Yup! Salvage is always an option too! That's one of the wonderful things about BattleTech, is there's an excuse to be able to play with all of the toys, even when sticking to a somewhat narrative friendly force.
I've been playing Battletech for 30 years. My experience is that it is only new players that care if your list is lore accurate. Old school players know lore accurate is whatever the current novel says it is.
This new(-ish) player has found that they were very careful to include at least one major fight to explain how any specific piece of technology (or several at once) could have been salvaged into the inventory of any other given faction by 3025.
FWL for the Awesomes, Capellans for the mustache twirl, Comstar for the customer service, Ghost Bear for Invasion, and back to Capellans and Scorpions for late timeline.
@@almostgoodvariant "Our records indicate this system has a past due balance. Our Customer Service Team is in orbit to help expedite payment for your HPG services. ComStar Dropships are en route to your Capitol City. ComStar values your customer loyalty."
In Battletech the age you choose is more important than the faction you choose when it comes to available mechs. In the end the great thing is the only true limit is what you and your buddies agree on. Random free for all, just grab your favs and blast away, strict lore and recreate the battle of Tukayyid, they have a book and map set to do that lore accurate mostly as rngesus is always the chaos factor on who wins this time. Love that flexibility and simplicity of Battletech, you basically choose how complex you want it to be in the end. Lastly the absolute best part of Battletech.....no meta chasing.
40 years of playing this game and the golden rule has always been... "everything is always available to everyone" (as long as the items were made prior to the era you are playing) there are no faction specific rules. however, pilot quirks and piloting skills as well as the role-playing games, can define your characters. my force is the Army of the Northwind Highlanders. it consists of 5 Corp. 1 space fleet Corp 3 primary combat Corp 1 training and support Corp if you are interested in the overall size - it's 139 battalions of combined arms, plus space naval assets. as far as painting, I use generic camo scheme for all my mini's. and I don't add any kind of faction/unit insignia. these keeps my entire collection always available. I only play classic/campaigns and occasional one-shot games. by playing narrative series, you get some of the better aspects of damaged units, repairs, salvage and unit management. a very different way to play than always starting with brand new mechs, fighting to destruction, without consequences. it's always interesting when opposition either surrenders or withdraws. or allows your surviving forces to withdraw. we've even had characters captured and ransomed. playing competitive tournament style is good, but you are missing 3/4 of the games potential.
I'm new to the hobby and I've been slowly adding more and more of the "extra" stuff, but where do you find pilot quirks? I've only just started using mech quirks since I've had to teach friends who are also interested, but I can't find pilot quirks in anything I own
@alexanderthegreat6682 while the Role-playing games; Mechwarrior 2nd ed Mechwarrior 3rd ed have skills and advantages/disadvantages Mechwarrior - A time of war has traits and skills Mechwarrior - Destiny has skills and positive/negative traits Alpha Strike - commanders edition has special abilities, optional special abilities and command special abilities. there are also abilities and quirks listed on the pilot cards. various older Fasa source books also list training benefits from various training academies and for some units due to battle history.
@@daltonmccormick5221 dude I’ve been obsessed with ProtoMechs recently, honestly. Such a weird bit of lore and a genuinely unique addition to the tabletop in both BattleTech and Alpha Strike. I’ve only had the change to play with Orcs thus far but I’m definitely getting at least Minotaurs and maybe a maximum of one (1) Svartalfa.
@@almostgoodvariant I've got a point of minotaurs and centaurs. I think Protos are a very interesting design space I hope they expand on. The hardest part for me has been finding models I actually like the look of.
@@daltonmccormick5221 I hope that too but it seems like they’re pretty niche and a lot of people don’t care for them, partly due to the odd artstyle. I found the official Proto minis very offputting when I first saw them online but I’ve grown to appreciate several of them (Orc, Minotaur, Gorgon, Chrysaor, Procyon Quad…) I think it seems like a question of how they’re painted, the ”animal-like” paint schemes I’ve seen online do NOT work for them at all in my opinion. My Orcs are certainly not my best work ever but they turned out pretty good. Randall Bills’s list of possible upcoming releases did include a Protomech set so maybe there’s some hope for Protos yet, and I’m sure the redesigns have the potential to be awesome.
Ahhhh. Nothing cements my choice of the Free World's League better than seeing you scroll down the list at 5:31 and just seeing FWL, FWL (Andurien), FWL (Tamarind), FWL (Marik), FWL (Non Aligned) etc etc. XD
I made my own minor Periphery faction as my "main" inner sphere, because i wanted the freedom of a mercenary group, but the backing of an actual state. I also picked clan Ghost Bear, because i like that they actually maintain families, and i like Rasalhague
Faction/Era lists is a thing you do only to *add* fun to the game. If it's appealing. I do it because... A) It's less overwhelming. I'm learning the game and would like to narrow down my choices a bit by sticking to shorter lists. B) I'm curious about how each faction "feels" and like to see the lore from that angle. If I pit faction X against Y, I want to see different mechs and different styles. And see what it says about that faction and how it relates to the lore. The K2 Kurita Catapult is different from the C4 Capellan Catapult, that's fun for me. C) I like building an force grounded in the lore. A jade falcon star from this era. A Free Words League Mercenary lance from that era. I like the feel of that.
I wanted my custom Merc company to have access to some of the rare mechs during the 3050s and 60s. So my rationalization for them having a King Crab, Black Knight, Mongooses (geeses?), etc. Is they were originally Comstar Black Ops who were deployed to Tukayyid. Disillusioned for being used as literal meatshields in the battle and growing concerned by the growing religious fanaticism they agree to deploy after Tukayyid under the guise of Mercs. Comstar is their true employer until Word of Blake emerges and they refuse to serve for them. Instead they align with the rest of the inner sphere and fight against their former brothers and sisters.
I, too, came to settle on Clan Hell's Horses as a main faction. I guess it's a good thing I grew up in the muscle car era and painting flames is second nature. Well met, Trothkin.
Picking Clan Snow Raven rapidly bootstrapped my painting productivity. Clear force construction, a painting plan. It finally gave me clear bounds within which to focus on improving painting with certain colors and techniques. Locating your chosen faction in the gears of the overarching story really connected with me too.
I'm only halfway through but I feel vindicated by this video. When I first got started (fairly new player, been around BT for ~2 years but finding games is hard), I was looking for factions to latch on to, and after researching histories and ideologies, and for IS, I really liked Rasalhague. People online told me I was stupid for liking a faction that got killed in 10 years (they didn't) and that my taste sucks. So I picked a "real faction" as my IS faction and went with the Draconis Combine. For the Clan side, I don't like Clans as a whole, but I went with Clan Hell's Horses, because I like their combined-arms mentality and that they are (slightly) better people to their own than most of the other Clans. People online told me I was stupid for liking a Clan that was always beaten by the other Clans and that my taste sucks. So I picked a "real Clan" as my Clan faction and went with Clan Ghost Bear. I hate how there are Correct Opinions (trademark) and Incorrect Opinions (trademark) in BattleTech.
@@WayoftheFerret I’m sorry you had such a bad experience! I’ve barely seen any such attitudes in the BattleTech scene thus far, sure there are always the odd weirdly persistently MAD ABOUT STUFF people online but they are definitely a minority. People generally seem really chill about whatever you like to do in BattleTech - as long as we’re all into stompy robots punching other stompy robots, who really cares. Or that’s how a lot of people seem to see it anyway. Where did people tell you your tastes suck?
I've been in the hobby for a little over 2 years now. I collect and play predominantly Word of Blake, I've got a full Level III Shadow Division (40th to be specific) 2 Level IIs of Word fo Blake Militia, a Word of Blake Flotilla for warship/space combat/Aerotech. Then I also have a Level III of Tukayyid Comguard, not to mention a Trinary of Clan Nova Cat, a Binary of Clan Coyote and Burrock, and lastly a star of Clan Blood Spirit and Snow Raven. I plan on collecting a Terran Hegemony Lance of pre Star League mechs as well as a Rim Worlds Republic lance. Battletech is a great setting that allows a lot of flexibility in many ways that some may consider "short sighted" or just generally limiting, however some limits aren't always a bad thing.
I love this video. When i first picked up BattleTech a few years ago, I had the hardest time finding the motivation to paint my 'Mechs and build lists. Much later, I finally settled on Clan Sea Fox as a clan faction and ComStar as an IS faction so I would have a fairly acceptable in-universe reason to mix and match most of my models. Sea Fox is a merchant clan focused on business (theres the reason they might have 'Mechs and variants outside of the "norm") and they supposedly absorbed a lot of ComStars equipment after they were defeated. Now that I am exploring the lore further, I have diversified my paint jobs and feeling comfortable just doing whatever I want.
You can take whatever mech you want, sometime in the history, that mech was salvaged by someone. Very likely anyway if it is an older model. For an example, look up the BattleTech collection novel, LEGACY. It follows the life of a Grasshopper, or perhaps one part of it, from 2779-3090, where it is shown to be in use for and against every Great House, a few mercenary units, and a couple of lone wolf mechwarriors, until its end at the end of the Jihad where its parts went the 'swords to plows' route. Great novel and I got invested in many of the stories. And the Grasshopper is a rare mech, only a couple of hundred were made before the factory was destroyed and production of new ones began in the later half of the 31st century. There is a reason it was refered to as a 'zombie mech'.
I started Battletech with a ton of trying to research 3025 for a faction and be all determined to stay in-character, but I came from other game systems where that was just the thing to do. I ended up giving up because the lance packs were tricky to get right without too much bending, and I finally caved and said “these guys are just so damn irregular I guess they are more a privateer than actual military force”. I don’t have so many clan mechs, so the clanners are all a bit more accurate to Ghost Bear, but even then I picked that because I could mix them with my IS mechs and say “rasalhague dominion” in the later eras
A Clan and the Draconis Combine. I see you have chosen the side of evil and darkness. May the Suns of the Federation shine on you and bring you enlightenment (or the glorious death in battle you "honor" obsessed megalomaniacs seem to like so much).
I went with Liao, because I really love the Catapult C1. Lore wise, I suffer. But they have access to a lot of weird stuff no one else would use because their manufacturing sucks. And i like that. Also the Vindicator vindicates
Something I always point out, a company or trinary can be a complete army. You don’t need 50,000 bv force, you’re never going to put them all out. You’re not locking yourself into a multi-year project, like some games.
Another reason to pick a faction is the Field Manuals. For the wargamers out there that's probably the closest to a codex you'll get in Battletech. Force Manuals will also be another product similar to this that come out soon. They provide history about a regiment/galaxy, an overall on some tactics, and the color schemes you see described on the camospecs site. It also has optional rule bonuses for that unit if your table likes to play with them, there's also downsides to some units as well. See them as the flavoring to make that unit play out just a little bit more differently. Each Field Manual listing out a year update some units with new abilities to play with for that moment in time. Its always a fun extra avenue of play if the group enjoys it; something to look into when picking a unit.
There is a recent ilClan-era novel that prominently features the Hell's Horses: BattleTech: Elements of Treason: Honor I highly recommend it...finished it a couple weeks ago and now I have two stars of HH Mechs in process of being painted. Much of the newer BT fiction is pretty good (imo) and a lot of the newer ilClan-era stories all kind of tie together in some way, and the Sourcebooks are another good resource with "fluff" and fiction in them and many of the novel expand on events in the sourcebooks.
As a Battletech fan who also chose a obscure faction to stan (Marian Hegemony in my case) I understand your approach and how that can get you more into the setting that can color your approach to other factions and their lore.
My favorite mechs: * Jenner. Very aggressive mech. * Trebuchet: May not be quite tough, but can hurt even a clanner badly if it hits. * Stalker: Lots of firepower if you do not mind frying the pilot. Can snipe an Atlas. It is a great escort for an Atlas. * Hunchback: It killed a Dragon in a second turn with its autocannon. Ammo explosion. What a punch. * Catapult: Fast, well armed. LRMs hit hard. Great balance. * Warhawk: Any newbie's best mech. Effortlessly snipes enemies with a punch. * King Crab. Great for ambushes, point blank 8 solid turns of deadly autocannons on an enemy. and then it needs assistance to retreat. What a punch!! * Mad Dog. Lots of space for weapons. It heats but gets the job done at a good pace. * Madcat: It is like a Mad Dog but does not heat. * Stormcrow. Pure energy punch.
A possible hang over from other tabletop games. The faction you choose becomes arbitrary when you move up into the higher scales where you use Combat Commands and the units become tokens over the maps and involving actual models could only give away what is essentially concealed information that remains hidden as a Blip on a radar until range brings the tokens within range and their type and size are revealed. If you really want combined arms play to its maximum, I sincerely do recommend Interstellar Operations: Battleforce and pick up a few packs of beer and keep those bottle caps. They work perfectly as tokens representative for the units and the Commands over the Battalion command layout. There is a Battleforce Counters Pack and the maps there can be very useful. Whatever scale you play on, I hope you enjoy the experience. The models and painting are amazing.
I didn't know the Hell's Horses had just a sleek futuristic paintjob for beta galaxy. The Doom Ponies might get a bitt psyccho at times, but they know STYLE! Also, if you really want to get into Hell's Horses, keep an eye out for Thunder Stalllion, Doom Courser, and Balius. Totem Quad Mechs that work reasonably well for what they are and unleash a mighty Whinny of Woe upon their enemies to say you are Hell's Horses, and your enemies shall fall under hoof.
@@bthsr7113 yep, it looks like they’re planning a Hell’s Horses box with a Doom Courser. Might pick up the other horse mechs along the way too. And yep, most of the Horses are black and red or something else and I didn’t want to do mostly black again seeing as I have my black and gold mercs too.
I'm an Inner Sphere guy at heart, but when I got my hands on some Clan Mechs, I started looking around. I ended up with the Ghost Bears and fell into a deeeeeep rabbit hole researching their typical Mechs ^^ Luckily, their machines were some of my personal favourites (things like the Kodiak, Mad Dog and the Executioner), so that coupled with the interesting lore made for a great combination. Of course, since then I have begun to do the same for any faction I am interested in playing, so I've started to separate my collection into different boxes to become different forces, mainly based on the lore. Which also lead tome buying more Mechs. So... there's a bit of a risk right there ^^
I'm also a big DCMS fan. And it's fun to put together thematically coherent units and figuring out how they work. My first showing with a Kurita unit loaded up with C3 was... not great. But there were some standout moments.
I love the fact that you assemble and paint at the company level... I've been doing that myself. It's so neat to have so many different forces with different appearances, but the rules in the game are the same.
I'm still new to Battletech and haven't found a community I can play with regularly, but this video was helpful in giving me a snese of direction. I like the idea of having multiple forces for different eras, as someone mentioned, so my current plan is to have a main force with all of my favorites, a clan galaxy for my clan mechs, and then an extra with the leftovers for variety and loaning to friends. I'm open to any advice and tips yall have for me, and I'm excited to finally get into the real depth of the game
To me Jenner is a light mech that works like a medium mech. Very aggressive and well equipped. Indeed I consider an Atlas to be a fat Jenner with no jets. To kill an Atlas, snipe with a Stalker. Stalker is my fav as long as you are willing to fry the pilot.
"Why pick draconis or capellan? " Well Jan, this is a war game and these guys are ahead in points. "But those were war crimes." I fail to see your point.
Horse's are cool, if you like the Clans. But choosing an Inner Sphere faction is the best choice. While im no fan of House Kurita, the really do have some of the coolest mechs! My Factions are Comstar and im juuuuussssttt starting a Clan force. Haven't settled on one yet though i like Hell's Horses, Snow Raven, Ghost Bears (won't be the Bears though as that's my son's faction), and maybe Ice Hellions. Probably settle on Hell's Horses though gh, as combined arms are my play style. Plus the red and yellow and mohawks are effing cool! The Ballius is ugly AF thoygh so ill skip that haha😂
And if you are the Official Liaison for the 🎶 Amazonian Space Pirates 🎶... ... you can use the Plethora of available history on *Sarna* to create several centuries of backstory for your "independent military group" , justifying their general equipment and available tech. (The SnakeShip Files are available upon request. The ASP are a "what if" the SLDF that stayed behind didn't join up with that loser Blake and remained in the Periphery Army region they started in) And yes a Variant of the SA-7 was modified to the Sleek Brick-like Styling of the Keelback (didn't sell particularly well, and being space Only is rarely seen by most). Have Fun&Post Dangerous 'The most Almost ship in the Galaxy '
@@draken68 that’s a Hussar (TRO 2750). Very speedy light mech with paper armor and one (1) large laser. The miniature is by Strato Minis, not the official (old) one.
@@stillcantbesilencedevennow they certainly are, Elementals/Battle Armor can be absolutely murderous when used right. Currently working on some Gnome Battle Armor for my Horses.
are we the same person?? DCMS is my favorite IS faction because i love PPCs, the jenner, and don't care for medium mechs much, and if i had to pick a clan, Hell's horses is my choice because combined arms is my JAM
@@boateye my long-lost brother! Our difference is probably the fact that I do in fact love medium mechs, but it’ll be interesting to make lists mostly without. I painted up and have been using a Wyvern in my Kurita lances lately, though.
Games are more interesting when narrative is added. My experience is that RPG elements add high stakes and beloved characters. Try Mechwarrior Destiny.
It's good you're not squeemish, I could see someone choosing DC on a whim and then being horrified by the copious amounts of warcrimes. I am new to the hobby have also chosen House Kurita. I am still trying to figure out which Clan I like.
@@synisterintent it’s impossible to start getting into BattleTech and NOT stumble upon DCMS warcrimes. Much like the IS houses, the Clans are all pretty terrible people. You just need to pick which flavor of terrible you want to do lol
@almostgoodvariant I've decided that I'll be going Clan Novacat. I'll paInt my Kurita units in the classic red, and use a red camouflage for my Novacat units. That way they're similar enough that I can mix them up and it won't be jarring, but distinct enough to pit against each other. Post extinction I can just play Kurita with the spoils of the Clan death in the form of their mechs.
@@almostgoodvariantIS factions, after centuries of nuking each other, have a deep cultural acceptance that all humans are fundamentally equal(ly easy to vaporize in atomic fire.) All clans, meanwhile, coddled each other for centuries and, like most people born to excessive privilege, have a delusional belief in supremacy & eugenics. While no one (aside from non-WOB ComStar & Magistry) are good in the setting, the clans really do take the cake as “absolutely the worst.”
@@blkjet117 they sure are, but these guys are camoflaged because I wanted to try painting camo with speed paints. I was inspired by the Amphigean Light Assault Group who always use the approppriate camo and shitty ”junkyard” colors if forced to use parade colors.
'buy whatver mechs you like' is sadly not as simple as it sounds, lack of availability of models has been battletechs biggest barrier to entry for a long time = (
Heres something i wish i knew before i started. Intro tech is awful and will make your games last forever. Start with clans and start in the newest era. If for no other reason than to keep your games under 6 hours.
@@readwatchlisten2863 I most certainly see your point but feel introtech is fine to teach the very basics of the game, because weapons and equipment are ”normal”, ie. don’t have exciting bonuses and modifiers like pulse lasers, Artemis IVs, LBX clusters or stuff like reflective armor do. I guess you could always try to find simpler variants from the later eras to increase firepower. And yeah, definitely always go with better pilots than 4/5 for those first games.
@almostgoodvariant i think the Mercenaries Box had some great easy to use, later era mechs and tech that would be perfect for a beginner. Intro tech is just too awful to start new players on. I almost quit. The experience was so bad. If you have to use IS intro tech mechs, set all the gunnery skills to 2, and increase the damage to all weapons by 30%.
Depends on the era for me. Early IS tend to go for Federated Suns switching into the Taurian Concordat or Draconis Combine for the 3050's/3080's. As for clans I'm a dedicated Clan Snow Raven player sticking with them from the start to the dark age transformation into the Raven Alliance. It's really just nice having so many options and you can still mix and match to suit your wants whatever you pick!
The standard answer if anyone asks why you have some "odd" mechs in your force is "We stole it"
@@peigeot9906 yeah, I had a bit about explaining stuff with a simple ”we bought/stole/found it” in the video but felt it was unnecessary
Yup! Salvage is always an option too! That's one of the wonderful things about BattleTech, is there's an excuse to be able to play with all of the toys, even when sticking to a somewhat narrative friendly force.
Legitimate. Salvage.
looted after honorful battle!
"soo, why is that Ares in your lance?"
oh well, we found it of course.
I've been playing Battletech for 30 years. My experience is that it is only new players that care if your list is lore accurate. Old school players know lore accurate is whatever the current novel says it is.
This new(-ish) player has found that they were very careful to include at least one major fight to explain how any specific piece of technology (or several at once) could have been salvaged into the inventory of any other given faction by 3025.
Just say Castle Brian and wave your hand.
FWL for the Awesomes, Capellans for the mustache twirl, Comstar for the customer service, Ghost Bear for Invasion, and back to Capellans and Scorpions for late timeline.
@@energyfitness5116 I certainly want to make a Comstar or rather WoB company at one point or the other!
@@almostgoodvariant "Our records indicate this system has a past due balance. Our Customer Service Team is in orbit to help expedite payment for your HPG services. ComStar Dropships are en route to your Capitol City. ComStar values your customer loyalty."
In Battletech the age you choose is more important than the faction you choose when it comes to available mechs. In the end the great thing is the only true limit is what you and your buddies agree on. Random free for all, just grab your favs and blast away, strict lore and recreate the battle of Tukayyid, they have a book and map set to do that lore accurate mostly as rngesus is always the chaos factor on who wins this time. Love that flexibility and simplicity of Battletech, you basically choose how complex you want it to be in the end. Lastly the absolute best part of Battletech.....no meta chasing.
I called it in my head before you said it. I thought Hell's Horses was your jam. The combined arms doctrine is also a thing that draws people in.
40 years of playing this game and the golden rule has always been...
"everything is always available to everyone" (as long as the items were made prior to the era you are playing)
there are no faction specific rules. however, pilot quirks and piloting skills as well as the role-playing games, can define your characters.
my force is the Army of the Northwind Highlanders. it consists of 5 Corp.
1 space fleet Corp
3 primary combat Corp
1 training and support Corp
if you are interested in the overall size - it's 139 battalions of combined arms, plus space naval assets.
as far as painting, I use generic camo scheme for all my mini's. and I don't add any kind of faction/unit insignia. these keeps my entire collection always available.
I only play classic/campaigns and occasional one-shot games. by playing narrative series, you get some of the better aspects of damaged units, repairs, salvage and unit management. a very different way to play than always starting with brand new mechs, fighting to destruction, without consequences. it's always interesting when opposition either surrenders or withdraws. or allows your surviving forces to withdraw. we've even had characters captured and ransomed.
playing competitive tournament style is good, but you are missing 3/4 of the games potential.
I'm new to the hobby and I've been slowly adding more and more of the "extra" stuff, but where do you find pilot quirks? I've only just started using mech quirks since I've had to teach friends who are also interested, but I can't find pilot quirks in anything I own
@@alexanderthegreat6682should be in the total war book
@alexanderthegreat6682
while the Role-playing games;
Mechwarrior 2nd ed
Mechwarrior 3rd ed
have skills and advantages/disadvantages
Mechwarrior - A time of war
has traits and skills
Mechwarrior - Destiny
has skills and positive/negative traits
Alpha Strike - commanders edition
has special abilities, optional special abilities and command special abilities.
there are also abilities and quirks listed on the pilot cards.
various older Fasa source books also list training benefits from various training academies and for some units due to battle history.
Ah yea, Heck Ponies unite!
I also chose them specifically for protomechs and vehicles.
@@daltonmccormick5221 dude I’ve been obsessed with ProtoMechs recently, honestly. Such a weird bit of lore and a genuinely unique addition to the tabletop in both BattleTech and Alpha Strike. I’ve only had the change to play with Orcs thus far but I’m definitely getting at least Minotaurs and maybe a maximum of one (1) Svartalfa.
@@almostgoodvariant I've got a point of minotaurs and centaurs. I think Protos are a very interesting design space I hope they expand on. The hardest part for me has been finding models I actually like the look of.
@@daltonmccormick5221 I hope that too but it seems like they’re pretty niche and a lot of people don’t care for them, partly due to the odd artstyle. I found the official Proto minis very offputting when I first saw them online but I’ve grown to appreciate several of them (Orc, Minotaur, Gorgon, Chrysaor, Procyon Quad…) I think it seems like a question of how they’re painted, the ”animal-like” paint schemes I’ve seen online do NOT work for them at all in my opinion. My Orcs are certainly not my best work ever but they turned out pretty good.
Randall Bills’s list of possible upcoming releases did include a Protomech set so maybe there’s some hope for Protos yet, and I’m sure the redesigns have the potential to be awesome.
Ahhhh. Nothing cements my choice of the Free World's League better than seeing you scroll down the list at 5:31 and just seeing FWL, FWL (Andurien), FWL (Tamarind), FWL (Marik), FWL (Non Aligned) etc etc. XD
In Marik we trust. Also using Clan Protectorate as my Clan force so allying them doesn't seem odd.
Purple Bird Stronk
You can paint nothing but FWL units and always have two opposing sides for a fight 😂
I made my own minor Periphery faction as my "main" inner sphere, because i wanted the freedom of a mercenary group, but the backing of an actual state.
I also picked clan Ghost Bear, because i like that they actually maintain families, and i like Rasalhague
Tell me I don't want to learn an .mul without telling me
@@pieresteinbach what is a .mul
@@pieresteinbach What is a .mul?
That's what I'm planning to do as well, though maybe with the background of being a former Fedsun territory for the extra flavor
Ah, a Horse man! A rare pick.
Faction/Era lists is a thing you do only to *add* fun to the game. If it's appealing.
I do it because...
A) It's less overwhelming. I'm learning the game and would like to narrow down my choices a bit by sticking to shorter lists.
B) I'm curious about how each faction "feels" and like to see the lore from that angle. If I pit faction X against Y, I want to see different mechs and different styles. And see what it says about that faction and how it relates to the lore.
The K2 Kurita Catapult is different from the C4 Capellan Catapult, that's fun for me.
C) I like building an force grounded in the lore. A jade falcon star from this era. A Free Words League Mercenary lance from that era. I like the feel of that.
"only do it to add fun"
I mean yea friend
I wanted my custom Merc company to have access to some of the rare mechs during the 3050s and 60s. So my rationalization for them having a King Crab, Black Knight, Mongooses (geeses?), etc. Is they were originally Comstar Black Ops who were deployed to Tukayyid. Disillusioned for being used as literal meatshields in the battle and growing concerned by the growing religious fanaticism they agree to deploy after Tukayyid under the guise of Mercs. Comstar is their true employer until Word of Blake emerges and they refuse to serve for them. Instead they align with the rest of the inner sphere and fight against their former brothers and sisters.
I, too, came to settle on Clan Hell's Horses as a main faction. I guess it's a good thing I grew up in the muscle car era and painting flames is second nature.
Well met, Trothkin.
Picking Clan Snow Raven rapidly bootstrapped my painting productivity. Clear force construction, a painting plan. It finally gave me clear bounds within which to focus on improving painting with certain colors and techniques. Locating your chosen faction in the gears of the overarching story really connected with me too.
I'm only halfway through but I feel vindicated by this video. When I first got started (fairly new player, been around BT for ~2 years but finding games is hard), I was looking for factions to latch on to, and after researching histories and ideologies, and for IS, I really liked Rasalhague. People online told me I was stupid for liking a faction that got killed in 10 years (they didn't) and that my taste sucks. So I picked a "real faction" as my IS faction and went with the Draconis Combine. For the Clan side, I don't like Clans as a whole, but I went with Clan Hell's Horses, because I like their combined-arms mentality and that they are (slightly) better people to their own than most of the other Clans. People online told me I was stupid for liking a Clan that was always beaten by the other Clans and that my taste sucks. So I picked a "real Clan" as my Clan faction and went with Clan Ghost Bear. I hate how there are Correct Opinions (trademark) and Incorrect Opinions (trademark) in BattleTech.
@@WayoftheFerret I’m sorry you had such a bad experience! I’ve barely seen any such attitudes in the BattleTech scene thus far, sure there are always the odd weirdly persistently MAD ABOUT STUFF people online but they are definitely a minority. People generally seem really chill about whatever you like to do in BattleTech - as long as we’re all into stompy robots punching other stompy robots, who really cares. Or that’s how a lot of people seem to see it anyway. Where did people tell you your tastes suck?
I've been in the hobby for a little over 2 years now. I collect and play predominantly Word of Blake, I've got a full Level III Shadow Division (40th to be specific) 2 Level IIs of Word fo Blake Militia, a Word of Blake Flotilla for warship/space combat/Aerotech. Then I also have a Level III of Tukayyid Comguard, not to mention a Trinary of Clan Nova Cat, a Binary of Clan Coyote and Burrock, and lastly a star of Clan Blood Spirit and Snow Raven. I plan on collecting a Terran Hegemony Lance of pre Star League mechs as well as a Rim Worlds Republic lance.
Battletech is a great setting that allows a lot of flexibility in many ways that some may consider "short sighted" or just generally limiting, however some limits aren't always a bad thing.
I love this video. When i first picked up BattleTech a few years ago, I had the hardest time finding the motivation to paint my 'Mechs and build lists. Much later, I finally settled on Clan Sea Fox as a clan faction and ComStar as an IS faction so I would have a fairly acceptable in-universe reason to mix and match most of my models. Sea Fox is a merchant clan focused on business (theres the reason they might have 'Mechs and variants outside of the "norm") and they supposedly absorbed a lot of ComStars equipment after they were defeated.
Now that I am exploring the lore further, I have diversified my paint jobs and feeling comfortable just doing whatever I want.
You can take whatever mech you want, sometime in the history, that mech was salvaged by someone. Very likely anyway if it is an older model. For an example, look up the BattleTech collection novel, LEGACY. It follows the life of a Grasshopper, or perhaps one part of it, from 2779-3090, where it is shown to be in use for and against every Great House, a few mercenary units, and a couple of lone wolf mechwarriors, until its end at the end of the Jihad where its parts went the 'swords to plows' route. Great novel and I got invested in many of the stories. And the Grasshopper is a rare mech, only a couple of hundred were made before the factory was destroyed and production of new ones began in the later half of the 31st century. There is a reason it was refered to as a 'zombie mech'.
I started Battletech with a ton of trying to research 3025 for a faction and be all determined to stay in-character, but I came from other game systems where that was just the thing to do.
I ended up giving up because the lance packs were tricky to get right without too much bending, and I finally caved and said “these guys are just so damn irregular I guess they are more a privateer than actual military force”.
I don’t have so many clan mechs, so the clanners are all a bit more accurate to Ghost Bear, but even then I picked that because I could mix them with my IS mechs and say “rasalhague dominion” in the later eras
In part, that is why I play Wolf's Dragoons.
A Clan and the Draconis Combine. I see you have chosen the side of evil and darkness. May the Suns of the Federation shine on you and bring you enlightenment (or the glorious death in battle you "honor" obsessed megalomaniacs seem to like so much).
I went with Liao, because I really love the Catapult C1. Lore wise, I suffer. But they have access to a lot of weird stuff no one else would use because their manufacturing sucks. And i like that.
Also the Vindicator vindicates
Something I always point out, a company or trinary can be a complete army. You don’t need 50,000 bv force, you’re never going to put them all out. You’re not locking yourself into a multi-year project, like some games.
@@ThelemicPotter yep, that’s what I’m doing with my mechs!
Yeah,that's how I ended up with whole cluster.
Another reason to pick a faction is the Field Manuals. For the wargamers out there that's probably the closest to a codex you'll get in Battletech. Force Manuals will also be another product similar to this that come out soon.
They provide history about a regiment/galaxy, an overall on some tactics, and the color schemes you see described on the camospecs site.
It also has optional rule bonuses for that unit if your table likes to play with them, there's also downsides to some units as well. See them as the flavoring to make that unit play out just a little bit more differently.
Each Field Manual listing out a year update some units with new abilities to play with for that moment in time. Its always a fun extra avenue of play if the group enjoys it; something to look into when picking a unit.
There is a recent ilClan-era novel that prominently features the Hell's Horses: BattleTech: Elements of Treason: Honor
I highly recommend it...finished it a couple weeks ago and now I have two stars of HH Mechs in process of being painted. Much of the newer BT fiction is pretty good (imo) and a lot of the newer ilClan-era stories all kind of tie together in some way, and the Sourcebooks are another good resource with "fluff" and fiction in them and many of the novel expand on events in the sourcebooks.
@@christopherdilloway4836 thanks! That’s a book I’ll certainly need to grab, then.
As a Battletech fan who also chose a obscure faction to stan (Marian Hegemony in my case) I understand your approach and how that can get you more into the setting that can color your approach to other factions and their lore.
My favorite mechs:
* Jenner. Very aggressive mech.
* Trebuchet: May not be quite tough, but can hurt even a clanner badly if it hits.
* Stalker: Lots of firepower if you do not mind frying the pilot. Can snipe an Atlas. It is a great escort for an Atlas.
* Hunchback: It killed a Dragon in a second turn with its autocannon. Ammo explosion. What a punch.
* Catapult: Fast, well armed. LRMs hit hard. Great balance.
* Warhawk: Any newbie's best mech. Effortlessly snipes enemies with a punch.
* King Crab. Great for ambushes, point blank 8 solid turns of deadly autocannons on an enemy. and then it needs assistance to retreat. What a punch!!
* Mad Dog. Lots of space for weapons. It heats but gets the job done at a good pace.
* Madcat: It is like a Mad Dog but does not heat.
* Stormcrow. Pure energy punch.
A possible hang over from other tabletop games. The faction you choose becomes arbitrary when you move up into the higher scales where you use Combat Commands and the units become tokens over the maps and involving actual models could only give away what is essentially concealed information that remains hidden as a Blip on a radar until range brings the tokens within range and their type and size are revealed.
If you really want combined arms play to its maximum, I sincerely do recommend Interstellar Operations: Battleforce and pick up a few packs of beer and keep those bottle caps. They work perfectly as tokens representative for the units and the Commands over the Battalion command layout. There is a Battleforce Counters Pack and the maps there can be very useful.
Whatever scale you play on, I hope you enjoy the experience. The models and painting are amazing.
I didn't know the Hell's Horses had just a sleek futuristic paintjob for beta galaxy. The Doom Ponies might get a bitt psyccho at times, but they know STYLE! Also, if you really want to get into Hell's Horses, keep an eye out for Thunder Stalllion, Doom Courser, and Balius. Totem Quad Mechs that work reasonably well for what they are and unleash a mighty Whinny of Woe upon their enemies to say you are Hell's Horses, and your enemies shall fall under hoof.
@@bthsr7113 yep, it looks like they’re planning a Hell’s Horses box with a Doom Courser. Might pick up the other horse mechs along the way too. And yep, most of the Horses are black and red or something else and I didn’t want to do mostly black again seeing as I have my black and gold mercs too.
Factions can surely spice up your game, even more so if you are into more Narrative gameplay.
@@onerosarmakat4456 for sure, definitely something I could and should have mentioned!
I'm an Inner Sphere guy at heart, but when I got my hands on some Clan Mechs, I started looking around. I ended up with the Ghost Bears and fell into a deeeeeep rabbit hole researching their typical Mechs ^^ Luckily, their machines were some of my personal favourites (things like the Kodiak, Mad Dog and the Executioner), so that coupled with the interesting lore made for a great combination.
Of course, since then I have begun to do the same for any faction I am interested in playing, so I've started to separate my collection into different boxes to become different forces, mainly based on the lore. Which also lead tome buying more Mechs. So... there's a bit of a risk right there ^^
I'm also a big DCMS fan. And it's fun to put together thematically coherent units and figuring out how they work. My first showing with a Kurita unit loaded up with C3 was... not great. But there were some standout moments.
I love the fact that you assemble and paint at the company level... I've been doing that myself. It's so neat to have so many different forces with different appearances, but the rules in the game are the same.
and trinary for clans... when you do comstar... I'd assume a level III... that's a lotta units
I personally paint at the Battalion level but I'm kind of odd like that.
I do agree with this. I did spend time creating and painting a lore friendly lance. Best of both worlds.
2:50 I don't recognize all of these, but enough. A VERY formidable non-mech ground force.
Bro! The first force that I committed to painting was for Kurita for the same reason. I just really enjoy the Jenner and Panther mechs.
Very impressive Colourschemes! ...And also the modells of Marauder and Behemoth - I like!
@@martinoppermann9868 thanks!
@@almostgoodvariant
I'm inspired now - how to colour my Regiment of the German Order will be painted.
There are some nice painted mechs in this video. Well done.
I'm still new to Battletech and haven't found a community I can play with regularly, but this video was helpful in giving me a snese of direction.
I like the idea of having multiple forces for different eras, as someone mentioned, so my current plan is to have a main force with all of my favorites, a clan galaxy for my clan mechs, and then an extra with the leftovers for variety and loaning to friends.
I'm open to any advice and tips yall have for me, and I'm excited to finally get into the real depth of the game
I also have a Drac force as an excuse to field Jenners and Panthers
@@ObiwanNekody my long-lost brother!
The easiest thing I've found is too either build a lance per faction or go neutral colors like an Olive drab and those can fit into any lance
To me Jenner is a light mech that works like a medium mech. Very aggressive and well equipped. Indeed I consider an Atlas to be a fat Jenner with no jets. To kill an Atlas, snipe with a Stalker. Stalker is my fav as long as you are willing to fry the pilot.
A merc , a Inner Sphere house and a Clan . Or two or three 😂 . Kell Hounds , Steiner, Kurita , Ghost Bear Dominion
"Factions don't matter."
*Picks Capellan*
"Wait, not like that."
@@defnlife1683 lmao
"Why pick draconis or capellan? "
Well Jan, this is a war game and these guys are ahead in points.
"But those were war crimes."
I fail to see your point.
Salvage is a thing...
Horse's are cool, if you like the Clans. But choosing an Inner Sphere faction is the best choice. While im no fan of House Kurita, the really do have some of the coolest mechs!
My Factions are Comstar and im juuuuussssttt starting a Clan force. Haven't settled on one yet though i like Hell's Horses, Snow Raven, Ghost Bears (won't be the Bears though as that's my son's faction), and maybe Ice Hellions.
Probably settle on Hell's Horses though gh, as combined arms are my play style. Plus the red and yellow and mohawks are effing cool! The Ballius is ugly AF thoygh so ill skip that haha😂
If you love Panther and Jenner, you should play Mechwarrior 2 Mercenaries.
"Play the old Mechwarrior games!"
Reddit has that thread.
Mech can be captured, salvaged, stolen... And since mechs are not brand new, they may have a story. So any mech may end up in the hands of anyone.
And if you are the Official Liaison for the 🎶 Amazonian Space Pirates 🎶...
... you can use the Plethora of available history on *Sarna* to create several centuries of backstory for your "independent military group" , justifying their general equipment and available tech.
(The SnakeShip Files are available upon request. The ASP are a "what if" the SLDF that stayed behind didn't join up with that loser Blake and remained in the Periphery Army region they started in)
And yes a Variant of the SA-7 was modified to the Sleek Brick-like Styling of the Keelback (didn't sell particularly well, and being space Only is rarely seen by most).
Have Fun&Post Dangerous
'The most Almost ship in the Galaxy '
@2:10 to the right of the Raven what mech is that. I stopped playing around fedcom civil war was new.
@@draken68 that’s a Hussar (TRO 2750). Very speedy light mech with paper armor and one (1) large laser. The miniature is by Strato Minis, not the official (old) one.
Factions are only important for your color scheme. What you field is what you wanna field.
How did you get that mech? Salvage!
I appreciate working within restrictions, having free rein can be overwhelming.
Are Elementals a viable battlefield asset? I'd like to also have EVERY kind of "troop" available.
@@stillcantbesilencedevennow they certainly are, Elementals/Battle Armor can be absolutely murderous when used right. Currently working on some Gnome Battle Armor for my Horses.
are we the same person?? DCMS is my favorite IS faction because i love PPCs, the jenner, and don't care for medium mechs much, and if i had to pick a clan, Hell's horses is my choice because combined arms is my JAM
@@boateye my long-lost brother! Our difference is probably the fact that I do in fact love medium mechs, but it’ll be interesting to make lists mostly without. I painted up and have been using a Wyvern in my Kurita lances lately, though.
Games are more interesting when narrative is added. My experience is that RPG elements add high stakes and beloved characters. Try Mechwarrior Destiny.
Just ask yourself WWJD!
What would Jerome Blake do?
Go go clan Heck Pony!
It's good you're not squeemish, I could see someone choosing DC on a whim and then being horrified by the copious amounts of warcrimes.
I am new to the hobby have also chosen House Kurita. I am still trying to figure out which Clan I like.
@@synisterintent it’s impossible to start getting into BattleTech and NOT stumble upon DCMS warcrimes.
Much like the IS houses, the Clans are all pretty terrible people. You just need to pick which flavor of terrible you want to do lol
@almostgoodvariant I've decided that I'll be going Clan Novacat. I'll paInt my Kurita units in the classic red, and use a red camouflage for my Novacat units. That way they're similar enough that I can mix them up and it won't be jarring, but distinct enough to pit against each other. Post extinction I can just play Kurita with the spoils of the Clan death in the form of their mechs.
@@almostgoodvariantIS factions, after centuries of nuking each other, have a deep cultural acceptance that all humans are fundamentally equal(ly easy to vaporize in atomic fire.)
All clans, meanwhile, coddled each other for centuries and, like most people born to excessive privilege, have a delusional belief in supremacy & eugenics.
While no one (aside from non-WOB ComStar & Magistry) are good in the setting, the clans really do take the cake as “absolutely the worst.”
I thought House Kurita's colors were red and black?
@@blkjet117 they sure are, but these guys are camoflaged because I wanted to try painting camo with speed paints. I was inspired by the Amphigean Light Assault Group who always use the approppriate camo and shitty ”junkyard” colors if forced to use parade colors.
Play them all
'buy whatver mechs you like' is sadly not as simple as it sounds, lack of availability of models has been battletechs biggest barrier to entry for a long time = (
> You can choose light Lyran lance
No, you can't.
Heres something i wish i knew before i started. Intro tech is awful and will make your games last forever. Start with clans and start in the newest era. If for no other reason than to keep your games under 6 hours.
@@readwatchlisten2863 I most certainly see your point but feel introtech is fine to teach the very basics of the game, because weapons and equipment are ”normal”, ie. don’t have exciting bonuses and modifiers like pulse lasers, Artemis IVs, LBX clusters or stuff like reflective armor do. I guess you could always try to find simpler variants from the later eras to increase firepower. And yeah, definitely always go with better pilots than 4/5 for those first games.
@almostgoodvariant i think the Mercenaries Box had some great easy to use, later era mechs and tech that would be perfect for a beginner. Intro tech is just too awful to start new players on. I almost quit. The experience was so bad.
If you have to use IS intro tech mechs, set all the gunnery skills to 2, and increase the damage to all weapons by 30%.
Depends on the era for me. Early IS tend to go for Federated Suns switching into the Taurian Concordat or Draconis Combine for the 3050's/3080's. As for clans I'm a dedicated Clan Snow Raven player sticking with them from the start to the dark age transformation into the Raven Alliance.
It's really just nice having so many options and you can still mix and match to suit your wants whatever you pick!