I've only gotten into Battletech just recently, so I've been really only following since Catalyst took over. I don't have previous attachments to any factions or eras, and I only have the recent books and the Battletech video game to go from in how I understand the various players of this universe. Something I liked about the lore in Empire Alone and Tamar Rising was how real it felt, for the vast majority of the time it felt like this universe made sense. I was excited by how real this universe felt, I understood why things happened and I was enjoying such a detailed and grounded and evolving sci-fi universe. Because I've read Damocles Sanction I just skipped to all the Dominion parts. The conclusion to the civil war was so weird to me, so out of place compared to everything else that had happened so far in the books I'd read. This video already covers the why of that, and for me it was the first time I've felt something happened not because it made sense but because plot demanded it, because the Wolf Empire needs to be powerful regardless of how realistic that is. I was looking forwards to seeing this new Empire fight for it's survival, surrounded by hostile powers and with few friends. I wanted to see how it evolved and adapted, win or lose, to the universe around it, but this made it feel like the universe was bending over for the Empire . And that has severely dampened my excitement for what comes next, I'll probably still follow the universe, but not nearly as closely now.
Can't wait until Alaric and two stars of Clan Wolf Solahma, along with the three surviving Jade Falcons defeat 28 Capellan regiments on Terra because the Capellans forgot there was an underground elevator behind them. It's getting to that point. Even with how bad the story telling was about Ghost Bear (which was awful), Alaric who has like 4 second line dudes left,a Jade Falcon janitor, and a Smoked Jaguar Taco Truck turning down allies? That's pretty absurd also. Fortunately when you are Clan Wolf that's all you need.
Wolf does really need a reckoning , I would love to see some of the other clans get a shot at the spotlight for awhile…….. a reconstituted clan wolverine anyone
I feel like for the entire arc of the Rasalhague civil war they just forgot they were writing about Rasalhague. The entire arc is terrible, from the inexplicable desire of half of them to go back to the system the Ghost Bears didn't like and just bearly followed for centuries, to them all suddenly turning on each other for some reason. Even with a traditionalist Khan that would be traditionalist by Ghost Bear standards. It's such an arbitrary conflict when Rasalhague has mad old Alaric at one border, a young and ambitious coordinator on the other and a suspiciously quiet Lyran Alliance on the other. It would have been much cooler if Alaric had 'invited' the Ghost Bears to join his new Star League, they're the second strongest Clan after all, but on the condition of a return to Clan Law. Rasalhague responds with a polite no, then to paraphrase Tex, they went home, put their helmets on, dug in and waited.
The kicker is, the Dominion after that insult (and both halves of their society if we even wanna go with the whole 'half wanted to join starleague!" stupidity) are totally the kind of society that would see that as a grave insult to their collective honor and turn their guns on Wolf, not each other. Instead Alaric gets to have his little gambit of being the bestest evar, and gets a civil war out of one of the only 2 threats to his existence with it. In universe, my Merc co which was a state sponsored org by the FRR and later the Dominion, the Sapphire Dragons are going to handle it the way I feel the RD should have. Anytime they shoot Clan Wolf mechs, they're going for cockpits and ejecting pilots. Hell with that simp for wolf nonsense.
Hearing the spoilers, just wow. Just wow. That is insane an nonsense. At first, I was upset that my Ravens were not in the book except for some random mentions (I bought it, did a search on the pdf, but haven't had a chance to sit down and read it), but watching this, I'm kinda glad they were pretty much forgotten.
It kinda feels like a very clumsy way of keeping Ghost bear out of clan wolfs way and getting another faction to fight Kurita. And that’s upsetting because both of those things could of happened while making the ghost bears seems really cool. Especially after taking in the FRR they would have severe hate for the combine and look for an excuse to beat them up.
When the plot, logic and character actions revolve around a single person's actions to further their interests it is a surefire sign of a Mary Sue or Gary Stu.
@@Vystage not me! hated the gary stu-ness of Hanse especially. the fans really don't give that character the same criticisms they give to similar characters. Victor sorta was balanced out in aggregate and actually got smacked around for being a terrible political leader, though he always ended up where he was happiest anyway (tactical commander role). and as far as self-insert-ness, he was definitely a stackpole self-insert (look up old forum threads that show the very strange similarities between him and corran horn, stackpole's other self-insert in Star Wars)
I know your a lore guy but I wish you had touched on the rules annex of the book. It is one of the most solid and well developed rules annex of any of the most recent sourcebooks (similar but more developed). It is really robust for building campaigns and missions. Even if the major battles of the sourcebook are not something you or your gaming group want to recrate on the table it is well done enough to use as a solid template of what can be done with the chaos campaign system. The rules annex along with the Davion/Kurita parts of the book really are high points for sourcebooks of the last decade or so.
Plot idea: "It would suit my plans that the Ghost Bears have a civil war that reduces their forces by 30%, inspiring them to commit the survivors to invading the Draconis Combine." *Places fingers on temples and uses Trueborn psychic powers to make it all happen* - Alaric Ward. "It would also suit my plans for the joiners' delegate to bring me some Sven and Terry's Rasalhague Persimmon to celebrate." *Places fingers on temples* "Why yes, I am a genius." Less convoluted, even with the ice cream dessert?
Why is Alaric written so weirdly? He betrayed the Dragoons because... CGL likes the ides of angry Dragoons? He rejects what would be his most powerful allies because... his hold on Terra incredibly tenuous (Liao is coming) and he turns away the Bears because suddenly he hates Spheroids? And it's going to get him what he wants, because logic and story must be sacrificed to get where they want them to be. Why not just accept the Bears and send them to punish the Combine, which Alaric has voiced his intention to do anyway?
Alaric betrayed the Dragoons because they betrayed the Clans back in 3050. Alaric is a Clan supremist, in the sense that he wants all the Clans (With Wolf at the top of course) doing well, and anything that hurt the way of the Clans must be avenged. He threw a fit at the Bears because as a Clan supremist, civilians shouldn't have any say, and the vote was too close for his ego to swallow.
Exactly! Someone pester in a constructive way to CGL, X/ FB etc. Get an interview, preferrably face to face. So they cant run!😂 The Rasalhague Dominion, Alaric wacko insano mode nonsense need to be retconned before the damage is unrevoverable
Catalyst has a huge issue with their unnatural devotion to Clan Mary Wolf, and it is dragging the entire franchise down. Back in the 80s I thought their obsession with Hanse Davion and the Fed Suns was bad. This is 10 times worse than what came before.
@@BigRed40TECH during the Dark Age, there was a time where things were a little more balanced. But, it comes across that, in the end, the Wolves and Davions will always come out on top because of nebulous reasons.
Look at Alaric in his Dark Age journey from the time of his introduction. He was the main Wolf character, and the events around him speaks volumes. It's still happening now.
Don't feel depressed, although you don't like making content like that, I thank you that you still did it and did it well. It is a shame that you feel the need to encourage people to do something basic as stay polite but I think it is right to do so. Already bought the book but I might have anyway, just to see what happens to wannabe Comstar SeaFox. I still can see Potential but in the moment I am missing a lot. Regardless startet Battletech in the 90s were everyone was telling me I am joining a dying francise, went through Dark Age and the Death of my faction and will still go on. There is light and shadow as always.
Thank you Florian! There are always worthwhile things, the problem for me is that the Ilclan era is Clan heavy, and my favourite clan, and really only remaining clan of interest of note, is the Ghost Bears. The outing in this was about as bad as it could get. I think the book itself even, lays out why the events should not take place the way they do, which is even more frustrating. But thank you again,
Thanks for the honest and frank review, it's a shame to hear that the Ghost Bear part just sounds dire, it sounds like there's real desperation to make Clan Wolf work while also making there leader as much of a jerk as possible for some reason...
I guess make every leader as useful as a wet paper bag and Aleric looks great in comparison. On the plus side at least they don't seem to have done anything completely unsalvageable with Rasalhague
You know, I wouldn't be surprised if Clan Wolf has a cartoon stupid ray that propagates through hyperspace because that's the best explanation for any of this.
I was debating whether I should spend my “Fun Money” on this book or one of the Merc Force packs coming out. With this review, it’s pretty clear I will have some new minis to paint soon.
Hour of the Wolf was written by Blaine, and I'd argue it, and Ilclan itself, are the only worse storylines than Dominions Divided from the era. I don't dislike Blaine or anything like that. I'm just saying that I don't think he had some magical power over the setting. His last major outing in it, might have been the worst book in the entire history of the series, at least in my opinion.
@@TheStraycat74 Catalyst's ending of their relationship with Blaine, as per Loren and by public statement from Catalyst, implies they had other reasons for severing ties with him. What's the truth? I don't know. My channel's really not a place to debate this stuff, it's not really Battletech related. And it doesn't do anything to really enhance that things would somehow be different if Blaine wrote this.
My god how could they do the Dominion dirty like this. Not to mention why kill off Lars Magnusson the gene child of Ragnar? I really wanted to see how he grows as a character. Him being part of the deniers makes him even sound more interesting since he's a trueborn warrior and yet is not a kissass for Clan Wolf unlike Prince Miraborg. In speaking of Prince Miraborg, he is bringing dishonor to that name since his ancestor Tyra Miraborg was a brave hero whose sacrifice stalled the Clan Invasion during her time.
They're not even going to let them get there, is my guess. They'll have them turn around to eject their new invaders and rob them of their reason for being since the late 3080s. Sad. And I hate Liao. ;)
I'm a little worried about the FWL, and by extension my favorites the Nova Cats. They're just the sort of suckers (especially under current writing) to attempt to fight for the Khan on some half-baked "its the star league!" rhetoric and get themselves permanently and totally killed. I'm really counting on the anti-author aura around nearly everything FWL giving the Cats some time to bounce back.
I'm a little flabbergasted. I was expecting Ghost Bear to join the Star League IIC - that was the writer fiat I expected. Not an uncalled for invasion of the Combine, after an insult and exhaustive civil war. It just makes no sense. I loved Tamar Rising, I can imagine how good rules and layout-wise Dominions Divided must be. With Tamar Rising in mind, if you're going to have another war instead of rebuilding your society...why not aim for the petty powers of the Hinterlands? Or even Hell's Horses, as deniers of the new IlKhan but a proper Clan to prove their Clan-ness against. Battletech needs conflict, yes, but this feels like conflict for the sake of it rather than a sensible in-universe choice. I can't even understand what Alaric is doing.
I now really have to ask myself if there is something for me in the IlClan era. Besides corporate behavior that falls under the Interdictum, I have some trouble how my favorite factions are treated: Blakeists: GONE. ComStar disbanded, the Blessed Order annihilated (they went out of their way to make it sure) and while remnants of the Word are at least possible, they are little more than a hypothetical idea. Clan Star Adder: Sitting on the Clan home worlds. Plot wise, completely missing since the 3070s. Clan Snow Raven: Sidelined in the geographical and metaphorical sense. Dominions Divided should have handled them, but they are essential left out. The Lyrans: Lying around and doing nothing. And as a bonus, Clan Sea Fox: I liked them in the past. They had something quirky and endearing about him, almost some kind of plausible Comic Relief. Now they are competing with Clan Wolf to gain the Titel "IlMary Sue". They can do everything, are always the best and never fail. It is a shame, because there were some great things in "Tamar Rising", but if the plot continues in the direction of the other books: No, thank you.
The Lyrans arent lying around, they have been losing more. They cant even take advantage of Woof and green Bird sending most of the touman to Terra. Instead, they balkanize to tiny Statelets, and lose even more territory!
well look on the bright side. no Official Plot Spotlight TM ruining the faction's story means you have the space to make your own local units or mercenaries operating in small-scale but still personally meaningful (to your unit and to you the players) events, and to play around in a large in-universe time span. the accidental mercy of avoiding the writers' eye LOL
I don't even care much for the Ghost Bears but they got done dirty. #LUPUSDELENDAEST EDIT: The Jade Falcon rebuild is the one faction story I am most interested in. Someone needs to photoshop Vin Diesel into a Jade Falcon uniform saying "Never turn your back on family."
Oh yes, the art we're getting the last couple of years is amazing. Artists like Anthony Scroggins, Bishop Steiner, Flying Debris, Matt Plog and Allan Blackwell did outstanding works time and time again. You not being too happy with it, that's just being human. Not everyone can enjoy everything.
@@BigRed40TECH Well, just because you don't like the setting doesn't mean the mechs are not interesting. Try to keep your focus on the parts that intererst you and let others do the stuff you cannot stand. I prefer my Pasta with Pipette Rigate instead of Spaghetti. Just to give one example.
@@sim.frischh9781 I mention in video I'll continue covering mechs, and I'll keep some eye on the setting, but yea, the Ilclan era just jumped the shark for me.
With the Light of Blake, having gone out the Sphere is DOOMED. The clans will taint the sphere. But worry not the Word of Blake shall return and cleanse the Sphere of the taint that has infected it. #MalvinawasRight
@@diggman88 the Bastion and Aggressor philosophy squabbles at Home world still prevent them until now, but i bet if there are new plot twist in the story, the Adders and others will jump into foray to challenge the Ilclan. Well, like the Hell Horse khan Amirault said to Ilkhan face itself, there are many who will challenge Alaric ilkhan claimed
I'll echo what you mentioned at the end; Chistu and the Jade Falcons 2.0 are one of the most interesting things in the ilClan era so far. Super excited to see them developed going forward.
As a citizen of a country that requires referendum to change the constitution i agree with your assumptions , im just imagining the theoretical scenario where Australia just passes a vote to join the UN and then gets rejected and then the consequences of that would be the death of the joiner cause for generations
Honestly, the only thing I can see happening with the 3rd-Times-The-Charm Star League is a complete implosion of the Wolf Empire and Clan society but that will probably not happen because Alaric serves some sort of eldritch power. There are a lot of good and interesting ideas in the IlClan Era, but I don't think it seems like they're being focused on. For me, the main question I'd like to see answered is how Clan Wolf deals with the "Well what now?" element of fulfilling the entire purpose of their culture and history, their attempts to impose Clan society and rules into an Inner Sphere that clearly doesn't want them, and the blending of Clan and Sphere cultures into something new and different. There are seriously intriguing philosophical questions that can be explored here but probably won't, and that's a shame.
The problem is, most of the cultural quirks the Clans have, are ineffective for any society not built to feed the warrior caste that keeps them in line. It's very hard to have a hybrid culture. Even the Rasalhague Dominion frankly doesn't seem that clan-like at all, because Clan culture is really just the Warriors oppressing their people.
@@BigRed40TECH That’s true, and honestly, I would love to see an exploration of how a culture of flagrant oppression results in rebellion. Have the Warrior Caste try fighting some of the "lesser" castes, or have the caste system just implode. There's rarely a reason, IMO, for the Clans to remain the way they are beyond just "indoctrination/tradition", because that can only last so long. People will get fed up, people will decide "you know what I'm done with this I'm waking up and choosing violence today". Maybe I've been watching too much Andor lately, but I would love to see a Civilian revolt where a bunch of armed IndustrialMechs actually kick in the teeth of a Warrior group, even if it doesn't revolt in a victory. There's a quote from Andor that I think applies here, if Alaric is going to unironically call his group the Wolf Empire: "The Empire never learns. They don't have to." Let Clan Wolf become complacent and pull the rug underneath them. There's just so much more that can be done with these plot threads and I'm not even a Battletech lore junkie.
You know i was thinking about trying to run the TTRPG in dark age in illkan to try and get some more enjoyment out of it now with this i dont think i have it in me unless im willing to let my players rewrite massive parts of the setting
I mean, that's the part of running or playing a TTRPG instead of some fixed video game: setting details can be changed, shifted, or just ignored if it doesn't work for the table.
My personal opinion is that you'd be better off rewriting the setting so that it fits with your players' preferences, just as I would happily ignore some of the "canon" events and run things differently.
@@kitirena_koneko That's the special sauce as to why pen and paper rpgs still remain not only active but popular: the ease of modification and tweaking is vastly more effective and efficient than video games, which are limited by programming.
Just homebrew descendants of the Magistracy and Taurians from the Rimward Deep Periphery or just a new faction from beyond Outworlds Wastes come in and destroy the wolfwank status quo without giving the usual IS plot armor recipients a handy.
@@MoreEvilThanYahweh Better idea--the Clan Mary Sue Jade Wolves got Absorbed into the other clans like they SHOULD have been, leaving Warden Clan Wolf at Arc-Royal and in their invasion corridor. Have Clan Nova Cat retreat from the Draconis Combine back into their own invasion corridor, fighting the Green Buzzards (Jade Falcons) every step of the way, keeping them occupied. Then fight out the Second Clan Invasion as it SHOULD have happened, with the Invading Clans (Real Wolf, Ghost Bear, Nova Cat, Steel Viper, Jade Falcon, etc.) fighting each other and the Inner Sphere on one side to conquer Terra, and the other Clans on the other side, each of them trying to Absorb or Annihilate the "Trator Clans" and take Terra for themselves. Oh, and keep ComStar and Word of Blake, with the former trying to rebuild the HPG network after the Dark Age and the latter sabotaging them, House Davion for creating the NAIS, and any other "heretics" that seek to rebuild the Classic Star League without them as combination religion (a la the Techpriests of Warhammer 40K) and keepers of the Sacred HPG Network. Lots of intrigue and battle, lots of politics in a good way (creates good drama for roleplaying), none of the Mary Sue Pet Factions of Catalyst nonsense.
Plot wise I agree with the Dominion Civil War not really making much sense. As a game supplement though, adding rules for adding civil unrest to your campaigns or RPG sessions, and the new characters and RATs are pretty useful. It’s better put together than Empire Alone in terms of layout but I concur with the plot content
You are all wrong. It will lead up to the return of Clan Wolverine and the gentle but strict hand that will bring an actual peace to the Galaxy. Wolverine 4ever
Please tell me if I'm reading the strategic situation correctly. So the Ilclan's northern flank is totally secure and no one is going to stab them in the back when they totally wipe the Capellians off the map?
They've wiped the Capellans off the map before, and then transformed Space North Korea into Space Tang-dynasty-China and put them right back on the map. Looks to me like they're setting up for a major Clan vs. Sphere throwdown. The clans are steadily signing on to the Wolves new "Star League", but, in the process the clans have all alienated the nearby factions of the Sphere. Only the Davions haven't had a Clan go at them yet (the Ravens up there in the Outworld's Alliance still might take a page from the Ghost Bear attacking Kurita to impress the in IlClan's "first lord" and attack the Fed Suns for no reason before they've fully recovered from driving the Kuritans out of Davion Space and making the Taurians all mad with them). And, as much as the Davions would probably like to sit back and watch the Clans steamroll both the Capellans and Combine, they aren't going to hold with Ward's new "we're imposing Clan castes and eugenics on EVERYONE" version of the Star League. So, let's look at the History of the Battletech story: The Clan Era: The Clans showed up and the 5 houses came together, reformed the Star League (take 2) to fight the Clans and kicked their butts. In the end things fell apart. The Jihad Era: So the idiot followers of that Blake fellow tried to nuke the Inner Sphere back to the Stone Age, and the 5 Houses came together again to fight the Wobbies and kicked their butts. And that created the Republic of the Sphere (Star League take 3) - and that didn't work out so well either. The IlClan Era: Now the Clans in the Inner Sphere are slowly uniting under Alaric Ward to form a twisted Clan version of the Star League (take 4) that NONE of the Great Houses are going to sign on to (especially because in the process the Wolves have rubbed the Mariks and Liaos the wrong way, the Hells Horses have gone out of their way to make the Steiners mad, and now the Viking Teddy Bears have gone and poked the Dragon just to impress the new First Lord - and because Ward is turning out to be some sort of Clan fundamentalist). So, what do you think is going to happen in THIS ERA? a) the Great Houses will come together _again_ and form a competing anti-Clan star league (Star League - Take 4.5?) that will instantly fall apart into a "fifth" succession war as they all fight over Earth after they kick the Wolves off of it. b) Clan Invasion (take 2) when the Clan Space Clans find out about a tainted Spheroid IlClan and decide to nip Alaraic's new little Star League in the bud - would that get the five factions and the Clans to come together to resist them? The Clanner Space Clans don't have the advantages the Clanners had when they first showed up. They'll have to fight a lot dirtier (and, maybe, nukier) than the Crusaders when they first showed up. Will this get the great houses and the Spheroid Clans to work together to stop them? Or leave you with a 3-way war? c) The Liao and Mariks join forces to fight Clan Wolf, the Steiners take on the Horses, the Kuritans take out the Bears, and Davion takes out the Ravens in a series of localized wars that hardly overlap. In the end, by the time we get to 3175 or 3200 and a new generation of leaders Catalyst Game Labs has completely RESET the Battletech universe to very nearly the exact same map we had back in 3025, just, maybe, with House Liao holding Terra instead of ComStar. The writers of Battletech have always seemed to struggle with two contradictory impulses: move history forward and reset back to the 3025 status quo, so I can see all three - or some combination of the three happening.
@@liljenborg2517 Ravens are already in the new Star League, they would probably help the bears in attacking the DC for their old alliance. I expect Julian to make a deal with the ilKhan since the Suns does seem to be producing Clan omni Mechs somwhere and they got far space jump tech.
@@liljenborg2517 honestly the idea of bring the home clans back into play would be really cool. I mean they've been more or less entirely gone for like 70 years, thats like 5 generations in clan terms, how much will they have changed, it'll kinda be a second clan invasion. Could be cool. I was hoping for a second round of you got terra but now your surrounded, but it looks like they are sick of that arc because everyone just suddenly has to be busy with someone else so wolf can fight the Cappies. God what world are we in were I gota root for the Cappellans
Good review RE. Can't say that I'm totally on board with you, but I see where you are coming from. I see your points, but to me they're minor. The book doesn't solve the Alaric problem, but it was never going to. I Don't think IlKhan's eyes only will solve the Alaric problem either. I don't know how they're going to do it, but they're stuck with him for a while regardless.
Ah, you're only stuck with it if you remain invested in the era. For me, this was them really harming the last Clan I found interesting, in a clan driven era. I'm honestly just not that interested in what's coming for Ilclan at the moment. I will passively follow it from the side, but a lot of my dedicated time looking into it is pretty finished.
Wait- characters and plot acting against its own development? Characters making decisions that go against the entire rest of the line development? Why does this seem so damn familiar? 🤔🤔
I just finished the book myself and it was so darned painful. The writers across the 4 sourcebooks managed to dance through some tough-sells with the logistics of the ilClan era but I was willing to buy-in. The second half of DD broke me a little. It's like they were exhausted during the final group consultation and someone just said, "Get it done, we have a deadline." And so they did. The results of this book are analogous to the civil war inside the the book. "Alaric" told them to just write it, and now everyone hates each other.
Thanks to this and your stream last night, you have convinced me to hold off on this book, good sir. I was mainly interested in the FedSuns and what happened with them, but I will just read Damocles instead here soon. So, based on what you said in regards to that book before and what happens here, New Avalon is retaken and Kurita is kicked.out of Davison space? Or is that an eventuality still?
Honestly, the description you give of the events in the book reminds me historically of the native peoples of India under British rule. The period from the 1850s to the moment of independence in 1947 was punctuated by brutal factional fighting between small groups of people arguing for the good old days, more populous modernizers focused on independence, and deadlocked political machinations that went against their own self interests all while being overlooked by a large foreign power that largely overtly insulted the people at every turn. And yet they still sent millions of people in their military to fight and die for that foreign powers whims through two world wars. At this point I wouldn't be surprised if the Rassalhague Dominion breaks up into two or three successor states of it's own post Combine war just like the British Raj did after independence.
I was actually starting to like Wolf, enjoyed their POV in Hour of The Wolf but this poured cold water on that and strangles my love of Rasalhague/Ghost Bear. Their treatment of the dragoons was absolutely stupid especially given their pivotal role in the trial. No one alive in the clan or dragoons was alive when the dragoons defected and yet when they helped them win the ilclanship they treated them like vermin. Maybe it will end like the first star league after all...with the house lords coming together to take a piece and spark a new wave of succession wars...history is cyclical after all.
I might have missed it but I'd love to see your take on the "35306 - The Wars of Reaving" source book. It probably is one of the more convoluted books since the timeline jumps a fair bit, but whats happening is similar to what happens here (Key people know that "this" is bad but they still do it despite it being not the best choice)
It sounds like the individual parts make sense (even Rasulhaug jumping at the chance to go after the DC), it's when you add all the parts up that problems happen.
I see now why they left the GB untouched in the novels.....by focusing on the DC-FS conflict, they made us think this was going to be good. Funny how the most interesting stuff in ilClan era has nothing to do with the ilClan or how it is set up. Also, it goes to show how OP the clans would have been if they were united. Now that they all accept the ilClan without much challenge, the resources they have are ridiculous. They have Space Amazon, Space AT&T, Space Evergreen, the largest Warship navy, and more!
Man, that’s a real bummer. I was looking forward to this book. I just finished The Damocles Sanction and was excited for more. I’ll probably still pick it up to check it out and form my own opinions but I doubt I’ll reach different conclusions based on what’s been discussed here. Too bad.
It's funny how my opinion on this book's appropriately Divided too lol. I personally loved the Dragon's Tongue conflict. I haven't read DS yet but my attention's piqued to check it out now. But man yeah, the Ghost Bear Dominion stuff was rough. The scale imo is what hurt it, they could have kept the whole Civil War thing but maybe in a lesser scale than nationwide; it was nothing short of character assasination for the Rasal Bears.
I feel a bit unqualified to comment on this as a new BT fan, but the reaction of the Rasalhague Dominion felt less weird when I thought of it through a religious lense. The clanner part of their society (at this point of history their entire society to some degree) had been introctrinated for centuries to believe the Star League is coming back, it was going to be awesome, and their sworn duty would be to serve whoever founds it. Alaric's rejection basically meant their prophesized messiah had come and created the Promised Land, but told them they weren't worthy to enter. I could see that being a shock to a society thats entire worldview is based on fulfilling a prophecy. Also, most of the universe probably doesn't know quite how big of an asshole Alaric is. I was rooting for the Deniers, but the story would feel different if it was a decent human running the new "Star League".
The thing is, the RD has a huge population that aren't clanners. So the "50/50" split was already unlikely. After he told them to get fucked? A lot of Freebirths just would say "Screw this guy", but it doesn't happen. Even though the book itself says it should.
I would still rather watch an honest review over a shameless plug any day of the week! Unfortunately, of all the dirty clanners the bears are the only ones that I care for. As I am primarily a Kurita player I have been waiting for this book.
So, there is a certain portion of my brain screaming "FAWN RESPONSE" at the screen while watching this. Honestly the fact that they just put aside their differences is what confuses me the most. Like, I could get a large, heavily armed chunk of the populace lashing out from the fawn response and straight up killing or cowing into silence the rest to take control. But I have no idea why everyone just shrugged and said "You know what's the real problem? That guy over there for some reason."
The impression that I get is that the dev team at FASA/WhizKids/FanPro/Catalyst have their favorite factions (Clan Wolf, Clan Sea Fox/Diamond Shark/Sea Fox, House Davion, The Republic of the Sphere) and some good ideas (the Clan Invasion, the ComStar/Word of Blake schism), some so-so ideas that could be good if handled right (the Dark Age, House Kurita's "Death to Mercenaries" order), and some bad ideas (the FedCom Civil War, the New Star League and its subsequent collapse), and they get all "lovey-dovey" about their faves at the expense of certain other factions (House Liao, Clan Ghost Bear, Clan Nova Cat, house Marik) and don't know what to do with their ideas, so they just handle things ham-handedly at times to force things to work out for their "babies" and to twist the metaplot around in ways it would otherwise never logically go. IMHO, what Catalyst should have done is maybe put up polls amongst the player base to see what direction the metaplot should go at certain junctures, then let things play out logically from there rather than simply deciding that "oh, we're going to force things in such-and-such way despite the fact that they should go in a completely different direction".
@@BigRed40TECH I can't argue with you about shitty stories (Clan Jade Wolf, who should have been Absorbed; the destruction of Clan Nova Cat; the FedCom Civil War; and now this), especially when Catalyst seems to abandon good ideas (Ghost Bear Dominion) in favor of "advancing the plot" in ways it logically should not go. I respectfully disagree about polls, if--and this is a BIG "if"--they're done right. West ENd Games had a pretty cool idea with TORG, their multi-genre RPG about alternate realities invading ours and sucking the 'possibility energy' out of our world, and at the end of most if not all of their published adventures, they'd have a form where gaming groups could tell WEG about how the adventure went, and then WEG would compile the results and adjust the direction of their metacampaign accordingly, releasing periodic "Infiniverse Updates" about how the overall metaplot was advancing based on player feedback. I wonder if we'd get a better BattleTech campaign if FASA/WhizKids/FanPro and now Catalyst did that with the BT 'verse. Guess we'll never know, but what we as players can do is use the parts of the 'official' setting that we like and change the parts we don't like to make a better campaign. Maybe if enough of us started publishing our own campaigns under a variant of the ORC open license that Paizo is developing for Pathfinder...
Here there be spoilers. I was pretty sad with this one too. In my opinion Tamar Rising knocked it clean out of the park- new interesting little factions, intimate storytelling, lots of ways to fit Your Dudes into the storyline with anybody you pleased. The Hell's Horses get a bit clowned but move to sort out their leadership issues, otherwise everyone is displayed as being relatively competent, rational actors making the best of their local circumstances. Empire Alone was not quite up to that standard. Redemption Rites told the best part of the story and much like the Dominion situation here, the Clan Protectorate storyline really didn't feel organic or plausible. And just like you, I was okay with what was going on in the first part. There were no real twists to it, but once again there was plausible push-pull, cause and effect going on. Neither the Davions nor the Dracs are clowning each other and nothing particularly interesting ends up developing on that front (just a return to status quo along the border essentially and then other stuff starts coming in.) The tension between the First Prince and Prince's Champion is developed pretty well and feels natural. And yes, while I'm skeptical about the plausibility of the Dominion voting to join, I could live with the outcome. The history's been written, we've seen the future stories that pertain to the Ilclan and know that eventually Wolf wins the day, etc. But your point was exactly right- if you know what your endpoint is, you can make the journey there a lot more plausible. The Joiners being reinforced in their fervor by a legit insult to their society was... what If they wanted the Bears to join after a tribulation, set up something similar to the Davion/Sandoval-Groell beef (as in actually set it up early in this book) and then have them square off with their respective factions when the shooting starts, then have the Joiner win. There. In that grand Clan fashion you have the "I punch you hard, therefore we do what I say" answer. I mean, we got a very very straightforward resolution to the Suns/Combine conflict- Suns build up forces, retake New Abby (not before we looted all the good stuff, Fedrats) and then ground their way back up the tongue and essentially retook their turf. Writing a similar line for the Dominion would've been much less convoluted and much more plausible for the logic of the society as it was presented to us. I ordered print and hard copy day of, read the PDF that night, hard copy showed up a couple of days ago and I just sent it straight to the shelf without leafing through it. Sad on this one, but life goes on and hopefully the next one is better.
As a Spirit Cat/Nova Cat fan, let me say I am a fan of any material that takes the Bears down a peg or twelve, but you did make some strong arguments for the inconsistency. I think it's not unrealistic that many Clansmen even civilians would've resented the lessening Clan influence on the Rasalhague Dominion, and would've made up a huge part of the joiners to "return to tradition". It also would've been realistic if the Civil War had been causing by Joiners if the Referendum went against joining, as most of the military is still Clan and they would've been strongly Joiner. Lot of ways to make it work.
I'm not against Ghost Bear getting beat-up, or losing. It's that the entire scenario made no sense, and was very contrived. A top-down coup, the joiners starting some kind of civil conflict regardless of losing the vote 70/30 or something would've all worked. The idea that a bunch of Rasalhaguers are going to join the Wolves, who they dislike, after they just killed their allies, is just not high on the "This makes sense" list.
As a newcomer to Battletech and a fan of clan Ghost Bear, it pains me greatly to see my faction forced to act out of character and cripple itself for no understandable reason other than the writers are trying to prop up Clan Wolf and Alaric for the sake of driving the story forward….in a clumsy and poorly thought out way. Still, we didn’t lose our entire Touman. Hopefully future books and lore will be kinder to us, after all a Ghost Bear is not so easily slain, and we have survived the Great Refusal and the Wars of Reaving. The tyrant prince will be in for a reckoning, from the Draconis Combine if not from us.
I may sound like I'm on crack when I say this but please bear with me? Are you all telling me that it seems like the only thing that actually makes sense in the Dark Age is the Hanseatic Crusade and how Clan Goliath Scorpion evolved into the Imperico Escorpio?
I will say I'm pretty ambivalent towards the Ghost Bears (which is actually a pretty positive outlook for me about a clan, as I really don't like most of them), but the story for them in this book makes absolutely no sense. 1). Society is at each other's throat about a controversial vote to join the new "Star League" that would great affect said society. 2). The Society votes and approves to join it. 3). Leader of said Star League says "Nah, you guys suck, if you will only narrowly approve, I don't want you anyways." (Logical step at this point would be many of the people who had been in favor of joining would be like "This guy is a dick, probably for the best we don't join.") 4). Somehow society decides the guy that the other people who voted the other way were the reason they didn't get accepted? Not the guy who turned them down? 5). For some reason they decide to start murdering each other. The government at this point decides he will essentially force the population to join the "Star League" 6). Now with probably millions dead and a FULL THIRTY FREAKING percent of out military destroyed we should try to impress that guy who is an asshole to us AND invade a powerful nation. And we will totally work well together while doing it! How the hell does that work? What society would do something like that? Imagine three kids at a school lunch table deciding they want to sit with "the cool kid." They vote, two vote yes, one votes no. When they go to sit with the cool kid he says "No, you can't sit here anyways." So the two who voted yes turn around and beat up the kid who voted no. After this kid is done getting the crapped kicked out of him the two who beat him up say "Hey, let's go attack that table of kids," pointing at a table of 10 other random kids. Of course the one who got beat up agrees. When you simplify it down like that, it sounds even more absurd. I, being a Taurian fan, was at least happy we got something in a sourcebook (And it wasn't the Taurians looking like total idiots or embarrassing themselves!) Also cool to see the art of the Big MAC having an audience with Yori. Having them go merc or even join the Combine could be REALLY interesting.
I enjoyed most of the book. Joiners and Deniers at each others throat, even though Alaric made fools of them, is sadly, realistic. You can see that every day among various communities, we just didn't start killing each other en masse yet. But I agree that - Let's attack Draconis and all is forgotten - was WTF solution. You didn't cover much of FS plot, which I liked, though I dig both Julian and Erik as characters and hate that they are in opposition. Also Chistu and his Jade Falcon Remnants FTW!
I left another comment earlier to this effect, but "Let's attack our outsider's enemy and all the insults are forgiven!" Is largely what India did through two World Wars until gaining full autonomy from Great Britain in 1947.
Well, that pretty much kills my decision on buying Dominions Divided. Like what the heck...in either Tamar Rising or Empire Alone; they set up the Ghost Bear Dominion to be this big player where they supposedly hold the balance of power since they are the only ones who are still unified, organized, strong and the only people not really badly affected by the HPG Blackout in the Inner Sphere. They could easily spin out many great stories out of the Ghost Bear Dominion but then they put out this thing about the GBD being divided, have a mini-Civil War and then they kind of re-unify and attack the Draconis Combine and Alaric suffers no ill-effects from rejecting the GBD's request for membership? What the hell is this? Hearing all of this reminds me of the time when I stopped watching the WWE one month after the CM Punk pipebomb. I reminds me of how writers and bookers at that time have put up so much non-sense that I just lost interest. Am I reaching this point with BT? There is so much interesting stuff you can do with the Dark Age and now it is all going down the crapper? SMH.
The writers and bookers, as it were, are not bad, or incompetent, or anything like that. As I said in the video, sometimes folks think they've got a good story and they're just wrong. It happens to everyone from time to time, but it's extremely disappointing.
@@BigRed40TECH I do think CGL has taken weird steps to cripple the only two clans who seem like they could function as actual societies or threats (Ghost Bear and Hells Horses) all to glorify Alaric 'Just as Planned' Ward
@@BrotherJing1 While I'm sure there are some people who really like what we're seeing, I suspect there is a growing number of folks who aren't happy with how the clan contents been going. For an era built around the clans, this isn't great. I really hope they put together some things that are better.
I thought it would be about the Draconis combine and federated son's conflict. But it sounds like that's just a foot note. I was looking forward that stuff. But it all takes a back seat to the ghost bear stuff. That from a clanner player. And the civil war stuff sounds like a thinly veiled community on American political situation right now. With both sides of the political spectrum getting more radical. There are lot of examples of civil wars in history that fits the ghost bear dominion far better they could choose from.
They are there, but they're not as prevalent as the GB stuff. And their civil war again, just doesn't really line up with how the tables would play out. It's bizarre.
May I ask what books I need to read to understand the why behind Clan Diamond Shark’s return to Clan Sea Fox? I know the fluff behind the change into Clan Diamond Fox, but am confused about the reversion.
Something about how they found living Sea Foxes (the critter, not the clowner), and wanted to go back. It was all done in the clickytech era, so murky.
good honest reveiw but it's everyone's game you take what you want from the game and make it you own so to me this book is just all fluff and i'll use what i want from it and nothing eles i just want the map .
This seems so much like how the Taurians were written leading up to the Jihad era while in the Trinity alliance. Massive insult from a supposed friend (looking at you Theseus 🧐) ✔️ . Althought if your a Taurians fan you were given some love , they handled Alexander's little tantrum quite well and didn't get sucked in farther to his bs then they had to . All in all the ilkhan era looks quite good for them till they get stuck dealing the New New Star League .
It's a shame the book was a disappointment for you. I'm still looking forward to it and I'm still invested in the ongoing story. On a hopeful note, it seems you enjoy the novels more than the sourcebooks so there may be some hope. Either way, thanks for making the review and I appreciate how it must make you feel.
The ongoing story, because it's clan centric yet they've kinda removed, or made the clans I like pointless, or pitiful, just kinda lost me. This was a jump the shark moment for me, personally.
@@BigRed40TECH We can only wait and see what happens next. There are still Wolf cards and lose threads that may produce interesting story. Goliath Scorpion for example is in an interesting position. There is also the question of what Alaric's next move is now that the Dark Age threads are mostly resolved. A new era of conflict is about to begin and a second reunification war is on the horizon, I imagine.
I don't find Goliath Scorpion all that interesting. I'm also just not jiving with the 3rd Star League, or Wolf at all, which are the centre of the story and are driving into all the other events sadly. It's becoming really hard to care. It's not that I "hate it", its that this is generating an abundance of apathy. Apathy means I don't cover it, as its poison to the channel if I do. I feel extremely apathetic, after DD.
Ya, CGL really butchering my favorite clan of late. Some of this stuff was hinted at in "A Question of Survival", but wow did they double down and dial it up in the wrong direction here.
There are plans for this to happen. But with the Kickstarter coming up, you won't see it for a few months. I am going to be making a video, it seems anyway, about Wacko's Rangers and Wayne Wacko.
Not really, just the Ares. Dark Age and Ilclan Mechs are found in: TRO Dark Age, and the Recognition Guide series. These sourcebooks are much more following the actual events in-universe for the most-part.
@@BigRed40TECH What I am really looking forward to is like a TRO but with color art. I like the technical detail of the TRO but much prefer the color art and the only thing I found so far that has that is the Battletech Legends book and the mech profiles at the back of the Ilclan book. Do you know of any others that would fit this?
I feel that like the fans of Rasalhague the writers know the return of the Free Republic is what makes sense in the long run as Ghost Bear continues to go native, but they don't know about how to go about it.
There is a ton of the Rasalhague Dominion that is just not clan at all. They set them up really well. Then they turned it into a raging dumpster fire that didn't make almost any sense. I know they tried their best, and the people who wrote this have more talent than what I read in the book. So it's just disheartening.
@@BigRed40TECH It feels like they wanted a civil war, for the Dominion to be on bad but salvageable terms with the Star League, and for it to go to war with Kurita, but couldn't quite connect the dots since any referendum on joining Star League would have been overwhelmingly opposed, to the point that that type of wakeup call over how unpopular the Dominion's attempt to merge Clan and Sphere has been should could have easily been what kicked off the civil war.
This sounds pretty much exactly as I expect from a company that continues to push the "Clan Wolf is the Bestest!" narrative. I am pretty sure the wolves will stomp the Capcon, the bears will Stomp Kurita, Davion will once again be the Inner sphere superpower nobody wanted, and everyone else will be a side note. It is just how it has been handled for a very long time.
@@BigRed40TECH Yeah I have felt that way for a few decades now. Really the highlights of battletech for me has been almost solely the TRO releases, and the small PDF battle highlights that were released for a few years. I actually really appreciate the content you, and a few others like you have provided over the last few years. Otherwise I would have to dig out my old copy of MechAssualt.... JK nobody should play those..... Ever.
Thanks Justin. The content's not ending. I'm just going to be avoiding more of the Ilclan era content for a while. This is a really low point for the setting imo, as it's showing me that every clan-related plotline is just a dumpster fire. Given its a clan-centric-era, it's just really sad.
@@BigRed40TECH Oh I absolutely understand. The setting is absolutely one that could have an unlimited number of permutations and yet seems to always go for just a couple of them. Instead of some normal Waxing and Waning of established factions there is always the Star League hanging over the plot directly, everyone has to fight over Terra and the magic mech building machines it seems to be filled with, if not the Star League it is the Clans and how they are the "Real" inheritors of the League. One day they will find that none of the is interesting to the players. We want to play games where we are the little merc company that goes out and fights crazy battles, we want Big Bad House Liao, we want the dangerous Clan Invasion Corridor, We want Pirates everywhere, and the houses at each others throats willing to hire our cheap as mercs to drop in and steal some of that special faction specific gear right out from under their noses. Instead we get the GB's rolling over and playing the good dog when an unlikable incest baby hurts their feelings and snubs them. At least there are a ton of mechs and variants.
honestly, the weird writing of Alaric and anything to do with the 'core' wolf empire story has been around for a long time, since at least hour of the wolf which was, sorry to say, probably the worst of CGL's stuff in the past decade. I chalked it up to this weird hate-boner some of the writers have for the RotS and anything too Dark Age related, which ends up squandering the narrative opportunities of those stuff, but it seems clear the Alaric stuff has remained terrible even to now. quite sad.
Honestly I've never been a huge fan of the Battletech lore. I always liked the fact that it was entirely human and didn't go much for science fantasy (nothing magical). I also liked the technological regression of the succession wars and these days the retrofuturism (especially of the old art) is also appealing. Was never a fan of the extent of the neofeudalism or degree of corny American '80s ethnic stereotyping (comparatively speaking, at least there were less space ninjas in Battletech than elsewhere during the '80s). The books also just didn't do it for me, and I tried again recently with the same opinion. Reminded me of the old Dragonlance novels. Seemed very YA fiction back then, although I don't know if some of the newer novels are now aimed more at the aging fanbase. It was mostly the mech design that turned me off the MWDA / Dark Age stuff though and had me sticking with the Fedcom Civil War and earlier. Not a fan of the style changes/additions from the old Anime and Retro robot styles that drew me in originally. Same applies to most of the Protomechs and totem Mechs. Stuff I just ignore. The Ilclan era could still be interesting for me just on the basis of the mech designs being something I'd want on the table, even if I'm less invested in the factions or overall lore of the scenario. No plot armour or mary sues on my tabletop, that's for sure.
@@BigRed40TECH Yeah I get it if the lore is the main reason you would play an era. I guess the condensed point of my post was just that it's the mech designs of the Ilclan era that had me considering advancing my timeline to it in the first place. For me the biggest consideration past that will be how the newer rules with armour types etc actually play on the table. It's not like I've ever felt like Battletech was lacking for complexity or crunch. Plot holes and mary sue factions in the lore aren't really a consideration.
I dont agree with a lot of anti-clan sentiments that get brought up on this channel and genuinely love old clan wolf/wolf-in-exile/wolf’s dragoons. But jfc, im completely with you on how they ruined ghost bear and how Alaric is the worst
The reason for the civil war is stupid. If they wanted to have a ghost bear civil war fine. But instead of them going to war over being insulted by Alaric, it should have been after they’re denied entry the joiner faction does lose a ton if not the majority of support, which pushes the remaining joiners into extremism, and they start the civil war. That would make much more sense rationally than what they did.
@@BigRed40TECH exactly if just 10% of the population of the Dominion was extreme enough to want to have a civil war that's still enough for a hell of a civil war. More than likely that's hundreds of millions if not billions of people in the Dominion that are angry enough to take up arms against their own Clan and Country.
Oddly enough, even though it sounds like you really didn't like the book, the review actually makes me want to read it. Not because I think you're wrong, but because it sounds like at least half the book is worthwhile.
When you praised it for grammar, I had the thought of "oh, this is bad". It sounds like handwavium and poor story telling, leading up to the Home Clans coming back into the story.
@@BigRed40TECH I hope not. I like them just fine being the threatening menace that looms in the dark. What we do not need is more clan Mary Sue crap inserted into a story already filled with that.
I finished the book. I enjoyed it. I understand how a civil war could break out, and I understand the desire for a quick, victorious war for the ghost bear/rasalhague- it's realistic, if short-sighted. I dont think it's dumb, but rather emotional - and I think in showing it to be an emotional time, people get stupid, and the stupidity kind of shows up in some of the work. Ugh, I dont think i am explaining myself well, but I think you are being a bit hyperbolic. Not hugely so mind, but we have disagreed before.
It's okay to disagree. I laid out why I think it's dumb, and I laid out how the book itself explains why. I am glad someone enjoyed it though, but yea. I'm not really interested in following up this book with... anything else from this era at the moment.
@@BigRed40TECH We disagree on things, friend. But how would you do things differently? I like a lot of what I saw, but I view this as an emotional work, not a political one, which I FEEL(see what I did there) is what you wanted to see. How would you handle this time in the Rasalhague Dominion? I personally would have it be a divide between the Ghost Bears and the Rasalhaugue.
Like, it's not even that they'd need to change all that much. The delivery of the plot and the ideas formed around it are just badly pasted together. There were some components of a good story here, either wanting CGB to join the Star League or wanting Clan Ghost Bear to reject it. Whatever they wanted, there were easier paths.
I bought it immediately, followed the hype. Actually I think it is still redeemable but for me the book is not the resolution merely the start of a real massive split. Unfortunately I think I am the one to read it wrongly. Spoilers starting. The Government under Magnussen has a direction but there already is shown, that the trail is viewed as staged in the eyes of the public. Also he starts the war, I think only the most loyal warriors will embrace and will fight the hardest and therefore will have the highest loses, weakening Magnussen. With the free Spirit of the Raselhaguens I expect a massive split between the Clan infused Counsil snd the majority of the populus. Which will not be pacified without a grand gesture (Something like Magnussen turns himself in as a hostage to the Draconis Combine in order to achive Peace and save the populus when the Campaign fails) But I think that is unlikely but I still have hope that it is redeemable. Thanks for your efforts and I am sorry that it was a major disapointment for you. I spend money on worse but I also hadn't too high expectations. Disapointed are usually the hardest critics. That said I would have expected some joiners to switch to fanatic deniers after Alarics refusal, just because it is human. (Ugly but human)
They so desperately want clan Mary Sue puppies seem powerful they nerfed Ghost bear to keep face. Only to make both faction and righters look bad. Aleric ward is becoming abbadon of battletech.
I took some time to think about this. Sad to watch a once very proud faction reduced to doing the bidding for a mad man. Nice to see Alaric inherited his mothers ability to have a whole nation swallow stupid and debase them selves to him. Is it a hard connection that when some one insults you as a whole that you might unite them in hate against you? To me that's what logically should happen. God this is as bad as the civil war where things need to happen regardless if we can logically write it so it happens. I'll probably get it anyways for the FS and DC and the campaign rules, but damn I wish this kind of bad writing was behind them. As for making the video feedback is important no matter what good and bad.
I've only gotten into Battletech just recently, so I've been really only following since Catalyst took over. I don't have previous attachments to any factions or eras, and I only have the recent books and the Battletech video game to go from in how I understand the various players of this universe.
Something I liked about the lore in Empire Alone and Tamar Rising was how real it felt, for the vast majority of the time it felt like this universe made sense. I was excited by how real this universe felt, I understood why things happened and I was enjoying such a detailed and grounded and evolving sci-fi universe.
Because I've read Damocles Sanction I just skipped to all the Dominion parts. The conclusion to the civil war was so weird to me, so out of place compared to everything else that had happened so far in the books I'd read. This video already covers the why of that, and for me it was the first time I've felt something happened not because it made sense but because plot demanded it, because the Wolf Empire needs to be powerful regardless of how realistic that is. I was looking forwards to seeing this new Empire fight for it's survival, surrounded by hostile powers and with few friends. I wanted to see how it evolved and adapted, win or lose, to the universe around it, but this made it feel like the universe was bending over for the Empire . And that has severely dampened my excitement for what comes next, I'll probably still follow the universe, but not nearly as closely now.
Clan Ghost Bear getting sacrificed on the Altar of Clan Wolf’s plot armor. Disgusting!
Worse, good story telling is to be sacrificed on the altar of the Woof plot armor.
Can't wait until Alaric and two stars of Clan Wolf Solahma, along with the three surviving Jade Falcons defeat 28 Capellan regiments on Terra because the Capellans forgot there was an underground elevator behind them.
It's getting to that point.
Even with how bad the story telling was about Ghost Bear (which was awful), Alaric who has like 4 second line dudes left,a Jade Falcon janitor, and a Smoked Jaguar Taco Truck turning down allies? That's pretty absurd also. Fortunately when you are Clan Wolf that's all you need.
Agreed
I tolerated his plot armor for a while but my god this was absurd
Wolf does really need a reckoning , I would love to see some of the other clans get a shot at the spotlight for awhile…….. a reconstituted clan wolverine anyone
I feel like for the entire arc of the Rasalhague civil war they just forgot they were writing about Rasalhague. The entire arc is terrible, from the inexplicable desire of half of them to go back to the system the Ghost Bears didn't like and just bearly followed for centuries, to them all suddenly turning on each other for some reason. Even with a traditionalist Khan that would be traditionalist by Ghost Bear standards. It's such an arbitrary conflict when Rasalhague has mad old Alaric at one border, a young and ambitious coordinator on the other and a suspiciously quiet Lyran Alliance on the other.
It would have been much cooler if Alaric had 'invited' the Ghost Bears to join his new Star League, they're the second strongest Clan after all, but on the condition of a return to Clan Law. Rasalhague responds with a polite no, then to paraphrase Tex, they went home, put their helmets on, dug in and waited.
Federated Suns stuff: Great.
Draconis Combine stuff: Also great.
Taurian Concordat stuff: Great too.
Mercenary stuff: Pretty cool.
Rasalhague Dominion stuff: Bruh.
Raven Alliance stuff: 5-second Marvel post-credit scene.
"Bruh" describes it pretty well. But it's bad enough that imo, it kinda drags the whole book.
Especially since its the main focus of said book. lol
The kicker is, the Dominion after that insult (and both halves of their society if we even wanna go with the whole 'half wanted to join starleague!" stupidity) are totally the kind of society that would see that as a grave insult to their collective honor and turn their guns on Wolf, not each other. Instead Alaric gets to have his little gambit of being the bestest evar, and gets a civil war out of one of the only 2 threats to his existence with it.
In universe, my Merc co which was a state sponsored org by the FRR and later the Dominion, the Sapphire Dragons are going to handle it the way I feel the RD should have. Anytime they shoot Clan Wolf mechs, they're going for cockpits and ejecting pilots. Hell with that simp for wolf nonsense.
Same. The 2nd Drakon won't let that stand.
Hearing the spoilers, just wow. Just wow. That is insane an nonsense.
At first, I was upset that my Ravens were not in the book except for some random mentions (I bought it, did a search on the pdf, but haven't had a chance to sit down and read it), but watching this, I'm kinda glad they were pretty much forgotten.
I really wish the book were better.
Like, I REALLY wish the book were better.
It kinda feels like a very clumsy way of keeping Ghost bear out of clan wolfs way and getting another faction to fight Kurita. And that’s upsetting because both of those things could of happened while making the ghost bears seems really cool. Especially after taking in the FRR they would have severe hate for the combine and look for an excuse to beat them up.
When the plot, logic and character actions revolve around a single person's actions to further their interests it is a surefire sign of a Mary Sue or Gary Stu.
Everyone Cheers when it's Hanse or Victor
@@Vystage Because they were characters the majority of fans enjoyed.
@@Vystage not me! hated the gary stu-ness of Hanse especially. the fans really don't give that character the same criticisms they give to similar characters.
Victor sorta was balanced out in aggregate and actually got smacked around for being a terrible political leader, though he always ended up where he was happiest anyway (tactical commander role). and as far as self-insert-ness, he was definitely a stackpole self-insert (look up old forum threads that show the very strange similarities between him and corran horn, stackpole's other self-insert in Star Wars)
@@Vystage I mean, we kinda roll our eyes there too.
I know your a lore guy but I wish you had touched on the rules annex of the book. It is one of the most solid and well developed rules annex of any of the most recent sourcebooks (similar but more developed). It is really robust for building campaigns and missions. Even if the major battles of the sourcebook are not something you or your gaming group want to recrate on the table it is well done enough to use as a solid template of what can be done with the chaos campaign system. The rules annex along with the Davion/Kurita parts of the book really are high points for sourcebooks of the last decade or so.
Plot idea:
"It would suit my plans that the Ghost Bears have a civil war that reduces their forces by 30%, inspiring them to commit the survivors to invading the Draconis Combine."
*Places fingers on temples and uses Trueborn psychic powers to make it all happen* - Alaric Ward.
"It would also suit my plans for the joiners' delegate to bring me some Sven and Terry's Rasalhague Persimmon to celebrate."
*Places fingers on temples*
"Why yes, I am a genius."
Less convoluted, even with the ice cream dessert?
Why is Alaric written so weirdly? He betrayed the Dragoons because... CGL likes the ides of angry Dragoons? He rejects what would be his most powerful allies because... his hold on Terra incredibly tenuous (Liao is coming) and he turns away the Bears because suddenly he hates Spheroids?
And it's going to get him what he wants, because logic and story must be sacrificed to get where they want them to be.
Why not just accept the Bears and send them to punish the Combine, which Alaric has voiced his intention to do anyway?
Alaric betrayed the Dragoons because they betrayed the Clans back in 3050. Alaric is a Clan supremist, in the sense that he wants all the Clans (With Wolf at the top of course) doing well, and anything that hurt the way of the Clans must be avenged.
He threw a fit at the Bears because as a Clan supremist, civilians shouldn't have any say, and the vote was too close for his ego to swallow.
Exactly! Someone pester in a constructive way to CGL, X/ FB etc. Get an interview, preferrably face to face. So they cant run!😂 The Rasalhague Dominion, Alaric wacko insano mode nonsense need to be retconned before the damage is unrevoverable
@@odinulveson9101 Alaric being an irrational Clan warrior supremist is far more interesting than the weird bland protagonist version we got in HOTW
Catalyst has a huge issue with their unnatural devotion to Clan Mary Wolf, and it is dragging the entire franchise down. Back in the 80s I thought their obsession with Hanse Davion and the Fed Suns was bad. This is 10 times worse than what came before.
It's not any different than previous license holders, honestly.
Wolf has always been this way.
@@BigRed40TECH *seething Jade Falcon noises*
@@BigRed40TECH during the Dark Age, there was a time where things were a little more balanced. But, it comes across that, in the end, the Wolves and Davions will always come out on top because of nebulous reasons.
Look at Alaric in his Dark Age journey from the time of his introduction. He was the main Wolf character, and the events around him speaks volumes.
It's still happening now.
Davion has been the whipping boy since 3030, if that helps any.
Don't feel depressed, although you don't like making content like that, I thank you that you still did it and did it well.
It is a shame that you feel the need to encourage people to do something basic as stay polite but I think it is right to do so.
Already bought the book but I might have anyway, just to see what happens to wannabe Comstar SeaFox. I still can see Potential but in the moment I am missing a lot.
Regardless startet Battletech in the 90s were everyone was telling me I am joining a dying francise, went through Dark Age and the Death of my faction and will still go on. There is light and shadow as always.
Thank you Florian!
There are always worthwhile things, the problem for me is that the Ilclan era is Clan heavy, and my favourite clan, and really only remaining clan of interest of note, is the Ghost Bears. The outing in this was about as bad as it could get. I think the book itself even, lays out why the events should not take place the way they do, which is even more frustrating.
But thank you again,
All of this could have easily been fixed and explained if Comstar was still around. But Catalyst only loves the Clans
quick, people need to send Big Red Bear urbie-mech and Purple Bird memes to cheer him up!
It started so well and then they indulge in childish plot steering for the glory of Clown Wolf and Batchal-tech...
Thanks for the honest and frank review, it's a shame to hear that the Ghost Bear part just sounds dire, it sounds like there's real desperation to make Clan Wolf work while also making there leader as much of a jerk as possible for some reason...
Prince Miraborg is the least of his name. Dumb as a bucket of wet sand. :\
I guess make every leader as useful as a wet paper bag and Aleric looks great in comparison. On the plus side at least they don't seem to have done anything completely unsalvageable with Rasalhague
You know, I wouldn't be surprised if Clan Wolf has a cartoon stupid ray that propagates through hyperspace because that's the best explanation for any of this.
I was debating whether I should spend my “Fun Money” on this book or one of the Merc Force packs coming out. With this review, it’s pretty clear I will have some new minis to paint soon.
I'm glad you're going to enjoy some miniatures. :)
Hour of the Wolf was written by Blaine, and I'd argue it, and Ilclan itself, are the only worse storylines than Dominions Divided from the era.
I don't dislike Blaine or anything like that. I'm just saying that I don't think he had some magical power over the setting. His last major outing in it, might have been the worst book in the entire history of the series, at least in my opinion.
@@TheStraycat74 Catalyst's ending of their relationship with Blaine, as per Loren and by public statement from Catalyst, implies they had other reasons for severing ties with him. What's the truth? I don't know.
My channel's really not a place to debate this stuff, it's not really Battletech related. And it doesn't do anything to really enhance that things would somehow be different if Blaine wrote this.
My god how could they do the Dominion dirty like this. Not to mention why kill off Lars Magnusson the gene child of Ragnar? I really wanted to see how he grows as a character. Him being part of the deniers makes him even sound more interesting since he's a trueborn warrior and yet is not a kissass for Clan Wolf unlike Prince Miraborg. In speaking of Prince Miraborg, he is bringing dishonor to that name since his ancestor Tyra Miraborg was a brave hero whose sacrifice stalled the Clan Invasion during her time.
This makes me very worried for my own horse in this race, gonna suck when the Capellans have to job to the wolves.
That job is gonna be bad imo :|
They're not even going to let them get there, is my guess. They'll have them turn around to eject their new invaders and rob them of their reason for being since the late 3080s. Sad.
And I hate Liao. ;)
I'm a little worried about the FWL, and by extension my favorites the Nova Cats. They're just the sort of suckers (especially under current writing) to attempt to fight for the Khan on some half-baked "its the star league!" rhetoric and get themselves permanently and totally killed.
I'm really counting on the anti-author aura around nearly everything FWL giving the Cats some time to bounce back.
I'm a little flabbergasted. I was expecting Ghost Bear to join the Star League IIC - that was the writer fiat I expected. Not an uncalled for invasion of the Combine, after an insult and exhaustive civil war. It just makes no sense.
I loved Tamar Rising, I can imagine how good rules and layout-wise Dominions Divided must be. With Tamar Rising in mind, if you're going to have another war instead of rebuilding your society...why not aim for the petty powers of the Hinterlands? Or even Hell's Horses, as deniers of the new IlKhan but a proper Clan to prove their Clan-ness against.
Battletech needs conflict, yes, but this feels like conflict for the sake of it rather than a sensible in-universe choice. I can't even understand what Alaric is doing.
I now really have to ask myself if there is something for me in the IlClan era. Besides corporate behavior that falls under the Interdictum, I have some trouble how my favorite factions are treated:
Blakeists: GONE. ComStar disbanded, the Blessed Order annihilated (they went out of their way to make it sure) and while remnants of the Word are at least possible, they are little more than a hypothetical idea.
Clan Star Adder: Sitting on the Clan home worlds. Plot wise, completely missing since the 3070s.
Clan Snow Raven: Sidelined in the geographical and metaphorical sense. Dominions Divided should have handled them, but they are essential left out.
The Lyrans: Lying around and doing nothing.
And as a bonus, Clan Sea Fox: I liked them in the past. They had something quirky and endearing about him, almost some kind of plausible Comic Relief. Now they are competing with Clan Wolf to gain the Titel "IlMary Sue". They can do everything, are always the best and never fail.
It is a shame, because there were some great things in "Tamar Rising", but if the plot continues in the direction of the other books:
No, thank you.
Yea, Tamar Rising and Empire Alone had been really solid.
Now? Man.
If they harm my man Chistu I'm out of this timeline
The Lyrans arent lying around, they have been losing more. They cant even take advantage of Woof and green Bird sending most of the touman to Terra. Instead, they balkanize to tiny Statelets, and lose even more territory!
well look on the bright side. no Official Plot Spotlight TM ruining the faction's story means you have the space to make your own local units or mercenaries operating in small-scale but still personally meaningful (to your unit and to you the players) events, and to play around in a large in-universe time span. the accidental mercy of avoiding the writers' eye LOL
Look what they did to my Ghost Bears!
It fucking hurts man. :\
I want to be more vocal on things like this on other platforms, but I know in my heart that will not help the situation.
I don't even care much for the Ghost Bears but they got done dirty. #LUPUSDELENDAEST
EDIT: The Jade Falcon rebuild is the one faction story I am most interested in. Someone needs to photoshop Vin Diesel into a Jade Falcon uniform saying "Never turn your back on family."
They did the Ghost Bears like Dan & Dave did Tyrion.
Insert “look how they massacred my boy” picture here! GHOST BEAR FOREVER 😭😭
Wayne Waco is saddened by this book.
@@mattcarper9853 i think most of us are saddened by this book.
"Hey, Clan Wolf, can we join the Star League?"
"F*** YOU!!!"
"Ok, maybe next week then?"
Oh yes, the art we're getting the last couple of years is amazing.
Artists like Anthony Scroggins, Bishop Steiner, Flying Debris, Matt Plog and Allan Blackwell did outstanding works time and time again.
You not being too happy with it, that's just being human. Not everyone can enjoy everything.
Yep. Different strokes for different folks.
But it's made me rethink covering the Ilclan era. I think it was real bad, tbh.
@@BigRed40TECH Well, just because you don't like the setting doesn't mean the mechs are not interesting.
Try to keep your focus on the parts that intererst you and let others do the stuff you cannot stand.
I prefer my Pasta with Pipette Rigate instead of Spaghetti. Just to give one example.
@@sim.frischh9781 I mention in video I'll continue covering mechs, and I'll keep some eye on the setting, but yea, the Ilclan era just jumped the shark for me.
@@BigRed40TECH You mean it jumped the diamond Shark?
Wait, no, I'm being told it's a sea fox now.
They jumped the sea fox.
With the Light of Blake, having gone out the Sphere is DOOMED. The clans will taint the sphere. But worry not the Word of Blake shall return and cleanse the Sphere of the taint that has infected it. #MalvinawasRight
Sursum corda.
Dignum et justum est.
Gratias agamus Domino Blake nostro.
Praise Blake!
Sounds like we need a second Clan invasion from the Home Clans. Star Adders FTW.
@@Linkous12 I wonder how the home clans will react once they catch wind of the Ilclan.
@@diggman88 the Bastion and Aggressor philosophy squabbles at Home world still prevent them until now, but i bet if there are new plot twist in the story, the Adders and others will jump into foray to challenge the Ilclan. Well, like the Hell Horse khan Amirault said to Ilkhan face itself, there are many who will challenge Alaric ilkhan claimed
I'll echo what you mentioned at the end; Chistu and the Jade Falcons 2.0 are one of the most interesting things in the ilClan era so far. Super excited to see them developed going forward.
As a citizen of a country that requires referendum to change the constitution i agree with your assumptions , im just imagining the theoretical scenario where Australia just passes a vote to join the UN and then gets rejected and then the consequences of that would be the death of the joiner cause for generations
Honestly, the only thing I can see happening with the 3rd-Times-The-Charm Star League is a complete implosion of the Wolf Empire and Clan society but that will probably not happen because Alaric serves some sort of eldritch power.
There are a lot of good and interesting ideas in the IlClan Era, but I don't think it seems like they're being focused on. For me, the main question I'd like to see answered is how Clan Wolf deals with the "Well what now?" element of fulfilling the entire purpose of their culture and history, their attempts to impose Clan society and rules into an Inner Sphere that clearly doesn't want them, and the blending of Clan and Sphere cultures into something new and different. There are seriously intriguing philosophical questions that can be explored here but probably won't, and that's a shame.
The problem is, most of the cultural quirks the Clans have, are ineffective for any society not built to feed the warrior caste that keeps them in line.
It's very hard to have a hybrid culture. Even the Rasalhague Dominion frankly doesn't seem that clan-like at all, because Clan culture is really just the Warriors oppressing their people.
@@BigRed40TECH That’s true, and honestly, I would love to see an exploration of how a culture of flagrant oppression results in rebellion. Have the Warrior Caste try fighting some of the "lesser" castes, or have the caste system just implode. There's rarely a reason, IMO, for the Clans to remain the way they are beyond just "indoctrination/tradition", because that can only last so long. People will get fed up, people will decide "you know what I'm done with this I'm waking up and choosing violence today". Maybe I've been watching too much Andor lately, but I would love to see a Civilian revolt where a bunch of armed IndustrialMechs actually kick in the teeth of a Warrior group, even if it doesn't revolt in a victory.
There's a quote from Andor that I think applies here, if Alaric is going to unironically call his group the Wolf Empire: "The Empire never learns. They don't have to." Let Clan Wolf become complacent and pull the rug underneath them. There's just so much more that can be done with these plot threads and I'm not even a Battletech lore junkie.
@@BoisegangGaming I'm not interested in Star Wars + Battletech, personally. :\
@@BigRed40TECH That's fine, maybe I articulated what I was trying to say poorly (it was 2 AM lol)
The big alliance of the 3000's should've been The Federated Suns and the Free Worlds League............
You know i was thinking about trying to run the TTRPG in dark age in illkan to try and get some more enjoyment out of it now with this i dont think i have it in me unless im willing to let my players rewrite massive parts of the setting
I mean, that's the part of running or playing a TTRPG instead of some fixed video game: setting details can be changed, shifted, or just ignored if it doesn't work for the table.
My personal opinion is that you'd be better off rewriting the setting so that it fits with your players' preferences, just as I would happily ignore some of the "canon" events and run things differently.
@@kitirena_koneko That's the special sauce as to why pen and paper rpgs still remain not only active but popular: the ease of modification and tweaking is vastly more effective and efficient than video games, which are limited by programming.
Just homebrew descendants of the Magistracy and Taurians from the Rimward Deep Periphery or just a new faction from beyond Outworlds Wastes come in and destroy the wolfwank status quo without giving the usual IS plot armor recipients a handy.
@@MoreEvilThanYahweh Better idea--the Clan Mary Sue Jade Wolves got Absorbed into the other clans like they SHOULD have been, leaving Warden Clan Wolf at Arc-Royal and in their invasion corridor. Have Clan Nova Cat retreat from the Draconis Combine back into their own invasion corridor, fighting the Green Buzzards (Jade Falcons) every step of the way, keeping them occupied. Then fight out the Second Clan Invasion as it SHOULD have happened, with the Invading Clans (Real Wolf, Ghost Bear, Nova Cat, Steel Viper, Jade Falcon, etc.) fighting each other and the Inner Sphere on one side to conquer Terra, and the other Clans on the other side, each of them trying to Absorb or Annihilate the "Trator Clans" and take Terra for themselves. Oh, and keep ComStar and Word of Blake, with the former trying to rebuild the HPG network after the Dark Age and the latter sabotaging them, House Davion for creating the NAIS, and any other "heretics" that seek to rebuild the Classic Star League without them as combination religion (a la the Techpriests of Warhammer 40K) and keepers of the Sacred HPG Network. Lots of intrigue and battle, lots of politics in a good way (creates good drama for roleplaying), none of the Mary Sue Pet Factions of Catalyst nonsense.
Ah, another victim of Clan Wolf's stupid ray. Quite the effective weapon it seems.
Plot wise I agree with the Dominion Civil War not really making much sense. As a game supplement though, adding rules for adding civil unrest to your campaigns or RPG sessions, and the new characters and RATs are pretty useful. It’s better put together than Empire Alone in terms of layout but I concur with the plot content
You are all wrong. It will lead up to the return of Clan Wolverine and the gentle but strict hand that will bring an actual peace to the Galaxy. Wolverine 4ever
They could have been a contender.
Years of work were damaged by this imo.
@@BigRed40TECH I agree. I wish they would have remained aloof and been propped up as the antihero. Instead, they’re the clan that bent the knee
Oh well sometimes a story in a series this expansive lands like a dead rat that rolled out of an airplane.
Problem is, that describes everything after the Civil War period. AKA, not under FASA's management.
Please tell me if I'm reading the strategic situation correctly.
So the Ilclan's northern flank is totally secure and no one is going to stab them in the back when they totally wipe the Capellians off the map?
Yep.
As a Fed Sun fan and a DC hater I say screw the dragon. Can’t wait before CC falls.
They've wiped the Capellans off the map before, and then transformed Space North Korea into Space Tang-dynasty-China and put them right back on the map.
Looks to me like they're setting up for a major Clan vs. Sphere throwdown. The clans are steadily signing on to the Wolves new "Star League", but, in the process the clans have all alienated the nearby factions of the Sphere. Only the Davions haven't had a Clan go at them yet (the Ravens up there in the Outworld's Alliance still might take a page from the Ghost Bear attacking Kurita to impress the in IlClan's "first lord" and attack the Fed Suns for no reason before they've fully recovered from driving the Kuritans out of Davion Space and making the Taurians all mad with them). And, as much as the Davions would probably like to sit back and watch the Clans steamroll both the Capellans and Combine, they aren't going to hold with Ward's new "we're imposing Clan castes and eugenics on EVERYONE" version of the Star League.
So, let's look at the History of the Battletech story:
The Clan Era: The Clans showed up and the 5 houses came together, reformed the Star League (take 2) to fight the Clans and kicked their butts. In the end things fell apart.
The Jihad Era: So the idiot followers of that Blake fellow tried to nuke the Inner Sphere back to the Stone Age, and the 5 Houses came together again to fight the Wobbies and kicked their butts. And that created the Republic of the Sphere (Star League take 3) - and that didn't work out so well either.
The IlClan Era: Now the Clans in the Inner Sphere are slowly uniting under Alaric Ward to form a twisted Clan version of the Star League (take 4) that NONE of the Great Houses are going to sign on to (especially because in the process the Wolves have rubbed the Mariks and Liaos the wrong way, the Hells Horses have gone out of their way to make the Steiners mad, and now the Viking Teddy Bears have gone and poked the Dragon just to impress the new First Lord - and because Ward is turning out to be some sort of Clan fundamentalist).
So, what do you think is going to happen in THIS ERA?
a) the Great Houses will come together _again_ and form a competing anti-Clan star league (Star League - Take 4.5?) that will instantly fall apart into a "fifth" succession war as they all fight over Earth after they kick the Wolves off of it.
b) Clan Invasion (take 2) when the Clan Space Clans find out about a tainted Spheroid IlClan and decide to nip Alaraic's new little Star League in the bud - would that get the five factions and the Clans to come together to resist them? The Clanner Space Clans don't have the advantages the Clanners had when they first showed up. They'll have to fight a lot dirtier (and, maybe, nukier) than the Crusaders when they first showed up. Will this get the great houses and the Spheroid Clans to work together to stop them? Or leave you with a 3-way war?
c) The Liao and Mariks join forces to fight Clan Wolf, the Steiners take on the Horses, the Kuritans take out the Bears, and Davion takes out the Ravens in a series of localized wars that hardly overlap. In the end, by the time we get to 3175 or 3200 and a new generation of leaders Catalyst Game Labs has completely RESET the Battletech universe to very nearly the exact same map we had back in 3025, just, maybe, with House Liao holding Terra instead of ComStar.
The writers of Battletech have always seemed to struggle with two contradictory impulses: move history forward and reset back to the 3025 status quo, so I can see all three - or some combination of the three happening.
@@liljenborg2517 Ravens are already in the new Star League, they would probably help the bears in attacking the DC for their old alliance. I expect Julian to make a deal with the ilKhan since the Suns does seem to be producing Clan omni Mechs somwhere and they got far space jump tech.
@@liljenborg2517 honestly the idea of bring the home clans back into play would be really cool. I mean they've been more or less entirely gone for like 70 years, thats like 5 generations in clan terms, how much will they have changed, it'll kinda be a second clan invasion. Could be cool. I was hoping for a second round of you got terra but now your surrounded, but it looks like they are sick of that arc because everyone just suddenly has to be busy with someone else so wolf can fight the Cappies. God what world are we in were I gota root for the Cappellans
Thanks for giving your true opinion. Nowdays it is appreciated.
If its good, it's good. If its not good? It's not good. It's just that simple.
@@BigRed40TECH but many people would be afraid to say they don't like it.
Good review RE. Can't say that I'm totally on board with you, but I see where you are coming from. I see your points, but to me they're minor. The book doesn't solve the Alaric problem, but it was never going to. I Don't think IlKhan's eyes only will solve the Alaric problem either. I don't know how they're going to do it, but they're stuck with him for a while regardless.
Ah, you're only stuck with it if you remain invested in the era.
For me, this was them really harming the last Clan I found interesting, in a clan driven era. I'm honestly just not that interested in what's coming for Ilclan at the moment.
I will passively follow it from the side, but a lot of my dedicated time looking into it is pretty finished.
their going to ride that Bomb all the way like Slim Pickens did
Wait- characters and plot acting against its own development? Characters making decisions that go against the entire rest of the line development?
Why does this seem so damn familiar? 🤔🤔
I just finished the book myself and it was so darned painful. The writers across the 4 sourcebooks managed to dance through some tough-sells with the logistics of the ilClan era but I was willing to buy-in. The second half of DD broke me a little. It's like they were exhausted during the final group consultation and someone just said, "Get it done, we have a deadline." And so they did. The results of this book are analogous to the civil war inside the the book. "Alaric" told them to just write it, and now everyone hates each other.
Thanks to this and your stream last night, you have convinced me to hold off on this book, good sir. I was mainly interested in the FedSuns and what happened with them, but I will just read Damocles instead here soon. So, based on what you said in regards to that book before and what happens here, New Avalon is retaken and Kurita is kicked.out of Davison space? Or is that an eventuality still?
Mostly they get kicked out, yes.
@@BigRed40TECH that was the jist I got.
Honestly, the description you give of the events in the book reminds me historically of the native peoples of India under British rule.
The period from the 1850s to the moment of independence in 1947 was punctuated by brutal factional fighting between small groups of people arguing for the good old days, more populous modernizers focused on independence, and deadlocked political machinations that went against their own self interests all while being overlooked by a large foreign power that largely overtly insulted the people at every turn. And yet they still sent millions of people in their military to fight and die for that foreign powers whims through two world wars.
At this point I wouldn't be surprised if the Rassalhague Dominion breaks up into two or three successor states of it's own post Combine war just like the British Raj did after independence.
The RD will not break up.
I was actually starting to like Wolf, enjoyed their POV in Hour of The Wolf but this poured cold water on that and strangles my love of Rasalhague/Ghost Bear. Their treatment of the dragoons was absolutely stupid especially given their pivotal role in the trial. No one alive in the clan or dragoons was alive when the dragoons defected and yet when they helped them win the ilclanship they treated them like vermin. Maybe it will end like the first star league after all...with the house lords coming together to take a piece and spark a new wave of succession wars...history is cyclical after all.
I might have missed it but I'd love to see your take on the "35306 - The Wars of Reaving" source book. It probably is one of the more convoluted books since the timeline jumps a fair bit, but whats happening is similar to what happens here (Key people know that "this" is bad but they still do it despite it being not the best choice)
It sounds like the individual parts make sense (even Rasulhaug jumping at the chance to go after the DC), it's when you add all the parts up that problems happen.
I see now why they left the GB untouched in the novels.....by focusing on the DC-FS conflict, they made us think this was going to be good. Funny how the most interesting stuff in ilClan era has nothing to do with the ilClan or how it is set up. Also, it goes to show how OP the clans would have been if they were united. Now that they all accept the ilClan without much challenge, the resources they have are ridiculous. They have Space Amazon, Space AT&T, Space Evergreen, the largest Warship navy, and more!
I had basically the opposite reaction to, like, all of this, and loved DD. Thanks for the review and hope you're not too discouraged about the era!
Man, that’s a real bummer. I was looking forward to this book. I just finished The Damocles Sanction and was excited for more. I’ll probably still pick it up to check it out and form my own opinions but I doubt I’ll reach different conclusions based on what’s been discussed here. Too bad.
It's funny how my opinion on this book's appropriately Divided too lol. I personally loved the Dragon's Tongue conflict. I haven't read DS yet but my attention's piqued to check it out now. But man yeah, the Ghost Bear Dominion stuff was rough. The scale imo is what hurt it, they could have kept the whole Civil War thing but maybe in a lesser scale than nationwide; it was nothing short of character assasination for the Rasal Bears.
I feel a bit unqualified to comment on this as a new BT fan, but the reaction of the Rasalhague Dominion felt less weird when I thought of it through a religious lense. The clanner part of their society (at this point of history their entire society to some degree) had been introctrinated for centuries to believe the Star League is coming back, it was going to be awesome, and their sworn duty would be to serve whoever founds it. Alaric's rejection basically meant their prophesized messiah had come and created the Promised Land, but told them they weren't worthy to enter. I could see that being a shock to a society thats entire worldview is based on fulfilling a prophecy.
Also, most of the universe probably doesn't know quite how big of an asshole Alaric is. I was rooting for the Deniers, but the story would feel different if it was a decent human running the new "Star League".
The thing is, the RD has a huge population that aren't clanners. So the "50/50" split was already unlikely. After he told them to get fucked? A lot of Freebirths just would say "Screw this guy", but it doesn't happen.
Even though the book itself says it should.
I would still rather watch an honest review over a shameless plug any day of the week! Unfortunately, of all the dirty clanners the bears are the only ones that I care for. As I am primarily a Kurita player I have been waiting for this book.
I'd shamelessly plug for it, if it was good. :\
So with Big Red being a big ghost bear fan, what ghost bear battlemech would Big Red pilot? dragonfly?
Now the Bears know how the Falcons feel about being wrecked in-service of the Wolves and their incest davion gary stu Ilkhan.
So, there is a certain portion of my brain screaming "FAWN RESPONSE" at the screen while watching this. Honestly the fact that they just put aside their differences is what confuses me the most. Like, I could get a large, heavily armed chunk of the populace lashing out from the fawn response and straight up killing or cowing into silence the rest to take control. But I have no idea why everyone just shrugged and said "You know what's the real problem? That guy over there for some reason."
"See that guy who has NOTHING to do with our problems? It's fucking HIS fault."
@@BigRed40TECH Okay, now that you put it like that my Trans Jewish brain is starting to get it... *Sobs*
Absolutely understandable.
Pity the writers had a stroke when writing the book, hopefully things can be fixed in the future.
Tamar Rising and Empire Alone were much better books. Not even book is going to land, sadly, and sometimes things just don't work out.
DUDE WE AGREE ON NICOL HALAS HUGHES!!!! CELEBRATE!
The impression that I get is that the dev team at FASA/WhizKids/FanPro/Catalyst have their favorite factions (Clan Wolf, Clan Sea Fox/Diamond Shark/Sea Fox, House Davion, The Republic of the Sphere) and some good ideas (the Clan Invasion, the ComStar/Word of Blake schism), some so-so ideas that could be good if handled right (the Dark Age, House Kurita's "Death to Mercenaries" order), and some bad ideas (the FedCom Civil War, the New Star League and its subsequent collapse), and they get all "lovey-dovey" about their faves at the expense of certain other factions (House Liao, Clan Ghost Bear, Clan Nova Cat, house Marik) and don't know what to do with their ideas, so they just handle things ham-handedly at times to force things to work out for their "babies" and to twist the metaplot around in ways it would otherwise never logically go.
IMHO, what Catalyst should have done is maybe put up polls amongst the player base to see what direction the metaplot should go at certain junctures, then let things play out logically from there rather than simply deciding that "oh, we're going to force things in such-and-such way despite the fact that they should go in a completely different direction".
Polls don't really work. Good stories work. I don't think this was a good story imo.
@@BigRed40TECH I can't argue with you about shitty stories (Clan Jade Wolf, who should have been Absorbed; the destruction of Clan Nova Cat; the FedCom Civil War; and now this), especially when Catalyst seems to abandon good ideas (Ghost Bear Dominion) in favor of "advancing the plot" in ways it logically should not go. I respectfully disagree about polls, if--and this is a BIG "if"--they're done right. West ENd Games had a pretty cool idea with TORG, their multi-genre RPG about alternate realities invading ours and sucking the 'possibility energy' out of our world, and at the end of most if not all of their published adventures, they'd have a form where gaming groups could tell WEG about how the adventure went, and then WEG would compile the results and adjust the direction of their metacampaign accordingly, releasing periodic "Infiniverse Updates" about how the overall metaplot was advancing based on player feedback. I wonder if we'd get a better BattleTech campaign if FASA/WhizKids/FanPro and now Catalyst did that with the BT 'verse. Guess we'll never know, but what we as players can do is use the parts of the 'official' setting that we like and change the parts we don't like to make a better campaign. Maybe if enough of us started publishing our own campaigns under a variant of the ORC open license that Paizo is developing for Pathfinder...
This is a real shame, since I'm in the middle of reading A Question of Survival and I'm really enjoying it.
AQOS is a great novel. It's not reflective of Dominions DIvided :(
Here there be spoilers.
I was pretty sad with this one too. In my opinion Tamar Rising knocked it clean out of the park- new interesting little factions, intimate storytelling, lots of ways to fit Your Dudes into the storyline with anybody you pleased. The Hell's Horses get a bit clowned but move to sort out their leadership issues, otherwise everyone is displayed as being relatively competent, rational actors making the best of their local circumstances.
Empire Alone was not quite up to that standard. Redemption Rites told the best part of the story and much like the Dominion situation here, the Clan Protectorate storyline really didn't feel organic or plausible.
And just like you, I was okay with what was going on in the first part. There were no real twists to it, but once again there was plausible push-pull, cause and effect going on. Neither the Davions nor the Dracs are clowning each other and nothing particularly interesting ends up developing on that front (just a return to status quo along the border essentially and then other stuff starts coming in.)
The tension between the First Prince and Prince's Champion is developed pretty well and feels natural.
And yes, while I'm skeptical about the plausibility of the Dominion voting to join, I could live with the outcome. The history's been written, we've seen the future stories that pertain to the Ilclan and know that eventually Wolf wins the day, etc. But your point was exactly right- if you know what your endpoint is, you can make the journey there a lot more plausible. The Joiners being reinforced in their fervor by a legit insult to their society was... what
If they wanted the Bears to join after a tribulation, set up something similar to the Davion/Sandoval-Groell beef (as in actually set it up early in this book) and then have them square off with their respective factions when the shooting starts, then have the Joiner win. There. In that grand Clan fashion you have the "I punch you hard, therefore we do what I say" answer. I mean, we got a very very straightforward resolution to the Suns/Combine conflict- Suns build up forces, retake New Abby (not before we looted all the good stuff, Fedrats) and then ground their way back up the tongue and essentially retook their turf. Writing a similar line for the Dominion would've been much less convoluted and much more plausible for the logic of the society as it was presented to us.
I ordered print and hard copy day of, read the PDF that night, hard copy showed up a couple of days ago and I just sent it straight to the shelf without leafing through it. Sad on this one, but life goes on and hopefully the next one is better.
I got the print copy too, I was almost sure I was going to love this book. Read the PDF to make the review and just went "what. is. this?"
As a Spirit Cat/Nova Cat fan, let me say I am a fan of any material that takes the Bears down a peg or twelve, but you did make some strong arguments for the inconsistency.
I think it's not unrealistic that many Clansmen even civilians would've resented the lessening Clan influence on the Rasalhague Dominion, and would've made up a huge part of the joiners to "return to tradition". It also would've been realistic if the Civil War had been causing by Joiners if the Referendum went against joining, as most of the military is still Clan and they would've been strongly Joiner. Lot of ways to make it work.
I'm not against Ghost Bear getting beat-up, or losing. It's that the entire scenario made no sense, and was very contrived. A top-down coup, the joiners starting some kind of civil conflict regardless of losing the vote 70/30 or something would've all worked.
The idea that a bunch of Rasalhaguers are going to join the Wolves, who they dislike, after they just killed their allies, is just not high on the "This makes sense" list.
As a newcomer to Battletech and a fan of clan Ghost Bear, it pains me greatly to see my faction forced to act out of character and cripple itself for no understandable reason other than the writers are trying to prop up Clan Wolf and Alaric for the sake of driving the story forward….in a clumsy and poorly thought out way.
Still, we didn’t lose our entire Touman. Hopefully future books and lore will be kinder to us, after all a Ghost Bear is not so easily slain, and we have survived the Great Refusal and the Wars of Reaving. The tyrant prince will be in for a reckoning, from the Draconis Combine if not from us.
I may sound like I'm on crack when I say this but please bear with me? Are you all telling me that it seems like the only thing that actually makes sense in the Dark Age is the Hanseatic Crusade and how Clan Goliath Scorpion evolved into the Imperico Escorpio?
I am saying that all will become Crab.
I will say I'm pretty ambivalent towards the Ghost Bears (which is actually a pretty positive outlook for me about a clan, as I really don't like most of them), but the story for them in this book makes absolutely no sense.
1). Society is at each other's throat about a controversial vote to join the new "Star League" that would great affect said society.
2). The Society votes and approves to join it.
3). Leader of said Star League says "Nah, you guys suck, if you will only narrowly approve, I don't want you anyways." (Logical step at this point would be many of the people who had been in favor of joining would be like "This guy is a dick, probably for the best we don't join.")
4). Somehow society decides the guy that the other people who voted the other way were the reason they didn't get accepted? Not the guy who turned them down?
5). For some reason they decide to start murdering each other. The government at this point decides he will essentially force the population to join the "Star League"
6). Now with probably millions dead and a FULL THIRTY FREAKING percent of out military destroyed we should try to impress that guy who is an asshole to us AND invade a powerful nation. And we will totally work well together while doing it!
How the hell does that work? What society would do something like that?
Imagine three kids at a school lunch table deciding they want to sit with "the cool kid." They vote, two vote yes, one votes no. When they go to sit with the cool kid he says "No, you can't sit here anyways." So the two who voted yes turn around and beat up the kid who voted no. After this kid is done getting the crapped kicked out of him the two who beat him up say "Hey, let's go attack that table of kids," pointing at a table of 10 other random kids. Of course the one who got beat up agrees.
When you simplify it down like that, it sounds even more absurd.
I, being a Taurian fan, was at least happy we got something in a sourcebook (And it wasn't the Taurians looking like total idiots or embarrassing themselves!)
Also cool to see the art of the Big MAC having an audience with Yori. Having them go merc or even join the Combine could be REALLY interesting.
The writers simply looked at the universe and went "OK, I got a hammer, what looks whole so that I can smash it ?"
I enjoyed most of the book. Joiners and Deniers at each others throat, even though Alaric made fools of them, is sadly, realistic. You can see that every day among various communities, we just didn't start killing each other en masse yet. But I agree that - Let's attack Draconis and all is forgotten - was WTF solution. You didn't cover much of FS plot, which I liked, though I dig both Julian and Erik as characters and hate that they are in opposition.
Also Chistu and his Jade Falcon Remnants FTW!
I left another comment earlier to this effect, but "Let's attack our outsider's enemy and all the insults are forgiven!" Is largely what India did through two World Wars until gaining full autonomy from Great Britain in 1947.
It's more that I've covered Damocles Sanction, in detail, and the FS plot retreads that. But not as well as Damocles Sanction.
Well, that pretty much kills my decision on buying Dominions Divided. Like what the heck...in either Tamar Rising or Empire Alone; they set up the Ghost Bear Dominion to be this big player where they supposedly hold the balance of power since they are the only ones who are still unified, organized, strong and the only people not really badly affected by the HPG Blackout in the Inner Sphere. They could easily spin out many great stories out of the Ghost Bear Dominion but then they put out this thing about the GBD being divided, have a mini-Civil War and then they kind of re-unify and attack the Draconis Combine and Alaric suffers no ill-effects from rejecting the GBD's request for membership?
What the hell is this?
Hearing all of this reminds me of the time when I stopped watching the WWE one month after the CM Punk pipebomb. I reminds me of how writers and bookers at that time have put up so much non-sense that I just lost interest. Am I reaching this point with BT?
There is so much interesting stuff you can do with the Dark Age and now it is all going down the crapper? SMH.
The writers and bookers, as it were, are not bad, or incompetent, or anything like that. As I said in the video, sometimes folks think they've got a good story and they're just wrong. It happens to everyone from time to time, but it's extremely disappointing.
As a Free Worlder I feel really bad for Ghost Bear fans because Empire Alone was absolutely amazing for me but this doesn't make any sense at all.
I'm a bigger Leaguer than I am a Ghost Bear, but yea, this one just doesn't land, and its very sad.
@@BigRed40TECH I do think CGL has taken weird steps to cripple the only two clans who seem like they could function as actual societies or threats (Ghost Bear and Hells Horses) all to glorify Alaric 'Just as Planned' Ward
@@BrotherJing1 While I'm sure there are some people who really like what we're seeing, I suspect there is a growing number of folks who aren't happy with how the clan contents been going.
For an era built around the clans, this isn't great.
I really hope they put together some things that are better.
I thought it would be about the Draconis combine and federated son's conflict. But it sounds like that's just a foot note. I was looking forward that stuff. But it all takes a back seat to the ghost bear stuff. That from a clanner player. And the civil war stuff sounds like a thinly veiled community on American political situation right now. With both sides of the political spectrum getting more radical. There are lot of examples of civil wars in history that fits the ghost bear dominion far better they could choose from.
They are there, but they're not as prevalent as the GB stuff.
And their civil war again, just doesn't really line up with how the tables would play out. It's bizarre.
May I ask what books I need to read to understand the why behind Clan Diamond Shark’s return to Clan Sea Fox? I know the fluff behind the change into Clan Diamond Fox, but am confused about the reversion.
They rebranded them in 3100.
Something about how they found living Sea Foxes (the critter, not the clowner), and wanted to go back. It was all done in the clickytech era, so murky.
good honest reveiw but it's everyone's game you take what you want from the game and make it you own so to me this book is just all fluff and i'll use what i want from it and nothing eles i just want the map .
This seems so much like how the Taurians were written leading up to the Jihad era while in the Trinity alliance. Massive insult from a supposed friend (looking at you Theseus 🧐) ✔️ . Althought if your a Taurians fan you were given some love , they handled Alexander's little tantrum quite well and didn't get sucked in farther to his bs then they had to . All in all the ilkhan era looks quite good for them till they get stuck dealing the New New Star League .
It's a shame the book was a disappointment for you. I'm still looking forward to it and I'm still invested in the ongoing story.
On a hopeful note, it seems you enjoy the novels more than the sourcebooks so there may be some hope. Either way, thanks for making the review and I appreciate how it must make you feel.
The ongoing story, because it's clan centric yet they've kinda removed, or made the clans I like pointless, or pitiful, just kinda lost me.
This was a jump the shark moment for me, personally.
@@BigRed40TECH We can only wait and see what happens next. There are still Wolf cards and lose threads that may produce interesting story. Goliath Scorpion for example is in an interesting position.
There is also the question of what Alaric's next move is now that the Dark Age threads are mostly resolved. A new era of conflict is about to begin and a second reunification war is on the horizon, I imagine.
I don't find Goliath Scorpion all that interesting.
I'm also just not jiving with the 3rd Star League, or Wolf at all, which are the centre of the story and are driving into all the other events sadly. It's becoming really hard to care. It's not that I "hate it", its that this is generating an abundance of apathy. Apathy means I don't cover it, as its poison to the channel if I do.
I feel extremely apathetic, after DD.
Thanks for the review.
Ya, CGL really butchering my favorite clan of late. Some of this stuff was hinted at in "A Question of Survival", but wow did they double down and dial it up in the wrong direction here.
I'd love to see some more coverage on the older eras in terms of narrative.
There are plans for this to happen. But with the Kickstarter coming up, you won't see it for a few months.
I am going to be making a video, it seems anyway, about Wacko's Rangers and Wayne Wacko.
@@BigRed40TECH I'm here for the long haul. Doesn't matter when I see it.
Never liked the Dominion, it feels like it just ate the rasehaulge and destoryed them
om nom nom nom
Rasalhague was like a smorgasbord invaded by grizzlies.
Hi, does this book have mech profiles at the end , like the Ilclan book has? Thanks
Not really, just the Ares.
Dark Age and Ilclan Mechs are found in: TRO Dark Age, and the Recognition Guide series.
These sourcebooks are much more following the actual events in-universe for the most-part.
@@BigRed40TECH What I am really looking forward to is like a TRO but with color art. I like the technical detail of the TRO but much prefer the color art and the only thing I found so far that has that is the Battletech Legends book and the mech profiles at the back of the Ilclan book. Do you know of any others that would fit this?
i don't understand Rasalhauge anymore, might be time to find a new faction.
I feel that like the fans of Rasalhague the writers know the return of the Free Republic is what makes sense in the long run as Ghost Bear continues to go native, but they don't know about how to go about it.
There is a ton of the Rasalhague Dominion that is just not clan at all. They set them up really well.
Then they turned it into a raging dumpster fire that didn't make almost any sense.
I know they tried their best, and the people who wrote this have more talent than what I read in the book. So it's just disheartening.
@@BigRed40TECH It feels like they wanted a civil war, for the Dominion to be on bad but salvageable terms with the Star League, and for it to go to war with Kurita, but couldn't quite connect the dots since any referendum on joining Star League would have been overwhelmingly opposed, to the point that that type of wakeup call over how unpopular the Dominion's attempt to merge Clan and Sphere has been should could have easily been what kicked off the civil war.
This sounds pretty much exactly as I expect from a company that continues to push the "Clan Wolf is the Bestest!" narrative. I am pretty sure the wolves will stomp the Capcon, the bears will Stomp Kurita, Davion will once again be the Inner sphere superpower nobody wanted, and everyone else will be a side note. It is just how it has been handled for a very long time.
I dunno about that, but I do know I'm pretty apathetic towards it.
@@BigRed40TECH Yeah I have felt that way for a few decades now.
Really the highlights of battletech for me has been almost solely the TRO releases, and the small PDF battle highlights that were released for a few years.
I actually really appreciate the content you, and a few others like you have provided over the last few years. Otherwise I would have to dig out my old copy of MechAssualt.... JK nobody should play those..... Ever.
Thanks Justin. The content's not ending. I'm just going to be avoiding more of the Ilclan era content for a while. This is a really low point for the setting imo, as it's showing me that every clan-related plotline is just a dumpster fire.
Given its a clan-centric-era, it's just really sad.
@@BigRed40TECH Oh I absolutely understand. The setting is absolutely one that could have an unlimited number of permutations and yet seems to always go for just a couple of them. Instead of some normal Waxing and Waning of established factions there is always the Star League hanging over the plot directly, everyone has to fight over Terra and the magic mech building machines it seems to be filled with, if not the Star League it is the Clans and how they are the "Real" inheritors of the League.
One day they will find that none of the is interesting to the players. We want to play games where we are the little merc company that goes out and fights crazy battles, we want Big Bad House Liao, we want the dangerous Clan Invasion Corridor, We want Pirates everywhere, and the houses at each others throats willing to hire our cheap as mercs to drop in and steal some of that special faction specific gear right out from under their noses.
Instead we get the GB's rolling over and playing the good dog when an unlikable incest baby hurts their feelings and snubs them.
At least there are a ton of mechs and variants.
Ghost Bears become Simps for Clan Wolf
Wasn't there a Free Worlds book coming out?
I don't recall. I don't think so?
honestly, the weird writing of Alaric and anything to do with the 'core' wolf empire story has been around for a long time, since at least hour of the wolf which was, sorry to say, probably the worst of CGL's stuff in the past decade. I chalked it up to this weird hate-boner some of the writers have for the RotS and anything too Dark Age related, which ends up squandering the narrative opportunities of those stuff, but it seems clear the Alaric stuff has remained terrible even to now. quite sad.
It really is.
Honestly I've never been a huge fan of the Battletech lore. I always liked the fact that it was entirely human and didn't go much for science fantasy (nothing magical). I also liked the technological regression of the succession wars and these days the retrofuturism (especially of the old art) is also appealing.
Was never a fan of the extent of the neofeudalism or degree of corny American '80s ethnic stereotyping (comparatively speaking, at least there were less space ninjas in Battletech than elsewhere during the '80s). The books also just didn't do it for me, and I tried again recently with the same opinion. Reminded me of the old Dragonlance novels. Seemed very YA fiction back then, although I don't know if some of the newer novels are now aimed more at the aging fanbase.
It was mostly the mech design that turned me off the MWDA / Dark Age stuff though and had me sticking with the Fedcom Civil War and earlier. Not a fan of the style changes/additions from the old Anime and Retro robot styles that drew me in originally. Same applies to most of the Protomechs and totem Mechs. Stuff I just ignore.
The Ilclan era could still be interesting for me just on the basis of the mech designs being something I'd want on the table, even if I'm less invested in the factions or overall lore of the scenario. No plot armour or mary sues on my tabletop, that's for sure.
Sure, but I like the lore.
I'm just not impressed by what they've put out with this book.
@@BigRed40TECH Yeah I get it if the lore is the main reason you would play an era. I guess the condensed point of my post was just that it's the mech designs of the Ilclan era that had me considering advancing my timeline to it in the first place. For me the biggest consideration past that will be how the newer rules with armour types etc actually play on the table. It's not like I've ever felt like Battletech was lacking for complexity or crunch. Plot holes and mary sue factions in the lore aren't really a consideration.
I dont agree with a lot of anti-clan sentiments that get brought up on this channel and genuinely love old clan wolf/wolf-in-exile/wolf’s dragoons. But jfc, im completely with you on how they ruined ghost bear and how Alaric is the worst
I like the Clans. I basically just hold Wolf and Sea Fox in disdain.
The reason for the civil war is stupid. If they wanted to have a ghost bear civil war fine. But instead of them going to war over being insulted by Alaric, it should have been after they’re denied entry the joiner faction does lose a ton if not the majority of support, which pushes the remaining joiners into extremism, and they start the civil war. That would make much more sense rationally than what they did.
Especially given the population is 90+% freebirths and Rasalhaguers.
@@BigRed40TECH exactly if just 10% of the population of the Dominion was extreme enough to want to have a civil war that's still enough for a hell of a civil war. More than likely that's hundreds of millions if not billions of people in the Dominion that are angry enough to take up arms against their own Clan and Country.
Oddly enough, even though it sounds like you really didn't like the book, the review actually makes me want to read it. Not because I think you're wrong, but because it sounds like at least half the book is worthwhile.
Damocles Sanction is a great novel. IMO you're better off with that, than the source book sadly.
When you praised it for grammar, I had the thought of "oh, this is bad".
It sounds like handwavium and poor story telling, leading up to the Home Clans coming back into the story.
Homeworld calns are not coming back.
@@BigRed40TECH I hope not. I like them just fine being the threatening menace that looms in the dark. What we do not need is more clan Mary Sue crap inserted into a story already filled with that.
We need a new BattleTech series on TH-cam:
When BattleTech doesnt make sense
I don't like making negative videos. But I cover these releases and sometimes it's just not good.
I finished the book. I enjoyed it. I understand how a civil war could break out, and I understand the desire for a quick, victorious war for the ghost bear/rasalhague- it's realistic, if short-sighted. I dont think it's dumb, but rather emotional - and I think in showing it to be an emotional time, people get stupid, and the stupidity kind of shows up in some of the work. Ugh, I dont think i am explaining myself well, but I think you are being a bit hyperbolic. Not hugely so mind, but we have disagreed before.
It's okay to disagree.
I laid out why I think it's dumb, and I laid out how the book itself explains why. I am glad someone enjoyed it though, but yea. I'm not really interested in following up this book with... anything else from this era at the moment.
@@BigRed40TECH We disagree on things, friend. But how would you do things differently? I like a lot of what I saw, but I view this as an emotional work, not a political one, which I FEEL(see what I did there) is what you wanted to see. How would you handle this time in the Rasalhague Dominion?
I personally would have it be a divide between the Ghost Bears and the Rasalhaugue.
I actually even gave a bit of an example in the review of how to do things differently. XD
Like, it's not even that they'd need to change all that much. The delivery of the plot and the ideas formed around it are just badly pasted together.
There were some components of a good story here, either wanting CGB to join the Star League or wanting Clan Ghost Bear to reject it.
Whatever they wanted, there were easier paths.
@@BigRed40TECH I know, I was listening to the review while I was writing and posted like 20 seconds before you got to what you would do differently.
I bought it immediately, followed the hype.
Actually I think it is still redeemable but for me the book is not the resolution merely the start of a real massive split. Unfortunately I think I am the one to read it wrongly.
Spoilers starting.
The Government under Magnussen has a direction but there already is shown, that the trail is viewed as staged in the eyes of the public. Also he starts the war, I think only the most loyal warriors will embrace and will fight the hardest and therefore will have the highest loses, weakening Magnussen.
With the free Spirit of the Raselhaguens I expect a massive split between the Clan infused Counsil snd the majority of the populus. Which will not be pacified without a grand gesture (Something like Magnussen turns himself in as a hostage to the Draconis Combine in order to achive Peace and save the populus when the Campaign fails) But I think that is unlikely but I still have hope that it is redeemable.
Thanks for your efforts and I am sorry that it was a major disapointment for you. I spend money on worse but I also hadn't too high expectations. Disapointed are usually the hardest critics. That said I would have expected some joiners to switch to fanatic deniers after Alarics refusal, just because it is human. (Ugly but human)
They so desperately want clan Mary Sue puppies seem powerful they nerfed Ghost bear to keep face. Only to make both faction and righters look bad. Aleric ward is becoming abbadon of battletech.
I dunno if that's what they want, but it's not a good plot going on atm.
@@BigRed40TECH same. Honestly hope it was just bunch ideas that didn't work
as rasalhague fan i hate this
yep, poor showing of the Rasalhayge Dominion. None of their decision made since, especially NOT going after HH to prove loyalty to Alaric.
Ugh...still can't stand that they renamed the Diamond Sharks. I just can't see them going backwards.
I took some time to think about this. Sad to watch a once very proud faction reduced to doing the bidding for a mad man. Nice to see Alaric inherited his mothers ability to have a whole nation swallow stupid and debase them selves to him. Is it a hard connection that when some one insults you as a whole that you might unite them in hate against you? To me that's what logically should happen. God this is as bad as the civil war where things need to happen regardless if we can logically write it so it happens. I'll probably get it anyways for the FS and DC and the campaign rules, but damn I wish this kind of bad writing was behind them. As for making the video feedback is important no matter what good and bad.
yea, it's one reason why my motivation to cover much more Ilclan is really low atm.
@@BigRed40TECH I'm probably going to be reviewing all the source books too, for reasons stated.