Battletech Tactics: Infantry Vs. Mechs
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For field guns, note that field guns don't jam. Most of the worst guns in the game are so bad because they jam so they're worth a second look with infantry.
Does that mean you can use ultra Auto cannons as field guns??
@@mr.gunzaku437 wondering that too!!!
Yes, rotary and ultra versions can be taken as field guns and will not suffer jams.
Total Warfare buffed infantry way up from the old days, especially in terms of damage taken (significantly reduced damage from big guns) and how they deal damage (changed to a SRM style spread instead of 5 point LRM clusters).
The best anti-infantry counters are now artillery, inferno Arrow IV/bombs (you don't need to kill the infantry, you can set the hex on fire for the rest of the game), Inferno SRMs, battle armor armed with Flamers/MGs, then short ranged flamers, MGs and even oddity ammo that I have never seen people use like Flechette AC Ammo or Fragmentation missiles.
Also infantry swarm attacks are subpar in the rules, even doing them as battle armor isn't really worth it since you waste one turn getting on and a jump capable mech can quickly throw you off. If your unit have the Anti-Mech skill, a Leg Attack is much better.
Lastly some clarification on infantry VTOL unloading: Rappelling/zipline unload without Jump Infantry or jump battle armor is not standard Total Warfare rules, it's optional Tactical Ops Zip Line rules. Under standard rules, only jump capable infantry or battle armor can do dismount from a VTOL in flight. Even so, you can only unload ONE infantry unit into a hex per turn and only if that hex does not already have an infantry unit as it will otherwise violate stacking rules. Both are on pg 225 Total Warfare.
the hero we need
If you manage to land a killing blow on a 'Mech with your poor bloody infantry, you've a story to tell for generations ;)
Fluff aside, tanks, infantry, aerospace, vtols and whatnot brings a great deal of variation to the gaming table, thus making the game more interesting and adds additional eye candy.
Even if you are like me and do not overemphasize unit effectiveness when it comes to tabletop gaming, infantry can be just that given the right circumstances as mentioned in the video above.
If you play scenarios, for example where victory is determined by controlling parts of the tabletop, infantry can really shine. Any turn a 1500 BV 'Mech wastes trying to dislodge your 20 BV dug-in infantry squad from a tile of heavy woods in order to stop it from contesting a quadrant, is good news for you.
On a side note: if you implement other units aside from bread and butter 'mechs to your BT game, it also adds a great chunk of rules, tables and stuff. So just don't overburden your game and keep your game fluent so that it keeps being an enjoyment for all participants.
Hey Fritz, my friend and I just started getting into Battletech and I discovered your channel. Just wanted to say I love the content! Thanks for all your vids!
Awesome! Welcome to the game!
Pro trick : watch series on Flixzone. Been using it for watching lots of of movies during the lockdown.
@Nikolai Sawyer Yup, have been using flixzone for months myself =)
@Nikolai Sawyer Yup, have been watching on Flixzone for since november myself :D
When all you have is a bayonet and some guts behind it.
Ironically I had a pilot eject from a mech once with his smg and go on as a solo infantryman to take out enemy mechs bc they ignored him to focus on the rest of my Company. When he was scoring lucky repeated headshots on enemy mechs.
I also tend to use infantry and battle armour to capture enemy pilots once they eject.
GHQ Miniatures provides a great selection of ultra modern infantry transports and mobile gun systems as well as infantry that work perfect in Battletech.
janson327 I tried looking through their site and can’t find any of that stuff.
@@brunneng38 You're going to want to look at their 1:285 / 6mm micro armor. This is their models ment for WW2, Cold War &, Ultramodern.
I have a Commando battlegroup 'detachment' (depending on total BV) that is composed of 25% in infantry and transports, 30% to a predominantly light-medium mechs (but always an A1 'pult in addition as dedicated FS), and a lot more in armoured company of PPC and missile carriers.
Infantry, by point value, can also be used as cannon fodder.
I mean if you occupy a decent vantage point one round and you can hammer an enemy mech at range ... if the enemy can't get to your ranged assets, and neither can seek shelter without dealing with that forward observer infantry base ... then it just works out.
If you can get one fodder infantry to simply chew up some time of an enemy mech, then you've already cost that enemy in terms of total efficiency more points than the infantry base's BV cost.
I've seen some players try to shore up infantry towards the rear, and infantry should always be shored up and *towards* the front.
Particularly in heavy wooded/urban terrain.
Sure, a lot of them will die ... but when they only cost a handful of points and it still takes time and energy (and facing) for a mech to satisfactorily wipe them out ... then even as simply a time wasting hassle you can't simply afford to ignore, they're worth it.
I will say infantry 'lose out' on smaller battlefields.
To make the best use of them you should have a highly vertical map (buildings, etc) with a lot of additional 'battlespace' ... or have a very large surface space of the battle with some appropriate clubs of cover and hill ranges. Adding into that some good fire support thrown in for good measure.
Also, go squad rather than platoon in very large theatres with low BV total value matches ... unless you're fielding a shitload of infantry and the battlespace isn't very large.
On smaller battlespaces, platoons with AC/2s.
The nice thing about having a hell of a lot of dice chucking each and every new round is that the more dice you chuck, the more 'normalized' your damage output gets. Sure you won't have incredible highs of total damage output, but a miss even with a mech's weapon isn't likely to matter as much, either. This makes it easier to 'strategize on the fly' and re-plan an offensive, and recover from past mistakes.
LZ Hot is basically auto win as a defender.
I used to play with about 50% fodder infantry and 50% light jumping mechs with ERSmall lasers and targeting systems... the infantry was distraction, nothing more.
@@jamestaylor3805 Distractions are useful, though.
I own literally regiments worth of Infantry. Both as tokens and as actual Infantry models. I've always found them amazingly useful. Whether dug in around a Catapult or Artillery placement. Or designated to advance forwards into the mid board.
Earned a sub just for the “Men are brave” rant 😂
(Affleck Batman rocked!)
Best Batman in my opinion.
Thank you for this video! I just got my copy of Total Warfare and am excited to start adding combined arms, especially infantry, into my games. This was a fantastic primer and nobody else is really covering this at your level. Definitely subscribing!
These videos are so amazingly useful for training in tactics. Thank you for making them
Thanks!
You need to do some battle reports.
I love the creative combined armed strategies you have introduced me to this episode! Cheers!
Sorry to bump the old video -- but do you have any new tactics for new BT players (40k refugees) who want to run combined arms?
8:31 - Actually, there's a Karnov variant that allows the use of an AC/20 that has two tons of ammunition, which is 10 shots. That's about half of what most Mechs carrying an AC/20 will have for ammo, but at least it's highly mobile, fast, and can provide some fire support for your other troops/transports for a little bit.
That's the great thing about Battletech, even more so than WH40K: the ability to play as you wish. Sure, I got interested by the huge hulking Mechs at first, but I honestly got quickly tired of it and wanted to know what tanks, soldiers and aircraft there were to play with. And I honestly find them more efficient and versatile than most Mechs. Of course, it requires you to think about tactics outside of "HULK SMASH!" and rolling in with your walking death machine in order to win.
matchesburn Where are the rules for using this stuff?
@@brunneng38
The variant's record sheet is listed in "Record Sheets: 3039 Unabridged".
matchesburn Thank you. I will try to find that.
Not to mention VTOLs don't typically lasts more than 10 rounds
Common Infantry and Battle Armour are my bread and butter in most of my unit builds with mechs as the supporting elements.
How does infantry defeat mechs? How do they beat tanks irl? IEDs, actual mines, rockets, and other explosives.
"We got tactical smart missiles, phased plasma pulse rifles, RPGs, we got sonic electronic ball breakers! We got nukes, we got knives, sharp sticks..." :v
@@CaptainSeato Ok Discount Dan.
Or pull a Decision at Thunder Rift and follow a light mech around in technicals just dumping .50 cal rounds in the windshield until the pilot gets spooked
@@colbyboucher6391 it does work.
All my mechs are refitted to carry an anti-infantry weapon. You can't be to careful
Manticores and Maxims...two best in their fields.
Manticores for taking on the front line duties, Maxims for fire support and dropping off infantry in building, forest, any cover really, so they can act like mines and harassers as the enemy moves about.
I really like the idea of combined arms, Tanks, Infantry, Mechs, Aircraft, maybe even Artillery, but I can't seem to find many models for them. Any ideas for where I can find them (Or a proxy for them)?
Death ray designs do some good infantry. You can also go old school with Iron Wind Metals or Ral Partha Europe.
Or truly traditional. Back in battletech 3rd edition they used card tokens with flags of the different Great Houses.
Aries games and minatures has some great choices and tons of othet stuff for battletech.
The answer is to look for 6mm models. With the new bigger minis the scale is slightly off but in BT it always is. I'm about to nab a bunch of stuff from Microworld Games
Infantry is so niche in BT, the amount of time it adds to a turn tends to make it just to frustrating
But sometimes it's fun to just mess with your opponent
That being said....PBI's are just too flammable and I find it's the easiest way to get rid of them....set the hex on fire and call it a day
Have you tried to use a spreadsheet to automate calculations?
@@josepablolunasanchez1283 ....calculations are the easy part.....all those moves is what takes so long....the phase length gets carried away with larger battles
You should, when possible, always have point defenders with your larger units, to deal with infantry and lighter vehicles. Found this out pretty fast back in the day, playing DUNE and C&C. Infantry would just ruin your tanks unless you had it escorted by Troops or light vehicle, usually having machine guns. While I never got into miniatures war gaming, the same principle seems to apply in a lot of war gaming.
Goblins and Prowlers are very very good when used like IFVs are supposed to be used. I've been using heavy infantry in Goblins since I started playing Alpha Strike. They are a definitive part of my FEDCOM formations
Agreed on the Goblins. Used them extensively in my old merc unit. (Based out of a Fortress, so one Mech company, one company of Goblins and one company of infantry riding in them.) Because I got very little upgraded variants other than field refits for my Mechs, I was even allowed to get nasty with 'em and contract out a custom Goblin variant:
FCE instead of ICE. The saved tonnage then went into upgunning the LL to a PPC, adding an SRM4 with a ton of ammo, CASE and upping the armor to 11 tons. Essentially a cheaper IFV-version of a Manticore. Real nasty little thing.
So i'm just getting into battletech and one of the books i picked up was the Battletech Handbook: Major Periphery States. There is a creature in it called the Hipposaur. It has a BODY attribute of 305. To find out how much damage a battlemech would deal to it (or rather find out how much damage it could take from a mech) would i adjust by a factor of 10? Meaning would it take about 30 damage to kill it from a battlemech?
The body attribute is from A Time of War battletech rpg system thing.
The book you're looking for is Strategic Operations, it has rules for beast-mounted infantry including infantry riding large creatures such as this. It's a really cool set of rules and I'm sad that they've probably never gotten used in an actual game because nobody ever wants to do anything except 4v4 skirmish.
Nice tips!
On other note; is there any "rule on thumb" for how many infantry minis per hex plate are assembled...?
No rule. How ever many on the stand represent the entire group.
I agree Ben Afleck is the best Batman, and more precisely, the best Bruce Wayne.
You were never a god. You were never even a man...
Love me some field guns... and also hover and jump Infantry
I had this idea and it might be interesting but what if you had some human government that was somewhere outside of the periphery that got independence before the collapse of the Terran Republic. These group is unique due to it's avoided the collapse and the dark age with the Republic's fall and due to their distance no they were never affected by the Star Liege or it's collapse or the Succession wars. Thus this grea in tech and industry only they lack alot in Mechs. when they take the stage their battle units is going to be mainly Vehicles air assets and Infentry but highly advanced. And Mech wise they have few of them but combat wise even clan mechs pale in comparison but due to how few they are they play a roll to support the more conventional units. The Infantry and everything takes the center stage and the Mech's roll is to support the Inventry and vehicles.
Have you tried playing a game like that where you have mechs that are superior to the other side but you have fewer but you have more and stronger vehicles and infantry. as well as air and artillery.
Great works. Keep it coming
One of the things that I think infantry really add to the game is that they are good "objective units" for scenarios, because they're slow and have weak offense but generally difficult to just delete with your "alpha strike" weapons. Plus it makes sense to have infantry be something that mechs etc have to 'escort' in a scenario so they can capture a building that needs to be taken intact.
17:50 where do you find the rules for dropping infantry from a Karnov (sp)?
loading or unloading troops costs 1mp of the transporting vehicle. this includes air dropped jump troops, paratroopers and power armored troops.
Flamers shot super heated plasma from their fusion engine. Nasty.
Attack on BATTLEMECH!
how do infantry record sheets work exactly? they have no weapons listed when i try and get them from megameklab so how will i know what damage, range, and ammo their weapons have?
Where do you find infantry and aerospace units for battletech? I’ve got vehicles covered by Etsy but GOD I can’t find infantry ANYWHERE.
Ironwind metal website, eBay.
I got mine from onslaught miniatures
RalParthaEuropr.
Any 6mm sci-fi minis can work.
I think you really missed an opportunity to specifically explain how machine guns and flamethrowers damage infantry
If you're swarming a mech with "100s of infantry" you're cheating. As you can only make 1 swarm attack against a single unit in a given turn, and the largest stand of infantry you can possibly have is 30.
Now yes you automatically hit, and yes you can hit the head on a 2 or 12, assuming you can hang on, but you have to spend a turn digging in doing no damage to potentially do a little less than twice your average damage the next turn, so basically less than your average DPT. And with a full platoon of non-antimech you're holding on with a 11, however if you lose a single squad now you're fucked as you have to hold on with a 13, ie impossible. Anti-mech make this slightly easier, with 8-9, but again you lose a single squad, and now you're hitting on 10-11. All the while you count as being in the open while doing this.
Additionally, 50% of attacks against a swarmed enemy can damage the swarming infantry meaning you can only safely engage the mech with the swarming infantry. So unless you have a single platoon of infantry behind enemy lines, basically a shit situation to begin with, a Swarm Attack is a waste of time as you can reliably do more damage on foot than on mech, and without suiciding a unit to slightly annoy a mech for a turn or two.
Exposed!
Meanwhile I'm over here like Haha elemental go punch.
What models did you use for your infantryman?
What game is this? I've yet to see Infantry in Battletech...
Battletech.
so, one thing I'm curious about... can you use larger infantry models to represent infantry if you find the really tiny models difficult to paint and such? like if I wanted to use some GW imperial guard, or Warcaster paladins to proxy for infantry units in Battletech?
I mean in practical term why not?
It just depend on the people who you fight do they accept using nol standard model or not
Its not like its gonna give you an advantage the model is just a representation
Hell theorically you could play BT or even other warhames with paper figures lmao
No one's gonna stop you.
I need someone to make ar battletech table game
Im sorry ben Affleck was a terrible batman, just awful. Anyway useful video thanks!