Classic Battletech: the campaign?

[Janx]

merric's got the right of it. My older copy of the Battletech Compendium (2nd ed?) doesn't call it XP. But the math is mostly the same. 4 kills, increase Piloting or Gunnery. Either way, its in the rulebook.

What the OP is talking about, is sort of how BT was explained to me.

Each player is a merc unit commander. He starts with a Lance (4 mechs) and takes missions for pay. he uses the pay to maintain and expand his unit.

One player would run his unit on a mission, another player would control the opposing forces.

The Mercenaries Handbook covered a lot of this stuff.

One tool I never had time to finish, was a Contract generator (ie. akin to what the original MechWarrior PC game had). Basically, enable the players to pick from a list of contracts.

I'm actually surprised that BT never seemed to offer a complete campaign concept. It generally focused on equipment, combat rules, and details on simulating upkeep and such, but lacking the cohesion to put it all together.

 

[Cergorach]

3025 (or a little earlier) is perfect and keeps things relatively simple.

A couple of questions:
1.) Are you OK with pdfs or are physical books necessary? Is the second hand market an option or do all books need to be physically available now?
2.) How long do you expect the campaign to take, is it fixed length or indeterminate and we'll see were we end up?
3.) Do you prefer detailed or simple rules sets for your unit?
4.) Do you want to use the most recent rules set for your Battlemech fights, or would older ones do as well?
5.) How far do you want to advance your time line in game, you want to go from 3025 to the clan invasion, or just much around in 3025-3030?

Using the RPG rules for making the characters has the benefit of giving them more depth and getting your players to invest more of themselves into the characters. Also makes things easier if you want to do a side track in man vs man instead of Mech vs. Mech.

There have been multiple sets of rules for creating, expanding, developing (mercenary) units, some more detailed then others. In the last 25 years of BT fandom rules/books have started to flow together (or just early senility at 35 ;-), so I'll have to check.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

It's changed a little over the years, but the current version is (as referenced in my previous post):

* Each mission a pilot participates in gives 1 XP.
* The most valuable pilot (MVP) as determined by the opposing side gains an additional 1 XP.

* Four XP can be spent to upgrade piloting by one level
* Eight XP can be spent to upgrade gunnery by one level

Cheers!

I had forgotten that they included those advancement rules.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

Great responses! I do intend this as a board game event, Merric.

Thanks for the reminder about the rudimentary "XP" system included. I had a hard time locating it, can't believe I missed it. And the pointer to Chaos Campaign, that might be just what I want after all, I'd rather have physical books I can give to the players to read, but .pdfs are good. I might pick up some of those Era Reports and Historical Turning Points for ideas, I have a vaguely formed concept for a storyline linking missions together.

Does Chaos Campaign supplant the older Mercs Handbooks? I have the Mercenary Handbooks, but something simpler to track and follow would be nicer.

I have all the rulebooks at my disposal, from BattleDroids, to BattleTech, to BattleTech Manual, BattleTech Compendium (including #753 of 1000 limited edition foil stamped hardcover), Solaris boxed set, and BattleTech Master Rules until I gave up when the click-base BattleTech came out. I got back in with Catalyst Games rerelease of the material, but it has been on the back burner while life sorts itself out, I've bought the Techmanual and Total Warfare books so far.

Because I want to stick with 3025 tech, I might want to limit option overload and use BattleTech Manual. I want to play through discovery of Star League tech and the gradually put it into play.

Where is the most up to date books for running a merc company, is that Chaos Campaign?

Will the Interstellar Ops book have this?

 

[Janx]

So if I have all the old stuff (original FASA), can I use it with this Chaos Campaign?

And, as EA asks, is it complete for running a campaign. Can I ignore the MercHandbook, etc? And just use CC for running a full campaign?

Does CC require using one of the "tracks"

I'm waiting for my password reset from drive-thru. Been awhile since I used them...

 

[MerricB]

Basically, the Chaos Campaign rules replace a lot of the rules that exist for more detailed tracking of the campaign. A brief summary:

Each force has a "warchest" of points which it can spend to
- buy new units
- repair units
- buy ammo
- recruit pilots
- improve pilot experience (I tend not to use that rule)
- go on missions

You get more warchest points by
- successfully completing mission objectives
- selling 'mechs (including salvaged ones)

There are a lot of books that use the Chaos Campaign rules, but the most useful ones are:
* Starterbook: Sword and Dragon (3025 tech with a few 3050 prototypes)
* Era Report 3052 (3050 tech)
* Era Report 3062 (3060 tech)
* Starterbook: Wolf and Blake (3075 tech)

Each of those books gives a number of "generic" missions, plus some specific missions. The other supplements don't have the generic missions.

If I were to integrate Mercenaries with the Chaos Campaign, I'd use Mercenaries as a starting point for determining the initial force of the player group, and then use the Chaos Campaign rules from then on.

The Chaos Campaign rules work with previous versions of the BT rules, mainly because the BT rules haven't changed very much in 25 years. (The one significant change is that the Partial Cover rule was changed from "+3 to hit, but any hit is against the Upper Torso chart" to "+1 to hit, any hit against the legs hits the cover instead.")

The main thing you *don't* get with the (free) Chaos Campaign rules are the mission tracks. You can make these up yourselves (assigning points to objectives and the like), but I'd strongly suggest getting one of the campaign books listed above and using them as a base.

What does a mission track give you?
* Point cost for going on the mission
* 1-3 Objectives plus points gained for completing them
* Special rules that can be implemented for bonuses
* Random opposing forces

The two Starterbooks have a simplified form of the CC rules in them, mainly because they have a set size and era of force and so don't need all the extra complications.

One of the very interesting things about SB:Sword & Dragon is that it's set in the era when the Star League technology was being rediscovered, and so has a bunch of rules for "prototype" equipment - that is, the double heat sinks, gauss rifles, extended range lasers - that the Davion forces were testing at the time. They're worse than what they'd become in 3050, but correspond to what appears in the supplement "War of 3039".

Interstellar Operations is still somewhere in the future; it's meant to have the updated rules for creating Merc forces (and forces of all natures), but I don't know if it will reprint the Chaos Campaign rules. I wouldn't be surprised if it did, because there are a *lot* of BT products now with mission tracks for CC.

I'll post a sample mission track from Era Report 3052 to give you the idea.

Cheers!

 

[MerricB]

From Era Report 3052:

Mission: Recon

Game Set-Up
The Defender places two mapsheets in any legal position and designates one edge as the Defender’s home edge.

Attacker
The Attacker consists of a small portion of the player force and may use up to four (Inner Sphere) or five (Clan) units. The Attacker chooses his forces first and may choose which map edge to enter on. This edge is then designated the Attacker’s home edge.

Defender
The Defender is a portion of the planetary defender’s force and is determined after the Attacker has chosen his forces. To determine the Defender’s Force Composition, roll 1D6 on the following table. Add +1 to the roll if the previous track engaged a militia force. The Defender sets up half of his force (rounded down) on the board. The rest of the Defender’s force enters from their home edge on the beginning of Turn 3.

Roll       Inner Sphere                   Clan
1          4 Light                        5 Light
2          3 Light, 1 Medium              4 Light, 1 Medium
3          3 Light, 1 Medium              3 Light, 2 Medium
4          2 Light, 2 Medium              3 Light, 2 Medium
5          1 Light, 2 Medium, 1 Heavy     2 Light, 3 Medium
6          1 Medium, 1 Heavy, 1 Assault   1 Light, 2 Medium, 2 Heavy

Warchest
Track Cost: 50 WP

Optional Bonuses:
+25 Rain: Rain obscures vision, so apply a +1 To-hit modifier to all weapons fire made in rainfall.
+25 Mushy Ground: Apply a +1 modifier to all Piloting Skill Rolls.

Objectives
1. ID / Scan all of the Defender’s force. Scanning must be done within 4 hexes of an enemy unit at the end of the Movement phase and in lieu of any attack. (Reward: 75)
2. Escape! At least half of the Attacker’s force must survive and exit the Attacker’s home edge after eight turns. (Reward: 25)

Special Rules
The following rules are in effect for this track:
Forced Withdrawal - The Defender’s force is leery of a full-press engagement and follows the Forced Withdrawal rules (see p. 109) during this track.

Next Track
Inner Sphere: Recon, Strike, Defend, Hold in Place, Fighting
Withdrawal, Probe, Touchpoint: Trell I, Touchpoint: Turtle Bay,
Touchpoint: Icar, or Touchpoint: Damian.
Clan: Strike, Assault, Flank, Probe, Beachhead, Trial of Position,
Trial of Possession, Trial of Grievance, Touchpoint: Trell

 

[MerricB]

So if I have all the old stuff (original FASA), can I use it with this Chaos Campaign?

Yes.

And, as EA asks, is it complete for running a campaign. Can I ignore the MercHandbook, etc? And just use CC for running a full campaign?

The Chaos Campaign rules do not have
* Your initial force
* Mission tracks

I presume that creating an initial force isn't that hard (Merc just gives a system for it; I just rolled up a random force from the tables in Total Warfare more my next campaign). Mission tracks are harder, but all they really need are for you to give point rewards for objectives.

A bunch of fan-created mission tracks can be found on the Classic BattleTech forums.

Does CC require using one of the "tracks"

Sort of. You need warchest point rewards so you can repair mechs, etc.

Cheers!

 

[MerricB]

Here's a list of the mission tracks in Era Report 3052, which allows you to play a campaign as either a Clan or Inner Sphere force:

Generic Missions
* Recon
* Defend
* Assault
* Fighting Withdrawal
* Recon-in-Force
* Probe
* Beachhead
* Pursuit
* Strike
* Flank
* Hold in Place
* Trial of Position
* Trial of Possession
* Trial of Grievance

Unique (Touchpoint) Missions
* Damian
* Icar
* Turtle Bay
* Trell I
* Rasalhague
* Sudeten
* Twycross
* Tamar
* Satalice
* Alshain
* Luthien
* Tukayyid

The book also has random tables for force determination for...
- Draconis Combine & Free Rasalhague Republic
- Federated Commonwealth
- Capellan Confederation & St Ives Compact
- Comstar
- Free Worlds League
- Periphery & Mercenary
- Clan Wolf
- Clan Jade Falcon
- Clan Ghost Bear
- Clan Smoke Jaguar
- Clan (Secondary Invader)
- Clan (Home)

Cheers!

 

[Hussar]

My desire is to play this a bit like a D&D campaign. That is, I will play the entire enemy forces, while the players will run portions of the "unit".

There won't be that many players. It will start with my 10-year-old son, there will be infrequent participation by my nephew and very infrequent participation by my brother.

I don't want the players getting attached to specific pilots nor specific mechs. I want the focus to be able to run a unit and grow it.

Just to offer an alternative, not that there's anything wrong with Battletech, I loves me some rock-em-sockem-robots, but, 3:16 Carnage Beyond the Stars would also fit your bill pretty nicely and it's a lot faster play.