Because around here (and despite what a lot of you seem to have convinced yourself, most places) only mechs that can run fast, have evade, and agility are useful, and I dont like fielding a mech as a giant battering ram!!!!


My previous comments stand, without mechs, you just have one sorry excuse for a combined arms wargame.

Does Romain Teasarek run fast, have evade, or agility?


Quit #####ing and try playing them. Obviously you haven't, lately. If it does not work out, try again until it does.

Actually.... I would disagree. I would say that for a Mech to be useful It does not need evade, agility, or high speed.

It can have any one of those with a well built force.

Agility is good, but a High Defence is better (see Catalina Trujillo)

I use a mech all the time, and in larger games when playing BR, I have been known to run 2 small mechs together (usually Fed Bo and Bart Bradshaw) and my record has not suffered one bit.

Example:
Jacyn Bell is a terrifying unit in most games. His ability to pick a point of domination on a battlefield early is REALLY nasty, and if properly supported, can be real trouble to deal with.

Work on controlling that temper, you'll get through to people better.


How the hell would you know whether I have played them or not? Thats right, you wouldn't.



Let me amened my statement, mechs with high speed, evade, agility, and/or insanely high defense (forgot about Bekker)

@Itrain

Jacyn Bell? I call a 12 high speed, dont you?;)

But I get your point, and yes, I always use mechs, but honostly, even you have to admit that for the most part, Mechs are underpowered and need work.

Since I'm one of those players who actually likes to field 'Mechs, slower 'Mechs even, it's important to make sure that 'Mech is not on the battlefield alone. So I commonly pair the bipedal warmachine up with another 'Mech, a tank with a high damage value and little or no minimum range or infantry. It's usually a bad decision to keep a 'Mech alone on the battlefield, even though there are situations that it can work. It also depends on what your opponent does.

But indeed, using your 'Mech as a deluxe battering ram is just way too MageKnight-like. The ability to fire at medium ranges and a better heat management for 'Mechs would make them more useful.

I was referring to you saying "only mechs that can run fast, have evade, AND agility are useful."

I submit that you can EITHER be fast, OR have a High Defence/Agility/Evade, OR be well supported.

I don't think Mechs are underpowered. For the most part, I think that there are some Vehicles and VTOLS and Infantry that are overpowered. Having said that, I strongly disagree with any mech having a Defense that is less than 18, and would agree that that stat alone makes those units underpowered.

Now wasn't that easier than saying brainless and untrue things like "this game is dead" or "only mechs with high speed/evade/agility are played"?

I was angry because that was the first constructive comment I've heard from you in this thread that didn't sound like "nobody plays mechs they suck we should make mechs better than everything else so nobody would take anything else but mechs and then everyone will be happy"

"I submit that you can EITHER be fast, OR have a High Defence/Agility/Evade, OR be well supported."

- the funny thing is, all mechs have at least one of those. :p

since I can no longer edit that, I wish to state also that some mechs do NOT have any of those (poor Santiago :( ) but nearly all do. Heheh.

Not true. Look at the LE Gyrfalcon. Look at the starting clicks of alot of SW units.

I also want to clarify something.

IMBAO (In My Blatantly Arrogant Opinion), A Mech is RARELY good on its own merits. The rest of your Battleforce needs to be tuned to bring its strengths to the front and minimize its weaknesses.

When I talk about supporting a mech, I mean things like running alot of infantry/Fa Shih Drop/AA to minimise the JF's crappy defense values vs choppers, and vulnerability against charge.

I submit that no mech is in itself well supported, so that when I talk about needing support, it is not a given that every person that puts together an army will build it as such that it will support it's Mech properly... Which is why alot of people don't run them.

Now, should almost every mech NEED to be supported this way is another question entirely, and a question that should be taken up with the design team.

Mechs are just too risky pointwise. Non-agility mechs, even with a high defense, even moreso. Among other liabilities, how many times have you guys played a fatty and seen some hyperactive kid go "Bwahahahahahaha, this game RULEZ! I charge your mech! I need a 14? I dont care, bwahahahaha!" *charges* *rolls 15* "I rulez! I win! Your mech has infantry stats now! Yay!".

A smart player will minimize the luck facter. Spreading out your points by not fielding a mech will help do that.

Even despite this, everything I've heard indicates that FP is going to be a fairly decent set. Although I reserve judgement, the most broken units in the game prior to this set have all been accidental. We'll see if that is the case with FP.

The following mechs have all been proven playable, post nats mind you.

Bounty Hunter (evade + speed + good def + insane atk + long dial)
Danni Haag (cheap + high atk + speed)
BR Lego (chargemech)
Caden Senn (armor + high def + long dial)
Chuzpek (rediculously long dial + 23 starting def + decent speed too)

Now admitedly there have been a fair share of no mech armies also, but so what. Thats viable, mechs are viable but risky, things are nice after the arty change.

In fact you see alot of fatties (23def) because they counter several things:
First strike, you can't really risk that TAC drop 10IT vrs 23 def w/out at least a second thought because your putting alot of pts in range to die to get a "decent" chance at 3 damage.

Vtols, they will have a hell of a time hitting and when your running a fatty w/ mostly infantry support it means you know where the vtols are going to go (unless they want to pink inf for 1) which makes cornering them and getting return fire easier.

anyways, back to work for me I had more thoughts but I have stuff to finish

I have not ever worried about it. If I get charged, its usually because I was set up to be ok with it one way or another. If you run enough infantry support, you NEVER get charged until you want.

Surely mechs are risky but then again all inits are if left to fight alone. I never make army that would not have least one mech. Yes its more like principle than practical but still mechs can kick ###. Yes mechs with agility, evade and 10+ speed are usefull but still mechs with out those can also be good becouse of other quality like long range, highh attack, high defense and high damage values. Fatties are good becouse they are difficult to hit and they can dish lot of damage. Also there is lot of light and medium mechs that are usefull, even without agility, evade and 10+ speed.

There are a few mechs that are ok. But even those are risky and ... as Warflail pointed out ... essentially are vast pointsinks.

Walks over to Corle. Looks at his Nationals army. Hmmmm. I'm seeing something missing here. I wonder what that could be? :) Note: I'm not putting Corle down. He's an awesome player and knows what's strong in this game and what's not. And he pretty much proved that.

Defense means little. In the last game I played I pretty much took out Stefani with a single SW Mortar (using the new rules mind you!) and a few DF ATVs. I had a BR Lego and LI Targe helping by walking/running in to her rear arc a few inches behind her threatening to charge .. but I never had to .. nor even took a shot with either mech. Even if I didn't have those mechs assisting I only would have needed a few more ATVs and the result would have been the same in that game. They did do the mistake of not taking a water (took all hindering to spread all over the field to take advantage of her camo) .. but still. Shrugs.

If you wanted to make a mech worth it then it would have to have:

-23 defense
-Hardened armor
-Good heat dial (at least 2 clicks with no effects and preferably NONE with any ammo explosions anywhere on it and which allows it to possibly restart after 1 turn or so).
-14" range
-JJ to break easy
-One good ballistic damage and one good energy
-All for a low cost (<200 pt.)

That just doesn't exist. There are a few that come close (Rot Black Knight comes to mind but it doesn't have the range or a ballistic attack). There are a few others that are ok .. and those are the ones you see in most armies. Arnis, Catalina, LI Targe. But the number of truely useful mechs can be counted on pretty much one hand. Pretty sad considering how many are out there.