oooh look at me im a GM, I have LUKEWARM TAKES about TTRPGS and I PAINT MINIATURES TO A PERSONALLY ACCEPTABLE STANDARD [Cisbi M24 (he/him) Banshee Pilot]
So i was planning on making a Helldivers themed mech named the Liberator (what teh fuck else would i name it) and so i looked on Sarna for if there was a mech with a similar name, cause, you know.
I am delighted to say i have found one. But. What the fuck am i looking at.
A large laser, an SRM 2, and two LRM 5s. Certainly one of the loadouts ever.
Oh right. In lore it is a completely nonfunctional shitbox that overheats if it thinks about the large laser too hard. The heatsinks are completely FUBAR. Its broken on most conceivable levels. Its great.
Shadow Hawk IIC painted as Clan Snow Raven Beta Galaxy.
I don't know how it's come to be, but at this point the Shadow Hawk IIC might have become my favourite mech in tabletop battletech. I have used her so much, and it was finally time to buy one and paint it as my favourite guys, the Snow Ravens. I've been really looking forward to taking pics of her with a better lens, and now the pics are here.
Unlike most of my other favourites, this one's actually practical in game and I'm in tune with all It's strengths and weaknesses. If I was a tenno, the Shadow Hawk IIC would be my warframe. We operate as one.
Look, when you see someone talking about a particular bit of tabletop RPG rules tech and your first reaction is "well, that just doesn't sound practical", your first question should be whether you've actually identified a problem, or whether you've merely assumed without justification that every part of the game in question other than the bit you just read about is identical to Dungeons & Dragons.
You need to understand that I get "but that doesn't make sense because how would it interact with levelling up" in my notifications like three times a week.
the dirty secret about battletech is pretty much every faction is in the upper right quadrant, if not the upper right corner.
especially the canopians! they give lyrans and the hansa a run for their money as dead eyed capitalists, there's nothing money can't buy in the magistracy, from nobility and military commissions, to drugs and any sex you can imagine, to the best medical care and cybernetics in the galaxy outside of comstar and the clans.
they retconned or corrected the slave trade in the magistracy, but that's okay the marians, the capellans, and the clans still practice slavery.
i like to joke battletech is way more bleak, depressing and hopeless than 40k- the imperium is absolutely fascist for sure but like, they do have tyranids and orks and literal fucking demons as at least a partial excuse for why they are the way they are.
everyone is a feudalistic capitalist fascist or worse! in battletech because... uh... interstellar communication and travel is slightly inconvenient.
While I broadly agree with this, iirc can't some planets (specifically those in the Federated Suns, maybe the Free Worlds League?) have governments that are different from their larger polity so long as they keep paying taxes? Most are probably still under a capitalist mode of production but I feel like if that is true at least some could have something resembling a socialist mode of production.
Could be entirely in the wrong though, far be it for me to defend those self righteous Davions
While there might be individual nice places to live in the Inner Sphere, they all feed a belligerent military industrialist god in the end, even if they're the exception that proves the rule.
I completely agree that Battletech is darker than 40k. 40k has ontologically evil factions who are fundamentally incompatible with each other and being murdered is one of the kinder outcomes.
Everyone in Battletech is just a person. Same as you and me. And yet the entire universe feeds into this galactic dick-waving contest between people who barely remember why the fighting started. The people in power cannot imagine a galaxy that doesn't revolve around perpetual military conflict, and while yes that is good lore for a play pretend wargame Battletech makes a point that all of the evils committed in their universe are catalyzed by the wealthy in pursuit of greed in the end. This is especially emphasized by the fact that modern companies like Nissan and General Motors are still successful a thousand years later because they're still selling progressively more elaborate spears to progressively more detached warlords. There is no supernatural evil or alien horror in the stars. Just greed on a scale impossible to comprehend. Also there are big robots.
Wherever you live, across the inner sphere and beyond, you live under the shadow of war. It doesn’t matter how generous the governor is, how pragmatic and compassionate the Star Captain who has total authority over you and your labourer friends is, how secure or insignificant your world is. The game world, Solaris VII, was desolated by the Word of Blake and conquered by Clan Wolf. The entire Periphery, even the parts far from the notice of the Great Houses, is predated by pirates, slavers, and tyrant would-be kings. The heart of the Federated Suns was taken by the Draconis Combine. Even Terra was ravaged by the IlClan trial - fuck, given how many of those movements happened in south ontario, there’s a good chance my apartment would have been destroyed in the fighting.
The galaxy belongs to an endless network of military-industrial complexes and as long as that is true, everyone everywhere must start their day with the knowledge that there’s a nonzero chance they’ll finish it in the shadow of a BattleMech.
the dirty secret about battletech is pretty much every faction is in the upper right quadrant, if not the upper right corner.
especially the canopians! they give lyrans and the hansa a run for their money as dead eyed capitalists, there's nothing money can't buy in the magistracy, from nobility and military commissions, to drugs and any sex you can imagine, to the best medical care and cybernetics in the galaxy outside of comstar and the clans.
they retconned or corrected the slave trade in the magistracy, but that's okay the marians, the capellans, and the clans still practice slavery.
i like to joke battletech is way more bleak, depressing and hopeless than 40k- the imperium is absolutely fascist for sure but like, they do have tyranids and orks and literal fucking demons as at least a partial excuse for why they are the way they are.
everyone is a feudalistic capitalist fascist or worse! in battletech because... uh... interstellar communication and travel is slightly inconvenient.
While I broadly agree with this, iirc can't some planets (specifically those in the Federated Suns, maybe the Free Worlds League?) have governments that are different from their larger polity so long as they keep paying taxes? Most are probably still under a capitalist mode of production but I feel like if that is true at least some could have something resembling a socialist mode of production.
Could be entirely in the wrong though, far be it for me to defend those self righteous Davions
While there might be individual nice places to live in the Inner Sphere, they all feed a belligerent military industrialist god in the end, even if they're the exception that proves the rule.
I completely agree that Battletech is darker than 40k. 40k has ontologically evil factions who are fundamentally incompatible with each other and being murdered is one of the kinder outcomes.
Everyone in Battletech is just a person. Same as you and me. And yet the entire universe feeds into this galactic dick-waving contest between people who barely remember why the fighting started. The people in power cannot imagine a galaxy that doesn't revolve around perpetual military conflict, and while yes that is good lore for a play pretend wargame Battletech makes a point that all of the evils committed in their universe are catalyzed by the wealthy in pursuit of greed in the end. This is especially emphasized by the fact that modern companies like Nissan and General Motors are still successful a thousand years later because they're still selling progressively more elaborate spears to progressively more detached warlords. There is no supernatural evil or alien horror in the stars. Just greed on a scale impossible to comprehend. Also there are big robots.
“The glass flashed bright white and the cockpit shook violently around me, and I was vaguely aware through the overwhelming feedback of my neurohelmet that I was screaming. Time seemed to slow down as Fangbreaker lost its footing on the slick pavement and careened downwards- I managed to get a lock on the Daimyo standing so tantalizing close in its blind of trees. My medium lasers raked across its chest, sending molten armour spilling to the arena floor in petty revenge for my own damaged cockpit. I imagined I could see the pilot reeling, struggling to keep their machine under control - then the ground came up to meet me and everything went dark.”
- Molly “Whiskey” Joensuu, Lieutenant in the Varangian Guard (4th company)
I’m still about two weeks behind on campaign events, so we’re hitting a LIGHTNING ROUND!!! After my successful contract on Le Blanc, my opponent and I stuck around to make use of the Game World facilities there. I played an NPC Shadow Hawk against his Battle Cobra, which I lost in a close match - that thing is lethal at range! The next match was my Ostsol against an enemy Ostsol. Unfortunately, the random pilot my opponent rolled was a 2/3 Elite- way out of poor old 4/5 Foley’s league, especially with the X-Pulses it mounted. I thought I might get lucky with my TSM and punch its head off, but it tore off an arm on the way in. Things only got worse from there, and I called it off before I got too much more badly chewed up. If I had to do it again maybe I’d use the center building to be cagey and skirmish - but this was a *tough* match. I reckon this is the kind of humbling experience that might drive Foley to gain experience and come back later for revenge, shonen-style.
For our team-based match, I felt fairly confident going in. I had rolled a 3/4 Centurion CN-9D as my teammate to my opponent's 5/5 Daimyo DMO-2K, and was bringing my own Starslayer to his Battle Cobra I. This should have been a hard-fought but ultimately winnable scenario - but the dice had other ideas. Now, in fairness to my opponent, I was probably a bit too conservative with my Centurion and too eager with my Starslayer, but I still think I got robbed here. This game lasted only two or three turns - my Starslayer, pushing up on the Daimyo, took a headshot as part of a 20-damage turn that also caused it to fail its piloting check and fall over, taking five more damage to the head (!) and then the pilot failed her consciousness check. *Maybe* I could have pushed up with the Centurion and protected her, maybe she would have made the next consciousness check and been fine, but only two pips on the head remaining is a bad place to be, especially for a superfluous arena fight. So I surrendered, and that was the end of my time on the duelling circuit. Disgraceful.
That same month I found a Gravedigger in the shop that I could reasonably afford if I sold the Starslayer to make room - it's a pretty decently-armed 50-tonner with a Clan ERPPC (so a head-chopper), a Clan streak LRM-15, and an LB-5X as main guns, but you'd mostly take it for the combination of Clan active probe and Angel ECM suite it brings. For the same armour coverage as a Starslayer, this was sorely tempting especially given that I now regarded the Starslayer as cursed. However, the 4/6 movement really scared me off - it was just so much slower than the rest of my lance and even lacked jump jets. Ultimately I judged it would be too vulnerable and unable to keep up, so let it pass. And that was it - next week we had a non-campaign game, and then we started our next contract with new opponents- Dahar!
At last, the long-belated second entry to my Draconis Reach campaign diary! I’m only two tracks behind the action, since for two weeks my opponent and I took time off to play a regular, no -campaign game and visit a Game World (in-campaign) while our fellow campaigners caught up on their contract. I delayed posting this since I missed taking several photos but whatever, so it goes.
Port Praix
Le Blanc
Draconis Reach
Federated Suns Territory
3151
“It was as good a piece of business as the Company had seen in months. We’d smashed the Feds’ supply depots and thrown the city into disarray with minimal casualties, and our yakuza buddies were making sure things stayed chaotic while our lance stopped to make repairs. Good thing too, since the call came in to raze the Hiring Hall barely a week later. I gotta say, that was a little disappointing. I’d been holding out hope that our dear Tai-i Anderson would send us against the FedSuns government office - call me superstitious, but hitting a hiring hall just seems…improper, somehow. Still, Sea-Bills do a lot to soothe the damaged soul, and breaking contract just isn’t how the Guard does things.
It was early morning, and I was sipping bad coffee as I watched our MechTechs weld the last few replacement armour plates in place across Ghoul Knight’s shoulders. We were going to make our attack under the cover of another heavy sandstorm, and our hangar walls already rattled in a rhythm that almost seemed to compliment my fingers drumming on the scalp of my neurohelmet. If my intuition was correct, we’d be facing down those Crater Cobra-wannabes again, which could be to our advantage - artillery is a rather indelicate tool for defense in the tight confines of a city. Still, that guided Arrow IV is nasty business…I grimaced at the coffee and poured the remainder down a nearby floor drain, then smiled at the thought of finishing my date with that Archer. One more run, and we’d be off this dust-ball.”
- Corbin “Blackguard” Beckett, Captain of the Varangian Guard (4th Company)
BATTLE REPORT UNDER BREAK
So last time in the first game of this contract, I won pretty handily and with minimal damage, which meant our track for this one was “Strike” with myself as the attacker again. Strike is another “defend/destroy the buildings” mission which should make it quite hard for the defender, but the twist here is that there are four buildings set up by the defender, with only one being designated secretly as the target. The attacker must scan the buildings to find out which is their true target, and unless you have a nice active probe that means the unit doing the scanning can’t shoot for the turn - so in theory, this is much more balanced and dynamic.
In practice, my opponent’s artillery list continued to suffer against my brawlers once they got up close, though he was able to deal some real damage in return. Let me tell you, friends, BFA helicopters with TAG supporting homing Arrow IV is truly bullshit and that artillery revision in the core rules can’t come soon enough. Do *you* like being hit by an AC/20 from 14 hexes away on effectively a 7+ because some little bastard who *always* has a TMM of 4 regardless of movement got in your rear arc? Because of how homing arrow iv’s BV tax works, he didn’t even have to pay for it either! At least hit location is determined by direction of the artillery rather than the TAGger now. Anyway, whinging aside, this was largely a pretty fun game with one caveat. Rather than going turn by turn, I think I’ll just give a general overview.
Starting Out
For this track, the defender (my opponent) deploys first, with some of their forced obligated to be near the target buildings at the center of the board - I, meanwhile, had to split my force in half, with one half entering on turn 1 from my long edge and the other half entering on turn 2 from short edges. I elected to have the Maxim and Ostsol, two swift units with high damage potential that could be neutered with just a few unlucky shots, enter as reinforcements. If I were to do this over, I’d probably have the Starslayer replace the Ostsol, but I misread some enemy placements (the Mad Dog and Kit Fox were on a height 6 building, turns out) and overestimated the Starslayer’s ability to dodge damage. We used some Kill Team tokens to mark the potential target buildings - red, grey, blue, and orange.
On the bright side, my opponent seemed to forget just how fast the Neanderthal is (this happens a lot - people just do not expect a big bulky assault ‘mech to go 5/8 or 6/9 with TSM) and left his archer positioned just right for the smashing machine to get stuck in with it turn 1.
Lieutenant Joensuu's Starslayer was TAGged and ate its first guided Arrow IV round here, managing to keep its feet and continue scanning the Red building, while the Neanderthal weathered a flurry of SRMs andlaid into the Archer with its lasers and kicked it, getting ready for some TSM destruction next turn. The Firefly began its scan of the Grey building - both it and the Starslayer would have to forgo attacks next turn to finish those scans.
On turn 2, my Maxim and Ostsol entered from the side edges, which is where I made my first stupid mistake - I forgot that the Mad Dog and Kit Fox were both on a very high building, and sent the Ostsol after them. Now, there had been a little bit of controversy about building structure points - last game, my opponent had said that I couldn't land my Starslayer on a height 2 building without it collapsing, since the target buildings had 30 SP each, but now he seemed rather reluctant to acknowledge that a single small laser hit could make the Mad Dog's building crumble and send his 'mech down 6 levels, presumably to a gruesome death (or at least maiming). Now, the rule that destroying a non-target building would result in a loss of company rep meant I likely was not going to do this, but just another reason it's good practice to verify those kinds of things before the match. Either way, the Ostsol took some pot shots at the Vulture and the Maxim began scanning the Orange Building - meanwhile, the Starslayer got TAGged again and ate two (!) homing Arrow IVs, blowing its left arm off and breaching both torsos. Fortunately it kept its feet and completed its scan (as did the Firefly) - no dice on either. The Neanderthal at this point whiffed all its lasers but ripped off the Archer's leg with a hatchet swing - leaving the heavy 'mech prone and in a bad spot.
The Maxim completed its scan the next turn as my Firefly started on the blue building (the last possibility, though I did still need to do the scan), while my Ostsol just kind of jogged back and forth to shoot at the Kit Fox, which it did mercilessly rip the side torso out of, forcing a withdrawal and silencing one source of artillery. The Maxim took some nasty hits from a BFS Pegasus, ineffectually returning fire, but kept fighting and dodged motive damage, while the neanderthal cut off the Archer's other leg and utterly failed to swat down the copter via laser. I’m sure someone ate Arrow IV here but I don’t remember who - no one fell and ate shit, though - possibly a direct fire went astray and damaged some buildings? The Starslayer, for its part, fled off the board before my opponent could touch off its SRM ammo.
In our final turn, I totally forgot to take photos - the Javelin was put in an awkward situation positioning-wide but managed to avoid destruction, the Neanderthal carved the Archer up with its lasers, the Firefly completed its scan while the Maxim continued to slowly lose its duel with the Pegasus, and the Ostsol traded blows with the Mad Dog. My Neanderthal kicked the Archer’s arm and came very close to finishing its side torso, but was just shy of the necessary damage. I offered surrender, and he accepted to preserve his Archer. With a victory and some fresh money under my belt, I bought a Gunsmith off the local market before heading off to the arenas while waiting for our other players to finish their tracks.
The arenas, though, would prove…less lucrative for me. Hoping to get this series back up to date soon!
Little comic about the big things I've been up to and will hopefully be up to. Wish me luck because now that it's been 2 days since making this, things could be going better!
PS: Job 2 is @sparrow-flight which has all of Chapter 1 posted. You can follow its newsletter on the main site for updates. Job 3 is my art shop which you can visit here! It currently has a lot of Birdtober stickers and some original art. I'm working on a TTRPG collection that should be up by August.
If Darktide teaches the wider 40k fandom anything i hope it correctly inspires people to consider Skitarii as the cyborg equivalent of knights in shining armor. They're tall, covered in metal, very loyal, and sometimes they have swords and maces. That's a knight. Scrappy hive scum finds it very endearing that every time a heretic slips past her guard their head is cut from their shoulders with mathematical perfection. Adept working in the Morningstar's forges trying real hard not to blush when the Ranger Alpha kneels to present their rifle for inspection.
Gorilla Straylight @gorillastraylight - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
