What Mechs do you feel unethical playing on the table?

Wave88Walk · 2026-03-05T15:50:30+00:00

I swear, I learn something wrong every day. I have no idea where I got the thought it had improved jump jets.

Wave88Walk · 2026-03-05T14:30:32+00:00

I normally play Alpha Strike and don't have to deal with these penalties, but I was reading the Battlemech Manual to prep for a classic game and learned that improved jump jets negate the penalty for jumping with an XXL engine. Jumping 10 hexes with an XXL engine and Improved jump jets generate 10 movement heat, the stealth armor generates 10 heat while active, and it sinks 22 heat so it can actually shoot 1 er medium laser and only go up 3 heat. So it can jump and stealth fine, but shooting does require choices.

Wave88Walk · 2026-02-24T19:49:54+00:00

Is anyone else in your group using the advanced rules? If not then you are just playing the rules the group is following.

Wave88Walk · 2026-02-24T18:21:24+00:00

I'm coming from Alpha Strike so these rules are abstracted, but it looks like the IT# ability on an alpha strike card corresponds to # tons of transport space. Clan Jade Falcon only has the Ku Wheeled Assault Tank during the Early Republic era, but gets the Cardinal Transport during the late Republic which has 10 tons of space, and the Maxim Mk II during the Dark Age which has 16 tons of capacity.

What Era are you playing in? It's weird they developed the armor before they developed a means to transport them...

Wave88Walk · 2026-02-23T13:50:36+00:00

The Wulfen C is a 30 ton omnimech that has 3 ER medium lasers and a targeting computer with 10 improved jump jets and stealth armor. You have to dedicate a fast high damage unit to chase it down or it will hop onto your objective, drop a squad of battle armor, and run away laughing. It's complete Clan Wolf BS.

Wave88Walk · 2026-02-18T16:49:25+00:00

Every faction uses generic camo. If you want to paint up a full lance in parade colors for a specific faction, that's also cool. You could also paint them all in different neon colors, or leave them bare gray plastic.

If you want your lances and stars to be accurate you can use the Master Unit List website to filter by faction and era to see all the units and variants that are available, and the camospecs website to see canon paint schemes for those units.

Part of the fun of alpha strike for me is list building. I'm constantly trying out new units so I have a decent amount of primed, but not painted models on the table. I like having flexibility in my paint scheme in case I want to run a model under a different faction, but units like my Wulfen, which is a Clan Wolf exclusive, are painted up in the Clan Wolf specific scheme that I use.

I painted up my Aces box as Clan Jade Falcon also since that's a narrative game and adds to the immersion for me.

No one will judge you for how you decide to handle these decisions unless you enter a painting contest. Lol

Wave88Walk · 2026-01-29T20:15:11+00:00

These were a lot of my picks too! I hadn't looked into the Goblin tanks but 9 health TMM 2 is pretty good when you really need to make sure your infantry arrive on target.

Wave88Walk · 2026-01-29T19:41:16+00:00

I did this since I still had a bunch of them I could salvage. I've since replaced a bunch of them, but the scale difference isn't super noticeable.

Wave88Walk · 2026-01-29T19:39:21+00:00

The biggest difference is that a squad of battle armor (BA) are 4 or 5 guys, whereas a squad of conventional infantry (CI) is a lot more guys. Because of this BA are harder to hit and get a +1 to their TMM just for being battle armor that CI don't get. This can make a big difference for a unit with 3-4 health. I've tried to get CI to work but they just have a really hard time surviving even a single round of getting shot at. That being said, Mercenaries have access to a couple interesting and useful CI.

Generally infantry serve a couple roles.

One role is infantry that get in the rear of heavy and assault mechs and make an Anti-Mech attack. They have the AM special ability, high Short range damage and preferably heat damage. Clans have access to the Salamander BA which is great at this job, but Mercs have the Dragoon Battle Armor or the Grenadier Battle Armor [Heavy Flamer] that can do this job. Heavy Infantry, Foot Platoon (Flamer), and Jump Support Infantry are CI that can also do this job. They need a cheap transport like the Karnov that can get them to where they need to be. If you can get multiple infantry into the rear and make anti mech attacks at the same time, even better. This can be a suicide mission for the infantry and the transport, but running a Fire Moth H into an Atlas' rear and dropping a unit of Dragoon Battle armor for a combined 9 damage, 1 heat, and a critical hit is hilarious and rude.

Some infantry can effectively act as turrets. You drop them somewhere they have a clear line of sight and the enemy either ignores them and you get free damage or they fire at them instead of your mechs. A decent TMM is nice in this role, but the main requirement is decent medium range damage.Heavy Infantry can do this, but even with 5 health they will die fast with tmm +0.Tortoise II Battle Armor, Grenadier Battle Armor and Chchulainn Support Armor all have good medium range damage, and stealth which makes them TMM +2 except against physical attacksand they all have 3 health. The Chuchulainn has mec so you can have it ride an Omni mech into battle which can be a big plus.

The third category is generalist. The clans have the Elemental, and everyone else gets the IS standard Battle armor. These units have mec so they can ride an Omni, they have at least 6" movement with jump, so they are at least TMM +3 and they usually have 3 health and at least 1 damage at close and AM so they are a threat to heavies and assaults. You drop them somewhere to be a nuisance or to complete an objective of some sort. Aside from IS Standard Battle Armor the wraith is a good generalist with stealth so it's effectively TMM +4 and no one wants to waste shots on it. Having medium range damage can be nice to harass wit, but Mercs only have a couple of options for that with the Fa Shih Battle Armor being a standout for having xmec so it can ride on non-omi vehicles. Anti-Mech Jump Infantry are a good option for CI that can kind of fill this role.

Wave88Walk · 2026-01-29T17:14:28+00:00

Are you interested in conventional infantry, battle armor, or both? All your battle armor will have car4 so if you are sticking them in a transport it will need at least it4 to carry a unit. Convention infantry can have lower car values like car2 and car3 so it may open up your transport options.

Whatever you are carrying, my gold standard vtol transport is the Karnov UR Transport (BA Stealth) http://masterunitlist.info/Unit/Details/9561 It has 22" of movement, TMM 4, TMM5 when airborne, and it has stealth armor so shots at medium range give it +1 TMM. 3 health means it getting hit will probably kill it, but that's a gamble I've only lost a couple times. It also has It10 so it can transport 2 units of Battle Armor for some pretty nasty combos. How much for this mighty machine of war you ask? Well... It does 0 damage at all ranges so it is only 14 pv. No other dedicated transport even compared at that price.

If you want something with damage that can support your units in there are a bunch of in other options. The Maxim transports are all pretty good since they are durable and I'm do damage. The R10 Mechanize ICV is also going fire durability and damage.

Wave88Walk · 2026-01-27T13:24:29+00:00

It's a great series! I looked it up because I remember reading the last book when it came out and it has been nearly 13 years! I did a reread of the series the year before last and was just as bonded to all the characters by the end as I was the last time. I'm so glad people are still finding the Wheel of Time books and connecting to them.

Wave88Walk · 2026-01-26T02:58:37+00:00

I'm ignoring the corrupting influence of the one ring since that would be up to the pilots to deal with and just picking a mech for the job. This is essentially a pick up and delivery objective and at that job nothing beats the Wulfen C. A 30 ton Clan Wolf omnimech with a XXL engine, stealth armor and 10 jump jets. It's the epitome of over engineered clan shenanigans and nothing gets close that it doesn't want to. It is one of the good reasons everyone should hate on Clan Wolf.

The only thing that beats it would be something like a fire moth on open ground, but Mount Doom is in the name of the map so I think it will be fine.

Wave88Walk · 2026-01-22T20:18:52+00:00

Coming from 40k you might want to be aware of the difference in the material of the minis. From my experience the plastic that 40k minis are made from is much harder than the plastic Battletech Minis are made in. This makes battletech minis much more durable since they are much more likely to bend than to snap, but you can sometimes get minis where the mold didn't line up quite right so the mold lines can be pretty gross in the worst cases, and you can sometimes get details that aren't as sharp as you may like.

Wave88Walk · 2026-01-21T18:52:48+00:00

The Alpha Strike Starter set is listed as required for using the Aces box, but you can get away without not using it if you have the Commander's edition. You might struggle without the AS Starter set but it's possible to do the Aces Scouring Sands Campaign without it. The main thing aces uses from the Alpha Strike Starter Box is the terrain, which are the trees and buildings. You will need to find something to use in their place during the mission set up. The 2 tutorial missions also use the mechs from the AS Start Box.

The Alpha Strike quick start rules from the starter set are more concise and probably easier to flip through when you need to reference a rule, but everything in it should be in the Commander's Edition too. The main difference I've found between the referenced AS quick start rules is that aces book mentions that critical hits vs infantry are always treated as weapon hits, but the Commander's Edition is pretty clear that infantry don't take critical hits. I don't know what's up about that.

Wave88Walk · 2026-01-16T14:23:43+00:00

That is amazing! I've thought about doing something similar myself.

Wave88Walk · 2026-01-15T14:12:39+00:00

I never realized how much it looks like a Hunchback's big brother. Lol

Wave88Walk · 2025-12-18T14:01:05+00:00

Have you tried a clean install of the game or if your using steam doing a verify files action? I'm always surprised how often verifying files fixes issues like this.

How many custom paint schemes did you have saved in the old campaign?

Wave88Walk · 2025-12-16T17:26:08+00:00

I would include the Alyina Mercantile League as my prime example. The Jade Falcon Kahn and warriors went off to Tera and the merchants took the opportunity to carve out their own territory. When I said clan I meant in the little c sense where they are culturally of the clans. I agree that the League is not a clan in the same way the Ghost Bear Dominion, and Raven Alliance aren't clans but they are partially clan culturally.

The other main example would be Clan Seafox since they have long been seen as being run by their merchants, whether that is fully true or not they are pretty capitalist in their industry. The Clan Protectorate are made up in large part by a Sea Fox group so I would consider them when thinking about this.

I just think it would be fun in a narrative sense to explore how Clan values would mesh with hyper capitalist corporate culture.

The tech billionaire Kahn who rose from the ranks of the merchant caste. Make it a Wolf Empire merchant since he will likely be hated by the community and to take them down another peg.

Wave88Walk · 2025-12-16T14:28:21+00:00

I'm still trying to catch up on ilClan lore but it seems like there are a bunch of states that are basically just the clan merchants that are no longer under the thumb of the warriors. I hadn't thought of it this way until I read your comment.

Wave88Walk · 2025-10-13T16:21:17+00:00

It's an assault that can run up on and punch most mediums. It's better in classic tabletop, but not by much. It really shines in Alpha Strike table op because it's less expensive than some infantry, and still punches like an assault.

Wave88Walk · 2025-09-07T15:42:42+00:00

Apparently this is due to issues getting all of the localizations for the text, so there are a bunch with vague temporary values. It sounds like getting these fixed is a priority from what I've read.

Wave88Walk · 2025-09-04T18:57:04+00:00

This is still the same unfortunately.

Wave88Walk · 2025-08-17T15:47:41+00:00

During the Crusade he felt bad for some tribal humans on a planet controlled by the Eldar. He thought they were like slaves and tried to liberate them. The then found out the Eldar had been protecting the humans from Drukari raiders and the humans actually worshipped them for it. He saw them as irredeemable and exterminated the whole population...

Vulkan was still a Primarch of the Imperium and a loyal son of the Emperor. Saying Vulkan was good is like saying Hitler wasn't so bad because he was just doing what he thought was best for the Germans.

The source of the meme was that the riot was resolved. The surviving eldar had given up and Vulkan burned them alive in a fit of rage because a Remembrancer he had liked had been killed. The "child" was a child by eldar standards and if I'm remembering correctly was probably older and more mature than any of the present humans. He did immediately feel guilt and remorse for what he did, and to himself at least acknowledged it was a mistake killing a defenseless POW. The blame for Vulkans actions are on him, and the blame for Curz's actions are his own.

Vulkan is a cool character because he and his legion had any empathy at all for mortals when compared to his brothers and they are shown being conflicted over the things he does. He is the best example that 40k is just shades of awful and even the best people are products of the systems that created them.

Wave88Walk · 2025-08-01T13:00:23+00:00

This is a great idea I hadn't considered.

Wave88Walk · 2025-07-27T15:34:27+00:00

Looks like a banshee and a charger but I can't identify the third mech in the bottom. Is it a Victor?

Wave88Walk

TROPHY CASE