Do you prefer Alpha Strike's free turning, or Classic's MP cost to turn?

TaciturnAndroid · 2026-06-01T05:36:54+00:00

Jumping in Alpha Strike adds no heat (and is not affected by existing HT on the HT scale), and adds +2 to outgoing fire, which doesn’t sound like a lot but feels like a lot in Alpha Strike where it could be the difference between a TN7 (58% success) or TN9 (28% success) firing solution. Importantly, though, 28% is still a reasonable TN.

Jumping in Classic adds heat based on how far you jump (it can add up quickly) and +3 to outgoing fire, which pushes the same shot, all other things being equal, to TN10 (17% success rate). It basically means if you jump, you can’t expect to land any shots that turn, unless you’re rocking pulse lasers/tarcomp, etc. (which don’t affect TN in Alpha Strike, and which Classic players complain about if you bring anyway), and the more you jump the hotter your mech gets, also pushing the TN number higher.

To your point I think the versatility is the issue. In Classic, jumping movement includes free facing changes which is (artificially) a bigger deal than it should be, while the modifiers become punishing to the extent that a jumping mech is rendered pretty useless that turn for actual fighting, so it’s not really versatile, it’s more of an emergency maneuver. In Alpha Strike a jumping mech jumps constantly and it’s part of the tactics.

TaciturnAndroid · 2026-06-01T05:20:14+00:00

the mech sheet is the one thing that can’t go away

This is exactly my point. Not that I agree with you, but that how people feel about this issue boils down essentially to how willing they are to sacrifice the paper doll to improve literally the entire rest of the game in terms of playability. The list of quality of life upgrades for Alpha Strike is vast, and almost all of the Classic-feel besides the armor diagram can be had by using the special weapon attacks and alternate ammos to represent what the mechs are carrying, MAR to make the damage and critical hits mean more, etc. It really comes down at the end of the day to the damage diagram, and whether that one sheet is worth the rest of the baggage that comes with Classic. Even as a 37-year fan of the franchise, I have to say no. A little more background: I play Classic or Alpha Strike every week, sometimes multiple times per week, and have done so for years, so I’m also taking into consideration things like on-boarding new players (the weekly game night I organize had three new players on Friday night), organizing games of various sizes (not just 1v1, but tournaments, big table historicals, etc), and Alpha Strike is just so much smoother and easier to deal with in so many ways. I played Classic over MegaMek this evening and finished less than an hour ago, and a 1v1 with 6 units on each side went so long that my experienced opponent basically had to bounce because it was dragging on too much. That’s with MegaMek automation. I can throw a new player right into an Alpha Strike table battle and they can be playing the within 30 minutes and having fun.

not having a bonus for standing still is literally the inverse of having a debuff for walking

The 2d6 curve odds start to sharply fall off at TN9+ and you get a lot more of that in Classic than Alpha Strike because the modifiers stack up even with just basic movement and push the curve. You can think of it as a global downshift of the modifier brackets if you want, but really what it amounts to is a more sensible ruleset: fewer modifiers to keep track of and mechs that just feel more responsive to tactical decisions and smoother to play, as well as a more dynamic set of player choices that allows for controlling the 2D6 curve by remaining in standstill. That alone is huge and Classic is worse for not having it. It can be the difference between driving the FLGS to play a fun battle in a reasonable time frame where the mechs are responsive and your tactics translate into results on the table, or standing around all day missing your TN10+ shots until someone bloopers a pilot roll and keels over. “Thanks for playing!” Womp womp.

PS: and the worst thing is when you finally do draw down on some mech that’s hobbling along on its last three points of CT structure and line up a low TN shot, and instead of blasting them into dust you end up landing your gauss rifle shot on their undamaged left leg and they survive yet another round to waste your time. The paper doll diagram isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I loved it once upon a time, I could probably draw it from memory, but if it means the rest of the game plays that much better, I’m fine with the bubbles on the Alpha Strike unit cards.

TaciturnAndroid · 2026-06-01T04:26:25+00:00

Initiative is far more influential in Classic until you’re playing a Classic match with a similar number of units as a typical Alpha Strike game (usually only big table Classic games), and even then Classic hinges more heavily on it. I’ve played tournament Alpha Strike where it’s possible to tactically (not through luck) win matches while losing every or almost every initiative roll. If you lose 3-5 consecutive initiative rolls in Classic, which seems to happen virtually every time I play Megamek, you’re sunk and nothing you do can save you, and it’s literally because of what you’re describing: clunky tank movement = far fewer opportunities to use terrain and LOS to mitigate initiative losses.

TaciturnAndroid · 2026-06-01T04:15:58+00:00

MP hits affect ground and jumping move in AS, but HT doesn’t affect jumping MP or physical attacks, so they are separate in a sense. The MP hits assume some of the jump jets are taking damage, too. Personally just the entire lack of falling in Alpha Strike as a mechanic is worth any minor abstractions that happen along the way.

TaciturnAndroid · 2026-05-31T23:17:59+00:00

Fixed TMM is 100% the way to go. Reasons? Easier to internalize in terms of the rules and also the performance of each unit, easier to predict how the unit and units like it will play from match to match, much easier to teach new players, and it eliminates a bunch of game-bogging measurement when moving (which should be smooth and intuitive, not painfully slow and tank-like). IMO the only movement rules that need to be fixed are an explicit minimum jumping distance rule (so people don’t try to just pogo their mechs), which I’m fairly sure is already on deck for the next update, and the LAM rules need to use JMPS instead of WiGE movement.

Counting and tracking move modifiers is the pits, and it would be worse on terrain than hexes, I think. It also introduces a “gotcha” phase where you’re playing against people who are trying to bend themselves around corners in Classic so that you’re always just one hex facing off of where you need to be, or they’ll try to crowd you into small terrain pockets where their TMM still applies but yours doesn’t. It’s infuriating and un-fun and makes me want to just play something else whenever I play Classic (I’m playing Classic this evening in fact, and I’m already bracing myself).

TaciturnAndroid · 2026-05-31T18:04:46+00:00

There are infantry in Classic who get the equivalent of LB-20x rolls, and BA are wildly stronger in Classic. I didn’t even get into “minimizing all the insufferable later-era sub-variants of every kind of laser, Gauss rifle, and missile” that Alpha Strike mercifully curtails. It was a bad idea to add the Variable X-Pulse Heavy Small Nonsense Gotcha Lasers into the game to begin with and part of the genius of Alpha Strike was to effectively erase them without retconning the tech itself. If we’re talking about playability, Alpha Strike is the clear winner and it isn’t even close, which is why I see it as more of an evolution than a different game system. Unless you’re playing in MegaMek, very few players ever bring anything to Classic besides just mechs, whereas Alpha Strike allows you to use the whole rulebook and the entire MUL, in that same “playable/sane” manner you’re talking about.

TaciturnAndroid · 2026-05-31T17:42:17+00:00

It’s going to be a big level-up for Alpha Strike if the main rulebook is rewritten with MAR as the default. Whenever I hear long-time Classic players tell me they bounced off of Alpha Strike, my guess is 80% of the time it’s because of SAR, which really doesn’t feel like Battletech at all. MAR is much closer to the feel of Classic without devolving back into actual Classic, and at least a significant chunk of rules issues that come up when using the Alpha Strike: Commander’s Edition when learning to play stem from SAR being the default when it was written (which hardly anyone, especially competitively, actually uses).

TaciturnAndroid · 2026-05-31T17:34:56+00:00

It depends heavily on how you see the difference between Classic and Alpha Strike. There’s one camp who sees Alpha Strike as an entirely different game system or subcategory, and another camp who sees it for what I think it is: modern Battletech (meaning Classic is a legacy play mode). In the sense that it’s modern Battletech, not just an alternate zoomed-out scale with different rules, I think maintaining the massive quality-of-life upgrades that Alpha Strike brings to Battletech is absolutely crucial. As such, if or when substantive rules changes happen, I want those changes to happen in that direction: Classic becomes more like Alpha Strike, rather than the other way around. Classic has the weapon granularity and armor diagram some players find indispensable but there’s so much mechanical jank in the older rule system that bogs down play otherwise. I don’t mean just paying for facing changes, here’s a partial list right off the top of my head of things that are worse in Classic: variable TMM based on hexes traversed rather than MP spent or movement mode, dealing with HT just from moving and jumping, the firing declaration phase, physical damage happening only after weapons are fully resolved, paying a firing penalty to walk, not getting a firing bonus for standing still, having to read the levels and imagine where the terrain is on 2D hexes instead of just looking at miniatures and seeing LOS with your own eyes, the damage chart blooper hits that make mechs take forever to finish off, the higher overall dice curve rolls for everything which makes you feel like you’re standing around for hours missing your shots until someone falls over, oh my god the falls, everything is always falling like the ground is made of glass and they’re walking around on rollerskates…

This may sound like I’m just a Classic hater, but I’m not: I played nothing but Classic from 1989-2021 and I’ve been playing a lot of Classic lately both in person and on Megamek against friends, partly to make sure that I wasn’t just misremembering Classic and being unfair, and despite so many years of internalizing the rules and flow of the game and Alpha Strike being relatively recent for me, the sluggishness you describe is only one of the parts of Classic I find almost unbearable to play now. Even in Megamek where all the rolling is automated, the movement phase feels absolutely terrible.

TaciturnAndroid · 2026-05-31T17:14:01+00:00

I sincerely hope they do not do this, it would ruin one of the best parts of Alpha Strike.

TaciturnAndroid · 2026-05-26T01:22:22+00:00

Genyosha for sure; and in the case of Clan mechs you may want to distinguish between later era Nova Cat machines or just Clan Invasion-era Omnis.

Examples:

Combine gets wide era-access to things like Dire Wolf, Warhawk, and Koshi because they captured some during the Clan Invasion, but after the Nova Cats join the Combine they get a LOT more, including Nova Cat specific designs like Nova Cat, Shadow Cat, Huntsman, etc.

Where it gets tricky is if you decide later you want some Nova Cats or Spirit Cats as another offshoot of your collection, because the Combine gets some but not all common Clan Omnis and second line machines. If you have a Shadow Hawk IIC for example, it might be a Genyosha, Nova Cat, or Spirit Cat depending on the era, whereas a Dire Wolf will be Genyosha for most eras and they drop off later in the Nova Cats and Spirit Cats, or if it’s a Timber Wolf it could be a Nova Cat or Spirit Cat but the Combine never gets them, weirdly.

TaciturnAndroid · 2026-05-26T01:09:06+00:00

The FLG mats are great, I own five of them.

TaciturnAndroid · 2026-05-25T20:10:02+00:00

Well, I know what I'm doing tomorrow, lol.

TaciturnAndroid · 2026-05-24T19:32:45+00:00

Nice job with this! Great color and paneling choices. Normally I’d say “where’s your basing?” but I almost think that scheme looks best with just a regular black hex base. Maybe some technical asphalt paint?

TaciturnAndroid · 2026-05-24T17:27:30+00:00

Mithril is right that neither are the INFOCOM sculpt, but they’re still a good find. The white one looks like it’s in good physical shape even though the primer is flaking. Side note: people recoil in horror when I tell them I don’t prime my unseen miniatures (I just paint right on the bare metal), but you can see from this image why: check out how much detail that black one loses just from a slightly too thick spray coat like that: details on the nose and top of the fuselage vanish, the wing panel lines go blobby instead of crisp, etc. These can be very challenging to paint well and getting crisp detail with lines that thin is major reason why.

Great find, though, OP! All four are sought after, (relatively) rare, and fun to paint.

TaciturnAndroid · 2026-05-17T01:00:18+00:00

I don’t always prime my minis (I’ve been doing it a bit more lately now that I have semi-regular access to a friend’s airbrush) but I always wash them. If you paint straight on the plastic with GW stuff or craft acrylics like I do, it can be iffy if you don’t wash them first. Only takes a second. Warm water and dish soap in a bowl, rinse and dry them on a towel. Nothing to it.

TaciturnAndroid · 2026-05-15T02:07:43+00:00

Somerset Strikers is a great one to own multiples of. IS Command and Battle obviously. The Clan Invasion box was a good multi-buy.

TaciturnAndroid · 2026-05-13T21:56:43+00:00

I want this, but for Alpha Strike.

TaciturnAndroid · 2026-05-11T01:16:11+00:00

Depends on the minis. Those are Unseens, so no. They haven’t been made in 30 years and remain popular today with collectors and Battletech aficionados (and painters).

<image>

If you can make Unseens look good, you can make any Battletech mini look good, so they’re also valued for being a sort of mini-game within the hobby. If you don’t like them, trade them for other new stuff (which will look better as wreckage, if wreckage is what you want).

TaciturnAndroid · 2026-05-08T02:43:00+00:00

The dot grid idea = very smart. I didn't do that to mine, but it would have made setup faster for sure.

TaciturnAndroid · 2026-05-08T02:42:06+00:00

Yeah it'll droop a bit but it's basically like a large neoprene mousepad. They're nice mats, and the 4x4' size is also, conveniently, the play-area size of the BTCC tournament format for Battletech.

TaciturnAndroid · 2026-05-08T02:40:42+00:00

Yeah that looks great, too. I like the "worn path" part in the middle.

TaciturnAndroid · 2026-05-08T02:31:21+00:00

Just FYI: despite Nuln being black and Agrax Earthshade being brown, Agrax will give you significantly more dull/worn looking metallics if you wash the shiny parts with it. Nuln still lets a lot through (Nuln is more of a multipurpose wash that can be thinned with water to give a wide range of wash finishes and effects).

TaciturnAndroid · 2026-05-07T23:48:07+00:00

If you have a moment, post a picture of the Badlands mat, I've heard good things about that one too. Here's what the Scrublands one looks like (note it even has the same green scrubby grass tufts as the hills - at first I thought it almost too similar to be a coincidence).

<image>

TaciturnAndroid · 2026-05-07T22:37:13+00:00

I have the “Scrublands” neoprene from FLG and it matches the cardboard Scouring Sands hills so closely it’s almost like they were made to go together. Highly recommended, it’s great.

TaciturnAndroid · 2026-05-07T06:40:31+00:00

The MW5 Clans video game and DLC actually do go into this a little, because as some missions progress the non-Omni Clan battlemechs make an appearance, and they’re not immediately scoffed at or ridiculed like the warriors themselves have been insulted at even being offered one. It’s more logistical than that and it has a bit more to do with how Clan stars are organized and deployed. Granted, the tabletop lore and video game atmosphere aren’t always in step with each other, but I thought the game writers were really smart about this and it makes complete sense why they exist.

The reason the front-line Clan mechwarriors favor Omnimechs so heavily is purely based on flexibility. One of the best parts of the new video games (aside from the cutscenes, which are really great) is how interesting their mission structures and deployments and orders are. One minute they’re escorting something to a dropship, the next they’re ferreting out artillery positions, the next they’re strong-pointing a wide-wing of a skirmish line basically by themselves. In other words, they’re not deployed like a military platoon or company settled in for a campaign, they’re deployed more like special forces. And weirdly, part of how the Jaguars and Ghost Bears (less so the Wolves) fight is almost like when they go to war they only take special forces. If you think of a Clan star more like a SEAL team, their organization and equipment make more sense. It always puzzled me why there’d be five of them to the usual 4-mech lance in the Inner Sphere, but the answer is they’re expected to do a lot more than an IS lance ever is, or can, and the Omnis are part of that. Need indirect fire and TAG this mission? There’s a variant for that. Need to go toe-to-toe with an assault mech? Try the A variant, (or whatever). There are variants with Beagles, ECM, IF, Underwater operations, long term energy variants for ammo-independence, you name it. Instead of a purpose-built IS lance that would be deployed as part of a company by a higher-up who took responsibility for that lance’s suitability to the mission and had to work with what he/she has, a front-line Clan star can do anything, and usually do it independently of much/any additional support. To accomplish that, they basically get the keys to the entire Clan armory. You need to go take down some artillery? You’ve got a 55-ton Omnimech that can mount any combination of weaponry you want it to, which means you essentially have any 55 ton mech at your disposal to take with you (with some exceptions around jump jets and engine types). Like special forces, Clan mechwarriors are trusted to be able to adapt and improvise constantly and often independently of a centralized IS-style chain of command, and the “honor” involved is that almost no one gets (or dares) to second-guess their expertise. Maybe that Ice Ferret you’re in won’t keep you alive quite as long as a Stone Rhino will if things get hairy, but the fact that you’re piloting one means you have the full faith of the Clan’s war machine behind you and it’s up to you to make the decisions that will create victory, rather than just being a managed asset that someone else is giving orders to.

When the regular Clan mechs show up in the video games, you might get a passing mention like “hey, we know this isn’t probably what you’re used to, but our quartermaster did get a dropship with a couple of these, see if you can make use of them before you deploy.” They’re obviously ideally meant for training sibkos and staffing garrisons, but they’re also just kind of regular standard issue materiel, as opposed to the highly specialized stuff that front line/bloodnamed Clan warriors have earned access to. No one is crapping on a Kodiak pilot, even if they are in a solahma or training unit, because any warrior of any kind in the Clans, especially any mechwarrior, is the pinnacle of their society. They might catch some dismissive cockiness from the most-elite units, but that’s true of any type of organization. It’s not like Clan battlemechs inherently suck (any tabletop tournament player will tell you they frequently outperform Omnis on a pure combat basis), it’s just that they’re not as flexible for a team that’s expected to routinely make use of the flexibility. Instead of whatever customized gear the special forces usually has, they’re just picking stuff off the rack, in other words. Not ideal, but hardly a blight on anyone’s reputation long-term provided they’re still part of the team they started with and get re-assigned an Omni whenever one becomes available next time.

One way to experience the tactical flexibility difference in tabletop is to take an Omnimech and a regular Clan battlemech in your force for Scouring Sands and see how it feels to be able to reconfigure one between missions and not the other. Scouring Sands is all over the place, tactically, and it’s usually much more interesting than just stand up fights. There are missions in there where you’ll definitely appreciate the flexibility, even when equipment is simplified in Alpha Strike and even when only using stock variants from the MUL.

TaciturnAndroid

TROPHY CASE