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The SW book is a very massive step down from tro 3039. That book was just an incredible value, every single intro tech unit in the entire game in one book.
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Jun 23, 2023 18:33
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350 pt AS AAR. House Davion (SwordSworn) vs. Mercs over a contested city. Mercenaries have landed and captured the outskirts of the town separated by a long canal bridge. AFFS commanded to push out this probing attack. The battlefield.    Davion Company: 1 Heavy Battle, 1 Medium Battle, 1 Cavalry.  Mercenary Company: 1 Heavy Battle, 1 Cavalry, 1 Urbie lance + Hatchetman  Sniping across the bridge begins, several lucky hits are scored on the merc Atlas. Only 1 hit in return on the Marauder.   By the second round, Merc Atlas has taken too many criticals and falls. Davion medium battle lance advances, Crusader gets savaged, then pulls back. Cavalry lances continue on both sides to reposition in attempts to flank.     The Davions press their luck and start advancing down the bridge with heavy firepower. The mercenaries create a solid line at the end of the bridge, rather than stay within the town, and a fierce firefight ensues. 'Mechs fall on both sides, but the Davions keep advancing, pushing fallen 'mechs out of the way. The mercenaries eventually run out of machines first.     When the medium battle lance reaches the other side the mercenaries begin to break and run. Out of two lances, only two Urbanmechs are left. The Thug, Atlas, both Black Knights, Hachetman are all down. But the Davio heavy battle lance is also in a watery grave, save their Marauder.   The only place the mercenaries are clearly winning is on the right side of the bridge, where their heavier cavalry lance is making mincemeat of the Davion cavalry. But with the remains of the battle lances advancing towards them, they must retreat.   For God! For the Suns! For the Prince!
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Jun 23, 2023 18:55
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Good ol' cardboard and felt. So much mileage for a low, low price. Looks nice, too.
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Jun 23, 2023 19:39
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Defiance Industries posted:The SW book is a very massive step down from tro 3039. That book was just an incredible value, every single intro tech unit in the entire game in one book. 3039 is probably the best TRO they've made, but it's still missing some units that I'd really like to have in a truly comprehensive intro tech book like the Chameleon and Crockette, intro tech versions of the Annihilator and Imp, the Merlin, and the "proliferation" mechs like the Ymir and Firebee.
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Jun 23, 2023 20:00
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Crazy Joe Wilson posted:350 pt AS AAR. House Davion (SwordSworn) vs. Mercs over a contested city. Mercenaries have landed and captured the outskirts of the town separated by a long canal bridge. AFFS commanded to push out this probing attack. Rad AAR and sweet battleboard
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Jun 23, 2023 20:17
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Those hex hills are awesome, how'd you get the grid on?
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Jun 23, 2023 23:41
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Thanks guys.Count Thrashula posted:Those hex hills are awesome, how'd you get the grid on? So the terrain is called Geo-Hex and made by this guy (https://www.facebook.com/geohex/?ref=page_internal). He sells terrain with and without hexes. This stuff is all my friend's, he got enough stuff so his son and him could do 4' x 8" game boards with all 3D terrain.
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Jun 24, 2023 01:58
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So, in Battletech lore...has a mercenary army or army commander ever tried to take over a great house? Presumably it failed? Seems rather strange it hasn't been done before...as it happens in history so often, going back to old J.C of Rome himself.
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Jun 24, 2023 10:11
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Comstar posted:So, in Battletech lore...has a mercenary army or army commander ever tried to take over a great house? Presumably it failed? Virtually all the successful coups in BT history came from in-house or from more distant branches of the family line, including the von Rohrs Dynasty. I really can't think of one? There's plenty of merc mutinies but nothing of that flavor.
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Jun 24, 2023 12:14
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Arguably that's what Amaris did.
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Jun 24, 2023 13:27
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Even larger mercenary groups, like Wolf's Dragoons were only 5 mech regiments, which Sarna says is roughly 540 to 900 mechs (108 to 180 mechs per regiment). That's a lot, but not enough to take over a bigger house. Draconis Combine controls 350 systems. In 2750, they had 55 mech regiments, 6,000 to 10,000 mechs. In 2765 they were at 115 mech regiments and thousands of conventional regiments. 2786 161 regiments, 3025 they were down to 80 mech regiments and were the second largest military. They were back up to 99 by the clan invasion. edit: In 3050: Snord's Irregulars had 1 battalion (~36 mechs). Grey Death Legion had 1 mech battalion, 1 infantry battalion, and 1 aerospace battalion. Eridani Light Horse had 3 regiments Kell Hounds had 2 regiments Chainclaw fucked around with this message at 16:35 on Jun 24, 2023 |
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Jun 24, 2023 16:31
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Battletech lore has to keep things basically the same over centuries so that fans can keep it all straight. So, it’s way way way more stable than any actual history outside of the designated setting-change moments (clan invasion, jihad, ilkhan.) actual fuedal history would have things like the fedcom union and dissolution all the time and dynasties getting overthrown. BT blob borders change a little but each blob gets one dynasty and that dynasty stays. Imo the interesting stuff in the fiction all happens in the margins. The davions are never going away, but a local planetary baron and her over ambitious chief of her guard? Anything can happen there.
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Jun 24, 2023 17:01
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Chaos March was a thing and really should be happening more often
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Jun 24, 2023 17:05
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I would love it if each ruling dynasty had a rival internal dynasty scheming for their downfall AND those two dynasties periodically changed places. Would add a ton of intrigue and plot hooks. Instead best case scenario you get a designated multi century loser ducal dynasty.
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Jun 24, 2023 17:11
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Comstar posted:So, in Battletech lore...has a mercenary army or army commander ever tried to take over a great house? Presumably it failed? Mercenaries are a significantly smaller proportion of the army when compared to Rome. The combined number of hired soldiers serving a great house is seldom more than 10% of their total troops. The armies are more Napoleonic than anything, really.
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Jun 24, 2023 17:23
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Best Friends posted:I would love it if each ruling dynasty had a rival internal dynasty scheming for their downfall AND those two dynasties periodically changed places. Would add a ton of intrigue and plot hooks. Instead best case scenario you get a designated multi century loser ducal dynasty. The devs never let them win, but Steiner had Lestrade and Davion had Hasek, Marik had Humphreys and I guess Kurita had von Rohrs who won for a while. Liao don't gently caress around.
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Jun 24, 2023 17:44
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Count Thrashula posted:Those hex hills are awesome, how'd you get the grid on? For real, I long for the day of having a battle mat setup like that.
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Jun 24, 2023 19:24
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Liao has Liao
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Jun 24, 2023 19:26
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Comstar posted:So, in Battletech lore...has a mercenary army or army commander ever tried to take over a great house? Presumably it failed? Caesar was an army commander but not of a mercenary army (and also he was already a politician too). You want military coups, then Amaris? Kerensky, sort of?
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Jun 24, 2023 22:47
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Lyran Commonwealth briefly went through a fun time with Vedet Brewer
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Jun 24, 2023 22:52
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would vedet brewer (and before that the Warrior's Cabal over throwing Peter Steiner-Davion) count for those? there's also the Kuritan Hidden War. gently caress, beaten by Sidesaddle.
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Jun 25, 2023 03:45
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The Warrior's Cabal didn't overthrow Archon Peter. The Cabal is a Davion thing and while they did kill Peter Regular Davion, his son Andrew (Hanse's dad) turned around and murdered them all.
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Jun 25, 2023 04:00
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I mean, the Von Rohrs can't be overlooked considering they killed nearly all of House Kurita. And then the McAllisters killed all the Von Rohrs and oh look at this blood test from a decade ago proves Martin McAllister is definitely actually a Kurita. Except Martin McAllister only had a daughter, Siriwan McAllister, and being a totall rear end in a top hat Martin McAllister declared she could never succeed him. So she of course married someone with the Kurita name. Unfortunately, her husband nearly immediately died of depression and eating too much bad shellfish (and totally not poison) after her son was born and she became regent for forty years (she definitely would've given that up sooner but of course her son was onboard with her staying in power while he had fun). Eventually she did retire to an advisory position and her son ruled for 35 reasonably prosperous for House Kurita years after which he and both of his heirs sequentially died of eating bad shellfish (and definitely not poison). So at the age of 109, Siriwan McAllister became Coordinator of the Draconis Combine having obeyed the letter of her father's decree by not directly succeeding him, reigned for two years, and retired again after putting Sanethia Kurita, another woman, on the throne. Unfortunately, Sanethia's heir Urizen Kurita II was the colossal weeaboo who's most responsible for the Draconis Combine's modern culture. PoptartsNinja fucked around with this message at 20:08 on Jul 21, 2023 |
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Jun 25, 2023 05:20
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Siriwan was one of the main characters in a Shrapnel piece I realized would never get published. It was about the captain of Leonard Kurita's palace guard and how he was complicit in Leonard's murder. I thought it was a neat idea but it was still ultimately a story about a guy standing in a hallway until various people talked to him
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Jun 25, 2023 06:07
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See, like, I’m not thrilled with monarchies on a principle level so I can’t get into game of Thrones where it’s the political machinations of a handful of rich nobles controlling the livelihoods of an entire span of people fighting and dying for them, and similarly I have a problem with Battletech hinging on the political machinations of like 4 noble houses that no one could ever overthrow controlling the lives of millions of people fighting and dying for a tiny monarchy of assholes who’s bloodlines are never going away so I can’t tell if maybe Battletech’s fiction isn’t fit for me. That said Canopus seems to be alright even if their Matriarchy seems to be entirely controlled by the same bloodline which isn’t exactly my jam.
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Jun 25, 2023 06:39
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Xenomrph posted:That said Canopus seems to be alright even if their Matriarchy seems to be entirely controlled by the same bloodline which isn’t exactly my jam. You mean the people who decided they would fight to put people under Capellan rule in exchange for military technology? Canopus apologia is dumb as gently caress. They don't have slaves but you know what they do have? Indentured servants.
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Jun 25, 2023 07:01
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So what you’re telling me is every faction in Battletech is hosed up and unlikeable.
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Jun 25, 2023 07:20
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The Lyrans are probably the best when they're not run by a genocidal maniac but on a good day they're still run by nobility and they sell officer ranks.
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Jun 25, 2023 07:23
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They don't sell them, you just have a much easier time getting into an academy if you know the right people. The lower levels of the Lyran officer corps are some of the best in the Inner Sphere because they constantly have to compensate for the rot at Kommandant to Hauptmann-General. It's the Canopians who straight up sell promotions. BattleMaster posted:The Lyrans are probably the best when they're not run by a genocidal maniac but on a good day they're still run by nobility and they sell officer ranks. Even under a maniac, Lyrans all have the right to food, shelter and education as basic human rights.
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Jun 25, 2023 07:25
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Defiance Industries posted:Even under a maniac, Lyrans all have the right to food, shelter and education as basic human rights. This is nothing next to the Free World's right to vote. ...and the duty to violently rebel whenever someone else votes wrong.
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Jun 25, 2023 13:43
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the outworlds alliance is kinda chill, sometimes at the very least, i like their they only have three medals for their military: most improved (ground forces), most improved (air forces), and "defied odds to keep civilians safe"
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Jun 25, 2023 14:59
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Xenomrph posted:See, like, I’m not thrilled with monarchies on a principle level so I can’t get into game of Thrones where it’s the political machinations of a handful of rich nobles controlling the livelihoods of an entire span of people fighting and dying for them, and similarly I have a problem with Battletech hinging on the political machinations of like 4 noble houses that no one could ever overthrow controlling the lives of millions of people fighting and dying for a tiny monarchy of assholes who’s bloodlines are never going away so I can’t tell if maybe Battletech’s fiction isn’t fit for me. BattleTech isn't anywhere near as pessimistic or nihilistic as GoT is in their characters, most BattleTech characters, noble or not, actually believe in what they say and fighting for their nations, which is probably closer to history than is the travesty that is GoT/ASOIAF. The good guys actually do win usually in BattleTech, evil is often punished, and heroes can make a difference. And BattleTech has unfortunately moved away from the noble houses scheming theme for a while now into just hard-scifi military fiction. To me it makes the stories less engaging, as there's only so many times I can read about "mr. tough guy mcsoldier fighting a tough battle, who has no family and his only friends are in his lance, and yay they won". quote:So what you’re telling me is every faction in Battletech is hosed up and unlikeable. Far from it. I would say with a few exceptions, every BattleTech faction is actually fairly realistic. All these realms have committed atrocities, but almost all of them also believe they're trying to live up to ideals and make the universe better for their people. You have some outliers like the Draconis Combine who are outright fascists or The Clans who are warrior-based communists, but Davions, Steiners, FWLs, Canopus, and many others are pretty similar to most states today or monarchies of a century or two ago. States that bumble along, sometimes making pigheaded decisions, but not acting irrationally cruel or murderous just to be edgy and 'realistic' (f*ck you GRRM for misrepresenting history and calling it realistic). And even in those states that are pretty unapologetically bad you can still find individuals or even groups who are trying to do the right thing or be better than their environment, or who believe the state can and should be better than it curently is.
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Jun 25, 2023 18:55
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Yeah, I think one of the strengths of the setting is how multifaceted most of the factions are. On the surface level they all have one or two-sentence summaries, but they all have a lot more to them. Part of that is due to deliberate decisions made when writing the various faction books, and part of it is the legacy of 30 years and dozens of different authors putting their stamp on things. It winds up being more "realistic" when all of the different successor states have nuance, but it makes for better wargame factions too; you want all of the factions to have both reasons to get attached to them and play as them, and to have reasons to dislike them and get pumped about fighting against them.
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Jun 25, 2023 19:23
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Ymmv but I would just play the game. It isn't like 30 cents on every dollar you spend is split between the Queen of England and Vladimir Putin. If you want, you can make up your own space anarcho-communist workers utopia in the periphery, where there are no gods, no masters, only 'Mechs I've only been involved with the hobby for about six months, but the vibe I get is that CGL wants to focus more on the periphery and mercenary stories and less on the Feudal drama.
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Jun 25, 2023 20:15
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CGL's current stated goal is to put out stuff spotlighting areas in the IS where small-scale fights are going on as a setting for player campaigns. If you look at TR and EA, they both follow the basic mold of "great powers of the area move cautiously and that allows individual actors to take advantage. They don't have the full resources of their nation so they have to recruit small change guys (like you, the players!) to help out." It's a much better choice to go "Hey Fontaine Marik wants to attack the Wolves but the Captain-General won't give him the go-order, so he has to use troops that are personally loyal and supplement them with mercs he hires from his personal fortune" versus the old style of "Victor shows up and does Victor things. He's the only thing that matters. He brought nine regiments of troops with him."
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Jun 25, 2023 21:51
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The noble stuff always had this sorta old timey soap opera feel. Like it's just this handful of ppl dramaing at each other in budget sets. It never worked that well for me. The old Stackpole Melissa and Hanse trilogy etc. Stuff like Wolves on the Border felt a tad more lived in but overall it's probably better to write about the little guys and let the reader imagine the crazy poo poo going on at the top that sets it all in motion.
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Jun 25, 2023 22:05
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aphid_licker posted:The noble stuff always had this sorta old timey soap opera feel. Like it's just this handful of ppl dramaing at each other in budget sets. It never worked that well for me. The old Stackpole Melissa and Hanse trilogy etc. Stuff like Wolves on the Border felt a tad more lived in but overall it's probably better to write about the little guys and let the reader imagine the crazy poo poo going on at the top that sets it all in motion. I think there's room and necessity for both stories, but the majority of the novels should be on the smaller side of things. If you're constantly advancing the story it makes it hard for people to roleplay or pick a faction if there's a high chance you're going to axe it. The Republic of the Sphere was steadily gaining fans among older fans as more and more content came out for it, and then !boom! IlClan killed it off.
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Jun 25, 2023 22:17
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e: Never mind
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Jun 25, 2023 23:23
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Ignore the meta, never read the novels, play cool mechs that kick a guys head off. Sometimes your mech has a skull on it! That poo poo is pretty neat. If you start saying something about “Kerensky blah blah blah” during our game, I am going to punch your mechs face through its butt. Stompy robots fun.
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Jun 26, 2023 01:28
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aphid_licker posted:The noble stuff always had this sorta old timey soap opera feel. The genre is literally called "space opera" for a reason. I'd be fine with them slowly advancing the timeline but only doing so from a variety of ground-level perspectives. I don't need Alaric Ward internal monologue #4198 to propel the plot along.
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Jun 26, 2023 02:44
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