Notable Mercenaries Edition

There was mention of a tactics guide to flanking in the last thread. Does anyone have it saved? I can use all the help I can get.

>Adam Ant
>singer

Oh. For old people. OK then. Thanks.

It wasn't this by any chance, was it?
benhrome.wordpress.com/category/gaming/battletech/strategy-and-tactics/

I don't have the guide saved, but the basic idea is deploying in a line to meet the enemy line. As his line advances, one side of yours falls back and the other moves to join it in crushing the enemy flank that meets yours first. Look up "refused flank" on wikipedia or something for more details.

>listening to benny boy on tactics

hah, fuck no

Why are you namefagging, especially if you can't even contribute?

Suck his dick, faggot. Who cares what you think?

It was pic related, though I don't have the text that came with it.

You have to be 18 to post on Veeky Forums.

Really?

Hell, I am just having one bad day. Sorry guys.

>old people
>posting in a battletech thread

>It was pic related, though I don't have the text that came with it.

I don't understand still. I'm sorry. What's all this supposed to mean?

You swing your center to hit one flank, and pull your opposite flank in to keep their center away. You break through the flank where you sent the center, then swing the former center and that flank to hit the enemy center on the flank. Then you move your entire force to hit the enemy far flank.

OK, step by step.
Map) Each square is a friendly (blue) or enemy unit of approximately equal size. You can probably assume a lance per square right now. Green is terrain which slows an enemy and/or blocks LOS.
1) You deploy in such a way that the enemy (which has heavier, less mobile units than you) is strung out across the board. For example, deploying a fast force on one flank can "bait" the enemy into countering that deployment directly.
2) You move to concentrate your forces on one flank. In this case, the right moves to the right, the center moves to the right, and the left moves to the center. Because you've got faster/more maneuverable forces (ie, jumpers), you can bypass the hindering terrain.
3) Your center and right forces concentrate fire on the enemy left, achieving local superiority, and destroy it. The enemy right (on your left) is isolated by the terrain and cannot help. Your left-flank unit has moved to engage the enemy center in a delaying action. Thier job is not to kill the enemy center, but to hold it in place until...
4) Your right and center forces converge on the enemy center force, destroying it. During this time, the enemy right (on your left) has almost certainly tried to move towards the center to help reinforce it.
5) The enemy right has moved into the center, and now faces a significant numerical disadvantage, from the surviving elements of your entire force.

The thing that makes a tactic like this work is recognizing whether or not the terrain you're fighting on is favorable or not (this doesn't work well on a salt flat). You also need to recognize if your enemy can maneuver with you; if they can keep up, it fails. This tactic exploits superior speed/maneuverability in order to isolate enemy forces and destroy them in detail.

Like I said last thread, NEA knows what he's talking about. This is as simple a guide as you could ask. It's also better than the Ben Rome guide; CGL is pretty bad at tactics.

>CGL is pretty bad at tactics.
Not when you can throw $500 at an Awesome to repair it to full midfight.

You don't have to be good at tactics when you can buy your way out of problems. Like not having a nice porch.

>reading down columns instead of across

NEA you useless boy-loving lala-man, why did you do this?

>The thing that makes a tactic like this work is recognizing whether or not the terrain you're fighting on is favorable or not
>You also need to recognize if your enemy can maneuver with you

How do you learn this?

Practice and knowing the capabilities of mechs.

Playing, trying it, and losing a lot. A big chunk of knowing when and where to use different tactical schemes just comes from simple experience and after-action analysis.

Not him, but that seems like kind of a shitty way to learn. What about books or simulations where it's not for keeps the way it is in a real game of BT?

And now you see how the Lyrans win

Read a lot of military history, and practice. The former is why guys at West Point today still read about Gaugamela or Cannae or whatever. The basic principles never really change.

>simulations

You mean...some kind of...game?

Nice to know someone can get a question answered in here.

Fuck off

it's been 4 hours and it's a friday. Most people here are out actually having fun and/or a life.

As for your question, you don't *need* to add anything else, the intro rules are the intro rules for a reason. My advice is to have an 'intro +' version of the rules at hand, so that if your players want more crunch you have it immediately available.

>thread contains multiple other questions being answered
>be a passive aggressive bitch because nobody's gotten to yours yet

I hear the Companion is near-mandatory, but I've never played AS. With this answer, go, and be a bitch no more.

You asked about Alpha Strike. Nobody who's a real battletech fan plays that, so it's not surprising your question isn't being answered.

Oh...yeah. That was a pretty stupid question, wasn't it? Sorry.

I got a question for starting up a new game with newbies.
Some of my players rolled up bugs like Wasps and Stingers, but there's not much for them to fight other than Scorpion tanks, APCs and maybe infantry. The story calls for them to be in those bugs, and I want to throw a challenge at them, but nothing that would tear through those 20 ton mechs' paper thin armor.
Is there any challenges I can use that would break them into their assigned mechs without having to reroll larger machines?

No. Even scorpion tanks are a legit threat 1v1.

Bugs dueling each other can be a hell of a lot of fun, you could also make them team up to fight something bigger then them, say a bug lance against a Phoenix Hawk. With armor that thin though everything is a real threat. They just need to get good.

Let them reroll. Bugs are no fun for anybody unless the players are running something like a company of bugs each. PCs in a persistent campaign shouldn't really be driving anything smaller than 35 tons (maybe 30 if one of them is an Urbie fetishist). The stuff under that mass simply can't participate in enough types of missions to be worthwhile and enjoyable for more than 1-2 games.

Throw em against some turbojunker vees with AC2s and BAR 5 armor so their MLs will be actually effective.

The Wolves had the most, followed by the Coyotes (as allies), then the Smoke Jaguars and Nova Cats from isorla of countless trials, then all the other Clans. But just about everyone had some.

It's important to remember, though, that even the Wolves themselves only had something like 50 Timber Wolves in total, and everyone else had less. It's by no means a common design, no matter what the RATs say.

Thanks a bunch. I will try to convince them to reroll. Maybe I can get them into some Jenners or something.
I was a little afraid of having to do a series of technicals and having a game of "truck strong."

If they like their bugs, let them have their bugs. The mission will be to investigate X that will grant them salvage for a heavier machine.

That's... not a bad idea. I might use this.

Talk them into huntsmen and Jenner iics and the like.

Give them a chance to raid an enemy camp. Big mechs go after the enemy guards, bugs load up inferno SRMs, torch the barracks, and machine-gun anyone who tries to get to a mech.

I LOVE THIS MEME

I'm tired of it. Thusly, research:

There are 59 Mad Cats of varying configuration in the Clan Wolf Phone Book. I say "Mad Cat" because there's a JumpShip that's called the "Timber Wolf" which initially fucked up my count until I went back and counted through the second time to make sure.

You people can make of that number what you will. Whether it's the best source, or whatever, I don't care. But it's incontrovertible fact that there are a total of 59 Mad Cats listed in the Clan Wolf Touman as of Tukayyid. I'll check back in when I get back from ice hockey and see what hath been wrought from this information.

>meme
>backed up by primary sources

Pick one.

The Heavies the Clans shat out in great numbers are the Mad Dog and Summoner. In terms of raw numbers, everything else pales into isnignificance.

I don't think it matters too much as long as you're not playing a Blood Spirit Cluster consisting of nothing but Timber Wolves though.

Isn't that only counting like a third of their entire touman? Not reserves, homeworld resources, frontline troops in the homeworlds, etc?

If the Wolves left any front-line troops in the Homeworlds there would have been no more than 4 Clusters there any way. Their second-liners relied on SLDF machines with no Omnis usually reserved for Star Commander or higher, and given the setup of everything else we saw you can probably expect those to mostly be Gargoyles or Ice Ferrets any way.

You can mount a decent argument for there being no front-line forces left in the Homeworlds given the Wolves took one Cluster with them in their bid that had to be rebuilt for like a year before seeing combat after losses sustained in the Refusal to the Invasion.

Valid. I'm actually surprised the Wolf touman wasn't bigger.

I think the Wolves are a lot bigger than what was listed in their SB, but not in ways that are going to really going to inflate the count of Timber Wolves.

Anything else they've got will be like 2/3rds or more of Gargoyles, Ice Ferrets and Adders like the units that haven't gotten Linebackers yet.

I think there's at least another 20 Clusters back in the Homeworlds but the Wolves before the Refusal War seem to have relied on an elite cadre of front-liners to handle their Trials in offence or defence any way, and the Invasion had a gentleman's agreement not to go after the Invading Clans.

59/786 'Mechs.

Marginally better than one per Trinary, seems pretty rare to me.

So, does this mean that the meme is actually correct? Does being emperically proven right strengthen a meme, or kill it?

I actually was in this very same situation in my most recent game. I stuck the players in a militia, and they all rolled up one each of the bug mechs.

Here's what I did for them
-Offer them support if they're on the offensive A few scorpion tanks to draw some attention is often all you need.

-Opponents to go up against: LRM carriers (Slow, and have a big minimum bracket), Vedettes, Scorpions, Saracens, Scimitars, Strikers... You can even get away with some of the bigger ones, just don't overdo it. A Partisan is very well armored, but the minimum range and AC/5 focused armament will reduce the risk. Maxims pack a lot of firepower, but they're spread over all of the facings and usually deal in packs of 2, giving the armor a little more milage. Standard Large Laser bulldogs proved too much of a challenge, but maybe the AC2 or LRM version would be better. It might be OK to go up against the Goblin tank, as well. I didn't try any Pikes because it wasn't something that showed up in the RATs, but those would be good targets... The Steurmfeur fits the bill for weapons, but because it has so much armor, players would be bashing away at it for ages.

You might want to have your players recon out an artillery position with a mobile long-tom and take it out, or find a Mobile HQ and need to try to disable or destroy it.

You players have bug mechs. One thing that they'll have a strength at facing are infantry. Plenty of motorized/mechanized infantry will give you things to shoot at. Try to avoid getting them into buildings though.

For mech targets, I suggest saving that for the big bad at this point. I was going to put three bug mechs up against a Panther, but alternatives could be a number of designs, but probably stay the hell away from anything heavier than 40 tons, or faster than 6/9/6. Clints, Hermes IIs, Sentinels, Vulcans, even the Whitworth.

Since bug mechs are as brawly as they are, I'd suggest you try to push the "Get inside the minimum range" aspect.

I recall running into a similar problem many years ago. To be totally honest, the PCs got rolled by a pair of Scorpions (both tanks putting an AC/5 shell into a Wasp's leg on Turn 2 will do that). There was not much patience among the PCs for any tap-dancing on my part.

So, I ended up punting by virtue of creating "Stingers" and "Wasps" which aren't outright bad for extended campaign play. They're still not optimal by any stretch, but IMO these were perfectly valid to give somebody instead of the STG/WSP bugs.

Note that I don't have one for the Locust. It doesn't need one; it fills a niche on its own that is completely unique for 3025, and until the Clans roll in it can actually run around and dictate range brackets and attack angle. 12 Run MP were huge back then.

>1/2

>2/2

>I was a little afraid of having to do a series of technicals and having a game of "truck strong."
You could actually do that but instead of trucks use armed industrialmechs. They make good bug prey, often similarly armed and armored, but slower, while still being a bit crunchier than many of the crappier vehicles.

Another thing in regards to starting folks in bugs, consider making their opponents lower skilled.

Nice and appropriate if you run some "natives are restless" rebellions scenarios, or just have them scouting/raiding ill prepared planetary militias and the like.

Also, my "end of the campaign" was only in it's formative stages, but I had a few ideas of what I wanted to do.

The demi-boss in the Ronin Wars was the former duke of The Edge, where the players were the militia of. Instead of accepting that he was going to be replaced by the Valdherre, he refused to step down and gathered all the local forces that were loyal to him. Players (if they finished the campaign) would find out he was getting bankrolled in part by Marcus Kurita, who was giving him a proportion of the military equipment that got smuggled there to build a personal army.

>Obvious salvage route: Players kill duke in his Panther

Other alternative routes they could have found:

Earlier in the campaign, the "Smugglers" bringing military components thought that they were doing any other run, bringing parts and supplies for the militia to resupply after pirate raids. Interviewing them may reveal a member of the crew as an ISF plant. Because it's the FRR, they can't move onworld legally, but the ISF believes that the local duke is not loyal to the coordinator, but Marcus, and has been bringing mech components onworld. Players doing enough searching would find a forgotten refurbished base from the 1st succession war, now filled with reassembled, mothballed battlemechs being hoarded by the Duke. The ISF wants them back. They could take them and burn bridges with the ISF, or give them back, and potentially be owed favors from the ISF, be it getting new mechs (Probably common to the DCMS) or something else.

This. Enemies with 7 piloting/6 gunnery are safe to fight, even if they have bigger weapons. Make their commander 6/5, and in something they want to salvage. Make it pre-damaged; that's also another good way to balance encounters. Pre-existing damage can really level the playing field.

>fat stinger and fat wasp
not bad. the LL makes them feel a bit like babby pixies, but there's not really any other choice in introtech

Aren't these numbers... kinda small for a force that took a big chunk out of the galaxy?

>Aren't these numbers... kinda small for a force that took a big chunk out of the galaxy?
IT BEGINS ANEW

>Aren't these numbers... kinda small
This describes everything in BT.

And that side, isn't the entirety of known inhabited space in BT itself only a small chunk of the galaxy?

It worked at the time because the Clans were extremely skilled fighters who could not just hit at ranges beyond 3025 tech allowed but could do so extremely reliably. At least in the fluff sense, if you try to play it on the table top (and I have) what you instead get is the IS force blobbing up and wrecking shit with their battalion plus of artillery.

Now it falls apart completely because the IS had a bunch of Gausszilla designs on the border and would have shrekt the Clans in pitched battle with no need for dirty tricks or artillery.

So, you know. The usual FASA/CGL shitstorm of fluff, gameplay mechanics, and logic.

Yeah, like barely even a blip of our spiral arm. I just mentally substituted "galaxy" with "map" when he said it regardless.

>Aren't these numbers... kinda small for a force that took a big chunk out of the galaxy?
well, the BT inhabited region is teeny tiny, not the whole galaxy, but yes, it is small.
I did some crunching once and a BT-ified soviet MRD could shoot it out with pretty much any of the clan invasion forces and win

Now now, FASA dug the hole. Wizkids, then Catalyst inherited it.

Backpedal and say that everyone's got entire divisions of 'mechs on each world, and the REEEEEE will shatter windows in peru.

Yeah, this shit is dumb. Why people get so attached to numbers is beyond me. I mean, all you have to do is look at the number of MBTs in the world. This world. Earth. The sheer volume alone blows most BT numbers out of the water. Hell I don't care if they're all just Heavy Rifles; I'll take Modern Earth's MBTs vs. all of Battletech's 'Mechs and win, easily. China has 6500 MBTs. 6500. Let that sink in. Now, imagine that most worlds have like 12 'Mechs defending them, and maybe a few dozen combat vehicles. That's nuts.

The thing is that when the game started, entire planets could be taken with a company of mechs, some worlds a lance. That was the point of the succession wars. Mechs were irreplaceable, and tanks and infantry were little more than doorstops.

Holding a world is a different story, but it was all set up to give that "Mad Max" feel to it.

That all changed with the helm core, and for a lot of old grogs, is about the same time that they refused to buy new books and "Battletech is ruined forever".

Myself, I acknowledge that each world has it's own militia that never gets listed in the Field Manuals, plus all the merc units big and small bouncing around, but yeah, the numbers are low.

...but I don't think that's really shattered too many players' suspension of disbelief.

Which Mechwarrior had the best startup sequence? I say 3.

I liked Mechwarrior 2's, but that was my first foray into the franchise, so I'm biased.

Mechwarrior 3 I've not been able to play since before Windows XP hit the market.

The key to playing and loving Battletech is basically headcannon, truth be told.

FASA dug a bit of a hole.

Then CGL retconned in everyone having Gausszilla shit on their periphery borders.

CGL made it worse.

The tech recovery being gradual rather than immediate is not a bad idea but it fucks with a lot of other things, and they didn't really think it through.

Sometimes it's better to leave the hole alone than keep digging.

Well, I say "everyone" but I mean the FedCom. Which should have *really* slowed down the Falcons and Wolves. The bit of tech the Dracs and FRR got wouldn't really have helped them that much.

Does anyone know where I can find the stats on the PXH-6D?

Mega Mek has stats.

Thanks.

Mocked this up.

>HYPER ENTROPIC WARFARE INTENSIFIES

rip

>fedcom only
That explains why I raised a brow at the 「everyone」statement.

But then again, the distributon would likely have been a little slim. Not even the best border unit would exclusively field thunder hawks and devastators.

Kind of makes going with the bug pointless if you make it a different mech.

I did a similar thing for a guy that was stuck on a desert planet mostly facing bugs. But I didn't make new mechs. A couple of his Wasps got retrofitted to 1LL only and lost their jumpjets for a little extra armor. It's not a bad mini-trooper in a light-heavy environment during the 3rd war. Fast enough to run like hell from most of the bigger boys too. You just have to keep it out of rough terrain or bigger jumpjet machines like the Trio will eat it alive.

This was in a game where a SHD-1K or a DRG-1N was basically a bossfight and you ran from Panthers though.

Bugs are already completely pointless. Those Mechs do everything a bug does, EXACTLY like a bug does, with the sole exception of "die immediately". Their speed, jumping, firepower, and heat dissipation are completely identical to a standard stinger or Wasp. A Panther is still pretty likely to kick their asses, and a Wolfhound definitely will. IMO those should replace bugs completely.

Granted, I also think that Mechs under 30 tons that do anything but GOTTA GO FAST shouldn't exist at all, though. Nothing is fun about getting 1-shotted by a PPC hit to half of your location possibilities.

I heard that the Taurians produce a "local variant" of the Wolverine. What is its designation?

You heard wrong. The Hanseatic League is the only Periphery realm that manufactures Wolverines and those are the crappy primitive version.

>Nothing is fun about getting 1-shotted by a PPC hit to half of your location possibilities.
Sure there is, when everything on the field is on the same level.

Light fights are great for short pick up games, especially when said lights aren't too fast, since that often means bigger guns.

I think that, especially in the succession wars, the "point" of the bug mechs was the ease of manufacturing and maintenance. While other mechs were pretty much OOP or made maybe a half-dozen each year, the bugs were being spooted out of factories faster than most armies could probably keep up. They were the general, all purpose "At least it's not a tank" filler for most forces when the game started out. The only down side being that when the age of the RAT started up, this wasn't reflected accurately enough.

One of the things I tried doing with 3rd succession war megamek game was to have a 50% chance that each mech in a force was only a bug mech. The dynamics of the game changed by leaps and bounds. Suddenly, the Shadow Hawks, Banshees, and Chargers we would normally jeer at became lords of the battlefield, as peons of stingers and wasps scooted around trying to offer adequate support.

Besides that, there's something immensely appealing to me about an "Ultra low BV" match, where you have to keep below 2500 BV. With player bases who immediately gravitate towards the biggest and the baddest, matches where the Medium laser and AC/5 look like goddamn SCUD's, and where conventional infantry with SRMs are not only a threat, but a key player...

Using Xotl's good 3rd war RAT's, you have similar stuff happen. The light and scout lances are extremely bug heavy and having any kind of assault at all makes people go OH SHIT!

youtube.com/watch?v=QrWAdq8e_uA

I'd agree, MW3, mostly for the sound of the engine spinning up, but also because I think that's the one where the cadence is just right

MechCommander is always best. "Commencing deployment, MechWarriors prepare for combat." That's the best Betty.

I feel they serve a point as low tier vehicles. Like IFVs and light tanks.