Author Topic: Clan Jade Falcon Thread II: Falcon Harder. I SAID HARDER!  (Read 212253 times)

Weirdo

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Re: Clan Jade Falcon Thread II: Falcon Harder. I SAID HARDER!
« Reply #750 on: 28 February 2018, 15:38:35 »
No piloting adjustments in my group. You pay the base BV, then to speed things up everything on the table gets boosted to 3/4 for free.
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Re: Clan Jade Falcon Thread II: Falcon Harder. I SAID HARDER!
« Reply #751 on: 28 February 2018, 16:09:58 »
Try these then...

Three Emerald Harrier, three Procyon 3 and an Erinyes 2... with 5 BV points left.

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Re: Clan Jade Falcon Thread II: Falcon Harder. I SAID HARDER!
« Reply #752 on: 28 February 2018, 20:58:39 »
I'm always in favor of the Flamberge.

Yeah, but you're biased ;)
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Re: Clan Jade Falcon Thread II: Falcon Harder. I SAID HARDER!
« Reply #753 on: 01 March 2018, 02:10:28 »
Hmmm... A salvaged Gotterdammerung and Schildkrote goes over the BV limit, but you could grab one instead of both. The Onager is also over the limit.

But if you want maneuverability instead of brick wall, the Rifleman C 2 is under the BV limit. Have never used it, so no clue how effective it actually is.

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Re: Clan Jade Falcon Thread II: Falcon Harder. I SAID HARDER!
« Reply #754 on: 01 March 2018, 08:44:49 »
Man, why doesn't the Thunderbolt IIC 2 have BV? That would take forever to kill....
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Re: Clan Jade Falcon Thread II: Falcon Harder. I SAID HARDER!
« Reply #755 on: 01 March 2018, 09:25:19 »
Because most of this force consists of front-line OmniFighters, and Jade Falcons are a prickly lot, I'm sticking to front-line units for this. After all, if we aren't irritatingly particular about whatever detail is stuck in our minds at the moment, then we're no better than the Wolves. :)

Of the suggestions so far, I'm liking the Flamberge Prime the most. It's got the maneuverability to avoid the worst trouble, the durability to survive the trouble that catches it, all-range firepower to make its own trouble, and standard missile racks for the laying of smoke and fart jokes.
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Re: Clan Jade Falcon Thread II: Falcon Harder. I SAID HARDER!
« Reply #756 on: 01 March 2018, 20:24:33 »
Gyrfalcon 3.  :D

Totem 'Mechs should totally be allowed even if it's "front line" only.
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Re: Clan Jade Falcon Thread II: Falcon Harder. I SAID HARDER!
« Reply #757 on: 01 March 2018, 20:41:34 »
Oh, absolutely. After all, making exceptions to the rules Because I Said So is the very soul of the Falcon. :)
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Re: Clan Jade Falcon Thread II: Falcon Harder. I SAID HARDER!
« Reply #758 on: 01 March 2018, 21:30:21 »
Indeed.  The Gyrfalcon 3 is my actual suggestion, by the way.  It has "mobility" covered in a way very few things could ever hope to, and it comes in just over 2200 BV.
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Re: Clan Jade Falcon Thread II: Falcon Harder. I SAID HARDER!
« Reply #759 on: 14 April 2018, 09:19:59 »
This might be old news, but last night I learned what a shrike is(aside from the mech).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrike
Quote
Shrikes are known for their habit of catching insects and small vertebrates and impaling their bodies on thorns, the spikes on barbed-wire fences, or any available sharp point. This helps them to tear the flesh into smaller, more conveniently-sized fragments, and serves as a cache so that the shrike can return to the uneaten portions at a later time. This same behaviour of impaling insects serves as an adaptation to eating the toxic lubber grasshopper, Romalea microptera. The bird waits for 1–2 days for the toxins within the grasshopper to degrade, then they can eat it.

Shrikes are territorial, and these territories are defended from other pairs. In migratory species a breeding territory is defended in the breeding grounds and a smaller feeding territory is established during migration and in the wintering grounds. Where several species of shrike exist together, competition for territories can be intense.

Shrikes make regular use of exposed perch sites, where they adopt a conspicuous upright stance. These sites are used in order to watch for prey items and to advertise their presence to rivals.


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Re: Clan Jade Falcon Thread II: Falcon Harder. I SAID HARDER!
« Reply #760 on: 24 April 2018, 14:56:27 »
I've been away from CBT for about four years. Anything happen in the meantime to my beloved CJF?

JadeHellbringer

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Re: Clan Jade Falcon Thread II: Falcon Harder. I SAID HARDER!
« Reply #761 on: 24 April 2018, 16:12:04 »
I've been away from CBT for about four years. Anything happen in the meantime to my beloved CJF?

Well... we tried taking Tharkad. It didn't go great. But 'A' for effort.

Also we have new Mechs, outside of the bird-shaped totem designs from Dark Age. The Loki II in particular is made of fluffy warmth and happy- if you aren't in a hurry to go anywhere, that just became the JF assault Mech of choice. It's not assault by WEIGHT, but in use it's to be used alongside Warhawks and Turkinas. (The B-config in particular has become a favorite)

Ah, what else... Malvina has been getting rid of people opposed to her, nothing new there... really we've been as quiet as Falcons ever are, other than the Tharkad push (which they were late for by mere hours behind the Wolves).
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Re: Clan Jade Falcon Thread II: Falcon Harder. I SAID HARDER!
« Reply #762 on: 24 April 2018, 17:49:50 »
I want to add that Slowki Prime is a fantastic pocket assault. But you'll never use it because Slowki B is far less efficient but infinitely more hillarious.
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Re: Clan Jade Falcon Thread II: Falcon Harder. I SAID HARDER!
« Reply #763 on: 24 April 2018, 18:07:28 »
I've been away from CBT for about four years. Anything happen in the meantime to my beloved CJF?
Well... we tried taking Tharkad. It didn't go great.
Malvina has been getting rid of people opposed to her, nothing new there...
So. Nothing then. Welp, happy to hear Malvina is still in charge.

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Re: Clan Jade Falcon Thread II: Falcon Harder. I SAID HARDER!
« Reply #764 on: 25 April 2018, 07:26:45 »
To be honest, there hasn't been a lot of timeline advancement in those 4 years period. Overall the timeline has gone from the 3145 era at the end of the MWDA game to 3150. However, there has been a lot of filling in of the gaps and details. If you don't have either of the new TROs 3145 & 3150, those fill in some gaps and there's other sourcebooks that do the rest.
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Re: Clan Jade Falcon Thread II: Falcon Harder. I SAID HARDER!
« Reply #765 on: 25 April 2018, 07:49:51 »
I want to add that Slowki Prime is a fantastic pocket assault. But you'll never use it because Slowki B is far less efficient but infinitely more hillarious.

Really all three versions are pretty great (the A is kind of the least-known, I suppose, but even that's a nasty customer- twin PPCs and an LB-10X plus some extra spices? Yes plz. But yeah, the Prime is probably the better machine overall from a beatstick perspective, and the B is just... man, it runs warm, and it's kinda goofy, but in the Dark Age- with its higher emphasis on combined-arms warfare- that Long Tom is just hilarious.
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Moonsword

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Re: Clan Jade Falcon Thread II: Falcon Harder. I SAID HARDER!
« Reply #766 on: 25 April 2018, 08:07:39 »
I want to add that Slowki Prime is a fantastic pocket assault. But you'll never use it because Slowki B is far less efficient but infinitely more hillarious.

That was more or less the point of that configuration. :D  I didn't really expect to get away with sticking an LTC on a Clan heavy OmniMech.  There's a real point to it beyond "Will they let me do that?", of course - LTCs make BA and infantry die dead really efficiently, plus they're a fantastic way to peel off reflective armor at a reasonable distance and can be a decent answer to high-speed light vehicles and 'Mechs with a little luck.  Great weapon for blowing away bunkers and other fortifications, too.  But mostly it was to see if I could actually get something so borderline-crazy published.

The A is a love letter to the Hellbringer Prime with some Summoner Prime for spice.  Sure, you don't have a dedicated close-in combatant, but anyone who dances with a Hel A up close is going to have three IHMLs (or two of those and an ER PPC), a hail of LB-X pellets, and the APGRs hammering on them, plus whatever damage they took from the ER PPCs and the autocannon closing.  That's going to sting just a little.

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Re: Clan Jade Falcon Thread II: Falcon Harder. I SAID HARDER!
« Reply #767 on: 25 April 2018, 08:48:04 »
I think it says a lot about the mech that a config as amazing as the A tends to fade into the background. Big Boom warms the cockles of my heart just as much as anyone else, but from an objective perspective, I think the A might be the best of the lot. Twin peeps and a ten-gun will never be insufficient long-range firepower for anything smaller than a Poseidon, and then you add the close-in guns and ECM, in a way that makes it equally effective against heavy armor, fast movers, and conventional units alike. I can only guess that Moonsword's thought process here was to add the heavy guns, see he had room left, add some more guns, see he still had room left, added still more guns, still had more room, and what does it take to fill up this freaking thing?!?
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Re: Clan Jade Falcon Thread II: Falcon Harder. I SAID HARDER!
« Reply #768 on: 25 April 2018, 12:36:13 »
And that's the key to what makes it so scary. It's just cavernous in terms of pod space- I'm not sure I can think of another Omni with this much pod space vs. total weight (maybe the Kit Fox? I'd have to look at my books at home). It's not an assault Mech by weight, again, but in terms of weaponry it handily outguns many assault designs despite giving up twenty tons to those designs. That's no small feat. That it also is remarkably tough to bring down for its size doesn't make life any easier on its opponent- and one can only imagine the reaction this design got from opponents on its first outings. "Shouldn't that Loki have crumbled by now? I shot it with a large laser and the leg stayed on. That's weird... oh, the return fire was ridiculously heavy, NOW it's a Loki."
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Moonsword

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Re: Clan Jade Falcon Thread II: Falcon Harder. I SAID HARDER!
« Reply #769 on: 25 April 2018, 21:37:19 »
The Kit Fox has 16 tons on a 30 ton chassis for 53.3%.  The Hel has 40 tons on a 65 ton chassis for 61.5%.  I don't know of anything else that gets up that high and the Hel beats out the various 4/6 XLFE heavies for sheer podspace.  Of course, you pay for it with armor that's relatively thin compared to the other Clan 4/6 XLFE heavies and a small cockpit.

There's more than just raw podspace to consider there, though, and it's worth looking at what I consider the benchmark competitors.  Without an exhaustive search, let's take four other 4/6 XLFE Omnis in the same weight class and speed bracket, including an IS design for cross-comparison, ranked:

  • Night Gyr - 75 tonner, 38 tons podspace, 12 fixed DHS, 4 fixed jump jets
  • Nova Cat - 70 tonner, 38 tons podspace, 11 fixed DHS
  • Flamberge - 70 tonner, 35 tons podspace, 11 fixed DHS, 2 fixed SRM 6
  • Avatar - 70 tonner, 34 tons podspace, 10 fixed DHS, 2 fixed ISML, fixed CASE in the side torsos

Speaking for myself, I think the Night Gyr comes out on top here in general.  Considering it's got 10 tons on the Hel and five tons on the other two, it'd better be.  The DHS come out in the wash against the Hel - it's two tons you won't get back, yeah, but it's also two tons the Hel is almost always going to be mounting anyway.  The jump jets eat up another four tons but the crits are the same crits the Hel is having to use for those two extra DHS.  I'd prefer not having them hard-mounted but overall, for podspace and crits, the Hel has a single crit advantage in practical terms it pays for with the piloting penalty from a small cockpit.  In exchange, you get fewer heat sinks that can get critted out and two more tons of armor, plus jump jets if you like jump jets.  You can fit most Hel loadouts on here if you try hard enough; the A will have to lose a crit somewhere.  Clearly you're never going to get IJJs on here, either.  Mission payload is 44 tons at the end of the day.

The Flamberge and Nova Cat both use standard armor, so they lose some tonnage but gain crits.  The main practical difference between them is the SRMs on the Flamberge.  (There's differences in the armor distribution but that's a little out of scope.)  Mission payload is 39 tons on both of them counting the fixed DHS.  I find the SRMs annoying personally and cut the Flamberge less slack than the Avatar or Night Gyr but opinions may differ.  A Nova Cat can come within spitting distance of a Hel's podloads if thoughtfully outfitted and has more crits to shove the pods into.  Flamberges can do decently for themselves, too, if they lean on the SRMs for short-range damage and have more crits to rely on energy weapons vs. the ballistics a Hel might use.

The Avatar is at the bottom of the heap, although personally I find the design's flaws a lot more tolerable than the Flamberge's SRMs.  Leaving the XLFE size aside, the fixed CASE is useful a lot of the time and while the fixed MLs are not great, they're broadly useful and don't require you to haul along ammunition to use them.  It also illustrates just how much endo-steel and ferro-fibrous buy you - the Hel is packing 39 tons (+1 ton for the cockpit) on a frame 5 tons lighter.  The Avatar has the lowest mission payload at 37 tons, purely because unlike the Clan 'Mechs it doesn't use endo-steel.

The fact that every design I think is a good comparison for the Hel is 5-10 tons heavier says something about the podspace I managed to shoehorn into it.  All of that is specifically to accommodate the Prime configuration's armaments while providing a real Gauss endurance, enough heat sinks to use the guns well, and a reasonable level of armor.  Though I personally think the Night Gyr is a better 'Mech, I'm proud of what I managed to achieve with the Hel.  It's a nasty piece of work for its size.
« Last Edit: 25 April 2018, 21:40:57 by Moonsword »

Moonsword

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Re: Clan Jade Falcon Thread II: Falcon Harder. I SAID HARDER!
« Reply #770 on: 25 April 2018, 21:45:59 »
To move back toward a more Falcon-y topic than that little mini-treatise, what's with the LB-Xs on the Gyrfalcon?  Does that strike anyone else as kind of eccentric?

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Re: Clan Jade Falcon Thread II: Falcon Harder. I SAID HARDER!
« Reply #771 on: 26 April 2018, 01:43:30 »
Anything but. With their range and its mobility, its capacity to skeet-shoot/plink hovers and VTOLs is amazing

That's why it's the world's most annoying thing
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Re: Clan Jade Falcon Thread II: Falcon Harder. I SAID HARDER!
« Reply #772 on: 26 April 2018, 03:54:52 »
Eccentric, but in a good way. I think it gives it character. They could easily have gone with 6x cMPL but that's no fun. At least here they're paired with ERLLs too rather than just randomly being there on a knife-fighter. Plink vehicles, critseek for holes the ERLLs have opened up, annoy ASF pilots in duels.

What I also think is eccentric is 3716 BV for the Gyrfalcon 4!  xp

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Re: Clan Jade Falcon Thread II: Falcon Harder. I SAID HARDER!
« Reply #773 on: 26 April 2018, 04:54:52 »
Okay, I can buy that.  Thoughts on the Jade Hawk?

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Re: Clan Jade Falcon Thread II: Falcon Harder. I SAID HARDER!
« Reply #774 on: 26 April 2018, 05:21:45 »
Remember how some of the IICs took old L1 heavies & made them nastier as mediums? This is the reverse.

If it was a medium, it'd be delightful.
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Re: Clan Jade Falcon Thread II: Falcon Harder. I SAID HARDER!
« Reply #775 on: 26 April 2018, 05:47:13 »
The Jade Hawk's a weird goose, the one with Claws I would expect to be non Clan but still you COULD encounter it and its absurdly specialized and terrifingly fast if you can overheat it (which you have to turn off most of its heatsinks to do) and slap the supercharger too.  At which point it comes hooting, braying and shrieking up to you at Mach 9 before ripping great big gouges out of your armour.

The most 'normal' one is the 2 with a pair of ER large and ER medium and 4 ATM-6's but its lacking all the shiny stuff that makes the Jade Hawk so quirky and is basically a typical Clan heavy cavalry design with a 5/8 movement curve.  The 3 replaces the ER larges with Medium pulse and can jump but thats it, its the same.  The 'standard' or prime version has 4 ER smalls and 4 Streak 6's and can get in your face very quickly, but its very specialized.
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Re: Clan Jade Falcon Thread II: Falcon Harder. I SAID HARDER!
« Reply #776 on: 26 April 2018, 06:41:07 »
The regular flavour Jade Hawk is a backstabbing dueller. Jump over someone's head, fire everything point blank into the rear arc. You could try sandblasting for lucky TACs too but that's not as good. Jade Hawk 2 isn't a bad all-range slugger, maybe a bit undergunned at long range but those ATMs will hurt a lot up close. It doesn't compare well against Night Gyrs, Hels, etc but as a standard batlemech maybe it's more common in second line forces (though that whole 'front-line omni, second line standard mechs' thing has been a blurry line in the Falcons since the 3060s and even more so in the DA). The Jade Hawk 3 is basically the same story as the base model only harder-hitting and hotter-running. The pulse lasers help it against a similarly mobile opponent.

The TSM-boosted claws on the JHK-03 model look fun but the mech suffers a mobility loss to mount them, and it looks like a pain to get the TSM at the magic 9 anyway. The JHK-04 model would be a good bodyguard in a merc LRM lance, if expensive. Its heavy duty gyro seems sort of random.


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Re: Clan Jade Falcon Thread II: Falcon Harder. I SAID HARDER!
« Reply #777 on: 26 April 2018, 07:43:25 »
Anything but. With their range and its mobility, its capacity to skeet-shoot/plink hovers and VTOLs is amazing

That's why it's the world's most annoying thing

I touched on this in more detail on my MotW article a couple of years back, but the thing with the ACs here is that they pair up perfectly with the ER large lasers and the Mech's inherent mobility to create a nightmare to deal with. At ranges where most Mechs are able to respond with one or two weapons at best, a Gyrfalcon is lighting you up with all four. That's made even better by its ability to keep pulling back as an enemy advances, holding that range advantage and stripping a target bare while it has little to respond with. Even worse, some of the most effective long range responses- ER large lasers of your own, ER PPCs, etc.- run into a reflective armor problem.

A smartly used Gyrfalcon is what the Rifleman always wanted to be- and it's a lot of fun to use. Those LBX guns are perfect for the job- more accurate than Ultras, not much loss of damage potential, no jamming worries, better AA capabilities, and when the lasers start making holes in the target's armor they can start exploiting that damage. It's an inspired choice here. (Just shut a laser off once in a while to keep heat down)

I've said it before, I will again- I genuinely believe that on a long list of truly great units to come from the Dark Age books, this may be the best of the lot. And it's a distinguished list- this is damned high praise, considering it beats out units like the Tiburon, Juliano, etc.
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Weirdo

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Re: Clan Jade Falcon Thread II: Falcon Harder. I SAID HARDER!
« Reply #778 on: 26 April 2018, 09:22:41 »
I've mostly only used the Gyrfalcon against the MegaMek bot(using it properly against humans is a good way to lose friends), and I can confirm that on a decently sized map, a Gyrfalcon can keep the range open for basically forever.

Regarding the Flamberge's SRMs, I've found them to be VERY good at laying nasty smoke screens. I use them in a game where I was heavily outnumbered, and by cutting off LOS to most of the OPFOR, I was basically able to force a zell fight(or close to it) on an enemy that wasn't inclined towards it.
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JadeHellbringer

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Re: Clan Jade Falcon Thread II: Falcon Harder. I SAID HARDER!
« Reply #779 on: 26 April 2018, 09:38:27 »
Those SRMs on the Flamberge are a bit weird, for sure, but I'm a big fan of SRMs, so to me it's pre-installing weapons that I'd probably have put in myself anyway. The Clan SRM-6 is really a thing of beauty, when you think about it. On 1.5 tons (plus another for ammo) you're getting a weapon that has great utility, impressive power, and for very little given up in terms of weight and space. The loss of range compared to a Streak is a little 'eh', but the Streak also weighs double and can't use alternate ammo types.

In effect, I gave up five tons of potential pod space for a couple of very useful weapon systems, and while there are times it would be nice to have the space back, overall they're pretty handy to have- even configs that rely on long range fighting tend to be better off with the occasional bit of extra muscle at short range, just in case.
"There's a difference between the soldier and his fight,
But the warrior knows the true meaning of his life."
+Larry and his Flask, 'Blood Drunk'+

"You know, basically war is just, like, a bunch of people playing pranks on each other, but at the end they all die."
+Crow T. Robot+