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Pussy Cartel posted:Personally I'd also say the Word of Blake is Battletech's answer to the Brotherhood of Nod, complete with having their own shadowy, mysterious messiah in the form of the Master, and a love of bionics and transhuman tech. Word of Blake wishes they were half as cool as the Brotherhood. And Wilson’s Hussars for best merc; surely they’ve sunk so low they’ve wrapped around to awesome!
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Aug 11, 2018 20:35
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OK, are all the Wave 1 shipments from the Kickstarter supposed to be out? Haven't seen anything but as far as I could tell reviewing my pledge all my info was correct for shipping. Any way to check on status, or are certain people delayed thanks to Covid or something?
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Nov 26, 2020 05:06
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Thanks everyone who responded, sent out a message to Quartermaster. I'll live if it's delayed, I'm just nervous about the echoing silence thus far so any update would be welcome from them.
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Nov 28, 2020 06:02
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Strobe posted:Therapist: Jade Falcon Willem Dafoe isn't real. He can't hurt you. He does indeed look like somebody who wants to kill Spider-Man, yes. Or Steiner-Man I suppose, in this case.
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Jan 25, 2021 00:25
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Strobe posted:
Where is that available? Checked Catalyst's webpage, didn't see it for sale.
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Jan 25, 2021 04:03
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Strobe posted:I got it as part of the Kickstarter digital rewards, I think the print book isn't actually out yet? I didn't realize that it wasn't until you said something. Ah, they screwed up my pledge somehow (never got my Wave 1 stuff, gotta harass them again since they dropped talking to me over the holidays) so maybe that's why I didn't see it. Is it linked in Kickstarter?
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Jan 25, 2021 04:19
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Strobe posted:It was part of the "Digital Cornucopia", I'd try searching for that in your updates. Thanks, got lost in the flood of e-mail last month, looks like. Man, Grayson Carlyle looks like he should be leading an '80s metal band.
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Jan 26, 2021 01:29
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PoptartsNinja posted:Devlin Stone's master plan was "put myself in cryogenic sleep" (a technology that has not existed in BattleTech before), wait until the Great Houses finish disarming, and then destroy the HPG network so he could conquer them all in one fell swoop and complete the objective the Word of Blake programmed into him as a child. His two major downfalls were A) pissing off Daoshen Lao, ensuring that the Capellan Confederation would begin a major build up and always be laser focused on the Republic; and B) that someone set the plan in motion too soon and crippled the Republic before they hit Stone's Tripod Ubermech quota. One correction; they had actually brought up medical stasis tubes back in Handbook Periphery States (an old Star League tech only the Magistracy and Clans had apparently), so Stone putting himself in suspension isn't completely out of the blue. Honestly he hit the drat "King Arthur" myth crap too hard when he "vanished" for something like that NOT to be what was going on. I do appreciate Mr. Perfect WOB Warrior got his butt kicked by a descendent of Victor AND Katherine Steiner-Davion, which says all you need to know about his actual combat leadership abilities. Though now I can't wait to see what happens once Alaric proclaims the Inner Sphere should all bow down to him for claiming Terra, unless they pull a ton of super-army crap out of their butts to conquer everybody. Maybe he'll use Clan tech to create a copy of the Super Assassin to go deus ex machina on the IS elite? Though he better hope that wouldn't backfire and the copy reverts to his typical "Victor and those related to him must suffer" schtick.
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May 5, 2021 23:56
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Crazy Joe Wilson posted:Oh well, I'm still predicting Alaric extends an offer of alliance to Trillian Steiner, the Wolf Empire worlds for her hand in marriage, uniting the IlClan and Lyran Commonwealth with super-duper incest. Alaric already claims the title of Archon, which apparently a lot of Lyrans are cool with since he's Katherine's son. Lyran Commonwealth can then grow back up to size and help fight the Hell's Horses. Hmm, I suppose Lyran Commonwealth plus the Wolves would be enough forces to give the new Ilclan some teeth, but I'd think the Lyrans would be a trifle down on the idea of merging with anybody after how the Federated Commonwealth ended up. A general alliance might work though I don't see marriage since I don't believe Alaric really thinks in dynastic terms yet. As for Yori and Julian getting hitched, that almost seems even less likely. Not counting the fact the Dracs have been mauling the Fed Suns (and Yori's been solidifying her power showing off how well she can kick their asses), I'd think both would have too many internal enemies against the idea to pull it off without at least one (and possibly both) nations fracturing at the idea. I'll grant clever writing could change both those things though. On the other end of things from alliances, I doubt the Capellans are going to terribly care about the change in management of the Republic; it might be kind of cool to see Capellans vs. Clans for once (if they thought the people of the Inner Sphere were dishonorable surats before, whooooaaa boy the Wolves ain't seen nothing yet...) Defiance Industries posted:Anyway, I'm glad they got Keith back if they're going to resurrect the GDL, and that they are letting him write 3025 stuff, since that's what he's best at. Yeah, I think that's the news I'm most excited about; I swear things have gotten so chaotic in the "modern" timeline I prefer the 3025 stuff out of sheer ability to follow things. Wasn't there a new Grey Death short story recently too? Seem to recall that being pretty enjoyable.
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May 6, 2021 21:21
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Crazy Joe Wilson posted:It's true that 3145 is pretty chaotic, but I think that's the cost of making sure every faction has SOMETHING happening to them. In 3025 House Marik and Steiner were basically just there more or less. 3025 still has its charms and the simplicity definitely lends itself towards being an introductory era for the game, hence why all the recent video games and kickstarters have picked it, but I feel 3145 is the most fair to all factions in giving them stuff to do. Admittedly part of that for me might be in the new sourcebook write-ups; a lot of them feel like they kinda go back and forth between each faction (like in Shattered Fortress everything's done by year), so you're following this faction for a bit then oops here's another one, then another, then another... I get to the next bit and I forget what I read for the faction previously. Also, odd as it may seem to say about a wargame, the constant apocalyptically hot wars in the recent timeline are also making it harder to follow things because there's SO much chaos. They keep killing off everybody; feels like there's a billion names and just when I finally start following along whoops they're dead at a speed that rivals franchises that eliminate characters to ensure they sell more toys/models. 3025 era was a lot of border skirmishing and such, much easier to keep track of all the players because they weren't flipping hordes of worlds at a time or slaughtering X number of major characters to show off how nasty things are. I certainly don't object to the Dark Ages/Jyhad/Republic eras (I'm pleased Battletech keeps trying new things, and honestly going by the universe history they were due for these terrible wars) but it kind of blurs together and doesn't seem to have many lulls in the storm (though again part of that is on me, in this case not getting involved with the Clickytech stuff which actually WAS the kind of lower stakes skirmishing I like). And of course I have a certain amount of new unit and tech fatigue; I like the improved variety and things feel a LOT more combined arms than just giant robots all the time, but I just cannot remember all the unit names and what the various techs do as they keep stacking up Technical Readouts for the system. I think my tech limits probably were about the Star League/3050 era Clan stuff; one reason why I've started really enjoying how much they've been diving into Age of War/Star League/early Clan/Succession Wars stuff, it's interesting conflicts without having to remember what the heck all these new-fangled gizmos or such-and-so million new Mech models everybody's got now do. Strobe posted:Chicken and egg on this one I think. I'm a Marik fan first and everything else a distant second, but there's no world where the left half of the Inner Sphere is seriously competing for the spotlight for anything other than the Wolf's Dragoons Universal Tour until the Clan Invasion. That is a very valid complaint, along with the Periphery kinda just being there instead of pursuing their own agendas. Only 3025 era thing I can remember for Marik outside the Anton revolt was Snord's Irregulars annoying Janos a bunch. A real waste, all those internal conflicts and political scheming just begged for all the tiny little skirmishes Battletech does best.
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May 7, 2021 20:21
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PoptartsNinja posted:It's almost like House Marik has historically been kinda lovely to the League's member nations. They took the Palpatine path to power and surprise surprise that means parliament quietly hates them (while still voting to give them an ever increasing number of "emergency powers." C'mon, FWL, you border House Steiner and the Capellan Confederation, it's not like you're fighting off House Kurita. House Marik would be far more interesting if they could hurl lightning (PPC bolts?) from their hands. I do get the impression the only real way they held power as long as they did was all their enemies just couldn't cooperate well enough to kick the Mariks out and keep them out. Which is honestly a more realistic way for a feudal society's politics to work out. Honestly, it's kinda strange more of the star nations in Battletech aren't as unstable as the FWL, feudalism almost by definition suggests some weakness in the central ruling power group because they can't project enough power without support. Hell, Kurita is fascist Japan, they should make feudal societies look downright tame considering how dysfunctional fascist governments get (Not sure what the equivalent of the Japanese Army and Navy fighting would be in this comparison. The feuding Warlords? ISF and the DC military?). Crazy Joe Wilson posted:2) They had the novels playing catch-up to the sourcebooks. That meant that most of the surprise of the novels was gone. You knew X was going to happen, Y faction was going to win. They still managed to sneak in a few surprises here and there (Like the Fidelis betraying the Republic, gently caress Paul Moon forever), but it felt like a lot of the novels were just trying to hit the beats they needed to. Well, they weren't called the SEMPER Fidelis I suppose, and really even the Clans probably agree Smoke Jaguar has genetically engineered purestrain rear end in a top hat into their warriors, so it's just reverting to type. quote:I don't care that the Wolves are IlClan. They were in the best position to do it, but they did not earn it in HOTW. Had they struggled a lot more, lost a lot more, had less POV characters so the Republic could have more, it would've been much better. Give me a Paladin Tyrina Drummond POV so that she can go out in a blaze of glory rather than "lol 2 wolf tank drivers no one cares about run over Tyrina's mech with a Carnivore tank lol". If we had to have an ilClan I prefer the Wolves winning (definitely better than the Falcons, I'm weary enough of cackling evil bastards running around after WoB, let's get back to morally dark shades of grey vs. each other again in BT thanks), but I'll be irritated if everybody in the Inner Sphere responds with more than a "Yes, and...?". Only the Clans took the ilClan stuff seriously, the IS powers should not suddenly be deferential to the Wolves because they took Terra ("Big whoop, we all took Terra several decades ago"). As I mentioned previously, unless Alaric has some amazing diplomatic trick the Capellans should just keep on coming for Terra, and they probably won't be alone. I will definitely be really irritated if "Wolf Clan conquers Terra" somehow becomes "Wolves conquer everybody", the Clan system sucks too much for me to want to watch it control the entire Inner Sphere and that would be WAY too much author fiat to buy. Defiance Industries posted:It sounds like you're one step away from realizing you can quit reading the novels because you're reading them just to find out "what happens next" and not because they're enjoyable reads Hate to say it, but that's about where I'm at. I actually enjoy a lot of the short fiction, but the books are just kinda of ehh to me right now.
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May 10, 2021 19:56
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girl dick energy posted:KerenskyRulez: the xXx_wolves_xXx clan have claimed this lane for our own! what casuals defend it? PrydeBae: The 420Falcons shall ownz you, freebirth newb! Defiance Industries posted:I'm just saying I don't think they do a very good job of conveying these themes through gameplay. Part of the reason people like 3025 is that the tabletop game is designed around four mechs fighting four other mechs, and 3025 has small battles like that as the default, rather than RCTs smashing into Galaxies. Naturally those same people don't want to admit it, but Dark Age is the same way. There aren't a lot of times in the game where "my lance fought this other lance" would be important and not something you are condescendingly patted on the head for while all eight Crucis Lancer RCTs drop on Tikonov, and I think design-wise, that's a mistake. I'm pretty sure most wargames by default assume you're playing out a small particular battle/skirmish in a larger front and your relatively tiny force has all their buddies just offscreen, as it were. I mean, how often does a historical game like Flames of War feature the entire army on the field at once rather than what would be a small portion of it? I don't know that the larger fluff of later eras makes lance on lance conflicts less "realistic", it's just the stakes of any one individual battle are reduced from "planet conquered or not".
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Jun 28, 2021 20:20
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Der Waffle Mous posted:my knowledge of the late republic era plot is basically the outlines posted in this thread and how they finally made the Federated Suns the plucky underdog they like to think of themselves as an Davion players couldn't be more miserable. I suppose there are limits on how bad any one faction can get ground down before it starts feeling unrealistic they ever come back; both post-4th Succession War Capellans and now the Fed Suns dance a little tight on that line. All three capitals and that much of the nation gone goes past underdog into "OK, logically how are they not falling apart now?" territory, which is kind of stressful if you want to keep playing that faction. At least they pushed back on that somewhat now with taking New Syrtis back. PoptartsNinja posted:If they wanted to win, they'd be playing House Kurita. Pfff, be mercs, don't give a poo poo who's winning the war so long as you get paid in full for the battles. Though I'm thinking, are there any major mercenary units left that haven't gotten crapped on by the Republic/ilClan eras? Dragoons got played by Alaric if I understand right, Kell Hounds got annihilated by the Falcons, Grey Death and Eridani Light Horse are long gone, Northwind Highlanders were absorbed by the Republic I think, are there any major commands still active by "modern" times, or any important victories any mercenaries have in the fluff? I think I find dumping on mercenaries, what I would think have to be one of the more popular factions to play (pick your own fluff and colors!), is one of the more irritating current story choices for me. At least logically you've got a ready-made excuse to make some news ones; every Republic unit that doesn't want to become bondsmen could be a source of new mercenary commands, just like the original flood of them I think happened with the fall of the Star League.
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Aug 9, 2021 02:01
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Well, I hope I see that email soon, they screwed up and never sent me any of my Wave 1 stuff, I assumed it'd just go out with the Wave 2 in my case (think they said that would happen to some folks?). I'm going to be pissed if they lost my whole order somehow. Last I checked they did have the correct address at least. EDIT: Bwahaha, literally the second after I hit post it shows up in my email, I admire their timing. MadDogMike fucked around with this message at 00:30 on Aug 11, 2021 |
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Aug 11, 2021 00:27
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Weissritter posted:What are some good ways to run introduction games of CBT? Piloting a light mech at 3025 tech level on a relatively flat map? My intro was actually a Hunchback/Commando vs Hunchback/Commando mirror match; the relatively high firepower made it faster/more exciting, you had an example of missiles and regular weapons, and the speed difference was there to show off the impact of movement. Don’t know how that works with miniature availability though. Just used the “basic” map, it was simple enough with some terrain examples of the various types.
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Aug 24, 2021 20:38
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My order finally arrived; looks like they did include the Wave 1 stuff I didn't get originally, so that's one nervous breakdown averted. My salvage boxes were a Fenris, Koshi, and a Black Hawk for the Clan stuff, which actually works well since most of my existing clan stuff is heavies and assaults since I mostly got them for looks (except for the medium Jade Falcon Nova of Elementals/mechs I keep failing to finish painting) so I can use a few more lighter Clan mechs in my collection. Got Grayson for the legendary, can never have enough Marauders for my tastes definitely. And most importantly I have my Urbie plushie to sit on the shelf in my bedroom to guard my sleep with its derpy charm and massive autocannon. Now to build up the motivation to paint again.Atlas Hugged posted:For "fun", I replayed the opening mission of Crescent Hawks' Revenge and oh my word that loving Locust can go gently caress itself. Took me about six tries to chase it off. Then I thought I was doing really well on the second mission. Had the Panther at 30% and the Ostscout at 50%, but the Ostscout managed to get around the Griffin and the Enforcer was busy hounding the Panther and that was it. ALT+F4 I only played Crescent Hawks' Inception back in the day; after the attack I just had no drat idea how to proceed in that game. Then again I've always been terrible at all Battletech video games, so perhaps it's just a pattern that started early.
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Sep 3, 2021 21:50
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Y'know, I'm thinking some Mechwarrior in the setting just HAS to have invented a drink called the Headshot (also could probably have an Ammo Explosion, or a Neural Feedback), but I don't know liquor well enough to come up with a recipe for any of those sadly.
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Nov 3, 2021 02:52
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TheDiceMustRoll posted:I just googled that and jesus Yeah, even from the start the DC are definitely played more WWII Japan than Shogunate (not that the latter didn't have its own total bastard moments) and the House Kurita handbook both deliberately tied the start of the Kuritas to that era and made it pretty clear they've been ambitious bastards for some time. But at least they're interesting enough to be a "love to hate" faction for me, and really before the novels started dividing everything into "good guy" and "bad guy" fashion all the factions had elements of being jerks and outright monstrous past rulers. The latter even applied to the Combine as Takashi was an improved replacement to a vicious father, though considering he responded to the barest hint he had been involved with said father's assassination with a massacre, "improvement" was a relative term. PoptartsNinja posted:BattleTech doesn't talk about religion much. The original handbooks actually at least mentioned several religious groups in each nation, if only in survey fashion, and even introduced a few new ones (the Unfinished Book in the House Davion book for example). It doesn't really get highlighted much since Comstar took most of the "religious" power of the feudal setting though. Still, at least it gets more recognition than most sci-fi properties devote to it (and it doesn't act like religion will surely stop existing in the future, which is somewhat assumptive considering the idea is literally older than writing).
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Nov 10, 2021 20:17
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Defiance Industries posted:Speaking of Shogunate Japan, I'm surprised we've never really seen the Combine spill much ink on "powerful Warlord makes the Coordinator his puppet." Kiyomori Minamoto comes the closest, but even he is ultimately subordinate to Hohiro, giving in on things like the Republic disarmament treaty. It looked for a hot minute like Yori Kurita might be that, but it's definitely not the case. Yeah, don't recall too many puppet master regimes in general in-setting now that you mention it. And in other historical trends defied, honestly it's kind of weird all these Houses haven't actually had line breaks or the like to my knowledge ending their rule in favor of another family; haven't they all lasted longer than most if not all Earth dynasties by a while? On reflection it's kind of bizarre considering the number of centuries we're talking about that, say, the Federated Suns is still ruled by a Davion without one bad generation happening to get the line overthrown or wiped out. Though at least I seem to recall at least some if not all of them had to pull a "find a distant cousin with the name to continue" moment in their histories unless I'm misremembering.
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Nov 11, 2021 00:49
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Defiance Industries posted:It's not so much that we've never seen a puppet ruler, it's more that it doesn't seem to be a single powerful vassal that gets to do it as often as it is a close family member. Which I suppose is pretty realistic historically; pretty sure a lot of ruler puppeteers involved family of the ruler in some way. PoptartsNinja posted:The current "House Kurita" probably has a more direct blood claim to the throne of the Federated Suns than they do to the Draconis Combine. They certainly have de facto claimed the actual throne room at the moment!  Though on the religious discussion earlier, apparently the DC murdered the New Avalon Catholic Pope and their cardinals for "practicing an illegal religion" after the conquest, so I guess that will save arguments for any future Catholic weddings.
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Nov 11, 2021 06:19
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PoptartsNinja posted:It's why I still say 'Mechs make more sense as an ego thing. The Camerons tricked the Great Houses into a more limited form of warfare to keep them from slinging nukes at each other, and because 'Mechs are big and fancy looking and impressive and have lightning guns all the Great Houses stood in line to drink the giant robot kool-aid. Weren’t the Mackies also introduced with much better armor and weapons than the vehicles of the time to boot? Seem to recall that was a big reason they were trouncing tons of tanks at the time, but of course everybody thinks “Wow, these Battlemechs are super powerful, we need them!” instead of “Wow, imagine how good this armor will be when we put it on a tank!”. Vehicle tech caught up later but the damage was done. I figure the real reason they stay king of the battlefield is inertia from that, the ego boost it gives feudal lords, and some slight advantages in planetary assault (Pretty sure you can’t orbital drop vehicles, right? Or did I miss something?). In-universe anyway; real reason of course is most players love our nonsensical giant robots and whining about their presence in a game made to have them is like complaining how real bishops don’t only move diagonally so chess doesn’t make sense.
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Dec 1, 2021 17:30
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PoptartsNinja posted:IIRC Stone was basically a Wobbie the other Wobbies programmed as a 'controlled resistance' to defeat them and create a new Terran Hegemony. The Republic was basically the Wobbie end goal because they knew even if they "won" the Jihad everyone would hate them. I admit this is one thing that warms me up to the whole ilClan concept; it is SO appropriate the last hope of the Wobbies gets stomped out by the Clans they expected to holy war against  .Crazy Joe Wilson posted:Alaric said in one of the newer books his IlClan was coming for the Draconis Combine to "avenge the Nova Cats", we'll see if CGL wants to actually follow up on that. Ha, bonus points if they manage to run over the FedSuns even harder in the process as the poor bastards get caught between the two. Still, I suppose the Draconis Combine is about due for that kind of problem around now anyway, even if I feel logically the ilClan should be dealing with the CC more at this point (though the DC were invading the Republic too I suppose). Be nice if they could also walk back to accepting some of the changes Theodore made as a result; the fact the DC is more fascist in a lot of ways than feudal is starting to feel more and more problematic given current events, makes the dark in their dark grey get a little TOO dark for my tastes. Besides, reality has shown fascists are idiots who should not have the skill the DCMS has, or at least be able to sustain it for as many centuries as they have. I mean, how well do "honorbul warriors" who obey without the slightest initiative and whose commanders are supposed to kill themselves upon failing actually WORK as a super army in real life? Hell, I always took the theme of the Clan Invasion as applied to the DC to be "being all egotist warriors who are ruthlessly cruel to the people you rule doesn't work against somebody better at being those things than you", kind of annoys me current lore seems to be backsliding on those lessons some to build them up as a threat. The Dracs shouldn't be nice obviously (nobody is in Battletech's setting), but "hard men making hard choices" and "war crimes in the name of order" are things that are aging reaaalllly badly of late, that should at least be more a sometime thing (which most IS powers will swing towards when they get a tyrant) rather than the DC's perennial hat, as it were.
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Dec 22, 2021 20:01
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DrPop posted:Rec Guide 22 has it all. Gee, pilot fluff indicates if you poo poo all over your abtakha warriors they MIGHT not be loyal and ditch back to their former Clan; who would have thought? quote:Another Hells Horses quad: That thing is hilariously derpy, looks like they strapped all the weapons and gear on it like it's a pack mule. The jump jet version must be AMAZING looking .quote:A bad, under-gunned jade falcon assault mech: Appropriately named for a terrible Jade Falcon warrior, at least. "A mech worthy of Aidan Pryde!" is not the ringing endorsement the Falcons think it is...
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Dec 24, 2021 21:12
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PoptartsNinja posted:And then the Word of Blake happened and the WarShips all exploded because the devs realized nobody would fight with toy robots if a WarShip could just nuke everything from space,. To be fair when the Word of Blake happened EVERYTHING exploded really  . Honestly the "nuke everything from space" thing is kind of a cop out, there are several countries in real life capable of "nuking everything" and we still have all too much war without going that far, I find it hard to believe you can't write BT to keep the Warship ortillery from being a factor considering how much other stuff has been handwaved to keep giant stompy robots a focus. Even minus the "destroy what you're conquering/MAD" arguments that prevail in real life on WMDs, it's not impossible to write the tech to put some limitations on orbital bombardment. The "pocket Warship" dropships with cap missiles as a cheaper deterrent are one attempt at that at least (though I wonder if anybody's gamed out how well they actually would work under the rules as a Warship counter), you could probably get even better results if you give at least the important worlds a bunch of anti-orbital stuff that can't reliably target at least small Dropships (which gives you a nice "send a small Mech force to disable the guns to create an LZ" setup) but can blast back at any Warship coming in to war crime up the place. Ironically it would kind of support the "a lance or company can conquer an entire planet" BT theme better if you needed to insert Mechs to reliably take a place but once you disable the orbital defenses with them everybody surrenders so you don't Thor strike them to oblivion.
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Jan 2, 2022 18:39
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Been trying to ease back into reading some of the novels since the current era seems to be getting more interesting than Dark Ages was to me. Picked up Redemption Rites and A Question of Survival; any other "current era" fiction worth checking out? Also, is it me or is Alaric self-sabotaging so badly he might as well be deliberately trying to do so? He pisses off Wolf's Dragoons (the people who made a VERY big mess for the Combine the last time they were this desperate and hosed with this badly), he's repaid the loyalty of the Wolves who didn't go by utterly abandoning them, and now he's thrown a hissy fit and hit the Ghost Bears right in their family by being mad a democratic vote wasn't unanimously in favor of bowing to him and licking his boots even though I expect the losers would have sucked it up and been loyal. I haven't read any of the ilClan Technical Readouts, but do they actually indicate the ilClan dominates the Inner Sphere by that point? Because given how well Alaric is emulating his genemother in political arrogance, it's starting to feel kind of unrealistic for him even with Terra to rule too many worlds given what a good job he's doing undermining his allies and antagonizing everyone else. Kind of hoping the setting goes the way it feels like it's going, where it feels like a bunch of smaller factions fighting things out. I'm pleased the two books I read were down to much smaller forces going for relatively small goals instead of RCTs smashing together. Feels exciting to have things down to just a handful of Mechs again.
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Aug 17, 2022 02:00
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Mulva posted:I like how the canonical explanation for the Jihad is that the breaking of the Star League caused them to do an entirely unplanned and emotional fucky-wucky, and then they were just too committed to back down. So they took the army they were planning to use to genocide the Clans and just sort of adapted it to killing literally every single person that opposed them. Just one big "Well hell....guess we are doing this now.". It has the air of chaos and incompetence that so many real life conflicts flashpoint off of. Yeah, I’m glad they never implied the religious fanatics were actually competent, they made most of their progress via the shock of how suddenly viciously violent they were plus existing fault lines in their opponents making them conflict with each other, and once those things went away they got pounded fast. Though I find it kind of funny to imagine that if their original plan went off they might have actually been regarded as heroically as they imagined. While I think genocide of the Clans is way too far (certainly even if the warriors deserve it the lower castes don’t), I can’t see the average Inner Sphere resident being all too broken up over it. Hell, if they had responded to the Star League breaking up by going with Plan Kill Clans and trumpeted how they were willing to finally solve that problem while the so-called League members neglected the very reason it was re-founded for out of petty squabbling, they could very well have gotten a LOT of buy-in to the idea of people following them. But instead they freaked out and in the end the Clans wound up wiping away the last remnants of them instead.
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Aug 17, 2022 16:51
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Rorahusky posted:No matter what, the Inner Sphere would have united to destroy them, if not for the threat they became than for the threat they WOULD have become. ... Are there Inner Sphere factions capable of looking that far ahead? I swear short-sightedness is like the Achilles heel of the Houses as a rule. General Battuta posted:I don't think the Clanocide would ever really have worked out, because I don't believe WoB was 1. united enough internally to prosecute such a long lasting strategy without suffering a schism, or 2. patient enough to avoid retaliating against anyone who deviated from their Holy Purpose with assassinations, shadow divisions, warships and WMDs. True, "too incompetent to carry out a plan even if the universe cooperated" is probably a fair assessment. God knows if the first attack of the Jihad happened over Blane's literally dead body chucked into space, they certainly had some coordination "issues" by default.
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Aug 18, 2022 00:32
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Crazy Joe Wilson posted:A minor quibble honestly. I just want more detail on my favorite (minor) faction. Maybe they're waiting for Alaric to Super secretly reveal he's been hiding Kisho and the surviving Nova Cats under his billowing cloak, and that if the Spirit Cats side with him he'll let the two groups revitalize a Clan Nova Cat under IlClanship protection, like he did with the Smoke Jags.. But that would require Alaric being crazy competent, and it seems like they are slowly making him less and less competent after he peaked with conquering Terra with literally one bump in the road. I have hope maybe one day they'll do a novel just on the Spirit Cats, but to be fair, Kurita, Davion, and Steiner are all waiting on novels themselves. Eh, I don't think he's completely incompetent so much as arrogant and unable to see that others don't see the universe the way he does. If anybody straight up bows to him without any quibbling, he'd be fine (even magnanimous) with them, and I expect the Cats are a likely possibility to take that route. One thing that does encourage the possibility of your spoiler (or Alaric doing it later) is if he's "avenging the Nova Cats" that gives a very good reason for his new realm to clash with the Draconis Combine, and they've been riding high long enough I feel like they're due for that kind of setback given how the Houses tend to ebb and flow in the setting (though I hope the Fed Suns stay kind of weak even as sort of a fan of them simply because they haven't really done the underdog thing much and it makes for some interesting story possibilities) quote:Also, while I like the Dragoons taking it to the Wolf Empire, I was really hoping they'd just die after what happened to them on Terra. Not because I hate them, but because they've already revived themselves several times, let them die from their mistakes. I rather like the new Dragoons; they fit great in the new "smaller powers duking it out somewhat desperately" era that seems to be taking shape. I enjoyed Redemption Rites; the Dragoons matched the current Clan theme of the left-behinds having to deal with what was left from those who went to Terra (in this case actually court-martialing the stupid bastards instead of just shrugging it off like might be expected) and they felt like they lack the usual "protagonist armor" you'd expect. They had logical difficulties based on their forces used (may I say I LOVE the fact they went with Zeta Battalion instead of the lazy option of "remaking the Black Widows", and Zeta suffered the appropriate issues of an all-assault force with slow speed and lack of good scouting) and while they "won" their victories were limited and in a real sense symbolic (though holy crap what a symbol, loved when I saw it spoiled a while back here and it hit just as well reading it myself). It also showed the Wolves doing their own clever things with what they had, and most were sympathetic enough. I loved that in both Redemption Rites and A Question of Survival really; the "bad guys" were competent and many were portrayed reasonably sympathetically, I could easily see a fan of them reading the book and feeling like they were the protagonists (if protagonists of a tragedy, maybe). But of course the big reason I'm glad they kept the Dragoons is because I think it helps herald mercenaries coming back to the fore more. Which only makes sense given factional weakness and people splitting off makes them more valuable and more likely to be spawned. As mercenaries are without a doubt my favorite Battletech faction, I highly approve of this idea .
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Aug 19, 2022 09:00
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Crazy Joe Wilson posted:Fair points on the Dragoon stuff. I do like that there were actual consequences for the Dragoon's complete buffoonery in going in to support Alaric, especially for the leadership that made it happen. Yeah, think I've mentioned this here before but the Draconis Combine emulating fascist WWII Japan with the genocide crap is something that's aged badly as time goes on, including the setting accepting "awesome bushido samurai spirit lets them win!" unironically. Fascists have pretty well been established historically as actually being terrible at armies because they put ideology over reality, the DC should not realistically be an exception even if Theodore and the Clans forced some changes. I get the idea of a "darker shade of grey" faction, but the real world associations make me uncomfortable with how they keep being successful at being bad. Besides, pushing them towards actual feudal samurai instead of the psychos trying to justify their crap with samurai propaganda would be much more interesting, the samurai were a lot more flexible and less lockstep loyal. Hell, make the Combine emulate the Warring States period and you've got something that fits great with the current localized conflicts modern era. Everybody else is finally cracking up, why not the Combine too? Let's turn EVERYBODY into the Free Worlds League! quote:My ideal scenario would be the Ravens and Ghost Bears, under Alaric's encouragement, start f*cking up the Draconis Combine, and Yori and Julian make a marriage alliance as they have no other allies at this point. Any Nobility on either side of the border that oppose this move can go serve on the frontline against the IlClan. A marriage alliance would also let Yori technically "keep" New Avalon while still handing it back to Julian, and it would solve one of BattleTech's biggest fiction stupidities; that all five heirs/leaders of the Great Houses right now are not hitched and trying to make heirs. Eh, can't see Julian getting away with marrying the lady associated with a LOT of atrocities against his people now even if he wants to (a big if), and as you say it breaks with the apparent "factions are fragmenting" feel of the current era. It's probably more logical to me that the DC loses New Avalon because they have to hastily retract their overdrawn forces to deal with the ilClan coming for them and Julian just happens to get New Avalon by default/a quick ceasefire deal. As for the other factions, Lyrans and FWL are already kind of splintering in response to the Clan withdrawal, and the Capellan/MOC split also seems to be proceeding ahead in a way that could wreck Daoshen's realm thanks to his god complex. Fed Suns is already pretty crippled even without splitting but if you want to break them up there's plenty of options with the Draconis and Capellan Marches. So if the DC get aboard the civil fracturing game and Alaric gets smacked in the face by reality hard enough he can't rule the Inner Sphere, we'll have our universe of crippled factions only able to squabble for smaller stakes all set (though I'm not sure how the inevitable Home Clan attack will go into an even more fractured Inner Sphere).
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Aug 19, 2022 19:20
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Crazy Joe Wilson posted:His dream was for people to look past their national differences, disarm, and stop fighting huge fuckton wars every decade for the whims of petty nobles and weirdo eugenics warriors. Also to kill the Word of Blake. Wasn't he actually created by Word of Blake though? Thought he confessed as much right before he got appropriately put out of our misery by pillow. Though maybe I missed something and he fully turned against his creators, which seems appropriate enough for a WoB plan really. Haven't read Hour of the Wolf, so not sure of specifics. I do remember he planned to stage the Blackout at a time when he could return a la King Arthur and get everybody licking his boots for "saving" them, but somebody ran the plan early and oops, Republic wasn't strong enough to endure.
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Aug 23, 2022 23:59
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GD_American posted:I dislike the Clans as a whole but only rocking one tech area is kinda dumb Eh, I understand WHY some people prefer Level 1 play over other types, and God knows rule overload is a thing in BT sometimes (I still am dubious I follow a lot of the tech rules for Jihad+ tech stuff the way I follow everything up to 3058 or so), main thing that annoys me is how many of them act like only an idiot or a cheater won't agree with their preference. Sorry, not everybody who plays the Clans is a munchkin; hell, I got stuck with a munchkin using level 1 stuff the one time I tried the RPG (getting a stock Crusader with a pilot who thanks to a dubious reading of the rules for Reflex had skills WORSE than a green pilot sent up against a 0/0 Atlas pilot kinda told me how fair he played. Still think he was mad I happened to win our introductory Battletech match thanks to a lucky set of bad pilot rolls to stand up). Also wonder how many of them have the will to try all the earlier era stuff now that they've started filling in that timeframe; there's a way to do even cruder than 3025.
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Sep 3, 2022 23:25
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BattleMaster posted:For every Hellstar there is there are like five dozen weird and janky suboptimal mechs to pick from. There is no end to the weird stuff you can play with if you move beyond intro tech. In fact, if your aim is to try to find good ways to use and play junk designs, there is far more choice. Honestly my preference has always been to just use stock designs as much as possible, with modded versions kind of to a minimum (and I pretty much never do full custom designs unless it's for something I can't find an existing design for that makes sense). I even try to stick to the given configurations for Omnis in the Tech Readouts. Having to deal with the hand you're given is a lot more interesting, and can give some factions some additional flavor (like FedSuns autocannon spam or Marik lasers over PPCs).
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Sep 5, 2022 09:00
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BattleMaster posted:I like spheroid dropships but I never liked aerodyne ones because they don't really make sense. I assumed aerodyne Dropships (the in-atmo ones anyway, strangely enough the Achilles and Vengeance designs can't enter atmosphere; Vengeance might use shape for launching its 40 fighters better, but not sure of the logic for Achilles being aerodyne) were used to have a Dropship that could more easily deploy between sites on the surface. Spheroid Dropships look like they'd probably need to get to at least suborbital height to relocate with any ease. It would explain the Leopard at least as a raider; it's able to move its Mechs around to various targets if they're scattered across a planet (or hasty relocate them away from responding forces). I imagine the Star League used the Confederate more since they did less raiding like that (if they want something, they could just drop a regiment on the defenders' heads). The belly drive is still kinda crazy as mentioned, though I suppose it could explain why something that big doesn't need a 20 mile long runway to launch. Spheroid is probably much better for just dropping somewhere and staying given the fully vertical takeoff/landing setup and for military vessels you have your weapons arrayed (and higher up) to cover all approaches better.
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Sep 13, 2022 08:44
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Defiance Industries posted:I think they're trying to get off the comic book-style parade of back to back massive crises where NOTHING WILL EVER BE THE SAME AGAIN!!! because they've realized that first and foremost this is a setting for players to tell their own stories, not for them to tell you theirs and you can maybe hang around in the background and pretend you helped. So settling into a 3SW-style situation where the different powers are more or less evenly matched and in a constant state of low-level conflict seems likely for a while. I’m still crossing my fingers the “everybody gets shattered/otherwise divided into multiple smaller factions” that I feel the last few books have been setting up, is the way they’re going. At this point if they can wreck the Dracs and/or the Fed Suns (not sure if getting bodied by Kurita has done enough damage or we need the Marches to start splitting) while weakening the Wolves enough they can’t conquer the whole IS, we can get a bunch of smaller nations squabbling for far less dramatic stakes. More importantly, that brings us back to “one lance can matter for the fate of a world” feel, which is the one thing I do kinda like from the original era. Also would de facto make the Periphery states equal enough in strength to be major political factors. Guess my one fear is if you lose too many fans tearing apart the original five factions for a bunch of new ones though, even if I think that’s a worthy sacrifice to change things.
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Oct 19, 2022 03:23
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Owlbear Camus posted:Traffic court wants my distant heirs to pay a debt to Comstar in the waning years of the Third Succession War. Be sure to praise Blake when you pay, just in case.
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Jan 9, 2023 22:55
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PoptartsNinja posted:The Clan eugenics program has never been portrayed as very effective. The actual Clan advantage came from organized training and any Inner Sphere warriors who received similar levels of training were equally effective. The fact the somewhat-less-psycho Falcons raided the Bears for more trainees definitely suggests there's breakdowns in getting warriors (hell, the Ghost Bears in that novel were a picture perfect example of good trainee warriors getting screwed over by a lunatic trainer with biases), so I expect there's going to be big movements for both of them to grab any decent soldiers they can wherever they can, they literally can't afford to be too picky. Hard to say what Alaric's merry band will be doing since he seems to be an arrogant idiot; it might be that being ultra-conservative with focusing on Trueborns might become something that distinguishes the Wolves from the others (to their detriment). Finally got to reading Damocles Sanction; I appreciate it continues the "break into smaller factions" route of the current era by putting the First Prince and the heads of the Draconis and Capellan Marches at odds (hell, they're pretty much "we'd fight except we know we'd get killed by someone else" level now) even as they technically pick up a big win shoving the Combine back. I do hope we get similar effects hitting the Combine itself soon; Yori seemed far too secure at the end of this one, she deserves some of the ulcers going around Inner Sphere leadership now, and I'd love it if those "troubling Clan-related reports" she dismisses at the end of this one are a tad more troubling than she anticipates. That would pretty much be everybody having internal faction trouble at that point I think, especially if the Wolves get some shattering of their own in the process of attacking the DC.
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Jan 15, 2023 01:01
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Crazy Joe Wilson posted:Yeah, I just finished "A Question of Survival" and was surprised by how much I found Jiyi Chistu (New Khan of the remnants of Clan Jade Falcon) likeable. It doesn't hurt that he's an old clix unique. I feel real bad for the Ghost Bears though, and Alaric just seems to be way too high on his own stuff with his "The vote must be unanimous!!1!" crap. Dude could've got an entire State/Clan on his side, and instead caused a civil war inside of them. Yeah, that was the book I mentioned for how the Falcons probably are not going to be picky about where they get warriors. I do agree this is probably the most I've found the Falcons as a whole likable (though their usage of snark did make them amusing sometimes); Chistu's faction seems to have had just enough ego damage to be willing to innovate now. As for the rest, I did see one theory Alaric might have deliberately triggered the Ghost Bear issue to weaken a rival, but I tend to think it is indeed him being egotistical in victory. It fits too well with several other own goals he seems to be scoring on himself (like the Wolf Dragoons and FWL crushing his garrison Wolves while he ignores them). I do hope to see the ilClan do something interesting when they finally come out from behind the scenes, but it definitely feels like they won't be terribly dominant over the Inner Sphere given the evident issues they're causing themselves (which, again, I'm hoping is because BT current era is striving to make smaller political units more of a thing). Crazy Joe Wilson posted:I think for the Draconis Combine, the big threat will come to them from pro-IlClan Bears and Ravens, not necessarily the Wolves themselves. Feels like the Bears are going to be too busy with their own headaches to start something, though I suppose one way the Combine could get into a fight with the ilClan is trying to take advantage of the current GB civil conflict and then getting hit when the pro-Alaric faction asks him for help. As for the Ravens, have they been established to even have an opinion on the Wolves as ilClan, or for that matter to know anything beyond rumors yet? Not sure how they'll jump, they're another Clan faction highly integrated with non-Clan people. I suppose we might see the Wolves face off against Capella before the DC, although in their case I foresee the CC might instead be stuck with internal trouble due to the current chilling of relations with the MoC and Andurians. Which is why I like the idea of Wolf/Combine conflict since that hits pretty much the last two major factions not already weakened/dealing with internal conflict. The Combine certainly gets to be much more interesting when they're at serious existential threat from a faction that they can't just bullshido their way through, and I don't think there are any other groups that can currently provide such a threat beyond the ilClan. Also, they're both such arrogant jerks they're practically made for each other .
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Jan 16, 2023 09:20
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PoptartsNinja posted:Or some malicious compliance on the part of an SLDF staff officer. I am still of the opinion the reason the standard nuclear weapons are named Davy Crockett/Alamo/Santa Ana in ascending order of explosive power was because of someone in procurement who wanted to tweak the nose of Texans .Libluini posted:this would have ended in that last First Lord getting committed for insanity, it's not like the Star League was a 100% autocratic system where the Space Czar can just do anything they want, the great houses would have that fucker decapitated for doing something on this level of stupid The great house lords can see stupid leadership all the time by just turning their monitors off, I doubt a moron merely ranting about what to name a ship he's paying for would rate much notice.
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Feb 11, 2023 06:00
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Marx Headroom posted:Hahahahaha good luck with that, dear leader It’s worse, he’s actually caused a ton of internal fighting in each Clan already. I’m half wondering if the Wolves are gonna fall and Sea Fox will take the title or something; at the current rate them buying out the Inner Sphere seems more likely than Alaric conquering much of it.
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May 15, 2023 16:41
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Crazy Joe Wilson posted:I'm willing to bet with the new IlClan era we're going to see a stalemate. The Clans are all in the IlClan/nuStar League at the center of the Inner Sphere, and the Great Houses and hinterlands are surrounding them. Every state is at war with everyone else, alliances are shifting. Anyone could fight anyone. And there we go, new status quo for the next decade or so. I admit the reverse Uno of the Clans being the central power and the rest of the Inner Sphere being the looming threat on the border is amusing .As I’ve mentioned before, I’m getting a definite vibe we’re going from a couple major powers to several smaller powers squabbling for lesser stakes. It brings back the era of a lance or two making all the difference in a planetary battle if that’s all anyone usually has available. Defiance Industries posted:I really liked Ken Horner's article in Shrapnel 12 about how, no, people from Donegal aren't just Irish, they're significantly different because of 800 years of cultural drift. But it's totally cool if someone from Donegal wants to go visit Ireland, just don't pretend that having an ancestor who lived there 800 years ago makes you Irish. I seem to recall actual Terran Japan is unamused by the DC being samurai weeaboos. Not sure what Terran China thinks of the Capellans though.
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May 15, 2023 22:01
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