Warship Build Special — Inner Sphere Fleet

As I’ve said in a prior post, I wanted to keep doing something special for holiday season in the same vein I’ve did last year. However, because of some big changes in my life, time hasn’t been forthcoming. So, I decided to do something that is a middle-ground between bringing something new as well as expanding from prior posts to give you something bigger. At the same time, and maybe a bit dangerously, I wanted to explore my passion for One Page Rules’ gamesets to forge something hopefully interesting.

Thus, for the next three weeks (I hope) I will bring you the composition of the main space forces for my Blake’s War BattleTech AU. These will offer you a breakdown of how I would use my builds in fleets built using Orion’s Gate force construction system. As stated elsewhere, that game’s ship type classifications have been replaced, from smaller to larger, by Fighters (scouts), Dropships (fighters), Escorts (destroyers), and Capital Ships (battleships).

These posts will also bring some smaller builds with them, so even if you don’t want the fluff, you’ll always have new instruction sets to explore.

Without more ado, let’s get into it!

In Blake’s War the main Inner Sphere factions are the Draconis Combine and the Black Dragon Society. These two forces fight for the control of the Pesht district of the Combine and even the throne world of Luthien itself. This is why this fleet is comprised essentially of Combine designs.

Based around two powerful warships, the fleet uses dropships to complement these, and then a good number of fighter squadrons to take strategic locations or ambush other vessels. The idea is for the vessels with more firepower to punch holes in the greatest enemy threats, while specialized vessels attempt to board and take over important enemy assets. Moreover, fighters and the Nekohono’o dropships will do their outmost to run interference on enemy plans.

So, what does this mean? For starters, the fleet has four fighter wings, represented by the red dots on stands. Also, four dropship-type ships.

First, there is a single Leopard dropship. This vessel is equipped with Boarding Pods that represent the BattleMech lance it carries, and you’ll be using to attempt to take over enemy ships. During the conflict against the Word of Blake Leopard dropships would represent the main tactical transport asset of the Inner Sphere forces, like they did for centuries prior. They were everywhere and respected by everyone.

There is also a single example of an Aurora gunship, a massive vessel equipped with a powerful frontal Cannon. Highly modular, the Aurora dropship was a technological marvel of the mid-31st century. It could be equipped to carry ‘Mechs, fighters, or any other cargo on the fly. However, during the conflict in Pesht the gunship modification would prove to be decisive in dealing with the waves of infantry and light vehicles used by the Word of Blake and its allies. So much so that the few Auroras present would be almost permanently set in this configuration, relegating most of the older dropships to transport duty only.

The last type of dropship present in this fleet is the Nekohono’o, a rather unique command and control dropship developed by the Draconis Combine. The most important assets of these vessels are the advanced sensors, which allow it to detect even camouflaged enemies, and the electronic counter-measures suite, that interferes with enemy electronics and communications. During the war these dropships would be regularily deployed to offer advanced ECM capabilities.

Equipped with the EMP Blaster system, two of these ships were included in this fleet. They are meant to get in the middle of enemy forces and disrupt their targeting systems. Because this means that they can be rather easily destroyed, two exist for redundancy sake.

Then you have the Kyushu frigate, the only escort-type ship in this fleet composition. A versatile class, many of these ships were present in the Combine and Black Dragon forces throughout the conflict, protecting larger warships, aiding in planetary invasions, or escorting convoys.

The Kyushu is thus equipped with a Giga Cannon in the front, a Barracks, and Boarding Pods. This ship is meant to go ahead of the capital ship, blasting away with the powerful frontal array, before unleashing the 108 ‘Mechs it carries inside to board and take over enemy ships. This makes it incredibly dangerous to deal with.

The capital-type vessel is the mighty Kirishima-class. This was the pride of the Draconis Combine fleet in the post-Invasion period. Fast and well-armed, it could contend with Clanner equivalents and come out on top. During the early stages of the Blakist Jihad one of them would be captured by the Black Dragon Society, becoming the organization’s flagship, the Norad II. This ship would be destroyed above Pesht III by Blakist forces.

Under this ruleset, I would equip the Kirishima with a Nuclear Engine, a Railgun on each broadside, a Plasma Cannon in the front, a Hangar Bay in the back to discourage pursuing fighters, and a Precision Rig. This should replicate the ship’s firepower, speed, and precision.

This Inner Sphere fleet is quite versatile and dangerous. The other fleets are more focused on one or the other strategy, so we’ll see how they turn out over the next few weeks.

Hope you’ve liked this format. I do like playing around with different game systems and this approach is like a battle royale for that concept.

As one can guess, these builds are just approximations. This is a mere exercise for fun purposes and does not replace the official gaming systems. I mean, transferring Battletech warships into OPR rulesets is quite clunky and offers but an approximation of the real deal. But it is fun to do experiments like this. Once I’m done with Blake’s War fleets maybe I’ll try a more ambitious idea, who knows?

For now, I hope you had fun. Happy Holidays, everyone!