/btg/ BattleTech General

Huh. Quiet day on /btg/. How many conference calls were *you* guys in this morning?

Half a dozen.

Just spreading the good Word of Blake to all I can.

Just one, rest of morning trying not to shit my brains out. I also never get sick so I'm extra cranky.

In better and BT related news, I've been having a ton of fun just rolling RATs with the g/f mostly med v med lances all eras.

I'm prepping for GenCon, then going to work, then doing further GenCon prep. I'm busy. Also I mostly lurk anyway. /btg/ is pretty slow these days in general though, so not much has changed really.

>my gf gets into the game
>only ever wants to play as Clanner

I let her a lot, I still win.
I made an off handed sexist remark girls can't play war games etc. I don't really play video games or anything she does, I crushed her at any total war series game (2/3s I literally never played) chess etc.
So she knows it makes me happy to play some BT and she's got a grudge to settle so kinda win win for me.

Get a Drac gf. Any girl willing to play Dracs is probably worth putting a ring on.

Damn, how much hardened armor did you put on those things?

Looks like they lost more than one running MP.

And people think the Dracs producing tons of the same design is a bad thing...

Post more Kurita mechs with lots of frontal armour please

When it comes to favorite regiments, does anyone here like any of the DCMS's District Regular Forces?

They seem like such flavorless mooks at first glance it makes me wonder if anyone has a favorite out of any of the Regulars.

Even ignored factions like the Free Worlds League has flavorful mooks like the Second Oriente Hussars,

I do, I do. They're like janitors, no-one ever notices them. But they still deserve love. I see them as super-strict, ordered-ranks spick and span perfect uniformity units of very proud and dedicated carreer soldiers. Kinda like modern Japanese cops. And I consider them likely to have higher veterancy levels than the Regulars on the other side of their borders, considering the immensely military-focused, martial arts-like personal skill focused society.

But then again they have wonderful bunglecunt rules thrown at them for no raisins, too.

"Historical Turning Points: Galtor
When facing pirates or other small-scale raiders (company-sized or smaller), the Fifth Galedon gains a +1 to their Initiative; when fighting in urban settings, the Fifth suffer a –1 penalty to their To-Hit rolls and automatically fail PSRs to avoid skidding."

FWL has tons of cool units. the 1st and 2nd KOTIS, the Silver Hawk Irregulars, the First Defenders of Andurien, and the aforementioned Second Oriente Hussars. There are a fair number of cool FWL units.

Your pic is of Regulan Hussars.

>when fighting in urban settings, the Fifth suffer a –1 penalty to their To-Hit rolls and automatically fail PSRs to avoid skidding
Oh, how I have abused these rules before. Key up the music and give me sixteen Salad Shooters boys, we're going in dry!
I was "disinvited" from playing OPFOR for the rest of the 3039 campaign as punishment for keying up this soundtrack on my phone at the beginning of turn 2.
youtube.com/watch?v=vJclFTnw0Ds

Nigga, you kurita as kuso.

22nd Deiron and 17th Benjamin are kinda cool.

The district forces do play second fiddle to elites like the SoL or Ryuken a lot more than any other faction though, and aside from the Dieron Regulars they are presented as ultra derp because they get beaten like red-haired stepchildren all the time.

You can't do race/sports drifting and not be doing an inherently Japanese thing, he might as well go along with it.

I'm kind of bummed no one ever picked up the Japanese version of Battelech.
The game was dated as all hell for the market,
but those designs are so unique they deserved at least some recognition beyond a few books and not even a single official model.

is anybody here from last night when we were talking about the sky fortress?

They are like that team that fights the Harlem Globetrotters.

Are Drac's honorable?

dawww, thats so cute, they stuffed their bra.

I'm kind of wondering if I really need to do all the perverted stuff I fantasize about with my girlfriend. Maybe its better to have a pure waifu.

Since all asian.. er, i mean anime women look alike, the only way to tell them apart is their personality.

you in the right thread m8?

What are your favorite Star League WarShips?

I found this pic and it has me wanting to talk about them.

NEA, you still visit here?

Well, on the paper, but every time they face the good guys they sort of... devolve into a villainous yellow devil comedy routine. Most often when they betray someone, they betray their own people, though. I dunno if it evens that shit out?

Can't the Dracs be depicted as a multifaceted people? When I think of Japan Bros today, I think more like gym shorts and club jerseys, black Lexus-i and straight up americana.

I feel like Japan Bros are maybe losing their culture a bit. I mean the fascist racist stereotype may be a bit crude, but there is respect there. Respect for the enemy, his traditions, his people.

#notayigger

Eggrolls and Kimonos!
The south shall rise again!

Well, while I don't get half you're saying even while drunk, I'd say it all rots on the duplicity of the writing. On one hand we are sold the supremely honorable nippers that seek honorable death in combat, but nigh on every single piece of prose regarding them depicts bumbling, effete habitual evildoers. The respect for the opponent is there in the unit descriptions, but it never manifests in action. Same goes on competence, albeit even worse.

One of the oddest quirks of drac history is that they enacted what is probably the greatest act of charity on their enemies by single-handedly creating the omnimechs that would become the inner sphere general omnimech base. They just fought tooth and nail to strip the secrets from the clans, and once they succeeded, they somehow unambitiously disseminated them all throughout the sphere.

no, but i'm here.
battleships aren't really my bag though.

What warships do you like?

sorry, its just an aside, culturally related anecdote.

As to the dracs themselves, I think they need more than good mechs. I think they need good writing.

You mean in game, or in real life?

I don't know jack about ironsides. Everything I know is about the modern navy. Basically you have carriers, cruisers, submarines and destroyers, they form our active naval defense grid. We generally use carriers to suppress hostilities in countries we have a vested interest in. By the time air strikes are called in, the fighting has already started, and small (usually very small) armor columns are about to be engaged or already have been.

We used to do pre-emptive strikes against facilities we suspected of manufacturing wmd's, but that all blew apart once Bush Jr. decided to play cowboy and make his daddy rich.

Dracs are a tremendously multifaceted people. They just got a permanent costume party going on in everyday life. This is much more obvious in the days where they still had Rasalhague and Dieron was actually worth something.

In places we already have an established military presence, (which is now about 2/3's of the entire world) we use far more questionable tactics to suppress conflict and hostilities.

Some might even say we cause more hostilities through our overzealous oppression than we would if we took a more laze' faire approach to defense. But we gotta protect those ecomonic interests! (Wink wink, nudge nudge)

#notallDavions

I mean Star League ships.

Okay, hows this sound for a plot hook?

A former Davion World near Terra that is now part of the dominion and takes the chaos and fighting along its border to reveal that during the reign of the RotS, it had been stockpiling and manufacturing vast quantities of military aerospace, right under the republics noses.

>>continued

Star League warships are by and large, underarmored, undergunned, fleet cores.

In terms of ship to ship combat, the Farragut, McKenna and Texas were always the meanest hombres I've seen on the table.

>the dominion
*the RotS

So while the Kurita's and Davions are fighting near the chaos march, out of nowhere this planet declares its independance and starts contracting massive amounts of aerospace support to both sides, escalating and prolonging the conflict and being known for causing massive amounts of collateral damage and civilian casualties.

The kuritans decide they have had enough, and decide to land a contingent on that planet to shut down or capture aerospace manufacturing on the planet.

But its got this absurd tactical defense networked with a mobile sky fortress to coordinate its huge (200+) aerospace contingent and prevent people from landing.

>>continued

>Are Drac's honorable?
>honourable
>written as repeatedly slaughtering and enslaving civilians
>honourable
>written as executing all POWs
>honourable

Aegis is still a favourite.

All the Texas has in its favour is the armour. Its firepower is pretty bad and the gaps in coverage over the nose and, IIRC aft, arcs means it can be picked apart if you position yourself properly. It's not as flawed now that ECHO is an option, but it's still very ordinary.

I know you're invested in this idea, but 200 ASFs is more than some of the large Periphery nations have. Let alone an air force over 200 in strength.

I would make it an SLDF wunderwaffen that was mostly forgotten over time instead.

The air fortress projects force across half the planets orbital dome, so that any approach towards the planet has to be at an almost impossible approach vector towards the rear of the defense grid, a swampy landmass near the poles where what little water collects is deposited.

The rest of the planet is an extremely arid desert with with thin oxygen and so little humidity that a few days exposure without a respirator will result in death.

Whatever, the point is its huge, its got to look and seem huge. They have been building and stockpiling in secret for over 50 years, when they declared independance they were sitting on a goldmine and decided to exploit the wall falling in the worse way possible, by carving out their own little empire in the chaos march.

>I would make it an SLDF wunderwaffen that was mostly forgotten over time instead.

that kind of defeats the purpose. The whole point is that they are using the conflict between the Davions and the Kuritans to forge a tiny little empire right near the heart of terra, and are using it to prey on their neighbors through piracy and banditry.

Their declaring independence from the RotS only prolongs the war and leads to more suffering.

so basically

>RotS moves in
>Takes over former Davion Planet
>Planet begins stockpiling aerospace in secret while everybody else is decommissioning their militaries
>Castle Doctrine declared
>Left in middle of fight between Davion and Kurita
>Declares independance
>Banditry, War Profiteering and Air Piracy
>Starts playing both sides
>Massive Collateral Damage and Civilian Casualties
>Kurita says, "fuck dis shitto,"; decides planets aerospace must be captured or destroyed
>A-Team theme song on casio keyboard

Thats not even the best part

Team A
>Planet has no moon
>Aerospace bases and defense all over ground
>Massive aerospace sky fortress
>Projects force across 75% of the planets orbit
>Has its own dropship collar, hanger bays
>Actually has LAM's (fucking LAMS!)

Team B
>Has a supermech with 2 HAGs 40's, 4 SLRM 15's, and five indepentantly targeted TAG's
>Has contingent of 5 Arrow IV yellowjackets, with 2 resupply cargo helicopters
>Has 2 ten ton "cargo containers" to represent retractable docking clamps and loading bays on the mech
>Can carry extra Arrow IV ammo or load ammo INTO the mech as well

contined

Team B
>Has an augmented battalion.
>full company of lurm boat vees with semi-guided
>one forwards spotting company (mechs, hovercraft and super cheap vtols)
>one guard contingent company (mechs)
>rear guard company to protect lurm boats (mechs, anti air vees)
>No aerospace support
>Leapfrogs from base to base wrecking aerospace

Team A
>12 LAM's divided into 2 teams of 6
>full company of Davion mechs
>Crazy amounts of aerospace

>team A loads nukes in their LAMs
>team B wiped out wholesale
>gg no re faggots

no way dude, nukes will cause Kuritans AND the Davions to come down hard.

>LAMS!!
>LAAAAMS!!!

Pardon, but aren't laser anti-missile systems no big deal by the time the RoS/DA rolls around?

I dunno, Team A is looking a little light on ground forces.

Suggestions?

Land-Air 'Mechs.

Because it wasn't already sue enough to have a flying fortress and more ASF than guard capitol worlds for major states, I guess.

Team B
>Supermech has two weaknesses
>an ammo explosion in its loading bay will cripple it, destroying the feed linkages for that side of the mech
>there is an exploit in its programming that will allow Team A to jam open its two Laser AMS with a ECM exploit so that it can't be deactivated, preventing it from firing all its weapons.

Go roll on your RAT's

>fuck this hater

Maybe a shitload of hovercraft?

Team B
>Has to resupply from enemy bases and orbital supply caches dropped near target areas
>Is stranded with no support until they destroy 50% of the ground bases
>Has to travel through a large swamp, into an rocky, arid desert steppes, along narrow canyons and ridgelines to avoid radar detection

Team A
>Engaged in massive aerospace battle in orbit
>Sends dropship and ground forces to intercept Team B
>Can Scramble aerospace at anytime, anywhere on the planet

>>RotS moves in
*RotS moves in after Jihad

Saladshooters upgraded with Clantech gauss or LBX20s.

Summary of my 'Tism

pastebin.com/hz2hpCxe

It might not make a good campaign, but it'd make a great story.

Am I retarded or has no one posted the Crescent hawks source book in the OP? I can't seem to find it and I haven't even started drinking yet.

And if you need to peddle it back a bit, the sky fortress was a formerly civilian installation built for civilian aerospace, and the supermech was a mothballed, unfinished unit that was rushed into production and finished under time constraints.

Wew now. GenCon news finally dropping

> New boxed sets finally mocked up

> TRO: Succession Wars
Combines all the shit scattered through '50, 39, '58, and '75 so we can finally use one book for the era.

okay, i'm done.

i'll post the pastebin link later a few more times.

I made a rendition of the Ragnarok from MechAssault and figured I'd toss it up here. Opinions or no, w/e.

Not a lot of ammo for a 100 tonner. I don't know. I'd have problems in extended conflicts, but if it's dealign with just one enemy, it could be a pain in the ass.

I mean, I guess.
But it felt like a superheavy, to me.

The TRO was actually released last month. No one in btg bothered to upload it. I am very curious about the new art some of the mechs have...

Christ, fucking finally.
here's hoping it doesn't get pulled in the impending scuffle with HG

>not going with "gas gas gas"
youtube.com/watch?v=atuFSv2bLa8

I imagine it was probably meant to be longer, and mainly be a vehicle for getting the disputed designs back into printed canon, but... well, whatever might have been intended, HG happened and reality ensued.

ok now I'm drunk and can't find it.

If I can't get whole thing, I want to see the Rex Pierce bio.

Leviathan 3

So you like unkillable stuff that wipe half of entire SL era fleet alone.

I bet you like Gausswalls aswell.

Since warships are topic and I'm not ready for bed, what are the charger, t-bolt (any 3025 era) and archer of warships?

Why wouldn't I like to win?

Charger: Defender.
Thunderbolt: Aegis/Black Lion.
Archer: Difficult to say. The Quixote is the most missile-heavy ship though.

Thanks! I don't really do warships but fun to learn.

I guess I can expand a bit.

The Defender has anaemic ranged firepower, but is extremely fast for a vessel of its size. It's also very frail.

Black Lions and Aegises are bricks with a lot of firepower. They have middling speed.

Not a lot of ships have many missile launchers. The Quixote has the most, but missiles in space battles are pretty naff unless someone is loading nukes.

I am in the opinion that making Leviathan 3, they shot the Aerospace side of the Battletech on the foot.

I mean how would people react to a mech that you would need batallion worth of other mechs to kill and that batallion would still lose half of their numbers doing that.

Lev II is what breaks the game wide open.

Lev III just snaps it even further.

I recently panic-bought a lance of the new classic Shadow Hawks once the Wasp disappeared from the IWM store. Definitely do not regret my purchase: this is an awesome sculpt. I mean, it's still a Shad, but it assembles easily and there's a lot of room for dynamism in posing.

Does anyone sell painted minis online? I suck at painting and just want a desk mount.

They both die to the wall.

Levi's get the bullet too

Question about LAMs

Why not?

To clarify: It appears I can make 100 Ton LAMs, and I'm beginning to wonder why the idea never got off the ground (heh), they'd be extremely good for transporting themselves across planets,
and during invasions: don't even require that their dropship lands, just that it drops them close enough for them to fly in like Aerospace Fighters, then they can land and be right away good to go

As far as I can tell, the construction rules don't appear to take too much away from the mech itself, even if you are using the LAM system solely for transportation between games, and mostly ignoring it on the Table Top