Battletech General - /btg/

I've been away from BT for several months; have we got any news of new Unseen redesigns lately?

I'm angry that they felt the need to mess up clan autocannons. The renders are nice though. Probably going to 3d print some off when I can get the models extracted. The company does not seem to care if you do that.

>OF locks three hot topics

No wonder everyone comes here

Why does it have a briefcase?

Kuritan samurai/salaryman.

Please go back.

>No wonder everyone comes here
Yes please, keep the shitposting to /btg

The noble Kuritan salaryman.
youtube.com/watch?v=nDOPNLzEFH0

I have a serious problem because I keep flip flopping between Kurita and Steiner. It's so hard to decide between the two.

>yfw all samurai are replaced with salarymen

Once you got your citizenship would the Confederation be a pretty sweet place to live?

>free healthcare
>guaranteed income
>strong social services
>sense of community and nationalism
>free porches

I believe it is an additional magazine for its gun, old battletech art is consistently inconsistent.

>dem legs
PRAISE THE CHANCELLOR

BETTER DEAD THAN LIME GREEN

Gotdamn

Right? The benefits of Capellan citizenship are pretty awesome.

There was a description of a Kurita salaryman/business exec kitted out in No 1 Dress in one of the Camacho's Caballeros books, and IIRC it was a tux and a top hat. I can't help but think about this pic.

Yeah I think it probably would be pretty decent in those regards. But then you've also got to deal with the state butting into your life, constant propaganda, and the worry that someone will rat you out to authorities for bad thoughts.

Read some accounts of the Chinese Cultural Revolution if you can. I imagine the Xin Sheng era was strongly reminiscent of 196-s China in terms of dangers. Not a pleasant in the least. Still i'd look damn impressive from the outside.

And all this from a Cappie supporter.

user, how can you forget such an awesome cav mech? It even has a really decent K variant.

To be fair I think all the Successor States but the League have those problems. IIRC the FWL was the only one without a dedicated literal state terrorist organization. I remember one fanatically pro-Lyran character even unironically referring to Loki as "state terrorism".

>god damn auto correcting phone and small keyboard.

Don't forget the -6M, which is even more awesome. I've always preferred the jump jet model over the more armour/no JJs one, and I say this as a diehard Kuritist.

Really easily apparently.

Purple burd 2free4u

......Hot Damn! Well I think that qualifies as my favorite Capellan ambush to date.

Very true but I think the CC probably rates as the worst in those regards. Though the DC is right up there and there are times the Lyrans scare me worse.

One of the Yakuza Black Dragon guys in Hearts of Chaos. Seems like I remember lots of other sarariman in the other books in that series as well.

Poor Urbs IIC. I love you for your HAG toting capability.

Admittedly I'd be hard pressed to say which is worst. Only that the FedSuns is probably least worst of the state terrorism-embracing states, and the League's lack of one seems to both maintain a level of political freedom that also allows a lot of dissent (kind of ironically).

>Yakuza
>salaryman

Uh

It was that stealth armor, man. Sensors looked clear, then BAM!

He was dressed the part, not that he was one.

Speaking of the Confederation, I remember seeing it mentioned that for a while they couldn't build any mechs larger than 60 or 70s tons. When was that exactly? Anyone remember the source?

FWL has Liberation Units, which are only sorta terrorists.

Pretty sure that was the result of the 4th SW. They lost factory worlds to the FedCom and St. Ives Compact, IIRC the biggest thing they could still build after that was the Cataphract though the Striker might have been retconned in there somewhere.

And they terrorize other people, not their own. Important difference.

Third Succession War, actually, in 2953. Which is the whole reason the Cataphract exists, it was basically a production tier frankenmech made out of the components and parts the Confederation could still build.

The 4th is where they lost Tikonov just after they started rolling out the Cataphract there, though they eventually got production going on Grand Base by 3032.

Probably the most recent source for it is the Cataphract's entry in TRO 3039.

They had a factory on a planet that wound up in the hands of St. Ives though.

A Victor factory, even.

Well, IIRC the davions don't operate theirs domestically, and they've always been known for having MORE in the way of personal freedoms than the other successor states.
It's still true, though, that if you want actual personal freedom, you kind of need to head for the periphery

That factory only came online with FedCom aid after St Ives separated from the Confederation, in part because the FedCom lost their own Victor facility on Quentin to the Combine.

I think I'd prefer St.Ives; all the decent parts without the miserable and completely insane bits

Too Bad! St Ives is now become porches! Xin Sheng!

Newbie here, how does (forced)withdrawal factor into standard bv scoring?
Destroying a unit nets you 2x it's bv and minus it's bv from the other players score, so would withdrawing grant only the base bv value? Not subtract?

Withdrawn and withdrawing units count as crippled if the scenario has special scores for it, or destroyed if it doesn't

Why can't I stop myself checking ebay for mechs/tanks?

>Be Hue
>Dollar is sky high
>Keep checking for good deals anyway

Nothing to huehue about.

I'm looking at grabbing one of the Robotech plastic boxes for use in both BT and (potentially) a custom ruleset I'm working on that's more generic.

Any particular ones you guys would recommend or tell me to stay the fuck away from?

Congratulations, /btg/. The year is 3030 and an obscure relative of yours has died and left you his mercenary company. Unfortunately, it consists entirely of Rifemen, Shad-2Ds and Locust-1Ms
You do have ONE advantage, as your relative's last purchase before his death was an ancient wreck of a DRoST that is theoretically restorable to flight condition
What is your plan to become successful mercenaries from such shit beginnings?

Is there any printable blank hex grids that are BT scale?

Are they the same scale?

Looking at the online reviews, the Destroids are close enough, although the VF-1 kits are a bit too large to properly represent the lights like Wasps.
Might still work as something like a PHX, though.

Not sure, but I do know that the old paper mapsheets (still available in places) have blank hexes on the reverse side.

Sell it all so I can buy a real mech and join a real merc unit

Looking at the box sets I see a marauder, warhammers, riflemen, and longbows, and those are just the ones I recognize off the top of my head.

Not at home so I can't post pics, but

Marauder equivalent - in the original show scale, which is to say a 'mech sized person is supposed to fit into the pod - way oversize, even if you want to say its a 100 ton Marauder II. Marauder super-heavy design challenge?

Destroids (Warhammer, Archer, Rifleman, Longbow) - scale is great, Archer may be a little short and the others a bit big but still look really good, but you better like assembling model kits, because that's what these are. ~17 pieces for the Archer, and a lot of seams run down the front and back of the mech - either git gud at filing and fitting or fill gaps with green stuff. Looks pretty nice at the end though. A bit more posable than the old leads, mostly because these are plastic and easy to cut and modify, the joints are actually terrible for posing. Be prepared to reinforce the legs on the Whammy, Rifleman, and Longbow, the hip connection point is about the size of a ball-point pen tip.

Pheonix Hawk equivalent - as mentioned above way too big to be a Wasp, Stinger, or Valkyrie. Maybe a bit tall for a Pixie, but even the old PHX minis were kind of tall and skinny. Downside - no big jets on the back, that version of the mini hasn't been released yet. Could work for the -1K version, which drops the jets (and MGs) for heat sinks and armor.

If you don't mind the assembly issues they're a quick, relatively cheap way (lots of online retailers/ebay selling at around half MSRP) to get some of the old mechs while we wait for the nuseen.

For the Wolverine, information is literally ammunition.

>Any particular ones you guys would recommend or tell me to stay the fuck away from?
I did a blog series on them, although I got annoyed with Palladium and didn't post the last couple articles.

Basically:
Phalanx/Spartan: Fantastic set, both models go together well, and look good on the table.

Tomahawk/Defender: Fiddly and fragile, especially the Defender's gun barrels. Use clippers. The torsos are also badly-designed and take some work to patch the gaps. Plus, the parts don't quite match - there were a bunch of copy/paste errors in the sprue construction.

Valkyrie: Stupid-high parts numbers and unmarked sprues. Palladium put out free assembly instructions on RPGNow, though. Again, needs a lot of gap-filling and there's some really stupid gate placement.

Grunt Regults:
Excellent kit, goes together in a couple of minutes, easy to mod and paint.

Artillery Regults:
Still pretty fast and easy

Zentraedi Command:
The Recovery pod is.. okay. The Glaug is huge, fragile, has gates on detail and is designed to be locked into a single pose. The Quel-Regult doesn't actually even go together (one of the pieces is shaped wrong) and has a fucking >missing part

>the VF-1 kits are a bit too large to properly represent the lights like Wasps.
Yeah, they're great for Kurita Pixies though. Plus, if Wave II ever shows up there'll be a mini for the Royal PHX.

Tan one is the RRPGT Valk, the others are 3e boxed set plastics and a Dark Age Pixie.

What amuses me most is that it's not like people haven't been making plastic kits for decades, but Palladium said "fuck it" and couldn't be bothered to put their seams and mold lines in places you can't see them. Also, the Glaug suffers from "big kit, tiny part" syndrome. Fucking hip joint man.

Found those reviews now and they look pretty interesting.
Thanks.

I think I'll just be grabbing a box of Tomahawks/Defenders for now, since those are the BT units I'd be most likely to actually field.

I might get more (possibly do a split with one of more local BT players) if I end up considering it worth the effort.

Speaking about their further waves, I suspect they might not ever see the light of day when considering the way Palladium seems to be handling things.

Kevin Siembieda is the honey badger of the RPG industry. And honey badger don't give a fuck.

What size hexes does BT use?

Nominally 1 inch, but since there's been a bit of scale creep, I personally use 1.5 inch hex bases.

Looking at the hex bases, they're something like 30mm wide.
Mapsheet hexes are, I believe, 1.5" between parallel edges.

It's true. Although, he HAS managed to keep a damn RPG company alive for 30 goddamn years on the strength of his stone crazyness alone, so I suppose there's something to be said for insanity

You wish will be granted. Soon™

...

Go to Incompetech.com and they can make the right size hex paper you need

Shouldn't "IncompeTech" be the official site?

ironic, isn't it?

Can you put Gauss Rifles on a Protomech?

Could another Protomech even survive a direct hit from a Gauss Rifle?

I've had Rocs(7 ton proto) survive hits from gauss rifles so yes.

As for carrying them. No. At least not a proper gauss. AP Gauss yes.

patiently waiting

...I've been on this fucking site too damn long

Seeing as GRs outweigh the vast majority of protomechs, and there's three tons of extra weight at the absolute limit I'm gonna say no

You can get a 2/3 quad with 3 shots and no armor. Someone on the OF did it just to show what would happen.

Huh. That's dumb but impressive. I stand corrected

What's the biggest ballistic weapon you could mount on a protomech, anyway?

>heaviest proto weighs 15 tons
>Clan gauss is 12
Sorry man, but your dreams of a Clan hollander are gonna have to stay just that.

...

The LB-10X is, what, 10 tons?
That is technically possible.

Interestingly enough, the best AC proto has a 2 on it.

...

Allowed to, or effectively? GR, despite its already mentioned issues. They can mount UAC/LBX 10s too, but that still only leaves you with 5 tons free on a 15 tonner. They can also tote a HAG 20, but again, 10 fucking tons on something that tops out at 15.

The Protomech AC/8 is the largest that you could really do something with, but its range and damage means there's not much reason to go with that over an ERML, unless you really want to toss 8 points of flak or something around.

Xotl-kun we need you : 3

Still at school. Won't be home for a bit.
You could get me on gchat or shoot me an email though.

When it comes to the Clans, would they allow a freeborn, non-elemental to pick a Battle Armor over a Mech?

And do the Clans accept defectors of any sort?

Why the hell would you defect to the Clans

If the Freeborn was trained as infantry, yes. If not, no, get into that Stinger, Freebirth.

>And do the Clans accept defectors of any sort?
Those are called isorla. Or alternatively, define "defector." If it's just a Rawhide Kerensky tier clanaboo, welcome to the lower castes. Enjoy your work as a laborer.

I assume it'd be a measure of desperation given the extreme the Clans represent.

I'm a transclansman. Don't judge me, shitlord.