Karagin
11/12/20 09:58 AM
70.118.172.64
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Over at the CGL Store, the New ilClan Guide to Battlemechs is up along with the next install of the Tukayyid novella is out as well.
Karagin
Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
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Wick
12/14/20 07:51 PM
173.247.25.195
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What is the correct BV for the Devil in RG8? MUL has an obvious typo giving it a BV2 of 16,911.
Assuming its got the same specs as the 1993 flyer (10/15 movement and an ER PPC with Targeting Computer) its got me excited to be able to play it legally again. For light mech it should have a very high BV, but not 17 thousand high.
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Karagin
12/15/20 11:37 AM
70.118.172.64
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It was legal before, just folks dismissed it because it was an ultra light and not in a book. PDF is like a $1.99
Karagin
Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
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Wick
12/15/20 06:53 PM
173.247.25.195
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The Devil was 30 tons. The Roadrunner was the ultralight at 15 (and even faster at 14/21 if I recall correctly)
I got to play the Devil a few times in 1994-1995 but it was then both of them were ruled non-canon. The Roadrunner got back in with Experimental RTO Republic 1, but the intro year still made its sighting in the Jade Falcon OZ during the 3050s an error until TRO3150 backdated it to the Golden Century. Looks like Devil has been given the same treatment in RG8.
I'm considering buying (its $3.99 by the way) but I hadn't been all that interested in the first seven RGs except a small handful of Golden Century designs, as Jihad and Dark Age eras don't do it for me. I was waiting for the compilation of the whole set when done. Since they're so close to the end I'm content to wait a few more months. The Tukayyid sourcebook is still a higher priority for me.
I just wanted to know what the right BV was because it breaks the Force compositor on the MUL webpage. (It literally crashes the webpage with an unhandled exception.)
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Karagin
12/15/20 09:15 PM
70.118.172.64
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The Devil was sorta in the Solairs box set in a manner of speaking.
Karagin
Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
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Karagin
12/15/20 09:15 PM
70.118.172.64
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1,691
Karagin
Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
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Wick
12/16/20 08:04 PM
173.247.25.195
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Yeah, I found the right BV myself this morning in the DriveThruRPG sample pages. Thanks for answer though. I got read the write-up for it, too.
Devil wasn't in Solaris VII box set (12 arena mechs were); Devil and Roadrunner were highlighted in the 1993 Update flyer. I've got physicals of both. The RG8 Devil is identical to the 1993 TZ-1 Devil, if one accounts for the wrong armor number given to R/L Torso in the 1993 flyer (4 instead of 8) which is easily accounted for since the sum of armor comes up 8 points short of the 96 granted and there's no where else to put it, and the lack of listing a Targeting Computer, but one can be assumed as the mech is 2 tons light as listed. The 1994 update gave two more Solaris VII arena mechs (Bombard and Flashfire) and this may be the cause for your confusion.
...
Now to rant about the write-up: Who decided to give credit for its creation to Clan Snow Raven? Certainly acceptable to have them bringing it back to life in the Dark Age since the Ice Hellions are no longer around, but with a name like Devil and with the profile of an ultrafast sniper, why is it not an Ice Hellion creation?
- Light mech, check.
- Very fast, check.
- Long range firepower, check.
- Targeting Computer to aid in the drawing of first blood, check.
- Head-chopping ability to counter heavier mechs, check.
- Appropriate name, check. ('Devil' is the top rated synonym for 'hellion' per Merriam-Webster dictionary.)
Its the ultimate Ice Hellion mech, moreso than even the totem omni (10/15 beats 7/11 with MASC.) Yet its not an Ice Hellion mech, but a Snow Raven instead?
On a personal note, this one is a real gut punch to Ice Hellion fans like myself. We didn't get the pride for inventing either the Fire Moth or Viper, we didn't get the Pack Hunter, we didn't get the Incubus, we didn't get the Black Lanner, we got the sorry Ice Ferret but lost it in five years, then we got the better Arctic Cheetah (Hankyu) and also lost it after a few years, we didn't get the original Howler 3 Devil (though its a poor substitute, extremely late with an intro date of 3066, and the Devil alias is really more of a nod to the 1993 version than a reproduction.) Now we don't get the proper Golden Century Devil despite being the perfect match to Clan tactics and name. Its as atrocious a mistake as if the Epona had been created by anyone but Clan Hell's Horses.
You don't see the Ice Hellions (or other Clans) going around designing fighters named "Blackbird" or something similar: such a name should be duly reserved for the Snow Ravens. Why wasn't Devil? (For either time its come up.) It feels like both sets of authors have no idea that hellion and devil are synonyms, or RG8 staff just used the alias of a mech designed in 3066 as sole justification for creation rights to a different mech designed in 2911. The early Clan writeups gave too many designs to the invading Clans with little regard to whether the (true) names better matched homeworld Clans, but at least FASA retconned many of those to better fits. I can only hope Devil is given the same treatment in the future. It would certainly go a long way to putting a Band-Aid on the continuously unaddressed logic hole of how a Clan with such a small touman, comprised mostly small mechs and fighters can avoid absorption by more powerful Clans for 250 years with the rules of zellbrigin not in their favor. The Ice Hellions have long needed a magic bullet to justify their continued existence and the TZ-1 Devil was one of the few units that had all the right specs (including the name) to qualify. But they aren't as likely to be using it in large enough numbers to make the difference if they didn't create it. It's got to be 30+% of the touman for several decades, at least until the Adder catches up and replaces it. I suppose a solution is that Clan Ice Hellion immediately conquered the Snow Raven factory and began churning them out in great numbers, but the write-up makes this seem incredibly unlikely. MUL says the Hellions have access to it, but having it and making it your pseudo-totem mech are two wildly different things. So the logic hole has only gotten larger because there's now one less bullet in the gun. Even an introduction date of 2911 is a problem for the Ice Hellions. Their magic bullet 'mech really needs to arrive no later than 2860 or so. An early omnimech whose prime config is identical to the "later" Snow Raven Devil is one possible solution, but it requires retconning RG8 to explain how and why the Snow Ravens adapted a Baboon chassis instead of the earlier omni. Short of errata or retcons, I guess CGL continues to demand that all Ice Hellion pilots have negative gunnery and piloting skills to make up the difference. Its the only way to make the story work if the Ice Hellions are continuously denied any mechs that could make a significant impact or those that do (like the Hellion omni) come along way too late in the history. FASA, FanPro and CGL have all neglected to give any explanation for how they survived 240 years before the Hellion omni and acquiring new light mech factories in the wake of the Smoke Jaguar annihilation finally make them formidable in only the last 5% of their lifetime. A Devil introduced in the mid 2800s would have finally made the perfect explanation without crazy rule adjustments or unreasonable skills.
On an even more personal note, the Devil is my all time favorite mech. I'd been privately campaigning for 20 years or so years to see the 1993 Devil recanonized as a proper TRO mech (either as-is or as an omni with 8 tons of pod space, effectively a Super Fire Moth), including talking about it on sites like this one, only to be clubbed over the head once with that mediocre Baboon knockoff and now a second time with the proper specs but associated with the wrong Clan. The TZ-1 Devil and its near certain likelihood of being of Ice Hellion origin is the primary reason I selected Clan Ice Hellion as my favored faction in the 90s, despite being one of the authors' punching bags. I put up with the Nova Cat betrayal in the Great Refusal, the Hellions Fury, the disgrace of having to resort to Flurries to make up for such a tiny touman, the stupidly written Operation ICE STORM, and finally all that Wars of Reaving business that saw my faction ultimately destroyed and absorbed into another punching-bag Clan with an equally lackluster future. Not to mention MUL coming along and pinning the Hellion's intro year to 3059, way later than Ice Hellion players like myself expected (neither FM:CC or TRO:3067 gave a date, and being a totem mech and how common it was it was assumed to exist no later than the early 2900s.) The last hope was that when the authors finally got around to addressing the Golden and Political Centuries, there'd be some justice and Ice Hellion fans would get some really fantastic mechs to justify sticking it out and properly explain how they've survived under the terms of zellbrigin (even loosely) for so long. Not so far. Rather glad now that I didn't end up paying for RG8 to receive such a brutal disappointment.
I know there's people here that had a hand in drafting RG8 (Cray, et al) but man does this feel like a dagger in the heart and a horribly missed opportunity by the CGL team to both fix the holes in logic and right some wrongs with the fans. Maybe if it weren't named Devil, or had different enough specs (i.e. Baboon 3) that a well armored 10/15 ERPPC-TC combo was still on the table for a Golden Century Ice Hellion design, or even written up as a joint project between Snow Raven and Ice Hellion I wouldn't have such negative feelings about how its finally been presented after a 27 year wait.
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Frabby
12/17/20 04:01 AM
91.39.163.136
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I had nothing to do with writing this iRG. But I can't quite follow your argument.
The "Devil" designation, as you probably know, was a meta-joke vs. the Roadrunner.
Both names were introduced as IS reporting names. Clan Ice Hellion had nothing whatsoever to do with naming a 'Mech Devil.
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Wick
12/17/20 08:12 PM
173.247.25.195
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Yeah I know the Roadrunner and Devil joke. The TZ-1 model number is part of it as well, TZ inferring Tasmanian.
However if these are Inner Sphere designations, its curious why Snow Raven would have taken a Baboon variant that had the same chassis, ER PPC+, and targeting computer combination as the TZ-1 and name it Devil, too. In-universe it could be considered a coincidence, had the TZ-1 spotted in the 3050s not been ruled non-canon at the time. Out-of-universe, its a clear nod that the Baboon 3 is the final revision of the same mech present in 1993, reworked as a Baboon variant instead of a brand new mech because it wasn't proper procedure at the time to introduce past mechs on the basis of wrecking existing documents such as allocation tables. Of course, now that we do have the TZ-1 Devil canonized by RG8 and backdates to the 2900s, the history is reversed such that the mech spotted in the Jade Falcon OZ was an actual Devil and the fact ComStar gave it the exact same designation must be coincidence.
My argument though is why Clan Ice Hellion didn't have anything to do with a mech the Clans themselves call the Devil? I can forgive FASA for using up a few names, like Raven and Spider, that would have made for good Clan mech or fighter names because when they assigned them they hadn't come up with the Clans idea yet. CGL doesn't have that luxury of ignorance. They should know full well (and otherwise support) the fact that some names shouldn't ever be used by any other faction. The names of Japanese weaponry should be reserved for the Combine. Chinese names for the Capellans. German for the Lyrans. And certain animals or concepts for certain Clans, with "devil" being among them. So strike one for misuse of the name.
The mech's profile, 10/15 with ER PPC and targeting computer makes it both an ultrafast sniper and headchopper. Which is the profile of a mech sorely needed by the Ice Hellions, as the Adder Prime just isn't fast enough and is a rather late comer, having an intro date of 3010. Now, the Snow Ravens have a disproportionate number of light mechs too, but they form more a garrison force for their aerospace fleet than the backbone of a touman as they do in Clan Ice Hellion. So CGL just gave Clan Snow Raven a mech they didn't really need, while denying the Ice Hellions one they do. (Not withstanding the fact that the Ravens just got another homegrown mech with the War Crow in RG7.) So strike two for mismatching the profile to Clan tactics and needs.
And now the whopper. Clan Mongoose is absorbed, solely on the basis of their khan(s) pulling political maneuvers in the Grand Council, with little real crime done by the rank and file, but Clan Ice Hellion is supposed to brazenly ignore zellbrigin when it suits them to defeat their foes, a practice widely observed by Warriors across the Clan, and in 250 years the other Clans never do anything to punish them for it? This dichotomy of Clan conscience was brought up not long after Field Manual Crusader Clans introduced it, and has gone unexplained for 22 years since. The only remark FASA ever made about it was on the Battletech board maybe 2000 or so in which it was hinted certain mechs were available to Clan Ice Hellion in the 2800s and 2900s which negated the need to use zellbrigin-breaking tactics, and that at least one such mech had been published already but was not official. This strongly hinted at the Devil and its long-range, head-chopping capabilities which make it suitable to taking on medium and heavy mechs (and potentially assaults) single-handedly. Having owned the 1993 flyer I certainly took the hint. And now the Devil is finally here, but its a puzzle piece which fails to fit the empty spot in this jigsaw puzzle. So the question remains, how does Clan Ice Hellion survive by being un-Clanlike on the battlefield, yet unpunished, while Clan Mongoose is absorbed for less serious actions by only its leadership? The Devil, if presented as an early Clan Ice Hellion totem mech, was the clear answer. Now CGL has painted themselves into a corner that is not as easily answered. Did Clan Ice Hellion have access to some light mech super weapons in the mid-2800s, like ER Large Heavy Lasers or XL Gauss Rifles that have a similar long-range head-chopping capability as an ER PPC? These weapons don't exist in the later 3000s, so I doubt this is a workable solution. Or do Ice Hellion cadets come out of training with super-elite skills, gunnery and piloting skills beyond even the best of other Clans, at 0/0 or -1/-1? Later documentation seems to suggest Ice Hellion warriors as being merely average amongst the Clans (and certainly are by 3060, even if super-elite earlier in their history), so this is not a terribly desirable solution either. Does CGL eventually grant a mech to Clan Ice Hellion in the mid 2800s with basically identical specs to the Devil (or perhaps given the omni treatment), letting it be their totem and primary light mech until at least the Adder comes along and is populous enough circa 3020, even if it means effectively duplicating what the Devil starts doing in 2911 (perhaps as a cheaper non-omni alternative)? Or does CGL bite the bullet and errata RG8? Now, I'm not expecting CGL, or FanPro before them, to be beholden to statements FASA made in an unofficial capacity, but CGL certainly inherited the problem and hasn't moved it any further forward. And by publishing the Devil with a short-sighted originator Clan assignment and with too late of an intro date, one of the greatest logic holes in Battletech lore continues to go unanswered. Strike three.
Cray or others, by all means feel free to share my comments with line developer and other CGL staff. I find the older era stuff like the older RG mechs, TRO:GC, and the two Succession War books to be really neat and CGL's quality of work is generally better than FASAs (and a lot better than FanPro in my opinion.) But sadly RG8 page 6 is one page (in a few thousand) that I feel the CGL team has just completely dropped the ball, not just with the name and profile better fitting another Clan but with the long-standing Zellbrigin problem. There's about 20 names on the credits page and I just don't know to explain all 20 not realizing the Devil, both the mech and the name, absolutely needed to go the Ice Hellions, and by doing so would have also resolved a mistake FASA introduced in 1998. I'm disappointed because it took twenty-plus years to get it wrong, for three different reasons.
Edited by Wick (12/17/20 08:21 PM)
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Wick
12/24/20 01:40 PM
173.247.25.195
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Finally got some time to do some research on this problem to see what units remain to fill the gap between the 2820s and when omnimechs become available, giving practically any unit the headchopping capability required (in particular, Fire Moths after 2874 and Kit Foxes after 2890.) Its an ugly picture CGL has painted.
Sentinel STN-4Lb. The Royal sentinel carries a Gauss Rifle, the only fast light or medium available to the exodus SLDF to do so. However, there's no -EC, C, or IIC model, and only the regular army STN-3L is still available by Clan Invasion so this is assumed to be a rare mech for the Clans. Too rare to solve the problem.
Talon TLN-5W-EC. This carried the Enhanced PPC. But Era Digest indicates production of these ceases in 2828, so the mech itself would go extinct not long after. Presumably there should be a Talon C or IIC that refits the -EC model with a full Clan-spec ER PPC, but this hasn't been published yet. So currently, the Talon refit doesn't solve the problem except for about a decade from 2823 to 2833.
Lancelot C 2. This fits the profile (ER PPC and high speed with MASC), but is rather heavy for the Ice Hellions so its not common enough to do the job, nor should heavy mechs need to rely on the pack hunting tactics. Same profile but at half the mass is needed. (All indications are that it would be one of the Ice Hellions' more common heavyweight units though.)
That's it. Three mechs, none of which do the job the Devil should be doing to reduce pack hunting zellbrigin-busting tactics, had the Devil been introduced in the 2840s or 2850s. Of course, this would requires errata to TRO: Golden Century now, too, since CGL also chose to introduce the Targeting Computer in 2860, and not seeing proliferation until after 2868. Era Digest only indicated it was later than the Clan-spec Ultra AC in 2825, but presumably not much later than the last bit of Clan-tech that was introduced in 2832. I'd assumed Targeting Computers were introduced in the 2830s and widely available by the mid 2840s so that standard mechs like the Devil were possible and the first set of omnimechs could mount them. Given the targeting computer assignment to 2868+ and the Devil assignment to 2911 (which is curiously much later than the Fire Moth which could also carry an ER PPC though not the computer with it), the only workaround I can perceive is something like a Talon C or Talon IIC no later than 2833, or mech with similar profile. A Talon IIC with ER PPC, ER LL, MASC, and 2 extra double heat sinks would be a fair replacement for an early Devil; not as fast or with a properly specific totem name like "Devil", but has the extra range of the ER Large Laser to compensate. Honestly it still feels like the Devil should have been the Hellion mech introduced in the 2800s and a Talon C/IIC as the Snow Raven/Jade Falcon mech of the 2900s. The names and profiles make more sense when swapped (particularly if the Talon dropped the MASC for a third weapon or more heat sinks.)
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