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Battletech was the first wargame I played, my first game was over 20years ago. I got rid of all my books and cardboard 10 years ago when I got married and moved into a small apartment. The one mech I loved was the Highlander.

Fast forward to 4 years ago, I started 40k. My first army was Tau because of the visual similarity to BT. Years pass and I find a Highlander fig in a bargain bin. I buy it and take it home. It sat on my worktable for years, just waiting to be painted and shown a little love.

Until last night that was. In a fit of pique, I primed and painted that sucker. Looks nice, a little basic. I'll post pics later tonight.

Now I'm getting the bug to step back into the InnerSphere. But much has likely changed since I stopped paying attention. How can I get back into the game?

Catalyst's Battletech Introductory Box Set.

Totally worth it.

It comes with 24 plastic 'mechs, rules, a map set, dice, and a brief history of stuff you knew and stuff you've missed.

Also recommended is the Sword and Dragon scenario book that covers the unit histories of McKinnon's Raiders (Federated Suns) and Sorenson's Sabres (Draconis Combine) and has scenarios and campaign tools and rules to play games with these units.

Yerp, he's got it.

We also have the forums over at www.classicbattletech.com with tons of us to help you. Also, plenty of good info on the main pages of the site.

Check out Mekwars.org. It's a 3025 java-based Battletech campaign based on Classic Battletech rules. I got more BT games in in a few months of Megamek than in years of tabletop, and got way better too. It's highly addictive if you can get past the learning curve and the clunky interface. Should be no problem if you already know how to play Battletech though.

The community at Mekwars.org is great for getting games in. Some of the best players in the world play there, and when I joined after 20 years or so of playing tabletop I thought I was pretty good - MegaMek / Mekwars showed me that I still had a lot to learn and really elevated my game.

I don't really know if a lot has changed in terms of game play. I've played Battletech on and off for close to ten years and most of the core rules have changed little. New weapons and equipment have been added and the story line has progressed in some cool and "frightening" ways, but it still seems to be the same game to me.

I use frightening in quotes because it would be frightening if you were living in the Inner Sphere. There is nothing bad with the story at all.


Of course, there was Mechwarrior Dark Age, but that was nothing like Classic Battletech.

I had it since release and played it heavily. My favorite part was designing my own mechs and vehicles. I was into the “all or nothing” approach. I had a tank design with four AC-20s in the front. Unfortunately, its speed was 2/3, had almost no armor, and had probably 5 rounds per gun. Fun times.

Once the clans came along, I started losing interest. Their stuff seemed to make all the original mechs worthless.

ZF-