User:JPArbiter/Why LAMs in BattleTech don't make sense

(Other titles include "Why do LAMs in BattleTech Suck" and "One person's general bitch-fest about LAMs".)

Preamble

This essay began as a Facebook conversation from one of many Land Air Mech fans who was postulating that it didn't make sense that LAMS could not use advanced materials and technology in their construction, ranging from weight saving materials, to stealth systems, the more esoteric capability enhancements like Partial wings.

it began with the typical conversations about rules balances and fictional justifications, which are all frankly boring as hell. veteran Battletech players all know that LAM rules started as being horribly unbalanced, and only progressed to the "Merely annoying" after a 20 year hiatus from the universe. relitigating that argument serves no purpose. Land Air Mech Fans want to use Land Air Mechs and they want YOU to acknowledge Land Air Mechs should be mainstreamed again, a fully Tournament legal option for all games in all eras. this requires a fundamental re-write and retcon of the fiction, or a fictional setting where the economics of redeveloping, or more precisely, re inventing a specialized warfighting platform would be worthwhile to any and all nations of the Inner Sphere.

this despite the in fiction ridiculous expense, strategic picture, and in some cases cultural bias against such a development taking place.

I cannot convince you to not play LAMs, and I am not even going to attempt that. But I do want to elaborate on the in fiction reasons why LAMs are dead and buried, and why, short of a retcon that would date back to the very foundations of the Battletech Universe, circa 1984, the mainstreaming of Land Air Mechs cannot happen.

The Defense Economics behind Land-Air-Mech Obsolescence

Before I begin, I should introduce you to Piere Sprey. Pierre is a failed Jazz musician and sound engineer who at one point became a statistician for Gruman aircraft. It was here he fell in with a group who became known as the Fighter Plane Mafia in particular and it’s mutant cancerous offspring, the Military Reformers. He spent the last years of his life before passing away in 2021 bashing the American F-35 Lighting II program on Russian state TV as an expensive waste of money, in favor of upgrading the F-15 for twice the price because he claims he had a direct hand in designing it (Spoilers, he didn’t). Sprey in point of fact was part of the group who actively worked to undermine the F-15, arguing it offered no advantages over the F-8 Corsair, F-4 Phantom, and in particular F-5 Tiger, which he and his ilk offered up as the epitome of aircraft design, arguing the Air force and it’s doctrine against the Soviet Union should dominate the airspace by essentially spamming Tigers in the sky like TIE Fighters. The fighter Mafia also argued that Ground Attack Aircraft should not exist, because artillery and armor can handle the ground neat as you please, never mind that the Soviet Union held a numbers advantage on the ground over NATO for the entirety of the Soviet Union’s existence.

I bring this up because I am going to sound a lot like Pierre Sprey and the Reformers in my arguments for Defense Economics in Battletech as it relates to the Land-Air-Mech. But there are three vital differences we have to keep in mind.

Battletech is a work of Fiction The Military Situation of the United States post World War II and Korea is vastly different to the state of the Inner Sphere circa Any time after 2755 The specific nature of the Land Air Mech is one that I will argue offers a nation no strategic or operational benefits necessary to justify the exorbitant cost of the platform.

So let us begin.

In Battletech lore the Land Air Mech, or LAM if you want to be specific, begins with the Star League Defense Force, and Commanding Admiral Michael Peterson. Given his rank, Peterson was a Navy man, and the only member of the Navy to hold command over the entire Star League Defense Force in it’s history. Given he commanded the largest military force in human history, made up from the tax revenues of ten interstellar empires with a direct mission to keep everyone playing nice with each other, Peterson’s mandate was to ensure Star League supremacy, and he chose to do that by pushing the technological envelope as hard and as far as possible. The most notable project was, and I quote

“a series of 'Mechs that could fly as well as function as a light ground 'Mech”

The first of these machines was based on the Star Leagues standard issue medium Battlemech the Shadow Hawk, and was a colossal failure. The Shadow Hawk LAM could transform between aircraft and Battlemech modes, but only while at a complete stop on the ground. It was only when the Stinger LAM was developed by a competitor, with the odd duck idea of a machine that could halfway transform into a legged glider to facilitate landing and short or near vertical take offs that the LAM came into its own. The Stinger was eventually joined by the Wasp, specifically geared for Ground attack, and the Phoenix Hawk, which was supposed to be a direct combatant.

Under the Star League Defense Forces, LAMS had a bright future ahead. The SLDF had the training, budget, and facilities to maintain and support the machines. LAM pilots were considered the elite of the elite because they were essentially cross trained and their missions as reconnaissance and cavalry forces made the first into combat, essentially creating the Battlemech equivalent of the United States Marine Corps Recon, or US Army Rangers. And then Stephan Amaris Happened.

• INSERT picture of Amaris with the dramatic organ beat*

Without going too much into the lore and history, the Star League Defense Force, after a 15 year long war, the Star League, and its united multinational peacekeeping army effectively ceased to exist. The mighty economy that supported the SLDF was split effectively six ways, and two interstellar empires, the Terran Hegemony and the Rim Worlds republic, disappeared. Their territory was annexed by their neighbors.

Before the Succession Wars where the remaining great houses fought each other to near extinction even began, the rug was pulled from underneath LAMs, and the ability to support them at scale, ceased to exist. After 300 years of savage wars at industrial scale, across 5,000 worlds, only one manufacturer was even capable of producing spare parts for Land Air Mech fleets, the original Lexa Tech Industries factory on Ireece.

This was the status quo of Battletech when the game was introduced in 1984. 3 models of LAM existed, their numbers dwindled to mere dozens per power at the most. The largest concentration of LAMs arguably existed in the hands of Wolf’s Dragoons, and they were cheating bastards. The Mercenary Eridani Light Horse probably held the most in a single power after that. It is even said that the most notable LAM pilot was not part of a House Military, but a Mercenary by the name of Jerimiah Youngblood, commander of the Crescent Hawks Company.

So why did LAMs disappear? Why did the houses do nothing to build new LAMs, research and develop new models, and possibly improve upon them from the days of the Star League?

To be blunt, even if they could afford to, and didn’t have the scientific know-how and industrial capacity stripped away from 300 years of savage war, and anti-science espionage…

They didn’t want to.

I am a big fan of the youtuber Perun, an Australian Defense Intelligence Analyst who got a lot of traction thanks to the 2022 Russian Invasion of Ukraine. If you want to listen to thousands of hours of an Aussie give powerpoint presentations on Military Procurement, I seriously recommend him.

The big thing that Perun has taught me though is that Military procurement is not just about “Get the best of the thing you can afford.” A thing I believed all military procurement was about because I am a good American. It is about what you want your military to accomplish, how you want to accomplish it, and whether “the thing” is the best way to do the job.

One of my favorite examples of this is his video on Aircraft Carriers. Carriers provide to their host nation, so far unmatched power projection. Even the advent of improved anti ship missiles and the specter of Hypersonic Glide Vehicles does not diminish this despite every other defense analyst saying the era of the carrier is coming to an end. But carriers do not serve a purpose if you have no need for power projection beyond your shores. He also gives three main reasons why the carrier, or any system is obsolete.

The Platform can no longer effectively do it’s job The job the unit is expected to perform is no longer necessary Something else does the job better than it.

In the context of Battletech, LAMS started out the gate with Number 3 already achieved. The LAM’s capabilities were focused primarily on reconnaissance in force, and raiding. The ability to enter the atmosphere without assistance from a ship or Drop pod enabled rapid ingress into a Battlefield. The midway Air Mech mode allowed a rapid and low fuel travel option to landing zones and objectives, and it conveyed all the natural tactical advantages a mech on the ground could perform. As a Battlemech though its capabilities were less than the machines that the LAM were based on, to the point that a LAM weighed more than its standard Mech Equivalent.

Meanwhile the capacity to deploy Battlemechs from Orbit via Drop Pod was developed a century before the LAM, is every bit as stealthy as a LAM, and can arrive directly to the same LZ instead of traveling in a roundabout manner through Aerodynamics.

Some Players like to say a LAM can act covertly, but given that atmospheric reentry generates a LOT of thermal energy, any sufficiently developed world used to visitors from space craft can detect said re entry and then track the bogey on Radar. And if a planet is not sufficiently developed enough to have a space traffic control center as well developed as London Heathrow Airport circa 1965, you have to question why you would want to raid it in the first place

And as far as covert operatives performing deep reconnaissance behind enemy lines, locating, tracking and identifying targets for a follow-on force establishing beachheads for landing ships, and disrupting enemy formations and movements through sabotage and assassination. Well there is one force who can do all of that, cheaper, more subtly and discreetly than a FLYING nuclear equipped walking Battletech

• METAL GEAR!?*

They are called Special Operatives. I like to fall back on the US Air Force Combat Controllers. A Team of 4-7 men slipped aboard a civilian ship, integrating with the locals, taking pictures, liquidating officers,, and blowing up bridges, roads, depots, and other sundry prior to a follow on force coming in where they can then link up and drink coffee while bragging about the great work they did before the army came in to clean up after them.

It’s a good thing, and done more cheaply than the man hours and dollars needed to deploy, maintain, repair, re-arm and refit a SINGLE Land Air Mech.

And if you have an acute need for all of this RIGHT NOW, you as the commanding general of the operation, didn’t do your job.

But it is point 1 and 2 I think we need to discuss. Can a LAM do it’s Job effectively, or is it even necessary?

In the Context of Battletech you have to remember one thing. The Inner Sphere is in a state of… to put it bluntly, disrepair. To show some blatant favoritism, my preferred house, the Lyran Commonwealth, began the first succession War with 122 Battlemech commands each consisting of about 70-120 Battlemechs as its combat arm. and several times as many units of armor, infantry, and aerospace wings. It also possessed a navy of 122 FTL Combat Vessels, Plus several times that number in Attendant Sublight assault craft, ground Transport craft, support vessels, and tenders.

By the current era fo 3150, that mighty army through 400 years of attrition and only a few plateaus of peacetime to rebuild has a grand total of… 33 combat commands, most of which are depleted, and no FTL Combat Vessels to speak of, instead relying on non combatant FTL Ships to move armies between the stars. And the Commonwealth, like the rest of the Inner Sphere, is currently at war… and losing. I also chose the Lyran Commonwealth for this example because it is portrayed consistently as the wealthiest and most industrially capable power in the Battletech setting. Much like the United States Military their solution to problems was to throw money at it until it disappeared, went away, or decided being a Lyran Vassal was their way to wealth and glory.

So the Lyran Commonwealth Armed forces is in a position where it is DESPERATE for war material, and ostensibly has the money and the industrial might to try and build it’s way out of a pickle. Land Air Mechs sound like a great opportunity for the Commonwealth to develop a mobile, hyper elite army to recover and retake lost territory.

And you would be wrong.

Going back to the original thesis of the Battletech universe when we are introduced to it in 3015, The Inner Sphere is in technological decline after fighting for three hundred years. Now the Lyran Commonwealth is better off than most armies, with a ton for ton heavier combat force and around 50 Mech Commands under a unified, if somewhat less skilled command. But remember, none of its factories produce LAMs. The only factory that CAN produce LAM’s is Lexatech industries, deep inside the Draconis Combine, and it only produces a handful of Stinger LAM’s a year, and the spare parts to maintain them. Any parts not obtained through salvage have to be purchased in a roundabout way through dummy corporations cause you know the Draconis Combine, holding this one of a kind industrial treasure would be very careful to make sure that none were going anywhere outside it’s sphere of influence. If you want a real life example of such chicanery, read how the SR-71 was built, it’s bonkers.

So if the Lyran Commonwealth would want to build LAMs, they would have to open up R&D and essentially reinvent the damned things. It’s not just as simple as downloading the blueprints of an STC and saying “Do this” to engineers. The sheer number of moving parts for a conventional Battlemech is insane, and now you want the machine to change shape and fundamentally interact with the world around it differently? A sane engineer would slap you to make sure you were not delirious.

And yet, the Lyran Commonwealth tried. You see, in 3030, the Federated Commonwealth conquered the planet Oliver from the Free Worlds League. There a bunker containing prototypes to a new LAM design, based on the Scorpion was discovered. The prototype was secreted away to Hesperus II THE largest factory world in the entire Inner Sphere, in an attempt to reverse engineer the damned thing. And they couldn’t do it. The LAM is so precision manufactured that the capacity to manufacture them is dependent on the ability to manufacture the technology to manufacture them, and that required Star League engineering. And by time Defiance Industries of Hesperus got their hands on a semi functional boondoggle to TRY and get the underlying technology at least understood, that last factory that made LAMs? It was razed completely to the ground by Clan Nova Cat in 3051.

So we have an weapons platform whose specialized manufacturing techniques require specialized manufacturing techniques to manufacture. Capabilities that are lost not because of a lack of understanding, but because it is economically unfeasible particularly in a time of interstellar war, to devote the resources to develop.

So spare parts are rare, with a monopoly on sourcing, naturally expensive as hell thanks to those lovely capitalistic market forces. And then you have to consider the technicians to maintain the birds in the first place. Consistently, from the rare days of yore. LAMs were depicted as being what any aviation nut would call a “Hangar Queen” , expensive, a bitch and a half to keep flying, needing specialized skills, parts, or sometimes just more god damned bodies. In some cases operating on the thing can even be hazardous to your health. Legends have it that Australian F-111 Fighters have caused almost as many deaths among their maintenance crews as they had in Desert Storm when Americans were flying them, thanks to the toxic materials used in their engines and wing actuators.

But that is nothing to say of the pilots.

If you have a war machine that is meant to operate as a Battlemech, and an aircraft, and a Spacecraft, I would hope that you as Supreme Commander of your army, would want the operators of these machines to be proficient in all of those aspects. Because the Star League Defense Force operated LARGELY in a time of peace and prosperity, the LAM’s Pilot training programme could be developed under ideal conditions, redundancies in training regime eliminated, coursework streamlines, and practical experience performed in a safe environment to get a class of new LAM pilots out and in the field in only slightly more time than a MechWarrior or Aerojock.

Most great houses just said “Fuck it, you go to MechWarrior Academy, then to Aerospae Academy, then we throw you in the cockpit and say ‘good luck.”

And it only got worse as time went on. Still, this means that training a LAM Operator could take six years at a MINIMUM for basic certification, and you still would need to get training hours post academy to just maintain that level, or many more hours to improve skills so a LAMWarrior was truly ready for combat. You put a newly graduated person only just able to shift modes without stalling out mid glide or jamming an actuator, you got yourself a person who in the face of combat is more likely to experience a significant emotional event then they are to contribute to the mission in a positive way. And you can’t just grind hours in a simulator to make yourself elite like in a video game. Sooner or later you gotta put that plane and pilot at risk, both in practical training courses, and eventually in combat.

So without discussing particular space dollar values, we have now established that R&D would have to start from scratch, whole new industries would need to be established from the ground up, prototypes built and tested, failed, and try again until you succeed at getting a working model before even beginning production, and you still need to train pilots on what is, at best a lot art, and at worse, a whole new way to operate a weapon of war.

And the wealthiest power in the Inner Sphere said “screw that, we have other spending priorities, most of which can do the job as well or better.”

So what is there left for a LAM to do?

Well um. In AirMech Mode it can steal crates of parts with it’s hands and make off with them to orbit…

Stealing unpressurized containers, changing shape with this unladen cargo, and hoping by now you have enough fuel for your transforming space craft to make orbit.

Good luck

That is condition 2 done.

To tie this part of the series up I am left with an Analogy. The F-22 is, it can be argued, the most effective air to air combatant ever developed. It was conceived at a time when Stealth had proved its mettle, and the Soviet Union put the SU-30 Flanker in the skies for the first time, Demonstrating feats of maneuverability never before seen. The first Fifth Generation fighter is unparalleled, unrivaled, nations go out of their way to avoid antagonizing the Raptor when they KNOW the planes are nearby, and if they are careless, the Raptor will just sneak up on them, and say “you need to go home.”

The INITIAL Order was for 750 Raptors with plans for over a thousand minimum. The United States Air Force Fleet has only about 190. By the time the Raptor was combat capable, the War it was manufactured for disappeared, never to actually happen. The F-22 is set to be retired and, God willing, the only Air to Air kill it will ever make in anger, will be against a spy balloon over South Carolina. The Industrial equipment to manufacture new Raptors has long since been decommissioned, too specialized to be used for anything else. It was that fact that led to the “Restart the Raptor” movement to go nowhere when the F-35 was facing hurdles for being incapable of doing things it was designed not to do, because reformers didn’t like the F-35’s shocking initial development price tag.

The truth is that while it is not as capable an air to air combatant as the Raptor, and doesn’t have the same boner-inducing main gun as the A-10. The F-35 was made to be a more capable aircraft in all aspects of warfare. It exceeds the F-16 in its role as a ground attack fighter, it can tackle Air to Air combat just as competently as any fourth Generation Fighter, and while American men everywhere shed a tear that the era of A-10 go Brrrrrrrr is on life support, in the era of GPS Guided small diameter bombs, Reaper Drones, and loitering munitions, the A-10’s mission has been completed.

I said I was going to sound a lot like Piere Sprey and the reformers with “New High Tech Expensive bad.” but it is just the opposite. Old, overspecialized Expensive is bad. Looking to older ways of doing things can lead to inspiration. It was looking to older ideas that produced the Skywarden to provide long duration close air support to special operators in underdeveloped nations. First time everyone saw an armored Cropduster with Vampire rockets and a 25 MM Chaingun pod, they laughed.

Fictionally, there is no reason for the LAM to exist on the modern Battlefield. It was a cool design in its heyday, the same way that every child who grew up in the 80’s saw the F-14 Tomcat and thought Combat Aviation had peaked.

The only reason LAMs could exist in the game universe, outside their niche role is because players screech louder than the Thunder Screech is “but I want them!”

And that is a much more interesting conversation. WHY do you want LAMs to be remainstreamed?

Broken rules, rare minis, and power gamers oh my!

I went into the fictional reasons LAM’s would simply not be something a reasonable Inner Sphere Power would pursue in a time of active warfare, let alone peace time. The Star League was not a reasonable force, it was created to drain economic might from surrounding star empires so the one centered on earth could remain supreme. They made weapons so powerful that when the Star Leauge’s own government was overthrown, the Army had a nearly impossible time countering them, having to resort to the capital ship equivalent of Human Wave attacks until someone leaked then the source code.

But that is not enough for the gamers who speak of desiring LAMs and the rules to play them, they want LAMs to return in full, not just be relegated to the Star League era, or a flash in the pan by a desperate Word of Blake as their galaxy wide holy war blew up in their face.

You see, to them, the elimination of LAM’s serves no gameplay purpose, it just denies players a combat unit outside a few niche cases., and that is not fair to them. You see they WANT to play LAMs and not be stopped. And they want everyone else to play LAMs, they want Battletech… to be Robotech.

• insert crowd gasping*

Whenever a fictional reason for a thing happening in fiction occurs, people who do not like it often decry it as “Plot Armor” or “Author Fiat.” one time I got into an argument with a Star Trek fan who legitimately believed that Star Trek Deep Space Nine should have either ended, or the meta story should have logically become about the Dominion having overthrown the Federation and claimed it as a colony, and rag tag groups of Star Fleet officers led by General Worf would lead a resistance. He justified this by saying…

“The Dominion would have totally curb stomped the Federation if only Sisko hadn’t mined the Bajoran Wormhole. It was a total Author Fiat.”

Once my stroke from hearing such stupidity was complete, I grabbed this person by the scruff of the neck and whispered “In a fictional setting, literally everything that happens, happens because the author decrees is so.”

The Federation knew they were going to get curb stomped, that is why the mined the Bajoran Wormhole, and they didn’t do it with an ass pull, or some wild experimental technology. It was the practical application of antimatter explosives, cloaking devices, replicator technology, and a blatant disregard for the treaty of Algernon

To bring this back to Battletech, the rules for Land Air Mechs still exist, they are in the book Intersteller Operations “Alternate Eras” which specializes in creating scenarios across all rullsets for specific Eras that have specialist cases. The Star Leauge Era and Land Air Mechs is the example spoken about here, but there is also Super Heavy and three legged Mech Rules, the Cybernetic Implants of the Manei Domini, the Dark Ages Transforming Quad-Vees and more. No player is denied anything. My first video was about fiction because the complaint is not about rules or lack of access to the rules for LAMs, but that LAMs are in the game for only a limited portion of the time line.

But you have to ask the question, Why does it matter so much? Why is one crowd of fans so adamant that LAMS should be mainstreamed, and another crowd so adamant that they should stick to their designated place, or in the extreme retconned altogether.

The answer to that question is that the rules for LAMs are not very good

Or perhaps, they are too good.

As best as I have been able to research, the original rules for Land Air Mechs were published in the Aerotech Box set in 1986. Makes sense since that is what introduced the rules for all fixed wing aircraft to the game.when originally created Land AIr Mech rules followed the same construction rules as Battletech, meaning that they could mass anywhere from 20-100 tons, needed to dedicated 10 of their mass to structure, possessed a 3 ton cockpit, and needed a Gyroscope whose mass equaled 1/10th the engines rating.

Where things got weird was in the additional base construction equipment needed to be a LAM. namely you needed to devote an additional 10% of mass to the conversion equipment and physical modifications to make the body able to change. Beyond that all the rules about Air Mechs had to do with how they interacted with the Battlefield. How they could change, when they could change, how critical hits effected things. Most of these were reasonable. When in Battlemech mode the thing moved and fought like a mechm when in Aerospace mode they moved and fought like a fighter.

It was in the hybrid Air Mech Mode things got a little bit fucky wucky.

According to the rules, a LAM in AIrmech mode had it’s walking speed reduced to 1/3rd it’s capacity in Battlemech mode. But it’s jump capacity was increased by 3X so a Stinger LAM with 6 Jumop Jets also serving as it’s thrusters in fighter mode essentially jumped 18 hexes.

Furthermore shooting at an Airmech in flight (Jumping) incurs a +4 to hit modifier against it.

So let’s do some Math. Battletech uses what is called the GATOR system

Gunnery Skill-0 your characters skill on the record sheet Attacker Movement Modifer a +1, 2, or 3 depending on if the shooter walked, jumped or ran. Standing still incurs no penalty Target Movement Modifier- based on movement Other modifiers Reflecting Weather, terrain, battle damage, what have you Range how far, in hexes you are from your target, based on the weapon being used

A LAM in Air Mech Mode with a Jumping thrust value of 18, moves it’s entire allotted movement, which according to the Target Movement Modifier table is a +5, on top of that you get a +4 penalty for the fact it is considered an Aircraft. And because it is also considered jumping, there is an additional +1

So a Stinger or Wasp LAM get a +10 defensive modifier for MERELY existing. You add range to that and you are looking at either a +2 or +4 for medium or long range respectively. Since you can only roll two six sided dice a Stinger or Wasp became functionally invincible in Air Mech mode at Long Range, since before even taking a shooters gunnery skill into account you are looking at a LAM having a +13 modifier fore mere existence on the battlefield, and a +11 at medium range meant you HAD to be an elite pilot to even stand a chance of hitting it in basic succession wars gameplay. The STANDARD Gunnery Skill, in other words the average across all MechWarrior's across the inner Sphere at any given moment, is a roll of 4 on two dice.

I am reminded of an episode of Star Trek the Next Generation where the Android Data was beaten in a game by a scientist known for his prowess at said game. Distraught at being unable to compete head to head, had to learn a new paradigm of playing that game. Data endeavored not to beat the scientist, but to drag the game out in equilibrium until the scientist quit in exasperation.

With the first Generation LAM Rules, a Game of Battletech became like that. While a LAM operator might not win, while in Air Mech mode, it could not lose in a head to head matchup either.

The next book with Comprehensive rules for LAMS was the Battletech Compendium, published in 1990. The book hard largely the same rules for LAMS, but it introduced the tonnage limit to LAM construction. The four players who wanted an Atlas LAM all cried at this change. The biggest change however was the introduction of the first system to try and balance player forces, which was previously relegated to total tonnage of your force. This was based on the monetary value of the platform and a table was provided for said costs for canonical designs, but not how to calculate it for custom designs.

It also provided no costs for the pilot. But LAM pilots now possess two sets of piloting skills,. One for Aerospace, and one for Battlemechs. But as yet there was no cost for certain skill values.

The final aspect of the Compendium that made LAMs manageable, but still disgusting, was that there were numerous technologies that could counter aircraft. The big ones were Artillery and Flak Rules. Artillery, even when working in an Anti Aircraft mode, was functionally an Area of effect weapon, so if you brought out the big guns, and aimed right, and pushed the LAM Operator close enough to the danger zone, you could conceivably swat that fly. The problem is artillery rules were arcane as hell, and shots fired had to travel on board a number of turns before impact, so you had to be really careful, or really saturate the skies.

The Flak rules were provided by the LB-X Autocannons introduced in the original printing of Technical readout 3050. Fundamentally the LBX Flak ammo provided a native -1 to hit anything, since it was functionally a mech scale shotgun, and when used against aircraft, and additional -3 to hit was given. All combined this would effectively eliminate the +4 penalty for the fact LAMS were flying. A boon to be sure, but still only a minor one.

In 1994 the Battletech Tactical Handbook introduced the last rules for LAMs for 20 years. This time instituting costs for pilot skill sets, and since LAM pilots had FOUR instead of two, were heavily penalized, and thus dissuaded mass LAM deployment. It also moved LAMs from Tournament Legal to Optional/Non Legal Status, meaning explicitly in organized play you could not just used them

Despite this, fundamentally the rules for LAMs in the original Battletech Compendium remained the go to for LAM Rules, partially for being the most widely available and the most permissive.

And not one iteration of the rules did a single damned thing to change the fundamental flaw, or boon depending on your perspective, of the platform. The general player experience of a LAM was to convert the thing into Air Mech mode turn 1 (if not allowed to start that way) and blitz around the battlefield and make a nuisance of yourself. Even if it was mildly harder to hit things because you were flying, you were still physically impossible to hit by all but the most skilled CHARCTERS in the game. I have to emphasize that. To take down a LAM in Battletech under Compendium rules was contingent upon your character’s skill, not yours as a player. Being forced to make hard shots, or having a shot be made impossible because of units interactions with the battlefield were one thing. But a LAM under these rules could be made fundamentally impossible to hit at any range by nearly any skilled MechWarrior, with zero effort, and sitting fundamentally out in the open.

In real life the B2 Spirit Bomber is so completely stealthy, even the best sensor equipment in the United States Arsenal cannot detect it. The F-22 has a radar cross section the size of the six sided dice that come in a Battletech Box set. But that is real life, where armed conflict SHOULD be unfair.

Battletech, is a board game, for people to have fun blowing the crap out of physically improbably giant ass robots with space guns. To be able to so casually say “I win” before the first roll is performed, and be serious… that is a design issue. And for a player to not only want to exploit that design issue as an experiment, but to deploy it regularly in order to rack up W’s against the rest of the player group.

That is just reprehensible. I try to avoid making morality judgments against people for petty things, but seriously. Claiming to be a superior player of a game cause you entered IDDQD before it even started is at best disingenuous, and at worst bullying.

Shortly after the release of the second edition of the Battletech Compendium, the Harmony Gold Unseen Lawsuit was resolved. Land Air Mechs were DISTINCTLY a relic from the Super Dimension Fortress Macross world, Licensed improperly to FASA by entities that arguably did not have the right to issue said license. With no other source of LAM art and the units being contentious at best, LAMs effectively disappeared from the game seemingly forever, the laughter of Clan Nova Cat MechWarrior's on Ireece burning Eproms their funeral dirge. Then Catalyst Game labs in 2014 said “let’s do a funny to wrap up the Word of Blake Jihad.”

So I covered fiction last time but to briefly go over the funny. In the story, 17 years after the Clan invasion, the Word of Blake, who I can best describe as the Adeptus Mechanicus of 40K with personality and charm, go on a Holy war against the Inner Sphere because Daddy didn’t get to do a Genocide against the Clans. They went back through every Battletech Rulebook ever and said “ALL” creating a group of stupid elite, no way fair, completely unbalanced BOSS MODE combat commands, packed to the gills with cybernetic enhancements that could improve their combat capability, prototype weaponry that was essentially ready for prime time but not manufactured at scale, and access to rare advanced technology once thought lost, such as LAMs. all of this brought out like the King Tiger tank in a last ditch effort to not lose the war they started and went bad for them halfway through.

It was at this point LAM rules underwent an complete ground up revision. Their construction rules were altered from the Battletech compendium, explicitly prohibiting the use of construction materials that took up critical space on the record sheet in exchange for some form of weight savings.

This meant Endo Steel internal Structure, any sort of specialty armor, Extra Light engines and Gyros were all gone from Land Air Mech Construction Rules. Double Heat sinks were Okay though… for reasons. Probably to make the Words three new LAMs practical. You see the PWWKA, YUREI, and WANTEA all utilized clan technology and VERY heavy weaponry. The Waneta in particular utilized a Clan Spec Heavy large laser, which emitted 18 points of heat on firing.

Along side these new LAM designs and redesigned “Mk I” Star League designs were new rules to follow.

Air Mech’s Cruising MP was still calculated by multiplying the Jumping Value by 3, but how it interacted with the ground fundamentally changed. Firstly Airmechs generated heat from using thrust from the jump jets, 1 Heat point for every three jump points expended. An Air Mech mush move five hexes in order to stay airborne, or spend 5 movement points to hover limiting it to no more than 4 hexes of movement on top of the 5 MP Spent to force the hover.

The biggest benefit however is the inclusion of multiple pilot checks made for various types of movements. Side slipping, skipping, Lawn dart checks,

The biggest benefit, that to hit penalty for “flying” GONE. no longer does an Air Mech becomes literally invulnerable against a moderately skilled MechWarrior. now it's just MOSTLY invulnerable.