How are people feeliung about sunday at 7? I'll post skill rules in this post in 30 minutes or so, and then i'd like people to do rolls online and post them here. I recommend using http://invisiblecastle.com/
How are people feeliung about sunday at 7? I'll post skill rules in this post in 30 minutes or so, and then i'd like people to do rolls online and post them here. I recommend using http://invisiblecastle.com/
How are people feeliung about sunday at 7? I'll post skill rules in this post in 30 minutes or so, and then i'd like people to do rolls online and post them here. I recommend using http://invisiblecastle.com/
30 minutes eh? :P
i'm taking a bar exam in a week and a half. EFF the bar exam.
I would not mind trying that again with like, twice the number of people we had.
With what we did have, we really couldn't do much about that hill full of large guns.
maybe if we had clantech or something.
actually you didn't end up doing too badly.
The atlas pilot you guys activated by killing pilots fell down so goddamn much for no reason bronze almost took it out.
The only units left were 4 riflemen, with no ammo. A full warhammer, a 90% cored warhammer, and a crippled urbanmech and a crippled catapult, that couldn't move or fire.
The highlight of the match was 4 urbanmechs pinning and heavily damaging a marauder 2, with some covering fire from a warhammer and rifleman to keep him from coming any closer.
Waffle is the only real survivor, he escaped in his mech.
Serge kinda survived, in the sense he would be hunted down and killed before he was recovered by his team. But he got out of the battlefield....on foot.
My latest training match, a Wasp WSP-1A and Griffin GRF-1N against a Stinger STG-3R and a Wolverine WVR-6R.
The initial moves lead to good defensive positions for all, save for the griffin choosing cover over range benefits. He ended up suffering in the first shots due to that positioning, and the wolverine got in a decently good range to fire his autocannon.
This stumbling start for the griffon turned into a game of cat and mouse, where the griffon ended up playing the mouse as the wolverine and stinger exploited his long range weapon loadout to stay close and shoot him up with small weaponry. The wasp, at this point, was chasing the stinger and wolverine, trying to keep them off the griffon. The stinger was getting gutsy, nipping at the griffon's heels as he pelted the griffon with small arms fire. The griffon, both out of desperation and chance, took a swing at the stinger, and the results more than paid for themselves. Log details in spoiler.
Physical attacks for Griffin GRF-1N (TraineeA)
Punch (Left Arm) at Stinger STG-3R (TraineeB); needs 4, rolls 9 : - Direct Blow -hits (using Punch table) CT
Stinger STG-3R (TraineeB) takes 7 damage to CT. Armor destroyed, 4 Internal Structure remaining
Critical hit on CT. Roll is (11+1) = 12; 3 locations.
<<<CRITICAL HIT>>> on Standard Gyro.
<<<CRITICAL HIT>>> on Standard Gyro.
<<<CRITICAL HIT>>> on Machine Gun Ammo (196).
*** Machine Gun Ammo EXPLODES! 392 DAMAGE! ***
Stinger STG-3R (TraineeB) suffers catastrophic damage, but the autoeject system was engaged.
Needless to say, the stinger was ruined, essentially only taking a decisive single melee strike to be felled. The wolverine however, had a good shot at the wasp in the same round, and took out one of the wasp's arms with a decisive shot, while the griffon struggled to do any damage being in still quite poor positioning. After the wasp lost it's medium laser (went with the arm) the wolverine turned it's focus back on the griffon, who was starting to actually be a nuisance with some lucky glancing blows. The wasp moved a LOT to keep his evasion up, but stayed close to the wolverine and spewed SRMs at it. Most of these went unnoticed as they scathed the armor of the wolverine, and soon it looked like the griffon was finished. It had lost a leg, and while the pilot managed to get up and turn to face his shooter, he could not move to get any kind of shot. As fate would have it, one of the SRM shots from the wasp hit the wolverine in the head, and knocked the pilot unconscious. The pilot of the stinger was helpless to watch as the wasp and griffon siezed the opportunity to knock out the wolverine's leg (after the griffon had jumped to reasonable firing distance). The wolverine pilot woke up to a crippled mech, and although he managed to get up, he could do little but jump jet and hope to avoid the fire from the now ideally ranged griffon. Both of these mechs had a leg missing but were still throwing whatever they had on tap at eachother, until once again the wasp had decided he had seen enough. Using his still-stellar speed to get directly behind the wolverine (again with good initiative), he went for a kick, hoping for a knockdown and an easy shot or two, and instead.. well, I'll let the log explain.
(TraineeA)
Kick (Right ) at Wolverine WVR-6R (TraineeB); needs 2, rolls 10 : - Direct Blow -hits (using Rear Kick table) LL
Wolverine WVR-6R (TraineeB) takes 6 damage to LL.
6 damage transfers to LTR.
Wolverine WVR-6R (TraineeB) takes 6 damage to LTR. Armor destroyed, 10 Internal Structure remaining
Critical hit on LT. Roll is (6+2) = 8; 1 location.
<<<CRITICAL HIT>>> on SRM 6 Ammo (7).
*** SRM 6 Ammo EXPLODES! 84 DAMAGE! ***
Moral of the story, gentlemen. NEVER underestimate the power of a well placed punch, or kick. Melee is AWESOME.
Edit - Seems I didn't remember the story quite right. Fixed as I have re-read the game log.
Edit the second - I know the absolute basics of weapon range (count the hexes, look at weapon's range stats, short is +0, medium is +2, long is +4) but what about weapons like the LRM? Is it reversed, with short range being +4 and long range being +0? The quick start guide and waffle's guide here both use the medium laser as an example, which conforms to the conventional range rules, but I am having trouble figuring out how to get the most out of my mech choices. I seem to end up running into situations where I am using weapons that I don't even know how to ideally position myself to use. Tonight's game with the marauder is somewhat of a decent example, I had no idea that PPCs ever had such a thing as a minimum range, which is why I so quickly jumped on the Marauder II as my choice of mech. Had I known I probably would've picked a mech with no minimum range on weapons, as I hate not being able to use a weapon because I'm apparently too close to be any good with it. I'll certainly do the research that I can on my end, but I honestly don't know what to look at or where to find it.
Anyone up for a game today? H40 and I were hoping to get a game in a little earlier than the usual 10pm to 2am (or in the case of last night, 4am est by the time I got off the map).
srsly, I'm hurtin for a good game of battletech right about now. I'd run one myself but my games are terribly boring and/or short.
Can't you tell I love to edit? - Critical hits seem a bit mysterious to me so far. What I've gathered from reading the Tac Ops rule list PDF says that basically, on any attack that hits, you do a seperate 2d6 roll for possible critical hits. There's a modifier on that roll based on how much damage the hit did (or how much cumulative damage the hit did?). What I'm kinda confused about is in that post I made earlier, I did 7 damage with the griffon's punch, which would give me a +1 on my crit roll, and I rolled 11, so my crit roll was 12, which according to the rule sheet I'm looking at would have resulted in two locations being hit. Megamek decided that I did 3 hits in that scenario. Are there seperate critical hit rules that I haven't seen?
For anyone who uses thedrawingboard, be aware that MM doesn't read the LRM5 part correctly, so you have to edit a mtf file for any mech that uses the lrm5.
I really think I've gotten a better grasp of what goes into moving and shooting. If we can establish the "intelligence" portion of our team efforts, I think I can really dish out some hurt.
That said, medium lasers are the king of lvl 1 tech it seems, very good overall stats and great damage/heat ratio without the risk of carrying ammo.
Kasanagi on
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Der Waffle MousBlame this on the misfortune of your birth.New Yark, New Yark.Registered Userregular
edited July 2009
Medium lasers in all incarnations will pretty much always be the bread-and-butter weapon in mechwarrior.
Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
edited July 2009
After half-killing myself hiking a half-mile through the brush up a sandy hillside in the middle of a Nevada summer afternoon (what do you mean there was a bridge 20 feet to the left of where I started!?), I too would like to know if there is a game tonight.
H40 and I just played a warm-up game of sorts, 2v2 us against a pair of bot light mechs. We had the BV advantage but it was still a good lesson in movement and cover management. It also helps streamline the round/phase process.
For the curious, we had a pair of wolfhounds against a raven and a firebee.
H40 and I just played a warm-up game of sorts, 2v2 us against a pair of bot light mechs. We had the BV advantage but it was still a good lesson in movement and cover management. It also helps streamline the round/phase process.
For the curious, we had a pair of wolfhounds against a raven and a firebee.
Even if there's nobody around to run a "Proper" game like last night, I wouldn't mind running through a few different scenarios like the above just for practice/entertainment.
Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
edited July 2009
Hyeeeaaaaarrrrrgggh!!!!!
Got in some good old-fashioned profit-oriented merc play tonight (and this morning). Two tough matches, one of which became a four-hour saga of attrition and ring-around-the-rosy which saw our Catapult completely run out of LRMs, the savage clubbing to death of an 80-ton Charger by a 20-ton Mercury, and fires that would make Smokey the Bear weep eternal. We fought so long that fires actually started going out because they started running out of trees to burn.
We lost a Locust pilot in the first match and a Stinger pilot in the second match but made up for it with some decent salvage. Our Wolverine came within a hairsbreadth of getting killing with one more lucky head shot and we very nearly ended up with a crippled Mercury (1 point left on the right leg internal structure). We only lost the poor Stinger because of shots hitting only the torso for a couple of rounds and leaving it with 3 internal structure points. A misjudgment of enemy movement allowed a heavy Orion to walk up and finish him off.
Due to a combination of a river, trees, smoke, and our heavy-hitters need a bit of space to be effective, several rounds of the second match consisted of both sides maneuvering for advantage. Eventually, the three mechs supporting the Orion were drawn off and the heavy mech fell to sustained fire. A little while after that, the Charger made the mistake of trying to cross the river. After taking some fire from the merc Wolverine, Catapult, and Mercury, the giant succumbed to a tree-clubbing which breached its rear armor. Too bad waterlogged mechs are no good as salvage. After spending several more rounds trying to down the Mercury or Wolverine (the Wolverine had severe head damage) with a lucky hit and receiving increasing amounts of damage in return, the remaining enemy mechs, a Vulcan and a Shadow Hawk, wisely decided to flee rather than risk destruction.
By the time the game ended, every pilot still alive was suffering from fatigue. I didn't even know that could happen. At the suggestion of a teammate, I insist that I still get to salvage the Charger in order to make a sufficiently awesome treehouse out of the chassis. I would be the coolest kid in school, no doubt. Also, mad props to Morkath for running the games for us without punishing us for some of the horrible, horrible luck suffered by his side.
Jeez is this what happens when I'm not there to scream suggestions into peoples' headsets? :P
To be fair, I think the only one that fell from such tomfoolery was one of the opposing team's locusts. And in his defense it was wet, windy, and muddy out there.
Two missions and nearly 8 hours later, our mercenary company is well on the way to being as mediocre as ever!
First mission was to ambush a Kurita convoy in a narrow canyon. Team awesome deployed a pair of locusts (h40 and NinjaSnarlP), a wolverine (billcosby), a catapult (me), and a stinger (bronzeduck). We also had an additional hired gun from some other outfit piloting a Griffon (Morkath). Though our approach was not perfectly planned, we did manage to eliminate the convoy escorts, at the loss of Ninja Snarl P and his Locust.
By the time this mission finished, it was already around 1am PST. H40 had to get some sleep for work, and Morkath's hired gun had gotten his pay and skeedaddled, so we set about salvaging to see what we could muster up. We ended up getting a shiny (somewhat) new Mercury for Ninja Snarl's new, hopefully better fated pilot. Most of the rest of our "profits" went towards repairing the rest of us, as is usually the case in this sort of business.
The second mission was to prevent a mech lance from reinforcing an assault on a Kurita base. Taking what we had for firepower and deploying it, the catapult (which I'm still coming up with a pet name for), the stinger, the wolverine, and the mercury deployed for combat. We had learned that poor planning and defense costs money, so we were going to be a lot more cautious with our approach this time. This cautious behavior basically lead to us constantly running from the slightly bigger force that opposed us, consisting of a Charger, Orion, Shadow Hawk, and a Vulcan (admittedly not the best mechs out there, but still a sizeable opponent for our fledgling lance). We knew right from the onset that our main concern would be the Orion and Shadow Hawk, so most of my catapult's missle salvos went at the slower moving Orion, while the rest of my lance basically dodged, weaved, and poked at the rest of the forces. It seemed like this dance of nobody landing hits, mechs whipping from cover to cover, and slow, careful moves would go on forever, until we decided to "pounce" on the Orion, with the Stinger leading the attack. Sadly, the stinger had poor initiative, and the moment he got into "pouncing" position, half of the enemy lance turned and closed range on it, including the orion itself. A few painful attacks later, the stinger lied crippled (with a very weak CT and a vaporized left leg). After a pair of failed attempts to get back up, the charger came in and finished the mech off, sadly taking the pilot with it.
Not to take a fallen comrade scenario lying down, Bill and I got aggressive with our next moves, siezing an opportunity in the lack of coverage the Orion had from his lancemates. Rounds were fired, beams went pew pew, and finally the Orion fell, the pilot just barely ejecting before it all went kaboom. Soon afterwards, the charger attempted to catch us by treading through the river. This set him up for a perfectly ninja-ish attack from NinjaSnarlP, who had taken to brandishing a tree as a club. The epic swing of the tree-club from that tiny little mercury managed to smash the charger right in the gut, causing water to seep in and destroy what the tree hadn't already crushed. In one fell swoop the charger was annihilated.
The Shadow Hawk would not fall to such trickery, and maintained a moderate range to keep us in his sights. We continued to move and wait for our opportunities to strike, and after a few traded blows, the enemy lance decided this was a battle they could not win, and retreated.
Though we only properly destroyed half the lance, a job done is a job done. We collected our pay and whatever salvage we could find and headed back to base for some much needed rest.
I'd post more, but that 2nd mission took nearly 6 hours, and I honestly think Morkath just got tired of waiting for us to lose, and had his lance retreat. It was far from my most proud victory, but NinjaSnarlP has secured himself a permanent gig with this company, showing incredible bravery and battle prowess. I'm exhausted, but the excitement from finally not failing a mission, and having a mech I can properly call my own, keeps me going.
I wish you guys the best with tomorrows campaign progress, and for all of Morkath's trouble hosting scenario after scenario for us noobs, I hope he finds an atlas in a garage and gets to keep it all for himself.
Edit - added quote for clarification, and I'm not about to delete this wall of text describing the mission's happening's just because you beat me to posting a play-by-play. Also, we should make the head of the charger the treehouse's "captain's headquarters" and have the giant log-shaped hole in the back turned into a water slide. Both of the legs can be hollowed out and used as entrances and exits.
Edit 2, the editing - probably would help if I added the quote.
That last game was a masterclass in maneuver and cover. And it took forever. I'm honestly kind of glad I went out when I did and didn't eject, it was 5:30am here.
It also shows the difficulty you can have balancing a scenario, especially starting a campaign. If we had had to deal with "real" mechs for their weight classes (not the Charger or the Vulcan) I'm not sure we would have been able to accomplish our objective.
Lots of fun though. I'd definitely like to continue through this little campaign we've got going.
BronzeDuck on
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Der Waffle MousBlame this on the misfortune of your birth.New Yark, New Yark.Registered Userregular
edited July 2009
Somebody with access to the Field Manual: Mercenaries rules annex could probably do really well running a mercs campaign.
kaliyamaLeft to find less-moderated foraRegistered Userregular
edited July 2009
Will be hosting at 6:45 - my connexion is better from last time. IP will go up then. Will need 3 or so opfor.
REBELLION
July, 3014, New Delos [1 month prior to current game day]
Anton Marik stunned the League today as he announced his claim to the title of ruler of the Free Worlds League as Captain-General. He called all true patriots of the League to his side, urging military commands and entire League member-states to join him in removing Janos Marik from power as peacefully and quickly as possible. In a speech being broadcast and smuggled across the League, he accused Janos Marik of steering the League into disaster. He cited Janos' withdrawal after the death of his wife in 3012, and his weak control over parliament as a result. He raised long-standing grievances, beginning with Janos' execution of William Crawford in 3006. Crawford, a close friend of Anton, was the first League officer to be executed for incompetence in a century, after failing miserably to capture any planets during a well-equipped and supported drive into Lyran space. That same offensive deprived Anton of troops he believed he could have seized the Capellans' largest factor world, Tikonov.
Anton called on member-states to join him, citing Janos' disregard of parliament, including the Captain-General's refusal to enforce the "replevin doctrine", which allowed provinces to vote on military deployments of federal troops and get a share of the booty of successful military conquests.
It is unclear which states, if any, will throw their lot in with Anton.
JANOS RESPONDS
Janos Marik immediately addressed parliament. "From this day forth, I have no brother." Janos then announced Executive Order 1136: all who join Anton's rebellions would forfeit their title to hereditary lands and all personal possessions.
Few member-states have made definitive statements. Only the Duchies of Oriente and Graham-Marik and the Marik-Stewart Commonwealth have declared unequivocal support for Janos Marik. They are Janos' closest allies, Oriente being his closest political ally in parliament and the latter two bound to Janos Marik by blood.
Only the Protectorate, Anton Marik's personal fiefdom of nine planets, and their neighbors - Zion and Ohren provinecs, have rebelled. The Principality of Regulus' military, it is rumoured, has pushed to declare for Anton. Only one unit has chosen sides, the Veteran 4th Regulan Hussars on Ohrenson pledging to Anton. Anton has raised eight Ducal guard regiments from loyalists and mercenary troops. The regiment he used to command, the 12th Atrean Dragoons on McKenna, have also declared for Anton.
What the rest of Regulus does, or the influential and anti-government Andurien decides to do, no expert can say. It is likely the smaller states, such as the military dictatorship of the Abbey District, and the Lyran-bordering Sirian Concordance and Silver Hawks Coalition, will side with their neighbors or who they feel can more credibly protect them from Liao and Steiner.
WILL ANTON STAND A CHANCE?
Even with ten regiments at his disposal, Anton is outnumbered by the 12 Marik Militia regiments, the 3 Free Worlds Guards Regiments, and the three loyalist Atrean regiments. Anton clearly needs the assistance of mercenary troops. ComStar has reported that four Wolf's Dragoons regiments - an elite mercenary force recently in the employ of Anton's enemy, House Liao - have appeared on-station, helping Anton secure worlds surrounding his Protectorate. Analysts regard this as a masterful hiring coup by Anton.
Wolf's Dragoon regiments have recently struck at Oceania and Druslbracken. Military analysts from around the Sphere expect Anton to push decisively for the League capital of Atreus and the planet Marik, Janos' personal stronghold. Capture of those worlds would likely tilt the vast majority of the FWL's neutral parties to one side or the other.
(from a sourcebook)
FIRST COMPANY'S SITUATION
New Olympia, home of the Allison Mechwarrior Institute, is square in the path of Anton's forces. League experts expect Anton's forces to jump past the well-defended New Olympia, who has formally declared neutrality in the dispute.
between the brothers. The senior military command reains divided on the issue. First Company's refusal to comment on the polticis of the issue and their familial privilege have lead observers to assume that they remain loyal to Janos Marik.
RULES FOR EXPERIENCE
OK. So. Hard to figure out. My problem is that if you guys level up every 3 fights, you'll quickly be uber-elite by the time you've been out for a year or two. In some ways, that's fine; BT is predicated on low-intensity combat. A lot of the reason every pilot isn't elite is because they don't get into many scraps. Units that are thrown into a meatgrinder tend to come out with skills that go up by one or two rankings, but take serious losses in forces. I think i'm going to make levelling up exponentially harder the further you go.
So, this is the formula. You roll when I say you roll - probably after every few missions, when there's a "natural break" -like awarding XP at intervals in D&D. From here on, each kill you score is worth a +1 bonus, and i'll try to give recon pilots, etc. bonuses for doing things even if they don't make kills. So don't fret about kill-stealing and the like. I'll try to give the credit for the kill where it is due regardless of who lands the killing blow, and credit for assists as below. It's GM-intensive. I'll keep an excel chart of this going forward and we'll figure it out at the end of every mission and i'll post it here if i can get it to format properly.
Target for Green(their added pilot/gunnery skills are 10 or higher. Because you're all 5/6, which is 11, you count as green.) MechWarriors to Advance: 13
Bonuses:
If you have intelligence or raw talent as your first pick, subtract 4 from that target.
If you have intelligence or raw talent as your second pick, subtract 2 from that target.
If you have intelligence or raw talent as your third pick, subtract 1 from that target.
For every kill you score or bonus point GM assigns you, subtract 1.
For each kill assist i've credited you with, subtract .5
For every combat mission you survive without having made any kills, subtract 1.
For each successful combat mission you survive, subtract .5. (So if you make it through a mission, you get a .5 bonus. If you don't kill anyone, you get a combined bonus of 1.5.)
Then, roll 2d6. If you meet or beat your target, you can go up 1 in one gunnery skill or piloting, your choice. The difference between your worst skill and your best skill can't be greater than 3. Each time you jump a skill level - from green to regular, regular to veteran, veteran to elite, you get a shot at having an extra special talent.
Rather than go back and try to tally up everyone's kills so far, you should each get credit for two combat missions (subtract 1), then, you each get a +3 bonus for kills and combat performance, since you've mostly all done well. Mostly. Morkath, for managing to do so well in his Urbie last time, gets an extra +1. So each of you should subtract 4 from your target to start. Bonuses accumulate until you successfully make a skill roll.
You can either roll + post, or do it before we start tonight in chart.
Posts
With what we did have, we really couldn't do much about that hill full of large guns.
maybe if we had clantech or something.
Apparently a couple of hours ago...ha ha ha.
i'm taking a bar exam in a week and a half. EFF the bar exam.
actually you didn't end up doing too badly.
The atlas pilot you guys activated by killing pilots fell down so goddamn much for no reason bronze almost took it out.
The only units left were 4 riflemen, with no ammo. A full warhammer, a 90% cored warhammer, and a crippled urbanmech and a crippled catapult, that couldn't move or fire.
The highlight of the match was 4 urbanmechs pinning and heavily damaging a marauder 2, with some covering fire from a warhammer and rifleman to keep him from coming any closer.
Waffle is the only real survivor, he escaped in his mech.
Serge kinda survived, in the sense he would be hunted down and killed before he was recovered by his team. But he got out of the battlefield....on foot.
The initial moves lead to good defensive positions for all, save for the griffin choosing cover over range benefits. He ended up suffering in the first shots due to that positioning, and the wolverine got in a decently good range to fire his autocannon.
This stumbling start for the griffon turned into a game of cat and mouse, where the griffon ended up playing the mouse as the wolverine and stinger exploited his long range weapon loadout to stay close and shoot him up with small weaponry. The wasp, at this point, was chasing the stinger and wolverine, trying to keep them off the griffon. The stinger was getting gutsy, nipping at the griffon's heels as he pelted the griffon with small arms fire. The griffon, both out of desperation and chance, took a swing at the stinger, and the results more than paid for themselves. Log details in spoiler.
Punch (Left Arm) at Stinger STG-3R (TraineeB); needs 4, rolls 9 : - Direct Blow -hits (using Punch table) CT
Stinger STG-3R (TraineeB) takes 7 damage to CT. Armor destroyed, 4 Internal Structure remaining
Critical hit on CT. Roll is (11+1) = 12; 3 locations.
<<<CRITICAL HIT>>> on Standard Gyro.
<<<CRITICAL HIT>>> on Standard Gyro.
<<<CRITICAL HIT>>> on Machine Gun Ammo (196).
*** Machine Gun Ammo EXPLODES! 392 DAMAGE! ***
Stinger STG-3R (TraineeB) suffers catastrophic damage, but the autoeject system was engaged.
Needless to say, the stinger was ruined, essentially only taking a decisive single melee strike to be felled. The wolverine however, had a good shot at the wasp in the same round, and took out one of the wasp's arms with a decisive shot, while the griffon struggled to do any damage being in still quite poor positioning. After the wasp lost it's medium laser (went with the arm) the wolverine turned it's focus back on the griffon, who was starting to actually be a nuisance with some lucky glancing blows. The wasp moved a LOT to keep his evasion up, but stayed close to the wolverine and spewed SRMs at it. Most of these went unnoticed as they scathed the armor of the wolverine, and soon it looked like the griffon was finished. It had lost a leg, and while the pilot managed to get up and turn to face his shooter, he could not move to get any kind of shot. As fate would have it, one of the SRM shots from the wasp hit the wolverine in the head, and knocked the pilot unconscious. The pilot of the stinger was helpless to watch as the wasp and griffon siezed the opportunity to knock out the wolverine's leg (after the griffon had jumped to reasonable firing distance). The wolverine pilot woke up to a crippled mech, and although he managed to get up, he could do little but jump jet and hope to avoid the fire from the now ideally ranged griffon. Both of these mechs had a leg missing but were still throwing whatever they had on tap at eachother, until once again the wasp had decided he had seen enough. Using his still-stellar speed to get directly behind the wolverine (again with good initiative), he went for a kick, hoping for a knockdown and an easy shot or two, and instead.. well, I'll let the log explain.
Kick (Right ) at Wolverine WVR-6R (TraineeB); needs 2, rolls 10 : - Direct Blow -hits (using Rear Kick table) LL
Wolverine WVR-6R (TraineeB) takes 6 damage to LL.
6 damage transfers to LTR.
Wolverine WVR-6R (TraineeB) takes 6 damage to LTR. Armor destroyed, 10 Internal Structure remaining
Critical hit on LT. Roll is (6+2) = 8; 1 location.
<<<CRITICAL HIT>>> on SRM 6 Ammo (7).
*** SRM 6 Ammo EXPLODES! 84 DAMAGE! ***
Moral of the story, gentlemen. NEVER underestimate the power of a well placed punch, or kick. Melee is AWESOME.
Edit - Seems I didn't remember the story quite right. Fixed as I have re-read the game log.
Edit the second - I know the absolute basics of weapon range (count the hexes, look at weapon's range stats, short is +0, medium is +2, long is +4) but what about weapons like the LRM? Is it reversed, with short range being +4 and long range being +0? The quick start guide and waffle's guide here both use the medium laser as an example, which conforms to the conventional range rules, but I am having trouble figuring out how to get the most out of my mech choices. I seem to end up running into situations where I am using weapons that I don't even know how to ideally position myself to use. Tonight's game with the marauder is somewhat of a decent example, I had no idea that PPCs ever had such a thing as a minimum range, which is why I so quickly jumped on the Marauder II as my choice of mech. Had I known I probably would've picked a mech with no minimum range on weapons, as I hate not being able to use a weapon because I'm apparently too close to be any good with it. I'll certainly do the research that I can on my end, but I honestly don't know what to look at or where to find it.
So if it's short range is 10, minimum is 6, you want to be between 7 and 10 hexes really for the best chance to hit.
h40 awaits deployment
XBL - Clarke Ch40s
Can't you tell I love to edit? - Critical hits seem a bit mysterious to me so far. What I've gathered from reading the Tac Ops rule list PDF says that basically, on any attack that hits, you do a seperate 2d6 roll for possible critical hits. There's a modifier on that roll based on how much damage the hit did (or how much cumulative damage the hit did?). What I'm kinda confused about is in that post I made earlier, I did 7 damage with the griffon's punch, which would give me a +1 on my crit roll, and I rolled 11, so my crit roll was 12, which according to the rule sheet I'm looking at would have resulted in two locations being hit. Megamek decided that I did 3 hits in that scenario. Are there seperate critical hit rules that I haven't seen?
XBL - Clarke Ch40s
That said, medium lasers are the king of lvl 1 tech it seems, very good overall stats and great damage/heat ratio without the risk of carrying ammo.
If you throw range in there too you get medium lasers.
After that everything becomes kind of specialized.
Is there a game happening tonight?
For the curious, we had a pair of wolfhounds against a raven and a firebee.
Even if there's nobody around to run a "Proper" game like last night, I wouldn't mind running through a few different scenarios like the above just for practice/entertainment.
Edit: Missed Morkath's post. Yay!
Got in some good old-fashioned profit-oriented merc play tonight (and this morning). Two tough matches, one of which became a four-hour saga of attrition and ring-around-the-rosy which saw our Catapult completely run out of LRMs, the savage clubbing to death of an 80-ton Charger by a 20-ton Mercury, and fires that would make Smokey the Bear weep eternal. We fought so long that fires actually started going out because they started running out of trees to burn.
We lost a Locust pilot in the first match and a Stinger pilot in the second match but made up for it with some decent salvage. Our Wolverine came within a hairsbreadth of getting killing with one more lucky head shot and we very nearly ended up with a crippled Mercury (1 point left on the right leg internal structure). We only lost the poor Stinger because of shots hitting only the torso for a couple of rounds and leaving it with 3 internal structure points. A misjudgment of enemy movement allowed a heavy Orion to walk up and finish him off.
Due to a combination of a river, trees, smoke, and our heavy-hitters need a bit of space to be effective, several rounds of the second match consisted of both sides maneuvering for advantage. Eventually, the three mechs supporting the Orion were drawn off and the heavy mech fell to sustained fire. A little while after that, the Charger made the mistake of trying to cross the river. After taking some fire from the merc Wolverine, Catapult, and Mercury, the giant succumbed to a tree-clubbing which breached its rear armor. Too bad waterlogged mechs are no good as salvage. After spending several more rounds trying to down the Mercury or Wolverine (the Wolverine had severe head damage) with a lucky hit and receiving increasing amounts of damage in return, the remaining enemy mechs, a Vulcan and a Shadow Hawk, wisely decided to flee rather than risk destruction.
By the time the game ended, every pilot still alive was suffering from fatigue. I didn't even know that could happen. At the suggestion of a teammate, I insist that I still get to salvage the Charger in order to make a sufficiently awesome treehouse out of the chassis. I would be the coolest kid in school, no doubt. Also, mad props to Morkath for running the games for us without punishing us for some of the horrible, horrible luck suffered by his side.
Two missions and nearly 8 hours later, our mercenary company is well on the way to being as mediocre as ever!
First mission was to ambush a Kurita convoy in a narrow canyon. Team awesome deployed a pair of locusts (h40 and NinjaSnarlP), a wolverine (billcosby), a catapult (me), and a stinger (bronzeduck). We also had an additional hired gun from some other outfit piloting a Griffon (Morkath). Though our approach was not perfectly planned, we did manage to eliminate the convoy escorts, at the loss of Ninja Snarl P and his Locust.
By the time this mission finished, it was already around 1am PST. H40 had to get some sleep for work, and Morkath's hired gun had gotten his pay and skeedaddled, so we set about salvaging to see what we could muster up. We ended up getting a shiny (somewhat) new Mercury for Ninja Snarl's new, hopefully better fated pilot. Most of the rest of our "profits" went towards repairing the rest of us, as is usually the case in this sort of business.
The second mission was to prevent a mech lance from reinforcing an assault on a Kurita base. Taking what we had for firepower and deploying it, the catapult (which I'm still coming up with a pet name for), the stinger, the wolverine, and the mercury deployed for combat. We had learned that poor planning and defense costs money, so we were going to be a lot more cautious with our approach this time. This cautious behavior basically lead to us constantly running from the slightly bigger force that opposed us, consisting of a Charger, Orion, Shadow Hawk, and a Vulcan (admittedly not the best mechs out there, but still a sizeable opponent for our fledgling lance). We knew right from the onset that our main concern would be the Orion and Shadow Hawk, so most of my catapult's missle salvos went at the slower moving Orion, while the rest of my lance basically dodged, weaved, and poked at the rest of the forces. It seemed like this dance of nobody landing hits, mechs whipping from cover to cover, and slow, careful moves would go on forever, until we decided to "pounce" on the Orion, with the Stinger leading the attack. Sadly, the stinger had poor initiative, and the moment he got into "pouncing" position, half of the enemy lance turned and closed range on it, including the orion itself. A few painful attacks later, the stinger lied crippled (with a very weak CT and a vaporized left leg). After a pair of failed attempts to get back up, the charger came in and finished the mech off, sadly taking the pilot with it.
Not to take a fallen comrade scenario lying down, Bill and I got aggressive with our next moves, siezing an opportunity in the lack of coverage the Orion had from his lancemates. Rounds were fired, beams went pew pew, and finally the Orion fell, the pilot just barely ejecting before it all went kaboom. Soon afterwards, the charger attempted to catch us by treading through the river. This set him up for a perfectly ninja-ish attack from NinjaSnarlP, who had taken to brandishing a tree as a club. The epic swing of the tree-club from that tiny little mercury managed to smash the charger right in the gut, causing water to seep in and destroy what the tree hadn't already crushed. In one fell swoop the charger was annihilated.
The Shadow Hawk would not fall to such trickery, and maintained a moderate range to keep us in his sights. We continued to move and wait for our opportunities to strike, and after a few traded blows, the enemy lance decided this was a battle they could not win, and retreated.
Though we only properly destroyed half the lance, a job done is a job done. We collected our pay and whatever salvage we could find and headed back to base for some much needed rest.
I'd post more, but that 2nd mission took nearly 6 hours, and I honestly think Morkath just got tired of waiting for us to lose, and had his lance retreat. It was far from my most proud victory, but NinjaSnarlP has secured himself a permanent gig with this company, showing incredible bravery and battle prowess. I'm exhausted, but the excitement from finally not failing a mission, and having a mech I can properly call my own, keeps me going.
I wish you guys the best with tomorrows campaign progress, and for all of Morkath's trouble hosting scenario after scenario for us noobs, I hope he finds an atlas in a garage and gets to keep it all for himself.
Edit - added quote for clarification, and I'm not about to delete this wall of text describing the mission's happening's just because you beat me to posting a play-by-play. Also, we should make the head of the charger the treehouse's "captain's headquarters" and have the giant log-shaped hole in the back turned into a water slide. Both of the legs can be hollowed out and used as entrances and exits.
Edit 2, the editing - probably would help if I added the quote.
To be fair, you scream suggestions, I scream orders and then berate people.
It also shows the difficulty you can have balancing a scenario, especially starting a campaign. If we had had to deal with "real" mechs for their weight classes (not the Charger or the Vulcan) I'm not sure we would have been able to accomplish our objective.
Lots of fun though. I'd definitely like to continue through this little campaign we've got going.
REBELLION
July, 3014, New Delos [1 month prior to current game day]
Anton Marik stunned the League today as he announced his claim to the title of ruler of the Free Worlds League as Captain-General. He called all true patriots of the League to his side, urging military commands and entire League member-states to join him in removing Janos Marik from power as peacefully and quickly as possible. In a speech being broadcast and smuggled across the League, he accused Janos Marik of steering the League into disaster. He cited Janos' withdrawal after the death of his wife in 3012, and his weak control over parliament as a result. He raised long-standing grievances, beginning with Janos' execution of William Crawford in 3006. Crawford, a close friend of Anton, was the first League officer to be executed for incompetence in a century, after failing miserably to capture any planets during a well-equipped and supported drive into Lyran space. That same offensive deprived Anton of troops he believed he could have seized the Capellans' largest factor world, Tikonov.
Anton called on member-states to join him, citing Janos' disregard of parliament, including the Captain-General's refusal to enforce the "replevin doctrine", which allowed provinces to vote on military deployments of federal troops and get a share of the booty of successful military conquests.
It is unclear which states, if any, will throw their lot in with Anton.
JANOS RESPONDS
Janos Marik immediately addressed parliament. "From this day forth, I have no brother." Janos then announced Executive Order 1136: all who join Anton's rebellions would forfeit their title to hereditary lands and all personal possessions.
Few member-states have made definitive statements. Only the Duchies of Oriente and Graham-Marik and the Marik-Stewart Commonwealth have declared unequivocal support for Janos Marik. They are Janos' closest allies, Oriente being his closest political ally in parliament and the latter two bound to Janos Marik by blood.
Only the Protectorate, Anton Marik's personal fiefdom of nine planets, and their neighbors - Zion and Ohren provinecs, have rebelled. The Principality of Regulus' military, it is rumoured, has pushed to declare for Anton. Only one unit has chosen sides, the Veteran 4th Regulan Hussars on Ohrenson pledging to Anton. Anton has raised eight Ducal guard regiments from loyalists and mercenary troops. The regiment he used to command, the 12th Atrean Dragoons on McKenna, have also declared for Anton.
What the rest of Regulus does, or the influential and anti-government Andurien decides to do, no expert can say. It is likely the smaller states, such as the military dictatorship of the Abbey District, and the Lyran-bordering Sirian Concordance and Silver Hawks Coalition, will side with their neighbors or who they feel can more credibly protect them from Liao and Steiner.
WILL ANTON STAND A CHANCE?
Even with ten regiments at his disposal, Anton is outnumbered by the 12 Marik Militia regiments, the 3 Free Worlds Guards Regiments, and the three loyalist Atrean regiments. Anton clearly needs the assistance of mercenary troops. ComStar has reported that four Wolf's Dragoons regiments - an elite mercenary force recently in the employ of Anton's enemy, House Liao - have appeared on-station, helping Anton secure worlds surrounding his Protectorate. Analysts regard this as a masterful hiring coup by Anton.
Wolf's Dragoon regiments have recently struck at Oceania and Druslbracken. Military analysts from around the Sphere expect Anton to push decisively for the League capital of Atreus and the planet Marik, Janos' personal stronghold. Capture of those worlds would likely tilt the vast majority of the FWL's neutral parties to one side or the other.
(from a sourcebook)
FIRST COMPANY'S SITUATION
New Olympia, home of the Allison Mechwarrior Institute, is square in the path of Anton's forces. League experts expect Anton's forces to jump past the well-defended New Olympia, who has formally declared neutrality in the dispute.
between the brothers. The senior military command reains divided on the issue. First Company's refusal to comment on the polticis of the issue and their familial privilege have lead observers to assume that they remain loyal to Janos Marik.
RULES FOR EXPERIENCE
OK. So. Hard to figure out. My problem is that if you guys level up every 3 fights, you'll quickly be uber-elite by the time you've been out for a year or two. In some ways, that's fine; BT is predicated on low-intensity combat. A lot of the reason every pilot isn't elite is because they don't get into many scraps. Units that are thrown into a meatgrinder tend to come out with skills that go up by one or two rankings, but take serious losses in forces. I think i'm going to make levelling up exponentially harder the further you go.
So, this is the formula. You roll when I say you roll - probably after every few missions, when there's a "natural break" -like awarding XP at intervals in D&D. From here on, each kill you score is worth a +1 bonus, and i'll try to give recon pilots, etc. bonuses for doing things even if they don't make kills. So don't fret about kill-stealing and the like. I'll try to give the credit for the kill where it is due regardless of who lands the killing blow, and credit for assists as below. It's GM-intensive. I'll keep an excel chart of this going forward and we'll figure it out at the end of every mission and i'll post it here if i can get it to format properly.
Target for Green(their added pilot/gunnery skills are 10 or higher. Because you're all 5/6, which is 11, you count as green.) MechWarriors to Advance: 13
Bonuses:
If you have intelligence or raw talent as your first pick, subtract 4 from that target.
If you have intelligence or raw talent as your second pick, subtract 2 from that target.
If you have intelligence or raw talent as your third pick, subtract 1 from that target.
For every kill you score or bonus point GM assigns you, subtract 1.
For each kill assist i've credited you with, subtract .5
For every combat mission you survive without having made any kills, subtract 1.
For each successful combat mission you survive, subtract .5. (So if you make it through a mission, you get a .5 bonus. If you don't kill anyone, you get a combined bonus of 1.5.)
Then, roll 2d6. If you meet or beat your target, you can go up 1 in one gunnery skill or piloting, your choice. The difference between your worst skill and your best skill can't be greater than 3. Each time you jump a skill level - from green to regular, regular to veteran, veteran to elite, you get a shot at having an extra special talent.
Rather than go back and try to tally up everyone's kills so far, you should each get credit for two combat missions (subtract 1), then, you each get a +3 bonus for kills and combat performance, since you've mostly all done well. Mostly. Morkath, for managing to do so well in his Urbie last time, gets an extra +1. So each of you should subtract 4 from your target to start. Bonuses accumulate until you successfully make a skill roll.
You can either roll + post, or do it before we start tonight in chart.
Roll: 2d6=6
Like this?
perfect. that means you go up.
no, we're levelling up, though. If you're going to use invisible castle, please register before rolling.