TUKAYYID! Clans part: 3 | The battle that broke the clans back

[@VallornDeathblade]

The moral of this story is... It turns out you CAN just have people turn up to an ambush if you ask them nicely enough.

[@kolman3178]

Be nice people it'll pay divedends

[@corataylor2205]

This is funnier after watching the rifleman ep

[@elijahsnow3119]

Be nice. It pays dividends. Oh… and always remember to pay your phone bills. #getFoched

[@chthulu27]

"Get bent space weirdos."

[@mileselon1339]

"You dare refuse my Batch all?!"

[@MLCrisis1790]

"In the most Clan dented forehead way possible..." The most perfect description of the invasion era Clans I've ever heard, lmao

[@Kingofdragons117]

It's called the Devil's Bath. Not Hell's Bath. Also Beeshor is great. And I quote. "Attention Steel Vipers. Attention. This is Precentor Beeshor Yekel of the Sixth Division. I see that you are retreating. And so early in your assault. You still haven't pulled up your reserve units yet. We expected more. A lot more from you, for sure. On Terra, there are two kinds of snakes: the kind with fangs, and the kind that slink away to hide. I guess in Clan space, there's only one kind. Slither back to the Periphery, Tin Vipers. You'll never see Mother Terra, but don't worry, we freebirths will keep it safe from any dirty little snakes. Bye, now! Have a safe cower home!" He managed to Survive too, but his unit was all but wiped out.

[@Pulmonox]

....The nerve of that bastard.

[@Krieg8418]

The audacity on that dude is so fucking hilarious, I can't help but respect him.

[@eddapultstab2078]

They sacrificed themselves to give him the precious plot armor

[@tomarmadiyer2698]

Twin dropships just to carry his testicular tonnage to orbit.

[@jytte-hilden]

@@eddapultstab2078 Totally worth it.

[@davemilner5504]

The ComGuards fought like (to quote Tex), "...amphetamine-soaked circus monkeys."

[@viperfanboy3663]

While on the ramp up Noah's Ark AND IT'S STARTING TO RAIN BROTHER!!

[@craigmorris4083]

"I proclaim a trial of Refusal on cooperation" - Every Clan Warrior.

[@macrux152__8]

"Your funeral" - Clan *plot armour* Wolf

[@shade8816]

Plot armor is helpful when the rest of your 'allies' are squeezing the idiot ball for all its worth.

[@deeznuttes9340]

@@shade8816 the Jade Falcon's in their entirety weren't just squeezing that ball, they were fucking chained to a 100ton solid fucking assault mech sized dumbfuckistan ball lmaoo

[@marley7868]

@@shade8816 save ghost bear who actually were the biggest winner as they didn't sacrifice there future

[@shade8816]

@@marley7868 Ghost bear still lost units due to idiot ball holding.

[@rotwang2000]

Let's not forget that it also laid the foundation for the Comstar Schism. While Focht was kicking Clan ass, Myndo Waterly had set up operation Scorpion a plan to put the Inner Sphere into chaos by having an Inner Sphere wide HPG interdiction and start rebellions across the Clan occupation zone. When Focht found out, he redecorated the walls with Waterly's brains and faked having a mystic vision, causing him to discover a long lost notebook by Blake that pretty much demolished the whole religious and power-mongering setup of Comstar. Many didn't take it well and created the Word of Blake. So rather than fix that problem, Focht who was always politically naive, made things much worse than had Comstar simply continued to exist as it was. Funny detail is that the new Primus was in fact a Kurita mole.

[@atmosdwagon4656]

I wouldn't say Focht made things worse, but chose between the lesser of two terrible options due to Waterly's stupidity. And yes, I am calling Waterly's plan very, very stupid as Operation Scorpion would have ended disastrously for Comstar had it went though. Why? 1) The Clans were NOT solely reliant on Comstar's HPG network to function cohesively, as their capital-class warships should have had long range HPG communications systems built into them. How do I know this? Well... 2) Clanners know how to build and use HPG tech on their own. The SLDF Exodus took the blueprints for everything Star League ever made with them when they left the Inner Sphere, and the Clans then improved upon nearly all of it for 200 years uncontested. (the only notable tech they didn't improve on was the Null Signature System, and that was entirely because stealth tech was considered "shameful" and "dishonorable") So the advantage Comstar normally has with their monopoly of HPG tech can't really be used against the Clans for long. As of the invasion era, the Clans were making use of existing HPG infrastructure, but literally nothing but time is stopping them from rebuilding or even taking control of the HPG stations from ComStar should they ever opt to do so. Because of this, the Clans would have bulldozed ComStar at every opportunity once their treachery became known, and after Tukkayyid, the Com-Guards were so thoroughly depleted that they'd struggle to defend any of it. The political fallout was the price of saving the Inner Sphere from the follies of its day; especially the Blakists.

[@hidefreek6905]

It was too late to turn the situation around. Freddie realised when the Comstar already put failed Operation Scorpion in action. The only thing he can do is to reduce the damage and keep the Comguard exist. Because everyone realised the truth that all the sh*t happen for Four apocalyptic Wars have Constar behind the screen.

[@magni5648]

4:10: The "trick" was that Clans lost by agreeing to fight Tukayyid to begin with. Even if they had won, the whole effort to show up forced them to essentially pause the whole invasion for months. Then factor in that even if they won, it would have been an absolute meatgrinder for all their best formations. Basically, just them agreeing to fight this giant setpiece war of attrition Focht set up broke the whole invasion's momentum and killed any chance of them winning at the strategic level. So what if the Clanners won? It's not like the Great Houses would have given a single fuck after having been given months to repair their forces and prepare to grind it out. It'd have been a numbers game at that point, and the Clans just never had the manpower nor industrial base to win that against the Great Houses.

[@justicar5]

The Clans still had their fleets, and if they believed the IS had no honour at all, they could make that everyone's problem

[@magni5648]

@@justicar5 If they tried going full Smoke Jaguar, it would have resulted in the IS breaking out the fun stuff and going full 1st/2nd Succession War on them in return.

[@PeachDragon_]

The inner sphere was never going to follow the agreement that was the point, even if they won the inner sphere would've just jumped them again, the challenge to begin with was a win win for comstar, the only way the clans were going to come out of it was in pieces.

[@Angel7black]

@@magni5648they didnt have that “fun stuff” and you cant just nuke warships. The fact of the matter is almost all warships belonged to the Clans and Comstar, with the vast majority being with the Clans since Alexander Kerensky took most the warships with them. If the clans had no morals, nothing was stopping them from glassing worlds, taking out HPG networks and making sure the great houses could never touch them. They were outnumbered, but its like an exterminator in a suit fumigating a beehive. Hell look how in Ilclan era the Wolf Empire took over and the only challenge to their control of Terra and the Terran Hegemony were Jade Falcon.

[@magni5648]

@@Angel7black Yes they had. And yes you can. If the Clanners started glassing shit from orbit, the Great Houses would break out the ol' family atomics en masse and go full 1st/2nd Succession War on them. And the Clans would run out of WarShips a lot faster than the Great Houses would run out of planets or ASFs or nuclear warheads. This is how WarShips went extinct in the Inner Sphere in the first place! In a total war of extermination the invading Clans lose, utterly. They'll take a hell of a lot of people with them, but they end up being turned into radioactive ash one and all for it. Your idiotic analogy would work.... if those bees had had the ability to bring out firearms and shoot the exterminator to death if provoked sufficiently. And yes, Ilclan is a badly-written piece of dreck that increased the amount of author bias for the Wolves to infinity and beyond. And yet even it acknowledges that ultimately, Clan Wolf taking Terra didn't actually magically get everyone to stop fighting. Great job, you put your ass on the big chair. Turns out, nobody among the Great Houses cares anymore.

[@Devillin]

Comstar didn't just make some of the cities into traps, they actually moved some of them. The Jade Falcons made note that one of their target cities was not only smaller than their maps said, it was also two miles further away.

[@williamchamberlain2263]

Sounds like comstar raised the suburbs to give the clans less cover

[@chenlee9835]

Comstar - “Pay your damn phone bill!!!”

[@christianholzschuh6853]

I never understood that joke. The clans use their own HPG's. Why would they pay Comstar and with what moaney?

[@eddapultstab2078]

​@@christianholzschuh6853 roaming fees...

[@DefiantSix]

"When Clan Diamond Shark landed, they had an army. When it was over, it was GONE. An entire invasion force relegated to the PAST TENSE." -- Tex of the Black Pants Legion

[@NewGuy2534]

I could just imagine Smoke Jaguar showing up out of the marshes to one of the fortress cities, and on the parapets is Freddy, eating an apple and waving at them.

[@eddapultstab2078]

Tattered and maybe missing a limb or two and anastasius just telling it as the big guns lock on, "now that you're here, get focht"

[@forrestlin9590]

Clansman: “I would rather die than win” *literarily dies 14:36

[@jackthripper9989]

The best thing about Belshor insult and attack of the clans is that the atlas was designed by Alaxander Kerensky, so most likely Kerensky may have possessed him that day

[@mk6315]

Driving an Atlas…does things to you

[@shade8816]

Best part? He *survived*.

[@JoshSweetvale]

ComStar and the Clan invasion force demolishing eachother (with only Clan Wolf coming out alive) is literally the best possible outcome for the Sphere-fools.

[@GregPrice-ep2dk]

I hearby declare the Battle of Tukayyid to be "Five Fights at Freddie's"~!

[@Solon_The_Lich]

🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂😂

[@FrostJaeger]

underrated comment imo

[@DarkPuppy9]

Don't forget, Smoke Jaguar and Nova Cat had been rebuilding their more elite units after their failed invasion of the Combine capital world and neither clan had finished by this campaign.

[@vana.johnson8845]

They also disregarded Kerensky's warnings and resources. They also under bid (stupidity) and thought Focht a paper general.

[@kereminde]

@@vana.johnson8845 Pride can make you do funny things. And stupid things. Horrendously, suicidal stupid things. Literally only one group took a long look at Focht and went "something's not right here". Yes, it was the Wolves. The only way they found out was having someone who had also "died" and was still alive serving with them. Thus there was a lightbulb moment of 'wait a second, what if one of these dead people isn't dead...' The novels do a better job of leading through the hoops about how exactly this all went down, but mostly it was because Ulric Kerensky (Khan of Clan Wolf) really kept playing "heads I win, tails you lose" and being very careful after being forced into the invasion. (... also didn't hurt to have probably one of the best 'MechWarriors of the previous generation fighting for him. Training one of the better people in the *current* generation.)

[@atmosdwagon4656]

6:40 Well, no. This was the Clan Culture beating itself. See, when a Clanner issues 'Batchall' to another Clanner, it's the DEFENDER who gets to determine WHERE the battle takes place, and what they intend to bring. (the initial Bid) The attacker then must bid than an equivalent force or LESS, with each side bidding down in kind until they agree on the terms for the challenge. ("Well bargained, and done.") This process of bidding down for Honor's Sake served a major purpose in Clan society: Minimizing the necessary losses to the Clan to resolve these matters. Because the Clans had issued their challenge to the Inner Sphere for the conquest of Terra, ComStar was the defender defacto (as they controlled Terra). So when ComStar replied with a Batchall of their own, they were still the defenders and allowed to choose where the Trial would occur. Of course, ComStar is not a Clan. They have no need or desire to do anything but play their role while securing every advantage they possibly can like the shifty pragmatic bastards they are. And in this way, they succeeded brilliantly. Their ploy was made all the easier by the Clans foolishing bidding against EACH OTHER internally to decide who would be first into battle, and how many forces they were allowed to bring. This enabled ComStar to not only fight entirely on their terms, but in a way that pitted the Clan's WEAKEST forces against them first on top of that; allowing ComStar to minimize their losses and conserve strength they otherwise would have lost early if not decisively had the Clans invaded via conventional warfare. Clanners are absolutely idiotic in this way (Clan Wolf being the only contender who suspended Zellbrigen and fought conventionally; soundly defeating the ComGuards and showing that the Clans could have won had they not played themselves) but it does make sense for a people who spend 200+ years thriving, and who had up to that point, been absolutely curb-stomping the Inner Sphere. They had a lot of reasons to think highly of themselves, however short-sighted it was. And despite that, there still were a lot of Clanners back home that saw the entire invasion as folly even before it began. (the Warden Clans; all the ones who went to invade the Inner Sphere were the Crusader Clans) So they are capable of making perfectly reasonable decisions despite all the memes; it's just that the nature of their society and especially its decision making apparatus (Warrior Caste Rules All) silenced too many of the cooler heads among them.

[@AmurTiger]

Yeah I think the drama of Tukayyid has a tendency to make people miss the forest for the trees. Tukayyid was a battle, it was not the war, it was one of a handful that went the way of the Inner Sphere and as much as it had damaged some particular clans severely it's not like as a whole the clans just went away thereafter. They retained large swaths of Inner Sphere territory whose capture would have been large enough to be a great victory if done by any Inner sphere power. In spite of the fate of the Jaguars and Nova Cats there were still Wolves, Bears and Falcons occupying territory and a number of clans would follow to make their own home in the sphere. The clan invasion was strategically a victory for the clans, just not a complete victory that saw them pay little price for their conquest.

[@shade8816]

I mean, 40% of your total invasion force lost in a single major campaign isn't something to sneeze at.

[@nick84788]

I love some of the added details Ive never heard of before in this. That being said I need to go listen to Tex's Tukkayid special now too.

[@johngavin3180]

To quote another battletech lore efficienado "The clans brought their very best, and comstar said: "Get bent weirdo.""

[@archangel6676]

I read that in Tex's voice too.

[@archangel6676]

I read that in Tex's voice too.

[@fredlandry6170]

The Inner Sphere offensive against Smoke Jaguar was called Operation Bulldog in 3059.

[@patrickglaser1560]

Wanna replay mech3 now

[@gejamugamlatsoomanam7716]

​@patrickglaser1560 same here, though getting mw3 to not crash on windows 11 is the real challenge

[@ogrehaslayers605]

Comstar's heroes of Tukayyid will never be forgotten! Great video!

[@RippPryde]

Nice video overall, but just a minor correction. Ghost Bear won their objectives and Jade Falcon got a draw (mostly due to the actions of a single exceptional warrior). The overall result was still a crushing Comstar victory though.

[@billrich9722]

Gost Bear did not win their objectives. They scored a partial victory for only holding one of their objectives at the end of it. Jade Falcon earned a draw for how thoroughly they had savages the ComGuard even in retreat. Clan Wolf was the only clan to take and hold both cities.

[@just_gut]

@@billrich9722 I mean, the goal was to win and they won, marginal or not. Yeah, it is probably inaccurate to say they "won their objectives", but the only point for any of the individual clans was to win their portion of the invasion, which Ghost Bear did. They were one of two. They didn't win as handily as Wolf did, but they still managed a win.

[@Ishlacorrin]

@@just_gut Not fully accurate, the WIN condition was the most number of cities held at the end of the battle. Since the Bears only held 1/2 they got a draw and the clans as a whole only got 4/16 from memory.

[@tommoritz9088]

“Exceptional” I recko. Your US military.

[@X7Excalibur]

​@@just_gut Ghost Bear only held one city. By laws of the clan they lost. Not a single one was going, hey at least we got one! No, they lost a lot of troops and failed their mission. Big L.

[@wmdragonj]

That one Atlas pilot: “YoUDrAEReFUSeMYbaTcHaL?”

[@duncankelcey9281]

Another possible reason smoke jaguar were so riled up was the IlKhan who played face tag with the rasalhague fighter jock was one Leo Showers. Who was a Smoke Jaguar.

[@Gillymonster18]

A key detail you didn’t include: Focht was THE Comstar ambassador to the clans and Clan Wolf let him just *hang out* on their flagship for a year, even letting him observe their tactics, rituals and lifestyles. Then when ilKhan bit the big one, Focht was allowed to just leave before the Clans went back home to select a new leader. So he had a year to tell Comstar EVERYTHING.

[@williamchamberlain2263]

Mind you, "They're weird and naive" doesn't take a full year to transcribe

[@Medc-]

I found your channel 2 days or so, watched all the clan stuff I could within that time then was sad there wasn't anymore... Then I open my phone today. Huzzah, you have earned a subscriber XD

[@AhmadNabeel-qo8jh]

Freddie is literally Lord Castellan Creed from 40K.

[@shadowcaptaincain]

Except Creed failed rather fucking spectacularly when Abaddon shattered the Blackstone Pylon network on Cadia, and the galaxy ended up ripped in half as a result. Freddie lost one battle, and won the war. Creed lost the battle, the war, the planet, the system, the sector, and split the Imperium in half.

[@AhmadNabeel-qo8jh]

@@shadowcaptaincain Thus, triggering the return of the Primarchs. Creed says, "You're welcome."

[@shade8816]

​@shadowcaptaincain Yes, he did fail. Because alas, the chosen champion of the dark gods decides to throw a temper tantrum when he was losing. In the form of yeeting an unstable and badly damaged warp generating super station into a planet that somehow caused the whole world to crack. Somehow. Doubt anyone saw that coming.

[@whitewall2253]

​@@shade8816 in fairness, the blackstone fortresses were built to kill gods. Dropping a malfunctioning, miserable self aware psychic superweapon onto a planet should probably do some damage. That said, Creed never lost the war for cadia, the war was lost millenia before he was ever born. The only black crusades which failed were the first and twelfth, abaddon accomplished his strategic aims in all the others and had set the galaxy up for the rift. Cadia was a formality that creed made into an actual battle.

[@shade8816]

@@whitewall2253 This is why I am coming to like Battletech. Chaos is something that seemingly can't be truly defeated, and whose home turf can't truly come under threat. I prefer stories where no one group is truly 'immortal'. The Clans were tough opponents, but were not outright unstoppable. Comstar had loads of weapons for when they became the Word of Blake, and had loads of advantages, but ended up losing. The Inner Sphere groups suffer horrific losses, and are hitting threats that could topple them. Even if the factions won't truly 'fall' due to story shenanigans, they could very well be destroyed.

[@Inignot12]

Just found you guys through my recommended, already binged this phenomenal series!

[@kamilmaster125]

Hi Canadian grate video series made me interested in battletech

[@LoliFoxQueen]

"I would rather die than win." That describes the average world of tanks players just as much as it describes the clans.

[@whatwouldoptimusdo]

I have enjoyed your series. Thank you for your hard work

[@StickWithTrigger]

Love the battle of Tukayyid it was quite a humbling for the clans

[@RoughGalaxyYT]

this whole set of 3 videos was fun but I couldn't get over him calling it tookeeyad every time 😆

[@lukmaanpratomo6866]

When you stuttered and said "Clan Smoke Jank- I mean Smoke Jaguar". I mean you're not wrong so there's that 😂.

[@EdmondHiggins]

These have been great. Thanks for putting it out there.

[@endplanets]

A truly epic game of King of the Hill(s).

[@Executioner9000]

Correction: Clan Ghost Bear won a marginal victory. They took and held one city, and while they entered city 2 they were not able to hold it.

[@Ishlacorrin]

This, Officially they accepted a draw and withdrew from the world allowing the Comguard armies fighting them to be re-deployed to other fronts.

[@catloverjerrygarcia5086]

The US hovercraft you spoke of are called LCAC.

[@lenorevanalstine1219]

the clans learned the hard lesson of you dont fuck with ma bell

[@motherreaper7287]

Nice to have Steve back. :) Really loving hearing more about Battletech.

[@billrich9722]

I miss having someone to talk BattleTech with.

[@MM22966]

During the Iraq invasion in 2003, some US Marine units used loudspeaker trucks to insult the honor, bravery, and general requirements for manhood of a group of Iraqi fighters dug into an area the Marines had to go through to get to Baghdad. Sure enough, the Iraqis came out of their trenches, heads on fire at the insult...and then the Marines set them ON fire with concentrated arty and air strikes, and liberal doses of machinegun fire. So this kind of stuff happens in real life, too.

[@BewareTheDarkness]

i think another BIG problem the clans had here (other then being stupid honor-bound idiots) was that in order to win, the clans had to kill 2-4 IS mechs per 1 of theirs lost. all comstar had to do was keep that K/D ratio below that and they win. like you said 1 IS mech for 1 clan mech is an AMAZING trade for the inner sphere and even if it cost them 2 its probably still a good trade. turns out when you opponent outnumbers your 3 to 1 you shouldnt bid away all your advantages and fight how they want you to fight!

[@eddapultstab2078]

It's not just that, there was a time limit of when a phase of a challenge is over, comstar kept throwing bodies until they couldn't any longer, the enemy is dead or completed their objectives. By the time wolf had it's turn, it was all decided and the name of the game was to kill as many as possible regardless of losses.

[@shade8816]

It also helped by the fact that near all the clans save Wolf decided to bet so many forces away. Had all the clans brought everything they had from the get go, and not bid anything away, the battle would have been a lot closer.

[@yureinobbie68]

Watching this, after basically having watched backwards from mid 24, I am amazed at how much of an intro Steve delivered here. Thought it was an impostor at first.

[@generationm2059]

The Clans definitely weren't ready for Freddy.

[@RelativelyBest]

I guess you could say Clan Smoke Jaguar _got smoked._

[@135forte]

ComStar probably would have followed the rules, because not doing so might have had the Clans breaking out the Warships. Again. Smoke Jaguar got pissy about the Coordinator's kid kicking their ass in the Combine. As long as ComStar managed to mangle the leadership of the Clans, ceasefire or no they would have succeeded in stalling the Clans to buy time for rest of the Inner Sphere to continue consolidating.

[@eddapultstab2078]

Yeah, I believe 3 out of the 7 clans lost their khans in that fight.

[@bogatyr2473]

The Clans didn’t have that many active warships. Most of the warships of the Exodus fleet were mothballed and never reactivated. Warships were of little use in their trial based combat as their warships were the biggest and easiest pawns to trade away so why build up a fleet. They also didn’t anywhere near the technological advantage in space they did on the ground. ComStar’s Navy likely could have taken them, especially since it’s unlikely the clans would coordinate naval activity. For as good as the ComGuard looked on Tukayyid, ComStar were still bastards and only joined the fight once it was clear the Clans were gunning for Terra. Until then they were happy to help the clans, and historically regularly set the houses against each other. The Second Succession war was almost entirely their doing because the first wasn’t quite apocalyptic enough to suit them. I don’t doubt they’d happily see a few Kuritan and Lyran worlds torched to save their own skins.

[@135forte]

@@bogatyr2473 A quick look at Sarna says the invading Clans had an average of 18 warships each and that some sources put post-Klondike warship construction as high as 300 new ships. Just the invading Clans could have done a massive amount of damage should ComStar been deemed degreza and unworthy of honorable battle.

[@magni5648]

@@135forteYeah, uh, we've never seen any of these supposed post-Klondike WarShips. If the Clanners had tried to go full Smoke Jaguar collectively, they would have gotten nuked into cinders by the Great Houses and ComStar for it.

[@135forte]

@@magni5648 We don't see warships for the same reason the rules aren't particularly kind to non-mech vehicles. This game and setting is about Mechs and their pilots, and the Blakist era showed us how quickly those die when 'Asset Management Weapons' start getting tossed around.

[@thedango6890]

Seriously, i liked mechwarrior and battletech before, but now knowing the basics of the lore, i cant wait to get rhe newes5 mcw5 dlc's. I may even jump in mechwarrior online

[@phoenixthehound4928]

Great job! Amazing Video!

[@chthulu27]

I'm gonna be that guy and point out that Focht is German and is pronounced Foked, meaning "he who has fought" roughly. It's a cheeky little inside joke against the clans if you think about how they assumed Anastasius had no experience. Edit: this is a really good video about Tukkayid!

[@Attaxalotl]

This would be an amazing show!

[@ratstratsdave]

What are the mechs at 48:56?

[@ImaPseudonym-go6oy]

Imagine your mech falling into a geothermal pool and very slowly cooking in it as it sank to the rocky bottom, until the pressure of twenty or thirty atmospheres' worth of boiling, acidic water or caustic mud finally imploded your cockpit.

[@williamchamberlain2263]

Kinky

[@Luddite1]

I never realised that the clans were dumber than rocks 🤷🏻‍♂️ unbelievable Used to love hover tanks when I was playing mechwarrior

[@Grizabeebles]

The descendants of Kerensky's army weren't just the Clans. They were also the Mercenary companies and the Comguard. The war Kerensky had sought to avoid still happened 400 years later.😊

[@williamchamberlain2263]

True, but at least the clan invasion wasn't the total war of the succession wars - imagine the first succession war fought with an extra hundred warships in each house's navy

[@Nola_nadir]

No mention of Phelan Kell or Ulric to which are a huge credit to Clan wolfs win over Comstar. Shame

[@williamchamberlain2263]

5:00 BUT Comstar doesn't have that many warships - could they really survive taking on the clans in full space theatre?

[@AndrewChumKaser]

When your enemy's ideology is fucking stupid, make them learn it the hard way.

[@wrathofme7026]

I remember reading a novel about this battle in HS about a JF commander. JF biggest blunder was over confidence. They allowed themselves to get drawn in then ambushed. The main character was the only reason they were not nearly wiped out and his lose was probably the biggest blow since he seemed to be their only competent commander.

[@chinookdaddy47]

three very quiet claps to Steven for the dad joke

[@justicar5]

If Comstar had welched in the face of a Clan victory, the Clans still had their Warships ans could make that fleet everybodies problem, as they rode to Terra throwing buckets of sunshine at anyone who opposed them. Going back on a trial swiftly leads to escalation up to and including Annihilation.

[@magni5648]

Problem with that is that the IS would be throwing about ten to twenty times the sunshine back in return. Trying a 1st/2nd Succession War re-enactment would have been an even worse idea for the Clans than the invasion already was.

[@headlessfool7050]

"I will kill you all, alone, or in Groups ." Kai Allard-Liao, on Twycross, facing the 40 'Mechs of Falcon Guard in a Hatchetman, with nothing but the Hatchet left to fight with . He's The Chad . You can argue, but you can not win . 😎

[@docvaliant721]

Aiden Pryde was a badass

[@Tj7606-y7z]

It would be amazing if you covered operation Bulldog in the future

[@Ctarble]

How do I set up notifications to ping me when they swap back to Battletech, again?

[@billrich9722]

Lol.

[@Kanas83]

Everyones loves the Sharkoxes

[@TempestsFist]

Comstar main character syndrome be like:

[@billrich9722]

Like nothing, then?

[@TempestsFist]

@Bill Rich I was alluding to the battle of Tukayyid.

[@billrich9722]

@@TempestsFist You began to describe something then just stopped after the colon.

[@TempestsFist]

@@billrich9722 that was intentional. The video was the explanation.

[@billrich9722]

@@TempestsFist You have added so much with that comment.

[@anthonyvogel9328]

Look I checked out all the landscaping for the battlefield and if the clans attack all at once and skipped the biding ways. Show them with no honor, and used more energy weapons like the ilkhan try to tell them, the clans would have won easy. Clan wolf should with using a full star on a lance or two makes quick work on them.

[@williamchamberlain2263]

That's the point though - comstar wouldn't have made a challenge like that if they thought the clans would fight like sensible people

[@hariman7727]

HANDILY, not handedly. Other than that, I'm enjoying this a lot.

[@EvelynNdenial]

i love/hate writers that have no goddamned idea what numbers to put in their sci-fi battles. a quick search puts the total number of mechs in the clan invasion somewhere around 5,000. while there has been well over 100,000 tanks (our mech equivalent in terms of our tech and industry) in the cold war alone. in a galactic size war you'd expect several million, in a properly colonized galaxy several billion. a single planet shouldnt have broken the clans, only broken their pride. then have the logistic issues a counter attack and political division tear them apart.

[@lukewest7216]

Mechs are used in conjunction with conventional tanks and generally described as expensive and complex to build. I'd compare them more closely to something like modern jet fighters than tanks. While there were eras where mechs were more prevalent (during the height of the Star League, the Star League Defense Forces alone had upwards of 100,000 mechs, with house militias containing a good number more), by the time of the Clan Invasion the Inner Sphere is dealing with the ravages of 300 years of occasionally nuclear war and the technical sabotage of Comstar. Meanwhile the Clans never had more than a few dozen marginally habitable planets to their name. With those industrial constraints, mech numbers are pretty anemic all around. For a while the IS nearly abandoned mechs altogether in favor of cheaper tanks, but the durability, deployability, and agility of a mech means they're useful as reaction forces and spearheads that move ahead of the majority of your force

[@bogatyr2473]

You’re not wrong, sci-fi writers have a poor sense of scale. Battletech has some justification for it. Battlemechs are insanely expensive, much like even the US can’t afford more than a couple hundred of our most advanced fighters, even interstellar empires are limited to a few thousand a year before the budget starts groaning. Transport space is incredibly limited. Jumpship and dropships were hard hit during the succession wars. Now they’re so rare and nearly impossible to replace. The most common dropship can only carry 12 mechs and the most common jumpship can only carry 3 dropships. Since most worlds can’t produce mechs, moving them around in large numbers is almost impossible for everyone. The build up of the Fed Com on the Jade Falcon/Lyran border almost stripped the entire realm of jumpships. Most worlds in each empire aren’t Earth equivalent. They have populations of a few million to tens of millions. Worlds with a billion or more people on them tend to be pretty uncommon. Finally, worlds don’t change hands all that much. The borders of all the empires were pretty stagnant for the Succession wars, aside from the Capellan/Fed Suns one. I agree, you could increase numbers by an order of magnitude and it would still be ridiculously low, but Battletech does have some explanations why you might only see a battalion guarding a border world.

[@deenomahmoud2136]

Wonder if they'll keep to lore on the new mechwarrior 5 game

[@Kaiju-Driver]

Yep. War is war, not an honorable thing... mostly. The Clans needed a reality check.

[@erickcredidiooliveira201]

Question what happened with the conquered space by the clans?

[@KellAnderson]

Ghost Bear abandoned the home worlds and moved entirely into their occupation zone. They made peace with the conquered Rasalhague populace and formed a fusion state of Clan and Spheroid polity. The Jade Falcons ejected the Steel Vipers from their shared occupation zone. During the Great Refusal, they got abjured from the Clan Homeworlds and are now a purely Inner Sphere clan. They would suffer heavily during the Dark Age, with the occupation zone shattering into independent statelets and the Falcons going on to become an honor guard for the Wolfs after they claimed Terra. The Nova Cats defected to join the Draconis Combine only to be exterminated by the Dracs at a later date. This left the Jaguars with control over the territory - right up until the Inner Sphere banded together and annihilated the Jaguars entirely. It then wound up back in Drac hands. With the warrior caste of the Diamond Sharks just...gone, the Merchant Caste took power in a coup. They took a few worlds valuable as trading posts in the occupation zone, but otherwise shifted over to becoming nomadic warrior merchants. The Wolfs held onto their territory into the Jihad era after the Word of Blake split off from Comstar. They'd stick there until they joined the Republic of the Sphere, and then they'd abandon their occupation zone entirely to take Terra and recreate the Star League. Only for everyone else to tell them to get bent.

[@CxOrillion]

@@KellAnderson Adding to the Smoke Jaguars story: After Operation Bulldog, Nova Cat remnants assisted the last Smoke Jaguar remnants in a massive exodus under the command of Paul Moon, where they would reorganize their society AGAIN and become the Fidelis. They'd end up basically being the special forces hit squads of the Republic of the Sphere. Eventually, Alaric Wolf struck a deal with the Fidelis to reconstitute the Smoke Jaguars in return for their service as bondsmen, so the Fidelis aided Clan Wolf during the ilClan trials against Clan Jade Falcon

[@catgath9718]

For the algorithm!

[@99zxk]

ComStar had plans to backstab the clans from the beginning and talked about how they'd rise as the saviors of the Inner Sphere after the houses feel.

[@flushmastercyclonis186]

Why is the image during your synopsis show a Nova Cat battlemech (the mech model named after clan Nova Cat and a signature unit thereof) painted with Ghost bear markings? Yid. TukayyID. Not AD. And IIRC the Inner Sphere forces specifically used the Clans' own terminology and formally declared a Trial of Annihilation against Clan Smoke Jaguar and then a Trial of Refusal to the entire Clan invasion of the Inner Sphere. Also the Nova Cats and Ghost bears fully turned against the other clans at that time, with the Nova Cats even being willingly absorbed into the reconstituted Star League Defense Force (sometimes literally as the SLDF was landing on a planets they shared control of with Smoke Jaguar).

[@williamchamberlain2263]

Probably a mech that Clan Bang Pussy lost to Clan Spooky Panda in a slap-challenge.

[@nemamiah7832]

Man, every time you describe Clan Wolf, I remember why I hate them such. Lupus Delenda Est. Bleh. And it only got worse.

[@jacobbronsky464]

Clan Writer's Pet at cruising speed, what can you do.

[@basillemming442]

*ha ha* *shrug* 17:20

[@jamesblackfordjr8553]

Ha ha 🤷‍♂️

[@themasterchef9784]

🤘🔥

[@Chucklehound]

Dying to get in there. -chuckle-

[@jollyjohnthepirate3168]

Smoke Jaguar earned what happened to them. The planet Turtle Bay was assulted from space. Capital ships of S.J. glassed the planet from orbit. The I.S. learned to take capital ships off the table during the bidding of forces during the clans Batchal.

[@paragonrobbie9270]

That time smug space furries got curbstomped by Punished Venom Freddy and Comcast

[@RoastedOpinions]

The Battle of Tukayyid was effectively the tenured faculty of the 13 most distiguished war academies against the biggest, baddest trade union in known space. If the Clans had more sense than honor, Comstar would have lost. Focht's strategy depended on that fact.

[@anthonyvogel9328]

One, you inner sphere lover, clan ghost bear was able to hold one city and was half way throw the other one before withdraw to help hold the city. Also the cluster you spoke of, is not call he'll cluster. It was the widow cluster. Also jade falcon didn't take a city but, they destroyed the comstar they fought.

[@Ragnaroknrol]

Ghost bear are, indeed, chads. They took a planet by agreeing to play a game instead of fighting, the local governor was very surprised to find out their elementals knew how to play football. The ghost bears let the local team get a field goal because they were honorable opponents and the ghost bears were absolute lads. As for Jade Falcon, killing your opponents is nice and all, but maybe remember the objective was taking two cities, and they failed to hold even one for more than a few hours. And wiping out MOST of your opponents while losing a similar percentage of your own forces, in some cases to a river, is not something to boast about.

[@Pulmonox]

@@Ragnaroknrol Man... can you imagine being a freebirth and lining the field when those eight foot tall bricks of pure muscle walk out of the locker room? You must've felt like it might have been a better idea to climb into the mechs and try your luck there, instead....

[@eddapultstab2078]

​@@Pulmonoxthey had no mechs, that was the problem.

[@Dirt1061]

I wish clan Wolf was not so perfect and great. Makes to big of a gap between them and the other Clans.

[@wheelcha1rman2]

Get Smoked Jags.

[@justgeo4288]

So heads up, it's Lee-run not Lie-ree-un. Lyran, there's no I after the R.

[@captainteutonica5474]

The name Smoked Jaguar is submissive and memeable.

[@williamchamberlain2263]

Clan Foggy Pussy are most honorable

[@whoisj]

in the end, Clan Wolf took control of Terra. so yeah, we can't say the Clans were broken.

[@thedango6890]

Oh yes i now have a bricky and dk but for battletech!

[@woofsimmons876]

Ghost Bear Held one city and actually were awarded a marginal victory.

[@BeardedGuy_Tawhid]

What about Clan care bear? 🐻

[@jamestagge3429]

Ghost bear FUCKING KILLED the Care Bears and that’s what made them GHOSTS, hence GHOST BEARS

[@colonel_moss5663]

17:34 haha *shrug*

[@hariman7727]

You do realize that by pointing out the silliness of clan names you've made it legally required that I call Clan Wolf clan Sparkledog, right?

[@toddleavitt3366]

That’s a Black Knight with the sword

[@JohnDoe-sx6iw]

I am number 3!

[@hariman7727]

Also... so the Clans are all orange cats? They share one brain cell and it bounces between them constantly?

[@Kalabajooie]

You might say Freddy invited the Clans to "get Focht." I stole that joke from Tex at BPL.

[@Dov_ben-Maccabee]

Amateurs talk about tactics, Professionals talk about logistics.

[@seb-fluffysnowcap9530]

at least clan names aren't Capellan's