With Battletech/Mechwarrior in full swing around here I have spent a couple of months re-familiarizing myself with it and catching up on the current state of the game. Knowing there may be both old lapsed grognards out there like me as well as some potential interest from new players I thought I would run through the basics on where things stand with the game these days.
First a bit of an overview: Battletech started out in the 80's as a board wargame, quickly added miniatures (using the same boards), expanded into a role playing game set in the same universe, and morphed into a series of computer games soon after. There is an extensive line of novels, some comic books, and a Saturday morning cartoon. These days there are some real no-hexgrid miniature rules, an alternative set of tabletop rules, games for space combat at various levels, and at least 5 versions of an official RPG.
The setting is described by Era. The original setting is now called the "Succession Wars Era" but here we still call it 3025. That's 3025 AD as the game is portrayed as the future of our own world with Earth being a significant location even if most of the action does not happen there. There is also the Clan Invasion Era (circa 3050), a prequel-ish era when the Star League was in control of known space (circa 2750) and then a bunch more eras set after the Clans finish invading and settle in for the long haul (circa 3067 or later).
Originally the game was set in a time where repeated wars had degraded the technological and industrial base of the inner sphere to the point that advanced technology like mechs and spaceships were difficult to produce and not as effective as they had been in the past. This has largely been eroded with each subsequent future Era and is much less of a factor once you get into the Clan era and beyond.
Much of the classic Battletech lore, mechs, tone, and just the general vibe of the thing is from the early days and the 3025/ Succession Wars era. Material from that time is what established the game we have today. Subsequent releases and updates have built on this foundation for better or for worse.
Other notes:
- There are no aliens in this setting. It is humans only. There are alien life forms like animals found on other planets but no alien civilizations and no intelligent aliens.
- Also there is no supernatural or psychic element here as you would find in a lot of modern sci-fi games. It is a grounded universe based on what we know now, outside of various violations of the laws of physics to allow giant fighting robots to be a sensible design choice and to allow for FTL travel.
So if you're interested in the setting and the game where to start?
Currently there are 3 Battletech boxed game sets and the first one is the Introductory set. This is the smallest and least expensive set and it does serve as a decent introduction to the game. If you're not sure about the whole thing this is the one to get. That said, if you do dive into the game and pick up the core set you will not be using this one much afterwards. It does come with two mech miniatures which is great but it is very much a product that will be superseded by the full rules in the main box.
The contents are shown above - Mechs, mech sheets, maps, rulebook, dice, and ... fiction. Stories are a big part of the setting's appeal and they hit you with that from the start. This is where the characters and the color of the BT universe start to shine.
The core set looks like this and is the current version of that original box up at the top. Besides more maps and more miniatures the big addition here is a) the full set of rules for playing the game with mechs and b) the construction rules. Mech construction and modification has been a part of the game from the very beginning and this set continues the tradition. So after playing a few games you too can start down the path of "what if I replaced these PPCs with large lasers?" and "How many medium lasers could I fit onto this mech?" and other fun exercises.
This is plenty to get going with the game. The gear is limited to the 3025 era technology which is an awesome balance of size/weight/heat/ammunition that has been battle tested for almost 40 years now and the mechs here are classics everyone knows. You also get a decent breakdown of the structure and politics of the Inner Sphere which will give you a basic understanding of the setting and its factions.
One note here that I see pop up online sometimes is that I've never felt like faction in this game is the kind of choice that it is in a game like Warhammer 40,000. Building something like an Imperial Guard army in that game is a major undertaking in time, money, effort, shelf space, and personalization. A lot of people may only have one or two armies for a long time with that game. Battletech is the opposite in many ways: you can play a game with one miniature, you can paint it however you like as there is no "House Kurita" paint job - there are many units serving the house and while there may be official schemes for some of the more famous units they use the same mechs as everyone else. So you are never really locked in to a "faction" choice in BT the way you are in 40K or Age of Sigmar, or even Bolt Action or Flames of War because any mech could show up in any army.
If you're only going to get one set for this game this is the one to get.
The third boxed set is the Clan Invasion box. This moves the timeline up to 3050 and introduces a bunch of advanced technology for both the Inner Sphere and the invading Clans and a bunch of new mech designs as well. This really blows the game open though many long time players either dislike the whole Clan thing or feel like it is at least less well-balanced than the more limited 3025 era. I do not completely disagree with this take - and I was playing when this was the hot new thing - but if you keep playing Battletech at some point you will probably run into this.
I would call this the "Advanced" rules for sure. There are a bunch of new weapon types (added to all of the old ones), a new unit type - "Elementals" - which are 5-man squads of powered armor that have their own rules, plus a new way to build mechs - Omni-Mechs - which is used by the Clans and later copied by the Inner Sphere. The Omni option means that most weapons are in swappable modules so now each mech may have 4 or 5 standard configurations instead of a fixed loadout. The game does get a lot more complicated with all of this but if you want to play in newer eras of the setting it's something you will want to familiarize yourself with sooner or later.
The change to this new technology base also complicates scenario building. In the old days we tended to set up fights by tonnage - each side takes a lance of 4 mechs, say 200 tons max. This approach relied on your knowledge of the mechs and possibly the terrain to pick a decent force. With 3050 tech you really have 3 different tech bases: old 3025-era IS, new and improved 3050-era IS, and Clan Tech - which is better than either of those. Ton for ton there is a tremendous difference at each of those levels. This brought about the introduction of BT's first point systems many years ago and the early versions were not good. I assume the current version of Battle Value (BT's points system) is workable but I haven't played enough games paying attention to it yet to be sure. If you're coming from other games where points are commonly used to balance opposing forces it is definitely something you want to look into at this level.
Finally there is a fourth box set coming following a Kickstarter last year but it is not out yet. This one focuses on Mercenaries in the BT universe which are a common trope from the earliest days of the game and are also the focus of many tabletop RPG campaigns as well as many of the computer games. It's a topic well worth a boxed set focus but we will have to see what it brings to the game.
There are many, many other elements to the game, particularly books that add in the complete rules for other units in the game: tanks, infantry, artillery, air and space units, buildings and more. There are also a lot of "historical" supplements based on the setting describing the various factions and famous units of each era, various campaigns and events that happen in-universe, and everyone's favorite technical Readouts that show the mechs and vehicles of a given era. I will talk through those in future posts.
No comments:
Post a Comment