Battletech tabletop Lance building

[Harcagnel]

I have Battletech A game of armored combat and a bought a number of other rule books but I don't see a clear method for building lances. I believe in the original game its by tonnage but I have hear from several people that "Battle value" or "C-Bills" is the better way to go. However, I can't seem to find a source for these methods. I might have over looked it but as I see it I need too things for that to work.

1. BattleMech cost in C-Bill / BV (to include a way to price custom mechs, so I feel like C-bills might be the way to go)… which I have not found on any mech sheet so far.

2. Standard Suggested C-Bill / Battle value limits for each player. Do I just give each player X c-bills and say go for it, or are there other rules like a 4 mech lance is required, minimum - maximum individual unit costs? If there is not standard c-bill / Battle value rule for a lance is does anyone have recommendations for a light quick 1 hour with 2-4 players game, 4 hour medium 2-4 player lance game, 4 hour hard 2 player game? or what ever makes the most since to veteran players.

I played something like 20 years ago and really don't remember much other than making a few mechs, fighting some good games with a lot of tables, and having a lot of fun.

A quick select standard mechs va c-bills lance building app also seems like it would be extremely useful and likely to already exist.

Thanks for any helps.

 

[Timaeus]

BV (currently dubbed v2.0) is for certain detailed in the Tech Manual, and is generally considered the way to go for creating "balanced" opposition forces. I say "balanced" because while there are some issues with it, it's waaay better than using straight tonnage or CBills to balance a match by. That said, for stock configurations you can generally find the BV of most any unit on Sarna.net or masterunitlist.info (the canon site for all units in battletech, sarna is not canon). You can also use a program such as MegaMekLab to build a custom unit and it can calculate the BV for the unit.

On a newer record sheet it appears the BV is lists below the 'MECH DATA section, and above the CRITICAL HIT TABLE.

 

[Frabby]

What Timaeus said.
Keep in mind though that there are technically no balancing rules. Even BV is just a tool to help players determine what might be considered balanced. I personally don't use it much. All balancing systems can be exploited to some degree, as they fail to take player preferences, mission objectives or terrain into consideration.

That said, I would personally recommend to go for scenario play or even campaign play if you have a semi-regular gaming group. I found that a much more gratifying playing experience, and I also like somewhat random OpFor and the risk of being steamrolled.

May I suggest you try out First Strike, one of the Starterbooks (Sword & Dragon - mind the Errata for this one! - , Wolf & Blake, Fist & Falcon), or if you can read German, Ronin! or Bruderkampf. These are all campaign modules (as in, a series of sequential scenarios where you can keep track of ammunition expenditure and battle damage, repairs, and salvage) that I liked.

One step beyond that would be the Chaos Campaign rules which I can also recommend, but here the OpFor is truly random and there is little if any balancing.

 

[Blade_mercurial]

I too picked up the new boxed sets a few months ago, and I've been having a literal blast!

However, doing 'one-off' battles can get a little dry after a while, whether you manage to 'balance' them or not. What has really sparked my interest in the boardgame is campaign play. That's where the REAL fun is at, imho. Unfortunately, its a tough beast to tackle. There's a bunch of different rules for that sort of thing in a bunch of different rulebooks, so its really hard to figure out how to go about it. And then there's the problem of the game becoming incredibly long and a bit of a slog-fest once you try bigger fights involving company levels of units.

I picked up Tech Manual and the old FASA Mercenaries Handbook and tried to cherry-pick what elements I wanted to get the right 'feel' for the kinds of details I'm interested in. I also sifted through Strategic and Tactical Operations (there's ways to 'peak' at these books on the internet). But after some experimenting, I found a lot of the rules unsatisfying in certain respects, so in the end I've just created my own campaign rules. Its been a fair bit of work mixing and matching rules/details to track, but I feel its totally worth it, because now I have exactly the play experience I want and I'll be able to get repeated use out of it with future campaigns...

 

[Harcagnel]

BV (currently dubbed v2.0) is for certain detailed in the Tech Manual, and is generally considered the way to go for creating "balanced" opposition forces. I say "balanced" because while there are some issues with it, it's waaay better than using straight tonnage or CBills to balance a match by. That said, for stock configurations you can generally find the BV of most any unit on Sarna.net or masterunitlist.info (the canon site for all units in battletech, sarna is not canon). You can also use a program such as MegaMekLab to build a custom unit and it can calculate the BV for the unit.

On a newer record sheet it appears the BV is lists below the 'MECH DATA section, and above the CRITICAL HIT TABLE.
View attachment 486834

Ok, so Battle Value (BV) as a scaling method is a place to start. Do you give a specific amount for a lance? Based on the Locust you showed being 553 I am going to through a guess...
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Battletech Lance building BV (Battle Value) for single skirmish, campaign start, or campaign enemies.
Use: http://www.masterunitlist.info to find the official BV of any Mech that does not have it listed.
Use: megameklab.sourceforge to build custom mechs and calculate their BV.​

Expecting a lance of 1-6 mechs but typically 4:
Quick Light Match / Campaign Start = 2500 BV
Medium Match = 4500 BV
Heavy Match = 5500 BV
Super Heavy Match = 6500 BV

C-Bills for campaign development. Buying weapons and modifying mechs. Then once again build it in megameklab.sourceforgeto find its BV.​

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Just a as a base guideline…. ?

 

[Timaeus]

Ok, so Battle Value (BV) as a scaling method is a place to start. Do you give a specific amount for a lance? Based on the Locust you showed being 553 I am going to through a guess...
---

Battletech Lance building BV (Battle Value) for single skirmish, campaign start, or campaign enemies.
Use: http://www.masterunitlist.info to find the official BV of any Mech that does not have it listed.
Use: megameklab.sourceforge to build custom mechs and calculate their BV.​

Expecting a lance of 1-6 mechs but typically 4:
Quick Light Match / Campaign Start = 2500 BV
Medium Match = 4500 BV
Heavy Match = 5500 BV
Super Heavy Match = 6500 BV

C-Bills for campaign development. Buying weapons and modifying mechs. Then once again build it in megameklab.sourceforge to find its BV.​

----
Just a as a base guideline…. ?

I've honestly not touched a campaign match in some time. I would guess off the top of my head that campaign operations may have some guidelines, but I'm unsure. That said having done a quick search for 3025 era matches the following appears to be a good rough starting amount in BV. Adjust up or down to taste, era, and expected number of the units in the force as later eras and force size probably require more BV on average. Lance size (light, medium, heavy, assault) is meant to reflect the average weight of the units in the lance though again, more a guideline than anything.

Light Lance: 3000 (So for example two 1000BV units and two 500BV units, or four 750BV units or any other combination)
Mediums Lance: 4000
Heavy Lance: 5000
Assault Lance: 6000 (four 1500BV, or two 2000BV and two 1000BV, or even one 2000BV two 1500BV, and one 1000BV)

So your numbers aren't far off.

6000BV appears to be able to get a Lance that is full heavy 'mechs in 3025 era if you go for the average BV for each unit in the lance.

So if you want to have two forces fight each other say a regular heavy lance (4), and a reinforced medium lance (6) with regular pilots you could have a two ~1500BV heavies and two 1000BV mediums for 5000BV versus a 1200BV heavy, two 900BV mediums two 750BV lights, and a 500BV light for also 5000BV. or close to it. the end numbers aren't required to be exactly the same, just as long as they're close.

And with all this said it again a reminder BV is the best option for "balancing" around, but if it doesn't work for you and the people you play with that is okay, because it's not requirement to balance with it if you don't want to. Also running a campaign will also probably need to number massaging if you want to use BV as a guideline for balancing the opfor against the players, since you know, you don't want to accidentally steamroll them.

Hope this helps.

oh ps don't get megamek from sourceforge. it's not updated there anymore. you'll need to get it from the actual megamek site.

 

[Harcagnel]

I've honestly not touched a campaign match in some time. I would guess off the top of my head that campaign operations may have some guidelines, but I'm unsure. That said having done a quick search for 3025 era matches the following appears to be a good rough starting amount in BV. Adjust up or down to taste, era, and expected number of the units in the force as later eras and force size probably require more BV on average. Lance size (light, medium, heavy, assault) is meant to reflect the average weight of the units in the lance though again, more a guideline than anything.

Light Lance: 3000 (So for example two 1000BV units and two 500BV units, or four 750BV units or any other combination)
Mediums Lance: 4000
Heavy Lance: 5000
Assault Lance: 6000 (four 1500BV, or two 2000BV and two 1000BV, or even one 2000BV two 1500BV, and one 1000BV)

So your numbers aren't far off.

6000BV appears to be able to get a Lance that is full heavy 'mechs in 3025 era if you go for the average BV for each unit in the lance.

So if you want to have two forces fight each other say a regular heavy lance (4), and a reinforced medium lance (6) with regular pilots you could have a two ~1500BV heavies and two 1000BV mediums for 5000BV versus a 1200BV heavy, two 900BV mediums two 750BV lights, and a 500BV light for also 5000BV. or close to it. the end numbers aren't required to be exactly the same, just as long as they're close.

And with all this said it again a reminder BV is the best option for "balancing" around, but if it doesn't work for you and the people you play with that is okay, because it's not requirement to balance with it if you don't want to. Also running a campaign will also probably need to number massaging if you want to use BV as a guideline for balancing the opfor against the players, since you know, you don't want to accidentally steamroll them.

Hope this helps.

oh ps don't get megamek from sourceforge. it's not updated there anymore. you'll need to get it from the actual megamek site.

Your awesome thanks!!

I did run some numbers for my rough estimates but I wasn't at all sure how close I was. I will keep in mind they don't have to be exact though I have played a fair amount of the click dial games and I am used to "close but not exact" point team building. I think I will use your numbers for skirmishes and I will compare BV if we get into "encounters" missions for steam rolling but use C-bills for player progression and resources.

Good to know about megamek. I will get the correct one now. Thanks again, this has been a huge help.

 

[wundergoat]

I’ll join in and agree that BV is the best option to balance a force but is only a ‘rough’ approximation and has a few issues with they way things are calculated that can give some wonky results.

1-The defensive side of BV gives a minor discount for having explosive items (e.g. ammo) but doesn’t account for how likely they are to be hit, so torso bombs are not nearly discounted enough. Torso bombs are ammo bins with no other items padding crits, so any crit hit results in a mech destroying explosion.

2-The excess weapon heat discount (50% off!) only applies to weapons after a heat limit is reached, even if the last weapon added at full cost massively overheats the mech. Adder prime is a good example as it damn near melts if it shoots both its cERPPCs but it’s BV cost reflects it firing them continuously. With the added multipliers of a t-comp and high base speed, each gun is more BV than a Jenner...

3-The assumptions of weapon accuracy in stating out their BV undervalues accuracy bonuses and overvalues penalties. Pulses are really cheap for what they are while MRMs are fairly expensive.

Really though, these are edge cases in a complex system and given CBT is more narrative than competitive I think it is fine.