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CapCon! Though I have to wonder why you didn't go with McCarron's Armored Cavalry rather than the Death Commandos - does the Big Mac not exist in this alternate timeline? PoptartsNinja posted:Pros: Fields some really great Assault ‘Mechs (and some really solid ‘Mechs in general). Good pilots. I really hope you're not talking about the Panther under the cons listing. Sure, it's only 4/6/4, but with the PPC, it's probably the best counterflanker in the 3025 'mech roster. And your characterization of the CCAF as utter poo poo is a bit off - before the crushing defeat of the 4th Succession War, Capellan line troops were pretty solid. They lost in the 4th more due to leadership failure (Max trying to have Ridzik bombed, for example) and being outnumbered three to one than by any inherent failure.
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Jan 21, 2011 20:41
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PoptartsNinja posted:I'm actually referring to the Spider, the only 'Mech in the game that doesn't have an ejection system. The Spider is amazing - 8/12/8 with solid armor (for a light). There's not another 'mech that can even come close to catching it as long as the Spider jockey is not a complete retard. How can you call that a bad machine, seriously? Especially when you consider there are terrible machines like the Commando out there. Kenlon fucked around with this message at 20:54 on Jan 21, 2011 |
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Jan 21, 2011 20:51
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WarLocke posted:^^^: I think he meant in a generally fluff/flavor fashion - any 'mech without an ejection system is objectively poo poo if you, you know, want to NOT DIE. You're the fastest thing on the battlefield, with an unparalleled ability to control the parameters of any engagement, and you're armed exclusively with energy weapons, letting you take very low percentage shots without worrying about ammo. Plus, there's very little on the Spider that can kill a pilot (other than a head hit) - fusion engines don't explode when damaged (Stackpole rule is optional for a reason, dammit!) and the lack of ammo means you're not going to need to punch out to avoid an ammo explosion. Kenlon fucked around with this message at 20:58 on Jan 21, 2011 |
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Jan 21, 2011 20:56
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Agent Interrobang posted:That would honestly be hilarious. Just an entire 24-mech company of NOTHING BUT CHARGERS. Fear the sting of 5 whole small lasers! Twelve, not twenty four. Four mechs to a lance. Three lances to a company. Three companies to a battalion. Three battalions to a regiment.
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Jan 21, 2011 21:25
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WarLocke posted:(Seriously why would you ever need more than a dozen or so chassis when you can swap out armament and have 3 dozen 'official' loadouts or whatever) Sanest explanation: Omni-mechs aren't entirely omni. Reconfiguring a machine to use a non-standard loadout takes significant time/effort due to all the tweaks needed (gyro balancing, electronics and targeting reconfiguration, etc). So, what you get are pre-designed setup packages (Prime/A/B/C, etc) that can be quickly swapped in and set up. You're a Khan/saKhan/House Lord/Natasha 'I will gently caress you up' Kerensky? You get a custom layout. You're just a mechwarrior? You don't.
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Jan 21, 2011 21:36
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WarLocke posted:So a Goliath then? Quads are pretty drat awesome in the latest iteration of the rules. Sidestepping, greater stability, and the ability to go hull down.
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Jan 21, 2011 22:19
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Arglebargle III posted:I will throw away my vote on the Capellan Confederation because human wave attacks against 100-ton nuclear robots are awesome. Except that the CCAF doesn't do human wave attacks.
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Jan 21, 2011 22:37
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The terrible art in the post 3050 TROs has mostly been redone at this point. Catalyst have put out a series of 'Revised' Technical Readouts with all sorts of goodies in them.
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Jan 22, 2011 00:27
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Tarquinn posted:Can't go wrong with a Shadow Hawk. It's deliciously classic and classically horrible. It can attack from all ranges (equally bad). The truly sad thing about the Shadow Hawk is how close it is to actually being decent. Replace the AC/5 with an energy weapon (PPC/Large Laser), possibly bump up the size of the LRM rack, and you're done. Or you could go with an AC/2 and LRM-15 instead, and make it a dedicated long range support machine. The basic SHD-2H is oversinked and undergunned, and the variants aren't much better.
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Jan 22, 2011 01:10
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WarLocke posted:What the crap The Trenchbucket is only 5/8, compared to the Griffin at 5/8/5, and the 'Bucket runs out of ammo at the drop of a hat. The Griffin is a far better commander's machine.
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Jan 22, 2011 01:19
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Though it looks like the Griffin is running away with the vote, there's another machine that deserves consideration: The Phoenix Hawk. 6/9/6 movement, Large Laser, two medium lasers, and machine guns. This gives you appropriate firepower for any target. (Under the new rules, infantry are very hard to kill without appropriate weapons, and can actually dish out pain). It really depends on what sort of medium lance Poptarts is building, honestly. Mukaikubo posted:Yeah, they're good, but they're kind of limited on long range firepower and I really want a lance commander's mech to be able to stay out of a fray and snipe. If not for that, both of those would be a great idea. Remember, in 3025, a PPC or AC/5 is long range firepower. The only thing that reaches further than 18 hexes is LRMs and the laughable AC/2. Kenlon fucked around with this message at 01:49 on Jan 22, 2011 |
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Jan 22, 2011 01:47
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Ain't no thing, just making my own tempermental choices.
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Remember - you're mercs, not idiot House troops. Accomplish your objectives and get the hell out. And don't risk the Jenner - parts for it are hard to come by. (There needs to be an :accounting101: smilie.)
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Jan 24, 2011 20:47
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Jenner's are made out of tinfoil - it can't stand up to anything. Pull it north, back under the cover of the rest of the lance, doing everything you can to be hard to hit. If the Spider is dumb enough to come into the killzone, waste it, but don't leave yourself hanging out where one bad init roll kills you. Given Kuritan 'mech preferences, there's a good chance that the unknown light is a Firestarter.
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Jan 24, 2011 21:46
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Tempest_56 posted:It's a Spider 5K. Jenner's a light HK mech. It packs literally more than quadruple the firepower, more armor, only slightly less mobility and can flip arms so it doesn't even matter if the Spider gets behind it. Barring incredible bad dice luck in shooting, the Jenner has a massive advantage and should win almost every time. Hell, half the Spider's firepower is in machine guns. The Jenner can take it. Maybe - but why risk a 'mech when you don't have to? This is 3025 - 'mechs are rare and expensive and being Dispossessed is a serious worry. The Jenner is a heavily overgunned machine, and it's very common for people to lose them by focusing on offense rather than on working with their lancemates. Pull back under the cover of the lance, annihilate the Spider if it gets in too close, and get the hell off the field.
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Jan 24, 2011 23:01
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Oh god, that reminds me of my most embarassing loss ever. Lance on lance fight, I'm running an Orion. Big, beefy heavy, AC/10, LRM15, medium lasers, serious armor load, and only the base 10 heat sinks. Not normally a problem, the Orion runs nice and cool. First turn, I walk into level one water. Fail my piloting roll and end up on my back. Roll at 2 for hit location (forces a crit check). Two engine crits. Leaving me with no heatsinks to slowly roast. 
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Jan 24, 2011 23:27
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Cthulhu Dreams posted:It just not a percentage play. Yes, I can take a moderate risk and might kill a hostile light mech, but killing a mech isn't the objective, I probably won't be able to salvage the mech (if this a recon force, there will be a main force around, and they will have more, bigger, mechs), and I might get shot up. Exactly. Good to see someone learning how to light 'mech properly. 
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Jan 24, 2011 23:44
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Tempest_56 posted:The threat here is mostly versus the Griffin. Either one of these can easily get in under the Griff's minimum range, keep in close and pick it apart with no real threat to themselves. The Firestarter could just flamer the Griffin until it pops. We'd have to divert a lot of our available firepower ASAP to kill it before the Griffin got into serious trouble, and that leaves us open to their Jenner and Dragon. You overestimate the threat to the Griffin. The Firestarter is 6/9/6, not fast enough to truly dictate range. The Hermes is fast like a freak, but has no jump jets, leaving it in the same category. The minimum range penalty on the PPC is only +3 - and neither the Firestarter or Hermes can afford to hang long against that firepower. Tempest_56 posted:The Hussar can dictate engagement range pretty easily - well played, it makes mincemeat out of the Jenner and Vulcan, and can put the Blackjack at seriously unfavorable odds. It probably hasn't fired by now because it hasn't had direct LOS on us yet. (To put into perspective, I once held off an entire assault lance with a Hussar 200. Don't underestimate that speed and a good sniping weapon.) This is not a Star League Hussar - the ER Large that made that machine something to be feared is long gone. With only a standard Large Laser, and the tinfoil armor, it's not much of a threat. Not to mention that your matchups are assuming one on one fights - proper lance tactics will mean that whatever the hidden light is, it will be irrelevant. If it goes for the Griffin, it gets counterflanked by the Jenner, if it goes for the lights, the medium has a field day. (Magic 7's, baybee!)
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Jan 25, 2011 01:44
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Though it may look tempting to gun for the bonus objective, this is way too close to a fair fight. Get the hell out before something goes wrong.
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Jan 25, 2011 09:23
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Pladdicus posted:Heroes complete side objectives Mercs get paid and go home. Heroes die.
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Jan 25, 2011 09:35
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TildeATH posted:Your LT isn't a very good shot--I think it's from all the drinking. Now, if the Dragon is a middling shot (4) then he can trade fire at range and buy you guys some time to knife-fight, but if that guy is a good shot (5) or a great shot (6) then you're talking about the possibility of the LT trading long-range fire with a guy where one needs a 10 and the other needs an 8 or 7, which based on a 2d6 system is a massive, massive difference. So if your drunken, bespectacled lieutenant is going to engage with that Dragon, then I'd kindly suggest he do so up close and personal. You seem to be under a basic misapprehension about the way skill works in Battletech. Your gunnery skill is the base number to hit at short range with no modifiers. Therefore, lower is better.
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Jan 25, 2011 16:42
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Arglebargle III posted:And this a zillion times. As a student of Chinese history and culture it's painfully obvious that the Capellans are Fu-Manchu caricatures. I would really like to see a genuine future state based on the Chinese Empire. If the Capellan Confederation was a meritocratic bureaucracy under an Emperor obsessed with keeping the nobility down (like the Chinese Empires of history) it would be a genuinely interesting and different Successor State. Even having the Liaos obsessed with domestic distractions would lend them a little more genuine Chinese flavor. And it would make sense with the most densely populated state, too. I also always thought it was weird that the Capellan symbol is a guy holding a sword that looks either Japanese or Central Asian. The Chinese traditionally made straight swords. If you read the old House Liao book, things are a bit different. Before being cut in half by the FedRats, the Capellan Confederation was a lot more reflective of it's roots. The north, centered around Tikonov, was strongly Russian flavored, with the south being much more Chinese. After the 4th, most of what remained of the CapCon was mostly Chinese, meaning that when Sun-Tzu went to work welding the tattered remains of his realm together, focusing on that culture to the exclusion of the others made sense. In this alternate universe, it's quite likely that Xin Sheng will never occur, which means that Liao mech design will be radically altered - if we don't lose Tikonov, we don't have to build our entire military out of the scraps we have left. . . I must think on this. Longinus00 posted:I think what's annoying is that the capellans always (at least to my knowledge) seem to draw the short straws. Not true - we got our time in the Author Fiat seat, getting back Tikonov for the most ludicrous reasons possible. I would have rather seen us expanding toward the Periphery (merging with the Magistracy and subjugating the Taurians) as a more sensible way for Liao to rebuild. Kenlon fucked around with this message at 23:18 on Jan 25, 2011 |
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Jan 25, 2011 23:15
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PoptartsNinja posted:And yes, I have plans for the Capellans. Notice, they're actually doing really well in their war with the Free Worlds League. I assume this would be because Justin is actually leading the Maskirova, and not loving them up, da?
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Jan 25, 2011 23:24
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Longinus00 posted:I've said earlier that I'm not a lore buff but the inner sphere maps don't really show the CC expanding all that much by the time the jihad happens... Yeah, we only reclaimed St. Ives, pretty much. Though the Jihad was pretty much nothing but being loving  for the CCAF. Nuke us, motherfuckers? We'll nuke your asses back. 
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Jan 25, 2011 23:39
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Axe-man posted:my gm had a saying when we all got math on him and pulled out the graphing calculators and graphs on where the point on the board should be due to this correlation between being hit and making the shot it was: If you can't do the math for your target number vs their target number in your head, you haven't played enough Battletech. 
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Jan 26, 2011 18:43
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Agent Interrobang posted:Yeah, no, save it for the completely unprepared reaction. I want to SAVOR people's first look at the sheer, unmitigated terror that a Star of Omnis can be. Use the Mk 1 Omnis that are floating around the net - those will make you poo poo yourself the first time you run into them. Lokis with actual armor on them? Masakaris with a primary config that doesn't flirt with shutdown or ammo explosion every time you fire your primary weapons set? Eeeeevil.
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Jan 26, 2011 18:53
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I warned you about overconfidence. Now the Vulcan pays the price.
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Jan 27, 2011 08:24
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Tempest_56 posted:CPLT-C1 Catapult I love the hell out of the Catapult. But it is not a fire support machine. Eight salvos is not enough to allow it to stay at range and bombard. So what is a Catapult for? The answer lies in it's movement profile and secondary armament. At 4/6/4, it can outmaneuver other heavies and slower mediums, while being able to keep 5/8/5 machines from doing the same to it, barring terrible initiative rolls. This makes the Catapult suited for aggressive tactics, something it's weapons suite supports. LRMs have a minimum range of 6 and a short range of 1-7. This makes 'magic sevens' the place for an LRM boat to want to be, if possible. Medium lasers have a range profile of 1-3/4-6/7-9. Thus, a good Catapult driver will actually aim for range 6, giving his LRMs a base to-hit of five, lasers hitting on sixes. The Catapult is thus an excellent brawler, despite it's lack of arms for punching, and makes a superb machine to use for dogging heavier mechs. (Especially 3/5 assaults.) This is especially apparent in the CCAF, where the Catapult is most common - pair it up with Vindicators and watch the enemy fall. (PPCs to tear holes in armor, plus piles of 5 damage hits to critseek.)
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Feb 4, 2011 22:40
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WarLocke posted:3 Archers behind a ridgeline with a Commando spotting Two Archers, a Zeus and a Griffin. Best Steiner fire lance.
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Feb 5, 2011 00:04
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Arquinsiel posted:Yeah, fancy AC ammo rocks. I'm particularly fond of the AP rounds for the same reason as potentially critting with LBX ACs. AP ammo's pretty blah. The custom ammo types that really matter are Flak and Flechette, allowing AC machines (especially conventional armor) to engage all kinds of targets with ease. (Partisan loaded with Flak is a doombubble of 18 hexes against anything in the air.)
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Feb 5, 2011 22:02
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PoptartsNinja posted:I'm not super worried about derails, like I said... especially since I'm still waiting to actually have enough info to do my updates. At some point you may want to start having people get together and play the games out over MegaMek, with you screenshotting/recording. We're going to end up with a bigger thread than Wiz's Rome game, at this rate.
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Feb 6, 2011 02:31
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Slaan posted:Sup, insane inbred space-Chinese brotha? We Tikonovians are space-fuckin'-Russians. And don't you southerners forget it.
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Feb 7, 2011 00:09
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ProfessorCurly posted:Or else its some crazy mother who just really likes his Blackjack. I'm fairly certain someone said a while back people who still use the stupid Mechs when they get really good are almost always /really/ good. The Blackjack isn't really that bad - you have enough ammo to take even low percentage shots, and the ML battery is actually solid firepower for it's weight in 3025. EDIT: Doubleposted because I'm a retard. 
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Feb 7, 2011 00:11
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PoptartsNinja posted:(CapCon spoilers here.) So, a less crazy Romano? Maybe shacked up with Justin? 
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Feb 7, 2011 19:06
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Here's some useful resources, gleaned from the Classic Battletech forums: Army Reports 3025: Distilled excerpts from the old House books, giving an overview of the militaries of the Successor States. Random Mech Assignment Tables: Random mech selection tables, grounded pretty well in the fluff.
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Feb 7, 2011 20:29
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Defiance Industries posted:Meh, the best era is the War of 3039. Awesome historical SB, I recommend it so highly. The 4th was better. The 4th Succession War Military Atlas was amazingly cool - especially for the assorted acts of heroism on the part of the CCAF as the FedRats swarmed us. If only Max hadn't been bugfuck and Justin had really been on our side, Ridzik's counterattacks would have worked. 
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Feb 8, 2011 00:54
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Defiance Industries posted:The 4th War is a story of "biggest guy kicks the poo poo out of littlest guy and nothing littlest guy tries helps him much at all." I just can't get into it. Despite what efforts the CCAF made it was basically an unending string of victories for Davion until ComStar pulled him off the CC. Believe me, I know. That just makes those moments where we gave the FedRats bloody noses that much sweeter.
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Feb 8, 2011 05:09
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Hmm - not sure I approve of the Vindicator driver's move, here, unless he's planning on punching his jets next turn. The Blackjack has the right idea, and is in a perfect place to move into partial cover next turn and play turret. If the armor takes cover in the woods and the 'phract follows suit, then they can punish the attackers as they try to close, especially the Hunchback and the relatively thin-skinned Rifleman. Even with the Caballero's advantage in mech numbers, I'd still give the edge in this fight to the Death Commandos - though they really need to get their first salvo off cleanly or things could get ugly.
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Feb 8, 2011 20:29
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Mukaikubo posted:That Vindicator's mighty exposed; Skinwalker could jump forward into 1717, be next to impossible to hit, and unload into his flank. And that would put a pretty big wrench into the Liao's attempts to form some kind of stable defensive line. That might not be the best move, but it's the one that's immediately caught my eye. Yeah - the Vindicator's move would only make sense if he was covered by another machine with the firepower to make the Wolverine pay for coming in close. Like, maybe, the Cataphract that hasn't moved yet because of the elite pilot's special ability, which is in a perfect position to respond to any such attempt. . .
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Feb 8, 2011 20:46
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The Merry Marauder posted:The General Motors MAD-3R Marauder The MAD-3R is one of the true classics - a heavy mech capable of engaging almost any other machine with a good chance of success. The twin PPCs and AC/5 give the ability to engage at long range, with the medium lasers for close in work, letting the mechwarrior cut his heat buildup while still providing roughly equivalent firepower. The only 'weaknesses' are armor (roughly 80% of max) and heat capacity (16 sinks). Given that the Marauder is intended for a role where it's killing the enemy quickly, these are not really weaknesses at all: a good pilot will ride the heat scale aggressively, accepting movement penalties in exchange for putting their opponent down faster. Along with the Warhammer, the Marauder epitomizes the 'hammer' 'mech. As machines that emphasize firepower over armor, these 'mechs should be used to move in and engage after the enemy has moved into combat with other lance elements. Anvils like the Thunderbolt or Orion, or cavalry machines like the Dragon or Wolverine are ideal for starting the engagement. (Anvils can soak up the damage, cav machines should seek to avoid damage by maneuver.)
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Feb 9, 2011 21:21
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Slaan posted:So what is the stackpole rule for us non-TT people? I'm guessing that it is the Engine-explosions that annihilate everything within 50m of the machine? Engines exploding, period. Fusion reactors can't do that, as the reaction would cease pretty much immediately after containment is lost.
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Feb 9, 2011 21:34
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