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Mick A wrote:The thing I really liked about the 3025 setting was that your mech was normally a heirloom handed down from generation to generation and was a mechwarriors livelyhood. Without a mech you were dispossesed and possibly shunned. When you play the game along those lines it becomes so much more tactical and enjoyable, do you risk another round of combat with half the armour missing or do you pull out while you still have a chance?

Try it, you might enjoy it...

Mick )

Absolutely! I've been running Mechwarrior games since about 1997 or so. That's how my players always played and it was well worth it. They'd throw caution to the wind, while still be aggressive (or at least looking the part). All my players knew the fluff by heart so I had to mix things up a bit. I for one had the Clans invade in 3030, 20 years before they did historically. I also called the Omnimechs that they were fighting "Omnimech A, B, C, ect.." They'd recognize it as a new variant of the same old 'Mech, but didn't know if it was a Madcat or Vulture, or what. I also included a bunch of custom designs as well. It was TONS of fun.

I always liked doing actual missions. Rescue, raid, etc. It gave players something to do other than just "kill the other guy".

Its also fun when each player/team has its own mission and objective, without the opponents knowing what it is. It lead to some great "WTF are they doing?" moments.

Say team A is assigned to scan a building (must get a unit within 4 hexes, then make it back to starting map side) and team B is assigned to destroy the 2 heaviest mechs on team A.

Missions are far more fun. Actually having an in-universe reason why you're playing, rather than just a brawl (not that the odd brawl can't be fun).

yeenoghu wrote:Regarding the designers not wanting BV. I agree. I think it's cool that Jaime Wolf piloted an Archer of all things. Not a horrible mech but not exactly the most flashy mech either. Rhonda Snord and a Shadowhawk, Natasha K in a Warhammer. Not top of the line state of the art elite technology, just mechs.

The game was created during the classical age of tabletop and paper and pencil games. Advanced Dungeons and Dragons era, when gameplay, scenarios, and balance were up to a DM or referee. U.S. Civil War battles refought with miniatures (yeah the south and the north both had the same number of points for their armies, right?)

This concept escapes people who have to play competatively by precise rules, and need a system to spell out what 'sportsmanship' points are awarded for. The idea of scenario/situational gaming is kind of lost on the newer generation of win/loss ratio competative matchup thinking gaming.

Since there was no such thing as a tournament circuit that needed specific points balance from one game to the next to keep the anal competition bureaucrats from whining, a scenario was how you played. Barring that, players just agreed on what would make for a fun matchup.

The BV thing emerged around the same time as MtG became popular in its first inception. Suddenly, competative win/loss ratio became the only way to play at cons. and BV was a wayto attempt to standardize matchups. Coincidence?

Tonnage is nowhere near as good a way to express a mech's value. The poor 65 ton Jagermech (I know I'm beating this guy to death) doesn't stand a chance against a 65 ton Crusader or Thunderbolt, not even with extreme luck or skill.

Except that competitive play, tournaments, and a stream lined set of rules geared toward playing with a point value is what makes wargames successful. 40k, clixgames, Magic, Warmachine/Hordes etc... are all financially successful and that success translates into more product and a fuller richer universe for all to enjoy in many multi-media formats. Battletech is suffering and has suffered for years precisely because the game does not focus on actually playing the game. In fact Battletech fails to focus on anything at all, pretty much all aspects are done half assed in one way or another. The fiction is often contradictory, the game products are poorly managed and full of flaws, the PC programs are a failure in most respects(not referring to the Mechwarrior combat games of the past), the miniatures produced by IWM are hardly high quality and are sporadically released.

The entire system needs a good reboot along the lines of the failed game that Jordan Weisman's company was working on putting out.

NecronLord3 wrote:Except that competitive play, tournaments, and a stream lined set of rules geared toward playing with a point value is what makes wargames successful.

What do you call being around for 25 years? Failure?

And tournament rules need not be 'stream lined'. There have been BTech Tournaments for a very long time, and they appear to work fine.

H.B.M.C. wrote:

NecronLord3 wrote:Except that competitive play, tournaments, and a stream lined set of rules geared toward playing with a point value is what makes wargames successful.

What do you call being around for 25 years? Failure?

And tournament rules need not be 'stream lined'. There have been BTech Tournaments for a very long time, and they appear to work fine.

Considering the financial difficulties it has suffered through for the majority of those 25 years, and the success of much younger games, yes that looks like failure to me.

No those tournies do not run smoothly they are generally riddled with issues and or simply use B.S. randomly generated units.

NecronLord3 wrote:
Considering the financial difficulties it has suffered through for the majority of those 25 years, and the success of much younger games, yes that looks like failure to me.

That may just be the difference between success and a big success. If we measured a games success purely by that metric a lot of classic games even older than Battletech that are still played have been failures.

What you're talking about is the success of the business and while the goal of all business is to be financially viable, the purpose of a business is to provide a service. For a game company its providing a game people enjoy playing; in that way they have been successful.

Btech was not a collectable game. It could have been, if you liked collecting miniatures, but it didn't have to be. When I think of "big success" games financially, specifically MtG and 40k stand out. Both of these require re-investment over and over on the part of the player to keep up with constantly upgraded rules and new releases.

There have been a couple of rules updates to Btech, but all they required to fit into the game for someone who had already invested in it was to get another book, not to overhaul an entire miniatures collection, a new edition rulebook, Codex, and (for some players) all of the opponent new edition Codex too. In the case of MtG, every time a new edition came out, older cards became one-upped by newer ones, so in order to stay in the game with a deck that wasn't a joke, most players felt pressured to expand their collection with newer cards.

Some people I have heard of in myth and legend still play 40k at a Rogue Trader or 2nd edition level, just like some people still play TSR's AD&D instead of its modernized watered down hasbro version (or whatever company it is). The existance of a tournament circuit provides a standard of expectations for entering your 40k army at a con. This means if 1850 is the bar to meet, then you need 1850 worth of models, updated rules, updated WYSIWYG figures, and the like - reinforcing the need to reinvest. This becomes a standard for home-games too as some players (most that I have played) also participate at FLGS games, where a standard is also kept in order to find other players easily and also allow people to "practice" (which I find absurd) for competative events.

Battletech does have tournaments. I entered the Battletech tournament at gencon 3 years in a row in the early 90s (got 4th place in the freeforall one year and 3rd in lance vs lance! Irregulars represent woot!) ahem anyway sorry about that... but anyway, the battletech tournament did not involve competative figures collections, competative millimeter nudging, dice offs, anything of the sort. You can't fudge anyting in battletech, as has been discussed earlier, and there is no codex creep. If there were any complications at a btech tournament that was not on the part of the game design itself, but a poorly organized tournament structure.

Only a fanatic fanboy would update his complete figure collection to go with a new codex. I started a new IG army three weeks ago, I'm up to 1750 points now just in infantry and every figure is an original metal Catachan. They still work with the latest edition and look a lot better than the mutated current plastic ones, plus its costing me less than half what it would for new figures...

Mick

I think I'm going to start playing Battletech because of this.

I've always been a Mechwarrior enthusiast, but I've never played this game.

Mick A wrote:Only a fanatic fanboy would update his complete figure collection to go with a new codex. I started a new IG army three weeks ago, I'm up to 1750 points now just in infantry and every figure is an original metal Catachan. They still work with the latest edition and look a lot better than the mutated current plastic ones, plus its costing me less than half what it would for new figures...

Mick

Can we assume all your vehicles also date back to 2nd edition? Not at all tempted to get any of the newer tanks or dropships when the Codex put them in?

Even if you don't buy new models, you often have to update your existing ones to remain current and competative. 5th ed 40k relased, and the new rules made blood claws AMAZING for SW players, and I built a 2nd squad, while I had to rip off power fists to replace with power weapons and swap out plasmaguns for meltas and whatnot. New codex came out and suddenly blood claws sucked, and I needed to add wulfen to my grey hunters, give them banners, rip off even more powerfists to make them legal, add scouts to bring the squad up to a new minimum size. Discounting actual new units I picked up, I spent a fair amount just on new bitz for an army that I had woned for years.

Battletech, all you need is a new book. Update models? I could, there's new sculpts for a lot, but they're more like warmachine's alternate sculpts than anyhting else. All my stuff is still good, even the unseen mechs are still official and useable in any tournaments, the company isn't allowed to use those IP rights but the players are always welcome to, even allowed to post paintjobs on the official forums.

To change gears, I do wish they had made the models for the japanese version of the game. Since they had liscensed the desings that were already well known in Japan, they had to have Studio Nue redesign all the mechs, and they used some of the macross mechanical designers to do the artwork. The game tanked in Japan and only the carboard standees were ever made, but there's scans of them online and they're pretty cool, I must say

http://www.gearsonline.net/btech/mechs.php

NecronLord3 wrote:
Made in us In fact Battletech fails to focus on anything at all, pretty much all aspects are done half assed in one way or another. The fiction is often contradictory, the game products are poorly managed and full of flaws, the PC programs are a failure in most respects(not referring to the Mechwarrior combat games of the past), the miniatures produced by IWM are hardly high quality and are sporadically released.

The entire system needs a good reboot along the lines of the failed game that Jordan Weisman's company was working on putting out.

You're nuts! How much Battletech have you played? The core Battletech game was and is a really great miniature wargame at its core. The rules are REALLY well balanced. We haven't even had a "Battletech: 2nd Edition"! It's still the original rules for the most part, with a few subtle tweaks, and new Mechs and equipment added over the years.

I've read a LOT of Battletech fiction. Some authors are clearly better than others, but I'd hardly say that it's contradictory. The new IWM miniatures are incredible, especially compared to some of the older RalPartha miniature lines! Okay, maybe they aren't as detailed as Warmachine miniatures... but Battlemechs are also on a MUCH larger scale. Warhammer 40k Epic minis look pretty crappy in comparison to your average Mech from IWM.

I'll admit the PC Programs could use an update and are a bit clunky... but is that even the game designer's fault? Games Workshop doesn't make a 40k PC Program.

Battletech is getting to be HIGHER quality not LOWER! The new Mechwarrior Role Playing Game is fantastic - "A Time of War" not sure why they didn't just call it Mechwarrior 4th Edition, but hey what can you do.

Battletech's biggest crimes over the years were ProtoMechs and Land-Air-Mechs which I wish could just be written out of Cannon. Of all their rules, the Mechwarrior rules were the most problematic, but the game was still VERY playable and fun. The new edition of Mechwarrior is great. The Battle Value system was written to attempt to equalize Mechs for tournament or competitive play. I'd argue that Battletech wasn't a game designed for tournaments. I don't think it's a flaw in the game.

That being said, just like any game, Battletech isn't for everyone. Maybe it's just not your game.

Sigh, no Warhammer, Archer, or Battlemaster. Yes, yes, I know why we will never see them again (dang copyright wars) but those were always my favorite Mechs.

yeenoghu wrote:

Mick A wrote:Only a fanatic fanboy would update his complete figure collection to go with a new codex. I started a new IG army three weeks ago, I'm up to 1750 points now just in infantry and every figure is an original metal Catachan. They still work with the latest edition and look a lot better than the mutated current plastic ones, plus its costing me less than half what it would for new figures...

Mick

Can we assume all your vehicles also date back to 2nd edition? Not at all tempted to get any of the newer tanks or dropships when the Codex put them in?

I have two standard Leman Russes, one Demolisher and three Chimeras. I like the new vehicles but I don't 'need' them. My point was you don't have to update all your figures each time a new codex comes out, every one of my Catachan figures is 'legal' with the latest IG codex even though they are 10+ years old.

Mick


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Wildstorm wrote:Sigh, no Warhammer, Archer, or Battlemaster. Yes, yes, I know why we will never see them again (dang copyright wars) but those were always my favorite Mechs.

Don't forget the good old Marauder, that was a great looking mech...

Mick

I still have about 14 Marauders 8 archers, 10 or so locusts and several each of the rest of the unseen mechs. I love the 3025 timeline

All this talk of Battletech got me thinking about the original novels leading up to the Clan invasion so I checked out the kindle store. I now have plenty of reading...

Mick

I'm surprised that nobody has really talked about the "reseen" sculpts. There *are* still Warhammers, Marauders, Phoenix Hawks, etc, they just don't quite look like the original art. Compared to the original sculpts, however, they are *far* superior.

In some cases. Not everyone likes the new Marauder and Warhammer, although the new Rifleman and Battlemaster look great (Battlemaster is actually an improvement IMO). New Thunderbolt is a massive improvement as well, as the old one was a joke.

NecronLord3 wrote:Considering the financial difficulties it has suffered through for the majority of those 25 years, and the success of much younger games, yes that looks like failure to me.

Almost sounds like you're talking about GW there.

H.B.M.C. wrote:In some cases. Not everyone likes the new Marauder and Warhammer, although the new Rifleman and Battlemaster look great (Battlemaster is actually an improvement IMO). New Thunderbolt is a massive improvement as well, as the old one was a joke.

I dont like the new Marauder scuplts, the IIc is good, but the others are meh. I prefer the old Battlemaster. New rifleman is good. My all time faves are the original Mad IIc and the behemoth. Always been a fan of the original Archer too.


For those that like the original "unseen" mechs...keep an eye on ebay. Sometimes you can get real ones, sometimes recasts, either way they are still out there.

Murrdox wrote:
Battletech's biggest crimes over the years were ProtoMechs and Land-Air-Mechs which I wish could just be written out of Cannon. The Battle Value system was written to attempt to equalize Mechs for tournament or competitive play. I'd argue that Battletech wasn't a game designed for tournaments. I don't think it's a flaw in the game.

I like the LAM's, but could do without superheavies and protomechs. The issue I have with the current state of the game is that the BV2 rules in the Techmanual are out of date(in the new book) and don't work out right. You can(using those rules) give 3 people the same mech and those rules and get 3 different BV2 answers. The lack of an update to the players hampers any balance for homebrew units. Also, as there is no master BV2 list, it is difficult for non-Catalyst employees to balance a fight.


Overall I love the Battletech universe and the game. I just want some of the issues fixed. The boxed set is great for a new or returning player, but I thought it needed more for being the 25th Anniversary Edition.

H.B.M.C. wrote:In some cases. Not everyone likes the new Marauder and Warhammer, although the new Rifleman and Battlemaster look great (Battlemaster is actually an improvement IMO). New Thunderbolt is a massive improvement as well, as the old one was a joke.

The old battlemaster always struck me as almost flimsy looking especially compared to some of its art work. The newer minis and variants I think filled out the limbs to make it look more proportional. The newer rifleman though I think emphasized some of the wrong details and though more interesting made it seem a little misblalanced. The thing I like most about the updated Marauder is that mechs that a number of newer mechs after the original were clearly influenced by it; so when they redid it I thought they did an excellent job of taking some of the details off those older designs and carrying them back into the Marauder. It gave it a better sense of continuity in fitting in with the overall aesthetic better.

I always loved the old Warhammer, so I don't think I can give in my mind a fair look at the newer one. To me it was just the right balance of aesthetic and utilitarian design.


Maybe this is a bit of the 40k junkie in me, or maybe its what drew me to 40k, but to me the biggest flaw of Battletech was that compared to 40k it didn't do enough to establish factions in a way that was immediately identifiable on the tabletop and for people trying to establish identity when breaking into the game. They had source books and color schemes, but aside from a player just saying so, there was very little establishing who's who. The game presented mechs that could be clustered in distinct aesthetic groups and that could have been the basis, instead its a bit of a big free for all. In terms of battlemech selection it wouldn't have had to been any more drastic than to just state that different armies have a distinct preferences for particular families of mechs with little or no exclusive use and give the slimmest of advantage for it, otherwise leaving it upto the player to decide if they wanted something rank and file or more purpose built. I think its a great game and I always enjoyed it, but that aspect of it made the games background too "history book" and not enough of a setting I was participating in.



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Sidstyler wrote:

NecronLord3 wrote:Considering the financial difficulties it has suffered through for the majority of those 25 years, and the success of much younger games, yes that looks like failure to me.

Almost sounds like you're talking about GW there.

GW hasn't suffered any financial difficulties and anyone who's told as much is wrong. GW has done well. Any reference to difficulties, comes from them financing their current infrastructure that's allow them to grow their business. The LoTRs game ballooned and has faded, but believing that was indefinitely sustainable would be delusional and maybe gave a sense of diminishing profitability. It was however a temporary added profitability that they otherwise would have never had. GW without it would have been worse of than they were with it. Otherwise for the last 20 years GW's grown ahead of inflation or at inflation, in terms of profitability, while growing their market base and revenue flow.

@aka_mythos:

Regarding the 'flimsy' Battlemaster. It was described as the tallest of all battlemechs. While not as heavy as the Atlas, it still stood a head taller. It only looks flimsy proportionate to itself because it is so tall. I think the miniature depicts this pretty well actually, and it is actually towering over all the other btech miniatures, at least the ones I had. My Stinger miniature comes up to its belly. The design in the book was kind of stumpy looking I think. Well, no accounting for taste either way though.

regarding faction identity in force organisation:
Tech Readout 3025 has extensive historical accounts of different mechs used by different factions (for instance, Hanse Davion's fascination with Autocannon technology leading to Davion heavily favoring designs that utilize it is mentioned in many of the mech's listings). His preferential treatment of newer autocannon technology mechs like Jagermechs, Enforcers, Victors, and so on led them to be more common amongst Davion units and Federated Suns mercenaries, as well as often ending up on the Liao border changing hands.

Every faction had a couple of mechs exclusive to them, such that a Kurita Force was rarely without Dragons and Panthers, Liao Vindicators, Steiner Commandos and Zeus.

Additionally there are variants of the most common designs that make them very different from one house to the next (Marik Wolverines being far superior to the others for instance). Minor powers and periphery states St.Ives or the Rassalhague Republic often had cheapper older mechs or hand-me-downs from the house that sponsored their independance, while Pirate kings usually had horribly ramshackle assortments of pawn shop mechs. I actually did a pieced together company of all of Redjack Ryan's mechs listed in the 3025 readout and it comes out to be a full company of some really odd, rare mechs. That's pretty thematic to me.

If you do the old reading you will find that although many mechs are common accross the board, each house has enough distinctive mechs of its own that are in abundance.

This is purely up to the roleplay side of the game to enforce though, as mechs change hands so frequently in the early succession wars that they did get spread all over. Later tech readouts are usually just a brief overview of mech capabilities, because post clan invasion, mech production surged and mechs became less rare, hence their relative rarity and historical significance became unimportant (another reason why 3025 is cooler)

I realize that but it wasn't something that was really emphasized as much as it should have been. Maybe its simply a case of dilution through saturation of different books.

I always found the "you can use any mech" thing to be a draw. You dont get locked into using certain things just because you want to use others. Thats my biggest complaint of the pre drawn army list games. Most of the time I only like some of the models in an army, but Im stuck buying, painting and using ones I dont like just to make the army work.

Well, actually, any Successor State would use what they had, or captured, so you're not really 'penciled-in' to run particular mech forces.

Mercs are kind of the other bonus; they run anything because some of their personnel might be from different areas of the Inner Sphere.

With the Rim World areas, such as the Tauren Concordat, Outworlds Alliance, Magistracy of Canpopus, etc.....they run the older designs, but can a run a few newer ones on what they can capture or raid for. They flavor heavily on the Successot State they border, so if anything, they're still a mixed force of all kinds of designs.

If anything, the Clans may be more restrictive in this area; they fight for resources and mech design rights, so some clans have a preponderance for certain omni-mechs and second-line designs than others.

But, that's the cool thing about battletech; you can pretty much do what you want, so if you really like Steiner-only designed mechs by Defiance Industries or Coventry Metal Works, than by all means, you can run that stuff...

Mick A wrote:Don't forget the good old Marauder, that was a great looking mech...

Ah, such fond memories of the Marauder IIc from the video games...

I just looked up the term protomechs on the Battletech Wiki and I've got to ask: why? Why give them stupid animal heads?

BrookM wrote:I just looked up the term protomechs on the Battletech Wiki and I've got to ask: why? Why give them stupid animal heads?

Well somethings just can't be unseen! (I did that).

Protomechs, a sub-light mech/plus size power armor was a decent idea, sans stupid animal heads. Its a shame they haven't fixed those.