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Hell yeah, we've tried to run combined arms stuff but trying to parse TW has not been particularly fun. I also feel like the infantry rules could use a complete overhaul but I'm guessing that isn't in the cards.
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Oct 31, 2023 22:02
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FishFood posted:I also feel like the infantry rules could use a complete overhaul but I'm guessing that isn't in the cards. It might be: too early to tell. The further you get from core (mechs), the more room there is to tinker, and I'm not happy with the infantry rules either. Xotl fucked around with this message at 22:32 on Oct 31, 2023 |
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Oct 31, 2023 22:13
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Xotl posted:It might be: too earlier to tell. The further you get from core (mechs), the more room there is to tinker, and I'm not happy with the infantry rules either. You're turning my Halloween into an early Christmas. I feel like the mech rules are really solid, the few problems I have with them are more quirks of the system than anything else (except the "2" column on the cluster table). Infantry, though... Their durability and damage output is just insane for the price, and the way their damage is calculated leads to some pretty laughable results.
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Oct 31, 2023 22:26
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Honestly, I think the trick to infantry is that they were originally conceived of as chaff and were never intended to be an effective combat unit. Every attempt to make infantry usable has to fight the fact that they were never designed or intended to be effective. In their earliest appearances, Infantry was just something to gun down en masse and only OG SRM and inferno infantry were scary because they were an SRM-30. And it's understandable that "mass infantry" really can't do much in a fight that might span anywhere from 1-3 minutes of in-universe time. "Infantry platoons" should really be phased out entirely in favor of Special Operations squads. Little 5-6 man squads which specialize in one thing: be it jump mobility and anti-Mech attacks, spoiling other infantry with anti-infantry weaponry and/or sniper rifles, or long-range anti-mech specialist units with SRMs or man-portable PPCs, and etc. Basically, give them the Cassie Suthorn treatment and turn infantry from really ineffective tar pits into the sorts of specialized high-skill operators that can have a meaningful impact on a 'Mech fight. This would also help sell BattleArmor (and Elementals) as a "natural" evolution of SpecOps infantry tactics. The chaff infantry can still be present but since they're unlikely to have an impact on an actual fight, don't make the players pay points for them (or make it a binary 'do you pay 50 points to have chaff infantry in this scenario?' deal). Then you turn chaff infantry into scenario modifiers that the players have to pay those extra points to activate, giving them tactically useful but not hugely broken abilities like: - Defending infantry throw smoke grenades so the defender can place 1-2 hexes of smoke cover each turn - Attacking infantry sew chaos, the attacking player can light one hex on fire every turn - "Allied infantry attacks enemy BattleMech" of whichever side lost (or won) initiative,' a 'mech chosen by the opponent takes (2*weight class)+2 damage in 2 point clusters at the start of the movement phase. And then just make SpecOps infantry and BattleArmor an automatic counter to chaff infantry: no 'mass infantry' effects can happen as long as they're within the standard anti-infantry weapons range of a defending SpecOps unit.
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Oct 31, 2023 23:02
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GW is making another run at Battletech with Epic-scale, apparently. I'm curious how Battletech-ish it feels, at least before they GW it up with 20 poorly playtested factions.
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Oct 31, 2023 23:03
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I think the real question there is "how likely is Games Workshop to continue to support it" As we've seen with their specialist games, I think that answer is "Support what again?" or quite equally likely "We have one of those?" PoptartsNinja fucked around with this message at 23:18 on Oct 31, 2023 |
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Oct 31, 2023 23:12
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FishFood posted:You're turning my Halloween into an early Christmas. I feel like the mech rules are really solid, the few problems I have with them are more quirks of the system than anything else (except the "2" column on the cluster table).
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Oct 31, 2023 23:28
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GD_American posted:GW is making another run at Battletech with Epic-scale, apparently. I'm curious how Battletech-ish it feels, at least before they GW it up with 20 poorly playtested factions. Probably zero, apparently it's mostly based on 2nd Ed Epic. If you want Battletech-like GW, that's what Adeptus Titanicus is for, at least scopewise, and that's been out for years.
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Nov 1, 2023 00:29
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The viability of infantry is one of those things that's at loggerheads with itself. They can't be too strong, but they also can't be so inept that AP weapons are just dead tonnage because there's so many different times that someone went "oh and it has a machine gun to fight infantry." That has to be worth SOME kind of concern. I think having longer ranged AP guns like the magshot and AP gauss, plus weapons with AP properties that are good in other contexts (plasma rifle) helps in the modern era, but that's not a retroactive solution.
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Nov 1, 2023 00:33
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PoptartsNinja posted:Honestly, I think the trick to infantry is that they were originally conceived of as chaff and were never intended to be an effective combat unit. Every attempt to make infantry usable has to fight the fact that they were never designed or intended to be effective. In their earliest appearances, Infantry was just something to gun down en masse and only OG SRM and inferno infantry were scary because they were an SRM-30. And it's understandable that "mass infantry" really can't do much in a fight that might span anywhere from 1-3 minutes of in-universe time. I would love for this to be the case with the current rules, but unfortunately infantry hit like trucks and are a nightmare to kill. Relegating them to chaff would reflect the fiction a lot better. Infantry armed with SRMs should be dangerous, but the current status quo where rifle platoons can 1v1 a Locust is insane. Arquinsiel posted:Range is what makes the difference I find. Even the scariest infantry platoon can't chase down a mech. Mechs can control the engagement range, for sure, but the vast majority of anti-infantry weapons require you to get within one or two hexes, so if your scenario requires you to destroy or dislodge infantry you're in for a bad time.
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Nov 1, 2023 00:39
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Make infantry a hex condition like woods or water, track them with tokens, moving through/stopping in them has some mild negative effects - some light cluster damage, no chances of TACs or to hit-rolls, just roll hit location for a couple one pointers. You can stack them to make the effects worse and use weapons, AP weapons especially to remove stacks. Different types of infantry can get more moves or damage or slow you down if you move through them or roll a chance for crits. Is this exactly how they work already?
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Nov 1, 2023 00:48
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FishFood posted:Mechs can control the engagement range, for sure, but the vast majority of anti-infantry weapons require you to get within one or two hexes, so if your scenario requires you to destroy or dislodge infantry you're in for a bad time. The real problem with them is that the sensible ways for a giant robot to deal with them involve lots of flipping through TacOps.
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Nov 1, 2023 01:44
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New Fiction/BattleTech Adventure set in IlClan Era. https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en...g1M46ozvYFQupBY DrivethruRPG posted:Echoes of the Word Would be cool if they actually brought the Word back in some capacity to replace dead Comstar.
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Nov 1, 2023 02:03
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Ghosts of Obeedah is the best BattleTech adventure I've ever read, and I say this as someone who unironically loved Necromo Nightmare. I'm also really loving the revelations about the Word of Blake and the Hidden Worlds, and that one throwaway bit about the kid who reminds me of Adrienne Sims.
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Nov 1, 2023 02:08
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Imagine how much mutation hardcore Blakist belief would undergo after 70 years of essentially being shoot on sight.
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Nov 1, 2023 02:14
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pirates....driving tanks! 
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Nov 1, 2023 03:10
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That's a great looking Demolisher!
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Nov 1, 2023 03:30
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Pussy Cartel posted:Ghosts of Obeedah is the best BattleTech adventure I've ever read well between this and it being 2 bucks, sold.
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Nov 1, 2023 03:42
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PoptartsNinja posted:Honestly, I think the trick to infantry is that they were originally conceived of as chaff and were never intended to be an effective combat unit. Every attempt to make infantry usable has to fight the fact that they were never designed or intended to be effective. In their earliest appearances, Infantry was just something to gun down en masse and only OG SRM and inferno infantry were scary because they were an SRM-30. And it's understandable that "mass infantry" really can't do much in a fight that might span anywhere from 1-3 minutes of in-universe time. OG infantry can be useful, but it requires blind movement and/or hidden units. A point-blank ambush is a pretty cheap way to get some damage. Treat them like mines that can potentially go off more than once. I believe they didn't show up in the rules until CityTech, and they still really do have good effect in urban environments. Sure they're kinda crap but a flamer platoon bunkered up in a heavy building can be surprisingly effective at area denial or delaying for close to zero cost.
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Nov 1, 2023 05:30
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Infantry weapons don't need to be abstracted as much as they are (i.e. having a primary and secondary gun that roll and hit separately like battle armor also do), and mechanized Infantry suffers from a paradoxical double layer of abstraction that makes them function more uniquely than they ever needed to be (have each squad have its own small vehicle that takes damage like battle armor). Rework field guns into being a specific kind of secondary weapon that the appropriate kinds of Infantry can take and do those two things and I'd dislike it significantly less.
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Nov 1, 2023 06:19
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I think the main problem with mechanised infantry specifically is they don't really make any sense due to the APC loading/unloading rules in Total Warfare. It takes too long to make it viable, the heavy APCs are needed for a full platoon, merging squads from the 10-ton APCs is awkward, and a single squad doesn't really have any combat punch at all. On an unrelated note, I was at Gaelcon this weekend and many games were had. Saturday was two different Grand Melees on the Circle of Equals map, Sunday was a huge team game where a bunch of random 8k BV 96 support point forces tried to break into an "abandoned" Republic stockpile, and Monday was a big Alpha Strike game. The hilight for me was buying one of the last four salvage boxen a friend's store had, and getting my wife to pick because "she's lucky", which she strenuously denies. The Turkina she chose begs to differ.
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Nov 1, 2023 16:12
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"Mechanized infantry" is a kind of conventional infantry that is distinct from conventional infantry that is being transported by a discrete combat or support vehicle.
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Nov 1, 2023 16:27
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Arquinsiel posted:The Turkina she chose begs to differ. I agree with your wife.
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Nov 1, 2023 16:30
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No, because she was picking it for me and I am the kind of idiot who will run a Turkina X and just keep trying to DFA with it  Strobe posted:"Mechanized infantry" is a kind of conventional infantry that is distinct from conventional infantry that is being transported by a discrete combat or support vehicle.
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Nov 1, 2023 16:42
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In 3150, I usually just say to myself that they've been producing battle armor for long enough that any infantry whose job is actually to go fight on a battlefield has some. Hell, the Fronc Reaches have their own design.
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Nov 1, 2023 16:50
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Arquinsiel posted:No, because she was picking it for me and I am the kind of idiot who will run a Turkina X and just keep trying to DFA with it Yeah, i think they're very reluctant to have a multi-vehicle unit which is what would be needed to have mechanized infantry work right. It's not inconceivable, that's how battle armors work, but you'd have to have like, dismounted vs mounted modes, and then datasheets for a platoon of a Bradley or BMP equivalents that all share a hex and get targeted together, etc.
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Nov 1, 2023 16:51
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Nah just make them work exactly like battle armor and gently caress trying to explain mounted vs dismounted. That's an appropriate thing to abstract. A small handful of vehicles smaller than are conveniently tracked with a full record sheet, a small handful of small arms that do basically but not actually nothing, and then each vehicle gets a small actual real gun like a machine gun or small laser. Distinguish them from actual battle armor by making them still take extra damage from anti-infantry weapons against like a 6 armor/1 structure squad or something like that. All of the mechanisms and game concepts for doing it like this already exist in the current rules somewhere they're just not applied to conventional infantry.
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Nov 1, 2023 17:02
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Going with "wheeled/tracked/hover BA" as a model would actually be very interesting, and you could just add a second track that takes damage as the BA do, but only contributes damage when fighting against other infantry units.
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Nov 1, 2023 17:28
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I think BA should all have rollerblades that pop out of their shoes, like Batman's ice skates. It would make them go faster over open ground but also offer the opportunity to do sick tricks if you found an empty swimming pool or some park benches.
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Nov 1, 2023 18:52
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Defiance Industries posted:I think BA should all have rollerblades that pop out of their shoes, like Batman's ice skates. It would make them go faster over open ground but also offer the opportunity to do sick tricks if you found an empty swimming pool or some park benches. You just want to play Heavy Gear but don't realize it yet.
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Nov 1, 2023 19:06
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Nov 1, 2023 20:08
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the size/weight for heavy gear would work for BA and protomechs too, iirc
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Nov 2, 2023 01:49
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Has there been any use of the whole bare-hover-chassis-filled-with-battle-armor-handholds idea since Wolf Pack?
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Nov 2, 2023 02:39
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Technically all Omnivehicles are able to do that, as are any BA with Magnetic Clamps can do the same thing on pretty much any vehicle.
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Nov 2, 2023 02:45
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I guess more of the specific Savannah Master-level BA transport, but good point.
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Nov 2, 2023 03:03
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Panzeh posted:Yeah, i think they're very reluctant to have a multi-vehicle unit which is what would be needed to have mechanized infantry work right. It's not inconceivable, that's how battle armors work, but you'd have to have like, dismounted vs mounted modes, and then datasheets for a platoon of a Bradley or BMP equivalents that all share a hex and get targeted together, etc. When I was poking around in PTN's alpha strike game, i was pleasantly surprised to learn there are actual options for this! with lancebuilding options support, too. There's even an option for clanner battle armor to shoot while hanging off the sides at a penalty. (the regular/competing option is moving after disembarking so you CAN actaully have proper mechanized tactics) Second silly rules question: if you're in a hex that's on fire, how much extra heat do you take? Is it random, or flat?
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Nov 2, 2023 10:09
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five points of heat for ending in a fire hex, two points of heat for each fire hex that you have exited (so ending in a fire hex without touching any others that turn will be 5 heat that turn, not seven). also if the hex you're standing in gets ignited, it affect your heat until next turn (so it'll probably be 2 heat for leaving the hex)
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Nov 2, 2023 15:14
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Sidesaddle Cavalry posted:
Yeah, that's what I've recently discovered. But don't worry dudes, I'll never stop loving
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Nov 2, 2023 15:25
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second pirate demolisher finished   they're in love
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Nov 3, 2023 04:15
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God drat that's badass
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