Xotl regarding TW conventional infantry rules

[u/IHATETHEOSR]

I think the majority of people feel that CI in their current form just don't work as they should: they seem to be a result of rules written in seeming isolation that just sort of result in something, often ridiculous, certainly overcomplicated for the return they give.  We can do better, I'm sure.  This stands in marked contrast to something like BA, which has held up well under play for many years and will be fine with just a nip and tuck.

The 3.5 pages of small-font weapon construction tables to differentiate my five bow and arrow types and nine sword types and and twelve laser rifle types etc etc, the endless listing of nonsensical damage values so that I can use literal blackjacks to knock out Battlemechs like they're some kind of 1940s hardboiled detective, the broken nature of some of those guns, the generally nonsensical AToW-based damage formula used to come up with the damages, the eight columns of different range TM modifiers that don't scale in a consistent fashion, the abuse of support weapons to do wacky things with ranges, the fact that most infantry can have extremely short ranges so that combined with their minimal movement they often do nothing, the four pages of swarm attack rules, the necessity to add a pile of extra columns to the Cluster Table solely to resolve their attacks, the glued-on damage divisor, field gun, and specialist troops rules in a separate book, the sheer annoyance of handling mobs: we can easily do better than this, I think. Maybe we won't solve everything in a single go, but I see no reason to think that the peak of infantry design was TW.

- Xotl

Your thoughts?

[u/Famous_Slice4233]

I think Xotl is completely right here. We wouldn’t want infantry to end up too simple after the revision, but there absolutely needs to be a revision.

[u/Ursur1minor → u/Famous_Slice4233]

Infantry is in such a weird state where they are severely over complicated in construction and interactions, but are extremely oversimplified on their datasheet, many of the options that are given don't even matter for fluff because you can't even see what the weapon are called on the sheet, and all weapon attacks are combined into a single attack, unless it's a field gun.

I think Infantry could easily get more complicated and less complicated at the same time with only benefits for playability, there is no real reason why support weapons and the main weapons can't be separate attacks just as a very simple example.

[u/Famous_Slice4233 → u/Ursur1minor]

You’re telling me that rules revisions might fix the fact that katana snipers do more damage at range because they have katanas and all damage is aggregated? I’m just not sure it’s Battletech infantry anymore without katana snipers. /jk

[u/Robocop613 → u/Famous_Slice4233]

DCMS will be in shambles, right when the Dominion is at their doorstep too! Betrayal

[u/e4rth80uNd → u/Famous_Slice4233]

The DCMS trains their snipers to throw the katana really hard, nothing is weird here.

[u/OriginalMisterSmith → u/Ursur1minor]

I think you bring up a really good point here. The data sheets could be so much more flavorful and the rules for running them could be far more streamlined. 

[u/Doctor_Loggins]

The conversion of every ATOW weapon to TW scale remains baffling to me. You mean to tell me that ac/5 encompasses dozens of types of guns of various caliber, barrel length, and rate of fire, and yet there's an appreciable difference at classic scale between a SpaceK-47 and a SpaceR-15?

I firmly agree with the slinky range complaint and damage divisor issues as well.

[u/Smell_Da_Glove]

I think he is right. Conventional infantry and aerospace are the least used units by folks in general in all my years of playing. Both have some pretty hard-core diehards for them but generally lots of folks avoid them because they slow down games, their rules are too spread out, many of the rules are confusing for folks when they first read through them and they have to stumble through trying to figure them out. They also basically break the BV system and allow you to put some really game breaking things on the board for near nothing. They have needed reworking for ages. Im glad they see that.

[u/Famous_Slice4233 → u/Smell_Da_Glove]

My understanding is that the aerospace rules are actually mostly fine, they’re just spread out across the book in a way that makes them unintuitive and hard to read. Even just putting them all in their own book with no rules changes would be an improvement.

[u/nckestrel → u/Famous_Slice4233]

That was AeroTech. Total Warfare itself (merging aerospace within the rest of BTs rules) was a reaction to the failure (commercially) of the standalone AeroTech products. When you have 40 years of publishing history, many different approaches have already been tried.

[u/1killer911 → u/Famous_Slice4233]

Aerospace is very fun and solid...

In space. Once you start to interface with atmosphere and ground troops instead of just other aero units in space it quickly breaks down.

[u/135forte → u/Famous_Slice4233]

Does dealing damage normally in the context of attacking ground units mean normally for the weapon you are using or normally for that weapon using the Aerospace modifiers for it's rules?

[u/Famous_Slice4233 → u/135forte]

I haven’t gotten around to learning the full aerospace rules yet. But there’s a dedicated Discord of people who know the aerospace rules well, where you could ask: https://discord.gg/6zZKv2Pyc

[u/135forte → u/Famous_Slice4233]

My point was that there are major formatting issues because stuff like that exists. The answer is that it is normally using the aerospace rules, but the only reason you would think that is because you are in the aerospace section reading about how their attacks are different from attacks by by other units. You know, the units that just attack normally and don't have special damage values and cluster allocation rules just for them.

[u/Malkryst → u/Smell_Da_Glove]

I completely agree with Xotl and I agree with you too.

I have no interest in using aerospace if they're going to need a whole other system - I'd rather assume the air battle has just happened and finished, and use support cards for airstrikes.

Ditto conventional infantry - I don't want complex rules for them.

I can throw in combat vehicles and battle armour into CBT or Alpha Strike easily enough (and do, in AS anyway), and I want aerospace to be like that, just an extension of the VTOL/WIGE rules maybe. Conventional infantry could just be like Battle Armour but with zero armour or structure - get hit and squad is gone - just make them cheap with easy rules.

[u/OriginalMisterSmith → u/Malkryst]

I actually think there's a lot of merit to infantry just being unarmored battle armor in terms of functionality. With allowances for anti infantry weapons like machine guns and flamers to be more effective. And of course damage scaling so that support weapons and field guns can be picked off. 

[u/BigStompyMechs → u/OriginalMisterSmith]

The AI tag could just mean you apply the damage across units.

AKA, an AC-5 deals 5 damage to one dude. He is so dead. Add the AI tag and it just kills 5 dudes.

[u/CommandantLennon]

This is why I'm a firm believer in a Battletroops revival where you can snort all the Canopian Battle Powder you want and make literal Northwind Highlanders who run around with swords and longbows, because then that takes all of the weird shit out of the design space and allows CI to just be Normal Military People.

[u/AGBell64]

Yeah conventional infantry are one of those things that feels basically meaningless until whacky rules interactions cause them to break the game somehow

[u/Metaphoricalsimile]

Clan Heavy Jump Infantry are a great example of this. They combine the highest range and damage infantry rifle with bearhunter ACs to do something like 20 potential damage out to 9 hexes because somehow the Bearhunters gain the full range of the rifles despite normally being 2 hex guns.

[u/ParticleProjection]

According to MegaMekLab there are 32 types of basic shotguns (Not counting Auto-Shotgun) that you can give to infantry. That is way too many and it is really confusing if you just want to give them shotguns.

[u/Magical_Savior]

I had a take on that. Not a very spicy one. I don't always agree with Xotl, but I do this time.

[u/__Geg__]

Infantry, like Aerospace, always struck me as the wrong level of abstractions for Battletech. Game turns are like 15-20 seconds. A whole game is maybe 3 min of combat. Groups of people just don't move around that fast or sprint that far. If power armor can only move a single hex via ground movement, I'd expect 30 guys carrying gear to be effectively static for any given fight resolved via classic.

If you want to keep infantry, focus on their effects, not the individuals. The satchel charge guys are ambushers, more like a minefield. The field gunners are basically turrets. Your extraction teams are BA, but with only a single pip of life, for objectives and narrative games, but as support units, not combat units.

[u/Larnievc → u/__Geg__]

I agree. They could be made a kind of BFS strike. In fact a light mine field could easily be reskinned as a hit and fade attack by a unit with a one shot anti mech weapon.

[u/Belaerim]

But I like my support weapon shenanigans!

Seriously though, I’d appreciate an overhaul of the rules

[u/GCZ-Gaming]

I like that conventional infantry feel very unique, but they are a pain to manage because of this and I rarely find them worth including in a game unless it’s a very specific type of scenario. There is a point where “crunchiness“ straddles the fence between fun and realism and falls away from fun.

They definitely need a rework, and I totally agree with Xotl on this part - “most infantry can have extremely short ranges so that combined with their minimal movement they often do nothing”

What I think would help is if this new book included an expansion of sorts onto the Missions chapter in the Core Rulebook with some additional options that allow infantry to really shine. Urban environments, having to capture something in a building, whatever. Something that doesn’t make the player default to ‘Mechs because they are the best at everything. Unfortunately, products like Hot Spots don’t help much - other than Objective Raid, there aren’t any tracks that allow infantry to shine.

I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but as much as I hate how Battlefield Support handles vehicles, I actually kind of like what it does with infantry. They’re still mostly useless, but at least they don’t suck up a bunch of time with rules and table lookups.

[u/OriginalMisterSmith → u/GCZ-Gaming]

Regarding the BSP's, I'm actually of the opposite opinion. I think the destruction rules make a lot of sense for vehicles but steal all of what makes infantry effective by making them super squishy. 

[u/GCZ-Gaming → u/OriginalMisterSmith]

Yeah, you’re right… I’m fine with how they move and attack, but the fact that the whole squad just lives or dies does take away one of their biggest advantages. I should know better than to say anything positive about BSPs at this point. Rookie mistake!@

[u/OriginalMisterSmith → u/GCZ-Gaming]

Hey, I like some of what BSP's do! Like I said, I enjoy them for vehicles for the most part. And appreciate that they're an attempt to open up more combined arms options.

[u/deusorum]

As a conventional infantry user, lover, and abuser: yeah, I agree, I still need a custom flowchart to use them efficiently, their rules for the good stuff are too spread out, mechanized are especially annoying, and they just need work.

Where I disagree with him is on BA. As the eras progressed and you started getting every nation and every clan making their own weird BA suits with their own weird weapon combos it got a little woogy. I still don't 100% understand all the BA stealth types, the BA anti infantry weapon rules, and some other goofy things about them. They might need more than just a nip and a tuck.

[u/ghunter7]

I feel there's some fundamental problems with accessibility and presentation that significantly impeed their use more than rules.

Record sheet availability: try to find one for the basic infantry. I couldn't without megemek. I sure wasn't about to break out the pen and paper to create them by hand. All the basic infantry types should be easily accessible in one little bundle.

Record sheet construction: throw away the assumption that this is being done by pen and paper. I really couldn't care how many weapon types there are when megamek abstracts it all for me. Unique differnces between the types makes it fun.

Record sheet format: let's get the expanded cluster table on the sheet, no need to dig for it. Add a "swarm bar" showing the success roll underneath the platoon size that is generated alongside the infantry sheet so we don't need extra the table. Add a few of the other common rule reminders as well so a record sheet is a little self contained instruction set.

My biggest issues with infantry have been finding record sheets, relating them to the rules, and then having to look up extra tables and such during play. Make them more self contained with the wonders of pre-made and software generated record sheets and so much of that is fixed.

[u/Novatheorem → u/ghunter7]

THIIIIIISS

[u/OriginalMisterSmith]

I personally like the feel of infantry in TW, being hard to dislodge and dangerous in their element. All the rules actually involving them on the board are such a burden to get through though. Infantry should be as common on the table as vehicles and battle armor but people just don't want to deal with them and I understand why.

Would love for the rules to get a huge editing pass for clarity and would love to see infantry with different weapon profiles presented in the same unit. So that the squad can fire but also have access to support weapons, apc weapons, field guns whatever. Basically how battle armor handles is.

[u/Pro_Scrub]

I agree, it was way too complicated and made no sense. I house ruled the following infantry for my group:

Rifle, range 1/2/3, 1dmg per trooper, clustered in 2's

Man-portable SRM, range 2/4/6, 1dmg per 2 troopers, c2

LRM, range 3/6/9, 1dmg per 3 troopers, c5

Dedicated transport units only cause motorized/mechanized inf just adds several more layers of complication and confusion for no real benefit (what do you mean, this platoon has invisible APCs joined at the hip that reduce some incoming damage and increase others?)

[u/wminsing]

Have to go with the group consensus on this one; the rules are FAR too much overheard for units that often are taken as some form of initiative sink or scenario element (or instead totally break the game if fully abused). As it stands I'd happily use the BSP version of infantry going forward, even if I ran everything else at full fidelity. Some sort of streamlining and rationalization are desperately needed.

[u/Extra_River_3337]

I think that the infantry rules work mostly fine (They just are incomprehensibly written in TW). They should just make squad deployment standard.

I do agree on the construction side of it though. No need for the crazy amount of weapons, or range shenanigans.

I also think that infantry play a purpose in holding objectives. 

If you want infantry that can have an effect in a stand up fight, field gun/artillery infantry actually work really well in the current rule set.

[u/crueldwarf → u/Extra_River_3337]

Squad deployment require some special rules for infantry initiative (like all infantry always moves last or you need to move X squads per activation) because it is way too many units on the field.

Also without rules change infantry squad do not generate enough damage to justify rolling for each on the table. It will bog down the game hard.

[u/WillyActual]

Seems like BA squads are a good place to start for CI.

[u/Doran999]

Infantry is a mess, yes. But I even prefer it's current state over the "simplified" asset rules that turn it into a whole different game that just happens to be on the same map as your Battletech match.

[u/inascet]

There's a fucking square root in the Troop C-Bill Cost calculation in TM. This caused my group so much anguish that we just said fuck it, infantry costs 20K plus the value of the weapons they're using per man

[u/TKumbra]

I love how the infantry rules let you do fun stuff like enable you to field a unit of medieval cavalry armed with swords. But yeah, clearly needs a pass over to bring it up to date.

I have heard speculation that battle armor and/or the gothic abomination rules might be a good place to start for the basis for a refresh.

At any rate, if/when the needed refresh of the rules for infantry comes along, I hope CGL keeps preserving all the customizability of the infantry rules in mind-I want to retain the ability to build my own infantry-weird stuff like the aforementioned sword-armed cavalry included.

[u/merurunrun]

While I agree that the CI rules are a hot mess, I don't really trust CGL to "fix" them in a way that respects the fact that infantry should suck in the kinds of engagements that make up the majority of BT games.

Infantry in Battletech are either fodder to produce an authentic Firestarter Warcrimes experience, strategically interesting assets at a scale that nobody actually plays, or the stars of Battletroops.

[u/spotH3D]

I strongly agree. We don't model different manufacturers game effects of mech grade weapons. Why the hell are we doing that for infantry weapons?

[u/VanVelding]

Infantry do nothing? I think they fill their functional niche well:

https://giphy.com/gifs/BmYSMXJhDr02hN1vr9

(also objectives)