Can anyone identify any appreciable difference between the Box Set and Legendary sculpts of the Timber Wolf?
So the Pryde 'Cat drops the machine guns, downgrades the MPL to an ERSL, and then adds jump jets. Last I heard the speculation was, aside from posing, that the Pryde variant will have jump jet ports on its backside. I'm not sure we've seen a render of the back of it yet, I'mma check.
Can anyone identify any appreciable difference between the Box Set and Legendary sculpts of the Timber Wolf?
From what I can tell, Legendary's pose has the right foot forward, the arms pointing outward at different angles instead of both straight ahead, and missile pods look like they have a slight more upward tilt. Loadout-wise, looks like the left and right torso gun barrels have been blocked off and it has a different rear torso panel with jump jets added.
Just remember that half the people you meet are below average intelligence.
0
NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
Yeah, found some shots. God, finding anything on Kickstarter is basically impossible.
Tonight I got to see someone "do it wrong" with demoing the game.
He set up two equal BV forces, one side (his), was all 3025 tech level mechs, the other was all civil war tech mechs. The 3025 mechs were under Forced Withdrawal rules. The CW era mechs had 4/4 pilots while the 3025 ones were all standard 5/4s.
I believe it was:
3025 mechs:
Cicada
Marauder
Zeus
Spider
Raven
Hunchback
Jagermech
Hermes
Civil War mechs:
Anubis
Cerberus
Dragon (7N)
Blackjack Omni (I believe it was the C)
Unsurprisingly, it did not go well for the CW mechs.
Blackjack was ganged up on and went down relatively fast. The Anubis ran out of ammo quick (it only had enough ammo to fire all 4 launchers 6 times). The Cerberus then got the gang-up treatment, and thanks to both Gauss rifles cooking off and falling he had enough pilot damage to need a 11+ to wake up.
At least they did get the Cicada to run under the FW rules...
Nobody on
+3
NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
Who TF runs a demo game with both 2:1 odds, and Civil War era tech on one side?
That's just wrong on two counts, and smells to me like the demo-er wanted to play with some fancy toys while giving the trainees Level 1 tech. Am I reading this right?
Who TF runs a demo game with both 2:1 odds, and Civil War era tech on one side?
That's just wrong on two counts, and smells to me like the demo-er wanted to play with some fancy toys while giving the trainees Level 1 tech. Am I reading this right?
Or they wanted to teach some "but they have Clan tech" crybaby that tech does not victory equal, and/or that there is strength in numbers.
There's some potential training value to a skirmish like that, but it's extremely situational.
Who TF runs a demo game with both 2:1 odds, and Civil War era tech on one side?
That's just wrong on two counts, and smells to me like the demo-er wanted to play with some fancy toys while giving the trainees Level 1 tech. Am I reading this right?
The person running the demo was using the 3025 tech
0
NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
Sidenote, in a vacuum, would you rather learn Alpha Strike rules after having already played BTech rules? Or straight up without knowing the slog of btech rules?
NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
Alpha Strike without prior Classic experience, hands down. You can play very fast intro games of Alpha Strike, then ramp that up with more units and optional rules.
You can even ease into Classic later if you choose.
You can even take half steps by using hex maps for AS, and then introducing (as a hack) the movement rules from Classic before you get into the nitty-gritty of Classic's individual weapons, ranges, hit location tables, heat management, etc.
Going the other way (Classic to AS) is basically learning a new system from scratch that only vaguely resembles what you've learned.
Alpha Strike without prior Classic experience, hands down. You can play very fast intro games of Alpha Strike, then ramp that up with more units and optional rules.
You can even ease into Classic later if you choose.
You can even take half steps by using hex maps for AS, and then introducing (as a hack) the movement rules from Classic before you get into the nitty-gritty of Classic's individual weapons, ranges, hit location tables, heat management, etc.
Going the other way (Classic to AS) is basically learning a new system from scratch that only vaguely resembles what you've learned.
Oh I was always going to use hex maps, just because grid-map based play is something that is already too well known, and also something I'm overly familiar with.
Does Alpha Strike work well for that The Grinder™ scenario you mentioned previously? Or do mechs die too quickly to enjoy it?
NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
edited December 2019
I find it's almost as fun, if a bit simple. Using the Variable Damage rule from the Companion makes things a tad more interesting, since you don't just nuke things right out with big damage shots.
The next time I run an AS Grinder, I'll be giving 'Mechs in my pick list quirks and SPAs to give them a little bit more spice and differentiation.
Edit: For my last AS Grinder, I homebrewed a crossbreed system for to-hit rolls that used d12's. You rolled one for each point of damage you could inflict, and each die represented the to-hit roll for that point of damage. A bit faster than 2d6+Xd6 per the Variable Damage rule, even if it diddled up the math a bit.
Trying to decide if I should buy Commander's Edition and Companion through the KS pledge or just wait and/or get the PDFs. Sounds like PDFs may be a better way to go since I can just print the rules I'll need for the actual games.
Trying to decide if I should buy Commander's Edition and Companion through the KS pledge or just wait and/or get the PDFs. Sounds like PDFs may be a better way to go since I can just print the rules I'll need for the actual games.
Wait, isn't the commander's edition the original and the Companion rolled into one?
Trying to decide if I should buy Commander's Edition and Companion through the KS pledge or just wait and/or get the PDFs. Sounds like PDFs may be a better way to go since I can just print the rules I'll need for the actual games.
Wait, isn't the commander's edition the original and the Companion rolled into one?
Trying to decide if I should buy Commander's Edition and Companion through the KS pledge or just wait and/or get the PDFs. Sounds like PDFs may be a better way to go since I can just print the rules I'll need for the actual games.
Wait, isn't the commander's edition the original and the Companion rolled into one?
I have no fucking clue really. Is it?
That's the advice I found on a reddit thread where someone was asking about the different books for Alpha Strike.
This is my frustration with tabletop Battletech. It's difficult to keep what's in which book straight. It's a bit like the situation with the books Total Warfare, Tech Manual, Tac Ops "Advanced Rules" , Tac Ops "Advanced Units and Equipment", & the Battlemech Manual, all for classic Battletech. The BMM, TW, and TOAR are rules to play, the Tech Manual and TOAU&E are for construction rules. I believe I understand the breakdown between the first trio (TW is basically everything you care about for combined arms play, BMM is a super modern easy to use reference book of just the Battlemech rules, TOAR is the really out there niche-use optional rule stuff), but I don't get what the difference between the two construction rules books are.
Also, I'm not clear which books are supposed to cover space battles? It sounds like TW/TOAR cover the old Aerotech stuff, but if you want Warships you need Strategic Ops (so does that make it the modern version of Battlespace?)? And which has the construction rules for ASF's, small craft, & Dropships, and which has the construction rules for Jumpships, Warships, and orbitals/space stations?
NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
edited December 2019
Commander's Edition is almost the entirety of the core Alpha Strike book plus the Companion rolled up together and cleaned up. It includes every rule you need to play, and also introduces a simplified system for Battlefield Support (aerospace and artillery strikes) in addition to the existing (and complicated) aero and arty rules.
EXCEPT it does not include the rules for converting units from Battletech to Alpha Strike, nor calculating Alpha Strike point values for units.
IF you were only going to buy one book to reference for rules on how to play, Commander's Edition is the one to get. There is still a small amount of value in owning all three books, though.
IMO, I'd rather have PDFs of the books CGL releases at this point. Revisions and errata get rolled up and released to the PDFs with nonzero regularity (for free and automatically, from most places you'd get them) whereas the printed books rarely get a second or third printing to include errata.
Commander's Edition is almost the entirety of the core Alpha Strike book plus the Companion rolled up together and cleaned up. It includes every rule you need to play, and also introduces a simplified system for Battlefield Support (aerospace and artillery strikes) in addition to the existing (and complicated) aero and arty rules.
EXCEPT it does not include the rules for converting units from Battletech to Alpha Strike, nor calculating Alpha Strike point values for units.
IF you were only going to buy one book to reference for rules on how to play, Commander's Edition is the one to get. There is still a small amount of value in owning all three books, though.
IMO, I'd rather have PDFs of the books CGL releases at this point. Revisions and errata get rolled up and released to the PDFs with nonzero regularity (for free and automatically, from most places you'd get them) whereas the printed books rarely get a second or third printing to include errata.
It is a bit disappointing they didn't include conversion rules in that book, but I've kind of come around to the idea that maybe it doesn't really matter much. Having spent time trying to convert some custom units, quite often it made little numerical difference from an existing stock unit card off the Master Unit List anyway. And given Alpha Strike's overall emphasis on fast play and abstraction of details, the gameplay impact of those customizations, even if you have them, is typically less than in classic BT. So I can see how they might think it's not particularly important to bother including.
Just remember that half the people you meet are below average intelligence.
0
NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
Having spent time in the spreadsheet mines, I'm pretty much with you there. Even though I'm a stickler for precision, in most cases you could probably get by picking a unit's card that's close, and fidgeting the numbers and specials around as needed.
EXCEPT it does not include the rules for converting units from Battletech to Alpha Strike, nor calculating Alpha Strike point values for units.
Yeah this was the one bit of information I was most looking forward to.
Also the overheat rules are .... weird? to me. Like it seems like most mechs don't actually ever overheat?
Kinda. The base attack ranges assume you're firing everything you can without going into heat debt, only starting to build up if you use its OV to boost attack power in exchange for heat.
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0
NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
EXCEPT it does not include the rules for converting units from Battletech to Alpha Strike, nor calculating Alpha Strike point values for units.
Yeah this was the one bit of information I was most looking forward to.
Also the overheat rules are .... weird? to me. Like it seems like most mechs don't actually ever overheat?
Kinda. The base attack ranges assume you're firing everything you can without going into heat debt, only starting to build up if you use its OV to boost attack power in exchange for heat.
This. And also, if you follow through the unit conversion rules, you see exactly how much excess heat it takes to cause a unit to have an Overheat Damage value; it's gotta be pretty excessive. Just tiptoeing onto the heat scale isn't enough for Alpha Strike to care. Also, having an OV value reduces the base damage of the unit, because the game assumes that you have to back off a bunch of guns just to keep the heat in check. Remember, each point of AS damage is roughly 8-10 points of BT damage; so we're talking Large Lasers and PPCs here.
Look at the card for some of the gunboat style 'Mechs, and you really see it. A Stalker 3F, for instance, is bonkers. Whereas an Awesome 8Q only barely heats up on a per-turn basis a tiny bit in BT, so AS doesn't care.
So how many folks are already locked in on their pledges? I mean, obviously you can go back through and re-do it I suppose but, yeah. Thinking about going ahead and pulling the trigger and getting it done.
KetarCome on upstairswe're having a partyRegistered Userregular
I locked mine in because I'm all too likely to forget to get it done otherwise. I can always go back and change something if it seems like a good idea later.
NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
I locked in as soon as I could.
You can go back in and add on, but as I understand it that means you unlock your pledge and have to go back through the whole selection process. I might be wrong on this, though.
+2
IanatorGaze upon my works, ye mightyand facepalm.Registered Userregular
So the past few years I've run Battletech games at my local gaming con. I had them set up as a short campaign-style deal but wound up just having pickup games for new or old players. This year I want to change things up and run a Grinder!
Problem is, while there's rules available I can't find anything about what units are suitable for the selection pool. Should I just print out 3025/3039 sheets for all the units in my full set of Lance Packs?
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So the past few years I've run Battletech games at my local gaming con. I had them set up as a short campaign-style deal but wound up just having pickup games for new or old players. This year I want to change things up and run a Grinder!
Problem is, while there's rules available I can't find anything about what units are suitable for the selection pool. Should I just print out 3025/3039 sheets for all the units in my full set of Lance Packs?
I would, yeah. You can probably even have different variants so that as you get into the mid-range weights you can go up in BV without going up as much in weight
NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
Doubling up on Tox's advice, with a couple notes from prior experience:
-Avoid units with a lot of command-level equipment, like wads of ECM/BAP/TAG. TAG especially, since in a Grinder it's literal dead weight.
-Mixing tech bases can make your pick list get weird, since ClanTech outclasses IS stuff so much. It gets an appropriate BV bump though, so things that are ClanTech will routinely come in equal to a weight class higher or more. I'm looking at you, Grendel
Here's my last pick list. Gotta update it for the coming year; it's been a bit since I ran a BT Grinder out of my collection.
NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
It's a very fast (7/11/7), very hard hitting (48 Alpha, 43 if you ignore the cERSL) Clan medium with good range (1xcERLL, 3xcERML). Its downsides are that it's not fully armored (eyeballing it, it's about 75-80% covered) and can run hot (33 heat on 24 sink, before movement). In the right hands, it punches well above its weight class.
It's got a base BV of 2290....which is exactly where I left it. I couldn't in good conscience put it in my Heavy tier, because it out-BVs everything there by up to 300 points.
Trivia question! Are there any "left-handed" mechs?
I've noticed a lot of mechs have just one gun hand, and/or a "main gun" arm, and in ever case I can think of, it's always the right arm. The left arm never has a bigger gun than the right, at least not anywhere I can find.
Posts
So the Pryde 'Cat drops the machine guns, downgrades the MPL to an ERSL, and then adds jump jets. Last I heard the speculation was, aside from posing, that the Pryde variant will have jump jet ports on its backside. I'm not sure we've seen a render of the back of it yet, I'mma check.
From what I can tell, Legendary's pose has the right foot forward, the arms pointing outward at different angles instead of both straight ahead, and missile pods look like they have a slight more upward tilt. Loadout-wise, looks like the left and right torso gun barrels have been blocked off and it has a different rear torso panel with jump jets added.
Normal Cat ass:
Pryde Cat ass:
Steam profile.
Getting started with BATTLETECH: Part 1 / Part 2
Yes but that had already been covered so I didn't feel the need to restate it.
He set up two equal BV forces, one side (his), was all 3025 tech level mechs, the other was all civil war tech mechs. The 3025 mechs were under Forced Withdrawal rules. The CW era mechs had 4/4 pilots while the 3025 ones were all standard 5/4s.
I believe it was:
3025 mechs:
Marauder
Zeus
Spider
Raven
Hunchback
Jagermech
Hermes
Civil War mechs:
Cerberus
Dragon (7N)
Blackjack Omni (I believe it was the C)
Unsurprisingly, it did not go well for the CW mechs.
At least they did get the Cicada to run under the FW rules...
That's just wrong on two counts, and smells to me like the demo-er wanted to play with some fancy toys while giving the trainees Level 1 tech. Am I reading this right?
Or they wanted to teach some "but they have Clan tech" crybaby that tech does not victory equal, and/or that there is strength in numbers.
There's some potential training value to a skirmish like that, but it's extremely situational.
The person running the demo was using the 3025 tech
Knowing that, that really stinks. Feels bad, man.
My wife, just, like, gets me
You can even ease into Classic later if you choose.
You can even take half steps by using hex maps for AS, and then introducing (as a hack) the movement rules from Classic before you get into the nitty-gritty of Classic's individual weapons, ranges, hit location tables, heat management, etc.
Going the other way (Classic to AS) is basically learning a new system from scratch that only vaguely resembles what you've learned.
Oh I was always going to use hex maps, just because grid-map based play is something that is already too well known, and also something I'm overly familiar with.
Does Alpha Strike work well for that The Grinder™ scenario you mentioned previously? Or do mechs die too quickly to enjoy it?
The next time I run an AS Grinder, I'll be giving 'Mechs in my pick list quirks and SPAs to give them a little bit more spice and differentiation.
Edit: For my last AS Grinder, I homebrewed a crossbreed system for to-hit rolls that used d12's. You rolled one for each point of damage you could inflict, and each die represented the to-hit roll for that point of damage. A bit faster than 2d6+Xd6 per the Variable Damage rule, even if it diddled up the math a bit.
Wait, isn't the commander's edition the original and the Companion rolled into one?
I have no fucking clue really. Is it?
That's the advice I found on a reddit thread where someone was asking about the different books for Alpha Strike.
This is my frustration with tabletop Battletech. It's difficult to keep what's in which book straight. It's a bit like the situation with the books Total Warfare, Tech Manual, Tac Ops "Advanced Rules" , Tac Ops "Advanced Units and Equipment", & the Battlemech Manual, all for classic Battletech. The BMM, TW, and TOAR are rules to play, the Tech Manual and TOAU&E are for construction rules. I believe I understand the breakdown between the first trio (TW is basically everything you care about for combined arms play, BMM is a super modern easy to use reference book of just the Battlemech rules, TOAR is the really out there niche-use optional rule stuff), but I don't get what the difference between the two construction rules books are.
Also, I'm not clear which books are supposed to cover space battles? It sounds like TW/TOAR cover the old Aerotech stuff, but if you want Warships you need Strategic Ops (so does that make it the modern version of Battlespace?)? And which has the construction rules for ASF's, small craft, & Dropships, and which has the construction rules for Jumpships, Warships, and orbitals/space stations?
EXCEPT it does not include the rules for converting units from Battletech to Alpha Strike, nor calculating Alpha Strike point values for units.
IF you were only going to buy one book to reference for rules on how to play, Commander's Edition is the one to get. There is still a small amount of value in owning all three books, though.
IMO, I'd rather have PDFs of the books CGL releases at this point. Revisions and errata get rolled up and released to the PDFs with nonzero regularity (for free and automatically, from most places you'd get them) whereas the printed books rarely get a second or third printing to include errata.
It is a bit disappointing they didn't include conversion rules in that book, but I've kind of come around to the idea that maybe it doesn't really matter much. Having spent time trying to convert some custom units, quite often it made little numerical difference from an existing stock unit card off the Master Unit List anyway. And given Alpha Strike's overall emphasis on fast play and abstraction of details, the gameplay impact of those customizations, even if you have them, is typically less than in classic BT. So I can see how they might think it's not particularly important to bother including.
Yeah this was the one bit of information I was most looking forward to.
Also the overheat rules are .... weird? to me. Like it seems like most mechs don't actually ever overheat?
Kinda. The base attack ranges assume you're firing everything you can without going into heat debt, only starting to build up if you use its OV to boost attack power in exchange for heat.
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Backlog Challenge List
This. And also, if you follow through the unit conversion rules, you see exactly how much excess heat it takes to cause a unit to have an Overheat Damage value; it's gotta be pretty excessive. Just tiptoeing onto the heat scale isn't enough for Alpha Strike to care. Also, having an OV value reduces the base damage of the unit, because the game assumes that you have to back off a bunch of guns just to keep the heat in check. Remember, each point of AS damage is roughly 8-10 points of BT damage; so we're talking Large Lasers and PPCs here.
Look at the card for some of the gunboat style 'Mechs, and you really see it. A Stalker 3F, for instance, is bonkers. Whereas an Awesome 8Q only barely heats up on a per-turn basis a tiny bit in BT, so AS doesn't care.
Steam: betsuni7
Just actually finalizing the purchase and paying
Ah, ok. I did that then. Although I thought you can still go back and add stuff right?
Steam: betsuni7
You can go back in and add on, but as I understand it that means you unlock your pledge and have to go back through the whole selection process. I might be wrong on this, though.
Problem is, while there's rules available I can't find anything about what units are suitable for the selection pool. Should I just print out 3025/3039 sheets for all the units in my full set of Lance Packs?
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I would, yeah. You can probably even have different variants so that as you get into the mid-range weights you can go up in BV without going up as much in weight
-Avoid units with a lot of command-level equipment, like wads of ECM/BAP/TAG. TAG especially, since in a Grinder it's literal dead weight.
-Mixing tech bases can make your pick list get weird, since ClanTech outclasses IS stuff so much. It gets an appropriate BV bump though, so things that are ClanTech will routinely come in equal to a weight class higher or more. I'm looking at you, Grendel
Here's my last pick list. Gotta update it for the coming year; it's been a bit since I ran a BT Grinder out of my collection.
(Sorry for the quick and dirty post, I'm cooking dinner)
It's got a base BV of 2290....which is exactly where I left it. I couldn't in good conscience put it in my Heavy tier, because it out-BVs everything there by up to 300 points.
SPEAKING OF WHICH, it's super worth noting that CGL just recently revised their BV calculation! They changed the weighting for Piloting skills, so as to make it slightly cheaper for improved Piloting levels.
Which reminds me, I double need to update that pick list, now with both freshly-painted units and the BVs recalculated and reworked.
I've noticed a lot of mechs have just one gun hand, and/or a "main gun" arm, and in ever case I can think of, it's always the right arm. The left arm never has a bigger gun than the right, at least not anywhere I can find.
Anyone?