House Rules

When creating your mercenary force, you must choose an origin from the dropdown box for the force. This will determine the MUL you use when creating your force.

You can only select battlemechs and battle armor from your origin’s MUL at force creation.

Use the ilClan Era MUL for your chosen origin. You can access era-appropriate MULs here.

We use the “Battle Armor” Company Option from the Hot Spots: Hinterlands book. However, we require each force to have a minimum of 1 Battlemech in it.

Players can purchase additional battle armor units as normal after creation.

Players must field at least 1 Battlemech for every 2 (or fraction thereof) battle armor units being fielded on a given Track. This rule exists to prevent “feels bad” battle armor spam and to keep the focus on the mechs.

To help newly created forces “catch up” to existing units, the number of free improvements available at force creation increases by 1 each month.

In addition, at the six-month mark (i.e., for forces created in June or thereafter), newly created forces may make use of the “Silver Spoon” Company Option from the Hot Spots: Hinterlands book and start at Scale 2. These forces will still start with a warchest of 3,000 SP and a Reputation of 1.

The battlemechs and battle armor available for purchase are determined randomly by the League organizers each monthly. In addition, players can also purchase battlemechs and battle armor from other players and from the Black Market.

Players may only purchase these randomly-determined units, units sold by other players, and units available on the black market after creation. No other units are available for purchase. Players are encouraged to be careful with their units; a dead unit just might be irreplaceable!

Players may sell battlemechs and battle armor to each other at whatever prices they so choose, and must report those sales to the League. Abuse of this system (for example: creating a new force, selling all the mechs to a friend, and then disbanding the force after selling the mechs) will result in both players being ejected from the League.

Battlemechs and battle armor units sold by a force (not to other players) and salvage not purchased by a force (whether via salvage rights or via ransom) will appear in the black market for other forces to purchase.

Temporary Hires will be randomly generated each contract and can be hired by any force that loses a mech or battle armor unit during a contract. Lost battlemechs can be replaced by temporarily hired battlemech or battle armor units, but lost battle armor units can only be replaced by temporarily hired battle armor units.

Forces that have not lost a battlemech or a battle armor unit during a contract cannot hired a Temporary Hire.

Temporary Hires cannot be permanently hired, and will stop working for a force at the end of the contract.

A force may offer up a number of SP as a bounty on another force or a particular unit within another force.

Another force may collect the bounty by winning a track against the force subject to the bounty or by destroying the unit subject to the bounty.

In addition, each time a force kills a mechwarrior, a 100 SP bounty is automatically applied to the force by the dead mechwarrior’s next-of-kin.

The bounty board can be found here: Bounty Board

To prevent some “feels bad” play experiences, the Pursuit mission type will default to a minimum of two map sheets, even at Scale 1. This is an exception to the usual rule that a Scale 1 game uses a single map sheet.

To prevent the “feels bad” experience of digging your force out of a never-ending pit, a force’s Reputation score cannot fall below zero.

To prevent some “feels bad” moments, players are limited to a maximum of two offensive aerospace support cards (light air strike, light bombing, heavy air strike, heavy bombing, and/or strafing) per Scale. For example, a scale 2 force could have 2 light air strike cards, 1 heavy bombing card, and 1 strafing card.

BSPs must make a separate attack roll for each damage value grouping. For example, a SRM Carrier has a DMG rating of 10×5. Instead of making a single attack roll that, if successful, applies 5 10-point damage clusters, the SRM Carrier will make 5 attack rolls, and each attack roll that hits will apply a 10-point damage cluster.

Fire and smoke do not spread via wind. Fire does not generate smoke. This change was put in place to encourage people to set fires and use smoke as tactical tools without significantly slowing down the game.

The Command Complications table always uses the following modifiers:

Integrated: +3

House: +2

Liaison: +1

Independent: +0

A player may play no more than 1 match controlling their standard League force and no more than 2 “Take One for the Team” matches controlling a randomly generated OpFor force per calendar month.

“Take One for the Team” matches should be played with a randomly generated OpFor (see below) for each player, or with one of the players bringing their standard League force against someone else who is playing a random OpFor of the same scale.

Random OpFor forces should consist of a Primary Force and BSP units/strikes of the OpFor player’s choice. If both players in a “Take One for the Team” match are playing Random OpFors, both players will bring a Scale 1 force.

The last two paragraphs of the “Taking One for the Team” rule do not apply in this League.

A player controlling a Taking One for the Team force always earns a minimum of 50 SP for participating in a Track, even if no VPs are scored.

Scale 1 Forces:

1. Wolverine WVR-9R (G3/P5), Merlin MLN-1C (G3/P5), 44 BSPs

2. Locust IIC 9 (G3/P5), Thunderbolt C (G4/P4), 41 BSPs

3. Chameleon CLN-8V (G4/P4), Starslayer STY-3C (G3/P5), 35 BSPs

4. Wolfhound WLF-6S (G4/P4), Gauntlet GLT-1OA (G3/P5), 47 BSPs

5. Baboon (Howler) 6 (G4/P4), Mad Cat (Timber Wolf) E (G3/P5), 32 BSPs

6. Battle Cobra BLT-C-2OG (G3/P5), Griffin GRF-3N (G3/P5), 43 BSPs

If a force opts not to accept a contract, it can remain at the Hiring Hall and pay 50 SP per (in-game) month in Maintenance costs. However, the force will be stuck at the Hiring Hall until the next contract. A force that is Sitting One Out can still play the maximum of two “Take One For The Team” matches each calendar month. A force cannot Sit One Out twice in a row; forces that attempt to do so will be disbanded.

A force that does not submit a battle report for three consecutive months (or more) will be disbanded.

If a mercenary force only has BSP units on the battlefield in the End Phase of any Turn, that mercenary force is not able to score Victory Points in any subsequent turns and, accordingly, the Track ends immediately.

Any force that takes deliberate action that would prevent it from scoring ANY Victory Points will be deemed to have broken its contract. For example, a force participating in a Meeting Engagement Track that enters the battlefield on Turn 1, achieves no objectives, and then promptly moves off the battlefield on Turn 2 will be deemed to have broken its contract.

A central tenet of this League involves demonstrating good sportsmanship to other players so all involved can enjoy a fun, semi-competitive game of Battletech. Good sportsmanship involves knowingly and correctly applying the rules of the game and the League, submitting honest and accurate reports to the League, treating other players with courtesy and respect regardless of what happens on the battlefield, and keeping in mind the fact that — despite the semi-competitive nature of the League format — this is, ultimately, a game we are all playing in an effort to have fun. Players who demonstrate poor sportsmanship may, at the sole discretion of the League organizer (David Mercer), be ejected from the League, either temporarily or permanently, without recourse. No Battletech is better than Battletech with a poor sportsman.