Battletech Public Playtest Thread

[Kannik]

head shots are already bad enough...

You're not taking my "Headshot at 22 hexes! The kid's a natural!" first roll, first kill of the session away from me.

 

[Kannik]

Side torso change has some pretty big impact to the gameplay. Being able to focus damage on a single side was way more beneficial to the attacker than the defender. With a little luck on initiative you could really sandblaster a mech to hell. It became so obvious the movement phase became a game of circle the wagons.

Thanks for the playtest report. That is a worry I had -- if as a tactic staying in the side arc becomes buffed (as you're guaranteed a side hit), then then it narrows the game because there's one "right" choice to make. And it could privilege initiative even more.

This one comes up a lot. From a single force for an afternoon of BT fun, case in XL engine mech seems like nipples on breastplate. Though, from a campaign and narrative point it makes sense. The only way to destroy beyond repair a mech is to core the CT. A mech can lose a torso and go down but case leaves the wreck salvageable.

A long time ago, the first time we played with IS XL engines, a friend and I in the midst of a game instituted a house rule that if you lose a side torso through depleting its structure it counts as X-1 engine slot hits (thus 2 engine hits for an IS mech and 1 engine hit for a clan mech). CASEing out the back of the mech and not transferring to the CT meant no crit roll on the CT and thus no chance to get another engine hit and take you out, making CASE worthwhile again on IS XL engined mechs.

They should move from 2d6 to d20 and add levels (and not just for terrain)!

Personally I would loathe switching from a bell-curve set of dice to a linear one. Much prefer the feel of proper bell curve probabilities.

 

[Celebrim]

Side torso change has some pretty big impact to the gameplay. Being able to focus damage on a single side was way more beneficial to the attacker than the defender. With a little luck on initiative you could really sandblaster a mech to hell. It became so obvious the movement phase became a game of circle the wagons.

That's exactly what I expected. It becomes like fighting a vehicle or using targeting computers. It just ruins the game entirely. Presenting the undamaged torso is such a huge part of the game that if you take it away there isn't a lot left.

 

[Kannik]

Historically speaking, ammo explosions in tanks typically result in catastrophic damage taking it out of the fight. NATO tanks are typically designed to channel such explosions in a manner that makes it more likely the crew survives, but the tank is still out of commission. I imagine when the rules were being written they had this in mind. As for why it might do damage, keep in mind the armor on a mech is designed to protect it from outside enemies rather an an internal explosion. Ammo going up inside should be a terrible occasion.

Natch, but those are vehicles and not a stompy mech game. An ammo explosion in a limb (depending on the type of limb design, which is one area where BT doesn't distinguish) feels like it ought to vent most of its energy outside of the mech and damage all sorts of the mech's exterior armour. Then again, for limb-mounted weapons and torso-mounted ammo, we really don't want to think about the ammo train and how it's likewise squeezing through all the joint machinery, nevermind how it does so without pinching, slipping, etc.

I'm open to the idea of ammo explosions doing less damage. But from what I remember, by the time I started taking internals the writing was pretty much on the wall. I was probably going to lose anyway.

For me this speaks to the gameplay feel. If ammo explosions are written to be nearly instant death, then you're praying to the dice gods you don't take it on your first crit and only on your last crit in that space. And even if you take it in the last crit in your arm, is it going to propogate so much that it's again instant death? I've won games with what amounted to nearly 100-ton walking radios and that can be satisfying in its own way. I admit it's a balancing point: making ammo explosions strong enough that they have a sizable impact on the mech (including that it causes additional crit rolls PLUS pilot damage, which will trigger conciousness rolls) without being a foregone conclusion that the mech is done for. And while, as payn notes, remaining balanced with other, non-ammo using weapons.

 

[payn]

Playtest report 2.

So today was a 7 player narrative campaign game I created. I am basically adapting the Carver V campaign from Mechcommander II. Today was the Legion tank mission (which was pretty exciting with the side table rules). Players had to locate a spy while dodging patrols and then were ambushed by big boy tanks with dual gauss and streak 2 launchers. I ran the opfor.

Yikes, dual guass and/or AC20 already are enough to make anybody drop some mud, but this was brutal. The mercs got out mostly intact, but their big pappa Marauder was reduced to slag in a single turn as the Steiner force was able to just punch through with the generous side tables.

A vulture pilot was able to survive a side shaving by the skin of their teeth. Spent the rest of the match in a slow retreat "turning the other cheek" as I have come to call it. A few well placed crew stuns hit the Legion tanks so they were not able to deliver a second or third round of pounding.

Starting to feel like, "Game of Sides" after another playtest. On one hand, it speeds up the long game by making mechs die faster. On the other hand, side stacking is such an advantage folks are not going to do anything else.

 

[TheHand]

Tried a short test battle with 1 friend. We just did lance v lance with 3 medium mechs from stock 3025 designs. The goal was to try out both new proposed changes.

We kind of had an initial thought of “no more side hit charts to worry about, nice!”, but it became pretty apparent how frequent side hits threw off the normal balance. Like with @payn ’s more extensive battle above, the battle became “side wars”. My Dervish became a liability with all the ammo in its side torso and arm locations, but the good news was that gave us a chance to see the ammo explosion rules in action.

The 20 dmg explosion wasn’t the instant death it normally is, but it definitely collapsed the side location and went internal on the center and cost me 2 engine hits. It would have completely finished off an Inner Sphere XL engine mech.

We played for a couple more rounds, the Dervish died and I surrendered the match.

We observed that XL Mechs, particularly Inner Sphere models, are going to really suffer with the side location change.

The ammo change rule, however seems to be an improvement over the original rules, assuming one wants ammo explosions to be potentially survivable.

I coincidentally am going to play a BattleTech game Monday night with more friends and we’ll try out the ammo explosion rule some more. Not sure we’ll stick with the side-hit rule.

 

[Xervous]

In my recent playtests the side hit rules have both lengthened and shortened games. It was my hope that the increased value of positioning would be a nerf to turrettech but I was surprised when my turrettech lists benefited (I might say disproportionately) from the rule.

Running my usual rushdown lists I found it much easier to punish slower lists when they employed bad positioning. TSM kickers (Nightsky 6T) didn’t actually achieve leg destruction that much more often, but the kick-on-punch-table was brutally consistent. Kick on side punch table is a horribly specific scenario that’s not easily set up so I don’t dwell on it much. When shooting into slower 3/5-4/6 mechs the initial damage delivered on approach encouraged me to favor a side, but the layout didn’t always allow me to pursue it as an optimal play. The side arc rule made slower lists even worse for dispersed objectives, but I don’t consider that a significant change because such lists were already winning/losing at initial placement.

Jumpy mechs with poke sticks surprised me as most of my expectations were focused around fire supports and knife fights. I ran into one of the packhunter upgrades and it turned out to be not worth shooting at even though the numbers were enticing. FOUR hits with heavy PPC (and a snub) and no loss of function. Left leg (no crit) left arm, pack hunter presents right arc, CT right arm, snub into RT by transfer. I can only imagine how standard fusion jumping poke sticks will be to deal with, plan on testing that soon.

With the single fire support anchoring some of the rushdown lists, singular snipers in opposing lists, and generally with the turrettech list I tried, the side arc rules gave some mechs more staying power. The centerpiece of one match was a kingfisher v kingfisher showdown (promoted on by some RP and a mutual desire to see how long they’d last) that was only ended by one taking a gyro hit while the other absorbed engine hits when they were approaching twig status. I recognize most mechs will not remain threatening as long given how few mount a CT cLPL, but the nightstar in a previous match was also surprisingly long lived thanks in no small part to sticking its left side towards me after barely avoiding the right gauss going boom.

Turrettech lists already wanted to sit in a clump and my firing line wasn’t really worried about getting its arcs exploited. IS XL mechs still don’t last as long as other engines, but the option for guaranteed side shielding made them more consistent in terms of longevity (so long as they survive a round and get to turn, RIP archer).

My biggest concern is tied up in ‘game mode’ selection. Turrettech gets a nerf for dispersed objectives, your typical “and then they blew each other up…” meeting engagements hand TT an advantageous defensive option, and jumpy $#&%! consistently living longer in most cases at no cost to their offensive output. I don’t like to see games decided before minis hit the board, but this side arc stuff looks to polarize TT performance. Though it’s not like there weren’t lists that dominated specific scenarios before, this just calls for some minor adjustments in scenario design.

Jump 7+ was already a pain point right? I’ll need to look into those interactions more in the future.

 

[RangerWickett]

You're not taking my "Headshot at 22 hexes! The kid's a natural!" first roll, first kill of the session away from me.

Wouldn't it be neat if there were some sort of mechanic in tabletop that could model aiming talent the way we have it in the video games?

That's too big of a change, but I want it.

 

[payn]

Wouldn't it be neat if there were some sort of mechanic in tabletop that could model aiming talent the way we have it in the video games?

That's too big of a change, but I want it.

You can aim with targeting computers! (though Im a curmudgeon about their existence).

Though, when you say "the video games" you gotta clarify that the video games are Mechwarrior and the table top is Battletech. In the former you can take out 24 mechs and over 30 vehicles single-handedly, not so much in the latter. Unless you are talking about HBS Battletech video game which allows aiming with a morale system that isnt part of the tabletop ruleset. I cant say I havent imagined adding some HBS ideas into the tabletop version though. Like weight class initiative and stability damage only from ballistics, etc...

 

[Kannik]

Wouldn't it be neat if there were some sort of mechanic in tabletop that could model aiming talent the way we have it in the video games?

That's too big of a change, but I want it.

Well, depends. As Payn notes, if we're talking about the Mechwarrior games, in the more recent games the ability to pinpoint your fire leads to breaking a lot of the BT paradigm, as boating weapons becomes very potent. The classic Discoback (or the Ontos) is semi-frightening when it fires 8 MLs at you, but if they're scattering all over your mech you'll likely survive. When all 8 are going to hit a single location, you're done for. Why bother installing an AC/20 then? Or other weapons? Find the lightest weapons that hit the range you want and boat them together en masse.

If something more akin to the 2018 Harebrained BT game, with some sort of modifier to aim at a particular location, that could be fun/fine with some sort of metacurrency to limit it, such Command Points from the Unit Commander or if a more RP-like setting something like the HBS game with a morale or escalation value that grows as the engagement progresses.

Doing it all the time, though, even with a penalty, I think belies the nature of game where between being hit yourself and terrain (where not every actual bit of terrain is represented across the 30m hex, so even a 'clear' hex would have terrain that both hinders LoS/LoF but also maneuvering and stepping and thus your own stability and aim) and how often you can face the target and smoke and debris and and etc would make such things difficult.

If wanting to go that route, it might be better to go the Alpha Strike route: just reduce the mech to a single damage location/value and say you are aiming at its most vulnerable spots by default.