Rasalhague Dominion: The voting will continue until morale improves!

[Piisami]

New to the tabletop hobby, the Ghost Bears - Free Rasalhague Republic - Rasalhague Dominion sound like the factions I'd like to run with depending on era. Sadly, I also have grown a liking for the urbie despite it's many flaws. Could the Dominion justifiably wield several of the UM-IIC (or perhaps a local variant) or would the mech be seriously against doctrine or something as it is certainly a particular kind of machine? As second/third line units, obviously.

[Crimson Dynamo]

Welcome to the fray! The Bears share a decent-sized border with Clan Hell's Horses, who are the main users of the UrbanMech IIC in the later eras, so a salvaged or isorla example or two in a Bear force wouldn't be out of place at all. A number of regular UrbanMech variants show as 'Inner Sphere General' on the Master Unit List, http://www.masterunitlist.info/ , and could be justified as an old Kungsarme leftover, some salvage/isorla from the Combine, or even trade from the Sharks/Foxes for a second-line unit, I would think.

[Tyler Jorgensson]

First: Welcome!

Second: a core tenant of Battletech as a whole is ‘whatever works at your table’ and ‘SALVAGE!’. For example the Hell Horses are somehow the users/ creators of a Jinggau variant: a Capellan mech salvaged enough by them for them to be ‘common’ in the Hell Horses Touman which is so bizarre.

Only in certain tournaments that are usually scenario based do you really get into that level of detail.

HOWEVER: Crimson laid out a good summary of ideas.

[Zeruel]

also welcome! :)

just to add to what Crimson said, the Master Unit List actually shows the UrbanMech IIC on the Bear faction list for the Succession Wars era (and disappears once the Clan Invasion starts), but you can always say they are old leftovers from a storage unit or something

alternately, during the Invasion and later, the Snow Ravens have access to the UrbanMech IIC, and the Bears do a ton of trading with the Ravens

[Piisami]

Thanks for the welcomes. No need to feel bad for them then, gotta put at least one in every star as it's such a nice sculpt, the new urbie.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Hmm, considering painting up a heavy/assault star.  Thinking about a Mastodon and Blood Asp, wondering about how to round out the rest of the star?

[Tyler Jorgensson]

Hmm, considering painting up a heavy/assault star.  Thinking about a Mastodon and Blood Asp, wondering about how to round out the rest of the star?

First question is always: what do you want the Star to do? Big bear beat stick? Fire support? Bricks of armor?

The newer Grizzly and Rime Otter are good companions to the Mastodon. I of course am a huge fan of the Kontio but I wouldn’t necessarily put it in a Heavy/ Assault Star. Kingfisher is a beast (I love the variant with the Gauss and two IHLL). And of course theirs always Fire support in the Viking IIC or the lighter Arcas for direct fire support.

Now the other question being is: going all Plastic?

Obviously ‘limits’ your options but the Executioner is always a classic (if over priced in BV). A new Regent could definitely provide some firepower, same with a Gausszilla ;) of course the classic Kodiak for brutal melee, and one of my favorites the Phoenix Hawk IIC 10 for just epic-ness. Captured Nova Cat works well too.

EDIT: And the third question is obviously era which might impact the prior two lol

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Mastodon is exclusive to late Dark Age/IlClan eras.  Also, no Rime Otter mini yet.

[Zeruel]

for Bear flavour, you can't go wrong with an Executioner and/or Mad Dog/Karhu (or both or all three)

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Well, I do have too many Gladiator and Vulture minis from salvage box hauls.

[Kerfuffin(925)]

I like a star of Mastodon, Blood Asp, Nova Cat/Night Gyr (he shows up for us ilClan time. Depending on if you want fixed JJs or not), Karhu/Mad Dog (OG or 3, they are all basically he same mech with the Karhu being the best version of it), Executioner.

Executioner can keep pace with the 4/6 mechs, use its JJs to keep up with the faster mech. Nova Cat/Night Gyr can “body guard” the Mastodon against faster threats while generally complementing its massive ranged potential in most variants. Karhu/Mad Dog III both have 30 tons of podspace, Karhu has a bit of extra armor so it’s just down to configs or open crits if customs don’t work for you. Mastodon does what it does and Blood Asp fills in the middle.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Mastodon, Blood Asp, Nova Cat, Vulture, and Gladiator sounds like a good star.

[Kerfuffin(925)]

Only ‘issue’ there is the Mad Dogs (specifically the OG one but the III to a lesser extent) just don’t have the armor to force big things out into the open over multiple turns so you’ll probably have to pair it with the executioner there. I like the Karhu there for the extra armor, but I get wanting to find a spot for the new plastics and getting rid of salvage. I proxy my regulars as IIIs often enough.

 A 2-1-2 or 2-2-1 style attack

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

This is a group for painting up a star of the same colors rather than being intended to be run together.

When I'm actually playing I rarely bother putting forces together based on paint jobs.

[Kerfuffin(925)]

Even better!


What colors/unit?

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Haven't decided yet.

[Tyler Jorgensson]

Mastodon A: what flankers lol?

[Kerfuffin(925)]

I used the C in a AS game a while ago now. It’s not super threatening, but does very respectable damage. That combined with the heat it can deal and it’s massive armor/structure values made it very hard to deal with

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

So far I've only tested out the Mastodon Prime.

[Tyler Jorgensson]

I’ve used the Prime and the A. I didn’t like the Prime in the only game I used it in so I tried the A. The A has not let me down so I haven’t retried the Prime to see if I just had bad luck/off day with it.

Triple Large Pulse is a good start: then it adds a Gauss Rifle in. An LRM-15 for a bit extra punch. Reinforced chassis, enough DHS for Alpha Striking comfortably and for crit-padding. Ammo enough for a serious fight.



On a similar topic I took a look at the MUL after I responded and damn does the Dominion have a lot of cool mechs from other factions on it.

Jupiter, Atlas, Hellstar, Turkina, Stone Rhino, Night Gyr, Nova Cat, Grand Summoner, Savage Wolf, Hel, Archer, Black Hawk KU, Stormwolf, Pouncer, Phantom, Wulfen, Hellion

Not to mention a bunch of random Combine designs, older ComStar Designs, and a couple more Sea Fox purchases. It looks like we stole a couple Falcon and Wolf factories when no one was looking. I was a little surprised at the amount of variety we had.

[tassa_kay]

t looks like we stole a couple Falcon and Wolf factories when no one was looking. I was a little surprised at the amount of variety we had.

Friendly reminder that having units on a faction's MUL doesn't mean said faction has the means to produce said units themselves.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

The Mastodon A is just a Daishi A that swaps the SSRMs and AMS for an LRM 15.

[Tyler Jorgensson]

Friendly reminder that having units on a faction's MUL doesn't mean said faction has the means to produce said units themselves.

Sorry I should have made that a bit clearer that that was a joke. I know they throw most of the Omni Variants (unless otherwise stated designed by X faction only) but I was a bit surprised we had access to so many different Wolf and Falcon designs. It makes sense that we’ve captured a few Nova Cat and Combine mechs over the year. I don’t question a random Raven mech or two, not a couple Horse or even older Wolf designs. I’m just surprised we have a lot of them on our list.

[BrianDavion]

Sorry I should have made that a bit clearer that that was a joke. I know they throw most of the Omni Variants (unless otherwise stated designed by X faction only) but I was a bit surprised we had access to so many different Wolf and Falcon designs. It makes sense that we’ve captured a few Nova Cat and Combine mechs over the year. I don’t question a random Raven mech or two, not a couple Horse or even older Wolf designs. I’m just surprised we have a lot of them on our list.

my guess would be trade

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Sorry I should have made that a bit clearer that that was a joke. I know they throw most of the Omni Variants (unless otherwise stated designed by X faction only) but I was a bit surprised we had access to so many different Wolf and Falcon designs. It makes sense that we’ve captured a few Nova Cat and Combine mechs over the year. I don’t question a random Raven mech or two, not a couple Horse or even older Wolf designs. I’m just surprised we have a lot of them on our list.

It's not that surprising: the Bears have shared a border with the Wolves the entire time they've been in the Inner Sphere. And after the Wolves abandoned their OZ, the Bears suddenly had a border with the Falcons.

[Kerfuffin(925)]

I played my brother in a 5300bv skirmish the other day.

He had a Grizzly 3 and Ice Ferret against my Blood Asp F and Cicada 4A.


He was not particularly pleased with the Grizzly 3. He’s new so he wasn’t able to fully utilize the mobility of the jumpjets, but it’s hard to dance with that much firepower in close. Keeping the range open felt bad cause the Grizzly 3s swap away from Gauss to a plasma made long range feel bad also.

We ended up standing and delivering with the big guys at the end and he got lucky with two consecutive headshots and won but he wasn’t enamored with the Grizzly 3. It didn’t really get damaged enough for the Reinforced structure to shine.

Long story short, how have you guys used the Grizzly 3 and what did you think.

[Tyler Jorgensson]

Haven’t used it yet. I use my own Grizzly 3 custom variant that most of my opponents agree to.

IMO the ART-V is a waste on such a smaller launcher with only one ton of ammo. You make up 50% for the Pulse Lasers with the Targeting Computer which is semi decent, but you lose the hard hitting Gauss for (still a good weapon) IS Plasma Rifle. IMO it would work well with the Mastodon and Rime Otter going up against combined arms. My two cents.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Yeah, I could see using it in against vehicle targets but vs mechs the loss of the GR hurts.

[Jellico]

All fair comments. While the Grizzly has its faults it is a hard Mech to improve on while keeping it a Grizzly. You should have seen the arguments over the XL engine.

[Kerfuffin(925)]

I wish it got FF armor. Seems kinda odd the other two designs from that factory got it but they'd either rebuild a standard armor factory or import it. Could have let it keep some pulse lasers or something.

In hindsight I should have not used a Blood Asp as my big mech, its much more overtly powerful than the Grizzly 3 while being similar in BV.