The first campaign I ever ran was a MW3-style over a summer break, with players each acting as lance/star commanders. Over time two players from opposing sides, players A and B, developed a friendly rivalry; player B'd been kicking ass early on, but player A had made a comeback near the end of summer. As we're planning the last game of summer we decide to make it a "last hurrah;" if you have the parts or the money, could buy, trade, or krazy-glue whatever onto your surviving units, no maintenance or acquisition roll required. Later that night I get a call from Player A: "Hey, can I buy a Dire Wolf?" "Even if you sold your most expensive 'mech, you couldn't afford a Dire Wolf." "I can if it's empty." "What would anyone want with an empty Dire Wolf?" "50.5 tons of empty omni pod space. With the maintenance rules suspended for "Last Hurrah," I wanna pod-mount all of the salvage I scored off of player B and, ya know, give it back to him." Aaaand that's how "Duct-tape Direwolf," a mech with two different auto cannons, a gauss, a plethora of L, M, and S-RMs, 3 different kinds of medium laser (none of 'em clan), an ungodly number of range brackets, and the biggest bookkeeping nightmare I ever saw made it onto my table. The laughs were worth it though.
We played a whole campaign with a similar idea: you didn't modify mech, you literally swapped out entire components, construction rules be damned. Was pretty fun
The full Battletech repair rules for campaigns are so insanely over detailed that I find it boggling that they expect people to do it on pen and paper. You definitely need a spreadsheet or a dedicated Battletech campaign manager software like MekHQ to handle all that detail. Luckily there is a more quicker Chaos Campaign system available, including a free BattleTech: Chaos Campaign: Succession Wars that is a "campaign lite" to hand wave some of the complexities to get down to the fun part which is actual combat and less AccountantTech. The system is more tuned for GM type play though although it works for PvP with some tweaks. If you want a proper force generation system though, check out the Field Manual:Mercenaries (Revised) which has a detailed method of creating a company of your dudes best suited for campaign play.
Add in modifier decks for pilots! I cant stress this enough. It makes things soo much better! A rough breakdown is that each mechwarrior gets their own modifier deck. Each turn a card is drawn from the modifier deck which affects gameplay in some way shape or form. The modifier deck can represent a few things: the mechwarriors personality, experiences theyve been through, their relationship with other pilots/command and their training. Perhaps this when drawing a card for your LRM specialist "Claymore", you draw the 'alcoholic' card; That mech gets a small penalty to pilot skills checks this round. Or maybe instead you draw the 'hot-blooded' card that allows you to ignore penalties to your movement/shooting next turn but at the cost of an increased risk of ammo explosions/shutdowns. What cards you choose to include in each modifier deck and the way they affect the rules are up to you. Perhaps before the mission began you threw a big party for the crew and spirits are high. Maybe you add a temporary morale boost that gives a bonus to shooting when drawn but is discarded after its been used up. Maybe when the XO informed you of a dispute between 2 crew members your decision left one person feeling unfairly treated - swap out a neutral card in the deck for a penalty card to represent their disdain for your decision. The possibilities are endless, and it adds sooo much flavour to your pilots. They are no longer just 4/5 folk who you dont give a damn about. They are creations you really care about.
We just did our first "campaign." We simply did a easy ladder campaign and we didn't carry anything over. We do want to try a more complex campaign now that we got our feet wet a little.
I love those types of campaigns. I remember a fairly long one we played my last heavy was a Warhammer was speed 2 ( had to replace an engine and recalculate the speed) and had 3 "functioning" actuators total I am not sure if any of them where original. Had a PPC one one side, no real clue how it had survived but it did, and a small laser on the other. Both MG still worked and had about 30 shots left, even thought I had not bought a single reload for MG during the campaign. My 0/0 pilot, like I said it was a long game, could barely keep it standing when walking an a run was an almost guarantee fall and hitting anything was almost a miracle. (not sure but the modifiers to piloting and gunnery may have been home brewed as I don't recall any other campaign having those problems)
Love this. My friend and myself were discussing how/where to start for a battletech campaign, me repping House Steiner and he has a ton of Grey Death. Starting with Stock Mechs and eventually modding our mechs based on salvage we get/rewards from missions.
yeah, ive been to the point of stripping mechs of armor, engines, and weapons etc NMCing them to keep the more effective units running. felt like an episode of firefly.
What's the reasoning behind that you can only take less than a set value of mechs on your mission? Surely your employer would want to secure the odds by bringing everything you've got? But of course it would be more expensive too
My biggest advice is to play with people who you like. I ran a narrative campaign but players were really only interested in the day-to-day battles. No interest in the diplomacy or intrigue part of it. And they did a lot of meta-gaming, which became unfun.
The first campaign I ever ran was a MW3-style over a summer break, with players each acting as lance/star commanders. Over time two players from opposing sides, players A and B, developed a friendly rivalry; player B'd been kicking ass early on, but player A had made a comeback near the end of summer. As we're planning the last game of summer we decide to make it a "last hurrah;" if you have the parts or the money, could buy, trade, or krazy-glue whatever onto your surviving units, no maintenance or acquisition roll required. Later that night I get a call from Player A:
"Hey, can I buy a Dire Wolf?"
"Even if you sold your most expensive 'mech, you couldn't afford a Dire Wolf."
"I can if it's empty."
"What would anyone want with an empty Dire Wolf?"
"50.5 tons of empty omni pod space. With the maintenance rules suspended for "Last Hurrah," I wanna pod-mount all of the salvage I scored off of player B and, ya know, give it back to him."
Aaaand that's how "Duct-tape Direwolf," a mech with two different auto cannons, a gauss, a plethora of L, M, and S-RMs, 3 different kinds of medium laser (none of 'em clan), an ungodly number of range brackets, and the biggest bookkeeping nightmare I ever saw made it onto my table. The laughs were worth it though.
We played a whole campaign with a similar idea: you didn't modify mech, you literally swapped out entire components, construction rules be damned. Was pretty fun
my battletech campaign has been going continuously since 1991.
What? Can I play? Lol
@@Kaiju-Driver are you in east Texas?
The full Battletech repair rules for campaigns are so insanely over detailed that I find it boggling that they expect people to do it on pen and paper. You definitely need a spreadsheet or a dedicated Battletech campaign manager software like MekHQ to handle all that detail.
Luckily there is a more quicker Chaos Campaign system available, including a free BattleTech: Chaos Campaign: Succession Wars that is a "campaign lite" to hand wave some of the complexities to get down to the fun part which is actual combat and less AccountantTech. The system is more tuned for GM type play though although it works for PvP with some tweaks.
If you want a proper force generation system though, check out the Field Manual:Mercenaries (Revised) which has a detailed method of creating a company of your dudes best suited for campaign play.
I prefer pen and paper, helps me process the stats easier without worrying about the technology crashing or erasing everything, etc.
Add in modifier decks for pilots! I cant stress this enough. It makes things soo much better!
A rough breakdown is that each mechwarrior gets their own modifier deck. Each turn a card is drawn from the modifier deck which affects gameplay in some way shape or form. The modifier deck can represent a few things: the mechwarriors personality, experiences theyve been through, their relationship with other pilots/command and their training.
Perhaps this when drawing a card for your LRM specialist "Claymore", you draw the 'alcoholic' card; That mech gets a small penalty to pilot skills checks this round. Or maybe instead you draw the 'hot-blooded' card that allows you to ignore penalties to your movement/shooting next turn but at the cost of an increased risk of ammo explosions/shutdowns. What cards you choose to include in each modifier deck and the way they affect the rules are up to you.
Perhaps before the mission began you threw a big party for the crew and spirits are high. Maybe you add a temporary morale boost that gives a bonus to shooting when drawn but is discarded after its been used up. Maybe when the XO informed you of a dispute between 2 crew members your decision left one person feeling unfairly treated - swap out a neutral card in the deck for a penalty card to represent their disdain for your decision.
The possibilities are endless, and it adds sooo much flavour to your pilots. They are no longer just 4/5 folk who you dont give a damn about. They are creations you really care about.
We just did our first "campaign." We simply did a easy ladder campaign and we didn't carry anything over. We do want to try a more complex campaign now that we got our feet wet a little.
I love those types of campaigns. I remember a fairly long one we played my last heavy was a Warhammer was speed 2 ( had to replace an engine and recalculate the speed) and had 3 "functioning" actuators total I am not sure if any of them where original. Had a PPC one one side, no real clue how it had survived but it did, and a small laser on the other. Both MG still worked and had about 30 shots left, even thought I had not bought a single reload for MG during the campaign. My 0/0 pilot, like I said it was a long game, could barely keep it standing when walking an a run was an almost guarantee fall and hitting anything was almost a miracle. (not sure but the modifiers to piloting and gunnery may have been home brewed as I don't recall any other campaign having those problems)
Love this. My friend and myself were discussing how/where to start for a battletech campaign, me repping House Steiner and he has a ton of Grey Death. Starting with Stock Mechs and eventually modding our mechs based on salvage we get/rewards from missions.
A good idea for an epic campaing ending could be attacking enemy's landed dropship
Or their capital city, depending on who started the campaign as attacker or defender. Both would be brutal endgame matches.
yeah, ive been to the point of stripping mechs of armor, engines, and weapons etc NMCing them to keep the more effective units running. felt like an episode of firefly.
Wish there are decent batrep campaigns on youtube. Warhammer literally buries you in quality content but BTs are rare as hen's teeth.
Chaos Campaign, nuff said.
Ever try the Chaos campaign rules with the warchest system?
Is there a cheet sheet of armor, structure ammo ect cbill costs?
Is this ment to mixed with the rpg rules?
What's the reasoning behind that you can only take less than a set value of mechs on your mission? Surely your employer would want to secure the odds by bringing everything you've got? But of course it would be more expensive too
Hey question, where did you find the terrain?
Well, that pilot didn't earn any experience.
My biggest advice is to play with people who you like. I ran a narrative campaign but players were really only interested in the day-to-day battles. No interest in the diplomacy or intrigue part of it. And they did a lot of meta-gaming, which became unfun.