Battletech - Also known as Trannytech

[More AWS-8Q Than You]

There's a random event that involves Ms Muslim. Basically, a reknown merc unit (can't remember, either Kell Hounds or Gray Death Legion) contacts you and asks you to lend them Ms Muslim and 100k C-bills for some project that they have.
Your options: Don't send anything. Send her but no money. Send her with 50k C-bills. Send her and the full 100k C-bills.
When you choose to send her and 50k C-bills, you receive a doubleheatsink in return... and the leader of the merc unit tells you to have more faith in Ms Muslim, cause she's -and I quote- "the best engineer he has ever seen".

She's the only political thing that's truly fucking annoying and outright grating (if the Argo was actually my ship, the moment everything's upgraded, she'd be out on her ass at the next space-port... if she's even that lucky) thankfully she only raises her ugly head every once in a while and can be easily ignored the rest of the time.
Given how much fun the game can be, I wouldn't let her presence get in the way of my fun.

I assume it's because of her game rules and lore breaking powers. Docking collars and a grav deck are fun bending the rules situations. Daisy chaining dropships on to Jumpships is a big no-no. Unless you like being reduced to atoms or ending up shifting a few meters sideways into the wall. Misjumps are bad.

The Argo being designed as a mobile space station for early colonial work is a neat idea and something the Star League absolutely would have wasted vast resources on. Only reason why you'd want grav decks on a dropship. I always did love the universe's paying tribute to the gods of Hard Sci-Fi for the space side of it.

 

[Capsaicin Addict]

I assume it's because of her game rules and lore breaking powers. Docking collars and a grav deck are fun bending the rules situations. Daisy chaining dropships on to Jumpships is a big no-no. Unless you like being reduced to atoms or ending up shifting a few meters sideways into the wall. Misjumps are bad.

The Argo being designed as a mobile space station for early colonial work is a neat idea and something the Star League absolutely would have wasted vast resources on. Only reason why you'd want grav decks on a dropship. I always did love the universe's paying tribute to the gods of Hard Sci-Fi for the space side of it.

Interestingly, the Argo pushes the upper limit for Dropship size at 97,000 tons. The Behemoth class is 100,000 tons and is considered the largest IS Dropship. Dimensionally they're not too far off either -- the Behemoth is 200 x 200 x 275 meters, while the Argo is 320 x 215 x 215.

Presumably, when the Argo is linked to a Jumpship docking collar, the connection feeds the appropriate data (including the info for the Leopard docked to it) to the Jumpship computer for proper KF field generation.

 

[More AWS-8Q Than You]

Interestingly, the Argo pushes the upper limit for Dropship size at 97,000 tons. The Behemoth class is 100,000 tons and is considered the largest IS Dropship. Dimensionally they're not too far off either -- the Behemoth is 200 x 200 x 275 meters, while the Argo is 320 x 215 x 215.

Presumably, when the Argo is linked to a Jumpship docking collar, the connection feeds the appropriate data (including the info for the Leopard docked to it) to the Jumpship computer for proper KF field generation.

It's a beast, and having an orbital supplies depot that you could run shuttles to for supplies until you can build a proper star port for the big spheroid cargo ships makes a certain amount of sense. The docking collars make cargo transfer much easier. It's the kind of weird but almost sensible thing the Star League did all the time.

The thing is though, daisy chaining like that is explicitly called out as impossible in the lore, the community has asked before the HBS game and the answer has always been you can't do it. It doesn't matter much, you'd just need two docking collars, it would just limit the jumpships you could use to ones that had two available. It's a minor thing, really, but I loved the space side of the game since TRO: 3057 and Battlespace. The lore more than the game play, having to track vectors is interesting. And I prefer TRO: 2750's artwork for the warships. Battletech warships should always look vaguely like submarines in space given how they're internally constructed, with the nose being Up.

I don't mind the Clan Potemkins though. It still looks like the ship that can bring all it's friends.

I mean, you're not wrong about the amount of work necessary to get a 'Mech working optimally (and I'm stuck just facepalming over muh Omnitech because we have that capability now with advanced fly-by-wire designs, but I digress), but you also have scenarios in various novels where Techs are doing field repairs with whatever is at hand, including slapping a leg from one Mech on one that got kneecapped with a satchel. IMO the best way to represent things would be with factory vs. improvised repairs, with factory-standard parts for the first and whatever your Techs can come up with using parts at hand for the second, and BT2018 would be a good place to have something like that. Could also have Techs fabricate new "factory" parts using existing salvage, with the appropriate cost in time and C-bills for complexity.

And yes, I'm well aware of the video game vs. actual wargaming mechanics, which is why I stick with the vidyda. (That and no players for the wargame...)

Battletech is very explicitly the Future of the 80s, so some of their computing tech and other capacities just aren't as good as we'd think they should be. It's also why in the original lore everyone wore cooling vests, booty shorts/panties/man panties, and rocked big 80s hair. I mean, in the current timeline everyone can rock a proper cooling suit and the Clanners always could but sometimes made questionable pilot suit decisions. I'm just amused that one of the things the Inner Sphere nuked into oblivion was the cooling suit industry.

 

[Corn Flakes]

To be honest, the Argo feels like it was originally meant to be a small corvette-type WarShip instead of a DropShip, and then someone poked HBS and told them that a small-time mercenary band operating their own JumpShip would be all sorts of wrong, so it got rejiggered into a prototype spacebound DropShip instead.

It would certainly explain all the amenities, including the grav-decks. And since the game also mentions WarShips in 3025, I think we can safely assume their lore consultant either didn't catch all the mistakes, or couldn't rein in the writing team enough. Not a dealbreaker for me anyway since I like the design.

Battletech is very explicitly the Future of the 80s, so some of their computing tech and other capacities just aren't as good as we'd think they should be. It's also why in the original lore everyone wore cooling vests, booty shorts/panties/man panties, and rocked big 80s hair. I mean, in the current timeline everyone can rock a proper cooling suit and the Clanners always could but sometimes made questionable pilot suit decisions. I'm just amused that one of the things the Inner Sphere nuked into oblivion was the cooling suit industry.

Let's not forget the multiple-ton targeting computers and the raygun-looking laser pistols. Or the Hell's Horses vehicle crews in fucking platform shoes.

(Or any Totem 'Mech, for that matter.)

This is why I love BattleTech. Sure, they've abandoned that aesthetic ages ago (and thank fuck, the portraits on some of these old books are pure nightmare fuel), but it's refreshing to see a setting that takes itself so seriously and so earnestly without getting edgy or feeling forced.

 

[Capsaicin Addict]

It's a beast, and having an orbital supplies depot that you could run shuttles to for supplies until you can build a proper star port for the big spheroid cargo ships makes a certain amount of sense. The docking collars make cargo transfer much easier. It's the kind of weird but almost sensible thing the Star League did all the time.

The thing is though, daisy chaining like that is explicitly called out as impossible in the lore, the community has asked before the HBS game and the answer has always been you can't do it. It doesn't matter much, you'd just need two docking collars, it would just limit the jumpships you could use to ones that had two available. It's a minor thing, really, but I loved the space side of the game since TRO: 3057 and Battlespace. The lore more than the game play, having to track vectors is interesting. And I prefer TRO: 2750's artwork for the warships. Battletech warships should always look vaguely like submarines in space given how they're internally constructed, with the nose being Up.

Funny you mention two docking collars, because per rules, any Dropship over 60k tons takes up two docking collars. So technically... yeah, the Argo would take up two collars anyways (one for the Argo and one for the Leopard).

To be honest, the Argo feels like it was originally meant to be a small corvette-type WarShip instead of a DropShip, and then someone poked HBS and told them that a small-time mercenary band operating their own JumpShip would be all sorts of wrong, so it got rejiggered into a prototype spacebound DropShip instead.

It would certainly explain all the amenities, including the grav-decks. And since the game also mentions WarShips in 3025, I think we can safely assume their lore consultant either didn't catch all the mistakes, or couldn't rein in the writing team enough. Not a dealbreaker for me anyway since I like the design.

It wouldn't surprise me. Maybe not a Warship, but a multi-amenities Jumpship like the Invader (which canonically has hydroponics facilities on it).

They probably could've gotten away with making the Argo a prototype Jumpship. I know, 'but muh Comstar', but during the timeframe of the game, Comstar was very, very busy meddling elsewhere. The Marik Civil War, Holy Shroud II (and its fallout), the pursuit of the Helm Memory Core... they might not have had the time to chase down a small merc band with a tarted up Jumpship.

 

[More AWS-8Q Than You]

To be honest, the Argo feels like it was originally meant to be a small corvette-type WarShip instead of a DropShip, and then someone poked HBS and told them that a small-time mercenary band operating their own JumpShip would be all sorts of wrong, so it got rejiggered into a prototype spacebound DropShip instead.

It would certainly explain all the amenities, including the grav-decks. And since the game also mentions WarShips in 3025, I think we can safely assume their lore consultant either didn't catch all the mistakes, or couldn't rein in the writing team enough. Not a dealbreaker for me anyway since I like the design.

I think someone on the CBT forums stated out the Argo and it works out pretty well for it's intended purpose. Far better than it would as an actual warship. Also, having a functional warship would gotten ComStar up their ass so fast you'd never have gotten a chance to repair the damn thing. I do like the design too, especially the grav deck sections locking back so you could actually keep using them under thrust. It's a clever, well thought-out design the abuses the rules in a harmless way and that always matters most. Except for causing misjumps. Gives ComStar perfect cover for making it disappear eventually though.

Lt's not forget the multiple-ton targeting computers and the raygun-looking laser pistols. Or the Hell's Horses vehicle crews in fucking platform shoes.
View attachment 1815618
(Or any Totem 'Mech, for that matter.)

This is why I love BattleTech. Sure, they've abandoned that aesthetic ages ago (and thank fuck, the portraits on some of these old books are pure nightmare fuel), but it's refreshing to see a setting that takes itself so seriously and so earnestly without getting edgy or feeling forced.

The setting could be fucking dark if it wanted to be, but it just doesn't play that way. Things can get heavy, like the Regulans spazzing out and straight up nuking the shit out of a handful of planets on their quest to destroy Word of Blake, but the universe treats it as the horror that was, while also noting that no one was sad to see the Blakists go and that no one wants to poke the bag of crazy that the Regulans were at the point.

As for Totem mechs, I like the Nova Cat but Clan Lost Cause had moments of actual sanity and solid design in between chasing bad ideas and certain doom. The FWLer in me likes having their remains as a Pet Clan because I love their mechs, but God did the snakes do them dirty. Also the Clans badly need a caste for fashion design, I suppose it's a good thing they treat sex like a hand shake, the Trueborns would never get laid otherwise with their fashion sense.

Funny you mention two docking collars, because per rules, any Dropship over 60k tons takes up two docking collars. So technically... yeah, the Argo would take up two collars anyways (one for the Argo and one for the Leopard).

Forgot about that. There aren't that many dropships that big, but to be fair for it's intended use it probably wouldn't have attached dropships and the Star League could just detail more jumpships.

It wouldn't surprise me. Maybe not a Warship, but a multi-amenities Jumpship like the Invader (which canonically has hydroponics facilities on it).

They probably could've gotten away with making the Argo a prototype Jumpship. I know, 'but muh Comstar', but during the timeframe of the game, Comstar was very, very busy meddling elsewhere. The Marik Civil War, Holy Shroud II (and its fallout), the pursuit of the Helm Memory Core... they might not have had the time to chase down a small merc band with a tarted up Jumpship.

It would have to have a compact core to fit a big enough drive to carry a big enough engine to burn in system, and I believe it maxes out at 1.5g cruise, so 2/3 and then 3/5 when repaired fully. Not that you'd ever burn in system with 1.5g of thrust. Standard K-F drives eat up most of your mass, and ComStar was Very Interested in anything with a compact core. Given all the HPG coms you do, they'd know exactly where to look and where to send which ever Com Guard warship happened to be active to make you have an unfortunate accident.

 

[Capsaicin Addict]

I think someone on the CBT forums stated out the Argo and it works out pretty well for it's intended purpose. Far better than it would as an actual warship. Also, having a functional warship would gotten ComStar up their ass so fast you'd never have gotten a chance to repair the damn thing. I do like the design too, especially the grav deck sections locking back so you could actually keep using them under thrust. It's a clever, well thought-out design the abuses the rules in a harmless way and that always matters most. Except for causing misjumps. Gives ComStar perfect cover for making it disappear eventually though.

The Argo eventually got an official statblock in the House Arano sourcebook.

The setting could be fucking dark if it wanted to be, but it just doesn't play that way. Things can get heavy, like the Regulans spazzing out and straight up nuking the shit out of a handful of planets on their quest to destroy Word of Blake, but the universe treats it as the horror that was, while also noting that no one was sad to see the Blakists go and that no one wants to poke the bag of crazy that the Regulans were at the point.

As for Totem mechs, I like the Nova Cat but Clan Lost Cause had moments of actual sanity and solid design in between chasing bad ideas and certain doom. The FWLer in me likes having their remains as a Pet Clan because I love their mechs, but God did the snakes do them dirty. Also the Clans badly need a caste for fashion design, I suppose it's a good thing they treat sex like a hand shake, the Trueborns would never get laid otherwise with their fashion sense.

The history of the Inner Sphere is pretty much people making bad decisions, but holy shit for a bunch of supposed psychics and fortune tellers, the Nova Cats made one bad choice after another like they were getting paid for it.

Forgot about that. There aren't that many dropships that big, but to be fair for it's intended use it probably wouldn't have attached dropships and the Star League could just detail more jumpships.


It would have to have a compact core to fit a big enough drive to carry a big enough engine to burn in system, and I believe it maxes out at 1.5g cruise, so 2/3 and then 3/5 when repaired fully. Not that you'd ever burn in system with 1.5g of thrust. Standard K-F drives eat up most of your mass, and ComStar was Very Interested in anything with a compact core. Given all the HPG coms you do, they'd know exactly where to look and where to send which ever Com Guard warship happened to be active to make you have an unfortunate accident.

Whatever ComGuard warship happened to be active? How about 'zero'? They didn't even deploy a Warship to deal with the Tripitz.

Comstar had a lot on its plate even in the lead-up to the Fourth Succession War. I still think it's plausible the Argo wouldn't have popped up on their radar. Did the Robes ever learn about the little black boxes the Federated Suns came up with? EDIT: Huh, evidently Comstar found out during the War of 3039. According to Sarna, Comstar continued to try and kill FedCom military scientists over it.

 

[More AWS-8Q Than You]

The Argo eventually got an official statblock in the House Arano sourcebook.

Never picked it up, but looking at Sarna it looks like they just made tech to handwave the game. Fair enough.

The history of the Inner Sphere is pretty much people making bad decisions, but holy shit for a bunch of supposed psychics and fortune tellers, the Nova Cats made one bad choice after another like they were getting paid for it.

It's why I have a soft spot for them. It's like they'd make a morally or ethically good choice, but it always fucked them in the end. And their rivals in the Sphere were the Bears. Even the Blakists learned not to poke the Bears.

Whatever ComGuard warship happened to be active? How about 'zero'? They didn't even deploy a Warship to deal with the Tripitz.

Comstar had a lot on its plate even in the lead-up to the Fourth Succession War. I still think it's plausible the Argo wouldn't have popped up on their radar. Did the Robes ever learn about the little black boxes the Federated Suns came up with? EDIT: Huh, evidently Comstar found out during the War of 3039. According to Sarna, Comstar continued to try and kill FedCom military scientists over it.

Going by the numbers of old SLDF warships and new classes they had active at the time? Potentially a couple dozen actual warships, with some Faslane yardships. Going by the 3062 fleet strength and not counting the Suffrens which weren't designed until the 3060s. They very specifically didn't want to draw attention with Tripitz. Also, like most SLDF warships, the Black Lion-class was hideously vulnerable to aerospace fighters. Amusingly, the Argo as stated out would fare better against fighters.

I love warships, but I'm glad the setting has chewed most of them up. They break things, so I'm glad in 3150 every house has one or two, but they're either crippled like the last Thera or simply too valuable to risk.

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

Whatever ComGuard warship happened to be active? How about 'zero'? They didn't even deploy a Warship to deal with the Tripitz.

And still they sent out a force of some kind to destroy the Tripitz as quickly as possible... and that was a derelict floating in space for over 200 years. The Argo was at least capable of leaving the moon that it crashed on under its own power.

Going by the numbers of old SLDF warships and new classes they had active at the time? Potentially a couple dozen actual warships, with some Faslane yardships. Going by the 3062 fleet strength and not counting the Suffrens which weren't designed until the 3060s. They very specifically didn't want to draw attention with Tripitz. Also, like most SLDF warships, the Black Lion-class was hideously vulnerable to aerospace fighters. Amusingly, the Argo as stated out would fare better against fighters.

If the Argo not only had a compact K-F drive, but one in working order no less, ComStar would literally spare no costs to smash that thing as quickly as possible. I wouldn't put it past them to nuke the damn thing via suitcase bomb and a suicide attack, but if that thing had LosTech on a level that could bring back WarShips, there is no way in hell ComStar wouldn't go haywire.
If, like with the Tripitz, the K-F drive was out of order, and there was just the smallest chance to repair it, ComStar would still commit absurd amounts of Resources to deal with it.

 

[More AWS-8Q Than You]

If the Argo not only had a compact K-F drive, but one in working order no less, ComStar would literally spare no costs to smash that thing as quickly as possible. I wouldn't put it past them to nuke the damn thing via suitcase bomb and a suicide attack, but if that thing had LosTech on a level that could bring back WarShips, there is no way in hell ComStar wouldn't go haywire.
If, like with the Tripitz, the K-F drive was out of order, and there was just the smallest chance to repair it, ComStar would still commit absurd amounts of Resources to deal with it.

All they'd really need is a proper assault Dropship, the Tripitz likely couldn't even shoot back at fighters. The SLDF never heard of actual point defense, the later IS warships are loaded with sometimes paranoid amounts of point defense and anti-fighter weapons.

It always amused me that once the Helm Core was up and running, it wasn't the Compact K-F cores that were the bottleneck for warship production, but the massive standard drives and the IS powers had to go to whomever owned Terra to buy them.

 

[Capsaicin Addict]

I love warships, but I'm glad the setting has chewed most of them up. They break things, so I'm glad in 3150 every house has one or two, but they're either crippled like the last Thera or simply too valuable to risk.

That's God's own truth. The game is supposed to be about taking (and holding) territory, not turning it into craters.

 

[Corn Flakes]

Keeping in mind that while ComStar is all-knowing, it isn't necessarily omnipresent. They can project force like no one else can in 3025, but even they have to prioritize. The Tripitz being found must have gone straight to the First Circuit since that thing was a 800k ton behemoth of a WarShip that could very feasibly glass entire planets with impunity given enough time and bored gunners. Even more so since it was the Taurians of all people finding it.

A corvette-sized 100k-200k-ton semi-functional WarShip in the hands of a mercenary band in the Periphery would have definitely drawn attention, but ComStar could have taken their time finding a way to disappear it discreetly. Hell, they could have just waited a while and hoped said WarShip would have gotten itself blown up in a badly-planned attack or lost to a misjump, or they could have planted information that would lead a major power to want that merc company dead. So long as the mercs weren't de-stabilizing the situation with the major Periphery powers, or threatening to mess things up in the Inner Sphere proper, they wouldn't be top priority.

But yes, ComStar would eventually come a-knockin'.

As for Totem mechs, I like the Nova Cat but Clan Lost Cause had moments of actual sanity and solid design in between chasing bad ideas and certain doom. The FWLer in me likes having their remains as a Pet Clan because I love their mechs, but God did the snakes do them dirty.

The Nova Cat is a bit of an outlier because it wasn't trying to look like the totem in question. It was just a solid, fun laser boat. I was talking about shit like the Mandrill, the Balius, the Fire Scorpion or one of the billion Jade Falcon Totem 'Mechs (do you think they may be overcompensating for something?). The ones that look really goofy because they were trying too hard to look like their mascots.

(I have a soft spot for the Fire Scorpion, though.)

Also the Clans badly need a caste for fashion design, I suppose it's a good thing they treat sex like a hand shake, the Trueborns would never get laid otherwise with their fashion sense.

Oof. Fucking savage, my man.

Absolutely true...

But savage.

 

[Balr0g]

Going by the numbers of old SLDF warships and new classes they had active at the time? Potentially a couple dozen actual warships, with some Faslane yardships. Going by the 3062 fleet strength and not counting the Suffrens which weren't designed until the 3060s. They very specifically didn't want to draw attention with Tripitz. Also, like most SLDF warships, the Black Lion-class was hideously vulnerable to aerospace fighters. Amusingly, the Argo as stated out would fare better against fighters.

I love warships, but I'm glad the setting has chewed most of them up. They break things, so I'm glad in 3150 every house has one or two, but they're either crippled like the last Thera or simply too valuable to risk.

Comstar did even build 3 new Warships before 3000. The Dante class was a completely new warship class. Comstar kept it's small warship fleet in good order at Luyten 68-28. Though for example they had to dismantle one of their Cameron Cruisers (the Starsword) to keep the Invisible Truth running. And yeah the SLDF Navy had mostly no ships with Point defenses (except the very first Warship the Dreadnough class). The SLDF relid on Squadron and fleet coordination. that's why most warships carried at least one wing of Aerospace fighters. Real carrier ships were never designed. Well except that one time when they build the Enterprsie class and forogt to expand the engine when the ship was enlarged during the design Phase.

Oh and Clan Snow Raven still has a substantial fleet of ships. Though I bet their base at Quatre Belle can't service them all at once. Never mind finding enough personel to crew them all

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

Keeping in mind that while ComStar is all-knowing, it isn't necessarily omnipresent. They can project force like no one else can in 3025, but even they have to prioritize. The Tripitz being found must have gone straight to the First Circuit since that thing was a 800k ton behemoth of a WarShip that could very feasibly glass entire planets with impunity given enough time and bored gunners. Even more so since it was the Taurians of all people finding it.

A corvette-sized 100k-200k-ton semi-functional WarShip in the hands of a mercenary band in the Periphery would have definitely drawn attention, but ComStar could have taken their time finding a way to disappear it discreetly. Hell, they could have just waited a while and hoped said WarShip would have gotten itself blown up in a badly-planned attack or lost to a misjump, or they could have planted information that would lead a major power to want that merc company dead. So long as the mercs weren't de-stabilizing the situation with the major Periphery powers, or threatening to mess things up in the Inner Sphere proper, they wouldn't be top priority.

Problem for ComStar: They need to intercept such a vessel quickly, before anyone else does. In the wrong hands, it would be a large threat to the status quo and protected by a large military, it would be hard to be taken care off in a covert operation without ComStar being forced to show too much of their hand or even getting exposed.

So they'd have to do something and they'd have to do it fast. I assume that ComStar would be able to operate in key locations, even in the Periphery, after all, they were able to intervene in the Tripitz Affair rather quickly, too.

Well, thankfully, the Argo is not carrying a compact K-F drive or a tiny WarShip or something like that. I still think ComStar would eventually take care of the Argo one way or the other, but maybe not as aggressive.

 

[More AWS-8Q Than You]

Keeping in mind that while ComStar is all-knowing, it isn't necessarily omnipresent. They can project force like no one else can in 3025, but even they have to prioritize. The Tripitz being found must have gone straight to the First Circuit since that thing was a 800k ton behemoth of a WarShip that could very feasibly glass entire planets with impunity given enough time and bored gunners. Even more so since it was the Taurians of all people finding it.

A corvette-sized 100k-200k-ton semi-functional WarShip in the hands of a mercenary band in the Periphery would have definitely drawn attention, but ComStar could have taken their time finding a way to disappear it discreetly. Hell, they could have just waited a while and hoped said WarShip would have gotten itself blown up in a badly-planned attack or lost to a misjump, or they could have planted information that would lead a major power to want that merc company dead. So long as the mercs weren't de-stabilizing the situation with the major Periphery powers, or threatening to mess things up in the Inner Sphere proper, they wouldn't be top priority.

But yes, ComStar would eventually come a-knockin'.

The funny thing is I think to you'd have to make it at least 200k to keep the cargo capacity around the same, at 100k the K-F drive would eat over 40k tons of its 57k available, and that's dangerously low capacity.

Other than jumps, you don't gain much.

The Nova Cat is a bit of an outlier because it wasn't trying to look like the totem in question. It was just a solid, fun laser boat. I was talking about shit like the Mandrill, the Balius, the Fire Scorpion or one of the billion Jade Falcon Totem 'Mechs (do you think they may be overcompensating for something?). The ones that look really goofy because they were trying too hard to look like their mascots.

(I have a soft spot for the Fire Scorpion, though.)

True, the Falcon ones are as nutty as their Clan. The new Wolf ones aren't as bad in looks, just mixed tech in 3150 leads to some broke shit.

Oof. Fucking savage, my man.

Absolutely true...

But savage.

Add in that their earliest partners are their genetic siblings and they really are neo-barbarians.

 

[Capsaicin Addict]

It didn't help that Comstar's First Circuit suffered from institutional schizophrenia at times as well as having some painful failures. They lurched back and forth from 'abuse the Inner Sphere powers' to 'try to manipulate the Inner Sphere powers' and back again.

 

[Snekposter]

I already posted this up on our favorite Freeborn Elemental's profile but might as well share this old bit of hammy glory with you all, now in HD:

Be sure to turn on the auto-captions. Even more funny with those on.

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

I already posted this up on our favorite Freeborn Elemental's profile but might as well share this old bit of hammy glory with you all, now in HD:

Be sure to turn on the auto-captions. Even more funny with those on.

The wording for batchalls is rather hammy in the official fluff, too:

The batchall is typically begun with a specific phrase unique to each Clan.

Clan Jade Falcon: "What forces dare defend this world from the steel talons of the Jade Falcon?"
Clan Wolf: "The Wolves of Kerensky have claimed this world for their own. What tame dogs defend it?"
Clan Ghost Bear: "We are Clan Ghost Bear. This world is ours. Those who dispute our claim must identify the size and location of their forces for immediate disposal."
Clan Smoke Jaguar: "The Smoke Jaguar claims this world. Identify the forces that defend it so that we from the mists of space may know on whom we pounce."

 

[Corn Flakes]

Ah, yes. The batchall. AKA, how Clanners vent out their cringe.

Man, that Battletech cartoon aged like fine milk. I still like it, though.

 

[White Devil]

I had the toyline as a kid, they were fun.