Recent Posts

41

General BattleTech Discussion / Re: Infantry Heavy Burst Support Weapons

« Last post by Weirdo on Today at 19:03:47 »

...Why did you ask about conventional infantry when the comment that spawned it was about battle armor?

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General BattleTech Discussion / Re: Dominions of a Divided Nature - Sourcebook Discussion Thread **SPOILERS**

« Last post by Crimson Dynamo on Today at 19:02:50 »

I also very much like that there is a 'merc' group running around calling itself the Light of Mankind- also known as the designation for WoB ROM's special forces branch. I do so hope this is another Broadsword Legion in plain sight.

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General BattleTech Discussion / Re: WoB Political and Military Objectives at the Start of the Jihad.

« Last post by General308 on Today at 18:56:32 »

If Stone was going to be a WoB plant, the time for that revelation to be made has come and gone. It would have no narrative impact now that he's dead and the Republic is dead with him.

That depends on how the story was done. The whole Point from WoB to create Stone could simple be to setup a situation where they could return as a hero.  In WoB's mind an IlClan existing could do such a thing.  Lots of ways they could do it.  You never know how a story is going to unfold to when it is done. Which I hope the done part is never for BT.

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General BattleTech Discussion / Re: Upcoming Releases XXVI: Unboxing Days

« Last post by Cubby on Today at 18:53:53 »

New Novella “Lethal Lesson” Now Available



Lethal Lesson
A BattleTech novella by Daniel Isberner
Price $2.99


A PACK DIVIDED…

Clan Wolf has gone to claim Terra to fulfill the promise made by Aleksandr Kerensky centuries ago. But for those left behind, their story is a very different one…

Star Captain Jacinda of Clan Wolf Is one such warrior. Stuck on Campbelton in the Wolf Empire due to injury, she commands a sibko training facility while stewing over her lost chance to go with the Wolf touman to attain glory in the campaign for Terra. But heroism comes in many forms, and when a new invader targets Campbelton, Jacinda is able to unleash her primal warrior nature, and defend the Wolf’s pups against all comers…

E-Publication: https://books2read.com/BattleTechLethalLessons

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General BattleTech Discussion / Re: Dominions of a Divided Nature - Sourcebook Discussion Thread **SPOILERS**

« Last post by Natasha Kerensky on Today at 18:44:51 »

It makes perfect sense that a fair number of those of Rasalhaguian descent would look at the fact that merging their people with a Clan turned them from being Battletech's Space Belgium into that dark part of the map labeled "Do Not Poke - Here There Be Dragons"...and that if joining a Clan did that, what would joining an IlClan do?

That’s a weak analogy that the facts don’t support.  When the Rasalhagians joined with the Bears, they were a small, highly vulnerable state that had lost its protector in ComStar.  They needed to be part of a stronger alliance to survive, and the Bears stepped into that gap.  When the Rasalhagians voted to join the ilClan, they’d been part of strong, stable alliance for decades that had repeatedly kicked the rear ends of their Spheroid and Clan neighbors alike, including the Rasalhagians’ former tormentors in the Combine.  The Rasalhagians have no reason to trade that security, independence, and dominance for an unknown, faraway, and alien ilClan, and lots of reasons not to.  From the Rasalhagian perspective, it was illogical to hold a vote in the first place and just plain stupid to vote in favor of ilClan.

That doesn’t mean the Dominion can’t or shouldn’t be brought within the ilClan’s orbit.  But this was a really dumb way to do it.  The seeds of better options had been planted in prior products.  They shouldn’t have been ignored.

Allowing for the fact that the Clan and Spheroid societies in the Dominion have been kept largely separate from one another, it makes zero narrative sense that the Raslhague civilians are completely in the dark a out the ilClan after 1) being bulldozed by both Clan Wolf and Clan Ghost Bear and 2) being married to Clan Ghost Bear for decades.

There’s a big difference between knowing a term like ilClan historically and thinking that it’s a good idea to subjugate one’s sovereignty to an unproven version of that concept. 

I don’t want to invoke a Rule #4 violation, but it would be akin to someone arguing that we really need to resurrect the League of Nations in the 21st century.  Yeah, we all learned about the League of Nations in school, but that doesn’t mean any of us is advocating for its resurrection today.

Just because most Rasalhagians learn the term ilClan during a history lesson on Operation Revival doesn’t mean even a small fraction of Rasalhagians is going to think:  “Yeah, that’s the ticket!  Let’s subjugate our highly successful and powerful Rasalhague Dominion to an unknown and undefined foreign power called the ilClan because their predecessor just happened to land on Terra and survive.  Trading away successful sovereignty for unproven governance is always a good idea!”

I mean, c’mon... even if the Rasalhagians were all 32nd-century versions of the Swedish Chef muppet, they wouldn’t be that dumb.

As for the Bears not taking a decade to debate joining the ilClan through committee because that’s how they’ve always acted, “we’re going to keep doing this thing because we’ve always done this thing” is always a terrible argument.

Putting words in my mouth.  I never wrote that the Bears needed “a decade to debate”.  I never wrote that the Bears should “keep doing this thing because [they’ve] always done this thing”.

What I’ve repeatedly written is that the Bears have been a consistently slow-deciding, insular, and family-focused faction for centuries.  DD and the novel that preceded it are either ignorant of, or ignored, this canon in favor of bizarro-universe Bears that react rashly to external actors with internal strife.

It makes no sense given everything we know about the Bears.  Either the Bears should have been brought into the ilClan’s orbit a different way — and some combination of how the Bears were forced into the fight against the Blakists during the Jihad and the seeds planted by the Freeminders, Omega Galaxy, and Vega Protectorate in more recent products provided such options.  Or whatever changed the Bears from slow-deciding, insular, and family-focused to reactionary, externally driven, kin strife over the past handful of decades should have been explicated.

Instead, in DD, we get “Fault lines in the Dominion we barely knew existed...”.  That’s poor storytelling.  It’s not the end of the world, but future products either need to build on canon, or they need more exposition when they go in a direction that’s 180-degrees in multiple dimensions to what has been established over hundreds of years (in-universe) of prior canon.

To be clear, I’d have even been okay with the Dominion disappearing as a faction as long it was consistent with the canon (the Bears waited too long to judge the ilClan and were attacked from all sides by the resurrected Star League) or given some exposition (the Dominion had been riven for several decades by Motpart-this and Mopar-that secessionism and terrorism, leaving it highly factionalized and vulnerable to the ilKhan’s manipulations).  My complaint isn’t about saving the Bears and Rasalhagians in some freeze-dried state for all eternity.  My complaint is about poor storytelling that is both disconnected from the canon and fails to explain those disconnects.

That’s all.

Imagine little Tommy in history class at school.

Teacher: And so the people of the Free Rasalhague Republic found common cause with the invading Ghost Bears and unified into the Rasalhague Dominion.

Tommy: Miss, why were the Ghost Bears Invading?

It is a foundation issue for the modern Rasalhague Dominion. There wouldn't be anyone under a century who didn't know why the Clans were invading (they fought a very public battle of Tukayyid over it) and what an ilClan was.

See above.

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BattleTech Game Errata / Re: Battlefield Support Rules Open Beta - Feedback and Discussion

« Last post by Xotl on Today at 18:35:44 »

For TMM balance I think the set TMM should be 1 less then maximum.  So a maxim would have a 3, and a warrior a 4, just to keep balance between max possible and more likely average tmm.  Still should pay for max TMM, like how a timberwolf pays for a 2 TMM despite often getting less.

This is an interesting concept.  After all, one of the strengths of an abstraction is being able to just go with what you want to see in play rather than worrying about attempts to 1:1 fidelity, and if anything "assume they're going almost but not quite full speed" is realistically more likely than "assume they cover their maximum number of hexes every round".  I'll definitely think this one over.

In general, I'm thinking of boosting DCTNs and lowering TMMs.

Would it be too weird/complicated to use standard initiative rules for Assets but only count them as 1/2 a unit (so you have to move 2 for each 'Mech on the board)? This would reduce the init sink incentive, but still give a chance for Assets to move later, and therefore have BA (and maybe inf) do their Anti-'Mech attacks.

In addition to the initiative sink possibilities, I want to avoid players having to consult the Unequal Numbers of Mechs table, which would otherwise be a constant feature of Asset play as number disparities would regularly appear with these.  It's a clumsy, unintuitive chart and would definitely lead to bogging down.

For now, if you want anti-mech attacks, you'll want to use real infantry and BA, not assets.  More reward, but more rules is generally how the classic full-fledged units compare to the Asset versions.  However, if there's a simple way to capture the flavour of the real thing, I'm always interested in trying to implement it.

Also, Xotl -- did you have specific scenarios/matchups you'd prefer us to test? I can keep thinking of ways to potentially break the system, but if you already have some things in mind, I'm happy to test them.

Point balance in general is far and away my biggest concern, specifically of a broad nature indicative of wider systemic weaknesses.  That is, if one unit is slightly more of a bargain than another, well, I'll try to adjust things but it's the nature of a design system with a lot of moving parts that there will generally be bargains and busts.  But if we're getting things like "infantry is worthless, period" or "there's never any point to taking anything but Strikes" then I want to know that.

--It didn't look like the rules say how much damage a charging (or DFA'ing) 'Mech takes when successfully hitting an Asset (in BMM/TW it is 1pt/10 tons of target for a charge, but Assets don't have tonnage)

That's the result of a last-minute rules change and I'm not sure what to do there.  Originally physical attacks just caused a flat Destroy Check with a mod based on the attacker's weight.  It was felt there was getting to be too many exceptions to Destroy Checks though, and that was replaced just before release.  Unfortunately, this change doesn't work.  I've noted it for further revision.

For initiative, a good use of the mobile hq would be to allow 2 assets to act at normal initiative.  The mobile hq is super expensive with no bonus currently, so instead of the +2 initiative they normally give (which doesn't work on assets) letting assets "sink" init instead is a decent bonus over raw init bonuses.

Also an interesting idea.  I'll add this to the list of things to consider.

Thanks a lot for the feedback so far, folks.

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Clan Chatterweb / Re: The Rasalhague dominion: Making our neighbors move since 3063

« Last post by Foxx Ital on Today at 18:34:48 »

We should have hit the horses in response to Noyan!

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The Inner Sphere / Re: The Art of War: Home of the Capellan Confederation!

« Last post by Hellraiser on Today at 18:34:26 »

Agreed. I was really hoping for a MVSPL or even a SNPPC. The LPPC is a bummer.

I have no idea what the stats are, but for a WYSIWYG, I could see an LPPC+MML5+2ML as a solid load out with some CASE & electronics to flavor.
Sniping or striking in close either way it has some bite.

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Clan Chatterweb / Re: The Rasalhague dominion: Making our neighbors move since 3063

« Last post by Tyler Jorgensson on Today at 18:33:47 »

The intent on driving into the Combine is to distract the Touman from their own issues. If we’re kicking the Dracs teeth in then we’re not fighting each other (theoretically). Plus a probe against an enemy can test truly how prepared they are. In addition if we were to join the NuSLDF and Alaric did want to fight the Combine then this would be a good first step. Admittedly it could backfire like the Fox/Cat Clusters messing around in Empire Alone.


The Watch stories/ breakdown were a nice touch.

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Clan Chatterweb / Re: The Rasalhague dominion: Making our neighbors move since 3063

« Last post by Foxx Ital on Today at 18:32:38 »

I want more watch storys!!