The Eternal Drama: Balancing Clan vs. IS (army suggestions)

[Ladob]

We're discussing having a 3050 invasion era gaming in my mekwars place, given that 3085 failed big time.

But then there comes the usual troubles with clan vs is fighting: balancing it all.
The main whining comes usually from the clanner side (I'm being outnumbered, that is unfair!!!).

Now to the point: look at the variants below for setting up a battle and imagine armies facing each other. Which of those variants sounds to deliver consistently the fairest battles in your opinion? At best please create armies based on the criteria below to show your opinion.

Base limitations for all variants
Clan: 3-5 Mechs; up to 5 BA
I.S: 4-8 non-infantry; up to 3 infantry
- Infantry and BA don't count towards initiative and deployment (they are spread during movement)
- We use two house rules: initiative compensation and front streak (2,1,2,1,1,1 instead of two at the end for outnumbered forces)
- 2x2 classic map sized terrains
- No Zellbringen needed.

Variant I
I.S. pilots are base 4/5; Clanners base 3/4
Matched by BV, clans may be up to 10-15% higher; BV takes pilot skills into account, as normal

Variant II
I.S. pilots are base 4/5; Clanners base 3/4
Matched by BV
BV does NOT take pilot skills into account, all units count as base 4/5 for calculations


Variant III
I.S. pilots are 3/4; Clanners base 2/3
Matched by BV, clans may be up to 10-15% higher

Variant IV
Same as III; pilots don't count for calculations.

Variant V
IS 4/5, Clan 3/4
Matched by Tonnage (IS brings double)

Variant VI
IS 3/4, Clan 2/3
Matched by Tonnage (IS brings double)

[Col Toda]

No 3 . The learning curve of the IS was slow and without the Wolf Dragoons giving info it may have taken more than the standard 3 years to get a feel for an enemy and come up with a tactical and strategic doctrine that would work . Between the Wolves going to the IS and Mira Borg buying the time by killing the Il Khan the Clans may have taken Terra ( Earth ) . It would have been a good thing so long as they only took a small corridor to earth and skipped everyone else . Crushed Com Star before the formation of the WOB and got a White Elephant to play with . It would better represent the shock and awe value of the opposition .

[Kovax]

None of the above.  Make at least two (three is better) of the prospective Clan leaders BID on the job.  Whoever thinks they can accomplish the objective with the least force is welcome to try.  Any player who does not bid is welcome to participate on either side.  Any failed bidders MUST play IS, so there's incentive for them to WANT to either win the bid or play with whatever their side's leader hands them.

[Ladob]

Players have each a pool of units to choose from. It is about one-on-one duels.
Some players will be clan, others will be IS and they are stuck to that for the campaigns going (a few weeks).

[Adgar76]

Hey Ladob, great to see the Shack go back to what is probably my favorite Era.
I'd avoid balancing by tonnage; while we all know that the BV2 system is far from perfect, it's still much better than straight unit weight, which completely fails to take into account real combat effectiveness.
I'll comment under the understanding that most IS units will be of 3025 flavor; a high % of upgraded units on the IS side will probably make things tougher for the Clan players.

Against a mostly Intro tech opponent, the Clan player shouldn't really need much of a BV boost, IMO. Most Intro tech mechs are geared for short/medium range fighting, and will suffer greatly if the Clan opponent has good LOS while they inevitably try to close in.
It was bad enough during the 2nd Grand Cycle (where there was a 10-15% BV boost, but Zellbrigen was enforced), if this time the Clan players are allowed to focus fire while the IS closes range the vast advantage in terms of mass becomes simply a buffer to make the fight winnable for the IS after the inevitable initial losses.

I'd say that the kind of maps that you'll use are an important part of the balancing effort. 2x2 standard mapsheets is not a very large playing area, but if as you said unit numbers are limited to 3-5 mechs on the clan side and 4-8 mechs/vees for the IS, it doesn't seem cramped enough to make maneuvering impossible.
If it was 12 IS heavies vs 4-5 Clan ones (entirely possible under the BV system with 4/5ers vs 3/4s), you would indeed have a problem on your hands. So my suggestion is to keep the game size down, if you're going for 2x2. On the other hand, the artificial cap on unit numbers will almost certainly mean that the IS units will be one or two weight categories heavier. You can get 8 heavies for 10k or so BV, which is more or less the cost of 3 Clan heavies or 5 lights.

So, to wrap it up: i'd go with Option I with a 5% BV boost, if any.  Alternatively you could give free Edge to the Clan pilots (especially if you give them the Clan Training trait), since a lucky crit or headshot on a Clan mech tipically means game over when a single unit is such a big chunk of your force.
Option III seems to be the next best choice, since it will significantly reduce the weight advantage while maintaining the skill gap. It also has the added bonus of making Clan pulse laser somewhat less desirable since to-hit numbers are going to be lower anyway, but it will probably mean that no sane IS commander will ever field a light (or maybe even medium) mech.

I'd avoid the other options: II is simply overkill, while IV and V make use of straight tonnage which, as I said above, is not really a better balancing method.

As an alternative, I might also suggest going for straight BV, coupled with a generous but reasonable tonnage and numbers cap.

[cold1]

None of the above.  Make at least two (three is better) of the prospective Clan leaders BID on the job.  Whoever thinks they can accomplish the objective with the least force is welcome to try.  Any player who does not bid is welcome to participate on either side.  Any failed bidders MUST play IS, so there's incentive for them to WANT to either win the bid or play with whatever their side's leader hands them.

This!  One of the best ways to handle this I've ever seen.

I also like the 3/4 clanner and 4/5 spheroid but skills don't count in BV.  The old star vs company of equal tonnage average is also good (ie medium star vs medium company). 

[SteveUK]

Sorry to say this but skills do affect BV, a 4/5  has a BV multiplier of 1, a 3/4 has a BV multiplier of 1.3 (Techmanual - BV skill multiplier table page 314). this helps balance out the better TN,s of a higher skilled mechwarrior.

[sebster]

Play straight battle value.  The disadvantage of smaller numbers is minor at best (and solved by targeting the weaker elements of the enemy force first), so that if the board is large enough that the clan player has some real advantage to his greater range and space to move his faster mechs, then it should be a pretty even battle.  Or at least about as even a battle as you're ever going to get in Battletech.

And if Clan players moan and think its unfair, well let them go running to the Inner Sphere side.

[Diablo48]

BV works fine as written, you just cannot play on a postage stamp.  That means 3x3 mapsheets is the absolute minimum you should even consider, and I would go to 4x4 if there are any 7/11+ units in play.

[Ladob]

BV works fine as written, you just cannot play on a postage stamp.  That means 3x3 mapsheets is the absolute minimum you should even consider, and I would go to 4x4 if there are any 7/11+ units in play.

Eh... the interesting part is when we notice that most old clan era scenario books had at most 2 maps side by side... and that for a binary vs. a company, usually. One of the oldies is even full of SINGLE MAP battles featuring sometimes twice that number of units to a side. So much for play testing. :)

[Col Toda]

The biggest reason the Clans lose is supply . Combat Operations only have a Clan unit have minimal resources to re armor and reload while the IS unit can have huge stock piles . Any long drawn out campaign if you have cut off their supply they lose .
The solution they use is to bring the conflict to a conclusion as fast as possible they then win. Snow Raven Win by keeping control in space so they keep is supply .  All the other clans tend to try to win ASAP by having a Batchal done . The whole idea of the Clans is to do the most with the least resources.  This makes them great . If they cannot do the above they will ultimately lose.

[Diablo48]

Eh... the interesting part is when we notice that most old clan era scenario books had at most 2 maps side by side... and that for a binary vs. a company, usually. One of the oldies is even full of SINGLE MAP battles featuring sometimes twice that number of units to a side. So much for play testing. :)

Sigh.  When I play Star vs. Company I always use 4x4 mapsheets.  That is just beyond stupid, although if you are dropping a Binary against a Company you will probably wind up with enough raw mass for nothing else to matter.

[TigerShark]

Sorry to say this but skills do affect BV, a 4/5  has a BV multiplier of 1, a 3/4 has a BV multiplier of 1.3 (Techmanual - BV skill multiplier table page 314). this helps balance out the better TN,s of a higher skilled mechwarrior.

It's actually 1.38 for a 3/4 [1.2 * 1.15].  And it's much too high for what you get.

Armor is severely undervalued in BV2, so without controls on the number of opponents, the higher skilled unit will always get kicked to death by a flood of lighter units. Especially on a wooded, city or hilly map with limited LOS.

People usually state that the Clans have some overwhelming advantage in firepower and speed, but that is not always the case. The most heavily-armored of the Clan units (Dire Wolf, Warhawk, Blood Asp, etc.) are all 4/6 or slower. Pretty easy to catch up to if you're a 5/8 or better.

As for firepower, the Clans only have an advantage when comparing unit-to-unit. If you compare purely by Battle Value, they have a severe disadvantage.

Code: [Select]


CLAN
Name:       Timber Wolf A
Speed:      5/8
Pilot:      3/4
Armor:      230
Damage:     68/63/30
BV:         2939


INNER SPHERE
Name:        Rifleman RFL-6X
Speed:      5/8
Pilot:       4/5
Armor:       184
Damage:      40/30/20
BV:          1464

Name:        Rifleman RFL-6X
Speed:      5/8
Pilot:       4/5
Armor:       184
Damage:      40/30/20
BV:          1464


TOTAL INNER SPHERE
Armor:       368
Damage:      80/60/40
BV:          2928

As you can see, the armor total is around 160% of the Clan 'Mech and the damage total is about 30% more for the Inner Sphere army, on average. While there are mitigating circumstances, such as the shorter range of the IS unit, this depends entirely upon the terrain and map size.

In a wooded or city map, the Timber Wolf is not going to have the 23-to-18 range advantage; its firepower won't come to bear until the IS unit(s) are well in range. If the map is smaller than 2x2 map sheets, the Timber Wolf will also be unlikely to use its speed advantage to create a range gap. It will benefit from a better To-Hit, but that, again, is very small:

3 (Gunnery) + 2 (Attacker Ran) + 2 (Medium) + 2 (Defender Ran 5 hexes) = 9
4 (Gunnery) + 2 (Attacker Ran) + 2 (Medium) + 2 (Defender Ran 5 hexes) = 10

The advantage to hit only comes out to 8.33% at Medium range and 13.89% at Short. If we extrapolate that into average damage, the Inner Sphere will do roughly the same (68) as the Timber Wolf at Short. But since the Inner Sphere has 60% more armor, it's also going to be able to absorb that damage a lot better.

In this way, armor is being undervalued currently and provides the larger army with a significant bonus against a smaller, more skilled force. Were the 3/4 pilot brought down to a more manageable percent increase (say 30% vs. today's 38%), we'd see more parity and less "whining" about swarms.

[TigerShark]

Play straight battle value.  The disadvantage of smaller numbers is minor at best (and solved by targeting the weaker elements of the enemy force first), so that if the board is large enough that the clan player has some real advantage to his greater range and space to move his faster mechs, then it should be a pretty even battle.  Or at least about as even a battle as you're ever going to get in Battletech.

And if Clan players moan and think its unfair, well let them go running to the Inner Sphere side.

Sound like you've played on Legends before!  ^-^

[Col Toda]

My training cadre ( Company )  which is stationed in the lowest risk assignments possible are the standard 4 G and 5 P . Any pilot in that group that becomes a house regular 3 G and 4 P I am willing to send in even the thickest ugliest fights with my 4 other mech companies .  The standard 4 G and 5 P so under performs and even if it wins it loses so much armor and wastes so much ammo that it is iffy even if you win .  The instances in which my training cadre finds it self in the thick of things the price of
victory is almost as bad as the price of defeat. Even if I lose with my house regular skilled troops the amount of material the enemy loses for that victory is so bad I am just fine with it . My training company is the minor leagues in every way .  The way
I fight much better than 3 G and 4 Piloting just does not buy me anything than to increase my payroll needlessly .

[ThatPirateGuy]

I am curious as to why BA and infantry don't get counted for initiative. In my experience a big part of Elemental's combat utility is letting the clan player stay relatively close in activation count while providing a minor threat that can't be completely ignored.

[TigerShark]

I am curious as to why BA and infantry don't get counted for initiative. In my experience a big part of Elemental's combat utility is letting the clan player stay relatively close in activation count while providing a minor threat that can't be completely ignored.

Because initiative is completely broken by uneven numbers in Total Warfare. Bring a Star of Battle Armor (1500 BV or so) and they can sink initiative all day long, making your opponent's 4,000 BV 'Mechs go first.

[ThatPirateGuy]

Since elementals are supposed to be 3/4 should that cost around 2000 bv? combined with a light mech because at 3/4 you can't afford anything else as a mech that is 6 activations to 4 with most of the force for the Clan having a range of 9 or less.

I don't see how that is a problem if they are forcing the outnumbering side to move 2 with initial moves as they already are. In fact I worry for the clan players chances.