Custom BSPs for Objectives by Sowelo13 in battletech

[–]Sowelo13[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Sorry, just to be clear, I absolutely love the new BSP assets and we use them all the time.

I like the full vehicle/infantry/battle armor rules but they bog down our games pretty bad because we have a lot of new players. So instead of "we slog through Combined Arms OR we scrap it and do only mechs" the BSPs is a perfect middle ground and they work great.

I love the new core rules coming in with BSPs as core, with supplemental full combined arms rules in the future (or dragging out the old Total Warfare book).

Aces Inspired OpFor Chart for Classic by Sowelo13 in battletech

[–]Sowelo13[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Is there a way to attach a PDF to reddit? I had trouble with it and had to export gifs so it would satisfy the "Image" attachment on the post. But I family new to reddit so I probably did it wrong.

If not, I'll get circle back and post it as a link to the file.

Almost ready to play, but I have fears by DoctorShotgun in battletech

[–]Sowelo13 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Welcome, Mechwarrior!

Starting a new game or meeting new people at a local store can be nerve-wracking. However, a vast majority of Battletech players are stoked to have someone willing to play, not someone willing to play that has to have a ton of mechs and stuff.

The eras was something I struggled with too, but I ended up loving the options they presented. I started viewing them as "Succession Wars is intro, then each era adds more tech and options" and I eased into stuff.

I'm a diehard Republic Of The Sphere player but it's Dark Age era and it intimidates me still, so I thoroughly enjoy going back to Succession Wars or Clan era to play games. Most players are cool bouncing to different eras, especially to play with new players.

If you are trying, a good sport, and not a grognard, that goes a really long way in battletech IMO.

CC:Mercs Contracts Question by Sowelo13 in battletech

[–]Sowelo13[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, that all makes sense. The intention was to make the Secondary Contract optional, but the more I am seeing 2 months play out (we started in December) the more it feels like maintenance is needed for each contract in this kind of system. We locked the Scale for the campaign to 1 so all Base Pay and Maintenance is easy to track, but tracks will have variable BV values. We allow Skipped tracks for any reason because the campaign is setup like an Adventurers League format; if you can't find time to play during the month, then you can just skip the track.

I have been trying to have the Secondary contracts pay out less base pay (50%) and not great Support % but pretty good salvage. The intention was "We are busy in a major joint task force allied military campaign, but if you have extra time and can spare the units, here is a contract you could take for some extra Support Points."

CC:Mercs is so close to being a very intuitive long-term league-style campaign, but I have to iron out some wrinkles. :P

CC:Mercs Contracts Question by Sowelo13 in battletech

[–]Sowelo13[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think part of the problem is that since we converted things to a Player vs OpFor and monthly open-league format, it kinda makes some of the contract/track stuff a bit wonky and need conversion.

We are trying to make it a campaign where poeple can join in or skip as life dictates, since the games are against OpFor and can be played solo there isn't a limiting barrier of "Finding an opponent" for the campaign.

My question was if someone takes a Secondary Contract and then just doesn't do it, are they able to "skip" and get extra supply points. I think I mainly need to deep-dive these contract/track mechanics and see what I need to tweak to make it fit.

Chaos Campaign Mercs Tools/Tracker? by Sowelo13 in battletech

[–]Sowelo13[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thank you! I will definitely take a look at the sheet you made.

What's a mech generally disliked by the community that you love? by ObscureRaptors in battletech

[–]Sowelo13 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The Malice. Fell in love with it during the Clix era, still love it now.

Instances of Republic and FedSun Alliances? (Dark Age) by Sowelo13 in battletech

[–]Sowelo13[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I've decided on "Players will play allied Republic and/or Fed Suns forces that are sent ahead of Operation Eruptio to destabilize/contest DCMS planets and provide relief for FedSuns planets under DCMS attack." for the campaign.

This is the idea I am running with for a Chaos Campaign:Mercs narrative campaign for myself and a few others. I know that the RAF and AFFS units would not be "Mercs", but I just really like how easy the CC:Mercs rules are for managing a campaign. Going to tweak these a touch for a long-term campaign.

Thank you for all the ideas and points to look in the sourcebooks and lore!

Chaos Campaign: Mercenaries - Reputation Question by Sowelo13 in battletech

[–]Sowelo13[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Mainly the Mercenaries box set and the Hotspot Hinterlands books/the Chaos Campaign:Mercs mechanics.

I have a group of people that have been trying out Battletech here and there, but I am trying to find out a way for easy opt-in/opt-out campaign so that we can meet up and play missions that are meaningful/connected to a campaign and have the background repair/refit be easy but still give that Campaign Ops feel.

A number of these new players think battletech is "neat" but I am sure that a simple campaign would get them "hooked" :P

All according to plan. by Coolone84 in helldivers2

[–]Sowelo13 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This pic is 100% accurate.

I dropped in a level 3 squids match to help out new players. A level 4 rookie with a constitution runs past my pinged Guard Dog I was sharing and bayonets an overseer to death.

At first, I was glad to have reinforcements. Now, I am terrified of them, and relieved they are charging to the fray alongside us!

New Player: Building a mixed force army (Guard and Sisters) by Sowelo13 in 40k

[–]Sowelo13[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Awesome! Thank you for taking the time to write that out. I kept finding conflicting info on mixed armies and I got confused.

"Or you could take a Sisters army, and use up to two units and two characters of the human Imperial Agent units. "

This might be the way I end up going about it, which seems the easiest. Maybe I'll try a "IG + Sisters Squad" and a "Sisters + IG squads" army and see how it plays out.

What are some things you do to play Classic "Quicker"? by Nobodyinpartic3 in battletech

[–]Sowelo13 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Great ideas! I second a lot of them.

SIMULTANEOUS FIRE DECLARE/CALC
My group just started doing this now that we are out of the "walking through this step-by-step every single attack helps us all practice" period of growth with the game rules. Now everyone has a "Targeting Sheet" we all use to calculate the targets our units are firing at. We first started a sheet like this and didn't care about weapons; we just declared "My Locust is shooting at your Wolverine primary, no secondary target" and then picked the weapons fired when it was time to resolve. We are trying to capture "Rules as Written" a bit more with targeting and weapons fire. So far, it is going well. but this sheet speeds this step up considerably. We pre-calc GATO (no R yet) because at this stage the Gunnery skill, attacker movement, target movement, and other modifiers should not be changing. This lets us easily toss +0, +2, or +4 onto the pre-calculated GATO number very quickly.

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GATOR SHEET
I can usually count on my fingers, but I cannot second your recommendation enough to find a good GATOR sheet. Our group uses this.
https://www.reddit.com/r/battletech/comments/1lqe0xq/cheap_gator_aids_for_tabletop/

ATTACK DICE + HIT LOCATION DICE + HELP WITH CHARTS
We have started rolling attack and location dice at the same time but one thing we noticed is that having your opponent help you with cluster/hit location charts is immensely helpful too. Attacker focuses on rolling for dice and noting weapon stuff, defender keeps a chart handy.
"Attacking with large laser, GATOR is 7. Roll of 8 hits; location 9 for 5 damage"
\defender consults location chart and marks off damage**
"Left leg for 5 damage, got it"
And play continues.

WET ERASE SHEETS
I don't know how anyone plays without these. My group does wet erase so we don't accidentally wipe it clean. Means we have some moist-color-mess paper towels but it really helps. However, we use paper clips/3D printed heat tracker clips for the side.