The Free Worlds League: Winning with what we've got!

[GespenstM]

I'm willing to tolerate it in this case because it still does decent damage and has an advantage (turret) to make up for the loss of kicks in this case. that's better than many Crusaders.

[Avitue]

I'm mostly a Mekwars server player, so my experience might be biased, but after around 70-80 games in FWL, I found that a BV-balanced army of FWL machines generally work just fine.

Sure, one-on-one fights on postage stamps, most of them suck. But in teams, they tend to have good to great synergy with each other, and more often than not can handily beat a more "specialized" team.

One of my favorite (and most successful, since it hasn't lost a single fight so far) army setups was IIRC a strike/scout lance of 2 TR1 Wraiths and 2 SDR-8M Spiders (lots of turnover here, I remember using a salvaged UZL-8S for one of the wraiths and the spiders get replaced so often I forgot what number I'm at or even what mechs were used in their stead) along with a fire lance of 4 long-range mechs, usually 2 long-range assaults (a Longbow and Awesome at the start IIRC, backed by a pair of LGR Riflemans).

The team works fine using pure FWL mechs, subbing in salvaged gear for replacements just tend to up the BV by a good chunk (though the army still works well even at that higher BV anyway), and when I accidentally salvaged a Jupiter and subbed it in things just got plain hilarious.

[Molossian Dog IIC]

If your server allows other units than Mech, consider infantry squads. Yes, squads. In terms of being BV-effective there are no better spotters for your Longbows. Spotting ignores range completely. Park them on the highest piece of terrain you can find as far away as possible with good lines of sight.

In BV-tight enviroments few people bring proper anti-infantry tools. And the early ages do not have many options to deal with them at long range.

The hilarity to see people send heavy Mechs to chase down a single groundpounder squad because the rest of their forces consists of Nighstars and Thunderhawks is priceless, I assure you.

And who knows? There might be a trap involved or two. Those SRM-carriers and Demolishers have to park somewhere, don´t they?

[Avitue]

If your server allows other units than Mech, consider infantry squads. Yes, squads. In terms of being BV-effective there are no better spotters for your Longbows. Spotting ignores range completely. Park them on the highest piece of terrain you can find as far away as possible with good lines of sight.

In BV-tight enviroments few people bring proper anti-infantry tools. And the early ages do not have many options to deal with them at long range.

The hilarity to see people send heavy Mechs to chase down a single groundpounder squad because the rest of their forces consists of Nighstars and Thunderhawks is priceless, I assure you.

And who knows? There might be a trap involved or two. Those SRM-carriers and Demolishers have to park somewhere, don´t they?

Oh, rest assured, I know full well how to be a total pain with IDF.

My preferred Setup was some MML Demolishers plus some Bollas loaded with Djinns though. Let's just say that things get hilarious. Real hilarious, especially when someone "finds" my "campers" :D

[GespenstM]

I'm mostly a Mekwars server player, so my experience might be biased, but after around 70-80 games in FWL, I found that a BV-balanced army of FWL machines generally work just fine.

Loving it. That's good stuff, the force you described.

What I'm about to say is mostly for someone else's benefit, since you obviously 'get it' and are doing great... just using your words to bring up the topic: Your results aren't a surprise. If you're playing on anything larger than a single map sheet, FWL forces have room to fan out and take advantage of their above-average speed. Then we do just fine.

The 'problem', and I say that in semi-quotes, is FWL requires a lot of precision in play and army design. We're genuinely harder to play than most factions. The developers have been reluctant to give us "3/5/0 movement, tons of armor, stack in as many gauss rifles as possible" turrets for one of two reasons.

1 - Back in the FASA era, I'm convinced the developers either didn't care about us, or may have viewed us with some kind of passive disdain. Probably just "did not care." I'm sure you know just as well as I the kind of worthless garbage they gave us. GRF-5M, etc.

2 - In today's BattleTech, the developers seem to have wisely understood that you can't make every faction into 'Conventional Davion-Steiner style straightforward optimized gauss platforms.' Hell, even Davion and Steiner aren't getting as much of that these days. We pretty much never will get those because making every faction fight like that makes the game boring as hell. Even our 'dual gauss' units have some quirk; the MR-5M Cerberus gives up the second Gauss in order to be more durable. The Carronade uses mixed types of Gauss but otherwise fits the 'optimized design' paradigm very well. Giving us Thunder Hawk clones would be a bad idea.

It would be like if Street Fighter only had Ken available to pick. Sure, the majority use Ken just like the majority used FedCom back in the day. The game would lose its appeal fast if not for the folks who pick the other characters to provide contrast, though. Same deal here.

We sucked, past tense, in the FASA era and early CGL era. They seem to have gotten the message after the WLF-3M that we were sick of being the trash faction, and they found people who could design viable machines that use a whole different combat style. Today we win through a mix of special munitions and excellent medium-range superiority machines such as the TDR-10M. 3 or 4 TRO books later, we're no longer garbage-tier. We're viable, we can win, and we're fun.

Incidentally, reading up on what you've been doing to win has been fun too. Glad to see your army design is working well!

EDIT: A question about Branths. I hear they can only be used on certain worlds? Is that right? A shame if so, because if 'infantry spotter on a hill' is fun, a FLYING infantry spotter ought to be even better.

[The Eagle]

Regarding branths, if memory serves they used to be unable to live long off of Lopez because their immune systems were especially vulnerable to off-world diseases or some such.  However, HB:HM points out that immune boosters are now available that allow cultivation of branth off of Lopez.  They're not always successful. . . but I love the branth-mounted infantry from TRO:3085.  The best thing about Andurien, I feel.

[Weirdo]

You know what's a weird use for Branth troops? Building clearing. There's nothing restricting their movement indoors, and unlike burst-fire weapons like machine guns, there's nothing saying their extra damage is negated when the target is in a building. Their small platoon size does make close combat a concern, but on average you're going to deal out a lot more damage than you're going to take.

Also, dragons. 8)

[Molossian Dog IIC]

...We sucked, past tense, in the FASA era and early CGL era. ...

I know where you are coming from, but I´d like to make a small addendum.

At first we rocked. The Succession Wars Era has a good number of variants of standard Mechs that I much prefer over the baseline models. Typical examples are the Wolverine M, the Marauder M or the Binary Laser one and (maybe my lvl1/intro tech favourite) the supreme ON1-VA. A real close quarters monster in its era.

So I´d phrase it like:
"First we rocked, then we sucked, then continued to suck, then sucked exhaust fumes until we got sick and barfed all over the place...but then it got better."

Also: Branths! Rawr!
(would they taste like chicken?)

[Ascension]

The MUL lists Branth "Aerial Beast Infantry" as available to the FWL from the Clan Invasion through to the Early Republic Era, but I'm wondering if that's accurate... Lopez was rendered uninhabitable by the Wobblies via repeated asteroid strikes in 3080, and I don't know how stable off-planet Branth populations were by that time. I hope they made it.

(Incidentally, the MUL also dates the introduction of Branth-mounted infantry to the Age of War, despite not listing them as available to any faction prior to the Invasion era... so there's definitely some irregularities there.)

[GespenstM]

Their small platoon size does make close combat a concern,

*Puts on a sweater* CLOSE RANGE!? </XComJoke>

And yeah, it's true we were fairly good in 3025. Hell, we were even good in 3050. Then 3055 came and things began to go downhill (we got good stuff in 3055, but others got way better things, THEN we just started getting garbage afterward). I'm just happy it's over and we have a much healthier, 'spread the love, employ more designers who have a variety of ideas' approach to things these days.

Wish Megamek had Branth Infantry integrated. I'd love to start using them if we're now able to sometimes take them offworld.

Randomly, my opinion of the Tempest is slightly better now that I've begun using Tandem Charge loads. Wish we had the record sheets for the new refits, as the simulations I've done of the "close enough" specs were really enjoyable. Both versions would probably become major mainstays of my play once they're 'canon units legal'.

[Molossian Dog IIC]

I wonder, in each era, what are you people using as APCs? And what type of infantry are they hauling around? Do you have a go-to vehicle and try to use it for all types of platoons or are you prefering certain combinations?

Related: Do you use custom made platoons at all in your games?

[Weirdo]

I actually usually stick to self-mobile troops a lot of the time when I play FWL, or just hang suits off of mechs. When I do get around to it, I'll probably go to the same standby I usually use, the standard Heavy APCs. Might go for Maxims effort once in a while, since they can carry the slack if I want able to bring a supporting IFV. Really want to actually give the Main Gauche or R10 a whirl sometime, too.

Related: Do you use custom made platoons at all in your games?

Conventional troops are the only units I will customize, actually. Cramming a mechanized platoon or two full of the really big support lasers is a great way to convince your opponents to max out their AP firepower the next week. >:D

[GespenstM]

Sadly, most of the venues I played in were really restrictive on infantry so I never bothered to learn them.

Battle Armor on the other hand I'm a bit more up to date on, and I use the R10 or the Avalanche omnimech for toting them around.

[Jellico]

My perfect ELRM unit

Seleucus.

[Weirdo]

Oooo...park one of those in your backfield, and make it rain! >:D

Hmmm...I wonder how effective a force consisting of a landed Seleucus and its contents might actually be in your typical Battletech or Alpha Strike game...

[The Eagle]

On the infantry side, I just started using conventional infantry for the first time in a little mini-league I play in with a buddy at school.  He tends to ignore mine while I torch his with my Hermes II Mercury, but I did get a kill with a laser rifle platoon thanks to some critical hits.  I bought some Achileus and Longinus models a while back and want to stock up on Kopis and Phalanx models, but we're sticking to level 1 tech for this.  Sad days.

Oh, and IWM makes branth infantry models too, right?  Might buy some for gits and shiggles.

[Dies Irae]

Sadly, most of the venues I played in were really restrictive on infantry so I never bothered to learn them.

Battle Armor on the other hand I'm a bit more up to date on, and I use the R10 or the Avalanche omnimech for toting them around.

Owens make pretty decent taxis too.

[The Eagle]

Speaking of OmniMechs, I was just perusing the MUL and I noticed that most of the original Clan OmniMechs plus the Kingfisher are available to us.  Did I miss something?

[Weirdo]

Conventional infantry can be fun to use precisely because many players will ignore them. As your rifle troops demonstrate, they make very good crit-seekers, and for the same reason can be murder on tanks. Use your mechs and tracks to smack his stuff around a bit and punch some holes, then lure him past your infantry position, and demonstrate why when it comes to little guys vs giant walking machines, Return of the Jedi was no fluke. For even more fun, look up WWII tactics for towed anti-tank guns, and apply them to troops operating AC/10 field guns. :)

Speaking of OmniMechs, I was just perusing the MUL and I noticed that most of the original Clan OmniMechs plus the Kingfisher are available to us.  Did I miss something?

Most of them are on the Inner Sphere General list now, to reflect the proliferation of clan tech.

[GespenstM]

Amusingly, Martian tried to tell me their absence from IS General on the 3145 MUL means we've since lost them. Notes that the 3145 MUL is OPENLY labeled as a 'draft' did not seem to dissuade him. In light of someone more closely connected to the game's development not picking up on this line of thought, I'm inclined to believe we do indeed have a handful of clan Mechs here and there.

Which is fun. This means we have Thors and such. (And you might be able to justify one Thor II in a formation due to its Mercenary MUL inclusion, but that's just my fan-theory that such things are available as special orders to aces and officers while the faction otherwise doesn't bother buying them).

[Tai Dai Cultist]

The FWL also has the Clan Protectorate as one of its member states.  Its kind of silly, when you think about it, to say that the Sea Foxes sell Clan tech to everyone else except the FWLM.

And yeah, now that the Wolves have helped themselves to an empire on the League's border.. now there's the salvage that comes with having a Clan for a neighbor.

[GespenstM]

Huh. That makes me wonder if the Sea Foxes sell us Thor IIs now. Am I right in believing the Thor II's TRO entries and MUL assignments came before the Clan Protectorate was fully set up?

[Scotty]

You can probably do one better than "sell some", in a Clan Protectorate force. :D

[GespenstM]

Well, I was talking about FWL line formations such as the Oriente Hussars and so on.

[Avitue]

Loving it. That's good stuff, the force you described.

What I'm about to say is mostly for someone else's benefit, since you obviously 'get it' and are doing great... just using your words to bring up the topic: Your results aren't a surprise. If you're playing on anything larger than a single map sheet, FWL forces have room to fan out and take advantage of their above-average speed. Then we do just fine.

The 'problem', and I say that in semi-quotes, is FWL requires a lot of precision in play and army design. We're genuinely harder to play than most factions. The developers have been reluctant to give us "3/5/0 movement, tons of armor, stack in as many gauss rifles as possible" turrets for one of two reasons.

1 - Back in the FASA era, I'm convinced the developers either didn't care about us, or may have viewed us with some kind of passive disdain. Probably just "did not care." I'm sure you know just as well as I the kind of worthless garbage they gave us. GRF-5M, etc.

2 - In today's BattleTech, the developers seem to have wisely understood that you can't make every faction into 'Conventional Davion-Steiner style straightforward optimized gauss platforms.' Hell, even Davion and Steiner aren't getting as much of that these days. We pretty much never will get those because making every faction fight like that makes the game boring as hell. Even our 'dual gauss' units have some quirk; the MR-5M Cerberus gives up the second Gauss in order to be more durable. The Carronade uses mixed types of Gauss but otherwise fits the 'optimized design' paradigm very well. Giving us Thunder Hawk clones would be a bad idea.

It would be like if Street Fighter only had Ken available to pick. Sure, the majority use Ken just like the majority used FedCom back in the day. The game would lose its appeal fast if not for the folks who pick the other characters to provide contrast, though. Same deal here.

We sucked, past tense, in the FASA era and early CGL era. They seem to have gotten the message after the WLF-3M that we were sick of being the trash faction, and they found people who could design viable machines that use a whole different combat style. Today we win through a mix of special munitions and excellent medium-range superiority machines such as the TDR-10M. 3 or 4 TRO books later, we're no longer garbage-tier. We're viable, we can win, and we're fun.

Incidentally, reading up on what you've been doing to win has been fun too. Glad to see your army design is working well!

EDIT: A question about Branths. I hear they can only be used on certain worlds? Is that right? A shame if so, because if 'infantry spotter on a hill' is fun, a FLYING infantry spotter ought to be even better.

If my reply to the other guy (or my nick, or avvie, or sig) didn't clue you in, I usually play WoB SD instead. In a BV2 Balanced Server. With default 3/4 pilots for MY team and 4/5 for most others. And since my ELO in that server rarely budges from "elite", most games were under a 1.5-2k BV handicap.

So yeah, "needs precision" and "Hard to Play" are things I'm extremely used to. In fact, switching to FWL makes me feel positively wall-y since now I get to field 2 lances of mechs at 12k BV instead of a mixed Level 1 if Mech/Vee/BAs :D

Back on FWL stuff, though, I find that most of the things people tend to mock or even consider "Junk" are perfectly usable.

Take the LGR Rifleman for example. Sure, it's got thin skin, and explodes when sneezed on, but it's also packing 2 8-pointers that go to 25 hexes (PERFECT for plinking the hell out of campers till they move), is Dirt-cheap in BV, and all those ERMLs on it mean getting close isn't recommended either.

I think the main issue why most people think FWL mechs are "Bad" is mostly that their play experience is 1v1 on postage stamps. Well DUH, OF COURSE something designed for teamwork would do poorly in those conditions.

[GespenstM]

That's pretty cool, actually. I haven't met too many people who play WOB as their 'main', they always talk about how ECM so easily counters WOB's advantages (I'd think sufficient ECCM would help?). So if you run WOB, that's really neat and I'm glad to see it!

Some of our bad Mechs are indeed bad though. RFL-5M, SHD-5M... the BV system does not save them. Same for GRF-5M. They suck at their current BVs.

RFL-7M I'm willing to concede is borderline and might be worth the BV; I hate it regardless, but can see how a WOB team might be able to get some mileage out of it especially in a ELO-adjusted format where every point of BV is precious. It's the exact same format where the Albatross becomes viable, since 1668 BV is a bargain for all the features you get even if they're not quite laid out in an optimal way.

[Avitue]

That's pretty cool, actually. I haven't met too many people who play WOB as their 'main', they always talk about how ECM so easily counters WOB's advantages (I'd think sufficient ECCM would help?). So if you run WOB, that's really neat and I'm glad to see it!

Some of our bad Mechs are indeed bad though. RFL-5M, SHD-5M... the BV system does not save them. Same for GRF-5M. They suck at their current BVs.

RFL-7M I'm willing to concede is borderline and might be worth the BV; I hate it regardless, but can see how a WOB team might be able to get some mileage out of it especially in a ELO-adjusted format where every point of BV is precious. It's the exact same format where the Albatross becomes viable, since 1668 BV is a bargain for all the features you get even if they're not quite laid out in an optimal way.

The WoB force mostly runs WoB Gear, but yeah, we also use a good chunk of FWL stuff as per canon. WoB is pretty much a pure finesse faction (especially playing SD), where you REALLY have to make full use of every little advantage you have as well as invent new dirty tricks for the big book.

I actually use my RFL-7Ms as both BV and Init sinks. They can camp at long range at will thus not needing to move much, and their low perceived threat value makes them a good bargain for the BV. My Current pair of 7Ms have lived through... I think 6-7 battles. Though then again, their longevity compared to their predecessors might be because the pair of assaults I had in that army are no longer FWL gear but a pair of salvaged Jupiters, so the RFLs are rarely even shot at.  ;D

[GespenstM]

Weird. I'd think players would understand that it's often smart to go after the easy kills first just to whittle down your offensive output. Glad you're making them work, though!

[Scotty]

Weird. I'd think players would understand that it's often smart to go after the easy kills first just to whittle down your offensive output. Glad you're making them work, though!

Depends on the threat level.  While going for the easy kills first lowers offensive output sooner than going after the bigger badder things, it also lowers offensive output slower.  Every turn you spend taking out a Vedette is a turn you're not whittling down a Hunchback, and an AC/20 (or Gauss, or PPC, or anything big) is going to contribute more in those couple turns you're not killing it than the Vedette would contribute all game.

[GespenstM]

True, but scale of response can help there. If I have something cheap that can avoid the big problem and go deal with the smaller one without losing too much from my front line, I'll go for it.

(Redacting edit to make a separate post about my other topic)