BattleTech - The Board Game of Armored Combat
BattleTech Game Universe => The Inner Sphere => Topic started by: Weirdo on 03 December 2015, 15:35:07
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Some people like to play with the toughest, fastest, most perfectly sinked mechs out there. Others(especially many FWL players) see less efficient designs as a challenge, and relish the skill needed to fight and win when you have to rely on teamwork to cover individual weaknesses, and tactics to defeat brute armor. If you're in the latter group, this thread is for you!
Do you enjoy fielding Anvils? Does your group actually respect the power of the Jackal, or Grand Titan? Do your Yeomen inspire more jokes about the weather than culinary tools? Have you made people cringe at the thought of staring down Siroccos?
Give us your thoughts, and tell us your stories! O0
(Note: this thread isn't just about inefficient designs. It is simply meant to be a place where people can talk about the League units they like, without getting slammed by people who only stick to more optimized things.)
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Well, no. I'll do just fine with FWLM canon units but under no circumstances would I brag about that.
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Which one?
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Thanks for the thread Weirdo.
I take great pride in beating my Davion playing mates Medium Lance (Wolverine-8D/Shadow Hawk-5D/Enforcer-5D/Centurion-9D) with my FWLM Medium Lance (Wolverine-7M/Shadow Hawk-7M/Griffin-5M/Trebuchet-7M), whilst it doesn't happen all the time I can usually pull out a win about a third of the time.
Quick question though, i've not used the Apollo, would anyone recommend any of the versions available in the late 3060's to replace the Trebuchet?
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(It is simply meant to be a place where people can talk about the League units they like, without getting slammed by people who only stick to more optimized things.)
I'm going to point out a few things about this line of thought, and some related topics.
1 - There are multiple flavors of 'optimal.' Back in 3055, there were only one or two forms; 16 double heatsinks with twin ERPPCs and a bunch of medium or ER Medium lasers. Massed Gauss. LBX AC spam as a third form perhaps. Now that variant armor and many new weapons exist, 'optimal' is no longer a clear-cut thing. Instead, you're starting to see varying matchups where Mech X has advantage over Mech Y but loses to Mech Z... kind of like a fighting game, in a way.
The idea that the Jackal is a bad Mech is absurd. Well, the original -1532 model was, but every other config since then has had some use.
2 - It's not a bad thing to want decent designs. There's a difference between being upset we're not getting "clearly the favored faction of the writers" designs like FedCom did back in 3055, and being upset we're getting obvious junk. Thankfully, 'obvious junk' is largely a thing of the past. We're getting decent, playable machines now and dwelling on the few remaining junkers isn't something I intend to do. I'd rather focus on the wide variety of good machines we now have. Few match the traditional 'form of optimal' I mentioned above, but they are legitimately good.
FWL players can't really pull the Low Tier Hero routine anymore. Yes, our GRF-5M and such still suck unbelievably hard, but we're no longer required by fluff/distribution-tables/RAT/etc. to be saddled with these as our main machines. We're a viable faction now, and the only real faction we're at a quality disparity issue with these days is perhaps the Klingon Wolf Empire, and even that isn't an insurmountable one.
To answer MarikMilitiaMan's question: There's a ELRM config of the Apollo that I find worthwhile in its mission role. Adding one or two of these per every 36 Mechs or so is a fine way to clink glass bottles and tell opponents: "Warrrioooorrrssss.... come out to play-aaaayyyy..."
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I want to like ELRMs, I really do. I just can't like how heavy the launchers are. I'd take a pretty significant cluster table hit if I could mount them in larger tube counts.
But at least they're not NLRMs. :D
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To answer MarikMilitiaMan's question: There's a ELRM config of the Apollo that I find worthwhile in its mission role. Adding one or two of these per every 36 Mechs or so is a fine way to clink glass bottles and tell opponents: "Warrrioooorrrssss.... come out to play-aaaayyyy..."
Which version is that? And what's the intro date?
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Honestly, I'd stick with the Treb. You've got a good high-mobility thing going with that lance. The Apollo loses the Trebuchet's mobility in return for armor and endurance, but I don't think it would work well here. It can't keep up with your other mechs, so it would either get left behind(and it lacks the close-range defenses to survive being caught solo), or protecting it would tie the rest of your lance down, robbing them of their mobility.
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Wait, do we get those?
(http://i.imgur.com/KDy1yuK.png)
8)
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...
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Do we get what? I don't see Weirdo saying "do we get those" in the thread? I did a Ctrl-F for 'get those', no results beyond your quote.
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Do we get what? I don't see Weirdo saying "do we get those" in the thread? I did a Ctrl-F for 'get those', no results beyond your quote.
Think its the Uziel-8S from the other FWL thread.
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Yup, sorry. Mmmm...fast twin-PPC goodness... {>{>
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Yup, sorry. Mmmm...fast twin-PPC goodness... {>{>
Oooooh no, sorry buddy. That's the -2S. The -8S is the 5/8/8 model with four MPLs. ^-^
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On the other hand, the Uziel -8S is about as close to an 'updated Anvil' as we may see for a while. It's not my kind of Mech, but it's not bad.
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It's an incredible backstabber. I'd hesitate to call it "perfect", given that the -2S exists and I'm not a fan of pulse laser ranges, but the high jump range coupled with accuracy boosting weapons means that it can get behind something and rip it to pieces with contemptuous ease.
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Sounds like something that would be the heavy guy in a lance of Spiders, Havocs, and their ilk, or a companion to a Wraith.
Any chance we get the -2S?
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Sadly no, except as salvage (which isn't out of the question). It's FedSuns, Lyran, Mercenaries, and the Republic.
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Ah well.
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Pfft. If it's available to Mercenaries, then it's one shell company away from your forces.
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Yeah. :( Probably my single favorite Inner Sphere 'Mech and variant. I figure with salvage (because a -3S isn't hard to take down or salvage) you could conceivably find one or two in a regiment on the border.
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Pfft. If it's available to Mercenaries, then it's one shell company away from your forces.
I've personally interpreted Mercenary MUL listing, if your faction doesn't also have the unit, as something like "your faction does not procure this unit in significant numbers. Officers and ace pilots might be able to get one sent to them as a special purchase, but your force shouldn't be fielding more than one of this thing."
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I want to like ELRMs, I really do. I just can't like how heavy the launchers are. I'd take a pretty significant cluster table hit if I could mount them in larger tube counts.
But at least they're not NLRMs. :D
Same here. When I heard about the ELRMs my first thought was "Uuuh, so updated, longer ranged lurms! (yes, the u is neccessary in there) I bet that is TPTB´s way of finally giving us a signature weapon..."
Then I checked the stats and went to: "No. Please don´t Don´t make that our signature weapon, I beg you."
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You only need a few to achieve the desired effect. They're an anti-camp weapon. Roll a unit up with ELRMs, pelt opponent with a few from ranges they can't fire back at.
One such ELRM unit per 2-3 companies will probably suffice to achieve this.
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Yes, I know. It is a gimmick.
Basing your whole tactic and/or doctrine on a gimmick would be a recipe for disaster. Hence my hope we don´t get burdened with too much of the stuff.
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Well it's not like we're required to use those gimmicks. We have a good stable of solid, useful 'Mechs to support them. Even if we do get a bunch, that's variety in terms of delivery system.
Also I have a sudden mighty need to see an Uziel in Covenant Guards colors.
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I think Molosian just doesn't want a repeat of Phoenix, where suddenly everything is light gauss equipped. Marik has the Apollo and the Pandarus with ELRMs. It doesn't really need a Shadow Hawk, Griffin, Warhammer, Marauder, Battlemaster, etc all with ELRMs.
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Marik has the -9M2. Whyfore do they need another Marauder? :)
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I think Molosian just doesn't want a repeat of Phoenix, where suddenly everything is light gauss equipped. Marik has the Apollo and the Pandarus with ELRMs. It doesn't really need a Shadow Hawk, Griffin, Warhammer, Marauder, Battlemaster, etc all with ELRMs.
Understandable. I think I'd actually like an Archer with ELRMs, though. One big rack in one torso, and a battery of perhaps SRMs in the other?
EDIT: You can fit an ELRM-20 with four tons, three SRM-6s with two tons (because really they aren't the idea here), and CASE II for both sets of ammo bins if you shave one point of armor off the center torso of a -6S. I'd use it.
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Well, there are a few things helping us out in that regard.
One, we're pretty good at communicating and explaining how we feel about FWL designs.
Two, this isn't the FASA era and the people developing BattleTech these days appear to be listening to us. They might not give us everything we ask for, they might have a 'big picture' thing going on that guides their decisions... but some of them stop by here and talk with us. Or if not the ones at the very top, the people who work under them show up here and notice how we feel.
Aside from cases where Dark Age materials forced bad designs, I think the last time we got insultingly bad, obvious garbage was the WLF-3M and that was a few years ago. Most of our other stuff ranges from "Clearly good", "Good if you put in the work to figure this machine's play style out" and "tolerable in BV-oriented games."
It's pretty clear the folks making BattleTech in 2015 have received the message. They get it; we're sick of garbage Mechs and having an ill-conceived over-use of specialized weapons as our primary factional trait. Aside from a handful of clunkers, which EVERY faction gets from time to time these days, they've figured it out and have quit insulting us with nonstop trash designs.
Apparently they figured out that giving every faction something fun and reasonably effective is a good way to retain customers.
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All I want is a good ERLM vehicle. Maybe based off of the Ontos or something?
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Aside from cases where Dark Age materials forced bad designs, I think the last time we got insultingly bad, obvious garbage was the WLF-3M and that was a few years ago.
What do you have against the Main Gauche? ;)
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My perfect ELRM unit would be a low-end medium with a pair of E-10s, and a semi-respectable defensive array. Something like an overweight Hammer, that wouldn't cost to much to put into a force in terms of BV. That's enough firepower that if you start reassigning down on a camper, they can't just ignore it, but not so much that you're tempted to make it the clue ouch of your force. I see ELRMs as being a supplement to standard fire support, not a replacement.
On the other hand, an Apollo-4M and a couple Longinus-mag squads is pretty cheap, and a recipe for much hilarity. :)
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My perfect ELRM unit would be a low-end medium with a pair of E-10s, and a semi-respectable defensive array. Something like an overweight Hammer, that wouldn't cost to much to put into a force in terms of BV. That's enough firepower that if you start reassigning down on a camper, they can't just ignore it, but not so much that you're tempted to make it the clue ouch of your force. I see ELRMs as being a supplement to standard fire support, not a replacement.
On the other hand, an Apollo-4M and a couple Longinus-mag squads is pretty cheap, and a recipe for much hilarity. :)
So. . . it sounds like you want a Stalker II at half the mass.
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For fights of a couple lances up to a company or so, yeah. For truly big fights, I'll go ahead and take the Stalker. I'm not worried about it's piloting issues, since it's meant to hang way back and pour in missiles.
I need to check the rules on going hull-down, see if it helps bipeds any with stability. If so, a kneeling Stalker II might actually be a pretty nasty customer for anyone wanting to silence the missiles.
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My perfect ELRM unit would be a low-end medium with a pair of E-10s, and a semi-respectable defensive array. Something like an overweight Hammer, that wouldn't cost to much to put into a force in terms of BV. That's enough firepower that if you start reassigning down on a camper, they can't just ignore it, but not so much that you're tempted to make it the clue ouch of your force. I see ELRMs as being a supplement to standard fire support, not a replacement.
An ELRM Whitworth? Why yes, I do think I'll take a dozen!
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For fights of a couple lances up to a company or so, yeah. For truly big fights, I'll go ahead and take the Stalker. I'm not worried about it's piloting issues, since it's meant to hang way back and pour in missiles.
I need to check the rules on going hull-down, see if it helps bipeds any with stability. If so, a kneeling Stalker II might actually be a pretty nasty customer for anyone wanting to silence the missiles.
Eh. In which case you're getting the same firepower out of a Stalker II that you can get out of a Whitworth. That's the trap with the Stalker II and why I'm hesitant to field it. It's anemic at range and is too slow to close easily within range of its primary weapons (the lasers).
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That's about what I would want out of ELRMs too.
As for the Main Gauche, unsure why you're bringing it up. I actually like its LGR variant. Prior to ELRMs showing up in our production units, I would often use a Main Gauche to park at 25 hexes and plink my opponent's hill-camped Thunder Hawks. They eventually got the hint and came out to play.
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I brought it up because the Wolfhound -3M is a Main Gauche with legs. :P
For fights of a couple lances up to a company or so, yeah. For truly big fights, I'll go ahead and take the Stalker. I'm not worried about it's piloting issues, since it's meant to hang way back and pour in missiles.
I need to check the rules on going hull-down, see if it helps bipeds any with stability. If so, a kneeling Stalker II might actually be a pretty nasty customer for anyone wanting to silence the missiles.
If I remember right, you can transition from prone to hull down without risking damage, and from hull down to standing likewise without risking damage. It takes a bit longer, but you can stand up without risking knocking the pilot out against the dashboard.
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Ahh. Clever. Well, the WLF might be that... but with a few key differences. The Main Gauche has enough ammo to serve in this 'anti-camp' role. 32 shots means you can park all day. WLF-3M runs out too fast. Lower BV too.
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Hey, at least it isn't the HER-6D. "Herp derp, let's have a RAC/5 with one ton of ammo!"
--At least it's only the Feds who're stuck with that piece of garbage.
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I need to check the rules on going hull-down, see if it helps bipeds any with stability. If so, a kneeling Stalker II might actually be a pretty nasty customer for anyone wanting to silence the missiles.
Y'know, I always thought so but I can't find any rules that support that...I just checked megamek, and they don't have Hull-Down 'Mechs do any sort of PSR from damage but that might be a bug more than anything. Might have to go to the rules forum for this one.
This talk has inspired me to try using a Hull-Down/Prone Stalker II as a shield for some long-ranged glass cannons...maybe some Gauss DI Morgans? At least then the Stalker II's ridiculous armor would actually be forced into play.
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Having gotten off my ass and actually looked up the rules...
There's no extra stability, though you can go from prone to hull-down without a PSR, definitely something to keep in mind with that Stalker. Maybe call it Chumbawumba or something. :)
Now if we want something that can provide fire support, but can be a holy terror when fighting from its knees, we should look to the Goliath-6M. :)
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Since someone finally asked me (I was waiting!), I'll go ahead and answer here as well so everyone can know: My current avatar line is a nod to an old video game. The main character of "Art of Fighting" says something like, translated from Japanese, "If I fight against armed forces, I'll be forced to use 'Haoh Sho Ko Ken'" ('Haoh Sho Ko Ken' being the name of his ultimate martial arts technique, translating to something utterly ridiculous like Conquering-Overlord Flying Roar Fist).
With a few words changed, I have it at something like: "If I fight against Wolf Mech Forces, I'll be forced to use '(Name of Mech in my avatar image)'"
A native Japanese speaker didn't laugh at me when I used the line to poke fun at some of the old Japanese art for BattleTech, so I figure I wasn't too far off in my attempt to parody the famous quote.
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I ran an Ostsol 8M in a campaign that earned the nickname 'Murder Machine' due to its TSM head-punchy goodness. I've also been known to terrorize with Tarantulas and Bloodhounds.
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I know many FWL players aren't a fan of it, but I really dig the classic Sirocco When you put it in the center of a 3/5 assault lance (so its flanks are covered by its lancemates), I find it to be fine battering ram in the style of the Legacy (which as a WoB player I'm also a big fan of). I've also had fun using it in defensive scenarios; when the enemy has to come to it (to get at an objective of some kind), camp that sucker behind some partial cover (ideally in some woods too) and suddenly fifty percent of the shots that "hit" it get blocked by terrain. Meanwhile, your enemies impale themselves on the constant spray of ten-point blasts it's spraying out. Of course, you still need to give it some flank protection, but that's just about arranging your forces intelligently.
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I think Molosian just doesn't want a repeat of Phoenix, where suddenly everything is light gauss equipped. Marik has the Apollo and the Pandarus with ELRMs. It doesn't really need a Shadow Hawk, Griffin, Warhammer, Marauder, Battlemaster, etc all with ELRMs.
You are correct. Actually I like the ELRMs, just hope the next two TROs have something else to offer. (Which it looks like they will.)
Hey, at least it isn't the HER-6D. "Herp derp, let's have a RAC/5 with one ton of ammo!"
--At least it's only the Feds who're stuck with that piece of garbage.
The Shadowhawk -5M that dumbs a gazillion of tons into a LRM/20 and brings only 6 shots says hi.
I hope by now we have exported all of them to some gullible periphery nation, so we never have to look at its stupid face again.
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Hey, at least it isn't the HER-6D. "Herp derp, let's have a RAC/5 with one ton of ammo!"
--At least it's only the Feds who're stuck with that piece of garbage.
To be fair, that's just a day ending in y when it comes to the Hermes II. That chasis just seems to attract bad decisions.
I know I shouldn't like the Orion ON1-M, but it has served me well in the past. The ON1-MA is a decent derivative, but some times I do like having Narc.
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I rather like the Hermes II. The original is a solid scout that trades speed for armor, and a main gun with above-average accuracy at what would traditionally be medium range at the time. (Translation: Fight at 4-12 hexes when possible, so that most other scouts will have medium and long range shots, while yours are at medium or short.) The Mercury is just sublime, and only its rarity leads me to recommend using it as a headhunter instead of your default scout. The -4K isn't one of ours, but I wish it was. Two large lasers on a fast chassis, that can keep heat under control with a 2-1-2-0 firing pattern? I'm sold!
The 3050 model is a disappointment to some, but I like it. Unlike some other mechs from that era, it's a solid upgrade that enhances the existing capabilities, without compromising it with too many new toys. I'm not a fan of the Mercury Elite, but can see how it'd be used like the original, using the LGR's improved range bands to get superior range mods closer in, as opposed to sniping from far out. I truly wish the -5C were still around, that thing's just beautiful. Gonna be the backbone of my medium forces the next time I pay a WoB force.
Finally, we get to the -5Sr. Perfection, utter perfection. Between this and the Cicada-3P, post-Jihad medium FWLM forces must be an utter nightmare to face.
As for the Sirocco, I love it. There's a member of my local gaming group who fears them, simply because one time he faced them, they proved nigh-impossible to kill.
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I want to like the UAC/10. There is a certain allure in the "AC/20 with range" sale pitch. And then there is its dakka-ness. But my dice are jinxed with them. (Those of my fellow players, too. Tried that.)
But beyond that I do like the Sirocco. Not despite, but because of its somewhat goofy look.
(As you saw in my PinataMech pic.)
And I tend to view QuadMechs as something very typical of FWL forces. Even the bad ones. Who am I kidding, especially the bad ones. (The good ones usually go to the Elsies.) Fondness of experimentation is clearly a League trait. But the way I read the fluff they are still not very common sights. But in fact I consider them awesome. Just think of how many turns your bipedals where derping and flopping on the ground like fish on land. Those are countless turns your Quads could have spent shooting at the enemy. Aaand there is the hilarity that is the mule kick!
One of my deepest BT related regrets is that I haven´t found an opportunity to field a Sarath in a real game. People can nitpick whatever they want about it, the concept is beyond awesome, the art is superb and the regulan vibes I get from it just make me grin like an idiot.
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You want fun with Ultra-10s? Give em to infantry as towed field guns. In that use, they can't jam. :)
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You want fun with Ultra-10s? Give em to infantry as towed field guns. In that use, they can't jam. :)
Even more fun? The infantry platoon can have two of them! >:D
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At this point, the only question is, should I model them as Napoleonic artillery gone horribly right, or just find some teeny-eeeny StuGs? >:D
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At this point, the only question is, should I model them as Napoleonic artillery gone horribly right, or just find some teeny-eeeny StuGs? >:D
Puma!
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At this point, the only question is, should I model them as Napoleonic artillery gone horribly right, or just find some teeny-eeeny StuGs? >:D
While the StuG life chose me, Napoleonic artillery would look quite spiffy next to your pith helmet-wearing Branth Cavalry....
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Come to think of it, I think I was gonna use Napoleonics for Medium Rifle infantry. Won't do much to vehicles, but five or six guns that do full damage to battle armor out to 15 hexes...could be useful for dealing with Elementals or Black Wolves. :)
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Yes, most of our quads suck. Our new ones are a step in the right direction though. The Sarath is good, and is one of my favorite things about Regulus rejoining the band. I like to name my Saraths "Propane Nightmare" in honor of the song and/or Hank Hill's Stand.
The Tarantula isn't too bad either. Super fragile, but I can find uses for most of its variants doing SOMETHING of note.
The Sirocco I just can't bring myself to like. I would be more upset about this, except the Trebaruna is such a good replacement for it that I no longer care. Seriously, aside from my feeling it's not a very good 'protagonist' machine (as in, I think it would be boring to write or read a book about a Trebaruna pilot)... it's one of my overall favorites in play.
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What are your thoughts on the Goliath-6M?
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It has an Ultra AC/10, it su-- *Shot dead mid-post*
*Revives*
Let's try that again.
It's... not bad for the BV, I guess. I interpret it as a Heavy rather than an Assault at that BV, and a 3/5/0 Heavy with
...How the hell did my post get cut off there?
EDIT: To finish that thought, "with acceptable ammo for its guns, it does about 23 damage at long range and most of that is on a turret. I treat this as a Heavy that does rear-line anchoring fire support, which is what a Quad of its movement profile ought to be doing anyway. It's not bad at all. I don't LIKE it, but it's not bad. Would be genuinely willing to play this unit in roles I normally reserve for the WHM-8D Warhammer which is interesting since they have near-identical BV. The leg lasers anger me because kicking is one of the best things about quads, but other than that it's an okay machine.
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I'm not a fan of the leg lasers either, mostly because those smalls are pretty obvious to me they are meant for anti-infantry work, but small VSPLs don't actually do near as much to infantry as regular pulse lasers do. Much rather see them swapped for SPLs, and the rest of the tonnage put into armor.
That being said, overall that's a minor quibble compared to the overall mech, and definitely not enough to make me avoid it.
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I'm willing to tolerate it in this case because it still does decent damage and has an advantage (turret) to make up for the loss of kicks in this case. that's better than many Crusaders.
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I'm mostly a Mekwars server player, so my experience might be biased, but after around 70-80 games in FWL, I found that a BV-balanced army of FWL machines generally work just fine.
Sure, one-on-one fights on postage stamps, most of them suck. But in teams, they tend to have good to great synergy with each other, and more often than not can handily beat a more "specialized" team.
One of my favorite (and most successful, since it hasn't lost a single fight so far) army setups was IIRC a strike/scout lance of 2 TR1 Wraiths and 2 SDR-8M Spiders (lots of turnover here, I remember using a salvaged UZL-8S for one of the wraiths and the spiders get replaced so often I forgot what number I'm at or even what mechs were used in their stead) along with a fire lance of 4 long-range mechs, usually 2 long-range assaults (a Longbow and Awesome at the start IIRC, backed by a pair of LGR Riflemans).
The team works fine using pure FWL mechs, subbing in salvaged gear for replacements just tend to up the BV by a good chunk (though the army still works well even at that higher BV anyway), and when I accidentally salvaged a Jupiter and subbed it in things just got plain hilarious.
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If your server allows other units than Mech, consider infantry squads. Yes, squads. In terms of being BV-effective there are no better spotters for your Longbows. Spotting ignores range completely. Park them on the highest piece of terrain you can find as far away as possible with good lines of sight.
In BV-tight enviroments few people bring proper anti-infantry tools. And the early ages do not have many options to deal with them at long range.
The hilarity to see people send heavy Mechs to chase down a single groundpounder squad because the rest of their forces consists of Nighstars and Thunderhawks is priceless, I assure you.
And who knows? There might be a trap involved or two. Those SRM-carriers and Demolishers have to park somewhere, don´t they?
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If your server allows other units than Mech, consider infantry squads. Yes, squads. In terms of being BV-effective there are no better spotters for your Longbows. Spotting ignores range completely. Park them on the highest piece of terrain you can find as far away as possible with good lines of sight.
In BV-tight enviroments few people bring proper anti-infantry tools. And the early ages do not have many options to deal with them at long range.
The hilarity to see people send heavy Mechs to chase down a single groundpounder squad because the rest of their forces consists of Nighstars and Thunderhawks is priceless, I assure you.
And who knows? There might be a trap involved or two. Those SRM-carriers and Demolishers have to park somewhere, don´t they?
Oh, rest assured, I know full well how to be a total pain with IDF.
My preferred Setup was some MML Demolishers plus some Bollas loaded with Djinns though. Let's just say that things get hilarious. Real hilarious, especially when someone "finds" my "campers" :D
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I'm mostly a Mekwars server player, so my experience might be biased, but after around 70-80 games in FWL, I found that a BV-balanced army of FWL machines generally work just fine.
Loving it. That's good stuff, the force you described.
What I'm about to say is mostly for someone else's benefit, since you obviously 'get it' and are doing great... just using your words to bring up the topic: Your results aren't a surprise. If you're playing on anything larger than a single map sheet, FWL forces have room to fan out and take advantage of their above-average speed. Then we do just fine.
The 'problem', and I say that in semi-quotes, is FWL requires a lot of precision in play and army design. We're genuinely harder to play than most factions. The developers have been reluctant to give us "3/5/0 movement, tons of armor, stack in as many gauss rifles as possible" turrets for one of two reasons.
1 - Back in the FASA era, I'm convinced the developers either didn't care about us, or may have viewed us with some kind of passive disdain. Probably just "did not care." I'm sure you know just as well as I the kind of worthless garbage they gave us. GRF-5M, etc.
2 - In today's BattleTech, the developers seem to have wisely understood that you can't make every faction into 'Conventional Davion-Steiner style straightforward optimized gauss platforms.' Hell, even Davion and Steiner aren't getting as much of that these days. We pretty much never will get those because making every faction fight like that makes the game boring as hell. Even our 'dual gauss' units have some quirk; the MR-5M Cerberus gives up the second Gauss in order to be more durable. The Carronade uses mixed types of Gauss but otherwise fits the 'optimized design' paradigm very well. Giving us Thunder Hawk clones would be a bad idea.
It would be like if Street Fighter only had Ken available to pick. Sure, the majority use Ken just like the majority used FedCom back in the day. The game would lose its appeal fast if not for the folks who pick the other characters to provide contrast, though. Same deal here.
We sucked, past tense, in the FASA era and early CGL era. They seem to have gotten the message after the WLF-3M that we were sick of being the trash faction, and they found people who could design viable machines that use a whole different combat style. Today we win through a mix of special munitions and excellent medium-range superiority machines such as the TDR-10M. 3 or 4 TRO books later, we're no longer garbage-tier. We're viable, we can win, and we're fun.
Incidentally, reading up on what you've been doing to win has been fun too. Glad to see your army design is working well!
EDIT: A question about Branths. I hear they can only be used on certain worlds? Is that right? A shame if so, because if 'infantry spotter on a hill' is fun, a FLYING infantry spotter ought to be even better.
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Regarding branths, if memory serves they used to be unable to live long off of Lopez because their immune systems were especially vulnerable to off-world diseases or some such. However, HB:HM points out that immune boosters are now available that allow cultivation of branth off of Lopez. They're not always successful. . . but I love the branth-mounted infantry from TRO:3085. The best thing about Andurien, I feel.
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You know what's a weird use for Branth troops? Building clearing. There's nothing restricting their movement indoors, and unlike burst-fire weapons like machine guns, there's nothing saying their extra damage is negated when the target is in a building. Their small platoon size does make close combat a concern, but on average you're going to deal out a lot more damage than you're going to take.
Also, dragons. 8)
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...We sucked, past tense, in the FASA era and early CGL era. ...
I know where you are coming from, but I´d like to make a small addendum.
At first we rocked. The Succession Wars Era has a good number of variants of standard Mechs that I much prefer over the baseline models. Typical examples are the Wolverine M, the Marauder M or the Binary Laser one and (maybe my lvl1/intro tech favourite) the supreme ON1-VA. A real close quarters monster in its era.
So I´d phrase it like:
"First we rocked, then we sucked, then continued to suck, then sucked exhaust fumes until we got sick and barfed all over the place...but then it got better."
Also: Branths! Rawr!
(would they taste like chicken?)
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The MUL lists Branth "Aerial Beast Infantry" as available to the FWL from the Clan Invasion through to the Early Republic Era, but I'm wondering if that's accurate... Lopez was rendered uninhabitable by the Wobblies via repeated asteroid strikes in 3080, and I don't know how stable off-planet Branth populations were by that time. I hope they made it.
(Incidentally, the MUL also dates the introduction of Branth-mounted infantry to the Age of War, despite not listing them as available to any faction prior to the Invasion era... so there's definitely some irregularities there.)
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Their small platoon size does make close combat a concern,
*Puts on a sweater* CLOSE RANGE!? </XComJoke>
And yeah, it's true we were fairly good in 3025. Hell, we were even good in 3050. Then 3055 came and things began to go downhill (we got good stuff in 3055, but others got way better things, THEN we just started getting garbage afterward). I'm just happy it's over and we have a much healthier, 'spread the love, employ more designers who have a variety of ideas' approach to things these days.
Wish Megamek had Branth Infantry integrated. I'd love to start using them if we're now able to sometimes take them offworld.
Randomly, my opinion of the Tempest is slightly better now that I've begun using Tandem Charge loads. Wish we had the record sheets for the new refits, as the simulations I've done of the "close enough" specs were really enjoyable. Both versions would probably become major mainstays of my play once they're 'canon units legal'.
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I wonder, in each era, what are you people using as APCs? And what type of infantry are they hauling around? Do you have a go-to vehicle and try to use it for all types of platoons or are you prefering certain combinations?
Related: Do you use custom made platoons at all in your games?
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I actually usually stick to self-mobile troops a lot of the time when I play FWL, or just hang suits off of mechs. When I do get around to it, I'll probably go to the same standby I usually use, the standard Heavy APCs. Might go for Maxims effort once in a while, since they can carry the slack if I want able to bring a supporting IFV. Really want to actually give the Main Gauche or R10 a whirl sometime, too.
Related: Do you use custom made platoons at all in your games?
Conventional troops are the only units I will customize, actually. Cramming a mechanized platoon or two full of the really big support lasers is a great way to convince your opponents to max out their AP firepower the next week. >:D
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Sadly, most of the venues I played in were really restrictive on infantry so I never bothered to learn them.
Battle Armor on the other hand I'm a bit more up to date on, and I use the R10 or the Avalanche omnimech for toting them around.
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My perfect ELRM unit
Seleucus.
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Oooo...park one of those in your backfield, and make it rain! >:D
Hmmm...I wonder how effective a force consisting of a landed Seleucus and its contents might actually be in your typical Battletech or Alpha Strike game...
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On the infantry side, I just started using conventional infantry for the first time in a little mini-league I play in with a buddy at school. He tends to ignore mine while I torch his with my Hermes II Mercury, but I did get a kill with a laser rifle platoon thanks to some critical hits. I bought some Achileus and Longinus models a while back and want to stock up on Kopis and Phalanx models, but we're sticking to level 1 tech for this. Sad days.
Oh, and IWM makes branth infantry models too, right? Might buy some for gits and shiggles.
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Sadly, most of the venues I played in were really restrictive on infantry so I never bothered to learn them.
Battle Armor on the other hand I'm a bit more up to date on, and I use the R10 or the Avalanche omnimech for toting them around.
Owens make pretty decent taxis too.
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Speaking of OmniMechs, I was just perusing the MUL and I noticed that most of the original Clan OmniMechs plus the Kingfisher are available to us. Did I miss something?
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Conventional infantry can be fun to use precisely because many players will ignore them. As your rifle troops demonstrate, they make very good crit-seekers, and for the same reason can be murder on tanks. Use your mechs and tracks to smack his stuff around a bit and punch some holes, then lure him past your infantry position, and demonstrate why when it comes to little guys vs giant walking machines, Return of the Jedi was no fluke. For even more fun, look up WWII tactics for towed anti-tank guns, and apply them to troops operating AC/10 field guns. :)
Speaking of OmniMechs, I was just perusing the MUL and I noticed that most of the original Clan OmniMechs plus the Kingfisher are available to us. Did I miss something?
Most of them are on the Inner Sphere General list now, to reflect the proliferation of clan tech.
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Amusingly, Martian tried to tell me their absence from IS General on the 3145 MUL means we've since lost them. Notes that the 3145 MUL is OPENLY labeled as a 'draft' did not seem to dissuade him. In light of someone more closely connected to the game's development not picking up on this line of thought, I'm inclined to believe we do indeed have a handful of clan Mechs here and there.
Which is fun. This means we have Thors and such. (And you might be able to justify one Thor II in a formation due to its Mercenary MUL inclusion, but that's just my fan-theory that such things are available as special orders to aces and officers while the faction otherwise doesn't bother buying them).
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The FWL also has the Clan Protectorate as one of its member states. Its kind of silly, when you think about it, to say that the Sea Foxes sell Clan tech to everyone else except the FWLM.
And yeah, now that the Wolves have helped themselves to an empire on the League's border.. now there's the salvage that comes with having a Clan for a neighbor.
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Huh. That makes me wonder if the Sea Foxes sell us Thor IIs now. Am I right in believing the Thor II's TRO entries and MUL assignments came before the Clan Protectorate was fully set up?
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You can probably do one better than "sell some", in a Clan Protectorate force. :D
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Well, I was talking about FWL line formations such as the Oriente Hussars and so on.
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Loving it. That's good stuff, the force you described.
What I'm about to say is mostly for someone else's benefit, since you obviously 'get it' and are doing great... just using your words to bring up the topic: Your results aren't a surprise. If you're playing on anything larger than a single map sheet, FWL forces have room to fan out and take advantage of their above-average speed. Then we do just fine.
The 'problem', and I say that in semi-quotes, is FWL requires a lot of precision in play and army design. We're genuinely harder to play than most factions. The developers have been reluctant to give us "3/5/0 movement, tons of armor, stack in as many gauss rifles as possible" turrets for one of two reasons.
1 - Back in the FASA era, I'm convinced the developers either didn't care about us, or may have viewed us with some kind of passive disdain. Probably just "did not care." I'm sure you know just as well as I the kind of worthless garbage they gave us. GRF-5M, etc.
2 - In today's BattleTech, the developers seem to have wisely understood that you can't make every faction into 'Conventional Davion-Steiner style straightforward optimized gauss platforms.' Hell, even Davion and Steiner aren't getting as much of that these days. We pretty much never will get those because making every faction fight like that makes the game boring as hell. Even our 'dual gauss' units have some quirk; the MR-5M Cerberus gives up the second Gauss in order to be more durable. The Carronade uses mixed types of Gauss but otherwise fits the 'optimized design' paradigm very well. Giving us Thunder Hawk clones would be a bad idea.
It would be like if Street Fighter only had Ken available to pick. Sure, the majority use Ken just like the majority used FedCom back in the day. The game would lose its appeal fast if not for the folks who pick the other characters to provide contrast, though. Same deal here.
We sucked, past tense, in the FASA era and early CGL era. They seem to have gotten the message after the WLF-3M that we were sick of being the trash faction, and they found people who could design viable machines that use a whole different combat style. Today we win through a mix of special munitions and excellent medium-range superiority machines such as the TDR-10M. 3 or 4 TRO books later, we're no longer garbage-tier. We're viable, we can win, and we're fun.
Incidentally, reading up on what you've been doing to win has been fun too. Glad to see your army design is working well!
EDIT: A question about Branths. I hear they can only be used on certain worlds? Is that right? A shame if so, because if 'infantry spotter on a hill' is fun, a FLYING infantry spotter ought to be even better.
If my reply to the other guy (or my nick, or avvie, or sig) didn't clue you in, I usually play WoB SD instead. In a BV2 Balanced Server. With default 3/4 pilots for MY team and 4/5 for most others. And since my ELO in that server rarely budges from "elite", most games were under a 1.5-2k BV handicap.
So yeah, "needs precision" and "Hard to Play" are things I'm extremely used to. In fact, switching to FWL makes me feel positively wall-y since now I get to field 2 lances of mechs at 12k BV instead of a mixed Level 1 if Mech/Vee/BAs :D
Back on FWL stuff, though, I find that most of the things people tend to mock or even consider "Junk" are perfectly usable.
Take the LGR Rifleman for example. Sure, it's got thin skin, and explodes when sneezed on, but it's also packing 2 8-pointers that go to 25 hexes (PERFECT for plinking the hell out of campers till they move), is Dirt-cheap in BV, and all those ERMLs on it mean getting close isn't recommended either.
I think the main issue why most people think FWL mechs are "Bad" is mostly that their play experience is 1v1 on postage stamps. Well DUH, OF COURSE something designed for teamwork would do poorly in those conditions.
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That's pretty cool, actually. I haven't met too many people who play WOB as their 'main', they always talk about how ECM so easily counters WOB's advantages (I'd think sufficient ECCM would help?). So if you run WOB, that's really neat and I'm glad to see it!
Some of our bad Mechs are indeed bad though. RFL-5M, SHD-5M... the BV system does not save them. Same for GRF-5M. They suck at their current BVs.
RFL-7M I'm willing to concede is borderline and might be worth the BV; I hate it regardless, but can see how a WOB team might be able to get some mileage out of it especially in a ELO-adjusted format where every point of BV is precious. It's the exact same format where the Albatross becomes viable, since 1668 BV is a bargain for all the features you get even if they're not quite laid out in an optimal way.
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That's pretty cool, actually. I haven't met too many people who play WOB as their 'main', they always talk about how ECM so easily counters WOB's advantages (I'd think sufficient ECCM would help?). So if you run WOB, that's really neat and I'm glad to see it!
Some of our bad Mechs are indeed bad though. RFL-5M, SHD-5M... the BV system does not save them. Same for GRF-5M. They suck at their current BVs.
RFL-7M I'm willing to concede is borderline and might be worth the BV; I hate it regardless, but can see how a WOB team might be able to get some mileage out of it especially in a ELO-adjusted format where every point of BV is precious. It's the exact same format where the Albatross becomes viable, since 1668 BV is a bargain for all the features you get even if they're not quite laid out in an optimal way.
The WoB force mostly runs WoB Gear, but yeah, we also use a good chunk of FWL stuff as per canon. WoB is pretty much a pure finesse faction (especially playing SD), where you REALLY have to make full use of every little advantage you have as well as invent new dirty tricks for the big book.
I actually use my RFL-7Ms as both BV and Init sinks. They can camp at long range at will thus not needing to move much, and their low perceived threat value makes them a good bargain for the BV. My Current pair of 7Ms have lived through... I think 6-7 battles. Though then again, their longevity compared to their predecessors might be because the pair of assaults I had in that army are no longer FWL gear but a pair of salvaged Jupiters, so the RFLs are rarely even shot at. ;D
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Weird. I'd think players would understand that it's often smart to go after the easy kills first just to whittle down your offensive output. Glad you're making them work, though!
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Weird. I'd think players would understand that it's often smart to go after the easy kills first just to whittle down your offensive output. Glad you're making them work, though!
Depends on the threat level. While going for the easy kills first lowers offensive output sooner than going after the bigger badder things, it also lowers offensive output slower. Every turn you spend taking out a Vedette is a turn you're not whittling down a Hunchback, and an AC/20 (or Gauss, or PPC, or anything big) is going to contribute more in those couple turns you're not killing it than the Vedette would contribute all game.
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True, but scale of response can help there. If I have something cheap that can avoid the big problem and go deal with the smaller one without losing too much from my front line, I'll go for it.
(Redacting edit to make a separate post about my other topic)
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True, but scale of response can help there. If I have something cheap that can avoid the big problem and go deal with the smaller one without losing too much from my front line, I'll go for it.
Ahh, but now we're into hypotheticals and contigencies. Sure, if I can spare a secondary weapon to blow something away and deal with less fire that's nice, but if I have to dedicate my guns to a primary target you can bet it's going to be something high threat, not something low-durability (unless that overlaps). High threat and high durability (either through speed, armor, or firepower) tends to interact favorably with concentrations of opponent BV, to boot.
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Hmm. We may have different styles there.
On a side topic: Question! Does FWL have access to the Mad Cat III X? I know we have the normal Mad Cat III, but what about the X?
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On a side topic: Question! Does FWL have access to the Mad Cat III X? I know we have the normal Mad Cat III, but what about the X?
The writeup in XTRO: Clans seems to indicate that for the right price, anybody can get one.
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Hmm. We may have different styles there.
On a side topic: Question! Does FWL have access to the Mad Cat III X? I know we have the normal Mad Cat III, but what about the X?
Only shows as Diamond Shark for the Jihad on the MUL, and TBD in the early Republic era, which are the only 2 eras it is available.
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Well, I was talking about FWL line formations such as the Oriente Hussars and so on.
Well the non-Clan Protectorate forces of the FWLM have the same access to Clan-tech that everyone else has (friendly neighborhood Sea Fox arms dealers), but they also have additional access to it via intra-army trade with Protectorate forces.
The Houses across the Inner Sphere are also beginning to produce domestic Clan-tech in addition to Sea Fox imports. The nuFWL might be behind Steiner, Davion, and Kurita due to the duplication of efforts inherent to being a bunch of competing, sovereign empires for most of the Dark Age... but now that they're unified (mostly) and faced with collective threats they should be getting their act together on unifying a manufacturing base... especially since they need to replace what was lost to the Wolf Empire. Since S-D-K could all manage, the FWL's effort should see some native clan-spec infrastructure come online as well.
EDIT: Question! Does FWL have access to the Mad Cat III X? I know we have the normal Mad Cat III, but what about the X?
The MUL says that as of the Jihad, only the Sharks did. Since they're part of the Clan Protectorate and the Clan Protectorate is part of the FWL, I'd say that technically the answer is no but if you've got a Clan Protectorate force there's no reason they couldn't have them.
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Answer unclear. It's in use by Diamond Sharks during the Jihad, before they split into Khanates and Aimags which means it's possible that the Sea Fox contingent of the Clan Protectorate had a non-zero number of them. I think production is a bit much to assume off the cuff, but trade isn't out of the question.
If you're curious and want to research it on your own, the Sea Fox units that help form the Clan Protectorate are Omicron Cluster (formerly of Delta Aimag, Spina Khanate) as a designated Protectorate line unit, with the rest of Spina Khanate participating in League politics as full representatives in parliament but not clearly defined as part of the Protectorate's military presence.
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Answer unclear.
To further muddy the waters, TPTB's stance on the MUL's Dark Age availability is that if a unit has not yet been updated for the Dark Age, the same availability from the previous era (Jihad) is presumed to repeat.
So whenever that unit is updated for the Dark Age, it might see more widespread availability. Then again it might not.
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I think odds are it'll get a Mercenary tag, a Sea Fox tag, and a Republic tag. I'd not be surprised to see (and also not surprised to not see) a FWL tag. Honestly I get the distinct feeling that through the end of the Dark Age the FWL and the Clan Protectorate should probably still have separate lists. After that, maybe the equipment is widespread enough.
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To further muddy the waters, TPTB's stance on the MUL's Dark Age availability is that if a unit has not yet been updated for the Dark Age, the same availability from the previous era (Jihad) is presumed to repeat.
That's not TPTB's stance. Somebody might have suggested that, on their own, as what to do with availability that hasn't been listed yet. But that is somebody giving an opinion, not "TPTB" and not a stance.
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That's not TPTB's stance. Somebody might have suggested that, on their own, as what to do with availability that hasn't been listed yet. But that is somebody giving an opinion, not "TPTB" and not a stance.
I'm absolutely positive I read that on these forums. Now I'll have to go back and find the reference and see if it was a beemer or just a peon speaking "for" TPTB. If I had to guess I would have guessed it came from you if you hadn't just refuted that.
So I guess if I don't find the statement, I guess your post there serves well enough as an official "there is no stance" statement.
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I'm absolutely positive I read that on these forums. Now I'll have to go back and find the reference and see if it was a beemer or just a peon speaking "for" TPTB. If I had to guess I would have guessed it came from you if you hadn't just refuted that.
So I guess if I don't find the statement, I guess your post there serves well enough as an official "there is no stance" statement.
It might have come from me. :). But I'm not TPTB (I'm not one, nor do I speak for them) and even if I was, I'd be saying my opinion as to "hey, official doesn't cover this, so what the hell do I do?", not offering an official position.
But then, that would be my usual opinion when something isn't covered officially/canon. Take the closet answer and eyeball it and adjust as needed/wanted till you like the result.
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Huh. That... is a pretty confusing set of answers. The impression I'm getting is that no, it wouldn't be available to Oriente Hussars or similar regiments in any case?
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Huh. That... is a pretty confusing set of answers. The impression I'm getting is that no, it wouldn't be available to Oriente Hussars or similar regiments in any case?
If there is no answer, then make it up. You're not going to get an official answer if there is no official answer.
But don't make something I say in passing as a work around into an official "TPTB said so!!!" (said in loud, intimidating voice). My trying to be helpful in presenting how to deal with where there are no official answers is not a club by which to beat another player with to "win" an argument. I'm not even the one doing the Republic era availabilities for the MUL, I don't even know what their current status is.
I think the Sarath is available to all the FWL now, that's about it :). In fact, the FWL has no access to anything but Saraths. Sarath Fire Lances, Sarath Strike Lances, Sarath Assault Lances. And Sarath Infantry Fighting Vehicles. (But no infantry, all you get are Saraths.)
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Sorry, wasn't trying to push you like that. It's as you say, no true answer at this time per official sources; I just didn't quite get it. Thank you for clarifying, I'll just go with "safest answer for general play is No until further material addresses the issue, though there's evidence it might be Yes In Limited Quantities."
Ah well. The regular Mad Cat III is pretty fun anyway, so a 'safe-No' for now is not the end of the world for me.
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It might have come from me. :). But I'm not TPTB (I'm not one, nor do I speak for them) and even if I was, I'd be saying my opinion as to "hey, official doesn't cover this, so what the hell do I do?", not offering an official position.
But then, that would be my usual opinion when something isn't covered officially/canon. Take the closet answer and eyeball it and adjust as needed/wanted till you like the result.
Then we have a different definition of who is and who is not TPTB ;)
Still, I think that particular answer is settled.
Huh. That... is a pretty confusing set of answers. The impression I'm getting is that no, it wouldn't be available to Oriente Hussars or similar regiments in any case?
In the few minutes I just spent scrubbing the forums, I did find this (http://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=6620.msg1035168#msg1035168) little gem that should answer your question neatly.
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That's cool. I just try not to go too wild with my unit selections, I like fluff and diversity. It's why I don't drop Thunder Hawks into my FWL Forces!
That said, "nothing but Saraths" would... actually be playable. You have decent energy damage, decent missile damage, melee capability, jumping, decent speed. I'm honestly willing to believe a force of nothing but Sarath could win a fair number of games provided the opponent wasn't just blatantly fielding anti-Sarath units.
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...I think the Sarath is available to all the FWL now, that's about it :). In fact, the FWL has no access to anything but Saraths. Sarath Fire Lances, Sarath Strike Lances, Sarath Assault Lances. And Sarath Infantry Fighting Vehicles. (But no infantry, all you get are Saraths.)
Frigging awesome!
I don´t need anything else!
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*Laughs*
Funny how something like that can make someone's day. I understand, mind you. The Sarath is a good Mech and a lot of fun to use.
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If you want a fun way to keep up flavor with your units while including salvage and units not involved with your faction otherwise, use the Combat Manual method:
- Each company in your command begins with 12 Faction Points (FP).
- Units found in your faction normally do not cost FP to include.
- Including multiples of single variants costs 1 FP per additional variant. Having two Trebuchet -5Ns would cost 1 FP total, but having one Trebuchet -5N and one -3C would not cost any FP.
- Units found with your faction's allies cost 2 FP to include.
- Units found with your faction's enemies cost 3 FP to include.
- Other special modifying factors for FP costs may be present based on unit and formation (i.e. duplicate variants not costing extra FP, access to non-Ally or non-Enemy lists for various FP costs).
As long as you agree with whoever you're playing on the rules before you start the game, go for it!
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Weird. I'd think players would understand that it's often smart to go after the easy kills first just to whittle down your offensive output. Glad you're making them work, though!
Depends on the threat level. While going for the easy kills first lowers offensive output sooner than going after the bigger badder things, it also lowers offensive output slower. Every turn you spend taking out a Vedette is a turn you're not whittling down a Hunchback, and an AC/20 (or Gauss, or PPC, or anything big) is going to contribute more in those couple turns you're not killing it than the Vedette would contribute all game.
Like Scotty Says, it really depends on the perceived threat level.
When I had those RFLs paired with 60 LRMs and 4 PPC? sure, they die early and often. And even in this case their dying means the shots aren't going to the objectively more useful LGB/AWS.
When they were paired with a couple of 100-ton clantech monstrosities which has its shortest range weapons hitting range 21... not so much. ;)
It's mostly a case of presenting an opponent with a platter full of poison and making him choose one. :D
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(List of interesting mechanics for easily determining what's 'in flavor' for a combat force)
I like it. Thanks! That honestly should clear up most questions of this kind from me from here on, I believe.
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All of those can be found in the Combat Manual: Mercenaries force building section. It's a pretty sweet book on its own, but that was worth $5 by itself for me.
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In Succession Wars era play, does anyone use the alternate Awesome variants at all? I've employed the -8T to pretty good effect and a buddy of mine ran an -8V that, much to my surprise, did pretty well, but outside of that I've never seen anyone push anything other than the -8Q. Which I can understand, since it's the closest thing to sublime perfection in 3025, but I'm curious about others' experiences.
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Can't say I've ever used them. I don't play 3025 all that much, and when I do and have a chance to bring an Awesome, I usually go for the peeps. Looking at the -8T though, it looks like it might be fun in a proto-Mauler kind of way.
You know what might be fun? Take a trio of Missile-Awesomes as an early-3050s fire lance, with the fourth mech an imported Raven. Play a game of 'Where the hell are all those missiles coming from!?', and if you do it right, even after finding your Awesomes, your opponent can spend a turn or two looking for the Catapults or Trebuchets you must have stashed somewhere. :)
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i've run the -8V. It basically plays like a slower, up-armored Zeus.
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Buddy of mine used a 8T on me a few times. Its like a slow , fat Archer 2K that doesnt give a **** about heat and takes FOREVER to kill.
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Welp, I'm convinced. :)
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I'd just like to take a moment and express my sincere appreciation for the fact that every single time I open this board, a FWL thread is at the top of it. :D
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Well, it happens when we expand the boundries of the thread from mechs produced in the FWL to vehicles produced in other nations. :P
Wrong thread. Very FWL to accidentally shoot the wrong target.
Oh, those were on our side...
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Well, it happens when we expand the boundries of the thread from mechs produced in the FWL to vehicles produced in other nations. :P
Wrong thread. Very FWL to accidentally shoot the wrong target.
Oh, those were on our side...
Not a problem, just a normal day in the life of the League.
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Not a problem, just a normal day in the life of the League.
Hey! I resemble that remark! :P
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As far as 'what we've got' goes, I did some tests with the current presumed stats of the Tempest 4M (1x Gauss, 1x SNPPC, 3x Medium Laser)... and I'm starting to suspect the AES-equipped Scourge is basically the same machine but better. Better armor layout, more damage overall even if it's in smaller batches, and it's faster. The 5th IJJ gives the TMP-4M something over the Scourge, but I doubt it is all that much. I hope there is something here I am missing, otherwise this is kind of an underwhelming upgrade when compared to this peer (which we also have access to).
Of course, presumption-builds of the Tempest C are much more frightening. A bracket of clan weapons on this chassis is not such a bad thing, and it does assault-mech level damage if one presumes it is 1x Gauss, 1x LPL, 3x MPL, 1x SSRM-6 (all clan). THAT looks at the Scourge and sneers while calling the SCG a wuss.
My presumptive builds probably do omit a detail or two, but they seem 'close enough' based on the text we got in TRO 3150.
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Having only come to House Marik relatively late in my 25-odd years of BT fandom, the funny thing for me is just how well it fit with the play style I developed playing other wargames.
BattleTech was the first for me, and Steiner seemed like pure win back when games were still largely balanced by raw tonnage. Almost always had the biggest 'Mechs on the field, and tactics generally weren't all that complicated in True Steiner Style (i.e. Advance on the Enemy Shooting All The Way Until They Drop Or You Do).
Game Groups are fluid things, however, and my old BT Group broke up and instead some time later I found myself playing Babylon 5 Wars with a Centauri Fleet. As one of the "Big Four" of that sci-fi universe, I could compare my ships with that of the other three major powers. Narns? Solid ships for modest BV points. Earth? Flying Bricks loaded with guns that could both dish and deal damage while only being slightly more points on average, plus Fighter Spam. Minbari? Expensive ships, but they'll shred anything in the same weight class in a 1-on-1. Centauri? Um....we have these purple painted units that are kinda fragile for above average BV points, and tend to be specialists in either close attack or long range sniping with an emphasis on maneuver warfare and co-ordination to make them work.
Sounding familiar? :o
But make them work I did, and many years later found I couldn't go back to Steiner "I Kills it with my Assault 'Mechs" doctrine. Having gone full circle, it still seems like the Guys in Purple are the ones that suit my preferred play style best.
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That's very much to your credit. And you're probably going to win more games this way, now that FWL has received the upgrades and updates it needs for its combat style to work once again. Between things like the Scourge, Vulture Mk IV, Havoc, Blade, Phoenix Hawk L, Juliano, and so on... we're no longer 'low tier'. Yes, some of our machines still suck unreasonably hard. It's becoming easier to overlook them since we've gained replacements that actually do what those machines were supposed to in the first place; I consider the Trebaruna to be a fine 'apology' for the Sirocco 5C, for example.
You're going to have a lot of fun with our new stuff.
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You're going to have a lot of fun with our new stuff.
I don't doubt it, but for now I'm starting back at the beginning in Late Succession Wars. Even this time frame, however, I'm finding a new appreciation for designs I once dismissed. Used to think the Trebuchet was garbage for its limited ammo, but now view it as a versatile blend of Fire Support and Striker roles. Likewise, never cared much for the lumbering multi-gunned Stalker when I could jump around with my Victor and its boomstick, but since Marik doesn't lack for mobile elements with mainstays like the Hermes II and Wolverine-M to help shepherd the enemy where you want him, this doesn't seem like as much of a limitation anymore.
What I'm really looking forward to adding is more Infantry and Vehicles into the mix. This is part of why I love the semi-Post-Apocalyptic setting that is 3025, when 'Mech forces are supposed to be increasingly rare and worn down. While most games would tend to feature pure 'Mech fights, you would really think to see far more conventional forces taking part. And while the FWLM doesn't have AFFS style RTCs, it does seem to place more emphasis on it's non-'Mech combat arms than most other Successor States. I certainly see some interesting possibilities to explore here, as some have alluded to earlier in this thread.
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My son chose the FWL as his 'current faction of choice'.
I kind of laugh, because he really likes the Banshee as his mech of choice in the intro game right now. (we've not added much new tech yet.)
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My son chose the FWL as his 'current faction of choice'.
I kind of laugh, because he really likes the Banshee as his mech of choice in the intro game right now. (we've not added much new tech yet.)
There's always the Banshee 3M
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-3M? Psh. -3Q. It's like a Hunchback. Just. . . bigger.
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-3M? Psh. -3Q. It's like a Hunchback. Just. . . bigger.
Banshee BNC--3QBOOM
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-3M? Psh. -3Q. It's like a Hunchback. Just. . . bigger.
And it has enough ammo to make it a hilarious armor-piercing option against stuff like the Viking IIC!
...or Stalker II, I guess, if you really need to counter it.
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The BNC-3M also leads to the fairly good BNC-3Mr once you are playing with advanced tech. Said BNC-3Mr is... very straightforward and uninteresting in many ways, but performs well enough.
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I ran a quad fast AC20 assault lance once: BNC-3Q, Victor, CGR-1A5, and a Cyclops. The Cyke died fast -- too little armor -- but when the rest got to gun range? Hilarity ensued.
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Finally, I just figured out the reason why the Hunchback HBK-5M has only a single ton of reloads. All those BNC-3Q pilots were calling "Dibs!", thus resulting in the Great League Autocannon/20 Ammunition Shortage of the mid-3000's... ;D
I mean hey, since they clearly solved that PPC problem of the early-3000's, gotta have something new to gripe about!
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So, I've got an art question. What does the ON2-M Orion look like? Is it virtually identical to a ON1-M aside from different weapons? Or does it look more like a ON3-M with an extra laser lens?
EDIT: Or is there official art of the ON2-M? Not the ON1-M or ON3-M, I know art of them exists. I mean the ON2-M specifically.
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The Master Unit List usually has variant specific art, if any exists. The Orion ON2-M share's the ON1-M's art.
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What he said. To my knowledge, there is no dedicated ON2-M art.
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Lower BV aside meaning it fits into some armies the Scourge won't... someone talk me into liking the Tempest over the Scourge. I already like it more than the Thunderbolt 10M, the Scourge is the real hurdle here; I don't see how the TMP-3M, or what we know of the TMP-4M, measure up to it.
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Gonna be playing a 6K BV game vs all comers. Last time I played and won with three base Albatrosses with 3G/5P pilots. Was looking at options for this next game and I figured it would make an interesting question for the thread:
What's the deadliest FWL force you can put together for 6,000 BV +/- 5%?
No era restriction or tech level restriction, except that it must be mechs, vees, or BA only. No ASF, dropships, warships, off board artillery, etc.
Terrain unknown
Opponent forces unknown
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What's the deadliest FWL force you can put together for 6,000 BV +/- 5%?
Galleons...lots of Galleons... ;D
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So, fellow Leaguers of all stripes, I have a question for you. I already have a company of Covenant Guards put together. I have a couple scattered Lances of Free Worlds Guards and the minis laying about to make it a full company of 'Mechs. What I need now are suggestions on what other Brigade to get started painting. I already have the first company set out and organized into Lances, so I guess the question is going to be what Brigade would these look best as, or that fit the 'Mechs' style the best. The exact variants are flexible. Based on the chassis present, I'm looking for something that's around during the Jihad, and not dead when 3145 rolls around.
Battle Lance
- Grand Titan
- Albatross
- Tempest
- Tempest
Battle Lance
- Perseus
- Perseus
- Anvil
- Grasshopper
Pursuit Lance
- Vulcan
- Hermes II
- Wolfhound
- Firestarter
It's definitely a line company, and while it's technically possible to make the second Lance a Fire Lance or a Command Lance it's a decent amount of hassle to do it. The third Lance also (naturally) qualifies as a Striker Lance, but the clear company objective is "Point at Enemy, Do Not Eat." Which Brigade does that fit? If suggestions are obviously for one Brigade or the other, that'll be the choice, but I reserve the right to decline a unit if the paint scheme offends me. :D
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That Wolfhound makes me think it's a unit from the Lyran front. How about the Tamarind Regulars?
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The FWL does produce the Wolfhound 3M (you can tell because no one else was dumb enough to try putting an LGR on a Light 'Mech). Amusingly, I can actually swap the Wolfhound (as a 3M) into the second Battle Lance to make it a fire Lance with Perseus Bs, while the Anvil can keep up with a Pursuit Lance. I'm not entirely sure how I want to play it quite yet, and these units will be mutable within the company (and maybe eventually battalion, I haven't decided yet) so these Lances can be taken as "default" or representative, but they're not the limit.
Are there any CamoSpecs or miniatures references for the Tamarind Regulars? Or an ensign to use?
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If you're not sick of painting purple, the Marik Protectors. There's no Mechs in that last that are special snowflake-new, so the Protectors make sense since as quasi-mercs they can't afford fancy new stuff like Anzus and Carronades.
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I can't find a Marik Protectors unit that actually uses purple. Did you get them mixed up with something else? The only ones with CamoSpecs presence are skyblue with feathered white wings on the backs (oh jesus no thank you) and silver with red (which is cool and I might do anyway).
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Are there any CamoSpecs or miniatures references for the Tamarind Regulars? Or an ensign to use?
No CamoSpecs references I could find, although with the re-org of the site it's possible they exist and I just can't locate them. FWIW, per FM 3145 they're painted white with purple highlights, with the Tamarind trefoil (http://www.sarna.net/wiki/images/4/49/TA_District.jpg) (in green) somewhere on them.
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Hmm, that sounds like the only real difference between them and the Free Worlds Guards would be the ensign. That's a little bit closer than I was hoping.
After browsing CamoSpecs myself, I'm leaning toward Sirian Lancers.
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The Protectors in FM:3085 changed to unique color schemes by regiment, but for FM:3145, they went back to using the original Marik Militia scheme. I was referring to the Militia/Late Dark Age scheme, not the crazy un-Marik-y schemes from FM:3085.
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Hmm, that sounds like the only real difference between them and the Free Worlds Guards would be the ensign. That's a little bit closer than I was hoping.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was based off the Second Free Worlds Guards, since they formed the core of the UDMC before the re-institution of the League.
After browsing CamoSpecs myself, I'm leaning toward Sirian Lancers.
Uh...you know that they went Blakist during the Jihad, right? And then became Regulan Hussar units afterward?
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I did not, because I was just looking through CamoSpecs for cool schemes, and they're listed under Marik during the Jihad there. :P
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What's the deadliest FWL force you can put together for 6,000 BV +/- 5%?
*crickets*
Surprised this didn't get much response
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I actually can't remember the last time a FWL force of mine utterly wrecked shop, except for the ones that made use of heavy air support. My tactical acumen is low enough that clear victories are few and far between.
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Would kind of make sense as the FWL seems to but a bit more emphasis on Air Support elements and defending against such than your average House army. They certainly don't lack for good Aerospace designs, even if some of the later ones are a bit...thin skinned...
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6K? I would start with building the force around the R10 Mechanized ICV, Configuration B.
I'm serious. Adding one of these things to your team spends 756 BV on a unit that can handle Infantry, Aerial, crit-seeking, ECM, BAP, and can taxi around one of our fantastic Battle Armor squads (perhaps a Kopis team?). You now have about 5200 BV left and have already picked up a response to nearly every unusual problem in the game. The only things you're missing are the ability to outcamp your enemy (fixed with ELRMs, clan ERLL, or a Light Gauss with adequate ammo, you have plenty of choices for all of these) and a way to add Heat to the enemy to mess with TSM. How you deal with those is up to you.
Everything after that depends on your play style, but the R10 B is incredible and deserves consideration in every FWL force.
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Battle Lance
- Grand Titan
- Albatross
- Tempest
- Tempest
Battle Lance
- Perseus
- Perseus
- Anvil
- Grasshopper
Pursuit Lance
- Vulcan
- Hermes II
- Wolfhound
- Firestarter
It's definitely a line company, and while it's technically possible to make the second Lance a Fire Lance or a Command Lance it's a decent amount of hassle to do it. The third Lance also (naturally) qualifies as a Striker Lance, but the clear company objective is "Point at Enemy, Do Not Eat." Which Brigade does that fit? If suggestions are obviously for one Brigade or the other, that'll be the choice, but I reserve the right to decline a unit if the paint scheme offends me. :D
For any who are curious, this ended up being an Oriente Hussars unit, specifically the 1st.
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Speaking of them, what are the 1st and 2nd up to lately? Last I heard the 1st was back on Oriente, 2nd near the Andurien/Liao border? A shame, I was hoping they'd get into fights with the Republic, Klingons, and/or Lyrans.
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The 1st has two battalions of 'Mechs, both stationed on Atreus. One training with the 2nd Free Worlds Guards, and the other protecting Atreus City. They've been quiet between 3139 and 3145, mostly repelling Regulan raids.
The 2nd is the primary defender against Andurien raids along the border, stationed on Mosiro and El Giza.
The brigade also consists of the 3rd, 6th, 8th, and 12th. The 3rd is five years young and blooding itself against Andurien raids. The 6th are in the strategically vital little isthmus between major halves of the FWL and experience occasional Regulan raids. The 8th is recovering after heavy losses in the wake of the Blackout/Grey Monday and years of significant action against Capellan forces. The 12th is barely a year old and still acting in a defensive posture against Capellan raids.
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That strategic isthmus is no loner strategic or an isthmus if TRO3150 is anything to go by.
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While that's true for 3150, the last deployment information we have is from FM:3145. After the occupation of Regulus I haven't the faintest idea where they would go from there.
I didn't realize, before picking a Regulan Hussars unit for my fourth FWL company, that Regulus has (had) possibly the largest 'Mech component of any of the individual FWL states. The entire reformed FWLM has 24 Regiments and change, with an extra 6 Clusters from the Clan Protectorate. That includes the (remains of) the Marik-Steward Commonwealth, Oriente Protectorate, Duchy of Tamarind-Abbey, Rim Worlds Commonality, the Covenant Worlds, and the Augustine Alliance. The Regulan Fiefs have 8 Regiments by themselves. Andurien is a mere battalion behind that, and I can imagine Oriente was close, but with the addition of the support and manufacturing to field an additional 8 Regiments of 'Mechs I'm feeling pretty good about the League's position.
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I am too, but it also depends largely on what's left of the Hussars after the re-amalgamation. Some will be destroyed or disbanded due to casualties, others are likely to go rogue and turn mercenary or pirate rather than rejoin the FWLM.
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Wouldn't such an effort be fairly short-lived given they would be surrounded by enemies and no longer have much support from home?
Ah well. I for one welcome those who wish to resume being Amarikan. They bring nice things like the improved Trebuchet and Sarath with them.
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Neanderthals! >:D
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...Some will be destroyed or disbanded due to casualties, others are likely to go rogue and turn mercenary or pirate rather than rejoin the FWLM.
Some units are fluffed in a way that suggests to expect reactions like that.
In addition I don´t expect the Steel Hussars to make it into the Halas Forces. Too political, too obstinate and too much invested in their own reputation. It should be mentioned that their officers have access to the nuclear weapon arsenal too.
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After playing around with several Mechs for the last few weekends, I have arrived at some fun conclusions about machines we have access to.
The Vulture Mk IV is underrated. Yes, its long range attacks are underwhelming. At mid and close range though it is powerful enough and very durable. Most of its configs are tuned for dueling for some odd reason, but unlike the 3050-style duelist configs this one can actually win its 1 on 1 fights. Used in larger battles, it is essentially a 'high aggression' unit that intends to run out of ammo (to tremendous effect in some cases, twin Streak LRM-15s plus an ERPPC are pretty good for the 8 rounds of hits they'll last you) and then go home.
Julianos continue to perform better than they would suggest on paper, and this is without its Quirk enabled. If you do play using Quirks, it becomes one of our best overall assault Mechs. The TRO writeup rightly notes it works well with the Awesome (I recommend the -9M or -9Ma which can keep pace with it and have more attack range), but the MAD-6S Marauder II would do well too if the Irian factory ever came back online. The Cerberus MR-5M and Warhammer 8D also work well with it. Overall, the Juliano succeeds at bringing the Grand Titan and Stalker's combat designs into the current era.
Mad Cat Mk IV is secretly good. You don't realize it at first due to its numerous problems, but once you learn how to compensate for them (Walk, not Run, if you intend to use a lot of weapons... the heat curves on nearly every config require this due to the massive heat buildup XXL engines cause on movement) you gain access to a unit whose configs all deal with specific problems well. Prime and C are well rounded units for attacking other heavy and assault class machines, Config A hunts infantry and battle armor fairly well, while B is... odd.
The B config is not quite a duelist. Kojak has suggested to me he thinks it's more of a support platform, similar to the ALB-3U Albatross. I do not entirely agree, but he's not entirely wrong either; the unit is clearly suited to hunting down slower tanks, along with most VTOLs and Aeros in general. It is passable in duels against similar Mechs, but has no real answer to super-fast foes. Somewhere between these two worlds, it's a 'support duelist' that tries to do both jobs and kind of succeeds.
All in all, these things are pretty fun.
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I haven't played against any real people with Juliano's, but I've messed around with them a couple of times in MegaMek against the bot. I was surprised how dangerous all those streaks ended up being. They sand blast for sure but since you either don't generate any heat, or you land 12 points of damage, they can be frighteningly effective. I'm a little disappointed with it at longer ranges, but once those streaks come into play I'm a fan.
I've messed around with the Vulture Mk IV as well, and I agree that it begs to be played aggressively. However, I've been surprised at how durable they have ended up being. Mine always seem to last a couple turns longer than I expect them to thanks to the ferro-lam. True, they are usually half-dead for those couple of turns, but they don't go down as easy as I thought they would. The number of times I've been able to be aggressive with a Mk IV and still manage to live long enough to empty all my missile ammo has been surprising.
I don't think I've tried the Mad Cat Mk IV though. I'll have to give it a look.
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The Juliano's long range damage isn't that bad. 24, then 16, then 24, then 16, etc. isn't great, but it's enough to let it hang with the Awesomes and Longbows until the time is right to move in. Charging in head-long early in the battle tends to get the Juliano killed, it needs to wait a few rounds for a good opportunity and THEN go in. And the long range output is better still if you have Quirks allowed in the game, as its heat dissipation is much better then.
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Like you suggested, Gespenst, I've used the Juliano with the Awesome -9M and Cerberus -5M to really great effect. The search for cheaper and more durable partners, though, have recently seen me use it alongside the Banshee -3Mr...they make for a pretty fantastic combo too.
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Certainly. ON2-M, BNC-3Mr, WHM-8D, and some Thug models all come to mind. Archers and the Yeoman work too, though not as well as the others; they toss out lots of 5 point hits when what you really want is 10 or 15 pointers so the SSRMs have holes to go through. There's also a Blackjack Omni config with a LGR, ERLL, and LRM-10 that can do this job halfway decently. Even the TDR-10M wouldn't be totally out of place in the role, though I admit its lower weapons range (maximum of 18 hexes outside of the MML-5) hurts this pairing somewhat.
Even the GRF-3M can still do the job if need be. The Shockwave almost works, but comes up just a tad short in hole-punching power.
If you're willing to take some risks, the Crimson Hawk can do the job. Twin clan ERLL isn't perfect, but for 1200ish BV it's about as good as you're going to get for bargain-shopping on Juliano partners.
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Today I learned that the Shogun is back in production with the Sea Foxes - including a new variant based off the C that has Ferro-Lamellor armor.
I'm definitely interested to see that show up in some Protectorate Clusters.
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Like you suggested, Gespenst, I've used the Juliano with the Awesome -9M and Cerberus -5M to really great effect. The search for cheaper and more durable partners, though, have recently seen me use it alongside the Banshee -3Mr...they make for a pretty fantastic combo too.
In the more classic 3025 era, one could harness similar benefits by pairing Awesomes with the Stalker, Battlemaster, and/or Atlas. Just enough long range firepower to have something to contribute from afar, and more than enough short range punch (figuratively and literally for the last two 'Mechs) to make the enemy think twice about trying to engage those Awesomes at point-blank range.
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The implications in the Shogun text seem to suggest it's available on a wider market. The -3E is, at least. The C 2 isn't outright said to be, but there's a decent case to be made for it.
Just wish they'd release the record sheets for 3150 NTNU already. I'm really curious to see how the Tempest 4M and Tempest C turned out, along with the BLR-6M, AWS-11V, Orion C, and HRC-LS-9003.
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I'm really hoping that the Shogun C 2 ends up being a seriously upgunned 2E, where the LRM 15s and SRM 6s are swapped out for Streak versions of the same, plus the obligatory Clan ER PPC and CASE II.
2x Streak LRM-15, 2x Stream SRM-6, Clan ER PPC, CASE II, Ferro-Lamellor armor. I'd use it.
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I think we all would. Anything even close to those specs would be impressive indeed.
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I think we all would. Anything even close to those specs would be impressive indeed.
Since Clan Streak launchers have the same tonnage and crit requirements as their IS standard counter parts, the above swap is possible on a refitted 2E chassis, much less a scratch built Clan line. I'm really hoping we get something with that sort of brutally efficient loadout. Admittedly, part of it would be the AS stats, looking at a 7/7/5 OV0 A/S 9/4 layout for ~54 PV or so (off the top of my head) with CR and CASE II.
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I'm curious about something. In 3150, what other clantech mediums do we have besides the Black Hawk (non-Omni) and the Mad Cat III?
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Wendigo/Avalanche. The MUL lists for the late Dark Age haven't been updated for anything not featured in TRO3145/3150, so we don't know for sure what carries forward from previous eras. Given that the Sea Foxes and Spirit Cats are pretty buddy buddy with the reformed League, most of the things on the Clan General lists should be fine, and I wager that any of the Clantech Mediums on the IS General list from the immediately preceding era should still be there.
The shortlist, based on the above criteria (IS General and FWL availability, Early Republic/Jihad era and beyond):
100% Confirmed (Present on FWL/IS General list, Early/Late Republic and Dark Age Era):
Dasher II
Griffin IIC 3
Shadow Hawk IIC (3, 4, 5, 8)
Black Hawk (Standard)
Stalking Spider II (Standard)
Mad Cat III (Standard, 2)
Avalanche
Wendigo and Wendigo VP
Very Likely (Present on FWL/IS General list, Jihad Era):
Dragonfly (Viper)
Fenris (Ice Ferret)
Black Hawk (Nova)
Hunchback IIC (Standard)
Likely (Present on Sea Fox/Diamond Shark/Clan General list, Early/Late Republic Era):
Grendel (Mongrel)
Shadow Cat
Crimson Langur
Hellhound (Conjurer) 2
Hunchback IIC 4
Ryoken (Stormcrow)
Possible (Present on Diamond Shark/Clan General list, Jihad Era):
Battle Cobra
Clint IIC
Great Wyrm (Standard)
Nobori-nin (Huntsman)
Goshawk (Vapor Eagle)
I might have missed a couple, but I think this is a pretty decent list.
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Given that the Sea Foxes and Spirit Cats are pretty buddy buddy with the reformed League
Are there any Sea Fox units that have been mentioned so far as being sold/deployed to FWL, that aren't sold to other factions? From my admittedly spotty recollection, the Sea Foxes and Spirit Cats were tricked in to joining their Protectorate to the FWL, they weren't too happy about it at the time. Not sure how much that has changed. My impression was that it was more than the Captain General doesn't push the relationship very far, and the Protectorate makes do.
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Remember that 3 of th 4 Very Likely are dead Mechs walking. Heck even for the Dominion it only shows up in upper frontline RATs.
Similar for the Likely. You are basically looking at the MUL saying these Mechs have been salvaged around the Sphere for 100 years.
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I can't remember where I read it, but my memory is that the Protectorate was given information on what form of government that would entail and agreed it made sense for their situation, that they're reasonably happy but serve mostly as a static defense for their portion of the League and aren't fond of moving elsewhere except in response to Klingon Empire aggression?
Still, the idea that we might have access to even small numbers of Huntsman from them is appealing. It's my favorite clan Medium, barely edging out the Mad Cat III.
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I believe Jellico's point is where would the Protectorate get Huntsmen to give/sell to the FWL? They haven't made any in 100 years. The Sea Foxes overall would have some surviving 100 years, but the number of those in the Protectorate, and the number of those in the Protectorate that they would decide to "give" away to anybody? That's not likely, when the Sea Foxes have plenty of brand new machines they intentionally make to sell.
As for Clan Protectorate relations, Sea Fox did sanction Regulus, and Protectorate forces did aid Jessica Marik in taking Atreus. So there is more than just "leave us alone and we'll pretend we're part of your FWL". But FM 3145 also makes it clear the FWL is still being very careful with the Protectorate and not asking much from them. Protectorate forces are not being moved out of the Protectorate for example. And Sea Foxes already sell Clan tech to most everybody, so there's no need to pressure them to sell anything "exclusively" Sea Fox to the FWL.
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Spoilsport. (Said mostly in jest)
Ah well. This still leaves the Mad Cat III, Black Hawk 2, and some of the Shadow Hawk IIC variants you listed. I wonder if we get the Shadow Hawk IIC 9? MUL doesn't say, and it looks like a fun machine. Like a better version of the 4 in many ways.
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The REAL question is: Do the Cat remnants have any Cave Lion's that could be trialed for, or are the Foxes maybe still running those production lines and selling new ones...because I would LOVE to have an excuse to get my hands on some purple Cave Lions! The leftover Cat's can't be buying enough on their own to justify keeping a production line open, but if you are shipping them to that general area anyway, why not start selling them to the neighboring FWL powers as well for more volume?
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It shows up on their MUL entry, along with that of the Sea Foxes, yes. Whether the FWLM tolerates other units doing trials for allies' resources is a question worth pondering.
Also, can we take a sec to talk about how nice the Shadow Hawk IIC 8 is? Yes, the twin Heavy Medium Lasers are stupid but even they have a use in hitting slower targets. They're the only thing deeply wrong with a unit that is otherwise decent at long range (not great, but decent), can fight infantry effectively, is incredible mobile, and reasonably well armored for its size plus has ECM. This thing would make a fine general-purpose medium to cover much of what we want Mediums for in the first place. All it's lacking is TAG.
EDIT: Also, in a similar vein to this topic... I wonder what Clan Lights we have. I found the Crimson Hawk and Koshi non-Omni. The Crimson Hawk is nice, especially Crimson Hawk 4 and Standard. Koshi is not terrible, but I don't like its emphasis on close combat and its reduced jump jet capacity... would expect max JJs on what is clearly a scout.
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I started today with one (well, technically two, of different Regiments) Lance of Marik Militia. After assembling all of the tanks I got from IWM today and adding another Lance of 'Mechs I had unassigned, I now have a battalion.
Welp.
On the huge plus side, this means that once I get all my stuff painted (or at least basecoat/secondary colored) I'll have a full Regiment of League units.
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Pictures or it never happened.
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Also, can we take a sec to talk about how nice the Shadow Hawk IIC 8 is? Yes, the twin Heavy Medium Lasers are stupid but even they have a use in hitting slower targets. They're the only thing deeply wrong with a unit that is otherwise decent at long range (not great, but decent), can fight infantry effectively, is incredible mobile, and reasonably well armored for its size plus has ECM. This thing would make a fine general-purpose medium to cover much of what we want Mediums for in the first place. All it's lacking is TAG.
Ah, so you've discovered the Shadow Hawk IIC 8...good. Gooood. [/Palpatine]
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I have. It took me a second glance to realize it was 6/9/9, which significantly improved it in my eyes; I thought it was 6/9/6.
The extra three jump hexes put this thing solidly into the 'special purposes' end of the 'general purpose Medium Mech' role, competing with the more 'general fighting' take on this idea presented by the Black Hawk 2.
That is, the Shadow Hawk IIC 8 is not as good at fighting Mechs and Tanks as the Black Hawk 2... but it is still decent at that job, and is downright good at others; there aren't many things that can catch a Jump 9 unit. It can fight infantry. It can punch above its weight against slow moving targets where the Heavy Lasers aren't AS big a downside. It has ECM. These are all incredible things to have on a single machine, leaving you free to devote the rest of your BV solving whatever other problems you need to.
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Pictures or it never happened.
Click, because it's a phone picture and therefore huge. (http://i.imgur.com/2oteEQh.jpg)
Pictured: (Far left) IX Hastati Sentinels Lance, Davion Assault Guards Lance, Lyran Guards Lance
(Bottom left)generic winter camo League company
(Left of foam, top) 1st Oriente Hussars company
(Left of foam, bottom) 30th Regulan Hussars company with partial Aero Squadron (other fighters owned, not assembled)
(Foam, left tray) Marik Militia, two companies vehicles. Above: Two Lances 'Mechs. Not pictured: platoon of Achilleus battle armor
(Foam, right tray) 1st Covenant Guards company (reinforced) with Aero Squadron
(Right of foam, top) 2nd Free Worlds Guards company
(Right of foam, bottom) Zeta Galaxy Jade Falcon Trinary (other 'Mechs owned, assembled, not pictured)
(Far right) Raven Alliance Star, quartet of Heavy Hover APCs, generic unmarked Lance of FWL grade low end Mediums.
Not pictured: Steel Guards company.
Total: 9 full companies (Winter, Oriente, Regulan, Covenant, Free Worlds, 3x Marik Militia, Steel), 2 full Aero squadrons (Regulan, Covenant), 1 Lance unassigned.
Additionally not pictured: 1st Sword of Light, three companies.
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That looks Photoshopped.
...Kidding.
Tha's a lot of purple, man. Good job.
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Yes, it is quite impressive. I applaud you.
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Think you could show us the Steel Guard sometime, too?
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When they're assembled, sure! I just got in a bunch of them yesterday, and half are still in blisters.
Fair warning: The Steel Guard is my cheat unit. I picked whatever the heck I wanted and stuffed it in, so it's not going to be horribly representative of a FWL unit.
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I'm starting to suspect the Havoc outperforms all of our clantech lights in 3150. Can someone prove me wrong on this? Because it seems to be just as good at recon as the Koshi while fighting a whole lot better, and it's much faster than the Crimson Hawk. Those seem to be the only clantech lights we even have at this time.
I'm wrong, we also get the Jackalope per our RAT in FM 3145.
EDIT: And wow is it a good Mech. That looks really fun to play.
EDIT 2: Question is, which variants of it do we get?
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This week in "winning with what we got," here's a garbage company i cobbled together as part of a broader "Operation: Paint My Shit"
these weird formations I'm ending up with probably reflect the haphazard procurement of the Civil War and Jihad eras.
XXth Marik Militia, ca. 3070
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T-IT-N11M Grand Titan 100 1817 3058
SRC-5C Sirocco 95 2107 3060
EMP-6A Emperor 90 1969 2612
AWS-9Q Awesome 80 1875 3057
MR-5M Cerberus 95 2057 3055
MAD-9M Marauder 75 1704 3068
TDR-9M Thunderbolt 65 1648 3067
HBK-6N Hunchback 50 1130 3059
HRC-LS-9000 Hercules 70 1561 3054
OTL-5M Ostsol 60 1245 3050
WVR-7M Wolverine 55 1673 3050
ZPH-1A Tarantula 25 666 3054
Company Tonnage: 860
Company BV: 19,452
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Earlier, Martian claimed the TMP-4M would be an inferior copy of the TDR-10M. I, in turn, claimed the TMP-3M is obsolete and the TDR-10M and TMP-4M (based on our current knowledge of it) are massively important upgrades that will each have their own value.
So I decided to run some math to find out what these machines really do. For my tests, I used the following:
- TMP-3G instead of TMP-3M. This reduces the close range damage by an average of 2, but I felt the extra Gauss ammo was too good an upgrade to pass up.
- BTH calculations presume no terrain, +4 gunner, testing unit is Running (+2), opponent is moving 4/6 or 5/8 to post an average +2 movement modifier.
- Damage calculations presume all weapons hit (you can factor in the BTH numbers to see how realistic this is), and that Overheat higher than 2 is undesireable so the weapon grouping can be repeatedly used. I presume missiles do their average number of hits (3 for the MML-5 and SRM-4). I denote how much damage of each type is dealt since variant armor is now seeing use on mass production machines. It's not common yet, but it is there and it will matter sooner or later.
- Durability Notes are somewhat opinion-driven, as the hard math on just how durable they are over the long run is beyond my means to reasonably gather. To reduce the likelihood of ammo explosions, I presume Tandem Charge Missiles are used where possible in order to halve the onboard explosive ammo.
With that said...
TMP-3G Tempest (1x Gauss w/24 shots, 1x Large Pulse, 3x Medium Laser, 1x SRM-4 w/12 Tandem Charge shots). Range 9 and closer weaponry is 1x Gauss, 1x Large Pulse, 2x Medium Laser, 1x SRM-4 with 0 Overheat.
Range 23+: 0 damage
Range 16-22: 15 damage (15 ballistic, BTH 12)
Range 11-15: 15 Damage (15 ballistic, BTH 10)
Range 10: 24 damage (15 ballistic, 9 energy. BTH 10)
Range 09: 40 damage (15 ballistic, 6 Tandem Charge missile, 19 energy. BTH 10 Gauss and LPL, BTH 12 SRMs and ML)
Range 07: 40 damage (15 ballistic, 6 Tandem Charge missile, 19 energy. BTH 8 Gauss, BTH 8 LPL, BTH 12 SRMs and ML)
Range 06: 40 damage (15 ballistic, 6 Tandem Charge missile, 19 energy. BTH 8 Gauss, BTH 8 LPL, BTH 10 SRMs and ML)
Range 04: 40 damage (15 ballistic, 6 Tandem Charge missile, 19 energy. BTH 8 Gauss, BTH 8 LPL, BTH 10 SRMs and ML)
Range 03: 40 damage (15 ballistic, 6 Tandem Charge missile, 19 energy. BTH 8 Gauss, BTH 6 LPL, BTH 8 SRMs and ML)
Range 02: 40 damage (15 ballistic, 6 Tandem Charge missile, 19 energy. BTH 9 Gauss, BTH 6 LPL, BTH 8 SRMs and ML)
Range 01: 52 damage (12 kick, 15 ballistic, 6 Tandem Charge missile, 19 energy. BTH 10 Gauss, BTH 6 LPL, BTH 8 SRMs and ML.)
Durability: 200 armor, XL Engine, no CASE (Matters: SRM ammo can explode. Gauss can explode but isn't guaranteed death like the SRM ammo is.). 18 armor on the arms, where the main guns reside (will go internal on any two 10-point hits such as PPCs).
TDR-10M Thunderbolt (1x Heavy PPC, 1x Snub PPC, 1x Light PPC, 1x ER Medium Laser, 1x MML-5 w/24 LRM and 12 Tandem Charge shots).
Range 22+: 0 Damage
Range 19-21: 3 Damage (3 missile, BTH 12 MML-5)
Range 13-18: 23 damage (20 energy, 3 missile. BTH 12 HPPC, LPPC, MML-5)
Range 10-12: 23 damage (20 energy, 3 missile. BTH 10 HPPC, LPPC, MML-5)
Range 07-09: 25 damage (25 energy. BTH 8 SnubPPC, BTH 10 HPPC. Overheat 1)
Range 05-06: 25 damage (25 energy. BTH 8 SnubPPC, BTH 8 HPPC. Overheat 1).
(Note: Overheat 0 grouping of HPPC, LPPC, MML-5 can replace the above 25 damage brackets to cool down as 25 heat produced vs 26 dissipation. Averages 23 damage with similar BTHs.)
Range 04: 25 damage (25 energy. BTH 8 SnubPPC, BTH 8 HPPC. Overheat 1).
Alternate Range 04: 26 damage (20 energy, 6 Tandem Charge missile. BTH 8 SnubPPC, LPPC, ERML, BTH 10 MML-5 in SRM mode)
Range 03: 26 damage (20 energy, 6 Tandem Charge missile. BTH 8 SnubPPC, MML-5 in SRM mode, ERML, BTH 9 LPPC)
Range 02: 26 damage (20 energy, 6 Tandem Charge missile. BTH 8 SnubPPC, MML-5 in SRM mode, ERML, BTH 10 LPPC)
Range 01: 38 damage (12 Kick or 2x 6 Punch, 20 energy, 6 Tandem Charge missile. BTH 8 SnubPPC, MML-5 in SRM mode, ERML, BTH 11 LPPC)
Durability: 208 armor, no notable flaws in distribution. Light Engine, can continue to put up a reasonable fight with side torso loss. No CASE (Matters: You have 36 shots to burn through and it won't survive an ammo boom. However, the ammo is tightly crit-packed).
TMP-4M Tempest Presumed Build (1x Gauss w/16 shots, 1x Snub PPC, 3x Medium Laser)
(NOTE: This unit is, based on current known data, 1 ton overweight. The corrections necessary to make it a legal unit do not significantly skew this data, so I am running the test anyway despite the lack of the true record sheet)
Range 23+: 0 damage
Range 16-22: 15 damage (15 ballistic, BTH 12)
Range 14-15: 20 damage (15 ballistic, 5 energy. BTH 10 Gauss, BTH 12 SnubPPC)
Range 10-13: 23 damage (15 ballistic, 8 energy. BTH 10 Gauss and SnubPPC)
Range 08-09: 40 damage (15 ballistic, 25 energy. BTH 8 SnubPPC, BTH 10 Gauss, BTH 12 ML)
Range 07: 40 damage (15 ballistic, 25 energy. BTH 8 SnubPPC and Gauss, BTH 12 ML)
Range 04-06: 40 damage (15 ballistic, 25 energy. BTH 8 SnubPPC and Gauss, BTH 10 ML)
Range 03: 40 damage (15 ballistic, 25 energy. All BTH 8)
Range 02: 40 damage (15 ballistic, 25 energy. BTH 8 SnubPPC and ML, BTH 9 Gauss)
Range 01: 52 damage (12 Kick, 15 ballistic, 25 energy. BTH 8 SnubPPC and ML, BTH 10 Gauss)
Durability: Presuming the armor is unchanged, which means only 18 armor over the main guns. No CASE, but it might survive an ammo boom since the only thing that CAN boom is the Gauss Rifle itself.
So, what kind of conclusions can we reach from this?
EDIT: Corrected errors on the TMP-3G's table.
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Not to knock your obvious passion on the subject and diligence in testing, but those results lead me to the inescapable conclusion that I really don't care how a unit performs on paper. If it 'feels' good or looks good, it has a place at my table.
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Harsh.
If others feel the same way, I'll be glad to avoid 'hard data' posts from this point forward. Just let me know.
EDIT: We talked it out. Text-lacks-tone issue here, Scotty didn't mean it quite like that, and I intend to be careful about delving too far into hard math because after a certain point you reach an area where the data does not matter unless you plan to play a spread of 1000+ identical games. The math helps, but there's a breaking point.
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I like 'em, FWIW. Even though I do tend to approach unit choice somewhat holistically, hard data like the kind you put together can be valuable toward that end.
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TMP-4M is better at skirmishing, TDR-10M is better at sniping.
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That's apt, but I realized a few more things while running these numbers and doing test fights.
I previously claimed the TMP-3M/-3G was 'obsolete' because speed is increasing and enemies are increasingly able to keep at 4+ hexes against it, which hurts its accuracy significantly. ...Funny thing though, those same units capable of exploiting the TMP-3*'s lack of range are fast enough to slip inside the TDR-10M's minimum ranges... so you basically wind up having the same problem!
This suggests to me that the TMP-3* and TDR-10M are actually better working together, because then enemies have to pick their poison. Wander into range of multiple MLs and Tandem Charge SRMs, or keep at distance and risk headcappers? Technically speaking, the math says you're slightly better off just keeping your distance... but 'the math' versus "I could eat 15 to the cockpit at any time" is liable to bug your opponent something fierce.
It has also made me even more excited for the TMP-4M. If the real thing is even close to the Presumed Build (and I must be off SOMEWHERE, I'm 1 ton overweight if I go by just the currently known specs so I dropped a heatsink to make it work)... then you wind up with a unit that solves both of their problems, but loses Tandem Charge capability and anti-bug use through the Large Pulse.
So I have to retract my statement that the TMP-3* is 'obsolete.' It is not. It has an inversion of the TDR-10M's problem. It's admittedly slightly easier to exploit the TMP's weakness, but not that much so.
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I'm constantly surprised by how few people seem to be able to eyeball a mech and figure out how it works and what it will do well. IMO nothing helps more than playing the game a lot for getting a feel for units, not just the ones you use but units in general. Calculations are mainly useful for balancing confirmation bias.
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I'm constantly surprised by how few people seem to be able to eyeball a mech and figure out how it works and what it will do well. IMO nothing helps more than playing the game a lot for getting a feel for units, not just the ones you use but units in general. Calculations are mainly useful for balancing confirmation bias.
In this case, the calculations helped me overcome a bias informed by a string of bad games with the TMP-3M. Turns out I was just having an unusual run of lousy luck with the machine, and likewise unusually good luck with the TDR-10M. Running hard numbers helped me realize the incidents that soured me on the TMP-3M would have wrecked the TDR-10M just as badly because the opponents would have exploited the minimum range issue most of its weapons have.
Of course I can look at it and get a general idea. Getting specifics helps confront the bias you speak of, though.
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How much does the League, old or Neo, use Cyclops? I have three from the Intro Box & Lance packs, which is four more than I like for that design. One is going to be dressed in white for ComStar/Blake, but for the other 2 . . . I have to find somewhere to put them.
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I imagine it's just as common in the League as anywhere else that isn't Kurita or Marian space. Not common, but not rare. Throwing one into a FWLM force isn't going to bat any eyes.
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Most of the Cyclops variants (not all, but most) show up on our MUL somewhere or another. It's entirely normal to see one fielded. They may be somewhat rare units, but their distribution is fairly widespread for the ones that do exist.
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Yeah, its just always been rather blah to me and I have never played a game where any C&C benefits came into play.
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Yeah, its just always been rather blah to me and I have never played a game where any C&C benefits came into play.
The standard armor spread is problematic. Ten tons on an assault is pretty abysmal. Especially since the -10-Q encourages close-quarters combat with the AC/20. The -10-Z has armor to burn, but is basically armed like a whitworth. My preferred variant is the -11-G (though I'm never overjoyed to run one). The -11-C2 is apparently the only double C3 Master chassis available to the FWL (assuming you actually want to try to build an FWL C3 company :)))
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Eh, the Sunder has a double master config . . .
But yeah, the armor never matched the weapons profiles. Did a LGR ever get slapped on one? As a command mech it IMO makes sense for ELRMs and a LGR.
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Eh, the Sunder has a double master config . . .
which is available to every house except the fwl
http://masterunitlist.info/Unit/Details/3126/sunder-sd1-ob
conspiracy, i tell you.
But yeah, the armor never matched the weapons profiles. Did a LGR ever get slapped on one? As a command mech it IMO makes sense for ELRMs and a LGR.
nope. the LCCC's LGR mafia didn't get to the cyclops.
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You don't need a double master to run a full sized network.... the type 1 configuration has 4 seperate C3M units. There are plenty of those that are IS General on availability. The C3M Skulker is a fun one :D
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Yeah, its just always been rather blah to me and I have never played a game where any C&C benefits came into play.
Try running a swarm of fast movers sometime, with a single CP-11-A-DC riding herd on them from behind cover. Lemme know how that +2 Initiative bonus helps their performance. O0
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I do not doubt that, but I have never played with such conditions in effect.
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Did a LGR ever get slapped on one? As a command mech it IMO makes sense for ELRMs and a LGR.
You know, if the current official Mech designers hadn't finally quit the 'slap a LGR on it, point and laugh at the FWL players and call it a day' routine, I'd be half tempted to make them sign a pledge stating that from here on, any LGR Mechs will have at least two tons of ammo for the friggin' thing. 32 shots of extreme range plinking would actually fit really well for a command unit.
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Not to knock your obvious passion on the subject and diligence in testing, but those results lead me to the inescapable conclusion that I really don't care how a unit performs on paper. If it 'feels' good or looks good, it has a place at my table.
This, totally this. O0
Kudos to you, brother! O0
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nope. the LCCC's LGR mafia didn't get to the cyclops.
Imperator Automatic Weaponry was apparently too busy buying off designers making new 'Mechs to worry about the folks making refits.
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The more time I spend playing around with Tandem Charge SRMs, the more I am coming to really like them. They made the TDR-10M so much better. Do you want to walk into close combat with a unit packing 10 rounds of TACs? Sure, they're -2 on the roll... but that's still pretty scary stuff. You either risk TACs or risk the headcapper.
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The more time I spend playing around with Tandem Charge SRMs, the more I am coming to really like them. They made the TDR-10M so much better. Do you want to walk into close combat with a unit packing 10 rounds of TACs? Sure, they're -2 on the roll... but that's still pretty scary stuff. You either risk TACs or risk the headcapper.
I don't remember, do you normally play with floaters?
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The more time I spend playing around with Tandem Charge SRMs, the more I am coming to really like them. They made the TDR-10M so much better. Do you want to walk into close combat with a unit packing 10 rounds of TACs? Sure, they're -2 on the roll... but that's still pretty scary stuff. You either risk TACs or risk the headcapper.
Tandem Charge SRMS are ridiculous and are one of the few things to be fully banned from my games.
The large ammo/ton ratio for SRM racks makes the half-ammo thing a more of a boon than a hassle in most pick-up games, and their crit chance is positively huge when you think about the number of missiles that you can throw around. Use them with MML-boats (that are always underpriced in BV anyway) and you'll quickly get a game-breaking unit. They basically make anything with a large number of explosive crits obsolete, which in turn encourages laserboat-only games.
I really feel like they should check for crits like Lances do or *at least* like AP AC/2 rounds...at least then they'd be more reasonable. As it stands, though, there's almost no reason not to take them.
Oh, and without floating crits? They're even better. Basically a guaranteed engine or gyro hit with every twin SRM-6 volley. Completely broken.
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While my group hasn't banned T-Cs, we do treat them the same way we do T-Augs, Swarms, and other ammo types that can greatly slow down play: You can take it, but only one ton in your entire force. That way such rounds are still an option, but things stay relatively civilized. I usually forget they exist entirely when building a force, so have little experience with them. Should try to keep them in mind when one of my units finds itself with a random SRM-2.
About the only thing we've flat-out banned is cluster artillery ammo. Arrow IV is still the most prevalent arty piece in our games, and on that weapon, there is no drawback at all to balance out cluster rounds.
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Kojak: I play by whatever the default rules on those are on any given venue.
As for the rest of remarks... yes, I suppose it is tremendously powerful. Possibly too much so. It's not hard to see why groups might object to these things, as the counters to them are still pretty limited.
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If they were a -4 on the crit (that is to say, you get one crit on a 12 and otherwise nothing. Maybe -3), they'd be both balanced and useful.
GreekFire: 'Floating Crits' only changes the hit locations table to say "Reroll Location (Critical)". Tandem-Charge munitions check for crit where they land, regardless of what location that is. They do not all automatically crit the torso region if you're not using Floating Crits.
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GreekFire: 'Floating Crits' only changes the hit locations table to say "Reroll Location (Critical)". Tandem-Charge munitions check for crit where they land, regardless of what location that is. They do not all automatically crit the torso region if you're not using Floating Crits.
Dunno how I got *that* mixed up, sheesh.
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I would like to note that designing a custom config for the Mad Cat Mk IV is an incredibly satisfying mental exercise. It has tons of pod space, but the engine's high heat generation and very limited crit slots makes this a very real challenge.
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Looks like IWM accidentally shipped me a Black Hawk (Nova) torso instead of a Ghost torso. I was going to wait until I had my Steel Guards company all assembled and in front of me, but that combined with the lack of current Calliope model means I'll just list them here and get around to the picture later.
Assault/Fire/Battle Lance
Battlemaster BLR-4S Brawler 44
Highlander HGN-732 Sniper 50
Carronade CRN-7M Sniper 36
Longbow LGB-12C Missile Boat 52
Total: 182
Striker/Pursuit Lance
Mad Cat III 4 Skirmisher 41
Ghost GST-11 Sniper 36
Uziel UZL-8S Striker 33
Wraith TR1 Skirmisher 30
Total: 140
Battle/Striker Lance
Osprey OSP-26 Skirmisher 38
Black-Hawk KU BHKU-O Skirmisher 42
Calliope CAL-1MAF Brawler 23
Black Knight BLK-NT-3A Brawler 37
Total: 140
EDIT: It looks like, as of not long ago, there is a Calliope mini available from Aries, if not direct from IWM. I'll be rectifying this lack momentarily.
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Realization: The Thang-ta should not be used as an Armored Personnel Carrier, but instead as an Armored-Personnel Carrier. Use it to carry Longinus-Mag squads rapidly across a battlefield without slowing down your actual combat elements, then use those lasers in hit-and-fade strikes against enemy battlesuit squads, or backstabs of opportunity. It's fast, and tough enough to survive the occasional mistake, and cheap enough that you're not really detracting from your force's proper combat arm.
If you must use that internal bay, put a scout/sniper team in there, and you can drop them off where convenient for spotting duties.
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Are there any rules for separating Battle Armor squads? That might make the 1 ton bay helpful.
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None to my knowledge. Your best bet on that end might be to instead look to the advanced BA weight rules in TacOps, and look for a PA(L) design you can get some use out of. At 0.25 tons per suit, you can cram a full squad in there.
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Bad news: PA(L)s are 400 kg. You can only fit two.
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Sounds like it's time to make those punks go on a diet.
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So I got to playing around a bit with the Hatchetman -6M. That in turn lead me into playing with the other Heavy PPC mediums in the League arsenal...and hell, we have a lot of them. I mean, we have the:
-Centurion -Ar
-Cicada -3P
-Hatchetman -6M
-Hermes II -5Sr
-Sarath -1O
-Scorpion -10M
-Wolverine -9M
I gotta say, some of them have been working pretty great so far. Anyone want to share their experiences with any of the bunch?
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I've used the Cicada 3P and Wolverine 9M a bunch of times. They're both pretty fantastic: the former is nice to dole out in pairs or lance-sized chunks and then go all circle-of-death on slow heavies or assaults, and the latter is a great mid-range brawler/trooper that will stiffen the spine of your medium/heavy cav lances.
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That's an interesting list, and most of them range from decent to good.
The Centurion will draw a LOT of fire due to its low speed and armor combined with massive firepower. A lack of CASE is a serious issue; you should consider ditching one or both tons of LRM ammo. It is not a good Mech but it is not bad either, and has its place in our formations.
Hatchetman 6M is okay. It has the same issues the Centurion does, made simultaneously better and worse due to the lack of ammo but the use of an XL engine at the same time.
Hermes 5Sr is fantastic. Its only serious flaw is a lack of non-energy weapons, and variant armor isn't common enough yet for that to be a deal-breaker. It is otherwise reasonably durable, mobile, has ECM, and 'tool weapons' to solve various problems for you; the flamer and pulse laser are both nice to have. This is easily one of our best Mediums and should be used often.
The Sarath of course is excellent, and its BV reflects this. Mobile, well armored, and easily able to make use of its heavy firepower. Anyone wishing to close with it is in for a bad day due to Spiked TSM Kicks.
Scorpion 10M is a more extreme version of the Hermes. It doesn't bother with any special tricks, just high speed plus a big gun. I like it.
Wolverine 9M isn't bad, but my experiences suggest it is worse than the WVR-7M. Its weapon ranges do not match up well, and it struggles in close combat. The WVR-7M does not have a headcapper, but it still does good damage at long range and is significantly better at close-up fighting.
CDA-3P is an obvious winner, and about as optimized as you're going to get with this basic idea and chassis. Its lack of anything besides energy weapons is a theoretical flaw, but... again, variant armor isn't common enough yet to make this a huge problem. It might become one in time, but for now this is a fine machine.
Most of these are viable additions to the FWL and we should be making use of them.
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That reminds me, I need to grab my Scorpion-10M off my porch, now that the kitbash is done and it's been primed. When finished, I'm planning to run it as the command ride over three peeper Cicadas.
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Question how exactly are FWL tank units organized?
The book says that heavy tank units have 60-80 tanks (as well as 20-30 supporting and transport units), where as light tank units have 100 to 120 vehicles.
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Define: the book.
If you mean the House Marik sourcebook from nearly 30 years ago; abandon hope and try to figure it out yourself.
If you mean "by the book", 4 tanks to a Lance/Platoon, 3 Lances/Platoons to a Company, 3 Companies to a Battalion, 3 Battalions to a Regiment. The old sourcebook mentions that light vehicles are organized 6 to a Platoon, so you could use that as an alternative. It helps with fielding League armored infantry formations (with our five Squads to a Platoon), but I really doubt it's a necessary force building trait.
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Question how exactly are FWL tank units organized?
The book says that heavy tank units have 60-80 tanks (as well as 20-30 supporting and transport units), where as light tank units have 100 to 120 vehicles.
Marik light armor lances are six vehicles strong instead of four, which is where the inflation comes in. Six per lance and three lances per company makes eighteen per company; three such companies gives a battalion strength of 54. However, they're mostly two battalions per regiments, giving a 108 tank baseline. That "up to 120" indicates that some companies have extra lances, or else suggests the occasional existence of battalion or regimental command lances.
Heavy armor formations on the other hand keep the standard organization but remain short a battalion. Again, the minimum of 80 tanks per regiment suggests the use of command lances somewhere in the organization, or else you're stuck at 72.
All that being said, the variety in numbers and formation sizes given in FM:FWL -- coupled with the accompanying text -- suggests that there may be no single standard organization for armor units. If so, this may be a holdover from the Federal/Provincial divide where everyone organized however they damn well pleased and at the time of the FM's in-universe copyright -- 3058 -- the FWLM was still trying to kick everyone in line.
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Finally added up and apportioned out most of my battle armor units. Four companies (normal Inner Sphere companies, not traditional FWL size companies. I'd run out way too fast out of the box for that) later, I'm up to a reinforced regiment of League troops. I also have, unassigned, an additional 4-7 companies of conventional infantry (depending on whether I go League size formations for those) including foot, jump, and motorized. I prefer to model my mechanized infantry as foot platoons with dedicated transports, and don't particularly care for the Total Warfare model, so that motorized is how I'm going to be bringing field guns to the table eventually. I'd probably add them to the Marik Militia below just to keep most of my conventional forces in one block.
Two companies 1st Covenant Guards (1 mixed 'Mech/armor, 1 battle armor)
Two companies 1st Oriente Hussars (1 'Mech, 1 battle armor)
Two companies 2nd Free Worlds Guards (1 'Mech, 1 battle armor)
One company 30th Regulan Hussars ('Mech)
Four companies Marik Militia (1 'Mech, 2 armor, 1 battle armor)
One company Steel Guards ('Mech)
Up next: getting dedicated transports for the whole lot, save the Marik Militia company that already has them and one platoon of the Covenant Guards that already has them. Since the R10 miniature doesn't exist yet, that means normal Heavy APCs, and I'm looking at a minimum of 8 packs of Heavy APCs of various flavors to field these in their correct colors.
*sighs and adds to the shopping cart*
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Define: the book.
If you mean the House Marik sourcebook from nearly 30 years ago; abandon hope and try to figure it out yourself.
If you mean "by the book", 4 tanks to a Lance/Platoon, 3 Lances/Platoons to a Company, 3 Companies to a Battalion, 3 Battalions to a Regiment. The old sourcebook mentions that light vehicles are organized 6 to a Platoon, so you could use that as an alternative. It helps with fielding League armored infantry formations (with our five Squads to a Platoon), but I really doubt it's a necessary force building trait.
Field manual FWL, though the old house book mentions similar figures.
Marik light armor lances are six vehicles strong instead of four, which is where the inflation comes in. Six per lance and three lances per company makes eighteen per company; three such companies gives a battalion strength of 54. However, they're mostly two battalions per regiments, giving a 108 tank baseline. That "up to 120" indicates that some companies have extra lances, or else suggests the occasional existence of battalion or regimental command lances.
Heavy armor formations on the other hand keep the standard organization but remain short a battalion. Again, the minimum of 80 tanks per regiment suggests the use of command lances somewhere in the organization, or else you're stuck at 72.
All that being said, the variety in numbers and formation sizes given in FM:FWL -- coupled with the accompanying text -- suggests that there may be no single standard organization for armor units. If so, this may be a holdover from the Federal/Provincial divide where everyone organized however they damn well pleased and at the time of the FM's in-universe copyright -- 3058 -- the FWLM was still trying to kick everyone in line.
I had figured that they where likely using short regiments
Well I managed to find at lest one other post on this topic (http://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=38143.0;nowap)
Some say that they use 4 tank platoons, one mentions it's 5 and or 4 tanks depending on the sub faction, with light units using 6 unit platoons.
Said post mentions that domestic built heavy's are 15 strong company's, with imported heavys at 10 per company, and the battalion having various mixes. Though in most cases it seems two battalion regiments would be typical.
Which dose add a bit of flavor to the universe, as not every one will use the exact same tired old system.
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Question for the Marikian fandom that has read 1SW:
Did you catch any references to Regulan force structure in the book? Especially ranks/titles that do not originate from the Marik, Oriente, or Andurien traditions. The original SB:HM book mentioned that the Regulan ranks and force structures were stricken from the FWLM. IIRC this was done "recently" as of the in-universe date of 3025, with Regulan and Regulan satellite forces using Andurien ranks rather than their own ancestral ones.
It'd be interesting to see if we can re-construct any of those retired Regulan ranks or such, and 1SW seems like the first chance TPTB had to drop some lore on that topic.
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Snip
I believe that info is in several other books, possibly one from Jihad and one from DA? Don't have books atm.
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Is that information in FR:2765? I haven't seen it anywhere in 1SW, and honestly I don't see where it would go if it was included. 1SW is formatted much the same as a historical or at least shares the zooming-in-on-broad-strokes style. Regulan ranks and structure doesn't seem particularly pursuant to that presentation.
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I looked into the House Marik book again.
Following the treachery of the Selaj, the Regulan organizational style, by far the most structured and articulated, was almost completely eliminated from the provinces that had followed it."
So it might not have been "recently" disestablished as of 3025. Nothing seems to imply that in the book, anyway. To the contrary... syntax elsewhere in the section allows for the possibility that the Regulan organizational style was arguably already out of use before the Succession Wars even began.
So, those grognards who know their Marik history better than I do: what specific incident do you think the quoted line is referring to, if any? If that can be dated, then we can plausibly date the dis-establishment of the Regulan organizational style to roughly there-abouts.
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The Selaj family (and the Scourge of Death Terrorists they sponsored) were defeated in 2680 so i'd assume the Regulan ranks were changed around that time.
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I thought FM3085, with the revival of those ranks, or perhaps FM3145 would have the original Regulan ranks listed.
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Behold, thread revival.
I'm pondering the practical differences between the Mad Cat Mk. IV and the Mad Dog Mk. IV. Obviously both are very good, but if you could only have one in a FWL force (and we do get both, thankfully)... which one would you go with and why?
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You need to decide if you are limiting it to canon configs or just base . . .
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I'd go with the latter, personally, mostly because of the XXL engine thing with the Savage Wolf. Not that I don't also like the Savage Wolf a great deal, but I think the Mad Dog Mk IV is probably better for the FWLM overall. The fact that it's from a lineage of machines thought of primarily as LRM boats, for which the League has always had a great deal of affinity, certainly doesn't hurt either.
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Canon configs/stock configs only, to be more precise.
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Mad Dog, I think, though that might be my Ghost Bear side talking. The previous comment about the XXL engine raises a valid point, for starters.
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See, this is the interesting reaction I was looking for. My own stance has been to favor the Mad Cat Mk. IV for its higher armor (somewhat offsetting the XXL) and better long-range attacks... or more ammo for them, at least.
The Vulture Mk. IV seems equipped to fight duels, like some kind of clan vs clan machine. Its loadouts are strange to me. The one with ERPPC and Streak LRM-15s would be great if it just gave one more ton per launcher. As it is it's still good, just full of obvious missed potential. ...Hell, even one more ton BETWEEN the launchers would suffice.
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My pick is the Mad Cat Mk IV. One thing not mentioned yet is that the Mad Cat's gyro is armored, meaning that you can take a lucky TAC, or weather concentrated fire that breaches the CT and have a greater than 99% chance of not being instantly mission killed. Engine destruction may 'officially' kill 'Mechs, but a Gyro hit will take them out of the fight entirely or so severely cripple their contribution that they are suddenly a liability instead of an asset. XXL engines also give you a much easier to define disengage point. Once you lose armor on one torso, it's time to start leaving. A normal Clan XL encourages risk taking.
The C config would be my go-to pick for a general purpose config. A long range energy battery, incredibly accurate and heavy missile fire, and a short range battery that while not apocalyptic will absolutely encourage a harasser to go harass something else. The lack of minimums on the LRMs means you can keep putting accurate, heavy fire on target all the way up to point blank ranges. Ammo endurance is enough for my tastes (12 turns full rate of fire), and CASE II protects both torsos with ammo.
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Oh, no doubt there, the Mad Cat Mk IV C is the best of the stock configs if you're not sure what you'll be facing. Meaningful damage of two damage types (Missile and Energy) to deal with variant armor, a few useful pulse lasers... it's one of my favorite machines overall, and I am genuinely interested to see most of the replies so far have favored the various Vulture Mk IV configs.
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The C config would be my go-to pick for a general purpose config. A long range energy battery, incredibly accurate and heavy missile fire, and a short range battery that while not apocalyptic will absolutely encourage a harasser to go harass something else. The lack of minimums on the LRMs means you can keep putting accurate, heavy fire on target all the way up to point blank ranges. Ammo endurance is enough for my tastes (12 turns full rate of fire), and CASE II protects both torsos with ammo.
Do you mean the A config? The C has heavy lasers and a gauss rifle.
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I think he means the Mad Cat Mk IV C, which has 2x ERLL, 2x ERML, 2x MPL, and 2x LRM-15 with Artemis V.
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Do you mean the A config? The C has heavy lasers and a gauss rifle.
I think he means the Mad Cat Mk IV C, which has 2x ERLL, 2x ERML, 2x MPL, and 2x LRM-15 with Artemis V.
Bingo. I'm genuinely not terribly impressed with the Vulture Mk IV. Aside from the Mad Cat's utter dominance in the aesthetics department, the Vulture Mk IV suffers from being 15 tons lighter in the form of lower armor protection, engine heatsinks (12 versus 15), and overall reduced pod space. Its major advantage is not having an XXL Engine, but I'd honestly rather have the significantly improved firepower of the Mad Cat.
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I actually consider that a huge advantage.
...One that is just somewhat squandered on middling loadouts. 'If they just had a tad more ammo' is my response to most of them. I still think the Vulture Mk IV is a good Mech, mind you, just that it is Good when it would so easily be Fantastic.
That we're having a healthy discussion over the two chassis suggests they each have very useful points in their favor though.
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I tend to see the Mad Cat Cat mk IV as the super deluxe model and the Vulture mk IV as the bargain version. I'll agree that both have their pros and cons, and while the Cat Four is the superior design, the Vulture Mk IV definitely has its uses and shouldn't be overlooked
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I'm starting to agree.
What put it in most stark comparison for me was benchmarking it against the Thor II. My emotions keep screaming 'XXL Engine bad!'
The numbers suggest the durability difference between the two isn't that bad, though. They do about the same amount of damage, but the Mad Cat Mk. IV is able to ignore certain weapons outright and can survive an additional Gauss hit to some areas that the Thor II couldn't.
I concede that the Mad Cat Mk. IV starts RAPIDLY breaking once its armor is cracked open, but it takes enough extra time to do that, that I can't help but wonder if they're about equally durable in practice.
That said, I'm rapidly becoming of the opinion that 'clantech for everyone in modest amounts' makes the game more fun. Being able to plunk down a Mad Cat III, Black Hawk (non-Omni), Mad Cat Mk. IV, or Vulture Mk. IV... or a Mad Cat Mk. II for that matter, is really enjoyable. I hope that Clan Sea Fox continues to develop open-market-sale clan rides like these.
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The biggest worry for an XXL engine is the extra heat burden for movement that you have to keep in mind. Otherwise, it's exactly (well, 90%) like an IS XL Engine in terms of survivability. While IS XL's aren't my favorite and I avoid them when possible on things I want to live long, prosperous lives, I feel like there's a certain line to be drawn when you're paying a third of the mass the SFE costs.
The difference in engine tonnage between the Mad Cat Mk IV and Vulture Mk IV is 3.5 tons. The normal difference is 10 tons. You could argue that the Mad Cat doesn't use those tons as effectively as it's possible to do (6 out of 6.5 are spent on Ferro-Lamellor and the armored Gyro; I love armored Gyros but I'm certain some could take it or leave it), but there's absolutely a gulf of capability.
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Speaking of FerroLam Mad Cats, I wonder whatever happened to the Mad Cat III X? Did that ever successfully hit the open market?
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We have no word on its availability beyond its introduction (which is obviously limited to Clan Diamond Shark).
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Ah well. The standard model is tons of fun anyway, and a decent consolation prize for not having meaningful access to the Huntsman aside from occasional one-off salvage from the Republic of the Sphere.
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The Mad Cat III X never reached actual production. The Ferro Lam was the biggest problem, so removing it made all the difference
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I have used the Savage Wolf once, at our local con. Towards the end of the scenario time and based on its position all the Falcon and Horse forces went gunning for it (and Alaric inside). The mech took one turn of fire from everyone in range after already being damaged and was in a position to keep handing it out. Only reason it really did not stand out was a Summoner or maybe it was a Grand Summer that lost armor, limbs and useless crits before it finally went down that turn, took a ton of damage.
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I do like the mix of units we get in the dark age from the MUL, I wonder if as time goes on we'll get more from the Sea Foxes.
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It would be one of the more fun things they could do since the Sea Foxes have set up shop in FWL space.
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Thing is, the Sea Foxes are not just selling equipment they produced. They also sell products they have traded for across the Inner Sphere . . . so they may have bought a lot of surplus GDL Standard suits before the Dark Ages as part of a trade, and they would sell those to whoever wants them.
I would also imagine the Foxes post-Blackout have a good trade as messengers and secure transporters.
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On the other end of the spectrum...what kind of stuff does the FWL have for an Age of War era army? I know of several units, but want to make sure I'm not missing anything.
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Icarus and Hector mostly, I think. There's not a lot of variety in those days at all.
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There's more than that, such as Mackie clones, primitive Longbows and Dervishes, and I think Wasps. I was actually referring to conventional stuff though. I finally picked up some good proxies for the Estevez, and was wondering what there was aside from those and the occasional Augustus.
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Would the primitive/RetroTech Mechs produced during the Jihad have been converted into standard tech machines by time Dark Age begun in 3132?
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Thing is, the Sea Foxes are not just selling equipment they produced. They also sell products they have traded for across the Inner Sphere . . . so they may have bought a lot of surplus GDL Standard suits before the Dark Ages as part of a trade, and they would sell those to whoever wants them.
I would also imagine the Foxes post-Blackout have a good trade as messengers and secure transporters.
And if it's Sea Foxes selling them, with GD Standard suits comes the possibility for "Surat" suits as well.
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ugh, it was a example! Not saying they sell them specifically.
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Looking through the relevant books, it looks like in the Age of War, we got the Estevez/Kestrel and Augustus MBTs, primitive Weapons Carriers, Strike Falcon VTOL, Randolph support vehicle, Stoat Scout Car, Vendetta conventional fighter, and towards the end of the AoW, the Tiger Medium Tank and Gallant Urban Assault Vehicle.
Not an extremely wide selection, but certainly a viable force mix, especially when bolstered by early mechs.
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Looking through the relevant books, it looks like in the Age of War, we got the Estevez/Kestrel and Augustus MBTs, primitive Weapons Carriers, Strike Falcon VTOL, Randolph support vehicle, Stoat Scout Car, Vendetta conventional fighter, and towards the end of the AoW, the Tiger Medium Tank and Gallant Urban Assault Vehicle.
Not an extremely wide selection, but certainly a viable force mix, especially when bolstered by early mechs.
Don't forget the FWL's Tigershrike hover tank (not statted, but used in the BattleCorps story "Goliath out of the Box" - implied to be fairly slow, since a company of Capellan Suvorov tanks sacrificed themselves in a rear guard action to allow it to get away from a pursuing Mackie)
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If they're not statted, it's kinda hard to use them in games, and building gaming forces was my reason for bringing this up.
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Anyone get much use out of the Buccaneer? I've had one forever and recently got a second in a trade, and have been looking more closely at it. The C3i versions are understandably extinct now, but apparently the original model still sees use even by Regulus into the Republic era, and we know how they feel about anything even remotely Blakist.
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I've never run one, to be honest. Most things the Blakist touch I stayed away from.
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Used one once or twice as a Blakist . . . its a line mech though I wish it did not have Art4 on the SRM launcher. I suppose it also depends on how you feel about Hatchets.
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Anyone get much use out of the Buccaneer? (snip) but apparently the original model still sees use even by Regulus into the Republic era, and we know how they feel about anything even remotely Blakist.
The BCN-3R is secretly good, though it does suffer from a few things. I'll discuss the bad parts first, then get to what it does well despite that.
Use of 1x ERLL as its sole long range weapon is a problem. The ERLL is not a bad weapon, but a Mech this size should not be using it as the only gun it can poke with at a distance. Should have been an ERPPC. The loss of range makes it a little hard to take safe shots while figuring out how you're going to approach for close-combat, and the extra 2 damage would have been a big help in preliminary hole-punching.
Unnecessary Use of Artemis IV. Should have gone into an extra heatsink, or as part of a weight-saving effort to get the ERPPC in.
So, despite these failings... it actually does very well for the following reasons:
Excellent Leg Armor for its size. It can eat a Gauss and a 10-pointer hit to either leg without truly going internal. I consider this very, very important for a close combat unit; it needs to be able to survive a lucky major hit to the legs during its approach. The BCN-3R can do that.
Acceptable Speed. 5/8 is the bare minimum I will tolerate for this kind of weapon loadout in 3055+. 6/9 is better. Easily fast enough to get in range once you figure out the safest route to go.
It brings the pain. This thing takes the basic idea of the Commando, but gives it enough guns to make the premise actually work. Assuming all guns hit and you get an average missile-table result, it does 34 damage up close. That is genuinely acceptable for a unit of its era and technology type. While it might slightly lag behind some more contemporary peers, it's not bad at all. Throw in the... what is it, a 11 or 12 point Hatchet, and suddenly you're posting around 45 potential damage. More realistically, assume only half this stuff hits and you get around 16-24 gun based damage plus the possible 11-12 axe.
Compare this to its direct peers, the Anvil 3R, Quasimodo, and Bloodhound B2-HND.
The Anvil will get around 18-23 gun based damage, and 6x2 (or 12x1) melee damage. The Anvil however is slower and has no meaningful ranged weapon. So the Buccaneer is more flexible in how it pursues this job, even if the Anvil is notably tougher and threatens cockpit punches. The Quasimodo is MUCH harder to use because you're juggling its TSM and unusual weapon placements all the time, to the point where it's really hard for me to offer math comparisons on how it fights (even as I concede the QSM is a fairly good machine). The Bloodhound... well, it's notably faster, but does less damage, around 17-25ish with guns, plus around a 9 or 10 point kick.
The BV totals on all of them are roughly equal to one another, so they all fit a force about as well as each other.
I like the Buccaneer and am glad we have it. It is the 'heavy damage' option of the choices I just listed, which gives it a niche all its own. The Quasimodo is its direct competitor and has some advantages the BCN doesn't... but the BCN is FAR easier to use, and has access to a non-energy damage type; I find this useful against variant armor.
Try one out sometime. Just be patient; it should not be the first one to make brawling-range contact with the enemy, let it skirt around the edge of the fight for a turn or two and THEN move in to exploit what the hole-punchers did. Or let it be a mid-field screener, not eager to close right away but acting as a modest deterrent to any immediate charge against your Archers, Awesomes, etc.
You'll be pleased by how well it does for its BV.
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The 3R is a pretty nice design, and a battery of medium lasers can really make up for some of the quirkiness. It could be improved, sure, but it gets the job done.
Though it did start the long line of the WoB not putting TSM on melee 'Mechs.
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While I agree in general terms to everything that has been said I will note that a 55 ton XL powered 'mech can't really take much attention from assault 'mechs and frankly this thing is brutal enough in-close that it might get some if the fight involves mixed company. I'd be a bit weary of using it in a company or higher level force without a plan. Its possible work into a force but its not really plug and play like some other 'mechs. In duels or lances however its great, don't hold back.
Its essentially a big striker, and a good one.
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Can anyone tell me which worlds make up the Silver Hawks?
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It's a random clustering of worlds on the Lyran border between, say, Marik and Skype Province. Without a map in front of me, I think it's Kalidasa, Dieudonne, Shiloh, Rochelle, Amity.... but I'm not certain.
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The worlds of the Silver Hawks Coalition, in alphabetical order: Alkes, Amity, Bondurant, Concord, Danais, Kalidasa, and New Hope.
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This is an entirely different topic, but I'm starting to think the Juliano may be A> Our best overall assault, and B> A few hundred points under-BVed. It does astonishing amounts of damage up close, is at least passable at long range, and has the speed to actually use its weaponry.
In many ways, I feel it replaces the Grand Titan N10M and N11M. Those two designs just don't have the weapons range to make this combat style work, but the Juliano does. Doing a theoretical 'safe overheat maximum' of 63 damage out to a somewhat plausible 8 hexes is way better than about 48 (or less in the N10M's case) out to about 4-6 hexes. Or even if you strip the Juliano down to the JLN-5B config to keep the tech equal, you still get about 47 average plausible damage out to higher ranges.
If the Mad Cat Mk. IV didn't exist, this would probably be my favorite machine in general. As it is, it's earning an easy and comfortable 2nd Place in my book. I've had it put up viable fights against clan assaults, and occasionally (not often, but enough times to be noted) win. I would actually go as far as to say it is an outright better machine than our Marauder IIs.
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The Juliano is one of the finest Assault 'Mechs in the entire Sphere, full stop.
When the Sea Fox Clan XL edition hits, it may very well become the best, period.
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The Juliano is one of the finest Assault 'Mechs in the entire Sphere, full stop.
When the Sea Fox Clan XL edition hits, it may very well become the best, period.
Normally, I'm not a fan of opinions being stated as unequivocal facts, but in this case. . . yeah, I'm willing to make an exception. It's simply an exceptional machine.
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The Juliano is one of the finest Assault 'Mechs in the entire Sphere, full stop.
When the Sea Fox Clan XL edition hits, it may very well become the best, period.
Wait, they're doing one? I thought the 'clan refit' was just a conversion to full clan spec weaponry while keeping the chassis/engine/etc. the same?
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I am, perhaps, assuming a little bit. It's pretty much the only way to keep improving on the design barring a revolution in weaponry.
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Implying that something that can occasionally (not often, but often enough to matter) win duels with clan assaults 'needs improving.'
I mean yeah, I'd be delighted if we did get a true full-clantech Juliano. That would be amazing, and would give us a machine fully capable of regularly picking fights with Tomahawk IIs and so on. I'd love to see it.
I am however not holding out hope we'd get such a monstrosity, and am admittedly pretty happy with this machine as-is.
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It's a dream I have, to see the FWL field one of the best Assault 'Mechs in the game. :D
The other dream I have is more of a nightmare, where the all-Clan version also switches to HLLs and ATMs.
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Oooh, I'd drive that...
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I thought the implication was that the one the Sea Foxes was driving just went for cERLL over what we have published. IMO that is enough of a improvement to be worthy of discussion, especially what gets done with the 3t and 3 crits.
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The ER Medium Lasers are replaced with Clan Medium Pulse Lasers in that upgrade. Everything is already spoken for.
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Hmm, that does make the weight and keeps it crit packed . . . even with IS ERML, as long as the larges go Clan I would have still taken it.
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It's a dream I have, to see the FWL field one of the best Assault 'Mechs in the game. :D
The other dream I have is more of a nightmare, where the all-Clan version also switches to HLLs and ATMs.
I'll be in my bunk.
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Man, this thread is dead. I should just go back to Philadelph--
*Gespenst is punched by Adam Jensen mid-sentence*
Ow. Let's try that again. "Man, this thread is dead. I should talk about the Carronade to stir up some discussion."
So, I've been messing around with it some and have come to a few conclusions, some of which are obvious but others contradict the TRO writeups.
The obvious bit is it's a good Mech and an important addition to our 3150-era forces. If you're not using it, you should be. It brings a substantial mix of both ballistic and energy damage, which is nice since most people presume FWL hurls out nothing but missiles all day and might be tempted to run Reactive Armor accordingly. The anti-air and anti-tank utility is nice too, on top of crit-finding, but...
...I do not think it is a good 'duelist' machine. On its own, it comes up ever so slightly short of this. It seems to suffer the 'Tempest problem', wherein a single main gun is not quite enough for a machine of this size to properly hole-punch through the armor of an equivalently sized foe. One might think that 15 damage is enough, but when you figure you'll be hitting about 30-60% of your shots, and they'll be hitting different locations, it doesn't quite make it. On the other hand, it contributes just enough damage to get our primary hole punchers (AWS-9M, MR-5M, WHM-8D, etc.) over important thresholds, at which point the Silver Bullet Gauss works great.
So while the TRO writeup seems to imply it's a decent 1 on 1 machine, I don't agree with this assessment. Instead, it seems to be another team player in a faction full of them.
Anyone had experiences of their own with it they'd like to share?
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The Carronade is a fantastic 1 on 1 machine if you're using Called Shots. The Silver Bullet Gauss is very good at knocking out opposing pilots, with greater range than an LB-10X and greater damage in that many clusters than anything that can reach nearly as far. Knock out a pilot, and suddenly aimed shots with a gauss rifle will eat just about anything. Get to 12 hexes, and enjoy hitting on 2s or 4s with all of your weapons where 40% of all your attacks hit the same location.
Nothing, and I do mean nothing, that doesn't mount an SB Gauss, or doesn't massively outweigh or outskill the Carronade is going to beat it.
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To counter your argument I have three words, Hyper Assault Gauss.
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snip
Instead, it seems to be another team player in a faction full of them.
It's not a team player in the sense that FWLM often gets accused of having, ie. the deragatory sense. A lance of Carronades works great, IMO. "Team players" is often used for something that brings a niche capability but doesn't work as a "main" unit. I'm (next to) never looking for a duelist, I'm looking for an army (well, as long as you count four 'mechs as an army). If you want a duelist, use the WVR-7M :).
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Really, only two groups should ever see the term "team player" as an epithet: Solaris Gladiators, and Clan Warriors. For everyone else, it should be the ideal to strive for.
Warriors lose wars, soldiers win them.
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Hello. I'm interested in learning more about the FWL, sell me on it, seriously. What sub-faction is interesting, has got cool gear*, isn't always on the side of the angels but isn't always the bad guy either? Who do you like and why?
I first started with the Wolves-in-Exile thanks to Mechwarrior 2, then met the Nova Cats, and now the Ghost Bears. (I'm waiting to see if my 'luck' with Clan factions holds and I strike out with the Bears too.)
My IS state of choice is the Draconis Combine, partly because of cultural sympathy, but also because I took a turn as the 'villainous invader' against the Fed Suns and have never recovered since :D but the tagline of this thread, "winning with what we've got" has got me quite intrigued O0
*P.S. re: gear, I'm still usually playing Jihad-era matchups so 3145 need not apply. I already know about the Juliano and the Carronade :D about which I'll weigh in here - both machines are amazing, if played with this in mind: your objective is to crit the heck out of the target. Don't kvetch about not poking enough holes (though the Juliano pokes plenty), cause that should not be in mind at all.
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The Regulans have always been a favorite of mine. They do not always follow the party line but have always tried to protect the FWL as a whole.
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I am a Regulan fan as the sub-faction . . . why? Because I do not think throwing nukes is anything special in this setting, its hyped for psychological purposes- it kills you just the same as standing too close to a grenade. One other reason I like them is they seem to have the attitude of taking no feces from anyone. They hunted down Blakists and burned them out. They told Jessica to pound sand when she started trying to resurrect the FWL and staged intel operations to damage the Rim Commonality with its neighbors when it tried to consolidate for FWL reunification.
As for equipment . . . they make/field the MAD-9M2, the Warhammer 7M or 8M, the Merkava Mk IX (which needs a upgrade!), the Tufana hover . . . and import Andurien products like the excellent Moltkes, Stingrays and Deathstalkers- not sure what mechs they may get from them.
The Hindu/Sikh/Ghurka vibes for some of the units can be fun- especially if you want to play the British Raj/India. The unit I play is the 4th Regulan Hussars, which got hammered in the Jihad as part of the offensive against the Blakists on Gibson but also participated in the integration of the Fiefs into the Principality. Some of the specific worlds will be fun to use- Wallis has the plants for a lot of their military production but it had rebelled back around the turn of the century from the FWL, how does it fit in with the Principality now? Aiutaki was where the Regulan's academy had been stationed but something happened from the Jihad to the 3130s where it left the Principality and turned hostile to it- so where is the academy in the future? Clipperton was a world that had been part of the local Blakist hegemony and produced a lot of their naval resources- now it builds for the Regulans but at a much slower rate.
The Regulan forces have the traditional regiments but they do take in orphan FWL units as well as a few who turned against the Blakists when they were revealed. Those units were all reorganized to fall into the traditions of the Hussars but some of them are not as trusted as others . . . and some bled a lot to prove themselves to their peers.
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To counter your argument I have three words, Hyper Assault Gauss.
Manages exactly one hex extra of range, but a HAG-20 will average 12 damage in three clusters at that range (average one head hit every other turn). A HAG-30 manages 18 damage in four clusters (two every three turns), while a -40 gets 24 damage in five clusters (slightly less than one per turn). A Silver Bullet Gauss will average 9 damage in nine clusters at that range (three hits every two turns).
If you're Aiming High, nothing beats an SB Gauss.
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3085 FWL is when we finally became a good faction again, so I'll be glad to weigh in on this for Kidd. Sadly we don't have the Carronade and Juliano in 3085, but we still have some other good machines.
Basically, our play-style revolves around very precisely managing our range relative to the opponent. We do this through above-average speed and an unusually wide mix of weapons. Where most people are concerned with raw amounts of armor and damage output through weapons payload, we emphasize controlling who has the better odds of doing damage overall.
Our best units for this are the PXH-7K Phoenix Hawk, TDR-10M Thunderbolt, and AWS-9M Awesome. You'll notice two of those have jump jets and SnubNose PPCs. This is intentional; if you're good enough to get your mechs at range 8 or 9 versus our more conventional opponents, you'll be firing at very good base-to-hit values while they'll be firing at ones 2 higher than yours. We don't have many gauss rifles, but we have a lot of ERPPCs and most of our units are a bit faster than normal so they can fish for good chances to attack while fading away if the timing isn't right. The GRF-3M also serves well in this regard.
Up close, we have the Shockwave (which has decent weapons for ballistic, energy, and missile; useful in 3145+ era play even if it's not relevant to 3085), which is just fast enough to be able to dump a lot of damage in your face but also has enough long range attacks that it can afford to be patient and wait for a good opportunity.
After that, the Kopis battle armor team has heavy armor and two medium lasers! Getting it around is easy, as we have R10s and I think some Turfana variants can ferry it around too.
Basically, we pick where the fight happens (even more so with the adoption of ER-LRMs later on), and try to arrange our formations to take advantage of this. And that's just one aspect of it; lots of us use Semi-Guided LRMs and artillery to ruin the opponent's day even more. It takes some practice to win with FWL formations, but once you get the hang of it it is incredibly fun.
Edit, responding to nckestrel: I wasn't insulting the Carronade. When I say 'team player', I refer to the dynamic where any single FWL machine tends to be slightly undergunned, or does not have a complete weapons suite like machines in other factions do. Instead, we'll see that due to their above average speed taking away some of their firepower, everyone brings PART of the solution to the table. For example, the AWS-9M can't crit-seek and its damage output is ever so slightly below thresholds I find important. It gets close, though. A Carronade pairing up with it can keep pace, and solves both of its problems; a tad more Gauss power gets you into the right amount of damage output, and SBGauss will crit-seek.
You can see similar behavior in our Avalanche Prime and Griffin 3M. The GRF-3M can hole-punch, but struggles in close combat. An AVL-1O can follow along, fight at the same ranges it does by adding just a tad more long range power, and handle the in-fighting aspect of things with quad medium lasers. Either of these machines on their own are somewhat flawed. Putting them together fixes their shortcomings in ways that are hard for most of our peers, perhaps excepting the Klingon (Wolf) Empire, to deal with.
TDR-10M in turn combos well with ON2-M (Orion provides damage at ranges the TDR can't, and pulse lasers to fend off 'slasher' units), while the Juliano is the partner the MR-5M Cerberus was looking for all along but didn't quite get with the Grand Titan.
I don't think this was specifically intended (a lot of these synergies took 15+ years to form as new Mechs got added to our roster!), but it has emerged as one of the best ways for FWL to fight. It's one of my favorite things about how our 4/6/0 'typical minimum speed' movement curve works; we're playing a very precise game of range management and formations.
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Manages exactly one hex extra of range, but a HAG-20 will average 12 damage in three clusters at that range (average one head hit every other turn). A HAG-30 manages 18 damage in four clusters (two every three turns), while a -40 gets 24 damage in five clusters (slightly less than one per turn). A Silver Bullet Gauss will average 9 damage in nine clusters at that range (three hits every two turns).
If you're Aiming High, nothing beats an SB Gauss.
Ferro Lamellor Armor does. No damage=no pilot damage or crit chances
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Thanks for the responses. I would be interested to know what you all consider the iconic FWL Mechs. For me it is the Awesome, Orion and Hermes.
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Thanks for the responses. I would be interested to know what you all consider the iconic FWL Mechs. For me it is the Awesome, Orion and Hermes.
I'd add Hunchback and Trebuchet to that list as well
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Hermes II, Wolverine, Trebuchet, Orion, Awesome are the real flagship designs of the Succession Wars-era FWLM. There's an explosion of new 'Mechs for them in the Clan Invasion era -- TRO:3055 gave a metric ton of new hardware, most of which I really like but are not exactly as munchkin-esque as what the Steiner-Davions got -- and a few of those, I feel, are fairly iconic for the FWL. Designs like the Anvil and Wraith are pretty decent so long as you don't have a hate-on for the Spheroid large pulse laser. The problem with Marik gear kicks off in the Civil War era when FASA started pulling the main guns on all our 'Mechs for light gauss rifles. LGRs are. . . difficult to design a decent 'Mech because they're so heavy for the damage per shot. The end result is that a lot of what we got in that era was garbage; just look at our Project Phoenix 'Mechs. The Griffin (-5M, I think?) pairs an LGR with an LRM-10, which is completely incapable of inflicting a PSR on the enemy. So most of the favorite FWLM 'Mechs are going to come from the Succession Wars, the Clan Invasion, or the (post-) Jihad eras because that's when we get machines that are actually decent.
As for our personal favorite subfactions? I'm personally a Parliamentarian Federalist; I'm pro-Federal government, but I don't necessarily think the Mariks should run the nation dictatorially. I think the FWL was at its best before House Marik was able to force itself onto the government as a permanent fixture. My regiments of choice are the Marik Militias, which provide quantity and quality to the FWLM. In the post-Jihad lanscape, most of the Militia regiments had been absorbed, renamed, and parceled out as new formations by the various League mini-successor states, except for a few which devoted themselves to the defense of Marik worlds. They became the Marik Protectors, acting as a loose alliance of quasi-mercenaries who only take jobs from Marik Zone worlds, only take defensive contracts, and only charge enough to cover their expenses. It's about the closest thing to altruism I've seen in the BattleTech universe. I hope they're still around (and rejoin the FWLM formally!) once ilClan finally drops.
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The Anvil 3R deserves special note, as it is one of our very few Mechs that has speed and armor, plus close combat weapons, plus a standard engine... plus ECM. In other words, its job is to ensure the other elements of your team can move around freely; it's hard for enemies to get too aggressive in chasing down your flankers or rushing your Awesome if they'll eat twin 6 point punches and large pulse lasers for their trouble.
While starting to show its age, it remains a good machine even in 3150 play and worth learning how to use.
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I would agree with the Wolverine, Trebuchet, Orion and Awesome but add the Archer and Thunderbolt. The latter really comes into play after the Clan Invasion when they get quite a few variations- IMO its also one of the rare LGR mechs that can be worth it.
Some mechs that are chosen also depend on sub-faction. For instance I mentioned I play the 4th Regulan Hussars . . . which have a serious like for the Trebuchet over the years. Since I am not a big fan of the design it does make it more interesting to play a 4th force which should have one on the table.
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Ferro Lamellor Armor does. No damage=no pilot damage or crit chances
Can you do me a favor and look up exactly how many units a Carronade is going to face? I'm betting it's less than five. And for those, there's still a regular Gauss.
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Well . . . the Wolf Empire . . . I am not super familiar with Reactive, but how would those pellets be effected by that type as well?
As for you question . . . all I can think of for Ferro-Lam is the Savage Wolf and Mad Dog IV in the Crusader's ranks. They would also have Reactive on the Warwolf. And Hardened on any Mad Cat Mk II-E or Viking IIC they field. Lyrans can field the same things except the Warwolf . . . and there are probably more Hardened I am missing.
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Reactive does absolutely nothing against ballistics.
Hell, Ballistic-Reinforced does nothing against 1 point pellets! Cut in half, rounded down (minimum 1). I asked about that with regards to LBX pellets when it was first published, and got the answer that LBX pellets do full damage against BRA equipped units.
Hardened does not protect against head hits. Damage is still taken, it's just a 'half point' instead of a full point. I.e. it takes two pellets to do a full point of damage, but that would still count as two head hits for pilot damage.
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Ok, I only remembered they affected TACs . . . so yeah, then its those 2 unless there was something on 3150 NTNUs.
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There's a Shogun with FerroLam, I think. Also the Orion C has it. Not that we have playable stats for the latter yet, alas.
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I think it's fair to say that the Mad Cat Mk IV and Vulture Mk IV are the only reasonably common FL equipped 'Mechs out there. That's hardly a case for the SBG being worthless.
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The Shogun in question is also a Sea Fox creation, and while I can imagine they sell to the Wolf Empire fairly freely, I can't quite imagine it'd have the same appeal as a Mad Cat Mk IV or Vulture Mk IV might, and would expect to see them in fewer numbers.
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Besides, if you do find yourself facing a Lamellor beast, the solution is to use your standard Gauss to keep him busy until your good buddy Mr. Juliano can close and do his rendition of aiming high. >:D
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The Juliano aiming high is one of the most terrifying thoughts I've had in the last month, so that you for that Weirdo.
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If you ever want to do it for cheap: Partisan, the newer model. 8)
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I think it's fair to say that the Mad Cat Mk IV and Vulture Mk IV are the only reasonably common FL equipped 'Mechs out there. That's hardly a case for the SBG being worthless.
Moreover, I'm not sure it's fair to expect a Carronade or Juliano to do this. It's not their job. The Carronade is simultaneously a crit-seeker, anti-air platform, anti-tank platform, and 'add a tiny bit more punch' long range attacker. FerroLam is specifically effective at shutting down units designed for that mission role. Not only that, the Carronade is an IS Tech unit and virtually all FerroLam units I'm aware of are clantech.
The normal Juliano's attack range, combined with its speed, is slightly below what I'd like for sending after the major FerroLam designs. This is okay; the JLN-5A's job isn't to fight FerroLam alone. It's built to bust up conventional 'gun platform' assaults and heavies. This isn't to say a Juliano can't win against the common FerroLam units, I just don't think it's a favorable matchup.
If the FWL is that significantly concerned about fighting FerroLam units, its answers appear to be: Field its own FerroLam machines (and we have the same two very good ones every other faction does - Mad Cat Mk IV and Vulture Mk IV), or field our primary hole-punchers (AWS-9M, MR-5M, KGC-001, All-ClanTech Refit Juliano, etc.). The Anzu and TDR-10M might also be able to give a decent account of themselves, though I would not consider them ideal for the job. On the other hand, being ten tons lighter than their targets and a techbase weaker to boot will do that so this should not be seen as a condemnation of either unit.
The Carronade and Juliano deal with a specific set of problems we've traditionally had very few good answers for, so I'm pretty happy with them. That they can't also reliably defeat FerroLam is... well, a sign of a healthy game design at work.
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I think the direction of conversation might have gotten crossed. Ferro-Lamellor equipped units weren't mentioned in the context of "this is something the FWL has to worry about!" they were mentioned in the context of nitpicking at my assertion that the SB Gauss is the king of dueling weapons because of its combination of range and critseeking capability combined with Aiming High.
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Anyone used the new FWL BA?
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Which one?
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Ogres can be fun . . . just think of the squad as a slower SRM Carrier. Since they are supposed to be 'common' they were what I have used the most going forward. While I have used a few other of the newer squads, I cannot remember anything that made them stand out.
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Meh. I just keeping using Achileus. It's just about perfect from where I sit.
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The Ogre works well with mechanized units. I do not look forward to the day I run into a Nova of Wulfen and Ogres.
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Or if we get a Ogre C . . . sporting the same type missile racks as the Gnomes. As either a Protectorate or Empire creation.
I sort of agree with Eagle, I still use the Achileus and Longinus but now get to mix in the Ogres. While I know I have put a Kopi and Xiphos out in MM, neither were really involved.
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Anyone used the new FWL BA?
Leonidas are fun. Not great, but fun.
I don't care for the others.
Kopis AIs are good, if we are counting those as new. Kopis are in generally a really great idea. Guns. More guns. It's a gun store!
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While it's not really a 'new' suit, I have a lot of love for the Phalanx D
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I think the FWL's greatest gift was the Ogre, i LOVE that suit.
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Yeah, the Ogre (Interdictor) is a pretty rough customer. If you wanna keep an opponent away from some critical chunk of woods or buildings, a platoon of those will discourage anyone who has two brain cells to rub together (and no artillery) from coming anywhere close.
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The Ogre is NOT a FWL, it is a REGULAN design. Don't lump us in with those ass-kissing backstabbers in the FWL. The Ogre is symbolic of our resolve to resist the FWL's tyranny to the bitter end.
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The Ogre is NOT a FWL, it is a REGULAN design. Don't lump us in with those ass-kissing backstabbers in the FWL. The Ogre is symbolic of our resolve to resist the FWL's tyranny to the bitter end.
I have some bad news for you....
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. . . and considering it was something they were selling to other FWL worlds/states as well as outside markets, like mercs . . .
FM3145 puts it a 10 on the FWL list and the Ogre (Int) a 15, which means it should be common in upper end units. Though I am not sure why its not on the merc list which has Clan designs- probably to represent Kell Hound, Wolf Dragoon and maybe Raging Horde.
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The Ogre is NOT a FWL, it is a REGULAN design. Don't lump us in with those ass-kissing backstabbers in the FWL. The Ogre is symbolic of our resolve to resist the FWL's tyranny to the bitter end.
From the annals of TRO 3150:
When the worsening of the economic
sanctions against the Regulans sparked the
assassination of Captain-General Jessica
Marik and a brief war between Oriente and
Regulus, Nangwaya thought her realm’s time
had finally come—especially when the RSMC
re-authorized the Eighth Hussars’ access to
tactical nuclear ordnance. Her hopes dashed
by the Regulan surrender in July of 3148, she
and much of her wing went rogue, taking their
fighters, a DropShip, and an unknown number
of Alamo-class atomic warheads. None of these
warriors have been seen since.
"Surrendered" and "made peace with" are definitely distinct terms. And given the current Marik dynasty's penchant for acquisition by conquest, not a good sign.
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Fine! We're gonna go start our own Regulas! With Blackjack and Canopian circus's! ...my respect for regulans just went up a notch.
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Well, the Ogre certainly seems to have made quite an impression. Personally, I'd rather have another tube in place of some ammo, and the ECM on the Interdictor seems to be of dubious value. Despite those issues, it's still a good suit.
I am surprised, however, that none of you Ogre enthusiasts mentioned the Xiphos. Between the Magshot and the LRR it has the same damage as the Ogre, another point of armor means these bad boys can tank gauss rifles to the face, and those 15 points are reactive, so you can't even blast them out of their position easily. Moves just as fast as the Ogre, too.
The Leonidas, on the other hand, seems lacklustre. Pays a huge 250 kg for the Angel ECM, and then pays for 3 ground MP and a heavy battle claw, which IMO just add to the issues the ECM causes. Maybe I'm missing something awesome about BA Angel, btu this doesn't seem like a good platform for it.
Meh. I just keeping using Achileus. It's just about perfect from where I sit.
The Achileus is a fantastic cheap suit, they're my go-to unit for TAG use. And I'd probably rather have them over the Longinus much of the time - faster and harder to hit, despite losing the OS SRM2 firepower.
While it's not really a 'new' suit, I have a lot of love for the Phalanx D
This, however, is my favorite BA. Nothing says "Don't tread on me" like 4 MVSPLs to the face.
For all you FWL BA enthusiasts - what could a hypothetical Medium BA do to distinguish itself from the current lineup of Leonidas, Longinus, Quirinus, and IS Standard?
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Jump with missiles on its back . . .
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So I'm well aware that "stick an LGR on it!" ruined some of our Project Phoenix 'Mechs, but I'm curious about the rest of House Marik's opinions on the full stable. Specifically, I'd like to know what everyone thinks of our initial Phoenix offerings and whether they're ever useful. My thoughts are as follows:
LCT-5M Locust: Blazingly fast and max armor for the chassis are both things, I feel. I've used this one before and it makes for a great recon 'Mech in double-blind scenarios, and a decent enough back-stabber in standard fights because it has the speed to get behind most enemies. I would have preferred pulse lasers, but the ER lasers at least give you more guns for the mass. Overall, I easily give this one a thumb's up.
GRF-5M Griffin: Stinker number one, the Griffin simply lacks enough damage potential in my estimation. It's built as a sniper, but the LGR is such a difficult weapon to make work well in a package given its heavy mass. It doesn't even have good backup weapons, being restricted to a single small laser when you're in close. I will admit that because of my dislike, I've never actually used a GRF-5M. . . but I just don't see the potential. Thumbs down.
SHD-7M Shadow Hawk: I've never been a big Shadow Hawk fan. I've always found them undergunned and underarmored for my liking. But the SHD-7M is a 'Mech that I've wanted to like. Upgrading the Griffin's LRM-10 to a -15 goes a long way, in my estimation, to generating sufficient damage at long range to be considered worth it. But there's still something missing, and I've found that with the -7M's mobility, it doesn't seem to do well as a sniper, sitting back and trying to plink with the LRMs and LGR. I'm also leery of having an exploding gauss rifle sitting in the chest cavity with XL engine slots, and while its armor is okay, it's not maxed for its size. I'd give it a neutral rating.
OTL-7M Ostsol: I've never actually used this one, but I'd really like to give it a try some time. It's reasonably quick and carries double LGRs, which while hideously inefficient in mass-to-damage as a weapons package, seems on the outside to be a fairly decent way to run LGRs. The armor is a little lighter than I'd prefer for a heavy 'Mech, but at least its fast on its feet and has the LGR's extreme range bands so it can operate at the very least in the enemy's long range bands with good defensive modifiers. The close-range package of four mediums is enough to ward off some harassers, but the armor is just too light to deal with dedicated hunter-killers like Fire Moth Hs (as an example). I really want to try it despite its shortcomings -- and the LGRs sitting next to the engine again rears its ugly head here -- so I'll give it a neutral rating until I can actually get some table time with it.
OTL-8M Ostsol: I've never actually used a 'Mech with TSM. A general disdain for melee combat is one reason, I'll admit -- I got into the game with the Clans, don't judge me! -- but another is that it seems a little fiddly to achieve the absolute proper numbers to get into the TSM-sweet spot. On the other hand, the TSM makes this 'Mech, which is already fleet-footed for its size, even faster, and it carries a plethora of pulse lasers, which are weapons that I thoroughly enjoy and prefer thanks to the to-hit modifiers. The armor is a little heavier than the -7M and it completely lacks an exploding bits, so like its brother, this is a 'Mech I'd rate at neutral until I get some table time.
RFL-7M Rifleman: I'll admit to liking the RFL-1N. It's got poop for armor, sure, but I'm a sucker for large lasers, and it certainly teaches you how to ride a heat curve. The RFL-7M, though, I initially disliked. My first impression of it was "dear lord, more LGR vomit." But then I got stuck with one during a brief campaign with some friends, and that turned me around on it. Remember my mention of double-LGR in the OTL-7M section? This is where I came to enjoy that particular weapons package. The RFL-7M is slower than the OTL-7M, but its armor is heavier, its secondary armament is heavier, it has jump jets, it has an ECM, and it doesn't stick the gauss rifles in the chest with the engine slots. I used to just park this baby in cover and snipe away. It served as a great deterrent to my Lyran opponent and tendency to park Salamanders and Thunder Hawks in cover and wait for me; all it took was one head hit from a range at which he could not reply and he moved forward into the open where I could brawl with him. The LGR Ontos does the same thing for cheaper, true, but if you're playing a 'Mech-only or 'Mech-heavy style of game, the RFL-7M is in my opinion a good team player. Thumbs up.
TDR-9M Thunderbolt: Like the SHD-7M, the TDR-9M is a 'Mech that I want to like. It's not the chassis' fault, it's well armored and agile. The problem is the weapons package. Punching out an eight point hit with the LGR and another on-average nine points of damage with the LRMs in its preferred range bracket might be sufficient for a medium 'Mech, but on a heavy that's downright anemic. Reading the fluff, I have to wonder how the Tempest pilot lost its duel with the TDR-9M because barring a few disastrous dice rolls, I can't see this beating the Tempest in a straight fight. While the SHR-7M's flaws tilt me away from it, the lack of those same flaws do kind of attract me a bit to the Thunderbolt. There's no XL engine behind that 12.5 ton of skin, and the LGR is arm-mounted, away from the engine and reasonably far from the LRM ammo (which is itself CASE'd, so at least the 'Mech can walk away from a nasty critical roll). If you lay off the jump jets, you can even stack the ER medium lasers into the firing pattern at the LRM and LGR's middle ranges and barely overheat, so that helps crank up the damage a bit. I've used the TDR-9M a couple of times, but the results are always mixed; sometimes it does enough to make its presence felt, sometimes it doesn't. I really wish they'd found the tonnage for an Artemis IV, but I guess that's what semi-guided munitions are for. I give it a thumbs up.
ARC-8M Archer: As much as I love LRMs, I can honestly say that I never liked the Archer. With that big minimum range of IS LRM launchers, I always felt the secondary armament was too paltry for the 'Mech's size. But this guy? I like this guy. Dropping the launchers from 20-racks to 15s on the fire support 'Mech was a bold move, but at least they got Artemis attached to help patch things up. Plus, that sweet, sweet ER large laser is there too. An extra medium laser, plenty of ammo, CASE, no XL engine. . . I love it. This was one of two of our Phoenix 'Mechs (the Locust being the other) where I took one look at it and said, "Yeah. I can live with that." Thumbs up.
WHM-8M Warhammer: The best I can say for the WHM-8M is that it's manufactured by the Regulans on Wallis, and those crazy SOBs are welcome to this machine. Paired PPCs is a classic package, sure, but tacking an LGR onto it? Once again, the damage-to-mass ratio on the weapons package is just too hideously inefficient. A 'Mech as heavy as a Warhammer should have enough guns that on average numbers it can inflict the threshold of 20 points of damage on the enemy to force a piloting roll. If one PPC goes wide, you're kind of hosed on that front, and it also doesn't have the sinks to handle constantly popping off both PPCs. Call it personal preference, but this one just misses the mark for me. Thumbs down.
MAD-9M Marauder: Oh boy oh boy, do I love me some large lasers, and this baby is packing four of them. . . yet it has to adopt an AWS-8Q-style firing pattern or it is going to overheat like crazy. Tack on the fact that both side torsos are packing ammo bins next to engine slots and my enthusiasm wilts considerably. It has the kind of damage potential that I want in a heavy 'Mech, especially one with a pedigree like the Marauder, but the flaws in this machine are incredible. It could have been great if they'd pulled those Streak launchers for a different secondary battery and a few more heat sinks; I hear that medium lasers are fantastic for their mass, after all. Thumbs down.
BLR-5M BattleMaster: I've always understood the BattleMaster to be a close-assault 'Mech. It's got that battery of medium lasers and an SRM rack, after all, and the classic variants all pack a PPC for hole punching on the way in. It's a knife-fighters, always has been. So explain to me why the BLR-5M has an ER large laser and a light gauss rifle? Because frankly, I'm baffled. It's an attempt -- and a poor attempt at that -- to make a brawler into a sniper. They kept the four forward medium lasers and that I like, but without the SRM to crit-seek, I feel like this variant is struggled with its identity. Does it want to stand off and snipe? Does it want to close and pound with the lasers? The lack of an XL engine is nice on the durability scale, but the armor seems a little light for its size (less than 90% coverage). I like the classic variants of this bruiser, but I'll pass on the -5M. Thumbs down.
LGB-12 Longbow: The Longbow: my heavyweight fire support 'Mech of choice. The -12C makes me question its commitment to survival at times; its paltry secondary battery is one major issue, the presence of entire structure sections of ammo slotted in with the engine is another, the light armor for its size is a third. But every time I look at these flaws, I look at that huge LRM battery and all my fears melt away. Seventy missiles in a single salvo is damn impressive, I must say, and given that I love LRMs and have access to semi-guided rounds? Well. Suffice to say, it's time to fight in the shade. Thumbs up.
So that's my score card for our initial Project Phoenix offerings. Tell me what you think, because I really want to know.
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Well, I haven't got time to go through the whole rundown, but I will say that if you haven't tried either of those Ostsols, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. I like to use them both in pairs...in fact, a pair of each makes for a fine lance, IMHO. The 7M is pretty solid at kiting the hell out of enemies and fast enough to exploit the medium range advantages of the LGRs as well. Meanwhile, the 8M is a double-punch machine...it's easy as hell to keep the TSM charged due to the loadout, and then as long as you can stay in contact you've got a 1-in-3 chance at knocking their head off every turn (thanks to the 12-point punches it doles out with the charged TSM).
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So I'm well aware that "stick an LGR on it!" ruined some of our Project Phoenix 'Mechs, but I'm curious about the rest of House Marik's opinions on the full stable. Specifically, I'd like to know what everyone thinks of our initial Phoenix offerings and whether they're ever useful.
Sure, I'll play. I'm assuming we're mostly talking about them at their time of debut, as we either gained new units that solve their flaws (Kopis bodyguards for some of the light-armored, over-gunned plinker units, for example) or just plain gained better takes on the idea (TDR-11SE outdoing the TDR-9M at its own job, and TDR-10M likewise).
LCT-5M Locust: Honestly pretty good. The 3145 upgrades fix the only meaningful issues it had, but the -5M on its own is pretty good too. Not much to say; it has tremendous speed, decent firepower, and is as armored as it can really be.
GRF-5M Griffin: I have used GRF-5Ms, and they are garbage. Less ammo than the GRF-3M, less damage too. One of the mechs that caused me to quit playing BattleTech for a while under FASA's run, as it became painfully obvious the mech designers working for them just did not like FWL nor its players; I spent my money elsewhere during many of those years.
SHD-7M Shadow Hawk: Weaponry selection is fine, insufficient ammo ruins it. Needs at least 8 more shots LRM-15 ammo, and I admit packing an extra ton of LGR would have helped a lot too.
OTL-7M Ostsol: A perfectly acceptable Mech. It has its flaws (low LGR ammo for example) but I would not call it outright bad.
OTL-8M Ostsol: Actually a pretty good machine. It has the speed to use its pulse lasers, a modest long range attack, and can threaten headcap punches once TSM gets going. It does not fit my playstyle (I would much rather use the ANV-3R in the same mission role), but it is good; you just have to be very patient and then pick the exact right time for it to go in and rip people up.
RFL-7M Rifleman: Acceptable only in its era, where twin LGRs were good for - as was mentioned earlier - pissing off Lyran assault campers. Beyond that, low armor and low speed make for a bad mix. While terrain and a bodyguard can help offset this, I'd rather get something more rewarding for the trouble invested. If they had just doubled the ammo, I would actually give it a begrudging nod overall as having a useful niche.
TDR-9M Thunderbolt: We've arrived at opposite conclusions on this one. I find the damage output is too low even if you manage to get it to its ideal range of 7 or 8 hexes. The LGR becomes dead-weight too easily with just 16 shots. True, the LRM-15 only has 16 shots too... but it weighs far less, so it going 'dead' is not as severe a loss as the LGR. There are better LGR units to plink with, better mid-range fighters to move to 6-8 hexes with, and so on. While not hopeless, I'd call it very underwhelming for a Thunderbolt and generally recommend the TDR-10M in the exact same mission role. If we're ignoring anything later than Project Phoenix, then there are still better choices; the ON2-M Orion for example.
ARC-8M Archer: We're in agreement here, and I think this is actually better than the ARC-4M. The ability to put up some kind of fight after the ammo is gone is very nice, and gets better with time; this is passably good at both energy and missile damage, which helps against variant armor.
WHM-8M Warhammer: No, it's not just your 'personal preference'... the WHM-8M actually does suck.
MAD-9M Marauder: Playable. It's obviously there to serve as a prototype to the MAD-9M2. I don't like it, but this thing isn't hopeless; it does decent damage. Think of it this way, the Juliano has roughly the same fighting style and we like it quite a bit. Granted, the Juliano avoids the MAD-9M's inefficiencies along the way thanks to a favorable Quirk and some really nice clan-tech usage.
BLR-5M BattleMaster: Agree with your thumbs-down. The idea seemed to be to make a durable assault mech with acceptable speed, plus decent long and short range performance. It fails at both of those, though its close-up showing is better.
LGB-12 Longbow: Absolutely needs a bodyguard. At the time we didn't have many efficient choices for these. If you allow more current units, a Kopis team solves that. At which point it becomes worth playing. Otherwise, it's a bit too limited and vulnerable even if its firepower is impressive.
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How many games do you play where you need 64 shots of LGR ammo?
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Ditto. I've been playing Battletech for almost twenty years now, and the gold standard for ammo has always been slightly more than ten shots. Unless you're playing a campaign(which I never do), I'll never understand the folks who want more than one ton of ammo for an LGR.
As for the Beemer, that's a command ride, for when you're using rules for force commanders. The Gauss and big laser are for players who don't have the discipline to keep their commanders out of the line of fire. The mass, armor, and close-in guns are because headhunters happen.
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How many games do you play where you need 64 shots of LGR ammo?
Most of 'em. Most of my experience has been in campaign server settings and things like that. I'm willing to accept 16 shots on a LRM-15 because it's not THAT tremendous a weight expenditure... but a LGR most certainly is. You absolutely build around the LGR if you include it on something. I want it to keep going and going, thus.
(Granted, most units build around their LRM-15 too, but you have weight left over to fill out other weapon groupings if desired in that case)
I admit this is not the only format people play in, but this format is what shapes a lot of my experiences and what I value.
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I will back having more than 16 shots on a LGR . . . for a skirmisher. IMO that TBolt is a line unit so its excusable since by the time you get through the bin the armor is likely trashed so you should be powering down the coils.
For that Shad? Ugh . . . HORRIBLE ammo options. As a skirmisher if I am going to have a weapon with that sort of reach- where no one else except a AC/2 can plink back, then I want the ammo reserves to keep the range open and fire on less likely shots. It would have been a good candidate for a -7M2 upgrade like the Marauder. Dump the SSRM & LRM for a pair of MML5s and you can get another ton of LGR ammo . . .
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The TDR-9M is a unit I really want to like. I love the art, I like the idea behind its weapons loadout (a quasi-zombie that has multiple damage types, best used at 7-8 hexes)... but in practice I find it has trouble killing anything due to a relatively low damage output, ammo reliance, and usually this problem becomes even worse by the time an arm gets shot off.
If anyone has had better experiences with it I want to hear about this, because as it is I just go "Feh!" and pick the TDR-11SE or TDR-10M instead for generally superior results.
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My only issue with the OLT-8M is that it predates the SN-PPC. A 6/9 Snub and TSM Otsol would be stupid fun
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I've seen a lot of people talk about that, and I'm curious: Why? What is the appeal? Snubs are great, TSM melee is great, but the two don't seem to go together so well; Snubs are best at 8-9 hexes, melee is... well, best at 1 hex (unless your Mech is Dhalsim!). What am I not seeing here? Legitimate inquiry; I want to see why the idea is popular.
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I imagine it's mostly about the 10-point slug of a hit that's still lighter than other PPCs or other heavy guns.
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I would also say its that 9 hex short range, so you can be physically pounding on a target while using the sPPCs to start removing armor on your next target which should be in movement distance for that next turn. Unless it runs away from the TSM, which is still a victory.
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That's a nice way of thinking about it. Interesting.
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So the just-released Battlemech Manual includes a list that assigned quirks to all the mechs that weren't given them by being in the most recent TROs, and dang, the FWLM made out like bandits! Almost all of our faction-specific stuff is more positive quirks than not, and they're really good ones. Most interesting are the number that got the new Directional Torso Mount, which is kinda like a turret that can fire forward or back, but not to the side. Here's some random goodies:
Albatross: Easy to Maintain, Improved Targeting (Long)
Anvil: Extended Torso Twist, Improved Targeting (Medium)
Cerberus: Barrel Fist(both), Improved Targeting(Long), Vestigial Hands
Grand Titan: Multi-Trac, Difficult to Maintain
Hammer: Extended Torso Twist, Improved Targeting(Long)
Orion AND Perseus: Anti-Aircraft Targeting, Easy to Maintain
Shockwave: Battlefists, Easy to Maintain, Exposed Weapon Linkage(RAC/5)
Sirocco: Directional Torso Mount and Fast Reload(Ultra-10), Difficult to Maintain
Tempest:: Directional Torso Mount(Head laser), Poor Performance
There's more, but I'll let people find them on their own. :)
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I had an Ostol 8M I used in a campaign that the other players named "murder machine." 7/11 TSM speed lets you pick your spots when you want to move in and face-punch people. It's a good mech to goof around with if you're unfamiliar with TSM because it makes the advantages and flaws of the system plainly apparent.
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I had an Ostol 8M I used in a campaign that the other players named "murder machine." 7/11 TSM speed lets you pick your spots when you want to move in and face-punch people.
The 8M is so good it makes me sad to see the 9M.
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So the just-released Battlemech Manual includes a list that assigned quirks to all the mechs that weren't given them by being in the most recent TROs, and dang, the FWLM made out like bandits! Almost all of our faction-specific stuff is more positive quirks than not, and they're really good ones. Most interesting are the number that got the new Directional Torso Mount, which is kinda like a turret that can fire forward or back, but not to the side. Here's some random goodies:
Albatross: Easy to Maintain, Improved Targeting (Long)
Anvil: Extended Torso Twist, Improved Targeting (Medium)
Cerberus: Barrel Fist(both), Improved Targeting(Long), Vestigial Hands
Grand Titan: Multi-Trac, Difficult to Maintain
Hammer: Extended Torso Twist, Improved Targeting(Long)
Orion AND Perseus: Anti-Aircraft Targeting, Easy to Maintain
Shockwave: Battlefists, Easy to Maintain, Exposed Weapon Linkage(RAC/5)
Sirocco: Directional Torso Mount and Fast Reload(Ultra-10), Difficult to Maintain
Tempest:: Directional Torso Mount(Head laser), Poor Performance
There's more, but I'll let people find them on their own. :)
Wow. I love it, my beloved Anvil made out pretty good! It's even better in a brawl!
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I am mostly happy we didn't get any Bad Ammunition Feeds, because those things are literally six times worse than HVACs in terms of exploding. I don't understand how Enforcers and Centurions are even still around, much less popular, when there's a 1/6 chance of their main gun detonating itself.
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I'm going to be looking into using Anvils as heavy escorts. Between that insane firing arc and scary ability to put twin 9-point hits into damn near anything within seven hexes, that's gonna leave one heck of a bubble that light strikers will do everything in their power to stay out of.
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I had an Ostol 8M I used in a campaign that the other players named "murder machine." 7/11 TSM speed lets you pick your spots when you want to move in and face-punch people. It's a good mech to goof around with if you're unfamiliar with TSM because it makes the advantages and flaws of the system plainly apparent.
The Ostsol has Narrow/Low Profile now, which will make the 8M even nastier at closing with the enemy under fire.
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So the just-released Battlemech Manual includes a list that assigned quirks to all the mechs that weren't given them by being in the most recent TROs, and dang, the FWLM made out like bandits! Almost all of our faction-specific stuff is more positive quirks than not, and they're really good ones. Most interesting are the number that got the new Directional Torso Mount, which is kinda like a turret that can fire forward or back, but not to the side. Here's some random goodies:
Albatross: Easy to Maintain, Improved Targeting (Long)
Anvil: Extended Torso Twist, Improved Targeting (Medium)
Cerberus: Barrel Fist(both), Improved Targeting(Long), Vestigial Hands
Grand Titan: Multi-Trac, Difficult to Maintain
Hammer: Extended Torso Twist, Improved Targeting(Long)
Orion AND Perseus: Anti-Aircraft Targeting, Easy to Maintain
Shockwave: Battlefists, Easy to Maintain, Exposed Weapon Linkage(RAC/5)
Sirocco: Directional Torso Mount and Fast Reload(Ultra-10), Difficult to Maintain
Tempest: Directional Torso Mount(Head laser), Poor Performance
There's more, but I'll let people find them on their own. :)
I'm not a huge fan of negative quirks just to have them, and well, the FWLM needs all the help they can get. And if it wasn't for the fact that no one here would have gotten it, I would have given the Perseus Ubiquitous, due to some uh... problems I have with it.
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The Hammer got slightly less crappy thanks to Improved Targeting: Long, hurrah.
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Meanwhile, in a move that I'm sure will delight Free Worlds League players the world over, the Thunder Hawk was also given Improved Targeting (Long).
Yay.
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Hardly an issue, given that the easiest way to deal with a Thunder Hawk is to air drop some BA or infantry in its hex. Remember: campers get ticks. >:D
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I'm surprised no one has mentioned the Nightstar. Accurate Weapons (All), Command Mech, Improved Communications.
Thankfully there isn't a canon c3 variant (I think).
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Hardly an issue, given that the easiest way to deal with a Thunder Hawk is to air drop some BA or infantry in its hex. Remember: campers get ticks. >:D
Or you let those gauss rounds slam into the side of a hill while you drop LRMs on its head.
Or both. Both is good.
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I ve enjoyed playing the Hercules series and all the Tempest units. Standard Anvil and Arrow variant work well enough.
Sartris was a beast with the Murder Machine racked up several kills. The fear factor had his opponents running in terror. That Campaign was Operation Southern Front set in 3078 if memory serves 2013. I can't recall if anyone could ever kill it.
Found another entry in Operation Golden Dawn where you used the OTL-8M several games I think that one finally died by head capping.
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I'm surprised no one has mentioned the Nightstar. Accurate Weapons (All), Command Mech, Improved Communications.
I think that's mostly because it's perceived as being a FedSuns 'Mech and thus is unlikely to be across the field from you if you're a Leaguer, especially since the Lyran factory was destroyed during the Jihad. But still, ye gods, that thing is terrifying. Easily one of the biggest beneficiaries of the Official Quirks, IMHO.
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Or you let those gauss rounds slam into the side of a hill while you drop LRMs on its head.
Or both. Both is good.
I prefer to stand outside its range and just beat it over the head with LGR rounds. And, on at least one occasion, I sent a lance of Stingray to strafe and bomb one.
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Probably going to take down the Nightstar's Accurate All a bit. Still though, the fluff in both editions of TR 3058 is pretty unequivocal about how absurdly good its targeting system is.
But hey: the Albatross got Accurate Long!
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Maybe give it Multi-Trac instead?
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I don't want to derail a FWL thread too much, but I'd just say that MultiTrac is concerned with multiple targets, whereas the TR 3058 fluff talks about "almost preternatural accuracy" or something similarly concerned with superb general accuracy, and that kind of fluff--for any mech--is the sort of thing we'd look at improved accuracy mods for.
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FWIW, I'm totally fine with the Nighstar's Quirks as is -- it's fluffed as being a really badass 'Mech so having Quirks to match sound right to me.
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I don't want to derail a FWL thread too much, but I'd just say that MultiTrac is concerned with multiple targets, whereas the TR 3058 fluff talks about "almost preternatural accuracy" or something similarly concerned with superb general accuracy, and that kind of fluff--for any mech--is the sort of thing we'd look at improved accuracy mods for.
What about a different quirk that lets it make Aimed Shots without a Targeting Computer? That seems more like a Quirk's domain than a flat-out bonus all the time like the Nightstar's current suite of them.
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Take the Quirk discussion to the feedback thread, where the person assigning quirks is keeping track. I know the Nightstar is getting changes bandied about.
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I don't want to derail a FWL thread too much, but I'd just say that MultiTrac is concerned with multiple targets, whereas the TR 3058 fluff talks about "almost preternatural accuracy" or something similarly concerned with superb general accuracy, and that kind of fluff--for any mech--is the sort of thing we'd look at improved accuracy mods for.
Just need to fins the right negative quirk.
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Anyone ever field a just a conventional (aka, no mechs) FWL force against mechs?
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I don't suppose the TDR-10M got anything Quirks-wise?
The Exposed Weapon Linkage on the Shockwave makes plenty of sense, but is admittedly a serious blow to the unit. It already has durability/stamina issues, losing its main gun early on will make that even worse. I'm not sure how comfortable I'd be running it in Quirks-enabled games.
The Tempest's inability to accelerate seems like a minor problem overall. Am I right in believing it'd only matter on turn 1 of the game, then it's up to full speed for the rest of it? Or is this more a case of 'any time it doesn't run, it has to spend a round walking before it can run again'? If it's the latter, that seriously hurts an already near-obsolete unit and would be enough for me to deem it no longer viable in 3150 play.
The Eagle's stance on the Anvil is pretty apt, and I'm pleased by that.
The Sirocco's weapon flexibility... I can't tell how far that runs. If it does what I think it does, this at least makes the Sirocco playable. Not great, but playable.
The already good Orion (esp. the ON2-M) getting even better amuses me. Giving the Perseus a niche in shooting down VTOLs/Aeros improves my admittedly poor opinion of the machine, to the point where combined with a few of its more useful variants I can now justify using them on occasion. Still not enthused about the machine, but it's okay now; it has a meaningful use.
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Re: The Tempest, unfortunately Poor Performance does mean that if the Tempest doesn't run one turn, the next turn it has to walk again before it can run. As for the Sirocco, Directional Torso Mount acts as a turret that can face Forward or Aft.
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Re: The Tempest, unfortunately Poor Performance does mean that if the Tempest doesn't run one turn, the next turn it has to walk again before it can run. As for the Sirocco, Directional Torso Mount acts as a turret that can face Forward or Aft.
RIP Tempest. The unit had trouble maintaining proper spacing as it was, this makes it even harder and I no longer see the point in using a Tempest in Quirks-enabled venues.
Sirocco now not a complete joke, so that's nice at least.
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Winning with what we´ve got...
We have the Schiltron... a whole lance of them (optional 6 per lance)
Add TAG machines, especially the likes of the MAD-9M2, Anvil, Orion 3M, Anzu, Gambit, Firestarter Omni, and Longinus Magnetic and Maxim hovers.
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What surprises me is the Anzu, even with intentional flaws (or so I presume) might now eclipse the Tempest in quirk-based play just due to the Poor Performance on the TMP. Does anyone know why this quirk got issued, is there some TRO piece I missed that explains it?
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The reason the Tempest has Poor Performance is because I'm dumb. It will be removed for the BMM final.
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Sweet! So it just gets the 'turret' head laser?
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The reason the Tempest has Poor Performance is because I'm dumb. It will be removed for the BMM final.
I was hoping it was some Invid reference that I wasn't getting.
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How does 'directional torso mount' work for this weapon, anyway?
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You can rotate the head mounted laser to fire into the rear arc.
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That's awesome. That sounds like it will be even more fun on the TMP-4M and TMP-C if we ever get stats for those!
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So I've just decided to add a 40th Marik Militia battalion to my to-do list. And finding LOTS of fun units for the early republic era. Like Pandions! But must work out how to kitbash an Anzu.
Kudos to who came up with that paintscheme. I've already done a "grapes of wrath" militia battalion, but this will be both different enough, and very Marik.
W.
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Anyone ever field a just a conventional (aka, no mechs) FWL force against mechs?
Yep... what era do you want the details in?
( Cause I go for the earlier models, a Tank lance is 5 not 4! )
TT
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I always wish the FWL's armor got some more light.
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We've got the Galleon - what more do you need?
(Well, in time the Main Gauche ...)
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Pretty sure he is talking about information or spotlight rather than more light armor . . . which they have some of my favorites- big Harasser believer.
I think the Merkava Mk IX and Moltkes give them some of the best heavy armor available until the Pixiu comes along. Be interesting to see some Hammerfall armor battles go off.
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Anyone got any idea on 3000s-era Liberation Units?
W.
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We've got the Galleon - what more do you need?
(Well, in time the Main Gauche ...)
Harasser (LRM). Stygian. Ontos.
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Pretty sure he is talking about information or spotlight rather than more light armor .
Bingo.
Anyone got any idea on 3000s-era Liberation Units?
Speaking of things I wish got more spotlight...Liberation Units sound awesome and I wish there was more about them published.
Harasser (LRM). Stygian. Ontos.
A FWL "lance" of six Stygians is my favorite LRM support unit.
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A FWL "lance" of six Stygians is my favorite LRM support unit.
I used to do it in the Succession Wars with the Scimitar Missile Refit. Nobody liked me for doing that. Stygians just up the entertainment level for me and the annoyance for everyone else.
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I've never gotten over the quality of the Ontos (LGR). Just park 'em on a hilltop, hull-down, and giggle maniacally as you spit iron balls across most of a mapsheet. It cemented my opinion that the LGR is a tank gun, not a 'Mech gun.
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Would you consider it worth it to use Tonbos to deliver your Ontoi to ideal bombardment spots early in the game, as opposed to waiting for them to trundle up? Or too risky/expensive?
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Would you consider it worth it to use Tonbos to deliver your Ontoi to ideal bombardment spots early in the game, as opposed to waiting for them to trundle up? Or too risky/expensive?
You have an LGR, how much trundling do you need to do?
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Well, when the hill you need to do your sniping from isn't right at your deployment edge, you need to get to it, and then up it.
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Why use a Tonbo when you can just use a heavy recovrey vehicle to carry two at a time.
TT
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The idea was to get them into position faster than their own drives would allow. Something tells me a Prime Mover burdened with two ninety-ton tanks will never be called fast.
Though if we want hilarious mental images...how fast can a Hyena go whilst backpacking an Ontos? :)
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Prime Movers appeared in the Measure of a Hero if i remember right. I think Mr. Pardoe used them a lot in his books to move BattleMechs around among other things.
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Well, when the hill you need to do your sniping from isn't right at your deployment edge, you need to get to it, and then up it.
Sure, but it's 3/5 and you have one of the longest-ranged weapons. A Tonbo is 86 BV - only 86, but still - per Tonbo so if you're moving a lance of Ontos (Ontoi? Ontoes?) by Tonbo then it's a decent chunk of BV.
On the other hand, the Tonbo will also let you plop three squads of BA down along with your Ontos, to make sure nobody gets any funny ideas about minimum range...
EDIT: Note I'm not saying this is necessarily a bad idea, just bemusedly wondering how often you need to airlift your fire support.
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Three squads of Kopis will do it - two standard, one flamer/MPL in case they try rushing with boot troopers ...
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3/5 on a vehicle is abysmally slow when you need to climb hills, especially when your enemy will take one look at your tanks, and immediately dash forward in order to minimize the amount of turns you'll have with a range advantage. I'd gladly bump the cost of an Ontos by 86 points if it meant bypassing all the terrain between my edge and a good snipers nest.
We never did play out the game, but a while back my group pondered an extraction scenario, where each force was trying to extract a VIP from the middle of the city. Anticipating lots of VTOL-borne infantry, my force included a Partisan slung under a Garrot(I think) so that I could immediately place it on top of a suitable building. That way I could either clear the skies, or force the VTOLs down along the buildings where they needed to stay slow to avoid sideslips.
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Three squads of Kopis will do it - two standard, one flamer/MPL in case they try rushing with boot troopers ...
The Eagle smile fondly at the image worktroll had conjured. Almost absent-mindedly, he reached up and wiped one errant tear from the corner of his eye.
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How many turns for anything to unlimber from a Tonbo?
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One round, though the craft has to land and doesn't finish unloading until the end of the round.
HOWEVER, page 137 of Total Warfare says: "Lift hoists cannot be used to lift another unit during combat."
Is there an advanced or otherwise optional rule that allows this?
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One round, though the craft has to land and doesn't finish unloading until the end of the round.
HOWEVER, page 137 of Total Warfare says: "Lift hoists cannot be used to lift another unit during combat."
Is there an advanced or otherwise optional rule that allows this?
"We're not lifting them, just putting them down..."
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Sure, but it's 3/5 and you have one of the longest-ranged weapons. A Tonbo is 86 BV - only 86, but still - per Tonbo so if you're moving a lance of Ontos (Ontoi? Ontoes?) by Tonbo then it's a decent chunk of BV.
86? How good does a VTOL pilot need to be? Can a Tonbo totally eliminate the need for PSRs?
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One round, though the craft has to land and doesn't finish unloading until the end of the round.
HOWEVER, page 137 of Total Warfare says: "Lift hoists cannot be used to lift another unit during combat."
Is there an advanced or otherwise optional rule that allows this?
Honestly I would say its like BA loaded on a VTOL or hover transport . . . they just cannot load in a tactical turn.
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Exactly. Loading is a matter of many minutes if not tens of minutes, securing straps, distributing weight, and a bunch of other things I'm not a trained load master to know about. Even longer if you're under fire. Not something that you can really do in the span of Battletech game. But unloading? That's a matter of setting down semi-gently, popping a few quick-release catches, and bugging out before the enemy starts shooting at the new flank you've just opened up.
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Exactly. Loading is a matter of many minutes if not tens of minutes, securing straps, distributing weight, and a bunch of other things I'm not a trained load master to know about. Even longer if you're under fire. Not something that you can really do in the span of Battletech game. But unloading? That's a matter of setting down semi-gently, popping a few quick-release catches, and bugging out before the enemy starts shooting at the new flank you've just opened up.
And not having a loadmaster with a loose interpretation of the term 'close enough'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-y8eBsrOS44
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The longer you are in the field, the more 'close enough' counts for packing equipment.
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Couldn't a K-9 King Karnov help drop off troops flying by? Like Real C-130s or C-17 Globe Master IIIs? Rear door opens, kick off Mech or combat vehicles from Rear door, fly on? Treat it as if it's a Combat Drop? I don't have my books handy so i can't remember if that allowable during a game.
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Nope. Internal cargo must be offloaded properly, which is a process of many tens of minutes at least. The only way for a non-infantry unit to exit the bowels of another vehicle in a combat-useful time span is to have carried them in a mech bay/vehicle bay/you get my drift, and a King Karnov doesn't have near the room for one of those.
Long story short, if you're using one unit to bring anther into battle, one of the following must be true:
1: You're hauling infantry/BA.
2: You're carrying something externally.
3: You're using something equipped with full-on Bays, like a DropShip.
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You can airdrop anything with big enough chutes. Plus mechs have jets, so you push the load out, pop chutes, and when it stabilizes, start firing jets. Ez-pz.
Now, what the rules say may disagree, but eh. You're not going to be doing this as part of regular pick-up games (I hope) so who cares, just make it part of the scenario.
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Nope. Internal cargo must be offloaded properly, which is a process of many tens of minutes at least. The only way for a non-infantry unit to exit the bowels of another vehicle in a combat-useful time span is to have carried them in a mech bay/vehicle bay/you get my drift, and a King Karnov doesn't have near the room for one of those.
The King Karnov has enough cargo tonnage to carry a light vehicle bay. So the capacity to rapidly load and unload a single tank is possible if one permits customized units. Plus tonnage left over for a mess of infantry and some supplies.
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Tonbo's BV is 233 not 86, sorry guys. Also it has 2 and a half tons of BAR 7 Armor.
Yikes...
TT
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That's silly. Anything that has a dropchute can't be dropped out of back a plane? It has to have a bay of somekind?
I got ask this one of the forums, it seems to render aircraft hobbled in away. I know the omniplane, Zugvogel, does have bays. I find it odd there no regular rules to plain push a vehicle with vehicle size chute out of back of plane that was design for it. :P
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That's silly. Anything that has a dropchute can't be dropped out of back a plane? It has to have a bay of somekind?
Technically, you can drop it out of the plane, you just have to take the time to unhook it (which can take a variable number of minutes depending on the situation).
This is one of those edge situations that I suspect the original writers never expected to come up. In universe, one might argue that the shift from planetary warfare to interstellar warfare means some old skills and techniques have gone to seed. Most of the time nowadays, if you're dropping a perfectly good war machine out of something, it's probably a dropship.
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I find it odd there no regular rules to plain push a vehicle with vehicle size chute out of back of plane that was design for it. :P
There are. It's called loading your vehicle into a plane with a bay, then shoving it out the back with a VDC attached to it.
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I am going to have to see about the Tonbo fun for a game but . . .
. . . you know with all the LGRs getting slapped on things in the '60s, why did we not get a Marauder like the 5S but with a LGR instead of a regular Gauss Rifle? I mean -5S, -5D, -5R, -5T, -7D, -9D and -9S . . . for the -5M, -9M and its replacement the -9M2. Granted that is more versions than Liao and more than Kurita but . . .
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They did put one on a Reseen Warhammer -- -8M, I think? -- and its kind of poopy. So I'm glad they didn't try mounting one on a Marauder.
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IMO on the Marauder its one of the few mechs it would have made sense on, especially with the -5S sitting as an example with its single ton of ammo.
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IMO on the Marauder its one of the few mechs it would have made sense on, especially with the -5S sitting as an example with its single ton of ammo.
With an LGR, the -5S can get a nice armor upgrade and has crits free for Light FF. You can get up to ~220 total armor and still have room for a BAP or GECM
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Yeah, I was looking at that . . . like I said, it was one of the few mechs slapping a LGR on would make sense- unlike the Warhammer!
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So I've recently been reading Historical: Reunification War, and I noticed that the capital of the FWL (formerly Magistracy) world of Gouderak is called Gouda Prime. I couldn't help but be reminded of Weirdo's avatar, and wonder if they have some sort of cheese festival there. This seemed like the best thread to make the observation. Good day, gentlemen (also ladies, as applicable).
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So I've recently been reading Historical: Reunification War, and I noticed that the capital of the FWL (formerly Magistracy) world of Gouderak is called Gouda Prime.
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Knowing the exact context of this picture makes it even better. Hats off to you, sir.
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It's better than you think. You see, when I paint up fleet-scale DropShips for the League and can't find any canon names, I go for canon cities...
Now I just need to decide what kind of ship is worthy enough to be named...the big cheese. ^-^
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Potemkin!
TT
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Behemoth, of course.
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Merlin R1
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They did put one on a Reseen Warhammer -- -8M, I think? -- and its kind of poopy. So I'm glad they didn't try mounting one on a Marauder.
Just a thought I had recently, but the UAC/10 was introduced at pretty much the same time as the LGR as a FWLM staple. And yet, while the LGR, arguably a specialist sniping weapon, got put on nearly EVERYTHING (Need a Marik version of a Civil War/Jihad era 'Mech? slap a LGR on it and call it a day), the UAC/10 got put on next to nothing by comparison. This is quite unfortunate, as there are a number of designs that are subpar with an LGR that could probable shed a couple tons of other stuff and be better off with the increased damage curve. Still has a very respectable 6/12/18 range bracket, and more importantly doesn't suffer from a Gauss Rifle's minimum range penalty to give any enemy who rushes in close more than a few ER Meds to worry about. Shame what could have been...
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The UAC/10 was underutilized across the board. By the time it found its way into the core rules in BMR (1998), the Gauss Rifle had been in circulation since the Compendium (1990). I think it would have seen more widespread use if the complete set of UACs had made it into the BTC:RoW in 1994.
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Frankly, I can't see ever wanting a UAC10 over an LGR. An LBX10, over an LGR, sure, in certain applications, but not a UAC10.
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150% more damage is a compelling reason to mount a UAC on anything that's already hanging out at medium range.
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Frankly, I can't see ever wanting a UAC10 over an LGR. An LBX10, over an LGR, sure, in certain applications, but not a UAC10.
The Annihilator C says hi ;D
And honestly, I think it's a matter of what you want to do with the machine in question. The LGR is a sniping weapon that requires a bit of finesse in its use. One or two can be a useful force multiplier, undoubtedly. A whole force using them is often too overspecialized and likely to get overrun. LBX-10 is a fine weapon in many applications, though it suffers the same challenge as the LGR in not having enough raw damage to deter enemy 'Mechs (Vees and AFs, sure). Sure you could add a couple more tons and go all the way up to a UAC/20, but the UAC/10 can hit out almost twice as far making it the more tactically flexible weapon. Its more of a tossup against a standard GR (potential Headcapper vs potential PSC-in-one), as the GR will do more consistent damage though it still is still less effective in CQB where the UAC/10 still shines.
Honestly, I would love to use ALL the weapons I've just talked about in conjunction with one another. I prefer balanced forces to one trick ponies, no matter what game I'm playing. All of those above with the exception of the UAC/10 get a fair bit more placement in canon FWLM designs, so I just find its general scarcity something of a curiosity.
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That's just it, though, the UAC10 doesn't really have a niche. If you only want damage, find one more ton for an AC20. If you want high damage at range, find two more tons for a Gauss Rifle. Heck, even if you can't find the tons, get a RAC5 and potentially do even more damage at comparable range. And better yet, none of those irreparably wreck themselves on a 2.
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See, I think the UAC/10's niche isn't that it's sometimes a better damage dealer than a gauss rifle or that its a bargain ER AC/20. Its niche is its ability to do and be multiple things. It can be just a regular AC/10, or if the numbers are good it can be that ER AC/20. Shooting at a light or something already heavily damaged? Don't want to push your heat any higher? Fire regular rate. Really need to put down that one target that's causing issues? Fire double.
It's versatile, that's its niche.
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guaranteed 15 damage at one heat in one location with a better short range vs 8 heat where the 20 damage is likely spread across two locations and you only get the second burst 42% of the time. It would be one thing if there were special UAC munitions, but it's too inefficient to hang with other weapons systems. The UAC/10 appears on new chassis and variants after 3075 at rates only slightly higher than introtech.
There's a reason gauss-equipped mech variants outnumber UAC/10-equipped ones six to one.
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See, I think the UAC/10's niche isn't that it's sometimes a better damage dealer than a gauss rifle or that its a bargain ER AC/20. Its niche is its ability to do and be multiple things. It can be just a regular AC/10, or if the numbers are good it can be that ER AC/20. Shooting at a light or something already heavily damaged? Don't want to push your heat any higher? Fire regular rate. Really need to put down that one target that's causing issues? Fire double.
It's versatile, that's its niche.
I was tired of my Victor taking forever to get into range so I pulled out the AC and slipped in an Ultra 10. With a TC. Did wonders for engaging the enemy.
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guaranteed 15 damage at one heat in one location with a better short range vs 8 heat where the 20 damage is likely spread across two locations and you only get the second burst 42% of the time. It would be one thing if there were special UAC munitions, but it's too inefficient to hang with other weapons systems. The UAC/10 appears on new chassis and variants after 3075 at rates only slightly higher than introtech.
There's a reason gauss-equipped mech variants outnumber UAC/10-equipped ones six to one.
Look, I'm not saying the UAC/10 is the superior weapon. What I'm saying is that the UAC/10 masses less, has a potentially higher damage curve, has more ammunition per ton, and has no minimum range. The gauss has a longer range, less heat, lower potential damage via critical explosions, and a more predictable damage curve. If I had a choice between mounting one or the other in a 'Mech, I'd probably take a gauss rifle. Most of us would, I'm sure. But that doesn't make the UAC/10 a useless piece of crap, though; the only post-Civil War 'Mech I've played in a game was a stock Anzu and employed properly, that UAC/10 is a killer.
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I think the UAC by the time of its introduction in the FWL had two goals.
We know that the Gauss exist in limited numbers only in the FWL. So maybe getting UAC/10s from Imperator in better numbers could avoid similar limitations in the future.
And while the weapon itself cost nearly the same as the Gauss you get more shots for your money.
Comparing game rules alone will not provide significant advantage for the UAC/10 - or class 5 btw.
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I think the UAC by the time of its introduction in the FWL had two goals.
We know that the Gauss exist in limited numbers only in the FWL. So maybe getting UAC/10s from Imperator in better numbers could avoid similar limitations in the future.
And while the weapon itself cost nearly the same as the Gauss you get more shots for your money.
Comparing game rules alone will not provide significant advantage for the UAC/10 - or class 5 btw.
Not if you're using its ultra capability very much. And if you aren't, why not take an LBX?
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Not if you're using its ultra capability very much. And if you aren't, why not take an LBX?
Having the option to double tap is useful, even if it isn't necessarily used every round. As for the choice of UAC/10 vs it's LB-X counterpart, I like the aforementioned idea of a refitted Victor as an example. I loved the classic VTR-9B design as an 80-ton Urban Assault machine, but it was of course rather worthless outside of knife fighting range. The 3050 upgrade with a Gauss Rifle made a good deal of logical sense in making the 'Mech more well rounded, but I never really embraced it as the min range on GR made it more difficult to pull off the classic Jump n' Point Black Backstab shots I had grown accustomed to. You could go UAC or LB-X 20, but then you're back to the same issues as the original design in trying to hit anything at a distance. An LB-X 10 in this instance just wouldn't give enough punch as the primary gun, but its UAC/10 could help keep the enemy honest at a respectable range without making you think twice about getting in there for physical attacks the way the GR does.
One other thing of note would be that UAC/10s are probably more XL Engine friendly than all those Torso-mounted GR designs out there, just sayin'...
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As Don has alluded to, the lack of minimum range is a somewhat noteworthy benefit of the UAC10. And this is coming from someone who absolutely despises the weapon because it jams on me every single friggin' game I use it in Ultra mode, often with nothing to show for it.
If you're building a unit that you expect might have to fend for itself up close, the UAC10 would be the better choice in that case.
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One other thing of note would be that UAC/10s are probably more XL Engine friendly than all those Torso-mounted GR designs out there, just sayin'...
Ammo explosions aren't exactly a point in the UAC's favor.
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The point was you have all the crits of the gauss rifle that can explode while with a UAC/10 you end up with 1-3 crits that can explode if they have ammo.
Part of the reason I like the Gauss power down rule.
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Ammo explosions aren't exactly a point in the UAC's favor.
All too true, but more than any ballistic weapon class UACs tend to chew through ammo at a high rate which somewhat mitigates the risk factor. A UAC/10 has decent enough reach there's little reason not to be sending a single or double tap downrange a turn, unlike its larger cousin which often needs to wait for more choice shots until in the thick of it.
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All too true, but more than any ballistic weapon class UACs tend to chew through ammo at a high rate which somewhat mitigates the risk factor. A UAC/10 has decent enough reach there's little reason not to be sending a single or double tap downrange a turn, unlike its larger cousin which often needs to wait for more choice shots until in the thick of it.
Assuming they don't jam. Then you have a bunch of ammo and no way to get rid of it. Other than dumping, of course.
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I'm not sure how dumping constitutes 'no way other than', given that we're talking about the explicit purpose of ammo dumping. It's kinda like calling a Thunder Hawk a horrible sniper because it has no way to damage someone at range, aside from the Gauss Rifles.
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this conversation reminds me of the whitworth. someone will always defend it with a furious picking of nits, but who willingly puts one in their force if they have another option?
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I will, gladly. Not that big a fan of most of the upgraded models, but the original sees a lot of use with my Marian forces to provide missile support to medium mech units, and the rocket version is a fun city mugger.
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I'm not sure how dumping constitutes 'no way other than', given that we're talking about the explicit purpose of ammo dumping. It's kinda like calling a Thunder Hawk a horrible sniper because it has no way to damage someone at range, aside from the Gauss Rifles.
Well, since the other guy was talking about getting rid of it via firing it...
And dumping itself is pretty risky. You have to announce it the turn before, it removes the ammo from use in the turn you announce it, so no getting off a last shot before it goes, your unit can't run or jump, and ANY hit against the dumping unit on any rear location during the Weapon Attack or Physical Attack phases makes all the ammo you're dumping go boom. And you told them you were doing it last turn.
So yeah, dumping. Not great.
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You would imagine that the ammo would just cycle through the weapon without firing-at least in the case of cased munitions like ACs and MGs. Not sure why mech designers had to go to the convoluted idea of having all munitions ever coming out of every rear torso at once.
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It could be where the ejection port is for spent casing/brass . . . or they could be caseless or something where its consumed, though I know that is in MaxTech areas . . .
Remember its abstract.
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Ammo is loaded via back (even when in limbs, per rule), so presumably it is quickest way to remove it all at once. I mean, one dumps ammo in the event of elevated heat or weak armor and you need to get rid of it all quickly. Also, relative safety: Ammo getting dumped from elsewhere than back would risk it getting hit and blowing up, 'Mechs usually do face the enemy rather than show their back to them.
Through-weapon probably isn't an option usually. In case of caseless ammo like missiles, there is no ejection port, and they need rear door or something anyway. Or if the weapon is damaged, you need an alternate way to remove ammo.
The lack of exact torso location (or location at all, or weapon affecting thigs) is presumably abstraction and simplification of rules. Very early rules for BT didn't include the option at all after all, so perhaps it was added back when things were "quick and dirty" (as writing went).
EDIT I wrote: (Caseless ammo for ACs happens only with caseless versions of ACs (not ammo itself unlikely in earlier editions of BT), and i think no canon design uses such at the moment.)
But it seems i forgot how things work at the moment. It seems when using TacOps rules, a player could designate ACs as using caseless ammo but this prevents alternate munition usage.
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I've used Whitworths before, back when it was briefly thought the FWL fielded a small amount of them via trade with the DC in the 3025-ish era (not sure where this idea came from or how widely believed it was, mind you).
They are not bad Mechs. Not great, but they are acceptable. Essentially a slightly better Panther; an inexpensive way to get semi-mobile long range support on a team. There are formations I would willingly use them in, esp. if working alongside a WVR-6M. A GRF-1N would be better at the job, but it is 15 tons heavier and costs more BV to boot.
Honestly, the Whitworth is in a slightly better position overall than the stock YMN-6Y Yeoman... and I willingly field that thing from time to time too. It takes a lot for a Mech to be truly, "would not play this thing ever" level bad.
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Best use I found was a Trio of Whitworths and a Single LRM Huncie Lance.
Come and get me.... 100 LRMs and 13 ML.... Sure I can jump away, but that Hunchie is made for fist muggin' you.
Pares very well with others.
TT
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In the pre-LosTech era, I think that if I was a Davion mechwarrior who lost his Dervish but managed to claim a salvaged WTH-1, I'd call it a fair trade at worst, maybe a slight upgrade.
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In the pre-LosTech era, I think that if I was a Davion mechwarrior who lost his Dervish but managed to claim a salvaged WTH-1, I'd call it a fair trade at worst, maybe a slight upgrade.
Lower speed for a half ton of armor? That's maybe side-grade, but losing the power of 2 Inferno SRMs for single Medium is the down-grade.
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A Dervish costs 5.3 million c-notes, a Whitworth 2.8 million. So if you have free access and the money for it you get nearly twice the number of Whitworths. Thats a good deal i think.
But both designs are rare within the FWL, while we have 3 factories for Trebuchets. I think we have a good LRM boat in the medium sector with one variant boosting 30 LRM per salvo (for 4.2 million) and the other one with good jumping capability (4.3 million). In later times we also have the Apollo - but i always prefer the Trebuchet.
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Lower speed for a half ton of armor? That's maybe side-grade, but losing the power of 2 Inferno SRMs for single Medium is the down-grade.
They're both medium firesupport platforms. I'll trade a pair of SRM-2s, with their ridiculous 2 full tons of ammo, for a single ML any day. It does the firesupport job just as well as the Dervish.
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Well on the matter of nits and pickings, there is really no perfect solutions when it comes down to ballistics. Yes, a UAC mean packing an Ammo Bomb, and it may jam as stated. OTOH, while a Gauss Rifle can be powered down, I would suggest that this doesn't happen that often in practice. While there are a handful of designs with only one ton of ammo, most have two (or more even) which makes it more likely that they are going to still have it charged and firing away when the location holding it is breached by enemy fire. No perfect solution either way, just a matter of picking your poison.
Never had strong feelings about the Whitworth one way or the other. Kind of see it as a light Fire Support 'Mech where speed isn't a priority and perhaps Jump is useful. For FWLM Cav formations, I would tend to go with a Trebuchet for the extra zoom, though I guess Davions do have Mr Paddle Hands to fill the same role. While the copious SRM rounds does make it more explody, at least it does give you the option of stocking Standard AND Inferno rounds to offer increasing tactical flexibility while still never worrying about the launchers running dry in a fight.
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While we're discussing cavalry stuff, I have a tangential topic about a specific type of cavalry Mech. Namely, the Mad Cat and its ilk.
Obviously we do not have access to the original Mad Cat beyond maybe single-digits numbers salvage over time, at best. I'm not going to seriously explore that idea. Instead, I'm curious about its offshoots. Which ones exist, and which do we have? My preliminary research suggests...
Mad Cat. Mk II - Via IS General, obviously something we have. (Esp. since its main seller is now part of us)
Mad Cat III - Also via IS General and portions of the seller being part of us.
Mad Cat Mk. IV - Ditto.
Rakshasa - Unsure. I would think we have small amounts of them via open market (it shows up on the Mercenary MUL, Solaris entries, and other small sources) EDIT: and small amounts of salvage (end edit), but not enough to consider it a mainstay unit. Any insights?
Are there any other 'Mad Cat-likes' (of any weight class) we have that I've overlooked?
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Vulture IV is basically cheap version of Mad Cat IV, and available to everyone.
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...Huh. You're right. I knew we had it, but I hadn't quite considered it a 'Mad Cat-like' until I though on it for a few minutes. It's at the extreme edge of what I'd think of as one, but it does count. Interesting point!
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Do remember the original Mad Dog was named as a slur to Clan Wolf, and it is based on the Timber Wolf (missiles, dual lasers, same legs). The Vulture IV is just the ultimate expression of this copying of the Timber Wolf or equivalent follow-up.
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I allways figured that the Mad Cat Mk IV was the luxury model and the Vulture mk IV was the "economy" version
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Yeah, though its combat style is a bit different. I was more looking at the whole 'lasers plus missiles' thing. The Vulture Mk IV doesn't quite follow that as well as one would think.
EDIT: Long range missiles. And some lasers with real reach. The brawler configs with SRMs and close-up lasers aren't what I meant.
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I allways figured that the Mad Cat Mk IV was the luxury model and the Vulture mk IV was the "economy" version
The Mad Cat does have three more cup holders and rich Corinthian leather....
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The Mad Cat does have three more cup holders and rich Corinthian leather....
the secret sea fox genetics project was to engineer the perfect salesman. since the earliest days of the exodus, they strove in vain to duplicate the pure magic of Ricardo Montalban's Chrysler ads that have been fed on holovid to the merchant caste since the birth of the clans...
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They really should have Mays or Popeil as a SeaFox bloodname. Or whatever the merchant caste equivalent is. A trade name maybe?
Anyway, I was looking through the 3145 RAT's for Timber Wolf-alikes, and there isn't a whole lot that hasn't been mentioned. The only thing that caught my eye was the Archer 8M. It sort of reminds me of an Inner Sphere attempt at duplicating the Timber Wolf, without having any of the really fancy stuff that makes it possible. Sort of like a 5-ton-lighter Rakshasa. It has the twin LRM racks, and ER lasers for backup, but couldn't manage to fit multiple ER Larges so it only gets one. Plus, it can't manage the 5/8 speed and is stuck at 4/6. While the Rakshasa skimped on missiles so it could get the extra ER Large and the speed, the Archer 8M gave up on the speed to get bigger LRM racks with reasonable amounts of ammo.
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They really should have Mays or Popeil as a SeaFox bloodname. Or whatever the merchant caste equivalent is. A trade name maybe?
I SUPPORT THIS IDEA WHOLEHEARTEDLY!
(no caps lock wasn't accidentally left on; that's exactly the point WRT the late great Billy Mays)
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Yeah... the ARC-8M fails on the speed aspect of things, but otherwise fits (and is a good Mech; I'm actually willing to seriously argue that it is superior to the ARC-4M).
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With the talk about the Rak . . . I brought the -1Ar to the table recently . . . raised a few eyebrows when I declared what I was firing. Someone looked at the sheet and then commented they might need to put their own Rak together finally since it had been sitting in the blister.
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How did that work out for you? On paper, the Rakshasa -1Ar looks weak, but I know better; SnubPPCs are amazing if you're good at staying at exactly 9 (or sometimes 8, depending on the enemy's weapons) hexes. I'd be curious to hear a personal account of it though.
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IIRC I had a 3/5 gunner, kept the range up and had some ammo options. Hitting someone with 2 10 point hits at 8 or 9 hexes a turn is a good option.
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"Hah, I've closed to 3 hexes on you, your snubbies no longer have advantage!"
"Yes, you've got me. Here's 14 inferno missiles for your trouble."
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While that's certainly a fun idea (and probably a compelling argument to make your single SRM bin an Inferno load on the Rakshasa Ar)... the advantage goes away more easily than that. There are a few weapons whose Short range is 8 (HAG, for example... and Light Gauss too). There are several whose short range is 7 (LRMs, ERPPCs, regular Gauss). There are probably a few other weapons that benefit from moving to ranges 5-7 too.
Mind, I'm not trying to tear down your point; you've shown a pretty interesting reason to run Infernos on the Rakshasa Ar. It would probably be pretty effective (let's figure only 7 of the infernos hit, that's still a lot of extra heat... or a lot of dead infantry or ruined tanks or in some cases dead battle armor). It would even be a lot of fun. I'm just showing that units reliant on SnubPPCs have a lot more to worry about than Range 3; keeping them at EXACTLY 9 hexes is a huge challenge. One with huge rewards, though.
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Yeah, the Men Shen is a bit better at that role than the Rakshasa but one isn't completely boned if they aren't always at 9 hexes.
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Well, neither is truly boned. While I consider maintaining that exact 8 (if no HAG present) or 9 hex range very, very important... a Rakshasa Ar or Men Shen up to range 1 is still okay. A pair of 10 pointers is never truly 'undergunned' up close. It might not be ideal, but it's never hopelessly outclassed.
What's real fun is some SnubPPC units just gain different benefits if you slip too close to them. The TDR-10M for example. Get in its face... and suddenly you discover it has twin six-point punches and no guns on its arms. That can be fun!
I may try out the Rakshasa Ar some time, as based on the fluff it appears plausible that any given FWL regiment could have a Rakshasa (Mercenary MUL suggests open sales, so someone who has the cash to spare or can convince their CO of its value might be able to get one... plus there are some wandering off from Solaris it appears, and our neighbors field a few we could salvage too). Clearly not a mainstay unit (and I'd be genuinely surprised to see any FWL formation with more than a single Rakshasa), but these things do seem to get around.
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My solution was pretty simple . . . I knew that of the 3t ammo, all I would really need is a single ton of ammo, so I had 1t of plain SRM and 1t of Inferno. The LRMs are just to give you a ranged punch as you get in the 9 hex range.
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Hmm. That's more aggressive than I tend to play, but it's not a bad loadout. I might try it sometime.
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If you are staying outside of 9 hexes when your primary armament is a Snub, why did you mount it in the first place? Especially with two . . . it hammered away and IIRC barely got scratched. I probably have its sheet around ehre somewhere.
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There are times where I might want to hang back a little more anyway. And times where I might want the LRMs instead of SRMs, esp. at range 8-9. That sort of thing would give me cause to run more LRM ammo on the MMLs.
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Well, a single ton is 17 total shots, which means 8.5 rounds of fire . . . usually not something you go through in the typical table top game. Not even sure its something you would go through in a large MM battle- I would expect it to be knocked out before it shot out a whole ton of LRM ammo.
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Well, a single ton is 17 total shots, which means 8.5 rounds of fire . . . usually not something you go through in the typical table top game. Not even sure its something you would go through in a large MM battle- I would expect it to be knocked out before it shot out a whole ton of LRM ammo.
You can DEFINITELY run through that ammo in a fight. Even just lance on lance.
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Well, your not firing on 11s unless your just trying to burn through the bin to avoid a ammo hit.
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Well, your not firing on 11s unless your just trying to burn through the bin to avoid a ammo hit.
Unless you play lance-a-side games and call it when someone loses a mech, you're gonna go through that ammo. 16 shots minimum for me.
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I would think that if you are relying on MMLs as LRM launchers that much you're under-utilizing their ability, especially on a mid-range design like this one.
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I used to run a custom catapult with quad MML-7s. King sandblaster at point blank range. Highly underwhelming ranged support.
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I used to run a custom catapult with quad MML-7s. King sandblaster at point blank range. Highly underwhelming ranged support.
Really? It was underwhelming at range? Quad MML 7 is essentially the same as paired LRM15s, just 2 missiles shorter. I wonder what the difference is. Is it a case of the cluster chart working out different for paired 7's than a single 15? Or at harder to-hit numbers hitting with one 7 rack every turn seems less of an impact than hitting with one 15 rack every other turn? Just curious b/c in theory it shouldn't be much of a difference. I guess the quad 7's will roll more closely to averages whereas with the paired 15s you have a better chance to go on a hot-streak.
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Well, it goes like this:
Twin LRM-15s land 2x 5 point, 2x 4 point clusters on average.
Quad MML7s land 4x 4 point clusters on average as LRMs. The difference IS minor, but I would indeed prefer the 5 and 4 as opposed to a 4 repeated several times. Still, it's not a huge deal breaker.
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Kit has the point . . . if you are not needing to hang back to let the targets get softened up, staying back to just fire the LRMs or even LRMs & Snubs at 14 hexes is a waste of weapons options . . . if you want to do that, should have gone with a -1A instead of the -1Ar. The -1Ar is for using that speed to get a advantageous position for your primary guns, Snubs, and letting the MML7s ripple off a bunch of SRMs to find holes.
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That's certainly one way to play it, but what's the harm in keeping the -Ar at 8 or 9 hexes and using LRMs there as well anyway?
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I like MMLs backing LRMs. I'd have perhaps done the Yeoman 10-OR differently - dropped the LRM-10s for the MML-5s, and kept the LRM-15s.
So at range you go from 50 to 40 LRMs, but close up from 0 to 10 SRMs. The HawkWolf has the right idea, if (cough) somewhat primitive.
W.
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That's certainly one way to play it, but what's the harm in keeping the -Ar at 8 or 9 hexes and using LRMs there as well anyway?
There's no 'harm' but I'd be, generally, taking the extra +2 to fire the SRMs at long range for double damage over LRMs at medium.
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Wouldn't the extra +2 BTH tank your hitrates, significantly dropping damage output overall?
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Wouldn't the extra +2 BTH tank your hitrates, significantly dropping damage output overall?
It all depends on the hit roll, 7 is pretty even, 8+ is worse and 6- is better for damage output.
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That sounds about right, but I'm curious how you'd be getting BTH 6s at range 8-9? EDIT: Using SRM MMLs, I mean.
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Well, it'd be 6 for the LRMs, 8 for the SRMs. Mainly shooting at big guys that don't move much.
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Ohhh, okay! In that case, yeah, those BTHs are believable.
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In the interest of winning with what we've got, I finally managed to get a game going with some of the Orlando guys. We're doing 8,000 BV, one lance, just 'Mechs, FCCW era. This will be my first playing with these guys and I want to put my best foot forward, so I want to run only with what I have painted. This is what I came up with:
Grand Titan-10M (G3, P4)
Anvil-3R (G3, P4)
Wolverine-7M (G3, P4)
Locust-5M (G3, P3)
Comes out to 8,000 BV on the nose. It's fairly speedy, plenty of pulse lasers (a favorite of mine) to keep the to-hits manageable, and all painted.
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Not bad! If I were driving that group, I'd be tempted to go all-in on the brawling, loading the Titan's LRMs with smoke and Thunders to keep the other guys off balance until you can get close.
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I'll admit I had not considered alternate munitions. Something to think about.
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Half the fun of the Free Worlds League is alternate munitions. The other half is beating people with mechs most players would be ashamed to use. The third half is air support. The fourth half is insane infantry support. The fifth half is the look on your opponent's face as he tries to figure out how many damned halves you have. :)
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I'm honestly more inclined to like the sixth half, which is figuring out which side you're on that afternoon. :D
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I never let that slow me down ...
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That sounds like a fairly fun lance. Purely a brawling team, but fast enough for the era to DO that just fine. I'll be curious if you're able to get much in the way of results with the Grand Titan; it's a chassis I've always wanted to like, but I feel as though all its canon configs are bad.
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I've only ever had good experiences with it. Just remember it a brawler and don't be afraid to dump ammo if necessary.
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Hm. What sort of units do you end up putting it up against? I've found the N10M struggles to kill what it can catch, and that there's a lot it can't catch. The N11M fares a little better in this regard, but even it has major problems.
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A little random, but...does anyone else here enjoy using full lances of Locust 6Ms to just run around razzing your opponent? I notice that pretty much any time I'm using a Leaguer force these days, I try to work in at least two (and preferably four) of them in.
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Hm. What sort of units do you end up putting it up against? I've found the N10M struggles to kill what it can catch, and that there's a lot it can't catch. The N11M fares a little better in this regard, but even it has major problems.
In the past, it was mostly Spheroid heavies. I distinctly remember a Falconer that gave me trouble, but I had some LRMs boats that put paid to that guy, but other than that? The Lyran player I used to face had a penchant for Warhammers.
The Grand Titan was part of my heavy lance so I actually didn't have a lot of assault 'Mechs facing off with him during that campaign run. I can see your point though, because he doesn't have any single big knock-out gun like a Gauss or peepers. We'll see how this game goes. There's three of us playing that I know of and one of them is a Clanner, so I think it's going to be one giant free-for-all, which will make for some interesting tactical scenarios. I'll let you know how it goes.
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Re: Locust Swarm - Can't say I've tried it. Sounds like it would be MWO come to life in some ways, though. Could be a lot of fun. That a clan is one of our neighbors gives me pause though; light-swarming seems like it wouldn't be as effective these days due to at least one of our common matchups having lots of clan Large Pulse Lasers?
Re: Grand Titan and 'knockout weapons', that's actually not my critique. My issue is the low weapons range combined with modest speed; in post 3067 play it's real hard for that thing to get in close to do its job. This isn't as big a problem in the era you're playing this thing in though, and I hope it does well for you. The Grand Titan is a machine I've always wanted to love, just haven't been able to make any of its configs work well for me. I find the Anvil 3R does brawling (and ECM, if we're comparing it to the Titan N11M) better, numerous other units do the 'mix of weapons for general purpose fighting' thing better, and that a Kopis team makes a better bodyguard unit for long-range attackers.
So if you've found some ways to make the unit legitimately do well, I want to hear about them and be proven wrong!
Edit: To elaborate on the Grand Titan and 'knockout weapons', I'm actually okay with units that operate on the 'multiple amounts of medium-damage weapons' principle. The Juliano with its multi-ERLL loadout for example. I'm totally okay with that, because it does a meaningful amount of damage.
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Re: Locust Swarm - Can't say I've tried it. Sounds like it would be MWO come to life in some ways, though. Could be a lot of fun. That a clan is one of our neighbors gives me pause though; light-swarming seems like it wouldn't be as effective these days due to at least one of our common matchups having lots of clan Large Pulse Lasers?
The solution is the same way you keep Hammers, Falcon Hawks, and Lokis alive: Make sure the guys with the LPLs find it prudent to point them at a far more pressing matter, like the T-bolt in their face.
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The solution is the same way you keep Hammers, Falcon Hawks, and Lokis alive: Make sure the guys with the LPLs find it prudent to point them at a far more pressing matter, like the T-bolt in their face.
That only work for me if I'm not driving the T-Bolt. If I am, it's a single turn distraction. :'(
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Then use a Grand Titan. One thing about the -10M, people are highly motivated to kill it before it gets close...which means it can soak hits while your more fragile stuff gets into mischief. :)
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-13M soaks more hits ;)
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Slower, methinks. :)
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That could work. I'm not saying the T-bolt is too fragile for my playstyle....just the Murphy *loves* to punish me when I drive one.
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Quasimodos could be fun for that. Or Neanderthals.
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I've yet to actually use the Neanderthal. Can anyone who doesn't have a raging hate-on for OS weapons comment on the utility of the M-Pods?
(That wasn't pointed at anyone in particular, I just know that there are plenty of folks that automatically dismiss any one-shot gear, and thus would be unable to be objective)
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I've yet to actually use the Neanderthal. Can anyone who doesn't have a raging hate-on for OS weapons comment on the utility of the M-Pods?
(That wasn't pointed at anyone in particular, I just know that there are plenty of folks that automatically dismiss any one-shot gear, and thus would be unable to be objective)
Sure. A quick rules overview for those unfamiliar with MPODs. One-shot weapons, they work like LB-X clusters, single point clusters and the -1 to-hit, with a range of 1/2/3. At short range, it rolls on the 15 table, at medium the 10 table, and at long the 5 table. If an unused MPOD takes a crit, it explodes for 5 points of damage.
In the case of the Neanderthal, I think they're a good use. By having 3 of them you gain a fair amount of flexibility for the cost of 3 tons and 3 crits. The Neanderthal only has big hole punching weapons, the snubbies with capacitors, and the hatchet. In the right situations you can deal out a pair of 15-point PPC hits (with no minimum range) and a 32-point hatchet (or kick) attack. Great for tearing big holes in an enemy's armor, but not so good for finishing it off. With the MPODs, in this case 3 of them, you get 3 chances at 15 LB-X pellets or up to a single shot of 45 pellets. For me, I'd save them for up close, with at least good if not great to-hit numbers. Think of it as the button to push when the enemy just won't die, despite being opened up in many places.
I can see why they were developed and used in Solaris first. In a duel, it's a great add-on for 'Mechs that go for the showy, big honkin' guns and leave off the cluster weapons for those crippling shots to finish the enemy faster. In a Marik force, with allies with lots of LRMs I think it's not as necessary, but it's a nice backup to have, nicer I think than the SRM 4 and ton of ammo it could carry instead.
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Doesn't sound like too bad a use of one ton and one crit. I can usually think of better ways, but that's an option I'm glad exists; there have to be designs that make good use of it.
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Running a Marik Lance in an upcoming battle, was wondering what's better?
Albatross 3Ur or 4U?
Lancemates are a Buccaneer-3R, a Thug-11Eb and a Archer-8M.
BV is only 5 apart.
TT
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I generally like the 4U better due to far superior armor coverage
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ALB-3U solves more problems than -4U does though. You get an anti-aircraft weapon and crit-seeker in the -3U. Also better long-range attacks.
That said, this lance lacks a durable centerpiece unit. I reluctantly recommend the -4U.
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Huh? The Thug is pretty durable though its also long range support in those ERPPCs.
The -3U would have had that LPL to keep speedsters off your back, but the -3Ur gives it up for the Snub . . . so I think the -4U might work better because it can also hang further back behind your Archer & Thug to protect their back but still hit distant targets with the Light Guass and LRMs if it pushes in.
I think your WoB or WoB-aligned force can hold its own.
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I vote the -3Ur. The gauss rifle will be a nice addition to help the Thug's peeper open holes for crit seeking. You just have to be careful with it because its fragile for a 95-tonner.
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Huh? The Thug is pretty durable though its also long range support in those ERPPCs.
It's durable, but not something I'd send into the center of the battle.
Admittedly, this is possibly a quirk of my playstyle. I generally seek out one 4/6/* moving long range attacker to be my backfield, something that can project firepower anywhere but keep pace with the rest of the team. AWS-9M, Thug, etc. work.
Then I want something that works the center mid-field. An Anvil or similar is usually what this involves.
Then I have two faster units off to the sides, working to get behind whatever the back-field and mid-field can keep busy. If you're not playing like this, then the reasons I suggest the ALB-4U make far less sense. Not playing like me is, of note, entirely sensible and a-ok; it's just this tendency influences what I pick and why I do it. If someone wishes to instead run the Thug as their main field unit, then the calls for an ALB-3U or ALB-3Ur are far smarter.
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Technically, the Archer is.
Main mission is to lay the hurt where it's suppose to be. I just wanted to provide support fire from others.
TT
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I forgot to take pictures for you guys, but here's the low down on my game. It was going to be my Marik Militia and another guy's Sword of Light versus Smoke Jaguars, but the Sworder had a medical emergency and couldn't make it. So it was my aforementioned lance versus a Dire Wolf A, Timber Wolf A, and Mad Dog C, all with 4/5 MechWarriors. We played on 2x2 mapsheets which had more woods and hills than my opponent would have liked.
We started off on the long sides of the board -- my choice, because he outranged me like crazy -- and I played super-duper cagey the first, like, three or four turns. There was hardly any weapons fire because after he declared his dueling targets, I did my best to ensure that his 'Mechs couldn't shoot at their assigned targets (and he played zellbrigen correctly!) either due to too many intervening woods hexes or just making sure the to-hit numbers were too high.
He had the Mad Dog on my left flank, the Dire Wolf in the center, and the Timber Wolf on my right. I sent my Anvil and Grand Titan up the left, the Wolverine on the center-right, and the Locust did an end-run around the extreme right flank. When I committed, I hit him as hard as I could. The Anvil ran down the Mad Dog; thanks to my pulse bonus, I tore him up while he was only able to wing me a couple of times with gauss slugs. He kept giving ground trying to keep the range open but I eventually ran him down and got into his minimum range.
In the center, I diverted the Grand Titan and Wolverine to the middle. He had pushed the Timber Wolf forward, moving off of a perch and across a river to start drawing line of sight to the Titan, which put it in the perfect position for me to bring all three of my other 'Mechs down on him in a circle. The Timber Wolf got pummeled over the next three turns -- including suffering a couple of kicks from my brave (read: crazy) Wolverine pilot -- and eventually took a couple of engine hits that forced him to drop a PPC from his firing plan. In the meantime, the Wolverine did take a few errant pulse laser shots from the Dire Wolf, but the Grand Titan got the worst of both OmniMechs' anger.
By this time, the Locust had eaten a few good die rolls' worth of pulse lasers and lacked both arms, reduced to just running around its medium laser and being an annoying initiative sink. The duel between the Anvil and Mad Dog had moved into my opponent's backfield along his home table edge and in a moment of clarity, I realized that I prefect shots at the stationary, overheating, torn-to-pieces Timber Wolf in his back with the Anvil. The precise application of pulse lasers to the rear armor (eaten open by the Wolverine's jumping back strike antics) resulted in a third engine hit and the only confirmed kill of the game.
Moving into the double-digit turns (we played, I think, 11 or 12 turns in about six hours), the Anvil turned back to his fist-fight with the Mad Dog and promptly ripped off one side torso and opened up the chest armor; in return, the Mad Dog managed to land a couple solid hits and disabled one of my pulse lasers. The Grand Titan by this time was completely stripped off its left and center torso armor and was pretty banged up having fallen twice, but combined fire from it, the Wolverine, and a contributing five-pointer from the Locust to put the damage total over forty for a +2 to the resulting piloting check put the Dire Wolf on its butt.
The situation at this point was: Grand Titan: functioning, but not for long; Anvil: functioning, but hurt; Wolverine: short a ton of armor, but still alive and kicking; Locust: armless but still hard as hell to hit; Timber Wolf: dead; Mad Dog: one, maybe two more rounds before it was toast; Dire Wolf: armor torn up, but still 100% operational. However, the Dire Wolf was effectively surrounded and though it would take a long time to die, it still would have died (especially with the Wolverine tied to its rear). We decided to call it as a House Marik victory!
MVP of the game? My opponent's dice. The turn I committed hard to killing the Timber Wolf, he whiffed hard on a lot of his attack rolls. I managed to keep his to-hits above 7 most of the game, but even on 6s and 7s that turn he whiffed 'em. That gave me an extra turn to eat his lunch at point-blank range. Runner-up goes to the Anvil, which kept the Mad Dog tied up all by his lonesome the entire game; keeping those gauss rifles shooting on 8s and 9s at point-blank range instead of pouring slugs into my Grand Titan on 6s and 7s was key to it surviving long enough to help savage the Timber Wolf. Honorable mention goes to the Titan's LRM-15, which landed a full salvo on-target two turns running (thanks to the Artemis FCS).
All in all, it was a good game. My opponent took my superior maneuvering and his bad dice in stride with a rueful smile. I felt like it was one of my best games in a very long time due to how well I positioned my units, but in the future I need to pull my long-range guns back out of the box. Being forced to close under that kind of long-range fire was harrowing despite my general maneuverability advantage and I think a few light gauss rifles would have helped off-set the issue a little!
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Well done, seems like a comparable lyran force wouldn't have done half as well as you did; above-average speed is a big help in games like that!
Light Gauss might have helped, but I'm not sure what you could give up and still have a coherent team to allow it in. The Grand Titan is about the only negotiable unit that formation had. The ALB-4U might have sufficed in its position, but not much else comes to mind.
I'm curious, how did the Grand Titan perform?
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Considering it was fighting a 'Mech 25 tons lighter than itself? Decently. The armor held long enough, the speed combined with intelligent maneuvers helped to throw off the enemy's aim, and the LPLs and LRMs did good damage over time. Once I got in close and started using the close-in weapons, I really felt the bite of its fairly low dissipation system, though. I really feel like it needs more heat sinks, especially when my opponents were sinking 30- or 40-some odd heat each turn. I realize there's a big tech gap there, but I didn't think I'd feel that constrained. I might have gone crazier and rode the heat scale up a little bit if not for that damn Dire Wolf. I couldn't afford the speed loss.
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You did pretty well, for Leaguer fighting the cream of Clantech.
I've always felt in universe that the League designs were meant to bully IS designs, where the speed paradigm could only be bought at the expense of fragility (the XL dilemna). The Leaguer range preference makes better sense against either slower designs, or faster but fragile cavalry. But the Clans get the best of both worlds, and can close the range without losing whole engines to damaged torsos.
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I'll still take FWL units over what the lyrans field against the same threat. 3/5/0 movement gauss walls get bullied way too easily by clan ER Large Lasers parking just outside their range. Light Gauss can do the exact same thing, I imagine doing it with no ammo limits and more damage is even more hilarious.
Anyway, the Grand Titan either lacks heatsinks or range. It's a shame, I really want to like the unit but the fight you just outlined is one of the more mild reasons I dislike the chassis in its canon configs. What annoys me is you can make a great Grand Titan with literally zero changes to the art.
Still, even if a bit of luck was involved (and this game always involves some luck), you sound like you did really well! The Anvil 3R really is one of our best machines, doing far better in practice than it ought to on paper.
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Sounds like you handled it right . . . and perhaps the Clan player was a bit TOO much Jaguar. While the Clans are naive they should not have separated to chase down the duels. Also on that small a map, no matter if it is flat open, the Clan force will be pinned to a edge . . . without more speed they cannot keep range open, have to load up on the damage for Clan mid range in the hope of keeping the IS out of their mid-range.
You played to your strengths, well done.
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I'll still take FWL units over what the lyrans field against the same threat. 3/5/0 movement gauss walls get bullied way too easily by clan ER Large Lasers parking just outside their range.
Everyone says that until there's a Blitzkrieg on your six and a Mongoose II calling in Arrow IV strikes.
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Was genuinely unaware the lyrans had Arrow IV. Or a Mongoose II. Was only vaguely aware they had Blitzkriegs, a platform I am not terribly impressed by.
This probably owes a lot to how the lyrans I used to play against basically ran walls of thunder hawks backed by grenadier BA teams and Sagittaires. Suffice to say, I do not think very highly of those players.
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Capellans have more than Stealth Pillagers and Stealth Cataphracts, too.
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Everybody has Arrows in some form or another. Kinda surprised you've never been faced with an Arrow-IV Thunder Hawk, honestly. Against someone who's not expecting an effective countermeasure to fast lights, it can be a nasty surprise.
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Was genuinely unaware the lyrans had Arrow IV. Or a Mongoose II. Was only vaguely aware they had Blitzkriegs, a platform I am not terribly impressed by.
A 7/11/7 with 169 armor points, a C3 slave, and an HPPC tied to a targeting computer doesn't terribly impress you? That little thing's a nightmare on anyone's battlefield.
What the Lyrans really need is some good C3 masters, IMO; they get a lot of slave units (especially in the 3145 era) but I keep running omnis as masters. Then again the only battletech I play is "let's make a new battalion from a RAT" so you get what you can.
Or I go look up the Mongoose 268 which is a wicked little customer to go with a trio of those Blitzkriegs. Shame it has a BAP and not an ECM pack to counter jamming...
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A 7/11/7 with 169 armor points, a C3 slave, and an HPPC tied to a targeting computer doesn't terribly impress you? That little thing's a nightmare on anyone's battlefield.
What the Lyrans really need is some good C3 masters, IMO; they get a lot of slave units (especially in the 3145 era) but I keep running omnis as masters. Then again the only battletech I play is "let's make a new battalion from a RAT" so you get what you can.
Or I go look up the Mongoose 268 which is a wicked little customer to go with a trio of those Blitzkriegs. Shame it has a BAP and not an ECM pack to counter jamming...
I had to stop and check Sarna to figure out what you were talking about. That's kind of an obscure variant of the Blitzkrieg. Most people, I'd imagine, mean the one in TRO 3060 that's basically an Ultra/20 tied to a big engine and not much else. It's like a Hollander: good at a very narrow focus, but very limited in its application. Now, I think I have a higher opinion of it than GespenstM, but it is kind of a one trick pony.
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Everyone says that until there's a Blitzkrieg on your six and a Mongoose II calling in Arrow IV strikes.
I know or played a lot of the folks he are referencing . . . their idea of tactics is to waddle Atlas, Banshee and Stalkers hey diddle diddle right up the middle with their flanks guarded by Fenrir BA squads. They wet themselves if they manage to draw a Thunderhawk let alone a Hauptman (unless its the A, because it only has 1 Gauss Rifle to reach range). Their idea of a 'faster' force is to use Warhammers, Maruaders and Caeser 4Rs. In that world artillery is restricted and hard to find.
Which is why Clan forces stand off to pound the Lyran steel wall tactics.
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Yeah, I was unaware there was a HPPC Blitzkrieg. THAT, I can appreciate. That's the sort of thing that would get me to send a TR1 after it in one hell of a hurry.
On the rare occasions I actually get to play against Liao, they actually seem to run a pretty diverse list. "Liao has more than Stealth Pillagers" would be met with me responding "Yeah, they also have pretty much all our best units too because Thomas Halas inexplicably let them plunder all our good stuff while gaining virtually nothing in return." Liao, I take very seriously because all five people on the planet that play that faction happen to be really good players who understand their faction's combat style quite well.
Colt has pretty well described my encounters with lyran players, except the ones he has run into are even more mobile. The ones I face only advance if Light Gauss or artillery force them to (I have proven QUITE willing to sit there for 32 rounds spending a LGR round each, receiving no return fire because I parked at exactly 25 hexes). Or if they have a Sagittaire. Then they move in. Otherwise, nope.
Basically, I respect 4 of our 5 neighboring match-ups. Republic of the Sphere is "We have almost every single good mech in the game, or at least most of the good Davion, lyran, and Marik ones plus clantech", making them an obviously strong threat. Magistracy of Canopus is viable since they're basically Liao Lite, I've played against them twice and each time their players did fairly well. The Klingon Empire , er, Wolf Empire, I respect because they have a very strong Mech list backed by a tendency to attract both very bad and very good players (so it's a coin-flip as to which you're going to get). Liao I've already discussed above.
I'm sure that good lyran players are extremely dangerous too; there's no way a mech list that good can be anything but a major threat in decent hands. I just haven't met many of them, because they seem to attract a disproportionate amount of bad players. EDIT: To the point where I don't seriously worry about them. We now have plenty of units that can rip up these sort of players reliably, provided you play smart. And really, "play smart" is pretty much a requirement for running FWL.
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The BTZ-4F shows up in 3145, it's actually on the Lyran RAT in the #13 slot. Good units will have a lot of them. They date back to the Jihad era (3074) and are FWL/Regulan per the MUL in 3086. The -3F is 3061 intro, but canon says 25% of them go to the League, and MUL confirms they're a design shared. It might be a one-trick pony, but a 7/11 with a gun ending in -20 is bad news for anyone's battlefield.
I wonder what other goodies you guys are getting from us...
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The BTZ-3F isn't just a one trick pony, it's a trick that requires being close to the enemy (their battle armor teams will mulch it) and can jam. They're scary, but too inconsistent for me to like them.
The -4F on the other hand... that's a tremendous amount of BV to spend, but arguably worth it. It has enough range to keep away from its primary counters, and can keep firing until something good happens. I like that machine on some level.
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The BTZ-3F isn't just a one trick pony, it's a trick that requires being close to the enemy
but what a glorious trick it is :))
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A thought occurred to me: We get Wights, right? Has anyone tried grouping Wights and Hammers together in a hole-puncher/crit-seeker combo?
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A pair of single-hit weapons does not 'crit-seek.' That's like calling a pair of small lasers 'crit seekers.' I've tried similar setups before and it does not usually work well. You will get a game or two where it does, but over a longer period of time you usually find it falls flat or at least fails to go fishing for a meaningful number of crits. I might accept a Whitworth as a crit seeker since it will do an average of four hits (two 5s, two 1s) with its LRM-10s, but a pair of hits doesn't really suffice for this.
The Hammer is unfortunately just a bad chassis. You can produce some great designs that fulfill its idea, but they require improving the chassis. Given that the Albatross hasn't been given these kind of fixes yet either, I doubt it'll happen; we'd more likely have to wait for some kind of inheritor to the idea much as we did with the Juliano supplanting the Stalker and Grand Titan.
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Perhaps he was looking at the 3P with it's 8 SRMs....
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Perhaps he was looking at the 3P with it's 8 SRMs....
That would be my assumption too. I had to go look to remember what the "non-variant" Hammer had, I'm always using one of the variants instead 3P or 3C :).
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Ah. That one could work, then.
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I actually was thinking about the LRM models, but I will concede based on the multi-hit rationale. I rather like the Hammer, but I'll admit that's not one of the jobs it does well.
I'm not a big fan of the SRM models. They hit hard as hell, but I prefer my slower lights to have good range(large laser or better), the better to keep them out of the line of fire. Maybe as city or jungle fighters-oooh, I just had some ideas...
Wights and Falcon Hawks might be nice for an all big gun group. Maybe keep a Hammer in the lance anyway, for mine and smoke support.
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The 3C is pretty not-bad against battle armor. It's sort of like a Komodo that doesn't care if its arms get shot off. The 3M though...yeah. I think I've had better luck using the LRM racks in that one to fling smoke and mines than as a way to actually deal damage. Of course, doing that sort of wastes the tonnage put into Artemis. I prefer the Eagle with it's large laser and jets, but it doesn't show up for a couple more years. Even the Jackal with its rather silly cooling arrangement tends to work out better for me than the 3M Hammer.
About the best it has ever done for me is acting as a punching bag in a light lance vs. light lance fight. It was usually pretty easy meat, so it took a lot of fire, and managed to keep existing for quite a while thanks to the standard engine and disposable arms.
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I've ran a Hammer Lance using all Hammers in it.
3x HMR-3S
1x HMR-3C
Seven LRM-5s and 12 MLs!
Worked great.... Shot every possible hex that could do me in with Thunder. Smoked every other turn, and then waited for the assualt to happen.
Surprise the hell out my opponent when she found out that my 3C that advanced to meet her wasn't a 3M and the rest targeted her Hunchie!
TT
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Now THAT sounds like fun! O0
I wish there was a variant that dipped the Artemis for more ammo. The Slammer went the wrong way on that one to me.
I keep forgetting about the Claw-Hammer. Should try that one in a Solaris ball brawl sometime
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I have a personal curiosity in comparing two of our heavier hitters.
Let's say you have a FWL regiment where you get one (1) of the following, but you have to pick which one:
Mad Cat Mk. IV with all relevant omnipods
OR
Mad Cat Mk. II 3 (the twin HAG30 config)
OR
Mad Cat Mk. II 4 (the quad ERLL and twin LRM-15s with jump jets config)
Which one do you pick, and why? Presume standard 5/4 pilots and ready access to repair parts.
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Mk II 4. It's an older platform, the mechanical kinks have been worked out of it in the 80 years since its introduction, it uses equipment that has been in widespread production or availability for the better part of 200 years.
On top of that, it's a mobile Assault 'Mech that can do a reasonable impersonation of a Heavy with some more guns bolted on. It keeps pace with things like the Albatross, Tempest, and Anzu, providing a heavy long range punch to skirmish formations utilizing those designs.
That, and the Mk II mini is waaaaaay easier to put together than a Mk IV.
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I probably take the Mad Cat Mk. II 4, because if I only get one shiny clantech super-mech, I want one that's designed to engage from long range where it's going to receive less return fire. It also fits my personal playstyle better.
That said, it's hard to go wrong with a Savage Wolf (though if you break it, it's going to be hell trying to get parts to fix it). I mean, that's true of any clantech mech, but especially so of the bleeding-edge, Ferrolam-and-XXL-engine monster. Though in universe if I'm driving it myself, a ferrolam-armored head does have a certain attractiveness...
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I'll third the II-4. All the reasons mentioned before, plus it's hard to take a mech equipped with ER lasers and LRMs and have it NOT mesh well in a FWL force. :)
On the other hand, a lance consisting of a IV acting as the fire support for a trio of Anvils sounds like a fun force to run sometime. >:D
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As a few replies have mentioned logistics, does your answer change if we presume (as mentioned earlier) the Mk. IV has all its repair parts well in order so that it can be fixed up as needed?
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As economics are not playing a factor . . .
You always choose the OmniMech. The versatility is what shines in the meta aspect of strategic planning, and a cavalry design that can shrug off as much damage to armor as a heavier assault mech is nothing to sneeze at when filling out a force. As Scotty says, repairing them will be expensive . . . but your talking about a Great House, a couple billion c-bills here & there and eventually you start talking about real money. Getting the techs up to speed and having a flow of spare parts & armor does turn into some headaches BUT its what your quartermasters get paid for- make them do their job. No army kept buying their muzzleloaders because they understood how they worked & know how to repair them when reliable breechloaders came on the scene.
Now . . . taking economics into play, yeah buy up all the Mad Cat Mk II 4s the Sea Foxes will sell you. You have 4 of the best guns in game, even if the person who filled out the record sheet for some reason followed past silliness and kept DHS out of the legs. Its a bad one for crit placement . . . I really hate when they gimp what should be a solid design by stacking ammo as the only option in 50% of a torso. Between 3 cERLL and tossing 30 LRMs, likely using Semi-G ammo . . . its a great design for running with the bulk of the FWL line forces of Archers, Orions, Warhammers, Avatars, Thunderbolts, Anzu, Sunders, Juliano, and Marauders.
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I agree with Colt. Omnis really shine in a campaign setting, especially in the context of larger forces.
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Not only that, but the damage output between the two isn't all that different if it's damage you're after. A pair of Clan ERLL and an Artemis V LRM-15 does about as good as a trio of Clan ERLL and an unenhanced LRM-15. It does slightly less, I grant, but not enough for me to declare a winner or loser just based on that.
The differences in durability (XXL vs. XL, but FerroLam modifying this) and mobility (5/8/0 vs. 4/6/4) make this more interesting a comparison in my eyes.
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By the time your superior armor has been crunched on enough you are worrying about the XXL you should be running away. One Savage Wolf configuration I worked up for the Republic slapped a SC on the chassis . . . 5/8(10) on something that heavy is a great way to put a lot of firepower where you need it.
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It's not merely XL versus XXL (+Ferro-Lam), it's XL (+2 tons of armor [versus FF base], +extra structure) versus XXL (+Ferro-Lam). The durability issue is fairly well solved, and in the Mad Cat Mk II's favor. The Mk II 4 also maintains a higher minimum damage output per turn based on equipped weapons thanks to the Mk IV's movement heat being significantly higher.
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No, because if the enemy is through your armor, then its time to be getting out of the line of fire- so 'durability' should be just armor. Throw on the Ferro-Lam keeps LBX from getting any Golden BBs, and its another point for their 'durability.' The heat? Your using Clan DHS, no big deal- it has a lot of sinks in that engine and its also an Omni which means you can do more to mitigate that heat if it is a tactical concern.
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Strongly disagree. The difference between being outright destroyed by the loss of one side torso, and requiring open breaches (at least) and likely two missing side torsos to destroy the other 'Mech in the comparison is absolutely one of durability.
And four extra heat per turn at the same movement speed is absolutely a big deal. That's two tons of warload you're not using on guns, or it's guns you can't fire without overheating. You can't just magically say "It's Clan, heat doesn't matter!" when Clan designs are historically the hottest running in the entire game.
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Outright destroyed? You take the 4 hits on that side for the XXL and the mech falls . . . but that engine can be repaired by the rules. But again, if you are starting to take internal damage no matter what the design is you should be pulling out if possible. Real tactical/strategic campaigns would not have units fighting to destruction. Btw, with the Savage Wolf and Mad Cat Mk II 4 have effectively the same armor- though if the enemy is armed with LRMs/MRMs/RLs and LBX then single missiles & pellets would effectively increase the Savage Wolf's armor.
The Savage's engine carries 1 more DHS in the engine than the MCII-4, and its a Omni so it does not have to go out with Clan energy weapons (as much as I love the cERLL). Considering you can duplicate, or come close, to every original Timberwolf configuration without piling up heat problems- and they are energy dependent. Further its 4/6 for movement heat rather than the 1/2, for the 4 difference does not much when you are talking about the sort of weapons and performance- heat neutral designs are after all a waste for most play, so its a different heat curve you have to take into account. Clan designs do run hotter because their weapons are hotter which is tied to performance, but for that Omni you do not have to arm it with the hottest weapons in the game . . . its the League! You are better off equipping it with some LRM racks as secondary weapons so it can participate in mass fire.
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I feel like I've entered bizarro world, where triple the movement heat isn't important, XXLs aren't less durable than XLs, and Clan energy weapons don't run hot. I have no idea why you seem to think "number of heatsinks hidden in the engine" has anything to do with overall sink capacity, in which the Mad Cat Mk II 4 has the Mad Cat Mk IV beaten in every single one of its configurations.
The Mad Cat Mk IV has a tendency to run hot in literally every configuration we have stats for. The Prime hits +6 on a run while firing only its PPCs. The A runs +6, too, firing ER Larges and ATMs. The B climbs to +10 on a running alpha. C gets to +4 firing long range weapons only, +14 if you add in the ER Mediums. "But I can just field a different configuration" only goes so far. The warload here is exceptional for the level of protection and size, but it is merely exceptional for its size, and you will run into payload problems either heat sinks, criticals, or tonnage long before you come up with a config that hits as hard and also doesn't run hot.
I flat out disagree on the topic of "If you're taking internal damage at all, anywhere, for any reason, you need to withdraw immediately". I doubt we'll reach anything even approaching agreement, so I won't even try. Sometimes to win fights you have to take risks. The Mad Cat Mk II 4 is significantly better equipped to take risks and come out on the other side.
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Kind of makes me wonder if we'd ever see them revisit the Mad Cat Mk. II and give it FerroLam.
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Triple the movement heat is not a game breaker like you are making it sound . . . you plan your movements around it just like you do a mech that has a engine hit or when you are in a situation where you take environmental heat. Its just a departure from the old 1/2 heat additions that were the standard. The Savage is a OMNI, which means its not restricted to just those 15 DHS- if the situation requires it and you have them on hand you can add more. The MCII-4 IS fixed unless you take drastic action in refitting the chassis, its why in a strategic perspective the Omni is nearly always a better choice over standard gear if you can afford to equip with them. Just like BV, when it comes to a Omni you are using a artificial construct- limiting to canon configs- to determine its suitability. Personally I dislike the Timberwolf D and its Linebacker clone which is why I dislike the Savage Prime. The A, which is closer to my preferred Timberwolf E would have a simple firing pattern of 2 ERLL and 1 ATM while in long range and you had ER ammo. In close you would unload with ATMs and a single ERLL. Its bracket fire, unfortunately the canon designs did not take as much advantage of that ability like they could of using Clan weapons. What makes the Savage Wolf worse than the Black Knight 6, which when it runs and fires all its long range weapons overheats nearly the same?
As far as combat endurance . . . yeah, sorry you do not risk billions of c-bills (or whatever currency) on a machine being wrecked when it becomes vulnerable- like a side torso about to be breached. This becomes especially important in the Dark Ages when getting replacements is not as easy as it might have been in other eras. The Savage Wolf effectively has as much armor as the MCII-4- either one should be retreating when they become vulnerable on a side torso. The Savage Wolf is faster and should be able to fall back faster than the Mad Cat II-4, JJ are a wash b/c if terrain will dictate you can mount them on that Omni. Yes the MCII-4 will be able to keep retreating even if it does end up losing that side torso . . . but how often does something successfully retreat out of combat after such a loss? All that damage would be flowing through to the CT and I have seen plenty of mechs die from the damage passing through to the CT. Fighting to destruction, or even casually risking it, is not displayed in the fiction nor does it make sense in a campaign/strategic setting where mechs are rare & valuable even in times of plenty. Sure you take risks but you do not plan to fight to that point every time.
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But it is displayed in the fiction. We pretty regularly see mechs taking internal damage in the fiction.
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I'm not saying it's a game breaker, I'm saying that the Mad Cat Mk IV, as a design, tends to run hot, and that it's a definite negative to the unit. The response I'm reading here is "No it doesn't, and Clan energy weapons are easy to avoid running hot with while still getting good firepower" which is counter to literally everything I have ever experienced about Mad Cats of any stripe (with the singular exception of the not-good Mad Cat B). I don't understand why you're bringing up a Black Knight at all, since Black Knights are not the subject of the discussion and are not Mad Cats of any kind. "Look at this other heavy 'Mech that also overheats! The Savage Wolf is better than it." ....so what? I'm also not saying the Mad Cat Mk IV is a bad 'Mech. It isn't. But it does have flaws. Serious ones. Pretending they don't exist does the chassis no favors.
Regarding risk, I will endeavor to explain to my company commander why we should never take Humvees outside the wire, because you don't risk hundreds of thousands of dollars on a machine being wrecked when it becomes vulnerable (and let's be real here; merely existing in an area where man-portable explosives are present is an existential threat to Humvees). I am sorry, but this line of thinking is bullshit. War machines like 'Mechs are designed, from the ground up, with the expectation that they will experience risk. If every 'Mech pulls back when it starts taking structure damage the first time, that side will lose unless it had a decisive numerical and qualitative advantage to start with, let alone continue the battle. I don't know what fiction you're reading, but the stuff I tend to get my hands on includes lines like "The Fusiliers lost more than a battalion before the security force surrendered" (Historical: Wars of the Republic Era pg. 52), and "However, Whitlocks' conventional forces were completely destroyed after they rubbled the factory" (the same page). Losses happen. Units push on with damage. You can't take an objective if half your force has withdrawn from barely moderate damage and your enemy has not. 'Mechs are destroyed. War is risk and BattleMechs are the chips.
The idea that you don't risk a machine with low armor for any reason isn't just wrong - it's laughable.
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And I've seen plenty of Mechs leave combat, albeit still vaguely functional, as just a CT, head, and two legs. (ERLL or LPPC in the CT as a weapon while they're withdrawing, for example).
That's kinda anecdotal. There are TONS of Mechs I'd keep on the field after a torso breach. Anvil 3R stands out.
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Let's keep it cool in here, please. We're not Mad Cats. :)
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I dunno, things in here look pretty cool overall?
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Surprisingly, since we're the faction of civil strife.
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Can't we just put the FL armor on the Awesomes?
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Can't we just put the FL armor on the Awesomes?
Changing only the type of armor, but keeping the tonnage the same, it's possible for the:
AWS-8Q
AWS-8R
AWS-8T
AWS-8V
Basically all the intro-tech ones. If you want to trade an Endo-Steel structure for it, the AWS-10KM and AWS-10KM (Cameron) can do it, but you either need to free up tonnage or go with a composite structure. That would be trading a weaker structure for stronger armor, which may or may not pan out.
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I'm kind of curious, why would you need to? The AWS series tends to keep distant from most enemies, doesn't get shot up as much as our front line units as a result.
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Its Kit, his habit it to throw out red herrings as he walks down any path.
Scotty, you are still bound up taking the published configs for Omni to determine how it will heat. The design does not inherently run hot- its the weapon loads that make it so and you keep bringing up the canon configs which overlooks its primary advantage- its an Omni. You can throw on plenty of 'cool' loadouts mimicking other Clan mechs- like the Mad Dog C or Warwolf Prime (with 2t to spare if no CASEII). I mentioned the Black Knight b/c no one talks about it overheating at different ranges, we talk about it being a bracket-fire machine. Its the description of that machine since the beginning. The heat it generates is not a serious flaw IMO because it should be planned around, just like a engine crit or environmental heat.
As far as taking damage . . . no I am not suggesting run away when your armor gets scratched. But when a side torso is open on a XL or XXL engine'd mech its time to think about pulling it into the backfield or even off the battlefield in any sort of campaign. While as AW says we do get stories about units fighting to the end, typically they will try to withdraw if outmatched . . . the cases where they did not are remarked on as shocking. Yes, you are going to take losses in combat but the point is that you do not take losses for no reason or do not take steps to mitigate any losses when engaged.
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You know what the FWLM needs? A good bridgelayer. Not so much to cross water(though that is nice), but to create road hexes through woods that allow wheeled and hover vehicles to cross through where they normally couldn't. It would give our outsized recon platoons more flexibility to strike from areas normally impassable.
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I'm kind of curious, why would you need to? The AWS series tends to keep distant from most enemies, doesn't get shot up as much as our front line units as a result.
Well, so should the Mad Cat IVs, they are mounting mostly long-ranged weapons. Plus it might help up-zombie the Awesome....
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Mostly true, but many of the Mad Cat Mk IV configs mount weapon loads that encourage you to head into close combat to finish the job. SSRM-6s, ATM-9s, HAG/30 backed by Improved Heavy Large Laser, etc.
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Clearly you haven't felt the pull of the Small Laser like some of us have. :D
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You know what the FWLM needs? A good bridgelayer. Not so much to cross water(though that is nice), but to create road hexes through woods that allow wheeled and hover vehicles to cross through where they normally couldn't. It would give our outsized recon platoons more flexibility to strike from areas normally impassable.
Errr. . . that's what the Galleon is for?
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Galleons are okay, but they can still only handle light woods, and are slowed down pretty badly by them. Honestly, I've never really been impressed by the Galleon, about all it brings to the recon game is tracked terrain handling. A few bridge hexes would allow tracked, wheeled, and hover vehicles to cut through a stand of woods at top speed. (Okay, skid checks mean that's not the safest idea, but the capability's there.)
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One of the Galleons has BAP IIRC . . . but yeah, I like the Chevalier and wish it was still produced as common.
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I use them for my periphery raiders, so I can have pirate Galleons!
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I use them for my periphery raiders, so I can have pirate Galleons!
But do your Castilian forces deploy Spanish Galleons?
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But do your Castilian forces deploy Spanish Galleons?
Really? Just. . . smack yourself.
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As the faction of fire support, direct & indirect, has the League ever really established a artillery doctrine? I mean we could say the Cappies are big on Arrow IV after they rediscovered it but . . .
What Would the League Do?
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Look up Brooks and Maxwell both make Arty for Marik.
Brooks make Galleon-105
Maxwell makes the SLDF Thor clone, TAV-1
TT
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I know what gets made . . . but it does not cover what could be their doctrine from Age of War until 3145.
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Then I say the standard 2075 SLDF artillery doctrine would be safe.
Pound it, pound it again and if it still stands, pound it some more!
What do you want me to say? We have know Idea of what any House's artillery ability is used.
Davion's prefer Long Tom? Cappies want more Snipers? What about House Kurita, do they use everlasting Thumpers? The fact is we do not know!
Standard Artillery has always been limited to what can be transported to the front, ie: 2-3 Mapsheets away. Long Toms are severely slow, while Snipers and Thumpers provide faster responses, atho the Arrow system is becoming into its own light. Whereas BA Tube Arty is just now approaching it's usage as well.
TT
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2075?!? They had time traveling SLDF divisions?!?!
Seriously, though i think alot of the SLDF stuff written in the SLDF Field Manual came from the ye olde Davion sources since their RCTs were based on the League stuff and the Eridani Light Horse.
I have to agree with truetanker, using the SLDF's doctine would be best way to go. The League regiment brigades were very diverse in their doctine.
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Alright . . . for example . . .
Capellan artillery seems to be used either offensively (mech & Regulator) or defensively (other vehicles, towed/static). In either case, they seem to use it to shape the battlefield- as indicated by T-Aug and other munitions they use. IIRC they do not have access to FASCAM rounds for A4, instead having LRMs for that sort of work . . . but they have inferno rounds which allows you to use fire to control the shape (thanks Sunny's namesake). They also seem to use Arrow IV more than the tube artillery such as Thumper, Sniper or Long Tom for their artillery. They also take advantage of a lot of guided rounds because they have a lot of TAG'ers.
I wonder if League Artillery uses 6 vehicle lances for 18 vehicle batteries due to their production of mobile guns being Thumpers. It would create a better pattern for the CFFs even if the damage is not as high as a battery of Snipers or Long Toms.
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They only use six-unit lances for light vehicles. Towed guns are part of infantry and so use infantry organization, and most self-propelled guns are too heavy to be light vees. Maybe the Thumper Karnov.
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2075?!? They had time traveling SLDF divisions?!?!
Seriously, though i think alot of the SLDF stuff written in the SLDF Field Manual came from the ye olde Davion sources since their RCTs were based on the League stuff and the Eridani Light Horse.
I have to agree with truetanker, using the SLDF's doctine would be best way to go. The League regiment brigades were very diverse in their doctine.
That's not true at all. Davion RCTs are very, very different from SLDF RCTs.
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They only use six-unit lances for light vehicles.
So then I can arm a total of 6 Galleon-105s? Sure they're late 3140's... but imagine the looks!
Woot!
TT
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They only use six-unit lances for light vehicles. Towed guns are part of infantry and so use infantry organization, and most self-propelled guns are too heavy to be light vees. Maybe the Thumper Karnov.
I know its for light vehicles in armor formations. SP Guns are not armor, even if they are armored. As their throw weight is so small, its why I suggest 6 gun lances- its 30 points of damage potential vs a standard Sniper lance of 40 let alone A4 & Long Tom's 80 points.
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Unless you find some note that specifically calls for it, I'd assume 4-gun batteries. Throw weight doesn't factor into it.
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I know its for light vehicles in armor formations. SP Guns are not armor, even if they are armored. As their throw weight is so small, its why I suggest 6 gun lances- its 30 points of damage potential vs a standard Sniper lance of 40 let alone A4 & Long Tom's 80 points.
That sounds like the BMR values. Thumpers do 15 points of damage to the center hex under Tactical Operations, not 5 points, and Snipers were bumped up to 20 and Long Toms to 25 at the same time.
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Yeah, Thumpers are solid guns. :)
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Hm, too used to the old values that they come off the top of the head . . . I prefer Snipers for versatility of damage, number of rounds in a ton and their canon platforms. Just makes a heavy firing platoon 90 points between the 80 of Snipers & A4 and 100 of Long Toms.
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They only use six-unit lances for light vehicles. Towed guns are part of infantry and so use infantry organization, and most self-propelled guns are too heavy to be light vees. Maybe the Thumper Karnov.
When it comes to artillery don´t go light. Hell, if you can´t nuke it from orbit go for the next best thing. Schiltron Lance with a total of 8 Arrow IV launchers and 4 Master C3Computers. Employ with TAG heavy formations.
Now if you do go light and want to exploit the 6 vehicle lance, then 6 Arrow IV yellow jacket will do the trick too.
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Sometimes nonstandard factors come into play. For example, the lighter artillery may be cheaper; Or only so much weight can be carried; Or circumstances don't require every building in sight to be destroyed.
While I'm not exactly the biggest proponent of the Thumper, it's decent for mixed unit tactics. After all, why would you waste your time putting flare ammo in a Long Tom?
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After all, why would you waste your time putting flare ammo in a Long Tom?
(https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/69/ac/6d/69ac6d0f643b90faa2f7ef9374adf741.jpg)
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I'm currently in the midst of organizing my minis, and have reached a bit of a stumbling block on an Age of War 1st Atrean company. How would you finish this out?
Command Lance:
Mackie
Longbow
Longbow
Ostwar
Battle Lance:
Hector
Hector
Dervish
Icarus
Recon Lance:
???
Trooper
Trooper
Wasp
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Salvaged Commando. Bring a little boom to the party.
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...I rather like that. It can keep up with the others, and if they find something worth blowing up, it would act as the heavy weapons guy of the force. The whole group works well across many eras, and best of all, I really like the Commando as a mini. O0
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Whatcha set fer armor?
Runnin' da traditional 5 and 6 tank Squads?
Infantry support, and some Aero?
What's set for Transport in the ol' AoW?
Numbers man, we need numbers... O:-)
TT
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You want numbers, I need sentences! :D
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Is the LL Commando - the 1A - available? MUL says 'Extinct', but I'd play it on my table.
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Well this force is meant for the Age of War, so laser Commandos, Troopers, and bad-landing Wasps all around!
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Trooper, Wasp, and Commando are the only primitives produced before 2500 that move 5/8 or better. I'd say Commando for flavor. The Wasp 1A is produced at this point and would also be an option as well. If you're willing to drop speed, the Icarus is also around.
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the troopers.. what are they equipped with? i know they are predecessors of the Flea but i'm way behind on TRO's and stuff
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2 SL, MG, Flamer. 6/9 speed, 32pts armor.
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definitely would say large laser commando then.. it would give the unit at least a bit of option for shooting at longer range.
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On the other end of the spectrum, I just finished working up a 400-point Regulan company for an Alpha Strike game this weekend:
Command Lance
Patriot-2C (Tactical Genius)
Marauder-9M2 (Combat Intuition)
Thunderbolt-10M (Eagle Eyes)
Apollo-1R
Hammer Lance (*2 Speed Demons or Jumping Jacks per turn)
Ostsol-8M
Buccaneer-3R
Hammer-3C
Firestarter-M2
Anvil Lance (*2 Sandblasters or Cluster Hitters per turn)
Moltke-M3 *4
Terrain is unknown, opposition's composition, tech, and era are unknown, just that the PV will be roughly the same and that the other guys can be trusted to stay within the bounds of Don't Be A Jerk.
Should be fun... :)
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Going with Blakist salvage? Wooo . . . wonder if you can exploit that. Pretty sure that would be solid under TW too, though of course Hammer has some mechs you would need to shelter in a battle of heavies.
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The idea is that it the other guy focuses on the fast stuff, they go evasive while the heavies stand still for a moment and let off some truly punishing salvos. If they focus on the heavies, the fast guys take advantage of this to maneuver into position for some nice Kidney-shanking. >:D
I'm kinda hoping someone else brings some conventional stuff. I wanna see their faces when the Firestarter jumps up close and gives someone a 4-point wallop. :)
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I know the Moltke is scary in TW rules, how does it fare in AS?
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This'll be my first time using them in AS, so I can't be sure. I'm expecting a solid multipurpose MBT.
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Okay, the more I look at FWL Anvil Lances, the more I think Moltkes (M2s and M3s at least) may be utter BEASTS in such a formation. Long story short, every turn half the tanks can stand still for a damage bonus, or get a to-hit bonus in exchange for a very slight damage reduction while still moving.
This works for any lance where at least half the units mount cluster cannons, SRMs...or LRMs. If you don't care about indirect fire as much, imagine what your missile lances can do... >:D
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I have wanted to field companies of Moltkes just to see how they tear into mechs under advanced veh rules, but its a matter of time & opponent.
Juliano
Orion 2M
Ostwar
Patriot
Havoc
Hermes
Trebuchet
Quasimodo
Calliope
Wolverine 7M
Achileus BA
Longinus BA
Phalanx BA
IS Std BA
Merkava Mk IX
I have everything but the Wolverine, and I am waiting for the new Classic one to make a -7M. I got a new Shadow Hawk but its the RAC version and I have a MAD-4X I will turn into a -9M2 that could be fit in. I have been thinking about adding a Tufuna and Moltke to add to the armor section. I also have more generic armor in woodland camo- Hetzer, Rommel, Po, and some hovers.
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Hello chaps. I took a sabbatical there for a while. Did I miss anything? How's 2SW? I need to find the cash to buy that one.
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Well, the Prim Orion is out and I heard it look real nice- some folks use it to stand in for the old sculpt.
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Hello chaps. I took a sabbatical there for a while. Did I miss anything? How's 2SW? I need to find the cash to buy that one.
Welcome back, it's my first time back on here in several months as well and was wondering what i've been missing, just ordered 2nd SW so looking forward to it arriving.
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I've been gone for months too and it looks like we didn't miss much at all. I'm getting the impression this game is effectively dead.
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Games die when people stop talking about or playing them. Production or publication rates have nothing to do with it.
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I think a lot of it has to do with things being spread out . . . no specific FWL news means little to talk about or even re-hash. I would also expect a lot of people talking on the MWO & HBS forums.
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I've been gone for months too and it looks like we didn't miss much at all. I'm getting the impression this game is effectively dead.
So long as we still play it, it's not dead. I'm trying to get a game together with a couple of locals some time soon, in fact. I'm sure we'll see a surge in activity hereabouts when ilClan and the HBS game hit the streets. Those may not arrive soon, but they're coming.
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Games die when people stop talking about or playing them. Production or publication rates have nothing to do with it.
Level of material output to keep them interested goes a long way, though. Compare first edition D&D's current player-count to, oh, 5th Edition's current player count. Extreme example, but it's relevant.
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I've got a game this weekend, that's all I care about. Reminds me, I need to print out my SHDL sheets. Wraith, Prowler, and Morpheus, with a Dixon on overwatch. Should be fun. :)
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Level of material output to keep them interested goes a long way, though. Compare first edition D&D's current player-count to, oh, 5th Edition's current player count. Extreme example, but it's relevant.
2nd Succession War
TRO: Succession Wars
BattleMech Manual
In the last four months. CGL is putting out more material per year in the last five years than FASA did per year in its entire existence.
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One of those, based on the description I read, seems like a reprint set. The rest I'll grant you, though.
Those I have to admit are meaningful activity, just not in the areas I'd like to see, and that falls into personal preference.
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In honor of how bad last night's 'giant robot duel' was, I'm bored and figure we should discuss another robot duel.
In pure fighting capability, how do you think our Mad Cat Mk. IV stacks up to the original Mad Cat? Or the Warwolf for that matter? Both of those are 75 ton, 5/8/0 movement units fielded by one of our major neighbors (the klingons). Do you figure the tougher armor but weaker engine can stand up to either of these in a head-on fight?
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Mad Cat/Mad Cat IV? Too close to call. The Mad Cat Pryde has an edge, if only because of jump-jets. Although the raw firepower of the Mad Cat IV C can be intimidating.
Warwolf? Nah. Same crunchy shell, half the damage potential.
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Warwolf has notoriously bad configuration b/c that is what MWDA gave them, 30t of pod space gives it some excellent options . . . for instance, since Reactive is IMO better against long range duels with the LRM-equipped FWL forces you can nearly replicate the Timberwolf C with the Warwolf- the ERML b/c a ERSL and you are missing 2 DHS. In fact you can duplicate most of the Timberwolf configurations though a short range weapon or two might be missing and some DHS, not sure about crits b/c HMP does not let me put reactive on a Omni.
One of my biggest gripes is the Warwolf does not have its legs open, waste of Clan DHS potential.
With that said, if I saw it I would let the LRMs rain elsewhere and give it energy & gauss attention.
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Well, let's assume non-Unique configs (does anyone still use Pryde in-universe since its creator died?). Same deal with the Warwolf, let's go with good ones like Warwolf A since there are obviously garbage ones nobody would ever use.
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You are talking about 3 Omni-chassis, only comparison for which is better is what they are empty especially since at the same weights and movement profile you can mostly duplicate any one of the configs between the other 2 chassis.
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You are talking about 3 Omni-chassis, only comparison for which is better is what they are empty especially since at the same weights and movement profile you can mostly duplicate any one of the configs between the other 2 chassis.
And contrary to popular fan belif, not every Omni will sport a custom configuration. 99% of the time, an OmniMech will be running around in a stock configuration. When you're evaluating an Omni's capabilities, you take the stock Configs into account. You can't just dismiss them as they're just as much a part of what defines them as their fixed components.
Let's keep this on stock configurations and not turn this into yet another "My custom config can beat up your custom config" fart-fest.
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Its not about custom confirgurations- the whole point is that Omnis are changeable which you want to dismiss . . . With these 3 designs you are not talking about chassis where one has a XL and another does not, weight or speed differences, or they have a huge differences in crits. And I also did not say anything about custom configurations, I pointed out that what you could put on one chassis can mostly be put on another. My simple example was the ability to put (mostly) the Timberwolf C on the Warwolf- the change is in a secondary close in weapon and heat sinks. As such that weapons loadout IMO against the FWL is superior b/c its a fire support and unlike facing the Lyrans with their gauss the Wolf warrior will mostly be facing LRMs that could reach out to that range and the reactive armor will work better for a Warwolf than the regular FF armor on a Timberwolf.
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A lot of play venues such as MegaMek.net campaigns do not allow custom Omnis either; you run stock on those, so stock configs definitely matter in some areas.
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If you don't want to discuss stock configs, then you don't have to discuss stock configs.
In the meantime, I'm actually partial to the Warwolf. It's going to be significantly less expensive to maintain with all that cutting edge equipment, even if XXLs aren't as mind-bogglingly expensive as they are in print. Plus I'm a sucker for Reactive, which pays in dividends against League favorite LRMs.
Being functionally immune to artillery is also pretty nice.
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It's funny, I've never really felt like we're the 'LRM Faction.' Well, we might be that but I've always been more used to using them as a minor component of my forces; a Yeoman for fire support while the rest of my units are more mobile, mid-range fighters. My reaction to Reactive Armor is thus "okey-dokey, you have fun with that; most of my other guns ignore it."
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League fire support is UAC/5s, LGRs, ERLLs and various types of LRMs . . . normal LRMs are the most common. With it being the most common the armor on the Warwolf lets them shrug off a lot of the fire support while they could slug it out with your brawlers if they are carrying a configuration that works that way . . . or they can get into a long range duel with your Yeomen & Stalker IIs and they will give larger TH mods & when you do hit with the LRMs it will not matter as much.
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Maybe we could do what "What We Got" per era?
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Maybe we could do what "What We Got" per era?
58-67 can be pretty much summed up with 'Screwed'.
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Followed by 3085 reading 'Playable units once again'
And 3085+ reading 'legitimately GOOD units for once. Unusual ones, but genuinely good and strong to the point where we're no longer a low tier faction... just one with a very high skill ceiling and unintuitive play at lower levels.'
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Or as I prefer to call it, "The thinking man's army."
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58-67 can be pretty much summed up with 'Screwed'.
We may not get the best designs - but we have some good choices for all weight classes. We have good designs for nearly every situation - and we have a lot of them. You heard the Lyrans are the industrial powerhouse? Don't believe that. We have enough output to increase our army and export much more.
Plus we have a fleet! Not that collection of pour dropships and some cool ASF. No we have masses of ASF and we have the right warship to bring them on target.
In the time of 58-67 i consider the FWL as the sleeping beast amongst the houses.
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In-Universe, yeah! Great!
During that period, it was hard to compete properly when you are rolling Griffin 5Ms (which I hold up as one of the worst designs in the Phoenix Book), and your TRO3067 entries amount to the Cronus and Bloodhound and a reprint of the Perseus, when the FedCom gets... well... the rest of the book.
Exaggerated, yes. But those were still lean years when it was obvious TPTB of the time really didn't give a fig to the FWL Fans, such as they were.
EDITED: Yes. 5M.
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So you mean the -5M right? B/c the -3M ERPPC Griffin is pretty much spot on.
And I think '58 to '67 is fine, you just have to put together the synergy you do not have stand alone stand outs.
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So you mean the -5M right? B/c the -3M ERPPC Griffin is pretty much spot on.
And I think '58 to '67 is fine, you just have to put together the synergy you do not have stand alone stand outs.
Yeah. The 5M. Typo.
In an era where Devastators, Verfolgers, Nightstars and Thunder Hawks were being rolled out, it makes me feel like the League was being unfairly singled out as a repository for junk.
Not to say that the FWL doesn't score it's wins when played well... it's just that the skill curve is so much higher for League machines. And even running at peak efficiency, they're not actually all that good at their job either.
There's plenty of residual bitterness at that treatment that occasionally oozes out, even decades later.
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While our 'Mech selection in that time period is certainly smaller than other factions and certainly less inspired -- LGR vomit was a serious issue --I'd say that if you play combined arms then things aren't nearly as dour looking. We got the Achileus, one of the best light battle armor designs in the game, as well as the Longinus and Phalanx, both of which are reasonably solid. We're spoiled for choice on the tank front with Ontos (LGR), Stygian, Regulator, and Yellow Jacket, plus decent options on the Galleon, Hawk Moth, and Main Gauche (the last which ends up making a fantastic battle armor transport during the Jihad era).
Would I have preferred that we got the same breadth of new materiel that all four other Houses got? Absolutely. But can I win games with what we did get? Absolutely.
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it is somewhat ironic that the FWL, one of the most dis-unified and fractious states, is the one that got the military that consistently conformed to a specific tactical doctrine.
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it is somewhat ironic that the FWL, one of the most dis-unified and fractious states, is the one that got the military that consistently conformed to a specific tactical doctrine.
That is the "L" for in FWL ;)
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I've posted this here before, but again: I don't know nuts about the Free Worlds League. So I've a question: What would you consider the iconic Free Worlds League regiments? "Iconic" doesn't have to be mean elite; I think the Ghost Regiments can be considered iconic to the DCMS, for example.
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To me it would be the Fusiliers of Oriente (for beign seen as "the best" of the FWLM) and the Marik Milita
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I've posted this here before, but again: I don't know nuts about the Free Worlds League. So I've a question: What would you consider the iconic Free Worlds League regiments? "Iconic" doesn't have to be mean elite; I think the Ghost Regiments can be considered iconic to the DCMS, for example.
The Free Worlds Guards and Marik Militia. Both are Federal brigades and so represent the entire League instead of just a single province, and they are the only brigades that wear the faction color (being purple, of course) as part of their livery. If I had to pull out individual units, I'd say the 1st Guards and the 10th Militia. The 1st Guards have been "the elite" unit of the FWLM for their entire history (except for that brief decade where the Knights of the Inner Sphere existed, and even then I'd still say the two were even in ability if not prestige). The Knights might have gone to Huntress, but the 1st Guards fought in the Great Refusal. The 10th Militia -- my personal favorite unit, so bias might be peeking through here -- is one of the rare few Marik Militia units that is not just a cadre formation for the rest of the FWLM. They're a heavy-weight regiment, veteran-rated, and tough as nails as proved on Callison, Xanthe III, and Andurien. They're also one of only two Marik Militia units to remain solvent into the Dark Age era, having become the 1st Marik Protectors, a quasi-mercenary command devoted to the protection of former and unaligned Free Worlds.
Edit: Actually, I suppose the 6th Marik Militia is probably a better representative. As an assault-weight regiment, they're much heavier than the average FWLM unit, but they're famed across the League and beyond as shock troops par excellence. They survived two or three scraps with the Dragoons during Anton's Rebellion and performed a picture-perfect orbital insertion on Arcadia that crushed an LAAF unit and saved Kristen's Krushers at the start of the Fed Com Civil War.
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It's not the fault of equipment you should wonder, it's the fault of the usage of said equipment in battle.
If your tactics are up front and center, per say: assault and your using LGRs for it then your doing it wrong. And then you need some fire support and use heavy short ranged items with little reach.
Best part of using with FWL equipment is I can attempt to cover every aspect possible on a single chassis. Weird combos are meant for you to explore and decide on what you have to use, not what you want to use. Try rolling on the RAT and use off brand mechs that most people don't use cause of something or another. Freaks them out when you win with " useless " tech.
TT
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While our 'Mech selection in that time period is certainly smaller than other factions and certainly less inspired -- LGR vomit was a serious issue --I'd say that if you play combined arms then things aren't nearly as dour looking. We got the Achileus, one of the best light battle armor designs in the game, as well as the Longinus and Phalanx, both of which are reasonably solid. We're spoiled for choice on the tank front with Ontos (LGR), Stygian, Regulator, and Yellow Jacket, plus decent options on the Galleon, Hawk Moth, and Main Gauche (the last which ends up making a fantastic battle armor transport during the Jihad era).
Would I have preferred that we got the same breadth of new materiel that all four other Houses got? Absolutely. But can I win games with what we did get? Absolutely.
Two of the best things in TRO:3145 Davion are yours to play with as well: The new Black Knight, which is slow but sturdy and mean as all get out, and the outstanding Zibler hover omni.
While I have average luck with the Black Knight, I've gotten great results with the Zibler every time I use a lance of them. I feel like the almost always die, but man do they do a number on enemy armor and mechs. (in my own humble experience).
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Freaks them out when you win with " useless " tech.
This. This man truly understands the core truth of playing the FWLM.
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Well, OS really is useless. Go with iOS.
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Two of the best things in TRO:3145 Davion are yours to play with as well: The new Black Knight, which is slow but sturdy and mean as all get out, and the outstanding Zibler hover omni.
While I have average luck with the Black Knight, I've gotten great results with the Zibler every time I use a lance of them. I feel like the almost always die, but man do they do a number on enemy armor and mechs. (in my own humble experience).
you sure it is the Davion mixed tech one? i know there was a Black Knight line on one of the worlds that joined the renewed FWL.. but IIRC it was making the Royal Black knight?
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Two of the best things in TRO:3145 Davion are yours to play with as well: The new Black Knight, which is slow but sturdy and mean as all get out, and the outstanding Zibler hover omni.
While I have average luck with the Black Knight, I've gotten great results with the Zibler every time I use a lance of them. I feel like the almost always die, but man do they do a number on enemy armor and mechs. (in my own humble experience).
That Black Knight is specific to the plant on Robinson, and may very well be unavailable to Davion until the planet is re-taken from Kurita.
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The MUL says FWLM forces have access to the mix tech 5H. It’s a solid mech unless you are fighting reflective armored forces (darn Combine!)
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well, IIRC the Davions were selling them to the Republic.. the NeoFWL inherited a lot of ex-republic worlds and troops, so it is possible that they got a notable number from there.
though i suppose it is possible that the Kong Interstellar facility on Connaught could be building some. not sure why a world that has been independent since 3130 would even have the plans to a 30138 introdate Davion design from the other side of the IS though. more likely the Connaught facility was building some other version, like the BL-6b-KNT or one of the other pre-jihad models. parts from which could probably be used to support the BLK-NT-** series, but i doubt they'd be building that series.
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This. This man truly understands the core truth of playing the FWLM.
Yep! Gimme any unit and I'll find a way.
From Infantry to AeroMech, including my fav., the Tank!
Just don't expect me to cry, only at your funeral!
Best thinker out of the box scenario idealist around!
TT
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well, IIRC the Davions were selling them to the Republic.. the NeoFWL inherited a lot of ex-republic worlds and troops, so it is possible that they got a notable number from there.
though i suppose it is possible that the Kong Interstellar facility on Connaught could be building some. not sure why a world that has been independent since 3130 would even have the plans to a Davion design from the other side of the IS though. more likely the Connaught facility was building some other version, like the BL-6b-KNT or one of the other pre-jihad models. parts from which could probably be used to support the BLK-NT-** series, but i doubt they'd be building that series.
Yup, the TRO says that the 5H is produced on Connaught by Kong Interstellar. I'm not sure who produces the clan tech laser equipment there, but it could certainly be bought from the Sea Foxes or Spirit Cats, right?
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Yup, the TRO says that the 5H is produced on Connaught by Kong Interstellar. I'm not sure who produces the clan tech laser equipment there, but it could certainly be bought from the Sea Foxes or Spirit Cats, right?
Happy to be wrong about that then, Pew-pew time!
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Not just pew pew, but pew pew with a shield! So its like Wonder Woman with lazorz (maybe without the good looks, but what can you do?)
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Yep! Gimme any unit and I'll find a way.
From Infantry to AeroMech, including my fav., the Tank!
Just don't expect me to cry, only at your funeral!
Best thinker out of the box scenario idealist around!
TT
(http://media.tumblr.com/cc513d1593cbcd2ca8d8abcd264258d2/tumblr_inline_nbzvz8IO8v1qe9gak.gif)
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It's not the fault of equipment you should wonder, it's the fault of the usage of said equipment in battle.
If your tactics are up front and center, per say: assault and your using LGRs for it then your doing it wrong. And then you need some fire support and use heavy short ranged items with little reach.
Best part of using with FWL equipment is I can attempt to cover every aspect possible on a single chassis. Weird combos are meant for you to explore and decide on what you have to use, not what you want to use. Try rolling on the RAT and use off brand mechs that most people don't use cause of something or another. Freaks them out when you win with " useless " tech.
TT
It's one thing to be able to literally take lemons and jam it in the eye of the person across the table from you. It's another thing to have to do it game after game after game because the writers of the time decided that everything needed a LGR or a tacky combination of odd lasers because FWL, HAHA. The equipment feels almost fundamentally flawed in comparison to what appears on the other faction tables - and I did a lot of rolling on those tables.
If I sound bitter, it's because I did a lot of that. And while I learned to adapt and to use FWL gear in all ways weird and wacky, bring in the combined arms, occasionally drown people in infantry... etc, it still felt like I was running the engine full tilt just to match an opponent who was going at cruise. And while it sounds boorish, it was even more frustrating that during the period, factions like Liao and Word of Blake basically fielded a lineup that included the "FWL All Stars" while still getting their own stables of unique designs.
So it's not unwinnable, but there was a point where it began to feel like too much work, to the point where I realised I was beginning to burn out on the game and took a break from it. Which is also again why I'm not fond of the 58-67 era where FASA was fleshing out the armories of the other factions at the expense of the League.
Now that the League's arsenal is back on par with the other Houses, (even with the quirky nature of their designs) I've no real complaints.
EDIT: But, this is dragging the discussion down. I apologize. I needed to get it out of my system. I'm good. And happy to go back to blinding people with lemon juice.
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We who man the "other" factions noticed FWL gear getting the short end of the stick when it came to designs. I loved the Project Phoenix TRO, but with a few exceptions, it was mercilessly unkind to the FWLM.
On the bright side, in 3145 (where I live lately) you guys have some really strong units, and I feel like there is much more parity between factions.
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I do regret that I haven't had the chance to give the FWL a snazzy assault 'Mech like I have the other great houses....
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I do regret that I haven't had the chance to give the FWL a snazzy assault 'Mech like I have the other great houses....
Ok: fess up! What snazzy assaults are you responsible for giving to which houses?
And by snazzy, do you mean Albatross snazzy? Or do you mean Tomahawk snazzy?
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I do regret that I haven't had the chance to give the FWL a snazzy assault 'Mech like I have the other great houses....
Screw Assaults, we need more Lights and backbone Mediums!
We're the Assault capital of the Sphere!
Something like an upgraded Flea-4, maybe a Cicada Omni? A Hunchback Omni? ( Like one that floated around the boards a few years ago. ) Maybe using a shield?
TT
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Ok: fess up! What snazzy assaults are you responsible for giving to which houses?
And by snazzy, do you mean Albatross snazzy? Or do you mean Tomahawk snazzy?
Well, to the Davions I gave the Atlas 8-D. To the Steiners I gave the Banshee 8S (and 9S). To the Capellans (and the Lyrans managed to sneak in on the action) the Xanthos. To the Kuritans I bestowed the Akuma 2XK. I even managed to slip the RWR the Rampage. But haven't gotten a chance for the FWL. Luckily for Weirdo I was able to slip them some tanks.
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I think the Juliano is waaaay snazzy, it's right up there with the Tenshi as my 2 favourite Assaults of 3145.
But if you're taking ideas, something to carry on the flaming man-made lightning blue torch of the good ol' Awesome might be nice, IMHO 8)
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Well, first I need an opportunity. Slim pickin's in the 'Mech making department lately....
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Maybe a Cicada Omni?
This exists already. The Strider was based on the Cicada chassis, they slowed it down because the Owens was already a thing and they didn't need two 8/12 first-generation Omnis.
If we were going to get a new Omni based on a flagship FWL 'Mech, I'd wish for a Hermes II or a Wolverine. The Hermes II in particular has always been saddled with AC/5s in its stock variants, so yanking that out and freeing up some mass with an endo-steel chassis would give us some mass to play with.
And on the subject of the Juliano, I have to agree that it is a fantastic machine. It, the Anzu, and Carronade were all awesome additions to the stable.
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It is possible to add another base omni chassis to the Cicada family. I would like an Ost omni.
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I agree with the general consensus regarding the Juliano being a beautiful machine.
It's an absolutely brute, especially when used as part of a team.
A Cicada replacement would also be nice, given Regulus broke our factory for the design. Just not a League force without a few buzzing around.
Likewise, the Hermes II could use a modern facelift.
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I think the Juliano is waaaay snazzy, it's right up there with the Tenshi as my 2 favourite Assaults of 3145.
I just want the Fox version release . . . the Clan ERLL is my favorite beam weapon and compares with the LB-10X for my all round favorite weapon. I like the idea of pounding someone with 10 point hits and then scattering SRMs over the chassis when they are trying to get close.
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I just want the Fox version release . . . the Clan ERLL is my favorite beam weapon and compares with the LB-10X for my all round favorite weapon. I like the idea of pounding someone with 10 point hits and then scattering SRMs over the chassis when they are trying to get close.
what would you used the saved mass on?
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what would you used the saved mass on?
Targeting Computer? :)
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When I did it, I put 2 more cDHS and a cSPL for infantry defense. No big changes in the overall design, I can just reach and hit harder while being heat neutral if standing still.
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The description of the Juliano -5B (the ClanTech version) upgrades the ER Larges to Clan-spec, and uses the saved mass to upgrade the torso-mounted ER Mediums to Clan Medium Pulse Lasers. Its full armament is 3x C ER LL, 3x C ER ML, 4x C SSRM-6. Armor and heatsinks are unchanged from the -5A.
The -5C replaces the Clan Streak 6s with standard IS SRM 6s, for all of the alternate ammo hijinks you could ever want, like lighting an entire city block on fire at once.
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count me as a fan of the Juliano as well.
Now about getting an Anzu mini...
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Now about getting an Anzu mini...
This.
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I'd fight someone for one.
And then buy two more.
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I will have a Lance of Anzu roughly ten minutes after they are available to buy.
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Not if Weirdo buys them all first!
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I think you grossly overestimate my paycheck.
Besides, I want to see people enjoying my creation, not see them enviously watching me enjoy it.
...okay, not always.
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Speaking of the Anzu, what does everyone think of being good lancemates for it? Thunderbolts seem like an obvious answer and I personally would probably stick to 4/6/4 heavies, but I'm curious what other folks' answers would be.
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To me, the Anzu is a Tbolt substitute, which trades better long-range punch for durability (the XL). So I'd be seeing it in the bodyguard buddy role with missile boats, and as line troopers with pretty much anything.
And yes, I lust after an Anzu mini, and have been playing with parts for a scratchbuild. (Still think my scratchbuilt Warlord looks 100% better than the metal one ... O:-) )
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Speaking of the Anzu, what does everyone think of being good lancemates for it? Thunderbolts seem like an obvious answer and I personally would probably stick to 4/6/4 heavies, but I'm curious what other folks' answers would be.
I want to try it with a Helios personally. Not FWL design but I think it could be a lot of fun.
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I want to try it with a Helios personally. Not FWL design but I think it could be a lot of fun.
Sounds like fun.
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I want to try it with a Helios personally. Not FWL design but I think it could be a lot of fun.
How about a Carronade?
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I want to try out three Anzus and an Archer-9M. I'm not a big fan of the slow IJJ mechs, but we've got them, might as well use them. In theory, it'll end up a heavy lance that can handle almost any terrain while packing a good mix of hole punchers and crit seekers.
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The Anzu pairs well with just about everything that's neither double nor half its speed. A pair of Anzu J70 and a G60 backing up a Carronade, or a pair of G60 and a J70 backing up a Juliano are basically my ideal Battle Lance in the Dark Age FWL.
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Would this be an appropriate place for a confused newb to ask some FWL specific questions?
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Fire away! You'll get answers from some confused veterans. :)
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Deadly.
So, I've read that in 3025 the FWL is short on Assault Mech manufacture and PPC's. But I've also read that their Assault Mech production is in Awesomes, Goliaths and Battlemasters. Which have 5PPCs between them. Is this weird, or is the shortage in PPCs due to the fact that every PPC produced is shoved right into one of these 3 Mechs?
I've also read that despite the lack of Assault Mech production the FWL leads in Jumpship and Aerospace production, so have a combined arms thing going on to make up for a shortage of Assaults. But in Interstellar Ops, the list of Combat Command Compositions for 3025 in Inner Sphere at War lists the Draconis Combine as having the most Aerospace wings in a command, the Free Worlds League have the same 2 wings as everyone else. Should I maybe increase this? Other than infantry the FWL combat commands don't appear to increase anything to make up for lack of Assault Mechs.
Also for Inner Sphere at War, should I give the FWL player a bonus to the garrison units role, to represent units kept at home by regional worlds? The fan written beginner guides on here comment that the FWL are ill suited to strategic assaults, but defend well due to strong regional forces. The Free Worlds Faction Abilities seem pretty lack luster, bulking up the garrisons doesn't seem too much does it?
I have a couple of boxes of Robotech RPG Tactics. This gives me a bunch of Wasps, Stingers, Whammys, Archers, Longbows and Riflemen. Are there any one the list that would be out of place if I painted up a company of FWL Mech using them?
Finally, back in the days of paper maps and cardboard stand-up, my buddy Joe chose the little red Dragon symbols and I chose the guys with the Black Eagle on a Purple background. Given that it later turned out that he had chosen the despotic, militaristic Samurai fanboys and I had chosen the true champions of freedom and democracy the Fedrat propaganda writers desperately wish they were, this vindicates my choice as being the good guys, correct?
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Deadly.
So, I've read that in 3025 the FWL is short on Assault Mech manufacture and PPC's. But I've also read that their Assault Mech production is in Awesomes, Goliaths and Battlemasters. Which have 5PPCs between them. Is this weird, or is the shortage in PPCs due to the fact that every PPC produced is shoved right into one of these 3 Mechs?
That's close to it. They had a shortage, but prioritized Awesomes and Schrecks. Goliaths are very rare, so stocking them up wouldn't be a big drain, and Battlemasters are notoriously tough, so it's reasonable that their peepers don't need as much replacing. Other units suffered. Also note that the shortage wasn't for very long. By the time the Clans arrived, it was very much over.
I'll let someone else handle the ISaW stuff...I have a couple of boxes of Robotech RPG Tactics. This gives me a bunch of Wasps, Stingers, Whammys, Archers, Longbows and Riflemen. Are there any one the list that would be out of place if I painted up a company of FWL Mech using them?
You're not the only one to go that route. Rock and roll, dude. O0
Finally, back in the days of paper maps and cardboard stand-up, my buddy Joe chose the little red Dragon symbols and I chose the guys with the Black Eagle on a Purple background. Given that it later turned out that he had chosen the despotic, militaristic Samurai fanboys and I had chosen the true champions of freedom and democracy the Fedrat propaganda writers desperately wish they were, this vindicates my choice as being the good guys, correct?
'Democracy' is a relative thing, even in the FWL. We're not always the good guys, but we're definitely the fun guys. :)
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Finally, back in the days of paper maps and cardboard stand-up, my buddy Joe chose the little red Dragon symbols and I chose the guys with the Black Eagle on a Purple background. Given that it later turned out that he had chosen the despotic, militaristic Samurai fanboys and I had chosen the true champions of freedom and democracy the Fedrat propaganda writers desperately wish they were, this vindicates my choice as being the good guys, correct?
Yeah there really aren't "good guys" in the BTU. There's Black and various shades of grey. Everyone's despotic and militaristic: Some exceedingly so, others just less so.
Furthermore, the FWL was never Space America. "Space America" was deliberately killed off in the backhistory of the game (and I'm referring to the Terran Alliance, NOT the Terran Hegemony. McKenna killed Space America, not Amaris ;) ) If I had to peg the FWL as "Space" version of a real entity, I'd go with more of a Space Austro-Hungarian Empire.
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Yeah, that's a pretty good comparison.
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I'd go with Space European Union, or Space Holy Roman Empire, but one of the selling points of BTech is that nothing fits the factions exactly. They are their own thing with influences you can spot, but they aren't direct expys.
The main line I was following was they are the good guys because I chose them, and Joe chose the Dracs.
I'm not really claiming there is a good guy.
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There you go.
Your next step once you learn more is to choose your favorite member-state within the League, and declare them to be the good guys, and everybody else is bad until a foreign threat makes you band together. :)
Unless you go Regulan. Those folks revel in being the bad guys. >:D
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Davy Crockett was a Patriot, but the Regulans felt the need to add dimensions to that understanding.
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Re question 1, don't forget the FWL also had many Awesomes which subbed LRM-15s and/or large lasers for the PPCs, just like the Marauder 3M which uses paired large lasers. The AWS-8T and -8V aren't too bad, but they're not the alpha striking zombie that the -Q series are.
Re question 2, "combined arms" doesn't mean "we have different things" - it's more about "we use different things at the same time".
So a Fedrat might send in scouting Packrats ahead of Manticores, or have light 'Mechs scouting for the assault 'Mech battalion. The canny Leaguer commander will use his hovers to scout for his battle lances, while his Archers and Trebuchets provide fire support for his Bulldogs, which are breaking way for the assault infantry.
(And as someone involved in ISaW, yes, it'd be lovely to have the word count to go back & sort out garrisons!)
My 2 M-bills ;)
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So, I've read that in 3025 the FWL is short on Assault Mech manufacture and PPC's. But I've also read that their Assault Mech production is in Awesomes, Goliaths and Battlemasters. Which have 5PPCs between them. Is this weird, or is the shortage in PPCs due to the fact that every PPC produced is shoved right into one of these 3 Mechs?
Don't forget our factories for Thugs, Marauders, Warhammers, Griffins that all need PPCs. As far as i know there are only variants for Awesome and Marauder that switches the PPCs because of shortage. And to add on the assault line we also have Stalkers in production. Not needing PPCs but adding to the assaults.
I've also read that despite the lack of Assault Mech production the FWL leads in Jumpship and Aerospace production, so have a combined arms thing going on to make up for a shortage of Assaults. But in Interstellar Ops, the list of Combat Command Compositions for 3025 in Inner Sphere at War lists the Draconis Combine as having the most Aerospace wings in a command, the Free Worlds League have the same 2 wings as everyone else. Should I maybe increase this? Other than infantry the FWL combat commands don't appear to increase anything to make up for lack of Assault Mechs.
You should take a look to the old FM: FWL. You will find descriptions on our independent aerospace assets. We have independent fighter wings and we have (transport) fleets with attached wings. Sadly we never got numbers on these units. All publications always focus on mech formations and the attached assets. I hoped ISaW would shed some light on this unit type.
For me these units play a big role in the strategic planning of the FWLM and are a good reason why we survived despite all odds.
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Lyran martial ineptitude and Capellan fixation on The Davion Problem do plenty to explain it to me.
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Inner Sphere at War doesn't allow independent air wings, combat commands need to have a mech regiment, so I was expecting to see them included there.
Now the rules don't force the player to stick to the default command structure so a player could decide to include loads of aerospace units.
Or if I was running a game I could change it before the game began.
Does anyone here have experience playing ISaW? How did the FWL fare?
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Lyran martial ineptitude and Capellan fixation on The Davion Problem do plenty to explain it to me.
Just think aboout Andurien - we had quiet a lot of fighting with the Cappies in our history.
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I don't spare thought for traitors. ;)
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I don't spare thought for traitors. ;)
You win the thread. Congratulations sir.
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Regarding the Free Worlds League use of Light Vehicle Long Platoons, does anyone have any preferred vehicle mix? Homogeneous compositions are always fine ("Regulator Good. Moar Regulator Moar Good.") but having six slots opens the possibility for entertaining force combinations.
I've always been fond of my 2 Hetzer, 4 Hetzer (LRM) platoons which I've been using as cheap, expendable Fire Support bases since the Succession Wars - though the combination of LRMs and large bore ACs seems almost elementary logic.
Anyone have any magic vee formulas they want to share?
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WooHooo! Some buddies are up to playing Inner Sphere at War.
So soon I get to find out if the FWL can win with what it's got :)
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I'm a tad late to the discussion.
So, Anzus.
The Anzu is, as you say, largely a supplement to the Thunderbolt's mission role. It is most useful against foes the TDR-10M struggles against, such as ones with reflective armor and/or enough speed to stay at Range 2 or Range 1 and exploit its minimum ranges. This is especially true for the -J70 model, which is clearly built to be a cross between an in-fighter (RAC/5) and precise 'fencer' (SnubPPC).
However, the Anzu also has the TDR-10M's other weakness; no meaningful damage output beyond 18 hexes. The previously discussed ARC-9M is one option to solve this, as is the GRF-3M. TMP-3G could also fill the role, but I think it's slightly obsolete at this point. The Scourge might do better at the same job, though I admit it's BV-intensive.
Options improve somewhat if you add our clantech machines to the mix, but 'clantech' frankly solves damn near any problem imaginable.
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I must be in the minority, because unobstructed sight lines greater than 18 hexes are a rarity on hex-based tables. In Alpha Strike it's less of an issue because long range is all to the same distance, but the primary reason to field long range weapons in most games I've ever seen played is to have better numbers at medium range than your opponent.
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Should have some lanes that long, but should also have places on balanced maps that offer just short range options . . . the 25 hex range of the LGR and cERLL call for it after all. I know when I play with Clan units I want those distant shots b/c against the IS I have to start trying to burn through the armor as far away as possible.
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I must be in the minority, because unobstructed sight lines greater than 18 hexes are a rarity on hex-based tables. In Alpha Strike it's less of an issue because long range is all to the same distance, but the primary reason to field long range weapons in most games I've ever seen played is to have better numbers at medium range than your opponent.
Even if 18 hexes is unavailable, it's also having a medium range shot at 12 hexes where you're at a 2 point disadvantage to stuff with medium range of 14 and 15.
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Yep, it isn’t the raw distance. It’s getting better mods than the other guy at a given distance where ‘long range’ weapons make the most difference.
Anyway, after reading a couple of the posts about the dearth of good units in the 3058-3067 timeframe, which is a statement I agreee with BTW, I decided to go back through those TROs and see if I was forgetting anything. Other than forgetting how nice many of the Blackjack Omnis variants are, I don’t think I ever realized the Bloodhound was fluffed as a straight-up FWL! It doesn’t change my opinion entirely of the period, but that is a very respectable unit.
The other thing I noticed is that there are some very nice units that exist within the FWLs borders...they just don’t belong to the FWL. Sadly, it seems the FWL sort of became the scrub-tier of the WoB, equipment wise. They got all sorts of warships out of the deal, and some nice BA, but as far as the mechs go, all the best stuff seems to have been fluffed to the WoB to flesh them out at the expense of the FWL.
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The Cappies made off like bandits as well.
But back to the question of what to use as BFFs with the Anzu... I actually had a pretty good run with it escorting a GOL-6M in a couple of fights.
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I'm still going on the tacit assumption that the WoB 'Mechs are included in the CC RATs but not the FWL's due to the WoB's efforts to conceal their level of preparations for their Jihad. (Which was initially aimed at the Clans.)
To be honest, during the main development phase of the '58-'67 time period, while there may have been a FWL team at conventions, there were very few dedicated FWL fans among the players I most often interacted with.
We mostly gravitated, first, to FC, who generally served as the 'intro' faction and was where most noobs got their training. Then, players would migrate over to DC, in ones and twos, until there was an acceptable parity of numbers between the two.
CC was composed of a small number of clued pilots who were very active and generally were the first ones to gain pilot and, especially, gunnery level-ups which would consolidate that exclusive elite status.
FWL, in most cases, was a group of largely unknowns who rarely had a decisive affect on the scenarios and who's value was often played out as a spoiler or perhaps a possible temporary ally.
When the number of active players began to decline and scenarios more often became 1 faction vs 1 faction, FWL was the first to go, followed by CC.
To my knowledge, what RATs we used were custom made to ensure balance.
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Even if 18 hexes is unavailable, it's also having a medium range shot at 12 hexes where you're at a 2 point disadvantage to stuff with medium range of 14 and 15.
I agree. But, my point was wholly a rebuttal against the idea that not having reliable damage outside of 18 hexes constituted a major disadvantage.
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I agree. But, my point was wholly a rebuttal against the idea that not having reliable damage outside of 18 hexes constituted a major disadvantage.
Out of all the Houses, for the FWL with its strange fixation on light gauss vomit and missile spam, having a smattering of 'Mechs with no teeth beyond 18 hexes is actually not all too big of a problem given the number of other designs that exist to cover for it.
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I'm not saying it's a crippling flaw. It's significant and noteworthy, but a maximum striking range of 18 hexes on a 4/6/4 unit can be overcome. 3/5/0 is where it becomes a serious problem. For 4/6/4, it's something you keep in mind.
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Speaking of the Anzu, what does everyone think of being good lancemates for it?
Anzu, Anvil-8M, Anvil-6M, Archer-9M
Now this I like!
TT
Vees? ??? Who' wants to know? >:D
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Lol, the A Team . . .
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A thought occurs to me, inspired by the specops thread elsewhere on the forum. The FWL got a few odd designs in 3050u, specifically referring to the handful of small mechs that mount a Light Gauss Rifle as their primary or sole armament. Pretty underwhelming, but these are meant to be used by the Dark Shadows battalion, which implies REALLY GOOD pilots.
Do you think the utility of these small LGR mechs changes when they get hyper-elite pilots? Are these guys capable of getting unexpected performance out of their mechs?
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They're still just a bunch of 8 point hits, though. Even in the 3070s, I'd rather have a Hermes II "Mercury" than a "Mercury Elite." LGRs should be tank guns or at the very least paired with enough other long range guns that can stack more hits to cause piloting checks. And Heaven help you in you run into something like LCT-5M.
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Having a really good shot with a long gun like the light gauss on a reasonably speedy platform must be nightmarishly annoying for their opponents.
There's also the potential use against softer targets. There's something to be said about picking off a specific car in a motorcade or taking out a specific corner of a building without having to get close enough to worry about security. Makes me wish they had stealth armor as well.
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Having a really good shot with a long gun like the light gauss on a reasonably speedy platform must be nightmarishly annoying for their opponents.
You are referring to a company of Hawk Moth Gunships? 12 Light Gauss moving with 8/12 on any level with 32 shots each?
I always liked that idea and would like to see production numbers for this VTOL and the ratio on our line regiments. There is little to no answer for most enemies against swarms of Hawk Moths.
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You are referring to a company of Hawk Moth Gunships? 12 Light Gauss moving with 8/12 on any level with 32 shots each?
I always liked that idea and would like to see production numbers for this VTOL and the ratio on our line regiments. There is little to no answer for most enemies against swarms of Hawk Moths.
12 Warrior H-7s with precision ammo.
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You are referring to a company of Hawk Moth Gunships?
No. Please note that the post that started this specifically asked about mechs.
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Though Hawk Moths are pretty nice too.
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They are, just not what's being discussed right now.
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A thought occurs to me, inspired by the specops thread elsewhere on the forum. The FWL got a few odd designs in 3050u, specifically referring to the handful of small mechs that mount a Light Gauss Rifle as their primary or sole armament. Pretty underwhelming, but these are meant to be used by the Dark Shadows battalion, which implies REALLY GOOD pilots.
Do you think the utility of these small LGR mechs changes when they get hyper-elite pilots? Are these guys capable of getting unexpected performance out of their mechs?
In theory it should work. We already have the example of the SLDF's Maniples of Death doing basically the same thing with Hussars in the TRO2750 fluff.
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They're still just a bunch of 8 point hits, though. Even in the 3070s, I'd rather have a Hermes II "Mercury" than a "Mercury Elite." LGRs should be tank guns or at the very least paired with enough other long range guns that can stack more hits to cause piloting checks. And Heaven help you in you run into something like LCT-5M.
I run Locust-5Ms in all my light/recon FedSuns lances. They are fantastic light mechs, and I have a thing for 20 tonners. I know I could use a Fireball instead, but the Locust is so iconic I just can't ignore it. Furthermore, the Gunsmith uses Xpulses, and the Prey Seeker uses ReLasers, both of which can be too specialized for my tastes depending on scenario. The Locust, however, is always awesome, IMO.
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XPulse are just longer ranged pulse to fill in the gap between Clan & IS performance . . .
Weirdo, I think it makes a very interesting scenario especially if you allow the LGR sniper to use extreme range. Is your security cordon good enough to keep something with that sort of range and speed from hitting the HVT in a motorcade?
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I wonder...
What would you guys and ghouls say to a Lance with pair of Awesome-11R, a Stalker II and a Juliano?
Nasty customer? Or a palsy baiter?
Process of creating of a 3160-ish unit.... and needed a bee sting of a hammer.
Thoughts?
TT
More to come...
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One thing to keep in mind about the Stalker II, with the Hardened Armor and Torso-Mounted Cockpit, you're looking at a +2 to your PSRs, If you're playing with quirks, that becomes a +4 when you're trying to stand. Nice idea in theory, but you might be down on the ground more than you're not.
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Pish-posh.
+4 means nothing... flippable arms. Stalker is used for indirect purposes and terror for lesser issues, like tanks and Infantry. I could just replace with the Archer-9M, same purpose.
Idea is finding what to build around this to make an interesting unit. Wanting to do a Square Battalion...
TT
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That quartet has a whole lot of reliance on elrms and lgrs. So, I guess if your opponent has two or three maps of open terrain to run through to get to you, then it’s probably great. Otherwise, you are probably sacrificing too much tonnage overall for super-long range weapons. The Juliano is a beast, for sure. The Stalker makes an OK bodyguard, or mobile bullet sponge, but both it and the Awesomes are devoting a good chunk of tonnage to weapons that work best if your opponent isn’t even on the same map sheet, and even then, they have the combined damage output at those ranges of what, a Yeoman maybe?
Not saying you couldn’t get it to work, but that lance really needs some open spaces to start grinding the enemy down at long range. I’d bet the Juliano and the Stalker would be pulling most of the weight on that team. If you did use it, you would definitely need some more short and medium range capability from your other lances, and probably some decent spotters for long range, indirect LRM Fire.
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Oh I agree, just that there is so much boring with, Trenchbuckets and Hunchies that it is pathetic! One could go Cicada / Firestarter ( either Omni or -S3 ) but then I'd be draw into a race to see who'd finish first. ( Meaning do I get into range of my heavier units before you combat kill me, or do I attempt to withdraw and take damage defending? )
I have always liked funky units most never play with, like the Awesome 8T, the Clint-4T and the Scorpion-1N Wednall.
TT
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Do they make skin creams for this? Because I've got this weird purple rash that I've been wanting to scratch for a while now, despite being a complete Lyran. And yet...suddenly I like the idea of a disabused Lyran noble defecting to the FWL and taking her home guards and retainers with.
Though I admit I'm very much a grog-era player, mostly because I a) don't play at all, noone around to play with for Reasons and b) I can't keep most of the later eras straight as to what's what. Stuff up to the Clan war, memorized well. The rest....not so much.
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Do they make skin creams for this? Because I've got this weird purple rash that I've been wanting to scratch for a while now, despite being a complete Lyran. And yet...suddenly I like the idea of a disabused Lyran noble defecting to the FWL and taking her home guards and retainers with.
Though I admit I'm very much a grog-era player, mostly because I a) don't play at all, noone around to play with for Reasons and b) I can't keep most of the later eras straight as to what's what. Stuff up to the Clan war, memorized well. The rest....not so much.
The best cure for that purple rash is to play a game with ON1-Ks, WVR-6Ms, and HER-2Ss. Maybe a Treb if you're feeling froggy.
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Naw...
Slugfest with Tanks, in the mud with Infantry support at night on rolling hills map!
No really, one map is all you'll need. Just randomly place trees and a few buildings. Maybe a road that splits near a town.
Indirect and direct fire with spotters during a night ambush/ raid gone wrong, who'd want more?
OK I jest, a 2x2 map with mechs...
Do they make skin creams for this? Because I've got this weird purple rash that I've been wanting to scratch for a while now, despite being a complete Lyran. And yet...suddenly I like the idea of a disabused Lyran noble defecting to the FWL and taking her home guards and retainers with.
Embrace this rash, feed it some FedRat. >:D
TT
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FedRats are ancillary foes. The real enemies wear blue or green.
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Sharks and Falcons?
TT
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So what's to love about Tamarind, Abbey, or the Silverhawk Coalition? Since those are running the Lyran border, it seems the most likely to emigrate to. Silverhawk especially, they even get to go smash Feds in Guerrero. Or maybe just bring the character over with a proper combat unit of some kind...or the funding of one. Doesn't have to be a merc unit, just...private noble retainers.
Sell me on one of those three regions of the FWL, or tell me why I should pick somewhere in between!
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Why not a minor noble trying to inbreed with FWL minor noble, bringing their personal guard unit as a present.
TT
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Why not a minor noble trying to inbreed with FWL minor noble, bringing their personal guard unit as a present.
TT
Entirely possible! Hm...I suppose sticking with Tamarind or the Silverhawk Coalition ends badly in the DA era, especially when the Wolves show up. Or maybe not so badly, I wonder.
A mix of FWL and Steiner machines...hrm. A lance of 'Mechs, two companies of vehicles, and maybe a company or two of actual infantry? Some of the vehicles are obviously troop transports.
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Why not a minor noble trying to inbreed with FWL minor noble, bringing their personal guard unit as a present.
TT
(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f1/2d/01/f12d01f97d13207582d6962651aee4e5.jpg)
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I'm not wrong Liam. I know what I said.
This is BT after all...
TT
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So I'm looking at expanding my collection -- I eventually want to build the entire 10th Marik Militia 'Mech regiment in both its 3025 and 3057 incarnations -- and something occurred to me while I was doing a little research. The Anvil, which I love so much? It's basically just a reinvention of the Ostol-5M. Same mass, same speed, same primary armament (paired large pulse lasers, mediums for secondaries), it's just a few of the little details like the ECM and jump jets that differ.
The Ost-Mechs are probably the Unseens that I forget about most often and I've only ever fielded them. . . rarely.
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So I'm looking at expanding my collection -- I eventually want to build the entire 10th Marik Militia 'Mech regiment in both its 3025 and 3057 incarnations -- and something occurred to me while I was doing a little research.
How are you making your decisions for what units get what?
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So I'm looking at expanding my collection -- I eventually want to build the entire 10th Marik Militia 'Mech regiment in both its 3025 and 3057 incarnations -- and something occurred to me while I was doing a little research. The Anvil, which I love so much? It's basically just a reinvention of the Ostol-5M. Same mass, same speed, same primary armament (paired large pulse lasers, mediums for secondaries), it's just a few of the little details like the ECM and jump jets that differ.
The Ost-Mechs are probably the Unseens that I forget about most often and I've only ever fielded them. . . rarely.
A toast to the Ostroc.
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How are you making your decisions for what units get what?
If you mean how am I organizing my regiment, it's pretty simple actually. We know from the 3025-era House Marik: The Free Worlds League that the regiment's average mass is heavy. It and FM:FWL both reference the Condition Red Assault Battalion and the Running Rebels Reconnaissance Company. So if it's average is heavy but it has an assault battalion, then it needs one medium battalion and one heavy battalion to achieve that average, and the recon company can fill part of that medium battalion.
So I'll have a battalion of mostly assaults with a few heavies mixed in, a battalion of heavies with a few assaults and a few mediums mixed in, and a battalion of mediums with a few lights mixed in.
Next, I limit myself to one "Star League era" 'Mech per company (ie, Hermes, Highlander, Guillotine, that sort of thing) and one non-faction-according-to-the-MUL 'Mech per company (so far I've got a Zeus, Commando, and Vindicator planned, probably grab a Hot Hammer while I'm at it). Each company will be designed to work relatively independently, so each will have a fire lance, a line unit like an attack or battle lance, and then either another attack lance or some sort of faster cavalry lance. For example, Alpha Company, 1st Battalion so far looks like this:
Regimental Command & Fire Lance
- AWS-8Q
- LBG-7Q
- STK-3F
- AS7-D
Cannery Attack Lance
- BNC-3Q
- VTR-9B
- BLR-1G
- HBK-4G
? Attack Lance:
- AS7-RS
- HGN-733
- MAD-4A
- AWS-8Q
So you've got a fire support formation capable of both direct and indirect fire support (but can easily defend itself), a slow assault lance with good long- to medium-range capabilities, and a faster assault lance packing a whole lot of hole-punchers for just smashing through an enemy's line. There's one foreign 'Mech (the Marauder II, salvaged from Wolf's Dragoons during Anton's Revolt) and one SLDF 'Mech (the Highlander, a legacy machine that was downgraded when the FWLM lost the ability to maintain the gauss rifle).
I'm not done with the roster for even just the 1st Battalion yet, but that should give you an idea of how it'll come out looking.
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We also see repeated reference to "Assault" units that are not made up of Assault 'Mechs. Particularly in 3025, an "Assault" formation could easily be made up of Orions, Hunchbacks, Thunderbolts, and Warhammers to just name a few. A Lance of exactly that composition (particularly the -VA variant Orion) would fall resoundingly into the Assault Lance category with no qualms or complaints despite having zero Assault 'Mechs.
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Indeed. If one converts the AS qualifications for assault lance, you get:
* At least 3/4 units heavy or assault, and no light units
* Each has at least 9.5 tons of armour (standard plate; adjust accordingly for FF etc)
* Does 30 points of damage somewhere between 4 and 15 hexes (use average values for cluster weapons)
Fast assault lances need as above, but with all units having 5/8 minimum speed or jumpjets. So three Orions and a Hunchback are a perfectly respectable assault lance.
My personal interpretation? FWL assault lances typically have one assault, three suitable heavies, or one brawler-type medium (Hello, Hunchie!)
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Still looking for suggestions for local areas for a former Lyran to hang out in. What's your favorite province or planet? Sell me on it!
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Cannery Attack Lance
Essential if you're going up against sardines.
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We also see repeated reference to "Assault" units that are not made up of Assault 'Mechs. Particularly in 3025, an "Assault" formation could easily be made up of Orions, Hunchbacks, Thunderbolts, and Warhammers to just name a few. A Lance of exactly that composition (particularly the -VA variant Orion) would fall resoundingly into the Assault Lance category with no qualms or complaints despite having zero Assault 'Mechs.
Oh, I'm aware. There's a Hunchback in one of those assault lances. I've got another assault lance with a WHM-6R, another with an ON1-VA and a Guillotine, and two entire lances out of the battalion are going to be pure heavy 'Mechs instead of assaults.
Essential if you're going up against sardines.
The Cannery Attack Lance is a canon sub-command mentioned by name in the old House Marik book. I think it's a dumb name too, but this is my chosen regiment so I'm going to stick as close to canon as possible. . . which also means I'll need to load up on Locusts and Hermes IIs because those two chassis comprise the majority of the Running Rebels company.
Still looking for suggestions for local areas for a former Lyran to hang out in. What's your favorite province or planet? Sell me on it!
I guess it depends on where your defecting Lyran is from. If they're from Skye, then they might be at home on Stewart which is also Scottish in heritage (I can't speak for Kearny officially, but I'd like to imagine that it was settled by Scots as well). If they're from Bolan or its environs, the border areas around Tamarind or the Southwest Worlds are likely spots just because of their proximity, but there's likely some ingrained regional bias against those areas so heading deeper into the League is probably a better idea. The Rim Commonality and its surrounding areas near the Periphery tend to be extremely socially conservative (per FM:3085), so if your character is kind of old-fashioned that's a good place to put down roots, but it also gets raided by pirates and wannabe-Romans all the time.
My opinion is to pick a place in the Marik Commonwealth. It's big, it's cosmopolitan, it's got a lot of the League's military, economic, and cultural centers not to mention the national capital. If you read the entry on Atreus in HB:HM, it sounds like a beautiful place. Atreus City is described like Washington DC: the government buildings are in the classical styles of Greece and Rome, while the majority of the planet is a verdant wilderness protected by law from deforestation and new construction to maintain its pristine natural beauty.
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It's somewhat off-topic but I don't fell like starting a new thread for it (Although a series of fan articles covering this sort of stuff, Faction of the week?): I know that the FWL uses a lot of LRM and LGR, but how much do they use C3? I ask because I'm toying around with the very nasty iNarc wielder and I'm trying to figure who might have designed it and the two leading candidates are the FWL and the NAIS (It uses some rather advanced gear)
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Everyone dabbles in it so far as I know but the biggest user by far is the Kuritans. C3i was a Blakist thing through-and-through, and iNarc itself came out in 3062 under Cornstar. So pretty much anyone could have it depending on your timeframe and it'd be useful.
My opinion is to pick a place in the Marik Commonwealth.
You make some damn good arguments. Plus that means being at the forefront during the Jihad and the Republic invasion, then the Wolf Empire...gonna be a lot to put a Thud through.
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It's somewhat off-topic but I don't fell like starting a new thread for it (Although a series of fan articles covering this sort of stuff, Faction of the week?): I know that the FWL uses a lot of LRM and LGR, but how much do they use C3? I ask because I'm toying around with the very nasty iNarc wielder and I'm trying to figure who might have designed it and the two leading candidates are the FWL and the NAIS (It uses some rather advanced gear)
They got options (http://masterunitlist.info/Unit/Filter?Name=&HasBV=true&HasBV=false&MinTons=&MaxTons=&MinBV=&MaxBV=&MinIntro=&MaxIntro=&MinCost=&MaxCost=&HasRole=&HasBFAbility=C3&MinPV=&MaxPV=&Role=None+Selected&BookAuto=&FactionAuto=&Factions=55&Factions=30). The C3S Main Gauche is something everyone using C3 would love to have.
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Planning to do 2nd Free Worlds Guards Company in 3025. On sarna.net it's saying that 2nd Free Worlds Guards have 9 medium companies. What is meant by medium company? I get it that it's mainly medium mechs. But how many of light/heavy mechs, not expecting any assault mechs, there can be?
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Anywhere between half and three-quarters of your 'Mechs should be mediums. Sprinkle some lights and fast heavies like the Ostsol, Ostroc, or Quickdraw into your medium companies and you're good. Alternately (or perhaps additionally), stick a lightweight recon lance or a heavyweight fire or battle lance into a company here and there. Everyone appreciates being backed up by a Warhammer from time to time!
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Anywhere between half and three-quarters of your 'Mechs should be mediums. Sprinkle some lights and fast heavies like the Ostsol, Ostroc, or Quickdraw into your medium companies and you're good. Alternately (or perhaps additionally), stick a lightweight recon lance or a heavyweight fire or battle lance into a company here and there. Everyone appreciates being backed up by a Warhammer from time to time!
I am working only with minis from IntroBox (25th anniversary) and AS lance packs. Recon Lance Pack will be base for the recon lance (probably discard Flea and will go with another spider), medium lance will be fire lance (2 trebuchet, dervish and must think about the last mech) well and command/battle lance will have orion and quick draw as base with 2 medium mechs (Hunchback + another one?).
EDIT:
This is what I came with:
Recon Lance
SDR-5V(622/16)
FS9-H(694/19)
VL-2T(642/19)
CDA-2A(659/16)
Fire Lance
TBT-5N(1191/27)
TBT-5N(1191/27)
DV-6M(1,146/30)
WTH-1(982/26)
Command/Battle Lance
HER-2M(910/24)
HBK-4G(1,041/28)
ON1-K(1,429/39)/ON1-V(1,298/35)
QKD-4G(1,192/30)
What do you say?
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Well. I'm a fan of having the speeds of all 'Mechs in a lance to match, but since you're working off of what you currently possess, I can work with that.
The two recommendations I would make would be to swap the Vuclan to a VL-5T, and the Quickdraw to a QKD-5A. The VL-5T pulls the AC/2 for extra medium lasers, making it a really good knife-fighter. Same with the QKD-5A, which pulls the LRM-10 for two extra medium lasers (and I think some heat sinks, but my memory is fuzzy on that one).
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Well, as I will add more mechs into my collection there will transfers between companies. :D
Good recommendations, thank you.
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What is meant by medium company? I get it that it's mainly medium mechs. But how many of light/heavy mechs, not expecting any assault mechs, there can be?
The old guidelines from the original Mercenary's Handbook, and contemporary BattleForce supplements, are that a light lance weighs up to 130 tons, a medium lance up to 200 tons, a heavy lance up to 280 tons, and an assault lance is over 280 tons.
You could have a Banshee and three Spiders in your medium lance if you wanted. I think I remember Team Banzai - an ostensibly medium regiment - being split like that between light and assault 'Mechs. So your lances are fine. Splitting a medium company into a light, a medium, and a heavy lance is very traditional.
Weight classification is less clear at the company level and up, though. My impression is that it's even more conservative at the battalion and regimental level - like, maybe a "light" regiment averages about 40 tons per 'Mech, "medium" is still around 50 tons, but heavy may only be 60 and assault 70.
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What is meant by medium company? I get it that it's mainly medium mechs. But how many of light/heavy mechs, not expecting any assault mechs, there can be?
Strategic Ops has (rather complex) rules for determining how many in a truly random fashion. But in short, for standard IS companies, the tables on pages 334 and 335 generate 12 possible permutations:
The lightest formation has 6 Lights, 4 Mediums and 2 Heavies. At max possible tonnages they would average 48 tons.
The heaviest formation has 2 Lights, 3 Mediums, 6 Heavies and 1 Assault. Max possible tonnage average: 65 tons.
By weight class, he compositions vary from 0 to 6 Lights, 3 to 12 (ie all) Mediums, 0 to 6 Heavies, and 0 to 1 Assault.
IMHO it's fun to create your own composition rather than just roll. You can't go wrong sticking to an overall average of 40-55 tons and a minimum of 50% medium-class Mechs. How i do it is first figure out how the unit fights e.g. if this medium Company is meant to fight independently, it might have a Recon Lance, a Battle Lance, and a mixed Command/Fire Lance; if it is meant to fight in a cohesive battalion and it is the designated Support Company, it might have 2 Fire Lances and a Command Lance.
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So, I'm a few days late to the topic, but... regarding a teammate for the Juliano and Stalker II and so on: I would really ditch the Stalker II for an Archer 9M or a Pandarus or maybe even that new Orion. You only need a few ELRMs to force people to come out to play, at which point you want to be able to take them in a direct fight. Esp. since you've already got the AWS-11R on the same job. Honestly, the AWS-11R might be all the 'anti-camping' you need to draw foes out; nobody's keen on eating ELRMs and LGR.
Thus I would advise something like...
Juliano
Awesome 11R OR Pandarus OR ELRM-equipped Orion
AWS-9M or MR-5M or similar direct firepower hole-puncher. WHM-7D or BNC-3Mr also suffices.
Carronade
It's the kind of formation that has answers for a lot of problems. Awesome for anti-camp, MR-5M for hole punching and pulsing fast units, Carronade for Anti-Air and crit-seeking, Juliano for additional crit-seeking and general battle.
On a side note, I'm starting to realize that the Anzu may very well be our replacement for the Tempest. I've come to accept that we're not going to see sheets for the TMP-4M or TMP C, so the Anzu seems to be our 4/6/4 heavy with a ballistic main gun at this point. (The regular TMP-3M or -3G is hard pressed to compete at this point since most of its weapons are short-range, in case anyone wonders. The Anzu has enough extra range that I consider it the better Mech in 3145-era play)
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What if I went with an Awesome-9Q as the " bodyguard"? Quad Peepers @ range...
TT
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To me, the "bodyguard" is better off a brawler, than a juggernaut. You want to make people think "Yes, i could take that backshot on the Salamander, but then the Thunderbolt will eviscerate me" sort of thing.
So I'd be looking for short- to medium-range oomph, plus more mobility. The 9Q has minimum range issues, and is also a little slow for my preference in this role. Thuds, Anzus, Hunchbacks, even Anvils suit the role better IMHO.
Face it - three Awesome 9Qs and a Hunchback 6N - point Awesomes toward enemy, have the Hunchback loitering "just in case".
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This may be a vocabulary issue, because I don't think he really meant to suggest an AWS-9Q was a close combat deterrent. It is, obviously, the opposite; people want to rush it. My reply will operate on that assumption that he's really talking about long range hole punchers. And...
...I cannot endorse the idea of using the AWS-9Q in 3150-era play. 3/5/0 with range 18 is far too easy to elude. Worse, your team has no way to deter high speed 'slasher' units like the Uziel 8S (to say nothing of clantech jump + pulse laser designs). Unless you've got some battle armor teams protecting this lance, I think the AWS-9Q is the wrong answer.
Honestly, I think the AWS-9Q is a bad machine. It would be stellar in 3025 play of course. It would be strong in 3050. It would still be okay in 3055, and barely acceptable in 3058. Beyond that, I am not impressed with it. It's going to spend most of its time either being outranged, or missing shots that opponents more reliably hit.
EDIT: If you really want an Awesome in the formation, the AWS-9Ma is probably a superior choice.
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Yeah, I was looking to stop within range of my minimums. But even I do see the point of slasher moves as a problem. Charger 1A5 might work, but it isn't a Marik build.
TT
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So I must wonder what kind of accusations of being a freedom-stealing federalist I'd be if I went with the 1st FWL Guards as a unit. They've been through a lot, they're still around in the DA, and they're sticking around the Marik Commonwealth.
The other option I'm thinking of is going as a mercenary force, but that's...always iffy. And I get the feeling from the fluff that mercs aren't very popular, so the third option is creating a force that doesn't exist at all in the books. It wouldn't be at all the first time - looking at the Marik Militia, there's only one listed tank regiment on Uhuru, but the fluff for it says it's one of six such regiments.
So how about Jihad and Dark Age combat? I can see the wide mixes of stuff and a focus on long range teamwork, is there anything really extra noteworthy or just "wait till the Juliano becomes the Main Battle Mech of the FWL?"
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FWL is playable without the Juliano. It's just we become significantly better with it.
Before then, its general mission role is filled poorly by the T-IT-N11M Grand Titan and T-IT-N10M Grand Titan but we have few other options. Thus we do better to run the MR-5M as our main assault, backed by AWS-9M or AWS-9Ma. The Trebaruna is fairly good too, though it needs protection to do well.
The Juliano is basically an implicit admission that a 'combat effective' range of 6 hexes on a 4/6/* unit is no longer acceptable in 3150, and that our primary Grand Titan was no longer getting the job done... nor was our Stalker. The Juliano increased the effective combat range, while also increasing damage output. While it's weak to high-speed 'slasher' units, this is not a problem since its lancemates and the Kopis Battle Armor can usually counter them in return.
Nonetheless, we can win without it. We started winning once our medium corps became more noted for its SKW-2F Shockwaves and so on instead of SHD-7M and GRF-5M. "Hurr hurr toss light gauss on it" was what was ruining us as a faction, and the developers finally got over it in TRO 3085. We didn't even need great Mechs, we just needed 'not irresponsibly stupid, unplayably bad trash that makes it clear the folks at FASA did not like us and wanted us to stop buying their product so they could focus more on the davions and steiners and clans.'
We got it. The FWL became much more fun almost overnight due to it. The Juliano is just an example of making us finally scary in some contexts, instead of just 'playable.'
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So I must wonder what kind of accusations of being a freedom-stealing federalist I'd be if I went with the 1st FWL Guards as a unit. They've been through a lot, they're still around in the DA, and they're sticking around the Marik Commonwealth.
The other option I'm thinking of is going as a mercenary force, but that's...always iffy. And I get the feeling from the fluff that mercs aren't very popular, so the third option is creating a force that doesn't exist at all in the books. It wouldn't be at all the first time - looking at the Marik Militia, there's only one listed tank regiment on Uhuru, but the fluff for it says it's one of six such regiments.
So how about Jihad and Dark Age combat? I can see the wide mixes of stuff and a focus on long range teamwork, is there anything really extra noteworthy or just "wait till the Juliano becomes the Main Battle Mech of the FWL?"
The 1st Free Worlds Guards are my favorite federal unit, and the only such accusations you'll see from me are of being a patriot and a gentleman. 8)
The only FWL unit I like better over all is the Covenant Guards, and that's 100% because their paint scheme kicks ass and they're a Dark Age unit.
In terms of TRO3145, the Anzu and Carronade are both excellent, and we also get access to the sicknasty new Black Knights. Clan units from the Sea Foxes and Spirit Cats also shore up the good units count, with excellent units like Shadow Cats, Mad Cat IIIs, Nova Cats, the collection of Mk IIs (Loki, Thor, Mad Cat), and everything else you could find on loan from a Clan Protectorate force.
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Haha, thanks Scotty. What's the scheme for the Covenant Guards? I get annoyed at the number of liveries with large areas of white.
So, armor and AFVs. The FWL uses two types of armor regiment, one heavy/assault tank that seems to be built more like a square-format reinforced battalion with 60-80 heavy and assault tanks,while much lighter regiments run into the 100-120 or more light and medium vehicles. Is there any more information on organizing these or just 'mix and match the various number for platoon and company size until you get something doable
Keep half-thinking of playing a tank regiment in these days of 'Mechs. Would you guys consider using Xotl's RATs just to determine homogenous lances (roll 3 times for a company, get a lance of Bulldogs, Manticores, and SRM Carriers) or roll individually (roll 12 times for a company) and ad hoc it together, for the 3/4 SW era?
Sorry for petsternig with questions!
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I can't answer much in terms of armor formations in the 3rd/4th SW, unfortunately. Later in the timeline I reduce to using the typical four vehicle platoon regardless of weight, because that's easier for my boxes to transport and easier for my MUL cards to keep track of. If it comes right down to it, I'd probably run vehicle platoons in groups based on whether or not they transport infantry. If they do, platoons of six. If they don't, platoons of four.
That way, I could run a platoon of six transports with the typically atypical Marik five-squad platoon, plus a sixth transport bringing along a conventional infantry platoon of some kind, making it a combined arms mechanized infantry company.
The Covenant Guards are a dark purple, with black secondary color and gold trim.
(https://s3.amazonaws.com/cso-images/schemes/1_covguardbknight.jpg)
It helps a lot that purple/black/gold is a lot easier to paint than white anything. They're the personal unit of rogue Paladin Thaddeus Marik in the immediate post-Gray Monday chaos. As a result, after his death they're a Green unit that I like to think has a bunch of cool units with more to prove than they have to lose.
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So, armor and AFVs. The FWL uses two types of armor regiment, one heavy/assault tank that seems to be built more like a square-format reinforced battalion with 60-80 heavy and assault tanks,while much lighter regiments run into the 100-120 or more light and medium vehicles. Is there any more information on organizing these or just 'mix and match the various number for platoon and company size until you get something doable
Keep half-thinking of playing a tank regiment in these days of 'Mechs. Would you guys consider using Xotl's RATs just to determine homogenous lances (roll 3 times for a company, get a lance of Bulldogs, Manticores, and SRM Carriers) or roll individually (roll 12 times for a company) and ad hoc it together, for the 3/4 SW era?
I like to maintain homogeneous lances when it comes to armor purely in the name of realism and logistical issues. Now this doesn't necessarily mean that each of the four tanks has to be the same mark, just the same model. My head-canon tank unit is the 3rd Republic of Connaught Guards Armored Battalion (The Hounds), a Veteran-rated heavy tank battalion from (you guessed it!) Connaught. They are equipped entirely with Ontos heavy tanks, but each lance is mixed. In pre-Helm eras, Alpha Company is a close-assault company with each lance fielding three Ontos (Fusion) tanks and one Ontos (LRM) to provide long range coverage. Bravo Company is a switch, with three LRM variants and one Fusion variant to protect the missile boats from skirmishers. In later eras, I swap to three LGR variants backed up by one 3053 variant.
However, other armor formations make for good mixes. Logistically, Zhukovs and Pos pair well since they share ammunition. In canon, Galleons and Harasser (LRM)s pair well; the Galleons flush out the quarry and run interference while the Harassers pelt the targets with warheads (the Main Gauche was built specifically to pair up with the GAL-102 Galleon in a similar vein).
Something else to consider is that the official armored brigade actually consists of four battalions of tanks and two regiments of mechanized infantry. I forget if that's in the 3025-era House book or FM:FWL, but pair that up with a 'Mech regiment and a jump infantry regiment (alternatively, a battalion of battle armor) and you've got yourself a nice little battlegroup.
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I normally play FWLM tank platoons as six tanks across the board, regardless of role or weight class; it keeps things simpler by removing the need to ad-hoc the matter in every individual instance. As far as battlesuit transport platoons go, I usually go with five transports plus a command vehicle with a similar speed to the rest of the platoon. For example, I often pair five R10s with a Kinnol, or five Maxims with a Stygian (Armor).
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Yeah, the 108-unit regiment definitely doesn't apply here. Makes things interesting, though, a 60-80 tank regiment feels more like a typical reinforced battalion...and with the FWL's whole 'combined arms' bit, a 2 company 'Mech battalion, a 4-company heavy tank battalion, and then a light/recon company/infantry battalion seems like tremendous fun. Not one of the major combat units, but a planetary militia maybe?
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What are your thoughts on five Main Gauche IFVs+??
Similarly, what are people's thoughts on multi-squad transports? There's the obvious egg/basket issues and offloading times, but you can also boost your firepower by including more dedicated combat tanks in your platoon.
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I love the Main Gauche IFV. Yes, it's expensive. But it's passably fast, reasonably rugged for a transport (Assuming it doesn't get immobilized on turn one again...) and has a great main gun for supporting infantry with.
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There reasons why insist to use the Vehicle Effective rules from TacOps. Gives more value to the tank forces. Still, their going get crited, but they stay in game longer.
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I've had luck with the Main Gauche IFV on some occasions, although arguably they play somewhat like quad 'Mechs...the lack of a turret has screwed with them more than a few times.
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wing . . . man . . .
And of course the BA they are transporting.
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the collection of Mk IIs (Loki, Thor,) (snip in editing/quoting by GespenstM) on loan from a Clan Protectorate force.
Can I get some more info on this? I'd love to see proof the FWL fields Thor IIs, but the MUL doesn't seem to agree with this statement.
I'd also like to discuss the Anzu some more. What sort of results are people getting out of it? I liked it at first, but my opinion has diminished somewhat in pitting it against the Klingons (wolf empire) where it hasn't performed well even when I bear its relatively low BV in mind. Just have trouble landing hits reliably against them.
It still performs well enough against IS-tech forces mind you, enough that I still think it's decent, but I'm no longer as enthusiastic for it as I once was, either the G60 or the J70 versions.
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The Clan Protectorate is literally a Sea Fox Aimag and Spirit/Nova Cat remnants that settled on/liberated/conquered Atreus and a few other surrounding systems, so units use IS General, FWL (various), Clan General and Sea Fox units pretty much interchangeably.
Thor II <Base> is on the Sea Fox, Mercenary, and Wolf lists.
Loki Mk II <Base> is on the Sea Fox and Wolf lists.
Fluff whatever reason you want for why one shows up somewhere else. If it was something like a Rokurokubi where the only users in appreciable number don't share a border (or even share a border with something that shares a border) with the FWL, then I'd say there aren't any. But they're fielded in appreciable numbers not merely 'on the border', but actually within our borders, on top of being fielded by direct aggressors that were very recently on the warpath in our direction.
Officer exchange, isorla traded back and forth between Wolves and Foxes that made its way to a FWL unit, outright battlefield salvage, export; there's a dozen reasons to have one.
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It does seem a bit odd that the MUL recognizes the other Dark Age FWL subfactions but there's no Free Worlds League (Clan Protectorate) listings.
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Going through my old notes, I found my old baby tank battalion in a drawer I forgot about.
Even went as far as calling it The Tank-a-suars Wrecks Birgade.
Let's see here:
Lance A: 2x Galleon-100, 1x Miny-Peggy Harraser, 1x LRM Harraser and 1x ML Harraser
Lance B: same
Lance C: 2x TAV-1 ICE, 3x LRM-15 Hunters
TT
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Alright, that's an argument I can accept re: Thor II access.
Speaking of clan tech, it's kind of a shock fighting the clans so often lately. Got in a few games against the Klingons today (super basic stuff), and it really drove home the point that the game has changed. We're now neighbors with a faction that is as fast as Liao and hits as hard as steiner. I feel like any Mech we field or design going forward has to have an answer for "for my BV cost, can I do enough damage to a clan Mech to be worth fielding?"
There are some Mechs that I feel do not meet this criteria. The T-IT-N13M Grand Titan is chief among them.
On the other hand, SnubNose PPCs appear to be one of the few significant advantages we have against clantech.
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Alright, that's an argument I can accept re: Thor II access.
Speaking of clan tech, it's kind of a shock fighting the clans so often lately. I feel like any Mech we field or design going forward has to have an answer for "for my BV cost, can I do enough damage to a clan Mech to be worth fielding?"
On the other hand, SnubNose PPCs appear to be one of the few significant advantages we have against clantech.
There's also the happy fact that every LGR-equipped Marik mech is one bit of battlefield salvage away from an instant refit with a clan-tech full Gauss. That said, SURVIVING is the tricky part, but at least the FWL has the history of the Invasion to look at and work on. Not that it helped much, apparently, but at least the Wolves decided to go after Terra instead.
Question now is, should the FWL push back against a still technologically superior foe, and take the risk of REALLY getting eaten when the Wolves come back? I mean Atreus IS right there.
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I've had luck with the Main Gauche IFV on some occasions, although arguably they play somewhat like quad 'Mechs...the lack of a turret has screwed with them more than a few times.
I'll put my hand up for that one. But Colt Ward has it right - a platoon of 6 of these, with integral BA, should be capable of self-covering. Plus, the plasma gun is super-effective against BA or infantry, and still pretty good against armour.
But a turret? Wouldn't be a Maine Gauche then.
W.
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Question now is, should the FWL push back against a still technologically superior foe, and take the risk of REALLY getting eaten when the Wolves come back? I mean Atreus IS right there.
As much as I'd like to get Keystone back, I think the best course is to hold off on war with the Wolves for the moment. We need to see how much the reconquista of Regulus cost us in terms of materiel, and the Elsies are a softer target that are due a good butt-kicking for starting this whole mess with the Wolves in the first place. I've always wanted to see the Eagle flying over Bolan again.
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One thing to think about GespenstM is that while Clan tech has spread and we also have more mixed tech chassis . . . if you are facing a Clan force, it should NOT be pure Omni let alone pure Clan-tech. Grant you if you are facing Clan elite, those IS or mixed tech chassis are not going to be pushovers but its not the same as facing a Clan force in '50.
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It seems to me that if you're looking at FWL mechs to win the fight against the Wolves, you're looking in the wrong place. The FWLM is a combined arms force, so look at the entire spectrum. The Clans may have stepped up their combined arms game, but they're still relative newcomers to something we've been doing for centuries. Don't look to the mechs to win the fight, look to them to hold the fight while the other stuff you brought wins it. And don't forget just how stinking huge our infantry regiments are...
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It seems to me that if you're looking at FWL mechs to win the fight against the Wolves, you're looking in the wrong place. The FWLM is a combined arms force, so look at the entire spectrum. The Clans may have stepped up their combined arms game, but they're still relative newcomers to something we've been doing for centuries. Don't look to the mechs to win the fight, look to them to hold the fight while the other stuff you brought wins it. And don't forget just how stinking huge our infantry regiments are...
RE: Infantry, that's what - 64 platoons per regiment? That's a huge amount of meatbags to sway things, and with 3150's infantry tech it should be glorious. What's the standard FWLM small arm anyway? Seems like it should be time to create some Fun Ideas.
You know, combining Main Gauche and Galleon -105s would make a fantastic light-armor infantry support setup. It may only be a thumper, but hey, it's still worth it. Can you fit an Arrow IV into a galleon? That trio would make things hilarious with the single-chassis design. If the League ever gets Kalidasa back, that Orion C is going to be one hell of an assault machine. Same with the BLR-6M Battlemaster, and its clan C2 variant; I can't imagine being lucky enough to keep those factories running in FWL hands post 3150.
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Galleon-105? Not familiar with that one, don't see it on the MUL.
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Galleon-105? Not familiar with that one, don't see it on the MUL.
This variant of the Galleon is equipped with a Thumper Artillery Cannon and ER Medium Lasers in Sponson Turrets. It is used to provide fire support for light armored units. To make room for the weapons, armor was sacrificed.
Sarna cites Technical Readout: 3150, p. 222 as the source.
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Ah, one of the ONN ones we don't have sheets for yet.
Even with the Thumper merely a Snub, I'm looking forward to that.
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RE: Infantry, that's what - 64 platoons per regiment? That's a huge amount of meatbags to sway things, and with 3150's infantry tech it should be glorious. What's the standard FWLM small arm anyway? Seems like it should be time to create some Fun Ideas.
The standard Marik small arm is the AX-22 autorifle. Generally considered the best assault rifle in the Inner Sphere.
Leaguers seems to back that up with David Light gauss rifles as a support weapon - I guess in lieu of a squad machine gun.
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The standard Marik small arm is the AX-22 autorifle. Generally considered the best assault rifle in the Inner Sphere.
The Federated-Barrett M42B would like a word with you.
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In fairness, at the time the AX-22 was declaimed as the greatest assault rifle in the Inner Sphere, the M42B did not yet exist.
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You want evil platoons, back up those -22s with the big heavy support lasers, the biggest IS ones you can cram two to a squad. Your infantry won't be fast, but they'll hit far, and HARD.
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You want evil platoons, back up those -22s with the big heavy support lasers, the biggest IS ones you can cram two to a squad. Your infantry won't be fast, but they'll hit far, and HARD.
None sense, just abuse the heck out of the cybernetics and mounted infantry (including the Heavy Horse SPA) and you can have your infantry moving 3 hexes a turn and firing their 20+ support lasers.
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That's not a very League-ish thing to do, though, given the inherit bias against cybernetics our faction is noted for.
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I doubt the "Real" Thomas Marik has done anything to improve that image of bionics.
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Yeah, that reeks of min-maxing some kind of edge case WOBbly crap, not a League formation of any sort.
In terms of "League Infantry", I like to bring field guns. LGRs towed by motorized infantry mean you can generally pick something else for your 'Mechs and not give up range advantage. Otherwise, it's battle armor. Bog standard PBIs with nothing special I'd rather use to hold ground and find hidden units than in anything approaching an actual combat role.
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Tracked or wheeled mechinf with decent range tends to make for a nice escort for big tanks and mechs.
My favorite part of conventional infantry is that many people still tend to put them on the back burner, tactics-wise. Makes it easy to get them into good positions, or get backshots on mechs that are focused on other things.
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You want evil platoons, back up those -22s with the big heavy support lasers, the biggest IS ones you can cram two to a squad. Your infantry won't be fast, but they'll hit far, and HARD.
According to the fluff of Quasimodo, it uses triple Diverse Optics Type 47V medium variable speed lasers.
So instead of your heavy support, the A Time of War Companion contains the Md. VSL support weapon stats.
TT
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You want evil platoons, back up those -22s with the big heavy support lasers, the biggest IS ones you can cram two to a squad. Your infantry won't be fast, but they'll hit far, and HARD.
Yeah, that reeks of min-maxing some kind of edge case WOBbly crap, not a League formation of any sort.
In terms of "League Infantry", I like to bring field guns. LGRs towed by motorized infantry mean you can generally pick something else for your 'Mechs and not give up range advantage. Otherwise, it's battle armor. Bog standard PBIs with nothing special I'd rather use to hold ground and find hidden units than in anything approaching an actual combat role.
Do note that I'm not sure if what I suggested is even rules legal, so.
Also personally the field guns I'd like most to see would be either using Chemical Lasers or using all up BA weapons.
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Read TacOps for the notes on Field Guns, they're completely different from what you're describing.
So a platoon with AX-22s, each squad has an SL and two three-man fireteams, each fireteam with a David. A full platoon of 28 hits with 16 points of damage out to range 9, though it's stuck with the move-or-shoot option. Still pretty wicked.
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So a platoon with AX-22s, each squad has an SL and two three-man fireteams, each fireteam with a David. A full platoon of 28 hits with 16 points of damage out to range 9, though it's stuck with the move-or-shoot option. Still pretty wicked.
You can have the Support Laser or the David as your support weapon choice, but not both.
A lot of people like to fan-rule what they do with infantry. For purposes of this thread, can we stick to what's actually rules-legal, please?
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Much as I'd rather not (one of the things I hate most about TW is how needlessly abstracted infantry are), I'm not entirely sure what else there is to talk about if we do. The way TechManual handles infantry weapons, you've got roughly three points of decision to min/max: speed, range, damage; pick two. Unlike on 'Mechs, there's not actually a reasonably balanced tradeoff between weapons, so it's relatively easy to identify the three breakpoints.
Speed and Damage: Highest damage primary weapons available
Speed and Range: Highest range primary weapons available
Range and Damage: Highest damage primary weapons; two of the highest range secondary weapons available. If you prioritize damage over range but still want both, pick whatever range 5 or so weapon has the highest damage.
It basically comes down to if you want fast(ish) platoons, don't use secondary weapons. If you don't care, use Clan Heavy Support Lasers.
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Then what has been said has been said. Nonetheless, the Fan Rules section exists for a reason: So people can discuss their house rules as they wish without confusing the hell out of folks in other sections who might get the impression you're actually talking about rules-legal stuff, or annoying the people who stay the hell away from the Fan Rules and Designs sections because they don't want to deal with that stuff.
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You can have the Support Laser or the David as your support weapon choice, but not both.
I meant 'squad leader' sorry, was thinking on a level of 'squad leader, two fireteams, each with two riflemen and a david gunner.'
Speed and Damage: Highest damage primary weapons available
Speed and Range: Highest range primary weapons available
Range and Damage: Highest damage primary weapons; two of the highest range secondary weapons available. If you prioritize damage over range but still want both, pick whatever range 5 or so weapon has the highest damage.
Not sure we can do much about speed + damage, but the AX-22 is still a 0.56 weapon. Could be a lot worse. Speed and range, there's laser rifles that the FWL provides, a good choice for mechanized or motorized infantry - gives them extra reach on top of their mobility. Not so hot on the damage, but could be worse. Range and damage...well, you could be a supreme cheese god and say 'my 30 man platoon has five six-man squads each squad with two Heavy Support Lasers' - gives you ten of the guns, a base range of 5, and damage of 1.47 each - so nearly 15 points of damage before you add in the other 20 personal weapons. Keeping it FWL themed, things they'd use as potential infantry.
Can you use Magshots as field guns? That might be giggleworthy.
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You can, but each towed weapon requires at least two troopers.
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That's still a lot of magshots! Though you can't use your own infantry weapons at the same time, so it somewhat neutralizes the point of field guns. Oh well, back to LGRs or UAC10s or RACs.
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One of these days, I'm going to explore the merits of Ultra-10 field guns, plus opportunity fire rules. Make enemy scouts go the LONG way around...
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Much as I'd rather not (one of the things I hate most about TW is how needlessly abstracted infantry are), I'm not entirely sure what else there is to talk about if we do. The way TechManual handles infantry weapons, you've got roughly three points of decision to min/max: speed, range, damage; pick two. Unlike on 'Mechs, there's not actually a reasonably balanced tradeoff between weapons, so it's relatively easy to identify the three breakpoints.
Speed and Damage: Highest damage primary weapons available
Speed and Range: Highest range primary weapons available
Range and Damage: Highest damage primary weapons; two of the highest range secondary weapons available. If you prioritize damage over range but still want both, pick whatever range 5 or so weapon has the highest damage.
It basically comes down to if you want fast(ish) platoons, don't use secondary weapons. If you don't care, use Clan Heavy Support Lasers.
Or you know,. just give a foot infantry platoon a Lt. with the Foot Cavalry SPA and watch them move two hexes AND fire their weapons, even if those weapons would normally impose a move or fire condition.
One of these days, I'm going to explore the merits of Ultra-10 field guns, plus opportunity fire rules. Make enemy scouts go the LONG way around...
Keep in mind that the guns don't jam.
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One of these days, I'm going to explore the merits of Ultra-10 field guns, plus opportunity fire rules. Make enemy scouts go the LONG way around...
SCC is correct that they don't jam, but they also only get 10 rounds per gun, and you can only ever bring along two of them. Granted, you can only ever bring two AC/10s, too, so the extended range is 100% bonus with no drawback or downside, but trying to go ultra-mode with them is the fastest way to run out of ammo.
Opportunity Fire is incredibly fiddly and I'm genuinely not sure how they interact with field guns' turret-like facing restrictions.
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My experience with non-battle armored infantry is limited to the basic platoon types from TW, so the current thread of conversation is. . . enlightening. . . for me.
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Genuinely speaking, I think the bog standard AC/5 is the most effective towed infantry gun you can bring. It's long enough range that the movement penalties don't over-affect it, it's light enough that you can fit three of them in a platoon for some moderate ranged critseeking, you can use Flak or Precision to really help infantry out with their most troublesome targets (aircraft and scouts, both of which can usually choose to just... not deal with them, at all), and you have a buffer of several bodies before you start losing guns (don't lose the first AC/5 until five casualties) which means you can afford to duel a little bit with bigger targets that can't kill a lot of guys per shot.
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My experience with non-battle armored infantry is limited to the basic platoon types from TW, so the current thread of conversation is. . . enlightening. . . for me.
TacOps opens up a whole new world for infantry shenanigans even if you don't go for towed field guns. Fast Movement is a must for every turn that you don't expect a platoon to fire, for example. The short range of most platoons means you generally can tell if you're going to fire or not, so this is pretty easy, and you'd be amazed how much more quickly you can cover ground with just that extra hex of movement. Makes crossing streets a lot safer, for example.
Once you get to a spot you want to hold, Digging In makes it much harder to get you out of that spot, and every turn they waste rooting out your platoon is a turn that unit is leaving your mechs and tanks alone. (Before anyone talks about bypassing them easily, also remember that the trick is to dig your platoons into places the other guy can't leave you in possession of, such as a mission objective or an important piece of cover.)
Between the encumbering nature of our heavy body armor and the large support weapons we have access to, I suspect many FWLM infantry regiments are built around this digging in doctrine, using large infantry forces as a wall for our more mobile mechs and tanks to smash enemies into.
Above all else, conventional infantry are like battlesuit squads, in that if people can't use the word 'shenanigans' to describe your tactics, you're probably doing it wrong. :)
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My experience with non-battle armored infantry is limited to the basic platoon types from TW, so the current thread of conversation is. . . enlightening. . . for me.
First of all the platoon can only be motorized or mechanized (Tracked or Wheeled) and you loose 1 MP. Secondly only one type of gun per platoon, but you can have as many guns as you can man, if the number of troopers drops such that the platoon can't man all the guns excess guns are destroyed; guns require men equal to their tonnage excluding ammo to man them, minimum of two. Third the guns can not be fired in the same turn that the platoon moved or fired their normal infantry weapons, platoons must designate a facing like a tank turret and the guns are treated as being mounted on a vehicle, so they can fire at ASF when the infantry squad can't. Fourth autocannons don't jam and LB-X must fire cluster. This means that standard are better then Ultra which are better then LB-X. Gauss Rifles except Heavy and HAG, as are Rifles (Cannon).
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Before you get confused, he's specifically talking about Field Gun platoons, not all advanced infantry platoons.
SCC, how often do you use(or even talk about) infantry platoons that aren't field gun troops? Just curious.
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Based upon what you're saying Weirdo, not enough! And while specialty infantry are interesting their ability to influence the outcome of a fight is lower then field guns. As for the other options their rather simple in the case of armor, or not worth the effort in the case of disposable weapons and VTOL infantry.
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Since we're on the subject of infantry, has anyone ever used the branth infantry from TRO3085?
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I have not. They're not particularly widespread, and when jump/VTOL infantry exist they feel like a dumb gimmick.
Mostly aimed at Weirdo: does skill have any real bearing on the infantry you use? I've never actually bothered to invest the BV in skill-ups for any kind of non-BA infantry.
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You're asking the wrong guy. In my group, we disallow using BV to upgrade skills, and then boost all units to 3/4 to speed the games up a bit.
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Your big standard AC/5 weights too much, try the lighter version.
Looses 3 hexes, weighs in three less tons, same damage.
Plus it'll use the same ammo.
TT
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Since we're on the subject of infantry, has anyone ever used the branth infantry from TRO3085?
I haven't yet, but their high speed and extra damage vs other infantry makes me think they might be nice for going after field gun platoons, or those small stealthy spotter squads.
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Everyone has access to VTOL motorized inf. right? The pic in the FWL infantry in 3085 sure looked like it.
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I haven't yet, but their high speed and extra damage vs other infantry makes me think they might be nice for going after field gun platoons, or those small stealthy spotter squads.
Plus pith helmets and jodhpurs! Authentic uniform for people with elephant guns! ;)
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Everyone has access to VTOL motorized inf. right? The pic in the FWL infantry in 3085 sure looked like it.
Those are anti-aircraft jump infantry.
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Your big standard AC/5 weights too much, try the lighter version.
Looses 3 hexes, weighs in three less tons, same damage.
Plus it'll use the same ammo.
TT
Three hexes, on a unit that can move probably two a turn, is pretty damn significant. Especially in later eras, when outranging Plasma Rifles might be the only thing keeping you from casually delivered instant death.
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it's the difference between 3 AC/5s (at 15 damage) and 5 LAC/5s (at 25 damage), actually.
Assuming a standard 28-man platoon of course.
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I'm aware of the disparity in tonnage required. I'm saying I'd genuinely prefer the extra hexes of range to the extra guns.
Do field guns fire individually, or do they roll on a cluster table to determine number of hits?
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Hell a single Maxim II could carry 2 Light AC/5's and their Squads! Add in two more to move the whole Platoon around with a fourth " Shiloh " variant for shotgun override. And you can carry some Leonidas BA too boot.
TT
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Do field guns fire individually, or do they roll on a cluster table to determine number of hits?
Individually. Your AC/5 platoon would make 3 to-hit rolls.
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Hey Werido~
Would I have to use same ammo for each, or could I make one with Flak?
TT
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I...do not know.
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I...do not know.
Ooooo..... Kay!
* TT goes to secret 8 ball and shakes it... ( FB) *
Oh 8-ball...
TT
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Can we keep the pointless pseudo-RP down in the Hall, please?
Ultra and Rotary Autocannon Field Guns are immune to jamming or fi re control failure eff ects, and LB-X Autocannon Field Guns must always use
cluster munitions. Gauss-based Field Guns are immune to weapon explosion effects.[/b]
Seems pretty clear cut to me. LBX Autocannons are called out by name; there are no other restrictions. As long as you're keeping track of it (and, I'd say, which field guns have that ammo) it's fair game.
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It seems to me that if you're looking at FWL mechs to win the fight against the Wolves, you're looking in the wrong place. The FWLM is a combined arms force, so look at the entire spectrum.
No, I'm looking in the right place. HAG-equipped units tend to mulch vehicles. I'm not saying vehicles are worthless against the Klingons, but one has to be extremely careful in their use against clan-tech and I am not inclined to think of them as the key to victory. I am inclined to think the units that eat up the bulk of our BV, the Mechs, should be doing most of the lifting here.
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HAGs are indeed powerful, when they hit.
Just this last weekend, I played an all-vehicle Tanksgiving game, Jade Falcon versus Hell's Horses. The bulk of my firepower was contained in Demolisher Cs and Carnivore HAGs, for a total of four LB-20X and three HAG-40s. Even with my track record, I expected to at least take a decent toll on my opponent.
I was annihilated, only claiming one kill in return. My Demolishers died in the first major salvo without landing a single shot, one to TAGged Arrows, the other to a lucky crit that incinerated the crew with plasma. The Carnivores lasted longer, but were systematically destroyed with a combination of Arrow strikes and immobilization via SRMs and plasma. Every hit I actually landed with a HAG was devastating, either crippling or outright killing a tank...but in an entire afternoon of play against a full vehicle Star of targets, I actually hit my target a grand total of three times. My IS-tech units actually took the longest to kill, which was impressive given that I'm talking about a pair of Scorpions and a Centipede.
Lessons learned, with an eye towards facing the Wolves with vehicles?
You want to win, you have to play their game. I'm not talking about zell, I'm talking about mobility. HAGs can't hurt what they can't hit. Stay fast, keep the TMMs up, and use ECM set for Ghost Targets to drive the to-hit numbers even higher. Conversely, anything that slows down the Wolves is a good thing. Mines, large fires, forcing them to advance over hilly or watery terrain...anything along these lines is good.
Beat them at the range game. The Clans may have improved their usage of artillery and indirect LRM support, but they're still a long way away from matching the League. Our LRMs fly just as far as theirs, and it's a lot easier for us to put together a large artillery battery than it is for them. Pick something juicy, and bury it in guided munitions. Target has reactive armor? Wipe out his buddies and let your conventional firepower kill him...or just overwhelm him with ALL the missiles. Ferro-Lamellor aside, fancy armors never eliminate damage, they merely reduce it.
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Beat them at the range game. The Clans may have improved their usage of artillery and indirect LRM support, but they're still a long way away from matching the League. Our LRMs fly just as far as theirs, and it's a lot easier for us to put together a large artillery battery than it is for them. Pick something juicy, and bury it in guided munitions. Target has reactive armor? Wipe out his buddies and let your conventional firepower kill him...or just overwhelm him with ALL the missiles. Ferro-Lamellor aside, fancy armors never eliminate damage, they merely reduce it.
The Pandarus and Stalker II give me ideas. XLRMs certainly do the job there, even if the throw weights aren't so great. Now, what it seems like the League would really enjoy are those Regulator-Arrows next door. Wonder how hard it'd be to put a launcher on a Maxim?
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Clan tanks are still going to come up against the same problems Clan assaults do when facing a equal BV . . . the armor imbalance.
I would be interested to know just what exactly you took and what you faced, because the Wolves DO have some very mobile armor options- they get access to some of my favorite tanks.
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Clan tanks are still going to come up against the same problems Clan assaults do when facing a equal BV . . . the armor imbalance.
Not just BV based, but design based as well. Clan AFVs from TR3060 run ballpark 10% of their mass by armor, with a bit of swing but not much. IS tanks from TR3058 run much more between 15-20% of mass, which is pretty significant. I mean, look at the Clan Huey; that thing's got almost all its armor values in the teens for something that big!
I wonder how widespread the Silver Bullet Gauss is; that seems like a truly fine weapon to take against invader armor.
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The Pandarus is a neat asset.
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Not just BV based, but design based as well. Clan AFVs from TR3060 run ballpark 10% of their mass by armor, with a bit of swing but not much. IS tanks from TR3058 run much more between 15-20% of mass, which is pretty significant. I mean, look at the Clan Huey; that thing's got almost all its armor values in the teens for something that big!
I wonder how widespread the Silver Bullet Gauss is; that seems like a truly fine weapon to take against invader armor.
Widespread? Not very. It's used on the Carronade and....?
That said, the Carronade is a fine machine and very good at killing tanks.
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The Carronade doesn't get nearly enough credit. It's better than it looks on paper. "Wait, you traded away the second headcapper for LB-X Gauss?"
It works out better this way though, because it means no one Mech in the formation is exclusively responsible for a job. The loss of a Carronade doesn't mean the loss of your entire ranged punch; it probably means you have a GRF-3M somewhere handling the other half of the holepuncher role or so on.
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It's all about building to teamwork. I wonder what you guys think of the Cappie augmented lances, two per company with four of one and two of another - tanks, BA, or 'Mechs in whatever mix you like. Or do you prefer homogenous lances?
I imagine there aren't many plasma rifles in the League armory either, despite their absolutely fantastic multipurpose nature. At least PPCs are a thing again!
Also, what's the deal with the Foxes and the Clan Protectorate; just how much realistic access to Clan hardware (not counting Wolf salvage, of which there's not gonna be much) does the FWL have? So far I see truckloads of SSRM6 racks and their ammo for the Julianos, while the XTRO has a Clan LPL and Targeting Computer for a Hermes. Chemical lasers for the Red Kite could turn the Ontos into a whole new monstrosity, and the Regulans get several Clan LRM15s and an ERSL for the Sarath, while aerospace gets twin UAC10s for Shikras. With that latter choice, you could free up three tons on the Anzu alone...
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A fair amount, it would seem. Amongst other things:
- Production of an all Clan weapon variant of the Juliano
- Retooling a Guillotine line to build the Guillotine IIC
- Creation of a Clantech variant of the Tempest.
Also, the Carronade might just be the best FWL heavy ever
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The Carronade doesn't get nearly enough credit. It's better than it looks on paper. "Wait, you traded away the second headcapper for LB-X Gauss?"
As a fervent believer in the Silver Bullet Gauss rifle, I think the Carronade looks great.
Also, the Carronade might just be the best FWL heavy ever
Hard to argue against that.
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- Production of an all Clan weapon variant of the Juliano
- Retooling a Guillotine line to build the Guillotine IIC
- Creation of a Clantech variant of the Tempest.
Oh? Where are those lovely things mentioned...
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TRO: 3150 New Tech, New Upgrades
The Juliano JLN-3B replaces the ER Large and ER Mediums of the 3A with Clan ER Larges and Clan Medium Pulses (no further changes).
The others I'm not as familiar with.
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Well, now I no longer feel bad about using heavy mixed-tech customs for a BL-9 refit.
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Minor correction to Scotty's post, the JLN-5C is the clan weapons refit model. The -5B replaces the Clan SSRM-6s with Inner Sphere SRM-6s (for fun, load one ton of infernos and use all four SRM-6s firing them. Things shut down fast.)
The Guillotine IIC thing is nice. There IS the question of whether we get IIC Standard or IIC 2 for this unit, though.
The Tempest C we don't have record sheets for, and at this point I've given up on the idea we'll ever see it. Same deal for a lot of our other refits alluded to in TRO 3150 NTNU.
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The Guillotine IIC 2 is on the FM3145 RAT, but it's on the Generic list rather then the specific sub-tables. So If nothing else, they have that.
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A fair amount, it would seem. Amongst other things:
- Production of an all Clan weapon variant of the Juliano
- Retooling a Guillotine line to build the Guillotine IIC
- Creation of a Clantech variant of the Tempest.
Also, the Carronade might just be the best FWL heavy ever
The Guillotine and Tempest are from after Clan wolf takes those factories?
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No . . . the Wolves retooled the Orion/Perseus line (prob) to become the Orion C after they experienced the effectiveness of the mixed tech Tempest C afaik. The CatSharks converted a factory to produce the Guillotine IIC as part of the Protectorate, again AFAIK.
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Guillotine IIC 2 is a fantastic Mech whose only meaningful flaw is slightly low engagement range for clantech (15 hexes for most of its weapons) and a reliance on energy weaponry (I'm calling it a flaw since Reflective armor is now a thing). Neither of which are enough to disqualify it from being a HUGE upgrade over the decades-obsolete GLT-5M.
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Does someone know what happened to several Atrean Dragoons regiments during SW as there are only mentioned 1st, 11th and 12th. Didn't find much info (FR: 2675 FWLM & ER: 2750) about them.
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The Guillotine and Tempest are from after Clan wolf takes those factories?
Ah, I'm (fortunately) wrong. Both the Guillotine IIC 2 and Tempest 4C are Angel II from when the Protectorate takes over there. Need to update the MUL's Guillotine IIC 2 faction availability...
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Does someone know what happened to several Atrean Dragoons regiments during SW as there are only mentioned 1st, 11th and 12th. Didn't find much info (FR: 2675 FWLM & ER: 2750) about them.
The info you want is in the First and Second Succession War sourcebooks respectively. The 13th Atrean died in the First, the others in the Second. I'll let you check out the details for yourself.
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Some of the regiment's individual actions were not included in the Succession Wars sourcebooks. It does have a table in the back saying what their strength, starting and ending of the conflict, where they were for when war started and when it finished if it did survive.
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So what do you guys think of Thomas' Knights of the Inner Sphere? I never liked Ideal War and their introduction, but by 3150 they've been dead a while. Anyone want to give a postmortem on them or even a suggestion they be brought back somehow? At least the concept, if not the very same knights.
I've been rereading/rewatching Five Star Stories. I have giant mech knights on the brain.
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I believe the Knights of the Inner Sphere eventually became, in some form, the Republic's Knights, somehow.
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The Knights were all killed IIRC . . . one group got bombed and the other gas'd in their barracks. The same ideals Fake Tom fostered in their creation were in the formation of the Republic's Knights though they went further with the Paladins being something like a group of warlords since each had lots of political power and ties to military power. What kept them in check was the structure of the Republic . . . and when it cracked is when you saw that equivalent come about since Thad set up a number of micro-kingdoms.
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"Thomas Marik had a dream once. He may not have been the Captain-General the League chose, but he was the Captain-General the League needed. Today the Free Worlds League stands once more. Perhaps it's time to bring back his dream, as well."
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The Knights were portrayed at inception like Ye Olde Renaissance Faire attendees. Which might have been a jab at Battletech nobility, but given the rest of the novel I doubt the author was capable of that level of subtlety.
They didn't achieve much in their lifetime, other than to fight the Clans and piss off the WOB. It was made clear that they were loyal to the FWL first and chivalry second, which gives the lie to their founding principles. TPTB even decided to kill them off ignominiously, mostly being gassed to death on parade on the cover of JHS 3070...
The same ideals Fake Tom fostered in their creation were in the formation of the Republic's Knights though they went further with the Paladins being something like a group of warlords since each had lots of political power and ties to military power. What kept them in check was the structure of the Republic . . . and when it cracked is when you saw that equivalent come about since Thad set up a number of micro-kingdoms.
The Republic Knights, unlike the FWL, never pretended to put chivalry first and Republic second - it was most firmly the other way. Most of the paladins and knights stayed true to the Republic, Thaddeus Marik and Ezekiel Crow being significant outliers.
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Marik's Knights were meant to be symbols first and warriors second, whereas Stone's Knights are the other way around. Both are meant to be an ideal that other soldiers(and the citizenry) could aspire to and hopefully emulate, and also provide the state with a small force of elite warriors that can be called upon in times of need.
I think a lot of it has to do with the leaders that founded them. I'm going to take a wild guess and say that whoever Stone is, his birth and early childhood would have been in the years of relative peace after the Fourth Succession War, while his teens would have seen the arrival of the Clans. On the other hand, Thomas Marik's formative years were in the depths of the Third Succession War. Both knew war from an early age, but when Marik was forming his worldviews, there was real concern that humanity was in the midst of a decline that might truly be irreversible and that the end of spacefaring civilization as we knew it wasn't all that far off. I believe he wanted his Knights to be a force against that entropy, to prove that humanity could aspire to more than just scavenging among the wastelands of our past glories.
Honestly, the thing I respect the most about the Knights of the Inner Sphere is that despite being primarily a cultural unit vs a military one, they never became a true parade unit. Sure, their mechs were all shiny and new and even the sticks up their butts were recovered tech plated in gold, but when the time came to throw down, they retained the skills to cash the checks their attitudes wrote.
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The Knights were portrayed at inception like Ye Olde Renaissance Faire attendees. Which might have been a jab at Battletech nobility, but given the rest of the novel I doubt the author was capable of that level of subtlety.
They didn't achieve much in their lifetime, other than to fight the Clans and piss off the WOB. It was made clear that they were loyal to the FWL first and chivalry second, which gives the lie to their founding principles. TPTB even decided to kill them off ignominiously, mostly being gassed to death on parade on the cover of JHS 3070...
The Republic Knights, unlike the FWL, never pretended to put chivalry first and Republic second - it was most firmly the other way. Most of the paladins and knights stayed true to the Republic, Thaddeus Marik and Ezekiel Crow being significant outliers.
Crow died out of loyalty for the Republic. Marik's decision was very logical in the context of the events. He showed loyalty to worlds that would have otherwise been a warzone. Remember, Exarch Levin approved of the pocket fortress idea. Likewise, it looked like the older ideals of the Republic really were crumbling. The Scorpian Jar and Sword of Sedition are excellent novels for gaining context.
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So what do you guys think of Thomas' Knights of the Inner Sphere? I never liked Ideal War and their introduction, but by 3150 they've been dead a while. Anyone want to give a postmortem on them or even a suggestion they be brought back somehow? At least the concept, if not the very same knights.
The Knights, when handled by competent authors, were fun. Even bad authors occasionally got some good lines out of them. Rod Trane in Star Lord stood out. When being offered the chance to break laws without consequence since nobody would know he did it, he remarked, "I would know, and that's enough. If I can't be honest to myself, how can I be honest to others?" (paraphrased). Good line.
Same deal Masters arguing with Kingston on Huntress about where to go in response to a Jaguar counter-offensive; Kingston wanted them to set up cordons in a nearby city. Masters balked, noting this would put civilians there at risk. "So what? They're jags." "They're PEOPLE, Kingston."
I found it funny the Knights, during JTP Atreus, basically went on a Let's Play of Oregon Trail. Lots of river fording in their Mechs.
Honestly, I would like to see them come back in a new form. Perhaps something more specifically loyal to the League than to its current leader(s).
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Best time to do it is perhaps 3150, as the Wolves turn to Terra and the League reunifies. Failing that, post-Jihad as a Marik-Stewart Commonwealth, maybe strip some elements of the 11th Atrean and 1st FWL Guards to form a cadre, make them a demi- or full battalion size unit for simplicity and transport. Could do the same with the 1st Guards in 3150. First Expeditionary Marik Chevaliers, bringing back at least some of the ideas of the old Knights without going so far as the full name. Be interesting to see how they'd play out in the Succession Wars In Miniature between Oriente, M-S, Andurien, Regulus, and Those Other Schmoes. Alternatively maybe something similar coming out of the 2nd SW, same size, just kinda been around doing a thing like a knightly order and gave Thomas the idea to go big with it.
Believability? If you guys like it I'll fluff it out further and throw a first draft of the idea in Non-Canon Units, if it sucks then skip it.
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Remember, beside the famous Knights we had also the Romanov's Crusaders. That mercs never got the attention they deserved. They left their homes to join Thomas dream ... and couldn't be accepted in the ranks of the Knights because of the wrong nationality.
I always thought that their chivalric ideals must be far greater than that of the regular Knights. The Knights had nothing to loose when they answered Thomas call. The Crusaders lost everything for little gain.
And in the end they spend their lives in an attempt to rescue Thomas family and the Knights.
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Pretty short-lived unit, but definitely makes me think there might be something to the idea post Jihad. A way to honor the Knights and the Crusaders, and to show that even after a brutal war like that there's still a hope for chivalry and honorable ideals, etc etc. Now I know when to set the Chevaliers formation.
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I'm interested in creating a 7th Regulan Hussars unit. What's their strength circa 3150ish? All I can find is they were once the Ronin Inc. security battalion, old school was a regiment with medium weight.
I can also find " The combined arms philosophy started at the Company level where a Lance of 4 mechs cooperated with 2 conventional platoons (either one tank and one infantry or two tank platoons). These formed as combined arms companies. " ( saran ).
Wanting to make use of Heavy Support Infantry and Jump Support Infantry ( after all they're using generics... ).
TT
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Well, the best we have is 3145 as far as I know, so that's 1 Battalion of Mechs at 55% with what's probably an A equipment rating. I don't think their exact composition is laid out anywhere, but you could probably expect a Battalion of Armor and a Battalion of Infantry to go with the Mech Battalion.
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Question: As of 3145, what are the viable Free Worlds League EW and spotting platforms?
I realized I've been soldiering on with the Owens for a very long time and the old gal' is starting to show her age. The Ravens and Eagles were always something of mediocre (at best) designs and besides the smattering of TAG mounts across our heavies like the beautiful Marauder MAD-9M2, any idea where I should start looking?
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Battle armor, my friend. Achileus and Leonidas both have TAG options.
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The Nyx is good, and available via Tamarind. I'd still be partial to the Owens, tho. Especially as it can pull BA taxi duty.
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Battle armor, my friend. Achileus and Leonidas both have TAG options.
I forgot to mention, I'm moving into a new playgroup and I don't want to traumatize them with the League's spread of excellent conventional assets just yet.
I use the Scimitar extensively for the TAG role and I agree Battlesuits dropped off in advance of the main force are excellent spotters.
On the 'Mech front, I'm not seeing all that many options, though I am relatively less familiar with the modern era.
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The Anzu -G60 also has TAG, but isn't optimized for the job; it's clearly a "had a ton left over, no other major requirements to fulfill, this plays to FWL's preferences, may as well put it in there" thing.
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Very much no. That thing was gonna have TAG from the very beginning.
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Did Iron Wind ever get around to making an Anzu, btw...? Been one of the things I've been meaning to add to a force.
I've had good runs with the design up until one or both of the main guns fall off for no reason.
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Not yet, we're still waiting on that. The quality of the Juliano and Carronade sculpts give me hope, though.
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So recon role . . . well, I have always been partial to the Bloodhound. Some Men Shens show up in the proto-League states, of course the further you are from the Cappies the less likely it will be. In the same vein they have some Anubis from CC & MoC sources. They produce (produced?) the Locust 5W2 which gets faster- 9/14(18)- has MASC, ECM & TAG. The Gambit 1L, less common than the -1G, has 2 LPPCs & TAG with a TC at 7/11 on a 25t frame. The Ghost 10 which gets imported from the LC has Stealth Armor & a BAP on a 50t going 6/9 though I have never been a fan of its weapon loads, your opinion may vary.
Non-special equipped mechs that can do the role . . . I love the new Havoc, its the updated Jenner. 8/12/5 with 4 ERML & SRM4, 2t ammo with CASEII and 22 DHS.
Best new recon asset IMO is the Tarfuna, but its a Regulan hovertank and you are avoiding conventional so . . .
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Anyway, since I'm rolling out a new force anyway, I was thinking of doing something Oriente-ish. Probably going to start assembly of a Command Lance, especially since I already own the minis.
Juliano JLN-5A
Goliath GOL-6M
Carronade CRN-7M
Marauder MAD-9M2
Goal for the Command Lance is to function as an anchor for the line as well as act as a bodyguard for the inevitable Fire Lance that is probably going to turn up next. In my mind, it seems solid enough a force on paper, though there is a nagging concern I'm trying to force 'Mechs into roles they probably shouldn't try to fill.
Force is likely going to follow a traditional three lance company with Command, Fire and Recon lances (hence the previous queries) about recon assets. Fire Lance will probably have an Apollo and at least one waffle iron, since they've sort of become something of a signature chassis for me though full composition hasn't been nailed down yet. Recon will probably have an Owens (also a personal signature) and I'll probably toss in a 5W2 Locust as recommended (and start honestly looking seriously at the slew of FWL Lights and Mediums).
And if I'm being an idiot, better to find out now than halfway through pinning.
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If you are using the Locust and Owens in your Recon lance then I would definitely look at the Havoc as the gun guard if you are not going heavier with a medium.
The only one in your command I am not sure of is the Goliath simply because I am not as familiar with them . . . but the other choices are solid- I love the MAD 9M2, and the Juliano is a good mini & machine.
For Fire . . . besides the Apollo and Yeoman I would suggest a Patriot either as a commander or bodyguard, the three variants offer you a lot of options in either role.
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Sorry to derail the thread - but I’ve asked a question over in Ask the Writers and I think it might have them stumped.
Anyone got any thoughts on Stewart during the/post Jihad? Even if it’s just head canon, I’m looking for some ideas.
Here’s the question I asked in full:
The Marik planet of Stewart... another bastion of Scotland in the stars. Home of the tough, never say die Stewart Dragoons, a sprawling Mech plant, etc.
Stewart willingly joins the Word of Blake Protectorate in late 3070 according to Jihad: FR. and it's not until May 3077 that it's liberated - with the Nova Cats brutually eliminating the Protectorate Militia.
But on the flip side, Stewart's noble ruler Leonard Stewart (or heir to the title, I can't remember) is a senior Coalition commander in the fight against the Word. He serves as Alys Marik's 2IC during the Marik push of Operation Scour and was even touted as a possible commander for the FWL front as not everyone has faith or confidence in the Duchess of Augustine.
Two regiments of the Stewart Dragoons also served as part of the Coalition.
And just to make things even more interesting... the remnants of the Dragoons decline to join the RAF in 3079 and run back to Stewart, ejecting Republic forces.
So, I'm wondering if anyone can help with me the following questions:
- what was Leonard Stewart doing prior to Operation Scour? Under Blakist house arrest on Stewart? Hiding off world? Actively helping the FWL Resistance?
- what were the Stewart Dragoons doing prior to Scour? As above - chaffing under Blakist rule, etc? Actively helping the Resistance?
- and do we get any further info on Leonard? He commanded one of the Dragoon unit's from 3050-59 from memory. But is he mentioned anywhere else?
Thanks in advance! Don't take my questions as a sign of discontent - more just being keen to expand on the excellent info we already have!
EDIT: Ok, so I clearly should have read FM: 3085 before posting this!
The entry for the 40th Marik Militia blow the red text out of the water.
Soooo.... Duke Leonard is described as the "exiled duke" in 3085. He then goes onto fund the bitter Dragoons remnants for a possible counter attack to retake Stewart.
So, I'm guessing he told Stone where he could stick his Republic
Do we get any info on what makes him turn on Stone?
Thanks again!
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It's in FM:3085, under the entry on 40th Marik Militia. Basically Republic goes "Hey guys, these are our new borders!" Davions, Lyrans, and Combine go "huh, ok", but Capellans and Mariks give the finger.
So the Republic launches Operation GOLDEN DAWN (they were shouting) to establish their borders in what was formerly Capellan and League space. Guess which side of the border Stewart was now on?
In some the fiercest fighting of GOLDEN DAWN, the Stewart
Home Guard and planetary militia held out against five times their
number in former League and Northwind Highlander regiments for
two months.
But lost. The 40th MM is basically "well, gonna get it back some day" as a professional mission statement.
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So, Stewart is a purple Chesterton?
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Somewhat, but keep in mind that while the CC has been claiming that Chesterton belonged to them since the 24th Century but they never managed to capture it until the Dark Age, Stewart was actually in the FWL's possession as little as 50 years ago, so the locals are going to react rather differently to their 'liberators' showing up.
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Depends. It kinda stopped being a League world in the early 3070s, and maybe some of those inhabitants had negative views on the FWL. And then was Stewart affected by the Stone relocation plan? Maybe the lads in purple show up after a several decades and suddenly there are Davionist Arby restaurants all over the place.
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So, are we thinking Leonard Marik was all “yah Stone, kick some Word arse!” Until he realises Stone wants Stewart - freaks out and goes all anti-Stone, Pro/FWL Marik?
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Well Stewart was pretty much always pro-Marik, but yup!
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Traditional garb of a Scotsman would include their family, title and tilthe plus any conquest threads in their Tartans.
Now my question is what is Stewart's Tartan colors circa Dark Ages? More Capplean Green than Purple? Cause the Lyrans get it then the Wolf Empire...
Or am I wrong?
TT
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So anyway. After much rumbling, this is what the company looks like. Probably going to go up in either Oriente green or Free worlds Guard livery depending on my mood (and mental state).
Juliano JLN-5A
Goliath GOL-6M
Carronade CRN-7M
Marauder MAD-9M2
Yeoman YMN-6Y
Yeoman YMN-6Y
Apollo APL-1R
Sarath SRTH-1OA
Crimson Langur D
Owens OW-1
Koshi
Locust LCT-5W2
There's a couple of 'Mechs which I decided to 'splash' for on a whim. The Crimson Langur D and Koshi in the recon lance are handwaved away as trade with the Foxes. And the presence of a salvaged Sarath in the fire lance continues to infuriate any and all Regulan fans I encounter to no end (this will likely eventually get me nuked).
The Command lance has enough raw brute force threat to hold attention with the staggered combination of long and short ranged firepower it can put out, making it awkward to deal with. Meanwhile, the combined throw weight of the Waffle Irons and Apollo tend to provide horrendous scare factor to anyone who gets hit with a TAG laser. So far, I've had them slowly waddle up the field, and absolutely wreck targets by dropping a hundred and thirty tubes of semi-guided munitions on people's head. All this time, the Recon Lance basically flits around pointing targeting lasers in strange places and occasionally engaging in opportunistic proctology.
So far, it's worked out rather well, if a touch slow by FWL cavalry standards. I'm likely going to try and back this up with an conventional detachment of assault grade armor to serve as the anvil as well as more fast movers to cover the minor flaws I'm discovering.
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Might consider the MML Yeoman, they work well together since the MML can pop off with SRMs to keep others away.
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...awkward to deal with.
When people describe your forces this way, you're doing the FWLM 100% right. 8)
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Very much no. That thing was gonna have TAG from the very beginning.
I should clarify: It's clearly not optimized for the task. You may have always intended it to have TAG and I think it's an alright way to use the weight/crit-slot, but this is clearly something it offers as an aside to its main job.
I've had good runs with the design up until one or both of the main guns fall off for no reason.
I've becoming less fond of the Anzu due to this. The J70 does its designated job (urban and mountain fighting) very well, but the G60's capacity to have both of its main guns stop working for the rest of the game is... rapidly starting to frustrate me. That it is nonetheless a significant improvement over the TMP-3M and -3G in 3150-era play is a very damning indictment of how obsolete '4/6/* movement, mostly built around 3-6-9 range bracket weapons' Mechs have become as mobility and range continue to increase.
Anyway, your force looks pretty fun and has solutions for most issues, the only real weakness I see is it's vulnerable to high-speed brawlers (UZL-8S, etc.) and seems to have no way to really chase them off.
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The vulnerability of most TAG spotters has always bugged the living heck out of me. It makes heaploads of sense that somebody in the LRM-heavy FWL decided its high bloody time they built a front line combat Mech with TAG equipped as a matter of course.
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It certainly makes more sense than our purpose-built-but-still-not-good-at-it TAG units like the Eagle. While I've become quite sour on the Anzu G60, even I'll admit it's better at the TAG job than the Eagle ever was and ever will be. They're both slow enough that they're going to get hit, but at least the Anzu has enough armor to survive a hit.
I would honestly much rather FWL adopt that idea on more heavies. Just.... literally the first thing they do is toss in TAG, and only remove it if they can identify a clear, genuine benefit the design gets from removing it. I want to see our Warhammers, Thunderbolts, Tempests, etc. etc. all have TAG. As it is, I barely bother with SG LRMs because it's such a hassle to build around. If more of our heavies did what the Anzu did and tossed it in as a secondary feature (maybe one "always planned for and always included in the specifications", but nonetheless not its main job) then I'd reconsider this stance immediately.
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It makes heaploads of sense that somebody in the LRM-heavy FWL decided its high bloody time they built a front line combat Mech with TAG equipped as a matter of course.
That was very much the idea behind the Anzu. Well, one of three.
1: You're gonna operate alongside LRM units, act like it.
2: No Guts, No Galaxy!
3: I wonder what a Thor-KU would look like?
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I would point out the Marauder 9M2 had TAG in it as a line unit long before the Anzu.
Another reason that would be the case however was the meta for much of the games, a unit that used TAG could not fire weapons. Its why before TW folks complained about the TAG on the Maelstrom.
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I would point out the Marauder 9M2 had TAG in it as a line unit long before the Anzu.
Another reason that would be the case however was the meta for much of the games, a unit that used TAG could not fire weapons. Its why before TW folks complained about the TAG on the Maelstrom.
MAD-9M, the parent, is much better. Sure 4x ERL vs. 2x ERPPC, same platform profile!
TT
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MAD-9M, the parent, is much better. Sure 4x ERL vs. 2x ERPPC, same platform profile!
TT
Heavy PPCs. Much better heat control, too.
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My bad...
TT
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Might consider the MML Yeoman, they work well together since the MML can pop off with SRMs to keep others away.
Agreed there. What the 10-OR loses in overall LRM power and durability it more then makes up for in versatility, mobility and the ability to defend itself at close range.
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Anyway, your force looks pretty fun and has solutions for most issues, the only real weakness I see is it's vulnerable to high-speed brawlers (UZL-8S, etc.) and seems to have no way to really chase them off.
What would you recommend as a solution? It's admittedly something I've been having minor-to-moderate problems with from time to time with this.
Historically I've used cavalry lances in that role, and left the provision of the guided missile storm to a long platoon of Hetzers.
Was thinking of GST-50 Ghosts or falling back on staples like the Anvil, Ostsol and Hercules. Maybe even push the company up to a reinforced compant status as well.
Agreed there. What the 10-OR loses in overall LRM power and durability it more then makes up for in versatility, mobility and the ability to defend itself at close range.
That, is an option I didn't consider. I might go with that as well.
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Dealing with slasher units in FWL can be handled one of three ways.
First, you can field Kopis Battle Armor teams around the most vulnerable units. Either the regular 2x Medium Laser version or the 1x Medium Pulse Laser version will do fine in this job, since BA don't incur to-hit penalties for movement. They'll likely be firing on 6s-8s, maybe 9s from time to time against the units they're countering. However, since Kopis teams are only barely mobile you either need a vehicle to ferry them around with... or be absolutely sure your units aren't moving far from where the Kopis team is parked.
Second, you can field slashers or brawlers of your own. The Anvil 3R is a good solution, as is the OTL-5M Ostsol. The OTL-8M Ostsol also works, and the OTL-9M can work in a pinch. The twin large pulse Ghost you mentioned also works. The TR1 Wraith may technically be inferior to the UZL-8S, but it's good enough that this is still a close matchup and may be enough to keep the UZL-8S busy.
Finally, some of our heavier units have batteries of pulse lasers. The LGB-7V Longbow is a fantastic example of this, as is the MR-5M Cerberus. The clantech refit Juliano also counts. All of these units do the job well without losing too much on long-range attacks. Some of our Black Knights are fine choices for this job too. SD1-OA Sunder alt. A has a few pulse lasers. So does the MAD-6S Marauder II (Which I speculate we get, since we control its factory world).
We have tons of options for shutting down this combat tactic, and even using it back at enemies in return.
EDIT: Also, the Quasimodo is great at this job! It has a really good set of pulse lasers, and TSM and jump jets. Definitely make use of this thing, it's one of our best Mechs.
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As of the Dark Age era, MTR-5K Maelstroms have migrated into Inner Sphere General.
My initial impression was that it was underarmed and oversinked for being so heavy a platforms, and it seems my local playgroup has that opinion as well, preferring to go focus on more aggressively armed machine. Then I started painting people for guided missile strikes and then the Maelstrom started to endear itself to me while engendering "KILL IT! KILL IT! OH DEAR GOD! WHY WON'T YOU DIE!" responses from the rest (since it took a surprisingly lot more attention to burn off the table than one would expect).
They're competent enough as a cavalry strike platform as it stands (despite being oversinked enough to serve as drink coolers) that splashing one or two into a FWL Cavalry Lance probably wouldn't hurt, especially since they're fast enough to attempt to keep pace with the Hercules, Ostsol and Anvil swarm while bringing yet another organic TAG platform to the table.
And since I'm of the opinion that the more participants we have in the great FWL TAG Laser Disco Rave, the better...
Anyone else have any success stories with using the design?
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I find it useful with Ontos.
Older LRM and the newer MML.
* That's 5 tanks not 4 *
( I run a pair of older LRM, and 2 LG MML with 1 MML LG per Lance. )
TT >:D
My bad... Fixed!
( I know 128 LRMs a turn w/ 7 LGs! )
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I have no success stories with it, mostly by virtue of never using it because it previously wasn't available to us.
That said, I have fought against them several times and always found them to be competent designs. What was previously 'oversinked' is now more 'warded against Plasma-induced overheats unless someone REALLY goes out of their way to make the thing shut down.' While slightly weak at range for its mission role, this deficiency is made up by the fact it's above-average up close (not good at brawling per se, merely better than average. This is fine).
Add in the TAG on a unit that is fast enough to make good use of it, and... yeah, you seem to have found a real winner for us. Good stuff!
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I want to say the -6K should be FWL available too. A battalion commander at the beginning of the Jihad on the periphery used it during the Chaos Irregulars contract out that way and it was not made to sound like a big deal.
Of course when 3100 rolls around I am not sure the -6K's should not have had their big weapons upgraded to the -5K standard, they need those ER to be relevant.
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When building a unit I sometimes allow some senior personnel different Mechs than what is normally found on the availability list. Especially if they are "aces", they might have been awarded battlefield salvage or were assigned imported Mechs in by Command to maximise their talents. It also helps build backstory into the unit.
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I agree and do as well, but that unit was stationed long time on the periphery border where they would not face someone equipped with it.
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Hoping to get opinions on the Marauder 5M doing a 3060s campaign and it is a option for my Davion and Marik merc unit. I generally hate IS pulse lasers as primary weapons but it is a intriguing unit I have never used.
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Its OK . . . best use is as a bodyguard in a Stalker/Longbow/Archer or similar lance. Or if you are going to be fighting in woods, a city or canyons. If you did take it I would honestly be looking for a source of the 'rumored' X-Pulse lasers or trying to get some snubbies as soon as they were out. I am a range fighter, and since its not a speedster, you will want that range as a merc too . . . if that MAD is advancing until it can get into mid-range, then its not going to be able to break off if things go sideways.
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Like he said, it makes an excellent heavy escort, able to deal with fast movers, aircraft, battlesuits, infantry...you name it. The only thing it has trouble with are long-range fighters....and that's what the Archers and Longbows are for. In cities or other close-in terrain, it's a murder machine. If you play with TacOps, remember that the pulse bonus almost completely negates the penalty for Called Shots, so get amputating. >:D
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It’s not a bad piece of kit - the Marik CO of my non-canon used one through the 60s until the early 70s, where he traded for a Blakist captured Marauder II.
The MAD 5M is a good sniper with a decent pilot at the controls. I found it particularly good at vehicle killing - snipe with the big lasers and then shred with the LBX.
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Sniping with IS LPLs? That guy musta been good...
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Using only fighters manufactured in the FWL, what would you say the dream fighter wing for a Gorgon is? No cost or BV limitations.
Multi-purpose wing. Should be able to fight in space and in atmosphere and handle the whole spectrum of missions.
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The ASF section of TRO3145: FWL. Pretty much just that.
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Sniping with IS LPLs? That guy musta been good...
Well, medium ranges sniping. The true advantage was the ability to fire, then hit the jump jets and change position.
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Sniping with IS LPLs? That guy musta been good...
Those Chargers never knew what hit them.
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Those Chargers never knew what hit them.
Isn't that the ground state of being for Chargers?
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Well in the past, I've used a MAD-5D leading a lance of MAD-5M's into a fight.
Captured 5D with triple 5M working the line, supported by Lance of Archer-4M's and Apollo-2S's. Scouting for them is a Lance of Omni-Firestarters, A leading two F's and a single H for EW work.
Unit hits hard and often, I'd even support them with multiple tanks. ( 2x Partisan LRM, 2x Ontos Standard and an Ontos LRM. )
TT
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Hoping to get opinions on the Marauder 5M doing a 3060s campaign and it is a option for my Davion and Marik merc unit.
Depends on how you're composing the unit. CBills? Garbage. Tonnage? Underwhelming but not unplayably bad. BV? Legitimately decent, as the low BV accounts for its serious flaws.
It has bad leg and torso armor for its size, low attack range... but it can jump, and is one of our few LB-10 platforms in 3060-ish.
There is no machine in our roster in the era that does quite the same job the MAD-5M does. It has flaws, tons of 'em, but its only meaningful competitors in that era are the TMP-3G (which doesn't have nearly as many pulse lasers) and the ANV-3R (which can't jump and doesn't have a LB AC, even if it's otherwise a great machine!).
MAD-5M's playable in its era. It gets worse and worse as time goes on, unfortunately. I'd love to see a MAD-5M Mk. II sometime that fixes its flaws.
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The MAD-5M is one of those 'Mechs when I look at the guns, I smile happily. . . and when I look at the armor, I weep uncontrollably. About the only place I'm willing to take one in a meeting engagement is very heavy woods or urban terrain. For its size and era, its protected by hopes and dreams rather than armor.
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Gonna agree on comments about the 3025-era armor. The MAD-5M is a buddy mech. It needs to be paired with something scarier that has more armor to be a higher priority target. But it's still a fun buddy mech.
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All the talk about Marauders and Anvils got me thinking about the last toy the housecats brought with them, specifically, the Wendigo OmniMech, which now appears on the federal Free Worlds League availability list in the Dark Age.
Specifically the A config. I took it out for a spin, and at 6/9, it's speedy enough to act as a striker or pursuit platform while the paired CLgPulse and LRM15 just tear things apart at most ranges. Pretty much carved up a Stealth trying to end run my vehicle park, then scooted around being an irritating putz of a flanker that was too dangerous to ignore.
Feels like a smaller, nastier, bitier version of the Anvil to be honest.
Having put the design through it's paces, I'm admittedly looking forward to trying out the C.
Of course, a torso mounted cockpit and an XL engine, means things go really far south the moment you lose a torso, and I expect things will just cascade further into disaster from there, but honestly at that point, the 'Mech is a write-off anyway. I'll need more combat experience putting the Wendigo through it's paces, but it looks golden.
It's a beauty, and something well worth the cost of "care and feeding of your new housecat" in my experience.
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I think you should look at the Avalanche more. 16 tons of pod space isn't much, but I think most of the configs are solid. The R is great, while the rest of the configurations are a bit more situational....
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I think you should look at the Avalanche more. 16 tons of pod space isn't much, but I think most of the configs are solid. The R is great, while the rest of the configurations are a bit more situational....
Different combat roles I think. The Avalanche is a line trooper Omni which isn't out to be flashy. Solid, uninspiring but reliable.
The Wendigo is more an aggressive strike or hunting platform for risk-taking pilots.
I've started using the Wendigo A as a gentle reminder to light 'Mech pilots to find somewhere else to be. I haven't found an Avalanche that can do that job yet.
Mind you this isn't a knock on the Avalanche. It's useful in the same way Centurions in 3025 is a respectably solid line trooper, just abominably bland.
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I’ve used the Wendigo A and B to great effect. The B is the Uziel 8S’s better looking cousin.
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OOOo . . . Hawk Moth II . . .
Having a pair of ERML in a turret at the speed it goes is nice- the MML version should be awesome but I used the original. Three swooped in behind a Hellstar . . . managed to knock down some of the back armor to open up a side torso- crit the ERPPC. Big for the later campaign game.
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Are you kidding me ? The FWL has the Dragonfire amoung the best close to perfectly sinked mech ever created . The Anvil 8M with the arrow IV and MASC to get you onboard precision homing strikes . The first with Semi guided LRMs and precision AC rounds . By 3058- 3065 your whole precept just does not fit the facts .
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Quote functions are very useful in telling the rest of the forum who on/off Earth you're responding to.
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Are you kidding me ? The FWL has the Dragonfire amoung the best close to perfectly sinked mech ever created . The Anvil 8M with the arrow IV and MASC to get you onboard precision homing strikes . The first with Semi guided LRMs and precision AC rounds . By 3058- 3065 your whole precept just does not fit the facts .
Uhh. I assume this isn't being directed at me, but I'll bite anyway... When did we ever have access to the Dragon Fire?
The majority are Lyran/Blakist.
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Uhh. I assume this isn't being directed at me, but I'll bite anyway... When did we ever have access to the Dragon Fire?
The majority are Lyran/Blakist.
I was about to ask what the heck I missed...
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I even double checked the MUL. At no point does the FWLM appear for any variant of the Dragon Fire. Sooo...maybe If we salvaged one during BROKEN FIST or SCOUR?
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Might be confusing with the Maelstrom but . . .
Anyone else used the Hawk Moth II? I am now wishing we had one with a Snub in the turret.
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Not I. It's hideous and I prefer good looking units. One of the reasons why I've never run a Bloodhound.
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The Hawk Moth II is a great little beast, especially the MML version. The utility you get out of it is amazing, and it's a good case for mixing different ammo types. A VTOL that can spread Smoke of Thunders and then follow through with live warheads is good in my book. The utility of the turret is also a bonus, allowing a bit more flexibility in how you attack and/or planning a fast getaway.
Cannot reccomend it enough
Well, save for the sniper version. That thing's hideous and I wouldn't touch it with a HV stick
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Well, save for the sniper version. That thing's hideous and I wouldn't touch it with a HV stick
Eh, just there's something about plinking the other guy from outside his max range. AC/2's don't kill your opponents, but you can use it to annoy the hell out of them. >:D
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I think he is making a joke about the HV cannon's tendency to blow up.
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I think he is making a joke about the HV cannon's tendency to blow up.
You say tendency. I say inevitably.
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You say tendency. I say inevitably.
Yeah. Any weapon that suffers explosive failure on a "2" is not going to be my first choice.
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Dunno, I like using the rapid fire AC rule on 3025 units in 'modern' times. Makes Vedettes and Scorpions bite a bit more . . . and how how sweet it was when my Hunchback 4G went toe to toe with a Atlas last time I used it.
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I just noticed the 100 eagle bill has a guy with a monocle on it...
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Rapid Fire AC is an optional rule, and even then, only is a problem when you are rapid-firing.
A HVAC blows up on a 2 as a part of its normal operations.
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Yeah, I have just taken folks word on that and stayed away from any units using it. HVACs have always sounded more useful as odd-shaped clubs.
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It's not a bug. It's a feature. It's a feature put in to remind you not to use HVACs.
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It's not a bug. It's a feature. It's a feature put in to remind you not to use HVACs.
I get creating gear that has an Achilles heel. Ultra AC's, Heavy Gauss, bombast Laser, heavy lasers, and the like. They can be awesome, but you have to be smart about how you use them, or things might go bad. Or you could play it safe.
HVACs, caseless AC ammo... snake eyes happens a little too often for my liking.
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i could care less about the explody bits. it makes life more interesting. what really hampers the HVAC is the weight.
sniping with the HVAC/5 and backing into your own heavy smoke is entertaining
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sniping with the HVAC/5 and backing into your own heavy smoke is entertaining
Didn't Batman do that a lot?
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So the Spartan MotW thread got me thinking . . .
With the late 50s & earlier 60s cozy relationship with the Blakists . . . what SLDF mech design do you wish the Blakists had given to the League to build as part of a co-op arrangement? IE, give us the knowledge, we will re-tool X factory line, we split the costs of building and we split the production runs type of arrangement. I know it would have gone sideways (like warships) later on but . . .
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Devastators. Nightstars. Thunderhawks. Pillagers.
(Is it obvious I have Assault envy?)
I've long since learnt how to employ the quirky FWL Overweight Heavy lineup, but sometimes, you just want a traditional assault 'Mech lance to ram down the centre of the line until it shatters.
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Some sort of MBT, like the Demon or something. We're fine for mechs, but for much of the late Succession Wars and Early Clan Invasion, we built no solid heavy vehicles, aside from the Ontos. We need big tanks.
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Some sort of MBT, like the Demon or something. We're fine for mechs, but for much of the late Succession Wars and Early Clan Invasion, we built no solid heavy vehicles, aside from the Ontos. We need big tanks.
What about being enthusiastic users of the Zhukov and Manticore?
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When we build them, I'll call it good.
Wait.
We get Zhukovs?!?
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When we build them, I'll call it good.
Wait.
We get Zhukovs?!?
Late Succession War era onwards, they're listed as Marik-Liao and the TRO entry refers to the League as a primary user of the tanks.
I use them extensively to bulk up my conventional detachments for that reason.
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Late Succession War era onwards, they're listed as Marik-Liao and the TRO entry refers to the League as a primary user of the tanks.
I use them extensively to bulk up my conventional detachments for that reason.
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Zhuks have been part of my FWL conventional forces since i read the 3039 TRO entry.
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Zhuks have been part of my FWL conventional forces since i read the 3039 TRO entry.
Not to be an ass, but weren't the Zhukovs in 3058?
*Suddenly confused*
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I reserve the right to be wrong at any time
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I reserve the right to be wrong at any time
Are those rights transferable? I too would like to apply. :)
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Are those rights transferable? I too would like to apply. :)
It’s more than transferable, it’s contagious
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I reserve the right to be wrong at any time
And this is why we support the FWL
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3030 was the year of the Zukhov, Adlis created them to supplement the Demolisher. Wolf's Dragoons were the first to use them in a major way...
TT
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We get Zugvogels like everyone else, right? Anyone have any luck using them in FWL formations? Seems to me like a good way to rapidly deploy our awkwardly oversized BA platoons. And if any player set has any experience using an aircraft that's slow, kinda fragile, but mounts ALL the guns, it's us. :)
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I don't know... that Lyran WiGE is kinda slow...
TT
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I know for a fact I've mentioned this before, but I too have long been disappointed that the FWL didn't manufacture a domestic MBT for centuries. Ontos and Zhukov are awesome and I own a lance of each, but something with decent armor and a good main gun in the 4/6 Or 5/8 speed range that we don't need to import from the Capellans or Davions would be nice.
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Maybe all those leftover Merkava MkVIii and Augustus were enough? Or SL tanks.
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I don't know... that Lyran WiGE is kinda slow...
TT
The Fensalir? What about it? It makes a nice self-deploying assault bunker, I'll admit.
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Maybe all those leftover Merkava MkVIii and Augustus were enough? Or SL tanks.
Only some powergaming munchkin would field merkavas. Catch me outside with my legion of Kestrel tanks and primitive missile carriers
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Maybe all those leftover Merkava MkVIii and Augustus were enough? Or SL tanks.
Ugh... old tech. ;D
Why not try these planets instead:
Oliver
Kalidasa
Loyalty
Special notes: Still in production as early as 3000 ( or sooner ) to as late as 3150+... :o >:D
TT
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Only some powergaming munchkin would field merkavas. Catch me outside with my legion of Kestrel tanks and primitive missile carriers
Bah, I'll take that on with my regiment of footsloggers armed with bolt action rifles.
(hey, it's topical! That's an actual Free Worlds League infantry regiment!)
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Bah, I'll take that on with my regiment of footsloggers armed with bolt action rifles.
(hey, it's topical! That's an actual Free Worlds League infantry regiment!)
So about 34 Platoons of the these guys and gals, armed with AX-22s and Hawk Eagles perhaps?
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Foot_Ballistic_Rifle (http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Foot_Ballistic_Rifle)
(http://cfw.sarna.net/wiki/images/7/7c/Foot_Ballistic_Rifle_Inf_3085S.png?timestamp=20120820181631)
(http://cfw.sarna.net/wiki/images/0/03/AX-22-Imperator.png?timestamp=20130616073054)
(http://cfw.sarna.net/wiki/images/4/45/Hawkeagle-pistol.png?timestamp=20130427082008)
About .79 per trooper or so...
TT
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Nope, actual bolt action rifles. The kind used by civilian hunters.
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You mean the .14 ones?
The ones that do about 4 points each Platoon at 3 Hexes ones?
Ugh... better than the Makeshifts I guess.
TT
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Only some powergaming munchkin would field merkavas. Catch me outside with my legion of Kestrel tanks and primitive missile carriers
Since when are AC/5 armed Merkavas power gaming in 2750?
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Since when are AC/5 armed Merkavas power gaming in 2750?
(http://i0.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/021/023/jokes.jpg)
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Hooray! Battletech coming up on my group's rotation has finally coincided with my ability to attend, so it's Atrein' Time!
For funsies, I've opted to field a MWDA-style combined arms force, incorporating normal mechs, vees, infantry, and workmechs. Right now I'm looking at an Orion-2M, Carronade, 2 Main Gauche IFVs, 2 squads of Phalanx-Ds, and one CattleMaster Hunter.
Fluff-wise, I'm calling it a frontline detachment making use of a local's knowledge of the terrain. In practice, I expect the CattleMaster to spend most of the game trying to look unimportant, while acting as a light close escort for the heavies.
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For those who are interested, the Anzu's 3D model is down in the mini page. It comes out out this quarter so its great to see the model before it hits the shelves.
I would like to see it become a workhorse for the nFWL's forces.
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For the record, Phalanx with VSPLs, Main Gauche with plasma, and Carronade with Silver Bullet is some of the most fun physically possible. :)
Unrelated question: We all know the purple eagle emblem we fight under. When flown as a flag, do we know what color the background of the flag is?
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Unrelated question: We all know the purple eagle emblem we fight under. When flown as a flag, do we know what color the background of the flag is?
The BTU is Neo-Pre-Westphalian. People of the universe are subjects of an emperor (self titled as First Price, Coordinator, and etc) rather than being actual citizens of a nation-state as we'd recognize in our Westphalian era real world. (Yes that includes the Capellans.)
As there are no nations, there are no national flags. Just House Crests. Which can indeed be placed on a flag, but there's no "Free Worlds League Flag". Indicentally, this ambiguous vexillology works in your favor as a fan. A Marik Eagle on an orange field isn't any more or less wrong than a Marik Eagle on a white field. Indeed, disagreement over which is the "proper" flag for the FWL may well be the in-universe casus belli explaining why the two sides fight in a FWL mirror match :)
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Wasn't there one on the cover of FMU that was supposed to be representing the Martial Olympiad? Also though one was on the FMFWL cover with the parade scene?
With that said, TDC maybe right . . . for instance, FWL flags in Regulan space have orange which is associated with them IIRC while Oriente may have white, and so on.
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Wasn't there one on the cover of FMU that was supposed to be representing the Martial Olympiad? Also though one was on the FMFWL cover with the parade scene?
With that said, TDC maybe right . . . for instance, FWL flags in Regulan space have orange which is associated with them IIRC while Oriente may have white, and so on.
The Martial Olympiad depiction on the cover of FM:U would be one of my exhibits to support my argument. There are few color pictures of actual flags as opposed to crests, but that's one of the few. The Fed Suns flag in this example is white with blue and red stripes, whereas the Fed Suns flag being danced upon by a Northwind Highlander in House Liao is gold and black.
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You'll note that I did not actually ask about the FWL flag, but what color went behind the purple eagle, which I know to be the crest of House Marik instead of the League.
I'm asking because I'm flagging some boats for a naval militia, and wanted to know the color to paint the paper before putting Marik decals on it.
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Honestly the answer is much the same.
The House Crests aren't standardized the way logos are. Sometimes the crests are just a single color with negative space (like the Crests on the back of the House Books). Sometimes the crests are in full/multiple color (like the crests on the front of those same books). In the case of Liao, sometimes it's a battlemech arm holding a sword instead of a human arm. There are also subtle differences between artistic renditions. This Kurita Dragon or Marik Eagle might not be an exact copy of that one, especially in the case of fan art and even official artwork separated by 2-3 decades of publication. But they're still close enough that there's no question what identity the crest is conveying.
Again, I think the answer is "whatever you find visually appealing". There's enough canonical variance to do what you like. Especially in the FWL, where they take a point of pride in doing things their own way rather than their neighbors' way. As mentioned by Cold Ward, you can pick a color to match with the purple for the purpose of implying some sub-factional identity to your force. You can even make it complex: perhaps do a split field of half orange and half white to show a mixed Regulan/Oriente force. Whether it's orange sinister white dexter or vice versa can be you saying something about the nature of your hypothetical force.
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Having thought about it, I'm going to go similar to British naval ensigns in the Age of Sail, which were a different color based on the ship's assigned theater. Since this militia will likely be operating alongside my Atreans, who often fought on the Steiner front(at least, they died there in the Jihad), I'll probably go for something blue-ish.
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Yeah, I was going to use Tamarind as another example from the post-Jihad break up states but could not remember a color supposed to be associated with them.
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If it helps. the Tamarind Regulars use a colour scheme of white with a purple trim
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Can anyone tell me if the 1st Atrean Dragoons are still around in the current time line? I have a battalion of them sitting on my shelf and I'd like to try "updating" them from mid 3060s tech to something a bit more up to the minute...
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Sadly, no. They're my favorite(I was ecstatic when I first saw the sample company in Alpha Strike), but they died early in the Jihad. Against Skye, no less. :-[
At this point, I think the 14th is the only active Atrean Dragoon regiment.
I still paint all my Marik stuff in Atrean greens, I just leave off any reference to a particular number when playing post-Jihad games.
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There is actually a FWL national flag separate from the Marik house crest.
https://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=21384.0
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Didn't some of the Atrean regiments get absorbed into the proto-state militaries? I thought survivors of some became Regulan Hussars.
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The remnants of the 11th and 13th were rolled into the 14th after HAMMERFALL
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Sadly, no. They're my favorite(I was ecstatic when I first saw the sample company in Alpha Strike), but they died early in the Jihad. Against Skye, no less. :-[
At this point, I think the 14th is the only active Atrean Dragoon regiment.
I still paint all my Marik stuff in Atrean greens, I just leave off any reference to a particular number when playing post-Jihad games.
Sad times... :(
I suppose I could convert the unit to the 14th, they're all painted grey with green accents at the end of the day. It just always rather amused me that the 1st had the same motto that could be found on the side of an old £1 coin...
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Fellow Leaguers (yes, when I'm not Clan... Oriente forever!), I have a question for you. During a discussion with another player, the topic of semi-guided LRMs came up- and of course, that's as Marik-flavored as stuffing light Gauss rifles on everything and punching your cousin in the kidneys.
Can MML launchers utilize semi-guided LRM ammo? I'm assuming not, but I realized I wasn't 100% certain about whether or not they could use alternate ammo types (short or long-range). So... Leaguers, can our favorite toy get stuffed in an MML rack, or are the stalwart LRM racks still the only option?
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Yes? MML Yeoman . . .
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Yes. 8)
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Hmm...
Eagle...
Wraith...
Yeoman...
Fourth? Would you run away from a Diomede-M? Or is that a short coming? Particularly when used with Heavy LRM Carriers and Behemoth supporting tanks.
TT
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Fellow Leaguers (yes, when I'm not Clan... Oriente forever!), I have a question for you. During a discussion with another player, the topic of semi-guided LRMs came up- and of course, that's as Marik-flavored as stuffing light Gauss rifles on everything and punching your cousin in the kidneys.
Can MML launchers utilize semi-guided LRM ammo? I'm assuming not, but I realized I wasn't 100% certain about whether or not they could use alternate ammo types (short or long-range). So... Leaguers, can our favorite toy get stuffed in an MML rack, or are the stalwart LRM racks still the only option?
Abolsutely. MMLs can fire all types of LRM and SRM ammo - but not LRT or SRT ammo.
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I would rather use NARCs with MMLs.
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NARC can get negated by ECM, and there were never enough canon NARC platforms in the first place when it should have been a quick fix- early 3050s. Semi-G works for equipment in much broader use, TAG.
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Semi-G works for equipment in much broader use, TAG.
Which means the Eagle!!!
TT
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NARC can get negated by ECM, and there were never enough canon NARC platforms in the first place when it should have been a quick fix- early 3050s. Semi-G works for equipment in much broader use, TAG.
While I cannot say I was not around during the proliferation of ECM, I need some time to catch up to new dynamics. There are some okay NARC platforms out there, but they were primarily created during the transitional phase as you noted. It was a poor system to use against the clans, who could hammer IS mechs hard at Beacon ranges, save in built up terrain.
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Well, the ideal NARC platforms were not really introduced in the '50s IMO. If you are combined arms, the launcher should go on a hovertank or VTOL in place of a SRM launcher- it needs to be a fast unit to get in and put the pod on the appropriate target. Later on the Tufana is one of the ideal delivery platforms IMO.
For a mech, I think something like a OTT, Spider or similar would be best- fast & mobile, so 7/11/7 at least and as rugged as you can make it. Hmm, are NARC launchers able to be used as handheld weapons?
You are right though, the other part being doctrine . . . your NARC'er IMO never leads out front . . . its waiting on the wings or in the backfield if its a VTOL until the two battle lines engage, then swings in to hit the juiciest target to start attracting LRMs. Might have to test it some against Falcon invasion forces in MM . . .
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I have to confess I'm surprised iNarc never caught on in a bigger way. It looks like a pretty versatile system.
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Suffered nearly the same fate as NARC, left alone & forgotten . . . we have a few post-Jihad units with it. Personally I would like to play with it more . . .
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It's why I really want to build a lance around a couple Bardiche...
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I do love haywire pods. The primary problem with iNarc seems to be that it was mainly concentrated among factions that no longer exist.
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Which means the Eagle!!!
TT
Yeah, yeah, I'm here.
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I have to wonder if Nemesis pods might be useful for us. After all, we've got TAG-happy Capellans on one side, Wolves who make big use of ATMs(and their integral Artemis) on the other, Marians building Testudos on the Periphery, plenty of stuff for Nemeses to mess with. You smack something with a Nemesis pod, then send someone in to melee range. You line things up right and your opponent will be loathe to engage that guy for fear of hitting their own unit.
Come to think of it, this might make a Regulan Tufana/Neanderthal combo facing regular FWLM forces rather frightening, especially if the Tufanas follow up those first pods with Haywires and other fun stuff.
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I already thought the Regulans had a decent tactical option with what they produced . . . they make the Marauder 9M2 which has TAG, and they make the Patriot which has a A4/TAG option & later MMLs. Throw in the Tufana and Moltke with its own TAG & MML versions . . .
Its almost like their military production is based around a tactical paradigm- except I know that does not happen in BTU OOC, lol.
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So, I’ve been away a while and only recently caught up. A few pages back there was a lot of hate on the LGR in general, and the Griffin-5M in particular. What’s up with that? I mean, sure, the LGR isn’t the LBX-10, the CERLL, or one of the game’s other most optimally-designed weapons, but it’s not *that* bad. Now, granted the 5M isn’t as good as the 3M, but the 3M is one of the best medium firesupport platforms around. The Thunderbolt-9M is one of my favorite TDRs. The RFL-7M is one of the best Riflemen. The Vanquisher is...underwhelming compared to the Devastator, but perfectly serviceable. I quite like LGRs, when used properly. Are there better uses of the tonnage? Probably. Would most LGR mechs be improved by switching it out for an ERPPC or LBX-10? Yeah, maybe. But variety is what makes the game fun. If we only ever used the most optimal weapons, things would get boring quickly.
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I don’t hate the LGR. I just got annoyed with it showing up on every damn variant during the 3060s. Like mayo is fine but don’t put it on almost every sandwich on the menu
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What would have been cool is if they'd used the LGR to upgrade many of their older 3025 units in service. Pull an AC/10, drop a Light Gauss in its place, and roll out.
On a different note, does anybody have any good names for FWLN spacecraft? To finish off the minis, I need names for an Invader, Vengeance, two Unions, and three Merlins. Canon names would be nice, but not required. Non-canon names are not required to be serious(I'm already planning to name an SLDF Titan the Great Cheeses of the North).
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Alexander, Zeno, Belisarius, Nikephoros, Justinian, and Basil.
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Call the Invader "The Greek Fire." It is a Minemech tradition.
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Which faction? I might have to dig up a PDF to see what the Regulan Merlin flagship was called . . .
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What would have been cool is if they'd used the LGR to upgrade many of their older 3025 units in service. Pull an AC/10, drop a Light Gauss in its place, and roll out.
Would a Lt Gauss be an acceptable general replacement for an AC/10?
You get some accuracy benefits at least.
On a different note, does anybody have any good names for FWLN spacecraft? To finish off the minis, I need names for an Invader, Vengeance, two Unions, and three Merlins.
My go-to for combat dropships is the British WW2 destroyer and corvette classes. For example: Ulysses, Undaunted, Urania, Undefeated, Mahratta, Matchless, Meteor, Myrmidon... yget the picture.
Invader being a JS sometimes gets a semi-civilian name as might befit an auxiliary pressed into service: Astro Traveller II, New Delhi Express, Virgen de Cerillos, Pride of Keystone...
Vengeance being a carrier might try (for a change) famous fighters or pilots: Hurricane, Mustang, Tomcat, Adolf Galland, Gregory Boyington, etc but I'd preferably save the German aces for Steiner
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If it is civilian, name it the Nora Stone.
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I'm going for federal FWLN at the height of the post-Clan navy just before the Jihad.
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Would a Lt Gauss be an acceptable general replacement for an AC/10?
There actually aren't a ton of options for a straight AC/10-LGR swap
FWL/IS General mechs - Centurion A, Orion K/VA, Hunchback 4H... maybe you've got an old Icarus II lying around. The Orion K I like a lot with an LGR because if you're running one in the 3060s you don't want to enter that 5-10 band if you don't have to.
On the vehicle side you have the Po (which already has a canon LGR variant), the Zhukov, and the Behemoth. If you had an Alacorn mk III in mothballs, that would be a pretty good upgrade.
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A Light Gauss Behemoth would be a tad redundant with the LGR or MML Ontos, but by itself an awesome tank.
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Putting an LGR on an Orion to make an ON1-Kr sounds interesting, making it a sniper instead of a line mech. Same with the LGR Centurion mod. Not sure the Urbanmech is a good candidate.
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You don’t want a self-mobile LGR turret? Why in the world not? But really, consider a lance of three UrbanLGRs and one UrbanAC20. Constant harassing fire until the enemy decides to charge in... >:D
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There actually aren't a ton of options for a straight AC/10-LGR swap
I meant in general terms. I think its a matter of preference, sortof, up until precision ammo is available. Then the AC/10 wins again.
If you had an Alacorn mk III in mothballs, that would be a pretty good upgrade.
ooooh yes!
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Why slap LGRs on an imported Alacorn when we have the domestically produced Ontos?
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Redundancy is good. Redundancy is good. Redundancy is good. :)
Also, that way you can put twelve LGRs in one lance while still having some variety in the minis.
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Zhukov. Relatively cheap, readily available.
A lance of four with eight LGRs is a great way to say hi.
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A Light Gauss Behemoth would be a tad redundant with the LGR or MML Ontos, but by itself an awesome tank.
It would be nice (and would help offset that wretched speed by allowing it to still reach a long distance), but I've always viewed the Behemoth as a rolling defense turret- so LB-10Xs make more sense to me, allowing it to act as a semi-mobile AA pillbox.
Now, LGRs on a Gladius... THAT has always made me wonder.
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The mk iii is extinct well before the 3060s so it would be one of those “look what I found in gramdpa’s garage” requisitions
I meant in general terms. I think its a matter of preference, sortof, up until precision ammo is available. Then the AC/10 wins again.
Unless you’ve got something outside of 15 hexes to shoot at. Something like a Main Gauche isn’t supposed to get that close. There are a lot of reasons to use an AC/10 vs LGR, but sometimes i’d rather have the range
Now, LGRs on a Gladius... THAT has always made me wonder.
Slashing hover attacks but you can hit from short at 8 and get a +3 TMM backpedaling the next turn? Or just park at 20 and speed away the second something comes for you
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I never understood why the FWL Marauder never got a LRG but the Warhammer did.
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I never understood why the FWL Marauder never got a LRG but the Warhammer did.
They did, it just came in a little underweight, and there was a mixup in marketing. Filed under the wrong name, and then it became too much of a hassle to fix ALL the forms...you know how it goes. :)
....and now I want to kitbash a Marauder solely out of Warhammer parts. There may be something wrong with me.
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Slashing hover attacks but you can hit from short at 8 and get a +3 TMM backpedaling the next turn? Or just park at 20 and speed away the second something comes for you
Rush to long range, begin throwing slugs, back away (at remarkably high speeds, since HOVER TANK) to keep that range because you can back up faster than most enemy forces can advance... continue as needed. Throw in some extra treats like Plainsman and Saladins for close-range muscle after you've weakened the advancing enemy with your Gladius hordes. Some LRM-carrying units like Scimitars aren't a bad idea either for dropping Thunder munitions, forcing enemies to either risk leg damage or take more time going around the mines (and thus slowing their advance even further).
Cheap, effective, and nasty as hell.
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Sounds like a perfect Marian IV Legio build... :)
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Sounds like a perfect Marian IV Legio build... :)
Hey, THAT'S weird... almost like it got planned with Marians in mind... :thumbsup:
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I never understood why the FWL Marauder never got a LRG but the Warhammer did.
Yeah, I wondered that as well considering you can do the MAD-5S right with a LGR. I actually built one as a WOB only from Gibson for my mercs to face . . . and pass it off as it getting nuked/overlooked after the Jihad came to a end with it being glassed.
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I never understood why the FWL Marauder never got a LRG but the Warhammer did.
The true crime is that the Warhammer did not have Streak SRM 2s. I think I am the only one who missed the Machine Guns. However, our Marauder used SSRM 6s, which felt very Warhammer.
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The true crime is that the Warhammer did not have Streak SRM 2s. I think I am the only one who missed the Machine Guns. However, our Marauder used SSRM 6s, which felt very Warhammer.
It's painfully clear that the secondary weapons development teams for the two variants were switched. I blame the Blakists.
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It's painfully clear that the secondary weapons development teams for the two variants were switched. I blame the Blakists.
No need to go looking for outside reasons. Someone at SAFE probably was carrying both blueprints and dropped them on the floor, and mixed up the notes as they were cleaning it up.
Related note, every single Warhammer has a coffee stain actually printed on the underside of the armor on the left torso because the blueprints showed it as a result of this incident. ^-^
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The true crime is that the Warhammer did not have Streak SRM 2s. I think I am the only one who missed the Machine Guns. However, our Marauder used SSRM 6s, which felt very Warhammer.
They might not be traditional but I always felt the Streaks worked well on the MAD-9M/9M2 as backups for the energy weapons. On the original, they fit neatly into the heat curve up close, while it gave the 9M2 something to use to cool off if you need to and exploit those big holes the HPPCs tear open.
You can't fit an LGR on either one without cutting into the primary armament, so with the MAD-9M2 revealed, I've never been too bothered about it. Not everything needs an LGR. These MADs operate close enough the LGR doesn't buy you a huge amount, so let the Main Gauche lance snipe while you move in for a pounding match.
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The MAD-9M can be explained away as a natural rebuild from the 3M. It simply added defensive weaponry, while making the main guns all arm mounted. Whether, or not it was wise to add missiles to a mech that builds up so much heat is another question. The 9M2 seems to be what the designers had in mind all along, however there are fans of the 9M.
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They might not be traditional but I always felt the Streaks worked well on the MAD-9M/9M2 as backups for the energy weapons. On the original, they fit neatly into the heat curve up close, while it gave the 9M2 something to use to cool off if you need to and exploit those big holes the HPPCs tear open.
You can't fit an LGR on either one without cutting into the primary armament, so with the MAD-9M2 revealed, I've never been too bothered about it. Not everything needs an LGR. These MADs operate close enough the LGR doesn't buy you a huge amount, so let the Main Gauche lance snipe while you move in for a pounding match.
apparently we were typing at the same time :)
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Yeah, a LGR Marauder would have been IMO like the -5S and using the -5M as the baseline like the -9M was for the -9M2.
Since the Marauder with ERPPCs is a long range fire support machine the LGR fits in nicely replacing the AC/5 of the original -3R. The -9M2 is a brawler simply because it gives up that range for the damage as mentioned. I LOVE the -9M2's description in the Lennox Light Horse description.
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The MAD-9M can be explained away as a natural rebuild from the 3M. It simply added defensive weaponry, while making the main guns all arm mounted. Whether, or not it was wise to add missiles to a mech that builds up so much heat is another question. The 9M2 seems to be what the designers had in mind all along, however there are fans of the 9M.
It’s an even more natural evolution of the MAD-4X from XTRO: Succession Wars. Of course, I think it came later and was built that way on purpose.
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That's my understanding of what happened with the 4X, yeah, although you'd have to ask the designer to be sure.
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Yeah, -4X came after -9M . . . maybe even the -9M2. Which is funny since IIRC CamoSpecs has a -4X mod to the -9M2 and no -9M even though it came out in PP.
Course I am also one of those people who think the new MAD sculpt arms do not belong to the -7D/-9D since they are not tri-vaned but the traditional MAD box pods. Like maybe they had some -2R or -3R arms already set up . . .
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You know a Perseus C with double LGR might work in a fight, wonder if a second MPL would off set the tonnage?
TT
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So what's the FWL's preferred infighting weapons? Pulse lasers?
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LRMs. Seriously.
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So what's the FWL's preferred infighting weapons? Pulse lasers?
Mutually supporting LRM batteries.
For instance, having a Perseus A dead to sights just means he's also perfectly placed to designate you for that platoon of Hetzer LRMs lurking slightly further back.
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So what's the FWL's preferred infighting weapons? Pulse lasers?
Infantry.
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I'll second the previous two. A Leaguer is never alone in a fight., and properly placed buddies are your best defence. Pulse lasers are your last ditch emergency backup. Also, ER PPCs.
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They're never alone but are you sure the guy from Regulus or Oriente in the next cockpit over is really your buddy? Or is he just properly placed to let you get overextended and pick you off when the enemy has weakened you?
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That's just what we use to keep our warriors awake and alert. Coffee is for the weak. :)
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That's just what we use to keep our warriors awake and alert. Coffee is for the weak. :)
Ice Hellions prefer a quadruple espresso ever hour.
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Highlanders use the cold breeze up their kilts.
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Jade Falcons use tobacco.
And by that I mean they put a bit of the cherry from their cigarettes in the corner of their eyes to keep them awake. It's why they're always so grouchy.
(Real thing some WWII pilots did to stay awake on long flights. Tried it ONCE to see if it was as awful as it sounded like. It's worse.)
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WTF . . . they put a burning ember in the corner of their eye? I thought the torture of my too-tight CVC helmet was a decent wake up. Might explain the squinting too . . . which is usually what we see with Falcons as well.
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Yeah, I know Boyington mentioned it in his memoirs (where I got the idea from, thanks Pappy), and there's an account of a British bomber pilot on the other side of the world doing the same during one of the flights across the North Sea to bomb the Tirpitz.
That said, it works. It hurt like hell, so I certainly wasn't feeling like sleeping. ;D
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How popular would Protectorate units be in neoFWL service if the Foxes accidentally left a pile of Nova CEWS and research sitting around in the Protectorate?
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And we went from a conversation about close-action weaponry to burning your eye with a cigarette.
I love the League.
How popular would Protectorate units be in neoFWL service if the Foxes accidentally left a pile of Nova CEWS and research sitting around in the Protectorate?
I dunno really. The League doesn't really have a history of working together with C3 (or this working together thing either).
I could see a lot of LGR and LRM machines getting really really excited over the potential, but given the era, the post WOB backlash involving mounting ECM on EVERYTHING ruins a lot of potential.
EDIT; Wait. ECM doesn't jam Nova CEWS... There's suddenly potential for extreme levels of mischief.
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When I was in the Army, I occasionally tried chewing the MRE coffee grounds to stay awake. It works, but I wouldn't recommend it unless you really like coffee. (I don't.)
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Pulse lasers might not be that far off actually. I mean, get a load of the Anvil.
When I was in the Army, I occasionally tried chewing the MRE coffee grounds to stay awake. It works, but I wouldn't recommend it unless you really like coffee. (I don't.)
Oh thats new to me. Gonna try it someday.
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When I was in the Army, I occasionally tried chewing the MRE coffee grounds to stay awake. It works, but I wouldn't recommend it unless you really like coffee. (I don't.)
I know some guys who were bored . . . snorted the coffee (sneezed brown for a while) and some snorted the tabasco bottle.
But yeah, Dies Irae Nova does not get taken down by Guardian or Clan ECM but it DOES jam the more common electronics. Also, what I was suggesting was that the Clan Protectorate fit their mechs and their production with Nova CEWS- not that they share or turn it over to the neoFWL. Basically if one of their units gets drafted for federal service rather than sitting in their local protection.
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We had a mixture affectionately known as the 'Hellbrew' in my last work workplace that was for all intents and purposes Cofftea.
Basically a nice strong brewed tea which was then used to make coffee in place of water.
Had a heck of a caffeine kick.
But yeah, Dies Irae Nova does not get taken down by Guardian or Clan ECM but it DOES jam the more common electronics. Also, what I was suggesting was that the Clan Protectorate fit their mechs and their production with Nova CEWS- not that they share or turn it over to the neoFWL. Basically if one of their units gets drafted for federal service rather than sitting in their local protection.
You have a toy. You are not sharing said toy. Expect... unpleasantness. I'd likely expect a polite request from the Warden General to share soon enough.
Simple enough.
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Tangent: Was looking through the list and I started wondering... Do we get Cave Lions?
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I guess for me, League signature weaponry is hard to pinpoint because of the way their army is designed. With everything in their military designed to act as part of a larger whole rather than an individual unit, everything kind of works together to the point that no one weapon system is the 'standout'. The LGR, the large pulse laser, the LRM rack, even the Ultra-10, all are commonly seen and work together to create a mess for their opponent. (Honestly it's a pity the League didn't embrace C3 the way the DCMS did!)
So... what's the signature League weapon system? All my buddies backing me up. ^-^
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Well, the Protectorate is not being pressured AFAIK to produce Clan spec weapons to sell to the other sub-groups.
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Well, the Protectorate is not being pressured AFAIK to produce Clan spec weapons to sell to the other sub-groups.
Actually that hadn't occurred to me before (just never really thought about it), but I suppose the Wolves (and to a greatly-lesser extent the Spirit Cat remnants) would probably have advanced tech know-how, and keeping it to themselves would probably go over very poorly with their fellow nu-FWL states. Either the FWLM is going to have some fun new toys to stick on their gear in the future, or the League will have some very grouchy words back and forth in Parliament meetings. (Actually, why not both?)
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"All they've given us is gauss rifles we can drop onto any LGR mech and half-weight LRM launchers! They're holding back!"
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"All they've given us is gauss rifles we can drop onto any LGR mech and half-weight LRM launchers! They're holding back!"
Addendum to Apollo's Law- "If it needs Clan tech to make it usable, it isn't worth installing Clan tech on anyway... but if you have a pile of it around, why the hell not?"
(Actually... a Hammer with Clan LRMs becomes kind of a poor man's Arbalest, doesn't it? Intriguing.)
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"All they've given us is gauss rifles we can drop onto any LGR mech and half-weight LRM launchers! They're holding back!"
But if you are the proud pilot of that Rifleman 7M that survived the Jihad and the break up of the League . . . do you really wants some overenthusiastic tech installing a pair of Clan Gauss Rifles on your Rifleman? I mean you go from annoyance to 'Kill it first' status . . .
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Addendum to Apollo's Law- "If it needs Clan tech to make it usable, it isn't worth installing Clan tech on anyway... but if you have a pile of it around, why the hell not?"
(Actually... a Hammer with Clan LRMs becomes kind of a poor man's Arbalest, doesn't it? Intriguing.)
If you give a Hammer an equal mass of Clan five-packs, you've got a slower, MUCH nastier Anubis...and I'm in love with this idea. :drool:
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If you give a Hammer an equal mass of Clan five-packs, you've got a slower, MUCH nastier Anubis...and I'm in love with this idea. :drool:
Math checks out... use it like a Sling, dropping small minefields hither and fro and make life hell on enemy armor...
Man, we broke Apollo's Law. Hammers suck on toast, and now I desperately want a Hammer-C in my life.
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Isn't Juliano mixed tech mech? So there must be some sort of trade at least.
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The Juliano is mixed tech on the export. It has Clan cERLL and maybe ERML, everything else including SSRMs are IS build. They do sell it to the FWL as a whole . . . but they also have their own version not for export that is Clan weapons. They also have a Clan . . . Tempest? or was it Guillotine? Something the Crusader Wolves copied with the Orion factory they captured- IS build w/Clan weapons.
The Juliano might be their FWLM contribution, everything else goes to their own Protectorate formations.
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Math checks out... use it like a Sling, dropping small minefields hither and fro and make life hell on enemy armor...
Man, we broke Apollo's Law. Hammers suck on toast, and now I desperately want a Hammer-C in my life.
SONOVACENTRELLA...I had my post all ready to go, and my phone suddenly decides to reboot. All gone. Lemme see if i can recreate it.
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People hate on the Hammer for many reasons, mostly because of the underwhelming Hammer/Anvil combo 3055 advertised, and folks see it as an attempt to build a half-size Archer that ended up with a quarter the throw weight.
My view changed when I realized, it's not a junior Archer. It's a revamped Valkyrie, trading the jump jets for doubled endurance and flexibility, and tripled close-in punch.
Consider that when the Hammer was designed, the Clans were on the other side of known space(possibly still just vague rumors), and the only hostile major border the League had was with the Lyran half of the Federated Commonwealth, who per TRO 3050 were trying to standardize their light lances around Commandos and Valkyries. I have to wonder how a lance of Hammers would fare against them.
(Full disclosure: I have no idea what we might pair with the Hammer instead of just going with four Hammers. Wasp-3Ms, maybe?)
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Isn't Juliano mixed tech mech? So there must be some sort of trade at least.
I have to wonder if the Juliano's missiles and/or Shikra's cannons might be a case of local industries finally being able to build Clan-level gear? We've seen it before in the Black Knight. I suspect that while the overall Clan tech base is still far beyond Spheroid industry, more and more individual pieces of gear are slowly coming into reach.
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Hm, I swapped it . . . the SSRMs are Clan and the lasers, etc are IS. But the Protectorate does have its own version of all Clan weapons that does not export. Its one of half a dozen designs that were hinted at and expected in RS3145/50 . . . which is in the same place as other mythical creatures like unicorns and the Clan Box Set.
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It's entirely possible that while they can build Clan-level stuff in the Protectorate, they might not be able to build enough to export AND supply their own troops. If your supply is limited like that, it makes sense to concentrate it where it can be maintained easily, and where all the action is. The reborn League may be busy everywhere, but the Protectorate/Empire border is definitely one of the hot spots, not to mention being only two jumps away from the Republic Remnant, Fortress, AND Capellan Confederation.
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(Full disclosure: I have no idea what we might pair with the Hammer instead of just going with four Hammers. Wasp-3Ms, maybe?)
Maybe a pair of FLE-17s? Maybe even (retroactively) the FLE-16?
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Yeah, we also do not know how the neoFWL organizes their military operations- are they like fake Thomas FWLM or did they go back to the original where they had to get members to put up their units for federal service?
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3145 tells us that all forces are federal now. Member states supply and staff their units, but the chain of command is solely through LCCC. They also make a point of rotating units throughout the League, though while they a legally allowed to do the same with their Clan forces, they've left them in the Protectorate for the time being.
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Must have missed that section, though I mostly focused on Regulus & the independent battalions of the Protectors.
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(Full disclosure: I have no idea what we might pair with the Hammer instead of just going with four Hammers. Wasp-3Ms, maybe?)
No Hammers and Cicada-3Fs...
TT
Edit:
2x Hammer-3S
1x Hammer-Claw
1x Cicada-3F
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Turns out I've got one more Merlin than I remembered, so I need another ship name. Any ideas? Remember, seriousness is not required, and declaring an attack on a target is harder if you can't say its name with a straight face.
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Rampaging Gonad of the Prime Orangutan.
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Rampaging Gonad of the Prime Orangutan.
Why do i sense new Clan OmniMech name in the making....
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SONOVACENTRELLA...I had my post all ready to go, and my phone suddenly decides to reboot. All gone. Lemme see if i can recreate it.
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People hate on the Hammer for many reasons, mostly because of the underwhelming Hammer/Anvil combo 3055 advertised, and folks see it as an attempt to build a half-size Archer that ended up with a quarter the throw weight.
My view changed when I realized, it's not a junior Archer. It's a revamped Valkyrie, trading the jump jets for doubled endurance and flexibility, and tripled close-in punch.
Consider that when the Hammer was designed, the Clans were on the other side of known space(possibly still just vague rumors), and the only hostile major border the League had was with the Lyran half of the Federated Commonwealth, who per TRO 3050 were trying to standardize their light lances around Commandos and Valkyries. I have to wonder how a lance of Hammers would fare against them.
(Full disclosure: I have no idea what we might pair with the Hammer instead of just going with four Hammers. Wasp-3Ms, maybe?)
You know, you bring up a good point with the Valk comparison... problem is, I never liked the Valkyrie either. xp
Seriously though, yeah, I see where you're at- and yeah, comparing it to the Valkyrie makes sense in that regard, as a sort of answer to it the way the Wolfhound replied to the Panther. (The Streak-4 armed version of the Hammer, then, compares quite nicely to FedCom Commandos and Javelins!). It's not the worst design- just not one I'm enamored with either. I'll use them if they show up on my RAT roll, but I'll rarely reach for one intentionally.
Now, Anvils, that thing is just criminal. It can be made to work, but it combines a few sins that I have trouble overlooking as a combined package- bad art, poor main weapons (they have utility, but... ugggggh), and jump capacity that isn't as far as it could be. It takes some very bad decisions and doubles down on them in ways I don't appreciate. Switching out the LPLs for standard larges (or ERs, I guess?) is a much better way to go overall, and gives weight for those extra jets and such. Later upgrades to snub-nose PPCs would be even better, and still keep it in the original close-range brawler feel. I again can see where the idea was going- as you said, comparing it to their likely enemy it's hard to look at it and not see a viable alternative to the Hunchback- but it merely tries to match its older foe rather than outperform it, and at that cost it's tough to love a Mech that can't reliably outperform a 3025 Mech ten tons lighter.
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Turns out I've got one more Merlin than I remembered, so I need another ship name. Any ideas? Remember, seriousness is not required, and declaring an attack on a target is harder if you can't say its name with a straight face.
Name it after that other great magician: Tim the Enchanter.
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My favorite Anvil is the -3R, the one that drops the jump jets to maximize the armor. It's essentially a leaner faster Banshee, a close-assault linebreaker that you charge into the middle of a formation and wreak havoc with lasers and melee attacks, screwing up their plans and letting your teammates take advantage of the confusion(hopefully enough to pull your ass out of the fire you jumped into). The ECM means it can pull double duty as a walking 404 on C3 nets while it's in there.
To sum up, it's a monkey wrench.
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Thinking about it, I'm starting to like the idea of an all-Hammer lance...but take one of each. The Hammer is the jack of all trades, the Claw-Hammer is the close-range murder machine, the Pein-Hammer finishes what the Claw-Hammer starts, deals with infantry, and calls arty on things the lance can't handle, and the Slammer's vast ammo bins are unlikely to ever run dry, so you can use them to keep the others supplied on long patrols.
Now I really wish I had MegaMek here at work, I really want to try this out.
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due to the SFE, even the base model Anvil is surprisingly durable though i've always found more use from the -3R's extra armor than the JJs.
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Now, Anvils, that thing is just criminal. It can be made to work, but it combines a few sins that I have trouble overlooking as a combined package- bad art, poor main weapons (they have utility, but... ugggggh), and jump capacity that isn't as far as it could be. It takes some very bad decisions and doubles down on them in ways I don't appreciate. Switching out the LPLs for standard larges (or ERs, I guess?) is a much better way to go overall, and gives weight for those extra jets and such. Later upgrades to snub-nose PPCs would be even better, and still keep it in the original close-range brawler feel. I again can see where the idea was going- as you said, comparing it to their likely enemy it's hard to look at it and not see a viable alternative to the Hunchback- but it merely tries to match its older foe rather than outperform it, and at that cost it's tough to love a Mech that can't reliably outperform a 3025 Mech ten tons lighter.
Huh?
On the competitive servers Anvils were much sought after by FWL players and were considered desired salvage by their neighbors. You are right in comparing it to a Hunchback since it was used as a bodyguard for your long range shooters, the ECM also providing a advantage by being able to switch to ECCM for Artemis IV or NARC munitions. It outshines the HBK in 3050 simply b/c it has those -2 for the pulse lasers which will deal with the speedsters trying to go after the Fire support. Sure, it needs more armor but it works decently. Also agree the jump-less version is the way to go b/c it puts that aforementioned armor at the reasonable levels. The other solution you offered, LL or ERLL does not work IMO without a TC (going BK 9 route) but they were not getting those in afaik. I would have loved to see a Snub version, but honestly post-3065 that is almost a gut-level reaction to seeing a IS LPL on anything- XPulse would be nice but for some reason it does not seem as wide spread.
For the Merlin? What about Morgana- just to be contrary
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Rampaging Gonad of the Prime Orangutan.
As much as I absolutely love this one, it just won't fit on the hex base. About half a dozen characters shorter is my absolute limit. Got anything shorter?
I put names on minis by typing it out in Excel, cutting out the resulting printout, and gluing individual ones to the hex base, like the me below. DropShips have very small hex bases...
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stretching over multiple hexsides would be part of the charm
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DropShip bases are low enough they don't really have sides, gotta glue theirs on top. And even with the increased room that way, I still need something shorter.
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As much as I absolutely love this one, it just won't fit on the hex base. About half a dozen characters shorter is my absolute limit. Got anything shorter?
I put names on minis by typing it out in Excel, cutting out the resulting printout, and gluing individual ones to the hex base, like the me below. DropShips have very small hex bases...
Rampaging Gonad of the Orangutan.
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I’m telling you, “Tim”.
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So what did you name the rest of the fleet, though?
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I’m telling you, “Tim”.
"Bob". It's named for the planet, after all. ^-^
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So what did you name the rest of the fleet, though?
I ended up finding some canon names from Sarna, and then some location names from Obj: FWL.
Invader - FWLS Diver
Vengeance - FWLS Falcon's Nest
Union - FWLS Adamant
Union - FWLS Bolan's Blood
Merlin - FWLS Apprentice
Merlin - FWLS Rosetta
Merlin - FWLS Kearny
Merlin - FWLS Rampaging Gonad of the Orangutan
I'm also finishing up some elements of Boaty McBoatForce, more properly known as a brown-water company of the Nestor militia. So far I've got names for the Mauna Kea NDS Queen Callipygous and Sea Skimmer NDS Colossus, needing to find names for two Monitors, four Silverfins, and wondering what to ID four Plainsmans.
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If you name those Monitors anything other than 'Glorious' and 'Courageous', I will be cross. CROSS, I say. ^-^
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What? One of them HAD to be the Merrimack!
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If you name those Monitors anything other than 'Glorious' and 'Courageous', I will be cross. CROSS, I say. ^-^
There's a story there...
EDIT: That just seems like...bad juju.
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I say name the monitors the 'Impertinent' and 'Discourteous'.
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If you can name a FWL ship "Interpersonal Harmony" I think that wins the ironic ship name title.
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I say name the monitors the 'Impertinent' and 'Discourteous'.
On that theme... 'Unamused' and 'Intemperate'.
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i'm fond of
So Much For Subtlety
Killing Time
Inappropriate Response
Pure Big Mad Boat Man,
Attitude Adjuster
and
Uninvited Guest
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I've already got a couple fleets of starships slated to use Culture-style names, but those are still tempting.
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I've always like Divine Contravention, myself.
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That's my understanding of what happened with the 4X, yeah, although you'd have to ask the designer to be sure.
That's correct. I took the -9M/2 and backtracked it for the -4X. The heritage is even mentioned in the -4X's writeup.
(Still my favorite design)
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There's a story there...
EDIT: That just seems like...bad juju.
What's wrong with the Curious, Spurious, and Outrageous?
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My favorite Anvil is the -3R, the one that drops the jump jets to maximize the armor. It's essentially a leaner faster Banshee, a close-assault linebreaker that you charge into the middle of a formation and wreak havoc with lasers and melee attacks, screwing up their plans and letting your teammates take advantage of the confusion(hopefully enough to pull your ass out of the fire you jumped into). The ECM means it can pull double duty as a walking 404 on C3 nets while it's in there.
To sum up, it's a monkey wrench.
I wound up with an Anvil once upon a time as a merc company commander's ride, although it's been so long I'd have to go digging through my records to figure out which variant. It actually worked decently. Sure, it wasn't spectacular, but the IS LPL gets underestimated because of all the (well-deserved) scorn. They make decent weapons for bullying faster lights and mediums if it's what you've got in the 3050s.
Later on, snubbies, a heat sink, and TAG would be a very Marik way to make the ECM/armor variant a lot more annoying. Sure, you're still harmless outside 15 hexes, but inside it (especially inside 9 hexes), a couple of snubbies just aren't fun, maybe some MLs for fun, and then they light you up with TAG for all their LRM-armed friends to pile on.
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There's a story there...
EDIT: That just seems like...bad juju.
My reasoning is that in their original form, the two could be called a sort of monitor- they combined a small number of heavy weapons with extremely shallow draft, to be able to operate in the kind of shallow waters that a monitor of the American Civil War era would have found familiar. They were rated officially as 'large light cruisers' to get around funding language (the same kind of issue that prompted the Invincible-class ships in the 1970s to be rated 'through-deck cruisers' rather than aircraft carriers), or light battlecruisers, but 'monitor' isn't the worst description of them.
Side note, their half-sister Furious ended up becoming a carrier before completion... and became the name of a monitor I used in a Battletech game a few years ago, modded with the standard turret replaced with a dual-Arrow IV mount and AMS systems replacing the SRMs. So your pair would then become half-sisters to my Furious, which is symmetry. ^-^
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That makes sense. And to be honest, my tactical skills means they'll likely face similar fates as their namesakes...repeatedly.
What's wrong with the Curious, Spurious, and Outrageous?
Those might work for the three Silverfins of the second lance(flotilla?), leaving me with just the lone Silverfin of first lance. Maybe something that fits thematically with the Queen Callipygous...
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Those were derisive names for the same ships you and Hellbie were discussing.
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Well, pbhbhbt.
I'll still keep them as placeholders for the time being.
On a different note, what sword-wielding mechs do we have access to? I know of that one Firestarter config and the newer Grand Titan, but was wondering about any others. I'm not a particular fan of melee weapons but I don't dislike them on principle either, and there's something to be said for something that could be very useful against fast movers that you've beaten in initiative.
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it's a very long list
Chimera 2K
Update: the member states have access to the Grand Titan T-IT-N13M
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Grand Titan 13NM... beautiful
(https://s31.postimg.cc/hftpwo1y3/Capture.png)
in before, "one shall stand, one shall fall"
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"Experiments in Battlemech field surgery were often considered 'inaccurate'..."
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The semi-truck should have a shield!
The pic makes it seem the two League mechs are practicing the FWL's favorite sport.
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*takes a close look at the Chimera-2K*
Jesus Bending Rodriguez!
It's like Tinkerbell all grown up, fed on a steady diet of Twisted Sister and hate! :o
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The semi-truck should have a shield!
The pic makes it seem the two League mechs are practicing the FWL's favorite sport.
Beating the everlasting shit out of your countrymen IS the League's favorite sport. ;D
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Beating the everlasting shit out of your countrymen IS the League's favorite sport. ;D
hey, you guys said it, not me :-X
if you look closely though that's probably some Free Worlds Legionnaire gently correcting a wayward brother ridding the League of Toaster scum...
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There might be some salvaged Gurkhas laying around here and there.
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hey, you guys said it, not me :-X
if you look closely though that's probably some Free Worlds Legionnaire gently correcting a wayward brother ridding the League of Toaster scum...
It's actually a merc major. Admittedly, they were under contract to Kristin Marik at the time ... and now that I think of it, a definite League connection. Yes, there's a story there ;)
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I'm looking for some advice.
It's 3067 and I have a bunch of Achileus and Longinus Battle armour to take on the school run about but no omnimechs to hang them off. What would be the most appropriately League flavoured transport vees to bus them about in?
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we didn't ever really get in on the whole omni fad so options are a bit limited
the owens is always an option if you need speed. the perseus is the only homegrown FWL omni at your disposal at this point
http://masterunitlist.info/Unit/Filter?Name=&HasBV=false&MinTons=&MaxTons=&MinBV=&MaxBV=&MinIntro=0&MaxIntro=3067&MinCost=&MaxCost=&HasRole=&HasBFAbility=omni&MinPV=&MaxPV=&Role=None+Selected&Technologies=1&BookAuto=&FactionAuto=&Factions=30&Factions=55
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"Experiments in Battlemech field surgery were often considered 'inaccurate'..."
"Death of the patient was nominally considered a success, however."
I'm looking for some advice.
It's 3067 and I have a bunch of Achileus and Longinus Battle armour to take on the school run about but no omnimechs to hang them off. What would be the most appropriately League flavoured transport vees to bus them about in?
We generally have a shortage of specialist League transports even capable of holding a 4 man squad, so you'll probably look into the general Inner Sphere list for the common-as-dirt stuff that everyone has lying around.
This means Heavy APCs of all stripes, Prowlers and Maxims. Chopper wise, Karnovs look to be your best bet.
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I'm looking for some advice.
It's 3067 and I have a bunch of Achileus and Longinus Battle armour to take on the school run about but no omnimechs to hang them off. What would be the most appropriately League flavoured transport vees to bus them about in?
The Maxim (I) is on The IS General list. That may not be League-flavored enough for you, but with 12 tons of transport capacity it’s probably the best option.
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I am offended you have ask, the Main Gauche IFV is the only option.
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I am offended you have ask, the Main Gauche IFV is the only option.
Not in 67, it isn't. Production date is 3081.
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Technically, you could use Clan Cargo Saladin, since in 3050 they used captured ones as ferries.
Why not a House unit after the AC gets a crit?
TT
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Isn't there an unarmed Pegasus with a fair amount of cargo space?
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http://masterunitlist.info/Unit/Details/2462/pegasus-scout-hover-tank-unarmed
Why yes there is
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Twelve tons of hauling, yeek. You can carry a full FWL platoon plus sandwiches for less than a pair of classic Wasps.
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Twelve tons of hauling, yeek. You can carry a full FWL platoon plus sandwiches for less than a pair of classic Wasps.
I recommend leaving out the sandwiches unless you want a fight to break out over the filling.
That said, wasn't the unarmed Peggy a unique variant by a crazy driver who believed carrying no guns would make people attack him less? (Which in turn made things like Ferrets brave enough to buzz him?)
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Edit: Wrong thread
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I recommend leaving out the sandwiches unless you want a fight to break out over the filling.
Look, at 12 tons it can carry a couple squads of troopers, sandwiches with fillings of all kinds, crumpets, scones, cakes, tea, coffee, a decent china service and the kitchen sink for washing up... such a configuration is known to Davions as the 'Field Kitchen, Tea Party" variant and to Lyrans as the "Mobile HQ"....
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Oriente suits swarm mechs with their pinkies out. O:-)
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Oriente suits swarm mechs with their pinkies out. O:-)
Wouldn't want to look uncultured when you pull the Lyran out of his cockpit and shoot him would you?
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While the League in general had a truce in '45 we do not if it was holding in '50 but even with it both sides overlooked the Crusader Wolves engaging in Trials with the Clan Protectorate. The truce with the League was in effect IMO b/c Jessica was afraid of the Wolves might landing on her in the early 40s. With Regulus out of the picture and no longer able to stab her in the back . . . and the bulk of the Wolf touman elsewhere, it would be surprising if they did not get adventurous. Plus we know that Jessica is no longer the ruler, so whoever it is might have different opinions . . .
The only other avenue for the neoFWL is nibble at the periphery of the Lyrans or focus on Andurien . . . which means facing the CapCon & MoC. Which would be more important- returning Andurien to the League or the captured MSC worlds?
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Unfortunately the Duchy of Andurien is critical to League military production. It was truly bizarre that a world willingly defected to the Capellan Confederation, nonetheless the Duchy accepted the marriage offer.
With Regulus back, the League has a stronger claim to legitimacy as it has the successors to the founding states. I suspect that protectorate units were kept in place so that they could perform trials of possession without violating agreements. There is much to be done, but the new League borders are defensible with Regulus back. Perhaps the Marians need some taming first.
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Oriente suits swarm mechs with their pinkies out. O:-)
I say, I think I might have found an interesting FWL faction to consider playing.
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I think the League would be better off trying to ally with the Marians, or even offering them membership. Would it go over well with the Rim Commonality or Tamarind-Abbey? Probably not. But the League is no stranger to having member states that aren’t on good terms. With the Marian’s no longer being pirates and having even largely toned downed their militant imperialism (in favor of economic and cultural hegemony), they’re in a better position than ever to work with the League rather than against it. And let’s face it, the League has a certain amount of experience incorporating former enemies, from Andurien to Zion to the Clan Protectorate.
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When did Regulus rejoin the Free Worlds League?
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Between 3145 and 3150 . . . not totally sure.
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July 3148, per the Picaroon write up in TRO: 3050 (pg 198)
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I think the League would be better off trying to ally with the Marians, or even offering them membership. Would it go over well with the Rim Commonality or Tamarind-Abbey? Probably not. But the League is no stranger to having member states that aren’t on good terms. With the Marian’s no longer being pirates and having even largely toned downed their militant imperialism (in favor of economic and cultural hegemony), they’re in a better position than ever to work with the League rather than against it. And let’s face it, the League has a certain amount of experience incorporating former enemies, from Andurien to Zion to the Clan Protectorate.
Alternatively, we could take the old Illyrian Palatinate and offer membership to Niopps and the Lothian League.
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I guess I do not see the Marians as willing allies. Now if SAFE could deceive them into invading the Magistracy, while the Confederation is overextending itself, that would be useful.
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Alternatively, we could take the old Illyrian Palatinate and offer membership to Niopps and the Lothian League.
??? I mean...sure. You could do that. But considering that there's Steiners and Wolves on one border, Lord-only-knows what (IC) in the Republic on another, and the always-stable-and-trustworthy Liao-Andurien-Canopian alliance on a third, pissing off the largest power on your least-worrisome border seems like a bad idea. These aren't the pirate Marians of the 30th century, or even the militant expansionists of the 3050s and 3060s. Lately, they've mostly been working toward bringing nearby independent worlds (some former FWL worlds included) into their economic and cultural orbit. While I'm sure the FWLM could beat the MHAF if they wanted to, they'd need to strip defenses from other borders and probably take way more casualties than they can afford in the process. Opening the MH up to FWL markets and being able to assign a Legio or two for Federal duty seems like a much better option.
If the nFWL could incorporate the Clanners that took the Marik Commonwealth's capital(and several other worlds) away from them, I don't see why they couldn't work with the Space Romans, especially since the Marians seem more open to peaceful cooperation now than ever in their history.
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??? I mean...sure. You could do that. But considering that there's Steiners and Wolves on one border, Lord-only-knows what (IC) in the Republic on another, and the always-stable-and-trustworthy Liao-Andurien-Canopian alliance on a third, pissing off the largest power on your least-worrisome border seems like a bad idea. These aren't the pirate Marians of the 30th century, or even the militant expansionists of the 3050s and 3060s. Lately, they've mostly been working toward bringing nearby independent worlds (some former FWL worlds included) into their economic and cultural orbit. While I'm sure the FWLM could beat the MHAF if they wanted to, they'd need to strip defenses from other borders and probably take way more casualties than they can afford in the process. Opening the MH up to FWL markets and being able to assign a Legio or two for Federal duty seems like a much better option.
I do not think the Marians are strong enough to require stripping borders. Nor do I think they would be willing to join the League. The Steiner defenders have collapsed, but pushing too far coreward risks overextension, with the unpredictable Wolves nearby. I have no problem with taking extra LyCom Worlds through diplomacy, or force, but Clan Wolf and the CapCon are no jokes right now. I am anticipating that the Davion counterattack will be somewhat effective. The Republic is a wildcard.
If the nFWL could incorporate the Clanners that took the Marik Commonwealth's capital(and several other worlds) away from them, I don't see why they couldn't work with the Space Romans, especially since the Marians seem more open to peaceful cooperation now than ever in their history.
If they are willing to, they should be offered the opportunity to join peacefully. They should know this means that their troops would become federal troops.
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That said, I would love to find a way to dislodge the Wolves.
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That said, I would love to find a way to dislodge the Wolves.
You, sir, need to invest in a time machine then to go back and find a way to get the Lyrans to not punch themselves in the crotch the way they did. At this point, getting the Wolves out of the FWL is probably about as easy as getting the Falcons out of their former Lyran worlds- even if it's possible, the chaos and cost would be so astronomically high that you'll lose even if you win. Sucks that another Successor State's stupidity came back to bite the FWL in the butt, but them's the breaks.
Besides, even if the Wolves DID get the boot, you still have the Cats around, so what did that all accomplish? Still overrun with Clanners.
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Both Wolves & Cats have been housebroken to IS conditions before. Give us time; the fact the Wolves are already in two factions make them ideal candidates to become Leaguers! O0
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Is there even a town's worth of Cats around anymore? Let alone a planetful?
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Granted it's been forever since I read Bonfire, but I was under the impression that the Wolves were working with the League when they flipped on the Steiners. I take it that they're not bothering to let go of those conquered worlds and play ball with the League?
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The Wolves aren't working with the Leauge in any way shape or form. They're just not working aginst them at the moment, there's the difference.
I'd love to see the Leauge get thier worlds back, and all that would come with them. Imagine purple Warwolves, folks.
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Granted it's been forever since I read Bonfire, but I was under the impression that the Wolves were working with the League when they flipped on the Steiners. I take it that they're not bothering to let go of those conquered worlds and play ball with the League?
In the long term they may abandon those worlds for a Terra centered assault. Likewise, the League may be preparing to take the Duchy of Andurien by force.
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Honestly, I think that much like my library, having Wolves on the border was a very good thing to happen to the League(with the exception of the Leaguers on occupied worlds, of course). Now we've got a genuine Evil Empire to unite us, plus all the Star Wars quotes we can purloin now! :)
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When did Regulus rejoin the Free Worlds League?
Its mentioned in TRO:3150. League forces occupy Regulas.
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Honestly, I think that much like my library, having Wolves on the border was a very good thing to happen to the League(with the exception of the Leaguers on occupied worlds, of course). Now we've got a genuine Evil Empire to unite us, plus all the Star Wars quotes we can purloin now! :)
In the League, the Lyrans are seen as a genuine evil empire--just an easier one to stalemate, if not defeat. They do have a bad habit of starting wars.
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Its mentioned in TRO:3150. League forces occupy Regulas.
An Economic Stranglehold masterminded by the Sea Foxes in 47 and 48 was mentioned in the Garott Transport entry in TRO 3150. Regulus' surrender in 3148 was mentioned in the Picaroon entry.
The nuFWL is currently in a really bad place militarily, being hemmed in on all borders by potentially militarily adventurous neighbors.
That said, I sort of want to see if the hints that Nikol Marik and Danai Liao-Centrella are BFFs goes anywhere. Would be nice to see if the Cappies can be convinced to turn a blind eye for a bit so the FWLM can be turned loose on the Wolves, who seemed distracted by planning out their vacation plans on the third rock from the sun.
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That said, I sort of want to see if the hints that Nikol Marik and Danai Liao-Centrella are BFFs goes anywhere. Would be nice to see if the Cappies can be convinced to turn a blind eye for a bit so the FWLM can be turned loose on the Wolves, who seemed distracted by planning out their vacation plans on the third rock from the sun.
[/quote]
Hope your right. Novels certainly painted that picture.
Sourcebooks some times changes things. Danai was very good person from them as she molded and grew as a character.
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So I was just handed an Undead Lance box by an associate.
The Cadaver, Exhumer and Gravedigger don't really interest me much at all, but the Mortis is a giant mechanical grim reaper and I desperately want to like it.
Given that both the MS-1A and MS-1P both appear accessible to the FWL via Oriente, has anyone had any real success with them? The more I look at it, the more I'm convinced that the Mortis is an overweight medium at a cosplay convention. It's firepower is anemic given the overall mass of the Mortis and successfully use has usually involved either capitalizing on an opponent's mistake or finding something smaller and squishier to beat the living daylights out of.
It's not Violator bad, but it's just doesn't strike me as a very good design.
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It really annoys me that the Regulans rejoined the League. I love them so much as the outsiders. The red haired step child who is bay crap crazy and scares the hell out of everyone else
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Regulans probably aren't happy to rejoin too. :D They didn't have much choice.
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We still don't know the hows and whys of it, or how much the Leauge gets out of it. Though in truth, I'm kind of happy for the FWL to get any wins.
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Like the Byzantine Romans, we had the least defensible position imaginable. The Huns have been halted. Once we brought the Bulgars (Regulans) back in, we were much more defensible, but it still does not look good. The space Vandals (Clan Wolf) need to be dealt with. Who knows what to do about the Confederation.
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Consider this angle... what could the nu-FWL possibly have held over the Regulans, a nation of nuke-crazed hermits, that could cause them to give in and join the League rather than continue resisting? There's got to be some serious leverage in there to get them to meekly back down, and I'll be very curious to see what it ended up being. (SPOILER: Lester ended up being a clone of Hanse Davion and someone on Atreus found out...?)
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Remember that the Regulans themselves may have wanted to return to the League more than the Cameron-Jones family. The Regulans had a special place as a founding memberstate of the League, their absence was felt by both.
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The more I look at it, the more I'm convinced that the Mortis is an overweight medium at a cosplay convention. ...successfully use has usually involved either capitalizing on an opponent's mistake or finding something smaller and squishier to beat the living daylights out of.
I think you've pretty much nailed it on the head here. It's a medium mech in the same way that the Albatross is a heavy mech. Much like our fast assaults are best used as heavies in support of actual heavies, use the Mortis to add some oomph to a medium formation. In heavier formations, use it as a midrange sniper and/or escort for missile boats, and as you say, wait for your opponent to make a mistake. When that happens, use the Mortis's speed to shove it right into the middle of that mistake and do maximum damage.
Best thing about the Mortis? Unlike some of our fast assaults, this thing actually has armor appropriate to its actual weight class, as opposed to its practical weight class. It moves like a medium and fights like a medium, but it's tough enough to survive things that will likely kill an actual medium. Think of it like a twist on the original battlecruiser concept. Instead of battleship guns on cruiser speed and armor, this is battleship armor on cruiser speed and guns. Yes, I know that metaphor falls apart fast when poked, you still get my gist.
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The more I look at it, the more I'm convinced that the Mortis is an overweight medium at a cosplay convention. It's firepower is anemic given the overall mass of the Mortis and successfully use has usually involved either capitalizing on an opponent's mistake or finding something smaller and squishier to beat the living daylights out of.
It's not Violator bad, but it's just doesn't strike me as a very good design.
The Mortis suffers from 3 or 4 distinct problems . . .
First, its a click-based design so they had to make them based on what stats/abilities had been made public . . . sometimes this has been good, more often bad
Second, its a Cappie design . . . and they already have the Tsi T'sang (or however spelled) which I think is the premier melee mech- I mean I like the NDA-2KO but I acknowledge the Capellan design is superior. So . . . new melee mech which is not a clone of the TT- that sets up one variant and one flavor of what it will NOT be like.
Third, its slightly overweight just from a design perspective- 70 tons is where the upper end of the bracket for AES. AES does help the melee attacks, not as much as TSM but its about that flavor of not being a TT, so besides design motif needing a reaping hook which is taken as a hatchet. Its also a hatchet b/c when you sunk that much into the design you want to connect with the melee weapon rather than be more tempted by a kick. Not sure it needs the AES in the non-hatchet arm.
Fourth, its too slow . . . which sounds odd about a 5/8 75t design- but as its melee it needs MASC, TSM or now SuperCharger to GET to that melee range. Problem is when you get to that range your big energy mace, the HPPC, has a min range problem- slightly offset by AES. MML5? Well you can load LRM ammo and be a SuperGriffin without jumping or you can load things to assist your close combat- like inferno SRMs or Smoke LRMs. The RL10 is just to round off the weight. Going back to the TT, it had TSM to help it close the gap- 6/9 becomes 7/11 . . . Berserker has MASC . . . but the Mortis does not. Nor does it have JJ to get away when the enemy units start closing in to bring down the melee mech.
Finally, the two canon variants we get I think are based on MWDA stats . . . we do not have one built to reflect TT rules. I spoke a lot about the first variant's loadout but the 2nd Mortis does not make much sense either . . . the Large VSP with AES is good IMO- want to see those weapons used more on fast designs. But the TSEMP? I think its better on a platform like the Raven II, where it can clear the target area while under the user effects of firing the TSEMP- IMO again the Mortis is not fast enough to get some distance and stands a chance as a MELEE mech of being shut down (I think, been a while since I used it).
I wish we could get a new 'production' run for the Cappie invasion of the FS . . . keep everything but ranged weapons from the -1A. Put a Supercharger on it, some JJ which I rarely advocate for, and give it some CQB weapons . . . . Snub PPCs, Variable Pulse, X-Pulse, maybe some Clan ERs if they captured one of the Davion worlds that produced them for the Black Knights (I cannot remember), a clutch of RLs could be fun.
But yeah, the -1A is a SuperGriffin at range that wants to close.
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Remember that the Regulans themselves may have wanted to return to the League more than the Cameron-Jones family. The Regulans had a special place as a founding memberstate of the League, their absence was felt by both.
my impression of regulus vs andurien has always been member of the system unhappy with their place in the system vs wants out of the system
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Second, its a Cappie design . . . and they already have the Tsi T'sang (or however spelled) which I think is the premier melee mech- I mean I like the NDA-2KO but I acknowledge the Capellan design is superior. So . . . new melee mech which is not a clone of the TT- that sets up one variant and one flavor of what it will NOT be like.
I'd take a Neanderthal over either.
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I'd take a Neanderthal over either.
Any time the original sculpt of your Mech features it using a Battlemaster's arm as a club, you can pretty well guarantee that you're dealing with something wicked and unpleasant. That's one scary little monster.
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The Neanderthal is in the same grouping IMO as the Berserker, Mortis and No-Daichi- the weights, speed & not having JJ. Not having thought about the Neanderthal in comparison, I agree it is a more impressive machine b/c of the TSM making that hatchet more painful than the Mortis hatchet. However TSM is great in anticipation . . . until you miss with that hatchet, and the Mortis is more likely to hit b/c of that AES. The TSM on the Neanderthal would also be harder to activate or control than the TT, simply b/c the TT has a plethora of weapons to use for the degrees of adjustment . . . and if you really threw its heat out of whack, it can jump away to recover its poise.
I am not in a position to compare the Mortis vs Neanderthal armor/criticals so I will leave that aside.
But I will concede, once the NeoFWL re-integrates the Regulans- why import any more Mortis?
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The Neanderthal's armor is... substantial, at 13 tons of Ferro-Fibrous.
It also comes with paired Headcappers when you're not using TSM, and when you finally manage to end up at perfect range and kick on the TSM, you've still got a pair of headcappers and you also have a trio of LB-15X (OS) strapped to the chest.
Also worth mentioning that PSRs are done by phase, and the Neanderthal is entirely capable of knocking something down in the shooting phase to make it an even easier target. Or knocking down multiple things in a turn.
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my impression of regulus vs andurien has always been member of the system unhappy with their place in the system vs wants out of the system
Mostly as a result of Thomas, I feel. Regulus has always been the loyal opposition with regards to the League. The always angry, slightly ranty guy who wants to make things BETTER and tries to make constructive steps but struggles with the definition of 'Better' and felt betrayed when Thomas basically told them to shut up.
Andurien has always been the wild-card who wanted out of superpower politics. More surprised than not that they're in bed with House Liao, but eh.
But I will concede, once the NeoFWL re-integrates the Regulans- why import any more Mortis?
I think it's built locally for the Duchy of Oriente actually. Plant is on Emris IV.
It's not a terrible design and it has mad style going for it. I just wish it was... better... than a playground bully.
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Also worth mentioning that PSRs are done by phase, and the Neanderthal is entirely capable of knocking something down in the shooting phase to make it an even easier target. Or knocking down multiple things in a turn.
I declare shenanigans on the Neaderthal.
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paired Headcappers
Capacitored PPCs are really only "every other turn" headcappers tho. So you get only really one massive heat + damage boost in round 1, with pretty regular damage after that.
I dunno, I'm still not that convinced by capacitors.
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Alternate Headcappers... turn 1 left, turn 2 right, turn three repeat...
And close every turn, let the M-Pods do their thing!
TT
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Yeah, an 80-ton Mech consistently delivering less than a PSR worth of damage is... suboptimal. You get more raw damage just firing off the Snubs as-is in fact.
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As with many other things in the FWLM arsenal, capacitors just mean you have to plan ahead. So fire normally, and keep an eye out for opportunities. When you think one is coming, charge things up and let rip.
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Or when there's a lull, charge one/both up.
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Anybody taken a Jenner IIC 3 for a spin? I stumbled across it recently, and it looks like it could be pretty useful. It's primarily a Nova Cat mech, so we can probably get a few through the Protectorate. At first glance, it looks like it would be used exactly like a Spider, only giving up the ability to punch after firing in exchange for a NARC(which we've been bemoaning the lack of fast platforms with this) and an antipersonnel capability that verges on the atrocilicious.
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Anybody taken a Jenner IIC 3 for a spin? I stumbled across it recently, and it looks like it could be pretty useful. It's primarily a Nova Cat mech, so we can probably get a few through the Protectorate. At first glance, it looks like it would be used exactly like a Spider, only giving up the ability to punch after firing in exchange for a NARC(which we've been bemoaning the lack of fast platforms with this) and an antipersonnel capability that verges on the atrocilicious.
Can't say I have. But yeah, there's some intriguing ideas there. I'd kind of like to see two of the SPLs popped off for ER mediums so it has a little more ranged capability, but the ability to land in the midst of an infantry formation and just end them is appealing (with a high move mod to boot, avoiding their return fire). Narc is a pretty useless idea for a Clan Mech, but if it's teamed up with a FWL force it becom-
...you know what, even as I type that, can I lose THREE SPLs to gain two ER mediums and TAG? Or lose the Narc to gain TAG and an AMS?
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I rather like the SPL armament. It's certainly got the speed to bring them to bear, wether it be against infantry, fast tanks, or even mechs in dire need of a weapons-grade colonoscopy.
Also, it means this thing is cheap. Like check-under-the-hood-because-the-salesman-might-have-left-out-the-engine cheap. Not often you can say that about Clan tech.
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Good infantry hunter that has the speed to use both the narc and the spls. I like my odds fighting a lot of other DA lights
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While I prefer the Jenner IIC 2 . . . the 3 definitely works better with FWL LRM emphasis.
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Oh, the 2 looks like enormous fun to play, especially in a smaller game or a duel, but done on a decent-sized map. That kind of ammo-independent range, plus the speedand jump, and smoke LRMs to make things even worse...delicious.
Unfortunately, TANSTAAFL rears its ugly head, there definitely ain't no such thing as a free laser when talking Clantech, and the 3 is almost literally half as expensive as the 2.
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Yeah, I think the BV is the same as some of the standard 4/6 IS heavies lol.
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I'm building a Free Worlds Guard unit and wanted to run it by you guys. Comments and suggestions welcomed!
Battlemaster 1Gb
Perseus D
Grand titan 11M
Juliano 5A
Anzu G60
Anzu J70
Tempest 3M2
Hercules 9003
Wolverine 9M
Shadowhawk 7M
Cronus 5M
Havoc P6
Falcon hawk 9K
Hammer 3C
Gambit 1G
Locust 5M
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Your 4th lance is a bit split on speed? 5/8, 5/8, 7/11, 13/20 Bit hard on the faster ones that need speed to live- also might think of the -1L Gambit for fast TAG.
Getting the Anzu? FYI its supposed to come with parts to make both versions IIRC.
You might want to look at what Omnis the League gets to try to bundle 4 in a lance so you can mount some BA to keep up with your mechs- so besides things like the Sunder, Avatar, Blackjack, Firestarter and Men Shen salvage/purchase keep in mind you can have some Clan equipment in the 3130s or later.
Unless these are minis you are locked in, IMO you might throw out the Falcon Hawk & Hammer while moving the Cronus and Havoc into that 4th Lance. A good Omni lance for you might be that Perseus, Vulture Mk IV, Sunder and Blackjack which allows you to carry along some the the neo-League's good BA.
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Anzu is out! Anyone built & painted one yet??
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All the mechs I post I have. How about this?
Perseus D
Perseus D
Blackhawk Ku-O
Avatar J
Anzu G60
Anzu J70
Tempest 3M2
Hercules 9003
Wolverine 9M
Shadowhawk 7M
Cronus 5M
Griffin 5M
Wraith TR2
Gambit 1G
Havoc P6
Koshi Prime
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Anzu is out! Anyone built & painted one yet??
Purchased two of them! Got one built so far, but, nothing painted(surprise surprise xp). Still determining what unit I'm going for at the moment...Heavily leaning towards either the 2nd or 6th Oriente Hussars at the moment.
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One thing I noticed today in the RATs of FM3145 is how prevalent Lyran equipment appears in the Regulan sub-faction tables. Sneaky Steiners selling their stuff to the chronic agitators in Marik space... Does give RSMC units an interesting look in the field though, I'd bet.
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The trade apparently goes both ways, with the Lyrans fielding Neanderthals and Picaroons according to TRO 3145. (Maybe others too, I thought I remembered the Neanderthal having a Lyran notable pilot, and in going to look it up, I ran across a Hauptmann in the Picaroon notable pilots as well)
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The infamous General Bernard whatsit that Vedet threw under the bus on Tamar IIRC. He left to become a merc and landed on the Aerospace producing world near the Rim state that had Chowlea in her grandfather's Thanatos (which also raises the question, what became of the Mongoose?).
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The Mongoose II? Apparently key components of Stealth Lances in Mercenary units by the RAT
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The infamous General Bernard whatsit that Vedet threw under the bus on Tamar IIRC. He left to become a merc and landed on the Aerospace producing world near the Rim state that had Chowlea in her grandfather's Thanatos (which also raises the question, what became of the Mongoose?).
You got to figure it was destroyed in the Jihad?
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While in League colors I tend to represent the 4th Regulan Hussars . . . I got my Anzu mini in . . . and we are having a laid back 5k game (FFA, teams, who knows until we get there). But beside the Anzu J70, I am thinking of breaking out my Juliano (too bad no cERLL sheet yet) since it has not been on the table and I am like the mini . . . so to round it out I am thinking of taking a Fenrir (ERML) for funsies.
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Well . . . if I would read the game description- oops! Slight change to forces- Anzu G60 (3/5), Havoc P6 (3/4), and Tufana [iNARC] (2/3) . . . thinking 1t regular ammo, 1t Haywire and 1t Nemesis . . . also wondering if I can get ARAD LRM/SRM ammo to use.
With Nemesis pods . . . does that mean, +1 roll to the original target's THN, or roll up +1 to the pod'd THNs?
Never messed with iNarc so I am looking forward to playing with it.
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I very much like playing faction specific units, and even really enjoy using light vehicles and infantry. FWL means playing against the odds and I love it.
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Would it be a spoiler to point out that the Free Worlds League reoccupation of Regulus was... surprisingly civil?
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Would it be a spoiler to point out that the Free Worlds League reoccupation of Regulus was... surprisingly civil?
Did I miss that?
Was this in Shattered Fortress?
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It was first mentioned in TRO3150, but yes, the details were in Shattered Fortress. I can elucidate for you if you'd like.
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You know we love our Regulan family. We may get a few crazy uncles at the top sometime (And occasionally have to clean up some issues), but a League without Regulus is simply not a complete Free Worlds League.
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It was first mentioned in TRO3150, but yes, the details were in Shattered Fortress. I can elucidate for you if you'd like.
Lol, I got Shattered Fortress at Gencon, now if only I had time to read the darn thing... ;D
So Regulus is back in the League, and somewhat more habitable than Gibson. :-\
Are the brood of Fake Thomas still in charge of the League?
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They are, unfortunately. I'm still rooting for Kenyon II to take the reins somehow.
MAKE MARIKS MARIK AGAIN!
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Why? If he had the chops he would have done it, or at least wrested control of the MS Commonwealth from daddy instead of camping out on another world.
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They are, unfortunately. I'm still rooting for Kenyon II to take the reins somehow.
MAKE MARIKS MARIK AGAIN!
Nikol is sick... and you're stuck with her until she explodes. Not sure how the League thinks of her sister, obviously in deep with the clans.
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Personally, I think all of Jessica's daughters are badass and the FWL is better of with them than without them.
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I think Nikol Marik had really good character development since she was introduced MWDA Novels. She was like in 4 novels. Even as secondary character, she was pretty well done, between all the authors writing her. I like how she developed friendship with Danai Liao.
When she ended up in command of Eagle's Talons, she was driving Marik's lightgauss packing BattleMaster, which was interesting see her trouble shooting various independent worlds just before the cementing of the League in 3139.
I swear the novels painted different characterization of these people now for 3150.
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The MWDA characters have never been very consistent. Natasha Kerensky might have multiple personality disorder by this point. They've all been tossed around at the whim of necessity.
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Kerensky is the worst b/c of the trilogy crap . . .
but characters in the last half of the novel set were generally pretty well done- Stackpole's Alaric is off, and I say this as a Warden Wolf Clan player- his presentation of the Crusader Wolves was badly done. Vlad intentionally left many of the unit names of the pre-Refusal Wolves behind, especially if the majority or command structure went to the Wardens. Because he did not even fact check with FM Updates or CC, then the Empire got stuck with a) cumbersome names (4th Wolf Striker Guards Cluster, which was the old 4th Wolf Guards who went with Phelan) or b) units that had not been part of Vlad's expansion or changes.
I do not think we saw enough of Nikol really to form a opinion of how she was portrayed in 3146-3150; Julian, Jasek, Roderick yes . . . b/c the novellas.
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So, as someone who is waiting for the hard copy of the new book can I ask if the Regulan Hussars re-joined the League along with their province and are the Marik Protectors back in the FWLM?
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So, as someone who is waiting for the hard copy of the new book can I ask if the Regulan Hussars re-joined the League along with their province and are the Marik Protectors back in the FWLM?
Some of the Hussars came back. They're currently operating as Federal Troops and posted to the Commonwealth borders. The war crime happy ones get disbanded.
No unit numbers specified.
As to the Protectors, there was mentioned here and there, but they look to still be FWL affiliated Merc-lite.
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Some of the Hussars came back. They're currently operating as Federal Troops and posted to the Commonwealth borders. The war crime happy ones get disbanded.
No unit numbers specified.
As to the Protectors, there was mentioned here and there, but they look to still be FWL affiliated Merc-lite.
Cheers.
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The 4th took an offensive contract with the FWLM, and the 3rd was assaulted and pushed aside by the Anduriens. No mention of the Hammers though, and I forgot to check the map for changes.
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So here's the big question; with Regulus back in the fold, what does that add to the FWL's production? I can immediately think of the Violator, Sarath, Patriot, 8M Warhammer and Neanderthal
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Marauder 9M2, the great Turfana, and some BA I think.
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And that HPPC with wings, too. Corsair? Buccaneer? It was something piratey.
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Piccaroon.
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Just how many League-class Warships were every built and how many Block II's are still around?
I've always was curious... did they make a Block III?
TT
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Just how many League-class Warships were every built and how many Block II's are still around?
I've always was curious... did they make a Block III?
TT
There were never any Block III versions of the League Class, only the Block I and IIs. Total number of ships produced has not been counted. We don't know how many of the first gen League Class Destroyers were made, or how many 2nd gen Block II were made either. However, from vibe I've gotten from the fiction, that they're were properly the most numerous Warships that FWL ever made. I'm not sure if the League IIs were as numerous as the League Is, but i think CGL left that for us to guess.
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What are the chances that Andurien is brought back into the fold? Despite their independent streak, I think it is probable they return a la Regulus. The write ups for the Andurien Rangers in FM3145 suggest a substantial amount of anti-Capellan animosity in the ADF. If Danai Liao-Centrella really inherits all three states from Daoshen, Ilsa, and Ari she'll be facing full blown Andurien revolt, especially since it would mean revealing to everyone her true parentage.
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What are the chances that Andurien is brought back into the fold? Despite their independent streak, I think it is probable they return a la Regulus. The write ups for the Andurien Rangers in FM3145 suggest a substantial amount of anti-Capellan animosity in the ADF. If Danai Liao-Centrella really inherits all three states from Daoshen, Ilsa, and Ari she'll be facing full blown Andurien revolt, especially since it would mean revealing to everyone her true parentage.
Danai is the step-daughter biologically to the Duke. Thought no one knows this. I'm thinking if IlClan thing has such an impact on the Inner Sphere, the Anduriens will push to remain with this new trinity alliance or worse combined nation. Given the Andurien position in the Inner Sphere, there possibility that the new super Inner Sphere state maybe formed if the MoC and Andurien forces can bridge the gap and capture enough Independent worlds.
The Free Worlds League would likely not have enough resources to utterly stop this.
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Remember the League has the "Other" original video of the disaster that started the Andurien War. If released at the proper time, it could seriously undermine such considerations.
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I think Andurien has to be written off for the foreseeable future. IMO not much has changed since the formation of the Neo FWL to 3150- its still all about reforming, the independent worlds need to be convinced to rejoin and so do the Protectors. The traditions and habits of the federal League need to be established- Shattered Fortress was right in that Fontaine's adventure is a dangerous precedent that could set the tone for decades if not centuries. The conflict with Regulus was going to happen, and it was really more painless for the neoFWL than it should have been thanks to the Fox armada- not something that maybe counted on for facing the Anduriens or their Canopian backers.
I think the surviving Hussars regiments need to be handled carefully- make Regulus pay for the war by sticking their units with a lot of the distant/unpleasant duty stations but do not use them as casualty sponges on any future Marian or Lyran reprisal strikes.
I think Nikol needs to cozy up to the new Rim Collection/Timbuktu state simply to gain access to Son Hoa.
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I would not punish the Regulan Hussars, but try to get them back to their old relationship with the federal forces, the one they had before the rift started. Using them for heavy raids against the Marians would constitute a traditional use of their expertise.
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Well, the 'punishment' was that they got posted on the opposite side of the League in a active theater and fell strictly under Federal control. Its why I said they should not be used as casualty sponges- basically do not place them under the command of a League officer who is going to have them dropping into suicide situations. It would undo all the efforts to re-integrate Regulus and the Hussars.
Now one thing not mentioned, the war crimes line . . . would that be the general who took off with her regiment and some nukes? Where would she go . . . Andurien? Canopus? Or perhaps the Hegemony?
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Send them (The general) to the Council of Six. Tattoo them with a Jade Falcon insignia on their forehead, no particular reason...
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I was just thinking tha, given the Hussars history of absorbing a lot of turncoats post-Jihad, there might be a possibility that some of the less loyal units would flee elsewhere rather than serve the nFWL. The Hegemony seems a likely choice. They need troops, and have their own history of absorbing former enemies.
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I am not terribly worried about Regulan troops defecting to hostile powers, because they themselves wanted the League to reform--they just wanted this to happen under other conditions. I think that the League really should form an upper chamber based on the old League Parliament.
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They probably won't get any reforms with Regulus relegated to a provisional FWL member limiting their voting rights and a decade-long waiting period before they can even try to apply for full membership. Considering that Nikol Marik undid one of Jessica's reforms by merging the Captain-General and Warden-General positions using the "For the duration of the crisis" language, its doubtful she would give up power anytime soon.
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Reform? Or was it a compromise to get the band back together- was it always a plan to consolidate that power?
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If those three had to be mutually exclusive, BattleTech would be boring. It is all about narrative control. :)
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Well, the 'punishment' was that they got posted on the opposite side of the League in a active theater and fell strictly under Federal control. Its why I said they should not be used as casualty sponges- basically do not place them under the command of a League officer who is going to have them dropping into suicide situations. It would undo all the efforts to re-integrate Regulus and the Hussars.
Now one thing not mentioned, the war crimes line . . . would that be the general who took off with her regiment and some nukes? Where would she go . . . Andurien? Canopus? Or perhaps the Hegemony?
Punishing the Regulan Hussars for defending their home and what they believe in is not the best way to earn their trust. Especially since they've been rightfully mistrusting the Captain-General office for decades, if not centuries.
As for war crimes, maybe that murderous Halas woman should be the first on trial, leading by example (Clipperton massacre, 10642 civilians killed...) ?
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As for war crimes, maybe that murderous Halas woman should be the first on trial, leading by example (Clipperton massacre, 10642 civilians killed...) ?
And now you understand the value of not losing
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And now you understand the value of not losing
Indeed.. the War of Davion Succession settled the legality of Mary Davion's abdication, not any pieces of paper.
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He who won the war had the correct, original documents. Ignore the fact that they have words that developed two centuries later...
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Reform? Or was it a compromise to get the band back together- was it always a plan to consolidate that power?
Maybe it was Jessica's secret intent but supposedly she drafted the distinction into the Charter of Incorporation herself expressly as a check on the position of Captain-General.
Nikol had the Regulans over a barrel but her tactics and "compromises" seem to lay the groundwork for a lot of bitterness among run of the mill Regulans. She basically used a Clan to starve Regulan civilians over an unsanctioned assassination and subsequently mandated that Regulan Hussars be stationed on the Lyran border while Andurien and Canopus conqured Regulan worlds. All so that Regulans can be second class citizens for the forseeable future with no guarentee of equal treatment?
The Cameron-Jones' were looking out for themselves since they were looking down the barrel of military conquest or internal revolution and they get to stay in power and get to call themselves "Princes" by selling out the Regulan people.
Credit to Nikol for taking a page from the SunTzu Liao playbook though. If the threat of starving their families convinced a bunch of Sarnese cadets to throw themselves at Kai Allard-Liao (ie: commit suicide), the Mariks could get way more mileage out of the Hussars.
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Regulan worlds? They took independent worlds in the direction of Regulus true, but they were not Regulan.
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Regulan worlds? They took independent worlds in the direction of Regulus true, but they were not Regulan.
Oops, you're right. It just references the threat of Andurien pressure from seizing those worlds.
Though if that means that Regulus now shares a border with an expansionist state, I doubt the Hussars would find it comforting.
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Is it just me, or were there many more Andurien Regiments than I remember?
I thought there were just a few Andurien Defender units. Now there seem to be far more. Could this be a sign of Capellan backing, or something else?
Juts curious as to your thoughts.
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Well roughly . . . 15 years to organize before the end of Shattered Fortress. They would also be trading with the MoC as well as Regulus so they have some decent stuff. I am most upset about the Moltke being out of FWL hands.
Btw, the Regulus list before left off the Merkava Mk IX . . . though I want a Mk X with MML.
Anyone think the League will have trouble with the Republic over Stewart? Or worse the Augustine Alliance?
Finally, with 3150 rolling around and Regulus back in the band, what is the best piece of equipment built in the League for type & weight class? Like I think the Tufana is the best medium hovertank available to the FWLM.
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That seems to be the case with many FWL protostates. The Regulans were up to the 30-somethings for Regulan Hussars.
In their scramble to field as many units as possible many of those are not full regiments of battlemechs. Some are just a battalion or two with the rest filled out by conventional units.
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Yeah, but they skipped numbers for units that had been lost/wiped out. So on the Hussars 1-15 I think it had missing, and beyond that it went in numerical order . . . but as you noted, either they followed Stone or their mech production was so anemic they could not make a Hussar unit a full regiment of mechs with conventional support.
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Is it just me, or were there many more Andurien Regiments than I remember?
I thought there were just a few Andurien Defender units. Now there seem to be far more. Could this be a sign of Capellan backing, or something else?
Juts curious as to your thoughts.
In FM 3145 there were 15 "units": 6 Andurien Ranger units, which are notionally combined-arms regiments but in 3145 all seem to be single battalions. Then there's 3 Andurien Cavalry units, which seem to be made up of 2 battalions of mechs, an aero regiment, and armor regiment, and an infantry brigade. Then there are 6 Andurien Guards units which are on a similar pattern to the Cavalry, but using heavier units and reducing non-mech forces to 1 aero wing, 1 armor battalion, and an infantry brigade. I don't have SF yet, how does that compare?
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No break down of units afaik, or even a garrison map, so its hard to come up with the numbers exactly.
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The FWL Legionnaires and Defenders of Andurien before them were supposedly heavy users of combined arms. I suspect that those Andurien Ranger battalions probably integrate conventional forces at the company or lance level rather than organize them as seperate supporting brigades since several of their writeups reference armor and even artillery tactics.
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I've been gone for like 20 pages. Last things I recall are Regulus rejoining the League, still waiting for stats on the Orion C, and so on. That would've been around a year ago. What'd I miss?
EDIT: Also, I see you've been talking about PPC Capacitors. Rest assured they are the devil, the damn things melt your PPC on the same roll that renders an Ultra AC useless. Unless the rules for those two things changed while I was gone?
EDIT 2: Wait, they still haven't put out stats for our Juliano with all clan weapons and other stuff they mentioned who knows how long ago? Oh dear.
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I've been gone for like 20 pages. Last things I recall are Regulus rejoining the League, still waiting for stats on the Orion C, and so on. That would've been around a year ago. What'd I miss?
EDIT: Also, I see you've been talking about PPC Capacitors. Rest assured they are the devil, the damn things melt your PPC on the same roll that renders an Ultra AC useless. Unless the rules for those two things changed while I was gone?
EDIT 2: Wait, they still haven't put out stats for our Juliano with all clan weapons and other stuff they mentioned who knows how long ago? Oh dear.
Nope. Not missed anything.
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Shattered Fortress came out about a week and a half ago and moved the timeline up through 1/1/51. The PDF is well worth checking out if you wanna get the skinny on what the FWL has been up to (lots!).
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Hmm.
Thanks to the League (well the Duchy of Tamarind-Abbey anyway) painting Illyria purple, I'm tempted to add a couple of Ravager and Marauder BA platoons to the League stables due to our occupation of the Illyrian branch of the Alphard Trading Company which is responsible for the Hegemony's BA fleet.
The Ravager joins the Xiphos as an infantry scale waddling armored box. I could see myself getting up to some mischief with them. The Marauder meanwhile has Magclamps which help with the League's overall lack of OmniTaxis while also carrying LTAG which immediately means it has potential to become hilarious with the League's predilection for missile storms.
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Hrm, two things come to mind.
1: Do we still have Irian in 3151? If so, this implies access to the MAD-6S Marauder II (MUL hasn't updated in ages, so I'm guessing).
2: Can I get the Cliff's Notes on what happened in Shattered Fortress? If I'm intrigued I might buy it but am hesitant to spend money on product in light of what happened with the last ones I was interested in.
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The FWL Legionnaires and Defenders of Andurien before them were supposedly heavy users of combined arms. I suspect that those Andurien Ranger battalions probably integrate conventional forces at the company or lance level rather than organize them as seperate supporting brigades since several of their writeups reference armor and even artillery tactics.
Indeed. FM 3145 says that each Andurien Ranger Battalion includes one company each of mechs, armor, and infantry. Doesn’t say precisely how they’re integrated, could be 3 pure companies, but I don’t know.
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Hrm, two things come to mind.
1: Do we still have Irian in 3151? If so, this implies access to the MAD-6S Marauder II (MUL hasn't updated in ages, so I'm guessing).
2: Can I get the Cliff's Notes on what happened in Shattered Fortress? If I'm intrigued I might buy it but am hesitant to spend money on product in light of what happened with the last ones I was interested in.
Well. League-specific items include: We retook Bolan, at long last. Suck it, Steiners! The Marians got uppity and sacked Kendall, so Fontaine invaded the Hegemony and is currently bogged down fighting in and around Illyria. We found out how Jessica was assassinated - the Scourge of Death is still around, apparently - and how Regulus was returned to the FWL (they were getting starved by a Sea Fox embargo and then stomped by the FWLM and surrendered so long as Lester got to stay in control of the Principality; the war crimey Hussars were disbanded and the rest were sent to garrison the Lyran & Wolf border). Nikol is in charge now, and is simultaneously holding the titles of Captain General and Warden General, while Kenyon II hangs on as Minister General. There's a trade embargo against the Capellans, the Anduriens are starting to gobble up unaligned worlds, and Julian Davion owes one to Jessica/Nikol because Jess let him travel through from Lyran space to hit the CapCon.
In other news, the Dracs took New Avalon, the Republic liberated Robinson for the Davions, Julian liberated New Syrtis, the Kell Hound remnants are trying to regroup in the Periphery, the Lyrans are struggling against uprisings by separatists, the Wolves and Falcons are racing for Terra, the Bears/Horses/Ravens aren't doing much, and Stone appears to be planning some kind of alliance or merger with another faction, probably a Clan, to save what's left of the Republic.
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That's... actually kind of interesting. I might stick around. Thanks for the info!
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My pleasure.
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I'm rooting for the FWL these days. I've liked reading about Jessica and Nikol Marik.
Question: is there a "true" Marik heir out there? Some distant relation of Janos Marik but not of "the Master?"
I don't want to see more dynastic struggles. In fact, I'd love to see Andurien and the Marians taught I tough lesson.
If there was some heir on Janos' side of the family, I can see things getting dicey in the future. I lot of power at stake, so to speak.
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Not sure who all they descend from but . . . yeah, you have a few of the real Marik bloodline floating around. Fontaine in Tamarind, Kenyon as sort-of heir to the Marik-Stewart remains, Thad's brother out in the Rim Commonality or maybe back in Oriente as he was placed as a economic trouble-shooter and marrying Nikol's cousin from the Rim, and a think a few more distant types under different names.
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Fontaine is directly descended from Janos, as is Kenyon II, I believe. The problem is that Fontaine is a childless widower and Kenyon was disinherited, so neither one of them is exactly in great position.
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Yeah, Fontaine was at least in the fiction and seemed to have adopted Christopher while Kenyon is a SB show up. Thad's little brother, I do not even remember his name, was also written as a less than viable choice- schemer/manipulator rather than leader.
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Are Fontaine and Kenyon featured in any fiction? I wouldn't mind learning more about them.
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Kenyon is not but Fontaine is in the MWO fiction- in fact Trillian meets him to try to get Tamarind to surrender. Roderick gets abandoned on the world by good old Brewer . . . basically read the last of the MWDA books to get the FWL arc.
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IIRC there’s a meeting between Christopher HHM and Fontaine in one of the novels.
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A couple actually . . . he meets Fontaine on his tour and gives his mother's pitch. Then when Hammerfall kicks off, he takes aid to Fontaine and sneaks in . . . spends some time locked up b/c he tried to sneak onto the palace grounds. He is in the audience when Trillian gives him the ultimatium, tries to hide from the officer at her heals. Then this is where it sorts of splits between two books . . . he is involved in the planning against a Lyran landing, Fontaine thinks of this when they are standing around a map and mentally says he will not let the boy take a light hover out again- but props for the courage, his doing so without fanfare, and knowing when to get out- those who did not follow his orders were lost. In the Lyran POV book where Trillian goes to Tamarind, Roderick lands and is beset outside the LZ by some hovers- J Edgars or Savannah Masters, I cannot remember which. Implication is that was Chris action.
Later Fontaine gives him a modern Cronus to participate in the re-taking of Tamarind from the Lyran garrison.
Finally, when the League is reforming Fontaine takes his place on the stage with Christopher by his side- based on various hints its implied that Fontaine will have Christopher as his heir . . .
Makes you wonder if he was involved in the push against the Marians . . . would he be a company or battalion commander among the Tamarind Regulars units involved?
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He needs to get Christopher a wife. One of Illyrian heritage might be a good start.
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Might be . . . or one of those independent worlds between Hegemony territory & League . . . or say a wife off Bolan or other conquered Lyran world.
Hell, NIKOL needs to pop out some offspring- though at least her sister Elise is married and was working on her own brood.
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Kenyon being disinherited from Marik-Stewart makes little difference. The MSC is gone, eaten by the Wolves, and he married the heir of the Duchy of Graham-Marik so he does at least have a claim to nobility through his in-laws (though they are a cadet line way out of the line of succession). Curious point: Kenyon's Juliano, Roman, is painted in Marik Militia/Protector colors rather than the Loyalty Defenders, based out of his new in Graham-Marik.
Also, Marauder, just to clarify. Fontaine is the son of Photon Brett-Marik, whose mother Therese was disinherited by Janos when she eloped with Jeremy Brett. Legally, he has no standing to claim the Captain-Generalcy. Kenyon II is the son of Anson, who is either Corrine Marik's son or grandson (I don't recall if he was Giselle's brother or son). Corrine of course was the last legal Captain-General of the original League, though she was tarred by the action of her father, Paul, another of Janos' brood, who sided with the Master and the Blakists.
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Since it's a slow weekend, I'll toss up some idle thoughts and see if they get anywhere for interesting discussions.
- The Grand Titan N10M actually is acceptable from 3055 to 3057. During this span of time, none of its rivals are massively better (except the tdk-7x, but that thing's so much better than any other assault of its time that it's not worth factoring in). The BRZ-A3 Berserker is only slightly better than the N10M is, and the Atlases of the time fill a completely different mission role than the traditional Atlas did. I'm not saying the N10M is GOOD, because it's not, but it's at least playable in that specific window of time. It becomes awful around 3058, but that's the same time the N11M upgrade becomes available. By the time the N11M is no longer worth playing, the MAD-6M arrives to take over its role. Then the Juliano appears to beat all of them at the role.
With this in mind, I would some day love to see a N10M refit that converts it to a more generalized design, akin to how most contemporary Atlases work. The N13M is not this. It is a good commander-survivability unit, but it is not a generalist.
- The lack of CASE on units with Gauss Rifles bothers me. It's not a problem in one-off game play where you can just disable auto eject, but in campaigns where protecting your pilot matters... units like the Tempest suffer due to it. You either have to disable it and risk the SRM ammo bin killing the pilot, or leave it on and risk super-early ejection from a lucky crit to the Gauss. The TDR-10M fixes this to some degree by simply omitting CASE and ensuring all its explosive bits are things you want to auto-eject from.
The Anzu, despite my growing displeasure with it, also fixes this by including CASE II. I think in a true 'campaign environment', both the TDR-10M and the Anzu would actually be better than the Tempest for these reasons.
- After studying a variety of Mechs, I have come to the conclusion that the ones that demonstrate the best game design are ones whose strategy notably changes based on range to the target. The Mad Cat Mk II 4 is a poor example; it uses the same weapon bracket at every range in virtually all situations, so the player does not have to think or make trade-offs. The Mad Cat III on the other hand significantly changes based on which range band it's in; at range it's a LRM boat. At medium distance, it's that plus a few lasers. Up close, it's a ton of tiny lasers backing some medium ones. The player thus has lots of decisions to make, depending on what their current priority is. This makes the Mad Cat III (Standard) a fun design.
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Kenyon is not but Fontaine is in the MWO fiction- in fact Trillian meets him to try to get Tamarind to surrender. Roderick gets abandoned on the world by good old Brewer . . . basically read the last of the MWDA books to get the FWL arc.
Kenyon was re-introduced after being briefly mentioned in the Touring the Stars articles and the Fortress Republic novel in the BCorps novella "The Eagle's Plunge (http://www.sarna.net/wiki/The_Eagle%27s_Plunge)." Given that BCorps has been down for a very long time I basically have no idea how you would go about accessing that fiction, though.
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Heck I've run a mixed unit of 10th Marik Militia using a lance of Grand Titan's, Co using N11M and 3 N10M's supporting. Also run the " classic " tank formation five, two of Lt. Gauss Ontos and three of supporting MML Ontos variants. I also love the Badger and Galleon combo, use them as often as I can!
TT
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Kenyon was re-introduced after being briefly mentioned in the Touring the Stars articles and the Fortress Republic novel in the BCorps novella "The Eagle's Plunge (http://www.sarna.net/wiki/The_Eagle%27s_Plunge)." Given that BCorps has been down for a very long time I basically have no idea how you would go about accessing that fiction, though.
It is good to see you again, Cavalier.
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I'm curious, how did that Grand Titan lance work out? On paper it seems like it would struggle against gauss-wall formations, but maybe it has just enough speed and armor to get in and go all Zangief on the opposing team?
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N11M sniped while The 3 just swatting anything that got into the way as all four moved in tandem.
The Ontos cruised and helped lay down firepower while the Badgers and Galleons provided BA support.
I want to mix it up with Bulldog Cell and Goblin Upgrade / Goblin II. Maybe 2 Cell and 2 Upgrade with a single II? or Double II and a single Upgrade?
Anyway I can carry 3 full Platoons of these guys!
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Heavy_Foot_LRM_Infantry (http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Heavy_Foot_LRM_Infantry)
TT
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I would like someone to change my mind on something. I know, that sounds like the meme, but I'm serious; I have a strong opinion on something that stands in strong contrast to most of the other people in this thread and I'm hoping one of you can convince me.
I'd like to talk about the ZU-G60 Anzu. not the J70, which is clearly a specialized urban/mountain combat unit (and is fantastic at the job, incidentally), but the standard G60 model.
My initial opinion of it was favorable. It has meaningful weapons of at least two damage types, so it doesn't particularly care about variant armor like Reflective/Reactive/etc. I like this a lot. 4/6/4 movement is also fast enough to outmaneuver the typical steiner player, getting behind them and outputting decent damage. It does all this while still having a ton left over for TAG, which I consider a bonus (I don't use Semi-Guided LRMs much, but appreciate that many of us do and am glad the Anzu carries TAG as a result). All told, it's a decent equivalent to the Tempest in this matchup and outright superior to said TMP in campaign style play where pilot survival matters. Add in some awesome art and you have a machine I want to love... and for a short time, did love.
However, every time I have fielded it against the Klingon Empire Wolf Empire, it gets absolutely crushed. I'm not expecting a 60 ton pure IS-tech 4/6/4 gun platform to beat clan mechs, that's not realistic. I'm having trouble getting it to put up a meaningful fight against them, though. I struggle to get into effective gun range since clan mechs are so much faster than steiner ones, and the Anzu's best combat weapons max out at 18 hexes following the usual 6-12-18 range bands. In a few matches, I had both main guns disable themselves for the entire game; the UAC jammed and the LPPC (with capacitor) melted. I was left with the odd feeling that I would have been better off fielding an Anvil or even an oldtech Thunderbolt. This is after a good dozen or so tries to get good use out of it against one of our most common opponents.
I've gone from loving the Anzu G60 to despising it as a result, and this seems odd since a lot of us clearly love the Mech and even feature it as our user image.
Someone please explain to me how you get good results with this thing in realistic conditions against clan opponents. I don't mean 'how the Anzu solos a clan mech', that's not a fair metric, but I do mean "how do you get your BV's worth out of it?" and would love to hear of better success with it in current-era play against clan opponents.
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I think the question will come down to what you are teaming it up with? And how much you fall back on the Ultra mode.
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A mix of things, usually in 4 to 8 mech teams. Most common allies include things like the Avalanche (LRMs plus ERML or the LPPC plus TBolt Missile config typically), Mad Cat Mk. IV, Thunderbolt 10M, Orion 2M, Griffin 3M, and so on. Most of them have the range to meaningfully engage the wolf mechs (usually things like warwolf, mad cat original model, various Mechs rocking Hyper Assault Gauss, and so on), but the 6-12-18 range band on the Anzu has hurt.
The TDR-10M has been struggling for the same reason, though its better armor and use of a Snubnose PPC has made it slightly less bad. That said, it's still starting to fall behind and as I expect Reflective Armor to become more common I find its almost all-energy loadout to be of concern; it's why I've had such a keen interest in the Anzu with the Anzu's more balanced weapon loadout.
As for the Ultra part of the AC... I virtually never use it unless I have an extremely good BTH (6s or so), as the stupid thing jams for me almost every game I use it in. The only other time I go to Ultra mode is if the Anzu is about to die anyway.
Edit: Have also teamed it up with Wraiths and Bloodhounds on the lighter end of things, in hopes of driving enemies toward the Anzu. Only modestly successful.
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Your rolling of 2s seems to be far in excess of the statistical average. My advice is to melt your dice, they are hobbling you.
I'm serious. Dice that roll 2s that often are not balanced. For all intents and purposes, they are loaded.
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I can't melt Megamek. I've tried. Reinstalled Java and Megamek, behavior continues. I mean, Kojak has witnessed some of this stuff happening to my Anzus; I'm not even making it up.
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I have only used the RAC version on TT (RAC jammed on Needs 5, sigh) and was faced with a Ice Ferret D that kept trying to race in behind me . . .
Honestly, I am not sure it sounds like its not just jinxed for you- I never run the Timberwolf A (you might have been on the servers when it has), the SSRM ammo always gets hit early on by TAC or that torso just gets beat on. With having lighter or faster long range units in your force, its not like it stands out as the weak or most dangerous unit- say you were putting it with 3 Stalker IIs or as lance leader for UrbanMechs.
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How about not actually using a mech you hate that much? Not all mechs work for all players, and at this point every single person on this forum is intimately aware of how bad a match the G60 is with you. We genuinely don't need to be reminded of it constantly.
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How about not actually using a mech you hate that much?
Because I'm trying to see where this is going awry. Colt's replies have been useful.
and at this point every single person on this forum
Stop exaggerating.
Edit: Actually, let's revisit the 'when are you using Ultra' thing. Maybe I'm playing the odds wrong. Has anyone gone through the Ultra AC math to figure out when you should be using it in which mode? I'd love to hear about this if so.
Edit 2, responding to Kidd below so I don't multi-post so close together: It's not even a "love to hate", this is a "want to love it again" deal. The J70 I'm already sold on, it's genuinely good at being a mountain combat unit and well above average in urban combat against assault mechs. The G60 however I need to improve with, since it's clear this thing is meant to be a main-issue heavy that facilitates major parts of our play style.
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Well, I guess we all have Mechs we love to hate.
But that's the thing about the Anzu. Unlike say a PPC-ML bracket-boat like the Warhammer (for example) that delivers damage in fixed packets, you live or die by that Ultra AC, Ultra Light PPC and LRM-10, the latter which you have to figure on outputting a regular 6 points on average. The only other thing you've got is an ERML.
Roll badly and the UAC and PPC are gone for good, never to return. What do the engineers call it? "Points of failure". You have two on that Mech affecting 1/2 to 2/3 of your firepower, and hardly any backup guns.
That's why *I* don't run the Anzu G60. if I did I'd rip out the UAC and TAG for an LBX and another LPPC.
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Well, let's talk about that. Has anyone run the math on Ultra AC use, finding out what the optimal ways to fire it in which mode are? Who knows, maybe improving efficiency in its use will be enough to compensate for the occasional jam. We know the optimal uses for RAC/5s and RAC/2s based on math, so I'm hoping similar math was done for the Ultras.
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Well, let's talk about that. Has anyone run the math
Well, how long is a typical match, and how often in a match do you fire the UAC and LPPC? An example of how probabilities may add up for you:
A match is 20 turns. You fire the UAC on Ultra half the time, ie for 10 turns out of 20, and you alternately charge and fire the LPPC+Cap constantly, ie fired 10 turns out of 20. Probability dictates that you will experience one weapon jam during the game, either the Ultra or the LPPC.
Okay so maybe your matches aren't that long or you don't fire that much. Even if your firing pattern is half that, you're jamming at least one weapon every other game and that can really sink your perceptions of that Mech. I play enough JM7-Fs and RFL-8Ds that I know how having two jammable weapons on one Mech (or Davion companies bearing multiple RACs) feels like.... but Rotaries are at least clearable.
And that's assuming you play enough games to start experiencing the probability curve, which is something like 30 to 300 twenty-turn games (sorry my statistics is shit) whereas you could just be experiencing a brief spate of really extreme-case numbers (like my n00b friend who won a Settlers of Cataan game last Saturday on 2s and 12s...)
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Those are true, but not quite what I'm looking at. I'm more curious if anyone has done the math to show the right ways to use the Ultra and/or Capacitor Charge modes to get the proper use out of them regardless of jamming. Rather, "by the time they jam/melt they have done enough good that it's okay that they're not working now."
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RACs don't have a "jammed until end of game" condition. It's one turn to unjam. So length of game doesn't matter, the same pattern applies.
Ultras jam until the end of game. Therefore you need to know how long a game is in order to do the math.
We can do the math of how long it will take an ultra to jam. We can't do the math on how many turns you will then not have the ultra ac able to fire without knowing how long the game is.
Hmm. I guess we can do the math with X amount of ammo. Then we would have an end limit, assuming the ammo amount is one that you would normally run of ammo with. So with 10 rounds, how often should you double-tap. Hmm. It's going to depend on target numbers isn't it?
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RACs don't have a "jammed until end of game" condition.
I did mention that...
We can do the math of how long it will take an ultra to jam. We can't do the math on how many turns you will then not have the ultra ac able to fire without knowing how long the game is.
...
It's going to depend on target numbers isn't it?
1 in 37 rounds, probabilistically. The potential loss is then dictated by how much longer the Anzu is expected to survive.
On a G60 blessed with an abundance of ammunition, we can take ammo out of the picture, thankfully. That leaves us with 3 factors in play - THN, jam probability, and potential damage lost from a jammed weapon for the rest of the Mech's expected lifespan.
It'll take some time to work out the risk-reward, but in principle this means - double-tap when the THNs are low and when the end is near (for the Anzu).... which is kind of obvious really.
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I would like to see a new post-Reunification variant that has a bit more long range emphasis while still following the lay out . . . and maybe supply. Maybe a ERPPC or ERLL, for flavor kicks ATM12? from the Foxes, some VSP or X-Pulse for the close in?, and for electronics maybe a BAP?
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Let's presume the following conditions:
Anzu G60 is the attacking unit, with 30 rounds UAC/10 ammo and a +5 Piloting, +4 Gunnery default pilot at the controls.
Opponents are a mix of lyrans and Klingons, everything from a thunder hawk to a Fenris so the movement-based modifiers they post can be anywhere from +0 to +4.
The Anzu can be walking or running for +1 or +2 BTH on its attacks, whichever makes the math easier to parse.
Game length... I'm honestly willing to let you determine that one. I've had games run from 3 rounds to 40. Granted, the 3-rounders were things like a lyran player stumbling headlong into my Kopis ambush and then saying "call it" the moment his nightsky got legged. The 40 rounders were a lot of sieging an entrenched foe to convince them to come out. So I'm willing to run whatever game length you feel is best.
Edit: Also, I wouldn't mind seeing another variant either. The Anzu's art is fun and its mission role is an important one.
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I play with Direct Blow in my games, which generates a +Cluster bonus when you roll well on the to-hit (every 3 MOS gets you a... +2, I think?), so generally speaking I start double-tapping on 9s when it's possible for a spectacular hit roll to pump up the odds of getting the second shell to land.
Your target matters significantly, too. The decision on whether to double-tap (at least mine) hinges significantly on whether a potential additional 10 point hit has a meaningful chance of crippling the target.
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Interesting. I'm not too familiar with that rule, but interesting.
I ended up trying to run my own math, but wound up somewhat off-topic. What I discovered was the J70 does notably more damage at almost every range bracket. Granted, its range brackets are 3 hexes shorter than the Anzu G60... but in return, it has no minimum range. The damage increase is high enough that I'm no longer convinced the J70 is 'just' a mountain/city fighter (though it excels at both, notably so)... I'm willing to call it outright better than the base model for the vast majority of purposes, with the notable exception of Semi-Guided LRM use.
The loss of range hurts, but the extra damage it does (plus the inclusion of the fantastic Snub-Nose PPC) is enough to push it to where I now consider the J70 the primary Anzu and the G60 a variant. This might not be technically true, but it feels that way to me. This actually satisfies the matter; I'm inclined to accept the Anzu J70 as one of our main purpose heavies alongside the TDR-10M. One with some notable weaknesses, but it's still an upgrade to the unit it's effectively replacing (the Tempest).
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There is never a bad time for Snub Nose PPCs. I may be a bit biased.
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Out of curiosity, where is this supposed RAC math? Usually when I see someone trying to math a topic into submission, it means all entertainment value has been leached out of the thread and I close the tab without reading.
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There is never a bad time for Snub Nose PPCs. I may be a bit biased.
I endorse this opinion
I don't have anything particularly against the G60 though I favor the J70 because of the aforementioned snub and my general dislike of ultra acs in sizes smaller than 20.
Out of curiosity, where is this supposed RAC math? Usually when I see someone trying to math a topic into submission, it means all entertainment value has been leached out of the thread and I close the tab without reading.
this is my life philosophy toward math in general
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Out of curiosity, where is this supposed RAC math? Usually when I see someone trying to math a topic into submission, it means all entertainment value has been leached out of the thread and I close the tab without reading.
So wait, you're asking for the math then indicate the math will make you leave? This sounds like a 'cannot actually succeed in the conversation with you' scenario.
Honestly, your 'look down on anyone for trying to improve their quality of play at a competitive game' schtick is getting pretty tiring.
Please do close the tab and go away.
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Well I don't care for the RAC math myself, I just operate by the usual rule of thumb - 1, 3 or 5 shots, the lower the THNs the better.
RACs being unjammable are much more forgiving than UACs.
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I know I'm biased towards the Dakka, but a single RAC-5 with back up weapons like the Anzu has is more forgiving than putting all your eggs in one basket.
I've played quite a few games with the Rifleman 8D, and I've had both RACs jam on "hits on a 5" situations. That can be a real downer.
Conversely, when using the TDR-9NAIS, which has 3 mediums and a Streak6, you can still put out some damage while waiting for the "unjamming" turn to present itself.
RACs are fun, but that is subjective and I know not everyone agrees with me on that.
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Rifleman at least has ERML . . . lol, the standard Legionnaire? -SOL big time.
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IMHO a RAC generally puts out enough dakka that it's worth ducking it somewhere out of the line of fire and unjamming it ASAP.
Is the J70 the only FWL Mech to carry one tho?
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Is the J70 the only FWL Mech to carry one tho?
Shockwave, Orion MD, Perseus P
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Wasn't there a light that had a RAC/2 as well?
And inter-factional fighting! It really is the League in here!
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RAC5s are fun and effective. We really can have both. The era of every good design needing to be 16 DHS with 2x ERPPC and 6x ERML (or a similar array involving Gauss Rifles) is drawing to a close. Variant armor opens up so much design space in this game, and now the 'best' designs will also be the ones with the most flavor and variety to them. The Shockwave is an excellent example. The Orion 2M and 3M are also very good. The Anzu J70 also falls into the 'at least decently playable' tier; it has significant flaws, but none are outright crippling.
You want Mechs to have meaningful damage output of at least two different types (where the three types are 'energy', 'ballistic', and 'missile'). The Juliano has good to stellar damage in two of the three. The various Inner Sphere Market Mad Cats have two of the three. Even the Carronade marginally qualifies (and its shortcomings in this field are compensated for by the fact it is very good against aerial units), as do our Archer 8M and 9M.
Once Reflective Armor becomes more common on mass production units, along with Blue Shield, we're going to begin thinking of energy boats as 'specialists who need teammates' with good and bad matchups, instead of being optimal. I've said it a lot, and it's going to require more TRO products taking advantage of this before it's our game reality, but I look forward to seeing it happen. Imagine a game where the Hellstar is valuable but not unquestionably best-in-class at its job, because some common enemies take half damage from all its guns. That would be a very good thing.
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I already consider all energy sub-optimal because I play with all sorts of alternate munitions and never bought into the 'Mercs use flashbulbs to be cheap!' idea. Its part of the reason I prefer SRMs over SSRMs and while I enjoy the reach or damage of ATMs . . . MML might be a better overall system.
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So wait, you're asking for the math then indicate the math will make you leave? This sounds like a 'cannot actually succeed in the conversation with you' scenario.
No, I'm saying that usually kills my interest, but the RAC bit has piqued my interest. And I have no issue with people trying to play with tournament-level effectiveness, as long as tournaments and that style of play never interferes with playing for fun.
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I already consider all energy sub-optimal because I play with all sorts of alternate munitions and never bought into the 'Mercs use flashbulbs to be cheap!' idea. Its part of the reason I prefer SRMs over SSRMs and while I enjoy the reach or damage of ATMs . . . MML might be a better overall system.
Energy boats ceased being optimal the moment Tech Manual was published. Infantry ensured the Hellstar and its ilk would never reign supreme long before that mech was released. It's nasty, yes, but it was never a monster.
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I've been wondering about something... namely, how common clan-tech is among various factions in the current era.
How much clan-tech do FWL regiments typically field? What about the lyrans? And perhaps more importantly, the klingons wolves? Are they fielding full galaxies of front-line omnis?
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FM3145 has Omni vs second line ratios for clan galaxies. Only their most elite formations have 100% omnis
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Yeah, just glanced through there. Seems like they're not fielding much Inner Sphere tech in any case outside of single individuals doing so here and there?
My avatar line (roughly "If I fight against Wolf 'Mech forces, I will be forced to use a 'Mad Cat Mk. IV'") feels more fitting every day.
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I am worried, without Andurien Aero, has the Free Worlds League lost its maritime power status? That was one of the defining features of the League. The League does retain the Illium yards, but I have no information on their activities.
That said, could the Marians be in check because Alphard is so vulnerable?
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Westover
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I guess the League retained a critical facility, but the facility on Andurien must be reclaimed. There are several important factory worlds lost, including Shiro III, that need retaking.
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I guess the League retained a critical facility, but the facility on Andurien must be reclaimed. There are several important factory worlds lost, including Shiro III, that need retaking.
High likelness that Audurien will be merged with a Liao-super state at rate things are going.
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Yeah, Andurien's already fielding a decent number of Liao Mechs. I'd say it's a fair trade, we got the Clan Protectorate in return.
On a side note, has anyone had success using the N13M Grand Titan in an open field battle? Like, plains and low hills and so on, instead of cities or mountains. If so, what circumstances made it work out well for you? I've been trying to warm up to it ever since I realized I'm okay with the N10M in its era and remain quite fond of the N11M even in present era. Would love to make good on the N13M too.
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Remember, the 13M is a commander's ride. It's not really optimised for open battle - it's optimised for keeping the pilot alive. If your 13M is in combat, then either something's badly wrong, or your commander is blithely assured of his own invincibility.
Al-Hawad wasn't the Marik Hogarth, but he would have laughed at the comparison. ;)
That said, it makes a decent bodyguard 'Mech for Stalker IIs, and other range-oriented combatants. If you're firing at the 13M you're not stopping the firepower, and if you get too close to the fire support the 13M has a handy shank.
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Oh, I agree that open plains battle is not its mission role. I'm nonetheless curious if anyone has made it work because this thing is obviously a durable command platform and it's also a good city and mountain fighter... and arguably not too bad at forest battles either. I like it in those roles.
Making it work in open field battle against the klingons wolves has eluded me so far though, they all seem well suited to staying 13+ hexes away from it and making it really hard for the N13M to hit anything. The combination of pilot skill disparity plus speed disparity plus range disparity all adds up to a bit of a problem in that specific regard.
That said, even they had to put in a fair amount of work actually killing the thing so it definitely succeeds at the 'shrug off anything other than a headcapper shot and keep going for quite some time' role it's meant for. I get what it's meant to do, just trying to see how much work we can wring out of it in other contexts. The Juliano has largely supplanted the N10M and N11M in their mission roles, so I'm trying to branch out and see what else we can accomplish with this sweet-looking chassis.
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The answer to "how do I use this mech that's not good at X so that it is good at X?" is "don't, use it to do something else".
In an open field fight, find somewhere else to fight. Trying to shove a square block in a star-shaped hole isn't a matter of figuring out which way to twist it to make it fit.
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High likelness that Audurien will be merged with a Liao-super state at rate things are going.
I actually have this sneaking suspicion that Ilsa Centrella-Liao is building her own power base separate from Daoshen, and the Anduriens and whichever other states she can rope in will be part of that.
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In an open field fight, find somewhere else to fight. Trying to shove a square block in a star-shaped hole isn't a matter of figuring out which way to twist it to make it fit.
Stage Morph from Smash Bros. Ultimate confirmed for Megamek? Cool.
Sometimes changing the maps you're playing on isn't an option, so I was mostly looking at this from a 'am I being too harsh on it, am I missing something that mitigates what I see as a problem?' perspective.
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Regarding the Anduriens, a messy universe is MUCH better from a warfare gaming point of view, so it is likely to be part of a new non-capellan faction, yeah. This is why I do not buy a pan-IS superpower succeeding for more than a few years (something that tstarts broken and in the process of decomposing before even starting) but that this me.
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Stage Morph from Smash Bros. Ultimate confirmed for Megamek? Cool.
Sometimes changing the maps you're playing on isn't an option, so I was mostly looking at this from a 'am I being too harsh on it, am I missing something that mitigates what I see as a problem?' perspective.
Yes: deploy it somewhere else. If that's out of your hands, find places on your maps with shorter sight lines and head for that. Use faster units to encircle and herd enemies into shorter range.
None of that directly translates to "this side toward enemy" which means it's frequently on the side of not shooting every turn (or even close to that) and also means your opponent can mitigate it if you're too brazen about it.
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On a side note, has anyone had success using the N13M Grand Titan in an open field battle? Like, plains and low hills and so on, instead of cities or mountains. If so, what circumstances made it work out well for you? I've been trying to warm up to it ever since I realized I'm okay with the N10M in its era and remain quite fond of the N11M even in present era. Would love to make good on the N13M too.
You've gotta support it!
Grand Titan-N13M
Awesome-9M
Ostwar-3M
Hercules-LS-9000
All are 4/6 or faster.
Breakdown:
4 ER PPC
1 HPPC
1 LRM/20 w/Artemis
1 LB-X-AC/10
1 ERL
And a bunch of closer weapons, including Melee!
TT
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So, I've been poking at Alpha Strike with a tiny stick from a great distance. It has me curious.
Can someone sell me on the game, and tell me a bit about how FWL's mainstays carry over to it? I've noticed some units, just by glancing at their stat cards, fight significantly differently than they do in tabletop (TDR-10M does not particularly care what range it's at, for example, since SnubPPCs don't have their 'finesse factor', and the Tempest's combat damage curve is much more streamlined at 5/5/2).
This looks like "BattleTech: Classic Tabletop, VASTLY MEGA STREAMLINED Edition". I say that as a potentially good thing.
Opinions?
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Battletech, WHM40K with hitpoints and attack values, no discrete hit locations
For fighting large-ish battles it's the most granular option possible
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As the weapon range finessing is one of my favorite parts of the game, alpha strike’s flattened ranges don’t really do it for me. On the granularity freeway the whole system is about two exits past what I’d want in a streamlined ruleset.
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I am at the other extreme. Classic bt did not take a strong hold here because it was too detailed. My group has recently started a campaign in the bt universe and we are using AS as the rule of choice. It plays fast, meaning that
1. We can play AS and still enjoy a full rpg session
B. Play a tournament with 4 or 5 games in a single day and be home by kid’s dinner time.
It is geared towards the great scenics and the kind of games tat you read in the fiction, with several vehicle sper side, not a pair or at most a lance of mechs per side. A lance battle takes 1 hour. A company game less than 2 hours. So it gains speed and the option to field large formations at the cost os somewhat less detail. In a sense you can take a full lance when you used to take a single mech with multiple hit locations and weapons. Less detail, more grand deployment. We like the later.
Cheers,
Xavi
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Interesting. Can you tell me a bit more about how the range bands work in practical play?
For example, let's say a Mad Cat Mk. IV C is fighting a Mad Cat Mk. II Standard. Obviously it is in the Mk. IV's favor to keep the fight at Long range. Given the speeds involved (10 inches vs 8 inches), can it keep the fight at Long range reliably enough to potentially win on a typical map? Or is the difference in speed low enough that the Mk. II can typically get into Medium range fast enough to generally take the win?
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In my experience, attempting a stand-off strategy in AlphaStrike is a bit of a dog's breakfast. Because all the brackets are equalized, even if you have a higher nominal damage value at long-range than your opponent, your attacks are no more likely to hit. The best you can typically manage in AlphaStrike at long range is to drop a few enemy units with focused fire from your entire force before the reach knife fighting range. I suppose it's possible to keep falling back to have a running gun battle in AlphaStrike, but I've never seen it played on a map with enough open space to make it possible & dragging the game out making Hail Mary die rolls at long-range seems like the antithesis of what the game was designed for.
AlphaStrike was derived from BattleForce & it shows. In clashes of battalion on battalion, mass matters much more than the exact performance characteristics of a 'Mech, & over dozens of die rolls damage results can still tell, but at an individual unit level results don't map to Total Warfare. I don't believe that AlphaStrike's rules are favorable to any units designed to play keep-away.
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I am at the other extreme. Classic bt did not take a strong hold here because it was too detailed. My group has recently started a campaign in the bt universe and we are using AS as the rule of choice. It plays fast, meaning that
1. We can play AS and still enjoy a full rpg session
B. Play a tournament with 4 or 5 games in a single day and be home by kid’s dinner time.
It is geared towards the great scenics and the kind of games tat you read in the fiction, with several vehicle sper side, not a pair or at most a lance of mechs per side. A lance battle takes 1 hour. A company game less than 2 hours. So it gains speed and the option to field large formations at the cost os somewhat less detail. In a sense you can take a full lance when you used to take a single mech with multiple hit locations and weapons. Less detail, more grand deployment. We like the later.
Cheers,
Xavi
yup, time is valuable. and if you want to have battles on any magnitude of large, AS is the only way to go. i don't really care about huge engagements - 10k (duke it out) to 15k (with non-kill em all objectives) bv per side is about as large as i like to go so the stripping of an individual unit's character cuts a little too close to the quick for my taste.
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I'm starting to think you may be right. Further, this conversion has some WEIRD results. Things like the Grand Titan N11M being very strong at Medium range, and the Juliano being outgunned by it.
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Yeah, AlphaStrike buffs short & medium range weapons by giving them improved to-hits & range & penalizes long range weapons by ignoring their longer short & medium brackets. My play style in Total Warfare leans heavily towards mid-range skirmishing, so it's not a compromise I'm particularly excited by.
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I'm starting to think you may be right. Further, this conversion has some WEIRD results. Things like the Grand Titan N11M being very strong at Medium range, and the Juliano being outgunned by it.
The Juliano is outgunned by very few 'Mechs in Alpha Strike, on account of being able to spike up to 9 damage at Medium range thanks to overheating. :D In a one-on-one combat it's entirely possible for the Juliano to finish off the Grand Titan on the second turn of combat.
The Lion's Share of combat in Alpha Strike takes place at Medium range. There's no two ways about it. Managing and manipulating the range bands in your favor is a major part of why I think the finer points of maneuver are actually significantly more important in Alpha Strike than in Total Warfare. If you approach a fight against an opponent well, you can isolate single units at Medium range while the rest of the enemy force is at Long. That's only reliably possible in the beginning of the fight, though. After that, finding ways to remove damaged units from most enemy units' lines of sight to force damage to spread around, and ensuring your own damage is grouped up enough to finish off (or cripple with crits) units are imperative. Long range can still be entirely serviceable with skill improvements, use of C3, and saturation of fire, but it's definitely fighting an uphill battle in offensive efficiency, largely because a unit that has long range damage worth talking about also has medium range damage that's also pretty good, and you're paying for that damage in the unit's PV whether it gets used or not.
If you'd asked these questions before the PV revision I'd have told you units with TMM +3 or higher ruled the battlefield and everyone else was playing for second place, but now fielding forces entirely on the slow end of things is entirely possible from a purely skirmish standpoint. Fielding a mix of units is probably the way to go, but there's not really an issue in specializing anymore.
Where Alpha Strike shines is in combined arms play. Integrating aerospace units, artillery, conventional units, and more is easier than it's ever been. In that respect, the Free Worlds League (especially in the Dark Age) has an embarrassment of riches. While the thresholding capability of the HPPC isn't quite as pronounced in the Picaroon hits all the right breakpoints with damage that can threshold interceptors at good range, can be used to strafe in a pinch (ENE damage isn't halved on strafes), and is fast enough that it can carry a bomb without slowing down on the radar map or can choose to forego the bomb to make itself a better dogfighter. It's also pretty ridiculously durable for a light fighter. The Aquila and Shikra are both serviceable platforms that don't shine or seem underpowered versus other regional unit, too.
Alpha Strike definitely only starts to shine once you get to company (500 PV is our local standard) sized games, below that the streamlining results in contests that can be decided by a single bad dice roll at a bad time whether you're taking steps to mitigate that or not. Battalion sized games (typically 1250 PV, locally) are still doable in a single afternoon, and can completely change the dynamics of how you approach the table.
I love it.
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I disagree with the last statement. Been playing smaleer games than that and it feels right now the less. It is fast. I would say that the above comment is only true if you use few units of high value.
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One thing I do like is the extreme fine details of each Mech is now glossed over. There's little meaningful difference between the TMP-3M and -3G in this system, even if the -3G is notably better in Total Warfare.
Same deal with the TDR-10M, TDR-9M, and ZU-G60; the machines are largely interchangeable. Not completely so, but they are so very similar that they all seem about equally good in Alpha Strike.
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I really like that, because it lets me use the unit I like the looks of better and not feel bad about opportunity costs. :D
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So Spotlight on the 1st Marik Protectors is available as of this morning. I.m going to grab when I'm off work, of course, but has anyone picked it up yet?
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No, but I am interested . . . I think Kendall was one of those worlds that could have been a Hiring Hall when the League was broken up. You had the Protectors on world for a long time providing stability, they had their own training facilities/program, a couple of producers were on planet or in a couple jumps, and independent planet reps would travel to Kendall for hiring a Protector unit.
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contents
18 pages (cover 1, credits 1, unit fluff 6, CC tracks 2, record sheets 8 )
Alpha Company Rosters for 3082, 3087
Unit history and description
Brief accounts of combat on Sackville, Kendall, and Lahti
12 short personnel bios
2 warchest tracks
SBF and ACS stats
Alpha Strike cards
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Yeah, already read through it twice. I had hoped it would carry through into 3150, but alas. I did however like how the unit is basically a collection from around the League. Aristocrats, immigrants, a Regulan, even a Marian all working towards a common goal.
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Sounds like the perfect unit for a role-playing party... :)
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Hey guys, got a game on Sunday wanted to run this past everyone. 10K BV2, no limit of unit numbers, pre-Jihad.
Anvil-3R, Perseus-B, Locust-5M, Longinus laser, 2x Ontos LGR, 2x Achileus flamer. The Pereus is my taxi for the Longinus team, the Locust is my backstab/disruptor, the Anvil and Perseus brawl the midfield with the Achileus in support, and the Ontoses provide long range fires. Oddly, there's no LRMs for a Marik force but I've got plenty of LGR and large lasers to make up for the lack.
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Interesting... at first glance it looks like one of those specialized groups that require great skill and a complex battle plan to utilize, but on closer inspection, it's a brute-force beatstick. I rather like it. All those 8-9-point hits are going to add up surprisingly fast, and the ammo for your Gauss should hold out as long as you hold your fire until medium range. Shame the Achileus don't have any transport, but I guess that means they'll reach the main brawl right when you'll need some crit seekers for filling in all those holes your big stuff has punched. My only advice would be to dump a ton of AMS ammo on the first turn, and be sure that your Perseus NEVER gets in a position to be leg-attacked.
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Fun FWL secret: We don't need LRMs. They're helpful and certainly offer us some fun options, but we're not truly the 'LRM faction' who collapse without LRMs.
Your force looks perfectly workable to me. The only serious weakness I see is the formation looks like it would really suffer if forests or lakes/rivers come up; no real way to jump. This may or may not truly matter depending on your map. My only real concern is how the Achileus will work mid-field without something to get it there; Jump 3 is liable to fall behind the Perseus and Anvil.
I actually wonder if they'd be better off bodyguarding your Ontos team?
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I think the Longinus guards the Ontos . . .
Do you have any guesses to what you will see on the table?
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You'd be surprised how fast 3MP will move an Infantry unit when they don't care about hex turns or most terrain. Unless he goes for a long, straightline run with his mechs over many turns, I don't see the suits falling more than a turn or two behind the mechs, especially the Perseus. At some point the advance will slow and/or stop as the mechs reach their desired fighting range and switch to maneuvering within the battle area, at which point the Achileus squads will catch up, possibly just in time to crit-seek or defend the mechs from close backstabbers.
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For a one point reduction, go with Ontos MML, she drops a LGR for 2 MML-7s, now you have token LRM and SRM fire!
TT
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For a one point reduction, go with Ontos MML, she drops a LGR for 2 MML-7s, now you have token LRM and SRM fire!
TT
Though sadly this is a Jihad era unit. Otherwise he'd be stocking up on Moltkes. 8)
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Though sadly this is a Jihad era unit. Otherwise he'd be stocking up on Moltkes. 8)
Well, it would be a good Jihad upgrade.
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You can have my light gauss Ontoses when you pry them from my cold, dead hands.
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M1 Moltkes are better, but their availability is a problem.
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I always liked the Merkava addition, but the Light Gauss Rifle Ontos is a beauty. The Galleon remains a workhorse.
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And those LGR Ontos do have a mod in that era, the MML variant.
So take that! >:D
TT
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It was I believe pointed out, but the proposed battle is a CW era and thus MMLs are out.
I wish we could get a Merkava Mk X from the Regulans . . . MMLs rather than its split missile systems and change to HFF armor. Maybe LMGs or SPLs rather than old MGs- or leave them for flavor (The M2 machine gun was good enough for our great grandfathers, its good enough for you kid. Seriously . . . replacing it b/c the new generation cannot handle maintenance?)
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Check out the Goblin MG... 3025 era ICE, yes but... : 5 ton Infantry bay! Plus you could add alternative ammo!
TT
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Check out the Goblin MG... 3025 era ICE, yes but... : 5 ton Infantry bay! Plus you could add alternative ammo!
TT
the goblin mg is the five dollar bill you keep forgetting you have in your pocket and are so happy every time you find it
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Making my way to the League. I have read up on it in the various sourcebooks and historicals. I have to say, I am kind of liking its quirks. What brought all of you to the FWL?
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Making my way to the League. I have read up on it in the various sourcebooks and historicals. I have to say, I am kind of liking its quirks. What brought all of you to the FWL?
Well, for me it was partially because I am Czech and partially because FWL often seems like the military weak faction and I like factions that aren't overpowering.
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Making my way to the League. I have read up on it in the various sourcebooks and historicals. I have to say, I am kind of liking its quirks. What brought all of you to the FWL?
Purple, the fact that it's the only major faction with no video game screen time, and my early-college-age self really liked the Knights of the Inner Sphere.
Since then, it's the most interesting internal politics in the setting, general disuse of Assault Mechs, and combined arms (particularly battle armor).
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Both the Purple and the Eagle, reminded me of my favorites...
TO POLITICAL TO MENTION.
So early Colonial Europe, 8)
That and they made the best tanks eva! Ontos, Thumper TAV, and Bulldog...
My staple tank forces.
TT
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I wound up randomly assigned to a FWL faction on a BattleTech game a while back. Decided to stick with them. Liked the Knights of the Inner Sphere at the time.
Eventually developed an outright disdain for clan factions (which FWL somehow wound up fighting in the games in question) and their players. I've mellowed on that some over time. Also wound up fighting a lot of lyrans (walls of Gauss-boat assaults everywhere!), and was very satisfied when I discovered FWL actually does have tools to beat them.
While my 'hatred' for our neighbor factions has calmed down some, thankfully, I stick around because I now enjoy the machines we have. They fit my aesthetic, my interests in speed and a mix of weapons, and so on.
I'm particularly fond of our jump-capable general purpose heavies, as well as some of our assaults such as the Grand Titan N11M and the Juliano. We're fun in a different way from what the majority of players I meet prefer, and I like being different.
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I’m drawn to self-sabotaging dumpster fires
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I’m drawn to self-sabotaging dumpster fires
So, an FWL fan.
THERE. I SAID IT SO NO ONE ELSE HAS TO.
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Can someone walk me through the Alpha Strike conversion of the Mad Cat Mk IV C? When I do it, I wind up with 4 Long damage but the official card says 5. I'm confused.
EDIT: Same deal with the medium/close damage. I wind up with 4, the card says 5. I must be missing something?
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Can someone walk me through the Alpha Strike conversion of the Mad Cat Mk IV C? When I do it, I wind up with 4 Long damage but the official card says 5. I'm confused.
EDIT: Same deal with the medium/close damage. I wind up with 4, the card says 5. I must be missing something?
LRM 15s with Artemis V generate 1.26 damage each at long range. ER Large Lasers generate 1 each. Total of 4.52 damage before heat modification.
The Mk IV C generates 4 heat for movement, accumulated weapons heat at long range is 34, total heat 38. Heat modification is thusly: (4.52 * 30) / (38 - 4) = 3.988.
If I had to guess, I'd say it was an error with the engine type. XXLs generate extra movement heat, and if the heat were calculated as with a standard XL it'd round to 5.
For Short and Medium, the total damage is: 7.46 before heat modification. Total accumulated heat at those ranges is: 4 for movement, 52 for weapons (4+4+5+5+12+12+5+5), for a total of 56 heat. Heat modification is: (7.46 * 30) / (56 - 4) = 4.144. That does round up to 5. Since the unmodified value would have rounded up to 8, the OV value of 3 is also correct.
Not all cards are correct despite our best efforts. I'd raise this in the MUL thread.
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I am coming to the league in a round about manner. I was sent a set if faction pins from Gencon and distributed them through my group and got the Eagle for myself. Then I started reading "Close Quarters" and got an interest in the Southwest Trinity Worlds. Since then I have gathered all the League fluff I can find.
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I went for the League because it's a democracy. Well. It was, in any case. Replace the blue paint on Mel Gibson with purple and that's me: FREEEEEEEEEEEDOM!
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Yeah, confirmed there were some errors on the Mad Cat Mk. IVs. Thanks for double-checking my suspicion, Scotty.
One last Alpha Strike question: Why do the PPC Capacitors REDUCE your damage in Alpha Strike conversions compared to a PPC without a Capacitor? Did this get changed in errata and I missed it?
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Yeah, confirmed there were some errors on the Mad Cat Mk. IVs. Thanks for double-checking my suspicion, Scotty.
One last Alpha Strike question: Why do the PPC Capacitors REDUCE your damage in Alpha Strike conversions compared to a PPC without a Capacitor? Did this get changed in errata and I missed it?
Because my ranting against it has failed to get it changed. (And MG arrays and snub nose PPCs).
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Cool. Well, I definitely like the overall thrust of this system despite my picking at the details like this. Thanks for the info!
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One last Alpha Strike question: Why do the PPC Capacitors REDUCE your damage in Alpha Strike conversions compared to a PPC without a Capacitor? Did this get changed in errata and I missed it?
I believe the assumption is that since you have to spend a turn charging the capacitor, you only fire the PPC half as often, thus the total damage overall goes down.
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I believe the assumption is that since you have to spend a turn charging the capacitor, you only fire the PPC half as often, thus the total damage overall goes down.
Yes, that’s the reasoning behind it. I just disagree with it :).
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Yes, that’s the reasoning behind it. I just disagree with it :).
I assure you, you're not alone.
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Yes, that’s the reasoning behind it. I just disagree with it :).
It's part and parcel of the same thinking that made weapons damage divided by 10 and armor divided by 30, really. The assumption is that 1 AS turn = 3 TW turns and you fire your weapons every TW turn.
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Capacitors are a choice. If you have them, there is no requirement that you use them on any turn. The only time you would use them is if in that situation using them is a better option. If it’s not, then you don’t use them.
But the base PPC damage should be the minimum they are considered for damage, because that remains an option.
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Capacitors are a choice. If you have them, there is no requirement that you use them on any turn. The only time you would use them is if in that situation using them is a better option. If it’s not, then you don’t use them.
But the base PPC damage should be the minimum they are considered for damage, because that remains an option.
While we're on the subject, how about LB-X ACs losing damage to possibly gain a flak bonus that's useful only in very limited circumstances. Why wouldn't that 'Mech use standard shells in all other instances?
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While we're on the subject, how about LB-X ACs losing damage to possibly gain a flak bonus that's useful only in very limited circumstances. Why wouldn't that 'Mech use standard shells in all other instances?
Agreed. Single lb10xs usually get away with it. Lb20s and twin lb10s are treated horribly by it.
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Well it's not just Alpha Strike... in standard/CBT Aerospace battles LB-X ACs always use flak ammo as well.
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Well it's not just Alpha Strike... in standard/CBT Aerospace battles LB-X ACs always use flak ammo as well.
That's awful too.
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Capacitors are a choice. If you have them, there is no requirement that you use them on any turn. The only time you would use them is if in that situation using them is a better option. If it’s not, then you don’t use them.
But the base PPC damage should be the minimum they are considered for damage, because that remains an option.
I'm not defending the decision, just explaining what I think the process was. I still remember trying to keep them from dividing armor by 9 instead of 3 when translating up into SBF while keeping damage divided by 3.
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On another note, the FWLM gained excellent specialty unit in the Partisan AA. Sure its wheeled, but I will take it.
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So, I'm curious what PVs people typically use for Alpha Strike. The book has some suggestions, but I wonder how closely they're adhered to.
Also, what about typical Skill values? Are they directly tied to TW's Gunnery stat, such that Inner Sphere default Skill is 4 and clan default is 3? Would this make Paul Masters (+1 piloting, +2 gunnery in TW) a Skill 2 if he were ported to Alpha Strike?
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My group plays with 400 point forces. We don't pay for skills at all, and set everything in the game at skill 3 for free to speed the game up a tad.
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So, I'm curious what PVs people typically use for Alpha Strike. The book has some suggestions, but I wonder how closely they're adhered to.
Also, what about typical Skill values? Are they directly tied to TW's Gunnery stat, such that Inner Sphere default Skill is 4 and clan default is 3? Would this make Paul Masters (+1 piloting, +2 gunnery in TW) a Skill 2 if he were ported to Alpha Strike?
In my circle we were doing 400PV before the PV re-eval, and we're still settling in to decide on something post-eval. Probably gonna end up being 500PV since it's a very round number.
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Our local group does 500 PV, no free skills. Don't forget that Clan "Regular" units may be Skill 3, but that skill bonus isn't free. They pay for it just like everybody else.
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Sounds like 400-500 is the norm then.
So Skill maps directly to TW's Gunnery stat, is this correct?
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Yes.
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Not exactly.
It's the average of the piloting & gunnery skills, rounded down.
Your typical 4/5 pilot in CBT is averaged to 4.5, rounded to 4 for AS.
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Making my way to the League. I have read up on it in the various sourcebooks and historicals. I have to say, I am kind of liking its quirks. What brought all of you to the FWL?
A JumpShip. Duh. :P
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Making my way to the League. I have read up on it in the various sourcebooks and historicals. I have to say, I am kind of liking its quirks. What brought all of you to the FWL?
I like the fact that there are plenty of options for roleplaying in the League. With so many civil wars, backstabbing politics, economic discord, and internal strife it's easy to write out an interesting RPG (or Tabletop Campaign) character that was cast out with a mech for some reason and became a Merc or an opening for Merc characters (every RPGer) to find employment.
Their mechs are interesting and are heavy on supporting one another (while moving 5/8 whether that makes sense or not) and the vehicles that are heavily mixed at company level.
Plus Warships and Aerospace fighters
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I like the fact that there are plenty of options for roleplaying in the League. With so many civil wars, backstabbing politics, economic discord, and internal strife it's easy to write out an interesting RPG
This. Chaos is great for RPGs.
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For those interested, my game yesterday was a draw. He took one look at my LGR Ontoses and started laying out city maps. He ran a C3i level 2 with an Ostscout, Kintaro, Griffin, Raijin, LRM carrier & SRM carrier. At the end of the match, my Longinus squad was dead and both the Perseus and Locust were pretty beat up - I miscalculated a move and ended up taking the SRM carrier on full blast to the Perseus - but my Achileus teams swarmed and scored mobility kills on both carriers. The Ost and Raijin were both torn up as well, and while the Ost was fast enough to withdraw when threatened, I had the Raijin surrounded and getting pummelled by all three Mechs.
All in all, it was a slow paced match because we are both exacting and careful about how we maneuver so there were a LOT of missed shots. The Achileus teams were my MVPs; they put down the tanks and overheated the Kintaro, forcing it to disengage for a turn to cool down, which in turn allowed my Anvil to pull out of the city safely and chase down that Raijin.
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Hallmark of a good force, they functioned well in terrain other than their comfort zone. :thumbsup:
Were I driving in that situation, I think my first actions would have been to deploy each Ontos staring down one of those map-length major boulevards, and declare overwatch. With LGR ranges hopefully counteracting the overwatch modifier, it would make crossing those roads a hazardous endeavor, reducing the amount of map the opponent can safely maneuver in. Sounds like you did just fine, though!
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Look at forces and then slap down maps? bah, pick your force, show up, see the map, and then reveal your force! Sometimes the surprised look on the other side of the table is part of the fun of force selection.
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as long as the map is never box canyon
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So I'm just about done with the current battalion project - Tamar Cavaliers, Jihad era - so now time to plan the next projects. Waiting on Taurian vehicles from IWM, so picking up a League project at last.
The unit? Marik Guard. Which makes it hard to do a combined-arms battalion. But then I had a brainwave - Liberation Units! Irregular troublemakers encouraged to be active on Lyran held worlds. So I can come up with a company of mixed infantry, supported by Technicals and other irregular vehicles, which are supported in this instance by a company of the Marik Guard on a hit-run raid in Wyatt.
Just because, I'm including a platoon of ICE Rotundas, because I can. ComStar pulled them out of storage for the purpose, and that helpful Precentor Emelio Rachan was so obliging, you know? All he wants is a copy of the intel take. He's looking for some old Star League ruins of a ... medical centre. Always so caring, Precentor Rachan.
So there's the four Rotundas in the middle - three SRM and one LRM models (haven't done the SRM version yet. Plus a technical with two MGs in a rear mount, more to come - it'll get a hasty camo paintjob (ink washes in brown & green). The Rotundas won't be camo, of course. And a platoon of Marik regular infantry for scale, and a couple of Guard LAMs.
Oh yes, I got LAMs. Some will be in 'Mech mode, of course ...
W.
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The Rotundas won't be camo, of course
I don't know what you mean, AFAI can see, they are in camo >:D
Dat pop-up launcher though. So very Bond.
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Technicals? Backed up by LAMs?!
(http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--eN41O0H1--/krqh8jpuwecydo1t3njk.jpg)
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To bad you can't run with Jeeps, we have official RS for them!
There's the standard, MG and a SRM variant.
TT
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Actual jeeps, not the Flatbed Truck from 3060/Klondike? Where?
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Well . . . there is the Ibex . . . looks something like-
(https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2246/2183426592_23c7c80034_z.jpg?zz=1)
But I did find the Jeep from MW1st and in RS Vol5 . . . I know they were in my HMV for the longest I just did not use them.
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Did we ever get an armed Ibex RS?
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Did we ever get an armed Ibex RS?
Wasn't there a David Gauss armed one in one of the Turning Point pdfs?
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Specifically thinking of that one from TP Irian, its got King Davids, 1 right & 1 left . . . Bar 7 armor, trying to see on the RS where it says support rule vehicle or combat rules. Civil War era though so its been around for a while . . .
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It's definitely a support vee.
It's a shame that the TacOps rule that gives certain guns damage boosts vs BA only apply to suit-on-suit combat. Otherwise, the Gauss Ibex would actually be pretty nasty against battle armor.
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With it saying BAR and a few other things I thought it was, but I was looking at the pdf's RS to see if it was clearly marked. If so I must have missed it.
The speed, BV and KD range make me want to use it, I just have not yet.
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You'll get the most use out of it by harassing mechanized infantry platoons, though you can still inflict light damage to almost anything.
Interestingly, because they're not on a battlesuit or infantry platoon, this is the only way that a King David can be used to engage aircraft. A group of Ibexes can actually mount a defense against low-level air attacks and VTOLs, though the lack of fire control means you're not going to hit much without raw numbers on your side.
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Actual jeeps, not the Flatbed Truck from 3060/Klondike? Where?
Using tablet so not sure how to click and link, but search Sarna.net for Jeep. MW1 and Record Sheets Voulume 5: Vehicles.
Lil' suckers rule! But be warned, it uses older construction rules... Which is why I give it general handwaveium ruling.
TT
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A 5-ton wheeled vehicle would pass very well for a Humvee, even under standard construction rules
You could even up it to 10 tons and make an MRAP of sorts
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I'll stick to units whose record sheet is available in pdf.
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If I find my copy, would a fax be ok?
Cause I'm like that kinda guy.... 8)
TT
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A 5-ton wheeled vehicle would pass very well for a Humvee, even under standard construction rules
You could even up it to 10 tons and make an MRAP of sorts
I would say that very light vehicles like that are the whole point of the support vee rules. The MRAP in particular simply needs enough armor of BAR 5(or higher) to survive a typical mine hex and a single ton of cargo for the infantry squad, and you're good.
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I'm playingthem as 5 ton combat vehicles for simplicity 10/15 ICE with half a ton armour gives a 1.5 ton payload.
Hiluxes are comvat vees, after all ...
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I would say that very light vehicles like that are the whole point of the support vee rules. The MRAP in particular simply needs enough armor of BAR 5(or higher) to survive a typical mine hex and a single ton of cargo for the infantry squad, and you're good.
Can do, but I mean if one doesn't want to faff around with the support fee rules, even standard rules suffice.
I'm playingthem as 5 ton combat vehicles for simplicity 10/15 ICE with half a ton armour gives a 1.5 ton payload.
Hiluxes are comvat vees, after all ...
A JLTV weighs about as much. The thing would take an AC2 across all sides, give it another 0.5ton and it can take an AC5 and a bit even... That's way better than an actual JLTV can expect.
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As I look at Alpha Strike more... I'm very pleased. While I do lament the loss of fine detail in controlling some Mechs (the TDR-10M in particular benefits from this), this very same thing redeems a lot of Mechs that are 'in lore' supposed to be good machines but have moderate to major flaws in Total Warfare.
Going to Alpha Strike, I see things like: The Grand Titans range from decent to excellent. The TDR-9M is believable in the role of a main-line heavy. The Anzu fills its mission role well enough that I now see why so many of us adopt it as our user profile image. The Shadow Hawks -2H, -5M, and -7M are similarly playable in this system. So many machines that the TROs tell us are good machines, now truly are.
One question I'm unclear on: How does FWL in particular benefit from TAG, other than Artillery? Do you just declare your unit marked LRM (is "IF" close enough for this purpose) is using Semi-Guided ammo? Any downsides to loading said ammo, like a change in unit cost or so on? I didn't see anything, but this is a lot of info to take in all at once.
It clearly has its flaws, but I like where this goes more than I dislike it. Wish I had a convenient way to play it.
Edit: Rules confusing me a bit. Can someone walk me through using TAG for Semi-Guided LRMs in Alpha Strike, what modifiers apply, etc.?
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TAG + SG is a lot simpler than you might think, and I'm willing to bet it's some bleed-through from Total Warfare that's the problem.
First off, "IF#" is not enough, the unit actually has to have LRM#/#/#. If that's the case, then:
Is your target TAGged?
Y: +1 damage to the attack
N: attack does normal damage.
OR
If you use LRM ONLY to attack (rather than your full damage value)
Y: -2 to hit the TAGged target
N: attack has the normal TN
Units with the LRM special by definition also have IF, and SG ammunition can be used during an indirect attack. The same rules I described still apply.
EDIT: Special shout out to the Shadow Hawk being a damn fine Medium Trooper in Alpha Strike. Relatively cheap, relatively durable, relatively mobile, enough gun to let someone know they've been touched. A true jack of all trades.
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Thanks for the info! Do SG LRMs modify the unit's point cost? My reading suggests 'no', but I'm unsure.
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Thanks for the info! Do SG LRMs modify the unit's point cost? My reading suggests 'no', but I'm unsure.
They do not. No special ammo does. Special ammo is buried firmly in "check with your opponent first" optional rules, though.
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Special ammo can get pricey though in campaign play.
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Looks like Arrow IV Homing Rounds are 'standard rules', though. What platforms do we have for that? I know of the Anvil... 8M I believe? Feels like there should be a few others.
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They're not, but you can use TAG in standard rules to give a bonus to hit to your (generic) Arrow IV missiles in standard rules. You don't even need to hit with the TAG!
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Longbow-8V
Variant of the -7V which uses an XL, still 3/5 though but it retains the ER Large and 2 of the MPLs from the parent, just adds twin A4's!
I'd defiantly would run a Heavy Ontos lance of five as bodyguard / overwatch for this baby. 2 LGR and 2 MML with a Demo A4 thrown in for more support, even go as far as to operate some BA love to supplement the forces security detachment.
And this is just for 1 mech, the rest I'd need more time...
TT
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You think TAG is fun in Alpha Strike, you should see NARC. Ain't NOBODY goes near one of our Stalkers anymore...least not more than once. >:D
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I'm confused. What determines whether a unit gets LRM #/#/# or not? I'm seeing tons of machines that have huge LRM racks (Mad Cat III, Perseus A, etc.) and they have IF#, but not LRM#/#/#. For that matter, what determines receiving SRM#/#/#? Same thing there, I've seen machines with lots of SRMs that don't have the ability on their stat card.
NARC in any case is clearly fun. +1 damage on Indirect, LRM Direct, and SRM attacks is no joke.
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If a unit has Artemis, it won't get LRM or SRM. Artemis is factored into the unit's base damage, so such a unit must be assumed to be using Artemis ammo at all times, precluding any use of other rounds.
Think of it as an excuse to keep a few older machines in your arsenals. :)
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what he said. the Mad Cat III 4 has standard launchers though, so you can always change around your variant there if you want a mad Cat III with an LRM special.
i suspect that for FWL fans it can be a bit frustraiting though, given how much the FWL relies on LRM's and how they have a lot of the nicer special munitions.. but also tend to stick Artemis onto all those racks.
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My advice? Use your mechs for general combat, and bring an unupgraded LRM Carrier or two for your special ammo needs. :)
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Heavy LRM Carriers and Behemoth Standard.... both work great together, and we run 5 tanks per unit.Oh and they both have TUR!!!!
TT
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I'm curious about an Alpha Strike matchup. How do people figure the Mad Cat Mk. IV A stacks up against the Mad Cat Mk. II Standard? They're of similar point cost, but when I play it out in 'lab conditions' (which admittedly leave out a lot of things I'd expect in regular play)... the Mk. II Standard beats the Mk. IV a significant amount of the time. Perhaps I'm missing something from more practical play that explains why they're considered roughly equal?
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Well, the IV A has 12 total A/S vs the II (S) with 13. That right there puts them roughly equal. If the II (S) is winning most of the time, I'd wager it's because the IV A is engaging at Short and Medium range, which is exactly where he does not want to be in this matchup. The textbook answer to let the IV A win is to stay at Long range until you can dart in for an Overheat-assisted Medium range kill.
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Though it's my understanding that maintaining Long range is pretty hard to do, and really drags games out in the occasions you do manage it?
Playing against myself has been a poor way of testing how practical this really is, since I know what I'm going to do.
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I'm curious about an Alpha Strike matchup. How do people figure the Mad Cat Mk. IV A stacks up against the Mad Cat Mk. II Standard? They're of similar point cost, but when I play it out in 'lab conditions' (which admittedly leave out a lot of things I'd expect in regular play)... the Mk. II Standard beats the Mk. IV a significant amount of the time. Perhaps I'm missing something from more practical play that explains why they're considered roughly equal?
More specifically, with a total of 12 A/S the Mad Cat Mk II (Standard) is going to be able to destroy the Mk IV A in two hits. That could be one hit at long range as they're closing (best case) and one hit at medium, or just two hits outright at medium range. The reverse is not true: the Mk IV A takes a minimum turns-to-kill of three to take down a Mk II with a 4 damage long range and 5 damage medium range.
If the Mk IV A keeps the range open, the TTK for the Mk II makes the significant leap to three hits, at a reduced rate thanks to the long range modifier. Since the Mk IV A has the higher speed, it can (presumably) influence the range enough to ensure this happens. The Mk IV A has a TTK against the Mk II of four turns if it stays purely at long range. Obviously that's a losing fight, but if the Mk IV A manages to score two hits at long range, suddenly the medium range shot threatens a kill. While this is true of the Mk II as well, that makes the average TTK of both 'Mechs three hits if the Mk IV A utilizes its speed well - which is exactly the kind of parity you'd expect from a pair of 'Mechs so similar in PV.
In terms of actual numbers, and assuming a relatively sparse table environment where lines of sight can be kept open, that ends up being (at Skill 4, mind you):
Mad Cat Mk II (Standard): 16.7% chance to hit at Long range, 41.7% chance to hit at Medium range. Average time-to-kill at Long range is 18 turns (1/6th chance, needs three hits), at Medium range is 5 turns.
Mad Cat Mk IV A: 27.7% chance to hit at Long range, 58.3% chance to hit at Medium range. Average time-to-kill at Long range is 15 turns (slightly beats the Mk II, but well within likely variance), at Medium range is 6 turns, and the reduced variance from the more likely shots means there's less of an (overall) chance that the Mk IV A gets lucky and gets there before the Mk II.
Looking at the change from Long to Medium range, though, is where things get interesting. It takes an average of 6 turns for the Mk II to score a hit, which puts the Mk IV A into the lethal-threat range at Medium. It takes a Mad Cat Mk IV A approximately 4 turns to hit the Mk II once, and 8 turns to hit it twice. The Mk IV A can probably land that second hit well before it's in danger of being outright destroyed by the Mk II. It'll take three shots at that range, so there's even a measure of cushion, and the odds that a Mk IV A can hit the Mk II twice before it's been hit once are not-insubstantial. Once that happens, the TTK for both is (presumably) one-hit at Medium range, but the Mk IV A has the ~16% advantage in hit numbers at that range, and is more likely to win.
Though it's my understanding that maintaining Long range is pretty hard to do, and really drags games out in the occasions you do manage it?
Playing against myself has been a poor way of testing how practical this really is, since I know what I'm going to do.
The ultimate answer, of course, is "bring supporting units", but a faster unit should be able to reliably kite a slower unit around a typical board with relative impunity, especially with initiative.
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Thank you. Those numbers seem pretty apt, even if they're a bit simplified (though re-running the numbers to account for crits on the Mk. II is probably more complex than the basic overview really calls for).
I'm also really impressed by the Perseus. While a few configs remain extremely bad (or at least 'bad enough to merit a lower PV cost, which might be good in some cases')... the others are impressive.
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I'm curious now as to which ones you consider to be good (or at least less crap) Perseus configurations
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In Alpha Strike? You can make a legit case for fielding every single one. P1B is 'bad', yes, but its PV comes at a huge discount that reflects this and still gets you okay damage output and durability for the cost. Bad Mechs are PV-costed so that at least you're not getting completely ripped off.
In Total Warfare? Good configs include:
P1A - Yes, the ARC-4M is a more durable version of the unit... but the P1A is at least decent at the job. ECM, Pulse Lasers, and an SRM rack aren't worth an XL Engine vs. what the ARC-4M does, but I'll accept the P1A is at least playable.
P1D: Walking ammo boom waiting to happen? Yes. However, it packs so many useful tools that, again, I must at least find it playable.
P1E: While it has a few features I personally wouldn't have put on there, it's at least a competent command and tool-use unit. There are only a handful of machines quite like it in the FWL, so it does something we have a need for in some campaigns/venues and makes some sense in-lore as well. Not my top choice (NO Perseus is my 'top choice' in Total Warfare, it's kind of a bad Mech there overall), but the P1E gets a nod from me for at least filling an unusual mission role decently well.
P1P and P1W have their niches as well. They have features I consider to be mistakes, but nothing that makes me go 'what? ...WHY?!' level bad.
These are all far better than P1 Prime (can't kick), P1C (inadequate weapons load, poor use of Light Gauss), and P1B (1 ton of main gun ammo, what the hell?!).
...The funny thing is that due to the changes in how melee works in Alpha Strike, the Perseus' flaw of leg-mounted weapons is no longer a flaw. It's just a thing. You're not missing out on anything by having your guns there. This same change took away one of the best things about the TDR-10M and Anvil series (the dual hands with a lack of meaningful close-range weapons allowing 6 point Punches that might hit the head), but that's a trade I'm willing to make in order to have the Perseus be a good Mech in Alpha Strike. The lore made it clear it was supposed to be a good chassis, just one that's challenging to design good weapon pods for, and now it reflects that; some of its configs are low-PV junk (but you're not paying a premium for them!), others are mid-cost well rounded units, and others are genuinely good with tons of useful Special abilities and lots of damage output.
Alpha Strike really does seem to be primarily about "You know all those Mechs in TRO books that are written to suggest they're good machines that a sensible army would have bought and issued to their troops, it just didn't work out due to the balance problems in Total Warfare or an utter lack of care by some designers in some cases? Well, now they're good. Or at least decent, or you at least get a huge discount on them in terms of PV."
If there was a convenient way to play it online, I'd probably make Alpha Strike my main game. I miss the loss of fine detail on Mechs, loved truly exploring and mastering each one I played in Total Warfare, but... this is an acceptable price to pay for fixing so many machines. The Tempest is strong in all eras (instead of just being a 3055-3060 wonder), the Grand Titan is strong in general as well. The Anzu plays a useful mix of decent damage at all ranges combined with TAG; that's something we don't have much of outside the MAD-9M2 and Anvil 6M. Most of our other TAG units explode in one hit from anything made after 3067, so the Anzu fits a very real niche here and I like that.
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You wanna see a huge boost in utility in Alpha Strike vs Total War?
Step 1: Remember that there is no such thing as negligible damage in AS, even one point must be considered a solid thwack.
Step 2: Go back to old TROs and notice how many classic units rely on a single AC/5 for their ranged firepower.
Step 3: Look up those classics in Alpha Strike, noting their capabilities and their point costs.
Step 4: Kill everybody. :laughing_skull:
PS: On a completely different note, you should Google the CAV III Kickstarter(I won't link it for obvious reasons), and scroll down until you see their Charger hover vehicle. Looks like a good cheap stand-in for the Tufana, until we get one from IWM. :)
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LGRs, too. The Main Gauche, both standard and XL, are phenomenal tanks.
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Kinda bummed by the lack of range advantage, but that's the nature of the game.
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Kinda bummed by the lack of range advantage, but that's the nature of the game.
13-16 PV for Long range damage on a platform that takes non-trivial killing to remove is fantastic for fishing for crits, and no matter how you slice it they're cheap to upgrade with skills. I love the buggers.
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Universal firing arcs also give quads a boost. No more worrying about lacking torso twist
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'Quads got a boost'
:Looks up the Sirocco 5C:
...Why, yes. THAT'S quite a good machine! It's honestly a toss-up between that or a Grand Titan N11M for the assault I most like for that particular job in Alpha Strike.
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Bear in mind, the Companion does narrow down quad arcs again.
And since were at fifty pages, I guess it's on me to turn out the lights.