/btg/ - Battletech General

Are there any mechs that work particularly well in combination with protos? What would make such a mech if none exists?

Not really? I can't think of much inherent to protos as a whole that would make a mech good or bad working with them, it would just come down to the individual models of both.

The one thing I can think of; certain tonnage might work better for carting around magclamp protos.

And in that same vein, TSM might be good as well.

Yes, that is right, bitch and moan and whine harder, you freebirth degenerates!

Bitch and whine? You space furries have lost consistently and badly. So badly you tantrumed and tore each other to pieces in a Succession Wars tier war.

>THE MASTER DID NOTHING WRONG
Incorrect. He turned the taskforce who's job it was to fuck up the homeworlds around. That was definitely not the correct decision

Well, the effects vary according to proto weight, so even that's tricky. I think proto magclamps are kind of crappy, given the weight they eat up and the fact that most protos are decently mobile on their own, combined with the MP hit the carrier takes, which will be at best -3 MP, at worst halved.

That said, mediums are a basically a must, since that's where you would have the potential speed and hauling capacity to be decent at it; a 40 ton mech could carry one 10 ton proto, or two 5 ton (or up to 8 tons if it's an omni) protos with only the -3 MP. So something like a Dragonfly, Fenris or Phantom would work okay there if you want to haul Minotaur Zs or Hobgoblins around.

Up to 130 for light, 200 for medium, 280 for heavy. Over that is assault.
I think it's different (higher) for tanks, but I can't remember any exact numbers

> this is a good plan

Cause it's a good solid tonk.

Though a SFE+ERLL Bulldog would be cool.

The year is 3059. You are a freelance mercenary, at loose ends on Outreach. What are you piloting? Who do you try to sign on with?

>Are there any mechs that work particularly well in combination with protos? What would make such a mech if none exists?
Well, unless you're a git who doesn't use Zell (and if you are, kill yourself now), Protos are supposed to operate as a Point. What you really want are designs that work well together within the Point, like HML Rocs and SRM Gorgons pumping las and missile fire downrange.

They have a couple basic weaknesses; they're slow for their relative fragility, they only rise one Level, and their longer-range weapons are usually pretty anemic. Good support for a Proto point usually means a) something big and scary for the enemy to freak out about and b) something that can take care of long-ranged Gauss and ERPPC fire. You're also weak to pulsefire, so be careful about what you walk them into.
You can also just pick Protos to deal with something your 'Mechs can't, like infantry and vehicle sweeping, at which point they're not technically bound by Zell and you don't have to give as much of a damn. That lets you focus your 'Mechs on 'Mech-killing.

Some of my favorite 'Mechs to bring along to a Proto Party are the Crimson Langur, the Mad Dog, and the Stooping Hawk, but I'm a Spirit player.

At least the furries only had ONE...

And that one did more relative damage than all four put together

One Clan trial to the death does more relative damage than all the Inner Sphere Succession Wars too. Two guys enter, one guy leaves. That's a 50% death rate.

A 1v1 trial doesn't have industrial, or infrastructure damage, nor does it have civilian casualties.

Shit, this is a red letter day. After Coordinator knows how many years of playing Battletech, a Crusader of mine finally 1) walked off the battlefield under its own power and not on a stretcher or in a dustbin and 2) destroyed its enemy too.

I'm stunned. The Crud actually only got a few dents from the Blackjack it was duelling with, and actually brewed the opponent up. Of course, it had to be the dishonorabru -3D and not a stock or a -3K, though.

Holy fuck.
The only intact crud I've ever had finish a game was because the pilot got hit in the face by one single LRM on the first turn, and then the next turn, ran,fell over, passed out and only finally woke up when the game was almost over and the enemy was too shot-up to kill it

Dumb question I'll get bullied for but will we ever see a mobile Battletech game? Something like Megamek for Android/IPhone. Mobile tech is getting more and more powerful and if I could play tabletop with a touchscreen tablet as the playing board that'd be pretty damn cool. No need to lug boards or minis around everywhere, only if you really want to play with them (and plenty of people still will.)

Given that there were battles in the SW that saw units reduced to below 14% strength on both sides, you're (a) comparing apples to pumpkins (battles are a better comparison to Trails than wars) and (b) wrong.

Ah, you do know that "casualties" doesn't mean "dead", right? A casualty is someone rendered unable to fight; for Battletech, that means they could be a healthy Mechwarrior who lost their ride, or the person could be wounded, or the person could be dead. There's no way to break it down any further, but IRL casualty rates in modern armored warfare generally have a casualty ratio of about 5 wounded and 1 dead soldier in every 6 actual casualties. So with a 100-man unit at 14% strength, ASSUMING that every single person who isn't combat-capable is either wounded or dead (which is false, but it weights the scales toward YOUR side of the argument), there's 86 casualties. Of those, given the 1-in-6 death rate which is the closest analogue we have, only about 14 of the casualties should be dead, and the rest wounded.

Which, relatively speaking, is way less of a death rate than any Clan.

You still can't compare a trial and a war. The scale is completely different, and a war factors in a bunch of other factors such as infrastructure and damage to industry.

Earlier, I posted about converting a few Heavy Gear minis into something that could work as a Griffin proxy.

Here are the results of a little time spent kitbashing.
I'm sorry about the mediocre lighting, but it's night here atm and I don't have an amazing setup.

The backs of these minis are pretty simple, but I used some spare 1/100 scale ISU-152 muzzle brakes to build some jump jets.

XOTL, would you kindly eratta away the turret restriction of the iHGR on large naval support vessels?

OK, so in the light of the announcement about ilClan and CGL's inability to write a storyline, imagine that CGL put out another post that says, essentially, that they're actually incapable of finishing in the storyline in a way that wouldn't utterly destroy what's left of the fanbase. They feel that they have only two options with the franchise.

1) Complete reboot and new rules. Inspired by the old rules, but with things like better math and more-thought-through factional portrayals. Aside from the rules, all the fluff is up in the air and you can't count on any given part of it moving forward to BT2.0.

2) Shutter the franchise completely and sit on it (so nobody else can produce a BT game) for at least 10 years before considering maybe bringing it back someday. For practical purposes, they're going to kill the entire game until/unless a new generation of tabletop gamers emerges.

Which would you prefer and why?

I would prefer the former. However, they have Jellico and GhostBear and MadCap as writers/devs and people like Alexander Knight as rules gurus, so like fuck they'd be able to manage it.

The way they're spinning their wheels right now we may effectively get number two any way.

Ditching everything distinctive about BattleTech would be tantamount to shuttering the franchise, so those options are functionally identical. Also, option 1 would suffer the same problems that they're trying to escape from in the premise.

So basically, the fate of the Star Wars EU or the fate of a hundred other RPGs?
I'll take the first one every day of the week and twice on sunday.
At worst, it keeps battletech on life support with a slow flow of people getting into the older version, and at best it's an actual improvement.
The second kills battletech aside from the groggiest of old grogs and the occasional kid who finds the books in the used bin at his FLGS and is like "I wanna play this". Yes, even more than it's like that currently

Were the Lyran mechs that guard the Archon's Throneroom on hand when Clan Wolf Elementals Stormed the Palace on Tharkad and killed the Archon in the Dark Age?

>Which, relatively speaking, is way less of a death rate than any Clan.
[citation needed]

>1) Complete reboot and new rules. Inspired by the old rules, but with things like better math and more-thought-through factional portrayals. Aside from the rules, all the fluff is up in the air and you can't count on any given part of it moving forward to BT2.0.

This is the best option of the two you posited, but honestly, I cannot see anyone but the diehard gamers already in the BT fandom being okay with it. Too many people have given in to the sense of tribalism that the setting offers to wipe out all the fluff and start over. Hell, how many fans did they drive off by saying the FedSuns had a rough few years? A lot of people I know who enjoy the franchise are already tenuous about staying with it anymore. Which is sad, but it's where we're at.

Honestly, they've got a great opportunity to "restart" things if they'd just nut up and do it. Resolve things with the ilClan book, without touching the Homeworld Clans. Leave them be for now. Purge and wipe IS factions as needed, without warping the originals too much for comfort. Do Herb's idea of the time warp forward. You don't need to streamline tech too much, nor make too many things obsolete, in order to set up for a fresh take on things. Give people their beloved old factions (version 2.0), give Clanners who got their factions stomped the ass-pull of "well, in the homeworlds, eventually the Star Cobras got so big they split off into new clans based on the old originals given by Nicky K," put some new people in charge of the direction of the lore from here on out, and ditch the grimderp of the last decade or so for the good old "lived in, rough around the edges, and violent" flavor that it used to have. Boom, fresh starts all around.

I hope for too much, I know.

Just restart the game in 3025 with mechs being rare and handed down in families and their pilots equated with knights of old.

What could go wrong? :DDDD

Looks good, user. I'd happily play against you.

So Dark Ages?

Pretty sure that was the joke.

Are we blaming CGL for the Dork Ages now? Or is this an ebin eksdee thing?

I mean CGL are handling things VERY poorly, but you can't really pin the DA on them.

Option 1, BUT, it has to have the stipulation that things will progress to their logical conclusions. No more "lol the CC survives because reasons". Either give them enough worlds to actually be a credible state or sentence them to death during the 4th SW. If the FRR is gonna exist make it the proper DMZ that it should have been instead of some kind of fucking weird ComStar-guided pissing and moaning session. Make the 4th SW take a huge toll on the DC and LA, making it so founding the FRR is literally the best option to keep something like that war from ever happening again. Maybe make it so the FS, FWL, and CC have to step in because someone breaks the Ares Convention and they force the FRR accord. I dunno. But it needs to make sense. Everything they do needs to make sense. If they aren't gonna do that, then they should kill the license so someone else can take a crack at it. Because right now the poor franchise is on life support with Dr. Nick Riviera as its assigned physician.

2, because those clowns wouldn't be capable of 1 if they're not capable of wrapping this up.

Oh man, I just finished rereading Star Lord and now I'm really, really tempted to spring the plot on my players as my upcoming mechwarrior campaign, since none of them know much about the lore.
Talk me out of it, /btg/

But then they'll see it coming when you do the same with Far Country!

do it

Do it, and report back with results.

So if a Clan finds itself short on True Born (Elementals included), but with an overabundance of Battle Armor (doesn't matter what kind) are they going to start issuing them to second line Freeborn, Bondsmen and "volunteers" (conscripts)?

Probably not.
More likely they'll just try to shore up the holes with conventional infantry until they can get more True Born. Aside from the whole honor thing, it takes a lot to train someone in using Battle Armor.

Depends on the Clan.

Hard-core dickbags like the Jags, Falcons, and Vipers don't want freeborns in the warrior caste any way and would try to make do with what they have.

Other Clans realise it's gonna take them almost 20 years to get Trueborn into the warrior caste so it's better to have warm bodies around. Stuff the Frees into Second-Line/PGC/Para-Military units and move the better personnel from those units to the front line in the meantime.

There are such things as freeborn elementals. If you wash out of training, no matter your genotype, you can be whatever. Then your kids will be the same too. In fact there would be a bunch of them working as battle armor techs or even mech techs.

You forgot they can trade these battle armors for something they need more or that they could issue Trials of Possession for true born elementals. Both options are more probable to happen before they start training non-elementals

>it takes a lot to train someone in using Battle Armor.
Not so much this, as that Elementals are freakin' bodybuilder basketball players, and it's somewhat difficult for normal humans to use equipment designed for them.

Since IWM has its Archive-fee-free thing going on right now, what minis from the archive should I hop on? Already planning on buying a Blitzkrieg, and I was also planning on buying a Burrock. Anything else that I should buy, or potentially replace the Burrock with?

Using Battle Armor of any kind has always been mentioned as something you need a lot of intense training for.
And yeah, most armor needs to be custom fitted, since gaps between your skin and the inside layer can fuck up your controls.

They got rid of the attribute requirements to use BA in the recent version of the rules though.

You could literally be built like pre-serum Captain America and fight as well as or better in BA than Lincoln Osis now.

Inner sphere blokes, who are known to generally not be elemental-sided, have been able to pilot Elemental suits with only standard fitting, so trained non-elemental freeborns could, too

>So if a Clan finds itself short on True Born (Elementals included), but with an overabundance of Battle Armor (doesn't matter what kind) are they going to start issuing them to second line Freeborn, Bondsmen and "volunteers" (conscripts)?
Depends on the clan.
The blood spirits are known for doing exactly this, but people like clan JAG HARDER and green birds and snakes wouldn't

Jaguars have done it before but it's very rare.

Really?

Really?
I'm guessing this was at the very bitter end, yeah?

There's at least one case I remember. I'll see if I can't dig through my sourcebooks to find it in a bit. I mean the mainstream Jag philosophy was still Jag harder anyway so I can only assume some Star Colonel had a Russou Howell moment and did it for his own amusement.

So, with the artist's permission, I wanted to share a few shots of my ex-CoimGuard mech unit, the ComGuardians. They're a mech unit in the early Dark Ages (3090ish). It's got some unusual mech choices for sure (the Solaris mechs are because the unit was stationed on Solaris during the Jihad, the Clan mechs are retrofitted salvage, and the Mackie is just because I like it).

This pic is the CO and XO mechs, a King Crab and a custom Hunchback (it mounts a Gauss Rifle and an ER Large Laser). Two more pics incoming.

>yeah
I believe you meant "quiaff" you surat.

The first 3 L2's, including most of the unusual mechs.

The other L2s.

Wouldn't a former ComGuard unit sporting that white scheme made infamous by WoB (even if Com* used it too) in the 3090s attract a lot of negative attention?

Pretty neat, user.
They look pretty great

Neg, I meant what I said. I's not a clanrat like you, trashborn

They operate mostly in the Periphery and have a lengthy service record *against* the Word. It generally works out, though yeah, they've had a lot of negative attention in the past. It's one reason they're not a larger unit.

What the fuck did you just fucking say, you stravag little bitch? I will have you know I tested out top of my sibko in the Mattlov-Pryde group, and I have been involved in numerous raids on Clan Wolf, and I have over 300 confirmed kills. I am trained in zellbrigen warfare and I am the top duelist in the entire Jade Falcon touman. You are nothing to me but just another target. I will wipe you the fuck out with precision the likes of which has never been seen before in the Inner Sphere or Periphery, mark my fucking words. You think you can get away with saying that shit to me over the Chatterweb? Think again, surat. As we speak I am contacting my network the Watch across the invasion corridor and your HPG is being traced right now so you better prepare for the storm, freebirth. The storm that wipes out the pathetic little thing you call your life. You are fucking dead, wet-nose. I can be anywhere, anytime, and I can kill you in over seven hundred ways, and that is just in unaugmented combat. Not only am I extensively trained in unaugmented combat, but I have access to the entire arsenal of the Falcon clan and I will use it to its full extent to wipe your little trashborn ass off the face of the Sphere, you little savashri puke. If only you could have known what unholy retribution your little “clever” comment was about to bring down upon you, maybe you could have held your fucking tongue. But you could not, you did not, and now you are paying the price, you dezgra idiot. I will shit fury all over you and you will drown in it. You are fucking dead, freebirth.

I've got a clan-related question: In the 3058-67, how common would clan defectors be?
How rare would they be in house units, mercenary units, pirate bands?

10/10

Uncommon, but slightly more common with the death of the Jaguars and the abjuration of the Cats.
Those taken as bondsmen, a small number, in house units. Maybe some in merc units but I imagine most would bondsref themselves.
The one in pirate bands would most likely just be survivors eking out an existence in their own Clanner-only pirate bands. There were quite a few Jaguars that had that fate, sadly.

Don't forget the Dark Caste operating in the Clan OZs

King Crab looks great.
Too much paneling on the Hunchie.
NEA forgot to do the Highlander's cockpit glass

Man, /BTG/ really hates clanners

good

Can a non-elemental caste even use clan battle armour? In fluff and art, they are 7.5 feet tall and have 30% more muscle mass than your average human, specially bred beyond the natural top-end of even a tube born human.

Pic related.

>Too much paneling on the Hunchie.
It's display quality, I kinda like the different look.

Also, he did do the Highlander's cockpit, it's just really hard to see because I'm a failure with photos. Looking at it straight on, you can see it well.

I don't mind what they did to the setting.

I just don't want them to win.

According to whats said they can.

However only an Elemental can utilize it to it's fullest.

Rare but not unheard of. Maybe 1 in 200 for mercs and house units?
Maybe 1 in 150 for pirates, on account of there aren't actually many pirates and the jag-pirate boys.
My personal idea about this is that after the invasion, a lot of the types who would have gone bandit caste would end up defecting to the IS instead, with maybe some of the more disgruntled ones going as far as to merc out

I'm rather a fan of the Horses.

They seem to enjoy military innovation and don't seem as abusive as the other Clans do.

Well not until they joined on with Malvina's "Golden Ordun" shenanigans anyway.

The Snow Ravens are also a favorite.

I like the Smoke Jaguars and Nova Cats, but with *both* of them dead now I've moved on to the Spirit Cats.

Also like the Snow Ravens for aerospace stuff, and the Jade Falcons for fluff.

I liked the clans they way they were originally presented: as a group of terrifyingly insane techno-barbarians who came here to try and impose their insane and horrific vision of a perfect world on the Inner Sphere. At most, you could have sympathetic defectors and the occasional honorable foe, but as a whole the clans were a evil nightmare.
More than anything I dislike clanaboos, really. And I especially dislike that they are allowed to write about the clans

Clans I like
>Jade Falcon (evil)
>Sea Fox
>Cloud Cobra
>Wolverine
>Snow Raven
>Goliath Scorpion
>Steel Viper (Wars of Reaving)

Clans I dislike
>Wolf
>Ghost Bear
>Coyote (pre Wars of Reaving)
>Fire Mandrill
>Jade Falcon (eternal second-best at everything good guys)
>Star Adder

Everyone else I am neutral

>And I especially dislike that they are allowed to write about the clans
You know how stupid this sounds, right?

>a group of terrifyingly insane techno-barbarians

Who oddly enough did less damage to the Sphere than the Sphere has done to itself in the time since the Star League's dissolution.

There shouldn't be an "about" in there, I fucked up with the predictive typing thingy

The term you want is "ironically".

Turns out the real monster was Man all along, etc.

>Muh blood of Kerensky

>Who oddly enough did less damage to the Sphere than the Sphere has done to itself in the time since the Star League's dissolution.
Only because they lost at tukkyad. IG they'd won, the overall consequences would have been much, much worse

Which is hilarious, considering the many and varied utter atrocities that the star league perpetuated on humanity

>Institutionalized caste systems and slavery are good, guys!

>Jade Falcon
>evil

The best part is that it isn't even ironic. The Great Houses did all the awful shit that they did for exactly the same reasons as the Clans and even the WoB: to establish another Star League with themselves as the bosses.
>muh star league
Has been the cause of a good 90% of all the terrible shit in the battletech universe from the year it was founded all the way to 3150 and most assuredly will continue to after that