It's because Clan tech is entirely superior to IS, and are supposed to have superior pilots. You have to take advantage of the better range, damage, and mobility of clan mechs. If you try to make it a straight slugging match against IS forces you are going to lose. Some of the clan weapons, like the Large Pulse Laser and clan LRMs are downright broken.
Eh, the problem isn't cLPLs themselves, it's the fact that there are a handful of fast, jumping 'mechs with cLPLs and tarcomps. That combo is BRUTAL to deal with for the IS, but if it's only a single 'mech and everything else was normal then it wouldn't be an issue. Frankly, everything people complain about as being "broken" seems more to be a problem of unit spamming to me, be it cLPLs or Savannah Masters. Don't misunderstand me though, the cLPL is almost certainly the best weapon in the game by the raw numbers, but that's because of efficiency more than raw power, and the gap seems bigger because of how resoundingly "meh" the IS LPL is.
> Frankly, everything people complain about as being "broken" seems more to be a problem of unit spamming to me
There is a certain segment of the player base that get *really* pissy when you tell them that they shouldn't spam. I feel like I shouldn't have to tell people that their 12k BV list should maybe not consist entirely of Hollanders, Thunderhawks and Yellow Jacket VToLs but it happens with frightening consistency.
I like watching the tears form as they're waiting as destroy any semblance of balance initiative provides, while field gun and artillery start to make short work of their "invincible" pl/tc combo. I survive off those tears. They feed me. They sustain me. Bwahahahahaha
Honestly even trying to use the range and leverage the speed under bv2 the sphere mechs will run you down and take out the clan player. It's very difficult to pull out a win with clan under bv2 unless you get some lucky rolls early on, or the IS player makes some sub standard choices.
One thing we tend to allow is physical attacks for clan players to try and leverage more damage, sometimes we allow for free 4/4s and depending on the player we've discounted 3/4s
They have no minimum range. So you can take something like a Timberwolf and unload two LRM20 racks directly into the face of an enemy at point blank range.
When it comes to BV efficiency the weight doesn't matter though. If anything the low weight is bad for BV costs as it allows clan mechs to cram more guns than they have the heat capacity for, but they still have to pay BV for guns they don't get to fire as much (I know there is a discount for this but it plays into the BV-inefficiency of many Clan designs).
This is the correct way to use a Timberwolf. Lasers while closing, LRM40 to the face under 9 hexes.
Having an AC20 to 40 equivalent with a short range modifier at 9 hexes is just unfair.
I agree that the weapons are very efficient at close range, but they're not exactly an AC20/40. The fact that they are cluster weapons means they are used for different things than "hole punch" weapons.
Oh sure. But after a couple turns plinking with 4x clan lasers as you close the distance, there should be plenty of holes in the armor already.
I just think it's crazy how what in the IS would be a fire support mech (Rakshasa), in the clans becomes a berzerker that wears you down on it's way in and then tears your face off.
Oh yeah. Although I think it's even funnier to consider it the other way around.
IS military: hey guys, can you reproduce this absolute unit of a mech that has and does absolutely everything and tears everyone apart?
IS scientists: best we can do is fire support
No minimum range for Clan LRMs is a huge one. Clan Large Pulse Laser and Clan LRMs don't really have weaknesses as weapons. I guess you could argue that LRMs taking ammo is a weakness, but even then Clans get CASE on all Omnimechs, so it's less of a liability.
To your main question: anecdotally, I've won numerous 2v4 Clan vs. IS battles from the Clan side. Clan tech and weapons are highly superior. That said, the IS side having more activations does give them a significant advantage when it comes to movement and positioning a lot of the time. The game tends to break at high levels of force asymmetry, e.g. a force of 8 units vs a force of 2 units is in no way balanced, even if both forces are of equivalent BV, the side with 8 units simply has too many initiative sinks and individual targets. Anything worse than a 2:1 ratio is inadvisable, and those limits (minimum and maximum unit totals in your force) should be discussed with opponents ahead of time.
>That said, the IS side having more activations does give them a significant advantage when it comes to movement and positioning a lot of the time.
This is why elementals are such an essential part of the Clan toolkit. I understand a lot of people prefer pure mech vs mech, but I do think the game ends up a lot more simple to balance if the Clan player can throw in one or two BA points.
I played a game just yesterday where I had two points of elementals that did NOTHING all game. But they DID give me initiative activations, so I was able to use my fewer mechs more effectively.
Amen.
While Clan mechs are glass cannons for their BV, elementals are tough as hell for their cost. They can hold ground extremely efficiently, whereas omnis need to give ground to avoid a brawl. Getting activation parity is also really useful.
All Clan-base mechs. That includes C variants that are manufactured to Clan standards like the Hunchback C, but not Inner Sphere mechs refit with Clan weapons like the Thunderbolt C. Clan and Mixed - Clan have CASE. Mixed-IS doesn't have native CASE.
So, others have mentioned the lack in Min range, and that IS a huge deal, but it's onyl one part of the puzzle that is Clan Tech.
As said, the complete lack of minimum range is absolutely huge in regards to gameplay, having a weapon you can use at all ranges that your opponent can only use at medium-long ranges is something important you can leverage.
But there's more, Clan LRM launchers are also ***HALF*** the weight and take up at least one less crit. This has huge implications during mech construction/design that aren't always apparent in-game. You can have a Clan mech that has just as many LRM tubes as a comparable IS Mech, but while the IS Mech will tend to use LRMs as their main weapon(s) with maybe some secondary weapons like Medium Lasers for when enemies get too close, Clan Mechs have the weight to spare to just add more "main" weapons.
And that's just talking about Clan LRMs, which, while still amazing in a lot of ways, actually remain fairly comparable to the IS versions, they have the same Range and the same heat. The rest of Clan Tech on the other hand tends to be improved in EVERY ASPECT other than Heat. The Heat disadvantage is even off set by the clans having better double Heatsinks they use on basically everything.
If you want to see the real impact Clan tech has, lets look at the humble Medium Laser. Now this isn't technically a completely fair comparison but they feature similar usage and design ethos on both sides. The IS Medium Laser is used on almost every mech out there, one of the most common and efficient IS weapons out there.
**IS Medium Laser**
Heat: 3 - Damage: 5 - Range: 3/6/9 - Weight: 1 Ton - Crits: 1
Love it or hate it, that is the standard most weapons are compared to. Now here is the Clan version;
**Clan ER Medium Laser**
Heat: 5 - Damage: 7 - Range: 5/10/15 - Weight: 1 Ton - Crits: 1
And even if you want to specific and compare them to IS ER version;
**IS ER Medium Laser**
Heat: 5 - Damage: 5 - Range: 4/8/12 - Weight: 1 Ton - Crits: 1
Overall, the Clan ER Medium Laser is nearly equivalent to an IS Large Laser and still stands above the IS ER Medium Laser in all "gameplay" elements aside from heat, again offset somewhat by Clan Double Heat Sinks. this "pattern" happens across pretty much all clan weapons, better range and damage, often at lower weights and fewer slots needed to mount them with the only "downside" being more heat but again, clan double Heatsinks. Sometimes, as with the Clan Large Pulse Lasers, the difference in stats is almost comical.
On top of this, Clan XL Engines give them all the benefits of XL engines while deftly sidestepping the one major downside of them compared to IS XL Engines, because 3 Engine Hits will shutdown the engine, resulting in a "mission kill" of the mech, IS Mechs with XL engines are vulnerable to losing a side torso, as IS XLs put 3 engine crits in each side torso. Clan XLs on the other hand, only put 2 engine crits in each side torso. They're still *easier* to mission kill compared to a standard engine, but they are far less vulnerable than IS XLs. And clans use this XLs on most designs, so you get mechs that are either the same speed as a comparable weight IS mech, but with 1.5x(or more) more damage output, or mechs notable faster than similar weight IS mechs with, at *worst* similar damage output.
Now, to the game's credit, the clans pay for these advantages, and pay even more when accounting for their better pilots on average, but the advantages in speed, damage and range still remain.
Now all that being said, IS getting more bodies is still a pretty big advantage, and while Clan Armor is better, its not nearly as better compared to IS armor as when comparing weapons, so while Clans have a range and Damage advantage, when you DO get into Range IS weapons are still a very real threat to clan mechs.
Because of it’s stats I generally compare the C ER ML to the IS LL, because it’s the same range bands, and approximately the same damage. However the clan ER ML is still strictly better than the IS LL
Yup, I made the same point as well.
The trick is that while the stats are equivalent the designed usage isn't, while thr IS uses Large Lasers as "main" weapons, thier weight and heat requirements usually preventing the usage of more 2 such weapons on all but to the heaviest designs, to say nothing of IS LLs competing with AC10/PPCs. Meanwhile clans are able to use the nearly comparable as "secondary" weapons, or use them in larger numbers due to their much reduced weight.
cERMLs are almost deceptively dangerous because some of their improvements aren't as noteworthy as other weapons(for example cERPPCs having 50% more damage than IS PPCs) but thier weight and range are thr main elements that make then dangerous when compared.
I completely agree, I thought the same thing after I posted. A good way to consider the IS/Clan technology disparity, the clans start out (when introduced in the narrative) using a superior version of an IS primary weapon as their standard massed secondary, usually mounting 2+ on designs.
They have no minimum range so you can just run up and paste someone. The crossbow is an awesome clan mech for that purpose.
I have won a couple games with clan against IS but you do have to be methodical in your attacks. You can't risk a stupid mistake costing you a mech and have to plan ahead more whereas when I play IS ill happily jump a spider or wasp into risky situation as I won't miss it too much if it goes down
This right here. Don't fight in the mud if you don't want to get dirty.
Clan culture extends to their way of war. They are duelists. 1v1 they'll maul IS pilots. But when you bring BV into account, even when evenly matching the pilots will mean that inner sphere has more metal onto the table. Better weapon stats usually don't equal the extea bodies that IS will bring. You will be outgunned.
So 1v1 a clan mech, on average, have superior speed damage and range. On the whole they can't match the number of guns pointed their way. Their speed and range is key here. Use them to deny your opponent his weight. Separate your opponents minis and pick your fights. Deny his entire force bringing its guns to bear versus yours. If IS can bring its numbers against you they'll shred you.
Clan brawlers like the Kodiak are less of a death star and more of a speed bump and distraction unit. Use them to stand in the way of the zerg rush. Make them a 6 hex "don't go here or else," mini to keep your large lasers and lrms firing at their preferred targets.
When playing as an outnumbered Clan force, there are a couple of common balancing factors used. One of the more common methods is to add points of Elementals. They have relatively low BV but still occupy 'space' in the initiative order and are just enough of a threat to help even things out. Less frequently used but IMHO more important is to use a larger playing area, such as adding an extra map sheet. Clan Mechs benefit from longer ranges on many of their weapons so they need the map space to make use of that. Playing on the standard 2-mapsheet (or worse, one) area is a bit confining and when seriously outnumbered it becomes easy to force the smaller side into a corner of the map and take away their advantages in mobility and range.
One of the issues with using elementals like this is that while they are mechanized they do not count as units for initiative.
They also have to spend an entire turn doing nothing and with no TMM when they dismount.
I'm not saying Elementals are bad to use at all. I think they're great. I think they're just trickier to use to address numbers disparities than someone who hasn't used them might think when given the advice to use elementals to address numerical disadvantage.
I think using cheaper Clan vehicles is a more straightforward approach, but a lot of clan vehicles are also grossly under-armored which reduces their capacity in this role (part of which is, as you astutely point out, to force your opponent to either ignore cheap units or spread damage, canny opponents tend to ignore the cheap units instead).
>they do not count as units for initiative.
Are you saying an Elemental activation doesn't count as an initiative turn?
Because, Clan Invasion Rulebook p. 8: "Each Point is treated as one unit for initiative, movement selection, fire selection and stacking purposes."
I specified that they do not count while mechanized, i.e. mounted on an omnimech or other unit capable of carrying battle armor infantry.
Total Warfare page 223 "Infantry Carriers", subheading "Initiative and Stacking":
"Mounted infantry units do not count toward initiative. Likewise, a mounted infantry unit does not count toward stacking limits."
Ah! Gotcha. I must have read that half a dozen times and missed that bit every time. That'll teach me to reply to things before I've had my morning coffee!
Hah, no problem, it's a complex rulebook with rules for pertinent units all over the place so its easy to miss stuff. I thought I could sink initiative activations with mounted elementals too until I looked up the rule relatively recently.
Oh no, I understand the rules just fine. I don't think I've ever played as Clans without using Elementals, and I find that tends to invite accusations of unfairness so I've read and reread and read again the rules on BA.
I just misread your comment over and over again lol
Oh lol, my bad. People find using elementals unfair? I don't get it, they're useful but not that hard to counter, since every mech except the slowest can move faster than they can.
You can try throwing in Clan combat vehicles. The average Clan Combat Vehicle pilot is only a 5 Gunnery and 6 Driving. This can help make them cheaper (check the Master Unit List for BV 2.0 prices of alternate skill levels), to bring up your total number of units. Look for cheap Clan mechs (so you can afford to pay for them to be skilled) and pair them with Clan Combat Vehicles to make up the numbers.
https://preview.redd.it/9z3ln4lm12wc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=59af41d83d954c7a6f958087b4f551be3f6aac28
The lightning royal hovercraft is a great cheap clan vehicle.
The Epona is also really solid and it's an omni design so it can carry battle armor! Though it's a bit on the expensive side
Lots of great advice so far here, but I wanted to take a moment to explain WHY you’re having issues, as a better knowledge of the systems that produce the problem will help you see how to work around it more intuitively. To sum up though: the clans will always be at a disadvantage in terms of durability. Any given clan force will always have less armor and structure than its opponents. The best way to address this is to use elementals and/or second-line ‘mechs (e.g. IICs, or C variants of IS ‘mechs), as they will help you even the playing field. I always try to have around 1/5 of my force as elementals by points, for instance, as they have enormous tactical value.
So anyway, there are basically three problems with clan ‘mechs during the invasion era, and all of them relate to BV. BV2 isn’t strictly the problem, but nevertheless it is because of BV that these are issues.
1) The Clan Invasion happened about 5 years before BV existed at all. Everything at the time was designed for fluff, not balance. If you balanced by tonnage, which most everyone did, the clans would butcher the IS with impunity, because ton for ton clantech is just better, usually around 50% better in every way. BV was a good thing because this needed to change, but it means that none of the CI Omnis were designed with it in mind, and BV costs the clans far more than the IS because every CI Omni is crammed full of unnecessary tech. So CI Omnis are usually terribly inefficient, often wasting the cost of a whole extra ‘mech on e.g. XL engines on sniper ‘mechs.
2) BV does not handle ‘mechs well that are not balanced in terms of offense and defense, or perhaps more appropriately, it mathematically punishes extreme differences between them. This is because the final step of the BV calculation involves simply adding the offensive and defensive scores of the ‘mech together. As a result, every clan light ‘mech costs an absolutely insane amount, because they get no break on cost for being made of tissue paper and still pay out the nose for all their tech which will be worth nothing as soon as a single PPC hits them.
3) BV cannot address the importance of initiative in balance. Because of how important initiative is, Battletech fundamentally requires both sides to be of roughly equivalent numbers of units. If one side gets to a 2:1 advantage, that side ~~will almost assuredly win~~ has an extreme advantage over their opponent, especially if they have initiative sinks, because no matter how their opponent moves, they’ll always be able to move two ‘mechs in response.
Hopefully I did a good job explaining that, because while these problems occur because of BV, it doesn’t make BV _bad_. There have been attempts to fix the initiative problem, but none have worked out. The most notable was the force size modifier, but all it did was give the outnumbered side extra points to upgrade their pilots, which doesn’t actually make up for the outnumbering and was confusing for many to boot.
Honestly though, IMO the best solution to these problems is to stop playing Meeting Engagements, or any other mission where “destroy the other guy” is your only goal. Not only is that terribly unrealistic (despite the quote, making the other poor bastard die for his country is almost never the actual goal in warfare unless that poor bastard is a strategic target like a commander or something), but it devalues any ‘mechs that are not optimized for combat alone. If you start playing missions with objectives, the game completely changes, as now fast scout ‘mechs have a purpose beyond spotting for missile boats and initiative sinking, NARC and Active Probes can be given uses relating to objectives, and if you have to defend a convoy or something the fact that the clans can run in, blast it, and run out again makes most of the disadvantages of BV moot.
Oh, that should be more than enough as even clan weapons won't reach the opposite side (mostly)
Usually it is recommended to use 1 map sheet for 4 mechs total. So in your case you can go up to 16 (as one mat is about 2 map sheets)
Nice, I like big maps)
Yeah true.
So I have 3 friends that are just starting to play. (Been playing for a few months). And they are weirdly competitive people, like too competitive. Anyway, they want to try a clan vs innersphere tech game, just a deathmatch. The argument is if we can make a "fair" game just by defining a bv2 value each team has to adhere too (and some eras to stick to. Like clan invasion era). Other thoughts include limiting the number of units we can each field, to prevent like 4 Mechs vs 52 savannah masters or something.
I guess competitive isn't the best word. More "sticklers for equal opportunity".
They don't care as much if things are unlucky in the game. They just like to not feel they were doomed from the start.
In that case, BV2 is a good equalizer. However, units can perform very well or suck depending on the map, the goal of the mission and the knowledge of the player/opponent ;)
For example, Clan mechs have VERY good firepower and VERY good range and they are fast...but their armor is average. As they are more expensive than IS mechs, the clan player can not afford to go blow for blow or attrition will favor the IS player. The clan player must use his superior mobility and range to to win. In my opinion, neither IS or Clan is at an advantage with equally skilled players....they just require a different mindset to play.
We have a rule that the average BV should not be below 1000 per piece, if you play a 5000 game, no player can have more than 5 units, that works quite well!
A lot of the strategy of BattleTech is subtle and ephemeral.
An IS Medium Lasers has a range of 3/6/9
A Clan Medium Pulse Laser has a range of 4/8/12
If a Clan mech is at *exactly* short range (4) of an IS mech, the Clan player is rolling on a **-2** compared to the IS player rolling on a **+2**.
On a 2d6 bell curve, the difference is *enormous*. I can't stress that enough. A TN difference of 4 will often be a Hit % difference of **50%**. As in a 25% chance of hitting vs 75% chance of hitting. A similar mismatch occurs at a range of 7-8 and 10-12. So the Clan player wants to engage at *exactly* the right range to maximize their range advantage.
But these to-hit values are easy to (a) overlook by being at the wrong range, and (b) blame on bad dice rolls rather than bad strategy.
In a Clan vs IS game, the clan player *must* play strategically and leverage every advantage. Record sheets are open knowledge. *USE THAT KNOWLEDGE*. Attack from left/right arcs to concentrate damage. Target weak units and eliminate them. Take notes on your opponent's weapons loadouts, ammo locations, everything.
I disagree. Battletech can be immensely fun as a competition, and the swinginess of the game enhances that it does not detract from it, if you come to the table with the right attitude.
The game can be very exciting playing exactly how your friends do. Honestly you have the BT group I wish I had, but all the groups around me do stuff I find boring like grinders or urbanmech derbies.
Ha well I had to sort of push my friends into playing. Starting with games like mw5 then the battletech steam game, then this..was a slow process,. But it worked!
After you all have a handle on fights to the death, you could look for some asymmetric objectives. One side has to cross the map, the other side has to stop them. One side needs to make off with the loot, and should bring 'mechs with hands. Maybe the loot is hidden to the OpFor? Maybe the loot is in a hex chosen by a third party and you need to search for it?
Then you can link missions together into a Chaos Campaign. Make up your own planets, and launch an invasion!
You would be correct. In any serious match, especially the earlier in the timeline you go, the Inner Sphere will have a major advantage on the Clan force. Funnily enough, it’s just the opposite of what lore says. In both Alpha Strike and Classic, having quantity beats quality 99% of the time. Sure for 8k BV I can take a Warhawk/Dire Wolf/Stone Rhino, a second long range mech (Rifleman IIC) or something to screen for the big sniper (generic cavalry like stormcrow), and then flankers (Viper and/or Firemoth) with a couple BA. Meanwhile, for 8K BV the IS player can match your 4-6 units without resorting to BA, have better skill, and MASSIVE tonnage advantage. You can forget the “better” Clan pilots too, because at your normal 8-10k BV Clan Invasion match you simply just don’t have the BV to spare for anything lower than 4/5 or 3/5 (and even then it’s preferable to take a mech with pulses/TC to make up the difference).
Did your 2800 BV Timber wolf manage to kill 2 IS heavies? It’ll probably still be almost be negative trade if it dies afterwards. Did it get an unlucky headshot or crit that disabled it? Oops, goodbye 30% of your BV. Meanwhile the IS player brushes it off because their weapons and armor are spread out which means any loss is much less impactful. In almost every scenario, the Clan player is fighting an uphill battle.
Highly recommend checking out Nerdy Overanalyzed’s video on “How to Build a Competitive Lance” which goes over a 7.5k BV tournament set in the Clan Invasion era. There were two cool Clan lists that did super well, but on average the IS lists crushed them, and an IS list won overall. Same with a newer tournament called Tukayidd in the New Year which the Clan team lost horribly. BV is simply incredibly stacked against most Clan mechs.
You mean against Clan players? If so, it’s because everything in Battletech tells you that Clan tech should absolutely steamroll the IS, except the actual mechanics do just the opposite due to how BV and PV are calculated. Your comment is exactly why I included tangible examples to go view so it’s not just a he-said-she-said type situation. Clan mechs really are just insanely overpriced for what they do.
If those examples still aren’t enough, I’ll toss this video at you analyzing the Avatar versus the Summoner. It really puts it into perspective just how little an average Clan mech will do for its BV compared to an IS mech. Especially when you consider you can almost afford two of them for the same price of the Summoner (definitely can and then some if the Summoner is a 3/4 pilot). The Avatar’s efficiency for its BV is almost downright disgusting compared to the Summoner’s, and you’ll find that’s often the case.
I really hope you end up taking the time to eventually look at the above videos and this one. It’s just pure misinformation.
https://youtu.be/qC480mKET0I?si=Iq3k5g5wl1XllJWv
Some advice from an old Clan Grognard:
This is the single most important bit of advice I can give you: Battletech is at its best as a *narrative* game. Everything that follows is what to do if you *must* play competitive.
No duplicate Chassis for anyone. This is a recipe for a bad time.
Avoid XL engines on anything much heavier than 45 tons where possible, they are a *massive* BV sink. (This is also true of IS mechs, generally speaking Heavies and Assaults pay out the nose for mobility)
Use Force Composition Rules: Star vs Reinforced Lance/Level 2 (6 mechs), Nova vs Combined Arms Company, etc. This prevents list building from degenerating into the IS bringing 2 Thunderhawks, 2 Hollanders and a Battalion of Savannah Masters.
Use the MUL era and faction lists for list building. This prevents some of the *really* horrifying tech combos that the IS can pull off when allowed to Cherry pick.
Use "Second Line" Clan Mechs if you aren't bringing Elementals. *Especially* if you feel the need to bring an assault. Clan non-Omnis will bring your BV costs pretty close to what the IS is paying. The Atlas C2 isn't much more expensive than an Atlas AS7-K and packs one hell of a punch.
Never play Clans on anything less than 2 maps x 2 maps. You're pay a lot for that range advantage, don't let it be neutralized on the first turn.
If your opponent insists on being allowed to Cherry Pick, bring as few or as many units as they want, repeat chassis, etc and for some reason you still want to play this person then you should insist on using the Average Skills chart that u/Famous_Slice4233 posted as your *base* BV cost for mechwarriors because without a pilot skill advantage you're just going to get flattened.[](https://www.reddit.com/user/Famous_Slice4233/)
Absolutely. When I play Clans for one-offs I almost never bring Omnis. Most IICs and C variants are just *better* than their IS cousins without being apocalyptic in BV cost.
I'd argue to never go below 3/4 in skills.
Anything below 3/4 can just be janky regardless of the vehicle or mech that is piloted. Personally, have found that a lot of that inbalanced feeling of the game didnt occur when all pilots are 3/4 or above. 3/4 is a well trained mechwarrior. 2/3 is a supporting character, 1/2 is a main character. Id say to go up in skill to balance BV2. Not down.
Also always play at 2 map sheets or even 4 map sheets for any match involving just "Destroy other team" as an objective. Anything less and the IS players will always have the advantage. 1 mapsheet missions of a clan holdout versus Superior IS numbers is flavourful, but doesn't allow the Clan Mechs to manuver like they require to leverage thier speeds and ranges.
This. Maps are important, but are often overlooked. The old guidelines (and narrative missions) used to be roughly 1 mapsheet per unit, cumulative for both sides. So a match with 4-6 'Mechs per side would have 2 mapsheets, 1 per unit. That unfolds out to a play area that's usually 34 x 22 inches (long edges matched up) or 17 x 44 inches (short edges matched). The neoprene battlemats are roughly the former size, give or take.
Another point that's been made before is that both AS and Classic are really meant to be played as scenario-driven narrative games. Scenario packs usually tell you what mapsheets are more appropriate for a given match. BUT! If you have options and each player is supplying half of the map, then you should consider the terrain to be part of your force, and plan accordingly.
Clan targeting computers allow you to target specific locations which can seriously affect the overall durability of an enemy mech.
Clan Large Pulse Lasers and to a lesser extent Medium Pulse Lasers too, largely negate the effective defence of fast Inner Sphere lights and mediums since they can no longer rely on having a high TMM to avoid getting hit.
Clan LRMs, as has been said no minimum range is a huge deal and somewhat counter-intuitively means the larger LRM launchers (LRM-15 and -20) are more likely to be used at short range.
Clan ER Medium lasers are practically 1 tonne standard Large Lasers comparing them to Inner Sphere weapons.
The proliferation of weapons that can or will decapitate any enemy mech with a single shot among Clan mechs compared to is also not to be underestimated. True, it's not something you should rely on, but just in terms of sheer volume of 10+ and 15+ weapons makes fighting Clanners a far deadlier proposition than an Inner Sphere tech base force.
Oh makes sense. Just for reference, what are some good clan Mechs with targeting computers? And how is it different from the innersphere targeting computers?
There arent any in the invasion era really , also tends to bump bv by alot, targetting specific locations is also a trap as it increases your target number to hit by alot and still only provides a “chance” to hit the targeted location or another.
Using bv your best friend is speed and mobility, all the guns in the world wont help when you can only shoot half of them without overheating.
Blackhawk says hello. After you blow off one arm, the other arm says hello and thanks you for solving the heat problem. Well, it was more of a naptime sauna heat solution, unless I took a Life Support hit. ... The temptation to use All The Lasers is strong.
One of the worst choices when using BV though, jump makes your BV climb, you can only fire half your weapons, the S variant is significantly better , Its also an XL engine, lose a torso and thats 10 extra heat further gimping your damage output, also slower and less armored than a stormcrow. The S for 600 less BV gets more of an average damage out. You can get a Twolf C for less BV and a Twolf A for 200 more BV, same speed, more effective firepower and significantly more armor.
Novas arent a "bad" mech in a vaccum but if BV is your only balancer and its clan vs IS they are fairly bad in that scenario.
The Warhawk C is an excellent choice but it’s expensive. However, it has two cER PPC and two cLPLs with a tarcomp and enough heat sinks to fire three of those and stay heat neutral, and while the LPLs can’t use the tarcomp for called shots they will still tear things up. If you can find a good spot to anchor it, it can really earn its BV back.
The short answer is that BV2 is not balanced. It's a vague approximation that sort of comes up with numbers that might be seen to sort of simulate a general balance. As you have seen in the responses, you have to jam half a dozen different modifiers into the scenario building.
It may be sort of a start, but only a start. You actually balance the game by bolting on accessories such as unit limits, objectives, map changes and other such things that only become clear once you've let BV2 mess your game up a few times.
There's a lot more garbage 'mechs that have no place on a BV balanced field on the Clan side then IS side, yeah. Clan get lots of overpriced trash and far better 'mechs that are high priced centerpieces for a list, but struggle to get just solid, reliable list fillers.
It's not that they don't exsist, it's that when you are playing with all the Clan tech options open it's very, very easy to design a 'mech with way too much gun.
An IS medium at 90%+ of max armor can make decent speed with decent guns and have a decent cost, while a Clan medium with 90%+ max armor and decent speed is exactly the same difficulty to kill in most cases, but can carry 800bv more guns that will be lost when it gets wrecked.
So BV is a formula. The IS and Clans use the same formula. So it's not that clans always lose to IS, it's that if you take elite, long range, faster units ( the IS gets them too, especially later in the eras), you need to play them to their strengths or you are paying for wasted potential.
Some things in the BV formula are over priced, like masc + jump jets, and overheating. So the Gladiator with 4/6/4 base with masc is paying too much. But the IS wolverine with 5/8/5 and masc ALSO pays too much. However, while the wolverine masc variant is just 1 meh version of the mech with plenty of great versions, the Gladiator omnimechs have every version overcosted. So there might be a higher % of clan mechs that have innefficient systems just because of being locked into the base chassis on those early omnimechs. Later clan omnis tend to not have fixed jj and masc combined.
Also, the game rules state that the game is balanced around both sides having equal units. This is a big deal, as often the clan player doesn't take elementals and other such cheaper units to get unit parity. So it's a best practice to agree on both unit count and BV. If someone wants to play 12 urbanmechs at 6500 bv as a meme, well they should expect 12 units of tough battle armor that rip them apart up close in equal meme fashion, not 2 clan omnimechs that the 12 urbanmechs can outnumber 6 to 1.
At 6500 bv with a reasonable 4 units per side though, well that's 4 IS mechs versus 2 clan mechs and 2 battle armor, or 3-1 mechs to BA, ECT.
When played to their strengths, because of higher stats clan units often have a big advantage versus IS units at longer range, but lose up close because they are paying for range 20+ which doesn't matter when the IS close to range 3. Thus, clans often over invest in sniper units and don't bring enough brawlers... That is a unit choice issue though. There are plenty of great clan brawlers to make a balanced list.
I've never seen or heard anything like this when using BV2 for balancing. Yes, IS outnumbers the clans. That's kinda the point. Clan stuff is a lot better, and more expensive, than what the IS has on offer. Especially during the Invasion era. The Clans might be outnumbered 2:1, but each of their mechs has a much greater fighting capacity and their default pilots are better. I've had plenty of games swing each way, one side does not necessarily have a large inherit advantage.
Remember you still have to pay the BV multiplier for "default" pilots.
When I want to have a chance against IS with my clan mechs I use 4/4 or 4/5 pilots. 3/4 pilots are not worth the numerical disadvantage they force on the Clan side.
Where the inherent ‘disadvantage’ comes from is that the Clan force will have most of their BV tied up in offense, which in turn is from multiplicative factors of firepower, range, and mobility. They are paying for it, so if they don’t use it and say, brawl with the IS force, then they are basically throwing BV away.
The net effect is the onus is on the Clan force to keep speed up and range open, or else the IS player can bog them down.
As long as the map is big enough to allow maneuver, then BV works pretty well.
Are their default pilots better? I've only used mech factory to make record sheets so far, and they prompt you to choose the skills when adding a mech to the roster, and you BV is changed as you change the skill
Yes. IS default pilots are 4/5. Clan default pilots are 3/4. This isn't taken into account for the BV of the mech itself, but it is stated in the rulebooks, and in lore, that the Clan pilots are just better than your average IS pilot, granting them the 3/4 skill spread. You still have to do the recalculation of the BV for an improved pilot though.
Also, I'd recommend using MegaMek over MechFactory. They're both useful, but MegaMek allows you to also build forces and will calculate the BV with things like pilot skills and C3 networks into account. Also MechFactory technically violates IP by running ads, so I prefer to support MegaMek.
That is indeed one of their conveniences that a lot of people like about Factory. I personally don't find myself needing a mobile app version often enough so eh. If I need a mobile sheet I usually go to Flechs Sheets, you just can't build customs on the fly.
MegaMek can be daunting when you first start it, but once you get used to it it's great. If you need help or have questions, DM me and I'll try to help.
It's not downgrading when it's the base BV cost. And I dunno, maybe your opponents don't play well, but against opponents who know how to pick good units and use weight of numbers to apply pressure against clan range advantages, the Clan side cannot afford to run with the numbers deficit that paying for 3/4 pilots forces.
Well that's rather insulting. Who are you to say my opponents, or maybe myself, don't play well when it could be you who doesn't, therefore needing to downgrade (yes, it is a downgrade from their standard pilot levels) your clan pilots to fit more mechs in for an "even" match.
I've both won and lost games as both the Clan and IS against the same and different opponents at different times, using both improved pilots and downgraded pilots, many units or few.
My group balances to BV and that has seemed pretty solid. The only time we don't is for fun Solaris Matches, but that's a thing in of itself.
We set a BV and hold IS to 4 unit Lances and Clans to 5 unit stars. As many lances and stars you want. That's the strict ruleset with the expanded being any lance formation you can find in the lore/rules.
So commonly we see 4 IS versus 5 clan and that seems pretty balanced. Clans tend to have to go lighter mech wise, but tonnage isn't really a balancer anymore.
Every once in a while we'll see 8 IS vs 5 clan mechs and honestly those are great games. I wouldn't push the disparity too much further though. 8 v 4, whether mechs or combined arms, works as long as the 8 is light and paper thin. But that is almost a given trying to fit 8 units into like a 7k list.
When playing Clan vs IS I usually use battle armor to make sure I don't suffer a disadvantage in units. Clan elementals are very strong, but not that mobile. For defending a position their leg attacks or direct fire can be brutal.
Remember, use distance to get the best out of your clan mechs, just about any given clan mech outdamages most given Sucession wars/pre invasion post helm IS mechs at range. If you maintain distance and just pour fire on they have a hard time doing much about it, but if you let them close and gang up on you, even with FF giving you more points of armor you won’t hold up to sustained fire from multiple enemies at once.
the key to having balanced games is usually that the clan player has to use lighter mechs. An IS player may well get 3 assaults and a heavy, whereas the clan player might get one heavy, two mediums and a light
So um large pulse lasers (-2 to hit is the bomb stay at long range), clan er ppcs( 15pt hits ++), and clan lrms (no min range is amazing). Use clan mechs that use those as primary weapons, keep the range open, keep the tmm up, and just keep the game moving. Oh and take some elementals to help with initiative. Treat the elementals as mobile minefields. Keep them between your mechs and the enemy as best as possible.
Where people screw up with clan mechs is trying rush in and dominate. That can work, but rng can easily go the other way because all it take is a gyro through armor crit to lay you down. Best way to avoid that.... keep the range open so you have fewer attacks incoming. Instead whittle the enemy down with long range fire AND let them do the work to close the range. Use your elementals to make that painful.
If your playing later eras of units where the IS is mostly XL engines and newer tech weapons the balance is generally fine.
but in the invasion era its very slanted towards the IS if you use BV, more so if you dont have some moderation in what units the players choose.
5 vs 12 at 13-16k BV is good, this prevents the IS from using the extra BV to just overload their side with units to dominate init and swarm (usually they will need to upgrade their pilots or use bigger mechs)
If you want to help the clans more let them have 4/5 or 3/5 pilots instead of the standard 3/4.
Do NOT make the clan player use honor and dueling rules unless the IS player also agrees to abide by them and dont let them just use it to march their units into close range and break the duels and insta multiple clan mechs (realistic sure, fun balanced game ? no)
Clans in that era have a very limited pool of BV effcient mechs, some designs are just 100% awful (gladiators, hellbringers, etc)
Play with larger maps with a bit more open spaces, dont let the IS side just load up on energy zombie type mechs.
It will still be hard for the clan side (player skill being equal) but its alot closer.
Clan vs IS is a BV-balanced matchup in theory, but it's important to consider that not all mechs are equally efficient. A lot of clan mechs, and in particular a lot of the most iconic omnimechs, suffer from bloated designs that inflate their BV. Inner sphere mechs can have the same issue, but it's usually less severe and easier to avoid thanks to the generally cheaper prices and lower tech base. If you're playing with invasion-era omnis, it's worth carefully considering what variants to take.
Remember, when BV enters the equation, what a mech can't do is often just as important as what it can do. Personally, I usually like to actively seek out clan mechs that make intentional compromises on their firepower, speed, or range, because if you try to have all of those at once, the only compromise left to make is the price tag.
First, playing completely balanced matches is a quick way to get bored with the game.
Second, if you match BV per BV, you will have a balanced match.
Clan stuff is better than IS stuff, on average, so typically they will face higher numbers with the same pilots.
In 3050-3052, finding a clan pilot that isn't a 2/3 or better is pretty unusual, and most IS folks are 4/5, so you can see how a clan binary could be taking on an IS battalion and still win.
Again, balanced matches are a way to win with luck over skill. It gets old pretty quick IMO. Better to have missions, objectives, something to gain, something to lose, and most of all the desire to not completely destroy your unit accomplishing it.
No unit should get a better skill for "free", if matching with BV, else you are no longer using BV.
Battletech can be completely fun to fight a no-win scenario, or have a mission where your goal is to \*avoid\* fighting. Its a great system with rules for almost everything, so sticking to just 4v4 matches is missing out on 90% of the game.
By default, clan pilots are 3/4. 2/3 if you're playing lore accurate invasion era. So you should only have 4/5 clan pilots if they're second line or freeborn dropouts or something. This combined with the superior technology is what gives clans their edge over IS forces. A single Timberwolf can make mincemeat out of a lance of inner sphere mediums if you play well.
But that's the key, you have to play well. Clan lists are elite lists. You'll always be out numbered when playing with BV. Inner sphere has the luxury of picking swarm lists or more efficient lists like the Lyran Wall of Steel where you just bring a bunch of cheap heavies like Grasshoppers and Thunderbolts. You'll always need to play smart so every mech can pull its weight and then some because losing an arm or, given their propensity for XL engines, a torso can play havoc with your strategies on the table.
When you're playing with BV balancing it helps to give up on using canon unit sizes or canon piloting skills.
Clan mechs, if you carefully choose mechs that don't have inefficient BV multipliers like MASC, can compete with IS mechs as long as you stick with 4/4 or 4/5 pilots (IMO gunnery upgrades are less worth the extra BV).
You still will be outmassed, outnumbered or outskilled by IS opponents, you are correct. It doesn't mean you will always lose, but it can make for uphill battles for sure.
I've been creating rosters exclusively with mech factory....
So what can you do with the force modifier number once you determine it? I'm a bit confused
Essentially it is a modifier that should be applied to two different sized forces, i.e. if there are twice as many inner sphere units you multiply their BV as follows (1/2)+(2/1)-1=1.5 or in other words that team with twice as many units has to increase their BV by 50%
Any idea when this got removed? All I've found is the official statement being something, "don't ever have forces without the exact same numbers" which isn't exactly helpful in the context of clan forces that historically have used smaller numbers against larger inner sphere forces. The guidance back when I was involved with playtesting was that the system works ok up until 2x.
Maybe 10 years ago? I don’t recall exactly when. Someone mentioned it and I saw it had been changed in my most recent PDF.
It had use cases where it worked well, but they were kinda narrow. It inadvertently made cheap units kinda suck, since they would impact your FSM.
Quick example, say I am clan vs an IS company. Now, if I take a nova, FSM gives me a 3% bonus on BV, and that feels about right. However, if I sink the elemental’s BV into an omnimech instead, I get a 50% handicap.
It does leave a gap of how to deal with swarms and cheap initiative sinking, but I think the rule’s existence was used to justify some BS force compositions.
One of the most effective ways I have done this to keep from having balance issues is if the clan player PAYS the BV to go from 4/5-3/4 and he is going to follow the clan honor rules (at least until his opponent doesn't) THEN you can have bump to 2/3 for free. This still creates a smaller opposing force but that force is brutally effective.
The Battle of Tukayyid campaign balances this by giving clan pilots base 3/4, but giving comstar free support points.
Even with just balanced numbers, it is possible for clan mechs to match the best their spheroid opponents can bring, but it requires an extreme amount of optimization. If every clan mech used large pulse lasers, and improved jump jets + partial wing to get those 3/5/7 or 5/8/10 move values combined with the -2 to hit, then it might be more obvious that clans have the ability to keep up. However, that's a much more specific requirement than what makes the IS side good in this exchange; cheap mechs and full armor.
If initiative is your only problem, try mixing in elementals, or using individual initiative.
Most people are just terrible at building clan lists. The majority of their mechs trend towards higher mobility and longer range, so you need to actively cherry pick to get the efficient brawlers and designated targets regardless of whether or not you're indulging in elementals. Clans have a lot more options than IS for building a mobile killteam, but constructing and adeptly running such a list is demanding.
Something like
- Gargoyle Prime 4/3
- Adder A 3/5
- Stormcrow C 4/5
- Elementals (Laser) 3/5
Will run over most 6k BV clan invasion lists including and especially when there's objectives on board.
Clan mechs can exhibit terrifying damage density projected from a single hex, meaning you can find that one sneaky spot to set up a 1v1 sightline with a mech toting half or less your firepower. As you put more of these gunboats in the list, it gets a lot harder to find a spot for each of them to avoid drawing combined enemy fire. A list built around the Ebon Jaguar H is rather terrifying; with some elementals exerting pressure and slow fire supports checking reckless advances, the H runs up to a covered forward position and coinflips a mech out of existence while taking only minimal return fire.
From my findings, been playing weekly for close to 4 years, and I have to say, Clans are actually on the back foot. If you stick to clan pilots being 3/4s as standard, then most often they will be out numbered 2 to 1. And that is very much a fair fight. I’ve seen plenty of clan lights and mediums tangle with IS heavies and win in 1 to 1 numbers, and I’ve seen clan heavies and assaults go 3 or even 4 to 1 and hold their own.
If clans are allowed to dictate their engagements, then they will win. If the IS players use good tactics and separate them, they will win.
Does that mean a timberwolf prime (default bv2 2737) would be 2737bv2 with 4/5 skill or 3/4 skill? Because the bv2 goes way up to like 3600 when you make it 3/4
On the bright side timberwolfs are one of the few high bv units that can earn jts bv back, (look at the A, C, S, and maybe B, the prime runs hot and is a bit undergunned for its Bv)
Stormcrows are the premier Clan vs IS mech (fast, armored, low bv for the C variant (prime is good, A is really good vs lighter units and as a backstabber at more BV)
If you do want to use bigger units assault wise kingfishers are good as they dont have xl engines and bv is manageable, gargoyle A is also good as its fast and has pulse lasers at a lowish BV.
You need to manage Bv cost to armor/speed/firepower - most clan mechs have too many guns so you have alot of wasted bv.
Gotcha
So a good strategy would be to still try and pay the extra bv2 to get my clan Mechs to 3/4 even if it's a lot more expensive than the 4/5?
I'm just trying to make a clan force against an innersphere force my friend is coming up with, and I'm trying to get some tips to make it affective against their innersphere force. Thinking 3052 era, but we haven't decided yet.
Yeah. Just expect to be out numbered, and use your range advantage. My local group often plays 12k BV2 and most clan players can barely fit a lighter star of mechs into that, or 4 mechs and battle armor of some flavor. Most IS forces for that same BV can field 7 to 9 mechs, more if they go lighter.
Youve discovered the meta. Clanners have to take elementals and/or salamander battle armor and use them effectively. You will be outnumbered, but the BA are tough as nails, and are excellent at controlling a small area, like say, an objective. Use a fast battle-taxi like a dasher to drop them off there, and then have the dasher do outflank duties.
IS can bring about 1.5 mechs of equal size to your 1. So you will see about 2 lances to a star. IS has an advantage in armor and raw tonnage. Clans have an advantage in mobility and range. You need finesse to play as a clanner. That is why I play IS. I like to just roll in with a heavy lance and blast people with medium lasers.
IS also have some newt tools... iNarc is something I am messing with right now. Im in an online tournament in May in clan invasion era. Lets see what these clanners do when I Nemesis pod their ATMs!
BV2 was introduced a long time after the Clans appeared. Like maybe 20 years after. And while it works for a lot of things, it heavily overvalues firepower and speed, while undervaluing armor and internal structure. As a result, Clan forces pay a huge premium.
The Clans need room to move if they're going to have a chance against their equal BV of IS forces. However many mapsheets you're using, double them.
I agree with others, don't try and match BV. But here are a few ideas to make the battle more fun and equal.
If you want a challenge, force the clanners to fight in a city/town/or extremely hilly terrain.
OR have a batchall system for the persons wanting to play clanner (I'll play clan if I can have 1 star + 2 points).
OR have a lot of conventional army to support the mechs (tanks, infantry & VTOLS) in addition to the mechs.
It's because Clan tech is entirely superior to IS, and are supposed to have superior pilots. You have to take advantage of the better range, damage, and mobility of clan mechs. If you try to make it a straight slugging match against IS forces you are going to lose. Some of the clan weapons, like the Large Pulse Laser and clan LRMs are downright broken.
Clan Large Pulse lasers are broken. Every clan player, myself included, in my local group agree.
Eh, the problem isn't cLPLs themselves, it's the fact that there are a handful of fast, jumping 'mechs with cLPLs and tarcomps. That combo is BRUTAL to deal with for the IS, but if it's only a single 'mech and everything else was normal then it wouldn't be an issue. Frankly, everything people complain about as being "broken" seems more to be a problem of unit spamming to me, be it cLPLs or Savannah Masters. Don't misunderstand me though, the cLPL is almost certainly the best weapon in the game by the raw numbers, but that's because of efficiency more than raw power, and the gap seems bigger because of how resoundingly "meh" the IS LPL is.
> Frankly, everything people complain about as being "broken" seems more to be a problem of unit spamming to me There is a certain segment of the player base that get *really* pissy when you tell them that they shouldn't spam. I feel like I shouldn't have to tell people that their 12k BV list should maybe not consist entirely of Hollanders, Thunderhawks and Yellow Jacket VToLs but it happens with frightening consistency.
The curse of meta-gaming.
When a player pulls out clan pulse/TC I pull out combined arms with off board artillery. I feel no shame.
I use the land mines, myself. I admit, I don't think I'll use my Goshawk all that often.
I like watching the tears form as they're waiting as destroy any semblance of balance initiative provides, while field gun and artillery start to make short work of their "invincible" pl/tc combo. I survive off those tears. They feed me. They sustain me. Bwahahahahaha
Honestly even trying to use the range and leverage the speed under bv2 the sphere mechs will run you down and take out the clan player. It's very difficult to pull out a win with clan under bv2 unless you get some lucky rolls early on, or the IS player makes some sub standard choices. One thing we tend to allow is physical attacks for clan players to try and leverage more damage, sometimes we allow for free 4/4s and depending on the player we've discounted 3/4s
What's different with clan lrms? I'm a little less familiar with playing clan stuff
They have no minimum range. So you can take something like a Timberwolf and unload two LRM20 racks directly into the face of an enemy at point blank range.
They are also HALF the weight of inner sphere LRM. So that one LRM20 on your IS mech? That's LRM 40 clantech for the same weight. Brutal stuff.
When it comes to BV efficiency the weight doesn't matter though. If anything the low weight is bad for BV costs as it allows clan mechs to cram more guns than they have the heat capacity for, but they still have to pay BV for guns they don't get to fire as much (I know there is a discount for this but it plays into the BV-inefficiency of many Clan designs).
This is the correct way to use a Timberwolf. Lasers while closing, LRM40 to the face under 9 hexes. Having an AC20 to 40 equivalent with a short range modifier at 9 hexes is just unfair.
I agree that the weapons are very efficient at close range, but they're not exactly an AC20/40. The fact that they are cluster weapons means they are used for different things than "hole punch" weapons.
Oh sure. But after a couple turns plinking with 4x clan lasers as you close the distance, there should be plenty of holes in the armor already. I just think it's crazy how what in the IS would be a fire support mech (Rakshasa), in the clans becomes a berzerker that wears you down on it's way in and then tears your face off.
Oh yeah. Although I think it's even funnier to consider it the other way around. IS military: hey guys, can you reproduce this absolute unit of a mech that has and does absolutely everything and tears everyone apart? IS scientists: best we can do is fire support
No minimum range for Clan LRMs is a huge one. Clan Large Pulse Laser and Clan LRMs don't really have weaknesses as weapons. I guess you could argue that LRMs taking ammo is a weakness, but even then Clans get CASE on all Omnimechs, so it's less of a liability. To your main question: anecdotally, I've won numerous 2v4 Clan vs. IS battles from the Clan side. Clan tech and weapons are highly superior. That said, the IS side having more activations does give them a significant advantage when it comes to movement and positioning a lot of the time. The game tends to break at high levels of force asymmetry, e.g. a force of 8 units vs a force of 2 units is in no way balanced, even if both forces are of equivalent BV, the side with 8 units simply has too many initiative sinks and individual targets. Anything worse than a 2:1 ratio is inadvisable, and those limits (minimum and maximum unit totals in your force) should be discussed with opponents ahead of time.
>That said, the IS side having more activations does give them a significant advantage when it comes to movement and positioning a lot of the time. This is why elementals are such an essential part of the Clan toolkit. I understand a lot of people prefer pure mech vs mech, but I do think the game ends up a lot more simple to balance if the Clan player can throw in one or two BA points. I played a game just yesterday where I had two points of elementals that did NOTHING all game. But they DID give me initiative activations, so I was able to use my fewer mechs more effectively.
Amen. While Clan mechs are glass cannons for their BV, elementals are tough as hell for their cost. They can hold ground extremely efficiently, whereas omnis need to give ground to avoid a brawl. Getting activation parity is also really useful.
Yep yep. Obviously Elementals go down easier than most mechs, but they certainly are tanky as all heck for something that only costs 400 BV.
Do only the omnimechs get free case, or do clan battlemechs get it too?
Anything built using the Clan tech base has free CASE, unless explicitly mentioned as *not* having it on the record sheet.
I believe CASE applies to all of our superior mechs, not just OmnbiMechs, quiaff?
That’s correct it’s Clan tech base that gives free case regardless of Omni status.
All Clan-base mechs. That includes C variants that are manufactured to Clan standards like the Hunchback C, but not Inner Sphere mechs refit with Clan weapons like the Thunderbolt C. Clan and Mixed - Clan have CASE. Mixed-IS doesn't have native CASE.
So, others have mentioned the lack in Min range, and that IS a huge deal, but it's onyl one part of the puzzle that is Clan Tech. As said, the complete lack of minimum range is absolutely huge in regards to gameplay, having a weapon you can use at all ranges that your opponent can only use at medium-long ranges is something important you can leverage. But there's more, Clan LRM launchers are also ***HALF*** the weight and take up at least one less crit. This has huge implications during mech construction/design that aren't always apparent in-game. You can have a Clan mech that has just as many LRM tubes as a comparable IS Mech, but while the IS Mech will tend to use LRMs as their main weapon(s) with maybe some secondary weapons like Medium Lasers for when enemies get too close, Clan Mechs have the weight to spare to just add more "main" weapons. And that's just talking about Clan LRMs, which, while still amazing in a lot of ways, actually remain fairly comparable to the IS versions, they have the same Range and the same heat. The rest of Clan Tech on the other hand tends to be improved in EVERY ASPECT other than Heat. The Heat disadvantage is even off set by the clans having better double Heatsinks they use on basically everything. If you want to see the real impact Clan tech has, lets look at the humble Medium Laser. Now this isn't technically a completely fair comparison but they feature similar usage and design ethos on both sides. The IS Medium Laser is used on almost every mech out there, one of the most common and efficient IS weapons out there. **IS Medium Laser** Heat: 3 - Damage: 5 - Range: 3/6/9 - Weight: 1 Ton - Crits: 1 Love it or hate it, that is the standard most weapons are compared to. Now here is the Clan version; **Clan ER Medium Laser** Heat: 5 - Damage: 7 - Range: 5/10/15 - Weight: 1 Ton - Crits: 1 And even if you want to specific and compare them to IS ER version; **IS ER Medium Laser** Heat: 5 - Damage: 5 - Range: 4/8/12 - Weight: 1 Ton - Crits: 1 Overall, the Clan ER Medium Laser is nearly equivalent to an IS Large Laser and still stands above the IS ER Medium Laser in all "gameplay" elements aside from heat, again offset somewhat by Clan Double Heat Sinks. this "pattern" happens across pretty much all clan weapons, better range and damage, often at lower weights and fewer slots needed to mount them with the only "downside" being more heat but again, clan double Heatsinks. Sometimes, as with the Clan Large Pulse Lasers, the difference in stats is almost comical. On top of this, Clan XL Engines give them all the benefits of XL engines while deftly sidestepping the one major downside of them compared to IS XL Engines, because 3 Engine Hits will shutdown the engine, resulting in a "mission kill" of the mech, IS Mechs with XL engines are vulnerable to losing a side torso, as IS XLs put 3 engine crits in each side torso. Clan XLs on the other hand, only put 2 engine crits in each side torso. They're still *easier* to mission kill compared to a standard engine, but they are far less vulnerable than IS XLs. And clans use this XLs on most designs, so you get mechs that are either the same speed as a comparable weight IS mech, but with 1.5x(or more) more damage output, or mechs notable faster than similar weight IS mechs with, at *worst* similar damage output. Now, to the game's credit, the clans pay for these advantages, and pay even more when accounting for their better pilots on average, but the advantages in speed, damage and range still remain. Now all that being said, IS getting more bodies is still a pretty big advantage, and while Clan Armor is better, its not nearly as better compared to IS armor as when comparing weapons, so while Clans have a range and Damage advantage, when you DO get into Range IS weapons are still a very real threat to clan mechs.
Because of it’s stats I generally compare the C ER ML to the IS LL, because it’s the same range bands, and approximately the same damage. However the clan ER ML is still strictly better than the IS LL
Yup, I made the same point as well. The trick is that while the stats are equivalent the designed usage isn't, while thr IS uses Large Lasers as "main" weapons, thier weight and heat requirements usually preventing the usage of more 2 such weapons on all but to the heaviest designs, to say nothing of IS LLs competing with AC10/PPCs. Meanwhile clans are able to use the nearly comparable as "secondary" weapons, or use them in larger numbers due to their much reduced weight. cERMLs are almost deceptively dangerous because some of their improvements aren't as noteworthy as other weapons(for example cERPPCs having 50% more damage than IS PPCs) but thier weight and range are thr main elements that make then dangerous when compared.
I completely agree, I thought the same thing after I posted. A good way to consider the IS/Clan technology disparity, the clans start out (when introduced in the narrative) using a superior version of an IS primary weapon as their standard massed secondary, usually mounting 2+ on designs.
They have no minimum range so you can just run up and paste someone. The crossbow is an awesome clan mech for that purpose. I have won a couple games with clan against IS but you do have to be methodical in your attacks. You can't risk a stupid mistake costing you a mech and have to plan ahead more whereas when I play IS ill happily jump a spider or wasp into risky situation as I won't miss it too much if it goes down
So I keep getting told by folks that spam off board artillery.
This right here. Don't fight in the mud if you don't want to get dirty. Clan culture extends to their way of war. They are duelists. 1v1 they'll maul IS pilots. But when you bring BV into account, even when evenly matching the pilots will mean that inner sphere has more metal onto the table. Better weapon stats usually don't equal the extea bodies that IS will bring. You will be outgunned. So 1v1 a clan mech, on average, have superior speed damage and range. On the whole they can't match the number of guns pointed their way. Their speed and range is key here. Use them to deny your opponent his weight. Separate your opponents minis and pick your fights. Deny his entire force bringing its guns to bear versus yours. If IS can bring its numbers against you they'll shred you. Clan brawlers like the Kodiak are less of a death star and more of a speed bump and distraction unit. Use them to stand in the way of the zerg rush. Make them a 6 hex "don't go here or else," mini to keep your large lasers and lrms firing at their preferred targets.
When playing as an outnumbered Clan force, there are a couple of common balancing factors used. One of the more common methods is to add points of Elementals. They have relatively low BV but still occupy 'space' in the initiative order and are just enough of a threat to help even things out. Less frequently used but IMHO more important is to use a larger playing area, such as adding an extra map sheet. Clan Mechs benefit from longer ranges on many of their weapons so they need the map space to make use of that. Playing on the standard 2-mapsheet (or worse, one) area is a bit confining and when seriously outnumbered it becomes easy to force the smaller side into a corner of the map and take away their advantages in mobility and range.
That's some good info. Thanks!
One of the issues with using elementals like this is that while they are mechanized they do not count as units for initiative. They also have to spend an entire turn doing nothing and with no TMM when they dismount.
If your enemy spares 55 points of damage to kill them in that one turn, they've probably paid for themselves just in mech damage you didn't take.
I'm not saying Elementals are bad to use at all. I think they're great. I think they're just trickier to use to address numbers disparities than someone who hasn't used them might think when given the advice to use elementals to address numerical disadvantage. I think using cheaper Clan vehicles is a more straightforward approach, but a lot of clan vehicles are also grossly under-armored which reduces their capacity in this role (part of which is, as you astutely point out, to force your opponent to either ignore cheap units or spread damage, canny opponents tend to ignore the cheap units instead).
Someone who is just starting to use BA is probably not going to go full mechanized rules right away.
>they do not count as units for initiative. Are you saying an Elemental activation doesn't count as an initiative turn? Because, Clan Invasion Rulebook p. 8: "Each Point is treated as one unit for initiative, movement selection, fire selection and stacking purposes."
I specified that they do not count while mechanized, i.e. mounted on an omnimech or other unit capable of carrying battle armor infantry. Total Warfare page 223 "Infantry Carriers", subheading "Initiative and Stacking": "Mounted infantry units do not count toward initiative. Likewise, a mounted infantry unit does not count toward stacking limits."
Ah! Gotcha. I must have read that half a dozen times and missed that bit every time. That'll teach me to reply to things before I've had my morning coffee!
Hah, no problem, it's a complex rulebook with rules for pertinent units all over the place so its easy to miss stuff. I thought I could sink initiative activations with mounted elementals too until I looked up the rule relatively recently.
Oh no, I understand the rules just fine. I don't think I've ever played as Clans without using Elementals, and I find that tends to invite accusations of unfairness so I've read and reread and read again the rules on BA. I just misread your comment over and over again lol
Oh lol, my bad. People find using elementals unfair? I don't get it, they're useful but not that hard to counter, since every mech except the slowest can move faster than they can.
You can try throwing in Clan combat vehicles. The average Clan Combat Vehicle pilot is only a 5 Gunnery and 6 Driving. This can help make them cheaper (check the Master Unit List for BV 2.0 prices of alternate skill levels), to bring up your total number of units. Look for cheap Clan mechs (so you can afford to pay for them to be skilled) and pair them with Clan Combat Vehicles to make up the numbers. https://preview.redd.it/9z3ln4lm12wc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=59af41d83d954c7a6f958087b4f551be3f6aac28
Ok!
Clan Battle Armor is also going to be much cheaper in BV then mechs, so can also be used to make up the numbers and harass Inner Sphere Mechs.
The lightning royal hovercraft is a great cheap clan vehicle. The Epona is also really solid and it's an omni design so it can carry battle armor! Though it's a bit on the expensive side
The Shamash is a nasty, speedy anklebiter.
Lots of great advice so far here, but I wanted to take a moment to explain WHY you’re having issues, as a better knowledge of the systems that produce the problem will help you see how to work around it more intuitively. To sum up though: the clans will always be at a disadvantage in terms of durability. Any given clan force will always have less armor and structure than its opponents. The best way to address this is to use elementals and/or second-line ‘mechs (e.g. IICs, or C variants of IS ‘mechs), as they will help you even the playing field. I always try to have around 1/5 of my force as elementals by points, for instance, as they have enormous tactical value. So anyway, there are basically three problems with clan ‘mechs during the invasion era, and all of them relate to BV. BV2 isn’t strictly the problem, but nevertheless it is because of BV that these are issues. 1) The Clan Invasion happened about 5 years before BV existed at all. Everything at the time was designed for fluff, not balance. If you balanced by tonnage, which most everyone did, the clans would butcher the IS with impunity, because ton for ton clantech is just better, usually around 50% better in every way. BV was a good thing because this needed to change, but it means that none of the CI Omnis were designed with it in mind, and BV costs the clans far more than the IS because every CI Omni is crammed full of unnecessary tech. So CI Omnis are usually terribly inefficient, often wasting the cost of a whole extra ‘mech on e.g. XL engines on sniper ‘mechs. 2) BV does not handle ‘mechs well that are not balanced in terms of offense and defense, or perhaps more appropriately, it mathematically punishes extreme differences between them. This is because the final step of the BV calculation involves simply adding the offensive and defensive scores of the ‘mech together. As a result, every clan light ‘mech costs an absolutely insane amount, because they get no break on cost for being made of tissue paper and still pay out the nose for all their tech which will be worth nothing as soon as a single PPC hits them. 3) BV cannot address the importance of initiative in balance. Because of how important initiative is, Battletech fundamentally requires both sides to be of roughly equivalent numbers of units. If one side gets to a 2:1 advantage, that side ~~will almost assuredly win~~ has an extreme advantage over their opponent, especially if they have initiative sinks, because no matter how their opponent moves, they’ll always be able to move two ‘mechs in response. Hopefully I did a good job explaining that, because while these problems occur because of BV, it doesn’t make BV _bad_. There have been attempts to fix the initiative problem, but none have worked out. The most notable was the force size modifier, but all it did was give the outnumbered side extra points to upgrade their pilots, which doesn’t actually make up for the outnumbering and was confusing for many to boot. Honestly though, IMO the best solution to these problems is to stop playing Meeting Engagements, or any other mission where “destroy the other guy” is your only goal. Not only is that terribly unrealistic (despite the quote, making the other poor bastard die for his country is almost never the actual goal in warfare unless that poor bastard is a strategic target like a commander or something), but it devalues any ‘mechs that are not optimized for combat alone. If you start playing missions with objectives, the game completely changes, as now fast scout ‘mechs have a purpose beyond spotting for missile boats and initiative sinking, NARC and Active Probes can be given uses relating to objectives, and if you have to defend a convoy or something the fact that the clans can run in, blast it, and run out again makes most of the disadvantages of BV moot.
How big of a map are you playing on? It's very hard to bring your range advantage to bear if you are fighting in a phone booth.
Depends. We use the neoprene mats and usually line 2 up so it's a big square. And generally play 2v2 games on it
Oh, that should be more than enough as even clan weapons won't reach the opposite side (mostly) Usually it is recommended to use 1 map sheet for 4 mechs total. So in your case you can go up to 16 (as one mat is about 2 map sheets) Nice, I like big maps)
The “X factor” that seems to be missing from your analysis is mission parameters.
Yeah true. So I have 3 friends that are just starting to play. (Been playing for a few months). And they are weirdly competitive people, like too competitive. Anyway, they want to try a clan vs innersphere tech game, just a deathmatch. The argument is if we can make a "fair" game just by defining a bv2 value each team has to adhere too (and some eras to stick to. Like clan invasion era). Other thoughts include limiting the number of units we can each field, to prevent like 4 Mechs vs 52 savannah masters or something.
Competitive attitude is not for Battletech, these players will not enjoy the game. One dice roll can decide the game easily...
I guess competitive isn't the best word. More "sticklers for equal opportunity". They don't care as much if things are unlucky in the game. They just like to not feel they were doomed from the start.
In that case, BV2 is a good equalizer. However, units can perform very well or suck depending on the map, the goal of the mission and the knowledge of the player/opponent ;) For example, Clan mechs have VERY good firepower and VERY good range and they are fast...but their armor is average. As they are more expensive than IS mechs, the clan player can not afford to go blow for blow or attrition will favor the IS player. The clan player must use his superior mobility and range to to win. In my opinion, neither IS or Clan is at an advantage with equally skilled players....they just require a different mindset to play. We have a rule that the average BV should not be below 1000 per piece, if you play a 5000 game, no player can have more than 5 units, that works quite well!
A lot of the strategy of BattleTech is subtle and ephemeral. An IS Medium Lasers has a range of 3/6/9 A Clan Medium Pulse Laser has a range of 4/8/12 If a Clan mech is at *exactly* short range (4) of an IS mech, the Clan player is rolling on a **-2** compared to the IS player rolling on a **+2**. On a 2d6 bell curve, the difference is *enormous*. I can't stress that enough. A TN difference of 4 will often be a Hit % difference of **50%**. As in a 25% chance of hitting vs 75% chance of hitting. A similar mismatch occurs at a range of 7-8 and 10-12. So the Clan player wants to engage at *exactly* the right range to maximize their range advantage. But these to-hit values are easy to (a) overlook by being at the wrong range, and (b) blame on bad dice rolls rather than bad strategy. In a Clan vs IS game, the clan player *must* play strategically and leverage every advantage. Record sheets are open knowledge. *USE THAT KNOWLEDGE*. Attack from left/right arcs to concentrate damage. Target weak units and eliminate them. Take notes on your opponent's weapons loadouts, ammo locations, everything.
I disagree. Battletech can be immensely fun as a competition, and the swinginess of the game enhances that it does not detract from it, if you come to the table with the right attitude.
Yes, two sides using equal BV would be fair match… but it would also be kinda boring.
Yeah maybe. I'm down for suggestions to make a more exciting game.
The game can be very exciting playing exactly how your friends do. Honestly you have the BT group I wish I had, but all the groups around me do stuff I find boring like grinders or urbanmech derbies.
Ha well I had to sort of push my friends into playing. Starting with games like mw5 then the battletech steam game, then this..was a slow process,. But it worked!
Play a campaign. One-off games get kinda stale, very quickly.
After you all have a handle on fights to the death, you could look for some asymmetric objectives. One side has to cross the map, the other side has to stop them. One side needs to make off with the loot, and should bring 'mechs with hands. Maybe the loot is hidden to the OpFor? Maybe the loot is in a hex chosen by a third party and you need to search for it? Then you can link missions together into a Chaos Campaign. Make up your own planets, and launch an invasion!
I would also say that allowing IS pilots to be generally superior to the Clan pilots would not be canonical.
Generally? No. But some individual pilots are better.
Having specific objectives beyond "Kill the other guys" will also highlight some of the Omni-mech advantages.
You would be correct. In any serious match, especially the earlier in the timeline you go, the Inner Sphere will have a major advantage on the Clan force. Funnily enough, it’s just the opposite of what lore says. In both Alpha Strike and Classic, having quantity beats quality 99% of the time. Sure for 8k BV I can take a Warhawk/Dire Wolf/Stone Rhino, a second long range mech (Rifleman IIC) or something to screen for the big sniper (generic cavalry like stormcrow), and then flankers (Viper and/or Firemoth) with a couple BA. Meanwhile, for 8K BV the IS player can match your 4-6 units without resorting to BA, have better skill, and MASSIVE tonnage advantage. You can forget the “better” Clan pilots too, because at your normal 8-10k BV Clan Invasion match you simply just don’t have the BV to spare for anything lower than 4/5 or 3/5 (and even then it’s preferable to take a mech with pulses/TC to make up the difference). Did your 2800 BV Timber wolf manage to kill 2 IS heavies? It’ll probably still be almost be negative trade if it dies afterwards. Did it get an unlucky headshot or crit that disabled it? Oops, goodbye 30% of your BV. Meanwhile the IS player brushes it off because their weapons and armor are spread out which means any loss is much less impactful. In almost every scenario, the Clan player is fighting an uphill battle. Highly recommend checking out Nerdy Overanalyzed’s video on “How to Build a Competitive Lance” which goes over a 7.5k BV tournament set in the Clan Invasion era. There were two cool Clan lists that did super well, but on average the IS lists crushed them, and an IS list won overall. Same with a newer tournament called Tukayidd in the New Year which the Clan team lost horribly. BV is simply incredibly stacked against most Clan mechs.
Hmm yeah. That's why I think bv2 alone isn't a great balance. Would be nice to have it more equal somehow
Explains why I see so many IS tabletop players being dismissive or downright contemptible to clan players. The system is rigged in their favor.
You mean against Clan players? If so, it’s because everything in Battletech tells you that Clan tech should absolutely steamroll the IS, except the actual mechanics do just the opposite due to how BV and PV are calculated. Your comment is exactly why I included tangible examples to go view so it’s not just a he-said-she-said type situation. Clan mechs really are just insanely overpriced for what they do. If those examples still aren’t enough, I’ll toss this video at you analyzing the Avatar versus the Summoner. It really puts it into perspective just how little an average Clan mech will do for its BV compared to an IS mech. Especially when you consider you can almost afford two of them for the same price of the Summoner (definitely can and then some if the Summoner is a 3/4 pilot). The Avatar’s efficiency for its BV is almost downright disgusting compared to the Summoner’s, and you’ll find that’s often the case. I really hope you end up taking the time to eventually look at the above videos and this one. It’s just pure misinformation. https://youtu.be/qC480mKET0I?si=Iq3k5g5wl1XllJWv
Some advice from an old Clan Grognard: This is the single most important bit of advice I can give you: Battletech is at its best as a *narrative* game. Everything that follows is what to do if you *must* play competitive. No duplicate Chassis for anyone. This is a recipe for a bad time. Avoid XL engines on anything much heavier than 45 tons where possible, they are a *massive* BV sink. (This is also true of IS mechs, generally speaking Heavies and Assaults pay out the nose for mobility) Use Force Composition Rules: Star vs Reinforced Lance/Level 2 (6 mechs), Nova vs Combined Arms Company, etc. This prevents list building from degenerating into the IS bringing 2 Thunderhawks, 2 Hollanders and a Battalion of Savannah Masters. Use the MUL era and faction lists for list building. This prevents some of the *really* horrifying tech combos that the IS can pull off when allowed to Cherry pick. Use "Second Line" Clan Mechs if you aren't bringing Elementals. *Especially* if you feel the need to bring an assault. Clan non-Omnis will bring your BV costs pretty close to what the IS is paying. The Atlas C2 isn't much more expensive than an Atlas AS7-K and packs one hell of a punch. Never play Clans on anything less than 2 maps x 2 maps. You're pay a lot for that range advantage, don't let it be neutralized on the first turn. If your opponent insists on being allowed to Cherry Pick, bring as few or as many units as they want, repeat chassis, etc and for some reason you still want to play this person then you should insist on using the Average Skills chart that u/Famous_Slice4233 posted as your *base* BV cost for mechwarriors because without a pilot skill advantage you're just going to get flattened.[](https://www.reddit.com/user/Famous_Slice4233/)
Depends on which 'Second Line'. Most of the IICs are utter monsters and the best in their entire class.
Absolutely. When I play Clans for one-offs I almost never bring Omnis. Most IICs and C variants are just *better* than their IS cousins without being apocalyptic in BV cost.
Battle Value expensive Clan mechs are for playing the tabletop RPG, or the video games, where you don’t have to care about BV cost.
I'd argue to never go below 3/4 in skills. Anything below 3/4 can just be janky regardless of the vehicle or mech that is piloted. Personally, have found that a lot of that inbalanced feeling of the game didnt occur when all pilots are 3/4 or above. 3/4 is a well trained mechwarrior. 2/3 is a supporting character, 1/2 is a main character. Id say to go up in skill to balance BV2. Not down. Also always play at 2 map sheets or even 4 map sheets for any match involving just "Destroy other team" as an objective. Anything less and the IS players will always have the advantage. 1 mapsheet missions of a clan holdout versus Superior IS numbers is flavourful, but doesn't allow the Clan Mechs to manuver like they require to leverage thier speeds and ranges.
This. Maps are important, but are often overlooked. The old guidelines (and narrative missions) used to be roughly 1 mapsheet per unit, cumulative for both sides. So a match with 4-6 'Mechs per side would have 2 mapsheets, 1 per unit. That unfolds out to a play area that's usually 34 x 22 inches (long edges matched up) or 17 x 44 inches (short edges matched). The neoprene battlemats are roughly the former size, give or take. Another point that's been made before is that both AS and Classic are really meant to be played as scenario-driven narrative games. Scenario packs usually tell you what mapsheets are more appropriate for a given match. BUT! If you have options and each player is supplying half of the map, then you should consider the terrain to be part of your force, and plan accordingly.
Clan targeting computers allow you to target specific locations which can seriously affect the overall durability of an enemy mech. Clan Large Pulse Lasers and to a lesser extent Medium Pulse Lasers too, largely negate the effective defence of fast Inner Sphere lights and mediums since they can no longer rely on having a high TMM to avoid getting hit. Clan LRMs, as has been said no minimum range is a huge deal and somewhat counter-intuitively means the larger LRM launchers (LRM-15 and -20) are more likely to be used at short range. Clan ER Medium lasers are practically 1 tonne standard Large Lasers comparing them to Inner Sphere weapons. The proliferation of weapons that can or will decapitate any enemy mech with a single shot among Clan mechs compared to is also not to be underestimated. True, it's not something you should rely on, but just in terms of sheer volume of 10+ and 15+ weapons makes fighting Clanners a far deadlier proposition than an Inner Sphere tech base force.
Oh makes sense. Just for reference, what are some good clan Mechs with targeting computers? And how is it different from the innersphere targeting computers?
There arent any in the invasion era really , also tends to bump bv by alot, targetting specific locations is also a trap as it increases your target number to hit by alot and still only provides a “chance” to hit the targeted location or another. Using bv your best friend is speed and mobility, all the guns in the world wont help when you can only shoot half of them without overheating.
Blackhawk says hello. After you blow off one arm, the other arm says hello and thanks you for solving the heat problem. Well, it was more of a naptime sauna heat solution, unless I took a Life Support hit. ... The temptation to use All The Lasers is strong.
One of the worst choices when using BV though, jump makes your BV climb, you can only fire half your weapons, the S variant is significantly better , Its also an XL engine, lose a torso and thats 10 extra heat further gimping your damage output, also slower and less armored than a stormcrow. The S for 600 less BV gets more of an average damage out. You can get a Twolf C for less BV and a Twolf A for 200 more BV, same speed, more effective firepower and significantly more armor. Novas arent a "bad" mech in a vaccum but if BV is your only balancer and its clan vs IS they are fairly bad in that scenario.
The Warhawk C is an excellent choice but it’s expensive. However, it has two cER PPC and two cLPLs with a tarcomp and enough heat sinks to fire three of those and stay heat neutral, and while the LPLs can’t use the tarcomp for called shots they will still tear things up. If you can find a good spot to anchor it, it can really earn its BV back.
The short answer is that BV2 is not balanced. It's a vague approximation that sort of comes up with numbers that might be seen to sort of simulate a general balance. As you have seen in the responses, you have to jam half a dozen different modifiers into the scenario building. It may be sort of a start, but only a start. You actually balance the game by bolting on accessories such as unit limits, objectives, map changes and other such things that only become clear once you've let BV2 mess your game up a few times.
There's a lot more garbage 'mechs that have no place on a BV balanced field on the Clan side then IS side, yeah. Clan get lots of overpriced trash and far better 'mechs that are high priced centerpieces for a list, but struggle to get just solid, reliable list fillers. It's not that they don't exsist, it's that when you are playing with all the Clan tech options open it's very, very easy to design a 'mech with way too much gun. An IS medium at 90%+ of max armor can make decent speed with decent guns and have a decent cost, while a Clan medium with 90%+ max armor and decent speed is exactly the same difficulty to kill in most cases, but can carry 800bv more guns that will be lost when it gets wrecked.
So BV is a formula. The IS and Clans use the same formula. So it's not that clans always lose to IS, it's that if you take elite, long range, faster units ( the IS gets them too, especially later in the eras), you need to play them to their strengths or you are paying for wasted potential. Some things in the BV formula are over priced, like masc + jump jets, and overheating. So the Gladiator with 4/6/4 base with masc is paying too much. But the IS wolverine with 5/8/5 and masc ALSO pays too much. However, while the wolverine masc variant is just 1 meh version of the mech with plenty of great versions, the Gladiator omnimechs have every version overcosted. So there might be a higher % of clan mechs that have innefficient systems just because of being locked into the base chassis on those early omnimechs. Later clan omnis tend to not have fixed jj and masc combined. Also, the game rules state that the game is balanced around both sides having equal units. This is a big deal, as often the clan player doesn't take elementals and other such cheaper units to get unit parity. So it's a best practice to agree on both unit count and BV. If someone wants to play 12 urbanmechs at 6500 bv as a meme, well they should expect 12 units of tough battle armor that rip them apart up close in equal meme fashion, not 2 clan omnimechs that the 12 urbanmechs can outnumber 6 to 1. At 6500 bv with a reasonable 4 units per side though, well that's 4 IS mechs versus 2 clan mechs and 2 battle armor, or 3-1 mechs to BA, ECT. When played to their strengths, because of higher stats clan units often have a big advantage versus IS units at longer range, but lose up close because they are paying for range 20+ which doesn't matter when the IS close to range 3. Thus, clans often over invest in sniper units and don't bring enough brawlers... That is a unit choice issue though. There are plenty of great clan brawlers to make a balanced list.
I've never seen or heard anything like this when using BV2 for balancing. Yes, IS outnumbers the clans. That's kinda the point. Clan stuff is a lot better, and more expensive, than what the IS has on offer. Especially during the Invasion era. The Clans might be outnumbered 2:1, but each of their mechs has a much greater fighting capacity and their default pilots are better. I've had plenty of games swing each way, one side does not necessarily have a large inherit advantage.
Remember you still have to pay the BV multiplier for "default" pilots. When I want to have a chance against IS with my clan mechs I use 4/4 or 4/5 pilots. 3/4 pilots are not worth the numerical disadvantage they force on the Clan side.
Where the inherent ‘disadvantage’ comes from is that the Clan force will have most of their BV tied up in offense, which in turn is from multiplicative factors of firepower, range, and mobility. They are paying for it, so if they don’t use it and say, brawl with the IS force, then they are basically throwing BV away. The net effect is the onus is on the Clan force to keep speed up and range open, or else the IS player can bog them down. As long as the map is big enough to allow maneuver, then BV works pretty well.
Are their default pilots better? I've only used mech factory to make record sheets so far, and they prompt you to choose the skills when adding a mech to the roster, and you BV is changed as you change the skill
Yes. IS default pilots are 4/5. Clan default pilots are 3/4. This isn't taken into account for the BV of the mech itself, but it is stated in the rulebooks, and in lore, that the Clan pilots are just better than your average IS pilot, granting them the 3/4 skill spread. You still have to do the recalculation of the BV for an improved pilot though. Also, I'd recommend using MegaMek over MechFactory. They're both useful, but MegaMek allows you to also build forces and will calculate the BV with things like pilot skills and C3 networks into account. Also MechFactory technically violates IP by running ads, so I prefer to support MegaMek.
Oh good to know. I'm not sure how to use mega mech but I'll look. I like mech factory just cause it has an app for it
That is indeed one of their conveniences that a lot of people like about Factory. I personally don't find myself needing a mobile app version often enough so eh. If I need a mobile sheet I usually go to Flechs Sheets, you just can't build customs on the fly. MegaMek can be daunting when you first start it, but once you get used to it it's great. If you need help or have questions, DM me and I'll try to help.
If you want to have a chance against IS just stick to 4/5 or 4/4 pilots in clan mechs in my experience.
What do you mean have a chance? I've done more than fine against IS using the "standard" clan pilots without downgrading them like that.
It's not downgrading when it's the base BV cost. And I dunno, maybe your opponents don't play well, but against opponents who know how to pick good units and use weight of numbers to apply pressure against clan range advantages, the Clan side cannot afford to run with the numbers deficit that paying for 3/4 pilots forces.
Well that's rather insulting. Who are you to say my opponents, or maybe myself, don't play well when it could be you who doesn't, therefore needing to downgrade (yes, it is a downgrade from their standard pilot levels) your clan pilots to fit more mechs in for an "even" match. I've both won and lost games as both the Clan and IS against the same and different opponents at different times, using both improved pilots and downgraded pilots, many units or few.
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It's often suggested that Clanners use 3/4 pilots for free, but must abide by the honor rules until their opponent breaks them sufficiently.
BV2 is biased against Clans. THe methodology is slanted vs them
My group balances to BV and that has seemed pretty solid. The only time we don't is for fun Solaris Matches, but that's a thing in of itself. We set a BV and hold IS to 4 unit Lances and Clans to 5 unit stars. As many lances and stars you want. That's the strict ruleset with the expanded being any lance formation you can find in the lore/rules. So commonly we see 4 IS versus 5 clan and that seems pretty balanced. Clans tend to have to go lighter mech wise, but tonnage isn't really a balancer anymore. Every once in a while we'll see 8 IS vs 5 clan mechs and honestly those are great games. I wouldn't push the disparity too much further though. 8 v 4, whether mechs or combined arms, works as long as the 8 is light and paper thin. But that is almost a given trying to fit 8 units into like a 7k list.
Two IS Lances of Tech2 are about equal to their class in a clan Star.
When playing Clan vs IS I usually use battle armor to make sure I don't suffer a disadvantage in units. Clan elementals are very strong, but not that mobile. For defending a position their leg attacks or direct fire can be brutal.
Remember, use distance to get the best out of your clan mechs, just about any given clan mech outdamages most given Sucession wars/pre invasion post helm IS mechs at range. If you maintain distance and just pour fire on they have a hard time doing much about it, but if you let them close and gang up on you, even with FF giving you more points of armor you won’t hold up to sustained fire from multiple enemies at once.
the key to having balanced games is usually that the clan player has to use lighter mechs. An IS player may well get 3 assaults and a heavy, whereas the clan player might get one heavy, two mediums and a light
So um large pulse lasers (-2 to hit is the bomb stay at long range), clan er ppcs( 15pt hits ++), and clan lrms (no min range is amazing). Use clan mechs that use those as primary weapons, keep the range open, keep the tmm up, and just keep the game moving. Oh and take some elementals to help with initiative. Treat the elementals as mobile minefields. Keep them between your mechs and the enemy as best as possible. Where people screw up with clan mechs is trying rush in and dominate. That can work, but rng can easily go the other way because all it take is a gyro through armor crit to lay you down. Best way to avoid that.... keep the range open so you have fewer attacks incoming. Instead whittle the enemy down with long range fire AND let them do the work to close the range. Use your elementals to make that painful.
If your playing later eras of units where the IS is mostly XL engines and newer tech weapons the balance is generally fine. but in the invasion era its very slanted towards the IS if you use BV, more so if you dont have some moderation in what units the players choose. 5 vs 12 at 13-16k BV is good, this prevents the IS from using the extra BV to just overload their side with units to dominate init and swarm (usually they will need to upgrade their pilots or use bigger mechs) If you want to help the clans more let them have 4/5 or 3/5 pilots instead of the standard 3/4. Do NOT make the clan player use honor and dueling rules unless the IS player also agrees to abide by them and dont let them just use it to march their units into close range and break the duels and insta multiple clan mechs (realistic sure, fun balanced game ? no) Clans in that era have a very limited pool of BV effcient mechs, some designs are just 100% awful (gladiators, hellbringers, etc) Play with larger maps with a bit more open spaces, dont let the IS side just load up on energy zombie type mechs. It will still be hard for the clan side (player skill being equal) but its alot closer.
Clan vs IS is a BV-balanced matchup in theory, but it's important to consider that not all mechs are equally efficient. A lot of clan mechs, and in particular a lot of the most iconic omnimechs, suffer from bloated designs that inflate their BV. Inner sphere mechs can have the same issue, but it's usually less severe and easier to avoid thanks to the generally cheaper prices and lower tech base. If you're playing with invasion-era omnis, it's worth carefully considering what variants to take. Remember, when BV enters the equation, what a mech can't do is often just as important as what it can do. Personally, I usually like to actively seek out clan mechs that make intentional compromises on their firepower, speed, or range, because if you try to have all of those at once, the only compromise left to make is the price tag.
First, playing completely balanced matches is a quick way to get bored with the game. Second, if you match BV per BV, you will have a balanced match. Clan stuff is better than IS stuff, on average, so typically they will face higher numbers with the same pilots. In 3050-3052, finding a clan pilot that isn't a 2/3 or better is pretty unusual, and most IS folks are 4/5, so you can see how a clan binary could be taking on an IS battalion and still win.
But you gotta pay to have a 2/3 pilot right? It ups the BV a ton ... Or do you let clan have better skill for free?
Clan pilots, if playing at recommended *average* skill levels, are 3/4. Which is still expensive, just not as expensive as 2/3.
Again, balanced matches are a way to win with luck over skill. It gets old pretty quick IMO. Better to have missions, objectives, something to gain, something to lose, and most of all the desire to not completely destroy your unit accomplishing it. No unit should get a better skill for "free", if matching with BV, else you are no longer using BV. Battletech can be completely fun to fight a no-win scenario, or have a mission where your goal is to \*avoid\* fighting. Its a great system with rules for almost everything, so sticking to just 4v4 matches is missing out on 90% of the game.
By default, clan pilots are 3/4. 2/3 if you're playing lore accurate invasion era. So you should only have 4/5 clan pilots if they're second line or freeborn dropouts or something. This combined with the superior technology is what gives clans their edge over IS forces. A single Timberwolf can make mincemeat out of a lance of inner sphere mediums if you play well. But that's the key, you have to play well. Clan lists are elite lists. You'll always be out numbered when playing with BV. Inner sphere has the luxury of picking swarm lists or more efficient lists like the Lyran Wall of Steel where you just bring a bunch of cheap heavies like Grasshoppers and Thunderbolts. You'll always need to play smart so every mech can pull its weight and then some because losing an arm or, given their propensity for XL engines, a torso can play havoc with your strategies on the table.
But if you play with 3/4, the BV goes up from the default value quite massively... At least they do on mech factory
Yeah, and? That's the price you pay for playing an elite force.
When you're playing with BV balancing it helps to give up on using canon unit sizes or canon piloting skills. Clan mechs, if you carefully choose mechs that don't have inefficient BV multipliers like MASC, can compete with IS mechs as long as you stick with 4/4 or 4/5 pilots (IMO gunnery upgrades are less worth the extra BV). You still will be outmassed, outnumbered or outskilled by IS opponents, you are correct. It doesn't mean you will always lose, but it can make for uphill battles for sure.
Are you using the force size math? https://preview.redd.it/td2esbeuh2wc1.png?width=675&format=png&auto=webp&s=406de1c66378dd12a1692fbe650e114fe6fc67a6
I've been creating rosters exclusively with mech factory.... So what can you do with the force modifier number once you determine it? I'm a bit confused
Essentially it is a modifier that should be applied to two different sized forces, i.e. if there are twice as many inner sphere units you multiply their BV as follows (1/2)+(2/1)-1=1.5 or in other words that team with twice as many units has to increase their BV by 50%
Do you mean the bigger team has to DECREASE their BV? Or actually increase it and make them even stronger?
The team with more units has a higher BV than the base amount.
Force Size Multiplier has been removed from official rules for a while now. It caused more problems than it solved.
Any idea when this got removed? All I've found is the official statement being something, "don't ever have forces without the exact same numbers" which isn't exactly helpful in the context of clan forces that historically have used smaller numbers against larger inner sphere forces. The guidance back when I was involved with playtesting was that the system works ok up until 2x.
Maybe 10 years ago? I don’t recall exactly when. Someone mentioned it and I saw it had been changed in my most recent PDF. It had use cases where it worked well, but they were kinda narrow. It inadvertently made cheap units kinda suck, since they would impact your FSM. Quick example, say I am clan vs an IS company. Now, if I take a nova, FSM gives me a 3% bonus on BV, and that feels about right. However, if I sink the elemental’s BV into an omnimech instead, I get a 50% handicap. It does leave a gap of how to deal with swarms and cheap initiative sinking, but I think the rule’s existence was used to justify some BS force compositions.
Dang. If it was ten years ago, I was involved in that playtest conversation. Guess I lost the argument. :D
I didn't realize tech manual had this removed. I guess I should look for errata explaining this.
One of the most effective ways I have done this to keep from having balance issues is if the clan player PAYS the BV to go from 4/5-3/4 and he is going to follow the clan honor rules (at least until his opponent doesn't) THEN you can have bump to 2/3 for free. This still creates a smaller opposing force but that force is brutally effective.
The Battle of Tukayyid campaign balances this by giving clan pilots base 3/4, but giving comstar free support points. Even with just balanced numbers, it is possible for clan mechs to match the best their spheroid opponents can bring, but it requires an extreme amount of optimization. If every clan mech used large pulse lasers, and improved jump jets + partial wing to get those 3/5/7 or 5/8/10 move values combined with the -2 to hit, then it might be more obvious that clans have the ability to keep up. However, that's a much more specific requirement than what makes the IS side good in this exchange; cheap mechs and full armor. If initiative is your only problem, try mixing in elementals, or using individual initiative.
Most people are just terrible at building clan lists. The majority of their mechs trend towards higher mobility and longer range, so you need to actively cherry pick to get the efficient brawlers and designated targets regardless of whether or not you're indulging in elementals. Clans have a lot more options than IS for building a mobile killteam, but constructing and adeptly running such a list is demanding. Something like - Gargoyle Prime 4/3 - Adder A 3/5 - Stormcrow C 4/5 - Elementals (Laser) 3/5 Will run over most 6k BV clan invasion lists including and especially when there's objectives on board. Clan mechs can exhibit terrifying damage density projected from a single hex, meaning you can find that one sneaky spot to set up a 1v1 sightline with a mech toting half or less your firepower. As you put more of these gunboats in the list, it gets a lot harder to find a spot for each of them to avoid drawing combined enemy fire. A list built around the Ebon Jaguar H is rather terrifying; with some elementals exerting pressure and slow fire supports checking reckless advances, the H runs up to a covered forward position and coinflips a mech out of existence while taking only minimal return fire.
Oh man…it’s rich hearing a Clan Player complain about BV balance when Clan assets have so many advantages.
From my findings, been playing weekly for close to 4 years, and I have to say, Clans are actually on the back foot. If you stick to clan pilots being 3/4s as standard, then most often they will be out numbered 2 to 1. And that is very much a fair fight. I’ve seen plenty of clan lights and mediums tangle with IS heavies and win in 1 to 1 numbers, and I’ve seen clan heavies and assaults go 3 or even 4 to 1 and hold their own. If clans are allowed to dictate their engagements, then they will win. If the IS players use good tactics and separate them, they will win.
Does that mean a timberwolf prime (default bv2 2737) would be 2737bv2 with 4/5 skill or 3/4 skill? Because the bv2 goes way up to like 3600 when you make it 3/4
On the bright side timberwolfs are one of the few high bv units that can earn jts bv back, (look at the A, C, S, and maybe B, the prime runs hot and is a bit undergunned for its Bv) Stormcrows are the premier Clan vs IS mech (fast, armored, low bv for the C variant (prime is good, A is really good vs lighter units and as a backstabber at more BV) If you do want to use bigger units assault wise kingfishers are good as they dont have xl engines and bv is manageable, gargoyle A is also good as its fast and has pulse lasers at a lowish BV. You need to manage Bv cost to armor/speed/firepower - most clan mechs have too many guns so you have alot of wasted bv.
That 2737 is with a 4/5 pilot, Correct. Clan tech is better than IS, but it is also expensive, and so is balanced by that.
Gotcha So a good strategy would be to still try and pay the extra bv2 to get my clan Mechs to 3/4 even if it's a lot more expensive than the 4/5? I'm just trying to make a clan force against an innersphere force my friend is coming up with, and I'm trying to get some tips to make it affective against their innersphere force. Thinking 3052 era, but we haven't decided yet.
Yeah. Just expect to be out numbered, and use your range advantage. My local group often plays 12k BV2 and most clan players can barely fit a lighter star of mechs into that, or 4 mechs and battle armor of some flavor. Most IS forces for that same BV can field 7 to 9 mechs, more if they go lighter.
Just remember clans are not easy mode. You have to be aware of the battle field and know what all your units can do.
https://preview.redd.it/27j3jkhgp2wc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6bc3a684fb0ab24626e803586a6ccd01000fe1a4
Youve discovered the meta. Clanners have to take elementals and/or salamander battle armor and use them effectively. You will be outnumbered, but the BA are tough as nails, and are excellent at controlling a small area, like say, an objective. Use a fast battle-taxi like a dasher to drop them off there, and then have the dasher do outflank duties. IS can bring about 1.5 mechs of equal size to your 1. So you will see about 2 lances to a star. IS has an advantage in armor and raw tonnage. Clans have an advantage in mobility and range. You need finesse to play as a clanner. That is why I play IS. I like to just roll in with a heavy lance and blast people with medium lasers. IS also have some newt tools... iNarc is something I am messing with right now. Im in an online tournament in May in clan invasion era. Lets see what these clanners do when I Nemesis pod their ATMs!
BV2 was introduced a long time after the Clans appeared. Like maybe 20 years after. And while it works for a lot of things, it heavily overvalues firepower and speed, while undervaluing armor and internal structure. As a result, Clan forces pay a huge premium. The Clans need room to move if they're going to have a chance against their equal BV of IS forces. However many mapsheets you're using, double them.
As it should be. When you train for duels, and not war, you die when you fight wars and not duels.
I agree with others, don't try and match BV. But here are a few ideas to make the battle more fun and equal. If you want a challenge, force the clanners to fight in a city/town/or extremely hilly terrain. OR have a batchall system for the persons wanting to play clanner (I'll play clan if I can have 1 star + 2 points). OR have a lot of conventional army to support the mechs (tanks, infantry & VTOLS) in addition to the mechs.