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- Apr 25, 2020
Bullshit he did. Maybe he rolled for location, but I'm sure he was using 1/1 pilots with how much his main characters hit.
Battletech - Also known as Trannytech
- Thread starter Frosted Snowflakes
- Start date
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- Jun 25, 2020
I can try to find the interviews for you later, if you don't want to look for them yourself, but I am almost 100% positive he claimed he actually rolled dice when writing his scenes. And yeah half the characters in his books had to be 1/1. You guys were talking about Morgan Kell earlier, the Warrior Trilogy, the books Morgan was featured in heavily, were written by Stackpole.
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- Aug 18, 2019
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- Jun 4, 2018
The 'Phantom Mech' skill was restricted to Morgan Kell, Patrick Kell, and Yorinaga Kurita. It's... semi-canon, but no one else has (and probably ever will) replicate it.
Piece of shit or not, Jeremiah Rose and his unit really did get the short end of the stick during the Jihad. Hoo boy. Killed off due to a writing accident when the devs were figuring out what worlds got virus bombed and shit.
Piece of shit or not, Jeremiah Rose and his unit really did get the short end of the stick during the Jihad. Hoo boy. Killed off due to a writing accident when the devs were figuring out what worlds got virus bombed and shit.
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- Mar 10, 2019
Calling bullshit on Stackpole rolling the dice thing. That would mean he would have read the actual game rules/TR3025 and we wouldn't have had Nuke mechs for numerous Mechwarrior games.
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- Apr 25, 2020
Oh, I fully believe he made these claims. I just don't think he played by the rules as he seemed to imply.
It's technically still 100% canon, but it's not a supernatural ability (as it was originally implied) anymore. It happened, and these people did do something weird in those battles.
But what is it, exactly? No one the fuck knows, and Kell, Kell & Kurita (how's that for a law firm name?) aren't around to tell the tale anymore. So, let's do what the developers do all the time and just assume ComStar had a hand in this misinformation fuckery for some stupid reason.
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- Dec 16, 2019
IDK man. This is BattleTech we're talking about, so I'd argue its hard to find a better legal firm than Kell Hounds, LLP. Remember, he can't pay his lawyers if his property got turned into rubble.
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- Mar 31, 2020
You know who the invincible Mechwarrior of BT is? The freaking Bounty Hunter. He beats everyone he comes acros: he deafeated Natasha Kerensky (and took her first Mech), he deafeated Kai-Allard Liao, can fight a MD to a draw in hand to hand combat etc. Every notable Mechwarrior has experienced at least one huge loss (or in Natashas's case getting burned to death by freaking jump jets of a defeated Mechwarrior) But I don't recall the Hunter ever been defeated
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- Mar 23, 2016
I can believe that. I'm currently reading Prince of Havoc and the battles in the first half of the book read exactly like it's a chronicle of a TT game with random crits ruining someone's day. Unlikely high level of precision, though.
Inner Sphere, I value my ability to shitpost across the galaxy.
But places like the Hanseatic League are genuinely fascinating. I think they'd make a great setting for a game, too.
Also, seems that the Umayyad Caliphate was partially conquered by stray elements of the Minnesota Tribe at some point.
Many characters got thrown into a meat grinder during the Jihad, which is one of the reasons that I dislike it. I mean, I've never really gotten into the novels of that era, so maybe I am wrong, but to me, it felt like an axe-blow to the established stuff to introduce new stuff.
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- Dec 16, 2019
I don't really blame the authors for using 1/1 pilots, unlike you guys. BT/MW is all about "living legends" after all. For all the talk of how well-constructed the overall setting is, and it is, its still an adventure setting no different from RPG's. You might as well complain about Johnny Silverhand or Adam Smasher in the OG CP2020 being unstoppable by normal dudes. It also isn't like we've got literal Space Knights or a callback to the Old West or a whole planet devoted to arena combat or anything else equally ridiculous as badass heroes.
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- Mar 23, 2016
Yeah, a narrative about the great deeds of fixed characters means that they kind of need to be larger than life (or rather: larger than what the rules usually permit) to make a compelling story sometimes. Unless it enters the weird territory of supernatural abilities like Phantom Mech-stuff, I'm fine with it.
That is not to say, a novel from the perspective of your average Joe with his very mortal friends getting their shit kicked in isn't interesting, too. But something to keep in mind: One of modern entertainment's most notorious storylines featuring important characters getting the axe would be ASOIAF, where people make blunders and get shanked by some backstabbing asshole as a reward, but even there, you still have impossibly capable fighters as main characters. In order to write a decent story, you sometimes have to make a character a little OP and it kinda makes sense, too: If they weren't badass, they wouldn't be in the powerful positions that they are in (so chances of them ending up the focus of a story would be low otherwise).
tl;dr: Can't fault an author for making their characters more capable than your average soldier, it's one of storytelling's most popular tropes. Just think of how many goons Schwarzenegger wastes in his average movie, while he wades through the crossfire of dozens of people firing at him with fullautomatic weapons, not getting hit even once.
That being said, I was looking for nice paintschemes for a Marik Lance and stumbled upon the 1st Knights of the Inner Sphere. Quite a coincidence Snekposter would mention them mere minutes later. White with Gold Highlights? Now that's baller.
Add another lance in a more traditional Marik paintscheme with blue and red highlights on purple and that'll look fucking amazing on the table.
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- Dec 16, 2019
Look, strange women lying in ponds distributing BattleMechs is no basis for a system of government.
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I don't bemoan the 1/1 pilots, I was just pointing out that the game mechanics don't transfer well to an actual prose narrative. As I said, characters in a story can aim, pilots in the game can't. The pilots in the novels also need to survive, often through multiple books, while the pilots in the game only have to survive until the end of the fight. Them being hypercompetent compared to even the Clannerest of Clanners out there is just a natural side effect of that.
Although I draw the line at disabling 'Mechs using home cleaning appliances.
Although I draw the line at disabling 'Mechs using home cleaning appliances.
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- Dec 16, 2019
Oh, random note, but has anyone else read the Malus Darkblade novels? Talk about rolling for Charisma checks given how often he critfails!
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- Jun 25, 2020
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- Apr 1, 2017
Somewhere, there's a Locust pilot who does just that.
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- Dec 16, 2019
Wrong BattleMech. Gotta have the Wagner playing too though.
Hmm, hard to say since there's like five books. Its a Warhammer Fantasy novel series written by a duo of Dan Abnett and Mike Lee about a Dark Elf named Malus Darkblade, who proceeds to Murder-hobo his way across Naggarond and the Chaos Wastes in an even more violent take on the Elric Saga, inciting full-blown civil wars wherever he goes like he's charismatic skub, and has such choice moments of diplomacy such as telling one of the dock guards of Karond Kar he deliberately chose to ignore the law, somehow expecting to magically avoid all consequences for his actions.
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I mean I may or may not have made a habit of yelling "TALLYHO, MOTHERFUCKERS" when I took the Locust out for runs in MWO
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- Dec 17, 2019
Marik has a lot of very nice color schemes. Lots of purple, lots of green for the regional units, especially if you're running an Oriente unit. The Knights one is nice with all the gold highlights. Pity about them getting wrecked by gas.
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- Apr 25, 2020
Hey, the 'Mechs may be pulverized and the men may suffer horrifying deaths, but the regimental colors stay alive for as long as someone is still using them. Or re-using them, as may be the case.
Looking at you, Northwind Highlanders.