/btg/ - Battletech General

It's hard to not be a faggot when I suck cock and fuck ass... but I digress.

Pretty much all of them. As said, the SLDF ran whole companies of the same mech and variant, though for variety I tend to allow companies to diversify their designs in terms of variants, since 12 Archer 2Rs are boring.

>stop being so easy to trigger, btg

No. Please just stop shitposting in the first place.

And thank you for the picture.

I want to talk about the BattleMech Manual a bit with regards to some worries raised in the last thread. I'm the project lead on it.

The Manual is the book I've been periodically popping in here asking your advice on (what is confusing, how does TW not work, etc) for the past year or so. I've put a lot of /btg feedback into it (e.g. why doesn't the Heat chapter have the heat chart from the record sheet? Good question, user-from-a-year-ago: it does now).

I've taken the text of TW's latest printing and personally rewritten the whole thing. I know one of the common complaints is word count bloat, so I've really worked to trim sentences down as much as humanly possible. The Combat chapter, for example, is 15% smaller than the old one (and that's not including any word count chopped because we moved to mechs only: that's just pure wordage trimming on base rules). And then the whole book is getting another editor to go over it to trim and clarify it some more. At the same time, there's more redundancy in some places, as I've tried to make sure we have page refs everywhere they need to be, and I figured it's always better to repeat a small amount of text than to have you flip around in a book in the middle of the game to read it instead. I've moved a lot of stuff around too, to try and put it in better places.

In a lot of ways the Manual was inspired by the BMR, but at the same time, we tried to take what TW added as well. And then of course, it's mechs-only, which is a new approach, so it's its own book in some ways. We've added a handful of new things, but I probably shouldn't talk about that yet.

Also, CampaignAnon and Muninn worked on this with me throughout, with CA making his first BT writing contribution here (he's cooked up a nice Weapons chapter I think everyone will like). Lastly, there's one more btg'er who helped a lot, but he's anonymous here so I'll leave him that way unless he changes his mind.

If there's any questions, I'll try to answer.

it is okay to be gay

It really is amazing.
Honestly, Stefan Amaris is the greatest Great Man in battletech history.
I mean, he set the world on fire and brought the greatest empire in human history to it's knees with essentially nothing, in the grand scheme of things

>No. Please just stop shitposting in the first place.
sorry, I didn't want to imply I was the source of shitposting, it was just an example of how easy is not to shitpost

you're welcome, here's another

noice
some questions:
>TW is going to be superseded by this book?
>which eras the book is going to cover?
>they will improve the ruleset name division?
introtech/tournament legal/advanced/experimental does not make too much sense. This level should illustrate how hard/easy are that equipment rule, but since equips can be experimental in one Era and tournament legal in another it makes the classification kinda pointless

is dat a Blue Flame?

Thunder Fox.

Serious rely
If there's one thing about BT that always confuses me it's the availability codes (FEEX etc.)

System needs to be clarified/rewritten.

Also moar pretty pictures of Melissa Steiner requested, preferably nudes.

Not a replacement for TW or any other book and definitely not a new edition. Rather, it's a book for guys who have a certain way of playing BT and want to focus on that: all stompy robots, all the time. TW (with TM, TO, and IO) is still the full meal deal. Any rules changes in the Manual will either be backported to TW via errata (there's very very few, and they're small) or clearly understood to be simplified alternate versions (for example, there's a new fire and smoke ruleset in it so you can add fire to a game without it being Dresden Simulator 3000 and rolling dice all day to track spread; it won't replace the TO version, but offers you a new way to handle fire if you want).

Eras: Up to 3145. But will support earlier play back to the Age of War.

Ruleset division: I'm not fond of it either, but we're stuck with that for the foreseeable future. It remains as is. The book supports Tourney Legal stuff only. So no handhelds, remote sensors, and other page-long stuff.

Are there any in particular more likely to be found in a unit with Terran Hegemony roots? I'm going for a ELH feel too.

They confuse me too. This is a gameplay manual, for guys who just want something they can reference at the tabletop. No c-bills, no availability codes, no legalities, no tech faciton spread: none of that stuff. Just what you need to play, nothing to get in the way.

Talk to Ray for Melissa nudes. He's doing some cool stuff with layout for the book; perhaps that's part of his master plan.

>The book supports Tourney Legal stuff only. So no handhelds, remote sensors, and other page-long stuff.

Fucking stupid imo. Not you guys' fault but still

No, no problem: I understand some people will want every last item. But I should note that this is taking the tech level changes into account as seen in TRO Prototypes, RS 3145, and IO. There's an awful lot of stuff that's TL in 3145.

Any chance of the Battletech pc game / DFA webseries initiative rules being ironed out as an official optional rule?

Thunderbolts, orions (especially), griffins, Archers, Crusaders, stingers,and maybe even a Mackie, all TH classics.
I guess the problem is that the TH iconics are also some of the most common mechs, and/or also iconic to other factions

>Not a replacement for TW or any other book and definitely not a new edition.
good

>Eras: Up to 3145. But will support earlier play back to the Age of War.
also good

>The book supports Tourney Legal stuff only
not very good, but understandable. However, as I have already mentioned, how we will know certain equipment is Tourney Legal in certain era without saying it is advanced in a earlier/later era?

Well I'm the OCD guy who wrote the spreadsheet for designing warships, in the sense that I wrote it ten years ago and occasionally go back and fix it every few years.

Most BT rules are easy, but putting availability in is requiring a cmplete rewrite and has me pulling out my hair. I expect to have the damn thing totally rewritten by 2029. Oh well.

Makes me kind of miss Battlespace, though.

Sorry, friend, I still meant within the introductory box set.

If you want a decent option to start, I'd recommend looking at Liberation of Terra II's RATs. You'll have a decent variety of units to choose from, and you can dial in from there. Note that the ELH was a standard line regiment, even if it was detached.

Most of that stuff takes up an obscene amount of page space though. Or have been revised so many times that the rules are just a cluster.

That's up to someone with a different pay grade. But not in this book.

That's the "give lights a reason to exist" stuff, right? No, there's nothing like that here. New rules are kept to an absolute minimum; since this isn't a new edition, we don't want too much deviance between books. As Randall mentioned in the podcast, you'll instead see a small number of TO options backported into the Manual text (still labelled as options, mind you).

>how we will know certain equipment is Tourney Legal in certain era without saying it is advanced in a earlier/later era?

I wrote a handy Tech Advancement table along the lines of what's in RS 3145 NTNU to show you how everything in the book moves from Exp to Adv to TL. There's also some nice stuff that will be done with the weapon tables to help that I think you'll like. Players will be able to follow along era by era without problems.

Yeah, they strike me as a reason to give factcheckers grey hair, and not much else. I don't always agree with a lot of the "detailing everything eliminates creativity" arguments, but I do in these sorts of cases.

Ah, I see. No problems. My only other comment is please index the hell out of that thing.

I am very happy to hear this, Xotl. And even more happy you and CA/Munnin are involved in this project.

one last question. Is there an expected release date?

>Most of that stuff takes up an obscene amount of page space though. Or have been revised so many times that the rules are just a cluster.

Which is why it would be nice to have it in a book without a hundred pages of errata awkwardly copied in there

The index is something that's come up a lot, and therefore something I'm definitely aware of. However, I have no idea how they're made, so I don't know how much of an opportunity we'll have to improve it beyond standard. I'm hoping a lot, but obviously dealing with that kind of a mass of data is not easy. Still, your concerns have definitely been heard on this one.

The usual problems with release dates apply. Until someone says something officially, I can't comment. Sorry. Thanks for the vote of confidence though. :)

>That's the "give lights a reason to exist" stuff, right?
what initiative rules are those? I'm interested in anything that makes light mechs more viable

>Which is why it would be nice to have it in a book without a hundred pages of errata awkwardly copied in there
Don't get me wrong I agree, I just write what I'm told to. In this case, it was TL gear only.

Watch the Death From Above series, or the pre-Alpha video for the HBS BT game.

BT video: youtube.com/watch?v=BJkixB91Uug

DFA battle: youtube.com/watch?v=8_Rx12M6nY0&index=64&list=PLHKocVDXoWBvk0-skvvtUaMiFoo1MYPd9

It's the system they are using in the forthcoming PC game and on the Death From Above series on Twitch/Youtube. Basically the turns are divided up by weight class, so all the lights go first, including shooting, then mediums, heavies, etc. Tanks move one phase later than mechs of the same weight class. Any unit can delay it's action till a later phase. A light mech can dart out before anyone else can move to backstab or sit behind a hill with a held action making an assault really think about his move. It helps mediums too.

Yeah I'll second on the index.
Sometimes it seems like finding things in the BT books takes up more time than playing.

But I suppose it's a trade-off. You can either have detailed rules or you can have easy rules. It's hard to find the balance.

I Think we need a visionary like Stefan Amaris to come in and take over Battletech.

Long Live Emporer Amaris!

It seems pretty neat, though I'm sure someone's bound to find a way to abuse it. Infantry are also counted as lights, right?

I hope the improved layout, extra page refs, and all the other formatting changes I made will really help in this regard (that, and the fact that there's so much less text to wade through because all the non-mech stuff is gone).

Still, if anyone wants to dive into the TW index and start bringing up *specific* ways in which it fails (X is outright missing, Y isn't needed at all, Z is poorly worded so that no one will ever look there for it, etc), I'll likely be able to make sure those mistakes won't be repeated in the Manual. I have a few listed from previous threads, but the more the merrier. Just post it here.

Yeah, I think so, but I'm not sure because the PC's infantry unit keep deploying from ambush/airdrop at dramatically appropriate moments on the show and so they are pretty loose with the infantry rules.

Also a warning about the web series, they have no idea how to play in the first 3-4 episodes, but by the end of the season they get pretty good. It's actually pretty cool to watch players go from taking 3 hrs for a game to consistently an hour and a halfish.

Also yeah, no rule ever survives contact with the power gamer.

I think I remember running into the fact that aerospace strafing rules don't specifically mention the fact that energy weapons strike every hex. Maybe a little clarification on the difference between strafing and direct strikes.

Not sure if they'll be in if its just BMs though.

Yeah, Hamid & crew were typically more plot devices than tabletop units. And definitely, it's been great watching a group go for "wait how do i mech" to actually playing decently and making reasonably smart decisions.

Long live House Amaris!

I also have to give them props on guest stars, I've been playing battle tech since 1994 ish and nothing has made me as uncomfortable as "Daddy" or laugh as hard as Red Mariah.

Looked up the section on strafing:

It says "The attacking player makes separate to-hit rolls for each
weapon against each target. Apply weapon hits using the
standard rules for the appropriate unit type." (page 243)

I remember getting into an argument at the table about whether or not each target received full damage, that could be clarified.

Yeah, Kerensky can suck eggs!

...

That won't be in the Manual, since it's a mech-only book, but I'll make sure it gets clarified for TW. Thanks.

What I've never understood is WHY the MoC needs to be separate from the FWL. Like, I could see it being a differentiated periphery realm to any other successor state, but when the whole deal of the FWL is "do your own thing with your microstate", I don't really see the point.

I still can't believe no one in the Star League said, "Hey they have a shark on their flag, do you think they might be the bad guys"

Fluff-wise I thing the BT universe should have more shark-related sayings.

"Never trust a shark bearing gifts"
"If it's all teeth and stomach don't invite it into your house"
"We need a bigger McKenna"
"I bitchslapped him like a Cameron on Christmas"

Heh heh

Hey /btg/ my friends and I recently got into Battletech, and I have a couple questions for you guys.

We've decided to play 3025-3039 (Introtech?), because we know if we go further, its going to devolve into rampant power gaming and we'd like to leave that back with WarmaHordes.

My question is how big of a board should we be using? Currently we've been doing a 1x2, so as to give snipers a chance to snipe, and give brawlers a chance to actually close in.

>My question is how big of a board should we be using?
it depends on how many mechs you are bringing into the table. 1x2 is okay for 2x2 battles, you will need bigger tables for bigger fights

If you want more room to maneuver but keep the ranges decent, 2x2 is nice.

We're doing a lance each right now.

see then
2x2 will work fine

For my Terran Hegemony-descended merc lance, introbox only, I've narrowed down options to:
>Cyclops or Banshee (Atlas is GOAT but too much I think)
>Catapult or Dervish
>Assassin or Clint
and then either another medium
>Whitworth, Hunback or Cicada
or a light
>Spider or Panther

Which would you guys pick for each option?

I thought this might be a more productive discussion than what ended last thread...

I generally play 3x3, but I play with a company per side minimum, so I've sacrificed table space for it.

You're not gonna see lances with mixed tonnage like that in the SLDF. Even companies doing so would be scratch reinforcement units. Also, did I just see an animu kid die in that gif?

Sorry if it wasn't clear, it's not set during the SLDF but instead descendants operating as mercs. Will probably do a 3025 game.

yep, kid got mooked

You're still more likely to see tonnage split. If you're going for a single lance only, I'd probably drop the assault simply because of how incredibly rare they are at the time.

>Did I just see an animu kid die in that gif?

Ideon is a hell of a ride.

Thank you Xotl and CA for contributing to the game.

Cyclops, dervish, cicada, spider

Maybe. I was using NEA's lance example as a basis.

Catapult, Dervish, Assassin, Clint. It's closer to SLDF style in terms of close weights. It also should play alright.

Whatever works for your game, user. Going by those mechs, I'd go with the Banshee 3S, Catapult, Assassin and the Whitworth. You can share ammo for the last two.

On the other hand, assaults were much less rare in the old days, so a SLDF-decended unit might well have a disproportionately large number of assaults

Nice dubs. However, a Light Horse regiment by the SLDF reckoning (if that user is still using them as more than just a reference as another left behind SLDF unit) consists of mostly lights and mediums. They're scouts.

If you can afford a Catapult you can afford a much tougher Archer.

Or go all birmech, I've done that before.
Marauder & Catapult for fire support, Jenners for speed.

So, the MechManual or whatever it will be called, will it have rules for minefields? Someone said something about it having them in the previous thread.
And what about artillery? Arrow IV is not common in 'Mechs but it does appear.

I agree. user should specify what sort of regiment they're descended from, because it would significantly impact their likely composition (though a unit descending from a hodgepodge of several regiments could have basically any composition that user wants)

Artillery isn't Tournament Legal, so it's not in. Sorry.

Agreed, though a Dragoon regiment would be too much for it to have not joined a House or died in the Succession Wars, I could see a Battle Regiment diversifying with Light scouting elements.

I think it's moot because a) there are numerous ways that unit composition could change in the time between ~2780 and 3025 and b) he's only fielding a small force on the tabletop, and that doesn't need to be a microcosm of the entire regiment.

SLDF-heritage mercs are all well and good, but does anyone have any RWR-based merc units?

>that feeling when you've wanted to contribute to Battletech as a franchise for a long time, but you're not "inner circle" and your input is likely not necessary
I'm too much of a casual anyway.

at least you didn't have a hand in Dark Age

Yeah, there's that.

>there's a new fire and smoke ruleset in it so you can add fire to a game without it being Dresden Simulator 3000
But that's half the fun of the fire rules

>if we go further, its going to devolve into rampant power gaming
You'll still get powergaming in introtech, just with ML boats instead of FEDCOM GAUSSWALL ONLY FINAL DESTINATION.

You get into the inner circle by contributing. Put your big boy britches on and do something.

2x2 is the best I've found for games where you want equal parts maneuvering and brawling. It gives scouts a chance to use their speed to not die, and makes you actually think about how you're moving and how you're setting up. You have to move to counter what your opponent is doing, and you have to keep in mind the capabilities of your own machines. It lets everything shine depending on how you use it.

That said, for casual romps for a few hours with a lance of say, a Light, two Mediums, and a Heavy, 1x2 is fine if you just want to get some killin' done over a beer or three.

What have you done, as an example of how to go about this?

>Working on a BT serial fic series because why the hell not

I feel like there needs to be a point where I stop doing research for this.

Keep on keepin' on man. What kind of stuff are you writing? Era? Subject matter?

3060s-ish era mercenaries. Plot is going to be about a new Mechwarrior signing on with a company getting shipped out to the Combine border for a raid.

Original idea was for them investigating a planet went dark, but the idea was getting too unwieldy.

Sounds cool. Making the protag a newbie will help rope the reader in and make him/her more relatable, since the reader's gonna know as little as the protag does about a lot of stuff. Era is a good choice; lots going on.

Yeah, lead is a relatively inexperienced, but competent pilot(St. Ives Compact born and raised, signed on with a merc unit out of military school, only major operation was Guerrero, and has no idea about all the politics).

Besides, huge amounts of infodumps are sacred to Battletech, if my reread of the Kerensky Trilogy are any indication.

Exposition. Something that's really hard to do well. Good luck, user.

>Due to the geometry of hyper space all of the entities seen attacking the ship are the same squid

Dark Age is fine

Don't be a faggot

>Reading TRO:3150
>Legate Jamal still giving Stone and Levin hell on Liberty fifteen years later even with all the bullshit upgrades the CGL gave the RotS military

Heh.

Battlebump, Make Andurien Great Again edition

Damn! Where did you get that gif from? What series?

That's Space Runaway Ideon, by none other than Yoshiyuki "Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out" Tomino.