a few 3145 Clan Wolf organization questions

[Sartris]

I recently started running a chaos campaign that pits a player-run merc unit fighting for the Lyrans against Clan Wolf on Vindemiatrix III in the spring of 3145. I've been throwing some MUL-based clan units at the PC in the first few missions, but I have a few questions about organization as I round out cluster rosters for a Gamma and Theta Galaxy unit (I'm using a second-line unit because I have a truckload of TRO 3060 clan vehicles that have never seen the light of day).

1) Would the Gamma Galaxy cluster have a bloodnamed warrior as the Star Colonel?
1a) If yes, would there likely be any other bloodnamed warriors?
2) What kind of rough structure should I be shooting for in each? (e.g. how many binaries/trinaries of battle armor/aerospace would each cluster contain?)
3) Would the Gamma cluster contain exclusively omnimechs, or would some second line mechs like a stray Warhammer IIC 8 or Orion IIC slip in?
4) Is there any precedent for oversized/reinforced clusters with more than five bi/trinaries?

thanks

[Decoy]

1) Yup
1a) Probably a small handful. Even holders of minor bloodnames are the best of the best of the best.
2) I've heard it said that all of the old clusters in the Wolf and Jade Falcon source books were built around 75 points of material. That seems right to me in general. As a note, the Wolves are one of the more Aerospace poor clans, so perhaps no more than a binary, unless you want this cluster to be different.
3)It depends on the supply situation. As Gamma is further down the greek alphabet, there probably would be a few second line 'mechs here and there.
4) Yes. Some clusters turn their trinaries into supernovas and effectively double the number of points they use.

[Deadborder]

1) As of FM3145, all of Gamma's clusters have bloodnamed Star Colonels. They would likely have a few other bloodnamed officers as well

2) As a frontline command, Gamma would be built around 'Mechs and Battle Armour with no vehicles. As mentioned, the Wolf Empire has a shortage of Aerospace assets at the moment. While the size of a cluster varies, a 'typical' size would be 5 trinaries.

3) According to FM3145, Gamma's level of OmniMech usage varies from 100% to 10% of the Cluster's strength, averaging about ~60%. So I'd say yes Omnis, but not exclusively. I'd imagine there are a lot of the post-Jihad Wolf 'Mechs in there like the Tundra Wolf, Black Wolf and Blood Reaper

[Tai Dai Cultist]

Also keep in mind how the Empire is using sphereoids in place of Solhama to perform auxiliary functions.  Your cannonfodder supporting tanks may well have skill baselines of 4/5 rather than the usual 5/6 Clan standard.

[Vition2]

1) nothing to add, others have it covered
1a) nothing to add, others have it covered
2) A good rule of thumb is to assume that a full-strength front line cluster is 3 trinaries of 'mechs, 1 trinary of battle armor, and a trinary of aerospace fighters.  But as others have pointed out, they are a bit low in aerospace assets, so I would suggest decreasing their numbers first.  The Wolf Star Colonels have a fair bit of leeway in how they organize their troops, and in some cases a trinary of 'mechs very well could be replaced by a supernova binary (or in rare cases, trinary), or perhaps the lack of aerospace fighters have shifted focus towards more battle armor or 'mechs, or perhaps the ASF have been replaced by conventional aircraft or VTOLs.
3) nothing to add, others have it covered
4) It is very rare that clusters would be overstrength to the point that they break into a 6th binary/trinary, more likely is the addition of a command star or nova.  That said, it is not entirely impossibly - though the situation in which the Empire finds itself in 3145 supports the idea that they are more likely to be understrength than overstrength.

Regarding Theta Galaxy, as they are a second-line formation they are more likely to follow the triad organization laid out in the Wolf Clan Sourcebook.  This is where more heavy modifications to "typical" structure are likely to take place.  The 'mech star of the unit could easily be replaced by combat vehicles, and the "aerospace" star could easily be replaced by conventional aircraft and/or VTOLs.

Overall you have a lot of options at your disposal to do pretty much whatever you really want to do.

[Sartris]

Thanks, this is helpful. I'll post the rosters to the non-canon units board when I finish

[Deadborder]

Theta Galaxy is an interesting case. It's a new galaxy raised from former Marik-Steward Commonwealth worlds and their populations; thus most of its warriors are freeborn adoptees. Most (if not all) of its equipment is AMSC salvage.

If you wanted a more 'traditional' clan second line unit to use those Vees in, I;'d suggest the no-hopers of Kappa Galaxy. They're made up mostly of Slohama, test-downs and other undesirable Wolf troops and mostly use clan vehicles.

[wantec]

I recently started running a chaos campaign that pits a player-run merc unit fighting for the Lyrans against Clan Wolf on Vindemiatrix III in the spring of 3145. I've been throwing some MUL-based clan units at the PC in the first few missions, but I have a few questions about organization as I round out cluster rosters for a Gamma and Theta Galaxy unit (I'm using a second-line unit because I have a truckload of TRO 3060 clan vehicles that have never seen the light of day).

1) Would the Gamma Galaxy cluster have a bloodnamed warrior as the Star Colonel?
1a) If yes, would there likely be any other bloodnamed warriors?
2) What kind of rough structure should I be shooting for in each? (e.g. how many binaries/trinaries of battle armor/aerospace would each cluster contain?)
3) Would the Gamma cluster contain exclusively omnimechs, or would some second line mechs like a stray Warhammer IIC 8 or Orion IIC slip in?
4) Is there any precedent for oversized/reinforced clusters with more than five bi/trinaries?

thanks

1) Absolutely. In FM:3145 all the clusters in Gamma Galaxy have a bloodnamed commander.

1a) Again, Absolutely. There will always be a mix of bloodnamed and unblooded warriors in any cluster.

2) At full-strength I would assume a Trinary of fighters and a Trinary or two of Elementals. These don't have to be separate units, but can be mixed in at the star-level (particularly the Elementals if you choose to use Nova stars). FM:3145 states that Gamma recently rid itself of all its vehicles, so any task a vehicle would perform needs to be handled by a 'Mech, fighter, or infantry/battle armor.

3) In FM:3145 the only Gamma unit listed at 100% Omni is the Bronze Keshik. So I would include a good mix of Omni and non-Omni, maybe organizing it at the Star level, but that's just me.

4) Sure, the Golden Keshik is losted at 105% strength. But at this time the Wolves are working to fill out their forces, so I think its more likely to bring another Cluster up to 100% strength before going over. That's not to say a Cluster of only 3 Trinaries is worthless, but one with more is better.


Even though you specifically asked some of the questions for Gamma Galaxy, I'll answer them for Theta Galaxy too.
1) Yes it's possible for the Star Colonel of a second-line/solahma Cluster to be a bloodnamed warrior. In the past there's been examples where aging warriors who had a bloodname were put in charge of a lesser Cluster since they were still useful enough to retain their rank. Another example is Ristars given a chance to prove their command skills in a unit where it's not as big a deal if they screw up. Also, there's cases of a warrior who wins a bloodname, but it has a lesser heritage or a bad reputation, and this is the best fit.

1a) Basically all the examples I gave above for the bloodnamed Star Colonel apply here too.

2) Reading FM:3145 it implies that all of its vehicles have been passed on to other second-line Galaxies. But in any case, I would organize the vehicle units in Trinaries. They will already be at a disadvantage in capability compared to 'Mech formations and I think a Clan commander thinking this would want to concentrate his firepower in case it is needed.

[Sartris]

I've tried my hand at organizing the Theta Galaxy Cluster. Thanks to those who reminded me about FM: 3145 - I had forgotten about it after going through a move and had to perform a dangerous excavation to retrieve it from a box in our storage unit this morning.

I chose the 16th Wolf Garrison Cluster because it was near full strength and is stationed one jump from the campaign setting. Its green status probably means it's acting as sort of a Galaxy cadre unit as well as the recipient of some of those donated vehicle trinaries mentioned in Theta's FM writeup.

http://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=57930.0

[Colt Ward]

One thing to note . . . you could go with 2 mech trinaries, a supernova (Mech/BA), ASF binary and a command star . . . with maybe a separate BA binary.  The BA binary would likely be able to either ride on a all Omni mech trinary (this does not make it a supernova, explained later) OR they could have dedicated transports.  Clan fluff says this happens but they are not considered 'combat' points.  A Mech/BA supernova is actually trained to work together tactically and are integrated to that level . . . its the same situation as a air assault company vs light infantry (basically foot) riding in helicopters belonging to someone else.

For both your frontline and secondline force, remember some of those 'Omni' maybe IS Omni like the Perseus or Avatar.

[bobthecoward]

Something I know very little about is the talk of mixed armor in the clusters in the 3145. Someone here mentioned a reference that vehicles were shifted out. Is there any more details on post 3067 IS clan vehicle use?

[Colt Ward]

The TRO says they managed to take enough mechs that the frontline clusters could dump their combat vehicle points into secondline & garrison (not a fan of the way the equipment/units get rated) clusters.  This, contrary to popular opinion, does not mean the cluster has no vehicle assets.  If they do not have enough Omnis for the battle armor to ride they will be going into combat in SOME sort of transport- VTOL or groundbound- which has been the case since we got FMs detailing things like the old GB Claw clusters.

[bobthecoward]

The TRO says they managed to take enough mechs that the frontline clusters could dump their combat vehicle points into secondline & garrison (not a fan of the way the equipment/units get rated) clusters.  This, contrary to popular opinion, does not mean the cluster has no vehicle assets.  If they do not have enough Omnis for the battle armor to ride they will be going into combat in SOME sort of transport- VTOL or groundbound- which has been the case since we got FMs detailing things like the old GB Claw clusters.

On page 159 of Fm 3145 it says alpha galaxy all but abandoned their vehicle trinaries. In FM crusader clans it seems pretty clear there are zero vehicle trinaries in alpha galaxy. Is there any information about when the vehicle trinaries got in there?

[Colt Ward]

Speculation is during or post Jihad, the Crusaders were still under-mech'd going into that conflict and its not like they got a break . . . and Tamar got Scoured.

[Maelwys]

In the Wolf section of FM: 3085, Alpha Galaxy is fluffed as "Always proud, Alpha Galaxy refuses to make use of the now-common vehicle Stars other Galaxies are forced to use, atleast for transporting their infantry."

So the lack of Omnis are forcing Wolf units to use transport Stars in order to move their Battle Armor.

Beta Galaxy doesn't mention transport units, but Gamma Galaxy does. "With thirty percent losses, Gamma Galaxy has a long way to recover. Kirchbach cost the Galaxy most of its OmniMechs, forcing it to accept the presence of a Vehicle Trinary, not just a transport Nova."

So it seems at first the clans were assigning transport stars to (most likely) Clusters in order to make up for any loss in the ability to transport their Battle Armor due to the lack of Omnis. How far that went probably depended on how bad off the unit was. Once they started to accept transport units to make up for the lack of Omnis, it wouldn't surprise me if the next step was to start using vehicles to make up for the lack of BaattleMechs.

[wantec]

TRO3085 Carnivore entry under deployment:

"Released in mid-3082, the Carnivore has been assigned to temporarily shore up frontline units."


TRO3085 Supplement Warg entry, last sentence:

"The Wolves will need to concentrate more production on their Badger and Bandit APCs to make best use of the Warg, as its slow speed limits its offensive uses considerably."


Field Manual 3085:
pg 113, "A new assault BattleMech has begun production but the Clan still lacks the ability to build OmniMechs. Ever expanding tank production helps cover the gap, but it is galling to the proud Clan."
pg114, "The need to retain large number of freebirth tankers is also proving a problem."


All of the Wolf touman took a hit from the Jihad and up to FM:3085. It's likely that in order to rearm and fill out the clusters, vehicle trinaries had to be added as filler. Especially since its noted to have added a whole cluster in the 3110s. Its possible that the vehicle trinaries in Alpha were only added when they made the move from their OZ into the Republic then back out into Marik and Steiner space. Once the Wolf Empire was established, they could begin transitioning out the vehicle forces.

[bobthecoward]

I went to see what kind of TO&E I could put together for a 3145 alpha galaxy cluster.

Let's read the almost phased out remark as 1 remaining trinary. Since it is for elemental transportation, let's use the cluster with the lowest Omni percent: the veteran 9th battle with 50% Omni and 55% strength.

So it has 1 armor trinary, which means 16 vehicles at current strength (8 Omni).

I have one of the slots as a fighter binary (11 fighters, 6 are Omni).

At this point, I had to play around with the trinaries to justify the vehicle trinaries. I landed on this

One command supernova
One mech trinary
One elemental trinary.

That comes to 8 Omni mechs, 8 mechs, and 18 elemental points.

If 8 ride the Omni mechs, that means there are 10 APCs and 6 support vehicles (like the carnivore?)

That would be a fun little force. if you wanted to shrink it to a representative force for a scenario you could do

1 omnimech
1 mech
2.25 elemental points
1.25 transport
.75 tank
1.375 fighter

[Maelwys]

Well, the vehicles were used for primarily infantry transport in 3085. By 3145 who knows how far into the vehicle route they've gone since then.