Author Topic: What tactical role does Battle Armour play?  (Read 8953 times)

Sir Chaos

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Re: What tactical role does Battle Armour play?
« Reply #60 on: 01 June 2020, 07:03:16 »
A post-Jihad AFFS Light Combat Team is supposed to have a reinforced battalion of 'Mechs next to a full regiment of battle armor infantry. Quite a lopsided ratio. But it also has lots of non-'Mech vehicles and some of those have fusion engines too.

I´d hardly call an LCT a "backwater militia", which was what the poster I was responding to was talking about.
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Agathos

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Re: What tactical role does Battle Armour play?
« Reply #61 on: 02 June 2020, 00:06:40 »
Who's calling it a backwater militia?

Colt Ward challenged the room to describe a force that might not have enough fusion engines on hand to recharge battle armor in the field. Daryk brought up the backwater militia, which may have only a few fusion engines. You pointed out, reasonably, that they don't have much battle armor, either. So I started wondering what other organizations actually have the highest ratio of battle armor to 'Mechs or other fusion vehicles. The LCT, with that regiment:battalion ratio, came to mind. That's a lot of battle armor.

I'm still not sure if it's a problem or not. As I said, they also have lots of other fusion-powered vehicles. I suppose it comes down to where your fusion engines are and how many you can assign to recharging that battle armor.

grimlock1

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Re: What tactical role does Battle Armour play?
« Reply #62 on: 03 June 2020, 10:52:12 »
  • LAMs can only carry mechanized battle armor in BattleMech Mode. If the LAM converts to any other mode while transporting battle armor (or while being swarmed by hostile battle armor), the battle armor unit is automatically forced off in the process and suffers damage equivalent to a Level 2 fall.

Aside the problem that LAMs are cannot be constructed as OmniMech, it is not possible to apply Mechanized Battle Armor rule to the LAM with AirMech mode.
Can't BA swarm a landed Airmech?  If I recall, only transforming instantly dislodges the tin plated ticks.  Just flying away in Airmech shouldn't do it.  What are the rules for swarming a WIDGE?

That and I always felt the whole, "BA can swarm up on an enemy mech that is trying really hard to shake them off, and hold on like burdocks, but they can't ride a friendly mech," to be a rather arbitrary rule.
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Colt Ward

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Re: What tactical role does Battle Armour play?
« Reply #63 on: 03 June 2020, 11:21:01 »
Fluff is, its more to hold on the BA have to make tears in the armor/exterior of the mech since they lack the grab points of Omnis.  So I am going to try to punch the tips of my claw into that seam in the armor to hold on to a enemy mech b/c I do not care about causing minor damage . . . but I do not want to do that to a friendly mech in a normal tactical situation.

It does make me wonder for strategic movement if a vehicle or mech cannot treat them as external cargo under those rules- imagine, individual Grenadiers strapped down to the rear deck of a Myrmidon in low power mode on a route march!
« Last Edit: 03 June 2020, 11:22:38 by Colt Ward »
Colt Ward
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grimlock1

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Re: What tactical role does Battle Armour play?
« Reply #64 on: 03 June 2020, 11:41:55 »
I'm also a bit surprised that the Kirghiz C hasn't come up yet. Granted I don't follow the aero stuff too close, have any other fighters or omnifighters been built with cargo/BA/Infantry space? Or is dropping Elementals like bombs another FASA dead end?  I suppose the rules would be more in line with deploying BA from a drop ship, though...


Later TROs start saying "Infantry Bay," but the others say "Cargo," "Cargo(Infantry)," and the old 3025 Revised actually says "Passengers" for the Packrat.  Do the current rules distinguish between them, or is it just assumed that cargo areas have fold down seats, like a C-130?
I'm rarely right... Except when I am.  ---  Idle question.  What is the BV2 of dread?
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Sure it isn't the most practical 'mech ever designed, but it's a hundred ton axe-murderer. If loving that is wrong I don't wanna be right.

Calimehter

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Re: What tactical role does Battle Armour play?
« Reply #65 on: 03 June 2020, 15:21:31 »
It does make me wonder for strategic movement if a vehicle or mech cannot treat them as external cargo under those rules- imagine, individual Grenadiers strapped down to the rear deck of a Myrmidon in low power mode on a route march!

"If you guys don't quit hitting each other back there, so help me, I will PULL THIS TANK OVER"!!

PuppyLikesLaserPointers

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Re: What tactical role does Battle Armour play?
« Reply #66 on: 04 June 2020, 00:00:33 »
I am disappointed that a unit can only dismount one unit of infantry, and the dismounted infantry can't do anything at all on that turn. Only if these problems are solved, I think that battle armor would be more useful than it does. For now all they can is just a replacement of infantry - that is hold the ground. Well, yes, and free battle armor grip for non-OmniVehicle.

It is true that most problems on this post are also shared with Conventional Infantry. But still it is not so good I think.
« Last Edit: 04 June 2020, 00:02:39 by PuppyLikesLaserPointers »

Colt Ward

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Re: What tactical role does Battle Armour play?
« Reply #67 on: 04 June 2020, 01:52:50 »
Its a stacking rule issue . . . IIRC the superheavies that transport can unload to surrounding hexes . . . and VTOLs w/jumpers may get to drop 2 squad/points.

Most transports however only have the option for 1 squad/point.
Colt Ward
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"We come in peace, please ignore the bloodstains."

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Kovax

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Re: What tactical role does Battle Armour play?
« Reply #68 on: 04 June 2020, 11:43:49 »
I just want to know if a BA squad can use field guns.....after all, any wargamer can tell you the importance of Toad Guns.....

Colt Ward

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Re: What tactical role does Battle Armour play?
« Reply #69 on: 04 June 2020, 12:00:53 »
I would love to get PAL or Exoskeleton field gun platoons . . . move 2, fire during the movement . . .
Colt Ward
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Daryk

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Re: What tactical role does Battle Armour play?
« Reply #70 on: 04 June 2020, 15:34:02 »
Hmmm... Field Guns need SPAs too... hmmm...

Greatclub

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Re: What tactical role does Battle Armour play?
« Reply #71 on: 04 June 2020, 17:32:25 »
Hmmm... Field Guns need SPAs too... hmmm...

No, they don't. Field guns are already pandering to people who want more WWII in battletech.

Weirdo

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Re: What tactical role does Battle Armour play?
« Reply #72 on: 04 June 2020, 20:06:00 »
I just want to know if a BA squad can use field guns.....after all, any wargamer can tell you the importance of Toad Guns.....

They cannot.
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Reaved

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Re: What tactical role does Battle Armour play?
« Reply #73 on: 18 June 2020, 18:41:01 »
Thank you to everyone who has contributed (and who may in the future). The wisdom shared in this thread is invaluable (for me, at least). I'd also like to thank the writers of the various 'Battle armour of the Week' articles in the 'Fan Articles' board section. What an amazing resource those articles (for all fields) are.

Daryk

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Re: What tactical role does Battle Armour play?
« Reply #74 on: 18 June 2020, 19:20:39 »
BA can't use field guns, but they can use BA Tube Artillery and BA LB-X Autocannon...  ^-^

Mohammed As`Zaman Bey

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Re: What tactical role does Battle Armour play?
« Reply #75 on: 09 July 2020, 20:46:57 »
  BA is an infantry force multiplier, just the way a MG team multiplies the offensive capability of a squad or body armor increases their survivability.

  What isn't as obvious is the durability of BA as opposed to leg infantry. An infantry company carries X number of days in food and water. An infantryman wearing BA has the same demands as a leg infantryman.  How long can a BA suit operate without needing a charge, is it still 24 hours? That isn't much of a duration, in a tactical environment, as the clock starts the moment the BA is unplugged and a unit cut off may be in trouble.

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Re: What tactical role does Battle Armour play?
« Reply #76 on: 09 July 2020, 23:09:24 »
Are such things really a concern in a game where few battles rarely last longer than a couple minutes? After all, this thread is asking about tactical roles, not strategic, so campaigns aren't a worry here.
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Colt Ward

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Re: What tactical role does Battle Armour play?
« Reply #77 on: 09 July 2020, 23:19:52 »
Even then it can be mitigated . . .

 . . . but that might be a new topic!  What strategic role does Battle Armor play?
Colt Ward
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Mohammed As`Zaman Bey

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Re: What tactical role does Battle Armour play?
« Reply #78 on: 09 July 2020, 23:40:44 »
Are such things really a concern in a game where few battles rarely last longer than a couple minutes? After all, this thread is asking about tactical roles, not strategic, so campaigns aren't a worry here.
  I've had campaign battles, even raids, last days. Sure, a battle may be a series of skirmishes as in BT set battles but only amateurs plan for ten turns of fighting followed by guaranteed R&R -as OPFOR, I would never allow the players any rest, if I could avoid it. The worst campaign players were those who expected to only fight for a couple of minutes at a time, they'd run out of ammo and took risks just to end a scenario without concern how that scenario carried on to the next battle, which could easily begin 30 seconds later.

  Operation Market Garden (1944) had airborne units tasked with taking and holding a series of bridges until 30th Armored Corps relieved them in 3 days. The battle ended 9 days later with most of the British airborne troops, out of supplies and munitions, surrendering in Arnhem. The delay wasn't part of Monty's plan. A large number of tactical events eventually tie into strategic results and most tactical plans fail to survive the onset of battle.

  As a Clan player, I have knowingly sent Elementals on one-way missions, where I didn't expect them to return -That's what they were for.
As a GM, I had no qualms about dropping players into impossible situations, especially when they didn't bother to ask the right questions.

grimlock1

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Re: What tactical role does Battle Armour play?
« Reply #79 on: 10 July 2020, 07:52:13 »
  As a Clan player, I have knowingly sent Elementals on one-way missions, where I didn't expect them to return -That's what they were for.
As a GM, I had no qualms about dropping players into impossible situations, especially when they didn't bother to ask the right questions.
Are you gentler to players who do ask the right questions?
I'm rarely right... Except when I am.  ---  Idle question.  What is the BV2 of dread?
Apollo's Law- if it needs Clan tech to make it useable, It doesn't deserve those resources in the first place.
Sure it isn't the most practical 'mech ever designed, but it's a hundred ton axe-murderer. If loving that is wrong I don't wanna be right.

Weirdo

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Re: What tactical role does Battle Armour play?
« Reply #80 on: 10 July 2020, 08:09:25 »
...campaign...campaign ...

. . . but that might be a new topic!  What strategic role does Battle Armor play?

Hint. Hint.  C:-)
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Colt Ward

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Re: What tactical role does Battle Armour play?
« Reply #81 on: 10 July 2020, 09:23:54 »
Well, campaigns are about tactical use for strategic objectives . . .

I am not sure if we mentioned marines or even securing the insides of buildings for objectives.  They started to create rules for it in Combat Ops as just applied to marine boarding actions- but I was using the rules for say BA or infantry trying to fight their way into bunkers or other target buildings.

BT has had the occasional scenario (Focht on Tukayyid) and fiction (Bryant on Melissia) about discovering/attacking into bunkers . . . but mechs cannot get into them so infantry or BA would have to be sent down the hole to fight through the defenders to secure the objective.  So unless you were working it out in a RP environment with a dungeon crawl through all the levels and any branching tunnels then Combat Ops and later book's abstract roll-offs are the way attackers ground down defenders to take a objective.

The trick there is some of the best BA for fighting in the confined spaces like tunnels or aboard spacecraft are not generally as useful on the open battlefield.  So if one of your mission objectives is to capture a bunker complex that has . . . oh, planetary defense center where the commander & local super noble are holed up . . . you can punch through to a entrance but if all you have remaining of BA would be say Kanazuchi or Kopis they would not do as well as flamer or other AP weapon equipped suits.  Heck, having armored gloves or manipulators would also help some.
Colt Ward
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"We come in peace, please ignore the bloodstains."

"Greetings, Mechwarrior. You have been recruited by the Star League to defend the Frontier against Daoshen and the Capellan armada."

AlphaMirage

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Re: What tactical role does Battle Armour play?
« Reply #82 on: 10 July 2020, 10:00:11 »
To the above,

This is why I love Salamanders and other Fire equipped BA. Multipurpose terrors on the field and in bunkers. Just imagine if those Inferno SRMs were Thermobarics, ah that would be such beautiful carnage

Weirdo

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Re: What tactical role does Battle Armour play?
« Reply #83 on: 10 July 2020, 10:06:28 »
TacOps explicitly applies those boarding rules to combat within buildings, as well as large support vehicles, I believe. :thumbsup:
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"...finally, giant space panties don't seem so strange." - Whistler
"Damn you, Weirdo... Damn you for being right!" - Paul
"...I was this many years old when I found out that licking a touchscreen in excitement is a bad idea." - JadeHellbringer
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Colt Ward

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Re: What tactical role does Battle Armour play?
« Reply #84 on: 10 July 2020, 11:24:02 »
I thought so, but yeah, it was a common sense use of those space boarding action rules.

While I like the Salamander Alpha, the BMR heat change cut into its effectiveness . . . and now you are left with a BA suit that has a really short range compared to other modern suits- especially on a battlefield where a tank or mech could degrade the BA before the bunker entrance is secured.

IIRC the most effective weapons were things like the Flamers & AP wep mount . . . but recoilless rifles, MagShots, AP Gauss, KD Light Gauss, Support PPCs and Plasma Rifles are effective in field battles but are more likely to damage what you are trying to captures.
Colt Ward
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"We come in peace, please ignore the bloodstains."

"Greetings, Mechwarrior. You have been recruited by the Star League to defend the Frontier against Daoshen and the Capellan armada."

Mohammed As`Zaman Bey

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Re: What tactical role does Battle Armour play?
« Reply #85 on: 10 July 2020, 18:04:59 »
Are you gentler to players who do ask the right questions?
  Never. But they get answers that may help them make better decisions. I've had a player run into minefield and neglect to inform other players, who consequently ran into the same minefield. It isn't up to the GM to remind players that they are on the same team.

 

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