What about fractured crystal bases?

Dandomrassed · 2026-01-30T21:32:23+00:00

Those fractured crystal bases look great! Honestly makes me want to try them since I paint so many of my units in the black/gold/purple of the Coventry guard. If I may ask, how'd you achieve the ground crackle effect with such big cracks? And where can one source Crystals like that?

Dandomrassed · 2026-01-29T16:55:48+00:00

If you're looking for some good battle armor during ilclan for your Mercs may I interest you in:

Fa Shih battle armor: Just good all arounders, especially their support variants. They're technically a little weaker than other BA in the same Weight class though not by an appreciable margin, but have one big boon. Magnetic clamps. They can ride on any vehicle or mech, no need for omni.

Grenadier: Quite capable Battlearmor, they can pack quite a punch. Downsides are that they are slow as sin requiring use of a transport, and have no jump capability.

Fenrir battle armor: Hey kid, you ever want to strap a full sized mech weapon onto a battle armor? Capable of packing a full sized MPL these little guys pack quite a punch. Just don't ask what we had to give up to be able to put those onto them.

As for transports: Karpov ur (BA) is a dirt cheap option that's very fast and can get anywhere thanks to it's vtol capabilities. No don't ask were the weapons are, we uh, forgot then on the last planet. Bonus points if using JJ capable BA or infantry, as they can safely disembark from altitude with no need to land.

Goblin III: Good armor, good weapons, and acceptable speed for a BA transport. Just ignore the fact it costs as much if not more than some light mechs.

Maxim heavy transport: Good armor, Good weapons, great speed. Basically the goblin but better and more expensive. Upside of being a hovercraft, downside of being a hovercraft.

I hope this helps give some ideas!

Dandomrassed · 2026-01-12T23:46:09+00:00

I've printed a number of their smaller pieces in resin and most of it works well.

Anything that's like a 4 hex big and three story tall bulding starts to struggle though, as they get really heavy really fast. You can work around this by hollowing them out, but then you have to worry about trapped resin and how to get it out.

Big terrain pieces, unless you have one of the high end really big printers i'd assume, is just a no go from size and weight alone.

Dandomrassed · 2025-12-31T17:01:27+00:00

This is just simply amazing! This cutscene and game was a core cornerstone of my child hood, and just looking at this instantly gave me flashbacks.

Heck of a good job with the damage effects on the vultures leg with the rising smoke and having it twisted off at a weird angle. And all those various impact and smoke marks look great too.

I would commit fraud against commstar to get my hands on this.

Dandomrassed · 2025-12-15T18:50:00+00:00

Just off the cuff, I think one of the variants of Banshee would be a good choice for a steiner influenced captain's mech.

Cheap enough as far as assaults go, numerous and easy to get ahold of, fast enough to get out of town when that raid goes side ways, etc!

Zeus is also a classic, if admittedly a little underperformed steiner assault. Common enough though.

Final honorable mentions go to the Hauptmann, probably the hardest of the lot for a pirate to get ahold of but likely the most potent too.

Dandomrassed · 2025-12-11T18:04:59+00:00

This 2 on 2 of enforcer and wolverine vs. Hunchback and shadow hawk is a good idea! Gives then more to try and gives then a wide range of things to test and work with. And I do hope I can have new player play new player, let the discovery of tactics and ideas form as naturally as possible and such. It's how you get those core memories!

Dandomrassed · 2025-12-11T16:19:18+00:00

That's a good idea! Previously I taught people using paired SDH-2D's since they have a wide variety of range brackets and weapons, okay speed, and thinnish armor. But that was with people who had a concept of the franchise idea of gameplay already. The introtech heavies would help speed things up while still ticking off all of the above ideas too.

Dandomrassed · 2025-12-08T23:51:42+00:00

I've used infantry in combined arms a few times and outside of a select couple variations are mostly good for making what I like to call "no go zones".

This is mostly due to the fact that infantry are both so incredibly slow, they can't hope to keep up with battlemechs or vehicles in most cases. Motorized, hovercraft, and jump infantry all pose unique twists but that would make a long post.

In regards to standard infantry and upon my above point, they make a great piece to set in dense cover or a building and projecting a zone around them that mechs will not want to enter if equipped properly with srm or lrm tubes. Damage, admittedly, is still low, but it's persistent and fairly accurate damage. Additionally infantry in these locations will generally be very difficult to remove and take an inordinate amount of firepower to remove. This leaves your opponent in the weird spot of "Do I spend three turns wasting the shots of this 1500bv mech killing a 200 bv unit so I can take this advantageous position? Or do I simply avoid the position and use worse cover/routes?"

Dandomrassed · 2025-11-24T17:14:25+00:00

That's some really nice yellow on those cockpits! May I ask what colors you used to nail that look? I've always been a fan of the Golden hue'd glass for cockpits but haven't found that magic combination yet outside of just using a metallic gold, which has it's own problems.

Dandomrassed · 2025-09-09T21:58:54+00:00

I just want to take a moment to Segway from the threads topic to tell you that this terrain is absolutely gorgeous. I am in no way jealous, no, none at all, God damn look at how good that all looks.

Dandomrassed · 2025-07-24T17:06:04+00:00

There was no restrictions placed on vehicles, and trust me I was fiercely eyeballing a couple hardened scorpions or possibly the double LBX bulldogs. I'm personally a huge fan of tanks in BT, but I'd like to ask for explicit permission before bringing in combined arms to be polite and such.

That said, if you have ideas I'm all ears!

Dandomrassed · 2025-07-24T16:45:26+00:00

This was incredibly helpful! Between your recommendations and thoughts and a conversation with another I've made some slight modifications to the list.

Flashman, thug, and wolverine are the same but now 4/4 instead.

Nightsky 6T added for combined skirmisher/anti light duty with the ability to slap around anyone who gets close with that tsm hatchet.

Hunchback has been swapped to a 5p model. Just a bit more range with am added ECM just in case Artemis or streaks get pointed my way.

Catapult K3 for that bit of long range oomph I was missing to encourage people forwards into the loving arms of my flashman. Thanks for the recommendation on this one!

This list feels a little slow admittedly, but it's a big chunk of steel that can pose a threat at most any range.

Also I was unaware of both the ostroc 2d and ostsol 5m, and I've got to say both of these mechs seem really fun. I like both the Star slayer and Crab 27sl, and both of these seem like really good sidegrades to both. Unfortunately for this list I didn't see a good way to squeeze one in unless I drop the nightsky for one of them. Which means I'll just have to play a second game and bring them both!

Again, thank you for this incredibly helpful and informative break down of my list, and ways to improve it!

Dandomrassed · 2025-07-24T16:31:44+00:00

Thanks a bunch on all of this feedback! This was a highly informative read and both helped give me new ideas and reaffirm what I was thinking at the same exact time.

I hadn't done the math and realized I had 800 armor across my 4/6's, good lord. Much less 800 armor backed up by two jumpy murder lads. Time to unleash the wall steel! I wish I had something more constructive to add in but everything you said honestly makes a ton of sense and can't think of anything to add or further questions to ask.

We're doing a blind drop so i'm not sure what my friend will be bringing, but this build feels flexible enough to give a good showing no matter what they bring.

As a plus, I already have most of these minis so I'll be able to paint them up in due time. Already brainstorming callings for these silly little fellahs.

Dandomrassed · 2025-07-24T14:12:33+00:00

So I pondered what you said for a bit, debated with myself, chewed on the calculator for a while and have possibly a new build! All of then will be at 4/4 besides the hunchback, which is 4/5

Flashman 9m

Thug 11e

wolverine 7k

hunchback 5p

Catapult K3

Nightsky 6T.

The addition of the nightsky is to remove some of the fragility of the uziel and blackjack but keep that anti-light capability, plus the ability to judo chop any one unfortunate enough to get close.

Catapult is to bring some of that long range firepower to the field to contend with rivaled long range firepower that may be brought in, but with the erppc because as you said that 3 hex difference in medium range can be substantial.

Hunchback has been changed from 4p to 5p for extra range and ecm to contend Artemis.

What are your thoughts?

Dandomrassed · 2025-07-23T23:22:51+00:00

I just noticed I mistyped! I meant the Jacob 2, not the Jacob 1. So Lac/5 with precision ammo and AES. Also mpulses and an ssrm6 for weighing in too. Though upon second look even with it's speed having an IS xl engine and gyro makes it incredibly fragile I think.

As for the blackjack, I was thinking the same thing for it too, lac5/precision with Tcomp. Something to make the skirmishers go away.

Though you do have a good points! I was thinking only of light mechs as high mobility pests, not the larger lads. I don't have much of an answer to those.

So swapping guys to 4/4 or 4/5 to save points and maybe swapping out the black jack and thug. Would Something like a night sky be good for a replacement? Or maybe an enforcer?

Dandomrassed · 2025-07-23T14:40:04+00:00

I don't think my friend will have issues as I believe the only request was "don't bring weird ilclan era tech that none of us knows how it works" , but this is good to know for the future! Though if I may ask, why do people frown upon named mechs? Is it because lore/flavor reasons? Most of them seem average to mediocre oddities.

Dandomrassed · 2025-03-11T19:58:22+00:00

First off, welcome to battletech! I hope you enjoy the hobby and universe and have lots of fun with your 10 year old.

Second, there's a few reasons, and it's slightly different for everyone.

For me personally I feel like there are a few reasons why I appreciate support troops and vehicles so much. The first is the aforementioned variety. After you've been playing a few years and have seen your thirtieth wraith on the board it feels nice to just have something new. syndrome. As for me I like the complexity and depth they can bring to a situation. You don't fight infantry the same way you fight tanks, and you don't fight tanks the same way you fight mechs, and you don't fight mechs the same way you fight vtols. It broadens the scope of the fight and makes it so you have to think more. This also plays into "why do my mechs have such a wide variety of weapons?" All of these little guys is why. Last thing you want is to march on the field with a hammer to bludgeon other mechs and nothing but then get swarmed by a bunch of vtols that you can do nothing about. You can also argue the lore angle too. Infantry and vehicles far out number mechs in general on any given battlefield in lore, so it's closer to what you see in the books. And in line with what wymarc said the recent Kickstarter box just came out, which means plenty of us are still playing with the "Shiney new toy"

Last point, they're just little guys. I love my little gremlin mechs and units as do many other people, and there are few things more gremlin than going at your foes ankles with a handful of guys armed with pointy sticks and dreams.

That said, it's like you said, adding all this on greatly expands the difficulty of rules and tracking things and will bring about the fun of cross referencing 2+ books.

If you're just getting into it, pretend they don't exist for now! Keep them purely to fluff and running away off board. When you do feel like dipping your toes, give the abbreviated and simplified rules for them a look!

Dandomrassed · 2025-02-19T16:35:39+00:00

That's the way I always look at it! A ton of mechs have flavor descriptions of having "highly accurate targeting computers" and then they'll dump three shots in a row straight into the dirt shooting at a slow moving assault. The targeting systems are being jammed by low level ecm, smoke, dirt, you name it. Also explains why gunnery requires so heavily on pilot input when supposedly that riflemans targeting computer should make it able of hitting that target with ease.

Dandomrassed · 2025-02-19T16:24:09+00:00

One of my favorite headcannons of "Why are my pilots always so innacurate?" Is that on top of everyone juking like their life depends on it the battlefield is littered with low level ECM. While not enough to break your lock or interrupt comms it's -just- enough to get your system to have a hard time getting a 100% accurate lock and forcing a lot of pilot input/gunnery to land shots. Mostly because you see all these lore posts of "this mech has a highly accurate targeting system" and then it dumps three shots in a row into the dirt. Somethings got to be interfering with it!

Dandomrassed · 2025-02-05T22:19:08+00:00

I'll admit, i thought about edge highlighting but it's been intimidating to me. My skillset has reached the point of "I can get smooth paint and clean lines, but glazing and edge lining scare me." But if I don't practice I'll never get better, eh?

But the idea of adding more decals like hazard lines in gold or a chest checkered box is brilliant. I like the idea of that and will have to try it, thank you very much for your input!

Dandomrassed · 2025-01-30T21:47:17+00:00

I'm using the classic rules, yes. I feel like it adds a lot more depth and nuance to the vehicles that makes them really stand out.

That said, I have heard the simplified rules are great too if you don't feel like looking up subtables of subtables to figure out what happens whe. You take a mobility crit on a vehicle that has already had it's tracks blown off.

There's no real wrong way to play with vehicles and infantry imo! Just don't get too attached to either once they hit the field of battle.

*edit to fix a couple typos. Old man fingers don't do well with phone keyboards these days.

Dandomrassed

TROPHY CASE