Darklinkinfinite
1740
22
1
My friend and I have been playing Battletech for a few months now and our past several sessions have been a loosely connected series of scenarios culminating in my assault on his FOB.
Basically about 2 lances for a total of 12,000 BV each, not including the dropships (our first time incorporating aerospace into a game). The 9 map sheets are more than needed for the number of units but it gives more space for the aerospace units to operate on the same battlefield as the ground units and having the added airfield just makes the whole thing impressive to see!
We were only able to play a few turns but things are getting heated. I destroyed his Hatchetman and forced his locust into retreat but his Catapult unloaded on my King Crab and got two headshots. I’m trying to knock out his Orion before his Battlemaster gets into firing position. This is my first time fielding a Rifleman and I wasn’t aware just how bad its heat dissipation issues are so it’s recovering from a forced shutdown.
My dropship will either strike at some of his ground units next turn or try to make a run on the station generator to knock out the automated turrets. His dropship is preparing a vertical landing (modified Tactical Operation rules) to drop an Enforcer and a hastily repaired Atlas I completely wrecked in the last game.
Aerospace isn’t explained particularly clearly in the rulebooks since it has slightly different rules for various situations (Space, High-Altitude, Low Altitude/Ground) and the books like to reference sections or expect you to have read sections not entirely related to the situation at hand. Don’t expect the Low-Altitude Section to tell you everything you need to know about low-altitude play. We’re working through it though and it’s still super fun.
We’ll be playing again in a couple of weeks since 4th of July celebrations next weekend will keep us busy. We’re excited to see this one through and maybe start a proper campaign afterward with economies, repair times, hiring, firing, etc. We might even dip into the Time of War rpg system and work infantry and combat vehicles into the game!
timothywalterjohnson365
Excellent!
TurduckenMcNugget
Love to see it. I got into Battletech in the 80s and still have boxes of old Technical Readouts and other sourcebooks but never really played. RE the Rifleman overheating: are you playing in 3025 era? No double heat sinks?
Darklinkinfinite
That’s awesome! I loved the Mechwarrior PC games when I was younger but I only started playing the board game late last year. We’re not doing custom units yet (though I do want to bring some of my MW5 designs to the table) so the stock Rifleman 3N only has 10 standard heat sinks. Using Flechs to automate a lot of the record-keeping, I didn’t notice my heat creep up
TurduckenMcNugget
Never really played the MechWarrior games back then because 1) I kind of sucked at them and 2) I wanted actual turn based Battletech. Something more like Crescent Hawks Inception which only had a couple of mech types but it was turn based and you could do some limited customization of them. The BattleTech computer game from Hair
TurduckenMcNugget
err, from Harebrained Schemes a few years back was pretty awesome. Had a lot of fun with that and some of the big mod packs. But, yeah, if it's a 3N sounds like you're playing in the classic 3025 era. As one of the models they took from Macross/Robotech the Rifleman always looked badass but was kind of a death trap. Over gunned and lacking the heat sinks and armor (paper thin rear armor) to sustain.
TurduckenMcNugget
I don't know what model they're using for the Rifleman these days (the classic "unseen", the Project: Phoenix redesigns or something new) but this is what the original Rifleman looked like (and since the art came first explains why they tried to jam 4 big guns on it)
Darklinkinfinite
Catalyst has been updating the designs since they acquired the license. They’re staying pretty faithful while making them look like modern war machines. The energy weapons really fried the rifleman. I like the DNA variant introduced in MechWarrior 5: 2 medium lasers in the torso and a gauss rifle (a personal favorite) in each arm. Light armor is an even trade-off when you’re decapitating assault mechs with every trigfer pull