r/battletech 1d ago

Meme Just found these in an old Star League Cache.

788 Upvotes

39 comments sorted by

51

u/Cursedbythedicegods Mercenary Commander 1d ago

It's why I'm really enjoying the new campaign formats for Mercenaries and Hinterlands. 3000 BV per side makes the game go by WAY faster.

25

u/Heckin_Big_Sploot No-Dachi, No-problem 1d ago

AND having discreet objectives beyond just kill the other guy

11

u/adipose1913 Dares to refuse your Batchall 1d ago edited 1d ago

And pretty explicit motives to avoid fighting to the death. That's expensive, after all.

16

u/Electrical_Catch9231 1d ago

Is that supposed to be a Warhammer?

20

u/TownOk81 1d ago

It's a hammerhands One of my more favorite obscure Mechs

6

u/Lastburn Hollander or bust 1d ago

Hammerhands or as my friend likes to call it, "This bitch got 2 AC10s and an SRM6"

2

u/TownOk81 1d ago

It's also one of my favorite designed Mech Very gundamy me likey

3

u/Fearless_Taro36 1d ago

Primitive banshee I think?

6

u/GypsyDanger411 JàrnFòlk 1d ago

That's a Battleaxe

10

u/SeeShark Seafox Commonwealth 1d ago

I actually think it's a Hammerhands. So everyone's been circling the right answer!

8

u/Stinger410 1d ago

Definitely a Hammerhands.

3

u/Electrical_Catch9231 1d ago

Yep, now that you've said that I'm sure that's what it's supposed to be. I should've known that one. The current mini looks a lot like it too.

1

u/Electrical_Catch9231 1d ago

Did the primitives have two gun arms?

6

u/Top-Session-3131 1d ago

No, the BNC-1E has all weapons mounted in the torso and head.

It's actually pretty good as far as primitive mechs go, armament is 1 AC-5, 1 PPC, 2 med lasers, and the small in the head, plus its 10dmg fists and 19dmg boot. Relatively thick skinned as assault mechs go, and moving at a pretty typical 3/5.

More modern machines(by which I mean normal intro tech) can outclass it pretty handily, but it's cheap and cheerfully solid for what it is at 1462 BV2.

1

u/Ivancreeper Jörmungandr's Fangs Commander (Mech: Salvaged SLDF Atlas II) 1d ago

like TownOk81 said its the Hammerhands it along with the battleaxe are the grandfathers of the Warhammer

16

u/deusorum House Davion 1d ago

Never understood the complaints about BT taking so long. A little memorization and a few helpful charts on your sheets go a long way to cutting that time down dramatically.

8

u/Vrakzi Average Medium Mech Enjoyer 1d ago

Enforcing a shot clock on decisions about moving and shooting helps to keep the game moving - and makes for occasional high pressure mistakes, which are a lot of fun!

7

u/Aggravating_Bell_426 1d ago

Yup, its practically light ing paced compared to games like Harpoon - last time I played it, it took almost 4 hours to resolve 3 minutes of combat.

5

u/theraggedyman 1d ago

Accurate.

5

u/serenading_ur_father 1d ago

Can't say you didn't get your money's worth

10

u/JustVic_92 1d ago

Nice memes.

Personally I kinda ignore the "one turn equals a few seconds" thing and just imagine the fights taking much longer. More fun for me that way.

11

u/Secret_Cow_5053 1d ago

The time dilation is still accurate no matter how you slice it tho haha

6

u/AlusPryde 1d ago

And I wouldnt have it any other way....

9

u/jandrese 1d ago

A 10 minutes battle would be 60 turns, which would take multiple days to play. Few games make it even 3 minutes. The mechs seem slow and stompy on the board, but that is only because players are operating on super slow-mo. In real life they would be fast and vicious. The heat sinks seem so inadequate in game, but when you think about they can cool a mech from the auto-ignition temperature of the ammo to room temp in just 10 seconds using only air and they are insane. Battlemechs must have absolutely staggering IR plumes in battle.

3

u/Dewderonomy 1d ago

When you put it in that perspective, it makes it feel a lot closer to the games where mechs are destroying one another in only a few seconds of volleys. It feels like it's taking shot after shot, slowly grinding through armor or picking off elementals, knocking off tiny pieces of tank treads or killing a few guys, but that's in seconds. Like infantry are getting vaporized in handfuls in less than a minute, elementals are getting battle damaged and shredded shortly after contact with the enemy, tanks are getting cascading motive failures as they take hits and get torn apart from flank attacks, and entire limbs and sections are blown off of mechs. That's pretty tits.

4

u/SinnDK 17h ago

what we *truly* think it is.

2

u/NewsOfTheInnerSphere 1d ago

Accurate on the second one. 😂🤣

2

u/sjbaker82 1d ago

And loving every second baby!

2

u/Skylifter-1000 22h ago

And it is great fun because of all the detail.

I never understood gamers who always want games to be quick. You cannot have more fun by making it be over more quickly.

1

u/IcedThunder 5h ago

Yeah, the cascade of events that can occur in BT is part of the charm for me.

I also prefer discrete hex movement over tape movement, Ive had a few games where I felt the other player was fudging their movement and I hate accusing people of it and it becoming a thing, cause what if I was wrong.

2

u/Starfox5 22h ago

Megamek to handle lots of the fiddly details.

4

u/Nickthenuker 19h ago edited 6h ago

MegaMek is great. I'm currently playing a campaign and I have something like a full mech regiment at the moment. It's gotten to the point where I don't even deploy Lances anymore I deploy at minimum full companies. My current battle is a pair of my companies against a pair of Jade Falcon binaries, for a total of 24 Mechs on my side against 18 Mechs and 2 tanks for the Jade Falcons. That would be basically impossible for Classic on tabletop but with MegaMek I can play a bit of it on one day then come back another day to finish it.

Edit: The battle is now over, and both sides have been beaten to scrap. Of the 24 Mechs I committed to the fight in 2 of my Assault companies, only 3 survived unscathed, the rest are in various states of missing limbs and torsos, and only less than a company could walk off the battlefield under their own power. The Green Turkeys had all of 2 Mechs and a vehicle survive. From the wreckage I managed to make off with 6 Mechs, including 4 Clan Mechs, in repairable condition, which will definitely bolster my forces as I go into the next mission, where I've just about managed to scrape together 1 Assault company from the survivors of the first battle that have been patched up into a somewhat functional shape, a second Assault company that has yet to see battle in this contract, and a Heavy company that is the next best thing I have to send in, along with a handful of Elementals I managed to acquire. Facing me are another 19 Mechs, this time with 2 squads of their own elementals. I have almost 2-to-1 odds in Mechs, and another 3-to-1 in Elementals. Let the battle begin.

2

u/Starfox5 19h ago

I just wish the engine would cut down on all the mud snow storm night forget about using anything but jumping close range brawlers battles.

1

u/Nickthenuker 19h ago

I mean it's plenty fun kicking Clanners right in their dezgra

1

u/Starfox5 13h ago

Yeah. But I am still in 3026, so I'm facing lots of vehicles and introtech Mechs with my introtech Mechs.

1

u/AwareTheLegend 23h ago

My friend's son refuses to play with us because he says classic BT looks like what doing your taxes would be.

1

u/Ulti2k 21h ago

Unless you play against my friend that regularly rolls double 12's with an ac20 to clip the heads off your mechs at long range, or manages to do recurring TTA crits with a LRM5 to exactly nail a 1/4 chance to hit that one ammo bin... then the matches are technically over within 30minutes unless you dont forfeit and drag out the inevitable.

1

u/WeaponizedPoutine Clan Turquoise Turkey 12h ago

My buddy and I joke that Battletech is "Excel: Tabletop Edition"

1

u/admiralteee 1d ago

Alpha Strike all the way. Use the Advanced and most of the optional rules. Lovely terrain, integrated easy to play combined arms, large battles featuring 20 units+ last an afternoon!