BattleTech - The Board Game of Armored Combat
BattleTech Game Systems => Ground Combat => Topic started by: wanderer25 on 27 September 2016, 22:57:12
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Recently it's come to my attention from several sources, that the Lineholder battlemech is consider a marginal
design at best. Now my question is, is this just fluff, or does it bore out in actual game use?
It reminds me of the old Vindicator fluff that decribed the mech as mediocre but in play its described by quite a few as
one of the better intro medium.
Looking at the stats, its well armored, seems to have decent weapon load and the standard 5/8 movement rating of 55 tonners.
The only drawback seems to be the lack of jump jets but thats easely remedied. (Lose 3 HS and convert the rest to DHS.
This gives you the 2.5 tons you need to jump 5 and still leaves 0.5 tons to add CASE!)
Yes it uses level-1 tech in a era trend of upgraded machines, but that's to keep the cost down. There is an
ugraded version (better lasers) for those who want it.
The mech is maketed to the chaos march and a lesser extent the periphery. I think its safe to assume most of the small time
mercs and militia encountered in those areas arent flush full of upgrades! So does ther level-1 tech really make it
that inferior?
Well?
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I have yet to play the design in any fashion. It's a Chaos 'mech so it should only found anywhere near Terra and extremely rare farther outside the WoBP region. I painted mine with buck teeth because of the way the front CT appears. :)
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The Lineholder kicks ass. Nothing with four medium lasers and the heat sinks to use them all day long is truly bad and you can also use the LRMs and large laser together freely without heat woes. Couple that with decent speed and good armour and you've got a winning package. So long as you remember it's a bracket firer you can't really go wrong. It's about as hard to use as a Stalker - as in, not hard at all so long as you don't try to constantly alpha-strike.
The advanced version isn't quite so great. The lasers are upgraded but it doesn't get the double heat sinks to match so it's trickier balance the heat - particularly seeing as the ER Large laser and LRMs are begging to be used together - and I consider replacing four medium lasers with two medium pulses a "sidegrade" at best. It's still hardly a heat pig, however, and anyone with any experience of succession wars tech will feel right at home.
Overall, the Lineholder only looks lacklustre because it's in TRO 3058 - if it had been in TRO 3025 it would probably be considered one of the very best mechs in the book and would still stand out in TRO 3050 and 55.
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Bloody great mech. I love it.
Bad rep seems to extend from it not mounting top of the line tech. And maybe snobbishness because it's made in the Chaos March
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Actually Kressly Warworks sold to mercs, and with Outreach so close its a good chance it filled a lot of the merc trade. Several upgraded versions were made over time along the same model.
As Nav_Alpha says it was built as a entry-level mech for the militia/merc market. Like the Brutus and Blizzard it appeared in the Chaos March book as something those who were fighting in the region could get or face. The section of the book also made things sound like they could be upgraded- like it had a big after market mod options. We have topics of what would you upgrade on L1 designs, which this was, and it always comes down to the first thing is DHS . . . you do this and suddenly it can fire all day. Drop it to the base 10 as DHS and you can give it a ERPPC instead of a LL while still firing the long range weapons, or in closer with MLs.
As said, its problem is its solid- not outstanding.
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Recently it's come to my attention from several sources, that the Lineholder battlemech is consider a marginal
design at best.
Your sources are on drugs, and not very interesting ones. Lineholders make excellent troopers, especially among mercs, militia units, or Periphery forces, where the amount of advanced tech isn't as high. But even on modern battlefields, they can still hold their own.
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I'm running one in a Chaos march campaign myself. I simply replaced the heatsinks and fitted it with an ER Large laser (plus CASE and half a ton of armour - I had a factory in my occupation zone). Equipped like that it's endlessly reliable and easy to run - very hard to overheat and difficult to put down.
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The Blakist version is pretty nice too - perfect for Protectorate Militia and deadly when you come up against groups of them
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The Lineholder is a decent mech. Good for merc units who need bang for cheap price.
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The Lineholder is a decent mech. Good for merc units who need bang for cheap price.
In the same category as the Watchman and Merlin?
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Your sources are on drugs, and not very interesting ones.
I'm just going to "DITTO" this here ^^^^
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The Lineholder's only real flaw is being a near Intro-Tech 'Mech in TRO3058, the most munchkin min-max TRO there ever was. It's a solid, dependable and reliable line Trooper, which, while not flashy, still gets the job done on a realitively cheap budget. It's the sort of thing that you'd see bulking out a Planetary Millitia unit or your average Merc command. It gets a lot of use in my games, and I rarely have anything bad to say about it.
...true, I do like the Linebreaker variant simply because it's so endearingly silly, but that's beside the point.
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I like it alot. I was really turned on to it after reading the Initiation to War novel, basically a civil war on Epsilon Eridani during the Chaos March years.
Hero's mech eventually became a locally made Lineholder.
I think only beef i have with it, is the missile emplacement. Art doesn't match the stats. LRMs are in the left arm, not split between the shoulders. I imagine that this was result of one of good old FASA's oops. Pair SRM4s would been better choice instead of the LRMs, making the Lineholder a nasty mugger/close-quarters machine with addition of it's medium lasers.
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Are you kidding? The LRMs are what makes the Lineholder such a great team player! Put a couple of them in a lance, load smoke missiles, and now your whole lance can close amidst to optimum range with little worry of being out of cover. Alternatively, load Thunders, and in only one or two salvos you can effectively seal off entire flanks against wheeled out tracked vees.
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Are you kidding? The LRMs are what makes the Lineholder such a great team player! Put a couple of them in a lance, load smoke missiles, and now your whole lance can close amidst to optimum range with little worry of being out of cover. Alternatively, load Thunders, and in only one or two salvos you can effectively seal off entire flanks against wheeled out tracked vees.
Well, i'd like to have variant in the side torsos at least. so it matches the art. ;D
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Your sources are on drugs, and not very interesting ones. Lineholders make excellent troopers, especially among mercs, militia units, or Periphery forces, where the amount of advanced tech isn't as high. But even on modern battlefields, they can still hold their own.
I had a player who got assigned a Lineholder (the one with the MPLs) in a campaign years ago and hated life because of it... for a bit. When he pulled me aside asking to re-roll after a few games, I told him to just stop thinking of it as a LINEHOLDER and think of it as a major variant of the Centurion. That's all it took- he loved it after that, just needed to look at it as something else. Lineholders are bargain-rides designed to save the owner money at the expense of combat capabilities, after all- but Centurions are known to be ass-kickers in a fight generally.
(Granted, his later got a Clan ER large put in place of the original, and dropped the MPLs for jump jets and two standard mediums. Which was sweet. Never did get the heat sinks upgraded though before it died in an honor duel with a Vulture.)
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The Lineholder's only real flaw is being a near Intro-Tech 'Mech in TRO3058,
What do you mean "Near" Intro-Tech?
Its full on Intro-Tech.
And honestly, the same could be said for the Myrmidon & TRO3060, but everyone loves that little bugger.
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The Lineholder is one of the few FASA canon 'Mechs that is almost impossible to improve upon using the same 'tech level. Deploying it anachronistically in a succession-war-era campaign is almost always a better choice than using one of the other 'big 3' Medium 'Mechs; it's just highly capable at almost every range. About the only thing that it would need to make it a perfect jack of all trades would be a Flamer for anti-infantry or firestarting duties.
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What do you mean "Near" Intro-Tech?
Its full on Intro-Tech.
And honestly, the same could be said for the Myrmidon & TRO3060, but everyone loves that little bugger.
Hell, the Lineholder, Merlin and Chameleon are three of my favourite Mechs in TRO 3058.... despite being Introtech.
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The humble Lineholder does have an RAF desperation upgrade (aka the "Gap-filler") mentioned in 3150 NTNU ...
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And some day, we may get a record sheet for it.
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I like it alot. I was really turned on to it after reading the Initiation to War novel, basically a civil war on Epsilon Eridani during the Chaos March years.
Hero's mech eventually became a locally made Lineholder.
That novel is one of the sources that calls it marginal and cheap.
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Hell, the Lineholder, Merlin and Chameleon are three of my favourite Mechs in TRO 3058.... despite being Introtech.
I'm also a fan of the Merlin. Then again I like (almost) anything from the Periphery.
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I have not fielded one. But it comes across as a good bargain.
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It's actually one of the better Intro Tech 'Mechs out there, but is often overlooked because it debuted in the "new toys" Clan Invasion era.
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Yeah . . . at least the Cronus was backdated. Lots of IMO good L1 designs came out after 3050- like the previously mentioned Myrmidon, Lineholder, Po Heavy Tank, Light SRM Carrier, Gladius, and a few others. Sort of like I think RLs should have been a thing as tech dropped off.
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Faced one recently. It did explode very impressively. :D
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Lol, so does pretty much every other 3025 design.
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Lineholder seems pretty well designed for an intro/3025 tech mech; avoids a lot of the pitfalls of earlier (in terms of game evolution) mechs.
It has 2xLRM5, which isn't impressive or anything, but better than mounting a single LRM10, and fine for mid range fire matched with the LL (with 14 heat sinks, it can run and fire the LL and 2xLRM5 all day long). It has 4xML for close in firepower, also backed by the LL (although it will run into some brutal heat problems if it does this more than once in a couple turns). Ok armor. Moves 5/8, which is fine.
I don't know that it is super flashy or anything, but it isn't at all bad. And has 4xML, which is always good in that era.