All Systems Nominal: Battletech Tabletop!

Battletech. It’s a 37 year old game of incredible depth, great backstory, and a great way to waste an evening in mindless(or calculated…) Mech warfare in the 31st Century.

I didn’t expect to like this game. I’m usually a fan of simpler rulesets, and the Mech record sheets look very, very imposing. But, around late summer of last year, I was coaxed into a game.

I had an immense amount of fun, but I didn’t pull the trigger fully. I got a few mechs here and there, but only got to play a few times. I enjoyed every game, but the sheer depth of the background lore was imposing…yet very appealing. I got distracted by other games.

It was during the third lockdown that I finally got bit by the Battletech bug, and it bit hard. Helped by the Youtube channel, BlackPantsLegion, and their Tex Talks Battletech series(which I cannot recommend enough, they are better then most documentaries, at least their later videos!), I dove deep into the lore. And there I drowned in it.

It is a truly deep universe, and with 37 years of worldbuilding and few if any retcons have made for excellent study material. Every mech, and there are hundreds of them, have a lot of backstory, production history, variants etc. And that is before getting into the history of Mankind prior to the 31st Century, with warfare on a scale never seen before rendering a lot of technology from Man’s golden age lost. Warfare has taken on a sporadic, feudal appearance, with smaller armies fighting since they simply don’t have the resources for the big wars anymore. The Great Houses, the Successor States to Star League, fighting over its corpse like vultures. It makes for fascinating reading….

And an excellent backdrop for a really, really fun game. While very complex, the core gameplay itself isn’t all that difficult to master. It’s all the bananas situations you get yourself into, like what happens if my Mech falls off a cliff into another Mech, which happened because a Mech pushed you off in the first place! Or jumping onto another Mech, called a Death from Above attack. Melee is not only possible, but some Mechs are designed for it from the outset! Long range missiles can be directed by spotter mechs. And that is before you add infantry, tanks, aircraft, and a myriad of other combined arms forces into the mix!

Now I had jumped in originally with Battletech: Total Warfare, and learned how to play from that massive and unwieldy tome of a rulebook. So it is not like I’m entirely new on how to play. But a couple things to note here. While Catalyst Game Labs has said they don’t care what happens in peoples homes regarding 3D printed mechs, and that is what I cut my teeth playing the game with, I decided to support the company beyond just buying the books, and grabbed the starter box, A Game of Armored Combat. This was a difficult box to get, as they are out of stock almost everywhere. I eventually found a copy at a French-Only online store out of Quebec, and using the power of Google Translate, it was soon on its way, along with one of the new Lance Packs, the Inner Sphere Command Lance.

This gives me 12 of the new, redesigned plastic sculpts to play with. And while the detail is a little soft in places for my liking, and some components are warped(this is easily fixed with hot water, to my knowledge.) I am very happy with them! Lets have a look!

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The other set I got, the Inner Sphere Command Lance, is a newer product. The detail is a bit sharper, and in fact it was that Marauder redesign that got me to reconsider the official models. It is just that good! Lets have a look at those as well!

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Now, I have a copy of the Beginner Box on the way, mainly just to grab the Griffin Mech only included in that box. I also have an Inner Sphere Battle Lance on the way, but that order was delayed, and is apparently getting shipped later since it wasn’t in stock. I’m not sure if I’ll actually get it, since the Lance Packs are very difficult to find in Canada, at least in terms of ‘In Stock’.

I’m going to think about how to paint these Mechs. There is a lot of Mercenary Companies, House Regiments, and various other ways to paint them up, so I have some decisions to do. The Northwind Highlanders and Davion Brigade of Guards are both very interesting…

But that is all I have for today. I have a birthday to celebrate, after all! Happy War-gaming where-ever you are, and I hope you have a great day!