PsihoKekec
Swashbuckling Accountant
The new ride of the Pope of the New Avalon Catholic Church
Battletech BattleTech discussion thread: May the light of Hanse Davion guide us
- Thread starter PsihoKekec
- Start date
I know the new kickstarter came with some cardboard standups, I don't think the alpha strike book comes with any though.
Never played alpha strike so I don't have an opinion it.
Aaron Fox
Well-known member
I've played Alpha Strike and it's damn worth it. You can use the minis that come with the base game if you so choose. All you really need is to go to this website (Alpha Strike Force Builder - Master Unit List) to build your force to generate the unit cards. Once you're done with your force, you can print out the unit cards of your force and use them as you please.
It is also very quick with the base rules (there are damage confirmation rules that slightly slow the game down but not by much). You can get a good 1.2k PV game done in, oh, 3 hours with people who don't understand the rules all that well...
... this reminds me of the first time that I sent out my Guerts into an Alpha Strike game. One of my fellow BTers -who was using a clan list- took one look at the stat card and literally called it bullshit. To give you an idea, this is what a Guert (standard) stat card looks like:
You're seeing that correctly, it's got an armor rating of 13, a structure of 5, and has enough guns to give a 4-4-4 damage rating (to give you an idea, this is stripping armor of an older Atlas within three turns if every shot hits).
Aaron Fox
Well-known member
Well, the conversion rate is 1 Hex = 2 Inches for movement... though I have to go dig my rulebook for ranges. In general, you can use free-form or maps for your terrain. My group tends to use freeform due to its abundance.
Bear Ribs
Well-known member
Does anybody know a good listing of where the various RATs are to be found? I know Xotl's of course and it's good but really era-limited, and everything else seems to be scattered around all manner of random books and hard to find. Field Manuals are... okay and my backup policy is to go with the random roller on MekHQ but I'm suspicious of it since rolling a lance of Von Luckners in a lostech era Liao campaign,
I was particularly hunting for the New Vandenberg Uprising* but as far as I can tell, the only RATs for that time period are Amaris and SLDF with nothing for what the Great Houses, much less the Taurians or Magistracy, might be using. I could maybe figure out something from the MUL in a pinch but it's prone to "these are the 'mechs available in this 300-year period" instead of narrowing it down to a reasonable timeframe for a scenario.
*Not to say I wouldn't like to have a go-to for other eras too.
I was particularly hunting for the New Vandenberg Uprising* but as far as I can tell, the only RATs for that time period are Amaris and SLDF with nothing for what the Great Houses, much less the Taurians or Magistracy, might be using. I could maybe figure out something from the MUL in a pinch but it's prone to "these are the 'mechs available in this 300-year period" instead of narrowing it down to a reasonable timeframe for a scenario.
*Not to say I wouldn't like to have a go-to for other eras too.
Does battletech not have a detailed TO&E for various units at certain time periods you could use as the basis for your own units?
The MUL is the place to go.
There are lots of units that have their TO&E completely outlined in source books. What specific units are you interested in?
I'm not interested in any of them, was just thinking it might be helpful for Bear's project.
Though speaking of that, I reallt should try and get around to organizing my own mechs into some sort of a defined structure rather than building ad hoc stars every time I get into a game. I keep putting it off because I don't have all the mechs I want yet, and it'll bug me if I go "and then the Mastodon will go here, in the 1st star of trinity 2" when I don't actually have a Mastodon to yet.
Fill the stars as completely as you can. Then, when the missing mechs come available, make the short stars fight trials of possession to gain those mechs.
Bear Ribs
Well-known member
Once in a while but it's relatively rare, usually, you only know which 'mechs the most famous characters use. We know, f'rex, that Morgan Kell used an Archer and Patrick Kell piloted a Thunderbolt but the rest of the Kell Hounds are largely unknown, just that they're a battalion, verteran/reliable (in 3025). And that's the Kell Hounds, probably around the 3rd/4th most important merc group in the Inner Sphere. I'm getting nowhere trying to figure out the more obscure ones.
Well I was looking at the Magistracy during the New Vandenburg Uprising. Going through Liberation of Terra they had 8 MAF Regiments and a dozen regiments of Mercs at the beginning, and across the entire war a total of 230 regiments, (They must have got busy) of which 210 were lost.
Then you can get to the actual force generation rules and somehow the Magistracy forces are fighting alongside Kerensky against Amaris as irregulars but they just roll their 'mechs on the SLDF table with a +1 (No Falcons for them, but they're way more likely to be deploying Spectors, yes, the 4F that has the Null-Signiture, than the SLDF, go fig).
And that... didn't make much sense to me and ruins the general individuality of the forces when everybody from Kurita to Davion to Canopians to random pirates are all using the SLDF table.
This is a goodly chunk of it, I'm trying to teach myself to paint miniatures and wanted to generate some merc and house schemes for units that were around then rather than yet another 3025 group.
Huh, that's weird. I assumed there would be something more detailed than that.
Like in 40k, it's never clear exactly how every first founding chapter is organized, but there's usually at least one or two companies here and there that are fully detailed (currently I think it's just the ultramarine 2nd company that's been clearly laid out), and the overall structure of a codex chapter exists to help you build your own force that fits within that overall structure.
It's baffling to me that battletech doesn't have a similar setup. Granted I wouldn't use it, but certainly people that don't ascribe to my "I spit in the eye of canonically/temporally feasible star composition" style of unit composition could.
Camospecs might help with that, they've got all sorts of paint schemes for all eras posted online.
It's thanks to them I actually just found out that I've been painting all my stuff in a scheme veru much like the one used by firehorse galaxy:
Bear Ribs
Well-known member
Yeah, I know Camospecs have the paint schemes, which is why I want the RATs to make sure the schemes fit the models I'm painting. Otherwise, I may give my Canopian lance a Rampage (because the MUL says they have two different models of Rampage) because I wasn't aware that they only have three Rampages and all three are in a specific regiment, and then other fans will surround me and jeer at my minis and my ego will flee out my ear in an escape pod and never come back.Huh, that's weird. I assumed there would be something more detailed than that.
Like in 40k, it's never clear exactly how every first founding chapter is organized, but there's usually at least one or two companies here and there that are fully detailed (currently I think it's just the ultramarine 2nd company that's been clearly laid out), and the overall structure of a codex chapter exists to help you build your own force that fits within that overall structure.
It's baffling to me that battletech doesn't have a similar setup. Granted I wouldn't use it, but certainly people that don't ascribe to my "I spit in the eye of canonically/temporally feasible star composition" style of unit composition could.
Camospecs might help with that, they've got all sorts of paint schemes for all eras posted online.
It's thanks to them I actually just found out that I've been painting all my stuff in a scheme veru much like the one used by firehorse galaxy:
View attachment 1093
So better to find a RAT ahead of time to avoid that happening.
I don't think I've seen a TO&E for any units in the MoC. I'll have to check my sourcebooks whem I get a chance.
Blasterbot
Well-known member
I am pretty sure things are left a bit vague so you can build how you want. salvage is a thing so as long as you keep to a general theme even the capellans have a few atlas and this might be one place that has them. 3025 all the designs have been there for a long while and have traded and "traded" around. also most BT players are really chill so as long as you keep things era appropriate they won't mind much.
Bear Ribs
Well-known member
I know the MoC manufactures the Bugmech Trio and Shadowhawks on their own so you can't go wrong adding those, but everybody else has them too so it doesn't really give a unit any individuality. I don't necessarily want an entire lance of weird-offs but I'd like to put in at least a couple at different sizes that mark the company as belonging to its specific place and time.
At the assault size in the MUL the Emperor and Rampage are the only ones that are going to clearly say "This isn't a generic 3025 lance."
The Koschei is the only unusual (Not unique because the Magistracy didn't make any unique 'mechs, only the Dragonfly fighter and the Athena WarShip) heavy they have.
There's a fair number of unusual mediums, the Hoplite, Dervish, Phoenix, and Talos all point to it being a less than a standard 3025 grouping.
Fleas and Falcons are the ones that seem to be rarities among the lights.