Battletech: Clan Wolf is "Licensed to il"

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Battletech: Clan Wolf is "Licensed to il"

SirFozzie: Mar 28, 2004; Goombatta!

ilmucche posted:

So if they lost the mech the family went bankrupt? Battle tech has a weird universe. I read a few of the book when I was young.

If I wanted to get into the game and bought the video game how groggy is it? All tabletop games look from a distance like they have a million subtleties that'll get me chewed up.

The computer game is pretty straightforward.

And yeah, it was bad for a family if they lost their mech, they call it being DISPOSSESSED. It's not only a social stigma, it would lead to quests to acquire a NEW family mech, perpetuating the cycle. Of course, they also came up with some stuff, where people obviously beaten would be allowed to ransom their mechs, and allowing beaten foes to surrender easier.

# ? Apr 16, 2021 11:07

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# ? Jun 6, 2024 00:41

PoptartsNinja: May 9, 2008; He is still almost definitely not a spy; Soiled Meat

ilmucche posted:

So if they lost the mech the family went bankrupt?

Depends on the family. For the actually wealthy, the BattleMech is merely a representation of their wealth and they can replace it without too much issue. For those who were new to the mobility or otherwise feigning success the loss of their heirloom BattleMech would be devastating since they would still be obligated to provide a 'Mech and serve if their house called upon them.

House Davion's decision to train commoners as Mechwarriors in the 3030s was scandalous.

As far as tabletop games go, Alpha Strike is pretty straightforward but BattleTech itself definitely lends itself to smaller engagements. I wouldn't do more than a 4v4 in standard BattleTech, and as a new player I'd probably start 2v2. Alpha Strike I'd run 12v12 because it plays much faster, it's much more of a game and 90% of the resources you need to play it are available for free on the master unit list.

# ? Apr 16, 2021 11:16

Southern Heel: Jul 2, 2004

Well, I played my first game of A Clash of Armoured Combat against myself and (apart from it taking forever), it was quite enjoyable. I pitted a Griffin against a Wolverine.The Griffin had a worse pilot (5/6) to equalise their values, seeing as the Wolverine is a less impressive mech.

quote:

The game commenced with exchanging long range shots, the Griffin pilot quickly realised this would leave him fully outgunned - the Wolverine's long range missles and a particle cannon vs his own short range equipment was no contest - so the Wolverine rushed to close the distance through a storm of fire.

This succeeded - and soon finding himself outflanked and below the minimum range for his sniper weapons, the Wolverine's options were limited. He chose to bull rush the Griffin, knocked both mechs down and causing huge damage.

Despite his novice piloting skills he was able to get up, land a thunderous punch, ripping out part of his target's gyro stabilisers, and then able to extricate himself using jump jets before his opponent could regain his feet.

His greenness was made evident however - after a full payload of direct energy and missiles was unleashed the combined heat caused a reactor safety shutdown, which he was unable to override. Both mechs were in a terrible situation, as the last rays of the sun fell.

On the brink of death - gyros damaged and missile pod destroyed, the Griffin attempted a hail mary with his autocannon at the immobile target, but in the nick of time, the Wolverine reactivated and fired all remaining long range missiles. The destroyed left armor had resulted in exposed ammunition on the Griffin, and a lucky shot caused a chain reaction - blowing up the mech absolutely without any chance of survival.

Some thoughts and questions:

- I felt like there was alot of 'carrying over' numbers between actions, i.e. you move and carry over attack/target modifiers and heat. You declare shots and carry over targets to the firing phase, where you note heat and carry that over to the heat phase, etc. This may have been made more complicated than neccesary because I didn't have paperclips to slide up and down the heat scale, and didn't have coloured dice to track the movement of the mechs.

- It feels to me like the use of a 'ton of ammo' in the rulebook is confusing things. For example, when my Griffin's missile ammo got a critical hit, it suggested that the damage is equal to the damage of each missiles * number of missiles left but then carries on talking about tons - i.e. 1 ton of SRM ammo does 2 x 2 x 50 damage - it feels like a very unneccesary complication? My SRM6 shoots six missiles per shot, and has 15 shots total. By the time it was hit, it had 9 shots remaining. 9*6 = 54 missiles remaining in the ammo store. 54 missiles * 2 damage each is 108 damage total. Why are 'tons' getting involved at all??

- When my Wolverine's heat got way too high, it forced a shutdown after a failed PSR. At this point, the mech is just standing - it's only SUBSEQUENT actions which would force a PSR (which would automatically fail) to cause it to fall? Once it's shutdown, I couldn't find a PSR roll/action to restart it anywhere? I just used a standard test, no modifiers.

- How does partial cover (i.e. woods) affect LoS when the shooter is elevated? For example, my Wolverine on Level 1, shooting the Griffin on Level 0 behind trees.

- Lastly, the ammo explosion ended the game, but I'm curious - the Griffin had left torso armour completely gone, and so a hit to that location caused a roll on the critical hit chart - this resulted in 3 critical rolls. The first of which blew up the ammo - but assuming it didn't, I'm unsure what to have done. The left superstructure only had 1 point of health remaining, and there would have been no other items in the critical hit target table for the left torso for the remaining 2 critical rolls. Are those second and third rolls just ignored, or do they also overflow onto the adjacent body part?

# ? Apr 18, 2021 09:50

Southern Heel: Jul 2, 2004

Supplementary question - if I'm going to paint up the mechs from the Clash of Armoured Combat box as two separate factions, what is a fairly balanced grouping? Or should I just arbitrarily match the BV of the two sides and call it a day? If my friend enjoys and/or picks up the game then he may get a set, or maybe I'll buy one of the pre-packaged lance boxes when they are released/in-stock to bolster up the numbers of both sides at some later date.

# ? Apr 18, 2021 12:04

PoptartsNinja: May 9, 2008; He is still almost definitely not a spy; Soiled Meat

Southern Heel posted:

- I felt like there was alot of 'carrying over' numbers between actions, i.e. you move and carry over attack/target modifiers and heat.

BattleTech asks for a fair amount of extra paperwork. They're working on an app as part of the kickstarter, but there's no news on it yet. With luck it'll include target declarations and things like that, but heat tracking will still probably be better handled on paper.

quote:

- It feels to me like the use of a 'ton of ammo' in the rulebook is confusing things. For example, when my Griffin's missile ammo got a critical hit, it suggested that the damage is equal to the damage of each missiles * number of missiles left but then carries on talking about tons - i.e. 1 ton of SRM ammo does 2 x 2 x 50 damage - it feels like a very unneccesary complication?

Many 'Mechs carry multiple tons of ammo. Critical hits don't detonate all the ammo in the 'Mech (although it's usually immaterial since 1 ton is usually plenty). Instead, they set off all the ammo in the bin they hit, with each bin containing a single ton of ammo.

You can determine how much ammo is in each bin by taking ([total ammo] - [shots fired])/[number of ammo bins] or by tracking ammo individually per bin, which is a chore but could save a 'Mech. It's always a good idea to try to empty center torso ammo as quickly as possible.

Edit: One of my favorite house rules (because it makes ammo explosions less instantly lethal letting you play out the consequences of the actual explosion): Ammo Explosions do a flat 20 damage or whatever's left in the bin, whichever is lower. That way you don't need to worry about how much is in what bin unless you're down to your last few shots.

quote:

When my Wolverine's heat got way too high, it forced a shutdown after a failed PSR. At this point, the mech is just standing - it's only SUBSEQUENT actions which would force a PSR (which would automatically fail) to cause it to fall?

~~That is correct.~~ This is what I get for posting from work when I can't check the rulebook.

quote:

Once it's shutdown, I couldn't find a PSR roll/action to restart it anywhere? I just used a standard test, no modifiers.

Once it's shut down, you play through the next turn. On the next heat phase, you reduce the Wolverine's heat as normal. If that were to drop you from a 6+ shutdown chance to a 4+ shutdown chance you roll the dice again and if you roll above a 4, you power up. If that were to drop you from a 6+ to a no roll, you power up automatically.

quote:

How does partial cover (i.e. woods) affect LoS when the shooter is elevated? For example, my Wolverine on Level 1, shooting the Griffin on Level 0 behind trees.

Woods aren't partial cover, they're woods. As a general rule, if the shooter has an elevation advantage the defender only counts the hex they're standing in and any hexes they're immediately adjacent to.

Adjacency Example: In your example, the Wolverine (Blue) is on a level 1 hill and the Griffin (Red) is not. If the Griffin had 3 hexes of woods between it and the Wolverine, they normally wouldn't be able to see one another, but since the Wolverine has an elevation advantage the Griffin can only count the hex it's standing in (red) and the hex immediately next to it (green) and doesn't get to count the other two hexes between it and the Wolverine (purple).

There are other ways to do Line of Sight that complicate this, but this is the standard method (which is the most basic / game-y).

Partial cover is a little different. If your Griffin was standing adjacent to and behind a level 1 hill, the partial cover only counts if the Wolverine is on a different slope.

Example 1: Wolverine (blue) is on a hill. Griffin (red) is behind another hill. The Griffin gets partial cover because the hex it's immediately adjacent to hides its legs from the Wolverine.

Example 2: Wolverine (blue) is on a hill. Griffin (red) is behind the same hill. The Griffin does not get partial cover because the Griffin is standing at the top of the same slope.

quote:

Lastly, the ammo explosion ended the game, but I'm curious - the Griffin had left torso armour completely gone, and so a hit to that location caused a roll on the critical hit chart - this resulted in 3 critical rolls. The first of which blew up the ammo - but assuming it didn't, I'm unsure what to have done. The left superstructure only had 1 point of health remaining, and there would have been no other items in the critical hit target table for the left torso for the remaining 2 critical rolls. Are those second and third rolls just ignored, or do they also overflow onto the adjacent body part?

Critical hits transfer just like damage, so if you were to roll 2 crits in a section with a single heat sink and nothing else, that crit would transfer to the next section. So in this case, if the Griffin's ammo bin had been empty the first crit would've destroyed it automatically and the next two would've transferred into the Center Torso where they might hit the Griffin's engine or gyro.

Southern Heel posted:

Supplementary question - if I'm going to paint up the mechs from the Clash of Armoured Combat box as two separate factions, what is a fairly balanced grouping? Or should I just arbitrarily match the BV of the two sides and call it a day? If my friend enjoys and/or picks up the game then he may get a set, or maybe I'll buy one of the pre-packaged lance boxes when they are released/in-stock to bolster up the numbers of both sides at some later date.

Paint them however you'd like. If you're going to be sticking to small games, I'd paint them all unique colors and treat them like you would Pro Wrestlers. If you want to have matching sets, you could do four pairs pretty easily by going Assault/Heavy and Medium/Light.

The basic 'force unit' in fluff is a lance, which is a team of four 'Mechs. I don't play games larger than 4x4 these days unless I'm doing Alpha Strike. The A Game of Armored Combat box has enough 'Mechs to paint two lances if you want, which is more than enough to have unique 'Mechs to use as proxies for units you don't have models for.

Edit:

If you're looking for ideas, Camospecs.com has most of the 'canon' parade colorschemes.

Alternatively, if you'd like to paint some 'Mechs in camo, this is the easiest method I've ever found. Get some Aggaros Dunes contrast paint, Creed Camo contrast paint, and a contrast brown of your choice (I suggest Snakebite Leather (more yellow), Cygor Brown (more brown), or Wyldwood (even more brown); but Gore-Grunta Fur has a nice reddish color that matches a lot of BattleTech maps). Prime the 'Mech white, paint the entire 'Mech with Aggaros Dunes, then once the Aggaros Dunes dries splotch on patches of brown and green right over the top. You need 3 pots of paint to make the camo look good, plus a metallic for the big guns and you'll probably want to pick a bright color for the cockpit like red or blue (I'd avoid orange or yellow, they're hard to paint).

You can do the same thing with city camo using Basilicanum Gray. Paint the whole 'Mech gray, then sploch on blobs or stripes or whatever you want with more Basilicanum Gray.

With four contrast paints (Aggaros Dunes, Creed Camo, a brown of your choice, Basilicanum Gray), one metallic silver, one cockpit color of your choice, a can of white primer (I suggest army painter but any fine primer will work), and a matte varnish you can have two forces in distinctive camo looking battle ready with a minimum time investment. I also suggest using a black wash on anything you paint metallic to help bring out the details.

PoptartsNinja fucked around with this message at 19:04 on Apr 19, 2021

# ? Apr 18, 2021 12:16

Xotl: May 28, 2001; Be seeing you.

Southern Heel posted:

Well, I played my first game of A Clash of Armoured Combat against myself and (apart from it taking forever), it was quite enjoyable. I pitted a Griffin against a Wolverine.The Griffin had a worse pilot (5/6) to equalise their values, seeing as the Wolverine is a less impressive mech.

Some thoughts and questions:

- When my Wolverine's heat got way too high, it forced a shutdown after a failed PSR. At this point, the mech is just standing - it's only SUBSEQUENT actions which would force a PSR (which would automatically fail) to cause it to fall? Once it's shutdown, I couldn't find a PSR roll/action to restart it anywhere? I just used a standard test, no modifiers.

This is covered under Shutdown, p. 38. You make a +3 PSR immediately, and so might fall down then and there. Later checks while shutdown auto-fail. The restart procedure is also dealt with on that page.

quote:

- How does partial cover (i.e. woods) affect LoS when the shooter is elevated? For example, my Wolverine on Level 1, shooting the Griffin on Level 0 behind trees.

Partial cover never affects LOS (which determines whether or not you can see the target at all): it's a bit of protection, not full blocking. Your specific scenario is covered on p. 17 (Partial Cover Modifier). "However, if the attacker has an LOS level higher than the target�s LOS level, partial cover does not apply. In other words, an attacker firing downhill (regardless of how many hexes lie between attacker and target) negates its target�s partial cover (unless the partial cover is being provided by water; see below)." As PTN said, however, woods is not partial cover: it's just woods. Partial cover comes from buildings and hills: standing directly behind them protects part of a mech (or standing in level 1 water).

quote:

- Lastly, the ammo explosion ended the game, but I'm curious - the Griffin had left torso armour completely gone, and so a hit to that location caused a roll on the critical hit chart - this resulted in 3 critical rolls. The first of which blew up the ammo - but assuming it didn't, I'm unsure what to have done. The left superstructure only had 1 point of health remaining, and there would have been no other items in the critical hit target table for the left torso for the remaining 2 critical rolls. Are those second and third rolls just ignored, or do they also overflow onto the adjacent body part?

Crit transfer is tricky and (needlessly) complicated: it's something I hope to see addressed in a future edition.

In your specific scenario, when you have leftover crits and are trying to figure out how to apply them, the most important fact is whether or not there were items in the location that could take a crit at the start of the phase. If Yes (your case, since there was ammo there), any extra crits do *not* transfer. If No (an empty location, or everything in the location already was destroyed before the phase started), only then do you get crit transfer. This is covered on p. 31: Transferring Criticals.

Xotl fucked around with this message at 18:18 on Apr 18, 2021

# ? Apr 18, 2021 17:58

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

I think a theoretical modern Battletech would benefit from ditching all the fiddly terrain modifiers and just having a 'concealed' and 'in cover' state.

# ? Apr 18, 2021 19:40

Xotl: May 28, 2001; Be seeing you.

I'd want to be careful with too much smoothing out. Ultimately what was a beer-and-pretzels game is now a fairly unique crunchy sim, and I think too much watering down is only going to push it into market niches already quite exploited. Binary protected-or-not states bring to mind advantage/disadvantage in 5th edition D&D.

The worst culprits for time vs return, IMO, are things like crit transfer and the cluster table, which just eat up huge amounts of time while not being worth the investment to achieve the effects that they do (no one should be forced to make a box full of dice to expedite a fundamental aspect of the game). But I'd hate to move away from the idea of watching your shitheap measurably disintegrate around you as you pick up the severed arm of your opponent and bash him to death with it, or making that subtle bit of maneuvering that makes the difference between a hit and not.

Xotl fucked around with this message at 20:20 on Apr 18, 2021

# ? Apr 18, 2021 20:06

Floppychop: Mar 30, 2012

General Battuta posted:

I think a theoretical modern Battletech would benefit from ditching all the fiddly terrain modifiers and just having a 'concealed' and 'in cover' state.

I think a tabletop using the most recent video game's rules would be great. Seems like it would port over fairly well.

# ? Apr 18, 2021 21:19

Defiance Industries: Jul 22, 2010; A five-star manufacturer

If you want to disincentivize lights even more than you they already have sure

# ? Apr 19, 2021 00:25

Floppychop: Mar 30, 2012

Defiance Industries posted:

If you want to disincentivize lights even more than you they already have sure

Speaking as someone coming from other wargames, due to the hard cap of 4 (or 5) models per force there has to be a fairly restrictive tonnage limit to make lights worth it in any version of the game. In most games the small, fast units are made worth it just because you can bring more of them.

I guess the other option would be the route where most things have similar firepower but you trade survivability for maneuverability, but Battletech doesn't work that way with how the weapon systems are.

# ? Apr 19, 2021 02:50

Defiance Industries: Jul 22, 2010; A five-star manufacturer

I got a Gurkha that would tell you you're wrong about that. Doesn't matter how many guns you shoot at me when I'm pushing a +4 TMM.

e: There's no such thing as a hard cap, also. The units are also cheaper so you CAN bring more of them. For one Daishi, I can field three Wolfhounds or five Commandos.

Defiance Industries fucked around with this message at 03:54 on Apr 19, 2021

# ? Apr 19, 2021 03:28

Strobe: Jun 30, 2014; GW BRAINWORMS CREW

I think DI is alluding to the mechanic where getting shot at reduces evasion, which in a larger game makes focus fire, which is already a good idea, into a very hard counter to Lights as BattleTech the tabletop game knows them.

# ? Apr 19, 2021 03:32

neonchameleon: Nov 14, 2012

Floppychop posted:

Speaking as someone coming from other wargames, due to the hard cap of 4 (or 5) models per force there has to be a fairly restrictive tonnage limit to make lights worth it in any version of the game. In most games the small, fast units are made worth it just because you can bring more of them.

I guess the other option would be the route where most things have similar firepower but you trade survivability for maneuverability, but Battletech doesn't work that way with how the weapon systems are.

What "hard cap"? Surely you don't think that the expected way to fight was an Inner Sphere lance vs a Clan star?

And we're not talking about "most games" here. We're talking about Battletech. A game where the mech speed, target numbers, and engine weights were designed to exploit the bell curve making them more viable. And where you start off with 10 (possibly double) heat sinks per battlemech and lasers are light, powerful, and heat inefficient making them ideal for light mechs. The Battletech designers put in a lot of work to make lights effective, and much of it was not obvious.

# ? Apr 19, 2021 10:35

Southern Heel: Jul 2, 2004

Thank you for the exhaustive replies! Lots to parse there and very well appreciated, cheers.

EDIT: quick clarification Xotl with regard to shutdown. It was my understanding that if you fail a shutdown roll on the heat chart, you can use a PSR+3 to AVOID the shutdown. If you fail that, any other PSRs automatically fail.

What you are saying is that you can't avoid a shutdown it if you fail the shutdown roll, and the PSR+3 is to avoid falling over?

Southern Heel fucked around with this message at 11:12 on Apr 19, 2021

# ? Apr 19, 2021 11:07

Carbolic: Apr 19, 2007; This song is about how America chews the working man up and spits him in the dirt to die

neonchameleon posted:

What "hard cap"? Surely you don't think that the expected way to fight was an Inner Sphere lance vs a Clan star?

And we're not talking about "most games" here. We're talking about Battletech. A game where the mech speed, target numbers, and engine weights were designed to exploit the bell curve making them more viable. And where you start off with 10 (possibly double) heat sinks per battlemech and lasers are light, powerful, and heat inefficient making them ideal for light mechs. The Battletech designers put in a lot of work to make lights effective, and much of it was not obvious.

It's more of a soft cap, once you start scaling beyond a couple of lances the game gets slow unless you have a lot of practice.

Strong disagree when you bring in double heat sinks when suggesting the game is balanced to make light 'Mechs useful. The introduction of level 2 / Star League tech is widely understood to have made light 'Mechs much less viable. In 3025, the ten free engine heat sinks were a greater benefit to lights than heavier 'Mechs. With Star League tech, a medium 'Mech can do most of a light 'Mech's traditional jobs as effectively, while being much more survivable. Lights become dangerously vulnerable with Star League tech giving weapons with longer range brackets, weapons with to-hit bonuses, and double heat sinks permitting more of them to be fired...

# ? Apr 19, 2021 14:26

Defiance Industries: Jul 22, 2010; A five-star manufacturer

Yeah SL technology basically ruins lights. The equipment that starts cropping up later helps to deal with that though. I'm a big proponent of reflective armor for them, and the light PPC is actually kind of a game changer for them.

# ? Apr 19, 2021 16:42

neonchameleon: Nov 14, 2012

Defiance Industries posted:

Yeah SL technology basically ruins lights. The equipment that starts cropping up later helps to deal with that though. I'm a big proponent of reflective armor for them, and the light PPC is actually kind of a game changer for them.

I found that Technical Readout 2750 wasn't that bad (although that may have been not exploiting it enough and part of it may have been my friends falling in love with XL engines for a few months and getting annihilated). Tech Readout 3050 on the other hand snapped Battletech's balance over its knee, destroying lights with to hit modifiers from clan pilots with targeting computers or pulse lasers that didn't have a pathetic range or or from Inner Sphere pilots always being at short range thanks to the C3 computer.

# ? Apr 19, 2021 17:59

Xotl: May 28, 2001; Be seeing you.

Southern Heel posted:

EDIT: quick clarification Xotl with regard to shutdown. It was my understanding that if you fail a shutdown roll on the heat chart, you can use a PSR+3 to AVOID the shutdown. If you fail that, any other PSRs automatically fail.

What you are saying is that you can't avoid a shutdown it if you fail the shutdown roll, and the PSR+3 is to avoid falling over?

That's right. You only get one Avoid Shutdown roll for any given heat check instance: that's the one on the Heat Data chart. If you fail that, you are shut down: no avoiding it. Shutting down triggers that +3 PSR immediately to avoid falling.

# ? Apr 19, 2021 18:28

BattleMaster: Aug 14, 2000

General Battuta posted:

I think a theoretical modern Battletech would benefit from ditching all the fiddly terrain modifiers and just having a 'concealed' and 'in cover' state.

So like Alpha Strike?

# ? Apr 19, 2021 19:49

Strobe: Jun 30, 2014; GW BRAINWORMS CREW

neonchameleon posted:

I found that Technical Readout 2750 wasn't that bad (although that may have been not exploiting it enough and part of it may have been my friends falling in love with XL engines for a few months and getting annihilated). Tech Readout 3050 on the other hand snapped Battletech's balance over its knee, destroying lights with to hit modifiers from clan pilots with targeting computers or pulse lasers that didn't have a pathetic range or or from Inner Sphere pilots always being at short range thanks to the C3 computer.

The answer, as with many things, is use BV and a lot of Lights jump straight back into usefulness. They won't ever stack up 1:1 against a well-designed high tech high end Medium or Heavy, but it's fallacious to make that comparison anyway.

# ? Apr 19, 2021 20:12

Carbolic: Apr 19, 2007; This song is about how America chews the working man up and spits him in the dirt to die

Strobe posted:

The answer, as with many things, is use BV and a lot of Lights jump straight back into usefulness. They won't ever stack up 1:1 against a well-designed high tech high end Medium or Heavy, but it's fallacious to make that comparison anyway.

Yes, if you use a game-balance system that strengthens inferior units and weakens superior units, the inferior units will be competitive. In terms of in-universe rationale and doctrine, most battlefield functions of light 'Mechs other than "be cheap" are supplanted by mediums in 3050.

# ? Apr 19, 2021 20:27

PeterWeller: Apr 21, 2003; I told you that story so I could tell you this one.

Just chiming in to repeat, "and this is why I'm a 3025 grognard."

# ? Apr 19, 2021 20:36

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

PeterWeller posted:

Just chiming in to repeat, "and this is why I'm a 3025 grognard."

I love to shoot a medium laser and an AC/5 at each other for two hours until someone gets an ammo TAC

# ? Apr 19, 2021 20:39

Defiance Industries: Jul 22, 2010; A five-star manufacturer

Stuff like the ranges on Clan pulse lasers or the lack of a minimum range on LRMs really get to the core conceptual problem with them. Everything's just good at everything so who gives a poo poo what specific weapons you use.

# ? Apr 19, 2021 20:51

Strobe: Jun 30, 2014; GW BRAINWORMS CREW

Carbolic posted:

Yes, if you use a game-balance system that strengthens inferior units and weakens superior units, the inferior units will be competitive. In terms of in-universe rationale and doctrine, most battlefield functions of light 'Mechs other than "be cheap" are supplanted by mediums in 3050.

The ones modeled in a pickup game? Sure. There are plenty of things a light is going to better than a medium outside of a stand-up fight, though, including the critical advantages of "be cheap as hell", "take less time to repair", and "be faster than even a good medium".

Clan pulse lasers and big XLE mediums defintely shrink the useful space a lot, but at the end of the day nothing heavier than a Fire Moth does what a Fire Moth does.

# ? Apr 19, 2021 20:57

PoptartsNinja: May 9, 2008; He is still almost definitely not a spy; Soiled Meat

Finally finished up my Fortress-class DropShip. Not sure what I'm going to call it yet. Probably the Quilt or the Patchwork or something.

The mapscale Atlas is for scale.

# ? Apr 19, 2021 22:28

Shart Carbuncle: Aug 4, 2004; Star Trek:
The Motion Picture

Neat. It reminds me of the Volkswagen Golf Harlequin.

# ? Apr 20, 2021 02:09

PoptartsNinja: May 9, 2008; He is still almost definitely not a spy; Soiled Meat

Captained by Ingo "I don't care what color the paint is, get the cheapest one" Matsushita

# ? Apr 20, 2021 02:12

PeterWeller: Apr 21, 2003; I told you that story so I could tell you this one.

General Battuta posted:

I love to shoot a medium laser and an AC/5 at each other for two hours until someone gets an ammo TAC

Ha! Like there will be any ammo in that bin by then. :v:

# ? Apr 20, 2021 02:12

BULBASAUR: Apr 6, 2009; Soiled Meat

BattleMaster posted:

So like Alpha Strike?

Alpha Strike with unique ranges per weapon / mech would be my ideal level of crunch

BULBASAUR fucked around with this message at 03:41 on Apr 20, 2021

# ? Apr 20, 2021 03:34

Atlas Hugged: Mar 12, 2007; Put your arms around me,
fiddly digits, itchy britches
I love you all

I finally have a Rifleman. Not sure why it took so long to get my hands on one.

All I need is a Locust and I'll finally be able to recreate scenarios from MechWarrior!

# ? Apr 22, 2021 11:54

PoptartsNinja: May 9, 2008; He is still almost definitely not a spy; Soiled Meat

Oh, interesting. It looks like the redesigned Stalker has both a forward and backward facing knee, like the Mongoose, Hollander, or 90% of the modern Jade Falcon line.

# ? Apr 23, 2021 11:21

Crazy Joe Wilson: Jul 4, 2007; Justifiably Mad!

Atlas Hugged posted:

I've always loved the feudal themes of the setting and how outside of the official regiments of the Successor States, each mech represented the sum total wealth of some obscure noble family. To that end, all of my random rear end mechs are flying their individual family colors, like sci-fi Bretonnians.

I really wish the current fiction would lean more heavily into the feudal noble families set-up more. We got all 5 Great Houses and all five leaders are unmarried, after over 10 years of in-universe fiction. Just write them up a spouse and children and call it a day already.

EDIT: Another thing to add to my criticism of The Hour of the Wolf. The Republic of the Sphere is supposed to be THE PREMIER IS Military that practices combined arms. And yet... in every battle the Republic fights, they only ever use Battlemechs. No tanks, no Battle Armor, no stinking artillery. Only Clan Wolf uses Battle Armor at all during the campaign. And only Clan Jade Falcon uses Artillery in their big trap during the IlClan Trial.

Just so freaking stupid. I really am disliking this book more and more except for the last 50 pages.

Crazy Joe Wilson fucked around with this message at 17:59 on Apr 23, 2021

# ? Apr 23, 2021 17:46

Defiance Industries: Jul 22, 2010; A five-star manufacturer

Crazy Joe Wilson posted:

I really wish the current fiction would lean more heavily into the feudal noble families set-up more. We got all 5 Great Houses and all five leaders are unmarried, after over 10 years of in-universe fiction. Just write them up a spouse and children and call it a day already.

Yeah you'd think someone would take Jasek Kelswa-Steiner dying as a wakeup call, since he's the fourth only child of his house in a row.

quote:

The Republic of the Sphere is supposed to be THE PREMIER IS Military that practices combined arms.

I think that claim probably comes exclusively from Republic characters, just like anything about the Federated Suns and "freedom" comes exclusively from Feddies. Because I cannot for the life of me find a difference between their doctrine and that of the AFFS and LCAF, right down to having three tiers of units with increasingly complex arrangements of conventional support regiments.

# ? Apr 23, 2021 18:12

PoptartsNinja: May 9, 2008; He is still almost definitely not a spy; Soiled Meat

Federated Commonwealth: "We're the best because our leaders are the best!"
People of the Inner Sphere: "Who are your leaders?"
Federated Commonwealth: "Victor Steiner-Davion and his extremely ambitious sister!"

Republic of the Sphere: "We're the best because our leaders are the best!"
People of the Inner Sphere: "Who are your leaders?"
Republic of the Sphere: "An extremely ambitious Word of Blake super soldier and geriatric Victor Steiner-Davion!"

:hmmno:

# ? Apr 23, 2021 18:42

Der Waffle Mous: Nov 27, 2009; In the grim future, there is only commerce.

it is not a high bar to be fair

# ? Apr 23, 2021 21:21

PoptartsNinja: May 9, 2008; He is still almost definitely not a spy; Soiled Meat

Just a quick before and after.

Before (white and brown Zenethal prime with some key bits picked out in gold):

After (Sword of Light colors):

Contrast Blood Angels Red is a little stronger than I thought, it's one of the only contrast paints I've seen nearly overpower the brown. The metallic red effect of applying it over gold is subtle but noticeable, I'm not sure it photographs well though. I'll have to add a few more gold patches once I get more 'Mechs that are destined to be Kuritans. Unfortunately, the Whammy's the only 'Mech in wave one I get to paint red.

PoptartsNinja fucked around with this message at 03:23 on Apr 24, 2021

# ? Apr 24, 2021 03:21

Atlas Hugged: Mar 12, 2007; Put your arms around me,
fiddly digits, itchy britches
I love you all

Just finished the Battle Lance myself:

# ? Apr 24, 2021 03:28

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# ? Jun 6, 2024 00:41

Virtual Russian: Sep 15, 2008

First lance I've painted, these were also some of the first minis I've painted in over a decade.

Also I now know where the Thunderbolt's glass actually is.

# ? Apr 24, 2021 05:04

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Battletech: Clan Wolf is "Licensed to il"

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