Battletech: Clan Wolf is "Licensed to il"

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

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

So me and ilmucche finally got a game in last night after being derailed by me catching the 'rona last month. Was a good time. I spotted the comments about London and realised that he was struggling with the terrible local CGL demo team agent and offered some 3025 games just to give him a not-poo poo experience of BattleTech. We agreed upon 7500 BV starterbox tech forces to avoid the 4/5 shuffle, and played in Rogues Quarter out in Kentish Town, which is a nice place that you should all go play games in.

My force consisted of "what mechs I gots paint on" and was this:

code:

Valkyrie -VLK-QA	3/4
Wolverine WVR-6M	3/3
Catapult  CPLT-C1	3/3
Awesome -AWS-8Q		3/4

The eagle-eyed amongst you will notice that this is not a 7500BV force. I am not eagle-eyed. Somehow I brainfarted and only brought 7000 BV. Oh well! :shrug:

I provided my chosen mechs to ilmuche so he could try build to beat them if he wanted, and said not to worry about matching my one of each weight class lance. His force was as follows:

code:

Jenner JR7-F		3/4
Phoenix Hawk PXH-1D	3/3
Warhammer WHM-6D	2/4
Battlemaster BLR-1G	2/4

I have no idea how intentional the build was but it's a pretty good choice of a tag team of light fast harassers, a sniper that can brawl a bit, and a brawler that can snipe a bit.

Maps were Grasslands #2 and #3 from the AGoAC box, which I had actually never played on, so that was nice. Played widthwise and ran onto the field, which let the person who lost initiative dictate where the fight would start. We got five or six rounds of game in with us taking it slowly and making sure to clarify any rules questions that came up, and I think it was a good learning experience for just getting the basics down. I made a point of explaining what I was planning to do in a turn to offset the experience advantage, explaining why I thought a position was good or bad, and it was a pretty closely fought game until the last turn. I parked my Awesome behind partial cover in a forest and proceeded to roll 4s and 5s when I needed 7s or 8s for most of the game, the Battlemaster advanced slowly through cover, the Warhammer mauled the Catapult at long range for very little in return, and everyone else skirmished a bit without achieving much. Then things got messy. We ended up with my Awesome having lost most of it's left arm, the Catapult being in the same condition but also having bugger all armour on the front, the Wolverine having some paint damage, and the Valkyrie being ignored. Unfortunately some lucky rolling late in the game meant that the Battlemaster was a single medium laser away from internal damage on the CT, having had almost everything land there, the Pixie had lost about half armour on every front location, the Jenner was mint, but the poor Warhammer... well he was face down with all rear torso locations open, the left arm hanging on by a thread, head down to two structure, and a pilot passed out from three bonks to the noggin. With the Catapult and Wolverine standing right behind him. At this point it was closing time so we called it.

I think the most valuable lesson learned from ilmucche's perspective is "don't let an Awesome walk into hex 0703 on Grasslands #3 on the first turn", which you achieve by making sure it's on your side of the table and parking your sniper there instead. He also learned to be a little bit more aggressive with his big guys. The Battlemaster and Warhammer weren't taking many shots because the maps let me hide from them pretty well, and trying to keep them out of LoS of the Awesome just meant they weren't able to shoot at anything. Other than that, my ridiculous luck winning initiative every turn but one contributed most to my success, so there's not really anything to learn there.

What I learned from this game is that the 3025 Valk can just jump and fire everything for four turns in a row and only gain one heat per, which is an interesting capability. Can't hit poo poo with that though, and the weapons brackets do not match up right at all so you're just making your mods even worse. On the plus side, that makes it so unthreathening that there's no point wasting shots at it, so... partial credit? I think the VLK-QDD or the VLK-QT2 are better at achieving what this tries to, for obvious reasons.

# ? Sep 7, 2023 19:37

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Jun 13, 2024 00:25

Sidesaddle Cavalry: Mar 15, 2013; Oh Boy Desert Map

Good writeup, and bless you for saving a newer player from a bad gaming gathering/group. There�s a lot to be said about simulation-like games getting difficult traction when resources and personnel are slim

# ? Sep 7, 2023 19:51

ilmucche: Mar 16, 2016; What did you say the strategy was?

Thanks for the writeup and the game ! It was fun, and i appreciated the patience as I tried to navigate the rules on a tabletop. Definitely feel like it was an easier time pushing two 3025 lances around than trying to navigate the tournament organiser's crazy specific ruleset here.

I think the biggest thing i learned was that the bigger mechs taking a hit is okay. The battlemaster has loads of armor and I think charging it straight at the awesome to try and dislodge it from the excellent spot would've been a better idea. instead I let it get bogged down in trees and a weird route, while I was afraid to move my warhammer until it was too late.

# ? Sep 7, 2023 20:54

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Hey, like I said: I was just there to see some robots explode, and I didn't care whose robots it was what exploded.

# ? Sep 7, 2023 20:55

Z the IVth: Jan 28, 2009; The trouble with your "expendable machines"; Fun Shoe

How are the Catalyst Battlemats? Specifically has anyone tried the hexless Alpha Strike versions? I'm debating between getting these vs a generic one and sticking some terrain on top.

# ? Sep 7, 2023 21:29

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Pretty good, I hear. The printing is a little less clear than the paper mats due to limitations of the material, but that really doesn't matter for the Alpha Strike ones.

# ? Sep 7, 2023 23:47

Strobe: Jun 30, 2014; GW BRAINWORMS CREW

Z the IVth posted:

How are the Catalyst Battlemats? Specifically has anyone tried the hexless Alpha Strike versions? I'm debating between getting these vs a generic one and sticking some terrain on top.

The hexless ones are a really weird size for what they're supposed to be, and they still have the hills and what not printed on them. They'd be head and shoulders better as products for Alpha Strike if they were bigger or didn't have the hills pre-printed, but they work if you have a couple and you also either ignore the hills entirely or do the Practical LOS optional stuff to make the hills still be terrain even while 2D.

I'd probably try to play hexed Alpha Strike on a hexed map first though. YMMV.

# ? Sep 8, 2023 00:17

Bloody Pom: Jun 5, 2011

Hey PTN, I don't suppose you still have the specifications for the alt-timeline Clan omnis? I'm trying to recreate the Wolf Spider through working backwards from LP screenshots but it's been a pain.

The NRWR designs like the Coyote and Bobcat would also be cool to get.

# ? Sep 8, 2023 03:31

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

Sure.

Here's all the pre-timeskip AUTRO files

At least, all the ones I thought to save in a single folder. They're SSW files.

# ? Sep 8, 2023 03:48

Bloody Pom: Jun 5, 2011

Awesome, thank you!

Speaking of SSW, I hope they're able to iron out the bugs in the latest github releases eventually. The program as a whole is just a lot nicer to use than MML, and also has better functionality such as being able to add quirks or special systems. MML however lets you mess around with obscure poo poo like tripods and superheavies, and being able to export designs as game sheets is a really nice feature.

e: Looks like you have the folder set to private :v:

Bloody Pom fucked around with this message at 04:41 on Sep 8, 2023

# ? Sep 8, 2023 04:38

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

Ah, sorry. That's fixed.

# ? Sep 8, 2023 05:22

Southern Heel: Jul 2, 2004

Randomly I came across my Battletech miniatures the other day from A Game of Armoured Combat. I played a couple of solo games and one with my Brother of 3v3 and found it pretty enjoyable, but since we played without any missions or time limit the game went on quite a bit longer than was comfortable. I was hoping to ask some pretty stupid questions:

Are there some example objective-based missions I can try to see what the game might look like if it's not a to-the-death slugfest? DFA have some missions here for their hexless system, is there another source? https://dfawargaming.com/downloads
If I wanted to stay in the same era (or earlier) as the mechs in AGOC, what should I be looking for? I've got no interest at all in the Clan Invasion period and far more interest in earlier tech. Are any of the new Catalyst boxes worth looking at or should I be 3D/Ral Partha'ing ?
I think my next step is to get one of the 'big rulebooks' - I really like the idea of mechs being part of a combined arms force and TW is cheaper than BM - but I have heard that for the average player the BM is just a better buy?
Though the majority of my stuff is scaled to 8-10mm and thus broadly scale-appropriate for BT, it is not hex-compliant at all. I am not going to build up a separate hexed set of scenery just for BT, so it seems I either need to play with paper maps with maybe some key 3D components like objectives, or play hexless. I understand this is a fairly divisive point, but any guidance for a newbie would be appreciated.

Please accept a picture of one of my Lances from AGOC as some way of contributing to the thread:

# ? Sep 8, 2023 10:34

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Southern Heel posted:

Are there some example objective-based missions I can try to see what the game might look like if it's not a to-the-death slugfest? DFA have some missions here for their hexless system, is there another source? https://dfawargaming.com/downloads

If I wanted to stay in the same era (or earlier) as the mechs in AGOC, what should I be looking for? I've got no interest at all in the Clan Invasion period and far more interest in earlier tech. Are any of the new Catalyst boxes worth looking at or should I be 3D/Ral Partha'ing ?

I think my next step is to get one of the 'big rulebooks' - I really like the idea of mechs being part of a combined arms force and TW is cheaper than BM - but I have heard that for the average player the BM is just a better buy?

Though the majority of my stuff is scaled to 8-10mm and thus broadly scale-appropriate for BT, it is not hex-compliant at all. I am not going to build up a separate hexed set of scenery just for BT, so it seems I either need to play with paper maps with maybe some key 3D components like objectives, or play hexless. I understand this is a fairly divisive point, but any guidance for a newbie would be appreciated.

In order:

There are a ridiculous number of objective-based missions you can play. The easiest ones to do are simple "breakthrough" missions where one side needs to get off the other edge of the map. The more complex ones are found in the various source books etc. I rather like the Starterbook: Sword and Dragon for simple missions, even if it is wonky and you need to read the errata to finish the campaign. Maybe the digital version has fixed that, I haven't checked.
Most of the Inner Sphere Lance Packs are reasonable, but if you've got questions about a particular one then just ask here and we can tell you. If you want just one specific mech then Ral Parha are the easiest shout here. Otherwise it's off to the printers or importing stuff.
Total Warfare is poorly laid out and excessively detailed, but if you want combined arms it's the only way to go at the moment.
For regular BattleTech no terrain is needed, and TBH it just gets in the way if you don't play on extra large hexes or just use the miniatures rules and skip hexes entirely. A side effect of that is you need to triple the ranges for everything, because the game is designed to work at a particular map scale. Paper maps is just easier, and has the advantage of being portable too.

# ? Sep 8, 2023 12:11

Lord_Hambrose: Nov 21, 2008; *a foul hooting fills the air*

Southern Heel posted:

the game went on quite a bit longer than was comfortable.

That's how you know you are playing Battletech, baby!

3v3 was a pretty big game to start with, and frankly 4v4 is the absolute maximum anu player can bear unless you really want a sprawling multi-day battle (you absolutely don't).

Practice will get you faster, but really download Megamek and learn that way. Faster, better, easier. Save the physical minis for when you have two very excited and dedicated players, unless you scale back to 1v1 or 2v2.

# ? Sep 8, 2023 12:27

a cyborg mug: Mar 8, 2010

Games tend to bog down if
1. You have too many units on the table
2. You�re just playing a to-the-death slugfest with no time limits. Mechs can take a hit or several dozen even when played unoptimally

I basically have zero interest in pitched battles/meeting engagements/deathmatches anymore. Just about any mission with objectives brings the best out of BT�s game mechanics and makes the game go a lot faster by giving it direction and a hard end point and forcing players to make meaningful decisions between playing the objective and trying to take out the enemy mechs, which in turn will usually result in them having to expose one thing or another to the enemy.

DFA is a good source although you�ll want to adjust their parametres (map size etc.) to your situation. Other random objective missions off the top of my head:

Assassinate: the most expensive mech on both sides is the commander. Whoever kills the other first is the winner. Super basic but it at least creates an interesting dynamic because you have to protect your most powerful mech while simultaneously wanting to use its big guns

Take and hold: Objectives on the battlefield. Adjacent units can score points at the end of the round. Mod to your tastes: do mechs have to be standing? Do they have to be alone, ie. can the other player block you from scoring (pushing is fun!)? Is every objective active from start to finish or do they disappear when captured or otherwise are activated and deactivated randomly?

Secret drop: One player designates a secret hex on the opponent�s map side. Their task is to grab the objective in the hex and then escape through their own map side. Do they go for the obvious spots or something that the opponent wouldn�t think of defending?

And also any number of other non-symmetrical missions where one side tries to do something while the other one typically defends the target, be it a moving target like a convoy or a stationary one like a bunker or several.

Basically play literally anything else than just a normal deathmatch slugfest is what I�m getting at

a cyborg mug fucked around with this message at 14:04 on Sep 8, 2023

# ? Sep 8, 2023 13:57

Sidesaddle Cavalry: Mar 15, 2013; Oh Boy Desert Map

Southern Heel posted:

If I wanted to stay in the same era (or earlier) as the mechs in AGOC, what should I be looking for? I've got no interest at all in the Clan Invasion period and far more interest in earlier tech. Are any of the new Catalyst boxes worth looking at or should I be 3D/Ral Partha'ing ?

I think my next step is to get one of the 'big rulebooks' - I really like the idea of mechs being part of a combined arms force and TW is cheaper than BM - but I have heard that for the average player the BM is just a better buy?

Though the majority of my stuff is scaled to 8-10mm and thus broadly scale-appropriate for BT, it is not hex-compliant at all. I am not going to build up a separate hexed set of scenery just for BT, so it seems I either need to play with paper maps with maybe some key 3D components like objectives, or play hexless. I understand this is a fairly divisive point, but any guidance for a newbie would be appreciated.

I ask that you please reconsider the early era restriction. Running standard 4/5 pilots and no Double Heat Sinks is not a good recipe for working adults with schedules. There are plenty of good balanced 3050s/3060s Inner Sphere (read as: NOT CLAN OR OTHER FUTURE FACTION) 'Mech matchups featuring higher damage and hit probability that will keep a simple tabletop session manageable. Upgraded 'Mech record sheets are purchased here: https://store.catalystgamelabs.com/collections/battletech?page=1&rb_product_type=Record%20Sheets or on DriveThruRPG (example): https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/97411/battletech-record-sheets-3050-upgrades-unabridged-inner-sphere

If you think you want combined arms, you're going to end up slowing your games down even more with managing all of their different rules separately. Get BattleMech Manual, practice with it to make your turns go by faster (and acquaint yourself with advanced tech, it's not hard).

Paper maps are not just fine, they're still standard practice for official BattleTech tournaments. Catalyst also sells neoprene BattleMats if you want to get a fancier feel. Don't worry about hexed terrain until you start actually playing more games. (For that matter, don't worry about Catalyst 'Mech miniatures until you're sure you want to go beyond paper maps, it's not like BattleTech is a What You See Is What You Get)

There are rules for hexless BattleTech out there, but these days it's for Alpha Strike, a game that runs on a working adult's schedule but takes away most of the fun detail

Sidesaddle Cavalry fucked around with this message at 16:46 on Sep 8, 2023

# ? Sep 8, 2023 16:32

ilmucche: Mar 16, 2016; What did you say the strategy was?

Sidesaddle Cavalry posted:

I ask that you please reconsider the early era restriction. Running standard 4/5 pilots and no Double Heat Sinks is not a good recipe for working adults with schedules. There are plenty of good balanced 3050s/3060s Inner Sphere (read as: NOT CLAN OR OTHER FUTURE FACTION) 'Mech matchups featuring higher damage and hit probability that will keep a simple tabletop session manageable. detail[/spoiler]

Can also run 3/4 pilots instead of 4/5. The game arquinsiel and I played was a mix of 2-4/3-4 and it was fine. Heat management and not being able to alpha every turn is nice

# ? Sep 8, 2023 16:44

Southern Heel: Jul 2, 2004

Ok thanks all - I bought the BM and have got a few mechs to print - I rolled on the random assignment charts for a Mech company: Hornet, Spider, Hunchback, Whitworth and Black Knight - there is at least as much variety as one can hope for and hopefully they are not completely ridiculous. I have definitely seen the recommendation for 3/4 pilots, too.

I'm not going to buy any more books just yet, but I appreciate the suggestions for missions. Generally I don't go for pitched battles in my games, so I'm not sure what I was thinking there. I figured that 4v4 was the absolute max which is why I painted my AGOC mechs up as two separate forces, go me! That line of thinking is what also led me to believe that TW and combined arms might be a way to go to get more interesting tactical choices without necessarily adding more mechs - but since it comes at the price of hundreds of badly edited pages I guess I'll just give it a miss for now.

I take it I need two map sheets for two lances of 3-4 mechs each?

# ? Sep 8, 2023 16:44

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

It's trivially easy to port Alpha Strike's movement rules to classic BattleTech and vice/versa, if you want to play BattleTech hexless or play Alpha Strike with hexes.

# ? Sep 8, 2023 16:46

Owlbear Camus: Jan 3, 2013; Maybe this guy that flies is just sort of passing through, you know?

I have not given it more than a cursory look but battletech: override (formerly battletech: destiny) purports to be a middle ground between the 8 hour game granularity of CBT and the fast playing but rather detail-free AS.

https://dfawargaming.com/downloads

# ? Sep 8, 2023 16:48

hot cocoa on the couch: Dec 8, 2009

we play hexless bt with basically no rule changes to the hex version. 1 hex = 1". LOS rules are based on visuals (the ol get down and look from the models pov). it's pretty easy

also playing with flechs sheets gets us through a 6k pt game in 2-3 hrs pretty easy

# ? Sep 8, 2023 16:49

Sidesaddle Cavalry: Mar 15, 2013; Oh Boy Desert Map

Thread is scrambling to help a player who's literally the exact kind that Catalyst wants to ramp up to and here I am wondering: why do we not have a record sheet pack with just other variants + advanced tech upgrades of the AGOAC 'Mechs? Just like how the early Catalyst "Upgrade" record sheets were. Or even more apt, RS: Project Phoenix Upgrade Complete

Sidesaddle Cavalry fucked around with this message at 17:01 on Sep 8, 2023

# ? Sep 8, 2023 16:58

Sidesaddle Cavalry: Mar 15, 2013; Oh Boy Desert Map

Buy Record Sheets: 3085 Project Phoenix Unabridged for upgrades of the BattleMaster, Locust, Shadow Hawk, Thunderbolt, and Wolverine

Buy Record Sheets: 3050 Upgrade Unabridged Inner Sphere for upgrades of the Awesome, Catapult, and Commando

Or use Flechs Sheets yes, that works too for most 'Mechs

Sidesaddle Cavalry fucked around with this message at 17:14 on Sep 8, 2023

# ? Sep 8, 2023 17:05

Southern Heel: Jul 2, 2004

Yes, that would be absolutely fantastic. The learning curve when it comes to 'beyond the first box' is absolutely vertical but I get it - it's familiarising yourself with a system which has expanded for 40+ years rather than being reinvented every couple.

Thank you for the tips on hexless BT, I think for now I'll stick with the hexes if only because I've got a few of the maps with the AGOC box and I think I actually prefer how the hex/grid interacts with the rest of the game. I should probably print myself off some of those swanky walk/run/jump TM dice too, now that I think about it.

That Flechs mech sheet thing is pretty amazing. I enjoy the tactile part of marking off the record sheet but I can see how it might end up getting old quickly. Does the BM have record sheets for the mechs, or do I need to find them elsewhere or print them from Flechs or some other grey market website? Incidentally the four mechs mentioned above come up to ~200tons / 4,000pts (excluding the Hornet).

# ? Sep 8, 2023 17:19

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Well technically you've started with the box that is the upgrade to the starter box, which has some stripped down rules that ignore internal structure and a bunch of other stuff in your box.

For record sheets Solaris Skunk Werks is the gold standard and everyone should use it. I find it way better than MegaMek Lab once I remember that it likes .pngs for the images.

# ? Sep 8, 2023 17:24

Sidesaddle Cavalry: Mar 15, 2013; Oh Boy Desert Map

Solaris Skunk Werks has a couple of requirements, one of them namely being that you install OpenJDK/JRE to run Java apps on your PC: https://adoptium.net/temurin/archive/?version=11 under the Windows sections, download the JRE

This will also allow you to play BattleTech online though, on MegaMek!

Sidesaddle Cavalry fucked around with this message at 17:34 on Sep 8, 2023

# ? Sep 8, 2023 17:27

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Yeah fair, that is a concern. It's also a concern for MegaMek Lab though, so it kind of slips my mind that it's a thing that matters at all.

# ? Sep 8, 2023 17:36

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

Southern Heel posted:

I take it I need two map sheets for two lances of 3-4 mechs each?

I consider 4 mechs/vees to be the maximum you want to put on a single map sheet, so yeah. If you're playing with faster units you might even want to go 1 map per 3 units.

# ? Sep 8, 2023 17:44

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Heck, a single map sheet is a 1v1 duel, and it's a pretty narrow one at that. With more modern mech designs you can make good use of two maps even.

# ? Sep 8, 2023 18:59

Strobe: Jun 30, 2014; GW BRAINWORMS CREW

Sidesaddle Cavalry posted:

Buy Record Sheets: 3085 Project Phoenix Unabridged for upgrades of the BattleMaster, Locust, Shadow Hawk, Thunderbolt, and Wolverine

Buy Record Sheets: 3050 Upgrade Unabridged Inner Sphere for upgrades of the Awesome, Catapult, and Commando

Or use Flechs Sheets yes, that works too for most 'Mechs

https://bg.battletech.com/downloads/ has more sheets for GOAC but I guess they're not higher tech level just Intro variants.

When we get a combined record sheets for Recognition Guide, Vol 1: Classics that will have Locust/Shadow Hawk/Wolverine/Thinderbolt/Battlemaster.

Any of the individual small volumes will also have some/most/all of the 3050 upgrades for those (these are not free).

Locust - Vol 16
Shadow Hawk - Vol 12
Wolverine - Vol 18
Thunderbolt - Vol 15
Battlemaster - Vol 03

Anything that has been in a box since GOAC will also have some extra sheets in the bg.battletech.com downloads page (these are free)

Locust - Alpha Strike
Catapult - Gray Death Legion
Shadow Hawk - Gray Death Legion
Thunderbolt - Eridani Light Horse

# ? Sep 8, 2023 19:44

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

Mostly happy with how this one came out.

# ? Sep 8, 2023 20:51

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

Now we just need a group shot of the entire reigment.

# ? Sep 8, 2023 20:53

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

I... think my coffee table is big enough for that

# ? Sep 8, 2023 22:23

FrostyPox: Feb 8, 2012

Played a 3025 2v2 to teach a new player the ropes last night, me and my team mate were playing Capellans and we got clowned on, very lore-accurate to the era. I brought an Awesome and fired all three PPCs almost every turn and hit exactly once. New guy enjoyed himself, new player acquired :getin:

# ? Sep 8, 2023 22:39

Revvik: Jul 29, 2006; Fun Shoe

Mech 2v2s seem like where it�s at for learning. Sure, 1v1 to demonstrate the absolute basics but I like to get new players into 2v2 ASAP, there�s just more fun to be had and tactical decisions to play with.

My introtech duo has been a Hunchback 4G and a Rifleman 3N, but after last week I may tone it down further. Hunchback alone ended his last game in five rounds; touched off a Thunderbolt�s ammo bin with his foot, then turned around and crit the engine out of a Marauder. Five rounds.

# ? Sep 9, 2023 01:38

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

PoptartsNinja posted:

Now we just need a group shot of the entire reigment.

With a guest appearance by Archon Reinhardt Steiner, who in another timeline, ruled for nearly a century.

I swear that I do actually have these sorted out into lances and such, I just didn't want to take the time to sort them out for a photo

# ? Sep 9, 2023 01:55

grissenko: Jan 18, 2006; Oh he's so pringles. Where yo curleh mustache at?!; Fun Shoe

I am feeling really stupid and can't get my head around the current versions of the rulebooks. Can someone tell me what all of the current versions of the rulebooks are supposed to be? (I don't need Alpha Strike, that's pretty straightforward).

I have a scattered collection of different rules from the last 20 years, I am of a mind to have a complete, contemporary set of rulebooks. Mostly to have a nice looking BT section of my gaming shelf, but also so I can skip fiddling with whether what I have is different or not now.

# ? Sep 9, 2023 03:17

Weissritter: Jun 14, 2012

Owlbear Camus posted:

I have not given it more than a cursory look but battletech: override (formerly battletech: destiny) purports to be a middle ground between the 8 hour game granularity of CBT and the fast playing but rather detail-free AS.

https://dfawargaming.com/downloads

My gaming group like this a lot, and I have been GMing a merc campaign for them where they routinely use up to 8 mechs with some allied forces (depending on contract). It is fast enough for that, though I do still switch back to Alpha Strike once anything larger than reinforced companies are involved.

# ? Sep 9, 2023 03:19

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

grissenko posted:

I am feeling really stupid and can't get my head around the current versions of the rulebooks. Can someone tell me what all of the current versions of the rulebooks are supposed to be? (I don't need Alpha Strike, that's pretty straightforward).

I have a scattered collection of different rules from the last 20 years, I am of a mind to have a complete, contemporary set of rulebooks. Mostly to have a nice looking BT section of my gaming shelf, but also so I can skip fiddling with whether what I have is different or not now.

Total Warfare is the current core rulebook.

Tactical Operations, Strategic Operations and Interstellar Operations were split into two volumes each. YMMV on this but they used to be pretty big.

There are two options for RPG rulebooks: A Time of War or MechWarrior: Destiny. I prefer Destiny but if you are going for a completionist run, they're different books.

# ? Sep 9, 2023 03:48

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Jun 13, 2024 00:25

Count Thrashula: Jun 1, 2003; Death is nothing compared to vindication.; Buglord

This helped me:

# ? Sep 9, 2023 04:03

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

«‹›321 »