These are the days that we live and die in

quick updates on the CBT scene!

since the launch of the New Box (all hail!) and Starterbook: Sword and Dragon, CBT has reestablished a presence in Paradigm Infinitum. Kenneth is currently running this simple campaign on Friday nights at about 7.30 or whenever he can dash down from SMU. 2 rounds played so far, with lots of explodey goodness. inquiries, and updates on campaign progress of The Fox's Teeth and Sorensen's Sabres, can be found here! unfortunately my upcoming exams at the end of october prevent me from doing more than guest-starring as OpFor, but feel free to yell out to us on the boards if youre interested in hooking up for a game or something! note: boards require registration to post.

in other news, new stocks of the CBT Intro Box, SB:S&D, as well as mech packs have arrived in PI! this marks the return of IWM's CBT metal minis to PI, which have not been stocked for , what, 2 years or so? while its not a full range of blisters, the Mech Packs will allow you to assemble and paint up the Command Lances of the Fox's Teeth and Sorensen's Sabres, as well as mechs from the upcoming Starterbook: Wolf and Blake. get a pack and get painting! or pay me to do it once i graduate! muahahahahahah....

Workaholic - 伊藤由奈

A Good Night

got to play some CBT at PI tonight! Kenneth dragged Patrick in for a game by enticing him with some Kuritan goodness in the form of the SB:S&D campaign. a demo game ensued. played on the Basic map, the battle unfolded as a 2-way fight between Patrick's HBK-4G, JR7-D, my SDR-5K and Kenneth's HER-2S.

never underestimate a Hunchback.

the damn thing headcapped the HER-2S after only 3 rounds. my Spider fought on, but a painful death was inevitable. but at least we have a new convert! hope this goes some ways to restoring our presence in PI...

since we had some time left, Kenneth and me whipped out the 4SW book to look for a quick smash-up. i forget the scenario name, but it basically pitted the WD against a regular DCMS unit on the basic map.

on the WD side:
1 x WLF-1 (1/2),
1 x HOP-4B (1/2)

on the DCMS side:
1 x TBT-5N (4/5)
1 x DRG-1N (4/5)
1 x CPLT-C1 (4/5)
1 x CP-10-Z (4/5)

the WD immediately began to display extreme gayness in terms of their amazingly low to-hit numbers. the Trebuchet died in 2 turns to an ammo explosion, as fire began to fall upon the Hoplite. while the Dragon and Cyclops double-teamed the Hoplite, the Wolfhound first pursued the harrassing mechs and then made an end-run to shoot up the Catapult up the hill delivering fire to the Hoplite. a lucky TAC scored 2 engine hits, putting an end to the happy happy fire support. the Catapult then made a series of panicky jumps to avoid getting shot up as much as possible, delaying the Hoplite and Wolfhound as the Cyclops and hip-critted Dragon staggered in to close the distance. as the distance between the Dragon and Cyclops widened, the Wolfhound managed to separate the Dragon and harrass it as the Cyclops began to pound on the Hoplite. already suffering from an actuator crit that prevented arm flipping, the Hoplite suddenly found itself victim to a 4 ML blast of glory 2 rounds in a row in addition to the attention from the Cyclops, this finally resulted in the demise of the Hoplite. durable buggers, those! the Wolfhound fought on, first legging the Dragon and then blowing out its LRM ammo before killing the unconscious pilot. in the fray leading up to this, however, the Wolfhound had suffered a leg actuator hit, and the resultant loss in mobility ate into its ability to run around and annoy the remaining DC mechs. it was a matter of time as the Cyclops slowly peeled away the Wolfhound's armour, before blowing a leg off. at this point, Kenneth conceded. it was generally agreed that the WD are a bunch of psychotic buggers. and a good time was had by all!

Its Here!

The Box Set has arrived on our shores and sits on the store shelves as we speak! stop reading this blog and go get it dammit! also consider laying your hands on the Tech Manual and Starterbook: Sword and Dragon. good reviews for those so far. but enough talk! arise, my brethren, and purchase!

Neo Universe - L'Arc en Ciel

Project Little Plastic Locust

heres something i've been working on in my free time! tried to make it look nice, but Blogger is being nasty, so i'll just post a link to

Project Little Plastic Locust

what say you guys? paint? leave it naked?

Driver's High - L'Arc En Ciel

Broadcasts From The Overlord

in our latest breaking news, CBT to continue! Precentor SG will keep us posted, so watch your comms devices for Wobbly Broadcasts! possibility of the MO in the pipeline as well, so warm up those dice!

gaming on next week sunday, more details to follow!

this has been a Capellan News Network priority broadcast...

Black Ghosts, White Death

Dear Singaporean CBT players, I'm organizing yet another official FanPro-approved scenario game, starring Loren Jaffray and his rag-tag gang of noble survivors vs our favorite baddies, Word of Blake Manei Domini Omegas!

Anyway, here's the deal.

Date: 1st April(yeah, yeah, but I'm serious here.)
Location: Settlers Katong
Time: 2.00pm - 7.30pm

It'll be a company vs company fight. Mapsheets and record sheets will be provided.

Ghosts of the Black Watch vs Word of Blake!

Place your bets!

Interested players, pls contact me via MSM, or you can email me directly at kdbspeck@starhub.net.sg.

Seeya!

The Wobbly Guy

Singapore Btech userbar

Well... with the LOTB usebar/sig bar project i was working on finished, and a break coming up , i'm thinking of working on a userbar for singapore battletech.


is the one i did for LOTB and the final one will be similar.
I'd like some input though
what mech do you guys think would be most emblematic of battletech in singapore? (though i might make varients/ and the basic source would be remixable)
colours- should i go white and red...
the font though, and the size is part of the standard so, i can't change them

stuff like that. I'll have a preliminary mockup in a bit, though i'd love to know what you guys think

CBT Da Pow

new word out on the latest CBT box set!

We have a box set. And it will have miniatures.

I cannot begin to describe how fantastic it feels to finally be able to say that. If you click on the box set entry in the product pages, you’ll get a full break down of the contents of the box set, including the 24 ’Mechs miniatures, with a $39.99 price point.

Specifically, the list is as follows (all from the Iron Wind Metals Beginner boxes; i.e. basically the illustrations represented in Technical Readout: 3025): Commando, Spider, Jenner, Panther, Assassin, Cicada, Clint, Hermes II, Whitworth, Vindicator, Enforcer, Hunchback, Trebuchet, Dervish, Dragon, Quickdraw, Catapult, JagerMech, Grasshopper, Awesome, Zeus, Cyclops, Banshee and Atlas.

in addition, a 2nd starter book to accompany Sword and Dragon has been released.

At the dawn of the Jihad, the Wolf’s Dragoons received the full fury of the Word of Blake. Backstabbed by treachery and taken off-guard, five elite regiments were almost obliterated. A mere remnant escaped. The Word of Blake, confident of their success, moved their sight to the entire Inner Sphere. But the Dragoons are far from dead and they plan on making the Blakists pay for every drop of spilled Dragoon blood. Yet striking the Blakists in their own backyard will bring nightmares incarnate.

Black Widow Company: A Wolf’s Dragoon independent command, the Black Widow Company is one of the most famous units of all time: they are reborn to prove to the entire Inner Sphere that the Dragoons are still to be respected…and feared.

Opacus Venatori: A melding of the most elite warriors with the Word of Blake’s Manei Domini cyborg soldiers, the Opacus Venatori—piloting the new cutting-edge Celestial-series OmniMechs—are a hunter-killer force without equal.

A new series, the Starterbooks are a perfect way to jump into the further excitement of the Classic BattleTech universe. Starterbook: Wolf and Blake provides a short synopsis of the history leading up to the Jihad, as well as a brief history and personal dossiers on the members of these two elite combat commands. Comes with record sheets for everyone in both the commands, including eight, never-before-seen ’Mech variants/configurations mounting experimental technologies. Finally, a unique track system allows players to develop their own scenarios—players will be stomping across futuristic battlefields in no time!

Starterbook: Wolf and Blake is a fiction-bridge between the universe history presented in Total Warfare and the current storyline begun in the Dawn of the Jihad sourcebook, while providing a sneak peak at some of the advanced technologies that will premier in Tactical Operations. Can be used with Iron Wind Metals’ Wolf and Blake ’MechPack: Wolf, Wolf and Blake ’MechPack: Blake 1 and Wolf and Blake ’MechPack: Blake 2.

Apollyon Cometh!

and he has no pants! featured on the cover of the soon to be released Jihad Hot Spots: 3072, Precentor Apollyon, everyone's favourite cybernetic baby-eating, MD-leading WobBlie is depicted against a backdrop of 2 of the new Celestial series 'mechs that the Blessed Word will soon use to stomp some scotsmen...

in a related story, the .pdf for CBT Tech Manual is now available online. this writer for one is eagerly awaiting its appearance on the shelves, so that finally i can find out what the hell a Hyper Assault Gauss (C) is all about. and how to stick one into a 'mech!

http://www.classicbattletech.com/index.php?action=gallery

check out the covers, available as wallpapers. i got the pantsless one as a desktop!

now for the new box set...

Heaven's Drive - L'Arc En Ciel

A mix of stuff

1. Fedsuns won Vengeance Gambit at Katong.
2. Quads behind partial cover are evil incarnate.
3. Colin has created miniatures 'starter packs', to go on sale soon. These contain four mechs and (I think) some sort of rules, and would go on sale at a price cheaper than the sum total.

Vengeance Gambit Lineup

Here're the remaining forces for VG Riposte

Fed Suns
Battlemaster
T-Hawk
Devastator x 3
Black Knight
Templar x 2
Sunder x 2
Thanatos x 2
Schilitron
Partisan
Pegasus
Legionaire x 2
Infiltrator x 2
Mantis
Cavalry

Word of Blake
Grim Reaper
Legacy
Viking
Toyama
White Flame
Buccaneer
Wraith x 2
King Crab
Marauder
Crusader
Puma
Brutus
Partisan
Purifier x 2
Mantis x 3
Cyrano x 3

Unfortunately, I can't quite recall the maps used, and I think I've somehow lost the data I wrote on one of the record sheets. And stupid starboi still hasn't sent me the photo of the battle scene yet... This is exactly what I'm afraid would happen when a scenario is left alone for too long.

Nevermind, I still vaguely remember the battlefield setup.

TWG

Vengeance Gambit

Okay folks. I've confirmed VG for Sunday, 31st December. Once we've finished, we'll celebrate the New Year at Settlers'!

Damien, Gordon, and Marissa have confirmed, and Jon will be with us till about 6 pm. Kenneth, pls contact Jeff and the others!

TWG

Vengeance Gambit

Okie... Since we all have a whopping 2 days of holidays on the 1st and 2nd of January, I'd like to finish Vengeance Gambit on the 31st of December. If we finish early, can also celebrate the New Year!

So here're the details.

Time: 1400 - 2400 hrs
Location: Settlers Katong
What to bring: pencil, dice, eraser

Damien has confirmed. I need the rest of you to tell me if you;re coming so I can make the arrangements with Settlers. If too late, we might have to shift the game to the 1st or the 2nd of January.

Please reply ASAP!

The Wobbly Guy

Intellectual Ponderings in CBT

Came across an interesting article on Empires and the importance of frontiers. Kinda relevant to the current situation, especially vis-a-vas the Successor States and the dynamics between House Lords and their direct subordinates on the borders, plus the growth of empires.
http://isteve.blogspot.com/2006/11/foundation-of-empire.html

The concept of 'asabiya' is of most interest, especially to die-hard supporters of any House or clan. In the jihad, it could conceivably be argued that the Free Worlds League completely lost it. And once lost, it's poof. So no more FWL. For some reason or other, the minor differences between the Mariks, the Regulans, the Orientes, and the myriad factions that make up the FWL suddenly became too magnified for the FWL to unite in the face of an external enemy.

As a Wobblie strategist, this is of paramount interest. So how then, to promote divisions within each and every enemy state/nation/organization, in order to splinter them and render them more digestible piecemeal?

Simple. Lay low, build up forces, deprive enemy states of their natural external enemies(okay, maybe not so simply done). Internal pressure will build, and hasten the process along with some good ole rabble-rousing. Then when they start to split, wedge them apart.

Precentor [deleted]

Quid Nunc, Precentor?

was talking nonsense with JT over the table, and discussing the need for a promo during the holidays. but what to play? something accessible, simple to start up, and great fun!

the first answer came in the form of the Urbie Derby.

players:
scenario supports multiple Player Characters. the more the merrier!1 Urbie-Master/GM needed

equipment:
handy-dandy RS
buttload of Urbie Minis/coke bottle caps/chess pawns
minis for the Player Characters
poker cards for initiative purposes

gameplay:
player chooses his own mech and is given a 3/4 pilot. all Urbies have 4/5 pilots

each player starts out hot-dropped on a random map sheet, 1 per player. if the GM is feeling venomous, play city maps. scatter would be fun!

3 Urbies per player are hot-dropped too. Urbie force composition is randomly determined from the Urbie-Master RAT. (at this point, lazy me really ought to draw up this table to showcase my evil Urbie designs, but as mentioned i'm lazy. suffice to say that over 20 RL10s on an Urbie is wicked sick! so is an Arrow IV...)

Special Rules:
Killing: a mech is considered destroyed if
a) the mech has lost at least 1 leg and 1 arm
b) the mechs pilot has been killed
c) all centre torso internal structure has been destroyed
if multiple players fire upon a single urbie, the mech whos weapon lands the killing blow is determined to have killed the Urbie for scoring purposes. initiative in the attack phases must be adhered to for this reason, as kill-stealing is a definite tactical possibility!
if a player's mech is killed, that player is out of the game. he may be deputised to help the Urbie-Master if there are a lot of mechs in play, to speed things up.
Urbies Fight To The Death: there is no forced withdrawal for the Urbies. not like they can get away at any decent speed ;)
Braaaaaaiiiinnnsssss: Urbies attack the nearest target. no-one said you couldn't draw off the Urbies and let them hammer some slower sucker...
Respawn: whenever an Urbie dies, roll 2D6. on a result of 11+, not one but 2 fresh Urbies respawn. roll on the Urbie-Master RAT for each new Urbie spawned to decide its configuration, then hot-drop, accounting for scatter.
Great Justice: if a player manages to kill/mission-kill a pristine Urbie in one round of fire and/or physicals, or the mech dies from effects related to said attacks in either the weapons, physical or heat phases (falls on ammo bin, overheats and blows up etc) the player gains 1 edge point to be used at any time to influence his/the Urbie-Master's rolls. this may not be used to interfere with another player character's rolls.
My Brother's Keeper: players may not fire upon, physically attack or otherwise molest other players' mechs. Urbies may only fire upon or kick player character mechs. come on now, who the hell is going to score a punch, charge or DFA with an Urbie?
Special Ammo: all ammo types considered LvlII in the BMRr or covered in TW may be used by either the players or the Urbie-Master. when the mech is first deployed, the controlling player must declare the ammo type (even if conventional) and which bin exactly the ammo is located.

Scoring:
and now the fun! to calculate a player's game score, simply take the total BV of the Urbies he killed before being overrun, divided by the BV of his mech (not adjusted for pilot). this encourages the use of mechs other that 100-tonne Gauss-Zillas.

so yeah... any comments and suggestions? i wanted something not too complex, and yet fun to play both for new players and experienced players alike!

Some more new tricks learnt

Important rule change concerning infernos from Total Warfare: they no longer heat up a mech by 6 heat for 3 turns. Instead, each missile adds 2 heat for that turn.

Jon and I played it out today. I was using a Battlemaster/Javelin tandem, while Jon was using a Stalker/Spider tandem. Both of us had a Warrior H-7 and a Vedette tank. All L1 tech.

We found that infernos, while not as instantly deadly to vehicles as in the past, are still more than capable of neutralising them through critical hits. Against mechs, the use of single heat sinks made the infernos devilishly useful, but only if enough of them hit at the same time. Infernos can really mess up somebody's day, especially if they calculate to just 4 over. If hit by 7 infernos for 14 hit, that would force a shutdown at a roll of 6+ at 18 heat. We also determined that infernos now would make TSM a lot more tricky to maintain.

I'm thinking of testing the new inferno rules against L2 tech. Probably next week.

Vengeance Gambit Update

Woot! Managed to have the game of Vengeance Gambit finally at Settlers Katong yesterday! Kenneth and Jeff played the Feddies, Jon and Guan Yew played the Wobblies, while I refereed and Damien watched the fun!

The buildings will be taken down, all that's left to decide is whether the Feddies can take down enough Wobblies. Given the number of gauss rifles on their side, and the overrated Wobblie experimental C3 Level II(Zucker's boys), I'm still giving a slight edge to the Feddies.

Of course, when the MD VTOLs enter the field, it'll be quite different...
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Newcomers to the game, feel free to introduce yourself! Old timers, pop in the comments too!

The Wobbly Guy

Recent Events

Uhm, nothing to do with recent real life events(as much as they suck. Norks with nukes. Urgh.), and everything to do with our game.

The latest version of Megamek is out. I tried to run it, but it's too slow. The 30.11 version is still the most stable. I mainly use it for bot testing, although strangely enough, my home PC can't run the bot for more than 3 minutes before the bot shuts down. So I'm actually using my school-issued tablet PC for this... when I doing other work, of course! It's cathartic to pit the stoopid bots against each other and see them come up with the darnest moves.

Like...

Backing into the frontal firing arc of an enemy that had already moved.

Charging into an enemy ECM bubble.

Attempting to stand on a damaged gyro when there's no immediate danger.

And countless others. But if it's bot against bot, at least their stupidity cancels out.

Onto other news. Jon and me were training in the use of VTOLs and C3, and I gotta say the Mantis and Pintos are nasty pieces of work. Although with 4/5 pilots, the VTOLs do tend to sideslip...

Finally, I'm negotiating with the Settler's Katong people for the 29th October Vengeance Gambit: Riposte event. But I need players!

The Wobbly Guy

Vengeance Gambit: Prelude to Riposte

Jackson Davion and his Fedrat scum have prevailed over the valiant Word of Blake forces!

Prelude to Riposte
Sunday 8th October, Settlers' Katong, 2.00pm.

Mission description: Zucker knows too much, and somebody in High Command wants him to stay alive. Since he is now in the hands of the Federated Suns, and held in a supposedly secure facility, you have to get him out ASAP before he spills too much.

Don't worry. Only a light force of mechs and vehicles are defending the place, and you're getting Tau Zombies to help.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
BTW, forces for Vengeance Gambit: Riposte have been finalised. Now we need to set a date. The 15th of October seems to be unpopular, so how about the 29th?

Pls reply to me in my email or in the comments thread!

The Wobbly Guy

Vengeance Gambit Update!

Hi peeps! Just received good news! The Word of Blake just won their first battle in Vengeance Gambit!

*Weeps in joy*

Still, a few victories here and there isn't going to make much of a difference. Most of the FanPro Commandoes are planning for Riposte with this in mind.

Anyway, here're the details for Vengeance Gambit: Riposte.

Date: 15th October
Time: 2.00pm
Location: Settlers' Katong

Duration: As long as we can, duh! Preferably until 11.00pm.

Pls bring pencils, eraser, and minis, plus at least 10 dollars. Record sheets will be provided.

Please email me at kdbspeck@starhub.net.sg if you're interested in playing, or you may reply to this post in the comments thread! Please leave your email and/or handphone number, so that I may contact you if there are any changes.

Jon, please try to get Ed and Kenneth. I'll see if I can get David the Lum and Colin down, though they're probably busy with their adult entrepeneurial lives!

The Wobbly Guy