/btg/ BattleTech General

I thought that moment perfectly encapsulated the faggot naivete of all the Stoner knights and paladins up to that point. That same sort of "We accept everyone no matter their ethnicity but if you have any kind of dissent to our ideology then you are a subhuman." you see in some politics these days.

Also, Ryan Conner was based as fuck and without that colossal fuckup we wouldn't have seen him shine. Can't really compare any of the other Republic clods to him, except maybe the old school double dealers like McKinnon and Crow or the ones smart enough to jump ship like Marik and Sandoval.

>tfw I just realized most of the big plot threads left hanging got wrapped up in shitty ways
>Becket Malthus died like a punk instead of giving us the promised fight for the salvation of the soul of Clan Jade Falcon
>Conner Monroe got conquered by fucking Bears and killed as little less than a footnote
>The ultra schemer Aaron Sandoval dies on Tikonov with a whimper instead of a roar
>Lester Bester Cameron-Jones beaten offscreen and absorbed
>Comguard wiped out in a turning point
>Never found out what happened to Jacob Bannson after he married into Capellan royalty

What else am I missing? Because it seems like only a single main plot thread from each state has been pulled into 3150.

What faction do you think needs a good purge, or at least needs to be put on the run for a while?

Caps. They've had it far too good for far too long. 4th War memes aside, they've been winning at everything forever since 1997. Twenty damn years. Time to give it up already. I would also take the Wolf Empire or the Bears.

Really would like the Kuritans and Mariks to shine. Have the Davions kind of languish in mediocrity with some of their real nice factory toys wrecked and some important worlds that stay in the hands of their enemies. Like imagine Robinson staying Drac. Have the Lyrans go full old Capellan mode with their three front war.

You know what? Changed my mind. Wolf is the top of my list. No tubescum takes Solaris, the Border Protectorate, the Trinity Worlds, Savannah, Kalidasa, Devil's Rock and the most fun border in the IS without making the top of my shit list. I want Kerensky's favorite fursuit lovers wiped from the map, once and for all, starting with Alaric.

It's rather strange, knowing that one of the biggest battles of ilClan will be Alaric and Stone and not knowing who you hate more.

I'd be happy if the Master shows up and nukes them both.

>>Comguard wiped out in a turning point

Briefly resurrected Comguard got demolished and absorbed by RoTS, so all their stuffs is now belong RoTS.

>>Never found out what happened to Jacob Bannson after he married into Capellan royalty

JB found out by sticking his dick into a direct granddaughter of nutjob Kali Liao is a bad idea, as Kali's crazy genes got pass down to her granddaughter as well. Thus, he run away as fast as possible, now he got a bounty on his head.

>Briefly resurrected Comguard got demolished and absorbed by RoTS, so all their stuffs is now belong RoTS.

Not briefly. They were around longer than the Dark Age itself. And Levin even was working with them and asking their help like he did from the Davions in the Republic Civil War. Then, mysteriously, Mckinnon gets ahold of the whole RotS/Comstar operation after Fortress goes up and starts trying to wipe them out. Then he finally catches up to their main base in 3141.

And that change in policy was never explained other than the RotS would do anything to get ahold of Tucker Harwell, and kill everyone who got in the way.

Really makes you think it truly was the Republic behind the Blackout all along and Project Sunlight was just a sideshow.

Sometimes Dark Age feels like playing in someone's AU campaign

The problems with the clans is most of them, even the ones that seemed less dickish, end up dabbling in war crimes during the Wars of Reaping, due to the stupid idea that the Inner Sphere can give you cooties.

I'd say that Clan Wolf-in-Exile, Hells Horses, Diamond Shark and Goliath Scorpion were all clans that just wanted to maintain their way of life and didn't have any grand dickish plans of conquest or long term plots at the expense of others. I mean, Diamond Shark did plot, but mostly for "how can we leave these retards as fast as possible"

Fire Mandrill and Blood Spirit were more crusadery, but you do feel bad for the relentless bullying they got from the other clans.

I want the Republic of the sphere dead, the Wolf Empire trashed or at least shoved out of the incredibly valuable FWL worlds, and the Capellans to get a good fucking.

>I'd say that Clan Wolf-in-Exile, Hells Horses, Diamond Shark and Goliath Scorpion were all clans that just wanted to maintain their way of life and didn't have any grand dickish plans of conquest or long term plots at the expense of others
I'd argue the Blood Spirits were like that also, their crusader-ness seemed to be mostly based around "well maybe this will get everybody to work together for once, for fuck's sakes" rather than any real bloodthirstyness or desire to do what other clans do

i want the videogame

True. I'm sad that the Blood Spirits didn't get their traditional allies of Snow Raven to give them a lift out of there when the Ravens bailed.

>I'm sad that the Blood Spirits didn't get their traditional allies of Snow Raven to give them a lift out of there when the Ravens bailed.
but that would make sense, and that's not allowed

Fun fact. The DA material shows that one of the only things heard from the homeworlds in the decades since the Reavings was a unit of unknown forces operating in the IS Periphery with Blood Spirit markings.

I just wish we got blood spirits in exile because the WoR finally snapping the last threads of hope in the Spirit's spirits and seeing how they react
Like the Idea of a whole clan sitting out in the periphery getting morosely drunk for like a decade straight and then giving the deepest sigh and finally saying
>"The clans were a mistake"
>"Nicky K was a mistake"
>"maybe we were a mistake"
would get me going in ways I can't even articulate

FedSuns, Capellans, Ghost Bears, Jade falcons.

In that order.

Are fast quads easier to make than fast bipeds?

not in any meaningful sense

Bears, Cappies, the Wolves need a downsize and unification, RotS would probably be better as a more involved terran hegemony/ComGuard/Nova Cats with a focus on heavier mixtech designs and drones

Not really, especially when you factor in the additional slot limitation caused by legs. Quads don't have much room to use for weight-saving tech.

Design in question is introtech anyway. Just trying to figure out if a periphery power was likely to make a quad in order to cut corners.

>Just trying to figure out if a periphery power was likely to make a quad in order to cut corners.
nah. quads are actually slightly more complicated gyro-wise than bipeds, fluff-wise
Unless the quad factory was a SL-leftover set up out there because of lower costs or something like that, and kept going by State X because it's already there, easier than starting something new and all that

Leg actuators are much more expensive than arm ones. That probably indicates a higher degree of difficulty in building them, which is extra trouble for a Periphery nation struggling with Intro tech.

Now the question becomes, is the difficulty (and expense) of having hands worth the added utility?

if you are periphery, you certainly want the utility of at least one hand, and really, once you've passed the gyro and SFE hurdles you're gonna be in a position where everything else is more preference than necessity

I was looking through the books like Interseller Players 3 and saw it's rules for deep periphery state players. Got me thinking, might be interesting to have a game set in the deep deep periphery, where the party encounters the remnants of minister tribe/clan wolverine or play as them? Sadly doesn't seem to be much home brew for this system or even classic battletech rpg from what I've found.

>The problems with the clans is most of them, even the ones that seemed less dickish, end up dabbling in war crimes during the Wars of Reaping, due to the stupid idea that the Inner Sphere can give you cooties.

DESU that is problem of all things done during Jihad as it seems the writing staff of CGL was going full bore of making any and all factions being thunderous murdercunts that kill civilians in a drop of hat. I have said it many times, sparingly used warcrimes can be used as a story element. Just look at the Kentares in First SW, it has reason why it happened, what the effects on the people doing it was and what sort of far reaching consequences it had. Now compare that to the Jihad where shit like that was commonplace and warcrime loses all it's effect on the story.

Not really. War crimes were more common in the first two succession wars. Kentares is remembered because a Coordinator was killed there and his heir personally ordered a slaughter with conventional troops, and because it was used as a rallying cry by the AFFS. The Great Houses all still used nuclear, chemical and biological weapons to kill billions of people and dozens of planets off to the extent that it makes the Jihad look like a square dance.

And yet the factions in the first two Succession Wars come out less of shitbricks than any shit done in Jihad. Even the OG Comstar comes out better than the loony tunes that is the WoB.

I think Deep Periphery is overlooked because truthfully most of regular Periphery is glanced over when not being stringed up for some Clan or Great House to take advantage of.

strung up*

For the almighty sake of FUCK, do you people fail basic grade school grammar, or are you intentionally being stupid?

What?

I gotta agree with the other guy, Succession Wars were worse, but after several hundred years only the highlights stand out anymore. Not like all the dead worlds have people around to cry about it anymore.

WoB weren't too bad though. They hit what, 4 planets with rocks, only rendered one unihabitable. Burned the capital of one Periphery world. Burned Regulus City. Glassed Outreach. They weren't wiping out worlds so much as loading as many Crocketts into their Arrow IV's for conventional fights as they could.

Compare that to the Ravens bombarding Galedon into glass.
Taurians nuking three worlds and bombarding the shit out of a couple more.
Bear Kentares scale genocide on every WoB held world they got their hands on, slaughtering every WoB dude down to the bankers, news anchors, and mailmen.
Caps falseflagging their own capital
Lyrans going nuke crazy on their own worlds to dislodge the robes
And the Regulans gonna Regulan

Considering the WoB was at war with everyone, and half their mass scale crimes were the result of one secret ship, I don't think they went total nuts. The real nuts part was the fucking Master and Precentor Pantsless starting all this shit with everyone in a tantrum instead of buckling down and picking their fights one at a time. But a large part of that is DA nonsense that had to fit the years involved.

>implying exterminating the Wobbies isn't a humanitarian service to the entire human race

Did you try digging around in the AToW Companion? It's got a lot more of the kind of extras you want.

Minnesota Tribe is a bad idea though, IMO. That's more like a boss battle. What you want is people that have a reason to be dicking around in the Deep outside the normal routes who have a little firepower like Lostech prospectors or Explorer Corps/Interstellar Expeditions. Running into unarmed colonies or shitty armed pirates should be the usually encounter and even running into the Goliath seekers in upgunned workmechs with clan lasers, Hellion remnants, Green Ghosts, etc should be reasons to shit your pants. Finding the Minnesota Tribe or the Fleet of Blake is where you better pray your shitty old ship can hot charge the drive without exploding to get out of there before you die a horrible death.

>implying exterminating the *clanners isn't a humanitarian service to the entire human race
FTFY

that too, but Wobbies also need to all fucking die.

They're just old Comstar. And old Comstar is best Comstar. Secular can suck a dick. They lost the magic, literally.

shut up Wobbie. you're just autistic REEEing that people got sick of your retarded BS.

Go to bed Stone, you're drunk.

i'm anti-crazy fucks who want to rule the universe. so yea, no.

The Deep Periphery is treated as it should be, the frontier desert of space. Shitty worlds, broken tech, everything way too fucking far apart for meaningful contact. It's a scary place to be, but also not a place to really tell a lot of stories. Everything is just too far apart. Could you imagine declaring war with some other minor state like the Jarnfolk and the Hansa were at each other's throats? They are but imagine it escalating to all out war It would take the better part of a year just to go one way through uninhabited systems with your nine five-hundred-year-old interstellar rustbuckets, hope you don't suffer a breakdown, engage the enemy aero and hope something irreplaceable doesn't break there, then deploy your measly troops? That's like the 4th Regulan Hussar Coventry raid for every single battle. No way.

Biggest most advanced state out there was the Clanners. Nobody else even comes close. And they had to invade to be relevant.

That's literally everyone. You think "and First Lord of the Star League" on the end of their titles was a joke?

not the normal people, the bigwig fuckheads can all go die in a fire. only the 'fuck no i don't want to be in charge of this shitpile' types should ever get allowed to be in charge.

>not the normal people

But the normal WoB people are normal people too, ones from the core worlds sick of all the bullshit or from the bumfuck periphery where the robes were the only light of civilization. It's just the Manei Domini that were loonies.

no, they aren't.

they joined a zany religious death cult. that is the opposite of 'normal'

Thoughts on the new designs?
imgur.com/a/1OyIC#lsUG4v3

>they joined a zany religious death cult
But they didn't. No more than old Comstar was a death cult. So, not in the least. It's like calling all the Capellans a death cult under Mad Max.

I think you're on a goddamn imageboard.

They're fine, and should be worth the price. But those being 3D printed prototypes instead of production proofs means they're still a ways away.

>explicitly a MANIFEST DESTINY we are going to rule the universe by any means at all "religion"

oh, i get it, you're american and believe that kind of retardation is acceptable normal behaviour.

Other than the Wolverine's gun being on the wrong arm, they're not bad considering licensing issues with the unseen and such.

How many different types of mechs are included in the package?

I was comparing WoB to Comstar of old and how much a wannabe they come as to compared to the Real Stuff. I mean the reason WoB started REEEing hard was because Great Houses disbanded the Star League...again. I could not see the Comstar doing the same shit WoB did, they would have expressed their dissapointment with more subtlety than what WoB showed.

About the rest of your stuff I did say Jihad was Era when everyone became a huge murderhobo to do as much warcrimes as possible with the flimsiest excuses to do so.

Sorry massa

It's generally human behavior in the age of empire, which every single faction aspires to in Battletech. There's no cold-war-tier MAD stopping those tendencies like the modern world.

Thud, Locust, and Beemer are great. Wolvie and Griffon are meh.

tbolt and battlemaster eh?

those are good on tabletop, no?

I believe they said the wolverine's gun being on the wrong arm was a screw up and should be fixed.

They're coming out with two new boxes; One box will have a wolverine and griffin the other will have 2 lances including a commando, locust, wolverine, shadow hawk, atlas, battlemaster, thunderbolt and catapult.

You mean the Master started REEing. He literally mobile HPG'd a hologram of himself over Empire Strikes Back style and told Vader St. Jamais to toss the legitimate WoB leader out an airlock and open fire on Tharkad City.

Compare that to what the Expatriots did when they saw yet ANOTHER Black Dragon rebellion going down on Luthien? Went down and helped the loyal Coordinator boys.

>they would have expressed their dissapointment with more subtlety than what WoB showed
This is mostly a factor of the DA timeline. We knew Outreach got flattened in '68 and the whole Sphere was a smoking ruin saved by Stone and friends by 3082. Doesn't leave much room for the typical Comstar trifecta of blackout/sabotage/assassination

...

I think the locust is the only stinker, but that's a result of the redesign and not the mini. No wide flat head and no leg shoulders means no Locust to me.

Oh, the redone Commando looks nice.

The fuck are you on about?

WoB made a habit of nuking and WMD-ing worlds, plus running death camps and rampaging through cities on genocidal orgies.

If only they had actually tried to do that instead of throwing a fucking tantrum like a teenage girl upset that she didn't win prom queen.

>Locust torso-twisting
They don't even care about their own quirk lists, do they? Art is one thing, but now the miniatures too...

Awesome, not Atlas. As I recall, at any rate.

The Locust no longer has No Torso Twist according to the final version of the Battlemech Manual.

>Thoughts on the new designs?

Much better than the source material. Battletech's never needed to rely on weebshit and the decision to do so was a mistake. New designs are a great start, now if we can ostracize from the community everyone who supported the originals, Battletech can start making a real inroad for itself instead of being endlessly derivative and sued into oblivion.

They actually updated quirks on a mech? What manner of bizarro universe have I entered?

this

reads like tumblr

keep it in /pol/

Firstly, manifest destiny is one of the core themes of battletech. Stop filtering the setting through your own ideology.

Secondly, this isn't /pol/

Historically speaking, it is. If you're strong enough to do it, then your decision is correct retroactively.

See also: LITERALLY EVERY EMPIRE IN RECORDED HISTORY

Yes

History is not a defense. Just because something happened all the time in history doesn't make it acceptable in historically-inspired fiction. There's no excuse for that sort of attitude, and it speaks to the lack of intelligence and sophistication of the audience which enjoys that sort of inherently racist narrative.

>its ok if some assholes we all agree were total assholes did it back when everyone thought it was a-ok to be complete assholes

dude, sure revisionism is bad, but NOT appreciating the morality and ethics, or LACK thereof of historical groups is equally fuckking retarded.

i'm not the one who brang /opol/ into this, you guys did by buying into the obvious bad guys and deciding they're NOT the bad guys.

>you guys did by buying into the obvious bad guys and deciding they're NOT the bad guys.

By your definition, there is nobody who isn't a bad guy in Battletech. Every Major or Minor House, and every surviving Clan, has a Manifest Destiny thing going.

Take your sense of moral superiority and find a new game setting. You clearly aren't suited for this one.

It's a game, and it's a game not everyone plays at the exact same era.

If that troubles you, like find a new game.

2/10

>various merc groups, and small parts of houses major and minor and characters who don't want to rule the universe are totally the same as the overtly evil bastards who wnat to rule the universe

how about NO, you fucking simplistic mongoloid. there's plenty of 'good' guys in BT, the setting is not GRIMDARK BS. and faggots like you trying to imply everyone is manifest destiny faggots are shitting the setting up with your SRS BZNZ BS

It's rare that anyone types the way you are. Are you drinking or just an obvious troll?

It's drinking time across the pond so probably that.

>Oh, hey, it's intermission in the OAR v USA men's hockey game. I'll wander into /btg/ and see what's-
>fuck

OK, so here's the thing. The WoB are Bad Guys. The people who are claiming they aren't are either taking the piss, roleplaying, or have fairly clear mental defects (similar to the people in /swg/ who are claiming that the Empire Are The Real Good Guys).

However, the reason they're the Bad Guys isn't because they've got a Manifest Destiny mandate. Effectively everybody in BattleTech who has the military strength to back up a Manifest Destiny policy has that mandate...and the ones who *don't* have the strength to enact that policy are only waiting until they *do* have the strength. This is one of the core themes of the game setting, and I have to wonder why one who disagrees with that theme is bothering with this setting at all.

Coming back to the WoB: the reason they're the Bad Guys isn't their expansionism and religious mandate. They're the fucking Bad Guys because they're killing civilians in job lots...during a point in the setting where NOBODY ELSE IS DOING THAT. The WoB wouldn't even stand out appreciably during the First Succession War. But Good Guys and Bad Guys are relative to the context of their immediate setting and other participants in that setting; in the context of the late 3060's to the early 3080's, the WoB are doing shit that nobody else is doing. They *way* they go about their war is what makes them the Bad Guys - the fact that they don't have the military strength to prosecute their war in a "humane" way (ie, the accepted methods of war in the 3060's) is immaterial to that. "Evil" methods of achieving a superobjective - relative to other setting participants - is THE primary way Bad Guys are identified in fiction, nothing wrong was done in using this method to ID the WoB as Bad Guys, and any argument *seriously* claiming that the WoB aren't Bad Guys is worthy of immediate dismissal.

Dude NEA I love you but don't go calling the Empire the bad guys

Alderaan shot first.

>and any argument *seriously* claiming that the WoB aren't Bad Guys is worthy of immediate dismissal.
I would wager that anyone making such an argument is 99% roleplaying from within the POV of the BT universe, as a lot of what is criminal or justified is subjective to the perpetrators and victims

What are your favorite WoB mechs?

Luckily, the hockey game is coming back, so I don't have time to type out all the ways you're wrong.

>not even a Rebfag, but come on
>if you're going to root for Bad Guys, then own it
>I was the one dropping "classified" info from Uncle Chandy on the OF as a result of playing WoB at GenCon - RPing the Bad Guys can be fun. Just fucking Own It.

What, you want Ewoks in our towns? Going to our schools? Marrying our children? Palpatine did nothing wrong. The galaxy had to be strong against the Yuuzhan Vong!

Grand Crusader, Gurkha, Buccaneer, Legacy