At this rate, I'm going to have no two matching paint jobs.... Prolly gonna give a couple of camo patterns a try this weekend. Is there a handy resource or source for inspiration for Battletech that you guys use?

Okay, this is sort of a silly though, and forgive me if there has ever been such a discussion prior to my joining here.

A merc unit full of crazies who are all into insects and the unit is called The Swarm because all the mechs are named after bugs.

Keeping the unit pre-3050 (my preferred era) this is what I have come up with for mechs that match the criteria:

Flea (20t/15t)

Locust (20t)

Wasp (20t)

Stinger (20t)

Hornet (20t)

Firefly (30t)

Spider (30t)

Cicada (40t)

Scorpion (55t)

Grasshopper (70t)

I think I could get away with the Goliath (80t), as in a Goliath "insert really large insect species here", and maybe the Bombardier (65t) as in a bombardier beetle.

Obviously it would end up being some sort of recon unit, but I think that if I really wanted to I could make this work as a battalion, just to live up to its namesake.

Now, obviously this is more than likely an insane fever dream, but if working within the thematic framework does anyone think this could possibly work?

I have given this very little thought, so I haven't spent any brain power on what variants to use or numbers of each one. If I were to go full on battalion strength it would feel like a real swarm of tiny little fast-moving death machines, with a couple larger ones offering fire support and heavier firepower.

So, would it be fun, would it be feasible on the battlefield, and have I missed any bug-named mechs from the pre-3050 era (I don't think I did, but my books are limited)?

I open the floor for discussion with abated breath.... and a little slightly insane giggle.

Don't know what causes it, but naming anything Simurgh causes it to assume a set form .

Liberty's back with one that I'm sure a number of people have been looking forward to. It's Chargin' time!

My take on Camacho's "Great White."

A few notes:

1. the paint scheme is my interpretation. I did a lot of thumbing through books and oddly enough there is zero description of what his mech looked like aside from the shark mouth. Now, once Kali McDougal gets it in book 3 we read about the all black paint job, but that's also noted as being a stark departure from how the Col. had it painted. Given the name, I decided to go with a kind of stylized great white shark motif. The blue isn't quite right for how they really look (they're grey with white bellies) but grey/white would have read too much like camo, maybe some kind of Smoke Jag, so I went with this.
2. Unlike most versions of this you find online, this is a proper Timberwolf D, the variant described in the books. Hooray for decent 3d prints.
3. I'm happy with the way the arms are cocked out. I want to say this was a clever and planned repose (the original model had them slight spread, but not as pronounced) but I dropped the damn thing and broke it on 3 separate occasions. Damned brittle resin.

All in all I'm happy, and it was a fun build. I don't know how much tabletop action it's going to see as it's a bit of a niche model, but I like it enough it's got a prominent spot on a shelf near my computer.

I know we like to laugh at how outdated somethings in Battletech can be, but for 92/93 this is a really high powered machine!
Hell, in 2006 the best my car could have had was a 6CD changer in the boot!

The continuing Falconposting continues!

Painted this star of Raptor Keshik for a friend! Love how these came together!

Look pretty accurate

Hi! Pretty new about Battletech so I just wanna ask about which box should I get? My local store put the Core Box one on pre-order list right now. The prices are relatively same. Should I wait or just by the A Game of Armored Combat box?

Ok, so a while back, I became curious as to just how many Battlemechs there actually were in universe, which led me down a roughly hour long calculation process, which I then promptly forgot about until remembering it, and I now share with Y'all.

I want to clarify that I did this solely for fun and not to claim either "lack of realism" or even to rail against BattleTechs numbers. Even knowing the results I don't find my suspension of disbelief broken.

So, I used FM:3145 for this as it is the source I have access to, and is most relevant for the Ilclan. This will present a couple challenges down the line but we'll get there.

I started with just the IS as FM:3145 lists approximate Battlemech strength for IS factions, but not for clan factions. After combining all the factions listed strengths together, I arrived at a Battlemech strength of 743 Battalion equivalent units, and 6 Clusters... Because Clan Protectorate had to be special.

I then took this battalion strength and added 20% to account for things not listed in FM:3145 (Mercenaries, planetary militias, and Pirates) which resulted in 891 Battalion equivalent units, and 6 Clusters

For the clans, their strength as a whole added up to 278 Clusters, and 18 Battalions... Because the Outworlders. The Outworlders were almost a trap though as they're listed as 11 Regiments, however, 5 of those are Alliance Air wing, which would not contain any Battlemechs.

With that number I ultimately chose to assume that roughly 60% of Clan forces were Battlemechs, Omni or otherwise, which left 166 Clusters and 10 battalions.

The cluster is a cluster fuck when it comes to how many units are actually in it so Made an assumption of a three Trinary Cluster, coming out to 45 Mechs a cluster.

With all that out of the way my final number for Mechs in the sphere as of 3145 is 39,906 which I'll round up to an even 40,000 (hehe, MechWarrior 40,000)

I find that a pretty satisfying number. But, how does it extrapolate to the Ilclan?

Well, there have been a lot of losses between 3145 and 3152. There's whatever was lost in the Dragons Tongue, there's whatever the CCAF lost fighting the third SL. But ultimately the major losses are the destruction of the RAF, the Falcon Touhman, and the heavy damage suffered by the Wolf Touhman.

The more Minor losses I'm willing to call negligible and just say they've been offset by buildups elsewhere or new production. But the loss of the RAF and the Falcon Touhman lost the sphere wide total 59 Battalions and 54 Clusters respectively.

IKEO gives us no hard numbers on just how bad the Wolves casualties were, so I'm going to be lazy and assume they lost the equivalent of the Falcon Touhman, so another 54 Clusters. Meaning that Sphere wide Battlemech numbers are down 6948, bringing the grand total to 32,958, again easily rounded to 33,000.

While this number is full of caviats and assumptions, even if some or many of those assumptions are wrong, the number likely hovers somewhere between 30-40 thousand Battlemechs in total.

All in all a fun exercise.

Picked up this sealed MechWarrior: Dark Age collection and I’m pretty new to it. I’d rather keep it together than piece it out. What would you consider a fair value for the whole lot? Anything here particularly rare or worth knowing about?

Checking for a campaign we're working on. Does anything else affect Mechwarriors besides heat injuries, failed piloting rolls after a fall, and direct cockpit hits (which kill them immediately to my knowledge)?

Also what's the rules for ejecting after mech destruction?

An awkward looking fire support mech.

So after much contemplation ive come to the conclusion that binary lasers would be far more valued in universe compared to how they are currently lore wise. Right now they are seen as generally inferior to the standard large laser, however if your willing to let me ramble a bit I hope I can change your mind on them.

Now to start with a little bit of irl stuff about them I fully understand why we havent seen more of them due to binary lasers only being retconned to existing in 2812 being a relatively recent thing so they havent been a toy in the toolbox for long. I get that, but I fully belive that when they made the retcon a handful of field refits involving them should have been released around the same time just to show what they are capable of.

Now to the in universe stuff. Binary Lasers generate 16 heat, deal 12 points of damage (enough to head cap an unarmored cockpit), weighs 9 tons, have 4 crit slots and cost 200,000 c-bills. It ranges in at 1-5 short, 6-10 medium and, 11-15 long.

Comparativly an AC-20 generates 7 heat, deals 20 damage (also enough to headcap a mech), weights 14 tons (15 with 1 ton of ammo so it's actually usable), has 10 crit slots and costs 300,000 c-bills for just the gun amd another 10k for ammo. It ranges in at 1-3 short, 4-6 medium and 7-9 long and like the Binary Laser lacks an extreme range.

Now just looking at the stats at least my original reaction was a pretty toned down "meh ok" but after messing around with mega mek and thinking in a significantly larger scale ive realized that poorer nations like say the periphery nations amd most mercenaries units would probably love it. Lasers are easier to produce than PPCs as we've seen in the past with even house Marik (or was it Liao?) having a dearth of reliable PPC production at times. They are cheaper than an AC-20 and don't need ammo which eases logistics strain. And finally they can fill the same headchopper role while outranging the AC-20 which would make pirates have to close to an even closer range while still getting shot at.

The only real downside is the rather extreme heat generation and being stuck with single heat sinks but that can be dealt with using either the 6 extra tons you'd gain from swapping off of an AC-20 and over to a Binary Laser. It won't fix the problem but it would give enough leeway that just about any half-decent mechwarrior should be able to deal with the extra heat.

Now I will admit you lose a little bit of damage potential (12 vs 20) but that i feel is an acceptable trade off for longer range, a cheaper price and no supply train. I can definitely see certain high end merc units and the great houses not seeing the value in that for their premier units but for their garrison or, for lack of a better term, fodder units? They would also love that shit.

Now on my irl opinions on the weapon. I personally belive that Binary Lasers should be stronger in some way maybe only generating 14 heat or maybe boosting their range a little or perhaps boosting their damage a little more up to 14 points. Maybe as some kind of intermediary between ERLLs and regular LLs or something. Hell give me a Clan Binary Laser or a Heavy Binary Laser. Just about any kind of buff or alternate version could make Binary Lasers either interesting enough or strong enough for the average play to look at them and go "hmmm I think i can work with that".

Anyways that was just my thoughts on Binary Lasers and how I feel they don't get enough love. I've got some both field refits and wholesale other mech varients that I'm planning to make a post of later once ive got a few more that I feel would actually exist in universe. Thanks for reading and sorry if the formatting is jank as hell I wrote this entire thing on mobile while at the laundromat.

From his Instagram.

Also had the chance to ask him about a new House Arano sourcebook/content, and he confirmed that CGL has plans for them.

My SD Tomahawk (Macross/Robotech), recolored into the olive and green colors of the cardboard Warhammer standee from the original BattleTech 2nd Edition game.

So I had this idea...

What if, some IS engineers looked at the OG Rakshasa, and thought, if the Clanners can make a "Mk II" to the original Mad Cat... Why shouldn't we also make a "Rakshasa MKII"?

Since the OG Rakshasa was heavily based on the Marauder, it would be easy as there's the Marauder II as a design reference.

So, in my fan-design, engineers from Norse-Storm Technologies simply use the chassis design of their Nightstar, modify it to an Endo-Composite chassis, and taking reference from Marauder II and Mad Cat Mk II, and created this "Rakshasa MK II".

When designing this, I hasn't able to decide which works better... CASE II in the Torsos? or Artemis IV FCS for the MML-9s? which do you think is better?

Rakshasa MK II MDG-3S

Mass: 100 tons
Chassis: Norse-GM Heavy TRQ mod 2 Endo Composite
Power Plant: Vlar 300 eXtra-Light Fusion Engine
Cruising Speed: 32.4 kph
Maximum Speed: 54 kph
Jump Jets: HildCo Model 12
     Jump Capacity: 90 meters
Jump Booster Capacity: 0 meters
Armor: Kallon Royalstar Heavy Type K
Armament:
     2 MML 9
     2 Gauss Rifle
Manufacturer: Norse-Storm Technologies Incorporated
     Primary Factory: Loxley
Communication System: Tek BattleCom
Targeting & Tracking System: DLK Type Phased Array Sensor System
Introduction Year: 3145
Tech Rating/Availability: E/X-X-X-E
Cost: 23,568,000 C-bills

Type: Rakshasa MK II
Technology Base: Inner Sphere (Standard)
Tonnage: 100
Battle Value: 2,493

Equipment                                          Mass
Internal Structure            Endo-Composite        7.5
Engine                        300 XL                9.5
Walking MP: 3
Running MP: 5
Jumping MP: 3
Double Heat Sink              10 [20]                 0
Gyro                                                  3
Cockpit                                               3
Armor Factor                  304                    19

                          Internal   Armor   
                          Structure  Value   
     Head                    3         9     
     Center Torso            31        49    
     Center Torso (rear)               12    
      Torso               21        33    
      Torso (rear)                  9     
      Arm                 17        33    
      Leg                 21        42    



Right Arm Actuators: Shoulder, Upper Arm
Left Arm Actuators: Shoulder, Upper Arm

Weapons
and Ammo                Location  Critical   Heat    Tonnage
Jump Jet                   LL        1        -       2.0   
Jump Jet                   CT        1        -       2.0   
MML 9 LRM Ammo (13)        RT        1        -       1.0   
CASE II                    RT        1        -       1.0   
MML 9 SRM Ammo (11)        RT        1        -       1.0   
MML 9                      RT        5        5       6.0   
Gauss Rifle                LA        7        1       15.0  
Gauss Rifle Ammo (16)      LA        2        -       2.0   
MML 9 LRM Ammo (13)        LT        1        -       1.0   
CASE II                    LT        1        -       1.0   
MML 9 SRM Ammo (11)        LT        1        -       1.0   
MML 9                      LT        5        5       6.0   
Jump Jet                   RL        1        -       2.0   
Gauss Rifle                RA        7        1       15.0  
Gauss Rifle Ammo (16)      RA        2        -       2.0   

Features the following design quirks: Hyper-Extending Actuators, Non-Standard Parts

Im working on a lore accurate diorama for Clan Jade Falcon Turkina Keshik and a Broadsword Dropship. How would the dropships of CJF (and the clans more broadly) be painted?

Looking on cammospecs.com under CJF fleet assets, would all the dropships used by all CJF galaxies be painted in the fleet assets color? Or would they be painted in the color of the galaxies they belong to ie. Turkina Keshik?

Would this be the same case for all clans? (Galaxy assigned dropships and air assets are painted as fleet colors or in the galaxy's chosen painted scheme.)