Tell me about: Using the Commando

[garhkal]

I have had good luck using them to hunt vehicles down, and against backbiting jumpers that would harass my fire support mechs.

[Crunch]

I've found out that they make a great screen for Hollanders and a good second wave following up on Blitzkriegs.

[Sartris]

I've discovered I'm a big fan of the COM-7S.  It delivers quite a punch for its weight... unfortunately one well-placed anything basically blows it up.

[Paul]

Other ideas for the 2D:

Start it with less than full ammo. IE 4-5 shots. This serves 2 purposes:
- Odds of the bin being empty by the time it gets critted is decent.
- You have an incentive to get the heck out of dodge early, and you have an incentive to make those couple of shots count.

Especially the latter will make it more natural to have the "proper" playing style.

Another idea is to drop the SRM6 and 1 ton of ammo in favor of 2 SRM4's in the CT. This gives you 3 SRM-4s using the same ammo bin. I'd leave the RT one.

Final idea is to load the SRM4 launcher with smoke ammo. Doing this for 2-4 COM's in a COM lance can have a serious beneficial effect. You'll miss that firepower somewhat, but the portable cover can be real handy, especially when you combine it with woods to break LOS.

Paul

[Edit: typos]

[Reaver]

All good ideas, although as far as mods go, I like to swap out the SRM-6 for an SRM-4 and medium laser, and then replace the SRM-6 ammo with a ton of armor.  The Commando is actually surprisingly tough for a 3025 mech, but it's still really small with all the negative effects that come from it.

The most important thing about the Commando is that how you use it depends a great deal on the circumstances.  I think a lot of the "Commando = glass cannon" feel comes from people who routinely see them from the cockpits of their heavy/assault designs rather than those who actually use them consistently.  The Commando in a lance on lance fight between skirmishers, for instance, where nothing is typically over 45 tons and nothing runs under 5/8/X, is actually one of your big guns.  Short of a Wolfhound or a Phoenix Hawk, almost nothing consistently outguns it, and the bug mechs common to those lances are at a severe firepower disadvantage against the Commando design.  "Ambush predator" is not how you would describe a Commando in that situation.  The same principle applies in combined-arms situations:  the Commando is (or at least was before the new rules reduced the susceptibility of armor to being critted out) your first and best option at taking out enemy armor formations.  Let an enemy Commando loose in your support lance of Alacorns, and you can either spend a turn frantically firing everything to take it out, or you can lose an Alacorn a turn.

The point is that the Commando is only an ambush predator in certain select situations that apply in many player games, but don't apply in most situations actually dealt with in the universe.  In 90% of situations in universe, the Commando is an absolute beast that can outpunch mechs 15 tons heavier than itself, and wreck combined arms formations regardless of weight.  Moreover, it can survive pretty much anything aside from concerted strikes from one-shot punchers of large laser class or above, which is not very problematic when you look at how few mechs in its weight class actually have that kind of armament.  That it can't survive the concerted salvo of AC-10's is to say that, surprise surprise, it can't stand up to main battle line mechs twice its weight.  Which is something it rarely has to do.

[Doug Glendower]

I have a high-tech variant that finds a use for Compact Heat Sinks, as it has twin MML-5s and a medium laser...

[Hellraiser]

Another idea is to drop the SRM6 and 1 ton of ammo in favor of 2 SRM4's in the CT. This gives you 3 SRM-4s using the same ammo bin. I'd leave the RT one.

Interesting,  I like it.
I myself did something similar back when I got the "Pursuit Lance" (Vulcan, Jenner, 2x Commando)
I swapped the SRM4's for LRM5's.  It gave the Commandos (And Jenner) a bite that matched the AC2 range of the Vulcan & made them a bit more heat efficient as well.
Later (3050) I like to use 4 Streak-2's with 1 ton of ammo which is similar to what you did.

Final idea is to load the SRM4 launcher with smoke ammo. Doing this for 2-4 COM's in a COM lance can have a serious beneficial effect. You'll miss that firepower somewhat, but the portable cover can be real handy, especially when you combine it with woods to break LOS.

Or just load up Infernos and start a few fire's accomplishing the same effect but still keeping some combat ability w/ Heat & Vee Crits.

I am the reason My GM will no longer use Spreading Fire/Smoke rules.  (We can't have nice things)
On the other hand would say I was only responding to him letting the other side cheese out on C3 networks while giving us none.  I had no choice I say,  no alternative,  It was set all 6 maps on fire to provide smoke cover or let them kill us easily,  and I never go out easy !!!!
  (Rage against the dying of the light)
I convinced my entire team to use every beam weapon they had to set every single hex in range on fire and slowed the game down to a dreadful pace of "spreading" rolls every turn.
After which he called in "carpet bombing runs" of water tankers to put out the forest and end the game sooner and said I'm not allowed to have nice things anymore.   :'(

[Nahuris]

Interesting,  I like it.
I myself did something similar back when I got the "Pursuit Lance" (Vulcan, Jenner, 2x Commando)
I swapped the SRM4's for LRM5's.  It gave the Commandos (And Jenner) a bite that matched the AC2 range of the Vulcan & made them a bit more heat efficient as well.
Later (3050) I like to use 4 Streak-2's with 1 ton of ammo which is similar to what you did.
Or just load up Infernos and start a few fire's accomplishing the same effect but still keeping some combat ability w/ Heat & Vee Crits.

I am the reason My GM will no longer use Spreading Fire/Smoke rules.  (We can't have nice things)
On the other hand would say I was only responding to him letting the other side cheese out on C3 networks while giving us none.  I had no choice I say,  no alternative,  It was set all 6 maps on fire to provide smoke cover or let them kill us easily,  and I never go out easy !!!!
  (Rage against the dying of the light)
I convinced my entire team to use every beam weapon they had to set every single hex in range on fire and slowed the game down to a dreadful pace of "spreading" rolls every turn.
After which he called in "carpet bombing runs" of water tankers to put out the forest and end the game sooner and said I'm not allowed to have nice things anymore.   :'(

His name isn't Tim, is it?

Nahuris

[Hellraiser]

The GM ?  No, his name is Joel47

[mensa12345]

I convinced my entire team to use every beam weapon they had to set every single hex in range on fire and slowed the game down to a dreadful pace of "spreading" rolls every turn.
After which he called in "carpet bombing runs" of water tankers to put out the forest and end the game sooner and said I'm not allowed to have nice things anymore.   :'(

I've played battletech for thirty years or more, and I've never once had water tanker planes on stand-by.  What did you do, sleep with his wife.  No wait, we're battletech players....use his mousepad without asking.

[Shijima_3085]

I have a high-tech variant that finds a use for Compact Heat Sinks, as it has twin MML-5s and a medium laser...

That, sir, is downright scary.   O0

[Colt Ward]

I have used the Clan version, the Arctic Wolf . . . any really?  I would say it gets used like a mechanized- SRM Carrier . . . cause that is what it is!  You commit it to a fight to overwhelm the opposition with priority targets, when you need a distraction, or gotta put something down fast.

[Nahuris]

The GM ?  No, his name is Joel47

We had a GM named Tim --- he played the same way --- if we managed to take his opposition down too quickly, there were "reserve" mechs waiting just off the edge of the board to come in  --- stand by tankers with water to stop fires -- every battlefield had hidden infantry somewhere, and they always satcheled our fast lights with the most incredible stealth (basically, he'd pick a random light mech and on a 5+, your knee actuator goes out due to "hidden infantry") or whatever..... as none of us owned the books at the time, and he owned the booka and all of the figs in use (we were military, overseas.... and the military does not provide game stores), we were stuck playing by his rules for a year...

Each and every battle ended more or less the same way ---- with at least one light mech destroyed, one of our mediums dragging itself around missing at least one leg, and all the mechs as little more than walking skeletons.... bt we always got replacement mechs between battles from our employer ... almost always stingers, wasps, quickdraws,  etc.

Oh, yeah.... even though the game was 3025 tech,  his Crusaders came stock with double heat sinks... and the enemy were the only people who could get Crusaders, and if we captured one, it either had a self destruct, or we couildn't manage to break it's encryption, no matter what we did (once paid to replace an entire cockpit on one, but the encryption was hardwired into the engine, gyro, and all the weapons, not the computer), and all parts immediately broke and crumbled to rusty dust if removed from the Crusader.

Had to play under those rules for a little over a year before one of our people got his family to mail B-tech stuff to us.... and then of course, Tim wouldn't play unless he was GM, and no one could borrow figs.

Nahuris

[iamfanboy]

And NONE of you gave him a little 'blanket party' for being such an asshat? It can work wonders for people's attitude when they realize such terrible behavior has consequences....

[Colt Ward]

Oh yeah, blanket party . . .

Or start talking about Single Use IED detectors.

[Hellraiser]

We had a GM named Tim --- he played the same way --- if we managed to take his opposition down too quickly, there were "reserve" mechs waiting just off the edge of the board to come in  --- stand by tankers with water to stop fires -- every battlefield had hidden infantry somewhere, and they always satcheled our fast lights with the most incredible stealth (basically, he'd pick a random light mech and on a 5+, your knee actuator goes out due to "hidden infantry") or whatever..... as none of us owned the books at the time, and he owned the booka and all of the figs in use (we were military, overseas.... and the military does not provide game stores), we were stuck playing by his rules for a year... 

Each and every battle ended more or less the same way ---- with at least one light mech destroyed, one of our mediums dragging itself around missing at least one leg, and all the mechs as little more than walking skeletons.... bt we always got replacement mechs between battles from our employer ... almost always stingers, wasps, quickdraws,  etc.

Oh, yeah.... even though the game was 3025 tech,  his Crusaders came stock with double heat sinks... and the enemy were the only people who could get Crusaders, and if we captured one, it either had a self destruct, or we couildn't manage to break it's encryption, no matter what we did (once paid to replace an entire cockpit on one, but the encryption was hardwired into the engine, gyro, and all the weapons, not the computer), and all parts immediately broke and crumbled to rusty dust if removed from the Crusader.   

Ugh, that all sounds horrible.

But not at all what I meant about our GM.
No, it wasn't intentional, it just happened that in an assignment of random teams one side came up much better off than the other.
The GM was just the ref, wasn't playing the op-for, it was a group of us, 3-6 players per side all w/ 2-3 mechs each.  He's actually quite fair, this was more unlucky than anything. 
We just didn't happen to have anyone w/ C3 and then it got worse because the "Partial-Networks" were then allowed to form full networks between players.
We "Could" have done it too, but no one brought any C3 units on our side.

It just so happened that when I saw the odds based on one side happening to have all the C3 and the high terrain while the other side had more open areas & no C3 that I decided to do all I could do to reduce that spotting ability by cutting off LoS w/ massive forest fires.

This, while helping us save some of our mechs, was REALLY REALLY slowing down the game.
And while it wasn't my intent to do that, I might have been giggling maniacally & being a pain in the ass about it.  Especially when I started getting the entire team to forgo shots at 10+ in order to light a woods hex on fire at 4+ instead.

[Nahuris]

Ugh, that all sounds horrible.

But not at all what I meant about our GM.
No, it wasn't intentional, it just happened that in an assignment of random teams one side came up much better off than the other.
The GM was just the ref, wasn't playing the op-for, it was a group of us, 3-6 players per side all w/ 2-3 mechs each.  He's actually quite fair, this was more unlucky than anything. 
We just didn't happen to have anyone w/ C3 and then it got worse because the "Partial-Networks" were then allowed to form full networks between players.
We "Could" have done it too, but no one brought any C3 units on our side.

It just so happened that when I saw the odds based on one side happening to have all the C3 and the high terrain while the other side had more open areas & no C3 that I decided to do all I could do to reduce that spotting ability by cutting off LoS w/ massive forest fires.

This, while helping us save some of our mechs, was REALLY REALLY slowing down the game.
And while it wasn't my intent to do that, I might have been giggling maniacally & being a pain in the ass about it.  Especially when I started getting the entire team to forgo shots at 10+ in order to light a woods hex on fire at 4+ instead.

EEwwww.... I've been on both sides of that equation.

C3 is really only fair when fighting clan mechs..... I remember facing a company that was networked, controlled by an Annhilator armed with 4 light gauss rifles... and no one on our side thought to bring anything except the one guy with the 3 Archers and a fast Tag spotter.

We had advanced weapons, but it really doesn't matter when your opponents are able to use C3....


On the flip side, I was in a C3 equipped company, and the terrain was extremely rough (lot of hills and canyons) ..... not only did the C3 give us a massive advantage, but with the other side having few jump capable mechs, we were able to fight the whole battle never facing more than 3 of their mechs at a time versus no less than 8 of ours at any given moment.

C3 can be entirely brutal.

Nahuris

[Doug Glendower]

See, we had the opposite thing happen. Our local WoB player took 2 C3I Lev II's into a fight with 3 lances from the Canopians, Davions, and Merc players. He gets all arrayed and sends in his dedicated spotters and leaves the rest back and then we hear the immortal words from the new kid: "What does 'ECM' do?" followed by, "Yeah, I have one too." by the other two players.

The ECMs were exactly 10 hexes apart from each other, creating a nearly perfect band of static across the board, and easily catching and isolating both spotters, which went down in a hail of gunfire. They couldn't have planned that if they tried, but pulled it off completely by accident.

[Nahuris]

See, we had the opposite thing happen. Our local WoB player took 2 C3I Lev II's into a fight with 3 lances from the Canopians, Davions, and Merc players. He gets all arrayed and sends in his dedicated spotters and leaves the rest back and then we hear the immortal words from the new kid: "What does 'ECM' do?" followed by, "Yeah, I have one too." by the other two players.

The ECMs were exactly 10 hexes apart from each other, creating a nearly perfect band of static across the board, and easily catching and isolating both spotters, which went down in a hail of gunfire. They couldn't have planned that if they tried, but pulled it off completely by accident.

I had never used ECM before --- not until a recent game at our shop where I got to play with Col. Hengrist (was an awesome game for someone who hasn't played in 8 years), and we discovered that my Fiance's Silver Fox is not only a vicious design (it mounts an ECM) but that streak launchers also hate them.....

I am now considering either a Raven, or other mech with ECM as a standard in my lances.

On a side note, the Silver Fox is not only a very nasty light mech killer, it is more than capable of going up against much heavier designs... especially if they rely on beam weapons. Look the design up, it is really great.

Nahuris

[Paul]

and we discovered that my Fiance's Silver Fox is not only a vicious design (it mounts an ECM) but that streak launchers also hate them.....

Regular ECM does not disrupt Streak.

Paul

[Nahuris]

Regular ECM does not disrupt Streak.

Paul

It had the most advanced one on it ---- the Angel?

If so, then we made it a bit more vicious than it was supposed to be.

However, it was the laser reflective armor more than anything that made it scary.

Nahuris

[Paul]

It had the most advanced one on it ---- the Angel?

If so, then we made it a bit more vicious than it was supposed to be.

Ah! Yes, the Angel does disrupt Streak.

However, it was the laser reflective armor more than anything that made it scary.

Yeah, it does tend to do that.
Add Blue Shield if you want to make PPC boats cry.

Paul

[Nahuris]

Ah! Yes, the Angel does disrupt Streak.


Yeah, it does tend to do that.
Add Blue Shield if you want to make PPC boats cry.

Paul

We ran that, a 3050 Hermes (30 tonner, can't remember if it was a Hermes 1 or 2) and my custom Blade, 35 tons, 8/12 with an LBX5, 3 ER Mediums, and an ER Small (all IS) up through the center of a heavy and assault formation....LOL.
The blade even managed to do 20 damage and knocked a VERY lightly damaged Thunderhawk on it's face. The Silver Fox went after a 60 ton all laser machine and started tearing it up.

It's pretty obvious that I LOVE light mechs, isn't it?

Nahuris

[Hellraiser]

The ECMs were exactly 10 hexes apart from each other, creating a nearly perfect band of static across the board, and easily catching and isolating both spotters, which went down in a hail of gunfire. They couldn't have planned that if they tried, but pulled it off completely by accident.

Pretty much exactly how I like to deal w/ C3.
Pull back, drop some ECM, pick off the spotters, then deal w/ the gunboats on slightly more even terms.

[Doug Glendower]

Pretty much exactly how I like to deal w/ C3.
Pull back, drop some ECM, pick off the spotters, then deal w/ the gunboats on slightly more even terms.

I know, but it was three new players who didn't even know what they had, and pulled it off by accident better than anyone I've ever seen do it on purpose. The look on OnlyCatFud's face was priceless.

Needless to say, I took notes. :D

[Col.Hengist]

We ran that, a 3050 Hermes (30 tonner, can't remember if it was a Hermes 1 or 2) and my custom Blade, 35 tons, 8/12 with an LBX5, 3 ER Mediums, and an ER Small (all IS) up through the center of a heavy and assault formation....LOL.
The blade even managed to do 20 damage and knocked a VERY lightly damaged Thunderhawk on it's face. The Silver Fox went after a 60 ton all laser machine and started tearing it up.

It's pretty obvious that I LOVE light mechs, isn't it?

Nahuris

Yea i have to attest to that silver fox being one nasty little mother.

 In my defence, i had the thunderhawk handed to me when ethan had to leave...altho that was my craptastic roll tt made it fall. Wish we could have gotten iin more than a few turns tho...all in all it was a fun game

[Nahuris]

Yea i have to attest to that silver fox being one nasty little mother.

 In my defence, i had the thunderhawk handed to me when ethan had to leave...altho that was my craptastic roll tt made it fall. Wish we could have gotten iin more than a few turns tho...all in all it was a fun game

It was a great game, and prior to the fall, that Thunderhawk was putting some serious hurt on the Nightstar, on our end. That game did prove the old addage, though, that no plan survives any contact with the enemy.... but had it been a 3025 game, then the roll that the Hermes, Silver Fox and Blade ended up in would have been the perfect usage for a Commando, or light mechs in general. Basically, we engaged the 60 ton Smurf (one guy had a custom CAV mech out there --- it was painted Smurf Blue, and was promptly given the nickname), on a run-by. It pulled him out of position, and let our light stuff into the back field, at which point the light mechs were running around taking potshots at targets of opportunity... and since our Heavies were already colliding with the front line, no one could turn and deal with the lights.... the only option left was to move closer an engage the heavies to the front, and hope that the lights would miss the now long range shots at your back. At least, that was how it looked on our side..... in any battle, not everyone sees the same thing, nor is it even a given that the objectives conflict.... Sometimes, both sides can win the same battle, depending on the objectives of each side.

I wish we had thought to take pictures during that fight.... it would have been a perfect example for how to use Commandos.

Nahuris

[bakija]

There is one mech I just can not figure out how to use right: The Commando. Due to being a 25 tonner, quite slow for a non-jumping light, and mounting short-range weapons it just tends to end up as a crater.

It runs at 9, has reasonably solid armor for a 25 ton guy, and has a not at all bad weapons suite--it can do, what, like upwards of (5+6+8) 19 damage in a single turn with a lot of opportunity for lucky crits and a potential for even more damage. It'll do a good job of roughing up similar sized mechs, and can be a reasonable unit to run behind bigger mechs and try to get lucky back hits.

I mean, yeah, if it takes on a significantly bigger mech, it'll get mangled, but so will any small mech. It can't jump, no, but running 9 is still pretty maneuverable.