Battletech: Clan mech origins and differences from Inner Sphere 'mechs
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- Опубліковано 27 вер 2024
- Hey folks welcome to a new episode in my Battletech coverage! In this vlog I cover, particularly those new to Battletech and may not know a lot about the origins of the Clans, where those Clan mechs come from, and some of the key differences between Clan mechs (which we'll soon be getting from the Kickstarter) and Inner Sphere mechs (those found in the A Game of Armored Combat boxed set).
You're a bit off about the Warden clans. While yes, they wanted to remain separate from the Inner Sphere, they also saw themselves as the Inner Sphere's protectors, to intervene should the Inner Sphere need to be saved from a large threat. Had the Word of Blake Jihad happened before the Crusaders got their way, the Clan Invasion would have instead been the Clans coming in to stop the Jihad.
Yeah as I understand it, they saw themselves as tbe protectors of the inner sphere and hopes of one day getting them back closer to the ideals of Star League
@@CrankyOldGamer Yeah. I fight for Clan Ghost Bear for two reasons. One is the fact they're a Warden clan. The other reason is because they have this family bond thing going on that you don't see in the other clans, even in other Warden clans.
@@gameprose4293 and those my friend are very good reasons!
@@gameprose4293 and they were happy merging with the space Vikings
@@certanmike Rasalhague Dominion forever!
Appreciate the reference to Tex Talks BT. No need to reinvent the wheel, but you made a good summary so we don't need to. Good job!
Hey thank you, really appreciate it!
Hello COG.
Yeah, I am one of those 'grey warriors'. I've been playing battletech since 1984 when it was released. I even played several games with 'Butch' Leaper, FASA's primary play tester at Capricon in Chicago in 1984.
I played mostly 3025 era Inner Sphere. And me and my friends dabbled a bit with Star League era tech as well when the TROs for that were released.
When the Clans invaded, a LOT of players went to playing Clans. And that is where my problems began. Because these players would play Clan tech in Clan Mechs, with Clan Pilots. It is not really any wonder that they were nearly unstoppable with all the Clan advantages. But, they could be beat, and I did so on several occasions. No, what really baked my cookies was a Clan Player hooting and making a fuss about how great of a player he was. How good a 'general' he was on the tabletop. And how 'poor' his opponents had played against him.
Well, give ME Clan Tech, and YOU take Inner Sphere, and we'll see bucko! Funny how they would get silent, or claim I was 'cheating' when I won using Clan Tech against them, with them restricted to Inner Sphere tech.
Clans can be beaten. You just don't play according to their rules of combat. Instead, you flood the field with 'inferior' Mechs and swarm them under. You DON'T 'duel' with them, the way they want to fight. You obliterate them with masses of firepower, tactics, and sheer numbers.
The Clan way of warfare is a matter of 'duels' on the field, and fast raids. Not long slog fests and winning by attrition of units. So it is easy to see why the Clans saw the Inner Sphere as 'dishonorable' and 'lesser' warriors.
Well, having served in the military (USMC), I can say without fear of contradiction that Warfare is a messy business. Not the 'neat' and orderly methods of the Clans. In War, if you want to win, you do whatever is required to obtain your objective. Fancy tactics, and orderly lines are things of the long dusty past.
So, even though I mostly play Inner Sphere tech forces. I don't really 'fear' the Clans. Their numbers are limited, their supply chain is laughable, and they mostly throw themselves at you head on. Oh, yeah. And they don't seem to like Physical Combat.
Com-Star was able to use these factors against the 'first wave' Clan Invasion. Enough so, that they forced the Clans to 'halt in place' for 15 years. Buying the Inner Sphere a period of time to re-arm, re-tool, and prepare. The result being to pare down that 3 to 1 combat advantage down to something more like 1.5 to 1.
Hopefully, newer players to the Game Universe won't be making the same mistakes as those kids way back when. If you are fielding Clan Tech, you are wielding a tech advantage over your opponent. Understand this. Do NOT 'crow' about winning. You had an edge the other guy didn't.
All true. I think back in the day there wasn't as many mechanisms to balance it out as there is now. And as always, no one likes sore winners are you pointed out.
I always loved the clans. Enhanced Mechwarriors trained from birth do do one thing: ride to war in giant stompy robots. As a kid my imagination just went wild.
I like Clan tech, but CLanners are not unlike your average PVP player you encounter in a game now. Just bidding against each other and jumping at every opportunity to prove their dong is biggest.......batchall and zellbrign and all those goofy ideals they have....
@@CMDRFandragon not all the clans are the same some are like that though
You forgot fighting for honor with a side of honor on some honor toast.
The reason why ghost bear is different to all the clans is because the first khans were a husband and wife.
@@CMDRFandragon yeh the clans are basically the mandlorian if the bstktedh unvese the iner soher fscthikns rebel s.liaans the csppelkean confederation the black dun syndicate the federated commonwealth the glactic republic turned glactic empire
thanks for emphasizing that the clans tech existed during the star league era. most 3025 era players don't or won't use the mechs/equipment in the TRO 2750. that doesn't make sense to me. these are the early designs and would still exist in large numbers. while certain items may not be available due to the costs of war, the tech still exists.
IMO: the players that think the clans 'broke' battletech, are not using the lore. everything the clans have already existed for nearly 500 years. the only difference is, the innersphere damaged/destroyed much of the industrial capability. the clans took steps to advance the same technologies and industry. the other fundamental difference is the war doctrine. clans try to use an honor system, where I.S. will use slingshot thru nukes to beat the opponent. the I.S. (except Kuritan's) don't understand the honor system.
I also think the years 3050-3068 should be renamed "SLDF out of the shadows". the clans are 80% of the SLDF that left known space. most of the remaining 20% became the military of Comstar. it was thru the efforts of Comstar that slowed or stopped the clans. until the Jihad, the two strongest forces were primarily SLDF. so,the era would look more like this.
SLDF: out of the shadows era
clan invasion
fed-com civil war
SLDF II
it's a short period of time with alot happening, but overall, it's a battle between the descendants of the SLDF.
Dear readers. Please read this comment! 100% accurate!
Up till the time period of the FedCom civil War; Clan mechs could easily operate solo in most situations and still come out on top purely because of the flexibility that came with being Omnimechs combined with their superior firepower and armour. The only times they operated in Stars was when they faced off against opponents with equal or superior weighted mechs.
Well said. Many clans especially early on could take on whole lances with one omnimech and come out on top.
Until Tukayiid anyways….
Excellent video. I always enjoy hearing other BT lore masters discussing their thoughts and opinions of this universe we enjoy.
Thank you so much! Appreciate it!
Thanks for this. Personally I really like how you explain things and would love if you made a lore series regarding battletech. I know it's a lot to ask for but these videos are great!
Thanks! I have some lore videos ideas brewin... stay tuned!
this is really cool - it helped a lot. I read the books ago, when hubby introduced them to me, but hadn't played until the KS came out with Clan Invasion. Really enjoy the clans too
Theres a lot to love in the battletech universe!
I enjoy all of Cranky Old Gamer videos
Thank you so much!
What I'm mostly excited about is to start using omni-variants of inner sphere mechs, and bring the older technology up to speed... I'm not too big a fan of the Clans, but I do like their tech. :P
You said it! Cant wait to get my Marauder II and Warhammer II !
its so funny that the simple idea of a equal representative government never crossed anyone's mind it was always who should be the next monarch
That something as insane as Feudalism took hold in the Battletech universe is actually somewhat justified by the lore. Between the rise of the Terran Alliance and the formation of Star League there was the Outer Reach Rebellion, where worlds more than a jump or two from Earth started to get angry and demand a greater say in their own governance. There's one HUGE issue that a lot of sci-fi handwaves, but is enormously important in Battletech: There was no FTL Communication. The only way a message gets to another planet in Battletech's history for a VERY long time is a courier ship carries your message. And while you can cross 30 light years instantly, it then takes a whole WEEK to recharge your Jump Core and cover another 30 LY. When the Hyper-Pulse Generator was finally developed, Star League had existed for around 60 years; and later on in the setting (3139, the Dark Age), when the HPG Network is disabled, everything goes completely to hell about 1.7 seconds later.
As a result of the rapidly growing rebellion and their inability to crush it, and significant governmental strife in the Terran Alliance (that saw it implode inside the next 50 years, and a civil war was literally only averted by a military coup slapping the belligerents into line with the threat of orbital bombardment), they passed the Demarcation Declaration: if you're more than a single Jump from Earth, congratulations, you're now independent, whether you wanted it or not.
At this point, the Inner Sphere is like Europe after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire: nobody can communicate with each other, and unfettered violence is quickly becoming the rule. Pledges of protection, handshake agreements and the like quickly become oaths of allegiance, as off-world resource bases and newly founded colonies have lost their support structure, and their lives are now depending on them finding patrons. Without rapid communication being possible between colony world and their counterpart, autocratic rule becomes the norm: it can take a month or longer for communications to flow back and forth along the chain. This of course, also lead to the rise of the Great Houses.
In short, anarchy and a lack of any form of communication meant the galaxy stumbled back into Feudalism, and by the time it was possible to do anything about it, the guys at the top of that pile had control of all the guns, and almost all the means of travel between worlds. By the time the Star League fell, they'd been the rulers of their domains for centuries, and had grudges with each other that were far, far older than Star League.
Star League - BOO! A. Kerensky was a numpty! Great job on the historical recap.
Hey thank you! Makes me want to do more lore vids
What I loved about the Clans was that FASA had finally come up with some original mech designs after appropriating designs from other intellectual properties for the Inner Sphere
I didn’t like any particular House, so I chose to play and paint my Inner Sphere Mechs as ComStar. After watching this video, I’m glad that I did.
Comstar - pay your phone bill! :)
Comstar is unknown in their behavior. Then there was the Word of Blake.
The Continental Army very much used conventional line infantry tactics during the American Revolutionary War. They just happened to also have large numbers of sharpshooters and light infantry, which also existed in Europe.
As i kid i thought it was like this
Clan mechs: bird type legs
IS mechs : human type legs
Hahaha I could see that - the Mad Cat and Vulture being so iconic!
this video help me understand alot of thing's, i am somhow new to the lore of Battletech,i play it on pc for long ,but i am new to the tabletop and the more deep lore abouit it,ty youre videos help alot
I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Thanks for your care at the start of this video.
I enjoyed the idea of running a pirate-hunting merc unit that had Clan experience during the final few months of the Clan invasion.
That would be a great backstory to a campaign
You dirty clanners! haha How is not a comment like this one the most liked?
People dislike clans, but i think they very interesting and kinda dumb haha. They are a great big bad tho and tbh the only thing i dont like is that their mechs both great and immensely boring they are good at everything, at every role, and can do everything, what i like is strategy so I appreciate that different mechs have different roles and advantages etc.
If you think about it in the recent BattleTech and MechWarrior games that's what makes interesting the game and there's excitement in finding new mechs and variants and build em how you like em and put better stuff that you have found.. to a certain extent i find clan stuff kinda meh, the only thing in theory that you have to decide is what mech chassis you like, but since everything can be any role and has more daka the more hard points the better.. idk for me this detracts from the game and strategy.
But godamit if they are not a cool crazy great big bad!
I think the Clans are a super cool concept, but they do come off a bit one-dimensional. They are sadly a bit conceptually dominated by the Crusader mindset which sorta reminds me of canonical sci-fi trope of "military driven, martial pride civilization" which is super easy to manipulate.
@@CrankyOldGamer agreed, specially the manipulable part.. you just go like "come and take this place on your honor dirty clanner" then set a trap and they walk into it.. for a civilization revolving around war thats not very.. strategical on their part tbh, but when they aro so op how else would you take them.. they kinda wrote themselves into a corner with them unfortunately
This is the single best explanation of the Battletech history I've ever found. I run a "geek" podcast, would love to have you on and talk Battletech with a fellow fan. If you'd think that would be fun, drop me a comment and I'll get in touch!
Id be delighted to! You can IM me on my Facebook page.
@@CrankyOldGamer I have done so, take a look in that mystical random Facebook messages place haha
i loved the time u spent on the differences for the new ppl in the universe ( i also know the differences , but as someone else said , loved the cover up of those little hints of the history ). Personally i believe that Clan mechs are amazing vs the normal ones, although there are some tweaking about what strategy should you follow if ur opponent does something different than u expect , like a chess battle ( but in chess there is the predictable conclusion ) but kinda different... u might lose the battle on one turn but might have a best chance in ur other turn and might crit a lot with the dice. its all about luck. Now if we go IRL issues , if we had this live , well... then it would depend on either leader of the squad and the whole squad in general ( so many variables )
Basically while the I.S was blowing itself to hell and gone, the clans conceived a way to preserve their technology and improve upon it while NOT throwing everything into the meat grinder.. Seriously though knowing everything I know about the clans there should've been no way space AT&T should've been able to defeat them on Tyyukyid.
But the point of all this really is (IRL business) was to create their own battlemech designs. So they could stop the litiney of law suits that plagued this game since it's inception.
Absolutely. IRL they were trying to distance themselves from say Macross or Robotech designs.
Your opening made me wonder what the clans would think of COVID
Im sure they'd declare a batchall on it! 😀
@@CrankyOldGamer The Scientist caste bidding on how few resources to use. I bid 5 microscopes!!.
Meanwhile the warrior caste look at each other in confusion.
Depends (as much does) on the Clan involved.
My money's on it being the work of The Society, so I'm blaming the Green Parakeeets and/or Clan Coyote.
I'm more excited for my Marauder
You and me both!
I'm only familiar with the cartoon from decades ago, how are these comparable
The cartoon is fun but its a bit corny. Defiinately BT universe. But hillariously, that cartoon has been retconned and described as an "in universe propaganda film" 😆
@@CrankyOldGamerthat's awesome
I hear comstar mentioned. Pay your bills fucko.
This message from the Black Pants Legion. Praise Z0rg!
YES!!!!!!
basically the clan invasion is akin to the horus heresy
More like the black crusades, and the civil war leading up to the exodus being the HH.
>Battletech video
*>CoRoNaViRuS*
Dislike.
You're tarded, ain't ya?
@@michaelbarbarich3965 no, just sick of hearing people whining about a big fat nothingburger
@@Kepora1 this came out right at the beginning of it, and while I've had it twice and it wasn't that bad, it's killed a few sick old parents of friends and coworkers.
Don't let partisan politics become your personality, or cloud your capacity for objective thought.
There's a reason why China still locks everything down; their population is very heavy on older adults and if it ripped through there, their healthcare system would collapse.
@@michaelbarbarich3965 well yeah but
You know.
Fuck China.
Also whether this was atbthe beginning or not, we're here for Battletech tomorrow some escapism from the shit, not to get embroiled into it again. No "partisan politics" there.
Bigger better stronger superior technology etc etc..but they still lost 😄 from the "inferior" inner sphere
IKR and Im here for it!
Very interesting and useful, thanks a lot!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Thanks for the basic rundown on Clan Mechs.
You bet, glad you enjoyed!
The Clans are awesome, it just sucks how historically, they were a flash in the pan. Like, for fans, the Clan Invasion is the main part of the Battletech story. In the actual lore, the Clans had like 2 years of being interesting, after being gone from the Inner Sphere for like 250 years.
Indeed. They seem to be the big bad that peters out after Tukkayid.
@@CrankyOldGamer "oh hey, those kerensky guys? Yeah they came back. Then they just sorta.. sit around? I mean we had our own stuff going on, so, you know, they can watch or something"
@@NemFX lol perfection
Also Tex is an awesome narrator, but he seems super greedy by adding 27 ads to a 6 minute video... I usually only watch the streams, they don’t have ads lol
That's youtube it now puts it on the poster to remove ads if they want less than youtube puts on them
get adblock, junkie
Also Tex is an awesome narrator, but he seems super greedy by adding 27 ads to a 6 minute video... I usually only watch the streams, they don’t have ads
I tend to try to not add too many ads (even though I could) - I'm not going to get rich off this!
Wonderfull explanation. The sound of your voice shows you realy love it!
If you ever want to make some sort of a cooperation vidproject leave me a comment.
Would love to!!!
Great vid....great presentation and synopsis
Thank you! Glad it was helpful for you!
Where can I find the inner sphere maps that show the evolution of the conflicts in the next years after 3052?
Think the battletech wiki has them
@@certanmike thanks
Also check out Sarna!
It is Aug 2028 and Covid is still raging; sad.
My God I hope not! Hoping this thing gets levelled out soon.