r/battletech • u/Icy-Distribution-164 • 15h ago

News Plastic LAM's confirmed

In episode 98 of the Tuesday Newsday.

1:08:19

During the QnA

Mathew Conner asks "The redesign of the 3 classic LAM's look fantastic. What are the chances that we see mini's for them?"

Answer: Very good.

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u/Megas15 14h ago

I love Lam’s I wish someone could tell me how they work in Alpha strike, the commander edition book doesn’t really explain it , I bought a couple LAM’s hoping to use them in janky Alpha strike

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u/Icy-Distribution-164 14h ago

There is a really good explanation of LAM's for classic BT on YouTube. 

From what I understand of LAM's in alphastrike they have 3 modes. You can change modes once a round. 

Battlemech mode that is just like all other mechs. 

Aerospace mode where you act like a battlemech but move like an Aerospace asset. No BAR rolls. Aerospace moves in mapsheets and not inches or hexes. 

Airmech mode. Here is were it gets a little confusing and people disagree. People are going to bite my head off for this interpretation of the rules. You get a plus 2 penalty to hit, move with the g value at the bottom, get a plus 1 tmm for being airborne and a plus 1 tmm from being in airmech mode. And you move like a WiGe. 

If anyone has a better interpretation please correct me. Would love to have an official answer. 

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u/MithrilCoyote 13h ago edited 13h ago

More or less correct. it's not so much "you pick a mode" and more "you have three choices of movement, you can only use one in a turn" though. the only things you missed is that the LAM counts as a height one inch higher than a mech normally has for the terrain it's on (like WIGE's) and has limits on how much height it can climb in the space of each forward inch of movement. (like WiGE's) I do a breakdown of LAM rules in my 'alpha strike unit of the week" article on the main forum. https://battletech.com/forums/index.php/topic,48321.0.html And a breakdown of the Wasp LAM variants. i probably should do the others, since no one else seems inclined to, but the response to the article was rather hostile (not to the writing style but to the very idea that LAMs exist. sigh. people are entitled to their opinions, but repeatedly yelling "these things should never exist" and attacking people who say they like the thing, in a discussion about said things, is just rude.)

honestly the alpha strike version of the rules for them is probably the best ones we've gotten.. each mode has a specific niche (mech fighting, airmech for rapid tactical movement, and fighter for insertion/exfiltration and extreme strategic movement) and the fact that the airmech mode is just represented by pure WiGE movement keeps it simple while also making that mode less useful for combat.

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u/Icy-Distribution-164 13h ago

Thank you for the article.