20517 replies to this topic

[CDLord HHGD]

Strum Wealh, on 13 April 2015 - 06:35 AM, said:

The Murakumi (supposedly "Cloud Gatherer" in Japanese; compare to "murakumo" ("a gathering of clouds" or "cloud masses")) is/was the personal Hunchback of one Commandant Isoroku Kurita, and was described in the original TRO 3025.

"Commander of the First Regiment, Sun Zhang Academy Cadre, lsoroku Kurita swears by the Hunchback and would not consider piloting any other. An expert in urban 'Mech combat, he is Takashi Kurita's nephew. He is presently more of an instructor than a front-line MechWarrior, however. lsoroku has taken part in over 30 engagements and destroyed 22 'Mechs while commanding his Hunchback, the Murakumi (Cloud-Gatherer). For example, he spearheaded the assault on the city of Barnstable in the Fourth Battle of Harrow's Sun. In that foray, he suffered head injuries when his Hunchback was knocked down by the rubble from a building collapsing nearby. While recuperating from this injury, he was given command of a cadre regiment."

Neat info, so it is on Sarna, just my Japanese is a bit rusty. Too bad no info on specific loadout, though it sounds like a standard 4G....

[Strum Wealh]

cdlord, on 13 April 2015 - 06:50 AM, said:

Neat info, so it is on Sarna, just my Japanese is a bit rusty. Too bad no info on specific loadout, though it sounds like a standard 4G....

I got that one from the HBK-4G's Solaris7 page, and the same info is also available on the HBK-4G's BTE page.

[Metus regem]

cdlord, on 13 April 2015 - 06:50 AM, said:

Neat info, so it is on Sarna, just my Japanese is a bit rusty. Too bad no info on specific loadout, though it sounds like a standard 4G....

Could be, but you could do a really cool skin on it, based off of this:

[Strum Wealh]

Metus regem, on 13 April 2015 - 07:00 AM, said:

Could be, but you could do a really cool skin on it, based off of this:

With a name like "Murakumo"/"Cloud Gatherer", it could have had that paintjob (combined with Japanese heraldry related to the legendary sword originally known as Ama-no-Murakumo-no-Tsurugi ("Sword of the Gathering Clouds of Heaven")) & jump capability.

Instead, we got... an American Football theme.

[Metus regem]

Strum Wealh, on 13 April 2015 - 07:38 AM, said:

With a name like "Murakumo"/"Cloud Gatherer", it could have had that paintjob (combined with Japanese heraldry related to the legendary sword originally known as Ama-no-Murakumo-no-Tsurugi ("Sword of the Gathering Clouds of Heaven")) & jump capability.

Instead, we got... an American Football theme.

Two words:


Target

Audience

[Odanan]

Metus regem, on 13 April 2015 - 07:50 AM, said:

Two words:

Target

Audience

Oh well...

[ShadowbaneX]

Anjian, on 09 April 2015 - 05:26 PM, said:

This is how an Atlas and its main ballistic look by 3134. See Dat Gun of Justice?

I see it...it's a rAC/2. It's the justice if a corrupt land ruled by robber barons. There is nothing good about the Atlas III. Streak 20? Streak 6? X-Pulse lasers? Ugh.

[CDLord HHGD]

ShadowbaneX, on 15 April 2015 - 12:02 PM, said:

I see it...it's a rAC/2. It's the justice if a corrupt land ruled by robber barons. There is nothing good about the Atlas III. Streak 20? Streak 6? X-Pulse lasers? Ugh.

Gimme the political turmoil of the Dark Ages on 3025 tech. Now THAT's a setting I'd enjoy. What would Devlin Stone do if the RotS was the target of the Clan invasion?

[Bishop Steiner]

Strum Wealh, on 13 April 2015 - 07:38 AM, said:

With a name like "Murakumo"/"Cloud Gatherer", it could have had that paintjob (combined with Japanese heraldry related to the legendary sword originally known as Ama-no-Murakumo-no-Tsurugi ("Sword of the Gathering Clouds of Heaven")) & jump capability.

Instead, we got... an American Football theme.

I love American Football.

I hate the GridIron. I doubly hate the over quirked, PoJ Gauss Machine Gun Gridiron we have now.

I fought hard to see a JJ version of the HBK. Of course, my old TT specs of 4x SSRM2, 4x MPL and 81 kph/4 JJ aren't near as effective now as they were when I proposed it, lol.

[ShadowbaneX]

cdlord, on 15 April 2015 - 12:07 PM, said:

Gimme the political turmoil of the Dark Ages on 3025 tech. Now THAT's a setting I'd enjoy. What would Devlin Stone do if the RotS was the target of the Clan invasion?

While I'm not a big fan of the Clans and Clan tech I'll fully admit a) I do like the AP Gauss* and that aside, most of the post-3050 tech is really, really stupid. I mean, even a good deal of the 3050 or Star League-era stuff is pretty bonehead (Swarm LRMs? LRM deployed mine fields?) but the Dark Age stuff is mind-numbingly stupid. The mech taser system really takes the cake though. It's heavy (6t), it's huge (5 crits) it generates 10 heat per shot, it explodes like a Gauss Rifle when hit, the unit firing it has negative side effects, and there's probably more.

You really have to wonder what the game designers were smoking when they came up with this stuff...and designs like the Atlas III.

Can't really speak to the novels/backstory as I'm not familiar with it, but judging from what they're doing with the tech I have to wonder.

*my secret shame

[Metus regem]

Shadow, I'm right with ya... I checked out somewhere post TRO 3058... Once the Heavy Gauss hit the tables I stopped forking over for new material...

[Odanan]

ShadowbaneX, on 15 April 2015 - 08:03 PM, said:

While I'm not a big fan of the Clans and Clan tech I'll fully admit a) I do like the AP Gauss* and that aside, most of the post-3050 tech is really, really stupid. I mean, even a good deal of the 3050 or Star League-era stuff is pretty bonehead (Swarm LRMs? LRM deployed mine fields?) but the Dark Age stuff is mind-numbingly stupid. The mech taser system really takes the cake though. It's heavy (6t), it's huge (5 crits) it generates 10 heat per shot, it explodes like a Gauss Rifle when hit, the unit firing it has negative side effects, and there's probably more.

You really have to wonder what the game designers were smoking when they came up with this stuff...and designs like the Atlas III.

Can't really speak to the novels/backstory as I'm not familiar with it, but judging from what they're doing with the tech I have to wonder.

All correct.

And BTW, the Dark Age novels and backstory are terrible too.

[CDLord HHGD]

The Dark Ages... It was something and it wasn't the Jihad... In my book, that's a +2.

If I could insert the RotS after the 4th Succession War and keep Comstar whole (but with RotS taking the role of the ComGuards), I would. Let events play out till the Clan Invasion through Tukayyid. And STOP right there. Clan tech so "alien" that it's never compatible with IS mechs so no further power creep past the initial Clan onslaught and the Clans themselves, powerful, but few in number to balance the equation.

Sry, I'm well known in my group of friends as a world creator meshing the things I like, sometimes from several different genres (sometime I'll tell the world about my G1 Transformers/Mechwarrior story) and getting rid of the things that I don't.

[Bishop Steiner]

Metus regem, on 15 April 2015 - 09:14 PM, said:

Shadow, I'm right with ya... I checked out somewhere post TRO 3058... Once the Heavy Gauss hit the tables I stopped forking over for new material...

I will admit RACs are a guilty pleasure of mine. Especially running around with 4 RAC2s in MWr Mercs....

[Bishop Steiner]

cdlord, on 16 April 2015 - 04:26 AM, said:

The Dark Ages... It was something and it wasn't the Jihad... In my book, that's a +2.

If I could insert the RotS after the 4th Succession War and keep Comstar whole (but with RotS taking the role of the ComGuards), I would. Let events play out till the Clan Invasion through Tukayyid. And STOP right there. Clan tech so "alien" that it's never compatible with IS mechs so no further power creep past the initial Clan onslaught and the Clans themselves, powerful, but few in number to balance the equation.

Sry, I'm well known in my group of friends as a world creator meshing the things I like, sometimes from several different genres (sometime I'll tell the world about my G1 Transformers/Mechwarrior story) and getting rid of the things that I don't.

My only real issues with the Jihad?
(aside from stupid power creep, but that started in War of 3039 supplements, and hit full stride in 3050 anyhow)

We learn about it, initially THRU MWDA. And barely get any details.

And slowly since, we have gotten back info, but IMO, it was never given a chance to play out as a proper campaign, the way the Clan INvasion was, where we the players got to experience it as new product rolled out. Very very annoying since they had been building to the Jihad since novels "Ideal War" and "Double Blind", so even before the Twilight of the Clans, the seeds were being laid. ANd then, boom... we get the final hints in the last few FedCom Civil War Novels, and the end teaser screen to MW4 Mercs.... and then......

Nothing, basically, til we get boxes of "Mech Clix" tossed at us, where we hear there was a big bad Jihad, mankinds empires were largely shattered, Devlin Stone magically shows up and saves the day, and oh yeah, he got every military to essentially stand down and now you are running around with Industrial Mechs and Tanks, and once in a blue moon and honest to gosh Battlemech. But oh, BTW; something happened where Utopia now has no interstellar communication.

Shamwow.

And lets face it, few of the MWDA novels were half the quality of their predecessors from Btech. The Ones that tried to focus outside the RotS stuff? Almost universally BAD. (Especially the Katana Tomark pap, but the House Marik one was a massive stinker, too). You could tell that every combat was played out with a set of Clix, and felt fake, forced and arbitrary. The Novels were so inconsistent, and most of the protagonists so dull, it was hard to care. We were supposed to champion Duchess Northwind (Tara) like a new Victor Davion, but she felt too fake, Anastasia K was not even a 10th as interesting as her liberally plagiarized and copied forebear. Too many potential story lines (Katherine Steiner Davion power plays within the Wolves, for example) were ignored, or only hinted at, and the Factions? Dear god they sucked.

Probably the sole standout to me was "Blood Avatar", and it didn't even "battletech", but coulda been a any universe Sci Fi Crime novel, tbh. BUt it had some interesting writing and ideas, at least, even if the whole fact that it set Devlin Stone to be a Sleeper who was on Ice with the remnant of WoB/New Comstar to finish their plan were pretty simply ignored. (And that they keep dancing around the pretty obvious hints that Devlin Stone is a brainwashed and re-tasked Arthur Steiner Davion)

Instead we got the disjointed Fortress Republic Stuff, that basically just killed or marginalized the rest of the remotely interesting characters, followed by the interesting (if stolen form Pulp Fiction), but ultimately unsatisfying "Surrender Your Dreams". To a conclusion only available as an ebook.

Sigh.

[CDLord HHGD]

Bishop Steiner, on 16 April 2015 - 06:58 AM, said:

My only real issues with the Jihad?
(aside from stupid power creep, but that started in War of 3039 supplements, and hit full stride in 3050 anyhow)

We learn about it, initially THRU MWDA. And barely get any details.

And slowly since, we have gotten back info, but IMO, it was never given a chance to play out as a proper campaign, the way the Clan INvasion was, where we the players got to experience it as new product rolled out. Very very annoying since they had been building to the Jihad since novels "Ideal War" and "Double Blind", so even before the Twilight of the Clans, the seeds were being laid. ANd then, boom... we get the final hints in the last few FedCom Civil War Novels, and the end teaser screen to MW4 Mercs.... and then......

Nothing, basically, til we get boxes of "Mech Clix" tossed at us, where we hear there was a big bad Jihad, mankinds empires were largely shattered, Devlin Stone magically shows up and saves the day, and oh yeah, he got every military to essentially stand down and now you are running around with Industrial Mechs and Tanks, and once in a blue moon and honest to gosh Battlemech. But oh, BTW; something happened where Utopia now has no interstellar communication.

Shamwow.

And lets face it, few of the MWDA novels were half the quality of their predecessors from Btech. The Ones that tried to focus outside the RotS stuff? Almost universally BAD. (Especially the Katana Tomark pap, but the House Marik one was a massive stinker, too). You could tell that every combat was played out with a set of Clix, and felt fake, forced and arbitrary. The Novels were so inconsistent, and most of the protagonists so dull, it was hard to care. We were supposed to champion Duchess Northwind (Tara) like a new Victor Davion, but she felt too fake, Anastasia K was not even a 10th as interesting as her liberally plagiarized and copied forebear. Too many potential story lines (Katherine Steiner Davion power plays within the Wolves, for example) were ignored, or only hinted at, and the Factions? Dear god they sucked.

Probably the sole standout to me was "Blood Avatar", and it didn't even "battletech", but coulda been a any universe Sci Fi Crime novel, tbh. BUt it had some interesting writing and ideas, at least, even if the whole fact that it set Devlin Stone to be a Sleeper who was on Ice with the remnant of WoB/New Comstar to finish their plan were pretty simply ignored. (And that they keep dancing around the pretty obvious hints that Devlin Stone is a brainwashed and re-tasked Arthur Steiner Davion)

Instead we got the disjointed Fortress Republic Stuff, that basically just killed or marginalized the rest of the remotely interesting characters, followed by the interesting (if stolen form Pulp Fiction), but ultimately unsatisfying "Surrender Your Dreams". To a conclusion only available as an ebook.

Sigh.

I feel your pain and read your angst.... And given the choice between 3025 and 3145... No brainer, 3025 all the way. The thing that entices me about MWDA is that it's even more politically shattered than the 3025 Shattered Sphere sourcebook I have. Plus, the RotS gave me a template with which to base my own campaign's "mini IS" on because the thought of thousands of planets is too much for my feeble minded gaming group... God do I need to find a new TT RPG group..... So tired of Heroes Unlimited....

[Metus regem]

cdlord, on 16 April 2015 - 07:13 AM, said:

I feel your pain and read your angst.... And given the choice between 3025 and 3145... No brainer, 3025 all the way. The thing that entices me about MWDA is that it's even more politically shattered than the 3025 Shattered Sphere sourcebook I have. Plus, the RotS gave me a template with which to base my own campaign's "mini IS" on because the thought of thousands of planets is too much for my feeble minded gaming group... God do I need to find a new TT RPG group..... So tired of Heroes Unlimited....

Love the Palladium games, hate the amount of work that is needed for them as the GM... two years ago, I had plenty of time to put in for it... now? Two year olds man.... freaking two year olds....

[CDLord HHGD]

Metus regem, on 16 April 2015 - 07:23 AM, said:

Love the Palladium games, hate the amount of work that is needed for them as the GM... two years ago, I had plenty of time to put in for it... now? Two year olds man.... freaking two year olds....

Oh yeah... My current GM refuses to use anything but HU... No Rifts, no D&D, no Pathfinder. Refuses to let me integrate some battletech or even play battletech/mechwarrior, no Star Trek, no Star Wars, not even other Palladium games... But he'll punish us if we don't use every facet of the Ninja's a Superspies martial arts types..... When I get into my new house and get back to my regular schedule, there's gonna be a "come to Jesus" moment and it'll probably end up with me splitting and starting my own group (again).

[Metus regem]

cdlord, on 16 April 2015 - 07:26 AM, said:

Oh yeah... My current GM refuses to use anything but HU... No Rifts, no D&D, no Pathfinder. Refuses to let me integrate some battletech or even play battletech/mechwarrior, no Star Trek, no Star Wars, not even other Palladium games... But he'll punish us if we don't use every facet of the Ninja's a Superspies martial arts types..... When I get into my new house and get back to my regular schedule, there's gonna be a "come to Jesus" moment and it'll probably end up with me splitting and starting my own group (again).

Totaly get that, I've been my group's usual GM for the last six or seven years, but after my last Pathfinder campaign that took close to a year to wrap up, and even then I still rushed it a little at the end, I've been on a brake for about a year and a bit now... kind of miss being the GM...

But I know I need to let the others get their feet under them, and find the confidence in being the GM... I find that good GM's make great players, but grate players don't always make the best GM's...

[Bishop Steiner]

cdlord, on 16 April 2015 - 07:13 AM, said:

I feel your pain and read your angst.... And given the choice between 3025 and 3145... No brainer, 3025 all the way. The thing that entices me about MWDA is that it's even more politically shattered than the 3025 Shattered Sphere sourcebook I have. Plus, the RotS gave me a template with which to base my own campaign's "mini IS" on because the thought of thousands of planets is too much for my feeble minded gaming group... God do I need to find a new TT RPG group..... So tired of Heroes Unlimited....

What kills me, is that the intent of the Jihad was clearly to wind the clsk back to the pr 3025, Third Succession war feel..... and instead they went full idiot. Gimmicky crap that even the worst of the succession wars never saw (weaponized farming mechs? Especially amongst the Clans?).

With some good thought out writing, and product, they could have made the Jihad the fire that "logically burned the IS and Clans back to the Succession Wars. Destroy the major automated plants, the NAIS, kill the intelligentsia, etc, aka what occurred under the Toyama Protocols. The inclusion of the Wolverines could have added the knowledge, and hatred to fuel similar moves in the Clan Pentagon Worlds (not to mention the various little coups and such already going on there).

It could have brought back a Succession Wars type campaign, but with the oddball Timber Wolf or RAC being the prize instead of just SLDF stuff. We could have skipped all the SLDF Power Creep retcons. Kathil Shipyards? Toast. Etc.then have the schism do what the DA did in destroying most of the HPG network, and that scenario could have been used to keep tech and power creep down for centuries, again. At least, as logically as the first time.

But instead we got crappy plastic clix, a setting that was supposed to favor vehicles and infantry again...and by the second set, right back to the stupid power creep.

Metus regem, on 16 April 2015 - 07:23 AM, said:

Love the Palladium games, hate the amount of work that is needed for them as the GM... two years ago, I had plenty of time to put in for it... now? Two year olds man.... freaking two year olds....

Always found RIfts pretty easy to run. D&D 3.5...now that was just stupid.....