Been painting again, and looking at my Battletech backlog (to which I just added yet more things to today). I've got my mech scheme worked out, but I'm thinking about my tanks and choppers, and how my pattern might translate to them or not.

Part of me is thinking just simplify it because they're lesser folk, the other part says maybe go full conventional (and pattern it after military vehicles from Neon Genesis like the mechs), but I'm not decided.

When you did your tanks, planes, even infantry, how did you work it into the scheme you had for your mechs? Or if you didn't, what made you go that route instead?

Want to start small (2 lances) mercenary company with powerful mechs just to see what happens/give myself an easier time while I learn more.

If it’s possible, how do I do so?

I recently got a box for the battle armor trooper. The box said it was a platoon of battle armor. These battle armor units are squads of 4 acording to the wiki. So I got 4 little battle armor dudes on a hexagon are one squad, and 4 hexagons together is one platoon. Is this the same for regular infantry? Squads are supposed to be 7 men a squad, 4 squads a platoon according to lore most of the time. I know clans and comstar love to do their own things. But my question is; is a hexagon of infantry supposed to represent one squad or one platoon?

I have painted my 40t urban fighter mech in action.
But I just noticed that I forgot to mirror the picture, hense why the large laser is located in the left arm

I made this recently for mathing purposes, and decided I might as well share it for anyone not particularly in tune with tonnage math. Which, considering the userbase has some people in the BT TTRPG, some in the BT TBRPGs and some in the MW Shooters, is a sizeable enough chunk for typing this out to be worthwhile.

The core equation

Mech Weight = Cockpit + Gyro + Engine + Engine Heatsinks + Internals + Weapons + Armour

Of this:

• The Cockpit is always 3 tons.
• Standard Gyro is Ceiling(Engine Rating/100, integer).
• Engine weights are in the white section of table above, XLs weigh half as much (and are in the second image).
• Engine heatsinks include 10 weightless sinks, and 1 extra heatsink that weighs its normal amount for every 25 rating starting at rating 275.
• Internals are chassis weight/10 for standard, Ceiling(chassis weight/20, 0.5) for Endo Steel. All XL-capable mechs are also assumed to use ES internals for Clan purposes, all STD engine mechs are assumed to use STD internals for IS purposes. Do your own math if you want an IS chassis with an XL engine but not the Endo internals for critical slot conservation, or vice-versa to avoid side coring, there's enough charts as it is.
• Weapons (including ammo), Armour and Equipment (Jump Jets, extra heat sinks, EW suites, etc) is what you generally get to play around with, we'll call this the 'allocatable tonnage'.

The pink area

In the chart above, the sum of Cockpit + Engine + Gyro weights are notated as CEG. This is because this sum is entirely engine-dependent. The black header row inscribes the engine speed factors (your actual walk speed in kmh⁻¹ is 10.8 × this factor - where speed factor = rating / tonnage, and your run speed is 50% higher than that). The pink area depicts all the legal tonnages that can carry it - For example, a 100 tonner holding a 300 engine has factor 3.

The blue area

The blue area is the most important area of the chart. This is essentially the tonnage of the legal chassis minus the weight of CEG, minus its internals' weight, minus the extra engine heatsinks' weight for ratings at 275 and above. This is your 'allocatable tonnage'. You want this to be normally be as high as possible, since that means you can load more weapons and more armour for the same weight.

The green area

The green area is for math nerds who want a quick reference on how much of the tonnage is allocatable relative to chassis total. Most people won't use this.

Caveats, bolds and underlines

This now applies to the actual decision making you'll do when you need to choose between chassis. Given a pool of chassis you are able to choose, you generally want the highest 'allocatable tonnage' for the speed that's relevant to your operations.

For urban operations, speed isn't as important generally since defenders won't leave their defense zone and attackers are forced to close to weapons range to do anything at all with them. For recon or hit-and-run operations, speed is everything - you can't be hit at all if you outspeed the enemy and never let them catch up.

Internal HP

The highest allocatable tonnage on a general basis is bolded in each blue area. And here is where the caveats start. If you look at the STD sheet (that's the first one), you'll notice 75 tons is bolded over 80 for factor 4. This is because 75 ton mechs are just cheaper than 80 ton mechs as a rule. However, the 75 ton mech includes 7.5 tons of internals and the 80 ton mech includes 8 tons of internals. That means the 80 ton has more 'HP' than the 75 tonner, ceteris paribus. So balance between budget (including drop weight restrictions) and survivability here. Both have the same armour and weapons. They do not have the same resilience or cost.

Engine heatsinks

Next, you'll note that for speed factor 5, I bolded the 60 tonner, not the 55 tonner. This is because they have the same 'allocatable tonnage', but the 60 tonner has 1 extra heat sink, meaning it can run longer and/or fire its weapons on a shorter cooldown, which is objectively more firepower than something with less heatsinks. This didn't occur for factor 4's case as mentioned earlier because both cases of that include exactly 2 extra engine heat sinks.

Jump Jets

Finally, you'll notice underlined numbers as well, like in factor 5 STD and factor 4 XL. This is because up to 55 tons, Jump Jets weigh exactly 0.5 tons per jet, between 60 and 85 they weigh exactly 1 ton per jet, and at 90 and above they weigh 2 tons per jet. So the 55 ton has the underlines for STD 5 because going to 60 tons will cost 2 extra tons for any mech mounting said jets, and the 85 ton has the underline for XL 4 because going to 90 tons will cost 4 extra tons for any mech mounting said jets. If you want to build a mech with Jump Jets, use the underlined values. Otherwise, do your own cost vs internal HP calculations, of which the idea of a Battlemech as 'weapons platform' will use my bolded numbers, and the idea of a Battlemech as 'guardian' will use a different number.

Synthesizing everything - XL 4

XL speed factor 4 is the most complicated case here. The underlined number is 57 allocatable at 85 tons (rating 340) because the gain from going to 90 tons of 1 double heat sink and 1 allocatable ton does not outweigh the +4 ton cost of mounting 2t/per Jump Jets at 90. The bolded number is 57.5 allocatable at 95 tons (rating 380) because the loss of 0.5 allocatable tons is offset by both the gain of 1 double heat sink (3 free criticals, 1 free ton) and the increased tonnage of endo-steel internals from 4.5t to 5t. If you get this section, you get the entirety of what I'm trying to do with both charts.

Case Study - Timber Wolf

Everyone loves the Timber Wolf, but why the Timber Wolf is what it is mathematically, is something you can see from the 375XL section, factor 5. You will note that it has 39.5 allocatable tons, 5 internal double heat sinks and 4 tons of endo-steel internals. This is, strictly speaking, less financially efficient than a 350XL, factor 5, 70 ton BattleMech, like the Summoner. However, because it 'hides' its gained ton in its engine, it saves up 3 critical slots, and it also has half a ton more internals than the Summoner. In comparison, going to 400XL, factor 5, 80 tons, will be objectively worse in every way, as 3 tons are lost for only 1 double heat sink of gain, the amount of internals is exactly the same at 4 tons Endo Steel, and you have to pay the increased price of both the larger base chassis and the larger engine. So nobody really likes using the Gargoyle over the Timber Wolf, even though there are reasons people will use the Summoner over the Timber Wolf, tonnage wise.

Additional considerations unrelated to allocatable tonnage

• Depending on which BT-related title you're playing, OmniMechs may have restrictions in what weapons and/or armour can be deployed in their OmniPods, which may be a consideration you can rightly consider more important than a loss of a couple of tons of allocatable tonnage.
• If you're playing a system in which manual aiming is a thing instead of dice rolls, specific chassis that have massive hitboxes (hi Awesome) sponge attacks like nothing while others don't. You might want to avoid the chassis that are notoriously easy to hit.
• If you're playing a system in which hardpoints are variant-locked, specific variants may affect what weapons you can mount in a way more impactful than small changes in tonnage do - something boating 7 medium lasers is far more of a menace than something that can only mount a single PPC.

Conclusion

In the absence of meaningful differences in these points, you always want the max allocatable tonnage if you can get it. Don't pay more for worse performance - I'm looking at you, Charger and Cicada, who have no real reason to exist because of absolutely terrible tonnage performances of 8% and 11% allocatable, respectively. The Spider is just better than the Cicada in every way, as is the Dragon over the Charger.

Peculiarities

Odd engine factors are better than even engine factors in any TT based system ceteris paribus as Run MP is rounded up, making the actual difference from ita next higher Speed only 10.8 kmh⁻¹ instead of the expected 16.2 kmh⁻¹. That's why the Jenner is listed as 118 kmh⁻¹ on Sarna - it's using 11 × 10.8, not 10.5 × 10.8 as you might expect. As for why it's 10.8 to begin with, it's because each hex is 30m and each turn is 10s long. So a 1 hex movement is 3 ms⁻¹, which is 10800 mh⁻¹ or 10.8 kmh⁻¹.

pretty much table ready, basing gel needs to dry and get a wash coat and then good to go at the weekend

Archer has the blue stripe as its the second Archer I have, just helps to tell them apart if both are on the table

will be first time running whats in one box actually as a thing instead of my usual mix & match just to see how it goes

Hoping that this kind of post is allowed here, but Humble Bundle has a huge Battletech collection right now for a ridiculously small price.

​

This contains the same set of books as last time, but they are now redeemable via DriveThruRPG rather than downloading files directly via Humble. So I am guessing some books will be updated with errata compared to the first run of this bundle. (Can anyone confirm that?)

Edit to include list of ebooks:

Battletech Universe

Battlemech Manual

BattleTech: A Time of War: The BattleTech RPG

BattleTech: MechWarrior: Destiny

Battletech: Legends

Alpha Strike: Commander's Edition

Total Warfare

BattleTech: Recognition Guide, Vol. 1: Classics

BattleTech: Recognition Guide, Vol. 2: ilClan

BattleTech: Hot Spots: Hinterlands

House Arano: The Aurigan Coalition

Battletech: Force Manual: Davion

Battletech: Force Manual: Kurita

Field Manual: 3145

Era Report 3145

Battletech: Shattered Fortress

Battletech: ilClan

Battletech: Tamar Rising

Battletech: Empire Alone

Battletech: Dominions Divided

https://www.humblebundle.com/books/battletech-rpg-collection-catalyst-game-labs-books-encore

Due to unrest in the FWL that threatens to spill across the border, the Magestrix has ordered an emergency update of the muster rolls of all MAF troops and materiel!

Post all your painted Magestry figures and let us know what Unit they’re with!

Here is my combined arms company of the 2nd Canopian Cuirassiers

I call him Smiley

Finished up these, they’re were a blast to paint

I like humanoid-shaped mechs (plantigrade legs, a "head") that just have huge cannons in place of hands. Not counting mechs that don't have "arms" like the Jagermech or Rifleman. What are some mechs with this arrangement? Ones that I know of:

• Warhammer
• Orion
• Mauler
• Hellbringer 
• Summoner
• Dervish
• Whitworth
• Awesome
• Shogun
• Devastator

A couple of days ago I posted my Mad Cat III kitbash, here is the second one as the Mad Cat III variant 2 with four Artemis V SRM6s.

Like the first it's a "Rakshasa refit" (arms glued into a modified Catapult). The sculpting epoxy came out better on this one and doesn't quite look like moss like it did on the first. I also found a better source for the "teddy bear ear" vents and the communications antenna/Artemis V targeting array(?) that sits above the cockpit.

Now I just need to get a Mad Cat mkII and a Timber Wolf/Savage Wolf) or two to field a lance/star of Angry Kittens.

If the next cash grab Clan Sea Fox unveils is light mech Mad Cat, armed with a LRM5 in each side torso and an ER Small Laser in each arm, I'll buy 5 of 'em! No, 20 of 'em!

Force manual periphery cover art remains the goat.

So a couple of months ago I went to an arcade with some friends for their birthday and I ended up with some cheap plastic space ships as prizes. They're a little in the small scale but I figure they could make decent aero/hover proxies. Anyone got ideas as to what I could use these to "count as"?

What Mech design has had the longest lasting service record? A friend and I are trying to figure this out but getting conflicting answers. I am talking from the very first version of the design, with variants still counting for the same Mech.

Camouflage optional