Army Combat Veteran Reacts to The Battle of Tukayyid (BlackPantsLegion)

[@theblackpantslegion]

Howdy there bud: A few points of I humbly may. 1. Thank you for your service. I dont mean this in the dick-sucking way but I honestly mean it. As somebody who has involvd themselves with military charities, military good causes, and picking up the pieces the VA left of my friends, I know the struggle. Or, at least can appreciate it. May your creation here be the light in the darkness for others. It is important to have lights in the darkness in these trying times. 2. While I am a military historian and can quote tactics from Jomini to Clausewitcz, or the 2nd ACR at 73 Easting. I've made a life long history of military study, and find we live in a wonderful era for AutoDiadacts - that being said, I purposefully wreck and skew the view of my "Character" and "persona" as I realize for the purposes of fiction a character should have biases and experiences which reinforce those biases. The words/classification of my character is inaccurate despite being a professor. It's not ignorance per se, but more the character using what words he has, or ideas he has, to fit the moment instead of being academically correct. It's because he's a mercenary. School of hard knocks. Sure I could talk about expandable armies, deep battle theory or forming ideal ambush sites but the character would more realistically say "Hippity Hoppity get off my property and "Don't sit in the kill box unless you like dying". 3. Comstar is an interesting hole. I talk a lot more about them in many places but a cohesive history is, well, hard. They are a secret society and the information that they provide is, well, suspect. 4. I welcome you to look further into this setting. I think your view on Social/honor systems is very good and well thought out. I go into more into how this system is engineered with the Civil War and the Exodus to Elementals series. In short, welcome aboard. Your work is worthy.

[@crackensvideo]

"When Clan Diamondshark landed, they had an army. When they left, it was gone. A memory. An entire invasion force relegated to the past tense."

[@eddapultstab2078]

not reading sun tsu before battle can do that

[@thunberbolttwo3953]

Same thing happened to the smoke jaguars.

[@Phoenix8492]

@@thunberbolttwo3953 “Smoked Jaguars”

[@Fenris77]

@@thunberbolttwo3953 Especially the Smoke Jaguars, one Trial battle later and the clan was a "past tense"...

[@Furzkampfbomber]

One has to love Tex' way of wording things. As a german, I not only enjoy his lectures or his little rants as such, but they way he is using language as well. His fine rhetoric really is something.

[@DemonussArcadess]

Honestly feel like Battletech suits your analysis style much more than Warhammer 40k.

[@chrisbaldwin8570]

Battletech is a more grounded setting than 40k. Yeah, they have a super advanced artificial muscle system, faster than light travel, and other weird science but at it's core it's dealing with metrics that are comparable to our real world made by real world factories and companies like GM.

[@fist-of-doom487]

I personally find it funny that much of the 40k fanbase is progressively but rapidly transitioning to Battletech in light of GW’s actions

[@steelgreyed]

Respect and value of the individual is a standard for Mech Warfare, something even 40k has however he hasn't gotten too far into the Titan Precepts, where they WILL go through all manner of preservation, safety, comfort, and survival; all of the things he champions become tactically viable if not triple gold-stamped. Its just funny watching someone with that pedigree, fighter and leader, to "then go" through Krieg training, flustered and going, "how do they even HUMAN?!?"

[@dashiellgillingham4579]

@@fist-of-doom487 I think that's a meme, I've seen little change in the numbers since GW changed it's legal stance on non-profit use of their IP. If people are getting more interested in other settings, then they're still buying GW products as they're doing it. Either that, or the supposed exodus is making WH40k even more popular because people keep hearing about it from the metaphorical immigrants.

[@Kuraimizu9152]

@@chrisbaldwin8570 technically it isn't "faster than light" travel, since it jumps the space entirely

[@clarkecorvo2692]

Paul: "Comstar.. are some weirdos... Tex: "Comstar being the shifty fks they are..." cracked me up big time, god i love tex

[@Mechswordsman]

You have made a great choice my friend. All of Tex's videos on Battletech not only go into the specifics of equipment, but also the history from the time period it came from and why it was relevant. IT's great

[@ranekeisenkralle8265]

You beat me to it. This is pretty much exactly my thoughts when i just saw the thumbnail He perhaps should have started with the Amaris Civil War, but that's neither here nor there.

[@Abb0able]

@@ranekeisenkralle8265 You could hear Tex speak? :)

[@ranekeisenkralle8265]

@@Abb0able Yes - but mostly because i know the video from his own channel.

[@dog209]

@@Abb0able I listened to this so much that the pictures alone are enough that i hear his voice in my head lmao

[@bradwolf9410]

The clan bidding system, like the trial system, was developed to minimize loses and prevent the kind of full scale warfare that destroyed worlds while at the same time encouraging competitive military actions that would make better warriors.

[@dontyouhaveacomrade1585]

Correct, clan warfare typically was not total war in mind set

[@midgetydeath]

In other words, the Clan method of war was better morally than the normal human form of warfare.

[@twohorsesinamancostume7606]

@@midgetydeath Better morally but blatantly proven ineffective. That's the problem with an honor system like that, it'll lose every time to the people willing to do anything and exploit that system to win. Only reason the Clans did as well as they did was because of their edge in technology.

[@tetsatou2815]

@@twohorsesinamancostume7606 This has been my theory as to why clanners retire warriors once they reach like, 28 or whatever. They're old enough and clever enough to know that fighting fair is a sucker's game.

[@2awsommee4U]

Wanna add onto in the clan home worlds they don't hundreds of thousands of worlds and don't have the spare resources to go to total war.

[@Gigadramon6]

On the topic of "heat sinks," the heat sinks of Battletech aren't the kind of thing we would call a heat sink. They aren't passive heat dispersion devices, they're more like a heat pump; they gather up heat from other parts of the mech and actually pump it into the atmosphere. They actually work more like how a refrigerator's compressor works.

[@DIEGhostfish]

And somehow can pump more efficiently into vacuum than JUST radiating heat. They lose a lot of efficiency (Unless they're those weird laser heatsinks the clans experimented with on the Night Gyr that turn you into a rave but always work at 100% efficiency regardless of environment, neither gaining nor losing efficiency)

[@noppornwongrassamee8941]

@@DIEGhostfish Yep. Each heat sink gets rid of 1 heat per turn (2 heat if a double heat sink) both in space and on the ground. But a turn in space is 60 seconds as opposed to 10 seconds on the ground. So Battletech heat sinks (both kinds) work at 1/6th efficiency in space. Laser Heat Sinks would work VERY GOOD in space if they're working 6 times better than their normal counterparts.

[@potandpoliticswithmr.broph1420]

Tex doesn't drop Tex Talks Battletech vids often but they're all top notch and he does fundraisers for good causes with all of em. Great choice of channel to get into.

[@eddapultstab2078]

my favorite is the Mackie, the intro sequence is worth admission alone

[@VallornDeathblade]

@@eddapultstab2078 The Warhammer has a whole intro on military procurement logistics and ships which is fun in its own way.

[@eddapultstab2078]

@@VallornDeathblade that's the video itself I mean the very beginning intro, with the theme music.

[@johnathanblackwell9960]

@@VallornDeathblade It also talks about the hippity hoppity get the fuck off my property boys

[@sebastianthomsen2225]

😉👍

[@terryhiggins5077]

Oh hell yes. Tex and the BPL are absolute treasures among the battletech community, and I never had any idea you were a fan Paul. For those who don't know, the lore for battletech is pretty damn expansive in its own right( not 40K big, but pretty still pretty sizeable) and full of awesome stuff that you'd get with game of thrones in space/mad max with big stompy robots. #wolverinesdidnothingwrong

[@Qardo]

Well, being that the owners of Battletech made the BPL, a fanmade Group, canon in the lore of Battletech. Tex is the leader...or instructor. So all of his classroom episodes are all technically canon. So you could literally make a character for the game that has been taught by BPL and Tex was your instructor. Lol

[@terryhiggins5077]

@@Qardo bless saint Blaine 🙏 and may he never stackpole his reactor lol

[@DIEGhostfish]

@@Qardo Ehhh the Canon Tex is set YEARS after this Tex who seems Jihad era at the absolute latest Maybe a descendant.

[@Plastikdoom]

Treasures!? I say no sir, Tex is legend, he is beyond a treasure

[@KrawmKruach]

You're god damn right the WOLVERINES did nothing wrong and Sarah McEvedy is a total fucking chad.

[@anthonymeschino8679]

Audio is pretty low for Tex’s video, might’ve goofed that one up, unless that was by intention. Would love to see this finished. Battletech is so cool

[@accywacky2699]

This, for the love of the sphere, very interested in more of these vids but you Need to make the audio of yourself speaking and the vid's narration closer to each other... As is my choices is to have the narrator speak at an indiscernible mumble or having my eardrums ruptured when you comment on the stuff. Tldr: Great stuff, please do more. PLEASE fix the audio.

[@KageRyuu6]

It's probably to avoid bots, I doubt Tex would care, but KZbin is KZbin.

[@digitalis2977]

@@KageRyuu6 Tex gives fewer shits than a Taurian standing on a Capellan's Neck.

[@TheBrokensaintvxvx]

The legion.... provides. Praise z0rg brother. kzbin.info/aero/PLR5zhFCFVb9Unr7My0Epa_QQQqa388AVh

[@kazekamiha]

@@digitalis2977 I have to use that phrase sometime.

[@wojszach4443]

32:15 i love how he wrote that Comstar catch phrase, it just means pay your bills fucko

[@travishabursky4362]

Wait until he sees the Comstar commercials.

[@wojszach4443]

@@travishabursky4362 can't wait for those

[@Heseroth]

There is one thing you missed about ComStar when you were talking about green pilots. TL:DR - hide actual forces and technology from IS houses, trian pilots from scratch, swear them to secrecy They do not hire other pilots, because they allways kept their actual forces secret from the rest of the Inner Sphere Houses. Most thought ComStar only had token forces guarding HPG relays which were not the actual threat. The actual threat that kept the houses from taking said HPG relays was the fact that only ComStar knew how to use them, and they controlled all HPG transmissions. Even the C-Bill stands for ComStar Bill and is roughly equivalent to 1 second of HPG transmission, If ComStar cuts transmissions for a planet, that planet is basically dead. No one knew that they had 300 year old mechs, including LosTech and chasis that were considered extinct, so it makes sense that their pilots are trained from scratch and probably also induced into the ComStar religious sect, and kept to secrecy about their equipment, and mercenaries and pirates would not work for that.

[@fernandozavaletabustos205]

My guess is that ComStar pilots where bred and trained from the inside of Terran Hegemony, right?

[@paulsnell534]

My Beef with Games Workshop started in the mid 1990's I used to work part time there. As a shop assistant now and then but also painting their armies for demonstration use in shop. I also got heavily involved in the clubs surrounding the store too. Then this new manager took over our local store in Southampton and put an end to it. He said that basically us long haired people were scaring off potential customers . He sacked most of his staff and took out all the support groups surrounding them. What he didn't take into account the long haired people and the older customers where the heart. Just like with Lego. It's an expensive hobby. Kids can enjoy it but you need a large disposable income to fully enjoy it and young kids don't fully appreciate that. It is an adult hobby.

[@Furzkampfbomber]

Also, since you mention Lego, it's the older folks who convey their love for Battletech or Warhammer 40k or Lego. This is something I've just realised recently when it comes to Lego. Growing up in the GDR, Lego was something with almost mythical qualities for me when I was a kid. I had a collection of old and often damaged Lego stones that I got because my parents bought it from people with family in West Germany when they migrated to the West, but apart from that, I could only marvel at pictures especially of their space sets. I thought they looked so incredibly cool (although that term was not part of my vocabulary back then). Fast forward to 2024 and I could not care less about Lego. I still love interlocking toy bricks, but I don't buy Lego anymore. I don't buy it for myself and I don't buy Lego when I look for presents for my nieces and nephews. And why would I? Today what I see and hear from Lego is a big 'F you, customer!' time and again. The qualitiy of their sets is decreasing continuously, while their prices are constantly rising. Hell, during the lockdowns, Playmobil _lowered_ its prices, while Lego smelled the opportunity and raised theirs significantly. I've just bought a massive 3.300 parts, five independent motors, C&C Mammoth tank from Mould King for a price that should make much smaller and less sophisticated Lego sets blush in shame. I bought a beautiful 2.600 pieces model of the Frauenkirche in Dresden made by BlueBrixx for my dad, a model of a flower from Mould King for my mum and my nephews and nieces got sets from Cobi for christmas. Not a single Lego set was bought and gifted by me for years now - and this is something that will bite Lego in its lazy backside when younger generations start to earn their own money. They will not buy Lego anymore and Lego will lose more and more of its former significance until it is just one manufacturer amongt many (better) others. FFS, Lego just released a remake of their old Galaxy Explorers sets and I really, _really_ want one, but then I look at the price, calculate that I get three better space sets from other manufacturers for the same money and move along.

[@accywacky2699]

23:05 The main reason why Comstar avoids recruiting veterans primarily is due to loyalty issues. Specifically their first priority is to never have any, the sheer value for literally any other faction in the inner sphere to get some of Their men inside of Comstar is so insanely high that they can Do try to make this happen all the time.. much as Comstar uses their monopoly on their tech and their considerable influence to put Their people both secretly and overtly into all the factions in return. Do unto others and don't let them do unto you. Since Comstar have an insane advantage in terms of financial backing and a very significant edge in terms of technology, they prefer to have untested but well trained soldiers who's loyalty (and expendability) they can feel completely assured of over having more experienced and capable veterans. After all they can always hire mercenaries via proxies for jobs that require those.

[@timm2428]

GRANDPA TEX! Also the urban mech fueled by feista pail is the strongest mech ever built by humanity.

[@Jcktheripper]

Yes, please finish this one and react to more from Tex. His videos are well researched, humorous and a joy to listen/watch. Battletech is slightly more grounded and your knowledge and experience of real world military will probably lend itself slightly better to Battletech lore than wh40k lore. Also if you can react to his individual mech lore videos, he incorporates a lot of background and world building in those ones to. As others have pointed out, Tex's' video is rather quiet, so i have to pump my volume to max and then quickly reduce it for your thoughts and analysis. Subbed for more Tex reactions to come.

[@matthewneuendorf5763]

ComGuard had Sandhurst Academy, turning out some highly trained and professional officers, and certainly had a small core group of experienced field operators (including deniable assets and mercenaries, both real and false flag). They may not have had wartime experience, but they definitely had the best training available (arguably better than Clan sibko training, since they were focused on soldiery rather than trial-based warrioring).

[@Colonel_Overkill]

Regarding heat sinks you are correct however the situation varied. Some engagements were hit and run rendering the clanner capacities irrelevant. Some engagements were long drawn out affairs meant to grind the clanners down by means of overheat, ammo exhaustion or equipment failure. One case the Ghost Bears I think were stomping through a dense forest to an objective. The opening volley of the com guard was to light up the trees and burn out the clanners. Fun fact, heat sinks have less efficient performance if you happen to be on fire while operating.

[@nikolajsteffensen6578]

as a note Tex actually has two very. VERY long videos on how the clans were formed and how their internal structure functions if you want to learn more about the clanners and how to best exploit their stupid, stupid ways.

[@vonKobra]

So heat becomes an issue in seconds, not minutes. A support mech with long range missiles in good position can fire nearly endlesslessly, but if forced to move, use secondary weapons, or jump, they are much more likely to exceed their heat sinks capacity to dissapate heat over time. That's why hitting them hard when they are out of position can make even clanner mechs overheat. There are also weapons that cause heat to the enemy, both mech and infantry weapons.

[@victorshaw2602]

His description of Heat Sinks is based on how they work in the Tabletop game where most of the lore is based off of. In the Tabletop game everything you do generates some heat, 1 heat for walking, 10 heat for a PPC, etc. At the end of the turn you compare all the heat you generated to the numbers of heat sinks you have (X2 of Double heat sinks) and if you have any left it is added to your heat scale. As this left over heat builds you start to take penalties (Speed/Accuracy/Etc.) when it gets to high it can force a shutdown. So to get the Clan mechs to the same point as an Inner Sphere mech would required double the effort.

[@Zouron]

I am sure I agree with you about the importance of the battle of Tukayyid, NOT that it is not majorly important however I would argue that the most important would be the Amaris Civil War as it caused the fall of the star league which caused the succession wars, Kerensky's exodus, the return of the clans and yes the battle of Tukayyid. While the ComStar troops might be relatively untested however their commander (Anastasius Focht, originally Frederick Steiner, a former military leader of a successor house) was most certainly were not and they were helped by some of the clans (*cough*wolf*cough*), who helped them by consulting on clan tactics and drive the bidding up during assault because the clans were split into two camps and one camp didn't want to invade. Heat Sinks determine how quickly the system cools down, some mechs can only fire once before they need to cool down, while others can fire continuously, it depends on loadout, clan mechs basically could fire more weapons than an equal inner sphere mech. OF COURSE, that doesn't account for the fact clan mechs can be customized to the local conditions and opponents, their weapons have longer range, do more damage, etc etc. (Extended Range Large Laser; inner sphere: Range 19, damage 8, weight 5 tons, Heat 12 vs Clan: Range 25, Damage 10, Weight 4 tons and half the size). Also, check the sound of the videos you play, so we can hear both you and the video without fiddling with the volume control, please.

[@dolomaticus1180]

But it unlike almost every other conflict thru the history of BT was singularly focused on one planet. The only other one like that was the Defense of Luthien, both battles if had been lost, would have led to the dominos of the IS being rolled up by the Clanners and winning the whole conflict.

[@Zouron]

@@dolomaticus1180 as I said it was important but I don't consider a more limited battlefield to be a guiding line for how it ranks. It was very important for the future of the IS, I just don't think that it is importance is greater than every other battle.

[@gunrunner7224]

It actually makes sense why comstar would train their own pilots. Tech base is very low at this time and comstar has a ton of lost tech and high tech stuff, so i'm betting its for flat out loyalty as house pilots would be primarily loyal to their house/nation over comstar and would likely run with as much info/tech/gear straight back to their house in a heartbeat.

[@sim.frischh9781]

Great thumbnail, Paul, and you are correct with that phrasing, ComStar IS essentially an intergalactic phone company. But the video you watch is too quite, i can´t understand what Tex is saying.

[@ranekeisenkralle8265]

There's a reason Tex calls them "Space-AT&T"

[@sim.frischh9781]

@@ranekeisenkralle8265 That´s an american phone company, right? Are they infamous for their lines being so quite?

[@ranekeisenkralle8265]

@@sim.frischh9781 It is a phone company. as for the rest, i have no idea. I'm not an American. Tex is.

[@murder1625]

Interglatic Nokia

[@TheAchilles26]

@@sim.frischh9781, AT&T is the ORIGINAL phone company, and they're more infamous for getting forceably split by anti-monopoly laws than anything else. Tex's video was probably so quiet due to either technical difficulties or KZbin's anti-copyright algorithms being dumber than people who still trust Capellans

[@Houseckat]

In regards to the heat sink question; Yes, one way to negate the advantage of more efficient heat sinks would be to fire one or few volleys and retreat, but it's worth noting that many clan designs run quite hot. The Mad Dog, Hellbringer, and Direwolf are three examples. They can't even fire an alpha strike once before reaching, if not exceeding their heat sink capacity, in some variants. And, as heat scales rise, there's the potential for ammunition cookoff, and while Clan mechs usually have CASE (ammunition partitioning and blowout panels, in real world parlance), That destroyed ammunition is still unusable for the rest of the fight. That's not counting the chance at higher heat levels of the pilot themselves suffering heat stroke, despite cooling suits. An overheated mech also cannot defend itself as effectively, as systems fail to heat stresses, leading to eventual automated shutdown. This means that infantry and combat vehicles can then damage or mission-kill an effectively helpless target far more easily than risking valuable, powerful battlemechs to deliver final blows. This also means that the destroyed mech cannot penetrate deeper into the castle defense. Inner Sphere mechs also traditionally run hot due to less efficient heat sink architecture, but in a defensive operation, it's easier to link a mech up to a coolant truck to flush hot coolant out and replace it, and it's easier to resupply expended ammunition, or repair damaged mechs and vehicles.

[@baker90338]

Plus in the case of some mechs, I remember a classic solution is (after reviewing rifleman Solaris footage) to pop a squat in a lake or large enough river. It’s not the dumbest thing I’ve seen that works. I remember a guy muzzle loading a piece of rebar into a gauss rifle and firing… the impact noise was one that could only be described as “a earth shattering THUD.”

[@gozillabk]

@@baker90338 Hey, rebar does tend to be partially made of magnetically affectable metals and if they can keep it from scraping the inside of the barrel it really could work so it's not even that crazy.

[@baker90338]

@@gozillabk it works, it’s just it’s not the best idea to do it early or often.

[@Ratkill9000]

What's weird is in lore, the heat sinks use a refrigerant to cool the systems not a water or coolant. So they run something like an Air Conditioning setup. Which I find to be a bit odd.

[@hairychris444]

@@baker90338 On the tabletop if you have leg-mounted heatsinks and are standing in a shallow water hex you get 2x cooling from them...

[@IDKWID1]

When you were talking about the manifest destiny bit, I remembered a quote from the House Kurita source book that goes something like 'There is no motivation to the crowd better than the idea that they are the one, destined to lead mankind into a brighter future. They fall for it every time.'

[@scottyjoe6966]

Thanks for repping our guy Tex. Love your stuff. You two should have a chat podcast style.

[@drpainglove3389]

Loved the video, try to get the vid volume up a little bit. I hope you decide to do some of Tex's other talks on Battletech although Amaris Civil War and Exodus to elementals while incredible would probably take a huge amount of time to do with many many videos. I would watch em for sure though.

[@Angel-vl1kq]

I've rewatched this video about a dozen times, so sad he didn't make a second part

[@cropathfinder]

Comstar recruiting from green has a point. Aside from the point you made its also because greener soldiers recruited younger tend to be easier to indoctrinate into their dogma. Remember they are a quasi religious organization with the emphasis on religious.

[@kennethbedwell5188]

This is old BT lore, I can handle this. Anything after 3055 I just lost interest You also missed 1 thing about more rural based honor bound cultures. Ritual combat serves to limit casualties in a society that do not have large populations. A real world analog of the battle of Tyykuid is Shaka's war in Zulu land during the 19th century. You had a highly ritualistic battle system amongst the tribes where by they would meet and set a date and time and then shout, throw spears and show off. Who ever had a larger force won. The coming of Shaka and the advent of Total war was devastating to this form of combat. Gone were the time and dates, no more showing off, Shaka with his Impi's would run 50km a day and fight viciously destroying the army they encountered, taking the resources and herding the women and children back to KwaBulawao

[@drpainglove3389]

I generally find at least some cool stuff in the later eras. The lore after and during the Word of Blake Jihad gets pretty weird though. Things just seemed less coherent and some of the events didn't seem super plausible to me. My favorite moment to rag on is the Marriage between the Magestrix of Canopus and the Chancellor of the Cappellan confederation which is a serious "deeeer whuh?" situation to me. The next Magestrix was also super weird with the whole incest baby thing. Like actually wtf though. I'm with you that Battletech at its best seems to stop around Fedcom civil war, I love hating on Katherine but a lot of the events and characters after that lost their charm to me.

[@reecedignan8365]

To me I work up until the end of the FedCom Civil War. I find there are small things I enjoy from the other eras but I feel after the FCCW the writing got jumbled and stated to take a decline and the gameplay itself also got way to over complicated - and that’s coming from a game that already goes more into depth than others

[@DIEGhostfish]

@KarSoban Yeah most of his stuff is pre FCCW evenaside from maybe some variants. (WHich is most of my early knowledge of the setting where I had TROs 3050-3060.

[@Hxxrtbrxxk]

The battle for Tukayyid is one of the coolest pieces of battletech lore! and Tex is so underrated!

[@JohannVF]

The Swiss Guard recruits from Swiss Catholic males who have completed their mandatory service in the Swiss Army (and have a recommendation from their Bishop). So all the recruits have a military background. In addition, the Swiss Guard have their own training program (partnering with the Italian military and military police/carabinieri). The halberds and swords are for show, but they've got SiG assault rifles as well, but generally keep them out of public view.

[@zyphier]

27:43 Bidding was because of exactly because the clan home worlds are resource poor. You guessed it right on your first guess. Bidding was instituted as a way to prove effective stewardship.

[@reasonableastartes]

Love your choice, would love being able to hear Tex even more.

[@TheBrokensaintvxvx]

The BPL has a podcast. They're competing with the Berkley Public Library to be the number one BPL podcast.

[@chunkysweirdtoaster3081]

I have just been introduced to Battletech very recently (a few hours ago, really), and there are three things that amused me to no end. 1. I was introduced to this through r/Grimdank, who now call themselves a Battletech meme subreddit. 2. I saw Comstar being nicknamed "Space AT&T" 3. The discussions about Urbanmechs consisting of: a. Urbies being referred to as walking trashcans b. Urbies being legends c. Urbies moving so slowly that you only notice them when they shove their gun up your ass d. Urbies being nightmares for anyone moving in tight spaces, especially when one has duct taped an AC-10 or AC-20 onto its weapon mount

[@Actalzy]

Great choice, I've been playing TT Battletech and reading the lore for nearly 30 years now. My favorite setting, extreme and brutal but not quite as over the top as 40k. As good and important as this battle was I'd say that the Amaris Civil War was the defining event for both the IS and Clans. And ComStar is like mentioned, basically space AT&T if AT&T had a complete monopoly on the worlds telecommunications and no government oversight. The reason why ComStar mostly had green pilots is they mostly took in and brainwashed people when they were young, aside from a few like Focht. So these warriors had the best of the best training with something even most great houses struggled to maintain which were the simulation pods for training but due to how ComStar operated almost never saw actual combat. See ComStar not only controls and maintains the HPG network they also listen in and read every single last message that comes through it so has blackmail and dirt on every single higher up pretty much in the entire IS. Not to mention they are the only ones in the entire IS that knows how fix and maintain the network so in a large galaxy setting that becomes extreme power as communicating is beyond important. Hard to cordinate a battle if you can't communicate with the people in power and in command and as you have to use the HPG network ComStar also knows your every move.

[@myzimensi]

On the heat sink thing, recognise I'm late to the party, it's worth noting that the pilots of mechs get subjected to some of the heat spike of their mech- they're sitting on the fusion reactor- The books tend to go into pilots that have been in multiple fights or fighting for very long being essentially naked in the cockpit if they don't have a cooling vest, stuck to their seats with sweat. So the machines can handle the heat fine- the human element is the weak point.

[@gabrielstrong2186]

Recruiting from mercenary outfits or House armies would be a valid approach if you are a government or a company recruiting an army. Comstar was not. Comstar was a religion and they were not recruiting they were proselytizing so their first goal was to indoctrinate into the religion and then train to the peak of efficiency. Getting a hard bitten merc mechwarrior to truly "drink the cool ade" would be an almost impossible task, in anywhere near the numbers Comstar needed for their guard. Freddy Steiner, sorry I mean Anastasius Focht was a huge exception not the rule.

[@wojszach4443]

since you go for battletech, Amaris civil war? Amaris vs Kerensky? Also from same channel

[@andrewt3768]

When it comes to the bidding, there is definitely some ego involved and it shows good stewardship of your assets, but it also stemmed from how the Clans formed. They had just made a massive exodus from Inner Sphere to escape massively wasteful wars and were seeking a less destructive method for solving disputes.

[@reecedignan8365]

So to explain heat sinks in the classic Battletech game - the tabletop one - every time a mech moves and shoots a weapon it produces heat. This heat will continue to build up each turn as weapons fire and the mech moves. However, heat sinks will reduce this heat down at the end of the turn. Example: I have a Blackjack. I make it do a run move (2 heat) and then in the shooting phase fire 4 medium lasers (12 heat). At the end of the turn my mech has 14 heat on it. However, a blackjack has 11 heat sinks. As such next turn I will start with 3 heat remaining on my track and if I repeat what I did above again I’ll have 17 heat reduced by 11 to 6. This is why double heat sinks are important in the tabletop cause they double the heat reduction capacity each turn - and when weapons like the Clan ERPPC cause 15 heat per shot and some of their mechs have 2 of them plus a dozen more weapons. You need the heat sinks. Plus to note, the more heat generated on the tracker also leads to worse things for your mech. Having 6 heat left over means that turn your on a -1 movement modifier for your mech (so my blackjack that’s usually a 4/6 will be a 3/5 this turn) Keep leaving heat to build up and you’ll be facing potential ammo explosions, shut downs and if your playing optional rules, crisping your pilot. Hit 30 and your mech shuts down. And will have to reboot next turn - this is bad cause it means every other mech while your shut down can make called shots against ya, so instead of rolling to randomly determine where shots hit, they choose. And when a head and centre torso are available. You’ll be cored in seconds.

[@terryhiggins5077]

Amen! MWO and MW5 have some wonky, and just plain bad game mechanics that have unfortunately, been the only reference for new(er) players. The old heat system was dead simple, made sense and most importantly worked! And given the whole of BT's lore is based around the tabletop you start getting problems like Paul's confusion here.

[@teenyweenyOwen]

I haven’t watched yet, because I know that this is something that I am going to pay full attention to when I do. The instant I saw the title shot I did a dance of glee. I love the thought of you and tex getting together in front of a microphone and just chatting about whatever. Please try to make it happen!

[@comentnine1574]

00:30 Arch said we need someone to rally behind….who better then a army veteran?

[@cavemancult1999]

Ugh.

[@comentnine1574]

@@cavemancult1999 good Ugh or bad ugh?

[@christhornton640]

I feel we all need to work together even if you don't like someone need to stand together

[@paulpolito2001]

@@christhornton640 I know how you feel… I thoroughly dislike Arch; but that doesn’t mean he isn’t 100% right about this.

[@paulpolito2001]

@@AnonD38 that isn’t rude, at all; but due to the nature of GW - both in that they’re a frivolously litigious corporate entity, and that they’re based in the UK (which has notably draconian IP “protection” laws)… I think a more decentralized approach is probably the most likely to have any positive effect. The fact that a fairly large percentage of well-established, larger 40k channels aren’t based in the US (although iirc, Germany would also allow protected use) causes some organizational issues… no one is saying “All hail, Warmaster Paul”, or anything; but I know from experience that MPs tend to excel at small-scale logistics and organizational structure - gonna have to start small, anyways; and the fact that he’s *willing* to make a stand counts for even more, cause… ya know, fuckin GW is ODing on their own assgas. You raise excellent and valid points, and I’m not sure you’re wrong… just offering counterpoints. The only thing I actually disagree with, out-of-hand, is that larger equals better in this case (at least, until some momentum has been gained), as flying under the radar of GW’s Legal dept, and being a citizen of a nation that offers legal protection (imho) means more, at present.

[@mollymcallister1671]

On heat-sinks... In the video games, particularly first-person simulator style, heat-sinks do more or less regulate overall rate-of-fire and nothing else. However, in the original tabletop rules if you forced a mech to generate more heat than it had heat-sinks to swiftly dissipate it would have cumulative effects ranging from crippling the mech's mobility and hindering the accuracy of it's weapons to forcing a reactor shut-down or cooking-off ammunition stores to even boiling the pilot in their own cockpit.

[@reecedignan8365]

Woooo! He’s finally reacting to Tex

[@ShineyFace1337]

Can't wait to see a part 2 of this, great reaction and very informative.

[@Actalzy]

This is a second post because the first was long and I sort of wanted to touch on the tech level difference between the Clans and the Great Houses. You mentioned the clan heatsinks being better, they are very much better, especially at the time of this battle. All clan tech was massively better in most ways over House variants but here is the thing, they are fighting ComStar here. ComStar has spent the last few hundred years keeping the Houses on a technological decline hoping they'd grind each other down till they just couldn't fight anymore and ComStar could impose peace on everyone. ComStar during this battle was using mostly Star League level tech which was only a bit behind clan tech really. See the one major advantage the clans had was actually range, which is why ComStar opted for the fast very close in hit and run strikes. Because at that close of range and in such dense forest as a lot of the fighting happened in, the clans firepower advantage became very small. So in short, heat was a sort of factor but it was mostly to eliminate the Clans huge range advantage more than to negate the clans heat advantage.

[@thequietgamer7147]

in classic Battletech all weapons could only fire 1 or twice per turn and any weapon fired produces a fixed amount of heat with single heat sinks reducing heat build-up by 1 and double heat sinks by two and in that game having too much heat build-up could lead to reactor shutdowns and ammo explosions

[@justicar5]

Since the Comguard are way bigger than they wanted anyone else to know, they limited recruitment of mercenaries etc, as that was to easy to spot, and vulnerable to infiltration, better to recruit from Earth, for securities sake, and hire mercenaries as instructors and NCOs as necessary.

[@ogrehaslayers605]

Comstar remains the best and most interesting factions in Battletech. Catalyst dropped the ball when they erased them.

[@nikolajsteffensen6578]

you should watch more of Tex videos. the guys is amazing. i suggest starting from. well. the start and moving your way along. his later videos get really long though as a heads up but he's a dedicated guy with a clear passion for battletech and the lore behind it. and remember. pay your comstar bills.

[@daleandrade8140]

Awesome sir. Would love to see more battle tech content.

[@eddapultstab2078]

23:00, the reason comstar trains personnel from scratch is because they are pseudo religious paramilitary force. com guards are expected to be religious and take part in the ceremonies and prayers, there's alot of backstory behind it. in addition the hpg and other "dark" technologies are under their preview and they, comstar, are known to defend the secrets of them at all cost, see trippitz affair for example. getting young recruits screens them against spies and bias towards a specific house, atleast in theory, and insures a level of acceptable loyalty.

[@marvinjohnson2488]

It's 9-30-21 and I hope you continue this v-log. I enjoyed your take on the battle and your insights as former military.

[@MathewNadzam]

This is super interesting. Please continue with a part 2.

[@Plastikdoom]

And not even just honor for bidding, it lowered down the resources and helps keep escalation of fights from happening, as you’re both trying to out bid, as low as you can, while still winning. While that could result in a higher percentage of forces used lost I think, something to say for economy of scale. It also prevents massive personnel and material losses

[@AceofDymonds]

We rolling with some Battletech now? Awesome!!

[@bb1886]

Two things, the clan's culture was imposed upon them by a quasireligious figure. The difficult part of Battletech is that the lore and the tabletop rules don't always match up.

[@Jacen32272]

The main reasons for the Bidding by the Clans was to ensure parity of forces and, far more importantly, to limit collateral damage. The Clans didn't have worlds they could afford to loose to battle damage, so they used ritual combat as conflict resolution to limit the resultant damage to whatever they were fighting over. Think in terms of betting of a sporting event to settle an issue, combined with the bragging rights of winning while using less then the opposing force to do so... Fast movement also increases heat buildup, so disengagement after a battle can be limited by heat dissipation capability. The trick here is to make sure the Clans have other reasons to not follow, such as by having multiple waves in each engagement, allowing their mechs to still build up significant heat.. Please do finish, and then for further perspective on Why They Lost, check out Tex's video on the Madcat, or his two part epic Primer on the Clans...

[@Jonnyg325]

The clans spent 300 years turning war into a perfected contest, maximum gains with minimum loss, and they saw this as good. The IS spent 300 years using total war to blast each other back to the stone age, then got all new toys and got ready for round 2. When the clans showed up with their honor and rules, the IS laughed and started orbital bombardments of their positions.

[@DIEGhostfish]

IS didn't have orbital bombardment. The clans were the first to engage in it in revenge for a mere prison break and riot. Edo Turtle Bay Never 4get. (Though the captain of that ship was punished and the whole clan lost face)

[@rkbinder]

On the tabletop, the more heat a mech has not bleed off with heat-syncs the easier it is to hit as the targeting computers of enemies can see them better and the harder the hot mech is too pilot as the artificial mussels that all mechs use gets "mushy" when not properly cooled. Also if a mech gets too hot the ammo of ballistic and missile weapons might cook-off and cause internal explosions inside the internal structure of the mech or make the fission reactor explode (usually have safety turn the mech off) All Mechs are primary limited by Tonnage, and a double heat-sync (also called a 'Freezer' by mech-jocks) cools twice as much heat as a normal one for the same Tonnage in return for taking up more internal space. Clann Mechs use more advanced components than innersphere Mechs so that most of there weapons take up less space internally making room for more double heat-syncs. Weapons are either ammo or energy based, and energy based weapons generate more heat that ammo in return for never running out. The Clanns use a lot of energy weapons because their main manufacturing worlds are over 100 light-years from the front and this helps logistics. So too push a mech that has infinite ammo energy weapons you have to make them build up so much heat that that it is too dangerous to the pilots health too shoot.

[@mrwoodchuck94]

The video is so silent I almost hear what the guy is talking about, like Paul's voice is about 100% Lauder

[@michealcormier2555]

This is the very first video I've watched of yours and I'm hooked. I look forward to seeing more of what you have produced based off this one video. Very well done.

[@dajonaneisnoah8714]

Since you asked about the heat sinks, I'll try to explain their importance even in a short skirmish engagement. First, it is essential to understand that the novels were written with the tabletop board game in mind, which tends to function differently than the vast majority of video games. In the video games, there is either a measured delay between the generation of heat and its dissipation, which exceeds the cyclic rate of the guns, or you can only mount weaponry equal to your heat dissipation. These are realistic solutions, but creates a different dynamic. In the tabletop miniatures game, weapon cyclic rates are uniform (as far as game mechanics are concerned - the actual number of rounds fired varies with weapon fluff, but have the same effect), and the dissipation rate of heat sinks is identical to it, and so as far as game mechanics go the effects of heat sinks are instantaneous. If you have 8 heat sinks and fire an Inner Sphere Large Laser which produces 8 heat, you gain 0 heat. It is only when your weapon heat fired exceeds your maximum heat sink dissipation that you even accumulate any heat at all. Where this becomes important is that the vast majority of battlemechs have substantially larger weapon payloads than their heat sinks can mitigate. Often mechs will have arrays of short, medium, and long range weapons, with the *intention* that pilots will switch to the more heat-to-damage efficient short range weapons as they close with an enemy. That's what Mechwarriors are "supposed to do." Also, some mechs are just overgunned, relying on pilots to alternate which weapons they fire in order to achieve oscillating surges of destructive power, followed by a more restrained volley in order to cool, with the hope that the enemy forces will be eliminated before heat build-up can cripple the mech. However, nothing actually prevents a pilot from firing the longer ranged weapons concurrently with the short ranged ones, resulting in rapid gains of heat as they vastly exceed the designed damage/heat curve. As the mech heats up, the myomer muscles become sluggish, causing it to lose speed and maneuverability, the targeting computer begins to glitch out, reducing accuracy, the ammunition may get too hot and cook off inside the mech, and the reactor may try to shut down to prevent said explosion (but also turn the mech into a stationary target). Why this becomes important in these Defense-in-Depth ambush skirmishes is that if you hit the mechs hard enough that the pilots feel they need to use more than the optimum weapons for the engagement range, and close enough that they can actually use those short-range weapons, the pilot may over-commit their arsenal and either cripple the performance or cause the automatic shut down of their mech, making it an easier target, reduce the accuracy of their return fire, or even blow themselves up. With many mech load-outs, this degree of overheat can be provoked within one to two volleys of fire. As a side note, this is why the Awesome 8Q is so devastatingly effective on the tabletop. It has nearly optimal heat dissipation, so it can fire its primary arsenal of three Particle Cannons two rounds out every three, or three out of four if pressed. Most mechs cannot near-perpetually mainline their whole arsenal like that, especially in the succession War Era Inner Sphere. What's worse is that some Clan mechs even seem designed to do this *on* *purpose.* Take the 50-ton Nova Omnimech, Prime Configuration, for example. It has 12 Extended Range Medium Lasers, and the heat sinks to compensate for firing *half* of them (and to run or use the jump jets, but not enough for 7 lasers). It also has no ammunition to cook off, so all it can do is get sluggish or shut down, and the jump jets negate the sluggishness to a degree. Now, if a good pilot can hit an enemy mech of similar tonnage with all twelve weapons (more-so if this is delivered into the thin back armor of a mech), the fight is effectively over, since it will have done more damage than *four* AC-20s, albeit more spread out. In a short ritualistic duel, this works. If you're facing swarms of cheaper Inner Sphere mechs, the Clanner slags one, and then its buddies gang-bang the shutdown mech. The Dire Wolf prime configuration is a variable range arsenal that is guaranteed to either shut it down or detonate it if all the weapons are fired. Even the excellent Timberwolf/Madcat can cripple itself inside of one turn. With all of this said, I would conclude with the note that most multi-hour Battletech board game matches represent "actual" combat times of only a few seconds to a few minutes. Nearly every game is a short-duration skirmish in which mechs take each other apart startlingly quickly. I hope this has been helpful in illuminating the "get them to push their heat sinks" issue.

[@noppornwongrassamee8941]

Tabletop Battletech turns are 10 seconds long. A mech is considered sufficiently ammoed if every ammo using weapon has 10 to 15 turns' worth of ammo even if firing that weapon every turn. Which means most of these "small skirmishes" don't last longer than 150 seconds. That's 2.5 minutes. But it doesn't feel like 2.5 minutes because Tabletop is turn based, and players are accustomed to taking all the time they need to make decide on the moment to moment tactical decisions. If they had to spend only 10 seconds deciding where all their mechs would move (or hell, even just 1) and what they'd shoot at, they wouldn't do nearly as well. That being said, there's certain advantages to carrying more weapons than you can cool. In simulator type games, you can fire all your weaponry, overheat, and then duck into cover to cool off. Overheating is only a disadvantage if there's no cover to duck into. If there's cover, then this kind of peekaboo combat favors the overheating mech than the mech built for constant sustained fire. After all, the only firepower that matters is the firepower being exchanged when mechs are shooting at each other. And if the overheating mech is only ever shot at when it's cool enough to alpha the other guy, the constant fire mech is going to have a lower effective dps than the overheating mech. The constant fire mech can't take advantage of its ability to fire constantly if it can't shoot at its enemy constantly. Back when I played MWO, peekaboo combat was the norm for players. Because anyone who tried to charge out into the open to fight the other team would be torn apart by the enemy team in seconds, even (especially!) if they were driving a slow, max armored assault. And this despite armor values being effectively doubled compared to Tabletop. This strategy can be done in Tabletop, although it requires high mobility and favorable terrain. Jump out of cover, alpha strike your target, jump back behind cover to cool off. Repeat. Some mechs like the Succession Wars era Jenner seem to be built around this tactic.

[@Durry01]

tex says the inner sphere is using star league era double heat sinks giving them heat management on parity with the clans. It was not a mis-statement.

[@DIEGhostfish]

ALMOST on parity, heat per ton is the same but they can't fit as many in by volume because while Clan DHS are 2x the size of singles at the same weight, IS ones are 3x.

[@thetalkingbear]

Double heat sinks dissipate heat at 2 points per heatsink rather than 1. Clan double heat beyond the free engine heat sinks only take up two internals spaces instead of inner sphere three. I think they were lighter too.

[@reecedignan8365]

Nah single and double heat sinks always were a single ton (Is and Clan) but yeah clan ones were a lot smaller - taking up only 2 critical spots vs the IS 3. Plus Clan Double Heat Sinks we’re more common while Inner Sphere ones were quite rare a bit more rare until the later half of the clan invasion and the FedCom Civil War Era

[@Plastikdoom]

As for corporate bullying, is not yet a thing with battletech, as hundreds of corporate lawyers own it, among others, and non have cracked down on any, they even encourage it to a degrees look at GM’s lawyers, hilarious message to Randolph and the editor.

[@hadesdogs4366]

I personally play as the assault class whither seven hundred on frontal armor Twin rotating cannons on the left arm One heavy gauss cannon on the right One heavy laser and one set of missiles on the back and chest specialized in mid to long range engagements

[@BigSeth1090]

An excellent Steiner scout mech!

[@thestabbybrit4798]

Look at the bright side, kid. You get to keep all the money.

[@maube8007]

Comstar did recruit from all those sources to fill out ranks of officers, like Focht. The majority of their forces were green but very well trained.

[@TheGreatDayne1983]

It Begins! Hopefully you’ll keep doing these!

[@zdron07]

its real fucking quite, i had to turn everything i had up just to bearly hear tex but it blows my ears out everytime you talk

[@charlesborden8111]

Agree that Tex is too quiet, had to double the sound output just to hear him; then ramp it down during the comments.

[@Phoenix8492]

On the Urbanmech; Recently I had an MWO game where there were two coordinated Snowball Urbanmechs who respectively did 900 and 1400 damage. Not so long ago I played a round of Battletech on Steam in which a mission forced me to escort 3 Urbanmechs with AC10s. When a full-toughness CN9-AL entered the field, I directed them to form a gun line and we AC’d the thing into the ground. Under no circumstances do you discount the Urbanmech. They look cute and harmless until one walks around the corner with an AC20. On Clan Warfare; My thoughts about the Clan honor system, based on other Tex videos, is that the honor system was originally put in place for a similar purpose to the Tau Greater Good of Warhammer: to prevent them from completely annihilating each other in bloody civil war. The Clan honor system was demonstrated to be a detriment when it came to fighting an Inner Sphere whose preferred play style was “total war” for centuries. Sure, the great houses were caught by surprise, but as soon as they were able to figure out what was going on they became incredibly formidable enemies to the Clans. I would say myself that if the Great Houses would put down their differences they could wipe out the Clans entirely; that they stalwartly refuse to is why the Clans do not face eradication.

[@danielvandersall6756]

No voice better for talking at length about the world of Mechwarrior than Tex. A well-deserved legend. Best way to look at Comstar is if the world's only phone company was run by Scientology.

[@LowbrowDeluxe]

Excellent IP to get into. The military lore of Battletech is pretty interesting. Not often real realistic, but interesting.

[@Halberd1216]

Great choice on going with Battletech. I started reading these books long before I engaged with warhammer and have always had a soft spot for the Battletech Universe. My military/engineer training scoffs at the idea of a walking battle frame that balances on two legs and is a really tall profile target......but the coolness factor trumps that everytime.

[@twohorsesinamancostume7606]

This is a universe where militaries had fought each other in such destructive wars that the planets they were fighting for would be rendered completely inhospitable. Nukes being thrown around like a parade float throwing candy into a crowd kind of conflicts. The end result was that mechs ended up taking over the bulk of the fighting. While they're destructive, they aren't going to destroy an entire planet. The Clans decided to take that a step further by using a bidding system for fights. Two opposing sides would meet up, discuss what they both had and the side with the larger forces would hold stuff in reserve to keep the fighting contained and away from anything of value. Collateral damage is considered dishonorable. It's highly exploitable if the people you're fighting don't share your culture, but I do find it to be noble in its own way. Of course, the Clans being the weirdos that they are just expected the Inner Sphere to know this even though the two peoples had been separated from each other for hundreds of years, but that's what happens when your founding leader is also a giant weirdo who decided to drastically rewrite human history.

[@christhornton640]

Blackpantslegion their content is very good at I really enjoy how Tex's dose his videos. I would love to see more reactions to his work

[@MrRavenBlackwing]

Heat Sinks just lower how much heat is generated; allowing a pilot to fire a mech's weapons for longer. If you fire too many too often, you can still overheat the mech and either force a shutdown or cook the ammo and fusion reactor, followed by a Mech-shattering kaboom.

[@BLACKFLAME4941]

as a little mention. when the ghost bears and the wolfes came down: comstar torched an entire MASSIVE forest with a BIIIG chunk of bear and wolf forces in them. i believe it was 6 trinairy(6*15) stars of wich i believe 8 mechs and some tanks and elementals got out alive

[@BLACKFLAME4941]

i should mention that they used a very difficult to put out and extremely hot fuel in the process and also encircled them in the flames. aka overworking the heatsinks and melting mech and pilot alike/alive..

[@richardcarignan6313]

Okay, I do not know much regarding the setting, but from what I gather, heatsinks were not only to manage the emweapon systems, and if you played 3 or any the have more detailed mech labs, you would see that the fusion cores are what supply power and as a mec is pushed, environmental and internal, it needs to expell the heat or risk going critical. Clans had the abilities to increase their output of their mechs this way and when hitting with energy weapons that also heated the mech, it's why he mentioned pushing them harder, making them over extend the mech capacity, have 3 or more mech that prioritize energy weapons on one target, put them in hazardous enviroments

[@SpielkindFR]

Funfact about Comstars commander Anastasius Focht. Focht in german is a bit of an old timey term meaning fought. It comes from the german Fechten (for fencing). Dude has fighting in his damn name.

[@claytonhess5512]

40:18 In short, ComStar had what most people call the Home Field Advantage.

[@WildWolfGod]

Fucking bless you and Bless Tex.

[@zero-arc3810]

Why is there no part 2? I really enjoyed this.

[@BlackWolf-bu5dt]

The thing about Comstar, is that they want to keep the balance of power between the great houses, if one faction gets a advantage over the others Comstar will send in covert forces to…. Deal with the threat to that balance. It’s why they won’t recruit from mercenary companies, and most CERTAINLY not from the great houses (especially the Capelens). They can’t trust them to keep quiet about what they do or run off with the advanced technology they are trained and given to use

[@ScarriorIII]

Man, if you can get your hands on a copy of the 4th Succession War Sourcebook, that'll melt your military mind from all the goodness. As for heatsinks, the lore/tabletop essentially works like this: I have 10 singles, 1 heat sinked per. I fire weapons underneath that number of heat generated, it is totally gone. So, I enter a 1v1 with mechs. My mech fires 1 or 2 weapons in the exchange with no heat generated, but my opponent can fire 4 or 5 with no heat over. Add to that the fact my opponents weapons are superior across the board, and I'm literally outgunned. This less efficient heat management is one of the reasons why the Inner Sphere both had to improve their tactical and strategic skills as well as resort to more physical combat with mechs. Clanners never did melee, IS did it all the time.

[@L337f33t]

I love the story about Clan Ghost Bear conquering a planet over a game of Football. They offered a challenge to the planet to beat them at SOMETHING and they would leave. The leaders thinking they would be clever challenged them to American Football. There was no way these crazy people from beyond the periphery would know how to play. Thing was, Clan Ghost Bear played football with the best of them, and fielded a team of 8ft tall bat shit crazy elementals. It was over before it began.

[@Plastikdoom]

And nothing wrong with honor based society…our problem. We have gone away from that, where I grew up, I’m only 35, we didn’t lock our doors when home, or our car doors, our neighbors knew were our spare key was, incase something came up that it was needed. We looked out for each other, my truck in HS, had a rifle, shotgun, and fishing rod in the back window, the basic 3 slot gun rack in a truck, my truck was never locked, no none else’s was either, none of us even thought about a school shooting, after those started happening, sadly, me in junior high. We were part of the response, not officially, but we were once in HS, as in we wouldn’t let that happen. And no one even tried to regulate us, or our guns/ammo…because we aren’t the problem, only crazy assholes are. We all knew each other, and parents, friends family, everyone there. In a true small town, you c CC ant do a single thing, without someone knowing about it, but it’s not brought up, if their polite, unless you’re totally on the moral wrong. Then you will be shamed, like it will be we (small town) USA also have the record for amount of men who joined and died in the world wars, by percentage.

[@timmoree3356]

Great video, very educational analysis. Can't wait to see part 2!

[@DaveCertifiedS]

Happy to Battletech coming in why the game that shall not be mentioned in on hiatus. This was my mini game of choice through high school and I'm really curious how it's evolved. One quick note, the audio was really off on the video.

[@AsuraBoss]

Tukayyid was only the second most important. The first was the Fall of the Star League. Which BPL had two episodes on and it’s four hours of lore so this might be hard to do here.

[@grouchypotatowolfpack5580]

With the clans, honour works a little different than you described. It's more like the geneva convention: a set of rules for conduct at war, strictly enforced on a social and political level, to prevent the clans from burning each other to the ground.

[@procrastinatinggamer]

One aspect of Clan bidding that seems to be overlooked is that you can call in reinforcements up to your initial bid, but it’s seen as less honourable. Not dishonourable and there’s wiggle room to account for unforeseen problems. But going beyond your initial bid? *That’s* dishonourable as it’s a sign of your inability to assess the situation. Ulric Kerensky, at Phelan Kell’s advice, actually used this after the Smoke Jaguars destroyed the city of Edo with an orbital bombardment - leaving their warships out of the bid entirely from the get-go ensuring that neither he nor whoever he was bidding against would be able to use them if the fighting turned against them. It set a precedent through the rest of the Invading Clans as word spread that, paired with how those Clans viewed Clan Wolf, had them forgoing their warships as reserve forces expressly to not be seen as less honourable than Clan Wolf.

[@thehammer4607]

Super happy to see you doing Tex, slight problem though, I can’t hear Tex

[@BigSeth1090]

MechWarrior 2: Mercs, hell yes man. I was like 7 and had no idea what I was doing but it created a love. And I still vote for the Amaris Civil War next! Everything from counterinsurgency tactics to total war comes into play.

[@Archangel1862]

Kings and Generals has two videos about the Swiss Guard in the second they talk about the requirements to be a member of the guard

[@derekwhittom1639]

Ilkhan Ulric Kerensky created the Tukayyid trap that Comstar capitalized on Bidding makes perfect sense based on Clan incentive structure. It is better to die valiantly while losing with too small a force to enter into the eugenics program, rather than win. The Vet inner sphere mechwarrors were all too willing to adapt their tactics to adhere to Clan ideology. The Com Guards had zero honor to protect, so fought dirty.

[@Plastikdoom]

And well up to this point, they always had pretty green pilots…as they had stayed out of any major fights. To preserve what they had, instead of wasting it, and the big year gap, that’s good, with the maintenance they had, or none of them would work, that’s the pinnacle of technology for the inner sphere, right before and as they fell.