Battletech: Stalled

I'm a bit stalled out on Battletech. Not the core missions - I won the campaign - but the flashpoints series.

I'm currently on a mission using a special-purpose electronic warfare mech. I've tried it twice. Once I lost and stayed until the bitter end. The second time I got kind of bored and gave up on it.

I had to stop at this mission a while back when I got busy. Now that I'm busy and I just want to drop in and blow stuff up - but have it matter in a cumulative sense - I'm finding this mission a little too different than I liked from Battletech.

For you readers who finished this mission, does it pick up after this? Or is this the first in a line of missions using this special EW mech? If so, maybe I'll just start up a new, different campaign.

Four things I'd like to see in Battletech: the Mercenary Collection

I'd be thrilled to see these four things:

Morale System

A morale system - much like that in X-Com: Apocalypse, with fleeing foes, units going berserk or panicking, etc. would be awesome. Since you could potentially break a foe, you could put together even larger battles where extermination isn't reasonable and winning by routing a foe a necessity.

Eliminating Combat/Non-Combat Phase Differences

The game operates on a phased combat system. Prior to combat, you can move your guys without worrying about phases, but all they can do is move, sprint, jump, or hold in position. They can't use any of their abilities, special "inspiration" based abilities, or attack.

All too often you have to sidle up to a foe, get into sensor range, then finish a turn just moving and cede the initiative to your enemy . . . even though you know where they'll be and have Sensor Lock as an ability so you could have spotted and attacked them. The game should just do phased movement at all times. I'm tired of basically getting a mech shot at by foes I'm attacking because I activate them with my movement, and then they go before I can follow up on that . . . even if I walked right up into firing range and LoS.

More fixed tonnage missons

Most missions have no fixed maximum tonnage. More should - both by mech size and by total. While I'm playing the Flashpoint campaign with highly experienced mechwarriors, it's just better when I've hit missions with fixed maximum tonnage. I've had to dig into my storage and pull out medium and light mechs and equip them and use them. Sure, I custom configured them and used some choice weaponry - like a Snub PPC++ on one mech and Inferno launchers on another, so I'm still at an advantage. But it's a lot of fun to be forced to use different mech sizes. More missions should have requirements.

Too many say they do - "this mission needs speed" kind of stuff - but honestly you can always just bring 4 assault mechs and make do. Yeah, it's tougher on escort missions, but you core out enemy mechs and ghost their pilots in one-two alpha strikes anyway so who cares if you have to do it at range?

Equip as Stock

If you strip a mech and put it in storage, then take it out . . . you have to re-equip it from scratch. They have buttons to strip equipment, strip everything, and to max out the armor based on free tonnage. But not one to put it to stock loadout. That would be very handy. I don't always remember what stock loadout is, and while I like to customize my mechs it would be nice to get it to show me what a standard Kintaro or Griffin or Catapult has. They don't, and so I just make my own bizarre loadouts. It's fine, but it would be so nice to just grab, click, and then advance time and go when I want to try something as originally intended.

It would be nice to have that wish list fulfilled.

Battletech: Finished!

I was able to finish Battletech last night.

The final mission did, in theory, take extra pilots and mechs. They tell you that you need at least two heavy lances worth of mechs.

This was not correct. You just need 7 mechwarriors and 7 mechs in case you lose 100% of your force while winning the first of two connected missions. I lost zero mechs and zero pilots - I severely outgunned the opposition. Their "assault lance" was much lighter than my lighter-than-usual lance. I skragged them easily.

The final fight was a bit tougher, but only because one enemy mech is a rule-breaking monstrosity. Of course. I trashed it - with some equipment losses (an AC/20++ I'd found) but otherwise . . . a straight fight and I brought my three best pilots and my three best mechs to support the client in her battle. I've had tougher throwaway missions.

Oh well.

Still a very fun game, and I intend to keep playing with my rich-and-successful mech company, and may later start a seperate campaign once I've done a bit more messing around.

Well worth the $10 or so I paid, but I'm glad I didn't spend $40-50 on it. Good game overall, yes, but I'm cheap when it comes to gaming since I'm not a big latest-and-greatest player.

Battletech: Archer + Marauder = Happy

With a break between writing projects, I decided to play some Battletech.

My gripes are still the same - the lack of morale means every fight is until the death. The whole phased movement starting only with combat means I often move into contact with the enemy, and then have to let them move up and shoot me first. It's just annoying.

I've been playing missions, having fun with the events, and otherwise progressing along.

I have finally gotten two of my three favorite mechs. What are my favorites?

- BLR-1G Battlemaster. I rarely got to use one on the tabletop, but I loved it. So good at close range, so versatile. But I haven't found more than 2 wrecks and I need three. I found one hulk for sale to complete it, but it cost 1.3 million C and I had only 2.1 million C at the time . . . I didn't want to risk running out.

The two I have are:

- an ARC-2R Archer, with 2 LRM 20s and a pile of ammo. And four medium lasers . . . two of which I swapped out for more ammo.

- a MRD-3R Marauder. My favorite mech. I actually really like the redesign they did since they can't re-use the Robotech mecha images. It's just a very cool looking mech, and it's quite effective. One AC/5, and two arms each with one PPC and one Medium Laser. If you moderate your PPC fire you can keep up a sustained barrage, and a close-range Alpha Strike can do a lot of damage. Given an Ace Pilot - so I can shoot, then move - it's been really effective at staying at optimal range and just hammering my foes.

Here is what they looked like in Battledroids, way back in the day:


Coupled with a mech equipped with one of the over-powered guns of the "LosTech" - old Star League Defense Force tech - it's kind of unfair. PPC fire to make a mech unstable, the archer to slam it down to knocked down, then an aimed shot with a Gauss Gun to finish the mech. It's not always one turn, but I can systematically gut mechs if I set up a good firing line. I couple it with a solid spotter mech with some good armor, and it's been fight-winning.

As the missions have gotten harder, it's been harder to keep my mechwarriors healthy. For a while, every single mission featured a head hit and a wounded mechwarrior. I had a one-mission break recently but I don't expect it to last . . . I just found an unexpectedly weak mission available and got to stomp some smaller mechs with my three heavies and one assault mech.

Still fun. I do have to remember when I'm equipping mechs that this is Battletech, not Mechwarrior, which I played to death back in the 90s. In that game, PPC shots were slow. My lost buddy Ed used to call them "blue fuzzy pillows" and dodged them with ease. Marauders were not a good choice there. Here, they're excellent but costly for heat.

It's an enjoyable game if you like mech combat.

(Editing later - I did one more mission - and salvaged a Battlemaster! Woohoo. My lance will now be a Battlemaster, a Marauder, an Archer, and a Highlander - a new build I really like.

Also a gripe there - they call my group a "company" but I can only deploy a lance - 4 mechs. 12 is a company. I should really have a Command/Assault Lance, a Fire Lance, and a Recon Lance, and get to use them together sometimes.)

Battletech: The Cheat Commandos

So yes, I did name my mercenary company The Cheat Commandos. And choose a heavily yellow theme.

Otto is the name I use for all of my sci-fi heroes and most of my fantasy heroes in video games. He's clearly the 25th century descendent of the legendary Walter Gunhaver, commander of The Cheat Commandos.

I just need to see if I can edit in a proper image of Gunhaver.

Overall, I like the game. It's a bit of a learning curve on the mechs and scrap, but since I know Inner Sphere era Battletech pretty well it's mostly an interface issue. I still can't ID most mech gear by name yet, though. The gameplay is good, though, and it's pretty forgiving on the command interface. I can't quite gauge where to put my mechs to properly take advantage of their weapons, such as the long-ranged PPC and LRMs. And it's still amusing to me that the AC/2 outranges the AC/5, which outranges the AC/10, and finally there is a short-ranged AC/20. The bigger the gun, the shorter the range. It's like having 17th century cannons instead of high-tech weapons.

Battletech: Let me save when I want to!

So, I bought Battletech.

So there goes what non-writing free time I was going to have. Heh.

The good?

It's a Battletech game, set in the Inner Sphere era, which I'm most familiar with. I understood how the Clans era had some foreshadowing, but I just didn't really buy it. And it wasn't as fun for me as the Inner Sphere era.

It's turn based, so I don't need a high Twitch stat or Compartmentalized Mind to manage all of the units in real time.

The bad?

Oh for the love of all that is good, just let me save at any time. Not just in combat, not just when you want to, not after 10 minutes of cutscenes. Just let me save. Some grownups play for 20 minutes before leaving for work and can't just stick it out while your NPC wants to talk to me. I'll turn it off and redo the mission. You've been warned!

But fun, yeah.

Review: Battletech: The Fox's Teeth

For more reviews, please see my reviews page.





The Fox's Teeth: Exploits of McKinnon's Raiders
Produced by Jordan K. Weisman
Written by L. Ross Babcock III, Patrick L. Larkin, Richard Meyer, William H. Keith, Jr., Richard Meyer, Walter Hunt, Lisa Hunt, Evan Jamison, Samuel Brown Baker II, and Dorothy Elizabeth Baker
48 pages
MSRP ??
FASA 1606

The Fox's Teeth is a scenario book for Battletech (the 1985 version.) It is centered on a House Davion/Federated Suns unit, McKinnon's Company of the 7th Crucis Lancers. It features a history section, details of the full 12-mech company, and 14 scenarios including a 4-scenario campaign.

It starts out with a history House Davion and the formation of the Federated Suns, and a gazetteer of some important locations - the capital, New Avalon, New Syrtis, the home of the ambition brother-in-law of the Prince of the Federated Suns, and others. Then it segues into a history of McKinnon's unit.

Unlike the heavy-firepower assault-troop Black Widows, McKinnon's company is more standard. A heavy Command Lance, a Medium Lance headed by a heavy mech, and the all-jump capable Recon Lance with two mediums and two lights. The troops reflect a similar mix, though - the wiley commander, the wiley commander's younger and more irresponsible brother, the cold professional with a grudge over her arm injury, and even a religious fanatic. Most of the mechs are undamaged, but a few have special issues - over-heating guns, armor limits from previous severe damage, and gyro issues to name three. The unit is famed through its history as raiders, guerrilla warfare experts, and being sneaky and clever.

The scenarios really use the personalities of the mechwarriors, too. One scenario is centered on the younger brother getting pushed into a tough mission to make up for previous errors, another had a duel with a twist between one of McKinnon's mechwarriors and the husband of a wife he seduced, and still another has the enemy dealing with command while their frequency is blotted out with the religious fantastic's incessant Old Testament quotes.

The scenarios also have some really unique elements. One is in, and under, water - complete with rules for underwater mech warfare. Another features buried mechs in ambush in a desert, and rules for that. The campaign features a crate of valuable supplies and rules picking up and carrying a crate. It's get-the-McGuffin except you've got to tote it around the map and not get killed trying to make off with it. Mechs without hands - Warhammers and Marauders or Riflemen, say - have issues here.

War Stories: I played some of these scenarios. I didn't really love the big 4-scenario campaign, though. It wasn't that great for solo play when I tried it. I really liked a few other of the scenarios - the underwater fight, for example, and the desert ambush. There is a bizarre mass-of-lights-vs.-standard-lance scenario that is a lot of fun, too.

Overall: While I didn't enjoy this as much as Tales of the Black Widow Company, I think this is almost equally as good for a Battletech player who wants new rules for early Battletech and a solid block of enjoyable scenarios to play out.

Review: Battletech: Tales of the Black Widow Company

While I'm looking at my old Battledroids/Battletech stuff I'm writing reviews of the two Battletech supplements I have - Tales of the Black Widow Company and The Fox's Teeth: Exploits of McKinnon's Raiders.

Here is the first of those two reviews. For more reviews, please see my Reviews Page.





Tales of the Black Widow Company
Produced by Jordan K. Weisman
Written by L. Ross Babcock III, Patrick L. Larkin, Richard Meyer, J. Andrew Keith, and William H. Keith, Jr.
48 pages
MSRP ??
FASA 1605

Tales of the Black Widow Company is a scenario book for Battletech, centered around a specific mercenary regiment's elite company. It includes 15 scenarios, including a 4-scenario campaign - The Battle for Hoff - pitting Wolf's Dragoons against the Eridani Light Horse.

It start with a history of Wolf's Dragoons, the unit that Captain Natasha Kerensky's Independent Company aka The Black Widows belongs to. This book expands on the mention in the rulebook that Wolf's Dragoons fought for and against all of the major houses, and has some kind of supply base outside in the Periphery. It's implicit but strongly implied by their actions that they're scouting out the Inner Sphere for some purpose, and are supplied externally to do so. For what? Well, we know a ruler named "Kerensky" went into exile and that not all of the Star League Army followed him. I always assumed that Wolf's Dragoons were part of that force that followed Kerensky, and they had access to supplies, replacements, techs, and mechs stashed outside the Inner Sphere by the ruling Kerensky, setting them up as a spearhead for a return of the Star League Army. The game went a different way, eventually, but the clues are there for that kind of campaign.

It then goes on with a one-page summary of the origins of the Black Widows and several of their major actions.

The unit is a full company, with four lances - Command Lance, Fire Lance (with two Archers, ouch!), and Recon Lance. The personnel range from professional soldiers of high quality to Dirty Dozen cast-offs from other units. The recklessly brave pilot and her trashed Crusader, the war criminal under a sentence of death who just won't get himself killed, the thrill-seeker, the clueless guy who someone is trying to get killed, the thief . . . all good stuff. Many of the mechs are in good condition, but many others have specific, idiosyncratic issues that haven't been, or can't be, fixed - and the writeup explains where and when that happened. These do give the unit some color, and make it more interesting. It's a tabletop wargame, of course, and you can have the reckless one hang back, the careful one charge berserkly, etc., but it's a lot of fun to try and play them as described.

The opposition is rarely given much personality besides a "main" enemy, if then, but mechs are often equally damaged, not-quite-100% working, or have oddities about them to make the fights interesting. The scenarios have victory conditions that usually are more than just "destroy the enemy" although that's generally not a bad thing if you manage it. They have extra rules, too, to cover the special conditions. One I especially liked are rules for morale and recovery/repair of units in the 3rd Battle for Hoff, a short-ranged high-density slog of a fight between two battled mech companies over a dry riverbed.

It does have some oddness - a pair of special mechs with engines too small, by the rules, to give them the MP they have. It's clearly not a typo as a later rule makes it clear they have their listed, too-high MP. But that's all that I can find.

The art is good, although Kerensky's portrayal is a bit mixed. On the cover she looks like Betty Boop striding through a war zone. Inside, she generally looks like an attractive but serious Russian woman a gun and an attitude. It's kind of amusing to think of crew sidearms when you're fighting with mechs, but I guess when you have to bail you'll want a handy long arm. In any case, the art includes Jim Holloway, whose work I always enjoyed.

In actual play: I played most of these scenarios out. Not all of them - you have a scenario with mechwarrior trainees with very high (in other words, poor) Piloting and Gunnery skills lead by a vet with excellent skills, but I couldn't figure out how to use the Gunner skill because the rulebook lacks an explanation.
I remember specifically playing out the four Hoff scenarios, especially the 3rd scenario and its 21 mechs fighting at short range. It was a lot of fun, although Kerensky herself got waxed from a critical hit to the head from an opposing Phoenix Hawk early on. Oops. The Widows won, barely, as far as I recall but it was amusing that the major character died. Hey, it's combat. The morale rules were good, too, in actual play. They made the fight more than a slog to total destruction.

Overall: I really enjoyed reading this book and playing out the scenarios. I'd play them again if I had time and table space. Highly recommended if you can find a copy.

Battletech Gunnery Skill

As I went through my Battletech/Battledroids stuff yesterday, I went and looked into something I'd had lurking in the back of mind for a while. That is, what does Gunnery skill do in 1st edition/1985 edition Battletech?



If you use variable Mechwarrior skills, you get a Pilot rating and a Gunnery rating, which is either 3 or 4. Pilot skill rolls are all over the place. You have to make them to do just about anything cool.

Gunnery skill, though . . . I can't find a single instance where it comes up except under Variable Mechwarrior Skills (p. 36). That's it. You have the skill, and you can improve it over time . . . and it doesn't seem to do anything in play. MW skills go down as you get better, so I'm not even sure how you'd use it. Giving Gunnery as a positive modifier to attack rolls means everyone is going miss even worse than before (+4 to the target number on 2d6 roll-over mechanics isn't conducive to hitting; +4 on the roll means the more skilled, the worse!)

Anyone familiar with Battletech know the answer?

Battledroids pictures

1000 Foot General has been posting summaries of his Mechwarrior games.

I mentioned that I started playing when Battletech was still Battledoids.

My cousin originally bought the set - I think from The Compleat Strategist in Montclair NJ but it's also possible he got it from what would eventually become Timewarp Comics & Games, but was then Fat Moose Comics & Games II. It's hard to remember at this point.

We played it, a lot, and I eventually picked up the next edition when it came out, Battletech. This was back when all of the mechs were straight-up visual copies from Robotech. Thanks to that, I to this day can sight-identify any of those mechs but I can't really identify any of the "new" mechs.

I kept playing on and off over the years. Eventually I found friend who played during the Clan expansion and the later years. I never really enjoyed that era. You went from risking valuable mechs in combat, fighting over scraps of old tech, to finding out that the "Inner Sphere" was surrounded not by bandits and hardscabble nobodies but actually powerful clans with advanced tech. Er, okay.

Anyway, I digress.

I told the 1000 Foot General that I'd roll out what I had. To my disappointment, when I opened the box I couldn't find the rulebook. I'm not sure if I ever had it; it's possible that when I inherited the collection the book was already gone. It doesn't seem to be in my other stuff, and my couple of Battletech supplements are in the box, too. So sadly I can't compare the rules.

The boxed set also came with two mech models to build. My cousin built those, but didn't use the decal transfers. I still have those transfers.

So all I can do is show what I have:

- the box







- the paper minis

- the decals



- the maps (identical to the later ones, except they say Battledroids)





- the record sheets. I have blanks, but here is my cousin's pilot "Logan" piloting a Warhammer.




If I turn up the rules, I will absolutely post about them. I'm really disappointed they weren't in there.