Fun fact theres also an in universe conspiracy theory that the last stand of the Blackwatch actually had nothing to do with covering the marines attempting to kill Steffan Amaris, but instead was distracting the 4th Ameris dragoons while the only two surviving children of house Cameron not present at Stefan's massacre in the throne room were smuggled off world aboard the Black lion class battlecuiser Tripitz, With the ship being found just floating in the periphery near Taurian space some 200 years later with nobody on board. In which case if its true they actually did succeed in their duty as the body guards of house Cameron one last time before the second round of nukes was dropped on them.
The best part was that became an out-of-universe fan theory before it was ever a thing in universe. The BT author who wrote in the SLS Tripiz's demise (and it's impossible history) was just doing it as mystery box to just be weird and inexplicable. It escalated until they had to acknowledge it with the Word of Blake's (only mostly) fake booklet, which solidified the conspiracy theory you see on Sarna. To this day, the man grins the grin of a man who has absolutely no control of the engine but loves the acceleration when it's brought up.
@@dashiellgillingham4579 Still say they made it to the deep periphery. Then set up shop and bided their time. Then a hundred or so years later the remnants of the Minnesota Tribe follow the path they did and find them. Offering their services to their new True First Lord. Right now I'm just waiting to hear that the new big bad after the IlKhan era will be them coming back for theirs.
@@dashiellgillingham4579 So he made a legit mystery both in universe AND out of it, and even if it doesn't have a conclusive answer it still gets people talking? He should JJ Abrams tips on how to make mysteries.
The Tripitz incident has always seemed to me as the Taurians just covering their salvaging of the ship, however it has always seemed a bit weird to me that a SLDF WarShip is just randomly sitting undisturbed in the middle of nowhere. And the conspiracy makes no sense because Kerensky would have a legitimate heir to the Terran Hegemony and Star League, and thus give the SLDF substantial credibility and the ability to put pressure on the Houses to get involved, as well as mean that at the Great Houses wouldn't need to figure out who to be first lord at the end of the civil war. Yet none of these things happened, but once more we go back to 'Why was the Tripitz there?'. And so, here is my own theory: The conspiracy is partially true, The Black Watch were covering for the Marines storming the palace as well as a Cameron(s) (Whether surviving child of Richard or another relative) to escape, yet for one reason or another, the Tripitz failed, Maybe the dropship that took the survivor was unable to rendezvous. Perhaps the Tirpitz suffered a miss-jump, or maybe it was sabotaged. What ever the answer may be, it is locked in a Taurian databank, rusting in a scrap yard, or worse, has been lost to time.
Battletech fans have gotten actual cease and desist orders from GM to stop contacting them to remind them they are (insert number of years) late in making a fusion reactor.
Came here for mechs, stayed for lore and ideologies. Man alot of fictional media from the 70s to early 2000s are like that. There is a simple hook and a huge rabbit hole when you get deep enough. For example Warhammer, transformers, halo, GI Joe, Battletech and lego ninjago, etc. Even comic books are like this.
@@H240909 fair point but what I mean by a simple hook is something that catches your attention. For example Master chief or even sergeant Johnson do catch one's attention due to their overall appearance and actions. Similar thing goes for optimus prime. Robots that can turn into cars and super soldiers are interesting to look at/ read about. A similar thing can be said of real life subjects and topics. Knights and samurai are interesting at 1st glance; therefore I would want to read about the history about them. I guess it all boils down to what interest you because everyone likes different things.
While the last stand of the Blackwatch is a tale of epic proportions, what they achieved with the scant few hours their stand bought doesn't get brought up enough. For while Hanni Schmitt's company held off the Amaris Dragoons from getting into Unity City, the survivors at Fort Cameron braved lethal radiation to clear rubble from the launch tubes and deployment bays of the heavily fortified and shielded central command building, Fort Cameron's citadel. Four squadrons of fighters, six assault craft, and a battalion of mechs, all piloted by ranking officers and their normally office-bound colleagues, deployed over the course of the day from the blasted ruins of the Fort to defend Unity City. From there the surviving SLDF commanders organised resistance against Amaris' forces for a full day, waging guerilla warfare against his troops across the city while key personnel were evacuated to the far reaches of the solar system. Fort Cameron was assaulted countless times that day, Amaris nuked it a second time, and eventually only managed to stomp out the last bits of SLDF command when he parked a squadron of Warships in orbit and bombarded the Fort for an hour straight... And the ghosts of the Blackwatch walked out from the deepest parts of the fort the day after.
Sorry, but that's just weapons-grade bullshittium plot armor. It takes all the suspense out of a setting when the writers fiat in plot armor so thick it can withstand more than one nuke.
@@chesterstevens8870 SLDF bases like Fort Cameron and the Castle Brians were built at the height of the Age of War and designed to withstand being carpet nuked from orbit, they go deep underground and the main building are radiation and blast shielded, and even then nukes are plenty devastating, as shown when the first nuke destroyed the entirety of the Black Watch Regiment except for a company worth of Mechs that had already been deployed and were outside the blast zone. Further nukes were attempts to blast out and completely destroy the deeply buried fortifications. No one who is caught in a the blast zone survives a nuke in Battletech. Everyone in Fort Cameron outside the Citadel and underground fortifications died when Amaris dropped the first nuke. The 9 surviving Blackwatch died when the second one was dropped on Puget Sound. The surviving defenders sortied around Unity City died when the third one was dropped, and the ensuing hour of Orbital bombardment dug into the bedrock and killed those who weren't in the tunnels at the edges of the compound, including almost all the surviving command staff who chose to remain in the base proper to coordinate resistance. The tenacity and unkillable-ness of the Blackwatch is as an organisation and a legend, not as individuals who shrug off nukes.
Blackwatch: Sir we've been fighting Amaris for literal years. Kerensky: Outstanding job, give me all the intel you got and then you can retire with full honours. Blackwatch: Sir with respect. We want to keep fighting Amaris. It's been fun.
@@timebrain3188 Also Nicky only really went off the deep end after the exodus civil war started and after he barely survived an illness which killed his mother and can cause brain damage.
Some have said that the Black Watch was listed as "Missing In Action" instead of "Missing, Presumed Dead" in official Star League and SLDF records. It's me. I said that. And I stand by it.
I would like to add that the Black Watch's preferred mech is the Highlander. A 90 ton assault mech infamous for its ability to snipe the cockpits of other mechs at range with its Gauss Rifle... and perhaps even more infamously it comes equipped with jump jets enabling it to simply jump on top of other mechs and crush them in what is known in-universe as the "Highlander Burial". It also comes with SRMs, LRMs, and several medium lasers for when you need to blow people up in several different ways.
My godfather was in the blackwatch during ww2 and passed away recently. He wasn't a big fan of sci-fi but I feel like he would have loved battletech for it's complex politics and lore.
Battletech- if you hear bagpipes, get off the battlefield Gundam- if you hear jazz, get off the battlefield If I had a dime for every time that happened, I’d have 20c, which isn’t much, but it’s curious it’s happened twice
Fun fact, the Northwind Highlanders book has a scenario for the last stand of the black watch. And it has the Black Watch in non-royal mechs too. None of the pilots bar one have piloting/gunnery under a 2, so you are gonna hit just about every damn shot even at long range. Also Elizabeth Hazen in the Exodus at one point had to eject from her mech and was shot in her helmet, when she came too, she found Aaron DeChevilier,s (Kerensky's Right hand man and Best friend) Atlas go up in flames from Inferno rounds. He Ejected after which the Rebels they were fighting tore apart the general causing her and the men around her to snap. She went up to a rebel, stole his sword, and went on to slaughter them with nothing but a sword. The incident was so bad, it was labeled a massacre.
According to Clan Jade Falcon's Remembrance, the blade was not stolen. Hazen fell into a deep malaze, completely unwilling to do anything, even breath, as she looked upon her fallen friend and ally. From beyond came the jade falcon she had trained through its life, the holy Turkina, bearing in her talons a blade of Terran origin. In so many words, it told her; "Get your fucking ass up and KILL THOSE BASTARDS!" And so. She did. All of them. This is why Jade Falcon's clan emblem is a bird holding a sword in its claws.
That's what those dirty Capellans get. Don't know if they lived by the sword (more like the dagger), but Elizabeth Hazen sure as hell made sure they died by it.
Excellent performance as always. Have to say, the retelling of the blackwatch holding their ground is definitely some of your best content yet. The emphasis, emotion but still staying in your typical cadence, just wonderful. Would throw up the suggestion that you do that as a regular kind of content, retelling historical battles in the settings in these kinds of videos. I know I'd watch it, repeatedly.
I have the feeling that the Black Watch is almost the only special operation unit in Battletech that doesn't try to backstab the ruler they are protecting to take control for himself. On the other hand, I have a feeling that this is caused by a lot of Star League brainwashing and conditioning. Otherwise, keeping a bunch of soldiers from the other states in line seems pretty difficult without it.
Honestly given that the Northwind Highlanders are one of the chief donators to the Blackwatch talent pool, i'd imagine the blackwatch is happy as long as some surplus SLDF tech gets sent to their parent organization
All SLDF forces served under the motto "Star League Above All." The Cameron family was Star League. Their house crest was the Star League.. uh... star, and the title of First Lord was their birthright. So, a combination of ideological loyalty and devotion to duty.
Spec ops/bodyguard units are almost always the most loyal. DEST, Death Commandos, Fox's Teeth, Knights of the Inner Sphere etc have sterling records. It's the intelligence agencies that are always trying to make power plays.
Erm, that's actually not particularily common in Battletech at all? Outside of the Draconis Combine's habit of taking weak or too reform-minded Coordinators behind the shed, internal struggles in the Successor States tend to be about dynastic squabbling or lower-tier nobles playing power games with their rulers, not palace coups by bodyguard units.
In the great words of Tex, Outnumbered and outgunned two lances of the Black Watch held up the entire 4th Amaris Dragoons, and so began the last stand of the Legendary Black Watch.
Every Mechwarrior who wants to pilot a Highlander had better install a loudspeaker blaring bagpipe music onto his mech and have his Highlander painted a tartan pattern.
that is just northwind highlander tradition. do not forget your jump jets too. we need no shovel when the battle is over. we bury em with mechs during the battle.
Excellent video! One of the great tragedies of the setting is that the Ghosts of the Blackwatch left with the Exodus and didn't stick around to join ComStar after the war.
What you said about bagpipes in the Battletech universe scaring the shit out of everyone has parallels in OT since there are recorded accounts of when Highland regiments entered the battle the sound of their pipes was enough to drive entire units to retreat from the field. Alba gu brath.
In general the use of bagpipes and giant hornes made from brass was meant to intimidate the opponent. These things were in use across Europe, especially with the Celts in nowadays France and Germanic tribes. Simple matter of fact is that only in Scotland has the tradition survived but bagpipes are not exclusively Scottish. That is not to say that the moment I hear Scots playing the damn things I don't reach for my broadsword to smash the darn sassenachs to bits and restore Scotland's honor and pride as a sovereign nation.
@@MaSOneTwo The Independence Party has won by a huge margin every election since the Brexit vote, and they are right now in a staring contest with England after their parliament blocked their second (recent) vote to succeed. There is a future where a sovereign Scotland rejoins the EU in a few years. The pieces are currently set for it.
Honestly I could listen to you talk about lore for hours. You have a chill and layback vibe that just makes it fun to listen too. Keep up the great work.
I just want to say this video is fantastic! The writing and pacing are great. I've watched Tex's videos on the Amaris Civil War a bunch of times so course I'm familiar with the event and the Blackwatch. This is to say that I highly appreciate your unquie take on this and wanted to say i can't wait to see more Battletech content from you. Thanks for the hard work and wonderful content!
Super glad to see you reach 100k and making a Battletech video at the same time the Black Pants Legion reaches 100k subs. Been getting into BT myself lately, it's a great setting that's far more niche than it should be. The tabletop game is fun as fuck and the vidya games are great too.
I think the BPL previously had 100k, but unfortunately they got hacked and turned into one of those crypto scam pushing channels a couple of weeks ago. So they're getting back up to 100k while they put up their old videos and fix up the channel.
I love how I literally just got into battletech lore last week and now a channel that I never suspected to touch on this subject all of a sudden does :)
Very happy to see some love for the amazing Battletech lore. I would also recommend looking into the 201st Comguard, veterans of Tukayyid who also held out against the Word of Blake on Terra.
My favorite group in Sci Fi now but the Finhert Highlanders in 40k despite their limited lore is also baller by working with crew to defend against infinite daemons on Cadia
Considering some of the most known royal guards like the pretorians have the history of killing their charges and deciding to be the one who decided on who is ruler i say the BW did a damn fine job. Hell the best example of this is just the Roman pretorians who had their own wiki page(sadly it was vandalized to hell and is gone last time i checked) listing all the roman emperors they killed, hell they sometimes killed multiple emperors in a the span of a single week. GM IS WORKING ON IT! They sadly just got delayed by a few years
"Now, their history is over..." Weeellll, technically.... The OG ghosts of the black watch would go on to form clan Jade Falcon. Alaric has appointed them as his new Black Watch (I don't know how he doesn't forsee having falcons serve as guards to wolves could backfire, but that's his problem). They also have several highlanders as bondsmen with implications that efforts may be made to bring more on board.
This brings a proud tear to my eye. As a recognized descendent of the Campbell Clan ( the clan who founded the Blackwatch in real life), I bow to the writers who did my fictional descendents such an honor.
Amaris was so shaken by the blackwatch he became paranoid, made mistakes, and diverted bodyguards and soldiers to protect himself, arguably contributing to the downfall ameris empire's life as karinsky beat the snot out of them. Maybe they can't take all the credit. The war probably would have happened the same way regardless, but while you can't say the blackwatch were the deciding factor, you can be damn sure they were the first nail in the coffin.
Reminds me of the Aiel from my favorite book series, the Wheel of Time. They're a honor-based society of desert dwelling people who live in basically fantasy Australia which is even more harsh and deadly than the real thing. At one point they give a peace offering to one of the regular nations and when said nations King eventually destroys the peace gift, the Aiel set a bounty on the King and send some of the best warriors of four of their clans to claim their price. Keep in mind, there are twelve clans and basically EVERY able bodied Aiel can fight well, but they just sent some of the full time soldiers. Some number above 80,000 sent into a completely foreign land to hunt ONE man for his crimes, by any means necessary. After about 2 years of absolutely annihilating in just about every battle, burning cities, and hunting this man later, they finally face off against a combined army of over twice their number in a battle called the Blood Snow. Once the Aiel finally figured out where the King Laman was hiding, it went about as well for the defenders as you'd expect. The Aiel killed him and immediately stopped fighting to go home. Later on, the nations of the world would call this occurence the "Aiel War" and claim it was an invasion from hordes of savages that took a combined force of volunteers from every known nation to turn back. When in truth, this 2 year long campaign of destruction was nothing but an usually large assassination for the Aiel. Just like bringing a criminal to justice.
I just like to point out that the ghosts of the blackwatch you such a good job securing the spell Morris's head that they're one of the primary reasons the guy went crazy . They were so impossibly hard to kill but it actually drove the guy insane and made a much more paranoid . Potentially making the ghost the blackwatch one of the best psychological weapons ever
It's funny. Having the ear of the First Lord gave Amaris pretty much everything he wanted, except the hat. Just a constant point, don't lose your head over a hat.
About Custodes, they actually are good at their job. Like they managed to hold off Demons after Magnus broke the magic FTL project and one of them literally go toe to toe worn arch demon. Emperor issue was that he personally went to Horus (he wasn’t aware that help is coming, so he didn’t wait) to duel.
0:34 that's why the best canon is Lego star wars canon, I remember those guys on the final fight of the complete saga being pretty tough, tough by the standards of a Lego game of course but that's like saying that a guardsmen and a custodes in 40k are similar because one has 1 wound and the other "just" 3
There is definitely bloodline magic in Battletech. Or at least Legacy magic where anyone with a name taken from a previous main character is pre-determined to get shit done regardless of probability, sanity or narrative structure. That said, good video.
I just recently discovered you through your 40k vids and then RUclips recommended this one and I was like "oh shit he does Battletech too? Fuggin score!"
Well, the Black Watch have ties to a certain important clan (no spoilers), and without that clan, the story of Star League in Exile and the Invasion would have been EXTREMELY different. So yes, god bless the Black Watch. Cue the playing of "All the Bluebonnets are Over the Border."
The thing about The Emperor's Royal Guard in Star Wars is that by the lore they're arguably the best non-force sensitive warriors of all time, but in the movies they just aren't even a factor.
Northwind Highlanders man, space Scotsmen still throw down with the best some thousand years in the future. I still love the part in Highlander's Gambit where all of a sudden bagpipes start blaring over comms as everyone looks up to see dropships landing and mechs jumping from the hatches.
Was not expecting to hear a Mech faction have its last stand in my home area in Puget Sound, Washington. Hope you can cover Word of Blake and Wolf Dragoons in the future because they're the only Mechwarrior factions I know, thanks to Mechassault on the OG Xbox.
This reminds me of that old inner sphere joke. How many Black Watch does it take to destroy an Atlas? Three, One to destroy the Atlas and the other two to play the bagpipes.
Wait holy shit how dare pancreas dox me. I live in the puget sound area. Also yes, the terrain in the puget is very rough and it would be hard for hundreds of stompy mechs to come through it.
There was another exploit of the BlackWatch during the Exodus trip; wherein they stopped a mutiny which could have seen the SLDF-in-Exile return to the Inner Sphere before they even got half way to where the Clans would eventually form.
A few corrections. The Northwind Highlanders were not established until the collapse of the Star League. However the Blackwatch regiment and enclave was located in Northwind system. The SLDF was investigating the Rim World's Republic for the better part of 20 years due to suspected violations of proliferation treaties. It wasn't until it became too late to do anything
To be fair to the Custodes, they did protect the Emperor from everything the traitors threw at them during the Horus Heresy. They just happened to fall short of fighting the avatar of 4 malevolent gods that nobody else except the Emperor himself could rival.
As a native of Bremerton WA who drives through Gorst daily, I think a mech could probably navigate most of the water since it's less than 20ft deep for a surprising amount of the inlet given the rough size of that one boat that's just protruding from the bay
Presumably several hundred years and at least one major war between now and then reshaped the landscape a bit. They did say the Sound was “fixed” at some point so perhaps it was mildly terraformed.
Correction at around 6:37 a brick of [modern] Plastic _in an urn_ is considered a frag. A brick of Plastic _on its own_ is either a light breach or a cute flash.
Just wait until you learn what Hazen got up to in the pentagon world. There was a raging insurgency she was sent to quell when she was shot down and left for dead. But it's only after she gets out of her mech, half dead, that she's considered the reason the battle is called a Massacre. The Black Watch never dies.
Fun fact theres also an in universe conspiracy theory that the last stand of the Blackwatch actually had nothing to do with covering the marines attempting to kill Steffan Amaris, but instead was distracting the 4th Ameris dragoons while the only two surviving children of house Cameron not present at Stefan's massacre in the throne room were smuggled off world aboard the Black lion class battlecuiser Tripitz, With the ship being found just floating in the periphery near Taurian space some 200 years later with nobody on board. In which case if its true they actually did succeed in their duty as the body guards of house Cameron one last time before the second round of nukes was dropped on them.
The best part was that became an out-of-universe fan theory before it was ever a thing in universe. The BT author who wrote in the SLS Tripiz's demise (and it's impossible history) was just doing it as mystery box to just be weird and inexplicable. It escalated until they had to acknowledge it with the Word of Blake's (only mostly) fake booklet, which solidified the conspiracy theory you see on Sarna. To this day, the man grins the grin of a man who has absolutely no control of the engine but loves the acceleration when it's brought up.
@@dashiellgillingham4579 Still say they made it to the deep periphery. Then set up shop and bided their time. Then a hundred or so years later the remnants of the Minnesota Tribe follow the path they did and find them. Offering their services to their new True First Lord. Right now I'm just waiting to hear that the new big bad after the IlKhan era will be them coming back for theirs.
@@dashiellgillingham4579 So he made a legit mystery both in universe AND out of it, and even if it doesn't have a conclusive answer it still gets people talking?
He should JJ Abrams tips on how to make mysteries.
Oh no.
Not a THIRD group of Star League Remnant nutjobs
The Tripitz incident has always seemed to me as the Taurians just covering their salvaging of the ship, however it has always seemed a bit weird to me that a SLDF WarShip is just randomly sitting undisturbed in the middle of nowhere. And the conspiracy makes no sense because Kerensky would have a legitimate heir to the Terran Hegemony and Star League, and thus give the SLDF substantial credibility and the ability to put pressure on the Houses to get involved, as well as mean that at the Great Houses wouldn't need to figure out who to be first lord at the end of the civil war.
Yet none of these things happened, but once more we go back to 'Why was the Tripitz there?'. And so, here is my own theory: The conspiracy is partially true, The Black Watch were covering for the Marines storming the palace as well as a Cameron(s) (Whether surviving child of Richard or another relative) to escape, yet for one reason or another, the Tripitz failed, Maybe the dropship that took the survivor was unable to rendezvous. Perhaps the Tirpitz suffered a miss-jump, or maybe it was sabotaged.
What ever the answer may be, it is locked in a Taurian databank, rusting in a scrap yard, or worse, has been lost to time.
Battletech fans have gotten actual cease and desist orders from GM to stop contacting them to remind them they are (insert number of years) late in making a fusion reactor.
I had one of them framed.......
@@brentkalmbacher9092 that is amazing.
Came here for mechs, stayed for lore and ideologies. Man alot of fictional media from the 70s to early 2000s are like that. There is a simple hook and a huge rabbit hole when you get deep enough. For example Warhammer, transformers, halo, GI Joe, Battletech and lego ninjago, etc. Even comic books are like this.
That because that “simple hook” has had 20 - 50 years to dig in without a single tweezer in sight. 😂
I just came.
Hard.
@@H240909 fair point but what I mean by a simple hook is something that catches your attention. For example Master chief or even sergeant Johnson do catch one's attention due to their overall appearance and actions. Similar thing goes for optimus prime. Robots that can turn into cars and super soldiers are interesting to look at/ read about.
A similar thing can be said of real life subjects and topics. Knights and samurai are interesting at 1st glance; therefore I would want to read about the history about them.
I guess it all boils down to what interest you because everyone likes different things.
Ahem.
Bionicle.
@@imstupid880 bionicle,then transformers,then warhammer 40,000.
I do know stories for bionicle,
I like transformers/40,000 stories better/more in.
Remembers folks, the blackwatch were such à pain they had to be nuked.
Twice.
And that left behind the arm of à highlander still flipping the bird
But you forget one thing: for the Black Watch nuclear fire is mere inconvenience.
While the last stand of the Blackwatch is a tale of epic proportions, what they achieved with the scant few hours their stand bought doesn't get brought up enough. For while Hanni Schmitt's company held off the Amaris Dragoons from getting into Unity City, the survivors at Fort Cameron braved lethal radiation to clear rubble from the launch tubes and deployment bays of the heavily fortified and shielded central command building, Fort Cameron's citadel. Four squadrons of fighters, six assault craft, and a battalion of mechs, all piloted by ranking officers and their normally office-bound colleagues, deployed over the course of the day from the blasted ruins of the Fort to defend Unity City. From there the surviving SLDF commanders organised resistance against Amaris' forces for a full day, waging guerilla warfare against his troops across the city while key personnel were evacuated to the far reaches of the solar system. Fort Cameron was assaulted countless times that day, Amaris nuked it a second time, and eventually only managed to stomp out the last bits of SLDF command when he parked a squadron of Warships in orbit and bombarded the Fort for an hour straight...
And the ghosts of the Blackwatch walked out from the deepest parts of the fort the day after.
Sorry, but that's just weapons-grade bullshittium plot armor. It takes all the suspense out of a setting when the writers fiat in plot armor so thick it can withstand more than one nuke.
@@chesterstevens8870 SLDF bases like Fort Cameron and the Castle Brians were built at the height of the Age of War and designed to withstand being carpet nuked from orbit, they go deep underground and the main building are radiation and blast shielded, and even then nukes are plenty devastating, as shown when the first nuke destroyed the entirety of the Black Watch Regiment except for a company worth of Mechs that had already been deployed and were outside the blast zone. Further nukes were attempts to blast out and completely destroy the deeply buried fortifications.
No one who is caught in a the blast zone survives a nuke in Battletech. Everyone in Fort Cameron outside the Citadel and underground fortifications died when Amaris dropped the first nuke. The 9 surviving Blackwatch died when the second one was dropped on Puget Sound. The surviving defenders sortied around Unity City died when the third one was dropped, and the ensuing hour of Orbital bombardment dug into the bedrock and killed those who weren't in the tunnels at the edges of the compound, including almost all the surviving command staff who chose to remain in the base proper to coordinate resistance.
The tenacity and unkillable-ness of the Blackwatch is as an organisation and a legend, not as individuals who shrug off nukes.
Actually thrice
Blackwatch: Sir we've been fighting Amaris for literal years.
Kerensky: Outstanding job, give me all the intel you got and then you can retire with full honours.
Blackwatch: Sir with respect. We want to keep fighting Amaris. It's been fun.
'Who said we were finished, sir?'
"And while [Aleksandr] Kerensky was a good man and stellar general, parenting evidently wasn't his thing"
*stares at Nicholas Kerensky*
I mean... his other son wasn't anywhere near as bad.
@@timebrain3188 so he got it right once out of three attempts
@@TheAchilles26 I mean we cannot say. guy is already dead.
Tbf Nicky probably had a little brain damage.
@@timebrain3188 Also Nicky only really went off the deep end after the exodus civil war started and after he barely survived an illness which killed his mother and can cause brain damage.
You know there is epicness to be found when the characters refuse to die.
9 Scottish lads beat the shit out of an entire invasion force
And their Scottish *insert blue power ranger*
Some have said that the Black Watch was listed as "Missing In Action" instead of "Missing, Presumed Dead" in official Star League and SLDF records.
It's me. I said that. And I stand by it.
“Dis but a scratch” -original founder the black watch probably
Never thought about it like that. The one guy Custodes were supposed to protect is dead. And he was immortal!
Imagine being the most skilled demigods in a galaxy-sized empire... And still suffering a skill issue
@@ThePaeppaI mean
If you read the end and the death
You understand it all
I would like to add that the Black Watch's preferred mech is the Highlander. A 90 ton assault mech infamous for its ability to snipe the cockpits of other mechs at range with its Gauss Rifle... and perhaps even more infamously it comes equipped with jump jets enabling it to simply jump on top of other mechs and crush them in what is known in-universe as the "Highlander Burial". It also comes with SRMs, LRMs, and several medium lasers for when you need to blow people up in several different ways.
Imagine if they got to Amaris and they performed the Highlander burial on him
@@marseldagistani1989Then he'd only be 99% as ugly.
THIS IS A BATTLE TECH CHANNEL NOW
GLORY TO KERENSKY
GLORY TO KERENSKY!!!
Glory to Kerensky and may Blake’s Peace be with you.
@@pancreasnowork9939 congrats on that glow up i remeber when this was a 40k chan w just a weeeeee lil bit o halo
I don't know what that means but I'm vibing with it.
@@zigzaghyena I'll tell you what it means, it means they're HERETICS!
As a great professor has said: NUKES ARE MERELY INCONVENIENT.
Glad to see you doing more BT content! :D
"Stephan Amaris had himself a... FUCKIN' PROBLEM! The God. Damn. BLACK WATCH!"
@@weldonwin"The Star League needed a miracle. It had Aleksandr Sergeyevich Kerensky. And angry Russians tend to make it into the history books."
My godfather was in the blackwatch during ww2 and passed away recently. He wasn't a big fan of sci-fi but I feel like he would have loved battletech for it's complex politics and lore.
Battletech- if you hear bagpipes, get off the battlefield
Gundam- if you hear jazz, get off the battlefield
If I had a dime for every time that happened, I’d have 20c, which isn’t much, but it’s curious it’s happened twice
Basically when you hear music in a place where you didn’t think was possible, *TIME TO PACK YOUR SHIT AND LEAVE*
@OHGAS i could see that in G Gundam Fighter
TROMBE! Intensifies.
@Easttowest and Noise Marines
If you hear jazz that means I'm coming for you
11:25 - Well that’s the purest definition of “Too Angry/Stubborn to die” if I ever seen or heard. And another reason to like this series
I'm already sitting in my Highlander with bagpipes at the ready.
Fun fact, the Northwind Highlanders book has a scenario for the last stand of the black watch. And it has the Black Watch in non-royal mechs too. None of the pilots bar one have piloting/gunnery under a 2, so you are gonna hit just about every damn shot even at long range.
Also Elizabeth Hazen in the Exodus at one point had to eject from her mech and was shot in her helmet, when she came too, she found Aaron DeChevilier,s (Kerensky's Right hand man and Best friend) Atlas go up in flames from Inferno rounds. He Ejected after which the Rebels they were fighting tore apart the general causing her and the men around her to snap. She went up to a rebel, stole his sword, and went on to slaughter them with nothing but a sword. The incident was so bad, it was labeled a massacre.
According to Clan Jade Falcon's Remembrance, the blade was not stolen.
Hazen fell into a deep malaze, completely unwilling to do anything, even breath, as she looked upon her fallen friend and ally.
From beyond came the jade falcon she had trained through its life, the holy Turkina, bearing in her talons a blade of Terran origin.
In so many words, it told her;
"Get your fucking ass up and KILL THOSE BASTARDS!"
And so. She did. All of them.
This is why Jade Falcon's clan emblem is a bird holding a sword in its claws.
That's what those dirty Capellans get. Don't know if they lived by the sword (more like the dagger), but Elizabeth Hazen sure as hell made sure they died by it.
Excellent performance as always. Have to say, the retelling of the blackwatch holding their ground is definitely some of your best content yet. The emphasis, emotion but still staying in your typical cadence, just wonderful. Would throw up the suggestion that you do that as a regular kind of content, retelling historical battles in the settings in these kinds of videos. I know I'd watch it, repeatedly.
I have the feeling that the Black Watch is almost the only special operation unit in Battletech that doesn't try to backstab the ruler they are protecting to take control for himself.
On the other hand, I have a feeling that this is caused by a lot of Star League brainwashing and conditioning. Otherwise, keeping a bunch of soldiers from the other states in line seems pretty difficult without it.
Honestly given that the Northwind Highlanders are one of the chief donators to the Blackwatch talent pool, i'd imagine the blackwatch is happy as long as some surplus SLDF tech gets sent to their parent organization
As a Royal SLDF Regiment at least in the first iteration of the unit only natives of the Terran Hegemony would have members
All SLDF forces served under the motto "Star League Above All." The Cameron family was Star League. Their house crest was the Star League.. uh... star, and the title of First Lord was their birthright.
So, a combination of ideological loyalty and devotion to duty.
Spec ops/bodyguard units are almost always the most loyal. DEST, Death Commandos, Fox's Teeth, Knights of the Inner Sphere etc have sterling records. It's the intelligence agencies that are always trying to make power plays.
Erm, that's actually not particularily common in Battletech at all? Outside of the Draconis Combine's habit of taking weak or too reform-minded Coordinators behind the shed, internal struggles in the Successor States tend to be about dynastic squabbling or lower-tier nobles playing power games with their rulers, not palace coups by bodyguard units.
In the great words of Tex, Outnumbered and outgunned two lances of the Black Watch held up the entire 4th Amaris Dragoons, and so began the last stand of the Legendary Black Watch.
As i'm reading this i'm hearing it in Tex's voice.
All the while cursing in Doric, drinking scotch, and playing bagpipes.
I feel like I am thinking of a different tex
Every Mechwarrior who wants to pilot a Highlander had better install a loudspeaker blaring bagpipe music onto his mech and have his Highlander painted a tartan pattern.
that is just northwind highlander tradition. do not forget your jump jets too. we need no shovel when the battle is over. we bury em with mechs during the battle.
Now place a Highlander in the 40K universe, and laugh as a techpriest tries to win over the mech's machine spirit with haggis and beer
@@missjayspeechley9213 what a funny mental image an angry Scottish machine spirit
@@RayHarrison-m4s "SOD OFF, TIN CAN!"
Friendly reminder that Snord's daughter Rhonda Snord has a pink Highlander that plays heavy metal over it's speakers.
Excellent video! One of the great tragedies of the setting is that the Ghosts of the Blackwatch left with the Exodus and didn't stick around to join ComStar after the war.
I would be extremely remiss if I did not mention that Stringstorm has an amazingly badass song which is where I first found out about the Blackwatch.
What you said about bagpipes in the Battletech universe scaring the shit out of everyone has parallels in OT since there are recorded accounts of when Highland regiments entered the battle the sound of their pipes was enough to drive entire units to retreat from the field. Alba gu brath.
In general the use of bagpipes and giant hornes made from brass was meant to intimidate the opponent. These things were in use across Europe, especially with the Celts in nowadays France and Germanic tribes. Simple matter of fact is that only in Scotland has the tradition survived but bagpipes are not exclusively Scottish. That is not to say that the moment I hear Scots playing the damn things I don't reach for my broadsword to smash the darn sassenachs to bits and restore Scotland's honor and pride as a sovereign nation.
@@MaSOneTwo If thas nae what ye immediately do then we need to have a wee chat, laddy.
@@MaSOneTwo The Independence Party has won by a huge margin every election since the Brexit vote, and they are right now in a staring contest with England after their parliament blocked their second (recent) vote to succeed. There is a future where a sovereign Scotland rejoins the EU in a few years. The pieces are currently set for it.
@@dashiellgillingham4579 and if ya believe that I got a bridge to sell you, CHEAP!
@@dashiellgillingham4579 I am well aware mate. Let's hope it comes to pass.
*and thus, the Legend continues, for the Black Watch will never die*
Also, would 100% love more Battletech
Agreed, I played mechassult as a kid and now learning this whole franchise is this cool! Also been playing mechwarrior online, hunchbacks are fun
As a lifelong BattleTech aficionado on his 50th birthday. I'd like to say "good job,keep up the good work"
I can't tell you how much I appreciate your choices in music. AoE music in particular has a special place in my heart
FTL and Halo too
After a shit shift at work this has made my day
Honestly I could listen to you talk about lore for hours. You have a chill and layback vibe that just makes it fun to listen too. Keep up the great work.
I just want to say this video is fantastic! The writing and pacing are great. I've watched Tex's videos on the Amaris Civil War a bunch of times so course I'm familiar with the event and the Blackwatch. This is to say that I highly appreciate your unquie take on this and wanted to say i can't wait to see more Battletech content from you. Thanks for the hard work and wonderful content!
When you first mentioned Ameris all I hear is the god damn cackle from the Black Pants Legion videos.
Thank you for sacrificing your pancreas to create such glorious content
Super glad to see you reach 100k and making a Battletech video at the same time the Black Pants Legion reaches 100k subs. Been getting into BT myself lately, it's a great setting that's far more niche than it should be. The tabletop game is fun as fuck and the vidya games are great too.
I think the BPL previously had 100k, but unfortunately they got hacked and turned into one of those crypto scam pushing channels a couple of weeks ago. So they're getting back up to 100k while they put up their old videos and fix up the channel.
always nice to see a fellow team 4 star fan! also great video, I'm excited to hear more lore about this new sci fi setting.
I love how I literally just got into battletech lore last week and now a channel that I never suspected to touch on this subject all of a sudden does :)
There's nothing more that I hate than good people losing to evil men
Amaris thought we died that night.
Our ghost will haunt him for the rest of his life.
Nuclear fire an inconvinient grit.
Nemo me impune lacessit.
Dude, you got me into this franchise. Thank you.
Tex uploads his talks rather infrequently, so I am happy to have another great narrator to listen to at work!
Just got in to Battletech recently very very very thankful for people like you, still making content for it on RUclips. Thank you.
Very happy to see some love for the amazing Battletech lore. I would also recommend looking into the 201st Comguard, veterans of Tukayyid who also held out against the Word of Blake on Terra.
My favorite group in Sci Fi now but the Finhert Highlanders in 40k despite their limited lore is also baller by working with crew to defend against infinite daemons on Cadia
Considering some of the most known royal guards like the pretorians have the history of killing their charges and deciding to be the one who decided on who is ruler i say the BW did a damn fine job. Hell the best example of this is just the Roman pretorians who had their own wiki page(sadly it was vandalized to hell and is gone last time i checked) listing all the roman emperors they killed, hell they sometimes killed multiple emperors in a the span of a single week. GM IS WORKING ON IT! They sadly just got delayed by a few years
Hats off to that one Black Watch member who played the bagpipes under Amaris' bedroom window every night.
The age of mythology music never gets old. Love the videos!
My Atlas is juiced up and ready for this video right here.
"Now, their history is over..."
Weeellll, technically....
The OG ghosts of the black watch would go on to form clan Jade Falcon. Alaric has appointed them as his new Black Watch (I don't know how he doesn't forsee having falcons serve as guards to wolves could backfire, but that's his problem). They also have several highlanders as bondsmen with implications that efforts may be made to bring more on board.
Man
If only bodyguards in any scenario actually were known for doing their job, and doing it well.
I mean.
You only ever hear about the one time they fail
Congrats on 100K. You deserve it. Be well friend.
You got a sub entirely for the Age of Mythology soundtrack in the back. The Battletech content was just a bonus.
This brings a proud tear to my eye. As a recognized descendent of the Campbell Clan ( the clan who founded the Blackwatch in real life), I bow to the writers who did my fictional descendents such an honor.
I first heard about this bit of lore from a song by Stringstorm, the lore here really helps to contextualize it and truly instill the fear of bagpipes
Amaris was so shaken by the blackwatch he became paranoid, made mistakes, and diverted bodyguards and soldiers to protect himself, arguably contributing to the downfall ameris empire's life as karinsky beat the snot out of them.
Maybe they can't take all the credit. The war probably would have happened the same way regardless, but while you can't say the blackwatch were the deciding factor, you can be damn sure they were the first nail in the coffin.
Thought his was a legion or some sort of faction in WH. Glad I decided to because this shit is fucking awesome
I love this story. And love finding new retellings of it. Thank you for this awesome video!
Reminds me of the Aiel from my favorite book series, the Wheel of Time. They're a honor-based society of desert dwelling people who live in basically fantasy Australia which is even more harsh and deadly than the real thing. At one point they give a peace offering to one of the regular nations and when said nations King eventually destroys the peace gift, the Aiel set a bounty on the King and send some of the best warriors of four of their clans to claim their price. Keep in mind, there are twelve clans and basically EVERY able bodied Aiel can fight well, but they just sent some of the full time soldiers. Some number above 80,000 sent into a completely foreign land to hunt ONE man for his crimes, by any means necessary. After about 2 years of absolutely annihilating in just about every battle, burning cities, and hunting this man later, they finally face off against a combined army of over twice their number in a battle called the Blood Snow. Once the Aiel finally figured out where the King Laman was hiding, it went about as well for the defenders as you'd expect. The Aiel killed him and immediately stopped fighting to go home. Later on, the nations of the world would call this occurence the "Aiel War" and claim it was an invasion from hordes of savages that took a combined force of volunteers from every known nation to turn back. When in truth, this 2 year long campaign of destruction was nothing but an usually large assassination for the Aiel. Just like bringing a criminal to justice.
Love your videos man. And it’s awesome that you branched out to battletech.
I literally start getting into BattleTech this week and my favourite lore youtuber starts uploading about the setting. Life is good
I just like to point out that the ghosts of the blackwatch you such a good job securing the spell Morris's head that they're one of the primary reasons the guy went crazy . They were so impossibly hard to kill but it actually drove the guy insane and made a much more paranoid . Potentially making the ghost the blackwatch one of the best psychological weapons ever
It's funny. Having the ear of the First Lord gave Amaris pretty much everything he wanted, except the hat.
Just a constant point, don't lose your head over a hat.
Battletech has badass highland units, this universe is quickly gaining my attention go house Cameron.
Fun fact concept art of Grievous is actually what the Magna guards are based off of
Let’s go!
This was well done dude; I hope you do more!
About Custodes, they actually are good at their job.
Like they managed to hold off Demons after Magnus broke the magic FTL project and one of them literally go toe to toe worn arch demon.
Emperor issue was that he personally went to Horus (he wasn’t aware that help is coming, so he didn’t wait) to duel.
0:34 that's why the best canon is Lego star wars canon, I remember those guys on the final fight of the complete saga being pretty tough, tough by the standards of a Lego game of course but that's like saying that a guardsmen and a custodes in 40k are similar because one has 1 wound and the other "just" 3
There is definitely bloodline magic in Battletech. Or at least Legacy magic where anyone with a name taken from a previous main character is pre-determined to get shit done regardless of probability, sanity or narrative structure.
That said, good video.
The Last Stand is fucking awesome. To quote a wise robot,
"We can't hold out forever, but we can give 'em a HUMONGOUS repair bill."
They've got more Sharkticons than we've got photon charges!
So let's hold a demolition derby.
Very poetic description of Amaris' reaction to the Infantry assaulting the throne room.
I just recently discovered you through your 40k vids and then RUclips recommended this one and I was like "oh shit he does Battletech too? Fuggin score!"
More battletech! Love listening to you talk about battletech as much as I like listening to Tex talk about it :)
The Black Watch: Nukes are just an inconvenience.
Well, the Black Watch have ties to a certain important clan (no spoilers), and without that clan, the story of Star League in Exile and the Invasion would have been EXTREMELY different.
So yes, god bless the Black Watch. Cue the playing of "All the Bluebonnets are Over the Border."
A 40k channel talking about Battletech while using Halo music.
There is much to celebrate here. ☺️
I can't wait to watch a video about Black Timepieces
The fact they had to nuke them multiple times to even have a snowballs chance in hell is hilarious.
Loving the battletech content! Getting me interested in its lore
40k is great, but battletech will always be my favorite setting. Glad you are making content for it!
Aaaay nice Tex shout out, I was about to comment that very quote. 😀
The thing about The Emperor's Royal Guard in Star Wars is that by the lore they're arguably the best non-force sensitive warriors of all time, but in the movies they just aren't even a factor.
One of the requirements is to kill your friend who's been your buddy the entire time while training. That's the entry requirement.
Northwind Highlanders man, space Scotsmen still throw down with the best some thousand years in the future. I still love the part in Highlander's Gambit where all of a sudden bagpipes start blaring over comms as everyone looks up to see dropships landing and mechs jumping from the hatches.
I wasn't a battle tech fan
Until now, this was fucking amazing
If you liked that there’s a song about them:
m.ruclips.net/video/vQwbQYYd7qA/видео.html
Was not expecting to hear a Mech faction have its last stand in my home area in Puget Sound, Washington. Hope you can cover Word of Blake and Wolf Dragoons in the future because they're the only Mechwarrior factions I know, thanks to Mechassault on the OG Xbox.
My man…Unity City was spread across much of the Greater Seattle Area. The northwest was the core of the entire Star Leauge
Kell Hounds forever!
@@KillerOrcathat means that Seattle might have been nuked a couple of times? Fantastic.
I discovered your videos today and am loving your brand of lore. Many good laughs.
This reminds me of that old inner sphere joke.
How many Black Watch does it take to destroy an Atlas?
Three, One to destroy the Atlas and the other two to play the bagpipes.
10:26
Ngl I'm having serious deja vu
at looking at this image and hearing your narration.
Wait holy shit how dare pancreas dox me. I live in the puget sound area. Also yes, the terrain in the puget is very rough and it would be hard for hundreds of stompy mechs to come through it.
Wait, Terra is a giant city now. How would you know what the terrain is like? I smell heresy!
Quite a few of us do. I keep telling people we need a Blackwatch Day in Gorst
@@SeventhSeraphOfficerRevolver Damn it, I need to go inform my genestealer cult brethren to retreat to a different sector of terra.
Kir Kanos and Crimson Empire show how awesome the Emperor's Royal Guard were in Legends.
Kir Kanos was a BEAST.
Is that the Faster Than Light soundtrack? Subtle, I like it
There was another exploit of the BlackWatch during the Exodus trip; wherein they stopped a mutiny which could have seen the SLDF-in-Exile return to the Inner Sphere before they even got half way to where the Clans would eventually form.
A few corrections.
The Northwind Highlanders were not established until the collapse of the Star League. However the Blackwatch regiment and enclave was located in Northwind system.
The SLDF was investigating the Rim World's Republic for the better part of 20 years due to suspected violations of proliferation treaties. It wasn't until it became too late to do anything
The Blackwatch is really like "Personally I wouldn't let that slide"
To be fair to the Custodes, they did protect the Emperor from everything the traitors threw at them during the Horus Heresy.
They just happened to fall short of fighting the avatar of 4 malevolent gods that nobody else except the Emperor himself could rival.
and a similar avatar with similar powers were defeated by normal, mortal men and a Orc trice in Warhammer Fantasy, whats your point.
@@heymay724 Fantasy Battle sucks at power scaling.
Congrats on the subs man
The only fictional bodyguards I know of. Where nuking them only makes them *angrier.*
This man simply will not miss.
TBH I was rooting for Dragoons. Somehow they've managed to overcome a blatantly superior foe.
Fine i'll read up on this verse. You got me Mr.Pancreas, you finally got me
As a native of Bremerton WA who drives through Gorst daily, I think a mech could probably navigate most of the water since it's less than 20ft deep for a surprising amount of the inlet given the rough size of that one boat that's just protruding from the bay
I'm over from the Oak Harbor/Anacortes area, and I nearly did a double take when he said they were around the Puget Sound lol
Presumably several hundred years and at least one major war between now and then reshaped the landscape a bit.
They did say the Sound was “fixed” at some point so perhaps it was mildly terraformed.
The last stand of the black watch is the definition of "You f##ked around and now you're going to find out"
Correction at around 6:37 a brick of [modern] Plastic _in an urn_ is considered a frag.
A brick of Plastic _on its own_ is either a light breach or a cute flash.
Just wait until you learn what Hazen got up to in the pentagon world. There was a raging insurgency she was sent to quell when she was shot down and left for dead. But it's only after she gets out of her mech, half dead, that she's considered the reason the battle is called a Massacre. The Black Watch never dies.
Yeah that's why there's that phrase Hazen Happens.