One thing seldom touched on is that as a merc company you can take a garrison contract and get paid in land, set up a permanent base of operations, and become a minor power unto yourself.
It's worth mentioning that most merc outfits don't survive that long, I believe I heard somewhere that 90% dissolve within a year of standing up. Mech repairs and pilot salaries can get expensive, after all, and getting paid in land and salvage doesn't exactly keep the lights on reliably.
Snord's Irregulars is also a splinter group from Wolf's Dragoons. Eridani Light Horse is another former Star League force - quite a lot of these (which doesn't totally fit in the former house category, as their house no longer exists)
My friend used to have a software program that speeded up calculations for mechwarrior upskilling, tactical skills, piloting, mech movement and facing, melee attack, death-from-above, gunnery, damage locations and severity, armor loss, critical hits, etc., such that it became easy for us to play and command lances, not just individual mechs. Eventually we could set up and command three lances (12 mechs) per player and play either 2-vs-2 or a three-sided battle over a cache of Star League lostech that produced excellent vintage beer! Unfortunately, a storm wrecked his computer and its hard drive so we lost his program and it couldn't be rebuilt. Oh well, the Beer Wars were fantastic and memorable, especially after we had designed our own lances of customized mechs!
I think my personal favorite Mercenary Group is Greenburg's Godzillas. I actually like the old Godzilla films and it makes my smile that there's a group of battle mechs stomping around with an approximation of Godzilla's likeness emblazoned upon them.
I'll always have a soft spot for the Gray Death Legion because my first exposure to Battletech was reading a copy of Decision at Thunder Rift (The first Gray Death Legion novel) that belonged to my dad's oldest friend.
Well ive placed the order to make a 8k classic Wolf Dragoons mercenary list thanks to this video...came at the perfect time as I was beginning to create a rough lance outline and then the idea for a fusion of Inner sphere and Clan Mechs as a lance was too good to ignore. EDIT: May have to expand to 10-12k depending on if I want an aerospace asset
That’s awesome! Note that the clans screwed up slightly in some of the mechs selected for the Wolfs Dragoon’s since they weren’t sure of what mechs existed in the inner sphere. I don’t think that part of the narrative shows up in the black widow source book or the mercenary handbook source book but that was sort of what was happening. People who saw some of the Wolfs dragoon’s mechs thought they must be very well funded to use exotic mechs or historical but extinct mechs.
Please make a video about book collections. I understand different books belong to different sets of rules, basically different games of Battletech. For example I am not clear about what is needed to play ISAW.
This sounds like a good idea. I’ll see if I can come up with something. I’m not very experienced with ISAW unfortunately but I can cover several of the other games. (Battlespace Aerotech Battleforce Battletroops Mechwarrior RPG)
I have always been split on the Kell Hounds or the Wolf's Dragoons largely based on the "Warrior Trilogy" and "Wolves on the Border" novels. After reading the Grey Death Legion series, stories of Archer's Avengers and Avanti's Angels, you really begin to understand the bottomless depths of lore buried in the Battletech universe.
The Kell Hounds and Gray Death Legion do it for me, the Wolfs Dragoons initially having an affiliation with Clan Wolf always bugged me since I’m a Jade Falcon fan…
some of thpictures on the back of the black widow merc group are from Robotech. also did they borrow from each cause I remember some of there destroid looked like warhammers?
The original Battledroids that are on the back of the Black Widow sourcebook are a mixture from Dougram, Macross (Robotech in the US), and Crusher Joe. Technically Battletech licensed the images because it didn’t have artists yet to draw its own mechs and was basically a tabletop game system for art from existing anime mechs. There was a technicality in that the US licensor (Harmony Gold) who subleased the Japanese art from Macross into the US didn’t have permission to sublease. A barrage of lawsuits followed, with Harmony Gold being the most litigious, probably to cover themselves since they probably did the original sin in the chain in the first place. A list of old mechs: Archer, Warhammer, Marauder, Rifleman, Longbow, Phoenix Hawk, Crusader, Wasp, Stinger are from Macross. Locust is from Crusher Joe. Shadow Hawk and Griffin are from Dougram. I have a few videos on this topic the best is the one on what models you can get in 1:72 or 28mm scale.
I'm sure you have played or are play MechWarrior 5 with the Mods and open career you can live the life of a merc in the game I love it Got to Play a Slipnier Cyclopes hero with clan tech with one of the mods and loved it.....lol have a good one
Started with Earthsiege und than playing MW on PC for like 25 years. Finally got me the boxes "a game of armored combat" and "clan invasion", but still no clue what group to choose. 😀 As a german, Steiner is very appealling from the great houses, but the paint scheme sucks. Wolfs Dragoons paint Scheme is quite nice and Natasha's a good Waifu, but is it possible to do make your own merc group?
Love the Waifu comment. Yes you can totally make your own merc group. There’s even a few generations of rule books on it but not sure if there’s a recent update. The original two generations of mercenaries handbooks have detailed rules to stay “compliant” with what other players might consider fair, but obviously you can stray as much as you like if other players are fine with it (likely would be unless they were a jerk)
@JamLpOtHeAd "Sonic Sloths" I am stealing that for my noc unit in a groups campaign. They started with 2 urbies a commando and a victor. Those urbies were tough as nails abd ended up going out in style creating a legit relationship with the Magistry of Canopus in our homebrew
Oh yes! There are suggested rules for making one up in the mercenaries handbooks Battletech is all about customization. Unless you are playing in a tournament, you can heavily mod the game including rules. House rules were common in the 80’s and 90’s and some even became accepted rules. (Like small/pulse lasers being good against infantry)
a typical campaign start includes the following: (depending on the number of players) each player has a Leopard class dropship. each player has 25 million c-bills to purchase ALL the assets. (crew, pilots/warriors, troops, vehicles, mechs, aero/vtol, ammo, spare parts etc) a typical starting location is Solaris VII. a known mercenary and gladiator arena. then you decide on contracts. they may be single mission, or a series of objectives. upon completion, your unit gets paid by the employer. then you make repairs, replace your dead troops, etc. this combines the Mechwarrior RPG with the table top battles. my campaign has been played continuously since 1991 (yes, 30 years).
What are your favorite parts? Mine would be that you can use LOSTECH mechs with Dragoons in the 3025 era and the vehicle combined arms with Grey Death…
@@miikkakangas6750 I love the Dragoons because of MechAssault being my first BattleTech introduction when I was 5 and the Mechs they brought with them when they came from Clan Space. And I love the story of the Grey Death Legion and the combined arms aspect... My favorite BattleTech game is MechWarrior Living Legends and that game is nothing but combined arms, and I still play it almost every day.
One thing seldom touched on is that as a merc company you can take a garrison contract and get paid in land, set up a permanent base of operations, and become a minor power unto yourself.
Kell Hounds anyone...
@@falkwulf3842 The GR8 Morgan Kell! 👍
It's worth mentioning that most merc outfits don't survive that long, I believe I heard somewhere that 90% dissolve within a year of standing up. Mech repairs and pilot salaries can get expensive, after all, and getting paid in land and salvage doesn't exactly keep the lights on reliably.
Getting shot at and up is the other issue with being a merc.
Snord's Irregulars is also a splinter group from Wolf's Dragoons.
Eridani Light Horse is another former Star League force - quite a lot of these (which doesn't totally fit in the former house category, as their house no longer exists)
My friend used to have a software program that speeded up calculations for mechwarrior upskilling, tactical skills, piloting, mech movement and facing, melee attack, death-from-above, gunnery, damage locations and severity, armor loss, critical hits, etc., such that it became easy for us to play and command lances, not just individual mechs. Eventually we could set up and command three lances (12 mechs) per player and play either 2-vs-2 or a three-sided battle over a cache of Star League lostech that produced excellent vintage beer!
Unfortunately, a storm wrecked his computer and its hard drive so we lost his program and it couldn't be rebuilt. Oh well, the Beer Wars were fantastic and memorable, especially after we had designed our own lances of customized mechs!
Love your delivery and style and the old school battletech books and art!! Burgertech! ha ha ha
I think my personal favorite Mercenary Group is Greenburg's Godzillas.
I actually like the old Godzilla films and it makes my smile that there's a group of battle mechs stomping around with an approximation of Godzilla's likeness emblazoned upon them.
Big stompy metal Godzillas!
The 100-ton Annihilator mech is a dead ringer for Godzilla. Imagine a mercenary company named the Godzillas that uses mechs that resemble Godzilla.
I'll always have a soft spot for the Gray Death Legion because my first exposure to Battletech was reading a copy of Decision at Thunder Rift (The first Gray Death Legion novel) that belonged to my dad's oldest friend.
Where have I heard that intro before? I swear I've heard those noises back in the 90's but I can't place the origin.
The "Waaaaah" noise was used in the intro to many of the videos from the Bad Lip Reading channel
alright BPL we must convince Tex to play burger Tech for next april 1st for a vid and he can be king of meat mountain.
Well ive placed the order to make a 8k classic Wolf Dragoons mercenary list thanks to this video...came at the perfect time as I was beginning to create a rough lance outline and then the idea for a fusion of Inner sphere and Clan Mechs as a lance was too good to ignore.
EDIT: May have to expand to 10-12k depending on if I want an aerospace asset
That’s awesome! Note that the clans screwed up slightly in some of the mechs selected for the Wolfs Dragoon’s since they weren’t sure of what mechs existed in the inner sphere. I don’t think that part of the narrative shows up in the black widow source book or the mercenary handbook source book but that was sort of what was happening. People who saw some of the Wolfs dragoon’s mechs thought they must be very well funded to use exotic mechs or historical but extinct mechs.
My friend has a critter tech hand book floating around somewhere.
Please make a video about book collections. I understand different books belong to different sets of rules, basically different games of Battletech. For example I am not clear about what is needed to play ISAW.
This sounds like a good idea. I’ll see if I can come up with something. I’m not very experienced with ISAW unfortunately but I can cover several of the other games. (Battlespace Aerotech Battleforce Battletroops Mechwarrior RPG)
I have always been split on the Kell Hounds or the Wolf's Dragoons largely based on the "Warrior Trilogy" and "Wolves on the Border" novels. After reading the Grey Death Legion series, stories of Archer's Avengers and Avanti's Angels, you really begin to understand the bottomless depths of lore buried in the Battletech universe.
The Kell Hounds and Gray Death Legion do it for me, the Wolfs Dragoons initially having an affiliation with Clan Wolf always bugged me since I’m a Jade Falcon fan…
I chose the Crater Cobras myself, since they’re a big company that doesn’t get a lot of love, and their paint scheme is great and easy to do en masse.
Intro game on point.
I wish I could find some of these books, this is the kind of infodump stuff I LIVE for.
You can find it on eBay if you search for Battletech source book
Nah coolest merc group is Team Banzi. Loosely based on the adventuring group from the 1984 cult science fiction film
some of thpictures on the back of the black widow merc group are from Robotech. also did they borrow from each cause I remember some of there destroid looked like warhammers?
The original Battledroids that are on the back of the Black Widow sourcebook are a mixture from Dougram, Macross (Robotech in the US), and Crusher Joe. Technically Battletech licensed the images because it didn’t have artists yet to draw its own mechs and was basically a tabletop game system for art from existing anime mechs. There was a technicality in that the US licensor (Harmony Gold) who subleased the Japanese art from Macross into the US didn’t have permission to sublease. A barrage of lawsuits followed, with Harmony Gold being the most litigious, probably to cover themselves since they probably did the original sin in the chain in the first place.
A list of old mechs: Archer, Warhammer, Marauder, Rifleman, Longbow, Phoenix Hawk, Crusader, Wasp, Stinger are from Macross. Locust is from Crusher Joe. Shadow Hawk and Griffin are from Dougram. I have a few videos on this topic the best is the one on what models you can get in 1:72 or 28mm scale.
I'm sure you have played or are play MechWarrior 5 with the Mods and open career you can live the life of a merc in the game I love it Got to Play a Slipnier Cyclopes hero with clan tech with one of the mods and loved it.....lol have a good one
Started with Earthsiege und than playing MW on PC for like 25 years.
Finally got me the boxes "a game of armored combat" and "clan invasion", but still no clue what group to choose. 😀
As a german, Steiner is very appealling from the great houses, but the paint scheme sucks.
Wolfs Dragoons paint Scheme is quite nice and Natasha's a good Waifu, but is it possible to do make your own merc group?
Love the Waifu comment. Yes you can totally make your own merc group. There’s even a few generations of rule books on it but not sure if there’s a recent update. The original two generations of mercenaries handbooks have detailed rules to stay “compliant” with what other players might consider fair, but obviously you can stray as much as you like if other players are fine with it (likely would be unless they were a jerk)
@@miikkakangas6750 Great!
So I need at least one lance of urbies at some point. ♥
I will call them the "Sonic Sloths". 🦥
We routinely run homebrew campaigns creating units from scratch. More often than not a famous merc unit makes an appearance for the stoeyline
@JamLpOtHeAd "Sonic Sloths" I am stealing that for my noc unit in a groups campaign. They started with 2 urbies a commando and a victor. Those urbies were tough as nails abd ended up going out in style creating a legit relationship with the Magistry of Canopus in our homebrew
i hope u even paint them urbies as sloths! :D @@texasdesertsailor2587
See I rock Eridani Light Horse, helps that SLDF green is easy to paint.
That’s a good merc group, sort of like the Highlanders since they’re effectively attempting to continue the lost star league (at least in 3025)
Oh F the Wolf's Dragoons.
I may have missed this from the video, but is it like...considered acceptable to make a homebrew mercenary group?
Oh yes! There are suggested rules for making one up in the mercenaries handbooks
Battletech is all about customization. Unless you are playing in a tournament, you can heavily mod the game including rules. House rules were common in the 80’s and 90’s and some even became accepted rules. (Like small/pulse lasers being good against infantry)
a typical campaign start includes the following: (depending on the number of players)
each player has a Leopard class dropship.
each player has 25 million c-bills to purchase ALL the assets. (crew, pilots/warriors, troops, vehicles, mechs, aero/vtol, ammo, spare parts etc)
a typical starting location is Solaris VII. a known mercenary and gladiator arena. then you decide on contracts. they may be single mission, or a series of objectives. upon completion, your unit gets paid by the employer. then you make repairs, replace your dead troops, etc.
this combines the Mechwarrior RPG with the table top battles.
my campaign has been played continuously since 1991 (yes, 30 years).
Absolutely it is. Except my table has to earn it. They get a start based on character generation. No dropship. But that's what creates the adventure
You forgot to mention the greatest mercenary unit of all time. Quint's Olympian Groundpounders
Dragoons and Grey Death for me.
What are your favorite parts? Mine would be that you can use LOSTECH mechs with Dragoons in the 3025 era and the vehicle combined arms with Grey Death…
@@miikkakangas6750 I love the Dragoons because of MechAssault being my first BattleTech introduction when I was 5 and the Mechs they brought with them when they came from Clan Space.
And I love the story of the Grey Death Legion and the combined arms aspect... My favorite BattleTech game is MechWarrior Living Legends and that game is nothing but combined arms, and I still play it almost every day.
as I have a Scottish ancestry, the Northwind Highlanders are fantastic!
According to lore they are with us already!
Burgertech!
Nah. House Regular.