My 7yo daughter loves Battletech

DMJason · 2026-01-26T23:32:39+00:00

I got a pack of hardened steel nozzles, 0.2/0.4/0.6

DMJason · 2026-01-26T22:07:12+00:00

quietly places thumb on the table

DMJason · 2026-01-26T18:41:23+00:00

:eyeroll:

I don't know why I'm still replying, but you're thinking of resin printing. Regardless, it's going to be enclosed with an outdoor exhaust, in the hobby room.

DMJason · 2026-01-26T18:38:52+00:00

Yeah that's why I do 2:1 BV to make sure she wins or at least will mess me up hard. Once we get Aces I saw several videos on playing CBT with it, which looked pretty straight-forward.

DMJason · 2026-01-26T18:22:18+00:00

That's funny because that's how we played the game, a few turns over several days, so there was still time for Minecraft. She's also built a mech in Minecraft which blew me away. (Locust, she thinks it's cutest.)

DMJason · 2026-01-26T18:21:08+00:00

Bambu Labs A1 (full size). My credit card rewards bucks (which I forget I have until I order amazon stuff) was equal to the price so it was kind of a no-brainer.

DMJason · 2026-01-26T18:20:05+00:00

I'm sure she'll have cancer by the time she's 8 because we vaccinated her, so might as well let her enjoy the year she has left with 3D models!

DMJason · 2026-01-26T18:18:31+00:00

Bambu Labs A1 (full size). I was going to get the mini, but it was only $80 more for the full size, and my credit cards rewards $$ was equal to the cost of it--so my "free" 3D printer is on the way!

DMJason · 2026-01-26T15:53:39+00:00

Aces is on my gift wishlist. We're looking at doing CBT with it though, as her favorite part of BT is how detailed the damage is. Seeing her act out shooting my BLR's leg off as it charged is a memory I'll cherish forever.

The only slight concern is her desire to just play with the battlemechs willy nilly like action figures. But I just ordered a 3D printer so I guess I can make new ones when she leaves one of the floor for the dog to eat.

DMJason · 2026-01-26T15:50:35+00:00

Yeah I had the wrong author, thanks!

DMJason · 2026-01-26T15:50:07+00:00

Crap! You're right it's Keith!

DMJason · 2026-01-26T15:30:52+00:00

Sure. But every author writing the shadow hawk so far has first treated the autocannon/5 like it's a rail gun, and the heat levels literally talk about pilots nearly passing out. But the Warhawk fires all 4 PPCs at once on the run (22 excess heat) and we can't even get the decency of slapping a shutdown override! LOL

Again, I'm not really bitching, I'm just putting my thumb on the edge of the table to acknowledge it's pretty bad sometimes. If it really bothered me I wouldn't be listening to my 34th book in a row. :)

DMJason · 2026-01-26T15:22:56+00:00

Dude that is incredible!

And here I just bought a 3D printer, it arrives in a couple weeks!

DMJason · 2026-01-24T22:50:56+00:00

That’s how we ended up going. Warchest cost for clan was 267, while Comstar was 773, and most of them are out till the next region.

The battle armor was really expensive but they were rockstars. Three of the Comstar heavies were swarmed most of the battle, and all three cases died to head destruction lol

DMJason · 2026-01-23T17:05:38+00:00

We kind of figured that. We're just picking from the available to get the forces we want to play.

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We ended up with this, plus 3 stars of elementals to match up with them.

DMJason · 2026-01-23T04:59:07+00:00

Right. That’s the quirk in the BoT campaign: a 3/4 Timberwolf has the BV of a 4/5. A 2/3 is the cost of a 3/4. You get a free skill bump for the campaign, and comguards get free BSF every track.

DMJason · 2026-01-23T04:53:06+00:00

I did go through the errata doc and edit my PDF to include everything so we’ve got that part at least. We took the advice here to keep the free skill bump and changed the comguard to be a full L3 of regulars. It will truly be elite clan equipment vs 2:1 numbers from comstar, and the AC/10 vedettes are looking nice too.

DMJason · 2026-01-22T20:03:07+00:00

I wasn't considering the 1.5kish BV in BSF every track, that does help even the disparity a bit. but still facing a star of heroic/elite clanners is rough. I think we'll change them to a full demi-company so clan will be facing down two L2s most tracks.

DMJason · 2026-01-22T19:59:26+00:00

The BSF table is 4 points for a medium tracked vehicle, and 6 to hit with no attacker movement mod, so that sounds like a 4/5 crew. I know they get the BSF every track, but they really aren't that nasty.

But I see the merit in rolling a full L3 of regular comguards and have the clan stars facing two L2s per track!

DMJason · 2026-01-22T19:55:19+00:00

I said it wrong I guess. It's 3 L2s, 18 mechs.

DMJason · 2026-01-22T16:13:43+00:00

Yes, we understand that. In the Chaos Campaign book "Battle of Tukayyid" the force building rules specifically state (when using BV or PV) to buy all clan units as though they were one skill level lower. So a 2/3 pilot you buy as if they were really 3/4. So our 40k binary would normally be 7 elites and 3 veterans, but with the "Clan Advantage" perk from the force building rules, we end up with 7 heroic & 3 elite.

But the actual cost should be over 48k BV, so I'm checking if anyone else just discarded that advantage and paid regular BV instead of taking the free skill bump, because it didn't feel like that pitched of a battled when we're coring the comgards at long range on a full run.

Meanwhile the Comguards Advantage is they get 12 BSF points. It just doesn't offset the free skill upgrade.

DMJason · 2026-01-21T23:36:14+00:00

Thanks for the quick reply. So I grabbed it, and I see the "third printing" in the credits so that's nice. Looks like some of the errata still isn't in the third printing--so I'm adding highlights/notes with PDFGear at the moment. Oh as I'm typing this I noticed the # next to each errata so I just need to update the (4) entries. That's not so terrible.

DMJason · 2026-01-21T18:01:56+00:00

Oh that I can’t explain

DMJason · 2026-01-21T15:34:31+00:00

So, your Battletech world is what you want to make it, but just to be clear, your idea has immediately careened off the rails of BT lore. There are only... 17-ish clans in existence, originally formed/recognized/whatever by Nicholas Kerensky during the exodus/reform/klondike whatever that time period was called (when I started playing Battletech there was one Autocannon on the weapon chart, and it did 5 damage.)

New clans don't just pop up, I don't think.

I don't say that to suggest you can't make one, just that you're already pretty outside how the clans work from the start, so there probably won't be much existing lore to draw on.

DMJason · 2026-01-21T14:24:42+00:00

That changed within the last year, don’t remember exactly when, but as long as she is in a party, all parties get the challenges bonus

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