Long time Battletech player here! You think SRMs are bad? Hooooboy let me introduce the LBX-Autocannon aka Mech-Sized Shotgun! LRMs you at least get to group in 5-damage groups, and SRMs the biggest single launcher is a 6 rack. The LB-20X Autocannon can potentially make you roll 20 individual location rolls for 1 damage each. The Annihilator mech is equipped with FOUR LB10Xs. If you want to be silly and have 2 Lances of these go head to head you will be rolling a single combat round foreeeevvverrrrr
@@daaaaaaanny you roll for how many missiles hit on the cluster hits table. Once you know how many hit you divide the damage in to groups of five damage each. Then you roll on the location table for each grouping and apply the damage to each location rolled until you work through all of the damage. Example: you hit with a LRM 10 (10 missiles 1 damage per missile) Next you roll 2 d6 dice on the cluster hits table let’s say you get a 10 on your roll. That means 9 missiles hit the target. Now divide that into groups of five that gives you 2 groups one with 5 damage one with 4 for a total of 9. Now you roll on the hit location table once for each group. Let’s say you get a 3 and a 11 and you where firing from directly in front of your target. That means that five of that damage goes to the right arm of your enemy and 4 damage goes to the center torso. Once you play the game a few times you start getting pretty quick at it. It doesn’t take as long as you think unless you have just a ton of cluster type weapons.
For anyone curious, the main rulebook for battletech (Total Warfare) is 312 pages long, and pages 303-312 are just different charts to roll on. Some of my personal favorites are the Special Protomech Hit Location Table, Physical Attacks against VTOL Vehicles Table, Basements Table, and the Failed Braking Maneuver Table. I swear it's a ton of fun and more people should play Battletech.
Ok hold up, Physical Attacks against VTOL Vehicles Table? I've played total warfare, but you mean to tell me there is a table for the exceedingly specific case of punching a helicopter? Holy cow.
@@kingkuma4112 I'll be honest, I've never had to roll on the table myself, but it looks like it just shows what physical attacks against a VTOL are allowed and then they're carried out as normal, but someone else has probably done it and knows for sure.
Listen, you fire your PPCs and large caliber autocannons *before* you fire your SRMs so any SRMs that land are likely to cause internal damage per-hit on a component that's been penetrated. If you're firing your SRMs and nothing's gonna happen until you've hit with ten of them, you've made a grievous tactical error or you're playing a slant list.
Thing is the great thing about battletech is the rules almost never change so its not like 40k where every edition it changes and you have to remember a new set of rules
As someone who loves Battletech, I agree wholeheartedly with Tom. I wouldn't change it for the world, though. God bless MegaMek for making it not take five hours to play a game, though - just three instead.
If any shot did strike internal structure and not armor, then you roll for the critical hit chance, if there's a crit or multiple, you consult the structural diagram of the unit to see what it has inside of that specific structural part and roll again which internal component was destroyed by this shot, if it happens to be ammunition, then it's time to be seen from orbit
Aw, the missile chart isn't that bad. Falling over arse-over backwards and getting not only a through-armour crit to the rear center torso, AND losing the last bit of armour so you take two crit rolls, then not *only* that but BOTH crits end up with 3 critical locations each? THAT'S bad. In case anyone asks - yes, that did happen to me. On a Raven. It dealt more damage to itself failing Piloting skill checks than the opponent did actually shooting it. Edit: seriously, that Raven never once had any damn luck in any of its deployments. It either died turn 2, or it spent the entire battle failing to land any hits despite having otherwise ideal flanking hits before falling over and failing to get up.
You forgot to mention if all 5 of those missiles hit the internal structure you need to roll 2d6 per missile hit to see if it crit important bits inside. Then you need to allocate any crits that were generated. You should've pulled up the "Damage Resolution Chart" from the Battlemech Manual
I played original battle tech (and battle bots) and 1st edition D&D, along with 1980s warhammer fantasy. Math is cool when it tells you how big the explosion is. Only gaming and military engineering give you that feeling. (and I failed the physical to get into the navy :P)
This is why various boardgames were effectively designed to be done on a computer. Like that level of depth is genuinely cool... if you're not rolling 100 dice 10 times a turn. Get the computer to do the number crunching and you're gold.
I used to play the old battletech onlines that were just the board game rules on a text based platform. Games took about 10 minutes, not 2 hours. Anyway the board game isnt that bad since you only control 1 to 4 mechs. Still, it was admittedly a different time with fiddlier games.
Agreed. I find it less confusing than remembering ploys and tactical gears etc in kill team. You just follow the charts, tick off the damage. It's really easy and doesn't take that long.
Every time Ben brings up Battletech I'm like "Why the fk don't you just play the PC game of it?" Like there's a proper, greatly designed game with a campaign and customization and production value and cool maps and everything and yeah that'll do the charts for you like you want. The only thing he ever brings up is some shtty web app that calculates stuff for you like that's the only option to not have to do it yourself. Has he even heard of the great PC version?
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No wonder Ben loves Battletech-it’s Ben Work Simulator
I love how Tom seemed like he genuinely couldn’t take anymore
Long time Battletech player here! You think SRMs are bad? Hooooboy let me introduce the LBX-Autocannon aka Mech-Sized Shotgun! LRMs you at least get to group in 5-damage groups, and SRMs the biggest single launcher is a 6 rack. The LB-20X Autocannon can potentially make you roll 20 individual location rolls for 1 damage each. The Annihilator mech is equipped with FOUR LB10Xs. If you want to be silly and have 2 Lances of these go head to head you will be rolling a single combat round foreeeevvverrrrr
Is this what english sounds like to someone who doesn't speak it?
@@daaaaaaanny 50% English 50% Grognard
I know some of these words.
And this is why I play alpha strike. I love the total warfare system, but man, I have a life, yknow?
@@daaaaaaanny you roll for how many missiles hit on the cluster hits table. Once you know how many hit you divide the damage in to groups of five damage each. Then you roll on the location table for each grouping and apply the damage to each location rolled until you work through all of the damage.
Example: you hit with a LRM 10 (10 missiles 1 damage per missile)
Next you roll 2 d6 dice on the cluster hits table let’s say you get a 10 on your roll. That means 9 missiles hit the target.
Now divide that into groups of five that gives you 2 groups one with 5 damage one with 4 for a total of 9.
Now you roll on the hit location table once for each group. Let’s say you get a 3 and a 11 and you where firing from directly in front of your target. That means that five of that damage goes to the right arm of your enemy and 4 damage goes to the center torso.
Once you play the game a few times you start getting pretty quick at it. It doesn’t take as long as you think unless you have just a ton of cluster type weapons.
Tom was so disgusted with that chart 😂
For anyone curious, the main rulebook for battletech (Total Warfare) is 312 pages long, and pages 303-312 are just different charts to roll on. Some of my personal favorites are the Special Protomech Hit Location Table, Physical Attacks against VTOL Vehicles Table, Basements Table, and the Failed Braking Maneuver Table.
I swear it's a ton of fun and more people should play Battletech.
Ok hold up, Physical Attacks against VTOL Vehicles Table?
I've played total warfare, but you mean to tell me there is a table for the exceedingly specific case of punching a helicopter?
Holy cow.
@@kingkuma4112 I'll be honest, I've never had to roll on the table myself, but it looks like it just shows what physical attacks against a VTOL are allowed and then they're carried out as normal, but someone else has probably done it and knows for sure.
YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND
THE CHARTS ARE HALF THE FUN
Listen, you fire your PPCs and large caliber autocannons *before* you fire your SRMs so any SRMs that land are likely to cause internal damage per-hit on a component that's been penetrated. If you're firing your SRMs and nothing's gonna happen until you've hit with ten of them, you've made a grievous tactical error or you're playing a slant list.
Thing is the great thing about battletech is the rules almost never change so its not like 40k where every edition it changes and you have to remember a new set of rules
I think Tom would like the HBS Battletech game, that takes care of all if the Ben work for you.
As someone who loves Battletech, I agree wholeheartedly with Tom. I wouldn't change it for the world, though. God bless MegaMek for making it not take five hours to play a game, though - just three instead.
If any shot did strike internal structure and not armor, then you roll for the critical hit chance, if there's a crit or multiple, you consult the structural diagram of the unit to see what it has inside of that specific structural part and roll again which internal component was destroyed by this shot, if it happens to be ammunition, then it's time to be seen from orbit
Aw, the missile chart isn't that bad.
Falling over arse-over backwards and getting not only a through-armour crit to the rear center torso, AND losing the last bit of armour so you take two crit rolls, then not *only* that but BOTH crits end up with 3 critical locations each? THAT'S bad.
In case anyone asks - yes, that did happen to me. On a Raven. It dealt more damage to itself failing Piloting skill checks than the opponent did actually shooting it.
Edit: seriously, that Raven never once had any damn luck in any of its deployments. It either died turn 2, or it spent the entire battle failing to land any hits despite having otherwise ideal flanking hits before falling over and failing to get up.
You forgot to mention if all 5 of those missiles hit the internal structure you need to roll 2d6 per missile hit to see if it crit important bits inside. Then you need to allocate any crits that were generated.
You should've pulled up the "Damage Resolution Chart" from the Battlemech Manual
I played original battle tech (and battle bots) and 1st edition D&D, along with 1980s warhammer fantasy.
Math is cool when it tells you how big the explosion is.
Only gaming and military engineering give you that feeling. (and I failed the physical to get into the navy :P)
Speaking as a dedicated battletech merc company commander... ya... the paperwork adds up. Then again, we love nerdy Battlemath wargame.
This is why various boardgames were effectively designed to be done on a computer. Like that level of depth is genuinely cool... if you're not rolling 100 dice 10 times a turn. Get the computer to do the number crunching and you're gold.
This is why i play alpha strike.
Ah yes the classic game 'Combat Math: Christ, Thats A Lot Of Charts'.
i love charts and graphs. lmao i leaned forward. 🤓
This is from the era of games where the ethos was more charts=more fun. Every mechanic had to be as complicated as possible for the sake of realism.
MegaMek my beloved
I dont even play BT or HH yet i can feel the weight of what theyre saying.
I used to play the old battletech onlines that were just the board game rules on a text based platform. Games took about 10 minutes, not 2 hours. Anyway the board game isnt that bad since you only control 1 to 4 mechs. Still, it was admittedly a different time with fiddlier games.
It’s not that bad. Like I get there trying to be funny, but it’s really not that complicated. Can you count to 10? It’s not that much to ask.
Agreed. I find it less confusing than remembering ploys and tactical gears etc in kill team. You just follow the charts, tick off the damage. It's really easy and doesn't take that long.
Reason I play battletech not 40k? I can afford battletech.
Every time Ben brings up Battletech I'm like "Why the fk don't you just play the PC game of it?" Like there's a proper, greatly designed game with a campaign and customization and production value and cool maps and everything and yeah that'll do the charts for you like you want. The only thing he ever brings up is some shtty web app that calculates stuff for you like that's the only option to not have to do it yourself. Has he even heard of the great PC version?
Even the PC game system is too simplified compared to the tabletop.
However there BattleMek which accurately represents these systems.
This REALLY doesn't seem that complicated at all. Are these guys just really stupid or something?