After talking it out with a friend on IRC, I've figured out how to state what I mean. I'm trying to make a cheap throw away tank in terms of battle value and c-bills that is analagous to todays MBTs. Something in the thirty ton range that utilizes a sing autocannon as its main gun... I want to make it so that it is capable of winning objective based games using numbers as its main advantage. At this point I have figured out how to do it... The problem now lies in making the opposing forces different from each other while maintaining general themes. So, how do I take a.lightly armored, well armed tank and make it different from something that is almost exactly the same... What are neat sensor, probes, etc that I can throw on these things and if you have them, table top experience in Battletech armor tactics?
Anti-missile systems.
I have seen little to no tanks with AMS on them. This would protect against things like missile swarms and the BFM Thunderbolt LRMs.
Yeah, me neither... But I never really went into this wanting something that compared to other vehicles, but rather vehicles of the same type. The faction I'm working on has now only realized the immensity of the threats facing them externally. What was more than awesome for a modest 21st century tech base is now seriously outclassed as my fair heroes seek to find a way to defend themselves effectively from the expansion of powers into the deep periphery. They need to level the technological playing field and they're going to do it by acquiring war materiel by any means and developing their industry to produce facsimilies. Nueva Castille did it, these guys will do it in a way that is in step with their sinister and secretive society... Complete with shadowy covert death squads and everything!
Sounds to me more like a covert ops set-up, at first. That's mostly infantry. You could go the Total Warfare Mechanized infantry route.
I take it you want to stick directly with Total Warfare and the written rules, optional or otherwise. Take the following only as a suggested option. If they're as far behind as you say, it's still possible that their technologically par units will still be small in number when you first start, and you'll still have scads of technologically inferior machines that could be called upon in a pinch.
My friends and I have started to play invasion campaigns, and we've concluded this is true for a lot of human worlds in the Inner Sphere. (The periphery is a different matter.) So, for each different world we're running an invasion on, we decided to come up with a couple cheep lines of militia tanks and vehicles for that world alone.
Last night we were doing a Taurian Invasion of a FedSuns border world. The Bulls were backed by a Liao Warrior house, and I decided to come up with a really big, yet really fragile tank of the line.
It was 100 tons with a 3/5 movement profile. It's single big gun was a Light Gauss rifle. I also gave it a pair of MGs and a single AMS. (This is styled of the Heavy Gear Northern Heavy tank, which I have five fleet scale minis of, and I wanted to use it.) The rest was armor.
Without any modifications, the thing is a monster with hundreds of points of armor under the BMR construction system, which didn't put a limit on Vee location armor limits. (That's where HMVee is at anyway, so I stick with it.)
Time to give it a glass jaw. I'm not fond of BAR. I
much prefer the damage threshold system from AeroTech (or the BattleTech: AeroSpace). I simply declared that it was operating with that damage system, with the reduced DT from damage optional rule found in AT2, and it uses the BMR vehicle critical hit table. (IE, you roll for a crit chance like you would for a Mech, each crit rolls a d6 compaired to a rather lethal chart. 4, 5, and 6 see the tank or crew dead in one spectacular fashon or another.)
These were perfect for the scenerio, because my friend running the Warrior house said he was deploying a lance of Ravens with tag and homing Arrow IV to open up a hole against these disposable tanks. We deployed 4 tanks in predetermined positions, backed by a modern Manticore tank using slightly modified TW Tank rules, and went to town.
Each of the throw away tanks had 190 points of front armor, so that meant that you needed a solid 20 point punch to invoke a critical hit check. A perfect match for the artillery. They blew up quite nicely, especially when taking 2+ Artillery Homing Missiles a turn. There were other weaknesses. The turret and side armors were only 10 or 20 points away from being vulnerable to heavy PPC, Laser, or AC fire. And the rear only had 90 points of armor, giving it a Threshold of 9.
No real modification to armor points or internal structure points was necessary as far as we were concerned. The idea of the mods is that the cheaper it is, the more flaws it has.
These were meant to be sustained by a single planet's economy and technology base. They're numerous, but slow and easily out maneuvered. A single one will eventually lose its protection and shots will start busting through long before the armor is near 0 points.
That was the opening engagement that led to a more conventional battle between regular BT tanks and Mechs, as the invaders try to break through the line to start the invasion proper.
Even the Liao player came up with a cheep artillery platform using the same rules. It has no turret, and only 50 armor points per side. With a DT of 5, it is vulnerable to a lot of penetrating hits.
Sometimes, even an interpretive sample just isn't enough, and you might want to take it a step further. When it comes down to it, in your house, at your table, it's your game. You will have to decide for your self. But, that doesn't mean you can't have fun with it.
