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Kesper North posted:I was hoping for a comparative essay on Battletech manufacturer design philosophies, ngl Corean is an odd duck. One of the few multinationals (most big Mech manufacturers are tied to one nation), with branches in the Federated Suns and Free Worlds League, but it's under strict government control in both nations, and unable to transfer technology or capital between the two branches. Also supposedly the only manufacturer with fully automated facilities (New Avalon), at least up through the Jihad. But that's not necessarily design philosophies. The only thing that comes to mind is GM = Autocannon, but that's usually considered a Davion thing. Comstar posted:Wait, when and where did THAT happen? No clue, just a story I heard forever, probably apocryphal. One of those "sounds like something GW would do" stories.
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May 6, 2023 00:45
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Defiance Industries' core philosophy is to produce better quality equipment than anyone else on the market. Their stuff has always been better quality but the trend really took hold in the 2990s when Greydon Brewer got control of the company. One of his lancemates got killed because there were shoddy parts in his machine, and so since he took over DI has instituted extremely stringent QA testing, which has continued even after he died. DI also has one of the leading R&D teams for the LC and incorporate cutting edge equipment, whether that's being the guys who were tapped to make the first run of the Hatchetman or developing a production line for Clan XLs in the 3070s. The one thing they don't do is OmniMechs; Coventry Metal Works gets all the contracts for those.
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May 6, 2023 01:27
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Marx Headroom posted:These look fuckin sweet, nice job! Thanks! Heres my take on the celestials.  Also work-in-progress on this lil' guy 
Saint Celestine fucked around with this message at 02:01 on May 6, 2023 |
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May 6, 2023 01:40
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oops. post instead of edit
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May 6, 2023 01:56
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Saint Celestine posted:Well... there is Quikscell... 
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May 6, 2023 04:14
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Quikscell may be a scam but it also helps numerous planetary militias arm themselves so it's impossible to say if it's good or bad
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May 6, 2023 04:17
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So I have a question about Rasalhague Dominion faction paint schemes. They don't have their own entry on either Unit Color Compendium or Camo Specs but I managed to find the Rasalhague Galaxy scheme under Clan Ghost Bear which seems to be the only color scheme explicitly associated with the Rasalhague Dominion. Is that the only one and if not where are the others? Does the Dominion just use the same color schemes as the Free Rasalhague Republic and Clan Ghost Bear both? I know this doesn't matter that much for putting stuff on the table but just for my own verisimilitude I want to paint them up right and would like more options than just the single scheme.
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May 6, 2023 05:01
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A lot of the Rasalhague Dominion Galaxies that aren't just the usual Greek letter format are made up of Clusters that are drawn from Free Rasalhague Republic regiments that got absorbed. A lot of those just used "sensible camo" as their colours so you've got a lot of options. Tundra and Valkyrie Galaxies are detailed on camospecs, but they haven't got any examples so maybe you can be the first. Also note that the Rasalhague Galaxy has two colourschemes, since the Gunzberg Eagles Cluster kept their original scheme.
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May 6, 2023 05:20
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Random question about Alpha Strike that I don't think I've seen come up before: are custom mechs a thing?
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May 6, 2023 05:22
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The Alpha Strike Companion introduced those rules, and I believe they've been rolled into the Commander's Edition of the main rules now.
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May 6, 2023 06:05
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Any tips on where to look in the Commander's Edition? I've looking at the table of contents and nothing is jumping out at me.
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May 6, 2023 08:32
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You first need to build the mech in classic and then convert it to Alpha Strike. The conversion rules weren't brought to Commander's Edition from the Companion but there are various apps that can do it for you. Mech Factory for Android can do it for you and I think the latest version of MekHQ can do it too.
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May 6, 2023 08:36
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Atlas Hugged posted:Random question about Alpha Strike that I don't think I've seen come up before: are custom mechs a thing? I know they exist, Fortress makes one (the Perceval) and it’s the only one legal for use in their yearly tournament.
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May 6, 2023 09:08
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Thanks everyone! A couple of guys here are pretty interested in Battletech, but the complicated rules are a turn off so I suggested Alpha Strike and they clapped back with "but can we make custom units?" so it seems there may no be pleasing them, but at the same time, technically you can if you're willing to put in the effort!
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May 6, 2023 09:20
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Alpha strike, for when you want to make custom units but don't want to see them get their arms blown off
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May 6, 2023 09:39
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Target is getting an exclusive Solaris themed box set. https://bg.battletech.com/news/coming-soon-battletech-essentials-boxed-set-exclusively-at-target/ Solaris always seemed weird to me. "here's these precious irreplaceable war machines we can't make any more that nation states covet to turn the tide of any battle and advance grand territorial ambitions. And here's where we do demolition derbies with them." Owlbear Camus fucked around with this message at 13:15 on May 6, 2023 |
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May 6, 2023 13:08
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so it's just a new beginner box?
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May 6, 2023 13:22
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Oh drat we're finally getting record sheets for Legend Killer? Also thankful we're getting a mold of Centurion that doesn't look like it's trying to figure out if someone is at the door.
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May 6, 2023 13:26
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With a new map, looks like
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May 6, 2023 13:26
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Len posted:so it's just a new beginner box? Yes. Themed, new minis, and with another round of polish on the rule book, but it's using the Beginner ruleset (they changed the name because for some reason Target didn't want "Beginner" in the title).
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May 6, 2023 15:38
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I wonder if the quickstart rules have melee included. I think the current set of beginner rules is a bad idea because whooping mech rear end in close combat rules and why wouldn’t you include it - especially in an arena combat-themed box!
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May 6, 2023 16:51
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Not that I recall, but I'll take a look when I get home in a couple of days if no one else clarifies first. EDIT: There's a tear-down here if you want to take a look. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WeedyFWOfc&t=448s Xotl fucked around with this message at 17:16 on May 6, 2023 |
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May 6, 2023 16:55
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Owlbear Camus posted:Solaris always seemed weird to me.
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May 6, 2023 18:32
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The original status quo from 2E of no working factories of any kind and the only new mechs being assembled out of stockpiles of spare parts left over from the Star League worked if the game was going to be Ogre, where it's just a board game in a box that's one and done. Once it became successful and they decided to turn it into a full product line, they had to walk a lot of that back, so we get TRO: 3025 where those stockpiles of spare parts are suddenly the surviving factories.
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May 6, 2023 18:36
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To be fair, Ogre also wasn't one and done. G.E.V. exists and is good  It being a unexpectedly wild success story really explains a lot.
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May 6, 2023 19:41
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They had Ross Babcock on their livestream at the end of the kickstarter and he talked about how they only printed 1000 copies of BattleDroids and were blown away when they sold all of them, so they had to order another print run, and they sold all of that one...
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May 6, 2023 19:54
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Owlbear Camus posted:Target is getting an exclusive Solaris themed box set. Solaris doesn’t make sense but it’s really cool
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May 6, 2023 21:57
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long-rear end nips Diane posted:x doesn’t make sense but it’s really cool battletech.txt
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May 7, 2023 01:38
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Saint Celestine posted:
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May 7, 2023 07:23
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meme aside, I think the base urbanmech is kinda poo poo. Its too drat slow.
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May 7, 2023 07:49
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I'm accumulating a company of vehicles for Alpha Strike. Are there any notable vehicle-centric units and/or interesting colour schemes to try out? Otherwise I might just paint them all a fairly standard Soviet or SLDF green and call them planetary militia.
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May 7, 2023 08:12
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Most UrbanMechs are poo poo (I say that with nothing but affection in my heart) but the UM-AIV is probably the best value per BV of any 'mech in the entire game
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May 7, 2023 12:26
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The idea of an AC20 on an urbie frame makes me giggle to no end. The level of absolutely rude surprise that would be to anyone it shot at can’t be less than extreme.
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May 7, 2023 12:29
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Z the IVth posted:I'm accumulating a company of vehicles for Alpha Strike. Are there any notable vehicle-centric units and/or interesting colour schemes to try out? Otherwise I might just paint them all a fairly standard Soviet or SLDF green and call them planetary militia. Clan Hell's Horses are the first vehicle heavy groups that come to mind. Alpha Keshik has a sweet hot rod scheme. https://unitcolorcompendium.com/category/clan-hells-horses/
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May 7, 2023 14:29
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Any of the Davion or Steiner RCTs would have hefty vehicle components. Likewise, any unit with 'Militia' in their name should also probably have a lot of vehicles. With the exception of Thomas Marik's The Knights of the Inner Sphere, the Death Commandos, and probably the Sword of Light regiments, any of a nation's "premier" parade units should also have a vehicle element where the people who do the regiment's actual work live. Edit: Any of the surviving Dark Age formations, too. Like the Swordsworn, Spirit Cats, or Steel Wolves. It's almost a pity Bannson's dead, I liked the Raiders' color scheme. PoptartsNinja fucked around with this message at 15:30 on May 7, 2023 |
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May 7, 2023 14:46
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Depending on how willing you are to play the bad guy (and what timeframe you're playing), Davion's 1st Royal Cavaliers are an oddball red/grey https://unitcolorcompendium.com/2019/02/06/royal-cavaliers/ https://www.sarna.net/wiki/1st_Royal_Cavaliers They were the unit that Caleb Davion was leading when he got his head kicked in.
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May 7, 2023 15:20
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Okay so I remember that effective use of combined arms is one of the Good Guy Traits in Battletech fiction - iirc Davion and Wolf both get the "recognize the value of non-mech units" doctrinal quirk in the novels. And the very first GDL novel had Grayson Carlyle commanding PPC carriers and infantry with infernos and stuff. Was there any actual mechanical justification for this when the books were written, though? Weren't vehicles basically dog poo poo back then? I'm curious whether combined arms was more viable in the fiction than on the tabletop at first.
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May 7, 2023 16:29
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It's not that they were worse. It's just that the game was far more Mech-focused at first. Tech Readout 3025 (the most important early book published besides the rulebook) only had a few vehicles. TRO 3026, released a year later (in real life, lol) was an attempt to flesh out the vehicles of the universe. The novels also heavily ignored or denigrated vehicles for a long long time, which didn't help.
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May 7, 2023 16:34
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No I’m saying the opposite, vehicles WERE worse on the tabletop. The old critical hits table for vehicles really poo poo on them, they had a good chance of straight up dying to a single hit. At some point the vehicle rules got cleaned up to make them less of a joke, and BV as a balancing mechanic made vehicles and infantry more appealing too. And the novels didn’t ignore or denigrate vehicles, they featured vehicles pretty consistently (the ones I read at least), so I’m curious whether vehicles were ironically more viable in the fiction than on tabletop for a while.
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May 7, 2023 16:55
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Ah, completely misread what you were saying. I don't remember vehicles being pushed much in the fiction, but it's been forever since I read those books. The only thing that jumped to mind were a few vignettes from the Charette books (Wolves on the Border, Heir to the Dragon) and when Sortek got jumped by a few Vedettes. I know when the Com Guard became a thing there was a conscious push to represent combined arms in the fiction. e- well the atmospheric fighter wing in that Milan book where they went guerilla, too GD_American fucked around with this message at 17:43 on May 7, 2023 |
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May 7, 2023 17:07
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