/btg/ Battletech General!

Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em Edition

The /btg/ is dead - long live the /btg/!

Old thread: =================================

BattleTech video-game pre-alpha gameplay
youtube.com/watch?v=FjEeDz51pHE

==================================

>BattleTech Introductory Info and PDFs
bg.battletech.com/?page_id=400

>Overview of the major factions?
bg.battletech.com/universe/great-houses/
bg.battletech.com/universe/the-clans/
bg.battletech.com/universe/other-powers/

>How do I find out which BattleMechs a faction has?
masterunitlist.info/

Unit Designing Softwares
>SSW Mech Designer
solarisskunkwerks.com/
>MegaMek Lab
megameklab.sourceforge.net/

>/btg/ does a TRO:
builtforwar.blog(not spam)spot.com/

>How do I do this Against the Bot thing?
pastebin.com/pE2f7TR5
NEW! - Against the Bot pastebin updated link:
bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php/topic,40948.0.html
NEW! - Mediafire link for the most current AtB rule set: mediafire.com/file/dyjdl62htdpbfgy/rules_2.30.xls

>Map of /btg/ players (WIP):
zeemaps.com/map?group=1116217&add=1

>Rookie guides
pastebin.com/HZvGKuGx

>Sarna.net - BattleTech Wiki
sarna.net/wiki/Main_Page

>Megamek - computer version of BattleTech. Play with AI or other players
megamek.info/

>BattleTech IRC
#battletech on irc.rizon.net

>PDF Folders
mediafire.com/folder/sdckg6j645z4j/Battletech
mediafire.com/folder/cj0tjpn9b3n1i/Battletech
mediafire.com/folder/tw2m414o1j9uj/Battletech_Archives

/btg/'s own image board: - (Still getting worked on (2017-01-06+), now has 8226 pics!)
bgb.booru.org/index.php

More goodies! (Rare manuals, hex packs, TROs, VG audio files, etc. Check the bottom of the paste.)
pastebin.com/uFwvhVhE

Other urls found in this thread:

sarna.net/wiki/Factions
twitter.com/NSFWRedditGif

...

Is that a Nexus in the back right?

Non-shit art in the OP edition. Good job!

Post your rarest and most dear arts.

When will you guys stop using shit images as OP? There are tons of pictures made by FD, Shimmy, Plog, and others but in the last months it is always a shit picture

^all of my this

Trying for a theme for the threads I contribute to and sometimes that's all I had that would match. I regret nothing!

Because /btg/ is for old, 3025 grognards now get off my lawn you damn kids!

>What faction in BT is closest to this?

Any and all of the following:

sarna.net/wiki/Factions

Looks like it.

>Commander Chad Jackson: While a decent MechWarrior in House Imarra, Chad is most famous for posing for underwear advertisements. The warriors under his command grumbled that his looks have advanced him more than his leadership skills, his classic Chinese features being en vogue during Chancellor Romano’s regime. While he tried to downplay this, it has been noted that the Chancellor had him over for “private visits” more frequently than even Master Rush in the early ‘30s.

Wow...

>Sun-Tzu's dad was a literal cuck
>Romano was obsessed with a literal Chad
BT never fails to amaze me

They're royalty. Everyone cucks each other all the time. If you didn't have a side chick, it would be suspicious.

A darth vader mech? sweet.

>all these new mechwarrior and battletech games
>No new tabletop games

Why?

>A darth vader mech? sweet.
That's a Trebuchet, also called the Trenchbucket. Two LRM-15s, 3 Medium Lasers, solid armor and speed. Very respectable design.

>his classic Chinese features being en vogue during Chancellor Romano’s regime.
>banging sunny-T's mom
Maybe THAT'S where the Han obsession came from

I think I've seen this image before.

Chill out pilot it's just a shitty joke.

Oh?

That looks glorious. Is that a canon unit?

When were the Shin Legions formed? The earliest name drop I can find is 3034, but that's when Romano has gotten tired of them and is ordering their destruction so they have to have been around for at least a bit before. There is a reference to "Liao's Lost Legion" that was destroyed late in the Third Succession War by House Marik, so that might be the earliest incarnation of the Shin Legions.

Oh, I figured you for one of the newer guys who showed up recently, figured I'd let them in on what mech it was to be helpful. It does look a little Vader-ery though.

only in my heart, like hatchet LAMs and quad Urbies

>Quad urbies
That would be cool. Any pics?

Because they released the Marauder IIC on MWO.

It's the blonde from Soukou Akki Muramasa.
Don't recall her name, but that should be enough to look it up.

Negative, but have an exotic Urbie Trio.

guess I'll post more Flying Debris sketches, can never have too many .

I've always felt that there should be some kind of firing arc penalty for Mechs without lower arm actuators

Does the Combine have the edge on the other (non-Clan) Inner Sphere powers when it comes to Omni-technology?

Or the highest number of Omni-designs found among any Spheroid military?

>Does the Combine have the edge on the other (non-Clan) Inner Sphere powers when it comes to Omni-technology?
Not really
>Or the highest number of Omni-designs found among any Spheroid military?
That they do have

Why? Not having a lower arm means your weapons are effectively turret mounted. The thing I never understood is why you had to have both arms be turrets before you could traverse to the rear arc.

Torso twist ≠ lower arm horizontal traverse. Though mechs don't exactly have human physiology making anything I am trying to say moot.

To the megamek sprite user who asked what portrait I use for Atleast Itsnot, I use the "At least it's not ER PPCS" guy's picture, Salazar Tsakalotos.

What sort of mechs did the outworlds militia use after the merger with snow raven?

Bugs out to the horizon. They're known for having shit for mechs, and making up for it by aerospace superiority.

Oh wait, AFTER... Probably still shitloads of bugs, but add some second line clan mechs.

Don't forget the Merlins.

So I just noticed the rumor that Jerome Blake piloted an Ostroc, and it made me think of a design challenge:

Design a Blakist Ostroc, either as a predecessor or successor to the -5W model they unveiled during the Jihad.

would that include some of the newer/fancier second lines (eg omen, dark crow, goshawk II, kodaik 3)?

>Which Ork flyer do you want if you want to shoot a Monstrous Creature out of the sky?
Huh? Wrong thread?

Anything the Sphere had access to at large probably.

Things they could probably also buy from Clan Sea Fox.

They also likely picked up quite a bit of salvage from the Combine and Suns given attacks were launched, and repulsed, by both during the Jihad.

Thank you.

Your welcome

I thought the Combine had a head start over the other Inner Sphere powers in Omni development?

They had some of the earliest IS omnis, but they were also the most hilariously shit omnis.

Well, since white burd are known more for their navy and aero assets than their mechs, they'd probably be giving the militia their old surplus mechs.

Yeah, and the Mackie was a hilariously bad BattleMech. Guess what, that happens with the first runs of a brand new invention.

>Adept Torson Gnowles: Little is known about Adept Gnowles after his “accident” at the hands of ComStar ROM agents on New Home in 3063. Originally presumed dead from grievous injuries, this Word of Blake Adept was identified during a recent intelligence mission to Thorin as a member of the Thirty-ninth Division. Once known as a superior VTOL pilot before the explosion, Gnowles has been positively identified as a Manei Domini Omega operating as a personal guard for the unit’s Precentor.

What implants would he have?

It's neat seeing a Manei Domini operating with a frail division.

Me
>Intro Box
>Lance Packs
>Robotech Starter Box
>Spartan/Phalanx Destroid Box
Been actually playing for about half a year now, slowly got the wife hooked on it. She into the lore after I got all the audiobooks on audible and was listening to them when I went to sleep.
She was just able to score her own intro box for $30 and might be able to get the just the minis sprues from the robotech starter for $40.
We both want more mechs but we also would prefer plastic.
Any word on the upcoming alpha strike box or wave 2 of robotech? I know about warhansa about I'm worried about either not getting product or just my lack of patience driving me nuts.

>Yeah, and the Mackie was a hilariously bad BattleMech
no u >:(

The Makie evolved and got new rebuilds faster than the Dracs got a second-generation OmniMech.

>looking through mega folder
>see something called critter-tek
>download and read
what the fuck did I just read?

>Any word on the upcoming alpha strike box or wave 2 of robotech?
Not even a little bit
>about I'm worried about either not getting product or just my lack of patience driving me nuts.
I've never heard of an order from them NOT coming through.
Also, buying a couple of the old 3e introbox minis and recasting them, if that's a skill you've got, would be an easy and cheap way to bulk up your mech collection

The late 80s and early 90s were a different time, when you could pay homage to things and parody them without getting the shit sued out of you. It was a time when you could put Gundam pilots in BattleMechs or use a name from Lord of the Rings in your game fluff and people would think it a cool in-joke. It was a time when making something anthropomorphic didn't automatically make it fetish-bait (and when it did, the lack of the internet let the rest of us remain blissfully ignorant).

It was a different time. In many ways, a better time. Critter-tek was almost certainly one of the last gasps of comedic freedom, before the dark times when the twin evils of "IP lawyers" and "Magic the Gathering" descended upon the gaming industry to snuff out the last vestiges of freedom, humor, and for all too many companies, existence itself.

>the twin evils of "IP lawyers" and "Magic the Gathering" descended
iP lawyers I can understand, but as a long-time Magic player, I'm not sure where you're coming from on this one and would like to be educated. What'd Magic do to snuff out "freedom, humor, and for all too many companies, existence itself"?

That's because BattleMechs were not a terribly advanced design from the IndustrialMechs that preceded them. OmniMechs were something totally alien -- the SLDF didn't even work on those, that was entirely the work of the Clans.

>extremely short version, since I'm headed to bed

Magic the Gathering created a bubble that crashed in the late 90s (the crash went from ~1998-2002 if I remember right) that devastated the gaming industry. A ton of LGSs had moved away from RPGs and tabletop games to stock MtG, along with other collectible card games such as Pokemon in 1996. Those card games were so dominant that very large numbers of RPGs and tabletops were pushed to the sidelines and were barely surviving.

The market crash caused by WOTC and MtG meant that a huge number of LGSs shut down, which hurt the tabletop/RPG market even worse. It was the years of inability to really compete with MtG (declining sales), the gaming market crash (declining sales) and the perception of, "fuck it, computer games are going to finish off whatever's left" which all combined led FASA to shut their doors in 2001. By then, as a *practical* matter, the only meaningful company left in the tabletop wargaming market which still made any money at all was GW, and they survived largely by promoting a culture of exclusivity and by price-gouging customers.

It wasn't until the 3rd party supplement market for D&D3e had exploded in late 2002 that the industry started really recovering. So the primary tie MtG has to my statement is regarding, "existence itself." Without MtG to begin and power the collectible card game craze of the mid-90s, the speculation crash is unlikely to have ever happened and the wargaming market wouldn't have gotten punched in the metaphorical dick.

Let's face it, computer wargaming was always gonna smash the tabletop market, especially hex and chit. Magic deserves plenty of blame, but not THAT much

One of my friends and I are going to play the tabletop game again, this time with heavies. Last time we tried the Vindicator and Enforcer to get an idea for the rules.

We've been looking at the factions and are going to roll with House Kurita for our next game. Heavies, a Dragon vs a Quickdraw.
Is that balanced?

Having lurked the last couple threads, I've observed that some players say the Draconis Combine doesn't have a great selection of mechs.

What mechs do they have that are good, or you guys like or would recommend?

Which might hold water if literally every other nation didn't get a second-generation Omni (sometimes more than one) before the Dracs finally deployed the Tenshi.

It might also hold more water if the Tenshi didn't fall prey to the usual Drac curse of Omnis that have a decent base chassis getting configurations that are largely ass, something other Omnis aren't as susceptible to.

Computer gaming would have been an excellent market to get into but too many companies were run by people who didn't understand business and sold the rights poorly or in perpetuity to make a quick buck.

Tears in the rain though.

Another oldfag here. You completely fixated on the wrong part of his post. You couldn't have fixated any more incorrectly if you tried. The computer thing was what people were afraid MIGHT happen in the future. The Magic card stuff was what had ALREADY happened. St. Louis went from about 25 gaming stores in 1995 to exactly 2 in 1999 and I know for a fact there were places a bunch worse off. All because the FLGS owners had almost left the tabletop market entirely to push cardboard rectangles and when the bottom fell out of the game they got fucked hard.

Collectible games create bubbles. it's literally what they're for. Magic was just so big that the bubble it created killed way more of the industry than anybody expected when it popped.

I'd go with solider rides. Maybe Orion vs MAD?

In many ways the market and community never recovered

>In many ways the market and community never recovered

One whiff of the concentrated stench of card troll tables at my FLGS tells me you are a man of sage words.

Is getting the warhansa clan mechs worth it?
Or getting clan stuff in general? I don't know many people that play it.

>Heavies, a Dragon vs a Quickdraw.

Hmm. Not what I'd do, really.. The basic Dragon is pretty shit but the Quickdraw actually outguns it and should be able to get to its rear quickly.

On the other hand the Grand Dragon might be able to kill the Quickdraw a little too easily with the PPC and all.

Drac 'Mechs I can recommend are most of their -K refits from the IntroTech period, though I don't like the Archer very much. After that, Raptor, Hitman, Firestarter Omni, Komodo (not really for BA hunting, just for bullying other Mediums and Lights), Wolverine-7K, Lynx, Black Hawk-KU, Avatar, H-PPC Warhammer, Dragon Fire, Naginata, and if you can get a custom config going the Tenshi.

Whammy-K vs a low-end assault?

Want to get into the battletech universe. Where should I start in the books?

Gray Death Trilogy are the standard "Intro to BT" stories.

Unless you want actual sourcebooks.

I usually recommend the GDL books, which starts with Decision at Thunder Rift. That'll roll out the aesthetic that informs a lot of the grogs behavior. Fun ass book, too.

Warhammer-6R VS Wolverine-M is a fun one

Also, rifleman VS rifleman duals are stupid and hilarious

How about a whammy-K against a Zeus? It's pretty balanced and very fluffy

You know, I never really thought about it until I read these couple posts. The three LGSes in my town all survive off the back of card games.
There's one that really, really tried to be RPG/Adventure game only, but they had to give in and start stocking card games to survive.

And I can't find Battletech at any of them.

Battletech needs waifus. Waifus shall bring about a glorious resurgence.

We had some back in the day. In the best CCG/TCG ever made (Elizabeth/Tanya O
Bannon; Gearhead, Headhunter). I suppose we could have them again, but sadly at the moment most of the art budget is dedicated to 'Mechs and not booty. So what we have is cribbed from other sources. And I really need to get on making some more pinup wallpapers.

But maybe one day they'll hire an artist who can draw girls to go with all the (walking) guns.

In the republic era/dark age, which of the periphery factions would you say is the most fun on the table?

So according to Ray on the OF it looks like we're getting a list of quirks for Mechs in the BattleTech Manual. He posted the following quirks for the Vindicator:
>Rugged (1), Ubiquitous; Difficult Ejection, No Torso Twist.
I wonder what the first two quirks do?

The Taurians, I'd say. The Canopians are alright if you want a mix of liao and periphery gear, the OA is by this point just watered down clan stuff, and the marians can be interesting if you like combined arms especially much.
But I like the taurians best because they're this great grab-bag of all sorts of shit. You have their 3085 machines, which tend to oddball fast heavies and equally oddball gunloads, you have solid periphery general gear, you have a scattering of Liao&Canopian stuff, you have a mixed bag of pretty much anything FedCom as salvage, you have Merc General stuff, you have primitives, and possibly even an old WoB machine or Dimond Shark import here and there. You also have some neat BA, a variety of tanks and some good conventional infantry.
It all works out more interesting than the alternatives

Probably one of the groups in the Barrens. They're the good ol' Periphery come to life again instead of Clan Amish Snow Injun, what's left of the Cattlemen's Steakhouse, the Capellazons, or the Roman Pirates who forgot how to be pirates

>tfw when the Wolves conquered the Oberon Confederation, they stuck all the old pirates in their militia to hold the worlds
And they say the Wolves started that stupid shit in the DA... Not that I'm complaining. It's why the Barrens are independent again after the Reavings.

First one is likely less maintenance requirements. The second is probably related to parts acquisition or eliminating piloting penalties for changing machines.

>>tfw when the Wolves conquered the Oberon Confederation, they stuck all the old pirates in their militia to hold the worlds


The who in the what now?

I thought the Barrens were the result of the Hell's Horses not being fucked to keep a grip on those worlds because there was nothing to hold their interest. There's a couple of GB planets but everything else is territory the HHs went after when they decided to be BFFs with the Bears.

The Barrens is a result of nobody being fucked to keep a grip on their Periphery rocks because they no longer have to secure a supply line back to the homeworlds.

Yeah but the Wolves had that access cut by the Horses when they invaded during the Jihad.

The Wolves lost the upper half or so of their OZ to the Horses and never regained it.

I didn't say anything about that. I said back in 3049 when the Wolves originally conquered that part of their OZ, they garrisoned it with the pirate locals, showing the DA pattern of retardation they're currently doing on Marik and Lyran worlds goes back all the way to the beginning.

They took Bondsmen and the like from pirates but everything I've ever seen has those worlds garrisoned by PGCs fresh off the boat from the Homeworlds.

Got a cite for that?

In the Wolf phonebook (I think it was the Wolf phonebook), they state the garrison force of the place right before the Refusal War and it has the same old eye symbol of the former nation as their banner and are led by one of Grimm's bastards.

I remember it because it stood out from all the snot-nosed sibbies like you said.

The Wolf book just has the PGCs from Epsilon Galaxy. None have such a logo, and none have Oberon-derived personnel mentioned in their notes or significant character entries.

Even in Objective Raids it's PGCs from the Homeworlds.

I'll dig it up. They're not provisionals though. I thought maybe it was in Periphery 2nd Edition but it wasn't. Not in Handbook Periphery either. I know I saw it somewhere though. Maybe a battlecorps short or a novel? Sarna backs me up but whoever wrote that didn't cite where it is.

Tangentially, I didn't realize that part of Redjack Ryan's forces survived and joined up with the remains of the old Belt Pirates at Star's End. That's pretty cool. Also, the 3049 conversations about who the clanners might be in HB:P made me smile.

ISP 3, maybe?

>I know I saw it somewhere though.

I have everything except the Battlecorps fiction and have never seen anything like what you're saying.

Either it's in there, or, more likely, Sarna is full of shit.

Nope. That has the Broberon dudes playing the Horses.

Actually, I just found it.

It's in Objective Raids, on p. 49.

Now if you wanna cite Objective Raids be my guest but it literally never comes up anywhere else and makes no sense any way. Probably best to chalk it up to Objective Raids being a colossal clusterfuck OOC and the writer being fed a bunch of bullshit IC.

Especially since not too far away from that a bunch of Wolf Clusters are assigned to the Falcons.

I mean, frankly, Objective Raids has exactly one purpose these days, and that's to provide a clean ORBAT for everyone as of 54, which is useful on account of THOSE COCKSUCKERS NOT MAKING ALL THE FMs THE SAME YEAR, so there's at least a basis for guesstimates for the FedCom and caps atween '50 and the 60s, y'know, on the "off chance" that somebody wants to run something in that decade

It fails even at that though.

Having just reviewed it further, OR *is* the point at which ~20 Drac regiments just up and vanish, the Falcons somehow snagged a full Wolf Galaxy in events that are never referred to and then don't matter, etc etc etc.

The FWLM and CC lists also seem pretty questionable at a glance but I don't know enough to say for sure.

They should just straight-up remove that thing from canon.

Hey /btg/, I'm new to Battletech but I've become interested after seeing someone singing the game's praises on youtube.

I've looked at the barest surface of the fluff (great houses, the star league, succession wars, and clans basically) and I like what I see.

I tried having a look around, but I'm having trouble finding the starter box around anywhere despite it being advertised on the Battletech site. Is it OOP? What's the best way to start collecting?

We only have the introductory set. I'll have to look into getting more.

Might not be great, but may be fun. I think I'll take the Dragon and see how it goes.

Are there more faction pinups like that?

What Drac regiments disappear exactly?

There is some animu stuff, and a few others, but I don't think they are easy to find. We need more BT spooge.

According to the 20-Year Update on p. 40, The Dracs have 99 Regiments (and a bitch ain't one).

TR: 3050 indicates 6 on p. 6 (or thereabouts, it might depend on printing) were destroyed by the Clans. There are a few units that saw really heavy casualties and could arguably be listed as destroyed like the Otomo, which had to be rebuilt from scratch.

Objective Raids, however, says the Dracs have 60 regiments on p. 25 that they have 60 regiments, a figure that would require basically every command that fought the Clans to have been struck from the rolls and which is out of line with what other sources, notably Invading Clans, has to say about how bad the casualty rate was.

So 99 to start, 6 lost, but OR cuts them down to 60 because reasons leaving another 33 to explain. You might be able to find reasons for half those to be unlisted.

The specific regiments I can't be fucked to sort out, especially when just looking at those numbers shows how bullshit they are.

The same thing seems to have happened with the AFFC, which dips from 268 Regiments (including mercs) to just 187 including mercs despite listed losses of less than 20.

We've all been aware of the issues it has with listing manufacturing sites for some time but it appears nothing in it is any better.

Warhansa is worth it if :
You like the MWO styled stuff.
You can deal with the occasional resin bubble. (They are damn fine casts though)
You can deal with your orders occasionally being in Russian or US customs for 2+ weeks.
You can handle the VALUE. These would be 20-40 dollar miniatures in the US.

Clan Stuff is great for OPFOR, or for Blue on Blue battles, It is always pretty stunning how a Star of mixed light and medium Clan Mechs can chew through battalion of introtech/lightly upgraded Inner Sphere dudes. Playing absurd trials out on the tabletop is also really worth it.