The Capellan Confederation is probably the nicest place to live for a common person. If you do your service to the state you get actual retirement - a place to live and expenses covered. The rewards for being a good citizen have been cut back dramatically with their losses in the Succession Wars, but no where else does an ordinary person have the opportunity to avoid working until they die. It is also the worst place to live if you are wealthy or a noble since the scheming is stuck at cartoonish levels.
@@gallendugall8913 I refuse to believe they have a standard of living even approaching decent. We're talking about space communists here. No fucking thanks.
@@yourseatatthetable they catch a giant break when they merge with ghost bear and become the Rasalhague Dominion nothing puts a smile on a rasalhague face like the knowledge that there are warirors kicking the shit out of dracos
@@Redfoxjack That's good to hear. Must be in the newer gen stuff because I'm not sure if I've read about this merger. I'm slowly reviewing my FASA BT/MW stuff for my YT channel so I might stumble across it eventually. I lost interest when the Dark Age stuff started coming out and lost track.
@@yourseatatthetable ya the merger happens in 3060 just after ghost bear fully moves in to the inner sphere post clan invasion it takes a little bit to fully intagrate sense the rasslhag free state kinda resists but they are the most stable fusion of clan and inner spere cutures
No, its honestly more the phone company is the single most terrifying entity out there.... Plus it even has an army as well as icing on the cake... Full disclosure my unit are pirates and organized into nice neat 6 unit groups to assist in our piracy. We are always watching...for your safety of course.....
The Free State of Van Zant may be for you! Er - if you move to the periphery and have pocket change or want to hide that you have Billions of C-bills, or are maybe TRYING to run from a Com-Star bill (won't help you but still). ua-cam.com/video/1WGBYD8kcJ0/v-deo.html
I don't care for that whole "good guy" thing. They're like the US or British Empires at their prime. They pretend to be so righteous but we all know what's really going on.
The Fed Rats are John Cleese's rendition of Sir Lancelot. Think they're the great hero, but just really end up killing a bunch of innocent people after a wedding.
A couple of sidenotes I'd like to add on each of these factions: Lyrans: While stereotyped as lovers of assault mechs (around 15% of their mechs are assault grade at a time when every other faction has only 7-10% assault mechs in their entire military), they also have an odd love for a specific light mech: the Commando, such that they refuse to sell it to anybody else, you have to salvage or steal one if you aren't aligned with them. This mech is one of the oldest light mechs (in fact it's the very first light battlemech) in the lore, and is actually quite a deadly little SRM boat if you use it right. DC: An important sidenote about standard Kuritan doctrines is that they don't really use medium mechs much. To them, they're largely superfluous, they instead either use a heavier light mech (i.e. the Panther or Jenner) or a lighter heavy mech (i.e. the Dragon) for the sort of things a medium mech would normally be used for, with a few exceptions such as the Hunchback. They also really, really like to fight in close quarters (and yet they're one of the more common users of PPCs, tied with the AC/5 for the second longest ranged direct fire weapon of that era). Another thing to note is that their mechs tend to be pretty quick, and will either sacrifice armor or firepower for that speed (though sometimes they tend in the other direction and sacrifice mobility, usually for greater firepower). FedSuns: I've noticed that these guys like autocannons on their mechs; ammo explosions are a very real danger in 3025 (no CASE), so that's something to keep in mind. Despite this they're also known for taking certain mechs with autocannons and replacing those autocannons with lasers (their Rifleman, Blackjack, and Marauder variants come to mind). Capellans: Capellans don't really use assault mechs, because they can't afford them (canonically they didn't develop a successful indigenous assault mech until the 3060s - they did develop a mech in the 3020s that the Kuritans eventually turned into the Mauler though), they use heavy mechs for those roles, including a unique one called the Cataphract made from scavenged parts of other mechs. They also tend to use more tanks and other combat vehicles to supplement their mechs, even coming up with the "augmented lance" in the Invasion era. They're also big on subversive warfare and stealth technology (they made the Raven, after all). Oh, and UrbanMechs, they are THE largest users of the trash can on legs, so if you're an Urbie fan, these guys might be for you. FWL: In the same way Davion likes autocannons, these guys like lasers. They're also the faction that has the most aerospace assets at this point in time (they manufacture most of them), so you might want to look into them if Aerotech is an area of interest. They also like tanks and combat vehicles, but tend to use lighter ones for recon while mechs handle the heavy fighting, unlike the Capellans. Rasalhauge: Not really relevant at this point, but if you play later eras you get Clan Ghost Bear involved and so you get both IS *and* Clan tech. Also, I would argue that rather than Rasalhauge being destroyed, it was Ghost Bear that went native. Oh and funnily enough, in the Ronin War, they were actually allied with the Kuritans against rogue units of the DCMS. If you want to play 3039, these guys use a mix of hand-me-downs from the Lyrans and Kuritans for the most part, although they do have a unique land-air-mech (basically a mech that turns into a jet fighter) called the Munin. Canopus: These guys are almost as Mary Sueish as the FedSuns, because the writers refuse to acknowledge anything negative about them other than the fact that it sucks to live there if you're male (it's a matriarchy) and they practice some forms of slavery (despite weak attempts to deny this by said writers). Taurians: These guys are basically almost a Successor State in all but name, and a lot more powerful than many give them credit for. They're also very trigger happy when it comes to WMDs. They also have some traits in common with the Terran Federation in Starship Troopers, so if you're a Heinlein fan, this might be for you. Outworlds Alliance: These guys barely do anything for a while...but in later eras (Dark Age and ilClan), they join forces with Clan Snow Raven to form the Raven Alliance, which could be a lot of fun if you like Clan tech and Aerotech (especially warships, as the Snow Ravens are one of a couple of factions to have a decent number of operational warships left). These guys are BIG on aerospace fighters. However, they do have a surprising ability to develop improved versions of othe people's mechs or even develop their own, most notably the Merlin, said to be the first new battlemech design in centuries when it debuted. Marian Hegemony: I'd argue they're actually more like Caesar's Legion from New Vegas if they weren't luddites. They deliberately invoke a Roman aesthetic with stuff like their coat of arms and even the use of Latin as an official state language. Could be fun to paint your mechs up like a Roman legion to really go with this theme. They also really like rocket launchers in later eras, giving their units devastating one-shot damage potential. If traditional pirates are more your thing, the Oberon Confederation would be where I'd go. Mercenaries: If you want to have your cake and eat it too, with a big company and high-tech shit, go with the Wolf's Dragoons. In 3025 they were one of the biggest merc units out there and had stuff like Star League-era LosTech and even things like Annihilators, Marauder IIs, and even a single Behemoth (a Clan mech, albeit downgraded) because Jaime Wolf is a cheeky bastard.
@@grayboats7741 Oh, one more detail I should bring up for the Capellans: they're actually one of the better factions to work for if you're a mercenary. They're generally less likely than the others to try and screw you over if you're good at your job (unless the Chancellor's having a bad day, then nobody's safe).
Another fun fact about the Taurians: they have a literacy rate that is better than some Inner Sphere nations, so much so that their Universities are priority targets whenever they're invaded.
Mercenaries made up literally half of the military forces of the game in the original 3025/third succession war that the game was designed to be set in. It was probably done that way for players to have agency to make their own forces that could be fighting for anybody. So if you fought for the Federated Suns one game, but fight against them in another game it makes sense. You are a mercenary, so it wouldn't be weird.
@@jamesmaclennan4525 It simply became too much. Back in the day, merc units were lance or at best company sized (as were planetary garrisons), with only the most successful, larger than life, house-affiliated units being bigger. By the time of the Jihad, everything below regimental size wasn‘t even worth mentioning, and half of them had essentially become house units, or their own outright faction. Some wiping the board was seriously needed.
@@stefanhoppe9280 Buit they went overboard stressing that for instance the ELH was not only wiped out as a combat unit but their dependents were also massacred it smelt of Catalyst saying "this is our game now so screw you fanboys...which is why for me BT runs from 2025-2039 and after that it's optional content. Their seeming adoration for the Word of Blake was another thing that put me off late game BT very fast
@@jamesmaclennan4525 it was due to legal reasons. read up on the ELH lawsuit on sarna. That's why catalyst didn't want to chance anything more with them. And WoB being given more substance to them (and more importantly, to the rank and file who joined the Militia) is a good thing for storytelling, actually. The ludicrous amounts of "evil for evil's sake" and, regarding mercs, inflation of long running writer-favourite units were getting too much.
I always thought that the culture of the Federated Suns was more based on British culture with French influence not the other way around. I mean their capital planet is called New Avalon which seems to be reference to Avalon from the Arthurian legend. Their currency is the Pound, and according to the primer which came with Battletech: A game of armored combat English is their only official language while French and German are also spoken in the Federated Suns.
Yeah the fedsuns is more British. people seize on the Red white and blue colour scheme and the fact that some of the early Presidents had french sounding names as proof of the "frenchness" but they conveniantly ignore that it was proably done to parallel british history. The first Kings of England (modern england considers itself to have been founded with the Norman Conquest) where french
The Fed Suns was also very "Space America - but with feudalism," which is why, in the late-Cold War 1980s, they were the most popular faction and generally written as "the good guys". They have this mix of the highest level of education and prosperity but have some of the most backwater, impoverished worlds in the Inner Sphere. They're big into claiming the moral high ground, but when you're neighbors are "war crimes the faction" and "war crimes North Korea style" that's a low bar. So their "we have the moral high ground" comes off more like self-righteousness (again, when you're neighbors are "Arrogance the star nation" and "my faithful Capellans worship me as a god" you can be _really_ self righteous and still seem magnanimous by comparison). They claim they're pro-small business (and have a whole economic sheriff agency to enforce it) while their economy and a lot of their politics are dominated by multi-stellar megacorps. They're very pro-freedom and pro-military (with the largest military in the Inner Sphere) and they don't mind throwing around their military might to manipulate and control their periphery neighbors (which is why the Taurians, who otherwise are culturally almost identical to the Fed Suns, are so paranoid of the Fed Suns they'd rather throw in their lot with the nuking Capellans).
No, the Federated Suns is heavily based on French standards and culture, people like to inject "USA" in there because, let's be real, how many of you know how and why French do things? France and the USA are virtually identical: Both are republics pretending to be democracies electing a president every 5 years, both have nukes, a space program, aircraft carrier and even if both are more or less occasionally targeted for ridiculous punchlines they still do their business, trading, etc... and their culture had and/or have a planet wide impact, they both like rock music and not being told what to do. Brits are obviously into the mix because between French and Germans, it's easier to work with French, they come and go as they please, do whatever the hell they want, usually are a pain in the arse about it afterward and a bitch to live with, but when shit hit the fan they are reliable. Anglos and Baguettes love to take pot shot at each other, but deep down they couldn't bare having the other one getting snuffed out, a rivalry build on centuries on "Fuck you!" "No you!" cannot be tossed out of the window just like that. Anglos never did forgive Baguettes for creating and shaping them, and that's a fact. Contrary to popular belief, The OG Star League is supposed to represent the USA, the Hegemony at least, mighty, powerful, first to expand in the SOL system but gathered a lot of jealous interest and finally received the Amaris special.
Meanwhile, somewhere in the Rim Collection: "Well, he didn't mention us and I took that personally! Boys, load the cornmobile and corncannons. We're going to war!"
Yakuza/Triad mix pretending to have honor and thinking they have some code of honor and more treacherous than Liao. Only Liao is honest about being a horrible vacation spot.
@@zackkilgore528 I would need to know more about the era to comment, but they definitely give off a Yakuza to me. If the Yakuza get it from Imperial Japan, then yay I learned something.
More Imperial Japan c. 1930s-1940s. There are actual yakuza in the Combine though, with their own mech units. You could even argue the Black Dragon Society terrorist cell is a giant yakuza.
Okay, to be fair to the Draconis Combine and Capellan Confederation, this series is from the 80s when popular opinion of Asian culture was still pretty low. I will give a few reasons to play both: The Draconis Combine's narrative places heavy emphasis on the more romantic notions of Bushido/Chivalry, meaning that almost all of their pilots are considered at the least professionals of their trade. Plus, the intrigue of battling against the ISF (Internal Security Force) is a fun way to market some scenarios and campaigns, if you play a low ranking story. Also, the Black Dragon Society presents a uniquely political enemy, since they are often the once responsible for the war crimes and the prevention of reforms in the Combine. Perfect for campaigns with a more Metal Gear style approach. The Capellan Confederation does have a tendency for promoting treachery, but this also means that they learn how to combat such things in a more effective manor. Having CCAF service is a great role-playing method of explaining the ability to see-through political and military shenanigans, and actually serving in their ranks can lead to some very fun scenario building. Playing a backstab, double-cross, or even triple-cross, can really spice up a gaming session. Each faction in Battletech offers a completely different kind of story or experience to enjoy, and none should just be written off as "faction for weebs" or "bad-guy faction." Nothing is a greater underdog story than trying to be an honorable man in the Capellan military. (And just to address the common comments I get: Yes, I play Kurita, they've been my favorite since I started. And yes, that was 20 years before I started watching anime.)
enormous missed opportunity with selling the marian hegemony. They aren't really any more pirates than any other scrappy periphery state. They DO LARP as Roman soldiers though! Complete with weird roman legion inspired units and a very low quality, very 90's faction symbol of a megadeth legionnaire. Love it. Their deep lore origins? Some random dude with money bought a planet and liked roman stuff. Fun weird little state.
Same here, just from being from steiner territories make me think that when the characters conclude a operation without casualities they just throw a mini-oktoberfest in the drop ship, spending some c-bills in Beer and Sausage. This makes me happy
Well, there's always the Steiner-aligned merc units like the Gray Death Legion (which, I would argue, was the single most important mercenary company in the setting, due to their retrieval of the Helm Memory Core). Granted, they're technically independent, but they were founded by Lyrans, and their final combat action leading to their destruction was under Lyran command.
Marik is more a grab-bag of everything. It's the least culturally homogeneous, so it has a lot of that southern USA sort of feel, but it mixes in a lot of Eastern Europe sort of feel to it as well. Roman Empire is a decent comparison though.
Less Roman Empire (That's Marian Hegemony), and more Holy Roman Empire (which was neither holy, Roman, nor an Empire) or pre-WW1 Austro-Hungarian Empire.
@@davidscoltock3970 Not necessarily. Perhaps in the parliament sort of way, but there's no blanket Oath to the 'crown' by military forces. That's more of a Davion thing.
When I first got into battletech, FedSuns were my go-to faction. 20 years later, Taurean Concordant is where my heart is. Combined arms doctrine in space Texas is the best. And I absolutely LOVE the Asterion power armor. Calderon will rise again! also, no mention of House Arano (The Aurigan Coalition)? Granted by 3050 they are pretty much wiped out completely, but by 3025 they were a faction (retconned faction, but still they are official). Also 9:50 yes, they were "winning" for a short period of time in the lore. except for pretty much the next century of lore where FedSun spend nearly 100 years just losing at absolutely everything after Tukkayid.
There isn't really much to say about the Aurigan Coalition to be perfectly honest. They're basically just a buffer state between the Canopians and Taurians. They do have a vaguely Latin theme going on though, which some people might like.
@@z3r0_35 Well there was a whole battletech game that revolved around them that released a few years ago. They are worth noting for people wanting to get into the game and find a "state" to get behind. Make Aurigan Great Again would make for a fun campaign idea and player motivation.
I am disappoint in your lack of mention of the Marian Hegemony when speaking of the Periphery. I demand you cover them in a future vid or I will have the Irish Space Romans get Centurion Biggus O'Dickus to give you 30 lashes with a wet noodle.
There was a bit more Roman influence before then, but that was mostly set dressing for the whole pirating thing. Still, best way to describe them is if you've played New Vegas, they're a lot like Cesar's Legion.
It always drives me a little nuts when people call the Fed suns vanilla. Culturally yes they are the most familiar kind of meant that way since they are often the hero's in the novels. One of the Interesting things to me about the Realm is the disparity. You have worlds like New Avalon, Kestrel, Galax, New Syrtis and Kathil very developed rich worlds then you have places like the Crucis outback which are poor frontier worlds. Made a character from the outback once and organically though a campaign became an ace was rather fun having Nobles having to salute him which in the Fed Suns military can happen since they are a merit based organization. You won't see that in the Combine or Lyran Commonwealth.
The fed suns also has magic scientists that get everyone else's tech as soon as it is created, and in one notable case with TSM actually someone discovered it BEFORE the faction that was actually researching it and then created a special gas that caused it to not work. The fed suns are so plain they are more known for some of their leaders than any particular thing they do because they start every battle with more, bigger and better equipment. Essentially they are the easy button of BT factions.
@@justinarchibald3857 Considering the prevailing tactic is medium mechs with auto cannons to keep heat down yeah they are better equipped than the Cappellans as for the magic scientists considering they got one agent into the higher echelons of their intelligence agency since Max was loosing it. I attribute it to that. remembering the Fed suns first attempt at double heat sink tech was far from perfect Justin having access to TSM tech and sending it to NAIS yeah they could have found a weakness. All I can say to Cappellan sour grapes you get your time to shine in the dark age and you are the strongest non clan faction so far in ILClan I had to watch mine fall due to a pretender to the throne, but do to that get fun asymmetrical warfare mechs like the Scarecrow and Vulpes that the fed suns never would have made if they weren't on their backs.
@@rollingthunder55 I love how Davion fans always have to try and make it about you guys. Davion consistently does things in the novels and sourcebooks that not only does not make any sense it is contradictory to all other in universe information we have. And of course feed all opposition with huge piles of stupid pills; need House Kurita to do nothing for a succession war? Don't worry there is a mercenary unit that will tie up thirty times their number of Kuritan regiments. House Davion is under Comstar interdiction? No problem they have a special technology that allows them to ignore that at will. House Davion has no direct access to Clan Tech? Super easy Barely an Inconvenience! House Davion will have full Clan tech manufacturing before any other house without any real reason this would be the case! Now I am not going to spend more time mocking House Easy Button, so I will just end this with the fact while I do like House Liao, my first like was House Steiner. I also like House Marik, The Magistracy of Canopus, the Taurian Concordat, and Clan Star Adders. As for how hard House Easy Button has it now, maybe it will actually struggle and have to earn some of their reputation for once.
@@justinarchibald3857 And can say how every Cappellan fan I've ever met seems to have a victim complex. Never mind that Max tried to go Manchurian Candidate on Hanse and promptly got smacked for doing it. Just ow our realm got ripped in half. Never mind that most of the Sarna March worlds were originally Terran Hegemony. But like I said history ebbs an flows Caleb had to go Emperor Commodus on his father Rape Dani Liao and piss off the Dragons and Ravens and the Fed suns paid for it. I just wish Julian was more Hanse than Victor.
@@justinarchibald3857 As a kid reading the Warrior Trilogy, I was a House Davion fan all the way. As an adult, I am more impressed by every other House for not completely collapsing under the weight of Davion's plot armor.
Davion's greatest strength lies in the use of combined arms tactics and the organic RCT (Regimental Combat Teams): 1 regiment of 'mechs, and 3-5 supporting regiments of armour and infantry, along with an attached aerospace regiment.
Rim worlds alliance is interesting because they vastly prefer aerospace assets. Mechwarriors and armored units are seen as more barbaric, and aerospace jocks are seen as the prestigious warriors in the same way Mechwarriors are in other states.
I will always be choosing the wolf dragoons since Natalia and lieutenant foster were the ones I met in my introduction to battle tech universe from mechasault.
Personally, I prefer ComStar. They are based on Terra(Earth). They have access to the greatest amount of Star League equipment. They are, easily, the most influential faction, having a monopoly on the HPG Network which is responsible for both FTL travel and long range communication. Hell, the most common monetary unit of Battletech, the C-Bill, is backed by ComStar.
Yeah but the thing is that ComStar seldom did anything overt for a while. Usually they had undercover ROM agents go around conducting false flag ops (the Tripitz Affair being a rare exception) until their attempt to subvert the FedSuns during the Fourth Succession War failed. Even then they tended to avoid direct fights until Tukayyid in 3052, and only because they learned that the Clans wanted Terra. That said, they did occasionally give Star League-era kit out to other factions when it suited them, perhaps most notably when they armed the DCMS with Star League-era mechs during the War of 3039 (including, famously, Takashi Kurita's Battlemaster).
As a 40k refugee as well being able to walk upon a new battlefield to stain with shattered metal and oil, I look forward to the slaughter And the laughter.
I bought mechwarrior 5 on a whim and realized I had dipped my toe in the sea that is Battletech. I feel pretty overwhelmed as I know next to nothing about it. My previous experience in tbe mecha genre was from Front Mission and Armored Core. My first hurdle in the campaign of MW5 was "what are all these factions? Wich one is the best for me?" Thats how I found this video!
Battletech has a much smoother and more interactive gameplay than warhammer/AOS I find myself having more fun playing battletech, I hope more people get into this game!
as a newbie to this setting, I actually found the Dark Age to be fairly interesting. Perhaps just having a fresh perspective on it is why, but I enjoyed it. WIth that said, the timeline me and my friends are sticking to right now is between 3025 and 3052
Let me clarify that, Dark Age was basically Jordan Weisman returning to his creation, turning it into a bastardized Star Wars knockoff, changing the game and basically telling longtime loyal fans to fuck off and they weren't wanted anymore.
im trying to recreate my old merc unit that i played with my friends while we were in the Air Force (we ran the old table top and the RPG side by side as one game). im looking for an Awesome and a warhammer mini to complete my lance. then the Black Dragoons will grace the field of battle once more! ahhh the memories
Other things to know about the Capellan Confederation: * The best-educated populace in the Inner Sphere, as low as that standard may be. All children in the Confederation are owed a basic education. Very high literacy rate. * Citizenship in the Confederation is EARNED by public service or other contributions to the culture such as works of art or literature. * Best engineers around. Capellans are very good with tech as a matter of survival. They're widely regarded for reviving old or inventing new technologies. * Capellans like tanks and combined arms (maybe out of necessity since they're the poorest Successor State). They're the most accomplished with non-mech vehicles.
Re: combined arms - I'd say it's mostly out of necessity. The Federated Suns and Free Worlds League have both chipped away at Liao's territory over the centuries, and with those planets goes resources and factories. It's kind of telling that one of the mechs they designed in the lull between the 3rd and 4th Succession Wars - the Cataphract - is a jumble of parts sourced from different chassis, and one of the few heavy-class designs they could actually reliably produce. Then the Davions took that factory too.
The highest level of education is actually found in the Taurian Concordat. The FedSuns and Capellans actually base their educational systems on the Taurian schools.
The Federated Suns can be viewed as a decent 'starter' faction like the video states, but if you're going to go deep into the nitty gritty of the lore you'll find that House Davion is just as morally ambiguous and nuanced as any other faction. For example, the way they take to combat is the use of combined arms more so than any other faction by doctrine. Many factions will use tanks and conventional aircraft because they have to (basically not having mechs available). But the AFFS uses vehicles in conjunction with their mechs. They use the Regimental Combat Team (RCT) as a standard (especially in the 3025+ eras). When they do use mechs, they tend to use mobility over firepower and maneuvers over brute force. One of the old jokes is that if you're facing Davions, you'll be facing a lot of bug mechs. This isn't entirely untrue, you will see a lot of Wasps, Locusts, and Stingers. But you'll also see usage of autocannons (as well as their ultra and rotary variants and tons of alternate munitions) on heavier mechs used in more abundance as well. But if you all really want to see how House Davion has a dark side, read the _"House Rules"_ short story in Strategic Operations.
"Commander,as a member of the MRBC your first loyalty goes to your unit,then to your employer and finally to the highest bidder.Stick to this rule and you will have a long and profitable career."
@@jasonreilly4497 What I love about the Taurians is they think there's this huge enmity and feud with the Federated Suns, and the Davions are actually like "Taura-who now?" I'm reminded of Bison's "For me, it was Tuesday" speech, or Thanos' reply to Scarlet Witch. 😂
When I got back into Battletech after 20 years or so, I decided it's Merc time. Based my unit as a bunch of dissafected Davions on a dying world near Terra that was wrekt by Kuritans during the Second Succession War but Davion held the planet. My troops found something akin to an abandoned Brian Cache where all the Kuritan tech had been irradiated and the crews had been hit by a chem strike but otherwise untouched. In order to pay for the 'mech restoration, the unit had to go into severe debt but the MRB saw the tonnage we had to offer (and the fact we had a Union-Class Dropship thanks to House Davion) thus our contracts started rolling in. At Battalion strength with some additional Armor (our original unit), we can only send a company at a time, so we have to be careful. To defend our base, we even have a full company of Urbanmechs thanks to some tactical aquisition from the Capellans (we sold off that dropship to more or less pay off our remaining debts but kept the Urbies). As it stands, my unit rocks two Assault lances, three Heavy lances, two mediums, two lights and one armored company... And the aforementioned Compan-Urbie. One of my unit's biggest problems is that we have a lot of different 'mechs, so sourcing spares is difficult. We tend to not fight for or against House regulars, rather we tend to fight pirates or mega-corps. We may have been born in the Fed-Suns, but our loyalty is to the unit first. Being so close to Terra means we have Dracs and Capellans to trash, and Steiner to bankroll us from timecto time, but we tend to stay out of the big fights.
Federated Suns absolutely. Preferably as a minor noble working for a bigger house like Davon. My ancestral mech would be the Griffin-1N. As much as a mercenary life would be fun, I'd prefer to be part of a faction than to be neutral.
One thing to remember is in the future every state is multi-ethnic. In addition to German Steiner also has a lot of Gaelic cultural influence. In addition to Japanese Kurita also has a lot of Arabic cultural influence. In addition to French Davion also has a lot of British cultural influence. In addition to Chinese Liao also has a lot of Russian cultural influence. In addition to Austro-Hungarian Marik also has a lot of cultural influence from Greece, Latin America, India, Africa, Mongolia, the Baltic, North America, East Asia, Polynesia, the Middle East, Australia, and some guy named Pete.
I've always thought the faction choice selection was interesting. Most people predicate the decision based upon what mechs they intend to run, but the reality is unless you're buying them at super inflated market prices, then you are what you eat(salvage) ;). In that case, I choose Word of Blake, but I eat Clans :D
I'm building my own mercenary group, it's called Black Midus and i have mechs from the Comstar command box so I explane it as they found a Lost Tech cash
The fact Battletech was created in the 80's is most evident in that the Japanese faction was strong and rich and the Chinese faction was weak and poor.
@@isaiahsmith6016 Go look at Japan and China in the 80s. Japan, strong (not) military and rich. China, weak military (See Taiwan Strait Crisis) and poor. In case it's not obvious Liao is inspired by China.
To be fair, the Cappellans get a lot stronger and kick Davion's ass in the Dark Age. It takes Julian an arm and a leg to get just New Syrtis back, and New Avalon is still being Nanjing'd by Kurita.
@@ssjjshawn Didn't help that Caleb squandered the Fedsun forces and raped the Chancellors daughter. I'm sure Julian probably will take back New Avalon and the rest of occupied fedsuns territory but also sure he will be so spent the Fedsuns aren't going to be major players in the ILClan era for awhile better shape than the free worlds league and Lyran Commonwealth.
@@rollingthunder55 Yeah, mentally insane Caleb dying was a boon to everyone. The AFFS dying with him wasnt. But sadly, Julian really isn't in a position in 3151 to take back New Avalon . He already used everything he had to retake New Syris and avenge his mom. Kurita's going to be Nanjing'ing New Avalon and Robertson for a long time. Davions are in even worse territory than Steiner and Marik. Sure Steiner has a lot of Clanners on their laws, and Marik is Marik, but Davion kinda just got all of its useful military wiped out except a few Davion Guards hiding on New Avalon, all of its major Industry Wiped out again, the 3 places they could regroup and redeploy from all savaged, looted, raped, and destroyed, only to spend all remaining forces (and literally have Julian cripple himself) to take back the most savaged, less well connected and least Important of those worlds, when their historic nemesis holds their homeworld in an Iron Grip. Unless Julian's son is Hanse 2, plot armor very much included, Davion's fucked and the 3rd Great House to fall after Cameron and Amaris.
Great video :) I saw a post on Reddit about you giving away some AGoAC boxes and thought I'd check out your channel, so far I'm glad I did. I really enjoyed the Rifleman video as well.
Such disrespect to the Taurians. It isn't just Space Texas. Sure, their citizens have more individual liberty and tend to be better armed than anywhere in the Inner Sphere, but there is a lot more to it than that. They have the best educational system in known space, and are rightfully proud of it. They have the most protections for individual rights and liberties. They're the only faction with an active, organized effort to scout more stars and establish new colonies. They produce, in large numbers, most of the staple 'mech designs, and have licenses for smaller numbers of almost everything else. They were embarrassing the Inner Sphere so much with their economy and industry that the Star League decided they needed to join, whether the Taurians wanted to or not (the Taurians did not). The Star League revoked the Ares Conventions so they could nuke the Taurians during the Reunification War, because it took nuclear strikes and killing 1 in every 5 Taurians to force them to comply with the Star League's "it's for your own good" proclamation (it was not for their own good). Sure, the Taurians are very hippity hoppity, but that's because their neighbors keep noticing that the Taurians have such nice things,
Lyran: Rich but strategically and tactically stupid Kurita: Imperial Japan in space WAR CRIMES INCLUDED Davion: Ultramarines Capallen: CCP in space is sus Marik: Game of thrones in space Canopis: If it can be thought up it’s legal Taurian: GET OFF MY LAWN Raselhueg (Fix spelling later): Space Poland or Afghanistan
Warren's night haunts look inspiring. And the mantra of "done is better than perfect" is a good one to live by. I have been toying with getting one of the new battle tech starter, hmmm.
Marion Hegemony, Named after Gaius Marius was a reformer general (or at least the one that gets ultimate credit) that gave the name to the Marion reforms in the roman empire just before Julius Caesar. The Hegemony is basically a bandit kingdom cosplaying as a Neo Roman Empire
Same here. Teenage-me thought the dragon in the house insignia looked cool, so that's the one he picked. Then I bought the House Kurita sourcebook and I've stuck with it ever since.
Came to Battletech with Mechwarrior 2, Ghost Bears Legacy... So choosing my favorite faction was a given from the start. And the more I learned about them, the more I felt loyal to this choice :-D
Were you reading my comments on other videos? Because you picked a lot of examples I did for some of these factions. ;) Especially the FWL = HRE/Balkans comparison and Taurians being kinda like Texas. But someone pointed out that there's some differences so I'd say the Taurian Concordat is probably more like Space Brazil mixed with TexMex and Switzerland's neutrality and crazy-prepared defenses. Capellan Confederation: I would describe them as Space Commies, mostly modeled after the CCP with some Bolshevik stuff mixed in. The Magistry of Canopus are what should be a Female Supremacist wet dream, but act very sensible and based despite that. They maintain some of the highest level medical technology anywhere, even compared to the Inner Sphere. Also Canopian Pleasure Circuses. Generally good guys, despite the hypocritical sex discrimination. The Marian Hegemony: I think it's pronounced so it rhymes with "Batarian" because HOLY FSCK I'm pretty sure someone at BioWare was cribbing off of the Periphery sourcebook when they write up the Batarians' background. SPACE ROME. But significantly less successful. I still have a soft spot for them because they pretty much dispensed with the pretenses and BS of the other nations and just admit they're an expansionist empire. Don't like the slavery but at least they try to have some laws to keep it from being a complete shitshow (and later developments have them moving away from that stupid, obsolete economic system). Outworlds Alliance was always my second choice after Clan Wolf (Original Recipe or -In-Exile flavors) because of their underdog status and focus on Aerospace forces. And this isn't even getting into the Deep Periphery stuff. I always found them fascinating, though I guess this is 3025 era so not much to say about them since they're not on anyone's radar 'til the Explorer Corps (now THERE'S an under-used and under-appreciated aspect of Battletech!) goes out and documents them after the Clan Invasion. I like how you think similar to me. I will watch, for now.
40k more and more is becoming a complete shit show due to games workshop being just the worse. A lot of fans are tired of it and either moving on completely or at least looking for a good distraction.
A lot of things. Biggest thing recently has been attacking and removing of fan projects in service of removing competition for their new streaming service. Me personally its the ludicrous pricing combined with laughable game balance thats turned me off. Im fairly new to 40k. Only got into it this last couple of years and decided to play chaos space marines. A faction that the developers clearly dont care for. Only learning this much later made me feel like ive wasted a lot of money on this faction or perhaps 40k in general. Idk I cant speak for other people but im looking at other properties now. Like Battletech.
@@mr6johnclark they threatened fanimators with lawsuits in order to clear away potential threats to their new streaming service. These included animators who have been providing content for years. The biggest one is Bruva Alfabusa: a UA-camr who created a parody of Warhammer 40k call If The Emperor Had A Text-To-Speech Device, though he wasn't told directly. He just saw which way the wind was blowing and suspended his series until such a time as Games Workshop lightens up.
Call me a madman, I love Bannson's Raiders, I played the mechwarrior clix game in elementary school and fell in love with my construction mech supported by a couple DI Shmitt Tanks with a array of haggard peasants and assorted vehicles.
Battletech, Grim Dark because of mankind itself; no Chaos daemons, no dirty Xenos; just mankinds worst enemy, mankind. I welcome 40K refugees, as I took refuge in 40K when FASA folded back in 2001 (yeah, and that Dark Age clicks game replaced by beloved Battletech 4th Ed. I'd gotten into just a few years prior...). Full circle for me. From Battletech to 40K, and back again. Pre-Clan Invasion is the best era to me, because, well; we can thank Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries for that one; along with that awesome cover art on the 4th Edition starter set from the late 90's.
I played a bunch of Battletech careers on both Battletech and MW5. I think I'll just go weeb and join up with House Kurita. I always loved Feudal Japan in games like Shadow of the Blade, Nioh and Sekiro.
@@GameAlicornLuna There's no *real* restrictions on which factions have which mechs except for what you impose upon yourself. Stalkers are all over the place, so it's not unheard of for one to have worked its way to you through the twists and turns of battle and salvage. Highlanders are less common, but mostly because it was a Star League mainstay and many were taken out of the Inner Sphere by Kerensky's exodus. Again, in your own game, you can really do what you want. I wanted a Warhawk/Masakari in my army back in my early days, so I just came up with a scenario to raid and capture one. My friends indulged me, and it wasn't an easy mission, but I spent 9 bucks on that miniature so we made it happen.
@@Disastromatic I'm just avoiding a situation where my character stands proudly on her Stalker when the Coordinator walks up and asks me where I got my Stalker and my reply is 'I just found it' like how Flak just finds a Laser Cannon in Advance Wars 2, despite the fact that the Laser Cannon wasn't even created yet.
@@GameAlicornLuna That's a perfectly valid explanation, though. Since battlemechs in 3025 aren't really built brand new anymore, armies keep their forces going by salvaging machines off of the battlefield. Your character could easily have beaten somebody in battle and taken their 'mech. It's standard procedure. There's even an unofficial gentleman's code about the entire salvage process.
Listening to the free world's league description immediately reminded me of ancient Greece. Sparta:"So a bunch of Persians want to conquer all of Greece and you want my help to stop them" Athens:"Yes, and you will help us because if the Persians beat us you will never have the satisfaction of doing it yourself." Sparta:"fine but the moment things settle.down it is back to our eternal feud."
gotta be federated suns or just contend with being 2nd best. lol .Favorite unit is by far the AFFS Davion Light Guards. I even made a set of custom counters to be used in BattleForce II. Never printed and mounted them , but the artwork was done. i actually prefer my own faction but it is more designed more for 3055 and after.. The 'Brandenburg Federation'.. My faction has its own unique flag which some day ill get printed (real 4'x8' waving in the wind flag),armed forces, naval and aerospace emblems, custom to&e symbols, unique ranking structure and graphics. i play megaHQ and megamek alot and eventually, ill have my own home world as well but still reviewing what files need to be edited.ive edited some files that pertain to that goal but still not finished yet. i also created a rather intricate custom medals and ribbons set of rules and these have their own unique images. at present there are 12 medals and 63 ribbons incidentally,my avatar is my armed forces emblem. KG!
Okay please revise the Marian Hegemony part because there is WAY more to them than just space pirates. and how did you miss the fact that their space Irish, Roman empire larpers? they put fucking giant Gladius on their mechs. they have so much more flavor than quite frankly the lesser periphery states that fit your description WAY better. I mean this is the 3025 era where a lot of that is still germinating and developing but their is WAY more to the 3rd strongest periphery nation than "just pirates" even by 3025
I second this. They get all their money from space piracy (and Com star when they want to make border wars), but their internal structure is based off of Rome. So much so that depending on the era it could be Roman Republic, Roman empire but it sucks to be anyone not military, and Roman empire except it is only kinda meh for anyone who isn't military. Much opportunity for New Vegas Caesar's Legion cosplay but with mechs.
You're correct. There is a great deal more to them, just like there's a great deal more for every other faction I touched on. I plan to go into more detail about the Periphery in a future video. You'll probably find that to be a bit closer to the full perspective.
I like to recommend pirates to start with. They get all the basic stuff and don't care about the paint! Plus Davion can use almost every vehicle a pirate can use. You'll be alright as long as you avoid clan tech because with the master unit list you'll see that you lack in tech. Then you have to get creative ha ha. Other than that yeah.... 3025 pirates then go ham.
Makes me want to try my yeomanry merc unit. Finds a refitting facility for Locusts long lost. Crack deal with comstar to not take it in exchange for perpetual retainer. Fields battalions of Locusts and just lrm murders everything by thousands of papercuts.
Nerdy time! Well, Actually. The 3025 era is the end of the 3rd Succession War, the longest war in all of BattleTech. It lasted for 160 years. It encompassed the entire century of the 2900's. You could literally be born, grow up, enlist/drafted into the military, fight battle after battle, retire from the miltiary, have kids, raise them to adults, have a grandchild be born in the same year you die at the age of 75 (quite late IMHO), and that grandchild could have the exact same experience. The 3rd Succession War is the setting for the original game. It is referred to the 3025 era as that was the last year of the war. The 4th Succession war was a very short war, just 2 years, and is the shortest of the four succession wars. It was so short because it was a global player run campaign of tabletop games where you could play in.
As you might guess from my avatar, I'm Davion for life. That being said. The fact that there are no actually "good" guys in this universe is what makes it so great. Ok, the Capellans in this era are an exception, they are outright bad (looking at you, Mad Max; and his daughter Romana isn't much better - and let's just not talk about Kali))
I imagine it’s to make it sound more German. They lean pretty hard into the Germans-in-space angle with the Lyrans, including the use of the German language. Many military terms like ranks and unit names are straight up copied from the Bundeswehr and many native Lyran designs have German names too.
"Lyran" refers to "Lyra", the constellation (a lyre, the Greek stringed instrument of old), which is pronounced with the "I" sound for the Y, so "Lie-run" is correct.
There's so many different cultures and languages across the Inner Sphere that either pronunciation is valid. With the limits of jump technology I'm sure people will have different ways of saying thing from one neighboring system to the next. Like how in the middle ages you could tell exactly what town someone was from by their particular accent.
@@Disastromatic In space, no one can hear you....correct my phonetic inaccuracies? I've heard it both ways and I think they work. It's the great thing about made up space monarchies.
Davion is Space America, everyone knows this. Aside from that it's an excellent vid nobody will ever see because you forgot Our Blessed Order, Comstar. It is easily the best faction, it runs Space UA-cam and the Space Internet, and is 100% unbiased.
Yeah, and Myndo Waterly doesn't need to use the toilet, it just evaporates out of her blessed backside. Pull the other one, it has bells on, you robed wacko. ;)
Very much. 3/4 of the population is dirt-poor and illiterate. You only get a formal education in the Fed Suns if your parents can afford to send you. Many of their mechwarriors can't read.
@@rylian21 Not that they can't read but a lot of the Fed suns is horribly underdeveloped I kind of liken it to Australia very developed modern cities with a very underdeveloped frontier.
@@rylian21 Not that they can't read but a lot of the Fed suns is horribly underdeveloped I kind of liken it to Australia very developed modern cities with a very underdeveloped frontier.
The way I see it; find a fighting style or list of mechs you like and then find where you get those mechs or which faction's fighting style fits the most.
The Battletech factions in a nutshell House Davion: The UK when was a empire. House Steiner: modern Germany House Liao: North Korea House Marik: the EU or Austria-Hungary The Star League: the United States hands down.
"Welcome to the Capellan Confederation. Enjoy your stay."
Narrator voice: You will not enjoy your stay.
Also narrator voice: And your stay is effectively permanent.
The Capellan Confederation is probably the nicest place to live for a common person. If you do your service to the state you get actual retirement - a place to live and expenses covered. The rewards for being a good citizen have been cut back dramatically with their losses in the Succession Wars, but no where else does an ordinary person have the opportunity to avoid working until they die. It is also the worst place to live if you are wealthy or a noble since the scheming is stuck at cartoonish levels.
@@gallendugall8913 I refuse to believe they have a standard of living even approaching decent. We're talking about space communists here. No fucking thanks.
@@jaffarebellion292 He's literally spouting tankie nonsense.
@@z3r0_35 I have no illusions that I'll convince the Capellan mouthpiece that he's wrong, but somebody had to make the point.
Rasalhague: We got our independence! Nothing can stop us now!
Clans: *Stares in enhanced imaging*
BatChal; American Football
Yeah, now there's a faction that never seemed to catch a break.
@@yourseatatthetable they catch a giant break when they merge with ghost bear and become the Rasalhague Dominion nothing puts a smile on a rasalhague face like the knowledge that there are warirors kicking the shit out of dracos
@@Redfoxjack That's good to hear. Must be in the newer gen stuff because I'm not sure if I've read about this merger. I'm slowly reviewing my FASA BT/MW stuff for my YT channel so I might stumble across it eventually. I lost interest when the Dark Age stuff started coming out and lost track.
@@yourseatatthetable ya the merger happens in 3060 just after ghost bear fully moves in to the inner sphere post clan invasion it takes a little bit to fully intagrate sense the rasslhag free state kinda resists but they are the most stable fusion of clan and inner spere cutures
Mercenary isn’t a faction, it’s a way of life.
I didn't choose Merc life, Merc life chose me.
Considering the Merc Board and various organizations set up to supplement the life style, it's like PAC with a union.
Remember work for Comstar if you really want to make the c-bills.
HOME IS THE REGIMENT
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ComStar: Because in Battletech even your phone company has it's own Army.
Haha good one
No, its honestly more the phone company is the single most terrifying entity out there.... Plus it even has an army as well as icing on the cake...
Full disclosure my unit are pirates and organized into nice neat 6 unit groups to assist in our piracy.
We are always watching...for your safety of course.....
@@Colonel_Overkill Everyone loves to poke fun at the cultish telecoms organization until they launch a full-blown nuclear assault on everyone.
Pay your bills f*****
Always pay your phone bill, or you risk getting Focht'ed.
I want to back the Federated Suns, but the more I learn about the Taurians the more I say "hippedy hoppity, get off my property".
The Free State of Van Zant may be for you! Er - if you move to the periphery and have pocket change or want to hide that you have Billions of C-bills, or are maybe TRYING to run from a Com-Star bill (won't help you but still). ua-cam.com/video/1WGBYD8kcJ0/v-deo.html
I don't care for that whole "good guy" thing. They're like the US or British Empires at their prime. They pretend to be so righteous but we all know what's really going on.
The Fed Rats are John Cleese's rendition of Sir Lancelot. Think they're the great hero, but just really end up killing a bunch of innocent people after a wedding.
The Concordat is the way to go. We have cookies. And bullets.
The Taurians only survive because they never encountered the Steiner Scout Lance. And they pay their HPG bills early(Comstar for life).
A couple of sidenotes I'd like to add on each of these factions:
Lyrans: While stereotyped as lovers of assault mechs (around 15% of their mechs are assault grade at a time when every other faction has only 7-10% assault mechs in their entire military), they also have an odd love for a specific light mech: the Commando, such that they refuse to sell it to anybody else, you have to salvage or steal one if you aren't aligned with them. This mech is one of the oldest light mechs (in fact it's the very first light battlemech) in the lore, and is actually quite a deadly little SRM boat if you use it right.
DC: An important sidenote about standard Kuritan doctrines is that they don't really use medium mechs much. To them, they're largely superfluous, they instead either use a heavier light mech (i.e. the Panther or Jenner) or a lighter heavy mech (i.e. the Dragon) for the sort of things a medium mech would normally be used for, with a few exceptions such as the Hunchback. They also really, really like to fight in close quarters (and yet they're one of the more common users of PPCs, tied with the AC/5 for the second longest ranged direct fire weapon of that era). Another thing to note is that their mechs tend to be pretty quick, and will either sacrifice armor or firepower for that speed (though sometimes they tend in the other direction and sacrifice mobility, usually for greater firepower).
FedSuns: I've noticed that these guys like autocannons on their mechs; ammo explosions are a very real danger in 3025 (no CASE), so that's something to keep in mind. Despite this they're also known for taking certain mechs with autocannons and replacing those autocannons with lasers (their Rifleman, Blackjack, and Marauder variants come to mind).
Capellans: Capellans don't really use assault mechs, because they can't afford them (canonically they didn't develop a successful indigenous assault mech until the 3060s - they did develop a mech in the 3020s that the Kuritans eventually turned into the Mauler though), they use heavy mechs for those roles, including a unique one called the Cataphract made from scavenged parts of other mechs. They also tend to use more tanks and other combat vehicles to supplement their mechs, even coming up with the "augmented lance" in the Invasion era. They're also big on subversive warfare and stealth technology (they made the Raven, after all). Oh, and UrbanMechs, they are THE largest users of the trash can on legs, so if you're an Urbie fan, these guys might be for you.
FWL: In the same way Davion likes autocannons, these guys like lasers. They're also the faction that has the most aerospace assets at this point in time (they manufacture most of them), so you might want to look into them if Aerotech is an area of interest. They also like tanks and combat vehicles, but tend to use lighter ones for recon while mechs handle the heavy fighting, unlike the Capellans.
Rasalhauge: Not really relevant at this point, but if you play later eras you get Clan Ghost Bear involved and so you get both IS *and* Clan tech. Also, I would argue that rather than Rasalhauge being destroyed, it was Ghost Bear that went native. Oh and funnily enough, in the Ronin War, they were actually allied with the Kuritans against rogue units of the DCMS. If you want to play 3039, these guys use a mix of hand-me-downs from the Lyrans and Kuritans for the most part, although they do have a unique land-air-mech (basically a mech that turns into a jet fighter) called the Munin.
Canopus: These guys are almost as Mary Sueish as the FedSuns, because the writers refuse to acknowledge anything negative about them other than the fact that it sucks to live there if you're male (it's a matriarchy) and they practice some forms of slavery (despite weak attempts to deny this by said writers).
Taurians: These guys are basically almost a Successor State in all but name, and a lot more powerful than many give them credit for. They're also very trigger happy when it comes to WMDs. They also have some traits in common with the Terran Federation in Starship Troopers, so if you're a Heinlein fan, this might be for you.
Outworlds Alliance: These guys barely do anything for a while...but in later eras (Dark Age and ilClan), they join forces with Clan Snow Raven to form the Raven Alliance, which could be a lot of fun if you like Clan tech and Aerotech (especially warships, as the Snow Ravens are one of a couple of factions to have a decent number of operational warships left). These guys are BIG on aerospace fighters. However, they do have a surprising ability to develop improved versions of othe people's mechs or even develop their own, most notably the Merlin, said to be the first new battlemech design in centuries when it debuted.
Marian Hegemony: I'd argue they're actually more like Caesar's Legion from New Vegas if they weren't luddites. They deliberately invoke a Roman aesthetic with stuff like their coat of arms and even the use of Latin as an official state language. Could be fun to paint your mechs up like a Roman legion to really go with this theme. They also really like rocket launchers in later eras, giving their units devastating one-shot damage potential. If traditional pirates are more your thing, the Oberon Confederation would be where I'd go.
Mercenaries: If you want to have your cake and eat it too, with a big company and high-tech shit, go with the Wolf's Dragoons. In 3025 they were one of the biggest merc units out there and had stuff like Star League-era LosTech and even things like Annihilators, Marauder IIs, and even a single Behemoth (a Clan mech, albeit downgraded) because Jaime Wolf is a cheeky bastard.
Dammit... I love Ravens and mixed unit compositions...
I can't be Capellan :(
Love that break down. About my read on them as well.
@@grayboats7741 Oh, one more detail I should bring up for the Capellans: they're actually one of the better factions to work for if you're a mercenary. They're generally less likely than the others to try and screw you over if you're good at your job (unless the Chancellor's having a bad day, then nobody's safe).
Another fun fact about the Taurians: they have a literacy rate that is better than some Inner Sphere nations, so much so that their Universities are priority targets whenever they're invaded.
Autocannons go brrrr
Mercenaries made up literally half of the military forces of the game in the original 3025/third succession war that the game was designed to be set in. It was probably done that way for players to have agency to make their own forces that could be fighting for anybody. So if you fought for the Federated Suns one game, but fight against them in another game it makes sense. You are a mercenary, so it wouldn't be weird.
Which was great but Catalyst seem to hate Merc units hence they essentially wiped them all out in the later eras. RIP the Eridani Light Horse
@@jamesmaclennan4525 It simply became too much. Back in the day, merc units were lance or at best company sized (as were planetary garrisons), with only the most successful, larger than life, house-affiliated units being bigger. By the time of the Jihad, everything below regimental size wasn‘t even worth mentioning, and half of them had essentially become house units, or their own outright faction. Some wiping the board was seriously needed.
@@stefanhoppe9280 Buit they went overboard stressing that for instance the ELH was not only wiped out as a combat unit but their dependents were also massacred it smelt of Catalyst saying "this is our game now so screw you fanboys...which is why for me BT runs from 2025-2039 and after that it's optional content. Their seeming adoration for the Word of Blake was another thing that put me off late game BT very fast
@@jamesmaclennan4525 it was due to legal reasons. read up on the ELH lawsuit on sarna. That's why catalyst didn't want to chance anything more with them. And WoB being given more substance to them (and more importantly, to the rank and file who joined the Militia) is a good thing for storytelling, actually. The ludicrous amounts of "evil for evil's sake" and, regarding mercs, inflation of long running writer-favourite units were getting too much.
I always thought that the culture of the Federated Suns was more based on British culture with French influence not the other way around. I mean their capital planet is called New Avalon which seems to be reference to Avalon from the Arthurian legend. Their currency is the Pound, and according to the primer which came with Battletech: A game of armored combat English is their only official language while French and German are also spoken in the Federated Suns.
Yeah the fedsuns is more British. people seize on the Red white and blue colour scheme and the fact that some of the early Presidents had french sounding names as proof of the "frenchness" but they conveniantly ignore that it was proably done to parallel british history. The first Kings of England (modern england considers itself to have been founded with the Norman Conquest) where french
There is also a Continent called Albion on New Avalon.
The Fed Suns was also very "Space America - but with feudalism," which is why, in the late-Cold War 1980s, they were the most popular faction and generally written as "the good guys". They have this mix of the highest level of education and prosperity but have some of the most backwater, impoverished worlds in the Inner Sphere. They're big into claiming the moral high ground, but when you're neighbors are "war crimes the faction" and "war crimes North Korea style" that's a low bar. So their "we have the moral high ground" comes off more like self-righteousness (again, when you're neighbors are "Arrogance the star nation" and "my faithful Capellans worship me as a god" you can be _really_ self righteous and still seem magnanimous by comparison). They claim they're pro-small business (and have a whole economic sheriff agency to enforce it) while their economy and a lot of their politics are dominated by multi-stellar megacorps. They're very pro-freedom and pro-military (with the largest military in the Inner Sphere) and they don't mind throwing around their military might to manipulate and control their periphery neighbors (which is why the Taurians, who otherwise are culturally almost identical to the Fed Suns, are so paranoid of the Fed Suns they'd rather throw in their lot with the nuking Capellans).
Mind you the "Primary" most known arthurian text was french.
No, the Federated Suns is heavily based on French standards and culture, people like to inject "USA" in there because, let's be real, how many of you know how and why French do things? France and the USA are virtually identical: Both are republics pretending to be democracies electing a president every 5 years, both have nukes, a space program, aircraft carrier and even if both are more or less occasionally targeted for ridiculous punchlines they still do their business, trading, etc... and their culture had and/or have a planet wide impact, they both like rock music and not being told what to do.
Brits are obviously into the mix because between French and Germans, it's easier to work with French, they come and go as they please, do whatever the hell they want, usually are a pain in the arse about it afterward and a bitch to live with, but when shit hit the fan they are reliable.
Anglos and Baguettes love to take pot shot at each other, but deep down they couldn't bare having the other one getting snuffed out, a rivalry build on centuries on "Fuck you!" "No you!" cannot be tossed out of the window just like that.
Anglos never did forgive Baguettes for creating and shaping them, and that's a fact.
Contrary to popular belief, The OG Star League is supposed to represent the USA, the Hegemony at least, mighty, powerful, first to expand in the SOL system but gathered a lot of jealous interest and finally received the Amaris special.
Meanwhile, somewhere in the Rim Collection: "Well, he didn't mention us and I took that personally! Boys, load the cornmobile and corncannons. We're going to war!"
Cornmobile? Do tell what kind of star league era or los tech sorcery's is this? Weaponising corn!?
The Rim Worlds Republic awakens.
The Draconis Combine is less like feudal Japan and more like space Yakuza.
Space Weebs. Makes you enjoy killing them more.
Yakuza/Triad mix pretending to have honor and thinking they have some code of honor and more treacherous than Liao. Only Liao is honest about being a horrible vacation spot.
Oh so they’re Imperial Japan
@@zackkilgore528 I would need to know more about the era to comment, but they definitely give off a Yakuza to me. If the Yakuza get it from Imperial Japan, then yay I learned something.
More Imperial Japan c. 1930s-1940s. There are actual yakuza in the Combine though, with their own mech units. You could even argue the Black Dragon Society terrorist cell is a giant yakuza.
Okay, to be fair to the Draconis Combine and Capellan Confederation, this series is from the 80s when popular opinion of Asian culture was still pretty low. I will give a few reasons to play both:
The Draconis Combine's narrative places heavy emphasis on the more romantic notions of Bushido/Chivalry, meaning that almost all of their pilots are considered at the least professionals of their trade. Plus, the intrigue of battling against the ISF (Internal Security Force) is a fun way to market some scenarios and campaigns, if you play a low ranking story. Also, the Black Dragon Society presents a uniquely political enemy, since they are often the once responsible for the war crimes and the prevention of reforms in the Combine. Perfect for campaigns with a more Metal Gear style approach.
The Capellan Confederation does have a tendency for promoting treachery, but this also means that they learn how to combat such things in a more effective manor. Having CCAF service is a great role-playing method of explaining the ability to see-through political and military shenanigans, and actually serving in their ranks can lead to some very fun scenario building. Playing a backstab, double-cross, or even triple-cross, can really spice up a gaming session.
Each faction in Battletech offers a completely different kind of story or experience to enjoy, and none should just be written off as "faction for weebs" or "bad-guy faction." Nothing is a greater underdog story than trying to be an honorable man in the Capellan military.
(And just to address the common comments I get: Yes, I play Kurita, they've been my favorite since I started. And yes, that was 20 years before I started watching anime.)
The capellans are space commies though, you can't favor space commies AND be counted as a human being.
@@feartheghus I'd put them more on the side of Star Trek's Romulans, than as real world Commies.
*cries in Saint Ives compact*
Big reason I'm a Liao fan is because they retook St. Ives.
He already mentioned the Capellan Confederation.
It's 3025 era, St Ives doesn't become a thing until after the 4th War.
But yes, sad to see Space Taiwan go. :(
@@Maddog3060 Kind of? The St. Ives Compact as a separate entity doesn't exist but the St. Ives Commonality does.
enormous missed opportunity with selling the marian hegemony. They aren't really any more pirates than any other scrappy periphery state. They DO LARP as Roman soldiers though! Complete with weird roman legion inspired units and a very low quality, very 90's faction symbol of a megadeth legionnaire. Love it. Their deep lore origins? Some random dude with money bought a planet and liked roman stuff. Fun weird little state.
I plan to go into more depth about the Periphery in the future. This was supposed to be mostly about the Great Houses, and I got a little off track.
in 3025 they where pirates. the Romanization didn't occur until the 3060s.
@@briandavion They were founded in the 2900s and were already being Romanised as soon as the founder felt established enough.
all periphery states are pirates and raiders?
Ok, Im sold. Ahoy me Fratres!
Steiner for the ultimate scout lance action.
Yea 4 Atlases! 🤣
I'm a merc but I'll always be a Steiner at heart.
I DON'T KNOW BUT I'VE BEEN TOLD
THARKAD CITY'S MIGHTY COLD
Same here, just from being from steiner territories make me think that when the characters conclude a operation without casualities they just throw a mini-oktoberfest in the drop ship, spending some c-bills in Beer and Sausage.
This makes me happy
Well, there's always the Steiner-aligned merc units like the Gray Death Legion (which, I would argue, was the single most important mercenary company in the setting, due to their retrieval of the Helm Memory Core). Granted, they're technically independent, but they were founded by Lyrans, and their final combat action leading to their destruction was under Lyran command.
@@z3r0_35 Not to mention they kept getting F’d over by everyone short of Davion (Kurita mostly, Marik/ComStar during the Helm incident)
Marik is more a grab-bag of everything. It's the least culturally homogeneous, so it has a lot of that southern USA sort of feel, but it mixes in a lot of Eastern Europe sort of feel to it as well. Roman Empire is a decent comparison though.
Less Roman Empire (That's Marian Hegemony), and more Holy Roman Empire (which was neither holy, Roman, nor an Empire) or pre-WW1 Austro-Hungarian Empire.
@@rylian21 Yeah, that works too
Marik always strikes me as the most British in terms of government
@@davidscoltock3970 Not necessarily. Perhaps in the parliament sort of way, but there's no blanket Oath to the 'crown' by military forces. That's more of a Davion thing.
@@DarkKnightCuron Sorry, wasn't specific enough. Post English civil war British, the first (and only) English republic
When I first got into battletech, FedSuns were my go-to faction. 20 years later, Taurean Concordant is where my heart is. Combined arms doctrine in space Texas is the best. And I absolutely LOVE the Asterion power armor.
Calderon will rise again!
also, no mention of House Arano (The Aurigan Coalition)? Granted by 3050 they are pretty much wiped out completely, but by 3025 they were a faction (retconned faction, but still they are official).
Also 9:50 yes, they were "winning" for a short period of time in the lore. except for pretty much the next century of lore where FedSun spend nearly 100 years just losing at absolutely everything after Tukkayid.
There isn't really much to say about the Aurigan Coalition to be perfectly honest. They're basically just a buffer state between the Canopians and Taurians. They do have a vaguely Latin theme going on though, which some people might like.
@@z3r0_35 Well there was a whole battletech game that revolved around them that released a few years ago. They are worth noting for people wanting to get into the game and find a "state" to get behind. Make Aurigan Great Again would make for a fun campaign idea and player motivation.
I am disappoint in your lack of mention of the Marian Hegemony when speaking of the Periphery. I demand you cover them in a future vid or I will have the Irish Space Romans get Centurion Biggus O'Dickus to give you 30 lashes with a wet noodle.
The whole Periphery will get more love in the future.
in 3025 the MH was basicly a battalion of pirates and a handful of worlds, the Romanization happened in the 3060s
There was a bit more Roman influence before then, but that was mostly set dressing for the whole pirating thing. Still, best way to describe them is if you've played New Vegas, they're a lot like Cesar's Legion.
It always drives me a little nuts when people call the Fed suns vanilla. Culturally yes they are the most familiar kind of meant that way since they are often the hero's in the novels. One of the Interesting things to me about the Realm is the disparity. You have worlds like New Avalon, Kestrel, Galax, New Syrtis and Kathil very developed rich worlds then you have places like the Crucis outback which are poor frontier worlds. Made a character from the outback once and organically though a campaign became an ace was rather fun having Nobles having to salute him which in the Fed Suns military can happen since they are a merit based organization. You won't see that in the Combine or Lyran Commonwealth.
The fed suns also has magic scientists that get everyone else's tech as soon as it is created, and in one notable case with TSM actually someone discovered it BEFORE the faction that was actually researching it and then created a special gas that caused it to not work. The fed suns are so plain they are more known for some of their leaders than any particular thing they do because they start every battle with more, bigger and better equipment. Essentially they are the easy button of BT factions.
@@justinarchibald3857 Considering the prevailing tactic is medium mechs with auto cannons to keep heat down yeah they are better equipped than the Cappellans as for the magic scientists considering they got one agent into the higher echelons of their intelligence agency since Max was loosing it. I attribute it to that. remembering the Fed suns first attempt at double heat sink tech was far from perfect Justin having access to TSM tech and sending it to NAIS yeah they could have found a weakness. All I can say to Cappellan sour grapes you get your time to shine in the dark age and you are the strongest non clan faction so far in ILClan I had to watch mine fall due to a pretender to the throne, but do to that get fun asymmetrical warfare mechs like the Scarecrow and Vulpes that the fed suns never would have made if they weren't on their backs.
@@rollingthunder55 I love how Davion fans always have to try and make it about you guys. Davion consistently does things in the novels and sourcebooks that not only does not make any sense it is contradictory to all other in universe information we have. And of course feed all opposition with huge piles of stupid pills;
need House Kurita to do nothing for a succession war? Don't worry there is a mercenary unit that will tie up thirty times their number of Kuritan regiments.
House Davion is under Comstar interdiction? No problem they have a special technology that allows them to ignore that at will.
House Davion has no direct access to Clan Tech? Super easy Barely an Inconvenience! House Davion will have full Clan tech manufacturing before any other house without any real reason this would be the case!
Now I am not going to spend more time mocking House Easy Button, so I will just end this with the fact while I do like House Liao, my first like was House Steiner. I also like House Marik, The Magistracy of Canopus, the Taurian Concordat, and Clan Star Adders.
As for how hard House Easy Button has it now, maybe it will actually struggle and have to earn some of their reputation for once.
@@justinarchibald3857 And can say how every Cappellan fan I've ever met seems to have a victim complex. Never mind that Max tried to go Manchurian Candidate on Hanse and promptly got smacked for doing it. Just ow our realm got ripped in half. Never mind that most of the Sarna March worlds were originally Terran Hegemony. But like I said history ebbs an flows Caleb had to go Emperor Commodus on his father Rape Dani Liao and piss off the Dragons and Ravens and the Fed suns paid for it. I just wish Julian was more Hanse than Victor.
@@justinarchibald3857 As a kid reading the Warrior Trilogy, I was a House Davion fan all the way. As an adult, I am more impressed by every other House for not completely collapsing under the weight of Davion's plot armor.
I get it, people are tired of Davion because they are like the Space Marines of Battletech. But I still like them the best.
The FedSuns love their autocannons, and I deeply respect that.
@@WolfHreda Same I always love me some autocannons
@@WolfHreda well of course they love autocannons. They make correct choices.
Davion's greatest strength lies in the use of combined arms tactics and the organic RCT (Regimental Combat Teams): 1 regiment of 'mechs, and 3-5 supporting regiments of armour and infantry, along with an attached aerospace regiment.
Rim worlds alliance is interesting because they vastly prefer aerospace assets. Mechwarriors and armored units are seen as more barbaric, and aerospace jocks are seen as the prestigious warriors in the same way Mechwarriors are in other states.
(Insert Top Gun theme here).
Alternatively; Rim Worlds Alliance, Ace Combat in BattleTech
Outworlds, not Rim Worlds. Those are Amaris' Assholes
@@KillerOrca which version of ace combat, the original or the schitzo max0r version?
@@baker90338 Original
I will always be choosing the wolf dragoons since Natalia and lieutenant foster were the ones I met in my introduction to battle tech universe from mechasault.
Personally, I prefer ComStar.
They are based on Terra(Earth).
They have access to the greatest amount of Star League equipment.
They are, easily, the most influential faction, having a monopoly on the HPG Network which is responsible for both FTL travel and long range communication. Hell, the most common monetary unit of Battletech, the C-Bill, is backed by ComStar.
Yeah but the thing is that ComStar seldom did anything overt for a while. Usually they had undercover ROM agents go around conducting false flag ops (the Tripitz Affair being a rare exception) until their attempt to subvert the FedSuns during the Fourth Succession War failed. Even then they tended to avoid direct fights until Tukayyid in 3052, and only because they learned that the Clans wanted Terra.
That said, they did occasionally give Star League-era kit out to other factions when it suited them, perhaps most notably when they armed the DCMS with Star League-era mechs during the War of 3039 (including, famously, Takashi Kurita's Battlemaster).
As a 40k bandwagon jumper, i felt obligated to like and sub. Will stay tuned for more info.
Welcome to the family!
These are dark days brother.
*drops duffel bag*
I'll be making my self at home here for a bit.
Welcome along, grab a Steiner Thunderbolt 5SS, strap in and come help me crush some Kurita mechs :)
As a 40k refugee as well being able to walk upon a new battlefield to stain with shattered metal and oil, I look forward to the slaughter And the laughter.
I bought mechwarrior 5 on a whim and realized I had dipped my toe in the sea that is Battletech. I feel pretty overwhelmed as I know next to nothing about it. My previous experience in tbe mecha genre was from Front Mission and Armored Core. My first hurdle in the campaign of MW5 was "what are all these factions? Wich one is the best for me?" Thats how I found this video!
Battletech has a much smoother and more interactive gameplay than warhammer/AOS I find myself having more fun playing battletech, I hope more people get into this game!
as a newbie to this setting, I actually found the Dark Age to be fairly interesting. Perhaps just having a fresh perspective on it is why, but I enjoyed it. WIth that said, the timeline me and my friends are sticking to right now is between 3025 and 3052
Let me clarify that, Dark Age was basically Jordan Weisman
returning to his creation, turning it into a bastardized Star Wars knockoff, changing the game and basically telling longtime loyal fans to fuck off and they weren't wanted anymore.
Best Dark Age book was Blood Avitar it was a murder mystery no mechs no battles, no space travel...
im trying to recreate my old merc unit that i played with my friends while we were in the Air Force (we ran the old table top and the RPG side by side as one game). im looking for an Awesome and a warhammer mini to complete my lance. then the Black Dragoons will grace the field of battle once more! ahhh the memories
Other things to know about the Capellan Confederation:
* The best-educated populace in the Inner Sphere, as low as that standard may be. All children in the Confederation are owed a basic education. Very high literacy rate.
* Citizenship in the Confederation is EARNED by public service or other contributions to the culture such as works of art or literature.
* Best engineers around. Capellans are very good with tech as a matter of survival. They're widely regarded for reviving old or inventing new technologies.
* Capellans like tanks and combined arms (maybe out of necessity since they're the poorest Successor State). They're the most accomplished with non-mech vehicles.
Re: combined arms - I'd say it's mostly out of necessity. The Federated Suns and Free Worlds League have both chipped away at Liao's territory over the centuries, and with those planets goes resources and factories. It's kind of telling that one of the mechs they designed in the lull between the 3rd and 4th Succession Wars - the Cataphract - is a jumble of parts sourced from different chassis, and one of the few heavy-class designs they could actually reliably produce. Then the Davions took that factory too.
Capellans also are into ECM, recon, mines and artillery.
Cpt. Lobo from CCAF, now commanding the Applied Mechanics mercenary CTF.
The highest level of education is actually found in the Taurian Concordat. The FedSuns and Capellans actually base their educational systems on the Taurian schools.
@@TheVikingJesus The Taurian Concordat are a periphery realm. Not really an inner sphere power.
The Federated Suns can be viewed as a decent 'starter' faction like the video states, but if you're going to go deep into the nitty gritty of the lore you'll find that House Davion is just as morally ambiguous and nuanced as any other faction.
For example, the way they take to combat is the use of combined arms more so than any other faction by doctrine. Many factions will use tanks and conventional aircraft because they have to (basically not having mechs available). But the AFFS uses vehicles in conjunction with their mechs. They use the Regimental Combat Team (RCT) as a standard (especially in the 3025+ eras). When they do use mechs, they tend to use mobility over firepower and maneuvers over brute force. One of the old jokes is that if you're facing Davions, you'll be facing a lot of bug mechs. This isn't entirely untrue, you will see a lot of Wasps, Locusts, and Stingers. But you'll also see usage of autocannons (as well as their ultra and rotary variants and tons of alternate munitions) on heavier mechs used in more abundance as well.
But if you all really want to see how House Davion has a dark side, read the _"House Rules"_ short story in Strategic Operations.
I'm sure it's been said... "hippedy, hoppedy, get the f&*k off my property!"
"Commander,as a member of the MRBC your first loyalty goes to your unit,then to your employer and finally to the highest bidder.Stick to this rule and you will have a long and profitable career."
It's always Davion. Sometime the Kell Hounds. But mostly, its Davion.
The "a" in Davion is pronounced as in "dad". The origin is D'Avion (from Avion, a region of France)
Dave-eon. :)
That's cool an all but I like to call my Daves how I see 'em.
Being a proud Taurian I just refer to them as fertilizer
@@jasonreilly4497 What I love about the Taurians is they think there's this huge enmity and feud with the Federated Suns, and the Davions are actually like "Taura-who now?"
I'm reminded of Bison's "For me, it was Tuesday" speech, or Thanos' reply to Scarlet Witch. 😂
Enjoyed your vid, great effort in providing an overview for folk new to the Battletech universe :)
When I got back into Battletech after 20 years or so, I decided it's Merc time. Based my unit as a bunch of dissafected Davions on a dying world near Terra that was wrekt by Kuritans during the Second Succession War but Davion held the planet. My troops found something akin to an abandoned Brian Cache where all the Kuritan tech had been irradiated and the crews had been hit by a chem strike but otherwise untouched. In order to pay for the 'mech restoration, the unit had to go into severe debt but the MRB saw the tonnage we had to offer (and the fact we had a Union-Class Dropship thanks to House Davion) thus our contracts started rolling in. At Battalion strength with some additional Armor (our original unit), we can only send a company at a time, so we have to be careful. To defend our base, we even have a full company of Urbanmechs thanks to some tactical aquisition from the Capellans (we sold off that dropship to more or less pay off our remaining debts but kept the Urbies). As it stands, my unit rocks two Assault lances, three Heavy lances, two mediums, two lights and one armored company... And the aforementioned Compan-Urbie. One of my unit's biggest problems is that we have a lot of different 'mechs, so sourcing spares is difficult. We tend to not fight for or against House regulars, rather we tend to fight pirates or mega-corps. We may have been born in the Fed-Suns, but our loyalty is to the unit first. Being so close to Terra means we have Dracs and Capellans to trash, and Steiner to bankroll us from timecto time, but we tend to stay out of the big fights.
Federated Suns absolutely.
Preferably as a minor noble working for a bigger house like Davon.
My ancestral mech would be the Griffin-1N.
As much as a mercenary life would be fun, I'd prefer to be part of a faction than to be neutral.
One thing to remember is in the future every state is multi-ethnic.
In addition to German Steiner also has a lot of Gaelic cultural influence.
In addition to Japanese Kurita also has a lot of Arabic cultural influence.
In addition to French Davion also has a lot of British cultural influence.
In addition to Chinese Liao also has a lot of Russian cultural influence.
In addition to Austro-Hungarian Marik also has a lot of cultural influence from Greece, Latin America, India, Africa, Mongolia, the Baltic, North America, East Asia, Polynesia, the Middle East, Australia, and some guy named Pete.
Liao also has a bunch of Scottish and Texas in there, which is weird.
This is a joke.. right? I'm only asking, as I'm a bit slow when it comes to catching on sarcasm..
@@moparman1692 It's making fun of what a random disorganized mess the Free Worlds League is.
@@frankb3347 got you! ☺️
Oh yeah, Pete. Really crucial contribution there, single-handedly built the Duchy of Andurian with his actuator wrench.
20:20 Actually the Marian Hegemony are Space Romans, you were thinking the Circinus Confederation.
I've always thought the faction choice selection was interesting. Most people predicate the decision based upon what mechs they intend to run, but the reality is unless you're buying them at super inflated market prices, then you are what you eat(salvage) ;). In that case, I choose Word of Blake, but I eat Clans :D
I'm building my own mercenary group, it's called Black Midus and i have mechs from the Comstar command box so I explane it as they found a Lost Tech cash
Thanks for the overview! Great video
I am a 40k guy, but totally loved BattleTech (2018) on PC, so maybe I give tabletop battletech a try
I definitely recommend it, and the PC game is similar enough to the tabletop game that it shouldn't feel totally alien when you play it.
I just play as "a random group of pirates" and call it a day.
Ahh everything is making more sense, rock on
The fact Battletech was created in the 80's is most evident in that the Japanese faction was strong and rich and the Chinese faction was weak and poor.
Please elaborate? I don't see the connection.
@@isaiahsmith6016 Go look at Japan and China in the 80s. Japan, strong (not) military and rich. China, weak military (See Taiwan Strait Crisis) and poor. In case it's not obvious Liao is inspired by China.
To be fair, the Cappellans get a lot stronger and kick Davion's ass in the Dark Age.
It takes Julian an arm and a leg to get just New Syrtis back, and New Avalon is still being Nanjing'd by Kurita.
@@ssjjshawn Didn't help that Caleb squandered the Fedsun forces and raped the Chancellors daughter. I'm sure Julian probably will take back New Avalon and the rest of occupied fedsuns territory but also sure he will be so spent the Fedsuns aren't going to be major players in the ILClan era for awhile better shape than the free worlds league and Lyran Commonwealth.
@@rollingthunder55 Yeah, mentally insane Caleb dying was a boon to everyone.
The AFFS dying with him wasnt.
But sadly, Julian really isn't in a position in 3151 to take back New Avalon . He already used everything he had to retake New Syris and avenge his mom. Kurita's going to be Nanjing'ing New Avalon and Robertson for a long time.
Davions are in even worse territory than Steiner and Marik. Sure Steiner has a lot of Clanners on their laws, and Marik is Marik, but Davion kinda just got all of its useful military wiped out except a few Davion Guards hiding on New Avalon, all of its major Industry Wiped out again, the 3 places they could regroup and redeploy from all savaged, looted, raped, and destroyed, only to spend all remaining forces (and literally have Julian cripple himself) to take back the most savaged, less well connected and least Important of those worlds, when their historic nemesis holds their homeworld in an Iron Grip.
Unless Julian's son is Hanse 2, plot armor very much included, Davion's fucked and the 3rd Great House to fall after Cameron and Amaris.
Great video :) I saw a post on Reddit about you giving away some AGoAC boxes and thought I'd check out your channel, so far I'm glad I did. I really enjoyed the Rifleman video as well.
Some of the other channels don't really have a good surface level entry video. I'm glad to see.
Such disrespect to the Taurians. It isn't just Space Texas. Sure, their citizens have more individual liberty and tend to be better armed than anywhere in the Inner Sphere, but there is a lot more to it than that. They have the best educational system in known space, and are rightfully proud of it. They have the most protections for individual rights and liberties. They're the only faction with an active, organized effort to scout more stars and establish new colonies. They produce, in large numbers, most of the staple 'mech designs, and have licenses for smaller numbers of almost everything else. They were embarrassing the Inner Sphere so much with their economy and industry that the Star League decided they needed to join, whether the Taurians wanted to or not (the Taurians did not). The Star League revoked the Ares Conventions so they could nuke the Taurians during the Reunification War, because it took nuclear strikes and killing 1 in every 5 Taurians to force them to comply with the Star League's "it's for your own good" proclamation (it was not for their own good).
Sure, the Taurians are very hippity hoppity, but that's because their neighbors keep noticing that the Taurians have such nice things,
Look at the diversity in the thumbnail picture. LOOK AT IT! amazing.
Welcome to Battletech.
Lyran: Rich but strategically and tactically stupid
Kurita: Imperial Japan in space WAR CRIMES INCLUDED
Davion: Ultramarines
Capallen: CCP in space is sus
Marik: Game of thrones in space
Canopis: If it can be thought up it’s legal
Taurian: GET OFF MY LAWN
Raselhueg (Fix spelling later): Space Poland or Afghanistan
Small edit to Canopus, you can be anything you want, unless you are a man
Rasalhague are Weeb Swedes.
Be fair; it's not just Kurita who has war crimes included.
“I, Cato davion, have turned my mech into a giant autogun”
Remember: Canopians have catgirls.
Warren's night haunts look inspiring. And the mantra of "done is better than perfect" is a good one to live by. I have been toying with getting one of the new battle tech starter, hmmm.
Marion Hegemony, Named after Gaius Marius was a reformer general (or at least the one that gets ultimate credit) that gave the name to the Marion reforms in the roman empire just before Julius Caesar. The Hegemony is basically a bandit kingdom cosplaying as a Neo Roman Empire
I stated back in 1986 and I was DCMS or House Kurita. I have been a proud member of the DCMS for over 35 years.
Same here. Teenage-me thought the dragon in the house insignia looked cool, so that's the one he picked. Then I bought the House Kurita sourcebook and I've stuck with it ever since.
Taurians: *Sipping moonshine and playing the space banjo.*
Davions: ...
Taurians: "GIT OFF MAH LAND YA FED SUMBITCH!"
Ma! Warm up my Warhammer and call the boys! We got ourselves some trespassers!
Perfection.
Came to Battletech with Mechwarrior 2, Ghost Bears Legacy... So choosing my favorite faction was a given from the start. And the more I learned about them, the more I felt loyal to this choice :-D
Love the 3025 period :) House Steiner all the way :) Banshee 3S the mech to own :)
I thought house steiner only had the Atlas. Because they can't spell anything with more than 5 letters.
Were you reading my comments on other videos? Because you picked a lot of examples I did for some of these factions. ;) Especially the FWL = HRE/Balkans comparison and Taurians being kinda like Texas. But someone pointed out that there's some differences so I'd say the Taurian Concordat is probably more like Space Brazil mixed with TexMex and Switzerland's neutrality and crazy-prepared defenses.
Capellan Confederation: I would describe them as Space Commies, mostly modeled after the CCP with some Bolshevik stuff mixed in.
The Magistry of Canopus are what should be a Female Supremacist wet dream, but act very sensible and based despite that. They maintain some of the highest level medical technology anywhere, even compared to the Inner Sphere. Also Canopian Pleasure Circuses. Generally good guys, despite the hypocritical sex discrimination.
The Marian Hegemony: I think it's pronounced so it rhymes with "Batarian" because HOLY FSCK I'm pretty sure someone at BioWare was cribbing off of the Periphery sourcebook when they write up the Batarians' background. SPACE ROME. But significantly less successful. I still have a soft spot for them because they pretty much dispensed with the pretenses and BS of the other nations and just admit they're an expansionist empire. Don't like the slavery but at least they try to have some laws to keep it from being a complete shitshow (and later developments have them moving away from that stupid, obsolete economic system).
Outworlds Alliance was always my second choice after Clan Wolf (Original Recipe or -In-Exile flavors) because of their underdog status and focus on Aerospace forces.
And this isn't even getting into the Deep Periphery stuff. I always found them fascinating, though I guess this is 3025 era so not much to say about them since they're not on anyone's radar 'til the Explorer Corps (now THERE'S an under-used and under-appreciated aspect of Battletech!) goes out and documents them after the Clan Invasion.
I like how you think similar to me. I will watch, for now.
I alternate between ComStar and Word of Blake mostly but I've been dabbing into Federated Suns themes as of late.
Can anyone explain to me why Warhammer 40k Players are coming to battletech?
What happened?
And welcome to the new guys.
40k more and more is becoming a complete shit show due to games workshop being just the worse. A lot of fans are tired of it and either moving on completely or at least looking for a good distraction.
@@StationaryBeggar what went wrong? the gaming system? the lore? Management? Price?
A lot of things. Biggest thing recently has been attacking and removing of fan projects in service of removing competition for their new streaming service. Me personally its the ludicrous pricing combined with laughable game balance thats turned me off.
Im fairly new to 40k. Only got into it this last couple of years and decided to play chaos space marines. A faction that the developers clearly dont care for. Only learning this much later made me feel like ive wasted a lot of money on this faction or perhaps 40k in general. Idk I cant speak for other people but im looking at other properties now. Like Battletech.
@@StationaryBeggar thanks for the info, and i wish to know a lot more! and welcome to Battletech/Mechwarrior.
@@mr6johnclark they threatened fanimators with lawsuits in order to clear away potential threats to their new streaming service. These included animators who have been providing content for years.
The biggest one is Bruva Alfabusa: a UA-camr who created a parody of Warhammer 40k call If The Emperor Had A Text-To-Speech Device, though he wasn't told directly. He just saw which way the wind was blowing and suspended his series until such a time as Games Workshop lightens up.
How to choose a Battletech faction or how I came to love the Capellan Confederation
I am a Steiner lover, a mercenary and a sympathizer toward those badasses in the Taurian Concordat
Loved the overview!!
Yar Har Fiddily Dee! Also a great excuse to split into combined warfare as a rough around the edges band of raiders.
3039 is an underrated time period because it's still mostly 3025, but you get some cool toys like the ER Large Laser and Streak SRM-2.
And the Wolfhound and Banshee-3S!
Do you HAVE to pick a faction? or can you just buy the mechs you think look cool and have neat stats and then use them together?
I wasn’t sure how to feel about your video, then you mentioned disavowing Dark Age, and that did it for me! You’ve won a fan!
Call me a madman, I love Bannson's Raiders, I played the mechwarrior clix game in elementary school and fell in love with my construction mech supported by a couple DI Shmitt Tanks with a array of haggard peasants and assorted vehicles.
Battletech, Grim Dark because of mankind itself; no Chaos daemons, no dirty Xenos; just mankinds worst enemy, mankind. I welcome 40K refugees, as I took refuge in 40K when FASA folded back in 2001 (yeah, and that Dark Age clicks game replaced by beloved Battletech 4th Ed. I'd gotten into just a few years prior...). Full circle for me. From Battletech to 40K, and back again. Pre-Clan Invasion is the best era to me, because, well; we can thank Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries for that one; along with that awesome cover art on the 4th Edition starter set from the late 90's.
"Hippity hoppity, get the fuck of my property!" -every Taurian, probably
I played a bunch of Battletech careers on both Battletech and MW5. I think I'll just go weeb and join up with House Kurita. I always loved Feudal Japan in games like Shadow of the Blade, Nioh and Sekiro.
There's loads of that in the Draconis Combine.
@@mageleader3699 Which is why I'm choosing it! Problem, though, is the lack of Battlemechs I like in the faction like the Highlander or Stalker
@@GameAlicornLuna There's no *real* restrictions on which factions have which mechs except for what you impose upon yourself. Stalkers are all over the place, so it's not unheard of for one to have worked its way to you through the twists and turns of battle and salvage. Highlanders are less common, but mostly because it was a Star League mainstay and many were taken out of the Inner Sphere by Kerensky's exodus. Again, in your own game, you can really do what you want. I wanted a Warhawk/Masakari in my army back in my early days, so I just came up with a scenario to raid and capture one. My friends indulged me, and it wasn't an easy mission, but I spent 9 bucks on that miniature so we made it happen.
@@Disastromatic I'm just avoiding a situation where my character stands proudly on her Stalker when the Coordinator walks up and asks me where I got my Stalker and my reply is 'I just found it' like how Flak just finds a Laser Cannon in Advance Wars 2, despite the fact that the Laser Cannon wasn't even created yet.
@@GameAlicornLuna That's a perfectly valid explanation, though. Since battlemechs in 3025 aren't really built brand new anymore, armies keep their forces going by salvaging machines off of the battlefield. Your character could easily have beaten somebody in battle and taken their 'mech. It's standard procedure. There's even an unofficial gentleman's code about the entire salvage process.
Listening to the free world's league description immediately reminded me of ancient Greece.
Sparta:"So a bunch of Persians want to conquer all of Greece and you want my help to stop them"
Athens:"Yes, and you will help us because if the Persians beat us you will never have the satisfaction of doing it yourself."
Sparta:"fine but the moment things settle.down it is back to our eternal feud."
gotta be federated suns or just contend with being 2nd best. lol .Favorite unit is by far the AFFS Davion Light Guards. I even made a set of custom counters to be used in BattleForce II. Never printed and mounted them , but the artwork was done.
i actually prefer my own faction but it is more designed more for 3055 and after.. The 'Brandenburg Federation'.. My faction has its own unique flag which some day ill get printed (real 4'x8' waving in the wind flag),armed forces, naval and aerospace emblems, custom to&e symbols, unique ranking structure and graphics. i play megaHQ and megamek alot and eventually, ill have my own home world as well but still reviewing what files need to be edited.ive edited some files that pertain to that goal but still not finished yet. i also created a rather intricate custom medals and ribbons set of rules and these have their own unique images. at present there are 12 medals and 63 ribbons
incidentally,my avatar is my armed forces emblem.
KG!
That's awesome!
Okay please revise the Marian Hegemony part because there is WAY more to them than just space pirates. and how did you miss the fact that their space Irish, Roman empire larpers? they put fucking giant Gladius on their mechs. they have so much more flavor than quite frankly the lesser periphery states that fit your description WAY better. I mean this is the 3025 era where a lot of that is still germinating and developing but their is WAY more to the 3rd strongest periphery nation than "just pirates" even by 3025
I second this.
They get all their money from space piracy (and Com star when they want to make border wars), but their internal structure is based off of Rome. So much so that depending on the era it could be Roman Republic, Roman empire but it sucks to be anyone not military, and Roman empire except it is only kinda meh for anyone who isn't military. Much opportunity for New Vegas Caesar's Legion cosplay but with mechs.
I like the idea of the Hegemony, but their insignia frankly sucks. Way too complicated, and there's nothing remotely roman about it.
@@chesterstevens8870 this is true I'd like them to get a full source book with a sigil retcon, honestly the old sigil wouldn't be missed.
You're correct. There is a great deal more to them, just like there's a great deal more for every other faction I touched on. I plan to go into more detail about the Periphery in a future video. You'll probably find that to be a bit closer to the full perspective.
Irish space pirates and slavers LARPing as the Roman empire pretty much covers it.
I like to recommend pirates to start with. They get all the basic stuff and don't care about the paint! Plus Davion can use almost every vehicle a pirate can use. You'll be alright as long as you avoid clan tech because with the master unit list you'll see that you lack in tech. Then you have to get creative ha ha. Other than that yeah.... 3025 pirates then go ham.
Makes me want to try my yeomanry merc unit. Finds a refitting facility for Locusts long lost. Crack deal with comstar to not take it in exchange for perpetual retainer. Fields battalions of Locusts and just lrm murders everything by thousands of papercuts.
A small correction. The Marion Hegemony is imperial space Rome. Piracy is only piracy if you don't annex the planet.
Thanks for making this broski!
Nerdy time! Well, Actually. The 3025 era is the end of the 3rd Succession War, the longest war in all of BattleTech. It lasted for 160 years. It encompassed the entire century of the 2900's. You could literally be born, grow up, enlist/drafted into the military, fight battle after battle, retire from the miltiary, have kids, raise them to adults, have a grandchild be born in the same year you die at the age of 75 (quite late IMHO), and that grandchild could have the exact same experience.
The 3rd Succession War is the setting for the original game. It is referred to the 3025 era as that was the last year of the war.
The 4th Succession war was a very short war, just 2 years, and is the shortest of the four succession wars. It was so short because it was a global player run campaign of tabletop games where you could play in.
I always got a more of a "merica" feel from Davion space.
I've been toying with the idea of creating a privateer company loyal to House Davion.
Taurian Concordant: Get Off My Lawn! Thats my faction.
I have always been a fan of the Fed Sun's, but I think I am a merc at heart
House Steiner loyalist checking in.
My own insanity is Niop association, but end up mostly Darconius Combine. Just so I can have some units.
Neeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrd!
;)
As some one who hates the Inner Sphere, I only play as the clans.
Play as snord's irregulars
As you might guess from my avatar, I'm Davion for life.
That being said. The fact that there are no actually "good" guys in this universe is what makes it so great.
Ok, the Capellans in this era are an exception, they are outright bad (looking at you, Mad Max; and his daughter Romana isn't much better - and let's just not talk about Kali))
House Steiner- I like big mechs and I cannot lie.
Is there a reason I keep hearing “lie-run” rather than “leer-un”? It’s always read as the latter to me
I imagine it’s to make it sound more German.
They lean pretty hard into the Germans-in-space angle with the Lyrans, including the use of the German language. Many military terms like ranks and unit names are straight up copied from the Bundeswehr and many native Lyran designs have German names too.
"Lyran" refers to "Lyra", the constellation (a lyre, the Greek stringed instrument of old), which is pronounced with the "I" sound for the Y, so "Lie-run" is correct.
There's so many different cultures and languages across the Inner Sphere that either pronunciation is valid. With the limits of jump technology I'm sure people will have different ways of saying thing from one neighboring system to the next. Like how in the middle ages you could tell exactly what town someone was from by their particular accent.
@@Disastromatic In space, no one can hear you....correct my phonetic inaccuracies? I've heard it both ways and I think they work. It's the great thing about made up space monarchies.
Loved Kurita since I first played in 1986. Combine all the way...
Davion is Space America, everyone knows this. Aside from that it's an excellent vid nobody will ever see because you forgot Our Blessed Order, Comstar. It is easily the best faction, it runs Space UA-cam and the Space Internet, and is 100% unbiased.
Pay your HPG bills, fucko.
Yeah, and Myndo Waterly doesn't need to use the toilet, it just evaporates out of her blessed backside. Pull the other one, it has bells on, you robed wacko.
;)
Davion is more a hybrid of pre-revolution France and Constitutional Monarchy Britain. Just FYI.
Capellans are still better
Very much. 3/4 of the population is dirt-poor and illiterate. You only get a formal education in the Fed Suns if your parents can afford to send you. Many of their mechwarriors can't read.
@@rylian21 Not that they can't read but a lot of the Fed suns is horribly underdeveloped I kind of liken it to Australia very developed modern cities with a very underdeveloped frontier.
@@rylian21 Not that they can't read but a lot of the Fed suns is horribly underdeveloped I kind of liken it to Australia very developed modern cities with a very underdeveloped frontier.
Long Live the Free Worlds League!
Glory to House Marik!
The way I see it; find a fighting style or list of mechs you like and then find where you get those mechs or which faction's fighting style fits the most.
Great video man
House Marik, only because I like the banter and the book which starter the free worlds league, it was an amazing story.
I pick my faction based on which one pays me the most.
The Battletech factions in a nutshell
House Davion: The UK when was a empire.
House Steiner: modern Germany
House Liao: North Korea
House Marik: the EU or Austria-Hungary
The Star League: the United States hands down.
I started 3025, no faction. Just got comfortable with game. Picked after I knew the style I liked