/btg/ - BattleTech General

there's a story here, and I think you should share it user

not much to tell. gary wanted to play a stalker and could not remember where he left his actual minis and said that this worked better as a proxy than the saltshaker or a shotglass because it had an unambiguous front and back so nobody could lose track of which way it was facing.

Clickytech is cool
Most of the minis are also very pretty too.

>WizKids was the best thing to happen to BT Edition
This implies that anything good has ever happened to Battletech.

Also, this implies that you don't know that WizKids is the re-branding of FASA. They're the Trump of gaming, and not in a good way.

Aside from raising the visibility of BTech after being buried by the 40k landslide, the Clix version was a typical Weisman clusterfuck.

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more like "triggered autist" edition judging from that op

folks,where can I find rules to build 31-50 ton VTOL? I've seen some units over TW limit but I couldn't find if there are rules in TactOps or if they were built using Support VTOL rules

>getting triggered about someone getting triggered about triggering someone

wew, lad. we are getting too meta

>an observation is being triggered
you sound triggered :^)

What's your favorite mech designs /btg/?

Campaign companion fucking when?

Mostly Capellan makes, they tend to be better.

I am triggered about you being triggered about OP being triggered about people getting triggered

...

Varies depending on circumstance but I've had some serious love for the MAD-5S lately.

That and the Crab 27sl.

I'm making a Taurian lance out of the introbox, using NEA's pdf as a guide.
With their average weight being heavy, how's this sound:
>Banshee -3E
>Quickdraw -4G
>Enforcer -4R
>Vindicator -1R

Most of them are so close to being perfect, but yet some details diverge them from the source material and detract from the result.

Wolverine is one design that I otherwise love, but hate the box under the cockpit where the turret should be.

I'm a huge fan of the 4/6 heavy trooper, maybe too big of a fan.
Specifically, my very favorite is the Thunderbolt, with the hound (which is incidentally weirdly similar to a mech I designed well before the hound came out) in a close second. also up there are the Cestus, some of the later warhammers, the Penthaselia (or however it's spelled), and the merlin.
There's also the Bandersnatch (which is really more of a fire support machine) and the archer (also definitely a fire support mech)

I'd trade the enforcer for a hunchback IMO. One salvage machine (the vindie) is fine, but two are pushing it.
Also, if you want to play taurians, you should REALLY try and dig up some unseen, because until 3058, literally every mech they produced aside from the commando was unseen.
I recommend either grabbing the 3e box set mechs from eBay or picking up some Robotech Tactics box sets (gets you an archer, longbow, rifleman and warhammer, all of which are generally available mechs that would make sense for the taurians, and they specifically produce archers and warhammers, both of which are quite common in their military)

So that's what life in the Taurian Cuckordat looks like?

Shit, dystopian, and filled with dune baboons?

I was actually thinking on a Hunchback but wasn't sure if it would be 'common' enough. I'm planning to get some Unseen though since like you say, there are a lot of absent essentials.

Dune baboons?

>but wasn't sure if it would be 'common' enough
Hunchback is one of the most common non-unseen machines, actually

dune baboons are canonically from the Canopus system

Oh, excellent. For some reason I was thinking of it as a Steiner mech so thought pairing it with a Banshee would be too much.

I think actually the biggest users of the Hunchback are Kurita and Liao. Maybe Marik, too.

...

It's iconic for Marik. Who do you think makes them? Kalidasa, same planet as the Orion super factory. All under Wolf control now unfortunately.

The Combine made them at one time but their factory was destroyed in the early succession wars.

>Hunchback is one of the most common non-unseen machines, actually

More like it's know for having a shit ton of variants, like the archer. People like to play with its loadout.

>Nicoletta Malthus
Would you dare refuse her batchall?

That too, but it really does show up all over the place in pretty much everyone's hands

Oh, fun fact. The iconic Marik Treb production is on that planet too.

lol I don't mean this personally since I realize /btg/ is purple bird central, but Marik seriously has almost no luck

Which other introbox mechs would make sense for a taurian unit?

Not sure about in-fluff, but in the real world it's also one of the most iconic Battletech designs, up there with the Mad Cat, Atlas, and Uziel

Can we really call the Uziel "iconic" if it only showed up on the box of one shitty video game?

if that shitty video game is one of the most famous products of the franchise, why not?

In general almost anything that is either general enough in terms of dating back to the Star League or falls under the Liao/Davion columns.
So Assassin, Clint, Whitworth, Vindicator, Enforcer, Hunchback, Dervish, Quickdraw, Catapult, JagerMech, Grasshopper, Awesome, Cyclops, Banshee and Atlas.

I guess Davion salvage, like a centurion or something, thought that would mean they had to win some fights in the outback. Like the other guy said, their production is pretty much nothing but unseen and they would have a few oddball SLDF dregs in their forces on top of those designs.

I got my 3025 confirmed factory sheet here. Can't recall if it takes into account the Periphery retcons but this is what the Taurians supposedly made.

All 3 bugs
Commando
Griffin
Thunderbolt
Archer
Warhammer
Marauder

Which is a pretty good spread for a space cowboy periphery nation.

And according to my sheet, nothing changes there up through the end of the clan invasion in 3053.

So really hard to play a proper Taurian force without a good chunk of unseen in that period.

Well, they make the commando, so those should show up reasonably often, mostly as bug substitutes. They apparently have a few panthers, but presumably not very many. I suppose a Clint or or whitworth or cicada could feasibly show up, and the hunchback is common all over. Salvaged vindicators or enforcers have already been mentioned, as has the quickdraw. Maybe a jagermech or catapult as salvage. The grasshopper is pretty widespread, so one of those could work. For assaults, an old awesome might show up, as might a Cyclops. The banshee would likely be the most common introbox assault for them, and I suppose an old SLDF atlas might turn up from time to time

Basically each major state of the Free Worlds League has one or two really good factory sites.

So when they lose one, it completely cripples that member state. And the type of production isn't equally spread out either. Like when Andurien as a whole state fucks off in rebellion, you lose a full half of your aerospace production for the entire FWL.

You lose all your Marauder and Warhammer production plus your main assault dropship factories when Regulus tells everyone to fuck off.

It's just a clusterfuck, and that's why we love it.

>. Can't recall if it takes into account the Periphery retcons
Well, the hatchetman isn't there so I'd say it has

Purple birb stronke

OK, so we know about mechs now.
What kind of vehicles do the taurians use?

2021 at earliest, assuming CGL hasn't went out of business by then.

(The sad part is that this is the optimistic assessment...)

All this talk about mechs is cool but what are you favorite aerospace fighters?

NEA and other AeroTech players, I summon you.

...

"Okay."

Quickcell shit, APC's, Savannah Masters, technicals and weapon carriers. Plus the odd J. Edgar from Outworlds surplus or Combine Skulker for command units or Davion Goblin for heavy infantry support or Davion Partisan for AA duty or if you're really lucky a Davion Behemoth.

But like 9/10, you'll be running Scorpions and Vedettes with some kind of missile carrier backup.

...

I've always liked the Lightning, Thunderbird and Vulcan, myself. Don't play a whole ton of aerospace, though.
They like hovercraft a lot, and like their mechs, their armor forces are fairly heavy overall, though they use their assault-weight tanks almost exclusively for urban defense. Honestly, their armor units would look pretty much like everyone elses, but with most of their lighter tanks being hoverers. Also, they would probably have slightly more manticores (the MoC makes them IIRC) and would have a decent number of pikes (also from the MoC)

And some I made for MWO.

The Kodiak was fun.

Clans: Sulla, Visigoth, Turk, Sabutai
Inner Sphere: Corsair, Dagger, Stingray, Huscarl

Depends on the mission.

I prefer light stuff as scouts. Thrushes and Sparrowhawks are my goto. They can burn in and out fast plus fuel pods don't drag down their thrust too much.

I prefer mobile heavies in space combat 4/6 or 5/8. I like the ones that mount PPC's/Gauss/Long range autocannon/large LRM racks with backup medium/pulse short brackets. You can mount plenty of external ordinance to dump early in the fight like Anti-Ship Arrow IV's and they can take a good beating while being able to outmanuever most dropships and still dogfight lighter stuff decently. Stuff like the upgraded Transit comes to mind.

I prefer decently armored mediums for low atmosphere. Have enough thrust to pull crazy shit without a million lawn dart checks. And there I just like a lot of stuff that will hit. Something like an old Samurai or a Corsair is pretty good for this. Definitely willing to take something lighter and dump extra BV into the pilot for this kind of fight. Keeping a decent velocity of 3 or 4 on a ground map can really let you terrorize the mudsloggers too.

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STARE.

>Mentioned on GhostBear's Facebook

>And with that, principle writing work is complete on Campaign Operations. (Editing and layout to finish shortly.) It's all in the hands of Ray and Aaron now; fingers crossed for GenCon pre-release.
>When I started my particular section, I guesstimated 22,500 words. Ended up at 21,400.
>Now to get back to my original universe material and novel.

bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=52280.msg1227890#msg1227890

You just posted it. It's 10/10 on looks alone, though the thin armor and shallow tank make it a little less reliable in anything but Trials. From the same book, the Visigoth and Kirghiz are pretty boss too. As for the IS side, the Slayer, Shiva and Eisensturm are my go tos, though the Slayer suffers from not really getting a great upgrade. A Gauss variant like so would be solid, though it can run hot.

>Like when Andurien as a whole state fucks off in rebellion, you lose a full half of your aerospace production for the entire FWL.

Uh, why didn't the purple birds just nationalize and relocate most of that shit after they suppressed the Andurien bid for independence?

So where can I find a 3D artist who ist able to convert this most awesome picture of the 4th edition Awesome into a printable 3D model?
And how much do I have to pay for that?

The companion has uses for Support Points, that you can get via the warchest thingie from total chaos, so that's what I am using.

Because moving tens of millions of tons of stuff across space is haaaaaaaaaard.

I can only recall one example of a factory in battletech being taken apart and being reassembled part by part somewhere else, not counting the handful of factory ships that have existed

Plus it's not just where you build shit, it's also where all the supporting infrastructure is and the top flight academies in the FWL. Andurien is aero central for everything but the Atrean Warship crowd. They even make most of the ammunition for that operation theater on Lopez or they did before it got Blaked off the map

Not to mention, if you did it for all that aero stuff, you're probably need to do the same for the major mech manufacturing complexes on Xanthe and Shiro III.

Andurien is just a really rich sector in general. You can see why it was so fun to take from the Capellans back in the Succession Wars.

>Battletech
>making sense
>ever

I have two words for you
Succ. Wars

Pretty much.

>'''''''''''Free'''''''''''
>'''''''''''Worlds'''''''''''
>'''''''''''League'''''''''''

I will remind you of their record breaking editorial turnaround times. Exhibit A, a little known book about the Draconis Combine...

I'm just the messenger, user

hnnnnnnng

>or if they were built using Support VTOL rules

You can do that or you can use the Superheavy rules from TacOps.

Support vee is probably better though.

Was the Slayer, but then the rules changed and now it's irredeemable shit.

Stingray has always been pretty good.

Eisensturm if I have to go WarShip hunting. 29 damage as a squadron with 19 bomb hardpoints each. Even with a full bomb load (Alamo and 9 RL-10s, for maximum FUCK YOU) you can still move as fast as some WarShips, or blow your load of 32 capital damage in RLs alone then get back up to 4/6 which matches most of the "fast" WarShips before ramming nukes up their ass.

>no chin ball turret
>no handheld gun
>no briefcase
DROPPED

Doesn't have the snout either, and the head is hard mounted where it can't articulate. Makes me think shimmy never held an original design one in his hands if he thought all the tubing was part of the chest.

Otherwise, just wish the gun was handheld. The rest is fine.

Mechwarrior Dark Age was so fun and easy for me to play as a kid. I was able to go to gamestores around town and play and have a lot of fun. I still have so many models.

Will anything like it ever happen again?

>Crab 27sl.
Did record sheets of ER 2750 ever get released?

Probably not, at least not for this game. Alpha strike can revive some of those memories, or you can still play clickytech.

I doubt it, but I play backyard games of Alpha Strike with the ones I have. It's a lot of fun. Just multiply the movement rates by 2.5 (so 5" per BT movement point) and you'll be playing in something close to the actual BT ground scale. A backyard is big enough to get some real terrain going, and winds up being the equivalent of about a 2x2 map or so. You've gotta mow it first, of course, and you can leave half-mowed areas as your woods and shit.

Mechwarrior Dark Age (and later AoD) was a good game...it was just held back by some really hamfisted ideas and carried over rules from Mage Knight. I doubt there will ever be a revival, but even being as much of a BattleTech-diehard that I am, I'd certainly welcome it.

That, and another fucking single-player MechWarrior computer game and a MechCommander game. *sigh*

The Harebrained Schemes game is shaping up nicely, at least.

Funnily enough, there's a minimum of FASA/WizKids/CGL staff involved with that.

I haven't been hearing anything about it, actually. What have you seen/heard?

Disclaimer, I backed the kickstarter.

But apparently they are good friends with some streaming company called Hyper RPG, and they do some pseudo press release videos where they show stuff off.
Hyper RPG is also running a mechwarrior rpg show with 3d mwo printed battlemechs, which is pretty good. Set in 3025 in the Periphery, too.

shitposter

Dear /btg/

What are your favorite field modifications?

Machine Guns + Ammo for SPLs or armour.
uPLs when those become available.

Moving factories to interiors has happened a bunch of times. When so much of a valuable industry is in one province you'd think steps would be taken to either move some of it or vastly expand production elsewhere. Though granted an Andurien secession didn't seem likely again since (at the time of the writing) it had been entirely driven by the motivations of a single person.

Also the top flight academies aren't in Andurien and there isn't a mech factory on Xanthe III.

Around Eagles, _______ _________

Turns out SAFE is smarter than we thought.

Some more.

Maybe they've only been pretending to be retarded. Victor thought they were and then they FRANTISKA'd him.

good morning, btg
have you ascended to heaven yet?

No. But I did think about painting mechs for a bit.