BattleTech

MerricB

Eternal Optimist
Supporter
Of late, I've been getting back into the BattleTech groove. It's a game a bunch of my friends played when I was back at Uni, but I never really had the chance to play it much myself.

Well, a couple of years ago, Catalyst Games released the BattleTech Introductory Boxed Set, and I bought it, hoping to get into the game. Then I got the Sword and Dragon Starterbook, which gives a campaign to use with the Intro set. I got a couple of friends interested and we started the campaign, and were having a great time... and then life intervened.

Fast forward to a little more than a year later (and about a month ago), and I dusted off the box and the book, and - with some regular gaming sessions cancelled - I interested a couple more people in BattleTech. So, for the last three weekends, we've played a scenario each weekend. And, I'm glad to say, my friends are loving it. This Friday, with a RPG session cancelled, I'm hoping to get in the region of 4-6 players together for a BattleTech session.

Meanwhile, I'm peering in interest at what is happening with the "full" game. The timeline has advanced to about 3075, with the "Jihad" plotline being the current story. (Original BattleTech was 3025, the Clans were 3049, followed by the Civil War storyline in 3062). In addition to that, there's a bunch of major rulebooks...

Total Warfare - the big book (literally - over 300 pages) of BattleTech rules.
TechManual - which contains the construction rules.

Tactical Operations - advanced battlefield rules; weather, minefields, new terrain, etc.
Strategic Operations - aerospace rules, but also the BattleForce rules where 1 mini is for an entire lance, star, or perhaps even more

Those last two are really expensive books. :)

I'm really not sure at this point how far I'm going to go into BattleTech, but I'm certainly having some fun at the moment. The boxed set was really nice - it also had 24 plastic minis in it. :)

Cheers!
 

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MerricB

Eternal Optimist
Supporter
Inserting a picture of a recent game with the maps & minis from the introductory set. Games have been taking us about 2-3 hours with 4 mechs a side.

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Also the link to the CG page with all the information on intro products:
Catalyst Game Lab's Official Classic Battletech Website

Cheers!
 

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Punnuendo

First Post
BattleTech/Mechwarrior RPG were my first ever hobby games. They will always hold a special place in my nerdy heart.

That box set is pretty amazing too.
 

I can't give any advice, MerricB, but recent posts regarding Battletech have me itching to start playing it. I loved the PC Games and I even played it once with two cousins of mine, probably decades ago.

Dang, I guess I need to find a group for that or something...
 

Wycen

Explorer
I really loved BattleTech. And then they came out with the Dark Ages. Indeed. I haven't purchased anything since. Of course that might have something to do with not having friends wanting to play it anymore.

I would say you can skip anything "aerotech" since that never really added much to our games, except strafing or dive bombing for the best part of the game, mechs of course.
 

D.Shaffer

First Post
Big fan of Battletech. There's a reason my avatar's colored the way it is. :D (Go Clan Nova Cat!) Keep in mind that the Classic Battletech forums are a really nice resource for getting info on the game and to clear up those little points in history that get you confused. Just ask away, we're usually a friendly bunch over there.

CLASSICBATTLETECH.COM - Index

Upcoming stuff includes:
Interstellar Ops, which contains rules to more or less make your own campaigns,
Clan Introductory Boxed set, which helps ease new players into higher levels of technology and includes 24 plastic Clan mechs and some Elementals (Battle Armor)

Also, there's a ton of Technical Readouts, which give you a bunch of fluff on the various mecha out there in the Battletech universe.
 

MerricB

Eternal Optimist
Supporter
Big fan of Battletech. There's a reason my avatar's colored the way it is. :D (Go Clan Nova Cat!) Keep in mind that the Classic Battletech forums are a really nice resource for getting info on the game and to clear up those little points in history that get you confused. Just ask away, we're usually a friendly bunch over there.

CLASSICBATTLETECH.COM - Index

Upcoming stuff includes:
Interstellar Ops, which contains rules to more or less make your own campaigns,
Clan Introductory Boxed set, which helps ease new players into higher levels of technology and includes 24 plastic Clan mechs and some Elementals (Battle Armor)

Also, there's a ton of Technical Readouts, which give you a bunch of fluff on the various mecha out there in the Battletech universe.

There's a Clan Introductory set coming out? Cool! :)

I've just picked up the two Map Set compliations and Total Warfare. It looks like we'll play a 14-mech game on Friday evening (Fox's Teeth pursuing a group of House Kurita mechs in the Sword & Dragon campaign).

Interstellar Operations looks really interesting. I've got a bunch of the record sheet PDFs, and I'm trying to find some Tech Readouts for light reading...

Cheers!
 

Dannyalcatraz

Schmoderator
Staff member
Supporter
I'm a middling fan of the games, but my current group of fellow gamers includes some real BT/MW nuts! We're playing Star Fleet Battles tonight, but I'll put out the word about that intro set and so forth.
 

MerricB

Eternal Optimist
Supporter
I'm glad I've never really been a fan of Star Trek; the thought of having another lifestyle game like SFB to play is scary! :)

Along with Warhammer, I'll stay clear of it (however cool it is).

Have fun playing it, though! :)

Cheers!
 

Imperialus

Explorer
Battletech seems to be undergoing something of a revival and I couldn't be happier.

I myself just played my first Btech game in about 12 years this past Sunday. Right now the plan is to play a few more one off senarios next week just to finish polishing the rust off our memories of the rules, then start Sword and Dragon after that.

From what I've seen Catalyst has done a great job with the product, and I love the fact that unlike Warhammer, you can build a full 3 lance company for a short campaign for between 80 and a hundred bucks.
 

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