First for Kapteyn Academy updates.

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This is now a Hunchback thread!

>>98882925
In my heart it’s always a hunchback thread

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Fourth for Butte Hold

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Born to Pilot
Sphere is a fuck
鬼神 Kill Em All 3050
I am Merc man
410,757,864,530 dead clanners

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I don't see it talked about much, but what about mercenary squadrons of aerospace fighters? Instead of just hiring a couple of random pilots at the bar nearest your mech hiring hall, a full on squadron of mercs with their own CV that will accompany your mech unit on its planetary assault, and then fuck off once you no longer require/can afford air cover?

>>98882925
Uncomfortable Truth: Saint 4G is a saint because he was martyred trying to get into AC range with shit armor. He dead.

>>98883083
They do exist but you're talking something that is deliberately forgotten about by the writers.

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>>98883098
Yeah but if the Maid of Orleans was to pilot a mech I bet it would be a Hunchback!

>>98883098
The Swayback reigns supreme.

>>98883098
The 4G has the same or better armor than many contemporary heavy mechs

Bombast lasers

>>98883132
Well, OK, you're right, but it's also got the movement profile of those heavy mechs while needing to be uncomfortably close to do the one thing it's made to do, which is why it's usually a race to do that one thing at least once before it eats shit and dies.

>>98883083
They exist, but they get ignored because no one plays AeroTech due to the rules needing some significant adjustments that they just never got. Same sorta deal as infantry.

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Rough work-in-progress version of the Namek Record Sheet and a blank version of it to attach to the roll charts for the future. Very much eyeballed at the current moment, as I think I need to rescale some stuff in the General information tab, and some of the lines may be a bit thin on writing room. But I'm probably missing some stuff, so any other thoughts?

Also so we can roll some stuff, lets get some details on what the leader's like if they ever ended up being deployed.

Experience Rating (1d20)(BM = Battlemech, AS = Aerospace)
>1: Green BM, Green AS
>2: Regular BM, Green AS
>3: Green BM, Regular AS
>4-5: Regular BM, Regular AS
>6: Veteran BM, Green AS
>7-8: Veteran BM, Regular AS
>9: Green BM, Veteran AS
>10-11: Regular BM, Veteran AS
>12-13: Veteran BM, Veteran AS
>14: Elite BM, Green AS
>15: Elite BM, Regular AS
>16: Elite BM, Veteran AS
>17: Green BM, Elite AS
>18: Regular BM, Elite AS
>19: Veteran BM, Elite AS
>20: Elite BM, Elite AS

After the above is rolled, roll 1d6 for each of the four Piloting and Gunnery skills (different people each roll) on whichever of the following charts is relevant.

Green
>1: Skill Rating of 7
>2-3: SR of 6
>4-5: SR 5
>6: SR 4

Regular
>1-2: SR 5
>3-4: SR 4
>5-6: SR 3

Veteran
>1-2: SR 4
>3-4: SR 3
>5-6: SR 2

Elite
>1-2: SR 3
>3-4: SR 2
>5-6: SR 1

Rolled 1 (1d20)

>>98883340
With this roll I nominate the title Guru for our leader.

Rolled 4 (1d6)

>>98883368
>Nail!
>My Valasekian bulk is blocking the controls again!

>>98882912
Well if it means that much to you sure. I'll hit you with some stats.
>At least 1 Mechwarrior has failed their Fog sensor check every turn.
>The most number of Mechwarriors that failed their fog sensor check in a single turn, was 4.
>Only a single Mechwarrior has not failed a fog sensor check at some point.
>No Mechwarrior has gotten 3 fails on the fog sensor check yet.
>Turn 7 has concluded.
>A total of 42 damage was dealt on turn 7.
>This is down from the 155 damage that was dealt on turn 6.
>Over 100 tons of mech are no longer participating in the battle.
>Both sides have lost at least 1 mech at this point.

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>>98883368

>>98883098
Oh, I thought that was a unique failing of the hunchback IIC.
> medium mech
> that moves like an assault mech
> armored like a light mech
>has weapons that have a point blank range
> but for 25 seconds, hits like an Old Testament God.
> is almost useless afterwards.

>>98883450
>You know, Ricorda, your father was a brilliant politician, but a terrible MechWarrior.

>>98883368
So...are we looking at the original founding leader getting so old his skills have degraded, the succession just happened and there's a young ruler in charge, the other guys wanted go out to fight rather than wrangle paperwork and put the logistics person in charge, or have they really committed to the Namek larp and made a non-combat "Dragon Clan" equivalent for the leaders while the military is treated as the "Warrior Clan"?

>>98883114
Wrong. Hunchback orthodoxy remains uber alles. In the era of ilClan any merc worth their hunchback addiction sold their mech and all the salvage they ever got to buy the production model C's from seafoxes. 6/9 cuac20 carrier. Fucking NOICE.

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Do you think the Clans had a moral superiority to House Kurita?

>>98883434
I feel like my mech was blasted into next week but so was the Charger

>>98883546
Lmao! No, the clanners shouldn't care about that stuff.

>>98883518
The IIC is garbage.
Doesn’t matter how destructive those primary weapons are if it can’t survive long enough to use them.

>>98883565
He said C, not IIC. The C was some solahma's modifications of a regular Hunchback.

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>>98883200
I was thinking about it because I've been playing with the aero bsp rules in the new core book, and last thread people were talking about merc dropships. I got a whole squadron of aero and have decided to paint them in their own merc scheme so they can support any of my other collections. And now I want a map scale Leopard CV...

>>98883577
Ah, my mistake

>>98883200
Aerotech in space is fine (you just need a very large playing area for even a small game), it's when you get into atmosphere that there's problems. And even then, it's really only problem (singluar). Lawndarting is a rule for honkmaxxed clowns. The fact that a single hit can send you from halfway to space into the dirt is ridiculous.

>>98883546
Technically the clans are a totalitarian meritocracy with fascist tendencies, and the Combine is a fascist monarchy with totalitarian tendencies, and both are culturally steeped in a flanderized version of a chosen set of historical aesthetics. The Combine's lifestyle is honestly kind of clan like when you dig into how their class system works for anybody who isn't blood related the Kurita dynasty.
I'm going to call it a wash.

>>98883200
> Same sorta deal as infantry.
I don’t know what you are talking about. At least in Total War, they work just fine.

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>>98882925

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>>98883546
>Do you think the totalitarian warrior society had a moral superiority to totalitarian warrior society?
Ain't no way, yujin.

>>98883628
> the clans are a totalitarian meritocracy with fascist tendencies
Ehh… I’d say the clans are a bunch of biker gangs with delusions of grandeur who traded their motorcycles in for giant robots.

The Combine is Imperial Japan with an anime filter, so I’d concede that your description of them is fair.

>>98882323
Which is to say it is more accurate to what happens in the novelizations. Excessive at 0 and 1 though, 2's a good spot.
>but what about evasive lights
Yeah well whenever a leader character chooses to ride a light mech at least one other will look at them funny and wonder if they're suicidal.

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Rolled 4 (1d6)

>>98883340
>>98883368
>>98883403
Uh... guess I'll do the second d6?

>>98883107
Women can't be Mechwarriors. They don't have enough physical fitness. You'll never see a women able to beat a man in a fight, regardless of circumstances. Mechs are no different.

>>98883546
>Do you think the Clans had a moral superiority to House Kurita?
EVERYONE has moral superiority to authoritarian fascist governments. They are the lowest of the low.

>>98883546
The clans are the most evil and cruel governments, and needlessly so, ever devised by humans in battletech, they don't even have moral superiority over the capellans and their servitor system.
I'm surprised warriors even get enough political schooling to be taught and misapply the term "fascist".

>>98883083
They exist, and IIRC there's even a canon space-based merc company.

Is the makeup of the lance and star packs good for tabletop use as they come? As in, I can buy any force pack and it’ll be decent enough to play a game with without swapping out mechs.

>>98883628
>fascist
>monarchy
Mutually exclusive.

>>98883813
There's some packs with Mechs that are lean on variants, but anything from TR3025 is going to have more than enough for you to build around. If you want to be sure you can build a forcomp for any game, or plan to play Alpha Strike, get two and you'll have more than enough options.

>>98883691
>Yeah well whenever a leader character chooses to ride a light mech at least one other will look at them funny and wonder if they're suicidal.
But there are many characters in the lore who are ace light mech pilots and never have it shot out from under them. But on the table a 0/1 is just as likely to get legged by a cerppc as a 5/6.

>>98883816
The Italian government before and during WWII was a constitutional monarchy that conceded broad powers to Mussolini, but the king's endorsement still provided legitimacy to the fascists for conservatives. The Italians didn't remove their monarchy until after WWII when they became a left leaning republic.

>>98883816
The Coordinator of the Draconis Combine has never claimed the title of Tenno.

>>98883870
That was the monarchy cooperating under duress with the fascist government, they were always opposed to each other. Anything within a fascist nation that is not completely a willing part of the fascist government is effectively a hostile entity to the fascist government, a fascist government does not condone entities separate from the government.
The draconis combine is also a feudal state, which is definitely incompatible with the centralization required for fascism's requirement of total state control over everything.

>>98883577
not any more.

>>98883798
Posts like these make me support the "no mercs" policies of the dracos frfr

>>98884000
That is still the origin of the Hunchback C. In fact, we can trace that exact unique mech from its customization all the way to its destruction. We know exactly what wars it fought in and even how they went for it (poorly).

>>98883868
>and never have it shot out from under them
They invested all their points into Luck

>>98884084
Mary Sue bullshit

>>98883902
Purist interpretations regarding fascism seem pointless given fascism has never been an intellectually rigorous political position. It's just a populist deathcult held together by a cult of personality.

>>98883546
pretty sure the point of this scene was to show how delulu hypocritical clans are about their idea of liberation. dont forget this is the guy who bombed turtle bay from orbit.
that is, to answer your question, no.

>>98883546
Furries are morally superior to no-one.

>>98884177
>It's just a populist deathcult held together by a cult of personality.
Oh hey, the Stoners!

The Great Houses have shown they have staying power through centuries, to the point the family names hold more power than blood. Actually, if anything, the Combine is a theocracy as the Coordinator is the ultimate living god of his people. This also reminds me of how much both the Caps have ripped them off over the years.

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>>98882998
>There will never be a BattleTech movie with Gilbert Gottfried, Val Kilmer and Lauren Bacall

Why even live?

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>>98884233

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In our ongoing Draconis Reach campaign, we had the last of our duels today. My Crusader 7W got matched against a Lancelot 09. The enemy was both faster and longer ranged with clantech guns, but the small size of the arena meant he couldn't fully leverage those advantages. He had to stay at exactly 8 hexes to have better hit rolls than me. Meanwhile my Crusader was happy to trade shots at any distance except exactly 8, so more often than not I was connecting. After a few turns of this, sustained missile fire had worn away a lot of his armor, and he conceded, because pushing for a win would've required him to pay for clan tech crit/repair costs and probably eaten his winnings.

We'll be moving on to a real merc contract soon

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>>98883546
And here's to the ships of Clan Smoke Jaguar

They're fighting the Successor States across the Milky Way
To free their worlds from fascism and cut their chains away
And revive the faded glory of the Star League's golden days
If you believe that, I've got real estate to sell in Turtle Bay

Oh, here's to the Star League you've torn out the heart of
Clan Smoke Jaguar, find yourself another cosmos to be part of

>>98884284
wait 10-15 years until AI video gen gets really really good. and youll be able to write script and direct your movie, down to every detail the way you want it.

>>98884177
Total centralization or the goal of total centralization is the most defining feature of fascist governance, it is an ideology of state control for the sake of state control. In practice, it isn't really distinguishable from established "communist" regimes, it being a branch of socialism. It only differs in ideals, state control being the means to an end(the end never being achievable of course) for one and the end itself for the other.
A feudal state is simply too decentralized to qualify at all, but most clans are about as close as you can get to perfect fascism, being more or less accurately described as semi-kratocratic fascism, everything down to the people themselves being more closely and thoroughly integrated into the state than in any other society ever seen.

>>98884321
2-4 years at most.

>>98884339
best start writing the script now then.
even someone as talented as tarantino takes 5 years to write one, for it to be just right.

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You guys get your tickets to Hunchcon yet?

>>98884347
No, hunchcon banned my favorite hunchtuber from attending for being too problematic.

>>98883156
Hell yeah

>>98883156
more like boom blast
btw new core rulebook replaced the rules for bombast entirely.

>>98884332
The only Great House that could qualify is the Capellan Confederation but like every other state it has to devolve power because of the real limitations on communication and travel in the BT universe.

>>98884375
>new core rulebook replaced the rules for bombast entirely.
Are they better than clan LPLs yet?

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Heavens forbid a spheroid get some motion

>>98884332
Communism and fascism share totalitarian government as a central feature, but have very different ideologies to get there, so I don't think that's a useful reduction.

>>98884432
More analogous to a heavy laser. They're pretty interesting now, worth running IMO.

>>98884461
Yeah, that's what the post said. There is little depth to fascism, it is just hyperstatism by any means available.
Ideals can differ but ideals are irrelevant in the real world outside of a philosopher's head. Why something is being done does not matter, what is being done matters.

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>>98883368
>>98883340
This is what you Namekians get for having hereditary leadership, those fat dropship lords don't know the first thing about piloting a mech!
This is why the clans do away with the old as to make room for those with youthful vigor, determination and superior reflexes.
>Soon I shall show them all that the clan way is superior and claim this domain in the name of clan-
>Healthcare and a retirement plan you say?
>...
>Maybe this Guru isn't the worst after all... Even if the tub of lard is nearly too fat to fit in his mech.

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Rolled 6 (1d6)

>>98884492

>>98883403
>>98883701
Well, at least this is a 5/5 skill rating for Mechs? That's only slightly worse than the average Inner Sphere and could be blamed on old age.
And maybe we'll luck into getting two sides for the Aerospace.

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>>98883546
It's meant to make you laugh since the smoked kitties are the most evil of clanners.
It's like how when a politician makes wild claims based on what sounds good rather than objective reality.

>>98884473
If they aren't better than a clan LPL then they aren't good enough for competitive play. Not interested.

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>>98884504
>>98884492
It could just be the guy focuses on being a ship captain more than anything? Maybe the first chance they get they stick the leader of the state in a Pocket Warship or even one of the only proper Warships they end up owning?
Or maybe he started off leading a as an old school commander leading raids before taking over the previous leader's place.
Or maybe leadership really is Guru lite, and all the violent, swash buckling crews and armies of Namek are held together by a Saisei Itchi (unity of worship and government), where the political leader also acts as the chief religious figure.
Maybe the leader is basically a Shiny Priest who blesses the big Kami of the Dropships and gives his blessings on certain raids as backed by the state, which give the captain planning and leading a raid the legitimacy to call on other crews to back him like a temporary admiral.
Or it could just be the guy is genuinely just mediocre and inexperienced in fights but is backed up by a military of hardened warriors in a rough, but free loving culture.
There's a few ways to place this.

>>98884597
>Shiny Priest
Shinto Priest

>>98883792
Dracpilled post!

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>>98884532
Hoo man that's a good one. You know I bet there are actual retards out there that think like that, so I'd be careful where you tell that one.

>>98884597
Well, rolls indicate that they are a 5/5, 4/?. If Aerospace Gunnery ends up with a 4 or 5 being rolled...former LAM pilot who retired from frontline combat after Nova Cats destroyed the last factory? The stats we have are Jihad era when they've only really done reminiscience piloting rather than formal sorties.

If we go with that, maybe when he dies, it's in a LAM vs LAM clash between his Wasp LAM and one of the Blakist Spectral LAMs (bribe to attack Ghost Bear from behind gone wrong?) that ends in a mutual kill as he ends up flying like he did at his peak. SLDF's "Angel on Our Shoulders" vs the Wobbies Demonically named LAMs.

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Rolled 3 (1d6)

>>98884728
>former LAM pilot
Guru is clearly a dropship captain who moonlights as a mechwarrior because its a prestige thing and to show unity with all the pirate duelists now serving as knights of the realm.
>>98883340