The Inside Scoop on Gaming

The newer of the two field manuals dealing with the rapidly disintegrating Federated Commonwealth of FASA's Battletech and Mechwarrior game lines, the Lyran Alliance Field Manual achieves a rough parity with its sister sourcebook, the Federated Suns Field Manual. In brief, the FM: LA (that's what I'll be calling it for brevity's sake) covers the German-influenced former Lyran Commonwealth, renowned for its wealth, poorly-trained armed forces, and for the preponderence of heavy and assault-class Battlemechs that make up the bulk of its armed forces.

I'm going to try and cover the things that I would like to know before purchasing this product; hopefully they're things that you all would like to know as well. Should I omit anything that you feel should have been in the review, post your question in the message area and I'll answer it as best I can.

On to the review.

The Fluff

The first forty pages or so of the book covers the ranking conventions of the Lyran Alliance Armed Forces (known as LAAF to both its admirers and detractors, though for very different reasons), along with unit structures, information on the vast Lyran bureacracies, a short history section that briefly covers the high and low points of the Lyran state, and information on training academies. There's also a rather good bit of opening fiction that dovetails nicely with the one that opens the Federated Suns Field Manual.

One thing that the writers take great pains to emphasize in this section is the encroaching politicization of the LAAF; most of the high-ranking officers are political appointees who are better at chirping out pro-Steiner rhetoric than actually performing their appointed tasks. This has apparently affected the tactical and strategic operations of the LAAF itself, marking a return to set-piece operations that rely overly on slow-moving assault-class Battlemechs.

The Units

The LAAF doesn't rely as much on combined arms units as its sister service, the AFFS; in fact, only about a third of its line units are RCTs, in stark contrast to FedSuns units, where a non-RCT is a rarity.

In this section, we note that there are very few pro-Victor units: Three of the Arcturan Guards RCTs (20th, 23rd, and 25th), the 10th Lyran Guard RCT, the 17th Skye Rangers, and the Koniz Militia are, out of a total strength of 77 regiments and two battalions, the only six pro-Victor units in the entire LAAF. Another thirteen regiments worth of troops are neutral, leaving a total pro-Katherine contingent of fifty-four regiments and two battalions, thirty-four regiments and two battalions of which are frontline troops. Add to that the total number of pro-Katherine frontline units in the AFFS, and you have a grand total of forty-five regiments and two battalions of pro-Katherine troops, to twenty-four frontline pro-Victor units in both the AFFS and the LAAF. Thirty-six frontline regiments, total are neutral. It should be pointed out, however, that most of the pro-Victor regiments are of high quality, and that nearly all of them are RCTs (only the Skye Rangers are not), where as only twenty-four pro-Katherine frontline regiments (total) are RCTs. It should also be noted that many pro-Victor RCTs field overstrength vehicle and infantry formations. Katherine can reach a certain rough parity, and probably boost the number of RCTs serving if she strips her militia units of their organic armor and infantry regiments and assigns them to normal Battlemech regiments, but the helpfulness of such a stopgap measure is doubtful, as it leaves the Alliance's borders weakly protected and puts green troops in harm's way.

At any rate, this rather pointless little summary of the state of the AFFC may interest some of you.

New Rules

The FM:LA introduces two new pieces of equipment; the Heavy Gauss Rifle, and the Light Engine. Both of them are of (in my opinion) limited tactical utility, although the HGR is good for keeping foes at a distance (it can deal a whopping 25 points of damage per shell at short range, which drops to 10 points at long range), and the Light Engine increases the surivability of 'mechs that would otherwise be destroyed after the loss of a torso. There's also a brace of concept 'mechs: the Fafnir, which mounts two HGR and precious little else (Why? Because they can.), and the Stiletto, a fast medium 'mech that's seriously undergunned. There's also four variants of common Lyran 'mechs and an alternate configuration for the Hauptmann, all showcasing the new systems introduced in this book. We also meet the new Lyran battlearmor, the Fenrir, a four-legged...thingy with more weapons and less armor than pretty much any other suit around.

Also introduced is a Lyran battlecruiser design, called the Mjolnir, which, in a typical display of Lyran excess, masses in at about 1.25 million tons. I can't much comment on this one, because I don't know too much about Aerotech.

We also get the usual academy rules for Mechwarrior, 3rd Edition, as well as random 'mech tables and unit special abilities for level three play.

Well, that's about enough for one review.

Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)

Field Manual: Lyran Alliance
Author: Chris Hartford, Christoffer "Bones" Trossen Category: game Company/Publisher: FASA Corporation Line: Battletech/Mechwarrior Cost: $22.00 Page count: 168 ISBN: 1-55560-396-3 Capsule Review by Ed McEneely on 01/08/01. Genre tags: Science fiction Far Future Space	The newer of the two field manuals dealing with the rapidly disintegrating Federated Commonwealth of FASA's Battletech and Mechwarrior game lines, the Lyran Alliance Field Manual achieves a rough parity with its sister sourcebook, the Federated Suns Field Manual. In brief, the FM: LA (that's what I'll be calling it for brevity's sake) covers the German-influenced former Lyran Commonwealth, renowned for its wealth, poorly-trained armed forces, and for the preponderence of heavy and assault-class Battlemechs that make up the bulk of its armed forces. I'm going to try and cover the things that I would like to know before purchasing this product; hopefully they're things that you all would like to know as well. Should I omit anything that you feel should have been in the review, post your question in the message area and I'll answer it as best I can. On to the review. The Fluff The first forty pages or so of the book covers the ranking conventions of the Lyran Alliance Armed Forces (known as LAAF to both its admirers and detractors, though for very different reasons), along with unit structures, information on the vast Lyran bureacracies, a short history section that briefly covers the high and low points of the Lyran state, and information on training academies. There's also a rather good bit of opening fiction that dovetails nicely with the one that opens the Federated Suns Field Manual. One thing that the writers take great pains to emphasize in this section is the encroaching politicization of the LAAF; most of the high-ranking officers are political appointees who are better at chirping out pro-Steiner rhetoric than actually performing their appointed tasks. This has apparently affected the tactical and strategic operations of the LAAF itself, marking a return to set-piece operations that rely overly on slow-moving assault-class Battlemechs. The Units The LAAF doesn't rely as much on combined arms units as its sister service, the AFFS; in fact, only about a third of its line units are RCTs, in stark contrast to FedSuns units, where a non-RCT is a rarity. In this section, we note that there are very few pro-Victor units: Three of the Arcturan Guards RCTs (20th, 23rd, and 25th), the 10th Lyran Guard RCT, the 17th Skye Rangers, and the Koniz Militia are, out of a total strength of 77 regiments and two battalions, the only six pro-Victor units in the entire LAAF. Another thirteen regiments worth of troops are neutral, leaving a total pro-Katherine contingent of fifty-four regiments and two battalions, thirty-four regiments and two battalions of which are frontline troops. Add to that the total number of pro-Katherine frontline units in the AFFS, and you have a grand total of forty-five regiments and two battalions of pro-Katherine troops, to twenty-four frontline pro-Victor units in both the AFFS and the LAAF. Thirty-six frontline regiments, total are neutral. It should be pointed out, however, that most of the pro-Victor regiments are of high quality, and that nearly all of them are RCTs (only the Skye Rangers are not), where as only twenty-four pro-Katherine frontline regiments (total) are RCTs. It should also be noted that many pro-Victor RCTs field overstrength vehicle and infantry formations. Katherine can reach a certain rough parity, and probably boost the number of RCTs serving if she strips her militia units of their organic armor and infantry regiments and assigns them to normal Battlemech regiments, but the helpfulness of such a stopgap measure is doubtful, as it leaves the Alliance's borders weakly protected and puts green troops in harm's way. At any rate, this rather pointless little summary of the state of the AFFC may interest some of you. New Rules The FM:LA introduces two new pieces of equipment; the Heavy Gauss Rifle, and the Light Engine. Both of them are of (in my opinion) limited tactical utility, although the HGR is good for keeping foes at a distance (it can deal a whopping 25 points of damage per shell at short range, which drops to 10 points at long range), and the Light Engine increases the surivability of 'mechs that would otherwise be destroyed after the loss of a torso. There's also a brace of concept 'mechs: the Fafnir, which mounts two HGR and precious little else (Why? Because they can.), and the Stiletto, a fast medium 'mech that's seriously undergunned. There's also four variants of common Lyran 'mechs and an alternate configuration for the Hauptmann, all showcasing the new systems introduced in this book. We also meet the new Lyran battlearmor, the Fenrir, a four-legged...thingy with more weapons and less armor than pretty much any other suit around. Also introduced is a Lyran battlecruiser design, called the Mjolnir, which, in a typical display of Lyran excess, masses in at about 1.25 million tons. I can't much comment on this one, because I don't know too much about Aerotech. We also get the usual academy rules for Mechwarrior, 3rd Edition, as well as random 'mech tables and unit special abilities for level three play. Well, that's about enough for one review. Style: 3 (Average) Substance: 4 (Meaty)

Field Manual: Lyran Alliance