Might Before Metal: Home of Clan Hell's Horses II

[Maelwys]

I dunno if those mixed sibkos have ever been mentioned outside of the novels to be honest.

FM:Crusader Clan states "Some Clans breed enough offspring of a prestigious Bloodname or a particular Bloodheritage to fill an entire sibko, though mixed sibkos that contain the offspring of several different Bloodnames are more common. Even though some Bloodnames produce excellent warriors of all types, each warrior type is trained separately to keep competition fierce, yet balanced."

I'm not sure if Ranna was talking about a mixed sibko in terms of just Bloodhouses, or if she was talking about a mixed sibko in terms of Warrior types, but it seems that the regular practice is to keep sibkos pure in terms of Phenotype.

So if you have a particularly bad Kerensky Mechwarrior Bloodheritage, and a bad Ward Mechwarrior Bloodheritage, and you might not want to create 100 of each, you could create 50 of each, and shove them into mixed sibko.

But you wouldn't have a mixed sibko of Elementals and Aerospace pilots for instance. The aerospace portion would probably be decimated after a few years.

[Decoy]

Ah, but Ranna's sibko contained all three phenotypes. Furthermore, all survivors did gain bloodnames and most went to positions of prominence. I realize that Ranna's sibko is an exception, though.

[Maelwys]

Well its also possible that the details hadn't been entirely worked out at the time of the novels as well. IIRC there's also some disconnect between the Jade Phoenix trilogy and what comes later.

So it seems that Ranna's sibko, if it was mixed, is very unusual.

[Decoy]

The survivors of Rana's sibko as of 3057 are
Vlad Ward (Mechwarrior)
Evantha Fetladral (Elemental)
Rana Kerensky (Mechwarrior)
Carew Nygren (Aerospace Pilot)

And it was described as standard for the Wolves in the Wolf Sourcebook (Cyrila Ward and Natasha Kerensky came from the same sibko, for what it's worth), with secondary facilities handling sibkos in the larger, Jade Falcon style. I would imagine the instructors would attempt to guide all conflicts towards "neutral ground" like tests on Clan history or the like.

[Maelwys]

Cyrila and Natasha being part of the same sibko makes sense, since they're both MWs.

Having a mixed Phenotype sibko like Ranna's apparently was seems like it would lead to lots of issues and seems rather unusual since it seems to be Clan Wolf only as far as I can tell (and I can't find the source inside the Wolf Clan sourcebook).

Still, its pretty strange. And while I think there may be cooperation on the part of the Hell's Horses among sibkos (such as training against each other in mock combat) to foster cooperation among the Horses, I don't think I see them mixing their sibkos. The issues would outweigh the benefits I think.

[Sjhernan3060]

This brings up some interesting points I had not considered. I guess in my mind if you had a mixed sibko, each of various phenotypes would try to test out in their own area but I guess that doesn't make sense right?

[Maelwys]

Well, presumably they would test out in their own areas, but just getting their would be odd. Think of how violent some of the depictions of sibko life are. It works for the most part because everyone is on a somewhat even playing field, and the weak are weeded out.

Now imagine that violence, but where you've got Elemental children fighting against Aerospace children. Sure, they might be quicker than the kids with the Elemental phenotype, but they're going to be somewhat uncoordinated, and not trained early on how to take advantage of their speed against kids that are literally built to fight.

Add to that the training issues. Either splitting them up when its time to focus on their own thing, or cross training them in areas they're unlikely to need. And cross training means less training in what their specialty is.

[Sjhernan3060]

Hmmm when do Sibbies typically meet others that are not of their phenotype?

[Drewbacca]

Question: What do you think of the Heavy Jump infantry and Fast Recon infantry? I really like them.

[Kojak]

I haven't used the latter, but Heavy Jump Infantry are brutal as hell. I like to use mixed Novas with five Hephaestus Jump Tanks, five Hephaestus Scout Tanks and five Points of Heavy Jump Infantry; you can find a weak point in the enemy lines, dump the infantry there, and then force open a hole for your other units to exploit while your hovers harry them endlessly.

[truetanker]

I've used them also in a Nova form, but instead of Heavy Jump, I ran a 3 Points Fast Recon with 6 Hephaestus Scout tanks and 2 Gnome Points with 2 Bandit C, last Point was a Piranha 3.

Fast Recon Star with light mech support. Brutal in a city fight using double-blind rules.

TT

[Natasha Kerensky]

I like the much greater range and firepower of Clan Assault Infantry over Clan Heavy Jump Infantry.  I'm not sure the extra jump MP of the Heavy Jump Infantry is worth it, especially if they're both going to be deployed via fast hover or VTOL to basically wipe out/secure a stationary area.

That said, Clan Heavy Jump Infantry is still a force to be reckoned with.

Clan Fast Recon Infantry is a relatively cheap way to get a relatively mobile artillery spotter.  I still prefer a cheap VTOL in the backfield, but if I don't have the spare BV, Clan Fast Recon Infantry is a solid substitute.

My 2 Kerenskies... FWIW...

[Drewbacca]

So, I am counting this as a victory.
Gave the fast recon and heavy jump units a run tonight in a free-for-all with three other players. Player 1 had a Black Knight and a Blackjack. Player two had a Heavy Gauss crusader and a SavannahMaster, and Player 3 had a hover tank I could nor place and a mech called a Killer Rabbit.

I had three heavy jump units and two fast recon. I was worried about the random maps and that turned out to be a wise concern as though one was costal the other had basically open terrain with some fairly big -1 level areas. The only area of the map with trees was completely opposite my deployment area.

The Crusader and the Killer Rabbit traded shots while I went after the Blackjack with the heavy jumpers and skirted the map edge with the recons. I was practically through the armour on the Blackjack on the first volley and sent him prone the next turn while taking a grand total of four dead troopers. When I had killed the Blackjack and started taking out the Black Knight with 16+ troopers in each unit, the other two put their differences aside and sent the surviving units after me.

Now I will admit I got a bit lucky here, in that the Crusader and the hovertank ran out of ammo before they could really engage me, but I did lose a whole jump unit in a singel turn to the Black Knight break dancing on them.

I ended up losing both recons and one of the surviving heavy jump units only had 6 troopers left, but in the end I killed the Black Knight, Blackjack, Crusader, the heavy hover tank and even tracked down and killed the crippled Killer Rabbit. I scored five of the 10 kills in the game.

Now they are planning to load up on anti-infantry weapons the next game.  O0

[Foxx Ital]

Awesome job Drewbacca!

[Drewbacca]

Thanks. Really starting to think combined arms are my strong point. I wonder if I should hit them with protomechs next. >:D

[Drewbacca]

Other than the Orc, which protomechs do the Horses use.

[Maelwys]

Here is a good source for what they've got across various eras.

Some Minotaurs, the Svartalfa, the Procyon (Quad) and the Hippogriff are the most recent additions to the Horses' touman, but even the most recent, the Hippogriff dates back to 3110.

[Drewbacca]

Thanks.

[Kojak]

ProtoMechs can be incredibly vicious when deployed properly. The main reason I'm a Hell's Horses fan is because I'm a nut for combined-arms warfare, and the fact that they're still one of the Proto-using Clans in the Dark Age is probably what sealed the deal. Seriously, take a Star of Rocs or Minotaurs or quad Procyons for a spin sometime, they mesh well with so much of the rest of the Horse arsenal.

[Drewbacca]

I will give that a try.

Reading through 3050 Upgrades I was pleased to see two of my favorite omnis have Horse origins.

[Drewbacca]

Procyon Quad is nice, but a bit limited in ammo.

[Maelwys]

The SRM2 is sort of short on ammo with only 5 rounds of firing, but the APGRs have 16 rounds each, which is usually considered more than enough for a design. It may be a little limited in terms of campaign play, but for one offs it should be plenty I'd think.

[Drewbacca]

Hello Horses I need help. I am trying to come up with a mech to use in my next game for around 2500 BV with Horse connections.

Any suggestions?

[Maelwys]

Depending on how much leeway you have, the Bowman 2 is 2567, there's the Thor HH variant at 2536, most of the Baliuses are between 2100 and 2600 IIRC, Thunder Stallions are all below 2600 as well.

[Drewbacca]

Oh yeah, I forgot the quads, thanks. And the Summoners too. Isn't the Hellbringer a partial Hell's Horses design?

[Maelwys]

Yeah, the Loki was originally designed by the Hell's Horses, but by the Jihad its a very generalized design in use with pretty much every Clan, so I didn't count it as part of the "Horse connections." There's also the Loki Mk II, but its BV is lower.

[Drewbacca]

So I am trying out a ton of options against bots and I am not having anywhere near the success I did with the infantry.

[Nightgaun7]

Looking for info on the Hell's Horses internal conflict between Malvina followers and Malvina haters. Where can I find it?

[Kojak]

ER 3145 and FM 3145, primarily. I don't recall it being covered directly in Bonfire of Worlds, but potentially in there as well.

[Drewbacca]

Looking for info on the Hell's Horses internal conflict between Malvina followers and Malvina haters. Where can I find it?

I am going to piggyback on this, what is the Mongol Doctrine?