with the BMRr rules, so the rules changes didn't apply to us, but to players under the current ruleset, vehicles are very underpriced.

It was just one of those things that nobody thought about doing until one of the players asked me if I, as GM, would allow it. I said I would, but if he caught a beating in the front yard, he had it coming. But it all came down to not expecting a player to do something that was perfectly legal and exploitable.

And we'll figure out a house rule to keep it from happening again. But it was a fun trick once.
 
I found out that anything hits in cluster will absolutely wreck Tanks, BA and Infrantry. Its why I make sure to take a couple SRM6s or LBXs just in case someone wants to field a shit ton of cheap vehicles.
 
I think I'm going to suggest three rules for us to adopt.

1) No more than two of any one design. This doesn't apply to infantry or BA, but will apply to Protos. Variants don't count. Meaning you can have four Partisan tanks, but only two standard and two AA versions. It also doesn't count for APCs on a one to one with infantry. (You have five platoons of rifle infantry, so you can have five hover APCs, but not more than that).
2) Gunnery and piloting skills can't be more than two levels apart. You can have G3P5, but not G2P5.
3) AP ammo for AC/2 and AC/5 only in mechs. I'm not entirely sold on this one though, but I don't want to see it happen the next time when someone grabs a Mauler, two AC/2 Carriers, and two AC/2 Warrior VTOLs.
 
William Murderface said:
I think I'm going to suggest three rules for us to adopt.

1) No more than two of any one design. This doesn't apply to infantry or BA, but will apply to Protos. Variants don't count. Meaning you can have four Partisan tanks, but only two standard and two AA versions. It also doesn't count for APCs on a one to one with infantry. (You have five platoons of rifle infantry, so you can have five hover APCs, but not more than that).
2) Gunnery and piloting skills can't be more than two levels apart. You can have G3P5, but not G2P5.
3) AP ammo for AC/2 and AC/5 only in mechs. I'm not entirely sold on this one though, but I don't want to see it happen the next time when someone grabs a Mauler, two AC/2 Carriers, and two AC/2 Warrior VTOLs.
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I'd just encourage people to play by gentleman's rules and not to be too excessive with cheesy strats, its fun the odd time seeing a dumb strategy pay off but its not fun seeing it happening repeatedly.
 
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I agree. I was just being all rules lawerly for a moment.

I mean, we could go with Plan B, where we just beat the offender in the driveway or something...

"We told you no more AC/2 and AP ammo. Now you get the belt."
 
I'm interested in playing some some video games set in the Battletech universe but don't have much money right now to spend, any options?
 
Moja Zemlja said:
What kind of games do you like?
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I'm open to play most game genres besides card games, tower defense or racing
BlackDragoons said:
Could sail the Seven Seas and just pirate it. GoG has both MW5 and HBS Battletech.
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I admit i don't know what the best sites to look to sail the seven seas when it comes to video games or how to install games acquired thar way (i don't know much when it comes to using computer besides the basic stuff)
 
This why I play MegaMek. All Mechwarrior, no trannies.
Never, not once have I meet an real female that played BattleTech. If I see a creature that approximates a female and their profile says Battletech, I run the other way.
 
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