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Greetings fellow mech warriors. Playing the HBS campaigns and expansions recently made me nostalgic for the tabletop game, which was the first true nerd game I cut my teeth on back in the 90's and my gateway into a world of little pewter elves and stuff. I didn't have any duders or maps or anything after a bunch of moves and life changes but the TGSS hooked me back up and now I'm gonna get back in a bit and introduce my kids. Got the core set and a few IS lance boxes and a Brother printer ready to print out little bubble sheets, along with a resin printer that can add another mech here or there. Skimming the core book I'm surprised just how little has changed in the basic rules in decades. I suppose it was always functional and the things that were fiddly, like damage tracking, were fiddly in a satisfying way. Maybe because my kind of dickish friend introduced me to the game playing ton-for-ton instead of using BV and played clan mechs while I used IS, I've always been a 3025 IS Grognard who liked the classics best Gonna let my kiddo read the primer and pick a fav. house/company because she gets into deep lore and stuff with her D&D brain. We'll paint some up in House colors, even ordered some waterslide decal transfers.  I used to be all about the Davion/Kurita stuff but I think Laio might be what I'm about these days.Any must-haves? I remember enjoying a mechwarrior campaign that was super fun to pass the time back in the barracks a million years ago and I think she'd like a Mercenary Company style thing, but I remember reading that the current RPG system is ridiculously Battlelords/phoenix command level complex?
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Dec 15, 2022 15:37
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I know exactly how I'd do the trailer to hook in normies to sell the sense of scale. A large-scale sci-fi firefight between entrenched forces. Massed infantry, a couple tanks. ne side is starting to get overrun. THEN you start to hear the STOMP STOMP STOMP and the puddles of blood-tinged rainwater start to get disturbed ala the iconic Jurassic park scene before we see 'em. Then a powers of ten shot zooming out and the ground pounders we were following get lost in the chaos of a couple lances mixing it up.
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Dec 16, 2022 20:08
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Marx Headroom posted:So far this suggestion feels like the most faithful to the source material Cut in some Macross scenes, too.
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Dec 16, 2022 20:32
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Another returning player question: Is total warfare out of print? followup if so, is a reprint expected soon? bonus followup question which Capellan livery would look the coolest on tiny little robots, and a leopard dropship i'm gonna print out: https://unitcolorcompendium.com/category/capellan-confederation/?fbclid=IwAR3ZySXypJkvQjGJ4fgCDR7JqYa7fd9XvmtyFBgTk_jQZ5MIfojQ0warBKI
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Dec 20, 2022 00:32
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I'm not even sure what the proper name is for that effect around the weapon barrels is, but you nailed it.
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Dec 20, 2022 15:01
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So my too clever for her own good daughter upon getting the rundown in preparation for a game over winter break observed essentially that with the basic game being mech on mech you don't get a real sense of the scale and I don't super disagree. Is there a good simple scenario to incorporate a squad or two of infantry maybe a light vehicle to give her that stomp factor? Around the turn of the century I got into the clicky game, and for all its flaws, one of the things I liked was how it with relative simplicity did a combined arms thing where 1-2 battlemechs were supporting several vehicles and infantry squads and doing things they simply could not do, better to give you that sense. There must be a hundred HBS missions escort Marines to the thing but just getting back in and introducing her I want to make sure it's snappy and gives her that scale she seems to want to experience. Owlbear Camus fucked around with this message at 16:14 on Dec 20, 2022 |
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Dec 20, 2022 15:55
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Rorahusky posted:
My gal asked me about my favorite 'mechs when I was playing the HBS game a while ago and I mentioned that I liked mech's that were built around one big gun "meant" for one weight class higher like the Hunchback. She got me a laser-engraved steel box with a good size set of dice for tracking movement phase modifiers with a hunchback engraved on the front and the hit location chart on the bottom, and some litko arc overlays, and little things you clip to your mech sheet to track heat without marking it, along with a Inner Sphere Heavy lance. She is thoughtful.  
Owlbear Camus fucked around with this message at 18:18 on Dec 26, 2022 |
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Dec 25, 2022 21:04
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Thanks for the heads up. Got a bunch stuff. Runs through tomorrow. Worth noting the lance/star miniature expansions are included as well as boxed games and expansions. Confirmed in-store only. Owlbear Camus fucked around with this message at 04:32 on Dec 27, 2022 |
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Dec 27, 2022 02:50
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If I can get my resin printer running again I absolutely will be adding scale-factor stuff to bases like civillian autos and individual infantry figs. Speaking of anyone have a go to for printable 6mm scifi infantry?
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Dec 29, 2022 16:54
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Those are very reasonably priced blisters. Sold a lot of them to grognards when I worked at an FLGS. I guess at that scale the difference between an M4, a sturmgewehr, and a lasergun is pretty mild.
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Dec 29, 2022 17:19
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Not my best work but I wanted to get a lance ready for my kid to play in a hurry. She requested a deep blue-gray/dark sandy tan complimentary scheme.
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Dec 29, 2022 19:50
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    First game of CBT in decades tonight. It was a real treat to introduce the kid to the nerd game I cut my teeth on, almost entirely unchanged after so many years but still in print. I had forgotten just how whiffy baseline IS pilots with 3025 tech could be. You ran, your target ran, GS4, medium range? Long odds of tagging them for sure.
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Dec 31, 2022 04:34
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That's really really clean greenstuff sculpting, nice job.
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Dec 31, 2022 22:30
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My daughter's assessment was "It's not only fighting with mechs like that, right? Is there more roleplay?" So I'll be adding more context in the form of looking up prices, using my boring work related spreadsheet-toucher powers for good and letting her negotiate contracts and manage her merc unit and its resources a la the HBS game. I've already decided her crew chief will be Brinjid Bjornditter, hailing from the free rasalhague republic and soberly going over post-mission damage, salvage, and repair and refit work orders with a severe Minnesotan accent. "Oh hey there you banged up the Commando pretty good don'tcha know? Good news is the Capellan 3A you cored out we recovered and it won't be walking again, yeah, no- But! it's plenty of spare parts that are plug an' play with 'er." Owlbear Camus fucked around with this message at 02:33 on Jan 1, 2023 |
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Jan 1, 2023 02:31
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Craft/painting question: Does anyone offer shark's teeth nose art decals for these little stompy bois?
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Jan 1, 2023 17:25
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PerniciousKnid posted:Something about the lighting and the wood wall in the background made me think this was actually a picture of you from the 80s. Perfect picture of classic gaming with the kid. The only real tell is the nice litko acrylic arc indicator. We didn't have fancy game aids in the long ago.
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Jan 2, 2023 02:36
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Speaking of mat talk, is there a good stateside shipping neoprene texture printed hex option? I'm starting to print out buildings and elevation hexes like a fancy Dan. I've got like a million different themes for Legion so I'm set if I get into Alpha Strike.
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Jan 5, 2023 21:17
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Almost done printing my map scale Leopard dropship (Nuseen/HBS/CGL type). One door failure to reprijnt. Really dumb question but I want to assemble it in demployment mode and can't find reference photos: the doors open up like a delorian, they're not ramps, right? That seems to be the way it wants to fit together but before I superglue thought I'd confirm.
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Jan 6, 2023 17:34
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PoptartsNinja posted:Mapscale leopards are fun to paint. I painted mine to look like flying garbage scows. Love the re-entry burns around the leading edges; that's definitely an effect I'd already planned on for mine as well.
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Jan 6, 2023 18:23
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There is a bugmech alignment chart and the cicada and grasshopper are on the evil axis. So browsing game aids I noticed there's contact ping standees for unrevealed mechs. Since the 90's I just played as you put your guys on the table and moved them around. Are there rules for not revealing your dudes until they're in LOS; and where would I find those? As part of campaign play as I build out the spreadsheet and generate her reserves I've decided there's a fifth ready reserve mech in the implausibly ample store's of my Daughter's merc lance dropship in case of combat losses. What should I throw in there to compliment Griffin, Blackjack, Locust, Commando? My thoughts are to keep her hungry with some squad goals (but make the first several missions close to walk overs as she learns the ins and outs), so not an Atlas obv.
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Jan 7, 2023 15:53
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Whom amongst us does not like to shred armor with an autocannon so heavy for the weight class it fucks up the whole mech's profile? One of the packages I ordered to spend a B&N bargain AGOAC box voucher came today with salvage boxes. Marauder IIC, Stone Rhino, Supernova, Urbanmech. One of these things is not like the others. One of these things is not the same. It was the one I picked out on purpose because he's my special little guy.
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Jan 7, 2023 20:42
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TheKingslayer posted:I ended up grabbing the Clan Invasion box set on top of the Armored Combat one since it seemed like a good deal for more robots and maps and I'm looking at the 'mech sheets. Just trying to get a feel for how all this works and had a question. One thing: It gives you wider weapons coverage putting 6 in each arm. With a torso twist you can fire behind you, though there's still a blind spot depending on which arm you bring to bear. And if things get truly desperate you can still alpha strike with it and peice trade, hoping whatever you melted was worth more than the aptly named nova. With some luck it might even dissipate that in the subsequent round and get back in the fight. Owlbear Camus fucked around with this message at 22:03 on Jan 7, 2023 |
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Jan 7, 2023 21:59
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TheKingslayer posted:Ahhh ok that makes way more sense. The firing arcs thing didn't even cross my mind at an initial glance. The real neat trick is just to dump everything but the upper actuators and you can flip 'em 180 for full 360 coverage. And they call the rifleman a "bad mech." 
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Jan 7, 2023 22:16
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Astronaut visor Bronze with a gloss coat IMO.
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Jan 8, 2023 01:08
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 So I think even in my inept hands this will look kind of bad apples painted up, but word of warning to fellow modders as cool as it looks the anime style LRM swarm launch is brittle as Hell even after secondary curing. I might get some of that "ABS like" resin and give it another go.
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Jan 8, 2023 23:47
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Looking good. My fav is the Vulture, it's such a bold color choice. I found a bunch of merc tracking spreadsheets google searching, but they were all a little too busy for what I wanted so I made something a lot simpler for my kiddo's merc campaign. It ended up being more of a chore than I expected and my eyes started crossing to the point where the word "ton" looked funny and I wasn't sure if it was right. Using what I do at work for my fun time feels perverse. 
Owlbear Camus fucked around with this message at 08:48 on Jan 9, 2023 |
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Jan 9, 2023 08:09
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PoptartsNinja posted:The campaign tools are all super crunchy; with the general idea being you're using them without a GM so more crunch = more fair. These are good thoughts but I'm kind of going to be a Dad about it and wrap a piece of candy around an anti-biotic pill starting to get my tween ready for life in a way I think her little gamer brain will engage with. "Sure there IS an AS-8Q [cool video game] up for sale and you have enough cash on hand to afford it, but then you miss maintenance and payroll [rent and utilities] with the consequences that entails." E: Man blind boxes have been a bust for me, but in the weirdest way. I picked up several with AGoaC vouchers from the B&N sale paying for shipping. As a succession war/LOSTtech era IS grognard having a mega-assault Clan Star isn't super handy. I've got 2x MadIICs, 2c Behemoth/Stone rhinos, and a Supernova. I'm sure if these were chase collated like the Wizkids game some of those would be the ultra-rares.  Providence is hitting me over the head to give up my Inner Spere Succession Warrior ways and paint up a quadrillion BV Clan direct fire assault star. But I wasn't some science project born in no plastic womb. I should see if local people swap these. Owlbear Camus fucked around with this message at 18:50 on Jan 9, 2023 |
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Jan 9, 2023 17:16
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Traffic court wants my distant heirs to pay a debt to Comstar in the waning years of the Third Succession War.  I'm going to assume they have no sense of humor and assume the typo lest they issue a BatChall.
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Jan 9, 2023 22:24
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Cheapest I'm seeing is 46.49 on Amazon, or 43.47 on Gamenerdz with 5 bucks shipping if you're averse to Amazon shopping. Both are reliable in my experience. I've seen it discounted as low as around 40, not sure about getting it cheaper than that new in the near term. If you want to play with standees I'll send you one I ratfucked for the minis gratis. 
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Jan 10, 2023 16:12
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How many Poznan technicians does it take to reconfigure an OmniMech?
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Jan 11, 2023 01:36
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Jan 12, 2023 14:23
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Crazy Joe Wilson posted:There's ton of research out there about all the different ways babies and their mother's bond while still in the womb (A child is born knowing their mother's smell for instance). There's also the way a child's cells and mother's cells interact with each other, with the two exchanging cells that remain in each other's bodies for the rest of their lives (and can actually heal the mother's body). I know the iron wombs were always a "brave new world" sort of thing, but with recent research on all the intricate relations between mother and child in the pregnancy process, the iron wombs seem even more monstrous, because how can they replace any of those natural things? And what kind of psychological effects might those missing pieces have on trueborn children? 
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Jan 13, 2023 17:07
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Len posted:The guy that runs my lgs is trying to drum up interest and get some battletech going. He's willing to sell the things to play at cost so for $15 I had him order a beginner box. I see the OP hasn't been updated in some time so once this comes in and we get the hang of the system where do I go from there? Play a few games with the beginner box, adding to the two included 'mechs with the little standees as you go for more variety. Once that feels good (and if you like the basic gameplay of it!) your next purchase would be to pick up A Game of Armored Combat. $60 MSRP but even at retail it's a decent value with 10 mech minis representing a lot of iconic and powerful guys, all the basic rules, map sheets, etc. That will add a fair bit that you might have felt was "missing" after a few games, including torso twisting, indirect missile fire, the ability to knock out specific weapon systems with damage that goes through a 'mech's armor, and tracking heat tracking and its effects-- one of the big resource management mechanics of the game. If he's willing to sell that at cost, there's a double bonus because it will come with a $20 coupon to get something from CGL's website, no minimum order, so you can get 20 bucks worth of stuff and pay ~$7-8 shipping (lance/star box would be good, or a few map sheets. Or whatever spend your money how you like.) From there if you like clan stuff, the Clan Invasion box is an obvious get. Then Total Warfare might be a good buy if you really want all of the rules for what happens if your mech runs too fast on pavement and skids into a medium construction 3 story apartment building with infantry posted up on the roof. If you and the play group that develops at this FLGS find that you want to resolve company-on-company stuff without setting aside a weekend for it, I haven't played it yet but Alpha Strike is the game for that. Owlbear Camus fucked around with this message at 22:55 on Jan 14, 2023 |
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Jan 14, 2023 22:31
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The second mission for Kit's Commandos. She chose a strike mission to destroy an enemy radome for the Federated Suns instead of a lance-on lance fight against Bandits from the Capellans for her next mission. Then really mixed it up with the garrison lance anyway instead of striking and fading. She mentioned "burning stuff" the previous night so I printed out a Firestarter mini and sheet and made sure to include them in opfor. A representative of Clan Smoke Jaguar issues a BatChall as I set up.  "Can I sneak up on them?" "Nah, they saw your Leopard burn in like a second sun. You can break through and hit the building and get away fast though."  She takes personal umbrage against the 'mechs that were doing the most damage, like the Panther that savaged her Valkryie and and Firestarter that got into the back line and started trying to cook her blackjack.  *huff huff* mom said... mom said you had to find a game that's three players and let me play too For my part I wanted to show her the awesome power of the Autocannon/20 in the ridiculous package of the Capellan Urbie variant. It got 4/5 salvos off at long range and hit nothing. She found it an amusing little trashcan. Highlights include scoring a head hit with her griffins PPC that knocked out the cockpit of the Firestarter-- the cleanest salvage she could have asked for; and the Valk getting off a DFA on the Panther. Owlbear Camus fucked around with this message at 02:55 on Jan 16, 2023 |
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Jan 16, 2023 02:13
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My daughter used her salvaged Firestarter to harass a catapult until it shut down and all its remaining ammo cooked off. I'm so proud.  The prize for that mission was a fully intact Orion; a nice all arounder heavy hitter to get her into that weight class. The Catapult was far beyond salvage.
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Jan 17, 2023 01:54
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Crazy Joe Wilson posted:I have a hunch that after Mercenaries Catalyst will do a Dark Age Kickstarter with tons of minis from that Era. Oh man I can relive the long ago days of the literal draconis combine with the agrimech technical. E: The mercenary campaign angle is p. fun. Not sure what to do with this development. "Off the last mission, after proving his value, getting a skill up, and limping into your office with his recent injury, Paul 'Director' Verhoven comes to you for a 50% raise on his weekly salary, implying he would prefer to stay with a smaller unit but the Gray Death Legion would easilly match such an ask." "Okay, I offer him this much." "That's a raise of over 2000%! He suggests you should take salary negotiations more seriously as a lesser person might be insulted, but 200% is more than agreeable if you're feeling generous after selling off that salvage." "No, I meant that much." "Okay, well you're smart enough as a merc commander to know that word is going to get out when he starts spending it he's making way more than the others." "Okay we'll give them the same amount raise." "Well, the technicians, while they make less because they aren't in harms way, are probably going to grouse about THAT big a gap..." "Them too!" etc. Kid sells one salvaged SDR-5K and she thinks she's more generous than any CEO who ever lived. Owlbear Camus fucked around with this message at 03:57 on Jan 17, 2023 |
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Jan 17, 2023 02:30
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I didn't even have to give her the 40 yards of myomer talk.
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Jan 17, 2023 06:09
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Bored Online posted:3. We both had absolutely no idea how to approach the lore / fiction / factions of the game. It's not super important if you're enjoying the fun of playing, but not for nothing both starter boxes include novellas about a merc company that kind of set the tone, as well as a primer on the state of the Inner Sphere. Basically, for the point in the setting that would be represented by beginner/AGOAC box gameplay: It is our distant future. Humanity made it to the stars, but ships were faster than phone calls at first (though eventually a cool tech company called ComStar figures out how to get pretty much real-time talk going). With that communication delay feudalism made a return, with "Great Houses" arising and carving out big slices of space. After fighting with WMDs in wars too horrific to imagine, they more or less agreed that making planetwide glass deserts and calling it victory really served no one and agreed to the Ares Convention, their rules of "civilized" warfare. It's in this context of a gentleman's agreement that often but not always holds about how to do war that the Battlemech becomes the warfighting go-to with Mechwarriors akin to knights. These Great Houses, each with a broad stereotypical national character that sometimes skews gross 80's orientalism tropes, at length come together to form the Star League. There is peace* in the inner sphere, until a betrayal and revolt unseats and all but destroys the house that governed the other five, and the other five get back to it for the next few centuries. For Game Reasons they're laid out in rough pie slices around their expansion from Earth when viewed on a 2d approximation of the galaxy, where they can slapfight their neighbors. Warfare is so frequent and has destroyed so much of the scientific and industrial base that the mechs that are the premiere warfighting equipment are often literally irreplaceable and centuries old, sometimes kitbashed with tech that doesn't work as good as it did during the Star League era. Any tech irreplaceable with modern techniques is known as "LosTech" and the subject of rumors and treasure hunts. Anything REALLY spicy and advanced is usually held or coveted by ComStar, the now religious order/telephone comapany that has a monopoly on hyperpulse generators, the things that make interstellar communication possible. They issue the coin of the realm, the C-Bill, backed basically by star-to-star talk time. Though other nations have their own internal money that universally has less purchasing power. It's one part hard sci-fi, one part star wars, three parts dune-esque space opera, and "Game of Thrones, In Space" is not a terrible touchstone if you're familiar with that. It's set up so nearly anyone can fight anyone and if you don't want to color in the lines of the great houses there's room to say "this is a campaign between two really minor periphery powers" or "my unit is a merc company that works for the highest bidder." *everyone more or less ganged up to push outward and pick on the smaller unaffiliated worlds and governments in dirty wars to maintain le price stabilite. quote:5. Most of my miniature game experience is with GW products so I really appreciated how easy it was to download rule pdfs and apply them. What's really cool is how easy it is to download STLS, not to mention how they include extra cardboard standees. It's really easy to mock up what you need for this or that lance. Owlbear Camus fucked around with this message at 18:06 on Jan 17, 2023 |
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Jan 17, 2023 17:50
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BigBeefCity posted:I can poo poo post and work your rear end over for C-Bills just as easy. shitposting is an expensive hobby and you need the C-Bills. The ComStar acolyte eyes you warily: "The customer is always right of course, but by blake's kindly claw, are you sure you want to engage 1 hour of HPG time to send this drivel?"
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Jan 17, 2023 19:44
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| # ¿ May 16, 2024 05:26 |
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do up an urbie as a pickle on the side
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Jan 18, 2023 03:48
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