Battletech! The Future of the 80s Forever!

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TristramEvans said:
The setting hasn't ever been changed (not countig the noncanon cartoon), just the timeline moved forward (Battletech fans are very protective of their established history - it's why the "Reseen were so controversial, as they are the closest thing to a retcon BT fandom has ever endured). In the early aughts when WizKids got the license, they created the plastic "clickbase" version of the game called Mechwarrior: The Dark Age, which was set further in the future than the prior gamelines up until that point. GamePro then got a licensse from them to produce products for the original Battletech game system nd to differentiate the two games called it "Battletech Classic" - kinda like new Coke and Coca-Cola Classic.

One Catalyst got the license and Wizkids exited the picture, they went back to just calling it Battletech.

All Battletech starter sets, including Classic Battletech, start around 3025, just after the fall of the Star League & in the midst of the Succession Wars, as the default setting, with expansions advancing the timeline from there - so the further along the timeline you go, the more advanced technology, and hence more complex rules.
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Awesome, thank you for the detailed reply. I've never really delved too deep into the BT universe.
 
TristramEvans TristramEvans I'm really rusty on the history but if I'm recalling the Star League fell around 2800 or a bit before that. Around that time General Kerensky took his forces and left known space basically. From that time period onward the Succession Wars were fought for the next 250 give or take years. The Game usually starts at the end of the 3rd Succession Wars or 3025. Anyhow, my rusty point is that the game isn't starting right after the fall of the Star League.

Hopefully I'm close, haven't had one of the books in 21 or so years and haven't played BattleTech in even longer but once upon a time I was pretty nutty about it. Including playing the online version on old GEnie from 1992 to 1998 or so. Plus all the Tabletop gaming we did in the eighties and nineties. Loved the Solaris box as an aside.
 
Acmegamer said:
Anyhow, my rusty point is that the game isn't starting right after the fall of the Star League.
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Well, no, I didn't mean that literally, as in "the next day". It's the Eras that Battletech history-technology are divided into that I'm referring to.

Star League 2571 - 2780
Succession Wars 2781 - 3049
Clan Invasions 3050 - 3061
Civil War 3062 - 3067
Jihad 3068 - 3080
Dark Age 3081 - 3150
 
TristramEvans said:
The setting hasn't ever been changed (not counting the noncanon cartoon), just the timeline moved forward (Battletech fans are very protective of their established history - it's why the "Reseen" were so controversial, as they are the closest thing to a retcon BT fandom has ever endured). In the early aughts when WizKids got the license, they created the plastic "clickbase" version of the game called Mechwarrior: The Dark Age, which was set further in the future than the prior gamelines up until that point. GamePro then got a license from them to produce products for the original Battletech game system and to differentiate the two games called it "Battletech Classic" - kinda like new Coke and Coca-Cola Classic.

Once Catalyst got the license and Wizkids exited the picture, they went back to just calling it Battletech.

All Battletech starter sets, including Classic Battletech, start around 3025, just after the fall of the Star League & in the midst of the Succession Wars, as the default setting, with expansions advancing the timeline from there - so the further along the timeline you go, the more advanced technology, and hence more complex rules.
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Isn't alpha stroke left out of this summary?
 
Bunch said:
Isn't alpha stroke left out of this summary?
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Alpha Strike is a set of fast-play rules for very large scale combats that originated in the Strategic Operations sourcebook, and were popular enough to be released on their own, first in a series of two slim books, and then in one combined rulebook - Commander's Edition. It's just a really simplified version of the system, with stuff like heat, movement, and damage abstracted. There was a similar optional system in Battleforce 2 years before. Ultimately, it's just another option for campaigns, though some folks ended up preferring the simplified rules overall and play it exclusively these days.
 
Reading this thread brought back memories. I remember when Battletech was first available here in the UK, playing a computer game which may have been a fan written thing on the Amiga EDIT: Mechforce (a shareware Amiga game based on the first boxed game. There is a remake called Mechfight and it can be downloaded from HERE.) and eventually buying up every computer game to use the IP. I did go through a phase of buying whatever box sets I could and all the stat books I could find but think they were sold in one of the then (then) wife enforced purges. After reading the first few pages of the thread and having a quick look, the current game is Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries. It's on my steam wishlist but very few games get bought by me at launch price. the XCOM is maybe it (and even then it has some highs and lows).

I recall the first time I played the board game (I was at school so it would have been in the 80s at some point) was a crunchy, fiddly, number tracking slow paced affair that put me off somewhat. It seemed we could get hours of RPing done in the time it took to resolve one battle. That would be a barrier to new players I should think. When the computer games came along I was all over them and for a while fought in a league online as part of a team. Fighting the yanks was always tough because they lagged so much. Most of the time you'd shoot air and find out your target was somewhere across the map.

A quick search reveals there's nothing - boardgame wise - currently in print though some are awaiting restock with no dates given.

Are there any other 'giant stompy robot' type games out there worth trying? Is the Battletech Beginner box/Main game worth waiting for the restock?

Anyone play Mechwarrior 5 on the computer? It's £25 at the moment. Worth buying or wait for steam sale? I have the turn based game but haven't spent much time with it.

Anyone know anything about the in limbo fate of Crimson Skies (a FASA thing I loved especially in computer game form) other than it's doomed to stay in limbo forever?

Enquiring minds (well, mine) want to know ...
 
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Jenx said:
I recall the first time I played the board game (I was at school so it would have been in the 80s at some point) was a crunchy, fiddly, number tracking slow paced affair that put me off somewhat.
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Funny thing is that BitD my crew thought it was on the light side. That was one of the reasons we didn't play it as much as mech fans like us should have. There were times where it seemed like too rules light a game to bother with. Nowadays, I do tend to feel it's on the heavier side of medium.

Jenx said:
Is the Battletech Beginner box/Main game worth waiting for the restock?
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I definitely think so. I think the miniatures alone are worth the price of admission.
 
Oh yeah, here we go...

pariedolia.weebly.com

Bloggarkiv

Before BattleTech, and largely afterwords, the mecha genre has been defined as a genre exclusive to Japanese anime. BattleTech established a uniquely Western iteration of this concept, based on...
pariedolia.weebly.com
 
TristramEvans said:
Oh yeah, here we go...

pariedolia.weebly.com

Bloggarkiv

Before BattleTech, and largely afterwords, the mecha genre has been defined as a genre exclusive to Japanese anime. BattleTech established a uniquely Western iteration of this concept, based on...
pariedolia.weebly.com
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Thank you!
(For some reason, the search function didn't turn up anything for "battletech".)
 
So, Battletech. Battletech was actually my first wargame, as long as we don't count Heroquest and Battlemasters. Back in high school, I bought the 3rd edition box set and the Battletech Compendium, and my best friend and I used to play on the paper mats on the floor. About two years ago, in attempt to lure another old friend back into wargaming, I bought the Game of Armored Combat box. (Alas, it did not work. You can't pry that guy away from his wife and two kids for even an afternoon, these days, even with the wife pushing from the other side!)

So that's what I've got. I've also recently moved to the same town as that aforementioned high school best friend. So, if we wanted to play again, and I wanted to finally expand to including infantry and tank support, what would I need (if anything) to update from the Battletech Compendium? It looks like the Total Warfare book, at least. Is that right?
 
Psychopomp said:
So, Battletech. Battletech was actually my first wargame, as long as we don't count Heroquest and Battlemasters. Back in high school, I bought the 3rd edition box set and the Battletech Compendium, and my best friend and I used to play on the paper mats on the floor. About two years ago, in attempt to lure another old friend back into wargaming, I bought the Game of Armored Combat box. (Alas, it did not work. You can't pry that guy away from his wife and two kids for even an afternoon, these days, even with the wife pushing from the other side!)

So that's what I've got. I've also recently moved to the same town as that aforementioned high school best friend. So, if we wanted to play again, and I wanted to finally expand to including infantry and tank support, what would I need (if anything) to update from the Battletech Compendium? It looks like the Total Warfare book, at least. Is that right?
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Yeah, Total Warfare has the complete rules, but there hasn't been much in the way of changes - maybe a tweak here or there.
 
HA! Battletech may be the only system out there where you can ask, "What book do I need to buy to update my 25 year old rules?" and the answer is, "This one, but I'm not sure if the changes are major enough to be worth it."
 
Psychopomp said:
HA! Battletech may be the only system out there where you can ask, "What book do I need to buy to update my 25 year old rules?" and the answer is, "This one, but I'm not sure if the changes are major enough to be worth it."
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Honestly with how badly Catalyst does things, I'd not blame you at all if you avoided their products and keep the old stuff. Badly organized, badly written, crappy quality of the physical items and a lack of clarity of what's what. It's like they try to be as unclear as possible in their organization. That's before we get into the sleazy way the company has operated in the past. I truly wish they never got their hands on the IP.
 
I think they just are over enthusiastic and end up overdesigning everything. It's like, I look at the new Total Warfare and I can tell what they were going for - that each page is supposed to be like reading an in-universe data file on a futuristic computer screen - but I think they lost sight of the fact that it's supposed to be a useable reference for players first.

It doesn't help that FASA was one of the best companies for clear visual presentation and organization.
 
Psychopomp said:
HA! Battletech may be the only system out there where you can ask, "What book do I need to buy to update my 25 year old rules?" and the answer is, "This one, but I'm not sure if the changes are major enough to be worth it."
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Star Fleet Battles also qualifies.
 
I bought a cheap copy of the old Battletech Compendium... which would be my first dip into BT outside of the videogames and the old RPG.
Not sure if it will see any actual play beyond a few test games... but I'd been wanting to try a crunchier mech game.
 
I feel like I've missed the boat with battletech by a couple of years. I've been aware of the game for ages, played a couple of times and then got hooked by the PC game. I then started really enjoying the lore.

I'm planning to get the starter set, see if I can find any interest and then use it as a gateway drug for my games club (No initial outlay, we've got cutouts of the mechs and piles of dice and use the printed hex maps), much cheaper buy in than 40k, much less reason to keep replacing your stuff.

If it takes off then I will look at getting more kit as we go.
 
If you want "fast & furious", I strongly suggest you have a look at Alpha Strike. Being focused explicitly at big battles between lots of mechas, they really streamlined a lot of the fiddlier details.
 
You may want to take a look at Battletech: Destiny by Death from Above:

They incorporate some Destiny items onto Alpha Strike to give it a sprinkling of RPG elements.
 
Ben Adams said:
You may want to take a look at Battletech: Destiny by Death from Above:

They incorporate some Destiny items onto Alpha Strike to give it a sprinkling of RPG elements.
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I watched the video and was very intrigued, enough to consider joining their patreon.

I really like the concept of TIC's, it makes me think of cinematic combat from anime mech shows like Gundam, where you have all these attacks flying at once
 
I'll be honest; the only Battletech I've played is video games (starting in '88 w/the Apple IIe) but I always felt a little intimidated by the rules as a youngin'. That and as a Robotech fan the ads in Dragon magazine confused me. But I just got Mechwarrior5 for console and have begun to delve deep into this thing. As a very green wargamer (but experienced RPGer) this looks like a neat compromise to classic & alpha.
It's a $1 a month to download the main book & reference sheet. Not too shabby.
 
I have been playing Battletech since it was Battletech (but not when it was Battledroids). I am however one of those old players who considers anything "Clan" as a heretical direction the game took. Ditto for just about everything post 3049 or so. I will nonetheless happily trounce most Clan players who wish to be beaten with my crusty old Inner Sphere relics (I'm not the best, but I have a lot of experience). I have an extensive combined arms collection of Battetech minis that my wife would gladly take from me if I ever wanted to get rid of them. It's her favorite wargame, She doesn't dislike the clans like I do, she just considers melee the best part of the game, so the Clans general disdain for melee really isn't her style.
 
TristramEvans said:
People from the far side of the map where it connects with land so isn't an issue
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Right up until you try to drive off the central island and find the highway blocked by trees in all directions...

I think some contractor had connections with the planetary bureau of roads!
 
Psychopomp said:
Right up until you try to drive off the central island and find the highway blocked by trees in all directions...

I think some contractor had connections with the planetary bureau of roads!
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Or he knew how to read topographical maps...
 
TristramEvans said:
Or he knew how to read topographical maps...
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Which I do for my job, and that's not a topographic map. Working with maps a good part of my day is what made that road jump out in my eyes.

Are you referring to all three islands having an elevation of Height 1 listed on their hexes?

Are there black-on-black height listings on the indicating that the road is Height 0 or Height 2? (The image posted isn't large scale enough to zoom in to see.) If the former, is the road going inside the islands through tunnels in cliff faces? The shadows cast on the water indicate a rather severe elevation of the road and all islands, as well as a steep slope along the southern edge of the central island. If the latter, what is it anchored to - is it an elevated ruin that somehow got destroyed right at the border with the three outer islands?

If the road is also Height 1, why does it stop as soon as it makes contact with all three outer islands? Why doesn't it actually cross the islands? Did someone build a road that just stops as soon as it connected to the island, so you could drive across unpaved dirt on a natural island, then use a highway between them? Is your suggested connection to the mainland that you can drive over the Highway to Nowhere from the SE or SW island over the Central, then drive unpaved tracks across the NW island and off the northern map edge?

This started with me making an offhand joke because the road looks weird like that. If you think that's not fair, how about you explain why it's not weird instead of making snarky implications that it only looks weird to those some sort of lack of skill? Because if you don't have something that'll make it click in an "Aha!" moment, a road crossing one island and stopping at three others right at the edge, with trees blocking full access to the road, just looks weird.
 
Psychopomp said:
Which I do for my job, and that's not a topographic map. Working with maps a good part of my day is what made that road jump out in my eyes.

Are you referring to all three islands having an elevation of Height 1 listed on their hexes?
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No I'm referring to the fact that because a hex is "wooded" does not indicate that there is no road passing through them or that there is a sudden stop. They don't even indicate a tree line.

And yes, that is a topographical map, by definition. It's completely unrelated to ones that you would encounter in your job, obviously, because it's modified for use for a wargame . But it does seem odd to me that if someone is at all familiar with 1:6 scale wargames that first, they'd assume that what you see on the map itself is all that exists (with the assumption the roads don't connect to the mainland) or don't understand what a forested hex means in the context.
 
TristramEvans said:
No I'm referring to the fact that because a hex is "wooded" does not indicate that there is no road passing through them or that there is a sudden stop. They don't even indicate a tree line.

And yes, that is a topographical map, by definition. It's obviously completely unrelated to ones that you would encounter in your job, obviously, because it's modified for use for a wargame . But it does seem odd to me that if someone is at all familiar with 1:6 scale wargames that first, they'd assume that what you see on the map itself is all that exists (with the assumption the roads don't connect to the mainland) or don't understand what a forested hex means in the context.
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By your own citation, if it's not accurately representing the entire transportation route, then it's not a topographic map. But to avoid pedantry, I'll allow it is, at best, a highly inaccurate topographic map.

But as a wargame map - there's no way to indicate that a hex contains both a hex and is wooded? Like, say, use the road texture as a base with trees along the edges?

Also, is there some reason the roads cannot continue over the island surface on the map to indicate if they actually continue over the island surface - like they do on the central island? I mean, it's been a long time, but I seem to recall some sort of movement bonus along roads in Battletech, yes? Wouldn't it be important to indicate that the roads continue on from those abrupt endpoints if they do, indeed, continue on through other hexes? Or if not, why even have the partial roads in place? Why would the map indicate the road portions that connect the islands but not the continuations across the islands and/or the mainland?

It just looks weird, even as an abstraction.
 
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