Battletech

Sci-Fi, both hard and soft, for all speculative games set in the worlds of tomorrow or galaxies far, far away
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leopard
Posts: 300
Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2020 4:05 pm

Battletech

Post by leopard »

for what its worth I've managed to dig up "Citytech", though only the "Citytech" rulebook and not the beautiful hard backed rulebook which has to be somewhere else.

does mean I have the Mechs though, while a tad crude I think they will paint up pretty nicely and not too difficult either, 16 Mechs, 8 for the inner sphere and 8 for the clans, with each side getting two each of four sculpts.

Which suggests two inner sphere and two clan colour schemes to have enough for a four player game, hopefully the mechs and formats are still supported with the revised rules:

Inner Sphere:
- JVN-10P Javelin
- CN9-D Centurion
- ON1-M Orion
- VTR-9K Victor

Clan
- Uller
- Black Hawk
- Mad Cat
- Daishi

also counters for a range of vehicles and infantry units

leopard
Posts: 300
Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2020 4:05 pm

Re: Battletech

Post by leopard »

Had a go at paint some of the models, if I'm honest the models are terrible, went with a plain colour scheme as it hides some of the "issues"

Image

Four Clan Omnimechs, left to right:
- Uller
- Daishi
- Mat cat
- Black Hawk

next for of the same will be coloured differently, and then the Inner Sphere ones will also be in two colour groups

Baldie
Posts: 330
Joined: Sat Apr 11, 2020 12:58 pm

Re: Battletech

Post by Baldie »

Never played this

leopard
Posts: 300
Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2020 4:05 pm

Re: Battletech

Post by leopard »

Baldie wrote:
Mon Sep 06, 2021 6:28 am
Never played this
How on earth have you never played Battletech?

Models are pants but the game is pretty good

leopard
Posts: 300
Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2020 4:05 pm

Re: Battletech

Post by leopard »

Important lesson of the day:

when you are facing a mech 50% heavier than you, don't run up and kick it in case it kicks back

leopard
Posts: 300
Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2020 4:05 pm

Re: Battletech

Post by leopard »

Suffice it to say I'm quite enjoying this coming back, Mr C. has the base game and the much faster "Alpha Strike" version, both of which will shortly be in my paws as well

note you can get a reference sheet from the games website, and all the mech record sheets for both games are free downloads, grab a few models and once you have the gist of it (there are free to download introductory rules, and the Alpha Strike ones are essentially complete bar some special situations and rules) and away you go.

perfectly playable with half a dozen mechs per side

dice that can roll about a three apparently help, but I'd not know

leopard
Posts: 300
Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2020 4:05 pm

Re: Battletech

Post by leopard »

now have a few more books, the Total Warfare book covers most of the basic rules and does so nicely, also now have "Tactical Operations" which is basically the advanced rules.

while a lot of these are shall we say somewhat situation specific.. e.g. playing on a world with a surface temperature of +75C, in thick fog with acidic rain while walking over lava (hint, be assigned elsewhere, lake Hades), there are a lot that are more general - e.g. in the basic rules a mech can stand still, walk, run or use jump engines to make a semi controlled crash/flight.

Tactical Operations brings in sprinting (faster than running), evading, positioning to shield another unit, a specific melee movement option that takes place after weapons fire but before close combat attacks, the ability to be less cautious going through terrain to move faster, climbing up/down/falling off steeper hills etc all of which are usable in general games and sound interesting. There are also as hinted above a metric ton of terrain rules and a few new unit types (can now build a building, even a mobile one, as a unit, complete with infantry assault options)

Will have to get hold of the full construction rules as well at some point, and likely the campaign rules

leopard
Posts: 300
Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2020 4:05 pm

Re: Battletech

Post by leopard »

Few games of this now, both the fully on Battletech and the larger scale Alpha Strike, enjoying both. the heat mechanic makes the game (no idea why that was the bit they dropped from the intro box). even a mech like the Wolverine that typically only gains 4 points of heat a turn firing all weapons, five if its moving a bit its amazing how it adds up when you get into combat and need to fire everything and can't afford a cool down turn

not helping that the rules permit quite literally kicking when someone is down

leopard
Posts: 300
Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2020 4:05 pm

Re: Battletech

Post by leopard »

I've got the campaign rules for this..

Hooooboy is that a book (got as a PDF, figure for how often it will be used about a third the price is good), a lot only a serious game fanatic would ever touch, but this can cover generating a mercenary or pirate force etc, covering its operating costs etc.. oh yes and a planet generation system (the GURPS: Space one is better, and the Traveller one is more detailed however this is good for "lets fight on Mars!, wtf does that mean?" stuff.

perhaps more interesting is the various types of campaign it describes, which overlay the force system, pick how to build your force, from buying it with credits, hiring crews etc to just "pick 12 mechs", this covers stuff like experience and repairs. you have the usual mix of simple linked scenarios that basically will use the repair stuff and likely not much more but could use the experience bits, then narrative campaigns, map based and perhaps the most interesting "chaos based" campaigns which are basically a flow chart of "tracks" each of which is one or more scenarios that can flow into others depending how the track is won or lost..

best bit is it all works with Alpha Strike or the AGoAC box rules, it even interfaces into even more abstract combat from the interstellar operations rules where you just have generic lance types and don't worry about the individual units.

there is a nice free sample campaign system on the CGL website too which simplifies a lot of things but in doing so makes understanding the full system easier.

some quite clever bits, specifically a way to scale your "campaign points" according to how large your forces are, a larger force can get more "repair points" etc than a smaller one so scenarios don't need to be rewritten, it seems quite clever and worth a try.

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