Much of the concept of "worthless" has to do with context. What may seem worthless when doing mech on mech combat becomes priceless the more you play with combined arms. For example, the Firestarter and the Stinger. These aren't the sort of mechs you want or need, until you've got infantry running around. Then, their value becomes apparent. The Ostscout comes alive when you have artillery. The JägerMech comes alive when you have helicopters and aero.
I heard someone describe a scenario where they had to move some of their heaviest mechs to deal with infantry, like swatting flies with a sledgehammer. Meanwhile the Vulcan or firestarter would have saved him a lot of grief.
Mmmmm True except the Jagermech. The Jagermech is actually pretty horrible at dealing with vtols and aero, since its firepower is still kinda inadequate, and very little can exploit the comic rear armor of the Jagermech more than a vtol. There are much better choices for dealing with those, like the Rifleman, or honestly some cheap vehicles. A few Scorpions or a Partisan do a much better job at scaring off air units than a Jagermech, which costs significantly more than those. The Scorpions are even more durable than a Jagermech in practice, which is impressive for the Jagermech, honestly. Big big agree on the Firestarter though. It's one of the best mechs in the game in combined arms. I'm a fan of rotating a flamer to the rear, so you can get 360 degree coverage for infantry deletion.
One of the major reasons I respect Battletech so much is that it (recently anyway) does not sacrifice the lore to chase some imagined easy increase in revenue. Mechs, Vee's, VTOL's, infantry, it all exists, the rules are tailored around for them to make sense, not to encourage players to buy them.
This is why i loved being opfor for my friends' merc unit. They got to, with rules, customize meta builds as long as they got the time and the c-bills, and i got the whole tech manual to play with to present interesting scenarios to game master. :)
As a very old Battletech player , this is why I always loved the scenario books . Having to play strategically with less than optimal mechs , especially those with ongoing scenarios is challenging and fun !
One thing I love about Battletech is that you can do doctrine things, like always taking off jump jets to save space, and it always automatically makes sense in lore. The two are inseparable in a good way.
Mechcommander 2 did the Cyclops perfectly. In terms of firepower it was a rather uninspiring Assault mech, but the sensor range was better than literally anything else so it was incredibly useful. The board game, even when playing blind rules doesn't really replicate that which is why I'd never take a Cyclops in the board game.
I remember getting one in HBS Battletech, the comman features were nice, but I had to strip it down and replace the AC20 and some other gear with a Gauss and ERLL. A command mech should not be brawling with an AC20.
And 8 jump jets. Imagine seeing this thing screaming over the mountains into the valley you are fighting in, set down and fire it's one medium laser, then take flight over an impossible distance back into cover in the mountains. The enemy would be telling you "You can run but you can't hide."
The main difference between the Ostscout and Spider is that the OTT opted for another ton of armor, while the SDR. ,,, and personally, as I use my light highspeed unit as a spotter for indirect LRM fire, it's weapons can't be used, so it makes more sense to have more armor
I was thinking the same thing. It fills the same role as the Spider but better (they have the same engine weight ratio as a side note). A ton more in armor and the difference of 1 MLaser vs 2 is the Spider likely isn't firing both lasers in the same turn anyway (and it should be jumping in most situations if there is any terrain on the field). Where they both run into problems is fighting an opponent with range and good position, but overall that 8/12/8 move is key in the maneuver game and helps avoid taking the hit in the first place. Add to the fact they both have hands. Overlooked by many players who lock into the dakka, hands allow these machines to carry raiding scenarios (and if need be the ostscout punches harder than the spider). I hate seeing light mechs with a heavy load out and crap for speed/maneuver. At that point they are just weapon platforms that will go down quickly because they are too light take a hit and too damn slow to get to need where they are going (looking at you Panther and it's even worse with the Urbie since for the same price you could have almost 3 hetzer vehicles that each could fill the same role in an urban fight;-).
My first mech was the Rifleman,back in the day(85' or 86'). It's nigh on pathetic in a stand up battle because it was NOT made for that.Thanks to the original Technical Readout from FASA,I believe,my GM could craft scenarios that let the mech assume it's correct role of anti-air platform and fire support.Same with the Battlemaster if I remember correctly.In their weight class they kind of sucked unless used for their appropriate role.Lots of times you can't find a GM who takes the time to do more than role dice on a bare bones shoot em' up adventure. Hell,this dude even let me play an aerospace fighter in a one-off with another group.I railed them in strafing passes and they were pissed.He told them the book was right there on the shelf and one or two of their guys could have taken a fighter instead of a mech.Jeff ended by saying "if you're going to challenge another group,you should probably read ALL the rules". Added realism in sci-fi is awesome.
Yeah, don’t play tabletop, yet, but I wouldn’t imaging a King Crab would do so well against aircraft, that’s what you bring a Rifleman or a Jaegermech for.
Having played through my first contract using the chaos campaign rules (4 missions total) the core mission being an agent extraction. I don't think there are useless mechs, every dog has it's day in a Narrative setting. My impression is that the vast majority of games don't have infantry, vehicles and Aerospace fighters etc... A lot of mechs truely shine when your not just playing mech VS mech.
The Ostscout definitely feels like they had designed it as the TAG version first and had to roll back to the single medium laser in the lower tech. They also should have written more into the rules or missions to give light scouting mechs more of a purpose. The scout has a lostech-level scanning and scouting suite and all they gave it rules wise was improved comms. However it is still useful as a very fast nimble mech especially if there's lots of elevation or buildings, where a Locust might suffer, and punching and kicking are viable options. I am using mine mostly for the TAG applications of semi-guided LRM tubes in tech level 2 games.
Its civil war era variant is pretty brutal in melee. Its also a meme to pull out in low BV games, because nobody expects to deal with assault mechs. But it is pretty underwhelming.
Sometimes I have agreed with my opponent some "house rules" for AA- units to have a bonus to shoot with autocannons to aircraft. Units like partisans, riflemans ...and jagermechs
I have to admit I came in here expecting a 'top 5 worst mechs' list of some kind but I'm really pleased with what you had to say. It's some very constructive advice for actually playing the game and making the gameplay unique, rather than just making it 'big number win more contest.' What else is great about it is that it encourages and rewards players for variation in their collection and not just going for whatever is agreed upon to be the best by listmakers.
Picture an assault on an objective across the board. Your light and medium lance is fighting heavy and assault mechs on your goal. Your heavy and assault mechs have to cross the board and run a gauntlet of dug in infantry and imobolized vehicles. Do you want to have a Vulcan or Firestarter now?
I like to have a catapult or other missile boat cover from a distance, a hunchback and marauder to cover my axeman, and the said axeman to get in close to either give my opponent or myself a bad day. Doesnt always work but i still have fun with it
could adapt "quirks" such those used in the BattleTech PC game such as giving the Ostscout a sensor lock ability (target a mech instead of firing giving a +1 bonus to all other friendly mechs to hit the target) or the Cyclops a chance to give lance a +1 initiative bonus on a roll of 5-6.
I sat in on a game with a 'meta-player' who's lance had one Ostscout with tag ... with his piloting skill and the mech's speed it was unhitable, and just kept us in view so that his long range firepower obliterated us.
no mech is unhitable. you just needed to lay down enough fire that you got lucky hits. and then, hes got the wrong forces for the fight because you "blinded" him.
@@thurin84 No, he is going to do the pounding with the 7 catapults beyond your range. It is pointless to waste volley after volley on scouts blitzing around. You either have a dedicated spotter hunter, or you just bullcharge the LRM boats.
Many players forget to take into account that not all mech designs are equally available to all factions/houses. Yes, some are captured, others purchased, but in the fine print often overlooked are the limited manufacturing capacity. There is also the vast age of the war machines. It's not unheard of for single battlemechs to be family heirlooms. That many are hundreds of years old, survivors of the endless wars of the inner sphere. Adam Yosas's comment below is also very valid. Context and specialty matters, usually, anyway. For example, many like to hate on the Urbanmech because it's slow, ugly, etc. But for it's primary battlefield intention, it's a solid design, fairly cheap when compared other mechs, and was also fielded by other forces than armies. Just my opinion, of course.
The Urbanmech is clearly more of a garrison unit and internal security mech than a true battlefield unit. It's meant to patrol places like cities, military bases and government buildings. It's going to deal with low grade threats, like insurgents, rioters etc. Given that almost any mech can be used for the same purpose, they promoted it as being a perfect Urban predator, when it's clearly not really good at it. Slow speed is just as crippling in a city and anyone who was ever been cornered in a city with no way to get out of the way of certain doom because the darn thing simply can't jump to a safer area, will understand that while it can be a threat, the claims that it is perfect for urban combat is just sales talk. And anyone who thinks the Urbie is useless never stood in front of an eight meter tall metal monster that can squash you like a bug, blow up your house and incinerate your car ...
The equipment/features you are talking about are things I feel post succession war/Star League eras lack in general. If your only goal is to play with the best mechs then go ahead, but I absolutely loved all the little things that used to differentiate each mech, vehicle, infantry, weapon, faction, etc. in the older eras. I wish we could get back to NOT min-maxing, but playing for the little things.
The original battletech game and the others that followed came with paper standups for mechs. Miniatures were never a thing. It was designed designed as both a combat game early on, but there were no BVs or point value system until much later in development. The mechwarrior book (for making it into a role-playing game) was introduced early on and this would allow players to attempt to modify their mechs if they so pleased. The technical readout introduced several common variants on each mech, many which were the de-facto standard in their successor state. In the lore, many mechs were once quite fearsome machines but were downgraded in the original successor state war era because the star league tech that they had been originally constructed with had been lost. Many of these mechs were still in use during that era simply because it was better to have a mech than none at all.
An Ostscout makes sense, as does a Firestarter, as they are just specialized machines filling niches. There are however some 'mechs that are simply terrible. My personal worst offenders are the Dasher II, which is a mess of a 'mech and the somehow considerable worse Kuma 3.
@@miafillene4396 Too frail, thanks to the XXL engine. But otherwise- unlike the base version- a functional mech. Still not a huge fan but at least it's not worthless.
@@Boseeinsteinshake yeah I widely consider the base model as a prototype foisted off to the public not just to garner revenue, but also collect combat data. Job succeeded.
... simple rule „ would u like to play against a this unit ? „No“ don‘t use it“ ... it‘s a game ... everyone should have fun... (example. Alacorn Mk VI...3xGauss ...No, take the MK III 3xAC10 and have a great game together) the rule help me alot stay healthy
Most worthless mech for both weaponry and background fluff. Fireball. A 'dedicated Anti-Elemental" mech with a SRM2 and an MG. So for hunting something with 10 or 11 damage points per elemental in 5 man units, it does 6 total points of damage. The 1E Locust does a better job with 2 med lasers and 2 small lasers for half the cost.
Actually for an 8/12/8 light mech, 35t is superior to 30t as you get 7 more IS points without losing anything, now whether you honestly need an 8/12/8 light mech that is a reasonable question.
Tell that to the scarabus 10/15/0 speed is king in BT that's why mediums ate the best, mix of speed, armour and power unrivalled by the other weight classes.
A good number of mechs are complicated or niche use. They are very questionable if you just look at damage and tank ability. Narrative they have a ton of use
Well, the board game is a very crude abstraction of the BT world. I'm kinda glad battlemechs are more designed to fit into the world than into the TT system. Of course that makes some better than others, but that's why there is combat value. One of the charms of original BT is the absolute non-min-max nature of it.
I don't think he does. He mostly talks about 3025 mechs. I do find it interesting that tends to only talk about one variant of the mechs but even in 3025 there are 5 different warhammer's. I have so many mechs he's never talked about. Stuff that blow most of what he talks about out of the water, even on the IS side.
Sometimes the worthless mechs like the Charger are important as it generates the want in the player to just take it to the techs. Chop it up into something better or use it as parts to fix the Awesome. As the Banshee is concerned. Ya it would be considered a worthless mech but inject that narrative and its much like the Leo II in modern days. Good in its time but upgraded threw out the ages to keep it effective. Hard to believe that mech was ever primitive and the armor is great to have when your unable to get an Atlas. When I first started playing the game. I never liked the Ostscout. When I started playing with more types of units you start to find that some units work better with other types of formations. Like the Cicada with artillery and Ostscout with hover tanks. A Sentinel with wheeled and tracked tanks. Or the Vulcan with the AC-2 loaded with flack to chip away at jump infantry outside their firing range. When your playing mech vs mech like any clanner. Your going to run into more times to find many mechs worthless.
I started playing tabletop battletech recently and I love that the Jenner is a great mech, because when I was playing MechWarrior 2 obsessively in the 90s the Jenner was trash in those games and was the butt of many jokes.
we made a custom mission of a cyclops commanding a bunch of stock quasit militia mechs to defend an objective, and if the cyclops went down it was game over.
You kinda missed a major point, at some time parts and factories were not always available and they were in a war so they made what they could with what they had.
Ostscout has 1 Medium laser. Sure, it has more armor than a Spider. But if it's only there a as a spotter or what have you, it becomes the point of interest for those with more firepower, with practically no ability to defend itself. I understand the context, but it's more BV than practical. Hell, I'll use vehicles to scout before using an Ostscout. If you need a fast scout, go with a Spider or, if you need a sensor suite, a Raven.
Valid arguments. But depends on how deep you play your campaign. The Raven is a capellan machine, the Ostscout a League machine. So, availability comes into play. You can use certain verhicles for scouting, but terrain may make certain scenarios better suiting for mechs. Also, a vehicle is way easier to destroy than a mech. So, yes, in a situation you will want to use the best tool available that you have. Sometimes it is hover tank, sometimes it is the Ostscout, sometimes the Raven.
My biggest issue with BTech is that some mechs have abilities mentioned in the narrative, that aren't reflected in the mechanics. For instance the Cyclops is supposed to be a excellent command mech, but it doesn't give you anything on the board that any other mech brings.
The CP-11-C is a true command mech that mounts a C3 master unit, making it's gauss rifle downright frightening when paired with appropriately equipped lancemates.
The best and most deeply enjoyable games I've played aren't pick up down at the LGS, they're campaigns with friends. Battletech was made for that style. Its also why 40k min/maxers pick it up but then loose interest. Its a novel, not tiktok mentality.
@@rowbot5555 yup. While its true I have had plenty of short pick up games of 1v1 or 2v2 size battletech, or even alpha strike, that were still plenty fun... there's just something more gratifying at deeper level when you take more time and delve into extracting the vast potential of immersion that a campaign offers that a one-off game just can't even scratch the surface of.
Biggest headscratcher for was the Banshee. Cool name but... a 90-tons-brawler? I mean, yeah, there're variants that can work but in general it's too slow for close-combat. Most lighter mechs can easily kite this thing and mechs of equal tonnage can seriously cripple the Banshee before she gets close enough for smash-time.
What are you talking about with the Ostscout? The 9S is a GREAT mech. Probe, Tag, ECM, two ER medium lasers and 8/12/8. The 9S is even a great model too! Oh wait, I forget you are a grognard who is stuck in 3025 ;) Depends on what you mean by worthless. Combat unworthy? Charger 1A1 with its 5 small lasers, Locust 1M with its two LRM5's and NO ARMOR (i'm not joking, only 1 ton=16 points of armor, a small laser goes through anywhere but the head), and the Banshee 3E armed with only a ppc and ac5 but this last one can be argued. Then you get stuff like the primitive mechs which may not be great because the primitive tech weighed so much but they still are...serviceable. This is not counting the Battletechnology 15 ton mechs, most of those are private guard/police mechs, and the industrial mechs (especially the dark age ones with actual combat equipment).. One that can be argued but is in a book called XTRO: Boondoggles the Ostscout IIC, it has 0 weapons. I'm not kidding, its a 11/17/13 with an Angel ECM, Bloodhound Probe, and a Clan Tag. Granted it has no Battle Value in the book so you'd have to make it yourself. I don't know much about worthless vehicles. Most vehicles serve a purpose regardless but some of those might be exclusive to scenario. We tend to only ban one type of equipment when it comes to custom mechs, Artillery. It can cause a lot of frustration and its hard to do on a 3d hex map when you don't have numbered hexes.
Um, I wouldn't go around calling people "grognard" lightly around here. Fritz covered the frggin' of all beasts yesterday. Yeah, I'll admit there's a fair number of us who'll only play 3039 because that's what they know and that's all they ever wanna learn, but now we've got a lot of new players coming in who NEED to learn those 3039 basics before moving on to the incoming Clan Invasion stuff. (Case in point: I started my BT life as a clanner and spent the 20 years re-learning this game for the better. You don't want your pupils walking in my B-tech shoes.) That's why Fritz does mostly 3025-ish posts; teach the fundamentals first and expand on 'em later. We're all friends here on this V-log. Let's try to keep it that way.
I think Fritz is talking about the 3025 design. That one was made for explorations units to chart planets in really bad conditions. The biggest change they had with it in a minor change of adding hands to make it better at the task. I see what your talking about.
i love how your thunderbolt is missing its cockpit bit so by your own admission - they arent useless the player is just using them wrong lol - there isnt a meta in battletech the ostscout is that - a scout - you use it to spot for LRM carriers and other missile boats - or artillery youre missing the point and using mechs incorrectly and calling them worthless without thinking tactically first
when you play extended campaigns with limited resources, having targets guarded by 'less desirable' salvage may be a wiser target. defeating an easy opponent and selling the salvage with lower unit operational expenses is a big part of the B-tech universe lore. if you are only throwing units onto a map to roll dice, then the lore is meaningless.
Flack ammo on the AC-2 makes it semi-useful vs infantry. I often see the Vulcan being more effective vs jump infantry in its stock. Vs anything else well you know the result.
prob not best choise for a title lol, when the point was that there isnt realy any worthless mechs because they are lart of the narrative/lore and hold othef values than pure battle value lol. but overall agree, BT has this point for it where almoat all other wargames painfully lack it
Meh, worthless? So let' s all mount up in the very same mech with the same armour, weapons, speed etc . Yea, like that would be better than watching paint dry?!
The Assassin is a crap Mech 1 Med Laser, 1 LRM5 and 1 SRM2 with a 1/2 ton each with the armor of a Locus at 40 tons. Another one is the Cicada is another worthless mech. the only thing they can do is run. Better for the Battle Value to just get some Wolfhounds and Locus.
Worthless.... Canon fodder has never been useless....useless leaders have rendered military specialists useless by not using them as intended or not at all ... In WW1 the Browning Automatic Rifle became useless when it was decided not to deploy its single man held rapid firepower....and its specific developed tactic of walking forward across"no man land" while laying down automatic weapons fire meant to keep enemy hunkered down within their trenches while we closed distance...before the BAR was developed... automatic machine guns were fixed in position due to their weight of weapon and ammunition. The BAR weight of just over 20lbs enabled a single soldier to deploy while on the move ...a decisive advantage in battlefield with both sides using defensive entrenchment tactics...though providing just offensive capabilities to the soldiers ...the thought was several soldiers using BARs to spray to trenches of the enemy would allow the whole front to move across with relative safety as long as a continuous stream of automatic fire was deployed....between that and artillery being used to suppress any countering fire from automatic weapons...an assault across the lines could be made....it wasn't untill armored vehicles introduction that became a strategy using them in place of soldiers with BARs....but again...tanks were mis-used or rather...uselessly used in the beginning by not massing all the tanks in a single location to overwhelm the enemy with the amount of tanks ....something that has become standard doctrine for an attacker and defender countering that by massing its own tanks in defense as a small number is sure to be only a roadblock to a vastly superior amount of tanks as long as they aren't bottlenecked into a narrow road. where tanks can be destroyed one at a time...a superior tank can defend itself against multiple inferior tanks... A " useless" attacking force obviously unless depletion of ammunition stores is the tactic being used....many a commanders throughout the last few hundred of years send hundreds of thousands of men to their deaths by continuing to charge over open fields into the defensive teeth of modern artillery and automatic weapons ...see nothing wrong other then a supposedly lapse of desire to accomplish the feat with increased motivation and frontline leadership from junior officers... That's useless leadership of command ...normally eventually succeeding under those useless commanders, generally by attrition tragically. only reenforces those useless commanders into doubling their inability to see their own failings in strategic and tactical doctrine is what was preventing any victory from happening....useless loss of life is blamed on those dead instead of those who never placed themselves in harm's way at all.... I certainly would deem my participation as a useless endeavor being under those unaccountable inept and useless leaders..
Much of the concept of "worthless" has to do with context. What may seem worthless when doing mech on mech combat becomes priceless the more you play with combined arms. For example, the Firestarter and the Stinger. These aren't the sort of mechs you want or need, until you've got infantry running around. Then, their value becomes apparent. The Ostscout comes alive when you have artillery. The JägerMech comes alive when you have helicopters and aero.
it is true: infantry in cover can easliy become a goddamn nightmare for mech, also tanks and air craft can also be very dangerous.
Yes someone that plays with arty.
I heard someone describe a scenario where they had to move some of their heaviest mechs to deal with infantry, like swatting flies with a sledgehammer.
Meanwhile the Vulcan or firestarter would have saved him a lot of grief.
Imagine which ones are useful against drones, cavalry, and so on.
Mmmmm
True except the Jagermech.
The Jagermech is actually pretty horrible at dealing with vtols and aero, since its firepower is still kinda inadequate, and very little can exploit the comic rear armor of the Jagermech more than a vtol.
There are much better choices for dealing with those, like the Rifleman, or honestly some cheap vehicles. A few Scorpions or a Partisan do a much better job at scaring off air units than a Jagermech, which costs significantly more than those. The Scorpions are even more durable than a Jagermech in practice, which is impressive for the Jagermech, honestly.
Big big agree on the Firestarter though. It's one of the best mechs in the game in combined arms. I'm a fan of rotating a flamer to the rear, so you can get 360 degree coverage for infantry deletion.
One of the major reasons I respect Battletech so much is that it (recently anyway) does not sacrifice the lore to chase some imagined easy increase in revenue. Mechs, Vee's, VTOL's, infantry, it all exists, the rules are tailored around for them to make sense, not to encourage players to buy them.
I'm gonna have to stop ya there. If I can take out an atlas with a charger I don't care about points, I have already won the game
This is why i loved being opfor for my friends' merc unit. They got to, with rules, customize meta builds as long as they got the time and the c-bills, and i got the whole tech manual to play with to present interesting scenarios to game master. :)
As a very old Battletech player , this is why I always loved the scenario books . Having to play strategically with less than optimal mechs , especially those with ongoing scenarios is challenging and fun !
One thing I love about Battletech is that you can do doctrine things, like always taking off jump jets to save space, and it always automatically makes sense in lore. The two are inseparable in a good way.
Mechcommander 2 did the Cyclops perfectly. In terms of firepower it was a rather uninspiring Assault mech, but the sensor range was better than literally anything else so it was incredibly useful. The board game, even when playing blind rules doesn't really replicate that which is why I'd never take a Cyclops in the board game.
I think the 10Q is pretty decent. And espicilly for how low the cost of most of these cyclopses are.
I remember getting one in HBS Battletech, the comman features were nice, but I had to strip it down and replace the AC20 and some other gear with a Gauss and ERLL. A command mech should not be brawling with an AC20.
Ostscout is seriously underrated! It's got enough armor to take some hits that would knock out something like the spider
And 8 jump jets. Imagine seeing this thing screaming over the mountains into the valley you are fighting in, set down and fire it's one medium laser, then take flight over an impossible distance back into cover in the mountains. The enemy would be telling you "You can run but you can't hide."
The main difference between the Ostscout and Spider is that the OTT opted for another ton of armor, while the SDR.
,,, and personally, as I use my light highspeed unit as a spotter for indirect LRM fire, it's weapons can't be used, so it makes more sense to have more armor
I was thinking the same thing. It fills the same role as the Spider but better (they have the same engine weight ratio as a side note). A ton more in armor and the difference of 1 MLaser vs 2 is the Spider likely isn't firing both lasers in the same turn anyway (and it should be jumping in most situations if there is any terrain on the field). Where they both run into problems is fighting an opponent with range and good position, but overall that 8/12/8 move is key in the maneuver game and helps avoid taking the hit in the first place.
Add to the fact they both have hands. Overlooked by many players who lock into the dakka, hands allow these machines to carry raiding scenarios (and if need be the ostscout punches harder than the spider). I hate seeing light mechs with a heavy load out and crap for speed/maneuver. At that point they are just weapon platforms that will go down quickly because they are too light take a hit and too damn slow to get to need where they are going (looking at you Panther and it's even worse with the Urbie since for the same price you could have almost 3 hetzer vehicles that each could fill the same role in an urban fight;-).
My first mech was the Rifleman,back in the day(85' or 86'). It's nigh on pathetic in a stand up battle because it was NOT made for that.Thanks to the original Technical Readout from FASA,I believe,my GM could craft scenarios that let the mech assume it's correct role of anti-air platform and fire support.Same with the Battlemaster if I remember correctly.In their weight class they kind of sucked unless used for their appropriate role.Lots of times you can't find a GM who takes the time to do more than role dice on a bare bones shoot em' up adventure. Hell,this dude even let me play an aerospace fighter in a one-off with another group.I railed them in strafing passes and they were pissed.He told them the book was right there on the shelf and one or two of their guys could have taken a fighter instead of a mech.Jeff ended by saying "if you're going to challenge another group,you should probably read ALL the rules". Added realism in sci-fi is awesome.
Yeah, don’t play tabletop, yet, but I wouldn’t imaging a King Crab would do so well against aircraft, that’s what you bring a Rifleman or a Jaegermech for.
Having played through my first contract using the chaos campaign rules (4 missions total) the core mission being an agent extraction. I don't think there are useless mechs, every dog has it's day in a Narrative setting. My impression is that the vast majority of games don't have infantry, vehicles and Aerospace fighters etc... A lot of mechs truely shine when your not just playing mech VS mech.
The Ostscout definitely feels like they had designed it as the TAG version first and had to roll back to the single medium laser in the lower tech. They also should have written more into the rules or missions to give light scouting mechs more of a purpose. The scout has a lostech-level scanning and scouting suite and all they gave it rules wise was improved comms. However it is still useful as a very fast nimble mech especially if there's lots of elevation or buildings, where a Locust might suffer, and punching and kicking are viable options. I am using mine mostly for the TAG applications of semi-guided LRM tubes in tech level 2 games.
ahem.... the Charger.
Well, even the 3025 Tech Readout mentions that it may not have been the best thought design. LOL
Though in MW5 its surprisingly a great mech for demolition missions.
The Charger is NOT useless, it's a perfectly salvageable laughing stock
Its civil war era variant is pretty brutal in melee. Its also a meme to pull out in low BV games, because nobody expects to deal with assault mechs. But it is pretty underwhelming.
Yeah 4 small laser I think lol for a 80 tons
Sometimes I have agreed with my opponent some "house rules" for AA- units to have a bonus to shoot with autocannons to aircraft. Units like partisans, riflemans ...and jagermechs
If you're using the quirk rules AA units have a bonus to shoot aircraft with any ranged weapon.
I have to admit I came in here expecting a 'top 5 worst mechs' list of some kind but I'm really pleased with what you had to say. It's some very constructive advice for actually playing the game and making the gameplay unique, rather than just making it 'big number win more contest.'
What else is great about it is that it encourages and rewards players for variation in their collection and not just going for whatever is agreed upon to be the best by listmakers.
Misleading title, but EXCELLENT discussion on making the lore work for you in crafting interesting scenarios.
Picture an assault on an objective across the board. Your light and medium lance is fighting heavy and assault mechs on your goal. Your heavy and assault mechs have to cross the board and run a gauntlet of dug in infantry and imobolized vehicles. Do you want to have a Vulcan or Firestarter now?
I like to have a catapult or other missile boat cover from a distance, a hunchback and marauder to cover my axeman, and the said axeman to get in close to either give my opponent or myself a bad day. Doesnt always work but i still have fun with it
could adapt "quirks" such those used in the BattleTech PC game such as giving the Ostscout a sensor lock ability (target a mech instead of firing giving a +1 bonus to all other friendly mechs to hit the target) or the Cyclops a chance to give lance a +1 initiative bonus on a roll of 5-6.
There are quirks in some rulebooks but they usually don't entail abilities.
I sat in on a game with a 'meta-player' who's lance had one Ostscout with tag ... with his piloting skill and the mech's speed it was unhitable, and just kept us in view so that his long range firepower obliterated us.
whose*, not who's.
no mech is unhitable. you just needed to lay down enough fire that you got lucky hits. and then, hes got the wrong forces for the fight because you "blinded" him.
@@thurin84 OK so lets say he keeps the to hit at 12, you are firing ALL of your fire power at that one light, while he pounds you.
@@killcat1971 hes not going to do much pounding with an ostscout.
@@thurin84 No, he is going to do the pounding with the 7 catapults beyond your range.
It is pointless to waste volley after volley on scouts blitzing around. You either have a dedicated spotter hunter, or you just bullcharge the LRM boats.
Many players forget to take into account that not all mech designs are equally available to all factions/houses. Yes, some are captured, others purchased, but in the fine print often overlooked are the limited manufacturing capacity. There is also the vast age of the war machines. It's not unheard of for single battlemechs to be family heirlooms. That many are hundreds of years old, survivors of the endless wars of the inner sphere. Adam Yosas's comment below is also very valid. Context and specialty matters, usually, anyway. For example, many like to hate on the Urbanmech because it's slow, ugly, etc. But for it's primary battlefield intention, it's a solid design, fairly cheap when compared other mechs, and was also fielded by other forces than armies. Just my opinion, of course.
The Urbanmech is clearly more of a garrison unit and internal security mech than a true battlefield unit. It's meant to patrol places like cities, military bases and government buildings. It's going to deal with low grade threats, like insurgents, rioters etc.
Given that almost any mech can be used for the same purpose, they promoted it as being a perfect Urban predator, when it's clearly not really good at it. Slow speed is just as crippling in a city and anyone who was ever been cornered in a city with no way to get out of the way of certain doom because the darn thing simply can't jump to a safer area, will understand that while it can be a threat, the claims that it is perfect for urban combat is just sales talk.
And anyone who thinks the Urbie is useless never stood in front of an eight meter tall metal monster that can squash you like a bug, blow up your house and incinerate your car ...
The equipment/features you are talking about are things I feel post succession war/Star League eras lack in general. If your only goal is to play with the best mechs then go ahead, but I absolutely loved all the little things that used to differentiate each mech, vehicle, infantry, weapon, faction, etc. in the older eras. I wish we could get back to NOT min-maxing, but playing for the little things.
The original battletech game and the others that followed came with paper standups for mechs. Miniatures were never a thing. It was designed designed as both a combat game early on, but there were no BVs or point value system until much later in development. The mechwarrior book (for making it into a role-playing game) was introduced early on and this would allow players to attempt to modify their mechs if they so pleased. The technical readout introduced several common variants on each mech, many which were the de-facto standard in their successor state. In the lore, many mechs were once quite fearsome machines but were downgraded in the original successor state war era because the star league tech that they had been originally constructed with had been lost. Many of these mechs were still in use during that era simply because it was better to have a mech than none at all.
An Ostscout makes sense, as does a Firestarter, as they are just specialized machines filling niches. There are however some 'mechs that are simply terrible. My personal worst offenders are the Dasher II, which is a mess of a 'mech and the somehow considerable worse Kuma 3.
You never saw the Dasher 2 Mk. 2 did you?
@@miafillene4396 Too frail, thanks to the XXL engine. But otherwise- unlike the base version- a functional mech. Still not a huge fan but at least it's not worthless.
@@Boseeinsteinshake yeah I widely consider the base model as a prototype foisted off to the public not just to garner revenue, but also collect combat data. Job succeeded.
I have played little Dark Age or After WoB. Thanks for the heads up.
... simple rule „ would u like to play against a this unit ? „No“ don‘t use it“ ... it‘s a game ... everyone should have fun...
(example. Alacorn Mk VI...3xGauss ...No, take the MK III 3xAC10 and have a great game together)
the rule help me alot
stay healthy
Ostscouts are great if youre doing a combined ATOW/CBT campaign and need someone to go ahead of the party.
Most worthless mech for both weaponry and background fluff. Fireball. A 'dedicated Anti-Elemental" mech with a SRM2 and an MG. So for hunting something with 10 or 11 damage points per elemental in 5 man units, it does 6 total points of damage. The 1E Locust does a better job with 2 med lasers and 2 small lasers for half the cost.
Actually for an 8/12/8 light mech, 35t is superior to 30t as you get 7 more IS points without losing anything, now whether you honestly need an 8/12/8 light mech that is a reasonable question.
If you happen to encounter a Spider Mech or worse a Dragonfly, you will know why it is good to have 8/12/8 movement :-)
Tell that to the scarabus 10/15/0 speed is king in BT that's why mediums ate the best, mix of speed, armour and power unrivalled by the other weight classes.
A good number of mechs are complicated or niche use. They are very questionable if you just look at damage and tank ability. Narrative they have a ton of use
That is why battletech is so good-
I collect mechs because i like them, i field mechs because i like them
Well, the board game is a very crude abstraction of the BT world. I'm kinda glad battlemechs are more designed to fit into the world than into the TT system. Of course that makes some better than others, but that's why there is combat value.
One of the charms of original BT is the absolute non-min-max nature of it.
Somehow I think you have every mech in your collection
I don't think he does. He mostly talks about 3025 mechs. I do find it interesting that tends to only talk about one variant of the mechs but even in 3025 there are 5 different warhammer's. I have so many mechs he's never talked about. Stuff that blow most of what he talks about out of the water, even on the IS side.
Sometimes the worthless mechs like the Charger are important as it generates the want in the player to just take it to the techs. Chop it up into something better or use it as parts to fix the Awesome. As the Banshee is concerned. Ya it would be considered a worthless mech but inject that narrative and its much like the Leo II in modern days. Good in its time but upgraded threw out the ages to keep it effective. Hard to believe that mech was ever primitive and the armor is great to have when your unable to get an Atlas. When I first started playing the game. I never liked the Ostscout. When I started playing with more types of units you start to find that some units work better with other types of formations. Like the Cicada with artillery and Ostscout with hover tanks. A Sentinel with wheeled and tracked tanks. Or the Vulcan with the AC-2 loaded with flack to chip away at jump infantry outside their firing range. When your playing mech vs mech like any clanner. Your going to run into more times to find many mechs worthless.
I started playing tabletop battletech recently and I love that the Jenner is a great mech, because when I was playing MechWarrior 2 obsessively in the 90s the Jenner was trash in those games and was the butt of many jokes.
we made a custom mission of a cyclops commanding a bunch of stock quasit militia mechs to defend an objective, and if the cyclops went down it was game over.
You kinda missed a major point, at some time parts and factories were not always available and they were in a war so they made what they could with what they had.
Ostscout has 1 Medium laser. Sure, it has more armor than a Spider. But if it's only there a as a spotter or what have you, it becomes the point of interest for those with more firepower, with practically no ability to defend itself. I understand the context, but it's more BV than practical. Hell, I'll use vehicles to scout before using an Ostscout.
If you need a fast scout, go with a Spider or, if you need a sensor suite, a Raven.
Valid arguments. But depends on how deep you play your campaign. The Raven is a capellan machine, the Ostscout a League machine. So, availability comes into play. You can use certain verhicles for scouting, but terrain may make certain scenarios better suiting for mechs. Also, a vehicle is way easier to destroy than a mech. So, yes, in a situation you will want to use the best tool available that you have. Sometimes it is hover tank, sometimes it is the Ostscout, sometimes the Raven.
The Aquagladius, it has it's place for solaris, but it has such a rough setup that it does not even have a model.
My biggest issue with BTech is that some mechs have abilities mentioned in the narrative, that aren't reflected in the mechanics. For instance the Cyclops is supposed to be a excellent command mech, but it doesn't give you anything on the board that any other mech brings.
The CP-11-C is a true command mech that mounts a C3 master unit, making it's gauss rifle downright frightening when paired with appropriately equipped lancemates.
Also play with Quirks - it makes a difference
The best and most deeply enjoyable games I've played aren't pick up down at the LGS, they're campaigns with friends. Battletech was made for that style. Its also why 40k min/maxers pick it up but then loose interest. Its a novel, not tiktok mentality.
Not to say short and sweet can't be fun of course but battletech is in its own class
@@rowbot5555 yup. While its true I have had plenty of short pick up games of 1v1 or 2v2 size battletech, or even alpha strike, that were still plenty fun... there's just something more gratifying at deeper level when you take more time and delve into extracting the vast potential of immersion that a campaign offers that a one-off game just can't even scratch the surface of.
Solaris rules make a huge difference.
Biggest headscratcher for was the Banshee. Cool name but... a 90-tons-brawler? I mean, yeah, there're variants that can work but in general it's too slow for close-combat. Most lighter mechs can easily kite this thing and mechs of equal tonnage can seriously cripple the Banshee before she gets close enough for smash-time.
Add the RPG & it makes a lot more sense.
i love cyclops with to yeomen and a grim reaper as a scout
Your Thunderbolt is missing its head.
Is hunchback efficient?
If enemy choices to ignore you yes it mech you use to flank take this from a guy how first mech has a hunchback ;)
If your goal is to bring an AC/20 to bear and do it as cost-efficiently as possible, the answer is clearly YES!
Yes.
What are you talking about with the Ostscout? The 9S is a GREAT mech. Probe, Tag, ECM, two ER medium lasers and 8/12/8. The 9S is even a great model too!
Oh wait, I forget you are a grognard who is stuck in 3025 ;)
Depends on what you mean by worthless. Combat unworthy? Charger 1A1 with its 5 small lasers, Locust 1M with its two LRM5's and NO ARMOR (i'm not joking, only 1 ton=16 points of armor, a small laser goes through anywhere but the head), and the Banshee 3E armed with only a ppc and ac5 but this last one can be argued. Then you get stuff like the primitive mechs which may not be great because the primitive tech weighed so much but they still are...serviceable.
This is not counting the Battletechnology 15 ton mechs, most of those are private guard/police mechs, and the industrial mechs (especially the dark age ones with actual combat equipment)..
One that can be argued but is in a book called XTRO: Boondoggles the Ostscout IIC, it has 0 weapons. I'm not kidding, its a 11/17/13 with an Angel ECM, Bloodhound Probe, and a Clan Tag. Granted it has no Battle Value in the book so you'd have to make it yourself.
I don't know much about worthless vehicles. Most vehicles serve a purpose regardless but some of those might be exclusive to scenario.
We tend to only ban one type of equipment when it comes to custom mechs, Artillery. It can cause a lot of frustration and its hard to do on a 3d hex map when you don't have numbered hexes.
Um, I wouldn't go around calling people "grognard" lightly around here. Fritz covered the frggin' of all beasts yesterday.
Yeah, I'll admit there's a fair number of us who'll only play 3039 because that's what they know and that's all they ever wanna learn, but now we've got a lot of new players coming in who NEED to learn those 3039 basics before moving on to the incoming Clan Invasion stuff. (Case in point: I started my BT life as a clanner and spent the 20 years re-learning this game for the better. You don't want your pupils walking in my B-tech shoes.) That's why Fritz does mostly 3025-ish posts; teach the fundamentals first and expand on 'em later.
We're all friends here on this V-log. Let's try to keep it that way.
I think Fritz is talking about the 3025 design. That one was made for explorations units to chart planets in really bad conditions. The biggest change they had with it in a minor change of adding hands to make it better at the task. I see what your talking about.
i love how your thunderbolt is missing its cockpit bit
so by your own admission - they arent useless
the player is just using them wrong
lol - there isnt a meta in battletech
the ostscout is that - a scout - you use it to spot for LRM carriers and other missile boats - or artillery
youre missing the point and using mechs incorrectly and calling them worthless without thinking tactically first
when you play extended campaigns with limited resources, having targets guarded by 'less desirable' salvage may be a wiser target. defeating an easy opponent and selling the salvage with lower unit operational expenses is a big part of the B-tech universe lore. if you are only throwing units onto a map to roll dice, then the lore is meaningless.
Vulcan 2T - worst weapon arrangement ever.
Agreed. To me a lot of the 40-tonners were super underwhelming.
Conceptually, it works. By the game mechanics ... WTFAYT!
Flack ammo on the AC-2 makes it semi-useful vs infantry. I often see the Vulcan being more effective vs jump infantry in its stock. Vs anything else well you know the result.
I think there is only one useless mech in Battletech: The urbanmech!
Obviously you don't or haven't played any of their scenario books.
prob not best choise for a title lol, when the point was that there isnt realy any worthless mechs because they are lart of the narrative/lore and hold othef values than pure battle value lol. but overall agree, BT has this point for it where almoat all other wargames painfully lack it
In my opinion, the only worthless mech is the mech you do not use properly
no mech is worthless someone has to be cannon fodder
Good thing I one of the best mechs to ever be produced..... Wait what's being used as target practice!!!!
Oh that’s easy! Inner Sphere.
Meh, worthless? So let' s all mount up in the very same mech with the same armour, weapons, speed etc . Yea, like that would be better than watching paint dry?!
the pirahnna
The Assassin is a crap Mech 1 Med Laser, 1 LRM5 and 1 SRM2 with a 1/2 ton each with the armor of a Locus at 40 tons. Another one is the Cicada is another worthless mech. the only thing they can do is run. Better for the Battle Value to just get some Wolfhounds and Locus.
Land air mechs.
ostscout is a decent mellee unit for its price, there far worse units
Worthless.... Canon fodder has never been useless....useless leaders have rendered military specialists useless by not using them as intended or not at all ... In WW1 the Browning Automatic Rifle became useless when it was decided not to deploy its single man held rapid firepower....and its specific developed tactic of walking forward across"no man land" while laying down automatic weapons fire meant to keep enemy hunkered down within their trenches while we closed distance...before the BAR was developed... automatic machine guns were fixed in position due to their weight of weapon and ammunition. The BAR weight of just over 20lbs enabled a single soldier to deploy while on the move ...a decisive advantage in battlefield with both sides using defensive entrenchment tactics...though providing just offensive capabilities to the soldiers ...the thought was several soldiers using BARs to spray to trenches of the enemy would allow the whole front to move across with relative safety as long as a continuous stream of automatic fire was deployed....between that and artillery being used to suppress any countering fire from automatic weapons...an assault across the lines could be made....it wasn't untill armored vehicles introduction that became a strategy using them in place of soldiers with BARs....but again...tanks were mis-used or rather...uselessly used in the beginning by not massing all the tanks in a single location to overwhelm the enemy with the amount of tanks ....something that has become standard doctrine for an attacker and defender countering that by massing its own tanks in defense as a small number is sure to be only a roadblock to a vastly superior amount of tanks as long as they aren't bottlenecked into a narrow road. where tanks can be destroyed one at a time...a superior tank can defend itself against multiple inferior tanks... A " useless" attacking force obviously unless depletion of ammunition stores is the tactic being used....many a commanders throughout the last few hundred of years send hundreds of thousands of men to their deaths by continuing to charge over open fields into the defensive teeth of modern artillery and automatic weapons ...see nothing wrong other then a supposedly lapse of desire to accomplish the feat with increased motivation and frontline leadership from junior officers... That's useless leadership of command ...normally eventually succeeding under those useless commanders, generally by attrition tragically. only reenforces those useless commanders into doubling their inability to see their own failings in strategic and tactical doctrine is what was preventing any victory from happening....useless loss of life is blamed on those dead instead of those who never placed themselves in harm's way at all.... I certainly would deem my participation as a useless endeavor being under those unaccountable inept and useless leaders..
Light mechs are worthless cause after run pc over hour of game play they drop my lights at will no matter made mission I have wtf