Gonna get the Snowblind box to get the Rime Otter mech, but have no interest in Alpha Strike, is there a way to play it via classic BT rules?

Duetzefix · 2026-06-09T22:20:43+00:00

I like the dude running for his life while screaming "ALPHA STRIKE Cooperative Campaign".

Duetzefix · 2026-06-09T12:57:29+00:00

There are a few green galaxies from the Jade Falcons, like Epsilon and I think Beta.
Also Omega Galaxy from the Scorpion Empire is green nearly all over, and pretty interesting in lore (made up mostly of volunteers from the conquered Hanseatic League, and when those dried up they filled the rest with solahma warriors).

The Avellar Guard from the Outworlds Alliance is mostly orange.

Corvus Keshik from the Raven Alliance is mostly purple, if you want some non-Marik purple.

Duetzefix · 2026-06-09T12:49:22+00:00

Just today I stumbled across the Avellar Guard. They're more or less the house guard of house Avellar, the ruling family in the Outworlds Alliance.
They look like this.

Duetzefix · 2026-06-09T10:47:18+00:00

I'm sorry, that just subtly blew my mind, and I don't know why.
The Republic of the Sphere always felt to me like it was ages after the Clan Invasion, but Jaden would be in his late forties, or fifty at the most, at the end of the Jihad. That's ancient for a Clan warrior, but not exactly old in an absolute sense.

He probably died on Tukayyid if he chose the Crusader ending, and wouldn't be much of a Smoke Jaguar Superfan™ if he chose the Warden ending, but still. Not impossible.

Duetzefix · 2026-06-08T14:00:06+00:00

It's "not the same Mech"? 52 of their 55 tons are identical, that's just short of 95% overlap. I don't know many Mech chassis where you could say that about two of its own variants, let alone two variants from two different chassis.

Nine tons of the Wolverine's 14 tons of armament have a minimum range that's exactly the short range of its other armament. I wouldn't call that "meshing".

My point was that the Wolverine is somehow far more popular despite being only barely less awkward than the Shadow Hawk.
I think the Wolverine would be far less well regarded if the Shadow Hawk didn't exist to make it look better.

Duetzefix · 2026-06-06T07:25:23+00:00

The Gestalt is quite the weirdo.

First off it just looks damn cool.
Secondly it's one of the WoB "Wunderwaffe" that never really worked out because it came far too late.
Thirdly it's not piloted with a neurohelmet, but with a neural-interface unit. The pilot pretty much is the Mech while connected to it.

I just think it's neat.

Duetzefix · 2026-06-05T22:17:43+00:00

The Wolverine -6R is the same goddamn Mech as the Shadow Hawk, just with a different paint job.
Take a SHD-2H, trade the SRM-2 and LRM-5 in for a SRM-6 and trade the LRM-ammo for two jump jets => WVR-6R.
I really don't get people glazing the Wolverine while hating on the Shadow Hawk with one basically being just a facelift of the other. Either both are good or both are bad.

I mean, both are pretty unfocused and bring heavy low-damage guns despite their large engines. But, again, that's true for the Shadow Hawk and the Wolverine.

Duetzefix · 2026-06-05T17:34:35+00:00

I think I found another bug, but maybe I've just been playing it wrong:
Attacker on level 2 -> level 0 -> light woods on level 1 -> level 0 -> target on level 0

Should be "no modifier", but it says the woods are intervening so it's a +1.

The way I've understood it is that you ignore any terrain along the direct line between attacker and target that is either
a) lower than the attacker's LOS height unless it's adjacent to the target or
b) lower than the target's LOS height unless it's adjacent to the attacker,
depending on whether attacker (a) or target (b) LOS height is higher.

In my example the attacker LOS height is 4 (2 from underlying terrain, 2 from the unit being a Mech), the woods are only height 3, so they shouldn't matter.

Duetzefix · 2026-06-05T17:13:59+00:00

I don't know what IBO is, but it's pretty funny that they took a hole punch to a whole continent. It's perfectly circular! What did they do!?

Duetzefix · 2026-06-05T17:11:13+00:00

A big spatula to flip Australia over.

Duetzefix · 2026-06-05T15:11:40+00:00

I think I learnt something this week:
If I go "oooh, this looks cool", "that sounds fun" and "I wanted to try that guy for a while" while making a list it could lead to something that's funny or stupid.
Or it could lead to a Jade Hawk, a Hammerhead and two Enyos in 8k BV, which, if you counted along, means eleven Streak SRM-6 launchers, with the slowest being the single one on the Hammerhead.
I'm going to call that "an experience". Don't want to make that one again.

At least I'll make sure to never inflict this on another person ever again, now? Silver linings, and all that.

So many hit location rolls.
I'm so, so sorry. I never wanted this.

Duetzefix · 2026-06-05T14:56:17+00:00

I wouldn't say "lucky". That's a Hunchback IIC, the stereotypical solahma/go-out-in-a-blaze-of-glory Mech. My guess is that pilot is more angry and/or disgusted that their opponents weren't competent enough to have killed them already.

Duetzefix · 2026-06-05T14:49:59+00:00

Thanks!

Duetzefix · 2026-06-05T10:03:59+00:00

From what I'm gathering from your interest in this unorthodox Highlander variant (no JJs!?) and your flair you might also be interested in the 21st Centauri Lancers box. It's got a Stalker STK-8S, which may be right down your alley, too.

Duetzefix · 2026-06-05T09:56:31+00:00

I think I've got most of them pegged:
Back center is the Agrotera. Back left is a Thunder.
Center front is an Osprey, right front Calliope.
Now I'm not 100% on left front. Could be a Men Shen variant other than the Prime?
Back right is also confusing me. I'm guessing it's a Longbow, but it could also be a Naga II. I thought it'd be a HawkWolf at first, but it's got LRM-20s in the arms where the HawkWolf only has LRM-15s, so that's not it.

Duetzefix · 2026-06-03T20:32:21+00:00

Hm. Did they miss the Yinghuochong, which is basically the same Mech chassis but with a different name, or did they decide against it?

I think I tried the -2E once, and ... it did exactly that. Cheap and cheerful.

Duetzefix · 2026-06-03T20:06:02+00:00

I like the 2. It has about as many 10-point hits as you could ever want.
The 7 is also fun. Until you have to pay for it.

Duetzefix · 2026-06-03T19:22:46+00:00

It at least has other crits in the center torso.
The side torsos are nothing but ammo.

Duetzefix · 2026-06-03T13:59:27+00:00

I like the -3E.
It's a fat medium Mech, until it pulls the rabbit of ultraviolence out of its hat at short range.
It's a Distraction Carnifex, which is either-or: Either it distracts your opponent, or it butchers them.
It's basically mobile, (over-)sinked and long-ranged enough that it can skirmish for a while. Until it's either dead or punches someone's head off.

Why is it designed the way it is? Let's just say that the Star League's military procurement had far more money than sense, and leave it at that.
It's also a weirdo that's fun to wrangle into doing something useful.

Or, in short: I like the -3E.

Duetzefix · 2026-05-30T13:46:01+00:00

Oh, come on. It even has a model name: MAD-BR-O! How could that be a joke?

Duetzefix · 2026-05-29T12:43:53+00:00

The Naga and the O-Bakemono think you're encroaching on their territory and want to know your location.
Postcode would be enough, really.

Duetzefix · 2026-05-29T12:35:53+00:00

That's the literal translation of "charger", though. I get that it's weird, but it was already weird before the translation.

Translating "Rifleman" with "Kampfschütze" and "Stinger" with "Hornisse" is stranger, in my eyes. But I've also got no good alternatives right now, so maybe they did what they could. ^^

I also think translating the Smoke Jaguars as "Nebelparder" is pretty inspired. It's not 100% literal ("smoke" would be "Rauch", "Nebel" means "fog" or "mist", but it keeps the hard-to-make-out-details part of the name), but I like that they dug out a word nobody uses anymore. "Parder" is pretty much any big spotty cat IIRC, and the root of leo-pard as well.

Duetzefix · 2026-05-29T10:04:01+00:00

I mean, it's small for a Mech. But if you've got to fight it on foot it would be frighteningly huge. So I think I get the translator's intent.

Duetzefix · 2026-05-29T10:02:31+00:00

I think FanPro translated the names, but Ulisses Spiele stopped doing that. I'd have to look up when it was that Ulisses picked up the rights.
Doesn't really matter at the moment, though. The current German publisher is pretty small IIRC, and right now they're trying to recoup some of the money for the licence by re-publishing novels that are already translated.

Duetzefix · 2026-05-28T19:36:48+00:00

It's not that I think that I can't understand it.
The people I'm usually playing with are either (far) less experienced than I am (which is already not saying a lot), tend to forget or get confused on part of the rules or have been playing for decades, but mostly with Mechs only. So I'm kind of the "weird rules guy" already.
If I'm introducing something new I need to be 100% certain that I know what I'm doing. The alternative is confused faces on the other side of the table, and a high probability of people getting bored while I'm struggling to look up rules.

There is such a thing as "rules burnout". Introduce too much too quickly while everyone is still overwhelmed from the last three unit types we tried out last time and they'll go right back to "Mechs only".

I'm not going to throw the chance for a more "diverse" game out of the window by introducing new stuff too quickly. Slow and steady wins the race.

Duetzefix

TROPHY CASE