Operation Game Collection 4: The Battletech Edition!

Cuz I am feeling randy (ok, not really..) this one is the all Battletech universe edition of the OGC!

If you don't know what the Battletech universe is, here is a super quick rundown: Its the first and second centuries of the 3000s. Mankind has expanded into space and not actually met any spacemans. However they do continue to fight each other and instead of a new age of enlightenment have turned to religious quackery, warrior culture worship, and varying degrees of hereditary ruled monarchies or constitutional monarchies. Giant robots are the preferred ground weapon of choice as the various factions fight each other for money, power, spare parts, or just because they were brought up thinking its cool to fight people.


Today's RPG selection is:

Mechwarrior

Game Summary: Mechwarrior the RPG is one of two soon to be THREE incompatible rulesets for roleplaying in the Battletech universe. Most are pretty simple ruleswise, though all are rather complex in character generation. My preferred edition is 2nd edition, which is a revised version of the original.

1: Amount I play it.
Low.I ran a very short 2nd edition campaign taking place in the 3020's timeframe that never really progressed much past a Braunstein. In fact we barely even used the characters outside of a reason to generate what robots the PCs had for the core game of Battletech. Also outside of one person I really don't even SEE anyone from that group anymore. (I could but I don't like the RPGs they play.)

2: Desire to play it.
Medium. I really like the Battletech universe and running an RPG in it is right up my alley. Problem is finding the players and everyone having the same RPG edition.

3: Popularity in my area.
Low. The Mechwarrior RPG is barely used in Battletech circles.

4: Amount I own.
Low. I own the 2nd and 3rd edition core rulesbooks. Some rules are in various core Battletech game books but I am not sure if it counts or not.

5: Stuff I may still want to buy.
Low. Not much IS core to just the RPG component.

6: In Print?
No for the edition I like (2nd) and no for the most recent one I do not. (3rd). The new incompatible to both (apparently) 4th edition is due soon and it sort of interests me if nothing else because of the pretty artwork. Maybe if I can get it cheap and opinion is positive on it I will take a looksee. They do have an introductory version up for PDF download. Looks simpler which is good.


My 2nd Boardgame/CCG entry is:

Mechwarrior Dark Age

Game Summary: Its Battletech's universe in the early 3100s using prepainted collectible miniatures and an advanced variant of Wizkid's Clix ruleset. The minis are of a much larger scale than the normal Battletech ones.

1: Amount I play it.
Low. Like not in 5-7 YEARS.

2: Desire to play it.
Low. I would like to play it some to make use of the lovely models, but I would need to download the current rulesbook first.

3: Popularity in my area.
N/A. As far as I can tell nobody plays it anymore, and few played it to begin with. This isn't helped by Battletech players mostly universally rejecting the game. The models CAN be used with each other for Battletech thanks to a supplement book, but most Battletech players prefer to use the smaller scale models designed for Battletech itself. Which is a shame since the models are some of the best prepaints until Rackham's AT 43 and Confrontation lines arrived.

4: Amount I own.
Medium. Got a lot of exclusives, and bought a fair amount of boosters and singles, especially to build up my favorite faction.

5: Stuff I may still want to buy.
Low. If I can get a few of the late era non blind buy Mech sets they made cheaply or supercheap booster I would all over it. But nothing at full price, and by NO means would I be in a rush to buy it.

6: In Print?
Nope. Long dead. Wizkids let it die slowly and then they died. A company is taking over Wizkids' properties but Mechwarrior isn't listed and again, Battletech is run by a seperate group who continue to move it forward.


And finally, this installment's miniatures selection is:

Battletech

Game Summary: A 6mm (ish) scale "Machine Sheet" wargame played either on hex maps or pure tabletop. The core game of the Battletech universe. Its so complete its got RPGs and rules for almost every scale of warfare in some form or another, many of which were standalone games but are now slowly being integrated to directly connect to the original core game.

1: Amount I play it.
Currently low, but was medium.

2: Desire to play it.
Medium. I enjoy the universe, I like the game. The problem is not only finding time, but finding a group of players interested in playing when I can play and wanting the same style of game. When you have an ever evolving universe as long running as Battletech with tons of eras and types of play, getting folks on the same page is rather hard. Some folks want massive endless campaign games, others like pickup games, others want heavy RPG, and so on. Plus Battletech has one of the more... distateful player bases out there in general. My experience with Battletech players has been more negative than positive. My experiences playing Battletech with people I teach the game have been far more satisfying.

3: Popularity in my area.
Medium. The problem is again, the way the Battletech playerbase is in general, and the style of game and availability to play it!

4: Amount I own.
High I think. Battletech was my first miniatures and first wargame, bought back in June 1988. I don't tend to play it actively, but every now and then I pick up more goodies for the game.

5: Stuff I may still want to buy.
Medium to High. If I had more active players of it and got more games in I would probably have way more stuff, and they keep making plenty of interesting things I can make use of. Currently the rules are all being revamped and collated into a series of expensive full color hardbacks which will pretty much end up covering EVERYTHING anyone would probably want to do with Battletech ever. Outside of a new revised edition designed to handle larger scale games anyhow. (Being a Machine Sheet game, Battletech tends to drag when players control more than 1 or 2 robots or a handful of tanks at a time. A game at this year's Connecticon between myself and another semilapsed player took 4-5 HOURS for a 4 on 4 robot game. We just ended up calling it due to being tired and brainhurt thanks to usual lack of con sleep.)

6: In Print?
Yes indeedy. The core Battletech rules are pretty much UNCHANGED from the first starter box ruleset I bought back in 88. The particulars have changed but the core is still there.

The (Stuff)-Tech/Macross/Related Stuff Collection Megapost Part 2: Battletech

Now we continue on with part 2 of this little project, this time covering Battletech, the game of armored combat!

(NOTE: Like most of my posts with pictures, you can usually click on em for larger ones.)

Battletech is a game taking place primarily in the 31st century.  Mankind has gone to the stars and the aristocracy has gone back in control of things.  5 primary powers plot against each other to control the known galaxy, their main weapon being Battlemechs, 20-100 ton robots full of lasers, guns, and missiles.  There has been so much war that much of their technology has been lost and things such as scavenging parts to repair machines whose factories got blown to smithereens decades or more ago is the order of the day.  Its a hard science fiction universe with its own internal logic for why people would fight in silly giant robots packing tons of guns.

The game itself is what I call a "Machine Sheet Game" in which you have a highly detailed sheet of paper covering each combat machine in great detail.  In this genre the details of where your unit is hit, for how much, from what angle, and what it does to multiple systems matter.  Its more about the DETAILS of what happened than the big picture result.

 It all began here for me in 1988.  My Junior High School Graduation and 14th birthday.  The old long gone store "Eric Fuch's Hobbies" in the Crystal Mall.  I was looking for hobby games stuff and I had known of Battletech thanks to a Dragon Magazine review.  While I really wanted the Robotech RPG they did not have it.  However they had Battletech.  So I got it.  And my friend got me Aerotech for my birthday to go alongside it.  Note how that is a Macross Destroid on the cover?  (Aerotech had fightercraft from Crusher Joe.)  See that 21st Century Imports made a deal with FASA to sublet the mechanical designs from various shows so they could sell model kits that they had imported.  The first edition of Battletech came with plastic model kits.

 One good look at the back cover and any doubts I had went away.  All the mecha on the back was from Robotech!  (Well Macross but it was 88.  I didn't know that yet.)

 It even had a little sell sheet for miniatures.  The most expensive mech was an Atlas at 5 bucks.  Most were 3-4.  Wished I had bought up a bunch.  Lovely ad art too.  

 Like Aerotech which was Battletech in SPAACE, Battleforce was the mass scale BT game.   As I foolishly gave away my original BT rulesbook with its excellent tutorials and all I am showing the BForce and Aerotech manuals so you can see what they looked like.  The BT manual had the same Dougram (Now known as the Shadow Hawk) on the cover though sans the aerospace fighter and starfield.

 And this is what the manuals inside looked like.  Decent artwork that was probably all lightboxed off actual Macross and Dougram art.  But Aerotech even made Battletech MORE like Robotech as you could now even have transforming mecha!  

Later on they kept the same box front as 2nd edition but revised it a tad and threw in 14 plastic minis.  Not GOOD plastic but.. beggars cannot be choosers.  

 Once Harmony Gold got into a row with Fasa all the Dougram, Crusher Joe, and Macross designs went bye bye and there was a lame boxed set that went with standee figures.  FASA would die, German company Fanpro would take over, then Catalyst Game Labs would.  This is the first of 2 excellent starter sets Catalyst did, packing them with much higher quality plastic miniatures.  The revised version of this set through in a couple Clan mechs of higher quality.  (I will get into them.)

 See the Battletech universe evolved over time with technology being recovered and a dangling plot thread brought back.  THE CLANS.  A millitary force had left the BT region of space a few hundred years previous and came back with new technology and a desire to take over with their genetic warrior culture.  So many Battletech games and subgames needed a new edition to both keep up with the new game technology and to look more modern.  Battleforce 2 is virtually an entirely seperate game than the original, while Aerotech 2 became a supplemental book.

 I never owned the original Citytech which was the Battletech expansion set that added in new mechs, urban combat, infantry, and tanks.  I was however able to get this puppy off ebay a few years back at a fair price. (I did a review of it in more depth.  Feel free to take a look: http://wargamedork.blogspot.com/2010/03/citytech-2nd-edition-unboxing.html )

And three of the FIVE core rulesbooks I have owned for the game.  The Compendium was actually the second one released, covering all that Clan tech era stuff.  I found it on board my ship in the Navy and could never find out who it belonged to.  (But given how antisocial and autistic the Battletech community seems to be this is no surprise.  BT people seem to have very little interest in anything outside their tiny goggles.)  The Master Rules Revised was a mildly tweaked version of the Master Rules, collating all the new tech they kept adding to the game.  Total Warfare is under Catalyst.  It is how they do the game now, breaking it up into a pile of attractive (and expensive of course) hardback books.  Total Warfare actually has LESS rules in it than those other two books.  Mech design?  Gone.  Aerospace rules?  Gone.  They expanded the game into a massive pile of books.  If you have them all you can pretty much do EVERYTHING you could possibly want to do in the Battletech universe.  Except.. you probably don't want to.

 Here are the second and third editions of the BT RPG, known as Mechwarrior.  The second ed isn't too shabby but the third is terrible with an amazingly convoluted lifepath system as befits a company that got its start making stuff for Traveller.  Fourth edition is even more complicated in making characters.  Honestly?  I will just use Basic Roleplaying or X-Plorers and house rule it.  Faster character generation, better rules for RPGing.

 Some supplemental rules books that Catalyst's new book concept have mostly made irrelevant (except as I am cheap and have most of my fun playing Battletech with people who don't play Battletech and are thus generally good and fun people I can get away with using the old books as most of the rules are the same.  Battletech has done little more than tweak its rules since the mid 80s.).  The Miniatures Rules cover playing on tabletop without hex maps, Mercenary's Handbook is full of stuff to run mercenary units (in BT's Aspie Details style), and Maximum Tech is full of even MORE complicated rules for people who didn't think Battletech had enough bloody rules for every little thing.

 Scenario and background books!  They give you info on a Merc unit in the latter two's case, and all 3 give you scenarios and the like to play.  They still make books like First Strike now as a way of easing people into Battletech without having to buy multiple 40-50 dollar hardbacks and mech books.

 These are mostly fluff books that detail the metaplot as of whenever they happen.  20 Year Update covers the status of 25 years after the timeframe listed in the 2nd and 3rd edition box sets.  Shattered Sphere is about the status quo a good 13 years after that.  Fedcom Civil War covers what happens immediately after Shattered Sphere.  Blake Ascending I got super cheap because its the only way I would buy a book covering the current metaplot.  Which involves some crazy religious fanatics who somehow manage to screw up the entire Battletech universe to lead into the collectible Mechwarrior game by Wizkids.  ( I will cover that in another post.)

 And some faction specific rules and fluff books.  Some of the new tech introduced here appeared in the Master Rules Revised book. 

 Record sheet books!  Back before we all had the Internet, scanner/copiers in the home, and glorious programs like Solaris Skunk Werks we had to either laboriously fill in a blank mech sheet, or buy record sheet collections.  I have 3 of them.  

This is an example of a mech sheet printed out with said Skunk Werks.  It has options for a picture of your fly hooptie, some of the piles of charts one uses in the game, and so on.  Note all that detail.  I told you Battletech had a lot of detail.  I WARNED YOU BRO.

There were even magazines covering the game it was so popular.  Battletechnology was a mostly "In universe" magazine and semi official no less.  I keep meaning to buy more back issues as it covers the early timeframe in between the 2nd ed boxed set and 20 Year Update.

Not official at all but quite charming was this little long running fanzine called Future Wars.  I got this in game stores.  Not online as nobody really had it.  They carried this in shops!

And my personal favorite, Mecha Press!  It was an offshoot of the anime magazine that started as the official Robotech magazine Protoculture Addicts.  It covered nothing but mecha anime and mecha games.  The people behind it would later go on to make the "Heavy Gear" mecha game.  Which is basically "Armored Trooper Votoms".  What was the third issue covering?  Votoms!  HMMM...

They had a few cool ideas for Battletech in it, with a Gundam like mech including shield rules many years before Battletech would ever have any official ones.  (Another issue had a Sazabi inspired mech.)

 But the star of the Battletech supplement mill were the "Technical Readouts".  Covering gobs and gobs of robot and tank goodness with all the designs of the timeframe on the cover.  My copies are all the ones with the Macross, Dougram, and Crusher Joe stuff still there.  Many have been revised since to remove that art if not the mechs entirely.

They have gone beyond 3067 with new Tech Readouts but that reaches the Word of Blake thing and I really don't like or care for that timeframe.  Why waste my money?

 I did buy this one which could be the prelude to the Word of Blake.  Project Phoenix took all the old designs Harmony Gold was being their usual douchy selves about and redid them, making them both modern refits of the old designs to bring them up to the in universe modern tech levels, and as new minis to sell and pictures they could show.

 As the Soltic Roundfacer from Dougram is a personal favorite design of mine AND I like the Griffin as a mech in Battletech, I am showing the original 3025 TR with its original design art, and the Project Phoenix one.  You can see the basic look of the books didn't change in 20 or so years but they did a fair job of taking the old design and making it original without removing what people liked from it.  (And many of the Dougram mecha were originally designed by Gundam's mecha designer.  And the main Macross designer?  He did designs for the Japanese version of Battletech!  Its Six Degrees of Mecha in here!)

 Of course you need hex maps to play on.  I have a couple packs of them.  These days I mostly just use Heroscape 3d plastic hex terrain.  But if you don't want to deal with setup time, or carrying it all around, hex maps are your pal.

 I even have the Solaris 7 Map Pack which also came with a supplement book a friend of mine still has.  Why fight in wars when you can fight for entertainment and fat cash broadcast throughout the known galaxy?

And these were the original standees you used on said maps that came in the 2nd edition box set.

But next time?  Let's get three dimensional.  Miniatures!  Toys!  Model kits I actually built!  MERCHANDISING, MERCHANDISING, MERCHANDISING!

(It's where the real money is made.)

More X-Plorers Rules. Machine Sheet Games Combat!

Yes.  As promised by Grimlock and Mr. Sailor Duckie early this morning.

(THURSDAY EDIT:  Made Gunnery advances faster early on.)

While the main games I am intending this little lock in option to be for are the "Machine Sheet" games of Silent Death, Federation Commander, and Battletech, I see no reason why they couldn't be used for Starfleet Battles, Renegade Legion, and Car Wars, among other games in the "Machine Sheet" genre. *

First off for games that take place in the Vehicle scale (Battletech, Renegade Legion Centurion, Car Wars) you might ask how we deal with the scale changes ala my normal house rules.

This is RULES LIGHT COUNTRY kiddo!  We just consider each MS game turn to be 2 rounds of X-Plorers' Personal combat rounds.  Yeah I know the scales are different and all.  FUGGEDABOUDIT.  Just keep an idea of the size of the maps used in the MS game when doing stuff in Personal scale.

(Example: A hex in Battletech is considered to be about 30 meters.  In 2 X-P rounds you aren't gonna be able to even move a single hex.  Its gonna take like 2-3 Battletech turns to move your poor schlub to the next hex.  Just eyeball it.)

How do we consider how many Hit Points and the Armor Class these MS units have in X-Plorers?
  Well we could come up with some fancy pants chart but that's not OLD SCHOOL.  Consider this a quickie rule of thumb:  For every 1 point of MS Armor/Shielding, it is considered to have 6 HPs.  So a Car Wars 5th edition Stinger car with 25 points of Front Armor has 150 HP in X-P.  A Battletech mech with 9 points of Head armor has 54 HPs.

(For locations just let X-P units shoot at whatever the heck they want if they can see it reasonably and are within range.)

For Armor Class here is a rule of thumb:  In most "Machine Sheet" games you can normally divvy up the vehicles into 5 categories.  Light, Medium, Heavy, Super Heavy, and OH SNAP THAT'S BIG.
Their X-P ACs become 12 for Lights, 14 for Mediums, 16 for Heavies, 18 for Super Heavies, and 20 for OSNTB.  Given our scale rules that means an X-P character in Personal scale shooting at say a Medium Griffin Mech from Battletech means it effectively has an 18 AC.  (14, +4 for being a larger scale than the firer.)

Now howabout them MS duders shooting back down?  Again, EASY.  For every 2 points or D6 damage rolled in the MS game, it is considered to be a D6 in X-P damage.  Since we are following my scale rules that means that 2 damage point Battletech SRM is a d6 hit, which becomes d6x3 against an X-P character in Personal scale.  For odd amounts the extra point becomes a D3 damage roll.

To do the above for Space scale just follow all the rules above, except X-P's Personal scale combat rounds are 4 to every 1 MS scale.  So a band of X-Plorers who take a transporter over to a Federation Commander Romulan ship have 3 combat rounds to fight off those pointy eared jerks in between the one where they act simultaneously with the Federation Commander gameplay.  No sir, I do not think you can get to the bridge in this timeframe.   Note the conversions for Space to Vehicle scale apply too so if you REALLY want to be ridiculous you could have a Silent Death starfighter shoot a Renegade Legion Centurion hovertank while other players are trying to set up an ambush in X-P scale.

If you have a gamegroup full of wargamers and a well organized GM capable of winging it this COULD BE TOTALLY RAD.  For say the arty farty rules light types this is a nightmare.  Keep this in mind folks!

Now the last bit.  How to use your X-P characters as the hotshot pilots of your hovertanks, giant stompy robots, and faster than light starships whose captains.  LIKE! To.  TALK.... like THIS!

In many MS games you have a Piloting and Gunnery rating.  These ratings equal X-P's Piloting and Base to Hit skills.  For PCs who do not have these skills they are considered to have the lowest legally allowed skill for the game in question.  In Battletech's case this means Gunnery and Piloting of 8.  In Silent Death, it means a 1.

But here is a handy chart for those 2 games in order to figure out your skill levels in the MS game.
X-P Skill (Attribute Bonus figured into skill)   Silent Death   Battletech
 15-14 /   1                                                                 2                    7
 13-12 /   2                                                                 3                    6
 11-10 /   3                                                                 4                    5
      9  /  4-5                                                                5                    4
     8   /  6-7                                                                6                    3
     7   /  8-9                                                                7                    2
     6   / 10-11                                                             8                    1
     5   / 12- 13                                                            9                    1
   4-1 /   14+                                                             10                   0


Example:  Dirty Bob is a 3rd Level Soldier with the Piloting Skill at 2nd Level Scout.  (BHB 2, Pilot 13+)  His Agility is a 15, for a +1, meaning his BHB is effectively 3, and his Piloting is a 12+.  This means in Battletech his Gunnery is a mediocre 5, and his Piloting is also a disappointing 6.  If as a Soldier he chooses to take Autocannon as his Weapon Specialist choice, he will be Gunnery 4 but only with Autocannons.  At 5th level with Attribute bonuses would bring his BHB to 4 (5 with Autocannons), and Piloting to a 10+, meaning his Gunnery is now 4, (4 with Autocannons) and his Piloting is also 5.        

(Because of my edit, now PCs get to an average proficiency rate a bit faster, then slow down as opposed to my pre edit version where you would practically have to be a 10th level Soldier before you would be the equivalent of a regular gunner in Battletech.  Now this means a 6th level Soldier is equivalent to a regular quality Mechwarrior by and large.  Or 5th level as a PC with a decent Agility score, 4th if you rolled serious heat or use a less OSR character generation scheme.)

Obviously given X-P's level advancements only up to 10, the highest non Attribute modified score is +6 BHB, and 5+ for Skill rolls.  This means not counting any modifiers the best Piloting is gonna be the near maximum of 9 in Silent Death, 1 in Battletech, but Gunnery is a more modest 6 Silent Death/3 Battletech.  This leaves room for Attribute bonuses, Class bonuses, and any possible level advances beyond 10.

Please note that any damage bonuses in X-P scale ONLY are added in while fighting in X-P Personal scale and do NOT get added into the MS game's own damage.

I will leave it up to GMs as to how any pilot damage is assigned into X-P HP for things like Battletech head hits and the like, but recommend a D6 HP hit.

Now this covers the smaller scale MS games pretty well, but what about big CAPITAL SHIP games like Federation Commander?

For TO HIT/Gunner Phase rolls in such games for every 2 points of To Hit in X-P either give the PC gunner 1 reroll per combat, or allow the PC gunner to modify the die roll to hit by +/- 1 per combat.

(We consider a combat to be the entire encounter with the enemy units.  This could be a 10 turn game where your PC's ship engages and bugs out of a duel with an Orion Frigate, up to a 100+ turn massive fragfest of attacking Moonbase 2 with a giant fleet.)

For a Navigation Phase check, if passed the PC's ship gains 1 extra hex of movement this MS sheet game turn/round.

For an Engineering Phase check, if passed the PC's ship gains D3 damage/shield boxes back at the start of the MS sheet game turn/round.

For a Piloting Phase check, give the PC's ship a +/- 1 die roll modifier to one enemy unit shooting at it in the MS rules.

I think this covers almost any major rules you would use in these games.  As a friendly bonus here are free PDF rules/demo rules covering some of the Machine Sheet games so you can see if they are for you:

(I would highly recommend people go to visit the main websites for the games in question and not just go directly to the PDF but they are listed for your convenience!)

Silent Death:  http://www.wizards.com/starwars/downloads/SW_Silent_Death.pdf
Battletech: http://battletech.catalystgamelabs.com/downloads/CBT-Quick-Start-Rules.pdf
Federation Commander: http://www.federationcommander.com/FCFirstMissions.pdf
Renegade Legion Interceptor: http://www.madcoyote.com/renleg/frame-test.html
(Sadly Leviathan and Centurion are out of Print.  Try Ebay or your favorite OOP game seller.)

The actual "No Frills" X-Plorers ruleset: http://greyarea.webs.com/downloads/X-Free.pdf

And some paid ones:

Car Wars: http://e23.sjgames.com/item.html?id=SJG30-7142
Silent Death: http://shop.ironcrown.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=1

The (Stuff)-Tech/Macross/Related Stuff Collection Megapost Part 4: Mechwarrior Dark Age

The late 90s were a bad time for Battletech.  FASA died, much of it related to the situation with Harmony Gold.

But.. there was hope.  Jordan Weisman, one of the original creators of Battletech had a new company, Wizkids.  They started producing the first prepainted collectible miniatures game known as Mage Knight Rebellion.  Like most games he had a hand in, it was heavily flawed.  (And it died when a major revision came out that basically made the old figures both underpowered AND illegal in tournament play, something that seems to be the life blood of any collectibles game.  Most people just up and quit.  A hasty patch to bring the old miniatures back into legal play came out but it was too little, too late.)

But it introduced the clicky base system.  This involved almost all the stats of your model being printed right on it's base with a dial you could turn as it took damage, and colors being used to give units universal abilities, the latter of which would become a near de facto rules mechanic in so many games, collectible or not.

Heroclix would be the only game from Wizkids to survive in any fashion, continuing even when the company would be sold to Topps who ended up closing the entire operation down and mostly keeping it as an IP house to license to other companies.  (Currently "Collector Toy" manufacturer NECA is doing the Wizkids properties.  Though the Battletech rights are really messed up, being divided between Topps and Microsoft.  It's hard to keep track of who owns WHAT.)

They announced a Battletech game, to be called Mechwarrior: Dark Age.

Battletech fans were excited but apprehensive.  Would it be a collectible game like Mage Knight?  Would it just be a revision of Battletech?  Would it use the terrible clicky base system?

The former and latter were correct.  The middle was not.

It was doomed from the start.  While a CCG Battletech game had a small level of popularity in the 90s (Magic and the kid show CCGs really seem to be the only games to survive and thrive then and now, though Fantasy Flight Games' LGC format style appears to do ok.) what Battletech players wanted was.. MORE BATTLETECH.  Not a clicky base blind buy collectibles game.

Add in that your average miniatures painter (the online ones anyhow) seem to be elitists and scoff at any prepaint no matter how nice (or that some of us don't have the time, skill, desire, or even in some cases PHYSICAL ABILITY to paint) and being able to just pop out the models from the box and play and we see more problems.

Now the clicky game barely feels like whatever IP it is used with.  Its too "generic".  When I played Heroclix it really felt so abstract that it could have been ANYTHING on the base.  I never felt like Batman was fighting Doctor Doom.  While Mechwarrior Dark Age used proper measuring tape and even had a special heat dial on the base it.. it didn't much feel like Battletech.

I think it was the best of the click base games Wizkids made (with Horrorclix a close second, though it adds in a "Drama Card" type mechanic to add in more of a proper horror feel) but it had issues and also fell prey to much of what killed Mage Knight.  They did a heavy revision that while it didn't totally wipe out the older models, in many ways it did make them less useful.  I admit they sort of had to revise things as the meta game favored everything OTHER than Battlemechs, with degenerate tactics not only winning the day, but driving off the playerbase that did exist.

(Snooty Battletech players mocking the game and the players didn't help either.)

Yet MWDA had yet ANOTHER hurdle to overcome.  A CANON TIME JUMP IN THE STORYLINE.
See at the time the Battletech timeline had moved mostly slowly to the mid to late 3060s.  MWDA shot forward to the 3130s.  Nearly every character from the old timeline was now dead (or soon would be), and there was a technological regression that never really made sense.  (In fact tech got overpowered, making it all sort of pointless.)

See they started an event that is just now finishing up in the normal Battletech game, The Word of Blake Jihad.   While this was something started in storyline beats during the FASA days, the fans couldn't understand how a break off faction from Comstar (basically a mixture of a telecom and the Catholic Church) could cause such a massive war as to send the Inner Sphere back to the point armies were taking industrial class Mechs and using their forestry chainsaws or backhoes as weapons.  A quarter of the Inner Sphere by the end of this Jihad that was mostly glossed over turned into a new faction.

This did not sit well with a fanbase already in many cases irritated by the Clan Invasion which did a similar time jump deal (but only around 20 years and they you know.. kept the same game system!) and totally changed how the story would proceed.

(If some of the reports I hear are true the Jihad and the results of it in the MWDA timeline is REALLY REALLY STUPID.)

But..  let's get on to what I have from MWDA instead of me just writing paragraphs trying not to be a complaining fanboy.

This was the starter set I bought even after getting the normal cheaper one.  I believe I got it at Toys R Us on a fun day myself and some friends basically goofed off all day and drove around the region buying stuff and having a good time.  It had exclusive minis in it?  How could I not?

 This picture here shows the original rule book and the information card showing those color blocks I mentioned above.  The colored dials are from the later expansion units and are infamous for basically killing the game, making artillery units the main game winner.  the ring is a click dial mover for the smaller pieces.  Bad enough in a measuring tape minis game having to pick up your model to turn the base, but the design made these ring turners almost essential!  The bad handwriting paper was my list of what I had whenever I wrote it and is long out of date.  The little plastic pilot card is from the revised edition of the game I mentioned.  The little file card was something used to give the game more fluff and backstory.  See certain mechs were piloted by named characters.  These little file cards had pilot info and mech info in them.  The colored dice at the bottom are the 2 of 1 color, 1 of another faction dice they released back in the day.  I was able to buy the Nova Cat and House Davion loyalist sets, and over the years I found those other two d6s.

Now the main part.  THE MINIS.  To make life easier for me and you the reader, I am gonna show you some mech models, going left to right.  To the best of my knowledge these are all versions of mechs that also exist in normal Battletech.  Go to Sarna net and PgDwn once and you will see links to all the mechs.  You can compare and contrast the Battletech design art to MWDA's for these.  Also note I used my photo editing (such as it is.  I so miss iPhoto on my Macs..) and its "autocorrect" feature which brightens things up.  Some of these models aren't quite so eyepopping in color vibrancy in real life.

 Black Hawk, Black Knight, Centurion, Firestarter

 Cougar, Griffin (Phoenix Refit), Hatchetman, Locust (Phoenix Refit)

 Mad Cat, Mad Cat 2, Marauder II (Phoenix Refit), Mongoose

 Osiris, Rifleman, Spider, Zeus, Vulture 

(Ooops put the last 2 in the wrong order.  V before Z.  Curse my alphabetical failure during photography!)

 And since I had almost forgotten the Catapult we will use it as a close up view of the detail and paint work.  I say they look really nice.  Not perfect but in general better than I could do.  And Wizkids' paint allowed one to easily paint right on top and customize if one wished.

(You can't do this with Wizards of the Coasts' collectible minis.  Paint slides right off of them.)

Yes purists may be mad many mechs have changed looks for whatever reason.  But the Mechwarrior computer games have modifications to the designs, and the two upcoming Free to Play online games both are revamping the looks of them as well, in most cases looking MUCH better than the original 80's designs.

(My Mecharrior Online Catapult.  A1 chassis with nothing but glorious missile bays.)

 And the rest of the mech minis I have from MWDA.  Sadly I don't have any of the Age of Destruction or later miniatures which included 3 legged designs, super heavies that go beyond 100 tons, and even some ridiculous Solaris mechs in silly colors, some of which may be piloted by zombie Mechwarriors.  I AM NOT JOKING THIS IS ACTUALLY A THING THEY RELEASED.

 Because I am lazy this is where all my tanks, helos, and infantry minis are.  Plus more stuff from Scrye (we will get to that.) as well.  I need another of these card boxes to comfortably fit all of it.

This here is a good 95% of my Clan Nova Cat loyalist mini collection.  Like most of my photos you can click to see them bigger.  I basically tried to collect one faction and I like the Nova Cats because they are kind of hippies.  And these models make grey and white WORK as a paint scheme.  Plus unlike most of Warhammer 40K's Space Marine chapters, their colors have some uses for terrain specific camo.

 Around this time they also released some Mechwarrior branded merchandise.  This here is a die cast model kit of the Mad Cat.  They call it the Mad Cat II but its the original classic Mad Cat design.

I am still not sure why I haven't assembled this.  I was planning on repainting it in some color scheme but for the life of me I cannot remember what.  I also never saw these for sale outside of the Internet.

 The back of the box gives us some basic stats of the mech proving its the original Mad Cat, a bit of fluff about the Dark Age setting, and pictures of the 4 mechs released in their pre built versions.  I always sort of intended to get the pre build Mad Cat at the various stores that carried them (including Gamestop IIRC) but they never went down in price.  They merely disappeared.  I would not have minded the Jupiter and Forestry Mod mech for cheap but the Legionnaire?  That is one ugly mech!

 The box has a nice little flap you can flip up and see some of the pieces including the pilot.  I am not sure why the flap shows the normal Battletech Atlas but.. there you go.

 They also released around 25 novels.  I seemed to have stopped with only a handful of them.  I did buy the hardback art book Technology of Destruction though.  And I still have a now out of business Scrye magazine with lots of MWDA in it.

 The art book is pretty nice and wasn't too expensive (unlike the current Battletech art book) though it is really just covering the MWDA era.  Plenty of nice CGI renders of the mechs too.  It even has a fold out map in the middle of that new faction that got control of the center of the Inner Sphere in it.  Which is terrifying to fold out.

 This is a nice picture showing what a big battle could look like.  The big Dropship in the top left corner?  It was actually a thing you could get.  I forget exactly what kind of hoops you had to jump and how ridiculously expensive it was, but you could have a to scale Dropship.  I still sort of want one, but I seriously doubt they are easy to find, or I could get it for under 50 bucks with shipping.

(However a LOT of the Wizkids big items like this can be gotten for a fraction of original price.  Horrorclix' Great Cthulhu, the Halo Scarab, the Mage Knight Castle..)

 And an example of the MWDA content from Scrye.  See it was a magazine that came out in the 90s mostly to capitalize on the Magic boom.  It was a gaming magazine and price guide but it only covered collectible games for the most part.  In some ways it was similar to the Wizard group family of magazines except it wasn't written with childish bathroom humor (even though that was the entire reason for reading Toyfare), and it didn't have the biases the Wizard publications all had in them.  (Their gaming magazine was called Inquest. )  Also my experiences were that people actually took Scrye's price guide as a general bible for collectible games.  Wizard Groups not so much.  

But like many enthusiast magazines the Internet killed them.  (And ebay made a laughing stock out of the Toyfare guide any how.  These days you want to know how much something is worth?  Just get an average of what something sells for there.  Or the average on Amazon.com.  Though the latter has some amazingly inflated prices that nobody seems to actually PAY..)

On the left side is an example of Scrye's price guide, while the ripped out pages (from another issue.  I never really kept Scrye issues.  I just ripped out the pages for the games I played.) on the right are a list of figure stats which would be handy for knowing what to buy and trade for.

While I have been a bit hard on MWDA here I honestly do kind of like the game.  The models are really nice and there are even free rules on the Battletech website (I have the original hardcopy of them) to use them in place of the normal scaled minis.

The problem is the fanbase outright revolted against the game or even using the models.  It didn't matter that BECAUSE of Wizkids and this game that the normal Battletech game was licensed out to Fanpro and then Catalyst.  To the kind of spergy fanboys that seem to flock to Battletech and take it all entirely too seriously this game was an abomination on all levels with no redeeming factors.

And that killed whatever chance it had beyond the Topps sale and closure of Wizkids.

Collectible games need active player communities and an influx of new product.  Battletech fans and Jordan Weisman's usual mistakes with games and game companies ensured this was not going to happen for any length of time.

(Next time, back to Battletech the original!  I have more stuff!  Plus that lovely MERCHANDISING.)

The Troubles of Machine Sheet Games, Battletech in Specific

Over at the Classicbattletech.com forums a fellow was lamenting why he was leaving Battletech.  Many of us were discussing it, and one of my comments: "I played more games of Megamek in 6 months than I have in my 22 YEARS of owning Battletech.  One thing playing a lot lets you see is the actual flaws in the BT game system that can only really be fixed with a total incompatible new rules edition.  By this point and the size of the BT community I don't think it will happen.", came up as a topic for a thread discussing what is wrong or could be improved for Battletech.


Well for those of you who don't know, Battletech was once a MAJOR name in hobby gaming.  Its a "Machine Sheet" game involving giant stompy war robots smashing into each other with guns and missiles and their feet in a hard scifi setting.


But being a hardcore "Machine Sheet" game has relegated it to a small but vocal fanbase.   It for good AND ill has also effectively been unchanged as a ruleset since at least 1986 thereabouts.  (True there have been tweaks and clarifications, but some guy with pre 1990 books could use them and play with guys who just bought the current starter set yesterday.  There would be a few minor changes, but not too many.  The last 3 COMPLETELY COMPATIBLE editions of Warhammer 40K have more serious changes than Battletech has.  In half the time.)


I took it upon myself to comment on what issues I felt Battletech has to deal with, both in getting new players due to its design, and how people might want a simpler game, using an example of play.


Let's see what I wrote eh?  (Good forums content is always a candidate for a blog post.)


(As always I tweak things a bit for you fine readers, many of whom may not be familliar with the game in question.)


Well.  Here is the thing.  At CBT.com most people are generally gonna be positive about Battletech as it is, and thus are pretty much happy overall with the game and don't want it to change.   If they weren't, they would stop playing as so many have.  (Obviously things like work/family schedules, availability and quality of local players and such count too, but this is mostly about the GAME ITSELF.)

I look at CBT this way:  On one hand its TOTALLY AWESOME that I can effectively use every BT product I have bought since my 14th birthday in June 1988 when I went into a mall hobby shop and bought Battletech (thanks to a review in Dragon Magazine, my love of Robotech, and the Robotech RPGs not being stocked there...) and Runequest 3rd edition.

On the other.  Game design has evolved and BT is still an insanely slow, detailed, and clunky game.

For 1 on 1 duels, or lance action sized games?

It does its job well, though player skill and a handy box of tokens (see my review of custom Litko tokens that REALLY are all but essential to proper BT play unless you have an excellent memory: http://wargamedork.blogspot.com/2009/12/review-corner-litko-aerosystems-custom.html ) helps speed things up.

Last full lance game I played at Connecticon 09 took FIVE HOURS.  Myself and another half awake semi lapsed player at a con game using L2 lances.  (Event organizer selected the battle type and units involved.  I probably ticked him off by saying for a demo/intro game he should have gone 3025 only and probably 2 on 2 fights, not lance actions.)


(A Lance in Battletech is generally a 4 mech/tank squad.)

Battletech is a design for detail game, not design for EFFECT.   Its like most "Machine Sheet" games.  Renegade Legion, Starfleet Battles, Car Wars, and Silent Death are the other big names in the genre.  (Honestly IMHO Silent Death is THE best Machine Sheet game.  Battletech comes in second.)

Machine sheet games tend to cover things into minutia.  Many people don't need that level of detail.  Add in that because its such a long lived system so many more rules BT really wasn't intended to cover have really filled it up.  It went from small mech duels in light terrain to trying to cover the entire SCOPE of a Battletech universe battle with all the evolving and devolving technologies in 6 CENTURIES of armored warfare.

Battletech if we count Clan weaponry, Solaris 7 duelling tech, and experimental gear has close to what?  100 different weapons and combat systems?

While many people like this level of detail, for the majority (as evident by 40K basically supplanting BT and SFB as THE scifi minis wargame) its too much.

Let's just take one on one 3025 play.

Each player needs a sheet of paper per mech they play, plus at least a double sided reference sheet with ELEVEN charts on it.  And this is assuming your mech sheets have their weapons listed on them, plus the heat effects chart.

So to START, for a 1 on 1 introductory 3025 duel, you have 13 effective charts.  This isn't counting advanced rules, urban combats, vehicles, infantry, aerospace, non mapsheet miniatures play, or RPG elements.

That's a TON of information players need to know.

Now on to a mech sheet.  Now each sheet is a single full page (though tanks, infantry, VTOLS, and some other units don't need a full page, the stars of the game DO.)

Your mech has a heat status bar, a movement information section, weaponry (which all have differing ammunition, heat, damage types, and range which must be kept track of), pilot information, and weight.  11 exterior armor locations which can have dozens and dozens of damage points to cross off, plus 8 internal locations once the exterior armor has been taken off.  Our heat chart has SEVENTEEN different levels of effects, and a player also has to keep track of everything used heatwise, plus how many heat sinks are left operational.

Then there is the potential for up to 54 pieces of internal equipment which can be damaged and destroyed, with 4 REALLY essential bits to each unit to be kept track of.  (Engine, Gyro, Sensors, Life Support.)  


Bur that's just the essential ones.  You need to also pay attention to limb actuators, jump jets, and other such devices.

There is more information to be kept track of on a SINGLE mech sheet than what an entire Battlemech COMPANY should have for a modern miniatures wargame.


(A Battletech Company is 12 mechs or tanks.  Or 3 Lances.  A Battalion is 3 Companies, a Regiment is 3 Battalions, a Division is 3 Regiments.  The Battleforce 1st edition wargame is designed to simulate a Regiment fighting, but has campaign rules to cover a Divisional fight.  If I ever can get my Tuesday group TO ACTUALLY ALL MEET ON TIME ON SCHEDULE AND PLAY SOME GAMES, I will show yall how great it is as a "Design for Effect" game sometime soon.)

Again, for duels this is pretty good having tons of stuff.  But it REALLY breaks down when trying to play with non or casual gamers, or adding more units and more advanced levels of play.

Now let's see what we could potentially have for dice rolls for one medium mech firing at another.

Let's say a Trebuchet (2 LRM 15s, 3 Medium Lasers) is shooting at a Phoenix Hawk (2 Machineguns, 2 Medium Lasers, 1 Large Laser.)

First we need to check shooting modifiers at the target.  Has the Trebuchet Walked, Ran, or Jumped?  Does it have any penalties for arm damage and weapons within said arms?  Is it on the ground or firing at a prone target?  Does it have any sensor or heat penalties?  What terrain elements is it firing through?  How many hexes of actual movement (since turning and difficult terrain don't count as movement for target difficulty) did the P Hawk use?  Is the mech firing at a secondary or tertiary target as well?

We aren't done yet.  We also need to know the distance for each weapon system.  And there are also penalties for some weapons if you are within minimum range.  And line of sight/torso twisting matters, especially since arm mounted guns have a wider firing arc!

Ok great, we have now added what could be NINE different modifiers to the base Gunnery roll.  If we were playing Star League/3050 tech we could also need to take even more modifiers into account.  (Weaponry mods, computer systems, ect.)

Now we roll to hit.  Obviously in practice most of those mods won't matter, but let's say the Trebuchet walked, has no heat or systems damage, and the P Hawk has a +2 to be hit for speed, and a +1 for being in a Light Woods.  (For sanity's sake its not prone, has a L1 hill in the way, intervening terrain in front of it, and we are gonna ignore Fire and Smoke rules which could add even more modifiers and dice rolls.)

We will say the P Hawk is... oh 6 hexes away and in the Treb's front arc.  (Non Battletech players out there?  I bet you want NOTHING to do with this game already, right?  It probably sounds as scary as Advanced Squad Leader.)

So our "average" modifiers are: +1 for walking.  +2 for target speed.  +1 for terrain.  A +4 to his Gunnery. Now we have our 4th and in this case final modifier.  Range.  The Trebuchet player makes notes for heat, and decides to fire everything.  20 heat, and he has 10 heat sinks so he is at the 10 mark on the Heat chart.  4 more points and he would have a roll to make to avoid shutting down.  If he does this next turn he has 2 rolls to make.  One for shutdown one for ammo explosions.  As is he now has movement and targeting penalties next turn.

Oh wait.  I forgot about range.  At 6 hexes he is in medium range with the mediums so his Gunnery for the mediums is +6.    Now the LRMs are in short for no modifier.  BUT.. he is in the minimum range category which adds a +1 to the modifer for a +5.  Now his Gunnery is 4 so the Mediums need 10s to hit and the LRMs need 9s.

We are gonna say the dice are with the Treb player.  He rolls his 5 attacks (some mechs have over a DOZEN weapon systems to fire) and we will say the 2 LRM 15s and 1 Medium Laser hit.

The Medium Laser is simple enough.  Since the Phawk is totally visible it is on the normal chart, front facing.  Now we need to roll a second time for the simple attack to see where it hits.  I am gonna say it rolls a 7 and hits the Center Torso for 5 points of damage.  The Phawk now has 18 points left.  Now for EACH LRM 15 we have to see how many missiles hit before we can assign damage.  So we roll for each LRM and I shall use our friend 7 and that means each spread has 9 out of 15 hitting.  So that's 2 locations to roll for each spread.

(Query to the experienced: Would I just divvy up all the hits together, or go for each salvo as their own thing?  I am assuming its the way I am doing it.  If its the other way, we STILL have 4 attacks anyhow so its not even saving time!)

Now for LRMs we break it up into splots of 5 so 2 locations for each spread.  (For SRMs each of the 1-6 missiles hits somewhere new.  Oh, in L2 play there are missile systems with 40 LRM type missiles.  And shotgun type weapons.)  A 5 and a 4.  (Or if its the other way, 3 5s and a 3.)  For our purposes we roll a 2 which is a Center Torso hit with a potential for an internal hit before damage actually reaches the internals. and a 10 which is the Left Arm which we will say only had 3 armor points left.  The next 2 have a 12 which is a Head hit, and we will say the next roll hits a location with plenty of armor.

Now for the CT crit location requires ANOTHER roll to see if we cause a critical hit and how many.  Now if we do, that roll can cause 1-3 critical effects which require at least 2 dice rolls to discover what happened which can then cause MORE rolls to be made.  We will just say it was one critical.  We roll upper or lower CT section and get upper.  Now we roll for what we hit and its the Gyro.  This will cause a piloting check with modifiers at the end of this phase.  (So another roll for someone.)  

The Head hit causes damage to armor but as it is a pilot location the pilot takes a point of damage and will have to roll to stay awake.

Now the arm hit was into the internal so we roll to see if there are any criticals.  For my sanity and the sake of brevity I shall say no.

Now the Phawk has THREE rolls to make.  He took a Gyro hit, and he took more than 20 damage in a phase. And his roll to stay awake. (This is just the shooting phase.  From 1 unit on 1 unit.)  He will pass his wakey wakey roll, and the Gyro hit, but making 2 high rolls for Piloting is rough and he fails the second.  Now he has to roll for falling, location of fall, divvy up falling damage ala missile hits, make any additional critical hit checks, and another piloting check for pilot damage from falling and possibly ANOTHER check if he does fail since it means another pilot wakey check.

Now.. firing is simultaneous so the Phawk's firing goes back.  Then its on to the close combat phase if they happen to be nearby.

Had enough die rolls yet?

One ROUND of combat between 2 mechs can potentially involve over a hundred die rolls.

Is it any wonder why many people don't play this sort of game, and many more may have issue with the sheer level of detail involved?

And I just covered a COMMON round of shooting.  Nothing too advanced.  Something you will see in almost every game of Battletech ever played.

Now I LIKE Battletech.  I like it a lot.  But only at the Lance level, and usually 3025-3055 level with Mechs and Tanks only.  No infantry, aerospace, urban, naval, or advanced rules.  For someone who hasn't made this one game their lifestyle its an all session event to play out one game.  Even online Megamek games where the program keeps track of everything for you tends to take 2 hours or so to play out a normal 3025 lance on lance game!

I can completely see why most people would be intimidated if not outright HOSTILE to this sort of game.

Now Silent Death is nowhere near as complicated as the Machine Sheet genre goes, but Starfleet Battles, Car Wars, and Renegade Legion go to even MORE absurd levels.  Starfleet Battles has a bleeding TAX FORM to fill out each turn!

Some games have tried to streamline it, and really only Federation Commander (Starfleet Battles' better kid brother) managed to succeed.  (Car Wars totally missed the point and all but killed the franchise.  And as any gamer knows SJGames mostly only cares about Munchkin these days so CW is pretty much gone for good.)

Obviously lots of folks including me like Battletech, but there NEEDS to be a complete stand alone Battletech game for the casuals, the fans who just want big mass battles like they see in the Gundams and Robotechs and such, the guys whose schedules MAYBE give them 2-3 hours a month to play a game.

Battletech is like a car engine.  Some folks love tinkering with them and can go on about how this engine is better than that engine especially with this kind of shock and tires.

Other folks just want their car to go faster when they put the gas pedal down, slower when they hit the brake, and to turn the direction they turn the wheel.


Gaming, like driving, has more people who just want the latter.


I can get casual gamers to play a game like Wings of War which simplifies World War 1 or 2 air combat into something you can teach all but the optional rules to a half dozen people in 5 minutes or so.


Sitting them down with a game like Battletech is foolish at best, and potentially KILLING any interest in gaming said casuals might have at worst.


Yet Wings of War is as exciting and epic as any "Machine Sheet" game without the 90% of detail Battletech and the MS genre has.  The same thing with Uncharted Seas.   They UNDERSTAND most people don't need or want that level of detail.  When you do an attack in Wings of War you just take a card from the appropriate damage deck if you are in one of 2 range bands and have line of sight to the target.  Icons on the cards tell you if anything special or crazy happened to either player, and then there are damage points that eventually take the plane out if one of the icon effects doesnt.


It effectively does the same thing that massive wall of "TL;DR" text I wrote about the Battletech Trebuchet firing at a Phoenix Hawk did and does it with one or two card draws instead of dozens of dice rolls and chart checks.


Did our Wings of War card tell us exactly what bit of mechanics got hit or missed by the guns on our Sopwith Camel?  


No.  WE DON'T CARE.


It gets down to the essentials we DO care about.  Did the Fokker DR1 get fragged?  Did it's pilot get taken out of action, possibly stunned or blacked out?


That we learned.   We had the EFFECT, not the massive piles of detail getting us there.


Like the car example.  We don't care how the gasoline is turned into gasses that move the cylinders that make the pistons move which make the car move forward based on the pressure we put to the gas pedal, or what gear the car was in per revolution and how G forces, tire and wheel type, shocks and the steering affect the turn.


Just that cars go faster if the gas pedal is pressed down further, a Porsche is faster than a Yugo, and its hard to keep on the road if you go really fast down that hairpin turn.


Its the effect we care about, not the detail.


Though to be sure, sometimes the "devil in the details" is all part of the fun.


And that's why I do play and enjoy Battletech.


But Cthulhu knows its not the only way to do things or that its for everyone!