Anyone want to play Battletech tabletop?

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3030 is the earliest date it's easy for me to make fluffy lists for. It's T1 anyway, I don't think we had access to any gear that they didn't have in the Star League times. What date/theme did you have in mind?

Oh. I was thinking about the stuff from the Experimental Techocal Readout: Primitives. Mackie and stuff like that. 2450, I think.

Ah. We are just nearing the finish of a game right now, one of us could play you after if you like?

Awor. I've no idea how to summon people by name.


Second battle report is done.

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/codex-battletech-aars.73077/#post-2134511

You mean it's handling at least part of the rules instead of begin merely set of virtual counters and dice? That got me interested, vassal40k was chore to play.
Which books are good place to start? I just want to learn basics of game and see if it's my cup of tea.

It handles pretty much everything. The only thing you do is move your units and pick your targets (and of course activate special gear/ammo). I believe the most up to date rules book is Total Warfare (sarna.net is also an excellent resource).

The main thing that makes it different from most tabletop games is it plays by phase. In the movement phase you take turns moving units until everyone has moved. In the shooting phase you take turns declaring targets, then all fire is resolved simultaneously.

The mechs of course also have a lot of different weapons, and also carry a lot of directional commitment, it costs just as much movement to turn one hex facing as it does to move a hex. How far and fast you move has a large effect on how difficult it is to shoot and be shot.


Honestly, I wouldn't want to play the real game, which has extremely laborious record keeping, target number tracking and sometimes dice rolling. Fortunately computers are good at that sort of thing.

I expect to be available for most if not all of today (saturday), so if anyone is interested in playing let me know.

I went ahead and rolled up three medium lances for the fourth succession wars era, 3028 (the time and place where the board game started basically). I was planning on playing the Free World's League (House Marik) since I have never played with them in a game as the action is always on the other side of the Inner Sphere. I also rolled up a Liao and a Steiner force to fight against since in canon those were the two houses they fought, I could also do a mercs/pirates list if anyone is interested. Or I could play one of the other forces.

I rolled the forces using the Battletech Master Rules table for weight distribution and then a fanmade table for the mechs that is faction specific and uses rarity of model based on the sourcebooks' fluff, then I rolled the skills randomly in megamek and tweaked the piloting on some mechs to make the fores close to 4500 battle value each. The Liao force is smaller but with veteran mechwarriors, the Steiner force is a little heavier and less skilled.

So... I tried it. At first when I skimmed through rulebook I was getting bummed out. While I like complex mechanics in games I don't have time or willpower to learn all this stuff (seriously I would never ever play BT in traditional way, I'm just too lazy for that) but I decided to give Megamek a try. I mean it's supposed to handle rules on it's side so it shouldn't be hard to figure out. I set up game with bot (really nice feature) and oh boy was it fun. I had Warhammer and 2 Demolishers(? well 80 ton tanks with 2x AC20 each ), bot had randomized army which consisted of 3 light mech's (Jenner, 2x Firefly), Hetzer and light hovercraft which is irrelevant because it drowned in lake before it did anything. It's pretty interesting game, detailed damage system really makes it satisfying to wreck enemy units, not so satisfying when AC20 ammo explodes in one of your tanks though. I also like how positioning and facing is important part of game, light mech while rather modest in firepower and armor can be irritating because of this, it was my first game so I got caught off guard at first and one Firefly kept buzzing around Warhammers left side so he couldn't really do much about him for like 2 or 3 turns (turns out PPC's aren't very accurate at close range) and tanks weren't in position to help out. Ofc I won in the end easily, though I gotta say bot didn't seem to be completely pants on head retarded (he didn't do much with hetzer though so it certainly isn't very good either).

I rate it . 40k in comparison seems so primitive its not funny. Oh yeah gotta love hexes, they make game much more transparent and faster compared to free movement in 40k where you "hunt" for every millimetre with ruler. Very seriously I didn't have this much fun with game for quite some time even if it was simple bot game.

I'll be available on and off for the next twelve hours or so, check in the irc if you want to play a game. If I'm not there I'll label myself away.

Megamek is pimp as fuck.

My friends and I usually play 7.5k to 15k BV games with everything, sometimes excluding infantry just because it's so fucking laborious to go through every single one of them.

A quick-tip, if you want to play with vehicles, there are several rules you will probably want to turn on, mostly TacOps and, I think, a few unofficial ones, to make vehicles worth anything near their BV value. If you don't be prepared for them to become turrets after the first shooting phase, as their movements systems are vulnerable as hell in the baseline rules.

Actually, I play the game pretty actively and... those are both really bad ideas in general.

An atlas doesn't have the speed to charge anything, and a DFA's only bonus is that the damage is dealt on the punch table, so you have a decent chance of hitting the head. Both attacks otherwise suffer from being hard to hit with them, the DFA in particular. It's the sort of thing you do when your mech is fucked and there's not really any guns left on the thing.

Punching and kicking are a lot more dangerous. Especially kicking, and especially kicking clanners in the shins.


On a semi-related note, I'm idling around all the time in a chatroom for people who enjoy strategy games of all types, and a couple of us play Megamek, so if you wanted to stop by and ask a few questions or play games, it wouldn't be a bad place to go.

Who said anything about using a standard Atlas?

How did I only found out about this now? Getting MegaMek now.

Hey, Eurofags, you need to start playing this. Catching people from Australia and Pacific to play a game is kinda hard if you live in Potato.

I can probably play tomorrow evening, let's say 8PM. I have prepared a 4000BV list, pre 3025 tech.
I also have a question, how is it possible for the Hermes to shoot my Marauder? LoS rules seem pretty unintuitive...


Stuff like this consoles me though:

Code:

Weapons fire for Vulcan VL-5T (toastboy)
    Medium Laser at Vindicator VND-1AA "Avenging Angel" (TestBot); needs 5, rolls 7 : hits  RL
        Vindicator VND-1AA "Avenging Angel" (TestBot) takes 5 damage to RL.
            3 Armor remaining.
            Possible breach on RL. Roll is 7: no breach.
    Medium Laser at Vindicator VND-1AA "Avenging Angel" (TestBot); needs 5, rolls 4 : misses.
 
    Medium Laser at Vindicator VND-1AA "Avenging Angel" (TestBot); needs 5, rolls 11 : hits  HD
(hit aimed location)        Vindicator VND-1AA "Avenging Angel" (TestBot) takes 5 damage to HD.
            0 Armor remaining.
Vindicator VND-1AA "Avenging Angel" HD BREACHED*** Vindicator VND-1AA "Avenging Angel" (TestBot) DESTROYED by hull breach! ***
*** Vindicator VND-1AA "Avenging Angel" (TestBot) Pilot Drowned! ***

If I can play, I'll be available in the Winter's channel: http://cbe003.chat.mibbit.com/?channel=#NationVidya&server=irc.va.us.mibbit.net

By the way - that channel's open for anyone who wants to play EUIII or MTG, or just talk strategy/battletech/music/whatever

It shouldn't be possible by the rules.

I am down to do this. It looks awesome. Haven't played since I was a kid but I love BattleTech. Downloading megamek to check it out. I am Pacific time and can be available in the evenings after 10. How long does one battle take?

You know, playing MW4Mercs has made me think, that while Mechs really are totally impractical on an actual battlefield, they'd make a really awesome sport.

Depends on the players and army composition.

Anywhere from 30 minutes to 6 hours; most games will be 1-3 hours.

I lurked in the channel a bit just to see if there was anything to observe, but apparently nothing happens there?

Did you try... talking to anyone?

I see a couple people in the logs joining the channel during the night (when most of us are sleeping), not saying anything, and then leaving.