GrogHeads Forum

Let me introduce yourself; You're a commanding officer in a military outfit called Goodwill's Grogheads. Wether you are affiliated to one of the big houses in the Succession Wars, or you are commanding a Battalion in a Merc unit remains to be seen, but what IS clear is that your job will be to command a sizeable force consisting of Mechs, MBTs, Infantry, Artillery and their support vehicles and crew.
VTOLs and Aerotech we'll leave out for now, but their might be featured later on.

There basically will be two sides to the story; Goodwill's Grogheads and simply OpFor. OpFor might have various identities. From powerful criminal organisatons or political splinter factions to opposing Houses or Merc units having sold their loyalty to the highest bidder.

The players taking a role inside Goodwill's Grogheads would preferably do some roleplaying to keep the creative juices flowing, but if you rather remain focussed on the technical aspects of gameplay that's ok, as long as we're all having fun.
But a good bit of narrative makes the campaign all the more enjoyable.

For those who think they lack the time and/or commitment to run a battalion sized unit and rather just engage in the campaign whenever they're available there's a place in OpFor.
No roleplaying is needed in OpFor as these forces just serve as the co-actors to facilitate our campaign for Goodwill's Grogheads.

The game will be managed in MekHQ (https://megamek.org/downloads), a companion application to MegaMek specifically aimed at managing a campaign. MegaMek is an unofficial program that facilitates Battletech Tabletop play, much like VASSAL does for various boardgames.

You do not need the rulebooks to play, but downloading and studying the BattleTech Quick-Start Rules available here (https://bg.battletech.com/downloads/) will help you understand the game more quickly. I think there are enough players here on GH with Battletech experience, so that questions can be answered sufficiently when they arise. MegaMek automates a lot of stuff already; while it probably won't help you to learn the intricacies of the game, it does enable you to play along at least. Perhaps it will spark your interest and you'll be buying the rulebooks afterall (do it! They're great!)

Once all players are in, the campaign will be setup.
We will then enter a phase of administration to enable every Groghead to roll for and construct their assets and crew, purchase crew, spare parts and resources.
Depending on who we decide to be, we'll either obtain a contract as a Merc unit or we will get orders from the brass at one of the Houses and the game will be on.

Each Groghead player will need to make a game appointment (or several appointments as BT battles tend to be multi-hour endeavors) to run the battle.
This will generate a log file, which can then be loaded into the campaign in MekHQ which will parse the results.
After every player has run their battle we will enter an admin phase again where we will need to take care of the wounded, repair our Mechs and vehicles, order spares, train personell, etc.

My plan is to advance the roleplaying during each admin session and integrate stories from what happened on the battlefield.
In the event someone has consistent trouble with meeting for a player vs player battle there's also the option to run a battle against the MegMek bot in your own time, but its only an emergency option as the bot has several quircks and deficiencies.


I will use the Total Warfare line of books and Campaign Ops. And the campaign will run in the pre-Clan era.

So Grogheads? Who's in? :D

Not assigned:
Kushan
Gusington

Goodwill's Grogheads:
Yskonyn
Jamus
mirth
BanzaiCat

OpFor:
JasonPratt
MetalDog

I may provisionally volunteer for occasional OpFor duty, as my role-playing juices could be very low.

If I get more into it over time, I can always find a way to segue in to Goodwill's Grogs. ;)

Although, wait, does the OpFor get to determine mech loadout, too? Because that's half the game, easily, and I'm picky about my loadouts.  :coolsmiley:

I'm in. My time is somewhat limited but I'll see what I can do.

Well, Jason, my job as a GM gets quite a bit trickier if I need to worry about customized OpFor units. That would mean OpFor players have ownage of their units and would basically need a complete seperate faction within the campaign with equipment and personell tracking.
We can do it if OpFor has their own independent GM running the show.

Having said that, I understand that building and equipping Mechs is great fun, so if you would be happy with building a suitable force on a per-scenario-basis I think we can work something out.
Please do understand OpFor is not a persistent force, only Grogheads will be.

IF and only IF someone else want to run and manage OpFor we could elevate it to the next level.

@Jamus welcome and thanks for showing interest!

Yeah, no, I understand the Opfor wouldn't be permanent. I don't even mind rolling randomly for most things; I just want to be able to tweak the loadouts once my assigned force and pilots (and whatever else) is generated.

If you don't mind someone who has no table top experience playing, I'm in.

Quote from: JasonPratt on March 31, 2018, 02:47:54 PM
Yeah, no, I understand the Opfor wouldn't be permanent. I don't even mind rolling randomly for most things; I just want to be able to tweak the loadouts once my assigned force and pilots (and whatever else) is generated.

I think that will not be a problem!

Quote from: Kushan on April 01, 2018, 01:03:21 AM
If you don't mind someone who has no table top experience playing, I'm in.

Not at all! But I do require you to read the introductory rules (link above). Which side do you like to join?

@Jamus for you as well: which side?

(https://i.imgur.com/tiiWdJD.jpg)

Commanding General Goodwill's waiting for his men and women to clear registration and housing. ;)

Starting date has changed slightly: we will kick off about one full year before the treaty between Steiner and Davion (http://www.sarna.net/wiki/FedCom_Accords) will be signed and about 8 odd years before the Helm Data Core (http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Helm_Memory_Core) will be recovered.

We can be a Merc unit amids the chaos or we can play as one of the Houses. Your call.

If you have any cool story hooks in this time period, be sure to drop em here and I'll try to incorporate them as best I can. The campaign will be a community effort and we should all feel as involved as we possibly can!

I GET TO BE THE GOATEED SUPERVILLAIN ANTAGONIST!  :D


I shall practice my laugh, of which mine is evil. Mua ha ha ha ha ha haaaa.

I'll be part of Goodwill's troops!

Give me a 30,000 parsec viewpoint of where the player's characters fit in to the overall team and I'll start drafting my backstory.

I'm in.

Quote from: Gusington on April 01, 2018, 01:25:09 PM
I'm in.

Which side, Gus?

Quote from: jamus34 on April 01, 2018, 09:48:12 AM
I'll be part of Goodwill's troops!

Give me a 30,000 parsec viewpoint of where the player's characters fit in to the overall team and I'll start drafting my backstory.

Coming up... stby

Quote from: Gusington on April 01, 2018, 01:25:09 PM
I'm in.

Alright if Gus is in, I am in.

Put me down as a Merc. I haven't played in 25 years, so consider me a newb.

No way you're more n00bie than me!

I'm pretty noob too. I nominate "Carne por la Machina" for our company name.

Ok guys, interest seems to be enough to warrant an actual start.

I eyed a starting dat of 3019-3020 above, but we could also shift further back in time to play around the Amaris coup period (I had seen this being referenced by one of you in the other thread). What would have you guys' preference?

Once we've established this I will create the backstory for the campaign. If all goes well we will get a dedicated space on these forums for our campaign.
My request to you guys is to refrain from posting there until I give the go-ahead. That way I have time to prepare the threads without unnecessary clutter.

Once the backdrop has been set I will post instructions to help you all roll your units.

For your player character you can already start dreaming: If you have access to A Time of War you can use it.
Your player character will be a commanding officer within the Grogheads. If you want to play an active part in the admin stuff like negotiating deals, you can try to roll for applicable skills and hope they come out as best of the pack. NPC's will roll as well and the best rated people will hold office, PC or NPC.
Of course, during the course of the campaign positions can change based on training and upgrades.

You will each manage at least one Lance with support units, total unit about Company sized.
During missions your company might get additional units attached, depending task required.

IF we start in the Amaris Coup period we're most likely the Mercs that Amaris employed (it was the initial rise of the Merc units).
IF we start in the 3020s options are open as to what our backstory is.

As always suggestions and preferences are appreciated!

I was installing the things tonight while taking a short break from editing video, and... is there any point in downloading and installing "Megamek"? It seems like the executable is included in "MekHQ". And the other things, too?

Not really. As you said, MekHQ includes the other programs.
Be sure to only use the stable version and *only* upgrade when I say we can to avoid savegame version issues.

Likely I will have a 'custom' version that I will distribute for the campaign which includes all the fluff and extra's I added.
That will be the base, so when we upgrade you only have to download a new version from the website and overwrite your files.

Personally I am still using HeavyMetal to create units, but lots of people now swear by MegaMekLab as it has seen extensive work.
I just value the database of fluff I get with HM very much and porting that to MML will be far more tedious than I am willing to put up with.

Somewhere tomorrow our child board should go live! (Huge thanks to bayonetbrant!)

I'm busy tonight (and probably tomorrow) trying to get my next DESERT WAR episode up (since the current one has too many production goofs, and I want to tighten up the video-time more) -- plus a tornado-front will be passing by in about two hours or sooner -- so it could be Thursday before I'm able to get back to this.

Since I am playing the OpFor, should I even be rolling up anything yet?  ???

Don't worry JP. We'll find you.

No dont worry Jason. Just sit out the storm.
I am waiting for the forum section to go live.

Meanwhile I am reveling in the apparent lack of heat sinks!  :D

Meanwhile I have been creating a custom build of MekHQ that will contain all my scavenged fluff like camo's and portraits.
It will be a one time download; whenever we go ahead with a version update you can just copy the new files over the original pack you got from me.
At some point you'll likely have to download some custom data as the campaign progresses, but we'll tackle that when we get there.

I will try to keep the campaign covered with as much fluff as I can. I'd like it to become a narrative and not just a technical endeavor only focussed on numbers.
Perhaps its a cool idea to keep an AAR thread running in parallel for the non playing Groggies.

Waiting on that child board and overall synopsis as I've been working on the AAR / RPG elements a bit.

Right now working it as a journal, I'll see how it goes and possibly changing it.

Be gentle - I'm not a writer so it's not going to be Dostoevsky.

"It was a dark and stormy night, and I was slaughtering that merc company of so-called 'Grogheads' while they flailed around like chickens with their heads cut off. Cut off by me.

"Let me tell you in detail.

"{fifty pages of detail}

"With that prologue out of the way, I shall ruminate on the philosophy of war, which shall be my main theme for this monograph. Now, if war be good...."

OK, I have decided we will have a start date of 3019, just before the signed Accord between Lyran Commonwealth and the Federated Suns. Reason for this is that we have several people who are new to Battletech and this start date is pretty standard, although not completely default.

We will play a Merc unit with nondescript heritage of personnel. That means we are a melt pot of various cultures and people. This will not only aid those new to the system to avoid advanced rules regarding personnel and interaction, but it also gives us the most room to personalize our forces. It needs to be fun afterall and I'd rather avoid random rolls for baseline stuff that dictates who we are.

We will play a Merc unit that isn't a full regiment (yet); about 1.5 battallion's worth of core units (so about half the picture below)

(https://i.imgur.com/DFKSrvq.jpg)

Our starting world will be Galatea (http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Galatea) instead of Outreach. Outreach (http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Outreach) might be the Merc world to some of you, but in our campaign Wolf's Dragoons (http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Wolf%27s_Dragoons) have not yet declared ownership of the planet, let alone liberated it as a free world. That time might come, if we survive as long.

So what's the galaxy like at this point?
We're in the final years of the era called Third Succession War (http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Third_Succession_War); as intense war has raged on now for several centuries, many world (and their accompanying factories) lay in ruin. The advanced Tech of the Star League (http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Star_League) era has either been destroyed, their blueprints lost or VERY hard to come by at this point.
Because of this many forces are now fighting with less than fully equipped and maintained forces and many struggle to keep a resemblance of a fit fighting force. Prices of spare parts are rising exponentially on the free markets and of top of that, it becomes increasingly difficult to find any at all.
This will be the situation roughly until the Helm Data Core (http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Hegemony_Memory_Core) will be found in about 8 years from now, so we need to look after our stuff and we should try to get contracts that allow us to salvage the battlefield as much as we can.

In a about a year Archon Katrina Steiner (http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Katrina_Steiner) and First Prince Hanse Davion (http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Hanse_Davion) will sign an accord known as the FedCom Accords (http://www.sarna.net/wiki/FedCom_Accords).
This is basically the start of the Federated Commonwealth as well as the planning phase for the Fourth Succession War (http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Fourth_Succession_War).

This will, once again, be a time where lots of money can be made as it will prove to be the biggest of the Succession Wars in hindsight!
We'll need to decide to which power (major or minor) we'll sell our ' services ', or if we're going to try to just scour on the fringes of the known galaxy.

For the Grogheads players each of you will start as a Lieutenant commanding your own Company within the force.
You are free to roll up your character as you like, however, if you are going to use A Time of War to create your character, know that only certain rules are implemented in MegaMek (like Edge), but many others are not.
I will try my best, however, to use AToW as much as we can to govern our forum RP, if that's desired.

If you want help, drop a note here or contact me via PM.
If you want to have a say in the strategic goings on of the force, you should try to get a character with skills in that part in addition to your battlefield skills.
Promotions and Skill development will be part of the campaign, so if you get unlucky at the start, you can always retry during play at given times.

As for your force; as you can see in the table above, you will have command over three Lances.
After rolling you should try to order them into Roles (Recon, Assault, Support, etc).
Once we will go on missions we will try to make 'Formations' (p56 Campaign Ops) in order to try to get Special Pilot and Command abilities in effect.

To roll your Lances you can use MegaMek's RAT (Random Assignment Table) system, but be sure to use Xotl's RATs (included in MegaMek) for our time period (start date 3018-3020, or Late Succession Wars).
Xotl is a user who now works at Catalyst GameLabs on Battletech. He has created the most complete canon RATs available IMO.
For those wanting to roll manually from documents, I'll link his typed version instead: 3028 - 3050 RATs (https://www.dropbox.com/s/haean3ik2s7bdss/3028-3050_Random_Assignment__Rarity_Tables_9.1.pdf?dl=0) (The info is generally also usable for our date and I'll correct accordingly in cooperation with the player who rolled.) Use page 42
You can order any rolled Mech into any of the three Lances, as long as a Lance doesn't exceed 4 units.

I'll post the Commander in Chief later to serve as inspiration and to get to know your CO.

I hope bayonetbrant will be able to activate the child board for us soon, but I understood he's quite busy with his job at the moment, so we'll have to show a little patience.

Quote from: Yskonyn on April 05, 2018, 07:56:13 AM
I hope bayonetbrant will be able to activate the child board for us soon, but I understood he's quite busy with his job at the moment, so we'll have to show a little patience.

Someone has to tote those barges and lift them bales.

I've been eyeing this - do you need another commander?

We definitely need a BanzaiCat.

(edits made to my last post above, please re-read)

@BanzaiCat you are welcome to join the Grogheads, sir! Start rollin'  O0

@Gusington and @Kushan I still need confirmation from you guys as to which side you prefer.

I used to love BattleTech and had many of the sourcebooks but I gave up on it by the early 90s. It's been about that long since I've had to think about PPCs or heat sinks or other such stuff, so I'm pretty much a newbie at this point.

Which is to say after reading through this thread I'm still not clear on what I need to do, other than

Download the Quick Start rules (done) - I assume the whole thing needs to be read?
Go to page 42 of that Random Rarity Assignment document and...do what?
Download and install MegaMek?

Am I missing anything else?

Its good you speak up, perhaps I need to be more verbose, but I am not really familiar what you guys do and do not know and own and do not own about/of Battletech. So be sure to ask anything and everything that is unclear.

-Download an read the free intro rules if you're unfamiliar at all with Battletech. The Battletech Universe (http://d15yciz5bluc83.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/BattleTechPrimer_Final.pdf?x64300) booklet is a nice read about the universe and its era's.

-Download and install MekHQ (latest dev release 0.43.9!)(you don't need MegaMek as its included in the MekHQ package).

-To roll your forces either start MegaMek, choose 'Start a New Game' and in the following popup window type in a name and leave the pw blank.

-After MegaMek loads, click on the Create Random Army... button, then press on the RAT tab, scroll down the list to Unofficial, then Xotl Mechs, 3028, Mercenary Periphery General.

-Click on 'Roll' in the upper right pane to roll your units.

OR (if you rather roll dice yourself)

Use the PDF I linked.

-Then review the units you got and order them into three suitable Lances, preferably with a Role (like Recon, Assault, etc) and post them here.

Additionally you should type up your player character. He will be the Company's CO.
You can be as basic as just type up a bio without using any rules, or you can use as many RPG rules as you like (if you have access to AToW for example).
We'll drive the campaign in-character with the CO's you guys create, but we can roleplay as heavy or as light as the group desires.

This helpful?

Once our child board goes active I'll be able to neatly organise everything, so that is bound to give some more clarity.

^very. thx.

Thanks much, that's great.

Thanks Ysk, that last post explains a ton.

I'm am extremely green on BT lore. Played a couple of rounds of the board game as a youth and some of the computer games (crescent hawk's inception and various mechwarriors / mech commander) but I know / remember  next to nothing on the overall lore and history.

I'll keep plugging away and show everyone what I come up with.

Ok I'll try to be as detailed as I can then.
Sarna.net is the wiki concerning all things BT. You can get lost on there for days reading lore. I'll link (as I did above) to important stuff as we go.
It'll surely trigger a chain on the site. :)

Not joining, but following this closely (mainly reading as much lore as I can before the PC release)

Have fun!

I find it easier to ignore the lore and fluff until I absolutely need to know what's going on storywise for whatever Battletech game I'm playing. Most such games have basic themes that translate over to the narrative regardless of the specific details.

Examples offhand:

THE CRESCENT HAWKS DUOLOGY -- you're a young noble whose family got stomped in the ongoing civil war, and while you'd like some revenge (thus the title of the second game), first you just need to survive with a few pieces of equipment that you and your friends managed to get hold of for making your escape from the debacle. Over time your survival is successful enough to earn a reputation and job offers, and so your mercenary group begins (the "inception" of the first game's title).

MECHWARRIOR 2 -- it's been too long since I played this one. Just a soldier trying to survive and further the expansion of one of the clans returning to their former homeland to put an end to its unending civil wars? I think? There are campaigns and things as you earn your reputation and go on more important missions. I may be misremembering what side you're on. (But part of the overall dramatic irony is that the reconquista degenerates into its own civil wars indistinguishable from the cynical and vindictive power-grabs that preceded the reconquista.)

MECHCOMMANDER 1 -- a regiment tries to land in an enemy area, which goes disastrously, leaving you piecing together some way to keep the mission going with the surviving scraps of equipment. I think; haven't played this in a while either. Never got around to MechCom2.

MECHWARRIOR 4 -- similar to the Crescent Hawks, but not really building up a merc company per se. Young nobleman whose family gets punched out during a civil war, but while the enemy has the high ground (somewhat literally, where the family palace is) you and your sister have to rally your family's loyal retainers to take back your home.

MW4: BLACK KNIGHT -- you're a mercenary doing merc-y things, just having fun earning cash to make your company grow while other people hire you to further their stories along. The twist is that the back half of the storyline features you fighting against an evil version of the main character from the MW4, whom you're hired to stop. If you played the original campaign, you'll question whether this is really an alternate continuity or you're just being fed convenient propaganda? (Either way, the designers get to reuse key maps from the original campaign!)

MW4: MERCENARIES -- you're a mercenary doing merc-y things, just having fun earning cash to make your company grow while other people hire you to further their stories along. It's a bunch of somewhat connected short stories that you're peripheral to -- you just need to do your job effectively, grow your company's rep, rise in the ranks, be careful about being betrayed by your employers, make an example if that happens. Along the way, you decide to enter into a running season of gladiator matches, which serves as something like the main story for you personally, as you grow in respect and popularity.

MWONLINE -- you're a mercenary doing merc-y things, just having fun earning cash to make your company grow while other people hire you to further their stories along, which you won't get to experience as 'stories' really. Much of the challenge involves trying to find players of your relative rank whom you can trust to fight competently beside you and not be jerks about it. Mostly you will fail at this, as the game steadily mocks your attempts to give meaning to your worthless life until you ragequit and swear never to have anything to do with it again. It can, however, be a little more emotional than the other stories.

I always enjoyed reading through the lore. It's a well fleshed out universe. I'd spend hour upon hour just reading through the Technical Readouts, back in the day.

We now have our own little corner! Yay!

http://grogheads.com/forums/index.php?board=92.0

Give me a few days to flesh out the threads with initial info.
If you have any suggestions and / or requests be sure to post them!  O0
And feel free to start posting, even though info is still missing.

So here's a question. If we don't have access to AToW how do we roll our character?

Well, the whole character creation process is just to have a little fun. The campaign is focussed on the tactical play Battletech offers, not the RPG play AToW offers. Still, certain skills *are* featured in MegaMek that come from AToW.

So if you do not have access to AToW I suggest you just think about what you would want your character to be in a more general sense without looking at rules. I will then try to roll your character as best I can with my AToW book.

Where was he or she born, how was childhood, tell a little about his or her family and how the character has become a Merc and / or attained his or her rank. What are skills (in a general sense) you deem important for your character.
Is he or she a tactician or more a beserker kind of fighter. Does he or she have a favorite Mech model?
The more info you can give, the better I can roll your character to your specs.

Once he or she is created I'll give a rundown of which stats or abilities have effect in MegaMek battles.

Of course, if you don't enjoy making a character at all I can just let MekHQ roll one for you at random and that's that.

So has this ever gotten back off the ground?

I would be interested if it has.

-Mc

Let's fire this back up!

Contracts will be signed. Mechs will be made ready.
All personel at your stations!

I have rewritten the force creation guide for new players, hopefully making it less of an art on how to do this in MekHQ:

How to roll a company in MekHQ for new players (http://grogheads.com/forums/index.php?topic=22872.0)

Hey are we starting back up?

No sir, unfortunately not quite yet