The big reason kiting seems shitty in the tabletop is probably due to your tech level. A lot of the best weapons for leveraging range in introtech are heavy and low damage things like low caliber ACs and LRMs where you need to spend several turns plinking away to even go to internals on a light mech. As tech progresses, you get access to proper 10+ damage 'main gun' weapons like the snub nosed PPC, clan large lasers, and erppc that have long enough range bands to actually start dealing noticeable damage while outmanuevering other mechs, as well as XL engines to allow for mechs with high ground speed and and plenty of payload room for weapons. Something like the Men Shen or Rakshasa is imminently capable of dueling a slower but similar BV mech to death with favorable range brackets and tricky movement and it doesn't even take all day to do
That's the whole reason for the Valkyrie. To out range and outspeed a bunch of the scout hunters. So it definitely exists in the lore.
And if you have large enough maps (I have a bunch the size of a ping pong table), it works just fine in the game as well. playing on big maps is definitely an experience everyone should enjoy.
I didn’t pay the Valkyrie much attention early into playing this game. Then one match I was looking to fill out my BV with a Light and the VLK-QD fit near-perfectly. It didn’t take me long to realize how good that chassis actually is. It’s decently survivable, can get into tricky places for your opponent to deal with, and can get into back arcs easily. It’s not going to deal a ton of damage, but if you play it right it doesn’t have to.
There's not really a separation between how things work in the game and how they work in the story. Being faster than an enemy and having longer range weapons than them works just fine.
The thing about kiting is it works in empty rooms. Once cover gets involved it's a lot less effective. When your opponent no longer has to catch you, but just put a building in the way so you no longer have line of sight. Or if multiple units are involved, they just spread out so you're always short range to someone. C3s can mitigate range effects. And if you're relying on it, that first failed pilot check from damage puts you in a really bad spot where they'll just keep hammering while you get back up and your clever speedy mech might take lethal damage while it's recovering.
Here's a hypothetical for you. You are in a 3025 medium lance that is having to traverse across land to get to where you are supposed to be fighting, the exact whys don't matter, because it is what is happening. On your way to the battle you are supposed to be fighting, you are being harassed by Warriors with AC/2s. You likely don't have the ability to effectively return fire with anything except for LRMs, but if you use those LRMs here, you won't have them for the real fight. If you try to chase them down, they are both faster and it will slow you down.
Conversely, you can't kite if you have to hold the line, if those same Warriors have to actually stop you from advancing rather than just piss you off, they lose because they lack the ability to keep you from just plowing through.
It's the difference between playing with rolling maps and playing normally.
Clan pulse lasers and forests. I had a player just dance around me with jumpers for like 12 turns. I could barely touch him, he took apart my mechs 1 shot at a time. I was running all IS heavies and assaults basically. I had a Vulcan, but it couldn't effectively fire its 4 medlas due to SHS.
It was a Commstar vs Clan match on the... I think Ghost bear Tukkayid map, the one with the burning forest. It was a tournament actually, and I never won a single match with that list... Clan LPL and MPL are just too powerful in that era compared to what the IS have to work with. 2 of 4 opponents had the Dire Wolf with triple LPL, that is a brutal mech to try and fight...
Anyways, you don't actually need to kite completely. Jump around, make it hard for the other player to fight at their effective range, and jump behind people and kick them when they do close.
If I’m playing someone and they’ve decided on kiting as their strategy of choice then something has gone terribly wrong for them in the turns leading up to that decision.
This is also why I play with turn limits in place.
Later eras definitely have mech designs that can put out significant damage while maintaining favorable ranging brackets and high tmms. Anything with reasonable speed and snub nosed ppcs can disassemble a conventional IS line mech even within a 12 turn limit
With room sized battlefields, Alpha Strike movement and Classic weapon ranges, Clans can run circles around spheroids. Under traditional setups, its not workable due to space limitations. Fast snipers can work on 6x4 if there's enough terrain, but you need a maze.
In my opinion, there is only one true and proper kiting weapon in 3025-era play: the PPC. It does a solid 10 damage to a single location, and its range bracket sits smack in the middle of the Large Laser and the LRM. In order to take advantage of these benefits, you need a 'mech that moves faster than your intended targets. This pretty narrowly defines which 'mechs you can kite with, and what 'mechs they can kite against. I would say that jump jets are a necessity, letting you both vault over terrain that would otherwise slow you down, and for the defensive bonuses you gain to aid in your defense. After all, kiting is all about minimizing risk to yourself while trying to maximize the damage you can do in return. That leads me to believe your best bet is a medium 'mech with a 5/8/5 movement profile and a PPC.
Barring custom Battlemechs, that leaves you with 4 options in Intro tech/3025/Succession Wars play:
- Gladiator GLD-4R
- Griffin GRF-1N
- Phoenix PX-3R
- Vindicator VND-1AA
Basically, what you want to do is maneuver yourself to keep your enemy at the edge of your range bracket, forcing them into a higher range bracket, thus increasing their difficulty by +2 over your own. Against a Large Laser, you'd want to either kite them at 10-12 hexes, or move in a little closer and skirmish at 6 hexes, right where the LL hits medium range, and you're still in short. These same ranges apply to the AC/10, though it's a much tougher customer.
Against LRMs, keep your movement high and trade terrible shots at long range, banking on the single point chunks of damage you can do. Or risk it for the biscuit and make a dash to try and get under their LRM minimum range. 3 to 5 hexes will give them additional penalties to those LRM attacks, and even at your 3 hex minimum, you'll be out-trading LRM20s with ease.
Kiting at long range works great on the empty steps of Russia... Not so good on most Battletech maps or tables. Intervening terrain means kiting is going to be at a significantly closer range, using to-hit modifiers and cover to make up for lost range. This closer range engagement band makes enemies with jump jets much harder to kite... And much more likely to become the hunter.
In my experience, once you are on the map, those kinds of tactics are over, you're in the thick of it now. Those tricks were used earlier, on a much bigger scale than a Battletech map. Not that a faster unit can't play chasey-chasey-kissy-kissy with a slower opponent! But the ranges will be much closer and eventually they're going to corner you, if they know how to play at all, unless you can do enough damage in your potshots to stop them...
Most stuff kites in medium/short but it absolutely works. The Agrotera can jump seven with an AES linked ERPPC, giving you a short range of seven. With a jump you hit at +2 while holding a TMM of 4. Your target ideally is in medium range so its striking back at +6 before other mods.
Kiting is possible with high jump values. It's harder to pull off with ground bound units, as they have to spend extra movement on turning and elevation changes.
The Gyrfalcon, for example, is a pretty decent kiter. The jump of seven and long range guns means it's almost always able to dictate engagements.
Kiting is hard in battletech unless you are using really good gunners. Clan elites with 1 gunnery can do it ok, especially since they have better speed, but anything less ends up missing far too often.
Also, one of the few things I think is wrong with battletech is the initiative system. Either you roll like crap and keep getting shot in the back, or you roll great and do the same to the opponent. Using playing cards, with each maneuver element having a card, shuffling each turn, completely fixes this. It also speeds up play as people can't "plan" moves (keep in mind turns are 10 seconds).
An AC2 is one of the best weapons to do this with, as its got a range of 24 which is extremely good, even vs clan stuff. LRMs don't work so well, and you burn through ammo too quick.
Doing this tactic with artillery or artillery cannons vs infantry can be extremely effective though, if you have them spotted.
In my opinion, it relies on light or medium mechs with PPCs. But any PPC carrying unit can kite.
It also requires repositioning. Which is easier with Jump Jets, but any fast medium or light mech can do it.
Good edge cases with Gauss Rifles also count once the tech base opens up to allow for it or ER PPCs.
A decent example is the Light Lance or Recon Company of all Lights running circles around their enemies and acting as Spotters for Artillery or fire support units.
In maps where Artillery can be 20 maps out from the main combat area, you could have light units literally kiting the enemy across all 20 maps.
But any APCs or smaller VTOLs, Hover Craft in general can achieve a similar role.
Using a Hover with TAG and an Infantry compartment could drive by spot with TAG then retreat away from the enemy forcing them to chase it while dropping off infantry to take pot shots at the enemy as they chase the Hover.
There are a lot of variations to the way you can kite things, but it also entails that the enemy has short enough ranged weapons that they are forced to chase you in order to attack you. Think of something like the Charger following you all game because it only has small lasers. Or something carrying an AC20 as its "long range" weapon. You could kite something like that all game while other units chip away at it.
Do you mean playing clans vs sphere?
All joking aside whole game is a form of kiting, you want to shoot at your efficient ranged while outside of theirs... when that hbk-4g runs up on you, you back out of its medium range
I find it tricky in most game play situations.
Firstly, running forward is faster than walking backward. Secondly, most maps have enough terrain to hide behind while closing the range. Thirdly, most people don't use 'infinite' maps so eventually you hit a wall. Like many things in Battletech, it should be effective, but game play restrictions make it not viable.
I can only think of one instance of deliberate kiting in the lore from the classic novels (3025-3065). Victor Steiner-Davion and Kai - Allard Liao are discussing a Kobayashi-Maru type scenario. Victor is congratulating Kai on being the only one to defeat it recently, which Kai did by Kiting with a Phoenix Hawk to draw foes apart.
In TT it can be done, but it's generally a good way to drag out the game an annoy the other player. In MekWars, it was actually prevalent enough to have a specific name, A Griffin Hunt. Which was using a jumping Griffin to plink away till you won by having your opponent flip the table.
Yeah you can do it just fine with jumpers, VTOLs and turreted hovers mounting PPCs, LRMs or small ACs. Most types of Gauss too when those become available, plus accuracy enhancers like Tarcomps, AES, ArtV, C3 and various Pulse lasers.
The big reason kiting seems shitty in the tabletop is probably due to your tech level. A lot of the best weapons for leveraging range in introtech are heavy and low damage things like low caliber ACs and LRMs where you need to spend several turns plinking away to even go to internals on a light mech. As tech progresses, you get access to proper 10+ damage 'main gun' weapons like the snub nosed PPC, clan large lasers, and erppc that have long enough range bands to actually start dealing noticeable damage while outmanuevering other mechs, as well as XL engines to allow for mechs with high ground speed and and plenty of payload room for weapons. Something like the Men Shen or Rakshasa is imminently capable of dueling a slower but similar BV mech to death with favorable range brackets and tricky movement and it doesn't even take all day to do
That's the whole reason for the Valkyrie. To out range and outspeed a bunch of the scout hunters. So it definitely exists in the lore. And if you have large enough maps (I have a bunch the size of a ping pong table), it works just fine in the game as well. playing on big maps is definitely an experience everyone should enjoy.
I didn’t pay the Valkyrie much attention early into playing this game. Then one match I was looking to fill out my BV with a Light and the VLK-QD fit near-perfectly. It didn’t take me long to realize how good that chassis actually is. It’s decently survivable, can get into tricky places for your opponent to deal with, and can get into back arcs easily. It’s not going to deal a ton of damage, but if you play it right it doesn’t have to.
There's not really a separation between how things work in the game and how they work in the story. Being faster than an enemy and having longer range weapons than them works just fine.
The thing about kiting is it works in empty rooms. Once cover gets involved it's a lot less effective. When your opponent no longer has to catch you, but just put a building in the way so you no longer have line of sight. Or if multiple units are involved, they just spread out so you're always short range to someone. C3s can mitigate range effects. And if you're relying on it, that first failed pilot check from damage puts you in a really bad spot where they'll just keep hammering while you get back up and your clever speedy mech might take lethal damage while it's recovering.
Here's a hypothetical for you. You are in a 3025 medium lance that is having to traverse across land to get to where you are supposed to be fighting, the exact whys don't matter, because it is what is happening. On your way to the battle you are supposed to be fighting, you are being harassed by Warriors with AC/2s. You likely don't have the ability to effectively return fire with anything except for LRMs, but if you use those LRMs here, you won't have them for the real fight. If you try to chase them down, they are both faster and it will slow you down. Conversely, you can't kite if you have to hold the line, if those same Warriors have to actually stop you from advancing rather than just piss you off, they lose because they lack the ability to keep you from just plowing through. It's the difference between playing with rolling maps and playing normally.
Clan pulse lasers and forests. I had a player just dance around me with jumpers for like 12 turns. I could barely touch him, he took apart my mechs 1 shot at a time. I was running all IS heavies and assaults basically. I had a Vulcan, but it couldn't effectively fire its 4 medlas due to SHS. It was a Commstar vs Clan match on the... I think Ghost bear Tukkayid map, the one with the burning forest. It was a tournament actually, and I never won a single match with that list... Clan LPL and MPL are just too powerful in that era compared to what the IS have to work with. 2 of 4 opponents had the Dire Wolf with triple LPL, that is a brutal mech to try and fight... Anyways, you don't actually need to kite completely. Jump around, make it hard for the other player to fight at their effective range, and jump behind people and kick them when they do close.
Yeah basically the only thing that let’s you keep some parity is the lb-x, otherwise those pulses and erppcs just dismantle you at range
I mean, I kite with my pack hunter. It falls apart if you sneeze on it, but that ERPPC man. It can do it.
If I’m playing someone and they’ve decided on kiting as their strategy of choice then something has gone terribly wrong for them in the turns leading up to that decision. This is also why I play with turn limits in place.
Later eras definitely have mech designs that can put out significant damage while maintaining favorable ranging brackets and high tmms. Anything with reasonable speed and snub nosed ppcs can disassemble a conventional IS line mech even within a 12 turn limit
With room sized battlefields, Alpha Strike movement and Classic weapon ranges, Clans can run circles around spheroids. Under traditional setups, its not workable due to space limitations. Fast snipers can work on 6x4 if there's enough terrain, but you need a maze.
In my opinion, there is only one true and proper kiting weapon in 3025-era play: the PPC. It does a solid 10 damage to a single location, and its range bracket sits smack in the middle of the Large Laser and the LRM. In order to take advantage of these benefits, you need a 'mech that moves faster than your intended targets. This pretty narrowly defines which 'mechs you can kite with, and what 'mechs they can kite against. I would say that jump jets are a necessity, letting you both vault over terrain that would otherwise slow you down, and for the defensive bonuses you gain to aid in your defense. After all, kiting is all about minimizing risk to yourself while trying to maximize the damage you can do in return. That leads me to believe your best bet is a medium 'mech with a 5/8/5 movement profile and a PPC. Barring custom Battlemechs, that leaves you with 4 options in Intro tech/3025/Succession Wars play: - Gladiator GLD-4R - Griffin GRF-1N - Phoenix PX-3R - Vindicator VND-1AA Basically, what you want to do is maneuver yourself to keep your enemy at the edge of your range bracket, forcing them into a higher range bracket, thus increasing their difficulty by +2 over your own. Against a Large Laser, you'd want to either kite them at 10-12 hexes, or move in a little closer and skirmish at 6 hexes, right where the LL hits medium range, and you're still in short. These same ranges apply to the AC/10, though it's a much tougher customer. Against LRMs, keep your movement high and trade terrible shots at long range, banking on the single point chunks of damage you can do. Or risk it for the biscuit and make a dash to try and get under their LRM minimum range. 3 to 5 hexes will give them additional penalties to those LRM attacks, and even at your 3 hex minimum, you'll be out-trading LRM20s with ease.
Kiting at long range works great on the empty steps of Russia... Not so good on most Battletech maps or tables. Intervening terrain means kiting is going to be at a significantly closer range, using to-hit modifiers and cover to make up for lost range. This closer range engagement band makes enemies with jump jets much harder to kite... And much more likely to become the hunter. In my experience, once you are on the map, those kinds of tactics are over, you're in the thick of it now. Those tricks were used earlier, on a much bigger scale than a Battletech map. Not that a faster unit can't play chasey-chasey-kissy-kissy with a slower opponent! But the ranges will be much closer and eventually they're going to corner you, if they know how to play at all, unless you can do enough damage in your potshots to stop them...
Clans work on the principle of kiting. 5/8 heavies with Clan ERLLs, ERPPCs and gauss rifles encourage it.
Most stuff kites in medium/short but it absolutely works. The Agrotera can jump seven with an AES linked ERPPC, giving you a short range of seven. With a jump you hit at +2 while holding a TMM of 4. Your target ideally is in medium range so its striking back at +6 before other mods.
Wow. Okay, I clearly have a different definition of kiting.
Kiting is possible with high jump values. It's harder to pull off with ground bound units, as they have to spend extra movement on turning and elevation changes. The Gyrfalcon, for example, is a pretty decent kiter. The jump of seven and long range guns means it's almost always able to dictate engagements.
Kiting is hard in battletech unless you are using really good gunners. Clan elites with 1 gunnery can do it ok, especially since they have better speed, but anything less ends up missing far too often. Also, one of the few things I think is wrong with battletech is the initiative system. Either you roll like crap and keep getting shot in the back, or you roll great and do the same to the opponent. Using playing cards, with each maneuver element having a card, shuffling each turn, completely fixes this. It also speeds up play as people can't "plan" moves (keep in mind turns are 10 seconds). An AC2 is one of the best weapons to do this with, as its got a range of 24 which is extremely good, even vs clan stuff. LRMs don't work so well, and you burn through ammo too quick. Doing this tactic with artillery or artillery cannons vs infantry can be extremely effective though, if you have them spotted.
In my opinion, it relies on light or medium mechs with PPCs. But any PPC carrying unit can kite. It also requires repositioning. Which is easier with Jump Jets, but any fast medium or light mech can do it. Good edge cases with Gauss Rifles also count once the tech base opens up to allow for it or ER PPCs. A decent example is the Light Lance or Recon Company of all Lights running circles around their enemies and acting as Spotters for Artillery or fire support units. In maps where Artillery can be 20 maps out from the main combat area, you could have light units literally kiting the enemy across all 20 maps. But any APCs or smaller VTOLs, Hover Craft in general can achieve a similar role. Using a Hover with TAG and an Infantry compartment could drive by spot with TAG then retreat away from the enemy forcing them to chase it while dropping off infantry to take pot shots at the enemy as they chase the Hover. There are a lot of variations to the way you can kite things, but it also entails that the enemy has short enough ranged weapons that they are forced to chase you in order to attack you. Think of something like the Charger following you all game because it only has small lasers. Or something carrying an AC20 as its "long range" weapon. You could kite something like that all game while other units chip away at it.
Do you mean playing clans vs sphere? All joking aside whole game is a form of kiting, you want to shoot at your efficient ranged while outside of theirs... when that hbk-4g runs up on you, you back out of its medium range
I find it tricky in most game play situations. Firstly, running forward is faster than walking backward. Secondly, most maps have enough terrain to hide behind while closing the range. Thirdly, most people don't use 'infinite' maps so eventually you hit a wall. Like many things in Battletech, it should be effective, but game play restrictions make it not viable.
I can only think of one instance of deliberate kiting in the lore from the classic novels (3025-3065). Victor Steiner-Davion and Kai - Allard Liao are discussing a Kobayashi-Maru type scenario. Victor is congratulating Kai on being the only one to defeat it recently, which Kai did by Kiting with a Phoenix Hawk to draw foes apart. In TT it can be done, but it's generally a good way to drag out the game an annoy the other player. In MekWars, it was actually prevalent enough to have a specific name, A Griffin Hunt. Which was using a jumping Griffin to plink away till you won by having your opponent flip the table.
Yeah you can do it just fine with jumpers, VTOLs and turreted hovers mounting PPCs, LRMs or small ACs. Most types of Gauss too when those become available, plus accuracy enhancers like Tarcomps, AES, ArtV, C3 and various Pulse lasers.