how to play BattleTech in 7 minutes (the easy way)

[@Harpy_Explains]

correction to the terrain rules from a comment The traget is hidden by terrain if there is a hex with a Level at least 2 greater than the higher of the Level the of two units anywhere in the LoS. In addition, if the Los passes through a hex 2 levels greater than the hex of the target, and those hexes are adjacent, the target is fully hidden by the terrain, no matter how hight the Level of the attacker. The exeption is if the two units are on adjacent hexes, as adjacent units always have LoS to each other.

[@danmorgan3685]

Shadow Hawk sees Atlas and can't stop screaming. This is he most correct response on the internet today.

[@TheManyVoicesVA]

This is amazing! Love to see another Battletech KZbinr lol

[@Harpy_Explains]

Thanks! I'm hoping to keep the production rolling if this does well

[@WolfHreda]

​@@Harpy_Explains you should also come join the MRC and wage glorious battle across the stars against fellow enthusiasts.

[@WarhawkTalon]

4:36 In the weapon phase, players take turns declaring unit attacks. Units that can make multiple attacks declare them at the same time. After all units have declared their attacks, then attacks are resolved in the order they were declared. Damage dealt does not take effect until the end of the phase. 5:22 When the LoS passes along the edge of the woods like that, if it is the first time that Los is used this round, the player whose unit is the target of that attack chooses weather the woods affect the LoS or not. All further attacks made along that LoS that round use the chosen result. 5:42 The traget is hidden by terrain if there is a hex with a Level at least 2 greater than the higher of the Level the of two units anywhere in the LoS. In addition, if the Los passes through a hex 2 levels greater than the hex of the target, and those hexes are adjacent, the target is fully hidden by the terrain, no matter how hight the Level of the attacker. The exeption is if the two units are on adjacent hexes, as adjacent units always have LoS to each other. If you want recommend house rules for the sake of simpler gameplay that's fine, but you should mention that rather than saying something different than the official rulebook.

[@Harpy_Explains]

I appreciate the criticisms in the first paragraph about the weapons phase all the points you mentioned are said in the video but put into layman's terms I'm aware of the "choosing if the 50/50 tree counts" rule but I didn't mention it to save time. but you are correct that I should have at least mentioned it to avoid confusion for new players in the future the last point I will take the full L on because I straight up did not know that. I tried to fact check myself by asking questions on the BattleTech subreddit but I may have misinterpreted the rules. thank you for clarifying

[@secstar]

Cool video. Might be good for people who don’t have someone nearby to teach them how to play and just use Flechs Sheets Hope to see more content from you 🤙🏾

[@PaganPilot]

Megamek (and mekhq for campaigns) and flech sheets really shows how much potential there is for an offical digital version of BT. All CGL would have to do is combine them and have modes for differing rulesets like basic, TacOps, Total Warfare etc.

[@philipgodin176]

Good video, I like to roll dice though, so I don't use these functions. Makes it so the only thing you are doing is moving your mechs and punching numbers in a calculator. But I can see why some people would use this. "more fun is pretty subjective" Hope to see more.

[@Harpy_Explains]

I get your perspective as well. I think playing this way at least at the beginning would make the game more accessible for new players as a jumping off point. Or make this kind of game more interesting to wider audience. thanks for watching btw

[@Skylifter1000]

@@Harpy_Explains I think this is a good tool for people who already know the game. I don't think it makes the game more accessible. For one thing, if you do not understand the rules, it will be hard to use the app correctly. Yes, you gave an overview of how movement and shooting works, but that is definitely not enough to really understand it. So you will not really learn the game, either, you will learn some sort of strange, other game that has those simplified rules. Also, when new players always use the app, they never learn the actual rules, and that makes them worse players, imo. If they don' learn how different types of damage work, which kinds of weapons do what and so on, they won't be able to outplay someone who knows all of that. It's like with Battlescribe for things like 40k. If you never build lists with pen & paper (or at least keyboard & excel), you will learn the game wrong. If you just want a simpler game, just play Alpha Strike. Most people who play Battletech probably like the complexity instead of disliking it. And that's also why getting new players to play BT by making the game simpler doesn't make sense. Either they want a complex game and are turned off by the simplification, or they want a simple game and will never actually play BT in the end once they realise how complex it is.

[@Rumplenutskn]

Saving for later. Exactly the video i needed

[@kontankarite]

I just saved this. Your video literally cleared up so much. My god.

[@Harpy_Explains]

Thanks for watching

[@stevenclark2188]

These feels like it would let you play beyond lance scale without devolving to Alpha Strike to save time.

[@TheGremalin]

that is, by far, the BEST thumbnail I have seen in a long time. well done.

[@viktordickinson7844]

The nerd stuff is fun though, why play a tabletop game if you bypass all the tabletop stuff

[@Harpy_Explains]

I get what you mean, but my perspective is that the point of this kind of game is to try to win and doing all the rules in your head slows that down/ makes it less enjoyable. At least for me and probably most new players if I had to guess but IDK

[@Harpy_Explains]

also I didn't mean "nerd stuff" seriously

[@Rumplenutskn]

I grew up playing 40k, recently got into gloomhaven. After playing gloomhaven on table and on PC, I'll never open my box again. It takes so much time to set up. I'm converted in the sense that I think a lot of table top can be automated to make games run faster. However! I still think rolling dice needs to be incorporated. I'm not familiar with flachs sheets, but I would be nice to be able to input your rolls or have the system tell you your hit chance.

[@viktordickinson7844]

@@Rumplenutskn for me thats kinda the fun, working stuff out and whatnot. if a game is too complex to play without implements i just dont even go for it. i get ya tho

[@Rogue_kat]

​@Rumplenutskn if you wanted to you do all the movement steps and input all the info and right before you fire on the side of the weapons list it will actually show you what roll is needed to land the hit. For example on the side of the weapon list next to a medium laser it will say something like 6+ or whatever number you need to roll to hit. Just don't press the fire button and actually roll the dice then check to see if you got that number or higher and then roll again to see where it landed then your opponent will have to mark off on their fleechsheets where your shot landed.

[@kastork82]

This actually might make me try Classic, I've been playing Alpha Strike so far and having lots of fun. Love the potential for simulation, but dread the complexities, so automation is a godsend!

[@Harpy_Explains]

Glad to hear it!

[@kastork82]

@@Harpy_Explains trying Classic in two days, using Flechs! :)

[@Harpy_Explains]

@@kastork82 hell yes

[@patchpatch4008]

PLEASR MAKE MORE VIDEOS BECAUSE IF YOU DONT I WILL SEND COMSTAR TO YOUR IP ADDRESS

[@Harpy_Explains]

@patchpatch4008 my video idea and motivation tanks are pretty low right now. It might be a minute

[@workshoptelescope]

A game based entirely on falling down a flight of stairs carrying a tray of D6’s is not that hard to understand.

[@Harpy_Explains]

@@workshoptelescope sounds more like WH40K tbh

[@workshoptelescope]

@@Harpy_Explains attacking? Roll 6’s. Hit locations? Roll 6’s. Crit? 6’s. Pilot Skill Check? 6’s. Motive check? 6’s!

[@workshoptelescope]

40k wishes they had this cubic swagger.

[@sabrielelliott2427]

waitaminute that music at the start? was that Kill Every 1 you Know? Katamari? sounded like a remix? Thats actually really gud. :)

[@Harpy_Explains]

its murder every 1u know (Salvia's version)

[@virado255]

My only problem with Flechs is that it doesnt support non-mechs.

[@MrJack556]

If you want a fast game but don't like using 3rd party apps and prefer pen and paper, (like me) just skip PSRs, make all pilots have a skill of 1 or 2, and use chain crits and floating crits.

[@gerritvandenbosch4681]

What are chain crits and floating crits???

[@MrJack556]

@@gerritvandenbosch4681 Floating crits aka a TAC (through armor critical) is when you roll a 2 and get a critical even though the place you hit has armor still. A chain crit is a house rule that gives you a critical for every single structural hit you get instead of just one. So for example let's say you have 2 pips up of armor on your center torso and I hit you with 8 dmg from a large laser. It'll knock out the 2 pips of armor and transfer to the structure and take out 6 pips. I would roll for critical on all 6 of them instead of just one. Speeds up the game and can make for some really interesting results.

[@kharak6204]

the other how to play stuff on specific mechs is pretty good but i would definitely not recommend anyone new to the game to use this level of automation for learning, not just for battletech but for any such tabletop games out there like warhammer, flames of war etc. it doesn't help much with learning and understanding the game when it does so much of it for you, it skips too many details. not to mention how that nuance and complexity tend to be the most important parts of such games, the charm and interactivity of it all, I mean if someone doesn't like that why would they even want to play such a game in the first place? this thing does have its purpose as it can massively speed up the games for already experienced long time players but at the very least it shouldn't be used as an introduction for newcomers

[@Harpy_Explains]

@kharak6204 I think it depends on the kind of person. When my friends and I were first learning Battletech, it was absolutely miserable to read the rule book every five seconds and do so much math that it actually gave me a headache. Even when we knew what to do, it felt super slow. Using the cluster hits table was so annoying that we just stopped using LRM and SRM completely. Flechs sheets made the game actually enjoyable for us and sped things up so we could actually finish a game.

[@derekburge5294]

Very concise!

[@TheLofren]

use solaris skunkwerks battle force builder to choose mechs, it shows all the stats and also lets you print sheets, without needing to use MUL

[@bruced648]

standard battletech is a 4 v 4 - 20 min skirmish game. I'll stick to pen and paper. it's far less confusing or time consuming.

[@Harpy_Explains]

@bruced648 From my experience, pen and paper is 10 times more confusing and time consuming but to each their own

[@bruced648]

​@Harpy_Explains I'll admit to a certain bias. I've been playing the game for 40 years. your video is entertaining. and fleksheets is good.

[@ObiwanNekody]

Fancy.

[@TheLofren]

by the way did you know that you can sync 2 sessions of flechs and then your mechs know if the opponent walked, ran or jumped, what direction they may be facing, and the distance they have?

[@Harpy_Explains]

@TheLofren yes that was mentioned in the how to use flechs sheet section

[@ero9841]

Wtf is thst slop music.

[@Epyon009]

@Harpy_Explains thank you for this