# BattleTech



## MerricB (Feb 3, 2009)

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 (Feb 3, 2009)

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.







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 (Feb 3, 2009)

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.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Feb 3, 2009)

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...


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## Wycen (Feb 3, 2009)

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.


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## D.Shaffer (Feb 3, 2009)

Big fan of Battletech. There's a reason my avatar's colored the way it is.  (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.


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## MerricB (Feb 3, 2009)

D.Shaffer said:


> Big fan of Battletech. There's a reason my avatar's colored the way it is.  (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
> 
> ...




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!


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## Dannyalcatraz (Feb 4, 2009)

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.


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## MerricB (Feb 4, 2009)

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!


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## Imperialus (Feb 4, 2009)

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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## Achan hiArusa (Feb 5, 2009)

I was disappointed that the construction rules weren't in the Rules of Warfare until I saw the Techmanual which made me very happy.  Then I saw Tac Ops and I fell further in love with the new version of the game.  I can't wait until Strat Ops.


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## Korgoth (Feb 5, 2009)

I played back in the ol' 3025 days. I always liked the idea of the Succession Wars... brutal slugfests of faltering states that can no longer produce what they are sending into battle. Sort of a grinding, hopeless Eastern Front kind of feeling over all of it.

I never took to all that Clan nonsense... I know some folks liked it but it wasn't my thing.

Looking over some of the more recent stuff... some Mechs seem like they vanished (like the Warhammer and the Marauder). Was there a reason or were they just not popular anymore?

I'm glad they're still making the game. I'm iffy about the components in the new starter (not that I need a starter, since I still have my old one) but it looks like they're doing some scenario/campaign stuff which is great.

What timeframe is Sword and Dragon set in? Like I said, I'm pretty much strictly a Succession Wars guy.


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## Victim (Feb 5, 2009)

Korgoth said:


> I played back in the ol' 3025 days. I always liked the idea of the Succession Wars... brutal slugfests of faltering states that can no longer produce what they are sending into battle. Sort of a grinding, hopeless Eastern Front kind of feeling over all of it.
> 
> I never took to all that Clan nonsense... I know some folks liked it but it wasn't my thing.
> 
> ...




IIRC, a number of the old mech designs were canned because FASA didn't actually have the rights to those designs in the first place.  The Marauder, Warhammer, Locust etc had their roots in some of Robotech stuff - but the rights weren't properly sorted out in the first place, so FASA couldn't actually get the rights from whoever they talked to.  So those so called Unseen mechs had to go.  I think some of them were reintroduced with new art though.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Feb 5, 2009)

Korgoth said:


> I
> Looking over some of the more recent stuff... some Mechs seem like they vanished (like the Warhammer and the Marauder). Was there a reason or were they just not popular anymore?



Locust and Marauder, two of my favorite mechs in Mechwarrior 1! 

---

I just ordered the starter set/box from Dragonworld. I have no idea if I can find someone to play with, but I just want it...


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## D.Shaffer (Feb 5, 2009)

Korgoth said:


> Looking over some of the more recent stuff... some Mechs seem like they vanished (like the Warhammer and the Marauder). Was there a reason or were they just not popular anymore?
> 
> What timeframe is Sword and Dragon set in? Like I said, I'm pretty much strictly a Succession Wars guy.



They're still there, they just got a cosmetic redesign.  Mostly involved legal issues and a long argument over who owns what. Eventually they decided it wasnt worth fighting anymore.

Sword and Dragon is an overview of two units through the age. I think the the scenarios take place during the 4th succession wars, however.

As the Clans more or less get curbstomped during the current era (granted, so did a lot of people), you might like to see how the timeline's progressed in any case.


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## Clefton Twain (Feb 5, 2009)

Battletech was my gaming entry drug, you could say. When I was a kid, I had a couple of D&D books but nobody to play with. I also had some Battletech--the old, old stuff with cardboard pieces and little plastic stands.

I was able to play that with friends and then, eventually, got into D&D and Warhammer 40K. It snowballed from there. I still love Battletech though I have no doubt it has changed greatly since the days the Atlas was first introduced and there were no clans.

Good times.

--CT


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## Cadfan (Feb 5, 2009)

I have a love/hate relationship with battletech.

I love the concept.  I love the idea of a game that's essentially dogfighting with mechs, maneuvering to get the shot into the vulnerable rear armor.

I hate the fact that it often takes literally dozens of die rolls to resolve one volley of fire from one mech.  I hate that it takes as long to play as it does.

There are a lot of little gems of game design in battletech.  There's also a huge morass of seven hour games that aren't even that big.  I'm just not an "all day game" wargamer like the cardboard-counter guys and, apparently, people who play battletech.

Every so often I go on a battletech kick, and have a great time, until I actually play a game or two, and then I get turned off of it for a while again.


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## Korgoth (Feb 5, 2009)

D.Shaffer said:


> Sword and Dragon is an overview of two units through the age. I think the the scenarios take place during the 4th succession wars, however.




That's cool. I'll have to look into it... 4th Succession War is cool. I actually picked up the 4th Succession War "Battlepack" some years back... it was a number of representative scenarios and a special map, plus some historical overview.

Too bad about the copyright issues re: the iconic mechs, though. Warhammer, Locust and Marauder were some of the coolest ones. Did the Battlemaster go too? Well... at least the Atlas is evidently alive and well.


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## Achan hiArusa (Feb 5, 2009)

Victim said:


> IIRC, a number of the old mech designs were canned because FASA didn't actually have the rights to those designs in the first place.  The Marauder, Warhammer, Locust etc had their roots in some of Robotech stuff - but the rights weren't properly sorted out in the first place, so FASA couldn't actually get the rights from whoever they talked to.  So those so called Unseen mechs had to go.  I think some of them were reintroduced with new art though.




I had heard that they had informal permission from the Japanese companies (at the time both were fan driven enterprises), but Harmony Gold and Palladium had contracts, so they sued FASA for the rights to the Unseen and LAMs.


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## Clefton Twain (Feb 5, 2009)

Heh. I think about half of the original mechs were based off Robotech alone.  Well, maybe not half, but a lot. Even the Archer, one of my faves, was a destroid from Robotech. Poor, poor destroids...always getting blown up.

--CT


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## Krafus (Feb 5, 2009)

People, the old classic 'Mechs aren't gone! In order to avoid the legal problems mentioned before, FanPro (now Catalyst Game Labs) decided to have the 'Mechs visually modified enough that they wouldn't risk getting sued anymore. Those old 'Mechs were thus redrawn, recast, and, in the game itself, upgraded with new technology. The result was a Technical Readout named Project Phoenix:

Catalyst Game Lab's Official Classic Battletech Website

It's out of print, but availabe in PDF. And if you just want to look at the stats, go to Chaos March (Technical Readouts - Inner Sphere - Mechs section)

Chaos March : Battletech Archives

or Sarna.wiki:

Main Page - BattleTechWiki - Sarna.net Classic BattleTech Wiki

The Archer, Warhammer, Marauder, BattleMaster, etc. are still around and kicking metal butt - they just now come in a slightly different package.


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## Shalimar (Feb 5, 2009)

Has anyone played around with MegaMek?  Its a free online program for playing Battletech.  It plays exactly like table top (same rules), allowing you to play with anyone anywhere, and even save games and come back to them later.  As far as I know it has every type of Infantry, Mech, Vehicle, and Aerospace fighter from every TRO and the ability to add more of them.

I think with Megamek it'd probably be possible to play Battletech in the PBP forums here on Enworld using Megamek for the battles.


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## MerricB (Feb 5, 2009)

Here's the actual story of what happened to the "unseen" mechs, taken from the Phoenix Upgrade record sheets file:



> Let’s talk about some ancient history to lay a solid framework of how things developed and to provide proper context for current events.
> 
> In 1983, Jordan Weisman saw a series of plastic model giant robots at a toy fair. At that time Jordan was co-owner of a game company called FASA Corporation, which was producing games based on various TV and movie properties, as well as publishing game aids for other successful game properties. These robots (soon to be known as “mecha” to American audiences) came from a variety of Japanese animated series, but Jordan instantly knew that giant robots would shortly be very big in the United States. He subsequently licensed those giant robot images from that model
> toy manufacturer, to use the images in a game. FASA published the box set game BattleDroids in 1984, with the name changed to BattleTech upon publication of a second-edition box set in 1985. While those first licensed images formed the bedrock visuals for the initial game, BattleTech quickly began creating original images. In 1986, FASA published Technical Readout:
> ...




The "Unseen" are:

From Crusher Joe
* Locust

From Macross
* VF-1 Valkyrie
-> Stinger
-> Wasp
->  Valkyrie
-> Phoenix Hawk - VF-1S with FAST Packs
-> Crusader - Armored VF-1A
* Zentraedi "Regult" Tactical Battle Pod
-> Ostroc
-> Ostsol
-> Ostscout
* MBR-07-Mk II Spartan Main Battle Robot
-> Archer
* MBR-04-Mk VI Tomahawk Main Battle Robot
-> Warhammer
* MBR-04-Mk X Defender Anti-Aircraft Defense Robot
-> Rifleman
* SDR-04-Mk XII Phalanx Space Defense Robot
-> Longbow
* Zentraedi "Glaug" Officer's Battle Pod
-> Marauder
-> Marauder II

From Dougram
* Dougram
-> Shadow Hawk
* H8 Roundfacer
-> Griffin
* F35C Blizzard Gunner
-> Scorpion
* T10B Blockhead
-> Wolverine
* F4X Hasty
-> Thunderbolt
* F44A Crab Gunner
-> Goliath
* HT128 Bigfoot
-> Battlemaster

(source: Unseen - BattleTechWiki - Sarna.net Classic BattleTech Wiki)

Cheers!


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## D.Shaffer (Feb 6, 2009)

Cadfan said:


> There are a lot of little gems of game design in battletech.  There's also a huge morass of seven hour games that aren't even that big.  I'm just not an "all day game" wargamer like the cardboard-counter guys and, apparently, people who play battletech..



As much as I love Battletech...yes it can drag.  It isnt really meant to play larger then lance on lance (4 vs 4), and anything larger then that can really bog down play, even with people who have most of the charts memorised. (Guilty)

I'm planning to introduce some people at the FLGS to CBT, but I'm going to keep it to a Solaris VII type deal with everyone getting 1 mech in a fight. Easier to keep track of that way. 

The other alternative?  In the new Strategic Ops guide, they introduced a new version of Battleforce.  While means for large scale fights, there's a variant you can use for 'quick play' battletech based around individual mechs rather then complete units.


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## DerekSTheRed (Feb 6, 2009)

I have always been a fan of Battletech fiction.  I collected all the books and even the Battletech comic.  I stopped once they transisitioned to the new plot after advancing the timeline.  I've thought about buying the new novels just to see if they are any good. I read the first 3 and I like the one by Stackpole and the one by Coleman since they reminded me of the older novels. For whatever reason though it just wasn't the same so I stopped.

I loved playing the game despite it's longish nature.  You rolled to hit for each weapon, rolled location for each weapon, then if it was missile (really rockets), you rolled to see how many hit and where each missile/rocket group hit.  Fortunately, the damage was always a set amount.  I never tried Aerotech, but I did buy Battlespace (space navy box set) which I never played due to its complexity.  It was 2d but had momentum rules.

I tried various editions of Mechwarrior but never really liked them.  The third edition had you spending an hour making a hero with an extensive back story complete with friends and enemies.  And then he got killed in the first non-mech fight you were in.  I briefly tried (and failed) to create a d20 Modern conversion that would convert d20 skills to the Battletech skills. Basically when you were out of your mech, you were playing d20 modern. Then when you started fighting in your mech you were playing battletech again.

I still see people playing the game at stores each weekend and in conventions.  Its simplicity draws people in along with the fact that big robots are just cool.  I think it could be improved with more streamlined play and a better rpg system that is integrated with the strategy game and not tacked on.  At the same time you would want the rpg to be optional for those that just want to blow stuff up.  Of course that may be an impossible contradiction to resolve.


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## Cadfan (Feb 6, 2009)

D.Shaffer said:


> As much as I love Battletech...yes it can drag. It isnt really meant to play larger then lance on lance (4 vs 4), and anything larger then that can really bog down play, even with people who have most of the charts memorised. (Guilty)
> 
> I'm planning to introduce some people at the FLGS to CBT, but I'm going to keep it to a Solaris VII type deal with everyone getting 1 mech in a fight. Easier to keep track of that way.
> 
> The other alternative? In the new Strategic Ops guide, they introduced a new version of Battleforce. While means for large scale fights, there's a variant you can use for 'quick play' battletech based around individual mechs rather then complete units.



What I'd really like is if battletech was... 4e-ized.  If a new edition was released that preserved the mechanics in concept, but demolished them in specific.

The initiative system was ahead of its time, the idea of having multiple weapon loadouts that you could fire at your discretion but with heat as a limiting factor, the idea of ablative armor under which lies the actual components of your mech, the idea of "critseeking," and the idea of maneuvering for backshots and for hitting from angles where you were more likely to strike areas that had already lost their armor- those are all great concepts.

I'm just absolutely convinced that those concepts could be preserved while also drastically reducing the playtime of the game by removing busy work.

I don't think it will ever happen.  The fans would revolt.  But I wish it would happen.  Battletech is my favorite mech game, in concept.  Just not in execution.


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## MerricB (Feb 6, 2009)

Let's face it: it's the busy work that makes the game fun. People (like me) who play BattleTech enjoy rolling for the individual hit locations of each weapon...

We played two games yesterday using the Sword and Dragon campaign book; the first game was 4 vs 4 mechs that lasted about 13 rounds and 4 hours (4 players). The second game was 8 vs 6 mechs that lasted about 8 rounds and 3 hours (the 8 mechs had to escape off the map).

Yeah, they took quite a bit of time, though I think they could be a lot faster if some of the players were quicker at moving their mechs.

We still had a lot of fun.

Cheers!


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## Korgoth (Feb 7, 2009)

Cadfan said:


> What I'd really like is if battletech was... 4e-ized.  If a new edition was released that preserved the mechanics in concept, but demolished them in specific.
> 
> The initiative system was ahead of its time, the idea of having multiple weapon loadouts that you could fire at your discretion but with heat as a limiting factor, the idea of ablative armor under which lies the actual components of your mech, the idea of "critseeking," and the idea of maneuvering for backshots and for hitting from angles where you were more likely to strike areas that had already lost their armor- those are all great concepts.
> 
> ...




See... Federation Commander did that for Star Fleet Battles but not in a 4E way. FedCom streamlined SFB but didn't change the basics.

I think that BattleTech could be successfully FedCommed. But 4Eed... no, when you take something with such a cadre of brand loyalty and turn the fundamentals on their head, you'll end up with a revolt on your hands.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Feb 7, 2009)

Damn, neither the Battletech Starter Set nor Open Grave are currently shippable at Dragonworld.


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## Cadfan (Feb 7, 2009)

Korgoth said:


> See... Federation Commander did that for Star Fleet Battles but not in a 4E way. FedCom streamlined SFB but didn't change the basics.
> 
> I think that BattleTech could be successfully FedCommed. But 4Eed... no, when you take something with such a cadre of brand loyalty and turn the fundamentals on their head, you'll end up with a revolt on your hands.



I know.  Its why I think that battletech is dying.  Sooner or later some fancy state-of-the-art european anime/comic hybrid mech based wargame will come along and provide competition.  It will play in two hours, benefit from modern sculpting and molding technology, and have a strongly enforced design aesthetic that makes it an absolute beauty on the table.  See, eg, Infinity, Anima Tactics, Helldorado, Alkemy, and old school Rackham.

Meanwhile battletech will continue plugging along with the license owned by one company and rented out to another with the rights to produce the miniatures sub-let one step further, with core rules decades old, a 10+ hour playing time, no design standards imposed on the sculptors, and with miniatures that even today are not produced remotely to scale with one another.

Battletech will retain its loyal fans, but the new blood is going to be harder and harder to get the older the community grows, and the more miniature gaming changes.  Its much like the trap that games workshop is in, except that Games Workshop is enormous and can wield the might of an existing player base and convention system to attract new players in a way that battletech cannot.


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## Ranger REG (Feb 7, 2009)

MerricB said:


> 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! !



_SFB_ a lifestyle game? I guess it is, since I have pulled more than one all-nighter in my younger years.

It's not that bad, really.


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## Korgoth (Feb 8, 2009)

Cadfan said:


> I know.  Its why I think that battletech is dying.  Sooner or later some fancy state-of-the-art european anime/comic hybrid mech based wargame will come along and provide competition.  It will play in two hours, benefit from modern sculpting and molding technology, and have a strongly enforced design aesthetic that makes it an absolute beauty on the table.  See, eg, Infinity, Anima Tactics, Helldorado, Alkemy, and old school Rackham.
> 
> Meanwhile battletech will continue plugging along with the license owned by one company and rented out to another with the rights to produce the miniatures sub-let one step further, with core rules decades old, a 10+ hour playing time, no design standards imposed on the sculptors, and with miniatures that even today are not produced remotely to scale with one another.
> 
> Battletech will retain its loyal fans, but the new blood is going to be harder and harder to get the older the community grows, and the more miniature gaming changes.  Its much like the trap that games workshop is in, except that Games Workshop is enormous and can wield the might of an existing player base and convention system to attract new players in a way that battletech cannot.




The point of my invocation of Federation Commander was to show an example of an old school wargame that can have the rules simplified and tightened up without having to change anything fundamental about the game. BattleTech doesn't need to compete with the latest anime. It just needs to do the same thing it has always done... only faster.


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## Loincloth of Armour (Feb 8, 2009)

Reading this thread made me unbox my Technical Readouts and run through them again.  Great fun, great fun... but some gosh darn awful art in a lot of cases (pretty much all of TR 2750), and FASA... while it was fun, you made so many _bad_ mech designs (Cicada, Hussar, Hollander, and JagerMech I, II, and III, I'm lookin at you)!

Speaking of Battletech innovation, did anyone play the ProtoMech rules that came out in Technical Readout 3060?  I'm not sure what they were trying to accomplish with them as it's an idea that appeared to go nowwhere fast.  Was it something they thought would be _the new way of doing things_ (with mechs the size of heavy gears), or was it simply brought out in the fiction and thus added to the rules?


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## Korgoth (Feb 8, 2009)

Loincloth of Armour said:


> Reading this thread made me unbox my Technical Readouts and run through them again.  Great fun, great fun... but some gosh darn awful art in a lot of cases (pretty much all of TR 2750), and FASA... while it was fun, you made so many _bad_ mech designs (Cicada, Hussar, Hollander, and JagerMech I, II, and III, I'm lookin at you)!




I dunno... that's more of the ol' 3025 charm to me. Military designs are rarely "perfect"... they have to work with what they've got. Maybe one Mech was designed on a world that has a good heavy equipment industry, so it's big and mounts a large autocannon, but it's slow as heck because they suck at building transmissions, and so on.

The Sherman was a great tank in WWII not because it had a good gun (it didn't) or good armor (it really didn't). It was a great tank because it was easy to drive, easy to repair and possible to produce in ridiculous numbers. In fact, they were so easy to repair that we could often repair and recrew a tank that had been knocked out and send it back to the front (you just had to give the insides a new coat of white paint to cover up all the blood of the previous unfortunates). That's a war-winner right there. As opposed to any number of ponderous German wonder tanks that had faulty transmissions and/or were so heavy that if one threw a tread it had to be abandoned and burned because there was no way to get it back to a depot... and were so difficult to produce that you couldn't have very many of them. Sometimes you can be better on paper but worse on the field.

A real ace makes do with what he has. The vaunted Michael Wittman had to put in plenty of time in a Sturmgeschutz before he ended up with his Tiger.


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## Andre (Feb 8, 2009)

Korgoth said:


> I dunno... that's more of the ol' 3025 charm to me. Military designs are rarely "perfect"... they have to work with what they've got. Maybe one Mech was designed on a world that has a good heavy equipment industry, so it's big and mounts a large autocannon, but it's slow as heck because they suck at building transmissions, and so on.
> 
> The Sherman was a great tank in WWII not because it had a good gun (it didn't) or good armor (it really didn't). It was a great tank because it was easy to drive, easy to repair and possible to produce in ridiculous numbers. In fact, they were so easy to repair that we could often repair and recrew a tank that had been knocked out and send it back to the front (you just had to give the insides a new coat of white paint to cover up all the blood of the previous unfortunates). That's a war-winner right there. As opposed to any number of ponderous German wonder tanks that had faulty transmissions and/or were so heavy that if one threw a tread it had to be abandoned and burned because there was no way to get it back to a depot... and were so difficult to produce that you couldn't have very many of them. Sometimes you can be better on paper but worse on the field.
> 
> A real ace makes do with what he has. The vaunted Michael Wittman had to put in plenty of time in a Sturmgeschutz before he ended up with his Tiger.




True enough, but this is a game, not real life. Players should not make sub-optimal choices for the sake of pseudo-realism. If the designers want to add in such factors, they need to do so in a way that makes the choice meaningful to the player.

Silent Death did this very well, in my opinion. Many of the fighters included in the game were clearly lousy designs, but they were also much cheaper than better designs, or had other useful features. Players could make a conscious choice - take the fighter that's undergunned, but more reliable; take the fighter that's prone to breakdowns, but I can get twice as many; take the fighter that's best at everything, but I'll be badly outnumbered by my opponent; take the fighter that has great short-term firepower, but runs out of ammo quickly. All of those are reasonable choices that are built into the game, and add to gameplay.

Battletech primarily uses weight as the deciding factor, so when choosing mechs, taking a lousy mech of the same weight as a great mech just doesn't make sense - there's no reasonable reward for doing so.


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## Cadfan (Feb 8, 2009)

Technically battletech uses BV as the deciding factor.  The problem is, BV doesn't work.  It doesn't account for synergy, just for DPS versus heat sinkage.


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## Andre (Feb 8, 2009)

Cadfan said:


> Technically battletech uses BV as the deciding factor.  The problem is, BV doesn't work.  It doesn't account for synergy, just for DPS versus heat sinkage.




In my defense, my version of the game is from 1985, before they used BV (battle value?) There were component cost charts, but we never used them in balancing forces.

I wonder - do the current BV values really work, even mech to mech? In other words, if you design an effective mech, will the BV be higher than that of a lousy mech with the same weight? I don't expect the rules to get things like synergy right - that's too subjective - but I hope they are at least close when comparing one mech to another.


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## Cadfan (Feb 8, 2009)

They mostly work.  There are two major problems, in my opinion.

First, they don't effectively account for weapon synergy within a single mech.

Second, you can sometimes reduce the BV of a mech by adding more weapons.  Because BV is pro rated, ie, because they add up the BV of your weapons and then reduce by a certain amount based on how well you can cool those weapons, you can sometimes add weapons you don't care about that generate a lot of heat and take up very little space, in order to bring the overall heat index up as high as possible.  Then, in game, you simply do not fire those weapons- they existed purely to minimize your BV cost.  This even happens in published mechs, although to be fair published mechs rarely gain more than pocket change in BV advantage by adding redundant weapons.

Does that make sense?

Basically, if you cool 10 heat, and you have 10 heat of weapons, and you add 20 heat of really crappy weapons to your mech giving you a total of 30 heat, you may have a lower BV than you did when you had only 10 heat worth of weapons.  Then, in game, you just ignore the 20 heat of junk, and play with the original 10.


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## Loincloth of Armour (Feb 8, 2009)

Cadfan said:


> Basically, if you cool 10 heat, and you have 10 heat of weapons, and you add 20 heat of really crappy weapons to your mech giving you a total of 30 heat, you may have a lower BV than you did when you had only 10 heat worth of weapons.  Then, in game, you just ignore the 20 heat of junk, and play with the original 10.




Interesting. I suppose you 'pay' for it by the wasted tonnage required for those 'junk heat' weapons, but as you say, it could be manipulated.

We never used BV, just asked the question, "Is this mech a good match for other examples of its weight class?"

As an example, if you have a Thunderbolt, I would want to use another 65 tonner to make it a fair game.  Same if you used a Catapult, or a Crusader.  If you used a Quickdraw, I'd be willing to pilot a 60 ton machine and not feel I'm sacrificing advantages to you.

However, if you pilot a JaggerMech, I'd feel like I was cheating if I used anything better than a Vindicator.  Heck, I'd even consider a Panther a fight with the odds still in my favour.  If --at the same tech level-- I'm willing to fight at a 20-30 ton dissadvantage... then I think the design is so bad I have to ask why it's in a Technical Readout I paid money for.


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## MerricB (Feb 9, 2009)

Because.... nah, I don't think I can justify it. 

Within the confines of the _Sword and Dragon_ campaign we're currently playing, they do make some sort of sense, and they make a great opponent for those crappy planet militias our elite forces are going up against.

We played two games on Friday; the first (4 vs 4 mechs in very heavy woods) took us 4 hours (about 13 rounds); the second (6 vs 8 mechs in open ground and a pursuit scenario) took about 3 hours (about 8 rounds).

Fun, though. 

Cheers!


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## Cadfan (Feb 9, 2009)

Loincloth of Armour said:


> Interesting. I suppose you 'pay' for it by the wasted tonnage required for those 'junk heat' weapons, but as you say, it could be manipulated.



Yeah... it just feels kind of wrong for a mech to have a battle value of X, and then you add a bunch of weapons, and you end up with a value of Y that's less than X.


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## D.Shaffer (Feb 9, 2009)

Korgoth said:


> I think that BattleTech could be successfully FedCommed. But 4Eed... no, when you take something with such a cadre of brand loyalty and turn the fundamentals on their head, you'll end up with a revolt on your hands.




As someone who was around to see the really REALLY ugly backlash when Mechwarriorark Age was announced?  Yeah.  It didnt matter that the game was fun, and that the backstory was an outgrowth of things already in planning.  It was DIFFERENT and thus WRONG and I know people who STILL use terms like 'DorkAge' and 'Whizkids', and complain about Wizkids ruined things forever. 

I do think Battletech needs a balance based rewrite when it comes to the construction formulas.  Autocannons need an overhaul (They're practically useless with DHS and energy weapons), DHS are WAY to effective, and I'd like a bit more leeway in assigning crits (IE, why do ALL engine and Gyro crits need to be in the exact same location?), and the various component costs make little sense (Autocannons are, supposedly, easier to maintain and build...you wouldnt really know it from the cost and availability tables). But I think the fans would have the mother of all hissy fits if you tried, so we get stuck with patches over the wonky parts.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Feb 9, 2009)

All this talk makes me still want to run a session of BattleTech. And it wants me to create my own Mech combat system. 

I am still repressing the urges by installing Mechwarrior 3 and 4 again (MW 4 doesn't run on my Vista, apparantly) and getting Mech Commander 2 (released under M$ Shared Source license and free!)


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## Loincloth of Armour (Feb 9, 2009)

Watch and dream, mechwarriors,

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvPiu-bBMws&feature=PlayList&p=F8EC7477F194070F&playnext=1&index=21"]Wolf Hunters assault a Republic base[/ame]


Watch and dream...


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## gill_smoke (Feb 9, 2009)

*Video review*

WOW! that was awesome. Much better than the cut scenes in the video games.


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## Cadfan (Feb 9, 2009)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> All this talk makes me still want to run a session of BattleTech. And it wants me to create my own Mech combat system.



Hehheh.  I have the same thoughts every so often.


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## Andre (Feb 9, 2009)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> ...and getting Mech Commander 2 (released under M$ Shared Source license and free!)




MC2 is my favorite Battletech computer game - I still have it on my computer and replay the Carver V campaign from time to time.

Are you saying that they released the code? If so, do you know if anyone is actively working on modding the game, or even just creating some new scenarios?

BTW, anyone looking to simplify the board game should look at MC2. Mech design and customization is much more streamlined, and many of the choices are better balanced (though I still think autocannons are not quite good enough to match up with lasers).


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## Cadfan (Feb 10, 2009)

Maybe I'll sketch up some basics for a mech game and post them.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Feb 10, 2009)

Andre said:


> MC2 is my favorite Battletech computer game - I still have it on my computer and replay the Carver V campaign from time to time.
> 
> Are you saying that they released the code? If so, do you know if anyone is actively working on modding the game, or even just creating some new scenarios?
> 
> BTW, anyone looking to simplify the board game should look at MC2. Mech design and customization is much more streamlined, and many of the choices are better balanced (though I still think autocannons are not quite good enough to match up with lasers).




They've released the code, apparantly some time ago. The installation package comes complete with the source code and the final build (so you don't need the XNA Framework or Visual Studio 2005+ to compile it.)

I haven't investigated the modding community so far, but maybe this helps: 
1) A link to a 3-parter regarding modding (It's a webcast): 
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/W...lture=en-US&EventID=1032296434&CountryCode=US

2) The download for the source code at Microsoft
Download details: Microsoft MechCommander 2 Shared Source Release

I am afraid the rest is up to you and your favorite search machine on the web for now, I haven't digged deeply yet.

---



> Maybe I'll sketch up some basics for a mech game and post them.



Are you trying to pressure me in pre-empting you? Nah, I doubt I'll get anything done soon.


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## RangerWickett (Feb 10, 2009)

Man, this is tempting. I love me some rules-writing, and I _adored_ Battletech back in the day, but I so do not have time for this. I wish I did.

*fondly recalls the oddest Battletech memory ever*

And friend and I had planned to spend our week-long 11th grade Thanksgiving vacation playing a huge Battletech scenario: a planetary invasion. We used, what was it, the Tactical Manual? Something like that? It had rules for fusion engines going critical, is all that matters.

Well, we each bought a regiment worth of mechs and vehicles and supplies, and we set up a few terrain locations using Geo-Hex (those wonderful styrafoam molded terrain pieces), and we planned to have a battle or two every day until one side won.

The first battle took place at a canyon that was sort of a moat defending the planet's capital city. Mechs from both sides descended into the canyon, and soon a close quarters brawl had ensued. Then I decided to focus fire on ... I think it was a Mad Cat. Pumped way too much damage into that mech in one round, and the engine went boom.

We eagerly flipped to the rules on engines exploding, and figured that with a 375 XL engine, it would do a ton of damage to all the mechs within 3 hexes. So we started assigning that damage, checking for critical hits as a few of the lighter mechs had their armor peeled away. Some ammo exploded, which dealt hundreds of damage to a medium mech.

Its engine subsequently exploded.

At this point we started laughing, as we realized that nearly every mech on the field was within 2 squares of another mech. We proceeded to spend an hour figuring out how far this chain reaction would go, as engine after engine went critical. Sure, a few mechs actually survived, but they had been half-slagged, and a lot of the ones that didn't explode were still crippled. 

Of the twenty mechs that went into that battle, only 4 managed to walk out, leaving a nice radioactive crater in the middle of the canyon. We decided we could never top that, so the invaders just threw up their hands in frustration and left, and we played Goldeneye for the rest of the vacation.


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## Cadfan (Feb 10, 2009)

The more I think about this, the more ideas I come up with.  Unfortunately, most of them are incompatible with each other.  

What I'd really look for in a mech game is something that plays in under 2 hours (or under 1 hour), something where the typical game involves 4 to 8 mechs per side, something where a single mech's rules can fit on a single playing card (or half sheet of paper), and something that can encompass mechs from different genres so that I can have the western military styled mechs and the eastern anime styled mechs under the same roof.

I want to use a heat system, to retain the idea that specific weapons or components can be shot off of your mech, and to retain the idea that maneuvering for the right angle is an important part of playing the game.

But of course these are all concepts, not specifics, and I want to reinvent the wheel a bit rather than just copy battletech.  In particular I want to skip the simulationist "every mech is a composite of standardized parts" idea from battletech, and make each mech a custom design.  I think that will be better for the game in the long term.

I have a good heat system written.  What sorts of things do you guys look for in a mech game?


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## Ranger REG (Feb 10, 2009)

Loincloth of Armour said:


> Watch and dream, mechwarriors,
> 
> Watch and dream...



I dunno. My dream is a bit more grittier, the mechwarriors are sweaty despite wearing a coolant vest and tank top. Oh, yeah, my dream would be of the Fed's Combat Regimental Team.


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## MerricB (Feb 11, 2009)

RangerWickett said:


> Of the twenty mechs that went into that battle, only 4 managed to walk out, leaving a nice radioactive crater in the middle of the canyon. We decided we could never top that, so the invaders just threw up their hands in frustration and left, and we played Goldeneye for the rest of the vacation.




Love it! 

Cheers!


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## Ahzad (Feb 11, 2009)

I love my BattleTech as well, but a friend of mine was part of Reaper Minis Black Lightning Demo Teams, and used to host demo games of Reaper's CAV mech game at my store. Great and fast little mech game. Doesn't quite have the same crunch or stuff as BT, but for something fast and fun it would be pretty hard to beat.

CAV HQ at Reaper Games


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## Cadfan (Feb 11, 2009)

I'm going to try it out in two weeks at a convention.


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## MerricB (Feb 11, 2009)

I've now posted session reports of the two BattleTech games we played on the weekend on BGG:

Mission: Supply Run - Sorenson's Sabres vs. Davion militia
Mission: Pursuit - The Fox's Teeth vs. Kurita militia.

Both are illustrated with pictures I took during the day.

Cheers!


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## Geoff Watson (Feb 12, 2009)

Cadfan said:


> They mostly work.  There are two major problems, in my opinion.
> 
> First, they don't effectively account for weapon synergy within a single mech.
> 
> ...




They've brought out BV2 which fixes most of the problems with BV. 
Overheating only gives a discount on the worst weapons, not all weapons.

Geoff.


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## Cadfan (Feb 12, 2009)

I know.  BV2 is way better.

It just isn't perfect.  And it probably can't be, because its a generic algorythm applied to something far too complex.


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## D.Shaffer (Feb 12, 2009)

Still WAY better then the good old days when we were balancing on a tonnage basis. 

"Yeah, you have a lance of 250 tons of equipment?  I'll take 2 Timber Wolves and a Storm Crow. You'll have an entire 45 ton advantage on me!


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Feb 13, 2009)

My Starter Box arrived. So, the next thing is acquiring someone to play with me. 

Damn, there is always a flaw...


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## Max Money AWA (Feb 20, 2009)

*Question*



Cadfan said:


> What I'd really like is if battletech was... 4e-ized.  If a new edition was released that preserved the mechanics in concept, but demolished them in specific.
> 
> The initiative system was ahead of its time, the idea of having multiple weapon loadouts that you could fire at your discretion but with heat as a limiting factor, the idea of ablative armor under which lies the actual components of your mech, the idea of "critseeking," and the idea of maneuvering for backshots and for hitting from angles where you were more likely to strike areas that had already lost their armor- those are all great concepts.
> 
> ...



4E-ize BattleTech? Why would you need that? There are no classes, everyone uses the same mechanic, and you only need d6's to play. There is little use of XP (depending on how you advance pilot skills). It's simple and easy to run.

I'm lost on the problem of "busy work." What do you mean?

And on the topic of lengthy play time, I have played in company vs. company games that only took 5 hours, which is far less than some D&D games I have played. Oh and nothing in either company was under medium class or 45 tons and included clan tech. It was an awesome game.


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## Cadfan (Feb 23, 2009)

Max Money AWA said:


> 4E-ize BattleTech? Why would you need that? There are no classes, everyone uses the same mechanic, and you only need d6's to play. There is little use of XP (depending on how you advance pilot skills). It's simple and easy to run.
> 
> I'm lost on the problem of "busy work." What do you mean?
> 
> And on the topic of lengthy play time, I have played in company vs. company games that only took 5 hours, which is far less than some D&D games I have played. Oh and nothing in either company was under medium class or 45 tons and included clan tech. It was an awesome game.



I didn't mean "4E-ize" in some literal sense.  I meant that I would love it if battletech were rewritten with some of the same... design and style and philosophy as 4e.  4e tended to prune away at 3e, using a simple metric- if something was good for gameplay, it should stay or be enhanced.  If something wasn't, it should go away.  Things like rules that exist purely to make the game world more realistic only deserved to stay if that added realism actually made the gameplay better.  Realism for the sake of more accurate simulation was rejected.  And ultimately the idea that "fun" in an RPG is rolling a die and seeing if its high enough was rejected.  "Fun" was instead identified as residing in tactical decisions.

That's a stance that a tabletop wargame should embrace, probably much further than an RPG does.  I'd like a battletech designed to be playable much faster, with rules that exist to create a more "realistic" mech simulation deleted and replaced with rules designed to create a more tactical and more fun mech simulation.

But maybe I'm a little spoiled, since I tend to play next generation wargames.

As for the whole "length of game" issue, I'm going to nip this in the bud.  Much like earlier forum warfare about the length of combat at high level in 3e, I really just don't care if you claim to have anecdotal experience of large games of battletech being played in *merely* five hours.  I have enough experience playing battletech that I feel confident in my assessment of battletech games typically lasting much longer than that in a company on company game.  I have no desire to get into yet another weird, machismo-laden debate where everyone assures me that THEY play battletech in ridiculously short times, and obviously I, and everyone else I've even known, and the vast majority of people I've talked to online, are somehow aberrantly slow.  You are not going to convince me of that.  Don't try.

To give you an example of the sorts of problems I have with battletech, consider this: To fire an SRM 6, you need to do the following:

Determine to hit number, based on weapon range.  This requires consulting a chart for the weapon, your own modifiers, and your opponents modifiers.  You may have to look up two additional sets of information in the process, one for yourself, and one for your opponent.

Roll to hit.

If you hit, roll for how many individual missiles hit, consulting the relevant chart.   Your typical result will be a 4.

Roll locations for each missile.  This requires a minimum of one roll, and as many as 8 rolls (one for location, if it went internal one for whether a critical occured and how many, and two rolls for the specific slot that went critical, grand total eight rolls possible on one location check for one missile).

If critical hits occurred, additional piloting rolls may be required.  These in turn may spawn additional rolls, depending on damage taken when falling.

Now, that's a larger weapon system.  And if you're firing it early game, you will ONLY need to make about 6 die rolls to resolve it (one to hit, one for number of missiles, average four missile locations).  Many other weapons, such as lasers, require only two die rolls, plus possible critical rolls.  But the SRM 6 also isn't the worst weapon in the game for time sinkage either.

The tactical additions to the game created by all of these die rolls and charts is not sufficient to justify this degree of... _stuff._  The tactical tricks in battletech don't even come from this sort of thing.


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## D.Shaffer (Feb 23, 2009)

You really dont like LB autocannons then, do ya?


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## Ahzad (Feb 23, 2009)

let me know what you think of it when you try it out.


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## Cadfan (Feb 23, 2009)

D.Shaffer said:


> You really dont like LB autocannons then, do ya?



I absolutely love them when I'm using them.  And absolutely hate them when I look at my watch after I use them.

There's hardly a design in the game that isn't improved by an LB-X 10.


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## Victim (Mar 4, 2009)

Megamek makes playing BT so much easier.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Apr 21, 2009)

Victim said:


> Megamek makes playing BT so much easier.



Indeed. I am not sure if it was your specific post or someone else that made me look it up and download it, but if it was, thanks a lot! 

It is a very nice way to play BattleTech, especially since I don't really want to find a new gaming group to play it as a regular board game. But alone vs bots or (much better) against a friend over the internet, it's awesome. 

I've had lots of fun so far.


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## Achan hiArusa (Apr 21, 2009)

If you want a shorter, faster game then just go with Mechwarrior:  Dark Ages.  Though its harder and harder to find nowadays.


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