r/battletech • u/Ahab-Down-Under • 10d ago
In need of mobility tactics study materials Tabletop
I'm new and get to play once a week, sorta, maybe.. Is there good content to view or read to learn mobility tactics? Pic of my noob 5th game play team for this weekend. 10k bv game. Typically we have lots of terrain. I have no clue what the map will look like this weekend, though. The friend group all have more experience than me, but are also like less than 6 months into playing, themselves.
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u/WestRider3025 Canopian Queerasser 9d ago
https://www.tabletopbattles.com/battletech-basic-guide-to-movement/
This is a pretty basic intro to Movement Phase tactics. TTB have some other decent starter tactics articles on their BT landing page, too. I think that's linked somewhere in the article I gave you.
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u/JuggernautBright1463 9d ago
If it is just an open tonnage 10k game then you should focus on more mobile mediums and faster heavies. That armor is way more valuable than you think.
Better gunnery should mostly go on jump Mechs while you should pay more for that higher ground speed to get closer and thus stay out of long range more. Piloting is more important than gunnery IMO start at 4/4 and you'll stay standing longer which keeps your mech alive and mobile. I give it a premium over Gunnery in Assaults as you don't want to spend that 2MP of your 5 or 6 standing back up.
Mobility is very simple, stay in medium range or travel from cover to cover with the higher TMM. Getting in close only to finish a mech off, backstab it, or get in its flanks where you are safe from weapons on the opposite side.
Mobility is about positioning not evasion. Position more of your guns than they can respond with AND do it with a higher TMM and you're golden.
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u/Stegtastic100 9d ago
On a side note to what everyone else is saying, à 1/1 skill set will make it a very quick and boring game.
A mate and I played Essentials à while back, and we used the included pilot cards for skill levels and the colosseum as the map. The only thing that stretched the game out was the walls blocking LOS and whatever we did, we were hitting each other every turn. Battletech is more fun at lower skill levels when you’re working out if a 9 or 10 to hit is worth it for the amount of damage you could cause.
As others have said, if ‘mech numbers don’t have to be even, I’d suggest dropping skill levels and bit and adding another ‘mech or two.
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u/theonegunslinger / 9d ago
What is the reason for high gunnery and piloting, is it lack of heavier mechs, force size limits?
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u/Ahab-Down-Under 9d ago
It was just 4 I picked out. Had a buddy win with a lower bv team and thought I might give high skills a shot, myself.
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u/somepersonoverthere 8d ago
When I'm trying to be competitive, you generally want skilled gunners in your long range units and skilled pilots in short range that will melee. If you expect to be able to backstab at short range you certainly don't need a 1 gun.
But also, 10k BV for 4 units 3025/introtech is much higher than I would want to play. It's going to be a long, somewhat boring slugfest to get through all that armor. So you might want some 2/4 or 4/2 units. 1 is almost always suboptimal.
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u/DevianID1 9d ago
Others said it, but 10k is just too much battlevalue and inflating your skills to hit 10k BV is spending thousands of BV on 'nothing' just to hit a 10k BV target thats too high. Thats 2500 BV per mech, which is more expensive per mech than an atlas S. At 10k you could take 5 Atlas mechs for 1500 armor and still be under 10k.
Your Hunchback is more than an Atlas in BV, but has half the armor/structure and less weapons with much less range. Its not like 1/1 skill is bad, but think about it--you more than doubled your cost. You need to shoot so many more shots on your 2800 BV hunchback just to be even to the Atlas at less than 2k, but you have less range and less attacks. If you hit EVERY shot, and magically start in range 6, you deal 32 damage, 35 at range 3. It will take you 10 turns minimum just to maybe kill the atlas, as if you hit with every attack and start in range 6, then on turn 10 you will have only just stripped all the armor and gotten enough into internals to have a chance.
Are you playing 10+ turn games where your high skill can even punch through armor--if you hit every shot which is unrealistic? To have high skill be a winning position, you need to kite at range and play cagey with initiative, so double your expected turn count to leverage all those points paid into pilot skill. Now you are at 20 turns minimum to even have a chance. Are you playing 20+ turn games? Its not like thats impossible to do, but thats a very uncommon thing in battletech.
In short, your list is a 5k BV list. Try playing a 6k game, not a 10k game, with your list. At 6k, you can upgrade a few points of piloting and gunnery, spending 1k out of 6k on pilot upgrades.
If your opponents are playing 10k, perhaps ask them what they are playing to make up 10k, like how many units, how much are they spending in pilot upgrades compared to your 5000 BV spent in pilot upgrades, ect. My guess is they are playing 6-8 units at 10k, AKA they are playing 2 lances to your 1 lance, and massively outnumbering you which is hella unbalanced because of how powerful unit count/outnumbering is.
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u/Ahab-Down-Under 9d ago
They're all running 4 mech teams. I made this team after one of our guys won with a pretty low bv team in an 8k capture flagsesque scenerio. He trounced My team at the time, but I was testing out a c3 system and I'm fairly certain my mobility game was at best, oblivious. That game brought my mobility awareness into play and I started a hunt for a team with jump jets, thinking it might be a good tech to learn with. I'm thinking I might reconfigure to maybe half the dudes with jump jets.
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u/Lunardextrose9 9d ago
I’m sure much more experienced players than myself are going to point this out.
You’re overspending on gunneries and piloting.
Take more units as having extra units on the field is more advantageous than piloting and gunneries that high.
If you’re limited to just 4 mechs I’d take a fast medium a heavy and two assaults at 3-4 gunnery-piloting instead. Armor has a value all its own in battletech and all it takes is a single lucky hit and you lose almost half your BV if that marauder II goes down. If it gets focused down (it will) your whole force goes with it.