Author Topic: Please Help! Guidance on BattleTech Kickstarter  (Read 2179 times)

Ensign_Garak

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Please Help! Guidance on BattleTech Kickstarter
« on: 20 November 2019, 20:57:31 »
Hello.  I am hoping that the community will be kind to me on this, my first post.  I am looking for assistance in selecting my reward for the Pre-Order of the Clan Invasion Kickstarter package, and I could really use some guidance on what I should be selecting.

Background: I am familiar with this subject through playing electronic/video MechWarrior games.  I recently purchased the Beginner Box and the "A Game of Armored Combat" box, but I haven't opened them or studied them.

I was interested in having more figures, but I was too late to find any Alpha Strike Lance Packs until they were only being sold by after-market individuals.

So, I decided to preorder the "Bloodnamed" level of Clan Invasion.  That order level comes with two ForcePack selections, but with nineteen different packs from which to choose, I'm not sure what I should be selecting.  I'm don't think that I need to have one of each of the nineteen, but if anyone could give me any help as to what the most useful ones to choose for a beginner would be, I would appreciate receiving that guidance!

Also, if there are "extras" beyond the two that I can select as part of the Bloodnamed level, I am interested in hearing those opinions, too.

Thank you so much for any help that any of you knowledgeable MechWarriors can provide!   -EG
« Last Edit: 20 November 2019, 22:16:42 by Ensign_Garak »

Hawhaw

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Re: Please Help! Guidance on BattleTech Kickstarter
« Reply #1 on: 20 November 2019, 21:03:02 »
I'm pretty sure Bloodnamed comes with 4 packs, I think it's Star Captain or Commander that has 2 packs

glitterboy2098

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Re: Please Help! Guidance on BattleTech Kickstarter
« Reply #2 on: 20 November 2019, 21:19:41 »
i backed for Bloodnamed as well. been playing for a long time, so i'll give what help i can.

Bloodnamed comes with 4 selections of lance/star packs. (it originally was going to be a pair of packs which you got duplicates of, which is probably where the confusion came from. but there was a stretch goal that turned it into 4 individual sepections)


from a normal battletech gameplay perspective, the ten mechs that come with the two sets you already have will match up well with the five in the Clan invasion box. (due to the differences in tech level, the clan mechs pack a lot more firepower into a single unit. which mostly gets offset by the inner sphere just having a lot more of their less advanced mechs.)

so the 4 packs you pick should probably be for ones that you find visually interesting, and no matter what you get you'll be able to use them for standard battletech games, since normally you won't be fielding large numbers of mechs. so what you get will just give you more options to chose from when picking what you will play.

now, are you planning to look into alpha strike in the future? it is a more simplified ruleset that plays a lot faster and allows for much larger forces to be on the table at a time (and usually is played on 3D terrain). if so, you might want to grab at least one more clan star, since a fairly typical clan force in alpha strike is two star's of mechs, what the setting calls a binary.



as far as the other rewards.. you'll be getting a fair number of random mech packs automatically as part of the bloodname level (which are individual blind box things, giving a single random clan mech each) as well as an extra one with each inner sphere lance you pick. note that this means that you can probably pick all inner sphere lances for you packs and still have plenty of variety of clan mechs to play with. but random means you won't know what you get till it arrives in the mail.

the Tshirt, dice, pin, patch, coin, and so on are the main reason i think a lot of people picked bloodname level. with those the backer kit will give a preview of what each faction's looks like. the list is rather long to go into in this post, and if you want a summary of what each are, just ask and we'll try to provide. but you could also just pick ones that you find visually interesting, and you could get each one with a different faction logo if you wanted. (personally i'm going all Clan Coyote.. but they've been my favorite faction for decades)

you also get packs of cards.. these are pilot cards, a new addition to the game. they are basically named pilots with some special rules you can take to spice up your games a little. you get two picks for standard ones, which i suggest you get both pack 1 and pack 2 for completeness, and then you also get a pick of a special pack that is either inner sphere or clan focused with legendary pilots. pick whichever you want there, they both will have some pretty good stuff.


well, without a bit more information of the issues you are having,
« Last Edit: 20 November 2019, 22:00:47 by glitterboy2098 »

Hawhaw

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Re: Please Help! Guidance on BattleTech Kickstarter
« Reply #3 on: 20 November 2019, 21:51:38 »
Bloodnamed comes with 4 selections of lance/star packs. (it originally was going to be a pair of packs which you got duplicates of, which is probably where the confusion came from. but there was a stretch goal that turned it into 4 individual sepections)

Ah right forgot about that, my bad.

from a normal battletech gameplay perspective, the twelve mechs that come with the two sets you already have will match up well with the five in the Clan invasion box. (due to the differences in tech level, the clan mechs pack a lot more firepower into a single unit. which mostly gets offset by the inner sphere just having a lot more of their less advanced mechs.)

Isn't it only 10? 8 from AGoAC and 2 from the Beginner Box.

But for Force Pack selections, with the 10 IS mechs you already have, if you want to try and balance your total IS and Clans then I recommend 3 IS packs then 1 Clan pack.

You get 22 IS mechs, 16 Clan mechs + 2 Elemental points, and then the Legendary salvage. This assumes that you're fine with waiting for Wave 2 for some items or if you're fine with getting duplicate packs.

Just to note that you might not want/need to totally balance your IS and Clan forces since there's a chance that you won't even be fielding them all at the same time. Though this helps if you have multiple people playing with just your pool of forces.
« Last Edit: 20 November 2019, 21:54:06 by Hawhaw »

glitterboy2098

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Re: Please Help! Guidance on BattleTech Kickstarter
« Reply #4 on: 20 November 2019, 22:00:31 »
Isn't it only 10? 8 from AGoAC and 2 from the Beginner Box.
you are right. ack. i'll fix it. still, it does even out reasonably close. enough that you could balance things mainly by pilot skill levels. and if/when he moves on to the more advanced inner sphere technologies around in 3050 they'll really match up well.

Hawhaw

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Re: Please Help! Guidance on BattleTech Kickstarter
« Reply #5 on: 20 November 2019, 22:13:07 »
Oh yeah the pilot cards come with skills. Haven't had experience playing with skills yet so far so I can't speak about balance there.

But yeah they should come out reasonably close enough. Personally I'll be going with 2x IS Command, 1x IS Battle, and 1x Clan Command mainly because I love those Valkyrie and Stinger redesigns and I also can't wait for Wave 2.

Ensign_Garak

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Re: Please Help! Guidance on BattleTech Kickstarter
« Reply #6 on: 20 November 2019, 22:14:13 »
Thank you so much!  Very helpful, and extremely quick!  I really appreciate your views!   -EG

glitterboy2098

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Re: Please Help! Guidance on BattleTech Kickstarter
« Reply #7 on: 20 November 2019, 22:32:58 »
Oh yeah the pilot cards come with skills. Haven't had experience playing with skills yet so far so I can't speak about balance there.

But yeah they should come out reasonably close enough. Personally I'll be going with 2x IS Command, 1x IS Battle, and 1x Clan Command mainly because I love those Valkyrie and Stinger redesigns and I also can't wait for Wave 2.
actually i meant the piloting and gunner skills, but yeah the pilot cards would help there.

Asgo

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Re: Please Help! Guidance on BattleTech Kickstarter
« Reply #8 on: 21 November 2019, 10:13:55 »
personally, when going with smaller subset of mech boxes the reinforcement addon for 30$ is a good catch.
While not minis the standees provide the full range of mechs of the campaign.

Colt Ward

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Re: Please Help! Guidance on BattleTech Kickstarter
« Reply #9 on: 21 November 2019, 10:28:47 »
So your best deal for number of mechs is to select one of the ComStar mech packs, b/c you get 6 instead of 5 . . . as you are not sure which faction to go with or told us who you might end up playing with and what they use I am going to suggest the most 'generic' options.

Clan Command Star-  Everything here except the Mist Lynx has been available in recent video games (MC2, MW4, and I think MWO) and can be found among all the Invaders
ComStar Battle Level II-  The Crockett and Mongoose are a bit more rare but can be found, other 4 are varying degrees of availability and solid designs

For the last two I suggest IS Lances, comes down to how much you like assaults

Assault suggestion-
IS Direct Fire Lance- 2 assaults & 2 heavies, the MAD II could stand in for a regular Marauder at need.  Has the Atlas and Orion you may be familiar with from games
IS Fire Lance- 3 assaults & a med, LOTS of LRMs to share around your targets from widely available mechs

Normal suggestion-
IS Urban Lance- Mechs that are in games, this is a pretty mobile lance that has mechs that are pretty widely available
IS Battle Lance- Classic mechs that are widely available, pretty good mix of fire & mobility

With this set up you will also get-
5 Salvage Boxes- made up of random mechs from either the Invasion box or the first two stars
UrbanMech
Legendary Salvage- either Dire Wolf, Timberwolf, Marauder or Archer

This will give you 31 mechs- so 15 Clan mechs for a trinary, 15 IS mechs, and a 50/50 chance of either another Clan or IS mech so you could have in your collection a total of 15 mechs, 26 IS mechs (if you got MAD/ARC from Legendary) along with 2 Elemental stands.  You would be able to easily field a company from any of the IS factions.
Colt Ward
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carlisimo

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Re: Please Help! Guidance on BattleTech Kickstarter
« Reply #10 on: 21 November 2019, 13:24:44 »
Do you need it all in Wave 1?  If not, getting 3 Inner Sphere lances and one Clan star (and sticking the random legendary in your IS force, even if it’s a clan mech) would get you two full Inner Sphere companies (2x12) and a full clan trinary plus one extra clan mech (including six randoms). 

Getting a Comstar pack instead of one of the Inner Sphere lances would mean not needing the legendary to reach 24, but it might be a slightly snowflaky list unless it’s a post-Rosebud Draconis Combine company.  The Guillotine, Crab, and Mongoose feel a little more acceptable to me in a regular IS list but I could be wrong.

Command, Battle, and Fire Support lances on top of the mechs you already have, plus the UrbanMech, would give you 6 lights, 6 mediums, 6 heavies, and 5 assaults.  Not necessarily realistic, but a very flexible collection.  Honestly though, this would be easier if you had a faction in mind, or just liked certain mechs.

On the clan side, it’s hard to make a recommendation when you’re going to get so many randoms (three + the number of IS lances you get, likely 2-3).  They come out of the Clan Invasion Box, the Command Star, and the Heavy Striker Star.  I’d still consider the Command Star.  If Wave 2 is okay, pick a clan for the color scheme and lore and we’ll recommend a star pack.  The Heavy, Striker, and Ad Hoc stars are second-line mechs which are less likely to show up alongside the others that you’re getting. 

SteveRestless

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Re: Please Help! Guidance on BattleTech Kickstarter
« Reply #11 on: 23 November 2019, 15:28:49 »
Clan Command Star-  Everything here except the Mist Lynx has been available in recent video games (MC2, MW4, and I think MWO) and can be found among all the Invaders

Actually, the Mist Lynx IS in MWO. At one time, it was the fastest Clan Light (didn't last) and even for a time afterwards, I got a lot of mileage out of mine in Conquest. Not a great mech for mech on mech fighting, but a fun little guy for shenanigans in its prime.
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