Anyone play the old Battletech strategy game?

Cafe Society
21

Incubus: not 1 in 11, but 1 in 36, since 2 or 12 will only happen 1 in 36 each on 2D6. But I will give you 1 in 18 for something “good” to happen, since hitting the head will also be worthwhile. Also, jump jets may not be as good as you may remember: I never played until recently, but I hear the DMM used to be +1 to hit for every hex the 'mech jumped. Now, it’s only +1 plus the DMM for regular movement (i.e. +1 for 3-4 hexes would be +2 instead, etc.)

In a game with decent pilots, you would have a problem closing in with the enemy before being killed on a relatively open terrain. If it were heavy mountains or forest, that’s another story.

Now, VTOLS: I never played VTOLS a lot, but I’ve seen people build lots of tiny, fast VTOLS with only one ER PPC apiece. Make an engine fast enough that they can get a +4 DMM at regular speed. Then plug away at your medium or long range, they will be at their long range with a +4 to hit! The counterbalance to that is of course the LBX/2, but that’s about the only use that weapon has.

W/r/t tanks vs 'mechs: I never played with a force large enough that this would happen, but I think the ideal offensive force for most situations would be about a 25/25/25/25 mix between tanks with direct fire weapons, tanks with indirect fire, VTOLS that will spot for indirect fire, and VTOLS with ER PPCs. In a large enough army you would want several 'mechs, as well, as shock troops, or to take vital areas of the board if the game winning conditions depend on having units in an area, since 'mechs are most likely to survive for a given time.

But the real reason 'mechs survive in the mechwarrior universe cannot be simulated by such a small scale game. The reason is, as other posters pointed out, they are tougher and more versatile than any other piece of equipment. You could just drop them off on a planet with instructions to raid and to attack opponents forces, and they can do that without any external support and minimal internal support (you’d bring along some mechanics.)

So in this world, the answer is, you’d take other forces nearly always, to the extent that the scenario allows. But some scenarios you would play might limit the number of non mech forces, for instance, in role-playing terms you might consider the battle to be between a 'mech force that just dropped onto a planet, versus that planet’s quick response team.

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One more reason you might want to make a 'mech with your points rather than a vehicle: if you have a limited number of good pilots. For instance you might agree that you can only have one 3/2 pilot/crew, a few 4/3s and the rest 5/4s. In a medium or bigger army I would put my 3/2 in a mech since it is the most efficient use of the pilot (it will live longer and bring more firepower to bear). In large armies I might even put some of my 4/3’s into 'mechs rather than tanks.

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Hmm, those are good reasons for keeping the 'mechs around. I was always the sort that had to look absolutely everything up in the book, so we never got sophisticated enough to figure the critical hits/versatility angle. That and we never had tank miniatures, so it never came up…

There are other games, HEAVY GEAR comes to mind, that don’t necessarily make those disctinctions, so tactically, putting the tanks in there instead of their 'mechs would make sense.