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The Dragoons have four regiments and three independent battalions to their name by the end of Redemption Rites.
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Dec 4, 2023 20:01
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| # ? Jun 5, 2024 05:48 |
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I have aphantasia and thus have a really hard time imagining the size or shape of physical spaces. Someone can tell me, like, "I am two miles northeast of you" and it might as well be on the moon. I can't remember which side of my neighborhood is west and which is east without picturing the entire continental United States and then zooming in from there. I'm exactly the same god drat way with regiments, I couldn't begin to tell you how many mechs are in a regiment other than 'a lot'. A battalion is 36 right? And then regiment is the next thing up? e: I know this post is stupid when I could just google it, I'm just trying to share the experience of reading Battletech fiction while having a three wrinkle brain
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Dec 4, 2023 20:49
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General Battuta posted:I have aphantasia This just makes your writing blow my mind even harder, drat
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Dec 4, 2023 20:55
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General Battuta posted:I have aphantasia and thus have a really hard time imagining the size or shape of physical spaces. Someone can tell me, like, "I am two miles northeast of you" and it might as well be on the moon. I can't remember which side of my neighborhood is west and which is east without picturing the entire continental United States and then zooming in from there. Yes and yes. For the Dragoons in particular they also gently caress with it, though. Their regiments tend to be 3 battalions with a command company for 120 Mechs each, while their independent battalions are sometimes three companies with integrated combined arms support (Zeta Battalion in 3152 is three assault mech companies, and aerospace Squadron, and a platoon of battle armor) and sometimes three combined arms Trinaries (Wolf Spiders, Tarantulas) that are ~30 tanks, 15-20 mechs, and a ??? amount of battle armor.
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Dec 4, 2023 21:00
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Xotl posted:Sure. Between this and the upcoming house manuals, this is exactly what Battletech needs. Sometimes it can be too sandboxy, and having guides like this to provide a little handholding is fantastic.
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Dec 4, 2023 21:22
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PoptartsNinja posted:100% it's a new Wolf's Dragoons novel. It is a novel about the origins of Wolf's Dragoons. Because we definitely need to have that told now, decades after all of it had been explained. And you know what, I think pointless origin stories that nobody actually needs to read is the perfect use for stackpole.
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Dec 4, 2023 21:27
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Xotl posted:Sure. thank you! e:  it has a salvador dali mustache biosterous fucked around with this message at 01:08 on Dec 5, 2023 |
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Dec 5, 2023 01:05
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Strobe posted:The Dragoons have four regiments and three independent battalions to their name by the end of Redemption Rites. That was before the Battle for Terra. They suffered 90% casualties on Terra, only the Wolfsbane Battalion(s) were left untouched. At the start of Redemption Rites, Hack Kincaid has his battalion, and reforms Zeta Battalion. I think he has a third battalion by the end. But definitely they are not at their Dark Age era strength. Hack Kincaid put the rest of the Dragoon top brass on trial for this. Crazy Joe Wilson fucked around with this message at 02:05 on Dec 5, 2023 |
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Dec 5, 2023 01:47
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Is campaign operations good to have if my main engagement with the game is merc lance campaign stuff? Are there rules for like repair and salvage and poo poo? It's on sale this week.
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Dec 5, 2023 01:51
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Crazy Joe Wilson posted:That was before the Battle for Terra. They suffered 90% casualties on Terra, only the Wolfsbane Battalion(s) were left untouched. At the start of Redemption Rites, Hack Kincaid has his battalion, and reforms Zeta Battalion. I think he has a third battalion by the end. But definitely they are not at their Dark Age era strength. Alpha and Beta are still active but depleted following Terra (90% casualties is not "90% dead", theres a full regiment left including wounded split between the two), Delta and Epsilon are being re-established during the events of Redemption Rites. The Wolfsbane and Tarantulas didn't go to Terra, and Zeta Battalion is also stood back up during the events of that book. I can quote the passages in the book later. 
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Dec 5, 2023 02:04
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Strobe posted:Alpha and Beta are still active but depleted following Terra (90% casualties is not "90% dead", theres a full regiment left including wounded split between the two), Delta and Epsilon are being re-established during the events of Redemption Rites. The Wolfsbane and Tarantulas didn't go to Terra, and Zeta Battalion is also stood back up during the events of that book. I'll have to re-read it. Definitely makes them a bigger threat than I thought. Would've been better had they lost all their regiments and had to consolidate.
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Dec 5, 2023 02:23
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Owlbear Camus posted:Is campaign operations good to have if my main engagement with the game is merc lance campaign stuff? Are there rules for like repair and salvage and poo poo? It's on sale this week. Sort of. It's a bit of a hodgepodge as far as books go, but yes, it's campaign focused and specifically has a repair and salvage section. I'd say it's aimed at larger units: you may want something like Chaos Campaign Succession Wars for a small scale, but CO is broadly aimed at you.
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Dec 5, 2023 02:57
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Crazy Joe Wilson posted:I'll have to re-read it. Definitely makes them a bigger threat than I thought. Would've been better had they lost all their regiments and had to consolidate. They still lost a lot, make no mistake, but basically their first move after getting to FWL space was to hit every former Inner Sphere academy in Wolf Empire space that they could reach. Between that and their existing tradition of adopting war orphans they're well on their way back from a shattered regiment and change plus a couple independent battalions. There's absolutely no way their average skill didn't drop, hard, and the line regiments are still fractions of what a full strength regiment would be, but they exist on paper. Redemption Rites makes sure to mention that Zeta Battalion is basically hand-picked and is the best the Dragoons have to offer in 3152, with the independent battalions staying largely at the level they were. We don't get a good look at the line regiments in action, but I'd be surprised if any of them are more than 50% strength on paper and stuffed full of new recruits.
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Dec 5, 2023 02:57
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I just want them to release a Rabid Coyote 5-pack. It would make my Alpha Strike dreams come true.
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Dec 5, 2023 04:11
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If you read the two campaign books for the 4th SW, after Misery and the Dragoons fleeing for the Fed Suns, essentially parking on three planets and wiggling their dick at Takashi, they sucked up so much Draconis fire that they basically ended up with about a company left of active Dragoons, collapsed from exhaustion with Jaime Wolf and Natasha Kerensky patrolling while they slept.
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Dec 5, 2023 08:37
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Campaign Operations has a lot of really good content in it but what it's missing is a "here are specifically the steps you perform to have a game with a player-made unit fighting opfor run by a GM/another player's unit." You can put together something like that, but it would be nice to not have to put the work in and to just have some game rules that people you've never met before will have already agreed upon so you don't need to adjudicate/negotiate with new players. The closest thing to a one-source campaign book were the two Starterbooks from ages ago, which had complete campaign systems in it but weren't intended to have the flexibility to support more than just the included scenario. There hasn't been anything like that since. The Chaos Campaign system (which those two books used a variant of) were never presented in a complete form in one place in any other product, not even the two free PDFs with "Chaos Campaign" in their names or the big chonky Total Chaos book. Which is insane to me given how dozens and dozens of print books and PDF products refer to those rules. Unfortunately, while Catalyst has put out a lot of good products and is good about supporting their products with errata and companion pieces, campaigns are an area they just kind of put forth a lot of half-formed ideas where you have to go between a lot of books and then make up a lot of stuff on your own. (Their other problem is that some products are rushed and while they are fixed quickly with errata and the reprints/sequel products carry those fixes, woe be upon early adopters. I'm looking at you Alpha Strike, whose first printing had drat near half of its words and numbers replaced by the second printing, had probably the most rules changes BattleTech has ever had barring RPG editions, and didn't release with a proper point value system. It didn't take long for it to become something great but that first printing needed more time in the oven.) BattleMaster fucked around with this message at 18:21 on Dec 5, 2023 |
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Dec 5, 2023 18:18
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With the exception of the one game I played where my Hunchback IIC performed very admirably, I think I am cursed to just suck and die when I play Clanners. My first game I got demolished, my second game with them was a phyrric victory, my third game was Hunchback Glory Time, and my fourth game, which I just played, saw my Fire Moth twist its ankle turn 2 and die, and my Timberwolf get its head blown off with a Clan PPC that same turn before it had a chance to really do much. Combine that with being unable to roll a 7+ way too many times, and, well, 
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Dec 8, 2023 02:24
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What 'Mechs have you been using?
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Dec 8, 2023 03:31
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I would just, simply, get better at luck
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Dec 8, 2023 04:03
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Yeah you need to get yourself some headshot dice.
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Dec 8, 2023 04:15
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A lot of folks will stay away from things like MASC and Ultra ACs if they have a confirmation bias thing going on. But to be more helpful, it's really a matter of maximizing the number of times you get to roll to hit, roll to head location, and roll to crit others and not yourself, while minimizing the number of times your opponent(s) get to do the same. Over time and over more games, the amount of dramatic failures you have will be diluted by the amount of undramatic mediocrity you will experience
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Dec 8, 2023 04:33
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I find myself not using MASC or Superchargers even though I know there really is very little downside to it. UACs I am not a huge fan of either, but I do like the option of just fukkan unloading a half ton of ammo downrange with a Bane and making the obligatory joke while doing so.
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Dec 8, 2023 20:38
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I don't like UACs because the odds are just not in your favor by default, not even with the off-chance of jamming. The 2 column on the cluster table is the only one where rolling a 7 has fewer than half of the shots hit and really makes UACs and SRM 2s feel pretty bad.
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Dec 8, 2023 23:14
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The UAC/5 is fine, AC/5s come with so much ammo you can pretty much freely choose to single or double shot at will. That should just be how the normal AC/5 works, honestly. The UAC/10 is fine on a 'mech with two or more tons of ammo per gun, which is most of them. If you've got a decent shot, roll the dice and see if you get lucky. But the UAC/20 has always been terrible; and why would you bother using one when you can take an LB-20X and statistically score a golden BB every 2-3 rounds? Ballistic weapons in BattleTech are sorta hosed. I was really hoping IlClan would get us an across-the-board weapon rebalance. It's just not really possible since so many weapons have the damage they deal in their names.
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Dec 8, 2023 23:39
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It was just dice tbh, my Fire Moth busted its hip and knee cuz I rolled a 4 for MASC turn two while trying to get in position behind my opponent's Timber Wolf so my Adder could flank it, so it got stuck in the middle of the board with a poor TMM and died which left the Adder in a bad place, my Timber Wolf died immediately before it could do anything, leaving me with a Nova Prime and Stone Rhino standard and Adder Prime as my remaining mechs vs a Kodiak, Timber Wolf with PPCs, an LRM 20 Storm Crow, and a Grendel carrying a point of Elementals. Despite needing 7s most of the game the Nova whiffed most of its shots. I beat the poo poo out of the Storm Crow but unfortunately not enough to matter and the Stone Rhino blasted a lot of armor off the Kodiak, but again, not enough. The dice really screwed me, it is what it is. I don't take Battletech particularly seriously and just like to go pew pew with big stompy robots so it was still a good time FrostyPox fucked around with this message at 00:13 on Dec 9, 2023 |
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Dec 9, 2023 00:07
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If the dice decide you're gonna lose, you're gonna lose. I had a game where I was rolling on TNs of 5 versus my opponents 10s and still got hammered.
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Dec 9, 2023 00:39
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FrostyPox posted:It was just dice tbh, my Fire Moth busted its hip and knee cuz I rolled a 4 for MASC turn two This reason above is why a surprising number of ilClan designs run both a Supercharger and MASC, so you can alternate them from turn to turn (in addition to the advertised simultaneous megaboost) But really to put things in perspective, a target roll of 5 is what a Veteran 4-Piloting pilot needs to avoid falling on 20+ damage in a phase. Which, if you get paranoid about it, rolling MASC for the second turn in a row feels like handing your opponent a PSR just for the sake of extra MP
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Dec 9, 2023 00:46
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it seemed like a good move to me, an ~83% chance is pretty good odds. Wouldn't have done it the next turn, though, that's where I would've started getting paranoid. In pretty much any 2d6 based game, if there's severe conseuquences for failing the roll but the target is like 5+ or better, I almost always go for it lol
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Dec 9, 2023 01:34
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Wow, CGL have trays of starterbox minis for sale at really good prices.
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Dec 9, 2023 01:35
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I bought the overly expensive mug and ballcap for House Marik instead 
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Dec 9, 2023 01:39
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Spending $70 (cuz of Essentials Box Coupon) for 3 T-Shirts because my brain is broken (Liao, Cloud Cobras, and Fire Mandrils)
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Dec 9, 2023 01:49
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Dang those mugs are surprisingly nice, if way too pricey. I wanna get a Steiner and Ghost Bear mug
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Dec 9, 2023 02:01
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Arquinsiel posted:Wow, CGL have trays of starterbox minis for sale at really good prices. Yeah that's not bad at all. Forty bucks for the AGOAC 30 for Clan invasion,  if you want extras of the Griffin and Wolverine from the starter.
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Dec 9, 2023 03:02
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Defiance Industries posted:If the dice decide you're gonna lose, you're gonna lose. I had a game where I was rolling on TNs of 5 versus my opponents 10s and still got hammered. Back when I played clix I would always miss by 1-2. Didn't matter the target number. Could need a 13 to hit, could've been a 6. Such is your lot in life. Switching to Alpha Strike, it's still happening. Every once in a blue moon I'll be on a hotstreak. It's a good lesson in humility. Owlbear Cadmus posted:Yeah that's not bad at all. Forty bucks for the AGOAC 30 for Clan invasion, Man those are great prices. I'll have to tell my buddy who just bought an Essentials box about it. Crazy Joe Wilson fucked around with this message at 03:25 on Dec 9, 2023 |
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Dec 9, 2023 03:22
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PoptartsNinja posted:Ballistic weapons in BattleTech are sorta hosed. I was really hoping IlClan would get us an across-the-board weapon rebalance. It's just not really possible since so many weapons have the damage they deal in their names. I'd be on board if CGL would just commit and redo some of the damage values on ballistic weapons. I don't see why they couldn't just do a blanket revision rename the AC/2 to light autocannon, AC/5 to medium, and so on in an errata which would then give them a free hand to not have to have a gun do 2 points of damage because it's in the name.
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Dec 9, 2023 03:43
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FishFood posted:I don't like UACs because the odds are just not in your favor by default, not even with the off-chance of jamming. The 2 column on the cluster table is the only one where rolling a 7 has fewer than half of the shots hit and really makes UACs and SRM 2s feel pretty bad. The 2 column is the only one where you can't get fewer than half. 
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Dec 9, 2023 04:19
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Holybat posted:I'd be on board if CGL would just commit and redo some of the damage values on ballistic weapons. I don't see why they couldn't just do a blanket revision rename the AC/2 to light autocannon, AC/5 to medium, and so on in an errata which would then give them a free hand to not have to have a gun do 2 points of damage because it's in the name. Change it to a d100 system. Sell more of those annoying golf ball dice, introduce vastly more variance to the system. Now you can have an AC-37.
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Dec 9, 2023 04:30
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Holybat posted:I'd be on board if CGL would just commit and redo some of the damage values on ballistic weapons. I don't see why they couldn't just do a blanket revision rename the AC/2 to light autocannon, AC/5 to medium, and so on in an errata which would then give them a free hand to not have to have a gun do 2 points of damage because it's in the name. 
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Dec 9, 2023 05:18
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Arquinsiel posted:Light Autocannon are a totally different gun though oh yeah forgot about those How about light barrel light autocannon as far as damage I don't think it'd have to be crazy just a bump up slightly for the lighter ACs like how the BT PC game did From the earlier discussion the 3250 jump I guess is could have been that good opportunity to hit the rebalance button, too bad it sounded awful from the story side with that wolf vs rebel stuff. Related to that my group and I don't really play classic all our games the past few years have been using Alpha Strike. I'm curious how regular players feel about the ilClan era in terms of weapons and equipment? There seems to be a LOT of stuff to keep track of
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Dec 9, 2023 08:00
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There's a lot of equipment but most of it is niche, rare, and avoidable; which means you can pick and choose what you want to try without it being too overwhelming.
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Dec 9, 2023 08:09
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