Battletech - Also known as Trannytech

[Corn Flakes]

You might like the artwork they used for the Rifleman in Recognition Guide 8. The -7N2 is pretty nice, 2 LB-10X, 2 Light PPCs, and 2 ER Mediums. 11 Tons of armor, XL engine is the downside, but it's put to decent use. The head only has 8 points of armor, but everywhere but the legs and rear armor passes the AC/20 test. 3 tons of ammo, so you can run two of slug, one of cluster, and it's protected by CASE II, so it's not a torso ending bomb. It's pretty tough for the Rifleman.

I'm so glad the modern Riflemen don't look like they have an UFO parked atop their heads anymore.

 

[More AWS-8Q Than You]

Acktually That was Caleb Davion who was bugfuck nuts, not Julian. Not that it was much help. When Caleb finally croaked, Julian was on the other side of the Inner Sphere and had to make his way back.

You're right. Forgot all about Caleb, I assume there's at least a few people in lore that would like to forget about him too. Forgot they opened up the 3150 era by killing a bunch of Dark Age era characters

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

I'm so glad the modern Riflemen don't look like they have an UFO parked atop their heads anymore.

FASA really sucked at designs at times. The early mech designs are all taken form Macross and various other animes and these designs look great, then you have a plethora of mechs designed by FASA with wonky designs (though some are still pretty good), feels like the game now slowly finds its groove again.

To me, worst offenders are mech designs with super narrow and thin legs, that look like the mech is walking on steel girders. And then there's stuff like the Hussar, the Falconer or Bombardier, that just look really weird.


I already said how ugly the Marauder and Warhammer redesigns are, and how glad I am to see miniatures more closely resembling the original designs again.


Also, had another mission in HBS BT that really showlighted how atrocious it can be at times.
Escort mission, where you have no fucking clue where the APCs that you have to escort are headed and hostile reinforcements that spawn close by to the extraction point the moment the first APC arrives there. Of course, the enemy gets the initiative and storms towards the APCs and starts alpha-striking them into dust... it's shit like this that essentially forces the player to save-scum and cheese stuff like scripted events or take advantage of the AI. If the game throws bullshit at me by spawning enemies way off on the map where they can make me fail the mission (or even just an optional goal), all that I can do is to restart the mission, position my own guys beforehand to fuck them up when they spawn. And of course, save my game and reload it as many times as it takes until RNGesus is with me and somehow makes the APCs survive the first round. Again, I enjoy the game for what it does for the most part, but when stuff like that happens and I fail to achieve a goal due to unfair mission design, that's just ridiculous.

 

[XYZpdq]

those redesigns Studio Nue did were soooooooooooooooooooooooooooo fucking dank

 

[Urbanmech]

FASA really sucked at designs at times. The early mech designs are all taken form Macross and various other animes and these designs look great, then you have a plethora of mechs designed by FASA with wonky designs (though some are still pretty good), feels like the game now slowly finds its groove again.

To me, worst offenders are mech designs with super narrow and thin legs, that look like the mech is walking on steel girders. And then there's stuff like the Hussar, the Falconer or Bombardier, that just look really weird.
View attachment 1798981View attachment 1798983View attachment 1798982

I already said how ugly the Marauder and Warhammer redesigns are, and how glad I am to see miniatures more closely resembling the original designs again.
View attachment 1798984View attachment 1798985

Also, had another mission in HBS BT that really showlighted how atrocious it can be at times.
Escort mission, where you have no fucking clue where the APCs that you have to escort are headed and hostile reinforcements that spawn close by to the extraction point the moment the first APC arrives there. Of course, the enemy gets the initiative and storms towards the APCs and starts alpha-striking them into dust... it's shit like this that essentially forces the player to save-scum and cheese stuff like scripted events or take advantage of the AI. If the game throws bullshit at me by spawning enemies way off on the map where they can make me fail the mission (or even just an optional goal), all that I can do is to restart the mission, position my own guys beforehand to fuck them up when they spawn. And of course, save my game and reload it as many times as it takes until RNGesus is with me and somehow makes the APCs survive the first round. Again, I enjoy the game for what it does for the most part, but when stuff like that happens and I fail to achieve a goal due to unfair mission design, that's just ridiculous.

Always hated the "How the fuck does that torso twist" mechs like the old style King Crab and such. At least that's getting fixed with revamps to those mech designs.

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

Always hated the "How the fuck does that torso twist" mechs like the old style King Crab and such. At least that's getting fixed with revamps to those mech designs.

Extended rules (specifically design quirks) cover that, some mechs like the Bushwacker have no torso twist (the quirk isn't listed in the MUL overview, but the no-torso-twist quirk specifically mentions the Bushwacker), while others like the Urbanmech have an extended torso twist (which makes them work like turrets that can pick a firing arc at will). They also offer some other interesting stuff like the Rifleman, that receives a bonus on his to-hit throw against airborne targets or the Viking, that gets no deduction on his to-hit roll when attacking more than one target.
There's also quirks that affect maintenance (Modular Weapons allow quicker replacement, kinda like a scaled down Omni pod) or their market value (Bad/Good Reputation).

Using standard rules and thus allowing even mechs like the King Crab to torso-twist despite not having a hip is a bit weird, but allows to have generalized rules for all mechs, to speed up games. The extended rules make the game a little bit more convoluted with more stuff you need to keep in mind, but it helps making mechs a little bit more unique, to differentiate them from one another and to more realistically reflecting their design and how they are played.

Classic BattleTech has some pretty good basic rules, but whenever I flip through the books with extended rules, I find so many neat things like alternative rules to partial cover, design quirks, etc... and it can all be combined so easily and to the players liking. I also admire the scope, you could technically play a game that seamlessly covers everything from infantry, vehicle and Mech warfare, via aerial combat up to corvettes duking it out in orbit. It would be a giant mess to keep track of everything, sure, but it's technically still possible.

 

[White Devil]

CBT was a perfectly self contained game.. Shit gets weird when you add in Aerotech though, and I think they even did Naval rules eventually? Never played a game with ships though.

 

[Corn Flakes]

Using standard rules and thus allowing even mechs like the King Crab to torso-twist despite not having a hip is a bit weird, but allows to have generalized rules for all mechs, to speed up games. The extended rules make the game a little bit more convoluted with more stuff you need to keep in mind, but it helps making mechs a little bit more unique, to differentiate them from one another and to more realistically reflecting their design and how they are played.

Furthermore, particularly for brawling mechs like the King Crab you really want the torso twist. Nothing worse than having an enemy 3 hexes away from you, just out of weapons cone.

Someone mentioned Alpha Strike earlier: I know it's a far more limited ruleset, but it's definitely my preferred way to play Battletech in Current Year. The days of having 4+ hours to dedicate to a single large skirmish are long gone, and while somewhat less lulzy with its crits than standard Battletech, Alpha Strike does scratch my mid-to-large scale stompy robot death itch.

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

I've been venting about some frustrations with HBS BT in the past few posts, but I guess it doesn't hurt to sometimes also mention the good things.
Is there anything more satisfying than to shower an unscratched enemy mech with dozens of missiles, just for one to be a lucky crit that hits an ammo bin and blows the enemy to kingdom come?
It's also pure joy whenever a Gauss has a lucky headshot, just when you're about to get your ass handed to yourself in a sling, and it turns the tide of battle.

Situations like that make me forgive HBS for some of their more annoying decisions.

CBT was a perfectly self contained game.. Shit gets weird when you add in Aerotech though, and I think they even did Naval rules eventually? Never played a game with ships though.

There's even submarines, dedicated underwater battlearmor and special equippement such as torpedo launchers for battlemechs... and while I think that it's really neat to have rules that cover so much ground (literally), much like AeroTech and space combat, I don't think it's really playable in combination with regular CBT rules... though playing a scenario of mechs somewhere deep beneath the waves, duking it out with submarines and boats or starting off a campaign play with a little spacebattle before the ground combat starts could be pretty fun as a one-off.

Furthermore, particularly for brawling mechs like the King Crab you really want the torso twist. Nothing worse than having an enemy 3 hexes away from you, just out of weapons cone.

Yeah, mechs with weapons that need them to get up close and personal to be effective really need a torso twist. I mean, the King Crab could still use it's sidearc to at least get one gun to bear on an enemy that's just barely out of the front arc, but when you run a King Crab, you want to give your enemy a bit of the old double AC/20, just so he knows you mean business.

Playing with quirks can greatly disadvantage a mech like in this case, but overall, I think it makes it a bit more tactical and makes up for it by other means. The King Crab receives a +2 Bonus on Initiative, so maybe that'll give that side the edge to move the King Crab last and thus ensure a decent firing arc... otherwise, it forces the player to carefully weigh his options and to take some risks, which in turn might make the game more spicy (but, admittedly, also a bit more frustrating if you end up on the receiving end too much).

As for the time it takes for BT games, these guys have a pretty interesting idea to speed up attack and hit-location dicerolls:

Haven't really tried it, but based on their videos, it seems quick and convenient. The short version: They either use "Chain Firing" which is classic standard rules or "Group Firing", which is their houserule.
When you make an attack with multiple weapons, you can use group firing, which means you have one die called the pilot-die and one die per attacking weapon. The dice themselves are color and size coded to the weapons (like a big white d6 represents an AC/20, a small red die represents a small laser and so on).
So, when you attack with 4 weapons, you roll 5 dice instead of 8. To see if a weapon has hit, you add the pilot die and the corresponding weapon die.
With a low to-hit number, you can risk group firing more easily and maybe get more weapon hits, at higher numbers, you might want to opt for chain firing and bank on getting a lucky shot.
Whatever firing mode you chose will be used for hit locations, too, so with group-firing, hits tend to cluster around the same locations, which is also not entirely unwelcome.

From a statistical point of view, using the group firing method will result in the same variation of hits/misses as the regular system, only the variation isn't as strong within one salvoe.
I even like the names they picked for both systems - it fits really well into the game, both from a metagaming point of view as well as lorewise.

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

Happy Amaris Coup anniversary, everyone.

746 years from now, Richard Cameron II will receive a truly mind blowing present from his best buddy Stefan, even the SLDF royal regiments will have a blast.
sorry not sorry



I'm planning to buy a couple minis to be able to replay both the Coup and later on the liberation of Terra.
For the coup itself, I thought it would be fun to recreate the battle between the lone SLDF Royal Regiments lance against one lance of the Rimworld Republic:
Royal Black Watch: Highlander 732b, Highlander 732, Black Knight 6Rb and a Warhammer 6Rb
-against-
Rim World's: Pillager 3Z, Thug 11Eb, Archer 2Rb and Guillotine 3N.

There's an artwork showing 3 mechs of the RBW, 2 Highlanders and a Black Knight, I thought a Warhammer would be a nice addition, only problem: I'd love to use two 732b Highlanders, but I haven't yet figured out a way to balance that with the other lance, I'd have to upgrade the Guilotine, but haven't found a decent replacement yet.
As for the RWR, I couldn't find much info, apparently, they used an Archer at some point and I figured, with names like "Pillager", "Thug" and "Guilotine", they'd fit rather nicely (and manage to match up the BV of the other lance to some point).
Technically, it would be more correct to have 1 lance RBW defending against mutliple lighter lances of RWR attackers, but that seemed like a nightmare to balance, here, I at least have the BV to kind of sort of even things out. Maybe I'll set up different lances for the RWR at a later time...

For the liberation of Terra setting:
SLDF Regular: Atlas 7D, Orion in Kerensky's loadout, 1 Crab 27b and one Trebuchet 7N
-against-
Amaris Empire Armed Forces: Rampage 5G, Dragoon AEM-01, Thunderbolt 5Sb and a Rifleman 3N.

I can play these two lances against each other or add the Coup-era lances to have a larger 8 vs 8 battle. This also allows me to play the Dragoon and I think the 3N, coming freshly off the assembly lines at that time, is a nice touch.

 

[Corn Flakes]

Happy Amaris Coup, everybody!

Those lances are very fluffy, but the lack of Marauders on the SLDF side saddens me.

Personally, for big slugfest scenarios like the Amaris Civil War (not even the First Succession War had as many large-scale mech-to-mech battles, what with all the nukes all sides used), I'd definitely go with Alpha Strike. Being able to field 12+ 'mechs a side without needing to make the match a life choice is wonderful. I've been checking the Death From Above Wargaming alternate damage rules and they're starting to grow on me, too. Yes, you roll more dice but it's still just a single roll per attack and the more granular damage feels a little more true to the setting (and makes smaller units less absurdly fragile).

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

Those lances are very fluffy, but the lack of Marauders on the SLDF side saddens me.

You know what... you are totally correct. I just looked up versions of the Marauder and figured, I could replace the Trebuchet (I was never quite happy with that choice tbh) and go for a Marauder 2R. CASE, ER PPCs, Double Heat Sinks and FF armor makes that thing a fucking beast. At the same time, I can replace the Rifleman with a Stalker 3H for long range fire support... I'm sad to see the Rifleman go, but the Stalker is never a bad choice in a pinch. With that setup, the BV of both lances is within 32 points of each other, and when I figure in the other 2 lances from the Coup-era, the BV of both sides is only 9 points apart. Even the tonnage matches up. This is an all around improvement.

I ordered the Battle Lance and Command Lance sets from Catalyst Game Labs, but apparently, they won't come out until March at the earliest... I just hope they'll make those miniatures available individually like those from Iron Winds, I'd like to buy a handful of the mechs that up till now are only available in the boxed sets or starter boxes...

On a sidenote, to soothe the suffering of @More AWS-8Q Than You, I have finally managed to retire the Awesome 8T in my HBS BT lance and I am now using a Stalker with 2 LRM20s, 4 Medium Lasers and 2 SRM2s.
I also finally managed to salvage enough parts to put together an Annihilator and I am in love with that thing. I removed the 4 medium lasers, replaced 2 of the AC/10s with Ultra-AC/5s, added 2 small lasers for close combat and beefed up the armor significantly. That thing is now capable of coring anything short of an Atlas with a single aimed salvo to the CT.
It's inevitable in a game like this, but I have salvaged so much stuff, I have like 70 mechs in storage and a hundred million C-Bills in the bank.
Kind of weird when you think about it, I can almost field an entire regiment of mechs.

 

[Snekposter]

That's the downside of forcing players to a lance or two at most. You never commit all those extra forces you've got around to battles where they can and will get lost.

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

That's the downside of forcing players to a lance or two at most. You never commit all those extra forces you've got around to battles where they can and will get lost.

I guess it's a bit of a balancing issue. Something that makes the player lose mechs (so he can't stock up on insane amounts of mechs) might cause frustration when you constantly lose mechs and a few bad runs in a row might mean you get stuck in a deadend without enough mechs to continue your game...
Still, there should be something added that limits the number of mechs in storage or reduce their number somehow, but how that could be done without causing frustration is questionable. More deadly fights that force you to replace mechs more often would be one way to go, but the game already struggles with lategame difficulty and solves that by simply throwing more enemies at you or giving them completely unfair advantages. I guess the game could reflect the fragility of giant warmachines that have been held together with spit and duct tape for a couple hundred years by adding a mechanic that can cause a Mech to end up as a mission kill that can't be fixed in the Mechbay without special, rare parts.

A rather simple game mechanic: Whenever a mech loses a location, he needs a salvage part from that mech-type to repair. This could also be used to discourage the use of heavier mechs, by making their salvage parts more rare. Ie: Even when you manage to kill an Atlas with a headshot on the first round, that still doesn't guarantee that you'll actually have salvageable parts, this could be justified with the nature of the mission itself. It's hard to haul the burning remains of a 100ton colossus into a dropship when there's hostiles on their way. Alternatively, salvage parts for heavier mechs could take more salvage slots than those of smaller mechs, or the number of mech-parts that you can salvage is limited in every mission, depending on the mission type.

The way it is, you end up with a shitload of mechs and spare parts, which is kinda weird when you think about it. I don't even bother selling heatsinks cause you get so many, so I'm currently hauling around a thousand or so heatsinks alone. Every now and then, I sell stuff I don't need, (though I always keep one of each mech-type that I own, I'm kind of like a collector in that regard, so the current game mechanic does help me out quite a bit).
It kinda makes me chuckle when I imagine this from an in-game perspective, though. Some one-of-a-kind dropship enters a planets orbit and the guys in there suddenly start flooding the market with a company's worth of mechs and dozens upon dozens of medium lasers, jump jets, ammo bins, missile launchers, and so on. I flood the system with such a huge number of mechs and weapons, it should tank the local arms market for a couple months.

 

[Corn Flakes]

Yeah, the issue is that you can magically spray C-bills at a 'mech and repair it, no matter how rare the 'mech is or the extent of the damage. It's a concession for the sake of keeping the game simple, of course, since not even Battletech autists have much fun trying to comb the battlefield/markets for a Thunderbolt TDR-5LS left hand actuator.

Personally, I'd have made two changes to the system to help resolve that issue:
The first is that 'mechs wouldn't be fixed with C-bills alone. Besides ComStar Cash, you'd need actual spare parts. Each 'mech would be part of a specific "pool" of spare parts it requires to be fixed, and each weight class would have 4-6 spare part pools. Keep them generic: Light 'mechs use Class A1 to A4 Spare Parts, Medium 'mechs use Class B5 to B9 Spare Parts, Heavy 'mechs use Class C10 to C15 Spare Parts, and Assault 'mechs use Class D16 to D21 Spare Parts. You can always disassemble a 'mech for spare parts (the amount you get depending on how damaged the 'mech is), you can get them as mission rewards, and you can buy parts off the market in limited amounts for C-bills. Spare Parts for Light and Medium 'mechs would be cheap and plentiful, but Heavy and Asssault spare parts would be way more expensive (and bulky, keep reading). This also gives you a reason to stop mothballing so many 'mechs. And speaking of which...

The second change is limited storage space. Your dinky little merc company can carry around enough 'mechs, weapons and munitions in mothball to fully equip the entire Dieron Military District. That's just fucking wrong. Give us a generous amount of storage at first, then make it so larger 'mechs, weapons and modules take up more space. So you can go around with your 20 Light 'mechs on the first few months of the game, but as you start piling on the Heavies and Assaults and the Large Lasers and Gauss Rifles, it starts getting harder to Tetris everything in the Space Warehouse.

All that said, I didn't have a lot of issues with storing equipment or mothballing 'mechs because I'm one of those spergs who runs stock 'mechs only and sells the crap he doesn't like.

I get that half the fun of Battletech (the board game) is homebrewing 'mechs using the construction rules, and I've wasted far too many hours tweaking my own homebrewed designs, but the videogames always insist in turning standard 'Mechs into OmniMech-lites and that hits me right in the autism. Sure, let me swap like for like so I can take out that Amdecker 300 Large Laser and install a Magna Mk III for a bit of extra damage at the expense of accuracy instead, but being able to strip out all the weapons and replace the reactor and essentially turn a 'mech into a completely different 'mech willy-nilly just rankles me. Hell, it's half the reason MWO has such a boating issue. As the quote goes, given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game. Either their own fun, or everybody else's.

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

Come to think about it, they could have gone with the Mount & Blade route and given the player the opportunity to control star systems. You'd have to pay upkeep for troops, including mechtechs, medical personnel, pilots and so on. This could have become a money- and equippement-sink, that rewards the player with a few neat gameplay mechanics. From time to time, you'd have a few missions where you have to defend your planet with the stationed troops against invaders. It would also neatly fit into the campaign, Kamea could give you a planet on the borders with a somewhat aggressive neighbor as a fief, so you defend it. Make the planet ravaged by war and the player has to invest money to repair the damage to gain certain advantages. This could act as a base to train new mechwarriors for cheap to replace your crew on the ship. Maybe add some "Battle Fatigue" attribute that can be 'healed' by sending mercs planetside for a couple months. You could then also implement a stricter limit on storaged mechs on the Argo (like the Argo can only hold like 12 mechs in storage in total, but the planet can store an indefinite amount, you just have to go back and forth to drop them off there.

I mean, that game mechanic could quickly spiral out of control like the current system does, but whether I become the biggest and most powerful warlord in that neck of the Periphery by owning a battalion's worth of mechs on my unique ship or if I end up owning a shitton of planets doesn't really change that much... and as with Mount & Blade, you can add diminishing returns, so that having more than 3 or 4 systems under your thumb might become economically unfeasible while it still necessitates equippement and personnel, cause the planets end up being attacked more often. I feel that would diversify the gameplay a lot and allow you to go for mutliple playstyles, like the purely ship-bound merc possé, the warlord with his own little realm and so on. If that "owning/controling a star system" thing is introduced after the campaign, it would also add a sense of purpose after the campaign is over.

 

[Corn Flakes]

Nah, I'm actually happy they kept the game limited in scope. Before you end up having more money than House Steiner, the game does get the feeling of being in a mercenary company across better than the MechWarrior Mercenaries games.

Besides, you know what would happen if a Mercenary band started claiming star systems in the near-Periphery. The Capellans would invade and kick our asses so hard we'd land in the Kerensky Cluster 23 years before the Outbound Light.

The only increase in scope I'd be happy with would be if the game had launched with the ability to get up to 3 lances out in the field. To borrow a D&D term, the Action Economy of having only 4 'mechs vs. Every Combat Vehicle In The Periphery (as some missions feel like they're throwing at you) is just awful. If I could have 3 lances of medium 'mechs instead of just 4 assault 'mechs, a lot of those missions would have been a lot more enjoyable. That aside, I'm perfectly fine controlling a merc company as opposed to an actual House.

 

[White Devil]

I get that half the fun of Battletech (the board game) is homebrewing 'mechs using the construction rules, and I've wasted far too many hours tweaking my own homebrewed designs, but the videogames always insist in turning standard 'Mechs into OmniMech-lites and that hits me right in the autism. Sure, let me swap like for like so I can take out that Amdecker 300 Large Laser and install a Magna Mk III for a bit of extra damage at the expense of accuracy instead, but being able to strip out all the weapons and replace the reactor and essentially turn a 'mech into a completely different 'mech willy-nilly just rankles me. Hell, it's half the reason MWO has such a boating issue. As the quote goes, given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game. Either their own fun, or everybody else's.

Years ago, MWO used to have a pretty fun stock league but the constant shitty change PGI did to gameplay mechanics and whatnot pretty much killed it. That and they way they designed the game pretty much guaranteed it mainly just appealed to min/max meta gamers as I used to run into so many people in the competitive scene that had never heard of MechWarrior/Battletech before.

 

[Snekposter]

Eh, your average BattleMech is already a jury-rigged mess on the inside, which is why the spit and bailing wire actually works. You don't need a TDR-5LS left hand actuator if you can shove a Stinger right foot actuator in there and get similar results. Do agree on a desire for spare parts as a thing though, just so long as the enemy forces get rebalanced. No offense, but from what you've told me about them its a hard pass. At least MW5 has you personally there as Mr. FPS Hero.

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

Eh, your average BattleMech is already a jury-rigged mess on the inside, which is why the spit and bailing wire actually works. You don't need a TDR-5LS left hand actuator if you can shove a Stinger right foot actuator in there and get similar results. Do agree on a desire for spare parts as a thing though, just so long as the enemy forces get rebalanced. No offense, but from what you've told me about them its a hard pass. At least MW5 has you personally there as Mr. FPS Hero.

Even with all the issues that plague the game, it's still a lot of fun that gets way more right than it gets wrong. It's just that some aspects (like the lategame unit spam, the eventual abundance of hardware and the gameplay that significantly favours heavy lances) can get a bit much at times. It's more of a "wasted potential" thing than a "this is unplayable" thing I would say.