Battletech

[Erloas]

First, I searched for Battletech first and found some RPG threads and some threads in the thread-o-mancy dates so I figured I would just do a new one.

I have played some of the versions on the PC a long time ago and some of the same thing with another name games, like Armored Core.

I played the table top game for the first time over the weekend and want to get some more information on it. Of course I can ask the people I played with more, but since most of my contact will be via email anyway this is probably a more effective way of going about it. It is called Classic Battletech, but I'm not entirely sure what it is exactly a classic to. Is there an easy way to tell which books are of the current and usable rules so I can try to find them in local used bookstores? I know the store I go to the most has Warhammer game books from 2 or more revisions ago and D&D books also from previous editions ago. Which might have their uses but doesn't help if you want information on the current state of the game.

I've read a little bit about a number of models that aren't being made anymore because of copyright issues but they can still be used, just not produced. What exactly is up with that and is it going to mean I have to search for a bunch of old out of production things for a number of mechs.
Most of the Mechs specs that I've found have been given in general RPG/info ways rather then game specific ways. Is there anyplace with all the mechs and their basic abilities for comparision so that I could find which house/clan I'm more interested in before I have to start getting books.

[Fuzzy_Juan]

Classic Battletech is their way of saying that it is the 'older' battletech game, not to be confused with the oddball 'dark ages' that starts to mix in the minis rules and the 'clicky-tech' that is the mage knight style miniatures.

Classic Battletech is either played in a pure miniature format or typically with a hexagonal map with terrain as a feature of the map (2d pictures only). It used to be produced by FASA, but is now under the perview of Fanpro. Look for the Battletech Master Rules or BMR which is fairly up to date...the newest master rules set is the book 'Total Warfare'. It is a compilation of the Battletech Revised master rules set, Aerotech 2, and all rules in maximum tech and other suppliments.

Stats for units are probably best found in the various technical readouts. While readouts are fine and dandy, it is probably more efficient to get the 'record sheets' for various readout books instead. You miss the fluff, but get more mechs and vehicles in a format you can copy and use.

[Fuzzy_Juan]

Oh...read the book that compiles the fluff for the clans and the inner sphere with each faction...(comstar, star league, the various houses, each clan). All have their own units as well as access to a vast array of 'common' units. In addition, any small unit could have any mech/vehicle so staying 'true' to any force org chart isn't all it is cracked up to be.

Clans tend to be more powerful, but since battles are fought based off of 'Battle value' Clan units are more 'expensive' and thus you will be outnumbered or outgunned by equivalent Inner Sphere forces. Don't worry about which specific force to use...just try out every mech weight class, mechs that jump and those that don't, different weapon configs (LRM, SRM, lasers, ballistic weapons, big guns, small guns, special ammo, mechs that run hot, mechs that don't, pulse/ER/Hvy lasers). Try everything out before you settle on any one thing...you might be suprised. Battletech is unlike Warhammer in that you don't just come up with one force...you choose a BV for a fight and then just go at it...most of the time, anything goes...it is real fun.

[Timberwolf]

*Hides Neurohelmet*

Fuzzy Juan is correct. However, you can still find a load of stuff out there for Classic Battletech. First port of call is

Chaosmarch (http://www.chaosmarch.com/)

here you will find all the TRO's for all the official mechs, Aerospace, vehicles, dropships, spaceships and anything else that I've forgotten

Solaris7 (http://www.solaris7.com/)

This has everything that Chaosmarch has but is nowhere near as helpfully organised. What you will find somewhere in the region of 2000 custom design TRO's (along with the official ones) and they all come with the fluff. I love this site, even though it takes ages to find what you want.

Classic Battletech (http://www.classicbattletech.com/)

This is the place to go to obtain your rulebooks, record sheets etc. It's the official CBT site I think.

Disclaimer - While I love the battletech universe, I've never played the tabletop game (owing to having no one to play it with) so don't ask me about any nuances.

FOR THE CLANS !!

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Clans tend to be more powerful, but since battles are fought based off of 'Battle value' Clan units are more 'expensive' and thus you will be outnumbered or outgunned by equivalent Inner Sphere forces. Don't worry about which specific force to use...just try out every mech weight class, mechs that jump and those that don't, different weapon configs (LRM, SRM, lasers, ballistic weapons, big guns, small guns, special ammo, mechs that run hot, mechs that don't, pulse/ER/Hvy lasers). Try everything out before you settle on any one thing...you might be suprised. Battletech is unlike Warhammer in that you don't just come up with one force...you choose a BV for a fight and then just go at it...most of the time, anything goes...it is real fun.

Standard Clan tactics vs IS tactics...

Clan is very much of a duelist mentality. One mech vs one mech. A large battle is nothing more than a bunch of small duels. Melee attacks are shunned. Each individual Clan mech is technologically superior to anything IS can crank out, however.

IS is very much of a 'whatever works' mentality. They are the inventors of the 'Highland Burrial' (a.k.a. Death From Above), frequently use melee attacks when in melee range, and often gang up on a single mech to blow it up, then concentrate forces on the next mech. They incorporate C3 technology to be able to use friendly mechs to help target their longer ranged attacks (a regular C3 master is 5 tons and 2 crits, which functions as TAG and has up to three 'slave' slots. A C3 slave unit is 1 ton 1 crit and can hook up to a Master unit, allowing any of the four mechs to be able to use any of the other mechs in that lance. Some mechs have both a Master and a Slave unit. These are Noncom mechs, and typically are linked to a Commander mech which has three mechs attached to it, each of which has both a slave and a master, for a networked C3 system which can span an entire army).

In other words, Clan is honorable and high-tech. IS is 'down and dirty', bootstrapping themselves into their current technology level, and fighting dirty to win.

[Erloas]

Battletech is unlike Warhammer in that you don't just come up with one force...you choose a BV for a fight and then just go at it...most of the time, anything goes...it is real fun.
How is that not like Warhammer? In warhammer the sides are all based off of a battle value as well.


One thing I've learned from other games is that if you try to do everything you will accomplish nothing. It usually means to have a theme or idea for how to fight and make sure everything works with that idea.

Not trying to cheese out the game, just make what I use more effective. But from what I saw of looking over all of the mech spec sheets when I was playing the first game, is that pretty much every single mech had weapon layouts of split effect. Where the max range of some weapons are the min range of others so you can't use them all at once. Or that there are a lot of weapons on a Mech, way more then their heat sinks can handle, so in most cases you can't use most of the weapons, and their associated weight and slots, are in effect wasted.

[Timberwolf]

I played Megamek a couple of times which is CBT but unfortunately, my Puter didn't like it so I never really got a feel for it. One thing I did note was never ever fire both PPC's on a Warhammer too often.

[Wehrkind]

I think the reason you see more mixed weapon kits on mechs than in warhammer is that you get many less, and you need a certain amount of flexibility. Granted, a completely even split is less than optimal I think, but given that there are not exactly weapons limits like you have in Warhammer, being too specialized can get you in trouble. When I used to play in highschool, we found that not having long range on most every mech meant that they simply didn't get to fire until their buddies or they were dead. On the other hand, not having shorter range weapons (without a min-range) meant in a high cover area you could get jumped and not have anything to say about it. We usually ended up kitting our mechs with certain jobs in mind, such as long range fire support vs medium range death vs toe to toe "run up and open with 15 machine guns". Still, having a large laser or ppc on your medium range mech gave it something to do while moving forward, ensuring it didn't get ignored while your enemy focus fired down your support.

The thing with heat sinks is that you can hook up a lot of them so you never have to worry about heat, but that wastes potential as well. Essentially you are trading steady damage per round for a damage per round shaped more like a sine curve. On the one hand you can just unload every turn for consistant fire, but you can never put out more, on the other you can unload a huge amount, but might have to cut back a lot to keep from over heating at other times. For my long range units I usually would put just enough heat sinks to get a slight net gain of heat every turn, the plan being to lay down continuous fire every turn, and maybe cut back a little if it turns into a long game, or I don't have a great shot. For medium range units I usually planned on only firing for 2-3 turns with everything, on the assumption they were going to move in, focus on whatever was injured by the long range to kill it in a turn or two, then hide for a few to cool off, or cut back on some weapons until hiding behind a woods or hill was an option.
Really though, it depends a lot on your play style. I experimented a bit with using over heated fire support for a few turns, back off after closer range fighting blocked line of sight, which sort of worked, but sometimes left me not able to make a shot I wanted. I tried using lots of ballistics to reduce heat, but the extra weight and danger of exploding ammo got to me.

[Fuzzy_Juan]

I say unlike warhammer because in warhammer you collect an army and it is pretty much 'set' in what you have and what you can substitute. When people do battletech, noone ever really cares what models are what as long as people can readily tell what it is. Hell, in more friendly games, we use any small token or paper, or bits form axis and allies to represent the pieces. So at any given time you and your opponent can field just about anything without worrying about what units to collect. Having minis for your favorite mechs and vehicles is fine, but knowing that you can substitute a small mech for just about any 20-40 ton mech is great.

Also, in Battletech, the scale is very different. You typically fight in small units. 4-5 mechs or so on each side. Larger battles are not uncommon, but really big battles are not common at all and very rare...and they can take a long time.

As far as mech building goes...it is a tradeoff between potential, steady firepower, durability, and usefulness. Many mechs have a short range package and a long range package, with only enough heat sinks to fire one or the other without problems. Other mechs don't have enough heat sinks to jump and fire off many weapons (though since you have such a huge penalty to hit while jumping, it is not such a bad thing). Only a few mechs have enough heat sinks to fire everything continuously...they are either support mechs or have very few weapons cause their engines are so big (light mechs). The Novacat A is a prime example of a support mech that can fire everything nonstop and is built for support. It has 4 ER large lasers and a targeting computer with 50 points of heat dissipation (enough to fire everything and run) it is designed to stay at long range and provide a blanket of fire. The IS Awesome 9Q is a similar design with ER PPCs.

Other mechs, are just short range brawlers...they either have speed, or alot of armor for their size and a mix of weapons...a big gun to soften up areas, a large number of smaller weapons to pepper away and get those last armor points off, and then a shotgun or SRM to land multiple critical hits once armor is stripped.

Tactics vary so wildly, there is no optimal build.

[Zorg]

Info on the 'unseen' mecha:

http://brianscache.com/unseen/

[Erloas]

While I know that there will be no optimal build for every set of tactics, I would think there would be builds that vary greatly to fit in with specific tactics.
While I haven't seen everything, or even probably most of the Mechs, all of the ones I have looked at have all been equiped in a fairly generic do-everything moderately good sort of way. There have been a few of one specific range, but they seemed to be the exception.

[Wehrkind]

Yea, most of the mech's I remember (almost all from the "unseen mecha" link above actually) are built for a mid range with a tad of long and short tossed in concept. Not really optimal, but well rounded. The newer mech's I can't really speak to.

That said, build your own. The customization is really a big part of the game as far as I am concerned, and you will get a much more effective and personal lance for the effort.

[Closet_Skeleton]

I always found that the best missions in Warhammer were the ones where one side got more points that the other but the other side had some kind of wierd advantage.

Proxy models do happen in Warhammer, just more people play Warhammer than play Battletech so there's more likely to be an anal person.

There's a shop in London that sells Battletech models. I'd buy them just to paint but they're on too much of a differant scale to all my other models.

[JellyPooga]

Ever since I first purchesd and played Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries (about 13 years ago), I've been in love with the BattleTech universe.

When I finally got round to purchasing the rules for Classic Battletech a couple of years back and playing a few games with my friends, I was deeply dissapointed with how the game plays in comparison to the exciting tactics, strategies, maneuvers and scenarios of the various computer games.

The heat system might as well not be there. Moving, other than to close distance, is irrelevant. Jump Jets are all but useless. Battles are little more than slug-fests of exchanging salvoes. Whoever has the biggest/most Mechs wins. If Mechs are equally heavy/tech, whoever has the better pilot wins.

It might have just been the particular set-ups we played in, but we played a few games (around 4 or 5) before getting bored of it, with a variety of scenarios/terrain (one fairly open, one 'city fight', etc.) and every battle panned out more or less the same - a slug-fest. Any attempt at tactics was just a waste of time and the differing scenarios just made it harder/easier to hit (i.e. different cover, LOS, etc.), making the game longer/shorter respectively.

Having said that, I'm still in love with the BattleTech universe and own Technical Readouts from 2025-2057 (including the Dropships and Vehicles one and Project Phoenix) as well as a couple of the older Field Manuals/Sourcebooks. 'Why' you ask? For no better reason than the MechWarrior 3rd Ed. RPG.

In my opinion, it has one of the best Character Gen systems I've seen and the rules are some of the best I know. It's kind of like the simplicity of d20 meets the complexity of GURPS, blended to perfection in all the right places. Not only that, but it's backed up by a totally immersive and ready prepared universe to play in, that is also flexible enough to create your own stories within it at any point along its turbulent history.

[Timberwolf]

Well, if you've played the mechwarrior games, you'll know what you can and can't get away with with heat. Of course, it's a bit different when you're driving that 6 ERL Madcat because you can keep overriding the shutdown if you know what you're doing.

What worked for me on Megamek (when it worked :)) was a big bad assault mech, a bad heavy mech (Warhammer ftw) and a couple of mediums.

The Warhammer was the one with heat problems alright...

[Fuzzy_Juan]

Best battletech match was a bit of a grudge match between me and a friend of mine. He said that clan Ghost Bear was the best...I told him Nova Cat would wipe the floor with them...

So we had a fight, star on star (that is 5 on 5), no limits, stock or custom mechs allowed...any 5 vs. any 5. It was a test of engineering, synergy, tactics, and a bit of luck. I took 4 assault and a light, he took 1 hvy, and 4 assault. The end result was all 5 mechs of his destroyed with my mechs suffering moderate armor damage and one missing an arm. The Light mech and the support assault were untouched...the light mech had 2 kills.

The smack talking continued and he said that he could beat me if he had another chance...possibly a different force...I told him I could kick his ass with IS as opposed to clan...then I got cocky and told him I'd kick his ass with 'conventional' forces from the IS. He accepted the challenge. The batchall was ordered..I declared the defenders and the objective...one armor battalion and 1 infantry battalion...in additon, to make things more interesting, I included the 5 mechs that had wiped the floor with him before as a semi 'SLDF' mixed company of which clan Nova Cat did join. His objective was to capture material inside a building (he had to get infantry inside the building for 2 rounds and then get out). The maps were city maps...6 of them in 2x3 played wide.

His bid...a full assault cluster of mechs, 5 trinaries, accompanied by 1 trinary of elementals. That was 45 assault mechs, 15 heavy mechs, 15 medium mechs, and 15 points of battle armor (75 troopers). The BV once calculated was about 6-1 in his favor...acceptable when dislodging defenders...

he was slaughtered...and forced to retreat after loosing 1/3 his mechs moderate to severe damage to about 3/4 the remaining, and the loss of 80% of his infantry...he never even fought with one tank company nor encountered the IS battlearmor or the infantry in the rear guard...

While I lost most of my front line tanks and 2 mechs...I think it was a sound victory...

[Erloas]

After looking through some of the Battletech stuff I found MegaMek.
I got it mostly to see how the various Mechs and weapons worked, what sorts of movements worked, get a feel for ranges, and most importantly to get a feel for what a Mech can survive and what is leading to a quick death.

It is suprisingly fun fighting even against a bot on such a simple game. I spent like 5 hours playing a single scenerio last night. Although it would have taken 1/3 that time if the Bot AI wasn't so painfully slow.
Not sure which scenerio it was, but it was 12 WacoRangers rangers that were ambushed by 16 Irregulars. I was playing the WacoRangers and ended up winning.

The site said MegaMek is using almost all the same rules as the TT game, but it seemed that MegaMek did things a bit differently (probably much more thoroughly) then the game I played with other people. Not sure if it was using some alternate rules, or if the players that I played with where using simplified rules or just doing things incorrectly. Partial cover seemed to be the most obvious thing that seemed to be done differently.

Anyone have links to some other scenerios people may have writen?
Is there any thread around to coordinate MegaMek battles?

[Fuzzy_Juan]

Megamek is awesome...do a bit more searching and you can find the online battletech universe where you can really take megamek to the next level...let me look real quick...

I can't find it...it was a program that allowed for you to join a house in the IS and fight the succesion wars against everyone else. When you initiated a raid against a house, you had to fight...the mission you selected and the troops you chose determined the stakes.

It was awesome...but I can't remember the name of the program...it used the megamek engine though...

[Fuzzy_Juan]

Ahh...found it...so simple...

http://www.mekwars.org/

that is the 3025 server that uses only tech 1 mechs. Only inner sphere on that one.

The second server that came online more recently is the 3067 server...

http://megamek.notcows.com/

Follow those links and you can find the campaigns for dominance of the galaxy. I would suggest training on the 3025 server before trying to handle all the level 2 and 3 rules on the 3067 server. The clan and new IS tech can get pretty hairy.

[Grizzled Gryphon]

I used to play classic Battletech back when it was the only battletech.

I still remember my merc company, though. My Company was a renegade Clan unit from Wolf that was pissed off becuase they never got to use the front line Omni-Mechs. This was political, not from capabilities of the pilots, so we left for the inner sphere. As we took our second line equipment, Clan Wolf didn't come after us, as they had bigger things to deal with.

The main Mech I used was the Behemoth, and the Cualdron-Born. The Cualdron-Born was an Omni, but a second line one. Well, after I refitted all of the mechs I had, we went to work.

Long story short, the other players in the group I played with got mad at my constant success on all the missions, so they made the Ref have Clan wolf send someone after me. Due to the level of power I had at my disposal, they sent Natasha Kerensky and her Black Widows.

I chalenged her to a dual. If she won, then my unit would peacefully go back with her. If I won, then the Black Widows would join my unit.

I was sure I was screwed, as I was in a 65 ton Cauldron Born, and she was in her 100 ton Diashi. Well, we started at long range for a Guass Rifle. We rolled Init, I won. I dicided to take a pot shot with my Guass, and not move yet. I got a hit with my Guass. I then rolled 2 sixs for location. And that was that.

I then took my suddenly greatly increased merc unit, and went to each and every other players base, and wiped them out. THEN I quite.

Now, so you understand, when you make a merc company using the rules we were using, using Caln only had a few benefits, but several drawbacks, as well. One, all of your equipment was more expensive, but you were the only ones that could have clan tech. However, the ref made it so anyone could have clan tech, so I lost that minor adavantage.

The second was my pilots were better, as they were clan trained. However, again, the ref made it so anyone could have those, too. So, no advantage for me, but I was still stuck only taking the more expensive stuff. Thus, at the biginning, my unit was much smaller then anyone elses.

Thankfully, I threw out the one on one combat style of the clans, and used the tactics of my enemies. This made all the difference. I had a star of behemoths 100 ton mechs that packed twin Guass Rifles, and twin ERL Lasers, too boot. they would park on a hill, and snipe, effectively. Ten Guass Rifles and ten ERL Lasers do VERY bad things to a mech. After a few victories, I got ahold of some arrow IV systems, and starting using those in tandem wih TAG. So, my Medium and Light mechs started killing Assualt mechs with great amounts of success.

In other words, I overcame the limits that were imposed on me, and prevailed. Then, when the other players started crying about it, I got lucky with there spoil sport action, and destroyed them all. I figured that was a good way to bow out of that game.:smallsmile:

[onxy9600]

I have played quite a few different figurine games... what I found to be best in the latter edition battletech days was to also go merc. Hatchetmen and catapults was a pretty good combo. equip all with jumpjets. throw a becon set on the hatchetmen to guide your LRMs on the Catapults. Double load your AC20s (ultras if you got them are better single loaded, especially if your mod uses 2xAC10's for the extra range). Then go at it. keep the Hatchet men running and jumping, land on any small mech you can. if ou stay standing, unload the big close range cannon, and shoot any medium, assult, or heavy mech with the becon. Finally, follow through with the hatchet... If you are only playing skirmishes (field 2-3 hatchetmen and catapults), don't worry if one of your opponents goes critical, it will take out the group if he has them closely set. next turn, move away, and close to missile range with the catapults. Take down his biggest mech and get your hatchet men out. by round 3 of combat, your hatchets will be hurting. Doesn't matter, they are going to have to go back in. put a becon on anything that isn't crippled, if you can, and take out the most dangerous opponent remaining. If everything went well he game is over. you might have to mop up a few of his standing mechs with the Catapults, but the becons help attract the missiles.

If your opponent took any skirmish mechs, try to tag them with a becon in the early movement phase and let the catapults criple them. If you feel like you keep running out of missiles, you can substitute a mech with ERPPCs or ER Large lasers.

cheers

Onyx, "We will attack at dawn, dusk, midnight, and high noon... as soon as we gain strategic ground!"

[Fuzzy_Juan]

The problem is when your running/jumping fool is accosted by a static fireing base in good cover.

While jumping, at medium range, fireing at a target in heavy woods, your shooting mod is +3 from the jump, +2 from range, and +2 from the woods...that is +7...if you are a standard IS pilot, you have a skill of 4/4 or 4/5...so...11's...if your target moved to get into those woods, likely 12 or more. If they risked partial cover in addition to woods, you'd need to close to close range at a run to have any hope of not wasting shots.

Now...if your opponent stood still, with a hatchetman you'd have best a +3 mod from your jump to hit you...at medium range from a static firebase with a 4/5 pilot, that is only 9's to hit...not bad...not great...but not bad.

If you want to jump around and shoot, take pulse lasers, or be able to jump far enough that you can get a +4 or better jump mod and hit them at close range. Make sure to move your jumping unit AFTER it's target moves...if you must move the jumper first....retreat to an unassailable position.

Jumping mechs take alot more finesse to be really effective...if they are jumping around by themselves supported from long range, the enemy will just park in cover and shoot the bouncer until it can't move, then take their minimally damaged selves and attack you with 1 mech advantage.

As a side note, the rules for indirect fire are very useful...if you have a dedicated missle boat, read up on the rules and see about using indirect fire to blast the hell out of an unsuspecting target...it is fun.

[onxy9600]

Becons have a fairly long range. you can use the missile boats against those seeking cover. Also, this gets into weapon choices. Swap out he Hachetman's AC20s for some AC5's and flamers for one medium laser on your Catapults. Another option is to replace the AC20 with the ER Large Laser. I forget how may modifications you had to do to make this all work out... we had a computer guy who found/modified a sheet generator. All you had to do was verify the tech was allowed, and select what you wanted.
some additional tatics: destroy the obstacle. Trees can be burned, buildings broken, and high ground taken. You just need to think a little more. biggest problem I really ever had was blow through with the AC20s double loaded. Two hits to the same region (back, front, left, or right torso) and the reactor goes critical. Any supplies and salvage in the blast area is pretty much useless at that point. It also breaks mechs that are standing inside of it. At this point get as far away as you can. If you won't make it out(usually the one making the attack is dead) try to break another of his. Full retreat beyond the blast radius is the game now. If his forces are following, try to slow them down and keep them inside of the blast.

If you really want to talk about movement and chaos though, you can bring a Merc army with a Puma star and two MadCats for about 300 or so points. The constant movement with unrestricted ganging up and ERPPCs will definitely take their toll. The Cats also are usually loaded up with missiles for those tricky indirect fire situations, or to just put down the big ones.

[Fuzzy_Juan]

Points? Are we talking clickytech style battletech? cause the BV system is in the 1,000's for most mechs and at least 120 for the lightest with minimal weapons...like...a locus 1V.

Basically, I was talking about hitting them with the big gun and with the narc pod to begin with...once you have that, you are good to go, and yes, manuver can get you around that sort of thing...but you have to close the range first...

on a mech that is moving 5/8/5 or 6/9/6...you are just not going to close the range fast enough to be able to avoid a round or two under fire...especially if it is a single unit advancing alone so that the support units can snipe from range. Unless the 'jumper' makes damn good use of terrain and is a very good shot (or just plain lucky) he is in for big problems trying to hit anyone and likely the best target for everyone on the other side. I mean seriously...park a few mechs in cover and watch them move some of their support into cover...when it becomes clear that you will either advance the jumper or hang back, they will likely hold position in cover and exchange shots...or plan to all out attack the forward unit...likely both.

Side note...if the enemy is trying to 'flank' your troops by splitting his forces...that is the best time to charge all units to one side and take on onlyhalf his force...if you are lucky you can dogpile half his force with all of yours for at least a round, hopefully 2 while possibly only taking long range shots against your rear...well worth it for the chance to cripple some of his units. When his units close in the next turn or two, have your units walk backwards in two groups perpendicular to the enemy approach so that the enemy is between you...at best you will now catch them in a crossfire...at worse you will be in a long fireing line as each side forms up or a melee furball.

don't kick if you think you will fail your pilot check...it can be fairly embarasing if you have damaged leg actuators and fall on your ass leaving yourself down...

SRM's and LB-X autocannons are funny things...use them for crit hunting...slam armor with big guns, then shoot small arms into the hols and watch the crits fly.

[onxy9600]

no, I was not tlking click mechs, we cut the last zero off and just used points. In stead of saying 3000 tons, we simply said 300 pts. And yes you had half points. but it saved alot of zeros on a calculator.

I also agree, if your opponent is in deep cover, it is difficult to dislodge them. I prefer to attack bases with Guassy Atlasses (2Xflying volkswagons, coulple of ER Large or ER PPCs, and anything else you need) back them up with some AC10 Hunchbacks (2xAC10 and an ER Large, I think). The Hunchbacks are for eliminating anything that tries to get close to your Monsters. For 300 tons you can get a pair of each. If I have room after that, throw in a few fast light mechs for finishing, and a few medium support mechs and you are readyto rain hate.

Finally, If you really like chaos, and think your opponent is going to just hide behind cover. Thus eliminating the advantages of jump mechs, bring some artillery! This is one of the few times I woud even bring tanks.

No matter what falling will always suck, i will still like Hatchet men.


"You three try to flank them ... Ok guys while the fodder draws their attention, lets get to the hills. We can use converging fires and fall back. We will thin their ranks, and then win." -- from a paintball experience

[Fuzzy_Juan]

Oh...I see...going by tonnage is all well and good, but the 'BV' system is not based strictly on tonnage. Two mechs of equal tonnage sometimes have over 1,000 pt diference in BV. A Warhammer and a Madcat are the same tonnage, but the Madcat has more armor, more guns, is faster, and can fire everything and keep comming while the warhammer cooks if it fires both main guns.

For 3,000 BV one can take several mechs, or even just one...same for tonnage, but BV is a bit of an 'equalizer' rating the effectiveness and lethality of a mech design. If you just go on tonnage, you can have some HUGE mismatches depending on what designs people choose. Say...a spider with all pulse lasers and a targeting computer against a new pheonix hawk...The Phawk has the tonnage, armor, and even more guns...but the spider moves 7/11/7 can fire all weapons with a -3 to their target number which offsets their jumps, and damn near always has a +4 mod to hit them while being able to jump and fire everything and not heat up.

Me and my friends do teh whole tonnage thing from time to time...some of our 'grudge matches' are clan style 'choose a force composition' and just go...there are mismatches all the time...but if you win with the handicap, it is a good win...if you had the advantage and won the only way to have any 'glory' is to really wipe the floor with them...which makes you more 'daring'.

[onxy9600]

Yah, we never really ran campaigns, DV system took too much time. Understand your strategy, fit as much good gear, and have at it was all the more patience we had. It was good times... especially when my IS hatchets took out a whole star of clanners. Granted my opponent was GREEN. My one Atlas never even had a chance to score a hit.

[Fuzzy_Juan]

An example of BV playing a role...

A friend and I have a bit of a strategy grudge match...we match skill in any strategy game we can...well...here is what happened whn we did Battletech.

'The duel' - I was always designing mechs...I liked that...as such, I had really digested the system alot to optimize not just a single mech, but a group of mechs that would compliment each other very well. He had lost a single mech on mech combat and wanted to up the stakes. He challenged me to a match...Star on Star, to defend Clan Nova Cat against His Ghost Bear (a long story/argument about which clan was better). As the challenged he said I could name the exact stakes...So I said any 5 mechs, stock or custom with 2/3 pilots...he agreed.

I had designed a 20 ton mech with speed and 6 ER small lasers with a targeting computer, a 95 ton mech 4/6 with 4 LRM 15 and an LRM 5 al with artemis and 3 ER large, 2 100 ton mechs 3/5 with 8 ER Medium lasers (or 10 I can't remember) and the heat sinks to fire it all with maximum armor and a tergeting computer, and a 100 ton 4/6 with twin ER PPC's several ER medium and some streak 6 with a targeting computer.

he chose 4 different 100 ton mechs, all 3/5 and custom designed a 4/6 100 ton kodiak with big guns.

With superior tactics and preying on his lack of experience with some of the lesser known rules (he also hadn't played anyone who actually used the terrain and didn't 100% realize how important manuvering was even in a huge 100 ton mech), I wiped the floor with him only suffering light damage and losing an arm off one mech.

Though he outweighed me by 85 tons, I actually had the advantage...by calculating the 'BV', my force was about 25,000 pts...while his was closer to 17 or 18,000...and it showed...the one round we stood and fired at point blank, any one of my mechs could punch through his mech's armor or cause hellacious damage while he could just cause moderate damage to armor without concentrated fire over at least 2 rounds.

Though, just to run it in, I never told him that he was outclassed in BV and just teased him that he got his ass kicked by a star with a light mech...