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I just never really bought that New Avalon, a capital super-deep in what was the most militarily strong state in the Inner Sphere, was endangered. Broke my suspension of disbelief
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Aug 20, 2022 00:21
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I mean what happened in the FedCom Civil War?
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Aug 20, 2022 00:35
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GD_American posted:I just never really bought that New Avalon, a capital super-deep in what was the most militarily strong state in the Inner Sphere, was endangered. Broke my suspension of disbelief I suppose it would be easy to break if you just ignored the 30+ years of setting time and the ten years of real time leading up it, I guess.
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Aug 20, 2022 00:57
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I mean... This also caused FedSuns fans to have a meltdown when it was released edit: Like seriously, when the 3145 update came out the BattleTech forums had pages and pages of people being like "how can this happen? fedsuns are the good guys! fedsuns are the strongest! this can only happen because of fiat from bad authors" which is stupid because times like that are when heroes (and the clan-spec weapons that the fedsuns are now making) are needed most! BattleMaster fucked around with this message at 01:19 on Aug 20, 2022 |
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Aug 20, 2022 01:09
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It is worth mentioning that map is from a book that released nine years ago. New Avalon had been in a very precarious place for almost five RL years before the other shoe dropped.
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Aug 20, 2022 01:23
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General Battuta posted:Do you guys want to hear my word of blake rap album Are you SURE you don’t wanna hear my word of blake rap album
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Aug 20, 2022 01:37
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General Battuta posted:Are you SURE you don’t wanna hear my word of blake rap album This would have been an amazing post for this thread to have been locked immediately after
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Aug 20, 2022 01:41
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just to make things timely we need a subplot where DEST tries and fails to take New Avalon Spaceport unsupported like five times
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Aug 20, 2022 01:48
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To be clear I’m not Fedabooing, just look at that ridiculous Kurita thrust Sidesaddle Cavalry posted:I mean what happened in the FedCom Civil War? That was literally a civil war though
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Aug 20, 2022 02:28
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If you're militarily strong enough then just nuke your capital, set up a new one somewhere else, and move on with your life. If someone weak like the Capellans did it then you can do it too
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Aug 20, 2022 03:21
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GD_American posted:I just never really bought that New Avalon, a capital super-deep in what was the most militarily strong state in the Inner Sphere, was endangered. Broke my suspension of disbelief Here is the mistaken assumption that is loving up your whole equation. The Federated Suns was not the strongest state in 3130; in fact, much of their military was demobilized and their officer corps was dominated by people who had been promoted due to political connections. This isn't even the first time that New Avalon has been threatened by the Combine. See all the shaded in area? The Combine conquered ALL of that between 2786 and 2796. 
Defiance Industries fucked around with this message at 03:43 on Aug 20, 2022 |
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Aug 20, 2022 03:39
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Historically, the Combine is The Absolute Best at kicking House Davion's sandcastles over (then overextended and defeating themselves).
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Aug 20, 2022 05:46
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How did the Combine get from the semi-detente with the Fedsuns back in the 3060s to invading them again? I’m not doubting it’s plausible, just curious about the specific turns.
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Aug 20, 2022 08:35
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Post-Jihad there was a soft coup where the ruling duke of the Draconis March and husband to the ruler of the Federated Suns was thrown out and replaced by one of his more militant and conservative cousins. Said cousin then started a low-level border war/skirmish with the Draconis Combine which dragged on for 50 years until the DC decided enough was enough and threw a full invasion at the area and just steamrolled the entire March and headed on a road trip to New Avalon.
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Aug 20, 2022 09:09
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I think Yori's being set up to have some problems with Toranaga, in addition to Alaric looking to flex as Ilkhan. Julian's position isn't exactly secure either.
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Aug 20, 2022 09:33
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Ferrosol posted:Said cousin then started a low-level border war/skirmish with the Draconis Combine which dragged on for 50 years until the DC decided enough was enough and threw a full invasion at the area and just steamrolled the entire March and headed on a road trip to New Avalon. How did THAT work- in that why didn't their supply line collapse pretty much immediately or get cut off, little lone take and hold an enemy capital. Also, why didn't everyone else join in if the FedSuns were so weak.
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Aug 20, 2022 11:39
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Comstar posted:How did THAT work- in that why didn't their supply line collapse pretty much immediately or get cut off, little lone take and hold an enemy capital. Just because the leadership of both states were OK with each other for a long time doesn't mean the rank and file soldier wasn't getting the same "know your enemy" propaganda they'd been getting since before the 1st Succession War. The Draconis Combine is pretty notorious for conscripting as many JumpShips as they need to maintain supply lines regardless as to what that actually does to their civilian economy (see my earlier assertion that the Draconis Combine is usually self-defeating... eventually). Comstar posted:Also, why didn't everyone else join in if the FedSuns were so weak. They did. You can see in the same recently-posted map that the Capellans took New Syrtis; Julian just took that back first. He needed to start somewhere and the Capellans were pretty fixated on the Republic of the Sphere at the time. The Taurians also took the Pleiades and pretty much abandoned half their empire to do it. VVV Oh, yeah, and part of the Dragon's Tongue is to hang Toranaga out to dry since he's the only direct threat to Yori consolidating power. The supply lines are precarious for a reason. PoptartsNinja fucked around with this message at 16:03 on Aug 20, 2022 |
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Aug 20, 2022 11:49
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Fearless posted:I think Yori's being set up to have some problems with Toranaga, in addition to Alaric looking to flex as Ilkhan. Julian's position isn't exactly secure either. She has already given him the ultimatum to either keep New Avalon for the Dragon or die trying, and given the cover of Dominions Divided I feel like there's definitely a likely outcome to that. I'd be surprised if Julian fails to retake the capital, not because he's the designated protagonist in that area of space but also because that's the way the wind has been blowing since Shattered Fortress.
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Aug 20, 2022 15:00
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Ferrosol posted:Post-Jihad there was a soft coup where the ruling duke of the Draconis March and husband to the ruler of the Federated Suns was thrown out and replaced by one of his more militant and conservative cousins. Said cousin then started a low-level border war/skirmish with the Draconis Combine which dragged on for 50 years until the DC decided enough was enough and threw a full invasion at the area and just steamrolled the entire March and headed on a road trip to New Avalon. Also Hohiro was a weak leader who got pushed around by Kiyomori Minamoto, a dude who declared himself Kanrei during the Jihad and got to keep it.
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Aug 20, 2022 17:00
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Do any of you folks or any of the folks you play/have played against stick only to one faction? Like abandoning a certain mech because it belonged to another house, even if it fits the play style and lance on the table? Ive never played against randoms and basically just with the same couple of folks, and we field whatever we want, no fucks given if they don’t fit the faction.
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Aug 20, 2022 18:37
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A lot of my forces are made up exclusively with products from one manufacturer, no points if you can guess which one.
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Aug 20, 2022 18:39
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Well yeah, but everyone loves Quikscell. Quikscell. We're occasionally Adequate!
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Aug 20, 2022 18:46
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I like to play themed forces based on the Master Unit List faction-specific listings. It limits the huge selection and makes the choice easier. Word of Blake is my favorite because it lets me use my favorite 100 tonner, the Archangel Dominus
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Aug 20, 2022 18:46
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I love writing TO&Es and organizing forces so I've been very busy poring over the Master Unit List and availability tables doing exactly that. My clan mechs are getting split between Smoke Jaguar's Third Jaguar Cavaliers and Jade Falcon's Fifth Battle Cluster because I don't like the "good" clans very much; I don't really like apologia for authoritarian eugenicists so playing as the Wolves feels more icky to me. My Inner Sphere mechs are getting split between DC's Second Legion of Vega and my own mercenary group, the Fifth Apollo Regulars. I have written up the Regulars to be a regiment-sized relic of the Amaris Civil War similar to the Eridani Light Horse, but instead of being descended from SLDF forces they're instead descended from a Rim Worlds Republic unit that defected when the SLDF invaded the Republic and then fought against Amaris in the Hegemony. I'm writing them to have a lot of the older Periphery/Rim Republican Army/borderline pirate character that I like, so their officers are elected, stuff like that. I've got a whole write-up in line with Combat Manual: Mercenaries because that's the kind of stuff I get hyper-fixated on and love doing. The Legion of Vega are there to fight Smoke Jaguar on Luthien and because I like the idea of a gently caress-ups battalion quietly resisting their fascist leadership. One thing I like about Battletech is it's written in such a way that weirdos like me can get super into the specifics of "this unit should have these mechs" but it's also fine to just throw four of whatever together, call it a lance, and say that it's salvage. Both approaches work, and that's Cool and Good.
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Aug 20, 2022 19:46
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I ended up having a company of poo poo that doesn't fit in my 2nd Donegal Guards because I was definitely running out of ideas by the third battalion. I decided that they would be captured hardware converted into OpFor lances. If they just sold a Bucket O' Bug Mechs it definitely wouldn't exist.
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Aug 20, 2022 19:53
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Dr. Lunchables posted:Do any of you folks or any of the folks you play/have played against stick only to one faction? Like abandoning a certain mech because it belonged to another house, even if it fits the play style and lance on the table? i have a massive inventory of stls (like maybe as many as 500 mechs/variants, i'm going thru finally making a spreadsheet for them all), and my play group just make companies out of whatever suits our fancy. timeline and faction be damned
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Aug 20, 2022 20:18
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I've definitely done poo poo like "can a lance of Atlases beat a company of Cicadas", but I gave up on "could an Atlas beat 20 Savannah Masters" because jesus was that hard to manage.
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Aug 20, 2022 20:28
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I just recently got into the mini side of battletech, but I just answer "merc company" if anyone asks the faction I'm playing as. I also used it as an excuse to do a gaudy color scheme.
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Aug 20, 2022 22:56
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Floppychop posted:I just recently got into the mini side of battletech, but I just answer "merc company" if anyone asks the faction I'm playing as. yep. exactly this
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Aug 20, 2022 23:45
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General Battuta posted:How did the Combine get from the semi-detente with the Fedsuns back in the 3060s to invading them again? I’m not doubting it’s plausible, just curious about the specific turns. In addition to what Ferrosol said, you also had the scandal of Combine nobles finding out that Kitsune Kurita was VSD's son, causing a lot of angst. Harrison Davion and Vincent Kurita were on pretty frosty terms in 3135. Also, there was a lot of discontent with Vincent, during the Dark Age story all of the major Warlords saw him as a weak Coordinator leading the Combine to ruin, and Toranaga just went further and had them all assassinated, before installing Yori. On the Fed's Sun side, you have Caleb Davion who was looking for a fight and was also literally insane. Not to get into all the ways he completely sabotaged his own war machine due to ego. Fearless posted:I think Yori's being set up to have some problems with Toranaga, in addition to Alaric looking to flex as Ilkhan. Julian's position isn't exactly secure either. In Shattered Fortress, Yori was already turning the tables of Toranaga, becoming less a puppet, especially when she unveiled that super-special DEST regiment of troops Toranaga had no idea was being formed. I feel the heat Julian is getting is pretty dumb, same as Trillian. Both are attempting to save their realms but their subordinates are giving them grief because it isn't... fast enough? Good enough? If I went from having Caleb "Literally Insane" Davion" in charge and getting 20% of my military wiped out in a month or two to Julian "knows what he's doing" Davion, I'd cut him some slack. Still needs to get hitched though. Catalyst, give me my feudal dynastic marriages already!
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Aug 21, 2022 02:06
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If you remember the original Mercenaries' Handbook, the hard luck unit in the back (Wilson's Hussars) made a template for the few times we'd do campaigns as mercs. It always seemed more fun to play down on their luck broke-rear end units than whatever Kell Hound/Wolf Dragoons powergamer bullshit most people wanted. About a year after the 3050 readout came out, and when people were still trying to figure how to make balanced games against Clan bullshit, our local gaming store tried to do a tournament in the form of a big overall planetary invasion, and most players chose Clans, even though I think they were only allowed 60% of the tonnage. (It was a failure for a lot of just organizational reasons on their part.) We had just wrapped up a campaign with a unit that had only seven working Mechs, most of them with damage. (We ignored the fact that the campaign ended in 3029). I remember the snotty little poo poo I played against; it bugged him that I was using an weird number of Mechs, with pre-existing damage, even though that gave me no advantage under the rules. This is before they even had minis for the Clanners- we were using cardboard cutouts for most Mechs. I know I was just under 400 tons, and I think he ended up using only 4 Mechs because he wanted to use a Mad Cat really, really badly. I remember he went apeshit when a headshot from an armless Hatchetman took out his Mad Cat's cockpit on turn 2. He hosed the rest of my unit up badly with a couple of Cougars and a Nova, but I ended up grinding it out and ending it with 3 basically hollowed-out Mechs (a Phoenix Hawk, a Clint, and I can't remember what else) just gang-stomping his Nova to dirt. I laughed my rear end off watching him fume outside waiting for his mom to pick him up.
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Aug 21, 2022 02:09
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Crazy Joe Wilson posted:In addition to what Ferrosol said, you also had the scandal of Combine nobles finding out that Kitsune Kurita was VSD's son, causing a lot of angst. Harrison Davion and Vincent Kurita were on pretty frosty terms in 3135. Also, there was a lot of discontent with Vincent, during the Dark Age story all of the major Warlords saw him as a weak Coordinator leading the Combine to ruin, and Toranaga just went further and had them all assassinated, before installing Yori. Julian's main pushback was taking his army to New Syrtis and retaking that world, rather than focusing on recapturing New Avalon. Maybe it was the right call or maybe Julian could have New Avalon as his capital right now instead of New Syrtis, who knows. But when it got a bunch of people killed and Julian himself almost died, he had to give up some of his military authority to Erik Sandoval. And giving Julian a powerful vassal is a good idea, because the Federated Suns needs to have some texture added to it. The traditional status quo of "we're all just generic people as imagined by a white sci-fi author in the 80s" and "one of our march lords might have some kind of idea but he only has three regiments to order around" is why the Federated Suns has always been the worst Successor State. Trillian's problem is the other way around, she's not acting decisively enough. One single RCT decided to cut loose and they took eleven worlds, including Pandora (which has not only a Clantech factory, but a military academy campus). And it's not like the 26th Arcturan was the cream of the crop or anything, they were a regular-rated unit at just over half-strength after having been stitched together from two destroyed units. Meanwhile you have all four Royal Guard RCTs on the Wolf border and yet Gallery is still under Clan rule. Some Clanner is walking around in the house Katrina Steiner was born in wiping his rear end with her papers because Trillian's too afraid of Alaric (yes, Hour of the Wolf made it clear she was afraid of him).
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Aug 21, 2022 02:24
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I don't think I ever fully came back to the fiction after the big Dark Age timejump. The setting from 3025 to 3050ish was a progression of events, then all of a sudden oh yeah by the way everything changed, the big power of the IS is Terran Hegemony 2.0, the main factions are new poo poo like Steel Wolves, and I just never could adjust.
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Aug 21, 2022 02:54
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The writers admitted that it was too large of a time skip, since it basically forcibly retired everyone's characters. Personally, I think all the events of the 3050s are way too crowded anyway and they needed to space things out, but if they're going to focus on smaller-scale battles for the time being another one probably isn't necessary quite yet.
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Aug 21, 2022 03:06
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GD_American posted:I don't think I ever fully came back to the fiction after the big Dark Age timejump. The setting from 3025 to 3050ish was a progression of events, then all of a sudden oh yeah by the way everything changed, the big power of the IS is Terran Hegemony 2.0, the main factions are new poo poo like Steel Wolves, and I just never could adjust. The groups you could play as in the Mechwarrior: Dark Age clix game were mostly tiny little militant groups fighting over a fairly small part of the Inner Sphere in low-intensity conflicts. Many of the major long-running factions still existed in some form, but were not the focus of the events of the game. While there are some game products that have information on how to play those little groups like Era Digest: Dark Ages, they are not and never were a major concern of actual BattleTech. edit: BattleTech itself never did a time skip, but it was bound to the stuff that was said to have happened in Mechwarrior: Dark Age. I think that the writers of BattleTech proper did a pretty good job reconciling everything even if the decisions they were bound to weren't so great. BattleMaster fucked around with this message at 03:12 on Aug 21, 2022 |
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Aug 21, 2022 03:07
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The Jihad stuff came after Dark Age, though. They literally filled in the backstory, after the time skip. I know 20 Year Update was also a literal time skip, but most of the stuff in there (the War of 3039, the beginning of Lostech fielding) had already been covered in novels like Heir of the Dragon.
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Aug 21, 2022 03:25
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Working links and better formatting on the original post. Gives a lot more background I was not aware of. quote:[Tabletop Wargames] The self-inflicted decline and fall of a Battletech author (or when your blog overheats and suffers an ammo explosion) 
Comstar fucked around with this message at 03:31 on Aug 21, 2022 |
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Aug 21, 2022 03:25
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GD_American posted:The Jihad stuff came after Dark Age, though. They literally filled in the backstory, after the time skip. As I said, Mechwarrior: Dark Age skipped ahead but BattleTech proceeded linearly. When MW: DA was being produced, BattleTech was doing FedCom Civil War and then the Jihad. After the Jihad was over they did early Republic stuff and then moved on to the Dark Age proper from there and now is post Dark Age. edit: To say it a different way, they were both completely different games with completely different focuses. BattleTech under its post-FASA owners proceeded from where FASA left it off. They had to incorporate some lore decisions from MW:DA as they went but you could have just completely ignored MW:DA and just kept playing BattleTech with the factions you liked. None of the factions were replaced with the Dark Age ones although some - like a bunch of merc units and Clans - died over the course of the Jihad and Wars of Reaving. You could have ignored MW:DA and followed the evolution of the lore and your favorite factions as new books and TROs and such were released at a pretty steady rate. You wouldn't have even been aware of the small-scale brush war factions like Swordsworn or Bannson's Raiders unless you went out of your way to learn about them in the couple of products specifically released to cover them, because while they were the focus of MW:DA, they were never an important part of BattleTech's universe as a whole. BattleMaster fucked around with this message at 04:14 on Aug 21, 2022 |
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Aug 21, 2022 03:59
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OK, I see the point. I never made the distinction because I had long quit playing tabletop by that point and just kept tabs online on where the fiction was going.
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Aug 21, 2022 04:15
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Well to be fair, that era of BattleTech was very confusing. I think the short lived "Classic BattleTech" rebranding was just the dumbest thing because I don't think anyone would confuse completely different names "BattleTech" and "MechWarrior" without it. But it did make it seem like it was just a product line that had been abandoned except for some basic life support.
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Aug 21, 2022 04:16
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