BattleTech - The Board Game of Armored Combat
BattleTech Player Boards => Novel and Sourcebook Reviews => Topic started by: Starfury on 30 January 2020, 23:52:01
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I was looking over the piloting and gunnery stats for Rhonda's Irregulars and comparing them to newer Catalyst products and later FASA releases. The difference is pretty wide. Elite pilots are regularly 1,2 or 1,1 in Rhonda's Irregulars, while in later books, a 2/3 is elite for long term Clan Star Colonels. Does anyone have an explanation on the large discrepancy in skills?
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It gets worse - there are early products where Natasha Kerensky (who tested up to Star Colonel and won a Bloodname) is listed as 3/4.
The early scenario writers were loathe to give people superior stats, probably for game balance reasons. If you read the stat blocs as written, Grayson Carlyle and Lori Kalmar had stats in the 6 and 7 range on Trellwan and Verthandi, and some cadets (on the verge of graduation) are given 8/8 stats.
Chalk it up to there not being any standard guidelines in the FASA era.
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Apparently. I didn't remember such a large discrepancy when I had it in hard copy. The "second line" Jade Falcon Star Colonel the Irregulars face on Apollo is a 1,2 with no blood name, piloting a Thor
This Cluster doesn't even have any aerospace attached to it. Heck the Irregulars' infantry has no transport assets...
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If you look at the rosters in the Twycross scenario pack, you'll see bloodnamed warriors among the rank and file, under the command of non-bloodnamed Star Commanders. I'd assume anyone good enough to get a bloodname would rate a command of their own.
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All it takes is one moment of bad luck during a trial...
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From the several old FASA scenario books almost every one had standard stats 4/5 IS 3/4 Clan. Very few had better stats. MY guess was they designers were looking more at a longer game then a realistic view of the story line. This can be seem in all of the books. 4th succession War Scenarios has a few under 4/5 for IS but in the same scenario there are much higher G/P as high as 6/7. Even the ones with clan forces there are clan warriors with 4/5.
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Simplest answer would be that before BV we all used the same chart. After BV the Clans were rated at a better skill level by one step. So if your P/G numbers rated you as a Veteran IS MechWarrior, in the Clans you were only considered Regular. The chart was also expanded from four basic ratings to seven, IIRC.
Early on we tended to plan fights by tonnage and everyone usually had TRO models by planned rulings. When the Clans hit, IS players had to actually get the Omnis to fire so we could narrow down the configs we were facing. This brought some order to the brawl.
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There are some scenarios where the P/G ratings as given only make sense when you assume they're RPG skill ranks, not boardgame target numbers.
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There are some scenarios where the P/G ratings as given only make sense when you assume they're RPG skill ranks, not boardgame target numbers.
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There are some scenarios where the P/G ratings as given only make sense when you assume they're RPG skill ranks, not boardgame target numbers.
That's a very interesting perspective.
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Simplest answer would be that before BV we all used the same chart. After BV the Clans were rated at a better skill level by one step. So if your P/G numbers rated you as a Veteran IS MechWarrior, in the Clans you were only considered Regular. The chart was also expanded from four basic ratings to seven, IIRC.
Early on we tended to plan fights by tonnage and everyone usually had TRO models by planned rulings. When the Clans hit, IS players had to actually get the Omnis to fire so we could narrow down the configs we were facing. This brought some order to the brawl.
Very true.. but you lie there was little order to any of the early CLAN/Inner Sphere Brawls. The Tech was just great difference to overcome.
And most CLAN players I ran into at the time still wanted to fight tonnage games and fought like they were dirty pirates not honorable Clan Warriors.
I won some of those battles, but to win that way, shakes my head, I was going to loose the war for lack of functional forces.