/btg/ - Battletech General

Jenner
Wolverine
Dragon
Atlas
DEATH TO MERCENAIRES! LONG LIVE THE COMBINE!

Black Knight, Marauder, Hunchback 4P and Crab 27b make up most of my current merc company in ATB.

Looted a couple of Griffin 2Ns too. But I really wanted to remove ammo dependence.

Why not. These guys started out as a light lance in a backwater garrison with dreams of glory. That was three years ago, gametime. Campaign in the maximum scrounge of the 2990's.

I've won and lost assaults and lostech, big tanks and little ones, whole bushels of bugs, and am currently broke as fuck in the middle of a civil war on what was supposed to be a cushy garrison/local force training gig.

That Rico Biden is a trooper

They all have done pretty cool stuff. Jerid takes more head hits than an NFL linebacker but has always come out of his concussion comas even on 11's and 12's to help his buddies out.

Grumman shot down an enemy Leopard preparing to land one time with nothing but the medium lasers on his Thrush. Unfortunately it wasn't enough speed or damage to make it explode at one level off the airstrip. Sure kept those bastards grounded though. Most of them have an interesting story for every world, some good some bad.

They also don't get kill credit for doing stuff like legging a mech, which is how most of the force has gained salvage throughout the campaigns.

Hah! I never noticed that piece of gloating before. It's outstanding.

>Unfortunately it wasn't enough speed or damage to make it explode at one level off the airstrip
But shooting a DropShip down without blowing it up is literally the dream payday for mercs. If you can pull that off, you're suddenly rich enough to buy a whole battalion of new mechs (assuming you don't keep the ship yourself, of course)

Wait, no, the pic isn't dated.

Funniest if it's from the Reunification War.

Except when it's loaded with an enemy lance of mechs that outweigh and outgun by several times the small scout lance you had out that way.

By the time we drove that force offworld, they'd repaired the landing gear they sheared off and were able to leave. Would've Zerged them if there wasn't a second leopard and a union in that group.

Which reminds me. Fighting landed spheroids is a nightmare. Even just getting under the guns for a couple of turns to take crippling potshots at their V's and lights as they were loading them up was brutal.

>It's a well known fact that battletech writers just don't like to deal with rebellion and insurrection

Various Beemers have literally said this at one point or another.

Which makes FWL Liberation Units rather pointless...

explains their lack of presence, aside from being part of the FWL

>Which makes FWL Liberation Units
Where are those detailed in the books? I've seen you reference them a few times now but never seen any references in canon.

FM:FWL and Brush Wars detail and reference them, respectively. Original House Marik sourcebook likely mentions them too.

So what was the best non-Mech Capellan Artillery in the Succession Wars?

I remember the Big Mac dealing with an insurrection once in Capellan territory at the time of the Inner Sphere's counter-attack against the Clans.

Also, wasn't the FedCom Civil War basically a large rebellion or insurrection?

Long Tom. Same as everyone else.

>Also, wasn't the FedCom Civil War basically a large rebellion or insurrection?
Only if you were a Katfag. Otherwise it was a civil war which is a slightly different matter in terms of semantics.

Also the constant mess with Rasalhague and Skye that existed until they were taken over by the bears or handed off to the RotS (which is really more because those two are powered by fiat than anything).

Are there any large sets of pilot portraits for MekHQ other than the "Ink effects" ones? I absolutely HATE those portraits; I remember there used to be a few packs of regular pictures (some celebrities, a lot of good art, pilots from the BT sourcebooks, etc), but I can't find any of those on the MegaMek Sourceforge page, nor in the MegaMek Downloads page.

I see.

I was kind of hoping they Capellans would have something creative given it said they made use of a lot of Artillery.

Nope. Exactly three types of artillery existed before Arrow IV nothing else. Hell, aside from arrow IV and cruise missiles, (which really should have existed before the 3060s, seriously) there hasn't been a single new artillery weapon introduced since 2200 in the battletech universe

Was House Amaris basically the Donald Trump of the first Star League?

I don't recall House Amaris being racist and transphobic.

I meant Artillery Units more or less.

Not really, they were more along the lines of holding a huge grudge for ~300 years.

Well he did MAKE THE RIMWORLDS GREAT AGAIN

Speaking of factions that did nothing wrong, what are the best sources for reading about the Rim Worlds Republic?

I think there was one rulebook or whatever about them?

>Buzzwords
Trump even went against the party line and said he didn't support the North Carolina bathroom security bill. Whatever transphobic means, he probably isn't.

Amaris was racist as fuck, if I recall correctly. He had a serious gene-fetishism, like all those 80s sci-fi dictators who were strawmen of Adolf Hitler. Trump isn't racist.

Nah. They really aren't quite like anything in real life
Also, on a side note, Stefan Amaris is officially the #1 master ruseman of all time, undisputed

And then they tore it all down. Seriously, what idiots they were.

>what are the best sources for reading about the Rim Worlds Republic?
Periphery 1e, Reunification War, Liberation of Terra I, FR:2765:P. ISP 3 has a little info, too, as does LoT 2

Thanks not-me

I don't have screencaps or anything, but iirc the answer boiled down to "BT isn't about all that, so we're not going to have it happen much or give it screen time if it does"

Given some of the foreshadowing in 3145/3150, I'm hoping this is an elaborate ruse.

The original Star League House Book probably has the most FASA info, more than Periphery 1e anyway.

It was also the plot of almost all the earliest Dark Age stuff. All those splinter factions were literally rebellions and rogue states, plus the caps fomenting rebellion on places like Liao.

Hey, Muninn
How much money have you got for btg TRO? Are you far from 5k?

We've received approx. 1500 in donations to date.

Right, I don't have that sourcebook, but it's good to know

How much more do you need?

Very few people do. That's why it's so nice we have a scanned copy in the thread folder.

If they've got a budget of 5K, and they've gotten 1.5K, then...

We need another $3,500 to reach our target. There's lots of info about budget, donating, etc. here:

builtforwar.blog (delete this) spot.com/2016/04/built-for-war-battletech-tro-by-fans_16.html

I am, of course, happy to answer any questions you may have.

As an aside, I'm waiting curiously to see if we'll ever get a female contributor. So far we have 30 dudes. Or X dudes plus Y females pretending to be dudes, I suppose.

Someone go shill the TRO on the general board of the OF again

Also take screencaps

Why does CGL loves "proverbial" so much?
Every recent book has one of those expressions.
That socks a proverbial dick

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Honest question, why do you keep spamming this shit

Who the hell is Kamala, and why should I care that they're punching a poorly drawn Atlas?

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>Implying that a taurian is in any way normal

>taurian
Isn't it the logo for the MWO company instead?

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Show me on the doll where medron pryde touched you, user

We are so weird, one guy though the PGI logo was a Taurian one.

Are you fucking retarded?

Yes, it's the PGI cow skull or whatevs

So I played with the Claw-Hammer variant of the Hammer and thought it was pretty fun.
It might just be cause I'm a long-time Nova Cat player and 7 medium lasers is a nice start.

Others who have used the Claw-Hammer, your thoughts of it?

That is the PGI logo. Where have you been?

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Get outta here, mister paragraphs
We don't want your kind here

>taurian
>autism at its finest.

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Which periphery state would be closest to old west mexico, in terms of "we hit this last big lick and hide out in X"?
I'm working up a history for a merc demi-company that's a bunch of Dispossessed desperadoes who hit their "one last big score" and reinvented themselves as mechwarrior mercs in the periphery

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>being this dumb

come back when you stop being retarded

i would say stop biting the bait but
Kamala Khan is the new Ms. Marvel. Selling points for the character include being cute and also being a follower of islam

Can someone explain this chart to me?

>all this taurian samefagging
Just accept that your faction is shit

Marvel's latest attempt to destroy Western civilization

Honestly? Antallos.

>Giant poison desert that covers the whole planet
>A few people live in dome cities
>Full of pirates and bandits
>Mutated wildlife that wants to eat you
>Loads of tinpot dictators
>Hidden Star League treasure all over the place
>The one merc hall that doesn't care who you are or what you've done, you'll find a job that pays
>Bonus, solaris style fights

Of course if you're playing after the Ravens show up, then all that gets sucked away by the clan fun police.

Why hasn't the IS got Clan CASE yet?

It highlights the most efficient weapons by damage/ton heat curve and a couple other things.

Do any states make Clan Ferro?

If you've hit the Suns or CapCon, the outer parts of the taurian concordat are a good choice. They even speak spanish.
Plus they have mech factories with a disinclination to asking questions that'd be perfect for gearing up from ill-gotten gains.

Quick search of MegaMek turns up the Hauptmann T, Templar R, and Malice XV. Plus the Yurei LAM and a version of Yen-lo-Wang

So I know the Dracs like PPCs, Lyrans like Gauss, and Davions like ACs. What are the signature weapons of the FWL and Capellans?

>FWL
In 3025, PPC-LL refits.
After 3058, it's all LGR all 24/7, baby

>Capellans
They actually don't have a ton in the way of signature weapons, though they show a slight inclination towards PPCs and ERPPCs.
Later on, they develop something of a massive boner for TSM legs, but they don't have anything particular other than that and maybe a bit of TSEMP in the Dark Age

The Combine has it on the Cizin and SM2, both made at Nova Cat factories that were captured intact.
Lyrans have it on the Jaguar, which is described as being built with assistance from Wolf-in-Exile, so not sure if they actually make clan ferro themselves.
Clan Republic of the Sphere has it, of course, though they only use it on the Jackalope for some reason. Ferro-Lam on one version of the Malice, imported from the SharkFoxes?

Plasma rifle was their signature weapon.

Did I not mention that?
Clearly I'm drunker than I thought

They really like big-bore ACs and Gauss. A while back I did some random unit generation and the Caps had a couple fewer Gauss than the Lyrans, and almost twice as much as anyone else (Davions were next, Dracs used HPPCs about as often as the Davions, and the FWL had like one headcapper in a company)

It's kinda interesting how their AC/20 love emerged pretty much at the same time as their gaussboner, design-wise

A question for /btg/: How fast do you think mediums should be?

5/8 and 6/9 XL mechs are best off as heavies unless they jump, and SFE mechs have virtually no tonnage available when moving 6/9 or 7/11.

Even a 7/11 40 tonner with an LFE or a 6/9 50 tonner with one don't have much space available.

And yet, so many medium mechs go slower than any of these

The way you use slow mediums/lights is either in large cheap groups (panther) or in a lance of bigger bruisers with the same movement profile. Tends to work out pretty well that way.

Yeah but then I could just bring another big bruiser. Why use a mech that's going too slow (or too fast - see the Grand Titan et al)

Mediums are good for 5/8/5 and 5/8/8. 6/9/6 or 6/9/0 fat lights are fun, too. 4/6/4 troopers are good up to the jihad, and 8/12 XL fat lights can be fun in their very own retarded way