Today marks the third set of Battletech playtest rules, this time focusing on various equipment rules. This is the biggest packet yet, at least in quantity. While some of these changes are pretty substantial, I don't think any are quite as impactful as the side arc changes from the first package. Still, these are big enough that I think we'll see a pretty substantial change to what mechs are viable.

Package 1: Survivability Rules ran from September 9th until October 13th. We talked about our final thoughts on it here.

Package 2: Mobility Rules, will go from September 29th to November 10th.

Package 3: Gear from October 28th to December 8th.

Package 4: Missions runs from November 24th to January 5th.

Package 5: Rules for BSP Aerospace, running from October 28th to Jan 5th. We'll cover this one in more depth soon.

The Changes

There are 11 different categories of changes happening, though some of these have many subcategories - the missiles section covers ATMs, eLRMs, and MRMs. One thing to note in this packet is that CGL has called out how long this is and doesn't recommend testing all the changes together (mainly to spare your memory). ECM and C3 changes should be tested together, but other games can just use one or two at a time.

1: Explosive Component Damage Standardization

This is a simple change to adjust explosive damage to 2 damage per crit slot. The whole weapon still explodes, but rather than needing to remember that a gauss rifle explodes for 20, you can just count crits and see that it explodes for 14.

Jack: This is going to make weapon explosions for everything but basic gauss rifles a lot easier to resolve. I can never remember how big a HAG explosion is, and I can vaguely remember improved heavy lasers because they explode for the same damage as the basic inner sphere laser. Overall all explosions are a little smaller, but given the CASE changes that difference won't come up too often.

Lynn: I could see this being a mild speed-of-play issue when Heavy Gausses or HAGs explode (do you know how many crits they take up without counting? I don't), but if the damage caps from the survivability playtest are also being used, you wouldn't really need to bother counting how many crits something that big occupies, you could just take the maximum applicable value.

Liberty: This is a good change, the amount of times Peri and I, or someone else, have gone 'shit, what does an LGR explode for?' is honestly quite a lot. Having something to chop that number down a touch will go a good way to helping reduce poking in the book for those numbers.

Peri: This change is good from a game speed perspective and is mostly power neutral. The main consequence of these sorts of explosions is usually the pilot hits. I don't have much to say, its a good change.

2: Anti-Missile Systems

A simple flat boost to AMS lets them engage two flights of missiles per turn, and regular AMS can also reduce a cluster size to 0.

Jack: While this still doesn't particularly help the mechs with multiple AMS mounted, I think it does enough to make it be a system you're actually happy to have. Previously I thought AMS was more of a liability than a help - the risk of the ammo exploding outweighed killing a handful of missiles a turn. Engaging two flights and cutting them down to 0 is a ton more. Previously you'd never reduce an LRM 20 past 6 missiles, but now can drop it from 9 to 0.

Lynn: I like this, and I know the enhancement to ballistic AMS to let them take out a full flight of missiles would make a particular member of my local community very happy. One benefit that may not be so obvious here is that if your ballistic AMS is routinely intercepting multiple flights of missiles, you'd also be burning ammo at double the rate you currently would, which would help the mechs which carry way too much AMS ammo because they were designed under previous iterations of the AMS rules (like the base Spartan) feel slightly less over-equipped.

Liberty: Honestly great. Something that makes the AMS feel like it does anything is good seeing as it currently doesn't do much of anything. The amount of 'Mechs that just... were detracted for having an AMS onboard because it was both a hazard and something that didn't actually help at all always kinda made me feel bad because it's a cool system for vibes and such that always just felt kinda useless. Still holding out hope for the day when AMS become support weapons so some of the AMS boats can be used to keep your formation a bit more safe from incoming fire.

Peri: This will make AMS not a complete waste of tonnage and BV. It won't make it great and you won't miss it much when you don't have it, but you will actually notice it sometimes now. Good change.

Davion Heavy Guards Savage Wolf. Credit: Jack Hunter

3: Armor

We hit six different armor types here: anti-penetrative ablative, ferro-lamellor, heat-dissipating, impact-resistant, laser-reflective, and reactive. ABA, heat-dissipating, impact-resistant, and reactive were all not in BMM, so I'm guessing this indicates they'll be included in the new core rulebook (or at least I'm hoping). Or at least somewhere not in Field Manual 3145 (as I discovered while trying to look them up).

ABA: Instead of modifying the crit check for armor piercing effects it just negates the ability entirely, as well as negating the crit check from a TAC.

Ferro-Lamellor: Remove the protection from AP ammo.

Heat-Dissipating: Instead of halving heat from weapons, it halves damage and reduces heat to 0. Probably biggest against a plasma rifle, which is reduced to 5 damage, but infernos will also do absolutely nothing. There's also some shit about magma, but I've never looked at the magma rules and I'm not about to start now.

Impact-Resistant: Remove the penalties to hull breaches and crits from AP ammo.

Laser-Reflective: Remove the protection from heat causing weapons.

Reactive: Remove the section protecting from AP ammo.

Jack: Overall, these changes buff some bad armor types (ABA, heat-dissipating, and impact-resistant) and remove some extraneous bonuses from good armor (ferrolam and reflective). I think these are good, ferrolam and reflective are still good even without those extra effects, and now I might actually care about those other armor types. They're not particularly widely used (there are only 5 variants with heat dissipating armor), so with these actually being useful now I hope we also start to see them popping up in new variants.

Lynn: I have read the magma rules, and these changes basically amount to "a mech with heat-dissipating armor can actually run across magma crust without worrying too much, but they're still up shit creek if the crust breaks and they fall into liquid magma." The only people this is likely to be relevant for are people who get the MRC's custom Fire and Frost battlemat inflicted on them.

With the phrasing of the heat-dissipating armor rework, I'm mildly surprised the Enhanced Flamers optional rule wasn't made standard in this playtest package.

Liberty: Making the good armors not quite as good and the worse armors usable is great. The changes to ABA here is hilarious because exactly 5 'Mechs use it in the whole game and they're all kinda weird. The downgrades to Ferro-Lam and Reflective are good changes, taking random buffs off things that are already good is for the best. Kinda wish they'd also taken the anti-TAC stuff away from hardened armor just because as it stands some Hardened armored units are nearly impossible to kill in a timely manner; looking at you Viking IIC.

Peri: All of these changes are good. I would have maybe liked to see Ferro-Lam lose its immunity to LBX pellets, as funny as it is. APA is now actually worth thinking about, particularly as AP Autocannon ammo got a significant buff, as you will see below.

4: Autocannons

For all autocannons they now negate the first crit they take. Rotaries can unjam while still shooting other weapons, and ultras don't jam at all.

Jack: All three of these are huge. I can't count how many times I've disabled a hunchback or victor with a lucky early crit to the autocannon, and this makes those big autocannons last way longer. It is slightly hard to track - I'd make the first crit do nothing, rather than be negated. The rotary change is very nice, and I think will make mechs that use a rotary + other weapons be more viable - something like an alpha wolf is no longer taking an entire turn off if one autocannon jams. Ultras not jamming is a smaller change given how infrequently they jam, but it does make using them feel a lot better as you won't hit that bad feel of it jamming on the first shot.

Liberty: You have no idea how happy this makes me. Marauder stocks? Up. Kodiak Stocks? Up. Gladiator B A stocks? Up. Centurion stocks? Up. Anything you can think of that has a cannon is up. But most importantly, my beloved Rotary Autocannon is just...

Angrier. The fact that a 'Mech can keep fighting past a jam is astounding and makes 'Mechs that use them as part of their primary armament much, much better.

The fact that if you have a UAC it will fire until such point as it is empty? Awesome, the Kodiak now has the capacity to hammer away into things until such point as the bins are empty or the gun has fallen off. I don't know that Autocannons needed these changes but I am incredibly happy to have them. Giving them things like a resilience to damage and more consistency in their output is going to make them have a better standing identity that I think is probably quite nice for the game.

Peri: These changes are huge, insanely huge. UACs and autocannons are already adequate weapons with BV and these changes spike them all the way up to great. UAC/10s not jamming improves a huge amount of already decent mid-priced clan configs like the Blood Asp C or quad UAC/10 Bane. Autocannons have had a fair but overstated reputation as bad weapons for a very long time now, and in a world with no BV concerns they are actively terrible, so this change will make them much better in narrative play.

5: C3

ECM reduces the bonus from C3 by half (so a spotter at short range for a shooter at long range is effectively shooting at medium range instead of short). Spotters have to have line of sight, and C3 (in an active network) is just a flat 1.3x BV multiplier (1.35x for boosted C3) rather than needing to do math involving multiple units.

Jack: I think this makes C3 much much more usable. It is more expensive for most forces, at 1.3x for a lance instead of 1.2x, and does mean that you can't take a relatively cheap shooter/spotter pair at 1.1x - but it'll actually work! Most of the time I've seen C3 work it's either been immediately negated by an accidental ECM someone brought or works exactly once before their opponent brings ECM in every force. 30% increase to BV is pretty fair for -2 to hit (assuming ECM), as increasing gunnery by 2 costs 40%.

Lynn: Interestingly, this sets the cost of C3 at the value a fully-connected Level II in a C3i network was already paying, so they see no BV change, and any larger formations (like a full C3 company) get a significant discount.

Liberty: Making C3 nets more usable is probably a good thing. It's still not great, considering the uptick in cost, but it's good to simplify it and streamline its use! This also cuts down on the 'spotter-gunner' pairs that you see crop up some times which previously was really the only way to make good use of C3 in many use cases.

Peri: These changes are all good for game speed and usability of C3. It'll still be kind of a bad use of BV but more clarity means that it might shift into "Difficult but awesome" territory instead of "convoluted waste of time" territory

6: ECM

ECM no longer cares about LOS lines, it's purely about having firing unit or target unit in the radius.

Jack: It's a marginal decrease to power, as a midfield ECM won't do much unless it's being shot, but it's so much easier to deal with.

Lynn: ECM bubbles are big enough that two ECM sources could still comfortably cover your team on most maps, at least when fighting from the short edges, but this greatly simplifies some of the less-intuitive interactions between ECM and certain equipment (particularly Artemis-equipped missiles and C3 networks).

Liberty: Makes ECM a touch less helpful but its still quite good. I'm good with it screwing with C3 like this but I quite liked the screening function of using ECM to help keep Artemis off your force but this is probably fine as it makes you keep your force a bit tighter to get full use of it.

Peri: This is technically a nerf but it'll make ECM so much less annoying from a game speed/playability perspective. Good change.

Dawn Guard Templar. Credit: Jack Hunter

7: Heavy Duty Gyro

A heavy duty gyro is a +1 PSR modifier per crit, with no forced PSR other than when jumping.

Jack: The heavy duty gyro was previously one of the worst items in battletech, worse in every fashion than an armored gyro. I think it's still slightly worse than an armored gyro, as I'd rather just no-sell the crit on each slot once, but this does make it able to handle taking damage a lot better. It's a big win for the Templar III that we all like so much.

Lynn: The funniest side effect of this change is that the Grand Titan T-IT-N13M, the only mech in the game equipped with an armored heavy-duty gyro, would be even less likely to suffer a mobility kill.

Liberty: Oh god the Grand Titan 13M did not need to be made any tougher. Also, Templar III stocks are up and I'm all about that, GM stays winning. Making Heavy Duty Gyros have anything that differentiates them from armoring a normal or compact gyro is a very good thing to have indeed.

Peri: Heavy duty gyro's were terrible and now are really, really good. Templar III and Grand Titan 13M stocks are way up. As mentioned by Jack, armoring the gyro will frequently be better, but at least it is now a more meaningful upgrade over a regular gyro.

8: Missiles

ATMs: Cluster size increases from 5 to 6.

Extended LRMs: No longer halve their cluster size within minimum range.

MRMs: Remove the +1 hit penalty, add a -1 cluster penalty. Essentially give all MRMs Apollo at all times. The playtest recommends not using mechs with Apollo, and that if this change goes through they'll update the Apollo equipment.

Jack: The ATM change is pretty minor - mostly it just cleans up some confusion with damage amounts not lining up with missiles, and one HE ATM missile somehow damages both the left and right arms. I actually generally like the cluster being slightly larger like this, as I'm more likely to punch through thin armor.

Edit: Ok, so one change I overlooked at first - increasing cluster size to 6 is a pretty big nerf when shooting at ferrolam, as 5 damage groupings and 6 damage groupings both reduce to 4, so you're going to lose an extra handful of points of damage. Not a fan of this part, as ferrolam is already extremely good.

The eLRM change is more significant, and makes them usable though still not good. A 10 hex minimum is just incredibly long, and while they rapidly become inaccurate as someone closes on you at least you aren't also crippled in how hard you hit.

MRMs are the biggest change, and more accurately reflect their fluff (though given that they were designed to let poorly trained pilots score hits I would've kept going to give them -1 to hit and -3 clusters). Especially coupled with the C3 changes I think they're a viable weapon now. Still a little hard to use because of the short range, but hit penalties are just so punishing.

Lynn: The ATM shift, while small, feels like it gives ATMs a slightly more distinct identity: Rather than just "super spicy LRMs," they become the best missiles for punching through armor and the worst for crit-seeking.

Liberty: I dig these changes. ELRMs being better is good, same with MRMs. The ATM change certainly helps to keep them from having so many stragglers as previously they were quite good for both ripping a 'Mech's hard armor carapace open before then feasting on the juicy critical meat within.

Peri: The ELRM change is whatever because they are still going to be bad but the MRM change is fantastic and the ATM change doesn't matter at all. MRMs are goofy meme weapons as they are now and this change makes them like real weapons you might use on purpose. As a huge fan of the Draconis Combine, I am so happy.

9: Narc/iNarc Missile Beacons

iNarc pods can no longer be brushed off, which is an easy way to remove a paragraph that most people forgot about. Both types of pod also get a significant boost, with narc capable missiles now -1 to hit and +2 on the cluster table. They also don't lose these modifiers when firing indirect, which is another big win. Finally, there's an awkwardly phrased sentence about ECM - I think it means the pods don't work while inside an ECM bubble but that the unit with the narc launcher being in ECM doesn't matter, but it's very unclear.

Edit: This was clarified on discord - However, these benefits are not lost if the ’Mech that fired the pod is itself in the effect radius of enemy ECM. It's saying that you're tracking the pod for ECM negation, not the launcher.

Jack: Huge buff here. I pretty much never use narc. It's on a couple mechs I use, but I never seek it out as it just wasn't effective. There's still a bit of an issue that it's often mounted on variants that also mount LRMs, which is not really a good way to use it, but a dedicated narc mech might make sense. The arctic wolf, mounting narc and 44 tubes of SRMs is fucking hideous - the -1 to hit mod might be too strong.

Lynn: With my specialist knowledge of an extremely niche faction (secular ComStar in the Jihad era), I can clarify that this is effectively just merging Narc and iNarc homing pods; iNarc pods already granted the -1 to hit alongside the +2 to cluster, while regular Narc pods couldn't be shaken off like iNarc pods could. This reduces the distinctiveness of the iNarc as a weapon, but is a pretty substantial boost to its specialty ammo; under these rules there's absolutely nothing the victim of an iNarc Haywire Pod can do about the +1 TN they suffer on their weapon attacks other than hope their enemy shoots the affected body part off quickly. At least with the ECM changes you can't completely shut down a traditional C3 network by shooting the Master with an iNarc ECM Pod?

Liberty: I rarely use NARC pods because they just feel meh, and are often mounted on 'Mechs that just seem like they don't want to be getting close enough to actually drop a NARC on someone. This on the other hand makes me want to start trotting them out some more, feels like something a touch more fun. Kind of looking forward to fucking about with this one.

Peri: This is a gigantic buff but I have no idea how strong it'll end up being. I have used a NARC on purpose like twice, but -1 to hit is extremely good to have. I'll have to get back to yall on how good this shakes out to be.

Pouncer. Credit: Rockfish

10: Physical Weapons

Claws: No TN penalty.

Lances: It's easier to penetrate armor, and there's no penalty to the crit roll if you do so. On a charge, it's much easier to penetrate armor.

Maces: No PSR for missing.

Retractable Blade: The optional piercing rule becomes standard, with no check for the blade being destroyed.

Shield: A couple changes here: Shields can be raised or lowered every phase, rather than for the whole turn. When lowered it protects the arm, and doesn't inhibit use of weapons, and when raised it protects the center torso, side torso, arm, and leg, while blocking all weapons in those locations. The actual damage taking functionality seems to be the same. Shield bash is completely rewritten, just adding damage to punch attacks (before TSM), and if it raises its shield when charging it can take damage to the shield rather than the mech.

Mech Shield Table from TacOps Advanced Units and Equipment

Jack: Claws, the lance, and maces are all actually usable weapons now, which is great. The Pouncer X might actually be an interesting mech now with the charge bonus. The biggest change here is to how shields work, as this simplifies them a lot. Every time I have to look them up in TacOps gives me a headache, and this time I can actually understand what they're doing. I particularly like being able to raise and lower per phase - I can see wanting to lower it in the physical phase so you can punch for extra damage.

Lynn: Kontio and Crusader 9BR fanatics must be frothing at the mouth over Claws losing their to-hit penalty. I'll be interested to see how deadly those mechs feel with this change, though functionally they'd be no more likely to punch heads off than mechs like the Ostsol 8M already are with their bare fists.

The lance actually doing something special on a charge fits really well with its flavor, though from the phrasing I think the poor Nyx 90 and Volkh still don't get any benefit beyond redundancy from their second lances. I do worry that charging is strong enough already that it doesn't need any more buffs (and more ways to mitigate damage to self, in the shield rules' case), but if we're lucky the new book might rebalance the base charge rules as well.

Liberty: I am indeed frothing at the mouth at the thought of the Kontio being even funnier with this change. Shields being better would make the entirety of that weird Black Knight line that are covered with them also better which is funny because there are a lot of very funny loadouts in here that I don't often use due to them just being so stymied by the presence of the shields. Also, Lances are funny, happy to see them be even funnier. Also also, god I love Maces, the Stormraider being slightly less shit would make me so happy.

Peri: These changes are all good, more diversity in physical weapons is fun because as is the Hatchet is basically the only good one right now. I am particularly excited to mess with the Kontio and like any Mace mech.

11: Special Munitions

AP Ammo: No longer has a target number penalty and has much smaller modifiers to the crit chance. Against ballistic reinforced or hardened armor it simply does full damage with no crit chance. It's also only a 0.8x ammo modifier rather than 0.5x.

Precision Ammo: 0.6x ammo modifier instead of 0.5x.

Acid Missiles: Cluster modifier is -1 instead of -2.

Jack: Two big changes, one tiny change. AP ammo is actually usable, and I'm likely to run it most of the time unless I'm on the edge of having enough ammo for a game. Without the hit penalty there's no reason not to use it, and popping an occasional random crit in is huge. I worry that this will be too strong, as even small ACs are as likely to score crits as tandem-charge SRMs (though admittedly lower volume of fire). The precision change is big too, as it's an entire extra shot for an AC/20, taking you to 3 shots per bin instead of 2. Not a big deal for smaller weapons, but getting to round up is huge.

Acid missiles are a pretty small change. As they aren't in BMM they get used rarely, and even with this change I think their limitations are high enough that they still probably aren't worth using most of the time. If you're facing several units with ferro-lam they're now worth it though.

Lynn: Hm. I think an AP ammo buff is a good idea, but I don't think pulling three levers all at the same time (removing the accuracy penalty, reducing the penalties on the crit rolls generated, and also increasing the number of shots per ton) is well-considered. With the accuracy penalty alone gone, it would already be attractive as counter-play vs Hardened and Ferro-Lam; with all of these changes it probably would unseat Precision as the default load if you're allowed to take alternate ammo, and I broadly think more TACs aren't a particularly fun play experience if you're on the receiving end.

Liberty: The only reason I don't often use AP ammo is the target malus, the other stuff is just icing on the cake so I'll take it but we'll see. It's quite likely this is a bit much but, again, we'll see. The 13NAIS Longbow is going to be a menace with something like this. Precision having more in the bin is good but largely affects the AC/20 the most as it gives you the 3rd shell per ton which is cool. Task Force Stampede from the Atomic Empire Tournament is quite pleased by this development. Acid missiles are funny and this is a touch better I suppose but like Jack said, eh?

Peri: These changes are fantastic for autocannons and AP ammo is now in particular extremely good. As a shameless precision ammo shill, I might start loading a bin or two with AP for when shots are easy. Basic Autocannons getting this and the crit buff combine to make them a pretty good weapon, especially for the BV.

Final Thoughts

Jack: While no single change here is as big as the side arcs, I think the sum total of this will shift what units are viable a fair bit. Lasers have traditionally been on top, and while I don't think this unseats them I think we have room for a lot more. My favorite change is probably Narcs getting the -1tn from iNarcs, which opens up a functional strategy combining the Narcs and SRMs. My biggest worry is AP ammo, where both constant checking for crits will slow the game down and could be extremely powerful on mechs with batteries of AC/2s and AC/5s.

Lynn: I think one of the most exciting possibilities here is one you need to read between the lines for: If a playtest series explicitly geared towards a Total Warfare replacement book is talking about adjusting BV costs for C3, presumably the specifics of how equipment like C3 or semi-guided LRM ammo interact with BV will actually be dealt with in the new core book instead of being sequestered in TechManual. That would be hugely beneficial to the new player experience. Here's hoping.

Liberty: I quite like most of these, many of them are either funny, good, or just outright helpful. Largely this brings the Autocannon family up and into a touch more relevance for actually fighting, helping to lessen the enduring grip that the energy weapons have held on all our lives for so long. That said things like the cLPL, cERPPC, and cERLL are going to continue to stand above those weapons for some time. Just happy to see my powder burners getting some love, long live the Marauder MAD-5T and God's Biggest Bear.

Peri: These are all good changes in my opinion, bringing up some bad equipment and making things more clear and easy to run at the table. Then again, I said the same thing about the side arc changes, so we will get back to you on how this plays in practice. I really don't think it'll turn out like that change but I am now extremely paranoid. Autocannon stocks are up though, get yourself as many of them as possible.

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Tags: Hot Take | Battletech | playtest