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Force Building Based on Miniatures - Charts

3028 3039 3050 3057
Light 3028 Lights 3039 Lights 3050 Lights 3057 Lights
Medium 3028 Mediums 3039 Mediums 3050 Mediums 3057 Mediums
Heavy 3028 Heavies 3039 Heavies 3050 Heavies 3057 Heavies
Assault 3028 Assaults 3039 Assaults 3050 Assaults 3057 Assaults
Clans I.S. 3050 Clan Jade Falcon I.S. 3052 Clan Wolf I.S. 3052 Clan Smoke Jaguar 3060

Force Building Based on Miniatures - Disclaimer

The intent of this section is to provide charts and explanations of how I use them to select miniatures for Lance or Star compositions in BattleTech. Ultimately, BattleTech is about having fun and playing the way you want. They are your miniatures, after all. However, if you want to build a unit that aligns with lore, or has more "flavor", this guide explains my method.

Not all BattleMechs are represented in these charts; some were excluded for reasons beyond my knowledge. The raw data used for these charts comes from XOTL's RANDOM ASSIGNMENT & RARITY TABLES Version 10.64 – 12 Jun 2021. As a result, these charts should be treated as guidelines rather than strict rules. Additionally, salvage always plays a role in the BattleTech universe, so it is entirely reasonable to include a 'Mech exclusive to another faction in your forces if it was acquired through salvage or isorla.

What the Charts Show

  • Tonnage-Class Chart:

    The tonnage-class chart illustrates the distribution of medium tonnage BattleMech chassis across the BattleTech universe, normalized as percentages.

  • Specific Chassis Charts:

    These charts display the distribution of individual chassis within a tonnage class across factions. They represent the share of each specific chassis in the universe belonging to each faction, normalized as percentages.

Focus on Chassis, Not Variants:

These charts focus on the chassis as a whole rather than individual variants. The reason is practical: while some variants have specific miniatures, the majority do not. Furthermore, there are often more variants than there are miniatures to represent them. By concentrating on the chassis, these charts aim to assist in selecting the miniature that represents the BattleMech chassis, rather than a specific variant.

The Data and the Math

Data Source:

The original data comes from XOTL’s D1000 roll table, which determines the likelihood of rolling a specific BattleMech variant within a faction’s forces. This data was simplified to focus only on chassis and not individual variants.

Simplifying to Chassis:

For example, in the Capellan Confederation 3028 chart, there are approximately five different Hunchback variants. When focusing only on the chassis, there is a 60-in-1000 chance of rolling a Hunchback among medium 'Mechs. This process was repeated for every faction and every chassis in XOTL’s charts.

Calculating Universal Presence:

  • To determine the universal presence of specific chassis, percentages from all factions were summed, representing the aggregate percentage of a chassis within weight classes across all factions.
  • Example:
    • Consider the Capellan Confederation’s medium 'Mechs in 3028.
    • Across all 12 factions, there are 12 x 1000 = 12,000 possible rolls.
    • The Hunchback appears 840 times across all factions. Thus:

      Universal Percentage = (840 / 12,000) = 7%

Normalization:

To determine the share of Hunchbacks across factions, the number of Capellan rolls (60) is divided by the universal sum (840):

Normalized Percentage = (60 / 840) = 7.14%

How to Interpret the Data

The charts visualize normalized data to answer questions like:

  • “What is the percentage chance of seeing a Hunchback amongst the medium 'mechs in the Inner Sphere?”
  • “What about the percentage chance of seeing a Hunchback amongst the medium 'mechs of a specific faction?”

Universe-Level Insights:

  • The tonnage chart provides a broad perspective on how prevalent specific chassis are across all factions in the BattleTech universe.
  • The chassis-specific charts highlight the relative distribution of a specific chassis, showing where it is most common.

By using these charts as a guideline, you can build lore-friendly units while still embracing the flexibility and creativity that make BattleTech enjoyable (to me, anyway).