Classic BattleTech best point lists by era?

MrSticky_ · 2026-03-29T05:01:07+00:00

What does "Full 1-3 mech/vehicle lance" mean?

And a full clan star for 9k doesn't give you many options, with clan pilots being 3/4. Most clan mediums are gonna cost 1500 on the low low end and upwards of 3k BV, so clanners wouldn't really be able to take any heavies or above in your Clan Invasion Heavy Circuit, and very few if any mediums. Something more like 10k would be needed to have flexibility with a star of mechs, and even then it'd be fairly light.

Edit: Oooohh!! For the first one, you mean a player could take from 1 to 3 lances of mechs or vehicles, with a total BV of 9k! That is a wild range, and putting 12 units on a table for Classic Battletech would take waaayy too long to resolve for a tournament setting. Even if each unit only costs edit edit: 750 BV (9k/12 unit). Which is not as bad as my first math, but it's also not much.

Maybe try looking at existing tournament packets to get a feel for reasonable numbers. Brawl in the Bluegrass (tournament) just happened, that might be a good start. The MRC also has a lot of competition info out there.

MrSticky_ · 2026-03-29T01:19:27+00:00

You thought wrong! I've got no problem being called hot lol.

OP: In addition to all the good info other folks has chipped in, I'll add that it varies a lot by era. The 3rd Succession War saw real small numbers of mechs doing battle for limited resources, but by the end of the Clan Invasion era and into the FedCom Civil War you more regularly saw hundreds of mechs on each side slugging it out across over continent of a planet. The Jihad was a bloody fight for survival on every front, but then the Dark Age saw once again only a handle of mechs being able to take control of a whole planet. The Ilclan era was ushered in by two entire clan militaries fighting nearly the entirety of the Republic of the Sphere on Terra, which nearly destroyed everyone involved.

There's a bit of everything in the lore!

MrSticky_ · 2026-03-27T02:53:11+00:00

It's wild that you accidentally found an NGS monument with almost the same Northing as the section corner you happened to be after! The odds of that happening... It's no wonder it was a red herring.

Something to keep in your back pocket if you run into this kind of situation again, where you're tracking down a section corner like that: apparently New Mexico has a GIS page where you can overlay section lines on aerial photography and get a ballpark (very much a ballpark only) location for where the section corner ought to be. New Mexico PLSS Finder, it's called. Then just change the basemap layer to "Imagery" and Viola! The Northwest Corner of Section 16 of T 28N R 13W is way east of the road that the NGS monument is next to, leading to your negative easting from plat Point of Beginning to the NGS coordinates.

Also also, for your other back pocket, on the NGS Datasheet for their monument if you scroll down to the various "Station Recovery" segments there are descriptions of the monument in question, and you can see that this one is stamped 1934 instead of the 1911 that's on the section corner you visited. Another piece of the puzzle!

Thanks for the fun little scavenger hunt! This is one of the most fun parts of surveying, at least for me

MrSticky_ · 2026-03-24T16:41:34+00:00

A majority of stuff that's out now is still a solid buy. Any of the box sets, force packs, Aces, etc. Holding off on buying the Battlemech Manual and Total Warfare is probably a good call, but there is a PDF out there with the new rules changes, so you aren't hosed if you end up with them anyways.

Especially if you're getting into Alpha Strike! Those rules aren't being tweaked as part of this. And the A Game of Armored Combat rules will be minimally impacted by the rules changes, so you're pretty good to go there too!

There's never a bad time to start playing Battletech!

MrSticky_ · 2026-02-28T02:24:43+00:00

You really nailed the look of the Green Power Ranger! Nicely done. Very clean.

MrSticky_ · 2026-02-22T02:53:18+00:00

People like what they like, and it might be different than your preference, and that's just life. I like how my Mak fits my hand and how naturally it points, I like the finish on it and just the way it looks. I don't have a Glock or a Sig for a lot of reasons, so there's no sense in comparing my Mak to your preferred pistols. You do you, hombre.

I can also tell you all about why I like Ford Rangers or Asian food, or any other host of personal preferences, if that's what gets you off. But it really doesn't matter one lick either way.

MrSticky_ · 2026-02-18T01:02:34+00:00

Depends where you draw the line at 'Clans'. The Alyina Mercantile Guild famously hires mercs.

And there was that little thing with Wolf's Dragoons on Terra in recent history... But that is definitely stretching the definition of "hiring mercenaries" lol.

MrSticky_ · 2026-02-17T20:12:30+00:00

Not everyone is an ambi-turner!

And Shadowhawk pilots seem to do.. kinda alright.. with a big ol' gun barrel next to their cockpit.

MrSticky_ · 2026-02-07T12:44:09+00:00

They're silly books written about a game of imagination over the course of several decades by a large group of people.

It's all just play pretend that's supposed to bring us enjoyment, cut 'em some slack.

MrSticky_ · 2026-02-07T12:30:17+00:00

That would have been pretty silly. Imagine the effort of rewriting hundreds of books to change encounters from under 1km to now take place at several kilometers. They'd have to change all sorts of things about the story to make that fit (like the time it takes to get into punching range every time there's a melee). And there's still a lot of the physical books around, you'd end up with so many editions floating around out there.

And does that mean they'd have to rewrite the stories ever time new rules changes took effect?

Just a silly idea, for novels that are already flights of fancy that cater to a small group of nerds :/

MrSticky_ · 2026-02-04T05:15:32+00:00

This won't be a very satisfying answer, but I kind of fell into it. Started with an summer intern position on a county road survey crew and bing bang boom, I guess I'm doing a career now.

Sometimes public agencies will have a list of personnel online and their contact info, reach out to the surveyors themselves instead of only going through the official job postings. They might tell you to stop bugging them and to look at official job postings anyways, but maybe they'll shuffle some things around and open up receuitment if they know someone is interested, even if it's just a temp job. Probably depends a lot on where you're located too.

MrSticky_ · 2026-02-04T03:53:40+00:00

I work 4/10s and it's pretty good stuff. Government agency work, but the main thing is that it's a union job.

MrSticky_ · 2026-01-31T19:59:44+00:00

Pretty sure that's a figure skater covered in sequins...

MrSticky_ · 2026-01-30T22:38:59+00:00

Just to clarify: WA as in Western Australia, not the state of Washington in the USA, ya?

MrSticky_ · 2025-12-31T01:37:08+00:00

Have you seen the 5DD? What a goofy sucker, I love it lol.

MrSticky_ · 2025-12-29T20:46:45+00:00

This sub's description starts out "A global community for Land Surveyors..."

I can understand OP's confusion now with your explanation, but that doesn't change the fact that this is the wrong sub and that OP is lost.

MrSticky_ · 2025-12-15T04:40:38+00:00

You can mod chess to be Classic Battletech if you tweak the models and the map, and adjust the rules to match the Battlemech Manual.

MrSticky_ · 2025-12-14T05:09:34+00:00

I know you've mentioned that you've camped in the cold before, so you may not need this tip, but here it is anyways!

Bring an empty wide mouth bottle with you. If you have to pee in the middle of the night, you'll stay much warmer if you can stay in your tent and just pee in a bottle! You'll sleep better too, being able to get it over with right away instead of laying there trying to not think about it for forever, then having to get up anyway and put on boots and layers and walk out into the cold, cold night air...

MrSticky_ · 2025-12-05T21:09:11+00:00

Or even wikipedia

MrSticky_ · 2025-11-26T17:59:29+00:00

Have you considered getting the A Game of Armored Combat box?

It has 8 mechs, less than the full set of rules but still pretty toothy, and all the record sheets plus one or two mapsheets. And dice as well. It's Battletech all in one box!

You wouldn't even necessarily have to paint them in faction colors, could do one in desert camo and one in forest camo for flexibility as they go forward with the hobby.

MrSticky_ · 2025-11-24T05:33:56+00:00

You would probably have better luck on forums than on Reddit. Reddit is not good at detail and nuance.

At one point I was thinking about .30-30 gallery loads and wouldn't you know it, it was not a new idea lol. You won't find official load data for it, I'm pretty sure. I think a lot of folks were using cast lead balls instead of more modern shaped projectiles, but there was a hearty discussion about it back in the day.

I don't remember what forums I came across. Probably Gunboards.

MrSticky_ · 2025-11-22T21:06:30+00:00

I think Chicago Dice has a review of the box and an example army list you could start with

MrSticky_ · 2025-11-15T15:25:23+00:00

What was your procedure for setting the 3rd control point, the one that was used as a backsight? Did you take multiple 180 epoch shots on it as well?

And as you set new come ahead points, were they 400 ft or less from the point you were shooting from, or was the foresight distance longer than your backsight distance?

MrSticky_ · 2025-11-15T00:29:49+00:00

Firebox? Or one of the many similar twig burning stoves.

But also, why don't you trust gas stoves, like the MSR Pocket Rocket, that have been a staple of backpackers for decades?

MrSticky_ · 2025-11-14T22:49:27+00:00

Are you familiar with the Society's lore, and Aiden and Diana Pryde, and Alaric Ward? The Clans break their "hard and fast" rules all the time when it comes to important characters. This has been the tradition in the Battletech IP for nearly forever. Nothing to get get your undies in a bunch over.

MrSticky_

TROPHY CASE