The Inaugural 2022 Post

Welcome to 2022! The year of Time Runner and Soylent Green. 

As promised, I will continue to do science fiction and fantasy book reviews. Last year I was heavy on the sci-fi so this year I hope to swing the other direction into fantasy. 

It's January 2nd and I have already burned most of a $75.00 B&N gift card and a good chunk of another gift card. And read a book, Inhibitor Phase by Alastair Reynolds. I have a couple of other books lined up for review this year, classics like Fritz Leiber's Swords Against Deviltry and a newer title, After Dark by Michael and Shell DiBaggio. I also have Aurora Rising, Permafrost, The Winds of Gath for my Traveller friends and Sanctuary for you murderous thieves lurking out there. 

Lastly, I have picked up about 7 game titles from Noble Knights and DriveThruRPG to round everything out.

I hope you stay tuned this year. Join me on a year of epic reading. 

Mecha Review in Battletech Compendium - 10 Ton Mechs

Stuff you don't fight with a 10 ton mech.

10 and 15-ton mechs don't work for Battletech. Mechs of these sizes are punished by the math. Every cockpit is 3 tons. Every mech requires a gyro that weighs a ton per 100 units of rating. Tack on the internal structure of 10% of your maximum loaded weight. 

A hidden penalty is hiding in the construction rules of The Battletech Compendium. It's the units of 1 ton or 1/2 ton per part added. Some of the math results in values much lower than a half-ton, but rounding dictates either full ton or half-ton depending on the reading. 

Personally, I modify that rule to be 1/4 ton because .75 and .25 are just as easy to add as 1 and 1/2. It's not a "grab" to do this, it is just convenient to pair .75 tons of gyro to a 1/2 ton machine gun and 1/4 of ammo. It's not battle-effective, but it makes a lot of mechanical sense from a manufacturing point of view. 

One way to analyze mechs is to build them backward. A 10-ton mech needs a 3-ton cockpit, 1 ton of Internal Structure, an engine, and a gyro. The engine and gyro weights are linked. On the table below, everything in parentheses uses my 1/4 ton rule. 

Mech Tonnage	Cockpit	Internal Structure	Engine Rating	Gryo Size Rating/100	Engine Tonnage	Remaining Tonnage
10	3	1	100	1	3	2.0
10	3	1	90	1	3	2.0
10	3	1	80	1	2.5	2.5
10	3	1	70	1 (0.75)	2	3.0 (3.25)
10	3	1	60	1 (0.75)	1.5	3.5 (3.75)
10	3	1	50	1 (0.50)	1.5	3.5 (4.0)
10	3	1	40	1 (0.50)	1	4.0 (4.5)
10	3	1	30	1 (0.50)	1	4.0 (4.5)
10	3	1	20	1 (0.25)	0.5	4.5 (5.25)
10	3	1	10	1 (0.25)	0.5	4.5 (5.25)

As you can see, the 1/4 ton rule modification doesn't do much at all except for the extreme last two cases. It does make a difference in larger mechs. 

Just looking at that chart I built, there is hardly any room for weapons, ammo, and armor. If you slap 2 tons of armor on the mech with an engine rating of 100, you have a crazy fast mech that can only engage in melee. That won't last long at all but there is a case for an unarmed scout. 

At the other end of the spectrum, you could have a mech with a move of 1 or 2 toting good armor and small weapons but they will never get into range of a bigger mech. 

In order to understand a 10-ton mech, you need to consider what every mech can do. They move. They have a reactor for power and heat sinks. Mechs tower over the terrain and protect the occupants. These advantages aren't enough for combat, but they may take a role in combat support. 

Every 10-ton mech can lift loads and move things fairly rapidly with a footprint smaller than a vehicle of equal size. They can provide power and sensors at a base. These are your jeeps, your radars, and your delivery vehicles. In terms of Battletech, these are more targets of opportunity or a terrain piece to dodge around. Sort of like shooting up the parking garage. 

Where they do make sense is in the RPG Mechwarrior. The characters need appropriately themed transportation. A 10-ton mech with an engine rating of 100 is a sprinting Maserati while one with a rating of 10 is a robot-themed bulldozer. 

They have their place but they don't have to be combat effective. 

Trip Hop By The Light of the Silver Cords

I have some idea of what I'll be doing in 2022. It all starts with a theme and some tunes. This is a playlist for my next campaign, "Trip Hop By The Light of the Silver Cords". 

1. Nuits Sonores - Floating Points
2. Wandering Star - Portishead
3. Feel Life - POLIÇA
4. Trip & Glide - Love And Rockets
5. 6 Underground - Sneaker Pimps
6. Rocking Horse (Acoustic Version) - Kelli Ali
7. The Gaudy Side of Town - Gayngs
8. Zero 7 - Destiny ft Sia and Sophie Barker (2002) - Sia Argentina
9. Back To Front (Circular Logic) - DJ Shadow
10. Diet Mountain Dew - Lana Del Rey
11. Blue - MARINA
12. Limerence (Orchestral Mix) - Dmitriy Kuznetsov
13. Stay The Course - DJ Shadow
14. Roads - Portishead
15. Blood Moon - POLIÇA
16. Sonic Boom - Venus Hum

I haven't even started writing a premise yet, but judging by the soundtrack, "Gonzo" should cover it. Normally, I start with an idea but this time I have a sensation. My players need to grab their guns and gasoline to save the world. This promises to be no holds barred insanity.  

Mecha Monday - 12-20-2021

I think I know what I'll be doing for next year's weekly series: Mecha Monday. I've let a lot of things go this year, but I've also hung on to a lot of things. Somehow I completed my 52 weeks of reviews in 2021 and I am very proud of that. A weekly blog post seems to work best for me and the simpler the better. In fact, this post and the next will tag off of that. 

My next review will be of the Battletech: Beginner Box. 

I was hoping to do something like #monsterousmonday, #mechmonday, or #miniaturemonday but some of my skills have slacked off in the past year. For example, I let my drawing skills slack off which also impacted my painting ability. Basically, they are the same skill with two different types of media. 

rough... really rough

To get back on track, I'll be doing #mecha2022 because it involves fun games and ties into my art skills. 

Mecha are amazing because there are so many different kinds. And they lend themselves to the exploration of ideas and concepts. They can be rude like the image to the right or more polished like the image below. Both are the same Mecha, an Invid from Robotech. 

Of course, Robotech mecha aren't the only kinds out there. A more realistic rendition of giant killer robots are the Battlemechs from Battletech. My personal favorite mech is the Locust. 

It's like a Jeep on steroids and legs. What isn't there to like? 

Anyway, 2022 is coming and I am ready to go. I hope you follow along with me. 

Game Review - Battletech Compendium (1990)

Title: The Battletech Compendium
Rule Set: Battletech
Year: 1990
Editor: Donna Ippolito
Publisher: FASA
Pages: 144 pages
Rating: 5 of 5 Stars 

Battletech started in 1984 as a boardgame called Battledroids. Over the years, Battletech expanded the universe with a series of boxed sets like Aerotech and Citytech. Each one came with a set of rules, folding Mechs, bases, and two large maps. By 1990, Battletech was ready for a revamp, with all the rules in one place and streamlined. This took the form of The Battletech Compenium. 

And boy is this book concise and detailed. Within these 144 pages, you get Mechs, Aerotech fighters, infantry, dropship, tanks, heliocopters, and even subs all with integrated rules and easy to understand construction and pricing methods. 

The game is a great "I go, you go" game. Pick you mech or mechs, set the map, roll initiative and go crazy! 

One of the great things about Battletech is the heat system. Heat is the limiting factor on what you can do in a give round or game. Sure, getting a limb blown off slows you down, but if your reactor overheats, you're done. Like "went nuclear and got a fork stuck in you" done. You can actually explode from your own actions. 

Oddly, unlike other games where bad rolls can turn deadly, you have control over what harm you could inflict on yourself with heat. Every data sheet has a schedule of what occurs at each heat level. If you find the risk too high, slow down and cool it down. With great management, heat is never an issue. It's really a great game which lends itself to either one-on-one matches or full scale battles. 

For small scale fights, the rules are quick. Larger battles can bog down, but with some familiarity of the rules, they are still manageable. Even better, large battles work best off the hex map, so this set includes full color rules for tabletop battles with terrian. There is a massive selection of 1/287 scale figures for use with this set and to be honest, having the mechs is more fun than playing. 

Models for black and white pictures don't need to be painted.

This particular book requires more information than what is included. You will need Mech Data Sheets, a map or table, ruler, dice, and figures or tokens. There are plenty of resources online or use can use the ruleset to make up your own vehicles and mechs. The creation rules are extensive but intuitive. 

I got my copy on Abebooks. You can try this link for the The Battletech Compendium to search by ISBN on their site.  

You can also check out Classic Battletech on DriverthuRPG? While they don't have this exact title, they have tons and tons to choose from in the Battletech Universe.