@@BigRed40TECH the true villains are sea fox they have the money the power and the influence with everyone including most likely the pirates and dark cast. The wolf are nothing more than the mask that sea fox uses.
Ill always love the Steel Vipers. Showed up in the Inner Sphere, attacked mostly other Clanners, rage quit Tukkayid, then decided to double down on attacking other Clanners. Then they top themselves again by starting the Wars of Reaving. Steel Viper has killed more Clanners than every House combined, probably even into the IllKlan Era. They are the True Defenders of the Inner Sphere, bless their memory!
@@PlacidDragon Smoked Jaguar made 2 mistakes with Trent; the first was sabotaging a genuinely faithful Clan warrior to such an extent that he practically had no choice but to defect to Comstar. The second was letting him take a ROM agent as a bondsman. Seriously, it's nothing shirt of a miracle that the number of "unfortunate accidents" was as low as it was.
@@asimplenobody7797 Well, what it showed more than anything was that the "pure and straightforward martial society" of what was considered the foremost of the clans was... well.. corrupt to the core by petty minded individuals who "cheated" as they saw fit when it suited them. Same as we saw briefly in the bloodname contest in clan Wolf (Phelan vs Vladimir), and as we saw more in depth for the "staunchly traditional" Jade Falcons during the trial of absorbtion (well, trial of refusal) between the Wolves and the Falcons. The general lesson was probably that personal ambition and agendas seemingly always trumps honor and correctness no matter how people publicly present themselves :)
I’m hoping that for MW5 Clans we follow a warrior from the start of the invasion until operation bulldog. If there can be elementals and a branching story, even better.
As someone who's mostly been IS so far, I think my favourite (from my limited knowledge) is gonna be Ghost Bear. Not too bothered about the "because family" bit though, but I like the idea of them being able to take a step back, look at a situation, then pick a course and drive it hard.People telling you not to take that road? Alright, just ignore them and pack your stuff up quietly. Road's broken? Fine, we'll bring road-building stuff. Road's blocked? Batter through it. Road's an ambush? Sure, spring it and then pound them with your firepower until either they are dead, or you are. The bears might be slow to wind up for a swing, but you had better not stick around for that swing to come down.
Affirmative. Ghost Bears have that secret tech of being rational. Best part is post clan invasion GB looked around and figured out that they had won already and left.
I too am a fan of the GB/RD, but unfortunately due to the shenanigans I am looking at the Snow Ravens real hard right now and hoping they clap some skulls.
Remember also that during Tukayyid, the Ghost Bear Khan had taken both cities and Comstar retook one of them. While she knew she had enough forces to retake the first city, she weighed more what would happen post-tukayyid, and didn't want to stretch her clan thin in the event she needed to defend the Ghost Bear systems from other clans. She contacted Focht and asked for a draw to which he agreed. She and her clan were allowed to withdraw with their honor in tact. This move paid off in dividends as the Clans fell apart for a bit after, Jade Falcon and Steel Viper pointing fingers at other clans and crusading them. The Ghost bears, largely unfazed due to taking rather minor losses at Tukayyid, were fine and just sat there doing what they do best.
I love the Horses almost exactly because they've got such a...modest success rate. Their logo is by far the coolest of all the Clans, and their obsession with combined arms is neat, but I just love that they're a Clan that is "allowed" to not have plot armor in the slightest. It makes them feel so much more realistic, in a weird way.
Every time I replay BATTLETECH, I chuckle when Dr. Murad says "imagine the enlightened society untouched by wars of succession" when talking about the survivors of the Exodus. If she only knew what was coming in a few decades...
@@Vanessaira-Retro Right on, I always loved doing that with game discs to see what I could find. Paid off with the secret message from Alucard on the PS1 Symphony of the Night disc.
AMAZING! Speaking of which, where in the First Circuit did Red get this remix? I still remember hearing it for the first time as a new Clan Wolf 'pup.' It gave me goosebumps. Nearly 30 years later, I still consider the Mechwarrior 2 Trilogy my DOS GOAT game(s). That being said, I wasn't as excited about the 3d accelerated versions; probably because they did cut down the audio track lengths...
Sidenote about Star Adders: They're the only clan where non-warriors have an official voice on the Clan Council. Admittedly, it's only *one* person representing the entirety of the non-warrior castes, but it's still more than every other Clan prior to the Clan Invasion.
@@nikushim6665 Not quite. Prior to Operation Revival they had a traditional Clan organisation, and post-Tukkuyid the Merchant caste became dominant, but AFAIK the labour caste and scientist caste were pretty much voiceless.
My dislike for Clan Wolf is much akin to my dislike for the character of Rey in the new Star Wars trilogy: The plot bends over backwards to accommodate them and give them wins.
@@bthsr7113 She's a no body, but also she can do emergency repairs on a space ship that she has never seen to a degree that even the OWNER of said ship didn't think about it, and is a force wielder, and also apparently a fucking PALPATINE
Being a self aware fan of Clan Wolf is like beint a self aware fan of The Ultramarines. You go from: "This Old Lore is cool, they're jack of all trades but dont excel like their cousins. What a fun & not power wanked faction." Only for both to go from things like Uriel Ventris series by McNeil, to Ward's bullshit: "Wait they ate The Dragoons/Have a spare chapter to refill losses? That's just bad writing..." or "The weird Incest man did what to The Republic/Marneus Calgar did what to The Avatar? Thats fucking stupid!" And so on & soforth. It poetic I ended up in this situation since above those two. When it comes to Supersoldiers, my top favorites are The Night Lords & Smoke Jaguars. So I'm stuck liking both setting's golden children, & serial axe murderers.
Ultramarines suffered because the authors wouldn’t let the poster boys fail. They’re not my favorite but I do like them more as “Jack of all trades with some Roman flair” than most of the chapters that I feel are just uninteresting excuses to have more canonical color schemes. I did embrace a little bit of the “let’s just go all the way on extremism” because my space marines are all Black Templars. I do love the tabards and extra crusader-y aesthetics after all.
But you really undersell how much Ward did damage to the Ultra's: Before he came, they was the faction you grabbed when the Tyranids was running about (Back in 2nd edition you really had a ton of bug players running around) and they was cool. But when Ward got a hold of them, he was the worst sort of fanboy possible for us. He had them doing things that other UM players was like, this is BS why is he doing this? It was years before someone reigned him in and it took the Space Marine game to have the Smurfs not be reviled. All of this was caused by ONE GUY with a hard on for the UM...and killing Sisters of Battle... He really was weird.
@@dolomaticus1180 I made direct reference to his story where he had Marneus Calgar 1v1, and *WIN* AGAINST AN *AVATAR OF KHAINE!* I in no way, undersell the damage he did. That one event is legitimately one of the most damaging things to happen to the entire Eldar faction en totale. Because of that one event, The Eldar's answer to Daemon Prince's/Greater Daemons. One of their most important units in the lore & on table top. Has been relegated for decades now, to nothing but a measuring stick for showing how badass a named character is. Yes, the damage he caused with _The Khornate Knights_ event was awful. And it would take literally until the 2010s for Kaldor Draigo to get novels written that would help him become a good character from the atrocious Mary Sue he had been. But neither of those issues can compare in scale to the damage done by having Calgar beat The Avatar. Because no fan of any faction would ever accept that The Grey Knights would ever kill Sisters of Battle, and most people would just ignore Draigo's fuckery because he was thankfully trapped in The Warp. But the power scaling of the setting itself was nigh permanently damaged by establishing that a singular Space Marine Chapter Master was on the level of The Avatar of Khaine. Only in recent time has The Avatar gotten just parts of his reputation repaired.
@@thechazz3230 And IF we are lucky a few more things can be repaired over time. I have always enjoyed the UM, but its hard to have fun when your faction is full Plot armor that puts a battle ship to shame.
I now have this image in my head of Alaric Ward as TTS Cato Sicarius. "TRIAL SUCCESSFUL!! I, ALARIC WARD AM NOW THE ILKHAN AND YOUR FIRST LORD! YOU MAY NOW PRAISE I, ALARIC WARD!
For me #1 has to be the Ghost Bears, solely because they manage to (until recently) consistently form a plan and then follow it to the best of their ability unless given a logical reason to change course. Don't know what's ahead? Send a scout. If the scout doesn't come back, send in a heavier unit to figure out what happened to the scout, as well as complete the original mission of the scout. Once that's complete, figure out what to do about whatever was encountered, and then complete the tasks that have been planned, obviously accounting for any discrepancies. They are simply the most competent of the clans, without being the embodiment of plot armor, or rather Clan Wolf. For most of their lore, they simply do what is needed to get the job done, without requiring the enemy to be stupid to accomplish it.
Their fight at Tukayyid was what originally put me in with their lot. I like how their Khan weighed her options and took a draw, cutting her losses because she knew Tukayyid was going poorly for them. That ensured the ghost bears were fine in the post-tukayyid conflicts between the remaining clans.
I’m personally a Scorpion Empire fan. I find their whole culture really interesting and the background of the Empire’s formation feels realistic. Which is the exact reason I don’t like Clan Wolf and agree with you 100%. They don’t feel like a real faction, especially lately. The whole Alaric plot is absolutely comical how poorly it has been written.
So, tldr: Smoke Jaguar: Godspeed you magnificent bastard Jade Falcon: I just think it’s neat Ghost Bear: Look how they massacred my boy Star Adder: I’m surrounded by idiots Nova Cat: real Coup de etat has never been tried Hells horses: he’s trying his best Steel viper: congratulations you played yourself. Goliath Scorpion: *inhales 100 skooma* Snow Raven: I’m not mad I’m just disappointed. Burrock: HOW TF DID THEY GET A TOTEM MECH Cloud Cobra: have you heard of our lord and savior kerensky? Ice Hellion: *toddler whining* Blood Spirit: Coyote: Big brain time Sea fox: you now own everything, congrats everyone hates you Clan Wolf: DO I NEED TO SAY ANYTHING
@krystianmaternia9973 Sea Fox is diamond shark. Clan Snow Raven sabotaged their totem animal by releasing Diamond Sharks knto their world and eradicating the Sea Fox in the process. Thus, they changed to Diamond Shark. Decades later Sea foxes were found alive and scientists helped reinvigorate their population, thus Diamond shark changed back to Sea Fox later on.
Wolverine: The best and brightest, or they would have been if Nicky didn't turn them into a scapegoat. Widowmaker: Truly, they were the biggest assholes of the clans. Stone Lion: *WHAT IS MY PURPOSE!?!?*
You are spot on with your explanation on the Home Clans in the overall setting, even as a Star Adder fan, speaking of which I did NOT expect them to be third on your list and you are not wrong about them. I appreciate your view on the Jaguars, they are an ideal, if overthetop, antagonistic faction that are an organic product of the setting. And yes, at first Steel Vipers looked cool on the surface, then you take a closer look and... well through their own inability for critical self reflection, they became genocidal, but were ultimately used and genocided in return.
Was playing at the time when the Clan came out. The incredible change to the game was absolutely foundational. The only problem I have with the Clan invasion is that the new clan tech was SO much better that they really haven't been able to come out with any "new" tech that continued to evolve the game because the bar was set so high with the original clan weapons.
Seriously thought. Just let introtech fall into disuse/periphery and have Clantech become the new standard tech. Inner Sphere replicating Clantech but worse is so stupid.
I’ve said it before I’ll say it again. I love the Hellshorses, not because they win or are smart, hell they’re not even successful. The reason I like them is because no matter what they do they will lose, but in doing so will ruin everyone’s day. They’re also completely insane and merciless. In short they are the biggest failures in battletech and that’s why I love them.
It's a shame you dislike talking about things you dislike because you are insanely entertaining when you're discussing the wolves in any form. Otherwise super appreciate the insights and a bit of extra knowledge about the clans as you continue to be my lens into the later eras of the game that isn't shaped by one of the MW Merc games.
As a ghost bear player, who doesn't like or follow the IL clan Era because I think it's bad writing and isn't logical... I approve this message. Another good video
I'm kinda rooting for the Spirit Cats in the Ilclan Era. The Nova Cats kinda got kicked around the setting, I'm glad to see their spiritual successors refusing to cave in.
I hope Clan Wolverine returns, they are my favourite Clan, and they were the closest to Kerensky's ideals despite not being holders of the Kerensky bloodname
What would've been a great twist and the ultimate "fuck you" to Kerensky and, by extension, Clan society as a whole, would've been them emerging during the ilClan trial and massacring the Wolves and Falcons. No glorious victory or honorable defeat, no final consummation of Nicky's vision and ideals, just bloody death and denial by those they spurned and the whole Inner Sphere going, "...so anyway..."
@@omni-hexagon3514 and add atop of that: That's for Andrey Kerensky. For he was a good friend of McEvedy, khan of Wolverines. And we know, that Nicky was behind all that bs.
Has Clan Sea Fox become a bit of a Mary Sue? Yes. Is their Narrative Arc most likely done in the iLClan era, outside of few skirmishes here and there? Yeah. Do some of the other clans have bigger and better lore and fanbases surrounding themselves? You Bet. But I just can't pull myself away from them, I like the nomad clan that has "figured it out". Clan Diamond Shark was one of the first Clans that I actually liked, and the fact that they were one of the few Clans that weren't completely Batshit insane, was the Cherry on top. Plus, without them how else can I pull off my Khajiit joke? "Sea Fox has mechs...if you have C-Bills."
The scorpions have always been my favorite for some reason, and their absorption of he 71st Light Horse (ELH is my favorite Merc unit) and the founding of their Empire just cemented it. Can't really put my finger on why, but Scorpions are my secondfavorite faction overall, after the old FedCom.
I like the Nova Cats, mainly for the culture around the visions stuff and the fact that the Alpha Galaxy paintjob is a banger. My only complaint about them is their hatred of LAMs and the fact they demolished one of the last LAM factories in the Inner Sphere. Especially since it was the last Stinger LAM factory and that model was apparently pretty good!
Frankly, I thought that irrational hatred of LAMs hilarious. I also thought how WizKidz wrote their destruction several degrees of forced and completely out of left field. That said, while Big Red calls them the backstabbers, I'd call them pragmatic in their outlook. The mission was to reinstate the Star League? Well, invading the IS did achieve that goal! Might as well join them! Mission accomplished, guys! They also knew Kerensky was an absolute nutjob, and that the Wolverines were unfairly betrayed and attacked, but were effectively hostages to the Clan way of life because if they stepped out of line they'd be the next one annihilated. Jumping ship to the IS was inevitable because it was the only way out of the insanity that was Kerensky's vision of the Clans.
@@pariahdevalis Very much agree, i can't see Nova Cats as backstabbers, because at the end of the day they were the first clan to actually achieve their initial goal, and the *only* one to stop brute forcing it after it's already achieved. They actually got backstabbed very hard themselves, and in my eyes Clan Nova Cat is mostly a tragic faction with rather unfair end, being brutally sterilised to oblivion, like someone didn't want tgis faction to interfere with anything in BT lore because it was too hard to keep them up for some reason. Unique things always get worse treatment than the mainstream ones...
i like the cats as well and planned to play them as my first clan force but then i read their lore and it seems they always get the disgustingly pointy end of the stick, really really sad story, i mean its kinda their own fault for being so weird all the time but i still feel bad for them....i settled with gb but since i already have some nova cat decals i´ll use them in my "clan snord touman" instead of jf aaand i kinda like protomechs, not possible with gb but i might fiddle something with nc.....no spirit cats though, they´re even for the novas to weird 🐈⬛
I don't mind Spirit Cats. Lots of Nova Cats left the DC to help kill Wobbies and were among the first in line to fight and help the Republic take Terra. They were among the first Paladins, and thus to the Republic, are (or might be) these kind of exotic mystical warriors from faraway space. The Spirit Cats are thus like a cargo cult of Nova Cat, made up of a few renegade or independent Nova Cat members. Phillip Drummond was admittedly kind of cult-ish, but his visions were sort of like the Aeneid or Fiver from Watership Down. While the Dark Age was going on, the Spirit Cars were kind of in an ongoing flight out of the Republic, which given what happened to the Novas who stayed, kind of makes sense. It's not a perfect parallel, or description, but it is a framework to look at the Spirit Cats through. They are former and wannabe Nova Cats, who have deviated enough from the Combine Nova Cats that by the time they all end up in the FWL, there's kind of a mutual dislike.
Hells Horses. Combined arms - Check. Told Alaric to piss off - check. Losing battles that they should win - I feel seen. Goliath Scorpian. The GSE has become the most interesting periphery state to me, plus they got the better of the Sea Foxes. Snow Ravens. A machiavellian naval power bordering the Draconis Combine and the Federated Suns equals so many wonderful opportunities for mischief.
Woot go Star Adders! Not going to lie, even if probably will never happen. I would love source book about them and other homeward clans fighting the Scorpion Empire.
I'm hoping for a decent placement for the Hell's horses. Their never going to top this list, but I can hope for a mid place showing. Edit: WOOO 9TH PLACE LET'S GOOO! WE BEAT THE WOLVES!
Largely agree. I'm GB for life, especially Dominion and their conversion to an IS power with Clan military. Their most recent story arcs have put my custom galaxy in a tough spot, though. Their status as reasonable(ish) clan has been thoroughly shaken, and I hate it.
To add to this: they accepted a batchall that amounted to a football game. Mind you: said game was comically one-sided due to the fact that Ghost Bear sent ELEMENTALS on the field but they were still sportsmanlike if not completely sporting.
One of the very few cool things about Clan Burrock was getting a mech named after them after absorbsion. The Burrock has 6 Heavy Medium Lasers, a UAC 20 and a top speed of 86 km/h with 20 heat sinks. They got a boss level battlemech that can be thrown at players you hate
I rather enjoyed this Op Ed. A very clear and concise explanation of how you feel about the clans as a whole and each faction thereof. Good work as always sir.
My favorite clan is probably Ghost Bear. Why? Because they're one of the few that aren't complete pieces of shite, and recognize "hey, families are a good thing, go figure". Second favorite is Nova Cats. SMOKE A BOWL AND PREDICT THE FUTURE, BABY!
Scorpions have always had a place in my heart in part because of the Seeker stuff. A Clan of Indiana Jones' wandering the stars, looking for antiques, and dropping acid before strapping into their mechs. Fun. Their developments since being kicked out of Clan space have definitely made them better too. And ever since reading about task force Serpent as a kid I've liked the Eridani Light Horse so part of them being absorbed by the Scorpions is cool.
I just found your channel and enjoyed this video. As a fan of Battletech since the 90s, I considered Clan Wolf to have the most plot armor even back then.
Good point about probably the most important part of why wolf is bad, it's not merely that they always win, it's also that their plot armor destroys actually good and interesting factions as well.
I know we're only talking about clans that still existed as of 3050, but I'm insanely fond of the Clan Wolverine/Minnesota Tribe. They're just such an interesting entity and I love how they were the ones who came closest to putting an end to the madness of the clans before it had a chance to really set in. They failed of course, but that's what makes them all the more charming as a what-if of the setting. Plus the conspiracies are fun. But yes, of the core list I'm a hardcore Ghost Bear for life... largely because in the Inner Sphere I'm also a hardcore Rasalhaguer for life.
Ghost Bear was my favorite of the initial invading 4 clans. Nova Cat is second, loved their unique lore. Jade Falcons was next, because they weren’t the favored Wolves. Shout outs to the ridiculous Ice Hellions failing left and right.
For my favorite Clan? Snow Raven, no doubt, seconded by Clan Hell's Horses. I'm a huge, huge space lover, I love JumpShips, I love DropShips, I love ASFs, and I'm a huge, huge sucker for WarShips, and the politics of BattleTech. Hell's Horse is amazing because of how hard they try, and how little they succeed, and how much I want them to succeed.
Warships have always had the problem of blocking the use of conventional forces that Battletech is built around, and so become an obstacle to a faction actually being used. :(
To me Victor Ian Steiner Davion giving his sister to Vladimir Ward was a deliberate insult to her. Vlad chalanged Victor to a trial of possion for her. Instead of fighting to keep her. Which would have meant she had value to him. He just handed her to Vladimir. which is saying Kathrin is so worthless to victor. I will not risk losing anything to keep her. Basically saying Kathrine is totaly worthless.
@@BigRed40TECH True, but since Vlad threw down the gauntlet, Victor was like "All you had to do is ask" and just sent her packing. You have to think in the back of Vlad's brain he was like "WTF!?!?! What kind of deal am I getting with her?"
I absolutely love the Jaguars and Adders were in the top 3. Brutality is the one trait that is believable about any of the clans let alone clans that fought their way to the top.
If I had to pick a favorite clan it would have been Wolf, but I've also not read anything past Tukayyid but after hearing this I can certainly understand why people would dislike Clan Wolf. But I don't have to pick a favorite clan thus I stick with "The only good clanner is a dead clanner" :) I can also completely understand why Smoke Jaguar would rate as number 1, the clans are "the bad guys" so it makes sense to like the baddest of the bunch.
Blood Spirit sounds like when you read a manga but the fan translators translated a character's name wrong. Based on the idea of "Esprit de Corps," but then someone at FASA said "That's way too much french for our player base, Blood Spirit is close enough..."
I would say my top 5 favourite Clans from 1st to 5th would be: Jade Falcon, Snow Raven, BASED Star Adder, Ghost Bear and Smoke Jaguar, with Hell's Horses and Goliath Scorpion as runner ups. I love birds too much, I wish there were more than two bird-themed Clans, like, I do not know, Clan Cobalt Eagle and Clan Sagittarius (Secretarybird) or something. My bottom 4 disliked Clans would be: Fire Mandrill (silly even by Clan standards, imo), Blood Spirit (so their specialty is being irrelevant?), Steel Viper (being a Falcon fanboy demands it) and Wolf (we both know why we hate them).
Great video I’m certain we could all change the list around to personal taste. For the most part you could reference this video to anyone on the pro’s/con’s of any clan to a new player.
Live chat responses: *SPOILERS* 0:00 Oh god this is gonna upset somebody 15:05 and the winner is Clan Genocide! Not my favorite but agree with your reasoning. They were total bastards and are the epitome of Crusader Clans, and they got what was coming to them. Made for really great storytelling. Also I never thought about it that way, but the Clan Invasion is really the story of the Jaguars rise and fall. 21:20 They were always the most reasonable of the invading clans. 25:10 Of all the surprises in the newer story the Star Adders and Wars of Reaving were the biggest for me. The Star Adders and their psychopath of a Khan were such unmitigated bastards 27:10 It's probably because of the TV show but the Jade Falcons to me were always the quintessential bad guy Clan. Backstabby and treacherous. I wasn't a huge fan of the Malvina arc, not because it was bad but because she ended up being far too much of a cartoon villain. 29:20 My favorite Clan. The only way I can describe it is the Jeremy Clarkson meme. "This is great (Wolf) but I LIKE this (Nova Cats)" 31:10 I hate these guys for the same reasons you said they were great lol 32:30 Admittedly they've gotten way more interesting recently 33:30 The Ravens were one of the niche or trope Clans. After a while FASA started making these trope Clans because they ran out of ideas like "the speed clan", the "vehicle clan", the "space ship clan", etc They are probably the most interesting out of the niche clans. 35:30 The vehicle Clan... totally dull. It's not that they are the vehicle/combined arms Clan that's the problem it's that they are so bad at it... 37:20 Clan internal civil war. Constant infighting made them useless 38:15 I used to love this Clan until they turned into a bunch of whiny losers 39:30 I loved the Coyotes by agree they didn't do nearly enough with them story wise. All about past glory 40:30 meh, they barely existed in the story. As soon as the were introduced and expanded upon in Field Manual Crusader Clans it was only to mention the Adders had just absorbed them. 41:40 Least interesting of the Snakes is right, but they are religious for some reason 42:40 The Blood spirits were invented because they needed a worst and most embarrassing Clan. By the Blood Kite is an amazing mech 44:20 the money Clan... yeah, sure. I guess they needed someone to sell out the Clans. Now they are taking over some of Comstars former role in the story, but I don't understand why anyone trusts them at all? And they made the Mad Cat MkII, the mech I hate the most 47:50 Ouch, lol ... and yes Captain Alaric Protagonist and his Plot Armor
Your thoughts on Star Adder actually got me to change my mind on my next Clan project. I was gonna paint a Cluster for Clan Coyote..... now I'm gonna go with Star Adder
I loved the Clan Invasion era for the same reasons you brought up. The tension, sense of danger, the feeling of success when you merely survive, and just maybe, win against a clearly superior foe is something you don't find in other eras. Surprised you didn't bring up Natasha 2.0, but reskinned old characters wasn't really exclusive to the Wolves to be fair. Also Sarah McEvedy is upset you didn't mention the most based Clan.
I'm a true Inner Sphere/Fed Suns guy. I did look at some of the Clan factions, one's not in the initial invasion; and Hell's Horses did intrigue me. Mostly because their use and belief in combined arms. This was quite some time ago now(mid nineties) before they got fleshed out over the years. I'm a little sad at their current status.
@@BigRed40TECHThat’s is unfortunate. I’m only familiar with the lore timeline up to the end of the Fed/Com Civil War and really don’t have too much interest in the events after, so their fate is largely irrelevant to me. I’m not even sure what clan I’d play if I were to switch things up.
I love your ongoing subjective analysis of the battletech universe, and your opinion pieces are by far my favorite. I have to say that your mention of a potential L.A.M. video in the future perked me up more than railing a line of canopus battle powder. Though I’d be lying if I said I’m not a tad nervous at the prospect. Those of us who worship at the altar of the land air mech will defend the LAM’s right to exist in this setting with the tenacity of a capellan urban mech pilot. (Coincidentally, I find LAM pilots also tend to fall into the ‘capellans can be good guys too’ camp, so maybe we just like tilting at windmills.) To the cult of the LAM, these machines occupy a similar niche to the Harrier or the F-35b and their poor performance in certain situations results mostly from incorrect employment. I’ve seen them slay bodies on the tabletop and be uniquely massacred in equal measure. The early lore reflects their finickiness as well as their belovedness by ground troops for the LAMs unique excellence at rapid response and close fire support. It‘s not until later that the rules gutted the LAM and the lore shifted to them being just barely better than driving a pair of stilts and a trash can lid with a musket taped to it into combat and calling yourself a Locust. They’re not the do it all wonder weapons of a bygone age, but they do have their place. Nonetheless, it seems to me that most folks simply misunderstand the desire to keep them around. The truth is, guys like me got into battletech because we started out as Robotech/Macross fans, saw a battletech box with a Phoenix Hawk fighting an Atlas and thought ‘What is this and why is a VF-1 fighting the Gundams ugly stick bespanked cousin? I must know more!’ We’re pretty used to being shit on by the community, so If such a video does ever begin construction within your hallowed video editing bay, I humbly request that you be kind and fair to us. Neither of which I believe you’d have trouble doing, and I don’t for a moment think that you're one for mudding on someone else's fun. But all the same, I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least mention that we are here too, enjoying this hobby, cursing Amaris’ name, longing for the halcyon days of the Star League, and fighting our way off the dropship for C-bills and glory shoulder to shoulder with the rest of you mad lad mechwarriors and Aerospace jocks. On a side note; is not Hells Horses doctrine tailor made for LAM employment? With generous application of clan tech, glory awaits them if they could merely remove the scales from their sinners eyes and see the glory that is the LAM!
The problem with LAMs, is that no mech moves with the agility and speed to transform the way they do, let alone doing so while taking flight of jumping. I love Starscream for instance, I just don't think his style of machine fits in the setting, especially when other mechs are depicted as lumbering by comparison.
@@BigRed40TECH I agree that they shouldn't move like a Valk from Macross. But a mech that performs as a less well armored, slightly more manuverable version of its terestrial counterpart that can, while behind cover, transition to an aircraft, and or stop in between? I don't see that as too much more far fetched than a Stone Rino being able to walk or a ship being able to travel faster than light. especially where Lostech is concerned. I mean the V-22 Osprey exists in real life after all. But my aim isn't to convert. I just wanted to remind folks we still come to the table, and we'd like to keep on coming with the toys we like. (within reason)
@@georgeremero4982 And then .... along comes .... the QUAD-VEE! Yet another bold move by Clan Broney! (I mean, Clan Hell's Horses! Seriously, I've come to love the Horses.) Without the stigma of the LAM, the QV, while it's own brand of quirky, is IMHO an attempt at reintroducing dual-natured battlemechs with something similar in spirit to the Southern Cross Veritech Hovertank (though not as out-right ripping off as the LAM did the Veritech Fighters.)
@@georgeremero4982 honestly, if the Horses can have glorified transformers in QuadVees, I think the LAM deserves a place at the table. Fair is fair, after all
Got into Battletech with the SNES game before I found the novels. Due to that, I was always a huge fan of the clans, with Wolf being my favorite. Have to admit they fell off when I was getting back into everything a few years ago. Part of me still likes them, but I'm no longer a kid that finds an unstoppable force exciting. In recent years, I would say that Sea Fox is my favorite. Their way of "war" makes them feel very unique among the clans. I'm also very happy they went back to that name. I always thought Diamond Shark was by far the worst named faction in the series. Didn't help that I considered their emblem to be one of the worst ones.
Wolverine and Snow Ravens for me. Wolverines: had the balls to tell Kerensky the Younger to F Off and hold to the traditions that they came from. Also, the Wolverine takes no crap and fights like hell. Snow Ravens: in my opinion, they are one of the two lesser eveils of the Clans, the other being Sea Fox. They just want to do their thing not just conquer and steal for the hell of it.
@@thomascraiker6449 I have read it and I still have a copy. They held on to the Lance formations instead of switching to Stars, allowed caste members to change their caste, and many other things that Soup Stock's Son and the other Clans didn't approve of as they tied the Wolverines to the "barbarians they left behind".
Also because there is the fact that the Snow Ravens would likely destroy almost any other clan in a conventional "no clan dueling to decide shit BS" type war thanks to their incredible navy. They have always seemed to me like the most intelligent clan in terms of military decision-making for the long game.
While I might argue a single ranking here or there, you're spot on with pretty much every single point of your analysis. It was almost heartbreaking to see the Sea Foxes become something truly unique and interesting during the DA and then become the "Oh we win all the time and are better at everything than everyone else!" squad step by step to a degree you could argue is almost worrse than Wolf, if that's even possible (I mean they do even run circles around Alaric, giving away pieces of Terra to mercs before he had even conquered the planet, fighting both for and against the Wolf Empire in the same war for profits...)
I’m sure this will invite reasonable and level-headed discussion in the comments ;) Edit: You played Word Bearers too? I knew there was a reason I liked this channel so much.
I was a huge Ghost Bear fan until dominions divided painted my clan mechs up as Rasalhague Galaxy but my new clan forces are erratic one offs as I paint up clan battle mechs as a ragtag dark caste pirate band
As a Scorpion position seven actually feels about right. Seyla. Edit: after commenting I realized how this may sound confusing. Scorpions have not been used narratively very much in the past, and even now we are still in the deep periphery. However, from a rpg perspective Scorpions are the best developed and possibly most versatile clan. My opinion.
Let me guess. Wolf is worst, Mary Sue, plot armor bleebloooo Ima still watch tho Edit: I KNEW IT Still watched to the end. Your opinions are weird. Take your upvote.
Ghost Bear and the Rasalgague Dominion has been my favorite Clan/Clan Descended state for a very long time. I'm just getting caught up to the ilClan era so I know there is some unfortunateness ahead. :-(
My favourite clan is Wolf. (Waits till all the incoming fire is over and then creeps out of the bunker) I started in BattleTech in the early 90s while serving in the British army and it was my favourite tabletop war game or RPG setting. Initially our group had 5 players (6 if you include the guy running all the campaigns and so running the opposition) this meant that we were a lance plus one. As my favourite IS mech was, and still is, the Phoenix Hawk, and the fact that it was the mech my character was using in our games it led to a lot of resentment from the heavier hitting medium and heavy mech drivers. Oh they were all happy to have me provide scout duties, as was I, but when it came to combat it was a case of, "Well you just stay out of the way and let us kill everyone." An odd opinion as I actually the second highest kill count in our group. After our group finally got access to the Clans material and enough Clan Mechs to make such a thing possible it was decided to swap the group over to playing as the Clans. Now I would be an actual part of the star rather than a tacked on asset to the lance. Yay inclusion. Our first battle against the Clans, was also our groups IS pilots last battle. Each of us was give an extra three mechs to control to reflect the rest of our parent unit, with me running our recon lance, my Phoenix Hawk, plus a Javelin and 2 Wasps. Our enemy was a Clan Jade Falcon binary, so 20 vs 10. Things went poorly for us, even though only a single star advanced towards us. We suffered two decapitations, including one player character's pilot in the opening volley. I also lost a Wasp and the Javellin. I did get lucky as I ammanaged to score two head hits with my large laser against a Thor (Summoner) killing it. Combined fire took out a second Thor, but at this point we were seriously losing, in large part due to the decision that was taken by the group. As the group was unaware of how the Clans operated, when they saw the second Clan Star holding back they took the decission that while my recon lance and Mechs armed with shorter ranged weapons would engage the advance lance, every LRM, PPC and other long range weapon would fire at the second, not fighting group. Which caused them to join in the fight. In total we destroyed 5 clan mechs, 2 Thors (Summoners), a Loki (Hellbringer), and 2 Ullers (Kit Foxes), and we lost 19 of our own. My Phoenix Hawk, now minus both arms, was the only mech to escape our gaming area. After this defeat with pilots either dead or captured, even my character was captured due to the Jade Falcons other units on planet over running the dropships, we started our Clan journey. We were offered 2 Clans to choose from. Jade Falcon or Wolf. I selected Jade Falcon, but everyone else want to fight the Jade Falcons and ended up picking Wolf. Rather than creating a single charater we were each to create 5 charaters which we would control through the initial training phase up until our trial of position. Of my 5, 3 went on to successfully qualify with 1 of them getting 2 kills, a Clan ER PPC to the head in the first volley has that effect. In total 7 of the 25 qualified. 1 Player had the misfortune of graduating no characters while another player graduated 2, including another character with two kills. The 2 of us who had multiple characters left at this stage were told to select one and hand the others to our GM. I picked Marcus, and turned over Caitlin (my 2 kill character) and Emma (my surprise qualifier as she was speced out to be primarily tech focused). The other player chose his 2 kill character, efectively becoming the Star Commander for our group. Our 0 qualifing player was given a choice of taking Emma, or the other 1 kill character to take over. Emma was rejected on the grounds that he didn't want to run a female character. Over the next 2 1/2 years I played as Marcus who served in the 7th Wolf Guards Cluster (the 7th Wolf Guards were created just for our group). In that time I rose to the rank of Star Captain, commanding Trinary Battle, in the 7th Wolf Guards. and earned a Ward Blood Name. I even kept track of my 'not in play' characters. Caitlin became a Star Colonel, and commander of the 7th Wolf Guards, and Emma was injured and relegated to the Tech Caste where she ended up serving as Caitlin's Tech. I even had my own personal version of the Timber Wolf (Mad Cat), thanks to the fact that there was a line about Omni Mechs being able to be outfitted to personal preference. It had 2 ER large lasers, 4 ER medium lasers, 2 Streak 6 SRM racks (each with a ton of ammo), and an AMS system (with two tons of ammo). To attempt to manage heat I had 20 double heat sinks. My head cannon for the design was that it was conceived for Marcus by Emma, who also created a custom variant of the Dire Wolf (Daishi) for Caitlin. Not sure if it had anything to do with the individualistic nature of clan comabt, or the fact that we were now all part of the same Star, but the group dynamic changed. I was part of the unit and no longer a tacked on extra asset that no-one really wanted. I then had something of a falling out with BattleTech, which led to my pulling back from the lore and game in general. It started after I transfered to a new unit. I again found a group of BattleTech players that I could game with. I was a bit upset that they weren't interested in playing the Clans, as by this point I had assembled a clusters worth of Clan Mechs, Elementals and Omni Fighters, but I had no problems slipping back into the Succession Wars era. My new character, Alex, got a Warhammer 6R as his Mech and I joined the others of the group. Perhaps I should have realised that there were going to be problems when I joined the group, when I learned that the one running the group, was also running a player character. But I let it slide as it was a bigger group, 8 in total, and now we could field two full lances. Things first went wrong after a mission in which we only just escaped, but did at least recover the Tech sample we'd been sent after. My Warhammer was a wreck, no arms, two engine hits, a gyro hit, and a leg actuator hit. At first I wasn't worried as we had escaped off world and would be able to fix up our Mechs. Or so I thought. I wasn't able to attend the next session, due to duty commitments, but it was the Wednesday evening session and the plan was to fix up the Mechs, and secure a new contract, as well as play some non campaign games of BattleTech, so I thought that I didn't need to be there. How wrong was I? When the Saturday session cam around I attended and pulled my page protector containing my Mech and character sheet from the locker in the club room, and found that none of the damage had been removed from my Mech. Once everyone else had arrived I asked about getting my Mech fixed, to which I was told that all Mechs had been fixed. I then showed my still damaged Mech sheet and asked why the damage was still present. The group leader said he asked everyone to turn over their sheets on Wednesday and all had been fixed. Myself and others pointed out that I wasn't there on Wednesday, and as he was running the club, it was up to him to accomodate absent players, given that I was on military duties that I couldn't get out of. Trying to avoid problems, I said "Well lets just fix it now." At which point I learned that the company had no spare funds. The group leader had after fixing everyone elses Mechs sold a bunch of player Mechs, plus all the spare Mechs to upgrade the company to include 4 assault mechs, an Atlas, an Awesome, a Stalker, and a Zeus. The group leader had replaced his Hunchback for the Atlas. Feeling really annoyed at this point, I asked "Well how much did I get from the last job? Maybe I can afford enough repairs to at least fix up my armour, internals, and maybe my damaged components." "Oh everyoen got their shares on Wednesday." was the reply from the group leader. Again a chorus of "I/He wasn't here on Wednesday." "Well somebody should have said something." was the reply, followed by a chorus of "We did!" I also pointed out that I had rang him during Wednesday day to remind him that I wouldn't be able to attend that night. The response to that was "Well it's too late now. You'll just have to tag along and try not to die until we can do something about your problems." I lost it at that point and after the group had pulled us apart I left, or the group leader kicked me from the group, depending on who tells it, and I never went back. I never returned to BattleTech while in the military, and after I left, I never found a group that I could play with regularly. So almost all of my BattleTech gaming now was the various computer games that I play(ed). Despite how my tabletop foray ended, I still find myself recalling the time that I played Marcus Ward, and it is still my fondest memories of BattleTech. My love of Clan Wolf has nothing to do with lore, or what Mechs they have or anything else like that but rather the joy I had playing a character in that Clan way back when. Had the group pick Clan Jade Falcon back in those days I would have those fond memories of that Clan. Feel free to target away. I stand ready to receive your fire.
Speaking as a DM/GM that kind of behaviour from the second group leader is unacceptable. I mean I know wargaming and RPGs are different but making in-game decisions that excludes players due to uncontrollable circumstances is just a dick move.
I got three words for clan Wolf and one of the reasons why they suck: Michael A. Stackpole. He was terrible in Star Wars and everything I read in BT from him was along similar lines (so I ended up avoiding most of his books). He used to be a pretty popular author due to the Rogue Squadron books, but, one will note they went off the rails and became the "Stackpole Isekai" more and more. I notice he wrote a lot of books with the Wolves in them. I haven't read them, because I find him unreadable, but I can only imagine how that went. This then sets the tone for later Wolf clanners and we have what we have today, woop de doo. So yeah, add a few more bad authours for other wolves and I can see them being full on cringe by the time we reached the current timeline.
Need that deep dive on everything wrong with clan wolf since Nicholas Kerensky. I need all of it. Everything that has been bungled with these sick dogs from star league to ilclan
I have no interest in delving that deep tbh. It's bad for the community to dog-pile them. I only even made the content the way I did for this video because I literally covered all of them.
I could tolerate Clan Wolf during the invasion era because I kinda liked Ulric's cunning and of course the forming of Wolf in Exile. I preferred Wolf in Exile because unlike regular Clan Wolf, they really did struggle and even got heavily decimated during the FedCom civil war. I really liked how they were an underdog clan and their alliance with the Kell Hounds. But of course they were made to rejoin Clan Wolf because dumb reasons. God I despite this Clan Wolf circlejerk. I would have also preferred if the Fidelis remained as such because the whole "betrayal" thing was weak as hell and just another dumb excuse for more Clan Wolf shilling.
I agree with your opinion on the [Last Clan], though it is as a result of your education on the subject. Thank you for a thoroughly entertaining video!!
I do love the Bears but I'll admit I respect the Star Adders for actually thinking during Revival. They wanted ALL the Clans to just jump the Houses and go in. It's like that scene from Austin Powers where Dr Evil's kid breaks all the tropes and offers to just shoot Austin right here, right now. There's something about that I love. Just imagining the look on that Khan's face when the Grand Kurultai more or less tell them "That's not how it's done." As for Steel Vipers I do like their background, I like the idea of the "Traitor Khan" and I really do like the ideas Sanra Mercer tried to push. It's just a shame they couldn't follow through with what she dreamed. They went full Viper stupid and you never go that far in order to survive.
I couldn't agree with you more about Clan Wolf, which I think I've mentioned before. Ghost Bear is my personal favorite Clan, with Jade Falcon right behind in second place. I fully admit to being influenced in this regard by Mechwarrior 2, which was my introduction to the wonders of the entire Battletech universe. And yes, they have both been done dirty in the current storyline, but that doesn't bother me too much, because my personal Battletech timeline just stops right after the Refusal War. I hated the idea of Task Force Serpent and the invasion of the Clan homeworlds, and the Dark Age and Blakist eras were bad enough that I wish I could elide them from my memory. I'm happy to have the timeline just never leave that 15-year Tukayyid truce. It's cozy there.
Mechwarrior 3 was centered around the player leading a commando mission to the Smoke Jaguar secondary world of Tranguil where the successor to Lincoln was attempting to rally Jaguar forces for a counter-attack against the invading IS forces. It was a pretty good story that unfolded itself as you played. The effects of Operation Bulldog actually impacts on the storyline mid-game and gave the player a real feeling of being involved in making history. My one regret is that it is fiendishly hard to get Mechwarrior 3 to work on modern operating systems as I occasionally get the itch to play that game again.
Yeah I'm not sure if Ghost Bear is top for me but that intro video for Ghost Bears Legacy will never leave my mind vault, Mechwarrior 2 had such an impact.
While there is supposedly a reason...The Crusaders punishing Ulric Kerensky by promoting him to lead the invasion was truly dumb cause why would you give him that much power? Lo and behold, he made everyone but Clan Wolf look idiotic and they cannot do anything about it. It's still hilarious as hell the Refusal War should have ended Clan Wolf but not only did Phelan kept the Warden side of it pretty intact and found refuge thanks to his dad (so it's not even a Minnesota Tribe like situation), but Vlad literally murdered his way to bring Clan Wolf back from the dead itself. Jade Falcon absolutely lost despite being the winners. 😂
Clan Wolf's only super power in the early invasion was just not being idiots and understanding that logistics is a thing. I won't argue that things eventually went off into lala land but I also don't care that much. I learned to love them in the invasion era.
@@bogatyr2473 This is one of things I can't stand about people who shit on Wolf in the invasion era because Wolf took the most logical conclusion to the situation. I think Clan space is 200 LY from the IS and they knew that so they pact their factories to literally move them closer to the IS and then on Tukayyid, they were forced to bid last and decided because of that to throw in all 5 Galaxy into the fight. So in short, they were smart enough to understand Clan logistics were going to be a problem so they brought their factories, they brought more Galaxy to the invasion and committed 100% on Tukayyid and they invaded on the third day so they could watch and learn Comstar's tactics and people are surprised Wolf was a fucking monster in the invasion. I don't get it.
Cloud Cobras had a nice moment of "WHAT THE F---" during Wars of Reaving, when all their genetic material got corrupted, so they shown no sing to not appear as a weak part of the Alliance and started to make one small trial after another, to collect some, and suddenly understood Scorpion's material was NOT MUCH BETTER! So, they brought this to the council and gained rep they needed. Nice sneaking out of situation. But, tbh, I like their religiosity, concept of The Way, and planting a plant for every life taken in a Sacred Garden as a seriously cool fluff for battles. They could literally do anything, just saying "This is the Way". Part of 'em joined Spirit Cats and left because "the way brought us here", lol. Thought, yeah, they are criminally inactive as a part of lore events.
Xi Galaxy (aka the silly-painted Nova Cats) also have a lot of Cloud Cobras, and a weird CCC/CNC hybrid spiritualism. And when the Cats were abjured, some Cobras actually helped them escape from Clan Space. Unlike Ghost Bears, who attacked without warning and refused to even talk to Nova Cat warriors for like, years
On the note of the Borg, Clans and (Necrons) the issue with having the main draw of an enemy be the mystery of their (unknowable) intelligence or motivation is that it relies on the people fighting them being too stupid to figure out what they are and how they work. Either they stay unknowable and it becomes “lazy writing” because eventually people will want to know more, or the people fighting them are permanently stupefied in order to maintain the threat.
Hello. It's so difficult to find someone that likes Smoke Jaguars these days... After Serpent and Bulldog, all Clan Smoke Jaguar fans run for their live. There are a few of we that still feel Smoke Jaguars, even with the laughs for be loosers. As you say, they are brutal barbaric, but they are the final harbour for Nicholas's ideal. After the Great Redusal, I played Mechwarrior RPG as a Smoke Jaguar absorbed as abtakha in Clan Hell's Horses ( my second favourite clan). My top three closes with the Ghost Bears (maybe Hell's Horses and Ghost Bears were the least alien, and ti's is why the like me. I don't know). So, great video again.
Pretty much agree with you on all counts. The GB storyline in the ilClan era has to be some of the most hamfisted garbage I've read from Catalyst. It would have made more sense if they had told Alaric to pound sand and welcome the remnants of RoS as an opposing faction. I would rate the SeaFoxes a little higher, but they are definitely annoyingly obvious manipulators. I have high hopes for the Scorpions but they are so distant in the setting that they are pretty much irrelevant in the IS. I would have liked a longer rant about the Wolfs though, it was enjoyable. They went from my favorite clan faction back in my early 20s to my most loathed in the ilClan era just because they have a totally unearned storyline....and they made the FWL and the GB look like chumps without any real consequences.
@@BigRed40TECH I'm a fan of the timeline progressing, but the ilClan era has done the Ghost Bears dirty. Even before Dominions Divided came out, A Question of Survival had me actually rooting for Jade Falcon for the first time in my adult life. It's almost like the personalities of the two factions were swapped for that book.
Great video and agree with many of your points. My top clans in order have to be Nova Cats, Smoke Jaguars, Jade Falcon, Steel Viper, than Ice Hellion. Least favorite is easily Clan Wolf they are so Mary Sue..
Red, I really enjoyed thos opinion piece despite you having at least touched on your ppinion for most of them on your live streams. As someone who came into Classic & the novels/lore as a clanner this year (Ghost Bear & Wolf primarily), I really haven't enjoyed any clancentric novel or source book Ive read (Dominions Divided), & have much preferred the Merc stories or machinations of the great houses. I sure hope this is something CGL & the better writers will change, but Im not holding my breath. I think your analogy of comparing the Clans with the Borg is very accurate. I also saw a similar in the White Wolf rpg Vampire the Masquerade where the Sabbat faction was an amazing boogeyman antagonist, but as more was written for them the mystique & horror just kind of fizzled out as they were watered down or made into a Mary Sue with poor writting over the years. I look forward to watching the comments roll in on this one as well as the discussions that surely will pop up & make for an entertaining luvestream.
Very well done! I was really captivated until you started talking about Clan Wolf. No shade, but… discussion of Clan Wolf makes me wonder if I should take my contacts out. I don’t wear contacts. Glad wolf was last. A bold choice, but it resonates and after listening to how you rated the other clans it is consistent. Thanks for the quality content. I hope in the coming years you can figure out why big green bird is better than polar bear, but whatever. I don’t expect a lot from a free birth.
![Battletech/Mechwarrior Lore- : Exodus to Elementals - A Primer on the Clans [Part 2]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/3B165wbTnHs/mqdefault.jpg)
I love the fact that you went full “why would I choose a lesser evil, when a greater evil is available? Evil shoots, evil scores!”
Clan Smoke Jaguar isn't evil! ... ... ...
... ... ... it's just the dark-triad of personality traits made manifest! lol
@BigRed40TECH so quantifiable evil then 😊
@@BigRed40TECH the true villains are sea fox they have the money the power and the influence with everyone including most likely the pirates and dark cast. The wolf are nothing more than the mask that sea fox uses.
Hahahahaha!
Jade Falcon will never not be the Vegeta of the clans.
I only ever caught snippets of Dragonball when having breakfast in front of CheezTV, but I get the reference. And I agree!
Thanks doc
@@BruceEverett I mean, the only good thing about DBZ is that you could watch it once a month and still follow the plot. :P
@@malusignatius That certainly didn't go unnoticed.
Silver medal once again...
Ill always love the Steel Vipers. Showed up in the Inner Sphere, attacked mostly other Clanners, rage quit Tukkayid, then decided to double down on attacking other Clanners. Then they top themselves again by starting the Wars of Reaving.
Steel Viper has killed more Clanners than every House combined, probably even into the IllKlan Era. They are the True Defenders of the Inner Sphere, bless their memory!
Steel vipers the best defenders the IS didn't want
Jade Falcon deserves to be top tier, just for creating the cheesy but iconic phrase:
"DO YOU DARE REFUSE MY BA'CHALL?"
Been my favorite clan since reading the The Way of the Clans trilogy in Highschool!!
Did you just…. Put a contraction in Bachall?! I issue a Trial of Grievance
@@andrewryan1946 I refuse your trial! Hahahahhaha.
Your what?
@@EleoliusBuddy, I don't know what you are talking about.
It's also important to note that it was a Smoke Jaguar warrior, a survivor of Tukayyid, that was the catalyst for the Clan’s destruction.
Good old Trent :)
@@PlacidDragon Smoked Jaguar made 2 mistakes with Trent; the first was sabotaging a genuinely faithful Clan warrior to such an extent that he practically had no choice but to defect to Comstar.
The second was letting him take a ROM agent as a bondsman. Seriously, it's nothing shirt of a miracle that the number of "unfortunate accidents" was as low as it was.
@@asimplenobody7797 Well, what it showed more than anything was that the "pure and straightforward martial society" of what was considered the foremost of the clans was... well.. corrupt to the core by petty minded individuals who "cheated" as they saw fit when it suited them.
Same as we saw briefly in the bloodname contest in clan Wolf (Phelan vs Vladimir), and as we saw more in depth for the "staunchly traditional" Jade Falcons during the trial of absorbtion (well, trial of refusal) between the Wolves and the Falcons.
The general lesson was probably that personal ambition and agendas seemingly always trumps honor and correctness no matter how people publicly present themselves :)
I’m hoping that for MW5 Clans we follow a warrior from the start of the invasion until operation bulldog. If there can be elementals and a branching story, even better.
Our Man Trent aka Should have came and got me from my Bondsmen Status with the Star League Light. #ImNoTraitor #ImABondsman #TrentJaguar🐯
As someone who's mostly been IS so far, I think my favourite (from my limited knowledge) is gonna be Ghost Bear. Not too bothered about the "because family" bit though, but I like the idea of them being able to take a step back, look at a situation, then pick a course and drive it hard.People telling you not to take that road? Alright, just ignore them and pack your stuff up quietly. Road's broken? Fine, we'll bring road-building stuff. Road's blocked? Batter through it. Road's an ambush? Sure, spring it and then pound them with your firepower until either they are dead, or you are. The bears might be slow to wind up for a swing, but you had better not stick around for that swing to come down.
Affirmative. Ghost Bears have that secret tech of being rational. Best part is post clan invasion GB looked around and figured out that they had won already and left.
I too am a fan of the GB/RD, but unfortunately due to the shenanigans I am looking at the Snow Ravens real hard right now and hoping they clap some skulls.
Fans of Ghost Bear. The mightiest of Kerensky Children. Wait and see attitudes, once plunged into action, will do it in 100% approach.
Remember also that during Tukayyid, the Ghost Bear Khan had taken both cities and Comstar retook one of them. While she knew she had enough forces to retake the first city, she weighed more what would happen post-tukayyid, and didn't want to stretch her clan thin in the event she needed to defend the Ghost Bear systems from other clans. She contacted Focht and asked for a draw to which he agreed. She and her clan were allowed to withdraw with their honor in tact.
This move paid off in dividends as the Clans fell apart for a bit after, Jade Falcon and Steel Viper pointing fingers at other clans and crusading them. The Ghost bears, largely unfazed due to taking rather minor losses at Tukayyid, were fine and just sat there doing what they do best.
@@THEGRUMPTRUCK Indeed. They are the best for sure.
I love the Horses almost exactly because they've got such a...modest success rate. Their logo is by far the coolest of all the Clans, and their obsession with combined arms is neat, but I just love that they're a Clan that is "allowed" to not have plot armor in the slightest. It makes them feel so much more realistic, in a weird way.
would like to see HH get some wins just because they do use combined arms
Honestly they should have used their fleet against the jade occupation zone, they could have won.
that would have been epic. I do wish we'd see some new naval tech and engagements in the ilClan era.@@ALV694
They invented mechs that turned into wheeled vehicles, essentially making transformers canon, that makes them #1 in my opinion
@@nemou4985 if only they revived aerospace mechs, then they would be the goat
Every time I replay BATTLETECH, I chuckle when Dr. Murad says "imagine the enlightened society untouched by wars of succession" when talking about the survivors of the Exodus. If she only knew what was coming in a few decades...
Without the Clans, we wouldn't have the rad Mechwarrior 2 soundtrack.
We possibly wouldn't have had Mechwarrior 2, or a lot of the later Mechwarrior games as we know them.
Forever in our hearts
Mech 2's OST is fantastic. Remember the first time I discovered I could put the games disk into a standard CD player and moved to track 2. 😀
@@Vanessaira-Retro Right on, I always loved doing that with game discs to see what I could find. Paid off with the secret message from Alucard on the PS1 Symphony of the Night disc.
AMAZING! Speaking of which, where in the First Circuit did Red get this remix? I still remember hearing it for the first time as a new Clan Wolf 'pup.' It gave me goosebumps.
Nearly 30 years later, I still consider the Mechwarrior 2 Trilogy my DOS GOAT game(s). That being said, I wasn't as excited about the 3d accelerated versions; probably because they did cut down the audio track lengths...
Sidenote about Star Adders:
They're the only clan where non-warriors have an official voice on the Clan Council. Admittedly, it's only *one* person representing the entirety of the non-warrior castes, but it's still more than every other Clan prior to the Clan Invasion.
The Star Adders are the ilsnake
@@jamesricker3997 ilSnek-Cobra 4 lyfe.
Thank you for sharing this!
Didn't diamon shark have universal suffrage.
@@nikushim6665 Not quite. Prior to Operation Revival they had a traditional Clan organisation, and post-Tukkuyid the Merchant caste became dominant, but AFAIK the labour caste and scientist caste were pretty much voiceless.
My dislike for Clan Wolf is much akin to my dislike for the character of Rey in the new Star Wars trilogy: The plot bends over backwards to accommodate them and give them wins.
There are far more egregious characters than Rey for that.
@@bthsr7113 Of course; there's a whole slew of Mary Sues and Gary Stus out there in fiction after all.
@@Ironclockwork And she isn't one of them.
@@bthsr7113 Sorry, I'm going to have to disagree with you on that one.
@@bthsr7113 She's a no body, but also she can do emergency repairs on a space ship that she has never seen to a degree that even the OWNER of said ship didn't think about it, and is a force wielder, and also apparently a fucking PALPATINE
Being a self aware fan of Clan Wolf is like beint a self aware fan of The Ultramarines. You go from:
"This Old Lore is cool, they're jack of all trades but dont excel like their cousins. What a fun & not power wanked faction."
Only for both to go from things like Uriel Ventris series by McNeil, to Ward's bullshit:
"Wait they ate The Dragoons/Have a spare chapter to refill losses? That's just bad writing..." or "The weird Incest man did what to The Republic/Marneus Calgar did what to The Avatar? Thats fucking stupid!"
And so on & soforth. It poetic I ended up in this situation since above those two. When it comes to Supersoldiers, my top favorites are The Night Lords & Smoke Jaguars. So I'm stuck liking both setting's golden children, & serial axe murderers.
Ultramarines suffered because the authors wouldn’t let the poster boys fail. They’re not my favorite but I do like them more as “Jack of all trades with some Roman flair” than most of the chapters that I feel are just uninteresting excuses to have more canonical color schemes.
I did embrace a little bit of the “let’s just go all the way on extremism” because my space marines are all Black Templars. I do love the tabards and extra crusader-y aesthetics after all.
But you really undersell how much Ward did damage to the Ultra's: Before he came, they was the faction you grabbed when the Tyranids was running about (Back in 2nd edition you really had a ton of bug players running around) and they was cool. But when Ward got a hold of them, he was the worst sort of fanboy possible for us. He had them doing things that other UM players was like, this is BS why is he doing this? It was years before someone reigned him in and it took the Space Marine game to have the Smurfs not be reviled. All of this was caused by ONE GUY with a hard on for the UM...and killing Sisters of Battle... He really was weird.
@@dolomaticus1180 I made direct reference to his story where he had Marneus Calgar 1v1, and *WIN* AGAINST AN *AVATAR OF KHAINE!* I in no way, undersell the damage he did. That one event is legitimately one of the most damaging things to happen to the entire Eldar faction en totale. Because of that one event, The Eldar's answer to Daemon Prince's/Greater Daemons. One of their most important units in the lore & on table top. Has been relegated for decades now, to nothing but a measuring stick for showing how badass a named character is.
Yes, the damage he caused with _The Khornate Knights_ event was awful. And it would take literally until the 2010s for Kaldor Draigo to get novels written that would help him become a good character from the atrocious Mary Sue he had been. But neither of those issues can compare in scale to the damage done by having Calgar beat The Avatar.
Because no fan of any faction would ever accept that The Grey Knights would ever kill Sisters of Battle, and most people would just ignore Draigo's fuckery because he was thankfully trapped in The Warp. But the power scaling of the setting itself was nigh permanently damaged by establishing that a singular Space Marine Chapter Master was on the level of The Avatar of Khaine. Only in recent time has The Avatar gotten just parts of his reputation repaired.
@@thechazz3230 And IF we are lucky a few more things can be repaired over time. I have always enjoyed the UM, but its hard to have fun when your faction is full Plot armor that puts a battle ship to shame.
I now have this image in my head of Alaric Ward as TTS Cato Sicarius.
"TRIAL SUCCESSFUL!! I, ALARIC WARD AM NOW THE ILKHAN AND YOUR FIRST LORD! YOU MAY NOW PRAISE I, ALARIC WARD!
For me #1 has to be the Ghost Bears, solely because they manage to (until recently) consistently form a plan and then follow it to the best of their ability unless given a logical reason to change course.
Don't know what's ahead? Send a scout. If the scout doesn't come back, send in a heavier unit to figure out what happened to the scout, as well as complete the original mission of the scout.
Once that's complete, figure out what to do about whatever was encountered, and then complete the tasks that have been planned, obviously accounting for any discrepancies.
They are simply the most competent of the clans, without being the embodiment of plot armor, or rather Clan Wolf.
For most of their lore, they simply do what is needed to get the job done, without requiring the enemy to be stupid to accomplish it.
Ghost Bears : "Just because we are Clan does not mean we are idiots or are required to act as such !'
"Oh ! Hi Alaric !!!"'
Their fight at Tukayyid was what originally put me in with their lot. I like how their Khan weighed her options and took a draw, cutting her losses because she knew Tukayyid was going poorly for them. That ensured the ghost bears were fine in the post-tukayyid conflicts between the remaining clans.
For being the only clanners not as dumb as a Klingon, yeah, Ghost Bear #1... Don't mind my pfp, I'm definitely not biased.
I’m personally a Scorpion Empire fan. I find their whole culture really interesting and the background of the Empire’s formation feels realistic.
Which is the exact reason I don’t like Clan Wolf and agree with you 100%. They don’t feel like a real faction, especially lately. The whole Alaric plot is absolutely comical how poorly it has been written.
So, tldr:
Smoke Jaguar: Godspeed you magnificent bastard
Jade Falcon: I just think it’s neat
Ghost Bear: Look how they massacred my boy
Star Adder: I’m surrounded by idiots
Nova Cat: real Coup de etat has never been tried
Hells horses: he’s trying his best
Steel viper: congratulations you played yourself.
Goliath Scorpion: *inhales 100 skooma*
Snow Raven: I’m not mad I’m just disappointed.
Burrock: HOW TF DID THEY GET A TOTEM MECH
Cloud Cobra: have you heard of our lord and savior kerensky?
Ice Hellion: *toddler whining*
Blood Spirit:
Coyote: Big brain time
Sea fox: you now own everything, congrats everyone hates you
Clan Wolf: DO I NEED TO SAY ANYTHING
That's actually scarily close. lmao
Wish we got diamond shark-i like money, got involved in invasion , harjer monopoly for most of history, refuses to elaborate
@krystianmaternia9973 Sea Fox is diamond shark. Clan Snow Raven sabotaged their totem animal by releasing Diamond Sharks knto their world and eradicating the Sea Fox in the process. Thus, they changed to Diamond Shark.
Decades later Sea foxes were found alive and scientists helped reinvigorate their population, thus Diamond shark changed back to Sea Fox later on.
Goliath Scorpion: inhale 100 skooma and go full on Indiana Jones.
Wolverine: The best and brightest, or they would have been if Nicky didn't turn them into a scapegoat.
Widowmaker: Truly, they were the biggest assholes of the clans.
Stone Lion: *WHAT IS MY PURPOSE!?!?*
You are spot on with your explanation on the Home Clans in the overall setting, even as a Star Adder fan, speaking of which I did NOT expect them to be third on your list and you are not wrong about them. I appreciate your view on the Jaguars, they are an ideal, if overthetop, antagonistic faction that are an organic product of the setting.
And yes, at first Steel Vipers looked cool on the surface, then you take a closer look and... well through their own inability for critical self reflection, they became genocidal, but were ultimately used and genocided in return.
I love Big-Snek. Big-Snek is best Snek.
Was playing at the time when the Clan came out. The incredible change to the game was absolutely foundational. The only problem I have with the Clan invasion is that the new clan tech was SO much better that they really haven't been able to come out with any "new" tech that continued to evolve the game because the bar was set so high with the original clan weapons.
FOOKING CLANTECH!!!
Seriously thought. Just let introtech fall into disuse/periphery and have Clantech become the new standard tech. Inner Sphere replicating Clantech but worse is so stupid.
Give them a few more hundred years, they would turn Atlas into a gundam.
I’ve said it before I’ll say it again. I love the Hellshorses, not because they win or are smart, hell they’re not even successful. The reason I like them is because no matter what they do they will lose, but in doing so will ruin everyone’s day. They’re also completely insane and merciless. In short they are the biggest failures in battletech and that’s why I love them.
I love them, but I can't rate them highly lmao
I agree with this! Also, they love combined arms even though it doesn't work for the setting 😂😂
You have a Nuke Urbie painted in hellshorses colors don't you?
@@vonshroom2068 what? Noooo! Not at all! I have a whole cluster of them.
It's a shame you dislike talking about things you dislike because you are insanely entertaining when you're discussing the wolves in any form.
Otherwise super appreciate the insights and a bit of extra knowledge about the clans as you continue to be my lens into the later eras of the game that isn't shaped by one of the MW Merc games.
If you're going to deliver bad news, at least be entertaining while doing it.
As a ghost bear player, who doesn't like or follow the IL clan Era because I think it's bad writing and isn't logical... I approve this message. Another good video
::sobs in Hell's Horses:: one day we will be as cool as our logo "you make a choice to win, and you don't"
HAH!
Fingers crossed for Scorpions and Ravens.
Edit: aaand they even appear in that order, one after another. Awesome.
I'm kinda rooting for the Spirit Cats in the Ilclan Era. The Nova Cats kinda got kicked around the setting, I'm glad to see their spiritual successors refusing to cave in.
Agree. I feel bad for the Blood Spirit clan though, they just wanted to be left alone. The the Syone Lions found them
I hope Clan Wolverine returns, they are my favourite Clan, and they were the closest to Kerensky's ideals despite not being holders of the Kerensky bloodname
Eh, didn't they infiltrate Comstar, form The Word of Blake, and start the Jihad?
Yes! They live!
What would've been a great twist and the ultimate "fuck you" to Kerensky and, by extension, Clan society as a whole, would've been them emerging during the ilClan trial and massacring the Wolves and Falcons. No glorious victory or honorable defeat, no final consummation of Nicky's vision and ideals, just bloody death and denial by those they spurned and the whole Inner Sphere going, "...so anyway..."
@@omni-hexagon3514 and add atop of that:
That's for Andrey Kerensky.
For he was a good friend of McEvedy, khan of Wolverines. And we know, that Nicky was behind all that bs.
Has Clan Sea Fox become a bit of a Mary Sue? Yes.
Is their Narrative Arc most likely done in the iLClan era, outside of few skirmishes here and there? Yeah.
Do some of the other clans have bigger and better lore and fanbases surrounding themselves? You Bet.
But I just can't pull myself away from them, I like the nomad clan that has "figured it out". Clan Diamond Shark was one of the first Clans that I actually liked, and the fact that they were one of the few Clans that weren't completely Batshit insane, was the Cherry on top.
Plus, without them how else can I pull off my Khajiit joke? "Sea Fox has mechs...if you have C-Bills."
Enjoy what you enjoiy Kingdrummer :)
The scorpions have always been my favorite for some reason, and their absorption of he 71st Light Horse (ELH is my favorite Merc unit) and the founding of their Empire just cemented it. Can't really put my finger on why, but Scorpions are my secondfavorite faction overall, after the old FedCom.
I like the Nova Cats, mainly for the culture around the visions stuff and the fact that the Alpha Galaxy paintjob is a banger. My only complaint about them is their hatred of LAMs and the fact they demolished one of the last LAM factories in the Inner Sphere. Especially since it was the last Stinger LAM factory and that model was apparently pretty good!
All hail the glory that is the Land Air Mech!
Frankly, I thought that irrational hatred of LAMs hilarious. I also thought how WizKidz wrote their destruction several degrees of forced and completely out of left field. That said, while Big Red calls them the backstabbers, I'd call them pragmatic in their outlook. The mission was to reinstate the Star League? Well, invading the IS did achieve that goal! Might as well join them! Mission accomplished, guys! They also knew Kerensky was an absolute nutjob, and that the Wolverines were unfairly betrayed and attacked, but were effectively hostages to the Clan way of life because if they stepped out of line they'd be the next one annihilated. Jumping ship to the IS was inevitable because it was the only way out of the insanity that was Kerensky's vision of the Clans.
@@pariahdevalis Very much agree, i can't see Nova Cats as backstabbers, because at the end of the day they were the first clan to actually achieve their initial goal, and the *only* one to stop brute forcing it after it's already achieved. They actually got backstabbed very hard themselves, and in my eyes Clan Nova Cat is mostly a tragic faction with rather unfair end, being brutally sterilised to oblivion, like someone didn't want tgis faction to interfere with anything in BT lore because it was too hard to keep them up for some reason. Unique things always get worse treatment than the mainstream ones...
i like the cats as well and planned to play them as my first clan force but then i read their lore and it seems they always get the disgustingly pointy end of the stick, really really sad story, i mean its kinda their own fault for being so weird all the time but i still feel bad for them....i settled with gb but since i already have some nova cat decals i´ll use them in my "clan snord touman" instead of jf
aaand i kinda like protomechs, not possible with gb but i might fiddle something with nc.....no spirit cats though, they´re even for the novas to weird 🐈⬛
I don't mind Spirit Cats. Lots of Nova Cats left the DC to help kill Wobbies and were among the first in line to fight and help the Republic take Terra. They were among the first Paladins, and thus to the Republic, are (or might be) these kind of exotic mystical warriors from faraway space. The Spirit Cats are thus like a cargo cult of Nova Cat, made up of a few renegade or independent Nova Cat members. Phillip Drummond was admittedly kind of cult-ish, but his visions were sort of like the Aeneid or Fiver from Watership Down. While the Dark Age was going on, the Spirit Cars were kind of in an ongoing flight out of the Republic, which given what happened to the Novas who stayed, kind of makes sense.
It's not a perfect parallel, or description, but it is a framework to look at the Spirit Cats through. They are former and wannabe Nova Cats, who have deviated enough from the Combine Nova Cats that by the time they all end up in the FWL, there's kind of a mutual dislike.
Hells Horses. Combined arms - Check. Told Alaric to piss off - check. Losing battles that they should win - I feel seen.
Goliath Scorpian. The GSE has become the most interesting periphery state to me, plus they got the better of the Sea Foxes.
Snow Ravens. A machiavellian naval power bordering the Draconis Combine and the Federated Suns equals so many wonderful opportunities for mischief.
Iced Hellions - managed to be absorbed by GS, who were marked for death. Talking about going down with style. And taking some mandrills with GS in IS.
Ghost bear, diamond shark, and snow Raven for me.
Great video, and GLORY TO CLAN JADE FALCON!!
🦜🦜🦜
Clan jade falcon RAAGGHHH. What the fuck is plot armor!!! 🦅🦅🦅🦅🦜🦜🦜🦜
"They will be in order of how much I appreciate the most."
>first clan is smoke jaguar
LETS GO
Striking fast and deadly just like the Jaguar, that's how they came in first.
Woot go Star Adders! Not going to lie, even if probably will never happen. I would love source book about them and other homeward clans fighting the Scorpion Empire.
I'm hoping for a decent placement for the Hell's horses. Their never going to top this list, but I can hope for a mid place showing.
Edit: WOOO 9TH PLACE LET'S GOOO! WE BEAT THE WOLVES!
Channeling your inner semi-pro. "4th place!!! Whoo!!!"
@@theyellowjesters To be fair, it's the Horses. We take what we can get at this point.
Largely agree. I'm GB for life, especially Dominion and their conversion to an IS power with Clan military.
Their most recent story arcs have put my custom galaxy in a tough spot, though. Their status as reasonable(ish) clan has been thoroughly shaken, and I hate it.
To add to this: they accepted a batchall that amounted to a football game.
Mind you: said game was comically one-sided due to the fact that Ghost Bear sent ELEMENTALS on the field but they were still sportsmanlike if not completely sporting.
They are an occupation power
One of the very few cool things about Clan Burrock was getting a mech named after them after absorbsion. The Burrock has 6 Heavy Medium Lasers, a UAC 20 and a top speed of 86 km/h with 20 heat sinks. They got a boss level battlemech that can be thrown at players you hate
The closest thing to Space Marines in the universe of Battletech. A great list and source for future reference, even if it is just opinion pieces.
I rather enjoyed this Op Ed. A very clear and concise explanation of how you feel about the clans as a whole and each faction thereof. Good work as always sir.
My favorite clan is probably Ghost Bear. Why? Because they're one of the few that aren't complete pieces of shite, and recognize "hey, families are a good thing, go figure". Second favorite is Nova Cats. SMOKE A BOWL AND PREDICT THE FUTURE, BABY!
Aside from that incident where they realized that an entire Sibko was actually from Wolverine genetic material and forced them to self-eradicate.
@@DrendarMorevo But of course! Kerensky said Clan Wolverine had to go and be gone forever. Therefore, it was the correct move.
@GrammarTron3000 all the more reason Nicholas was a power hungry madman bent on sociopathic control.
Scorpions have always had a place in my heart in part because of the Seeker stuff. A Clan of Indiana Jones' wandering the stars, looking for antiques, and dropping acid before strapping into their mechs. Fun. Their developments since being kicked out of Clan space have definitely made them better too. And ever since reading about task force Serpent as a kid I've liked the Eridani Light Horse so part of them being absorbed by the Scorpions is cool.
I just found your channel and enjoyed this video. As a fan of Battletech since the 90s, I considered Clan Wolf to have the most plot armor even back then.
Not much changed since then :P
Good point about probably the most important part of why wolf is bad, it's not merely that they always win, it's also that their plot armor destroys actually good and interesting factions as well.
I know we're only talking about clans that still existed as of 3050, but I'm insanely fond of the Clan Wolverine/Minnesota Tribe. They're just such an interesting entity and I love how they were the ones who came closest to putting an end to the madness of the clans before it had a chance to really set in. They failed of course, but that's what makes them all the more charming as a what-if of the setting. Plus the conspiracies are fun.
But yes, of the core list I'm a hardcore Ghost Bear for life... largely because in the Inner Sphere I'm also a hardcore Rasalhaguer for life.
To me Minnesota tribe is what all clans were supposed to be since after them clans are just to stupid to survive.
Ghost Bear was my favorite of the initial invading 4 clans. Nova Cat is second, loved their unique lore. Jade Falcons was next, because they weren’t the favored Wolves. Shout outs to the ridiculous Ice Hellions failing left and right.
same, with scorpions instead of jf, i like the necrosia arc and their love for history
For my favorite Clan? Snow Raven, no doubt, seconded by Clan Hell's Horses. I'm a huge, huge space lover, I love JumpShips, I love DropShips, I love ASFs, and I'm a huge, huge sucker for WarShips, and the politics of BattleTech. Hell's Horse is amazing because of how hard they try, and how little they succeed, and how much I want them to succeed.
Warships have always had the problem of blocking the use of conventional forces that Battletech is built around, and so become an obstacle to a faction actually being used. :(
@@BigRed40TECH It's so aggravating too, since a little bit of thought could have them both co-exist just fine!
It's just the way they set them up in universe. @@argokarrus2731
To me Victor Ian Steiner Davion giving his sister to Vladimir Ward was a deliberate insult to her. Vlad chalanged Victor to a trial of possion for her. Instead of fighting to keep her. Which would have meant she had value to him. He just handed her to Vladimir. which is saying Kathrin is so worthless to victor. I will not risk losing anything to keep her. Basically saying Kathrine is totaly worthless.
I don't think he'd have fought for her regardless.
@@BigRed40TECH True, but since Vlad threw down the gauntlet, Victor was like "All you had to do is ask" and just sent her packing. You have to think in the back of Vlad's brain he was like "WTF!?!?! What kind of deal am I getting with her?"
Victor Steiner Davion
Yep Katie Steiner was a waste of Evil Skin....! Take her Vlad Please I beg You.~
No I said his FULL name.@@vana.johnson8845
I absolutely love the Jaguars and Adders were in the top 3. Brutality is the one trait that is believable about any of the clans let alone clans that fought their way to the top.
Love the video! I’m for Clan Ghost Bear through and through but loved hearing you opinions on the other clans. Thank you for the content!
If I had to pick a favorite clan it would have been Wolf, but I've also not read anything past Tukayyid but after hearing this I can certainly understand why people would dislike Clan Wolf. But I don't have to pick a favorite clan thus I stick with "The only good clanner is a dead clanner" :)
I can also completely understand why Smoke Jaguar would rate as number 1, the clans are "the bad guys" so it makes sense to like the baddest of the bunch.
Blood Spirit sounds like when you read a manga but the fan translators translated a character's name wrong. Based on the idea of "Esprit de Corps," but then someone at FASA said "That's way too much french for our player base, Blood Spirit is close enough..."
I would say my top 5 favourite Clans from 1st to 5th would be: Jade Falcon, Snow Raven, BASED Star Adder, Ghost Bear and Smoke Jaguar, with Hell's Horses and Goliath Scorpion as runner ups.
I love birds too much, I wish there were more than two bird-themed Clans, like, I do not know, Clan Cobalt Eagle and Clan Sagittarius (Secretarybird) or something.
My bottom 4 disliked Clans would be: Fire Mandrill (silly even by Clan standards, imo), Blood Spirit (so their specialty is being irrelevant?), Steel Viper (being a Falcon fanboy demands it) and Wolf (we both know why we hate them).
Great video I’m certain we could all change the list around to personal taste. For the most part you could reference this video to anyone on the pro’s/con’s of any clan to a new player.
I dunno if I'd go that far, but thank you for the kind words :)
"Is Clan Mary Sue last?" *fasts forward* "yep, ok, time to watch"
Live chat responses:
*SPOILERS*
0:00 Oh god this is gonna upset somebody
15:05 and the winner is Clan Genocide! Not my favorite but agree with your reasoning. They were total bastards and are the epitome of Crusader Clans, and they got what was coming to them. Made for really great storytelling. Also I never thought about it that way, but the Clan Invasion is really the story of the Jaguars rise and fall.
21:20 They were always the most reasonable of the invading clans.
25:10 Of all the surprises in the newer story the Star Adders and Wars of Reaving were the biggest for me. The Star Adders and their psychopath of a Khan were such unmitigated bastards
27:10 It's probably because of the TV show but the Jade Falcons to me were always the quintessential bad guy Clan. Backstabby and treacherous. I wasn't a huge fan of the Malvina arc, not because it was bad but because she ended up being far too much of a cartoon villain.
29:20 My favorite Clan. The only way I can describe it is the Jeremy Clarkson meme. "This is great (Wolf) but I LIKE this (Nova Cats)"
31:10 I hate these guys for the same reasons you said they were great lol
32:30 Admittedly they've gotten way more interesting recently
33:30 The Ravens were one of the niche or trope Clans. After a while FASA started making these trope Clans because they ran out of ideas like "the speed clan", the "vehicle clan", the "space ship clan", etc They are probably the most interesting out of the niche clans.
35:30 The vehicle Clan... totally dull. It's not that they are the vehicle/combined arms Clan that's the problem it's that they are so bad at it...
37:20 Clan internal civil war. Constant infighting made them useless
38:15 I used to love this Clan until they turned into a bunch of whiny losers
39:30 I loved the Coyotes by agree they didn't do nearly enough with them story wise. All about past glory
40:30 meh, they barely existed in the story. As soon as the were introduced and expanded upon in Field Manual Crusader Clans it was only to mention the Adders had just absorbed them.
41:40 Least interesting of the Snakes is right, but they are religious for some reason
42:40 The Blood spirits were invented because they needed a worst and most embarrassing Clan. By the Blood Kite is an amazing mech
44:20 the money Clan... yeah, sure. I guess they needed someone to sell out the Clans. Now they are taking over some of Comstars former role in the story, but I don't understand why anyone trusts them at all? And they made the Mad Cat MkII, the mech I hate the most
47:50 Ouch, lol ... and yes Captain Alaric Protagonist and his Plot Armor
Your thoughts on Star Adder actually got me to change my mind on my next Clan project. I was gonna paint a Cluster for Clan Coyote..... now I'm gonna go with Star Adder
I definitely hard agree with you on Smoke Jaguar. Absolutely unhinged and fearless. Fully devoted to combat. What you see is what you get with them.
I loved the Clan Invasion era for the same reasons you brought up. The tension, sense of danger, the feeling of success when you merely survive, and just maybe, win against a clearly superior foe is something you don't find in other eras.
Surprised you didn't bring up Natasha 2.0, but reskinned old characters wasn't really exclusive to the Wolves to be fair. Also Sarah McEvedy is upset you didn't mention the most based Clan.
Clan Wolverine was born dead. They're not a real faction, neither is Mongoose or Widowmaker tbh. XD
@@BigRed40TECH Kerensky decided to leave with his followers and create his communism/caste system.
Source: It came to me in a dream
It came to me on a Necrosia bender 🦂
Smoke Jaguars, Ghost Bears, and Hell's Horses. The trifecta that sparked my newest obsession.
3rd place on Big Reds list. Go Star Adder!
Snake! SNAAAAAAKE!
The invasion of Luthien did canonize my favorite Mercenary Group.
I'm a true Inner Sphere/Fed Suns guy. I did look at some of the Clan factions, one's not in the initial invasion; and Hell's Horses did intrigue me. Mostly because their use and belief in combined arms. This was quite some time ago now(mid nineties) before they got fleshed out over the years. I'm a little sad at their current status.
It's kind of their forever status, lol.
@@BigRed40TECHThat’s is unfortunate. I’m only familiar with the lore timeline up to the end of the Fed/Com Civil War and really don’t have too much interest in the events after, so their fate is largely irrelevant to me. I’m not even sure what clan I’d play if I were to switch things up.
@@afitz34 Hopefully the Horses get a better outing in a couple years tbh.
I love your ongoing subjective analysis of the battletech universe, and your opinion pieces are by far my favorite.
I have to say that your mention of a potential L.A.M. video in the future perked me up more than railing a line of canopus battle powder. Though I’d be lying if I said I’m not a tad nervous at the prospect.
Those of us who worship at the altar of the land air mech will defend the LAM’s right to exist in this setting with the tenacity of a capellan urban mech pilot. (Coincidentally, I find LAM pilots also tend to fall into the ‘capellans can be good guys too’ camp, so maybe we just like tilting at windmills.)
To the cult of the LAM, these machines occupy a similar niche to the Harrier or the F-35b and their poor performance in certain situations results mostly from incorrect employment. I’ve seen them slay bodies on the tabletop and be uniquely massacred in equal measure. The early lore reflects their finickiness as well as their belovedness by ground troops for the LAMs unique excellence at rapid response and close fire support. It‘s not until later that the rules gutted the LAM and the lore shifted to them being just barely better than driving a pair of stilts and a trash can lid with a musket taped to it into combat and calling yourself a Locust. They’re not the do it all wonder weapons of a bygone age, but they do have their place.
Nonetheless, it seems to me that most folks simply misunderstand the desire to keep them around. The truth is, guys like me got into battletech because we started out as Robotech/Macross fans, saw a battletech box with a Phoenix Hawk fighting an Atlas and thought ‘What is this and why is a VF-1 fighting the Gundams ugly stick bespanked cousin? I must know more!’
We’re pretty used to being shit on by the community, so If such a video does ever begin construction within your hallowed video editing bay, I humbly request that you be kind and fair to us. Neither of which I believe you’d have trouble doing, and I don’t for a moment think that you're one for mudding on someone else's fun. But all the same, I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least mention that we are here too, enjoying this hobby, cursing Amaris’ name, longing for the halcyon days of the Star League, and fighting our way off the dropship for C-bills and glory shoulder to shoulder with the rest of you mad lad mechwarriors and Aerospace jocks.
On a side note; is not Hells Horses doctrine tailor made for LAM employment? With generous application of clan tech, glory awaits them if they could merely remove the scales from their sinners eyes and see the glory that is the LAM!
The problem with LAMs, is that no mech moves with the agility and speed to transform the way they do, let alone doing so while taking flight of jumping.
I love Starscream for instance, I just don't think his style of machine fits in the setting, especially when other mechs are depicted as lumbering by comparison.
@@BigRed40TECH I agree that they shouldn't move like a Valk from Macross. But a mech that performs as a less well armored, slightly more manuverable version of its terestrial counterpart that can, while behind cover, transition to an aircraft, and or stop in between? I don't see that as too much more far fetched than a Stone Rino being able to walk or a ship being able to travel faster than light. especially where Lostech is concerned. I mean the V-22 Osprey exists in real life after all.
But my aim isn't to convert. I just wanted to remind folks we still come to the table, and we'd like to keep on coming with the toys we like. (within reason)
@@georgeremero4982 And then .... along comes .... the QUAD-VEE! Yet another bold move by Clan Broney! (I mean, Clan Hell's Horses! Seriously, I've come to love the Horses.)
Without the stigma of the LAM, the QV, while it's own brand of quirky, is IMHO an attempt at reintroducing dual-natured battlemechs with something similar in spirit to the Southern Cross Veritech Hovertank (though not as out-right ripping off as the LAM did the Veritech Fighters.)
@@georgeremero4982 honestly, if the Horses can have glorified transformers in QuadVees, I think the LAM deserves a place at the table. Fair is fair, after all
So glad the scorpions made it to your list!
I recently got into the current timeline and they are one of my favourites
I was a fan of the wolves first, until i learned more about Ghost Bear and Wolverine.
Got into Battletech with the SNES game before I found the novels. Due to that, I was always a huge fan of the clans, with Wolf being my favorite.
Have to admit they fell off when I was getting back into everything a few years ago. Part of me still likes them, but I'm no longer a kid that finds an unstoppable force exciting.
In recent years, I would say that Sea Fox is my favorite. Their way of "war" makes them feel very unique among the clans. I'm also very happy they went back to that name. I always thought Diamond Shark was by far the worst named faction in the series. Didn't help that I considered their emblem to be one of the worst ones.
Wolverine and Snow Ravens for me.
Wolverines: had the balls to tell Kerensky the Younger to F Off and hold to the traditions that they came from. Also, the Wolverine takes no crap and fights like hell.
Snow Ravens: in my opinion, they are one of the two lesser eveils of the Clans, the other being Sea Fox. They just want to do their thing not just conquer and steal for the hell of it.
The Wolverines did not do that. Read, Betrayal of Ideals. Which does happen to be a great book so it’s a win/win for you.
@@thomascraiker6449 I have read it and I still have a copy. They held on to the Lance formations instead of switching to Stars, allowed caste members to change their caste, and many other things that Soup Stock's Son and the other Clans didn't approve of as they tied the Wolverines to the "barbarians they left behind".
Also because there is the fact that the Snow Ravens would likely destroy almost any other clan in a conventional "no clan dueling to decide shit BS" type war thanks to their incredible navy. They have always seemed to me like the most intelligent clan in terms of military decision-making for the long game.
Didn't the Ravens nuke a genetic repository and blame Wolverine? It's been ages since I followed that story.
@@imasspeons That was the Widows that nuked stuff and blamed the Wolverines
While I might argue a single ranking here or there, you're spot on with pretty much every single point of your analysis. It was almost heartbreaking to see the Sea Foxes become something truly unique and interesting during the DA and then become the "Oh we win all the time and are better at everything than everyone else!" squad step by step to a degree you could argue is almost worrse than Wolf, if that's even possible (I mean they do even run circles around Alaric, giving away pieces of Terra to mercs before he had even conquered the planet, fighting both for and against the Wolf Empire in the same war for profits...)
I’m sure this will invite reasonable and level-headed discussion in the comments ;)
Edit: You played Word Bearers too? I knew there was a reason I liked this channel so much.
May Lorgar's word bring you peace O.O
I was a huge Ghost Bear fan until dominions divided painted my clan mechs up as Rasalhague Galaxy but my new clan forces are erratic one offs as I paint up clan battle mechs as a ragtag dark caste pirate band
DOING MY DUTY OF COMMENTING AND GLORY TO MARIK
This was SUCH an enjoyable video. Have to many other comments I’d like to add so I’ll leave it at that. Awesome video!!
You know, despite the cringe you had to go through, you gave a pretty good analysis of major plot lines in Battletech. So, thank you. 🎉
As a Scorpion position seven actually feels about right.
Seyla.
Edit: after commenting I realized how this may sound confusing.
Scorpions have not been used narratively very much in the past, and even now we are still in the deep periphery.
However, from a rpg perspective Scorpions are the best developed and possibly most versatile clan.
My opinion.
Let me guess. Wolf is worst, Mary Sue, plot armor bleebloooo
Ima still watch tho
Edit: I KNEW IT
Still watched to the end. Your opinions are weird. Take your upvote.
Thank you! lol
Ghost Bear and the Rasalgague Dominion has been my favorite Clan/Clan Descended state for a very long time. I'm just getting caught up to the ilClan era so I know there is some unfortunateness ahead. :-(
My favourite clan is Wolf.
(Waits till all the incoming fire is over and then creeps out of the bunker)
I started in BattleTech in the early 90s while serving in the British army and it was my favourite tabletop war game or RPG setting.
Initially our group had 5 players (6 if you include the guy running all the campaigns and so running the opposition) this meant that we were a lance plus one. As my favourite IS mech was, and still is, the Phoenix Hawk, and the fact that it was the mech my character was using in our games it led to a lot of resentment from the heavier hitting medium and heavy mech drivers.
Oh they were all happy to have me provide scout duties, as was I, but when it came to combat it was a case of, "Well you just stay out of the way and let us kill everyone." An odd opinion as I actually the second highest kill count in our group.
After our group finally got access to the Clans material and enough Clan Mechs to make such a thing possible it was decided to swap the group over to playing as the Clans. Now I would be an actual part of the star rather than a tacked on asset to the lance. Yay inclusion.
Our first battle against the Clans, was also our groups IS pilots last battle. Each of us was give an extra three mechs to control to reflect the rest of our parent unit, with me running our recon lance, my Phoenix Hawk, plus a Javelin and 2 Wasps. Our enemy was a Clan Jade Falcon binary, so 20 vs 10.
Things went poorly for us, even though only a single star advanced towards us. We suffered two decapitations, including one player character's pilot in the opening volley. I also lost a Wasp and the Javellin. I did get lucky as I ammanaged to score two head hits with my large laser against a Thor (Summoner) killing it. Combined fire took out a second Thor, but at this point we were seriously losing, in large part due to the decision that was taken by the group.
As the group was unaware of how the Clans operated, when they saw the second Clan Star holding back they took the decission that while my recon lance and Mechs armed with shorter ranged weapons would engage the advance lance, every LRM, PPC and other long range weapon would fire at the second, not fighting group. Which caused them to join in the fight.
In total we destroyed 5 clan mechs, 2 Thors (Summoners), a Loki (Hellbringer), and 2 Ullers (Kit Foxes), and we lost 19 of our own. My Phoenix Hawk, now minus both arms, was the only mech to escape our gaming area.
After this defeat with pilots either dead or captured, even my character was captured due to the Jade Falcons other units on planet over running the dropships, we started our Clan journey. We were offered 2 Clans to choose from. Jade Falcon or Wolf. I selected Jade Falcon, but everyone else want to fight the Jade Falcons and ended up picking Wolf.
Rather than creating a single charater we were each to create 5 charaters which we would control through the initial training phase up until our trial of position. Of my 5, 3 went on to successfully qualify with 1 of them getting 2 kills, a Clan ER PPC to the head in the first volley has that effect. In total 7 of the 25 qualified. 1 Player had the misfortune of graduating no characters while another player graduated 2, including another character with two kills.
The 2 of us who had multiple characters left at this stage were told to select one and hand the others to our GM. I picked Marcus, and turned over Caitlin (my 2 kill character) and Emma (my surprise qualifier as she was speced out to be primarily tech focused). The other player chose his 2 kill character, efectively becoming the Star Commander for our group. Our 0 qualifing player was given a choice of taking Emma, or the other 1 kill character to take over. Emma was rejected on the grounds that he didn't want to run a female character.
Over the next 2 1/2 years I played as Marcus who served in the 7th Wolf Guards Cluster (the 7th Wolf Guards were created just for our group). In that time I rose to the rank of Star Captain, commanding Trinary Battle, in the 7th Wolf Guards. and earned a Ward Blood Name. I even kept track of my 'not in play' characters. Caitlin became a Star Colonel, and commander of the 7th Wolf Guards, and Emma was injured and relegated to the Tech Caste where she ended up serving as Caitlin's Tech.
I even had my own personal version of the Timber Wolf (Mad Cat), thanks to the fact that there was a line about Omni Mechs being able to be outfitted to personal preference. It had 2 ER large lasers, 4 ER medium lasers, 2 Streak 6 SRM racks (each with a ton of ammo), and an AMS system (with two tons of ammo). To attempt to manage heat I had 20 double heat sinks. My head cannon for the design was that it was conceived for Marcus by Emma, who also created a custom variant of the Dire Wolf (Daishi) for Caitlin.
Not sure if it had anything to do with the individualistic nature of clan comabt, or the fact that we were now all part of the same Star, but the group dynamic changed. I was part of the unit and no longer a tacked on extra asset that no-one really wanted.
I then had something of a falling out with BattleTech, which led to my pulling back from the lore and game in general. It started after I transfered to a new unit. I again found a group of BattleTech players that I could game with. I was a bit upset that they weren't interested in playing the Clans, as by this point I had assembled a clusters worth of Clan Mechs, Elementals and Omni Fighters, but I had no problems slipping back into the Succession Wars era. My new character, Alex, got a Warhammer 6R as his Mech and I joined the others of the group.
Perhaps I should have realised that there were going to be problems when I joined the group, when I learned that the one running the group, was also running a player character. But I let it slide as it was a bigger group, 8 in total, and now we could field two full lances.
Things first went wrong after a mission in which we only just escaped, but did at least recover the Tech sample we'd been sent after. My Warhammer was a wreck, no arms, two engine hits, a gyro hit, and a leg actuator hit. At first I wasn't worried as we had escaped off world and would be able to fix up our Mechs. Or so I thought.
I wasn't able to attend the next session, due to duty commitments, but it was the Wednesday evening session and the plan was to fix up the Mechs, and secure a new contract, as well as play some non campaign games of BattleTech, so I thought that I didn't need to be there. How wrong was I?
When the Saturday session cam around I attended and pulled my page protector containing my Mech and character sheet from the locker in the club room, and found that none of the damage had been removed from my Mech. Once everyone else had arrived I asked about getting my Mech fixed, to which I was told that all Mechs had been fixed. I then showed my still damaged Mech sheet and asked why the damage was still present.
The group leader said he asked everyone to turn over their sheets on Wednesday and all had been fixed. Myself and others pointed out that I wasn't there on Wednesday, and as he was running the club, it was up to him to accomodate absent players, given that I was on military duties that I couldn't get out of.
Trying to avoid problems, I said "Well lets just fix it now." At which point I learned that the company had no spare funds. The group leader had after fixing everyone elses Mechs sold a bunch of player Mechs, plus all the spare Mechs to upgrade the company to include 4 assault mechs, an Atlas, an Awesome, a Stalker, and a Zeus. The group leader had replaced his Hunchback for the Atlas.
Feeling really annoyed at this point, I asked "Well how much did I get from the last job? Maybe I can afford enough repairs to at least fix up my armour, internals, and maybe my damaged components."
"Oh everyoen got their shares on Wednesday." was the reply from the group leader.
Again a chorus of "I/He wasn't here on Wednesday."
"Well somebody should have said something." was the reply, followed by a chorus of "We did!"
I also pointed out that I had rang him during Wednesday day to remind him that I wouldn't be able to attend that night.
The response to that was "Well it's too late now. You'll just have to tag along and try not to die until we can do something about your problems."
I lost it at that point and after the group had pulled us apart I left, or the group leader kicked me from the group, depending on who tells it, and I never went back.
I never returned to BattleTech while in the military, and after I left, I never found a group that I could play with regularly. So almost all of my BattleTech gaming now was the various computer games that I play(ed). Despite how my tabletop foray ended, I still find myself recalling the time that I played Marcus Ward, and it is still my fondest memories of BattleTech.
My love of Clan Wolf has nothing to do with lore, or what Mechs they have or anything else like that but rather the joy I had playing a character in that Clan way back when. Had the group pick Clan Jade Falcon back in those days I would have those fond memories of that Clan.
Feel free to target away. I stand ready to receive your fire.
Speaking as a DM/GM that kind of behaviour from the second group leader is unacceptable. I mean I know wargaming and RPGs are different but making in-game decisions that excludes players due to uncontrollable circumstances is just a dick move.
Big Red; I love Smoke Jaguar
Everyone: *GASP*
Big Red: Because they're horrible bastards at all times
had me goin in the first half, not gonna lie
Falcons, Bears and Wolves oh my.
Horses: Neigh.
I got three words for clan Wolf and one of the reasons why they suck:
Michael A. Stackpole.
He was terrible in Star Wars and everything I read in BT from him was along similar lines (so I ended up avoiding most of his books). He used to be a pretty popular author due to the Rogue Squadron books, but, one will note they went off the rails and became the "Stackpole Isekai" more and more. I notice he wrote a lot of books with the Wolves in them. I haven't read them, because I find him unreadable, but I can only imagine how that went. This then sets the tone for later Wolf clanners and we have what we have today, woop de doo.
So yeah, add a few more bad authours for other wolves and I can see them being full on cringe by the time we reached the current timeline.
Need that deep dive on everything wrong with clan wolf since Nicholas Kerensky. I need all of it. Everything that has been bungled with these sick dogs from star league to ilclan
I have no interest in delving that deep tbh. It's bad for the community to dog-pile them. I only even made the content the way I did for this video because I literally covered all of them.
@@BigRed40TECH that's fair you're not wrong. But I still want all that dirt.
I could tolerate Clan Wolf during the invasion era because I kinda liked Ulric's cunning and of course the forming of Wolf in Exile. I preferred Wolf in Exile because unlike regular Clan Wolf, they really did struggle and even got heavily decimated during the FedCom civil war. I really liked how they were an underdog clan and their alliance with the Kell Hounds. But of course they were made to rejoin Clan Wolf because dumb reasons. God I despite this Clan Wolf circlejerk. I would have also preferred if the Fidelis remained as such because the whole "betrayal" thing was weak as hell and just another dumb excuse for more Clan Wolf shilling.
I'm only a third the way through, and I've already packed out laughing like four times. More of this kind of content please!! Dying here!
GHOST BEAR NUMBAH 2 (okay they're my number one but i'll take it lol)
"Never change, Clan Nova Cat, oh wait, it's a little late!" DARN YOU hahaha! (my second fave)
Your welcome lol
"The glue factory seems to be running strong" OUCH that BURN tho! Yikes...
I agree with your opinion on the [Last Clan], though it is as a result of your education on the subject. Thank you for a thoroughly entertaining video!!
I do love the Bears but I'll admit I respect the Star Adders for actually thinking during Revival. They wanted ALL the Clans to just jump the Houses and go in. It's like that scene from Austin Powers where Dr Evil's kid breaks all the tropes and offers to just shoot Austin right here, right now. There's something about that I love. Just imagining the look on that Khan's face when the Grand Kurultai more or less tell them "That's not how it's done."
As for Steel Vipers I do like their background, I like the idea of the "Traitor Khan" and I really do like the ideas Sanra Mercer tried to push. It's just a shame they couldn't follow through with what she dreamed. They went full Viper stupid and you never go that far in order to survive.
I too love to see how Smoke Jaguars get demolished.
*Smoked Jaguars*
I couldn't agree with you more about Clan Wolf, which I think I've mentioned before. Ghost Bear is my personal favorite Clan, with Jade Falcon right behind in second place. I fully admit to being influenced in this regard by Mechwarrior 2, which was my introduction to the wonders of the entire Battletech universe. And yes, they have both been done dirty in the current storyline, but that doesn't bother me too much, because my personal Battletech timeline just stops right after the Refusal War. I hated the idea of Task Force Serpent and the invasion of the Clan homeworlds, and the Dark Age and Blakist eras were bad enough that I wish I could elide them from my memory. I'm happy to have the timeline just never leave that 15-year Tukayyid truce. It's cozy there.
Plz go far Jade Falcon...
Mechwarrior 3 was centered around the player leading a commando mission to the Smoke Jaguar secondary world of Tranguil where the successor to Lincoln was attempting to rally Jaguar forces for a counter-attack against the invading IS forces. It was a pretty good story that unfolded itself as you played. The effects of Operation Bulldog actually impacts on the storyline mid-game and gave the player a real feeling of being involved in making history. My one regret is that it is fiendishly hard to get Mechwarrior 3 to work on modern operating systems as I occasionally get the itch to play that game again.
Yea, but you didn't play as Smoke Jaguars is the thing, only in the MP.
Yeah I'm not sure if Ghost Bear is top for me but that intro video for Ghost Bears Legacy will never leave my mind vault, Mechwarrior 2 had such an impact.
While there is supposedly a reason...The Crusaders punishing Ulric Kerensky by promoting him to lead the invasion was truly dumb cause why would you give him that much power? Lo and behold, he made everyone but Clan Wolf look idiotic and they cannot do anything about it. It's still hilarious as hell the Refusal War should have ended Clan Wolf but not only did Phelan kept the Warden side of it pretty intact and found refuge thanks to his dad (so it's not even a Minnesota Tribe like situation), but Vlad literally murdered his way to bring Clan Wolf back from the dead itself. Jade Falcon absolutely lost despite being the winners. 😂
Clan Wolf's only super power in the early invasion was just not being idiots and understanding that logistics is a thing. I won't argue that things eventually went off into lala land but I also don't care that much. I learned to love them in the invasion era.
@@bogatyr2473 This is one of things I can't stand about people who shit on Wolf in the invasion era because Wolf took the most logical conclusion to the situation. I think Clan space is 200 LY from the IS and they knew that so they pact their factories to literally move them closer to the IS and then on Tukayyid, they were forced to bid last and decided because of that to throw in all 5 Galaxy into the fight. So in short, they were smart enough to understand Clan logistics were going to be a problem so they brought their factories, they brought more Galaxy to the invasion and committed 100% on Tukayyid and they invaded on the third day so they could watch and learn Comstar's tactics and people are surprised Wolf was a fucking monster in the invasion. I don't get it.
Cloud Cobras had a nice moment of "WHAT THE F---" during Wars of Reaving, when all their genetic material got corrupted, so they shown no sing to not appear as a weak part of the Alliance and started to make one small trial after another, to collect some, and suddenly understood Scorpion's material was NOT MUCH BETTER! So, they brought this to the council and gained rep they needed. Nice sneaking out of situation.
But, tbh, I like their religiosity, concept of The Way, and planting a plant for every life taken in a Sacred Garden as a seriously cool fluff for battles. They could literally do anything, just saying "This is the Way". Part of 'em joined Spirit Cats and left because "the way brought us here", lol. Thought, yeah, they are criminally inactive as a part of lore events.
Hey, all cool facts, I'm down. I like all Snake factions. Snake iz gonna Snake. lol
Xi Galaxy (aka the silly-painted Nova Cats) also have a lot of Cloud Cobras, and a weird CCC/CNC hybrid spiritualism.
And when the Cats were abjured, some Cobras actually helped them escape from Clan Space.
Unlike Ghost Bears, who attacked without warning and refused to even talk to Nova Cat warriors for like, years
On the note of the Borg, Clans and (Necrons) the issue with having the main draw of an enemy be the mystery of their (unknowable) intelligence or motivation is that it relies on the people fighting them being too stupid to figure out what they are and how they work.
Either they stay unknowable and it becomes “lazy writing” because eventually people will want to know more, or the people fighting them are permanently stupefied in order to maintain the threat.
Hello.
It's so difficult to find someone that likes Smoke Jaguars these days...
After Serpent and Bulldog, all Clan Smoke Jaguar fans run for their live. There are a few of we that still feel Smoke Jaguars, even with the laughs for be loosers.
As you say, they are brutal barbaric, but they are the final harbour for Nicholas's ideal.
After the Great Redusal, I played Mechwarrior RPG as a Smoke Jaguar absorbed as abtakha in Clan Hell's Horses ( my second favourite clan).
My top three closes with the Ghost Bears (maybe Hell's Horses and Ghost Bears were the least alien, and ti's is why the like me. I don't know).
So, great video again.
* scorpion noises *
Get back to work, the imperium and guilliman need you.
@@AnAngryMarauder I'm sorry I can't hear you, this neural helmet kinda covers my ears and this Kodiak is reaaaaly loud
@@sanguiniusonvacation1803 please! We need you! The emperor needs you!
@@AnAngryMarauder Dante and Gabriel got it covered.
Pretty much agree with you on all counts. The GB storyline in the ilClan era has to be some of the most hamfisted garbage I've read from Catalyst. It would have made more sense if they had told Alaric to pound sand and welcome the remnants of RoS as an opposing faction. I would rate the SeaFoxes a little higher, but they are definitely annoyingly obvious manipulators. I have high hopes for the Scorpions but they are so distant in the setting that they are pretty much irrelevant in the IS. I would have liked a longer rant about the Wolfs though, it was enjoyable. They went from my favorite clan faction back in my early 20s to my most loathed in the ilClan era just because they have a totally unearned storyline....and they made the FWL and the GB look like chumps without any real consequences.
I respect Catalyst a lot, but Dominion's just killed me. :(
@@BigRed40TECH I'm a fan of the timeline progressing, but the ilClan era has done the Ghost Bears dirty. Even before Dominions Divided came out, A Question of Survival had me actually rooting for Jade Falcon for the first time in my adult life. It's almost like the personalities of the two factions were swapped for that book.
I liked AQOS, a lot, but the sourcebook follow-up didn't deliver, as it were :|
great video as always. I am waaaaaaaaaaay behind on your battlemech videos, but I will get to them! promise!
Great video and agree with many of your points. My top clans in order have to be Nova Cats, Smoke Jaguars, Jade Falcon, Steel Viper, than Ice Hellion. Least favorite is easily Clan Wolf they are so Mary Sue..
Love the image used for clan blood spirit... The blood kite... Can you say "ammo explosion detected"?
Red, I really enjoyed thos opinion piece despite you having at least touched on your ppinion for most of them on your live streams.
As someone who came into Classic & the novels/lore as a clanner this year (Ghost Bear & Wolf primarily), I really haven't enjoyed any clancentric novel or source book Ive read (Dominions Divided), & have much preferred the Merc stories or machinations of the great houses. I sure hope this is something CGL & the better writers will change, but Im not holding my breath. I think your analogy of comparing the Clans with the Borg is very accurate. I also saw a similar in the White Wolf rpg Vampire the Masquerade where the Sabbat faction was an amazing boogeyman antagonist, but as more was written for them the mystique & horror just kind of fizzled out as they were watered down or made into a Mary Sue with poor writting over the years. I look forward to watching the comments roll in on this one as well as the discussions that surely will pop up & make for an entertaining luvestream.
Genuinely surprised we Mandrills even made the list!
Very well done! I was really captivated until you started talking about Clan Wolf. No shade, but… discussion of Clan Wolf makes me wonder if I should take my contacts out.
I don’t wear contacts. Glad wolf was last. A bold choice, but it resonates and after listening to how you rated the other clans it is consistent.
Thanks for the quality content. I hope in the coming years you can figure out why big green bird is better than polar bear, but whatever. I don’t expect a lot from a free birth.