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Don't panic though, it's now (finally) called BattleTech again, dropping the 'Classic' after the recent Wizkids implosion. Just in time for the game's 25th anniversary as well!

Side note, because of this, someone else (besides Catalyst Game Labs) won the bid for the former WK properties. But I have not heard who yet.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Don't panic though, it's now (finally) called BattleTech again, dropping the 'Classic' after the recent Wizkids implosion. Just in time for the game's 25th anniversary as well!

Can they please now ignore anything that WK produced fluffwise and start over please?

Nope they won´t, unfortunately we have Dark Age to face.

M.

Wow, I almost crapped my pants when I saw the title of this thread, but luckily the info contained herein is actually a bit of good news.

I'm not really a fan of the WizKids Dark Ages fluff either (I learned a painful lesson about clicky games there) but it's good to hear BattleTech is just BattleTech again - even though it is still a classic!

Mattlov wrote:Side note, because of this, someone else (besides Catalyst Game Labs) won the bid for the former WK properties. But I have not heard who yet.

Not BTech or Shadowrun though, just the other ones.

H.B.M.C. wrote:

Mattlov wrote:Side note, because of this, someone else (besides Catalyst Game Labs) won the bid for the former WK properties. But I have not heard who yet.

Not BTech or Shadowrun though, just the other ones.

Yes, I knew that before you did.

And the Dark Age timeline is still going to happen. Those events were in the works before FASA closed in 2000. They aren't changing.

And it's not a problem. Dark Age has a stigma because of ClickTech. ClickTech is gone, replaced with pure BattleTech.

Embrace the Jihad. Big shakeups are fun and nothing this large has happened since the Clans arrived!

I know, but I think I was upset, at the time, with the way they just seemed to casually dismiss/destroy certain mercs and people.

That was annoying. It was very much a case of "Oh was that your fav faction? Oh well NUKED!!!!!!!!". And because regular BTech was stuck in an endless 3067, just at the end of the FedCom Civil War, we only ever saw the aftermath, never the event.

Now that we're getting there (universe is officially up to 3076/start of 3077 now), they've used the 5 Jihad Books (6 if you count Interstella Players 2) to actually show us what happened, and give a logical explanation as to why things have changed.

It's not always happy - they've killed off a lot of characters including, just with the newest release, the beloved Khan of my Clan - but it just shows that no one is safe and that makes it more realistic. Plus we've got some pretty big revelations and massive changes in that time, such as the fate of Clan Wolverine and the complete breakup of the Free World's League.

I don't agree with everything they're doing - I want the Davions to be untouched, but even they are suffering - but at least they're shaking things up and having the balls to really advance the story. Certain other companies who shall remain GW nameless don't do that...

I hate the Jihad storyline because left in limbo the remaining housebooks updates.

The problem with Dark Age was how it was presented. It was a kind of: 3067 the wobb kills almost everybody until a Good Guy and his Friends (TM) kill them single handedly and there was much strife and every faction except said Good Guy and his Friends (TM) drank a stupid potion and gave their mechs away.

With the timeline advancing quite a few things make sense now but from my POV there is still too much handwavium that needs to be explained.

M.

Handbook Periphery Nations is set to hit this year, with Liao not far after that.

Damn H.B.M.C, you nearly gave me a heart attack! Just when I'd decided to get truly back into Battletech (got the introductory box for my birthday last weekend, I like the mech models! Total Warfare, Sword & Dragon and some more mech models are also up for order), you spring up such a topic title!

I haven't really paid attention to the Dark Age story as I too decided it sounded like complete tripe when compared to the state the IS was in at that time. Got any link that fleshes that out a bit?

While not partial to the Clicky Mech(not that i hate the Clix mechanism, I own tons of damn MK, HC, and Haloclix), I'm kind of excited to see the Dark Ages done proper.

And I know I may be shot down for this, but I'm hoping they keep with the Diamond Sharks changing back to Sea Fox again.

Dark Age is canon. They won't change that. The exact details of how it comes about might change or skew (or we'll get multiple differing and conflicting versions on purpose), but it will happen.

BAWTRM wrote:I haven't really paid attention to the Dark Age story as I too decided it sounded like complete tripe when compared to the state the IS was in at that time. Got any link that fleshes that out a bit?

Getting up to speed on the current state of the universe is pretty simple if you've got a spare couple of days to read about 6 source books (I did!).

I got out of BTech during the FedCom Civil War, so while I knew who won (thanks to the computer games), I didn't know the specifics. So I started with the really long and really dry FedCom Civil War Source Book. Finding that is a nightmare, as they usually go for $60-$100 on eBay and Amazon. So I used 'alternate methods' to find it.

Once I'd caught up on that and was finally at 3068-ish, that's when the actual Jihad starts.

1. Blake Ascending - This is the first book, first two books actually, of the Jihad storyline. This tells the whole setup to the Jihad from the end of the FCCW right through to 3070.
2. Jihad Hotspots: 3072 - Covers through to the end of 3072, giving us more of the key events, rumours, conspiracies, characters and so on.
3. Jihad Conspiracies: Interstellar Players 2 - A great book filled with loads of rumours and speculation about secret cults, organisations and other goings-on. Unlike the other Jihad books, this one is completely unconfirmed 'rumour'. Some things are absurd, some things are close enough to reality to maybe be the truth, and some things are just plain cool (Word of Blake cyber-soliders can only be successfully created when you stay in the 'other-realm' of hyperspace!). A fun book.
4. Jihad Secrets: The Blake Documents - Huge book. Unlike the first few books, which are collections of news reports (some of which are bias, or fictional, or just plain wrong), this book pretty much spells out what's been happening. It is the most 'factual' of all the books, and while it has its fare share of "Is it or isn't it true?" moments, there's a lot more 'meat' in here. Plus it has a few pretty big revelations in it, such as the possible fate of Clan Wolverine. This book takes us to around 3075-ish, and meshes well with TRO:3075.
5. Jihad Hotspots: 3076 - This book came out about 5-6 days ago. It takes us through 3075 and 3076 as the major conflicts of the Jihad are beginning to start. The big allied force is getting together, and the first real moves against the Word of Blake are being made.

After reading all of these you'll pretty much know everything you need to know, and you'll be coming into it just before the storm really hits, with Hotspots: 3078 set to cover all the remaining major huge battles, and then the last one (probably), Hotspots: 3080 or 3081 covering the final battles (in 3079) and then the immediate aftermath in 3080-3081, which is when the Jihad actually ends.

And then we'll be entering the new era with the formation of the Republic of the Sphere and then your guess is a good as mine as to what will happen. I don't forsee a timejump though - I very much doubt we'll go from 3080 to 3130. The BTech guys want to play everything out naturally rather than do a big fanbase-alienating jump like Dark Age did.

H.B.M.C. wrote:
It's not always happy - they've killed off a lot of characters including, just with the newest release, the beloved Khan of my Clan .

You just be speaking of Marthe Pryde, else you lost your reason.

Tell me what befell her.

Treachery and sabotage my fine fellow Falcon. She died where all Warriors should die - at the controls of her BattleMech - but sadly not in the fires of battle. Rather, the fires of a malfunction, one furious enough to rouse great Turkina from his perch so that he might save her soul, even if he could not save her body.

Our clan now falls to Samantha Clees... let us hope it was not her who caused this 'accident', otherwise I feel a reaving of the Clees bloodline coming on.

Bah! Good riddance vatbirth.

M.

At least she had a 'good' death instead of what they did to the Black Thorns

BTW, check out the painted Hammerhands on Camo Specs. Sweet!

Ghaz wrote:At least she had a 'good' death instead of what they did to the Black Thorns

Having your 'Mech tampered with and dying before you even reach combat isn't a 'good' death.

Also, having finished reading 3076 now, the funniest story has to be of a Wobbie unit that get's attacked by an unknown force. One of them reports an enemy tank that's bright pink, but the CO doesn't believe him. Then more attacks start coming in and the Wobbie CO says "My God... it is pink!" before getting blasted.

The pink forces belong to the BattleCorps Legion, who are commanded by a very girly girl who likes everything to be pink. It's very strange.

Have you read why the Thorns died? Here it is in Herb Beas own words:

HABEAS2 wrote:No hate went into this decision, as far as I can recall. Indeed, no thought was really given to the Thorns at all when Galedon got the shaft. We basically spilled a bio-plague, destroyed some local forces, bombarded the planet from orbit, and then nuked anything that remained, purely because Galedon needed to be rubbed out as a planet.

Only after all that did one of us actually go: "Um, what were the exact units we had on that planet?" and someone spotted the Thorns...

Now, Mercs Supplemental: Updates suggests that they went rogue during the FedSuns' action, but the fact remains that the only JumpShips in the system were those of the FedSuns at the time, and I don't think we ever saw them again or any of the retreating AFFS forces that hit Galedon.... After that, it was a bad year for a certain District Capital....

- Herb

HABEAS2 wrote:Well, to be fair, the Thorns had their fans--and even some advocates among the writers. But, to me, nothing drives home the indescriminate nature of the Jihad quite like wiping out a storied unit pretty much by oversight.

- Herb

So yes, dying because your 'mech was tampered with is a 'good' death compared to dying because the writers forgot they were on the planet.

I've seen two of my fav units be shattered by this Jihad and even before it started:

The 1st Davion Guards existed basically on paper at the end of the FCCW, and I don't things have been going so far for them in the Jihad.

Then there's the 2nd Sword of Light, torn apart by traitors to the Dragon and then blown to all hell and back. That sucked as well.

Thankfully no one has yet to touch my precious 5th Battle Cluster in the Falcon Epsilon Galaxy. Star Colonel Anu is safe!!!

Thanks for the heads up on those sourcebooks H.B.M.C!

That FedCom civil war book is actually the latest thing I bought before I took my Battletech hiatus. Never knew it was so popular on Ebay (not that I'm considering to sell it all of a sudden).

Seems like I've got quite some reading to do to get back up to date.

Luckily I've got the time. I'm introducing a friend to Battletech (also a WHFB player) and we'll start nicely around 3025 tech, it will take a while to progress further along the timeline.

If you've got the FCCW book, then you're lucky. Searched high and low for one that wasn't a stupid price. Couldn't find one.

As I said, it's a very dry book and quite a slog to get through it, but as a huge Davion fan I couldn't resist reading it. But if you really want to know what happened between the end of the Great Refusal against he Clans and the start of the Jihad, this book covers it in significant detail. It was exciting for me, but I can see it being tedious for others. Just depends on how much you want to know.

Yeah, I saw the thread and thought Battletech had somehow gone under again... I would be very surprised. While not a game I'm fond of, it's definitely a 'classic' in the truest sense and deserves respect.

BattleTech has never 'gone under'.

H.B.M.C. wrote:BattleTech has never 'gone under'.

There's been some dark days for the product line, I believe. Like when FASA shut down...

Glad to know that they're moving away from the click tech stuff. It's too bad I no longer have anyone to play Battletech with, as the friend of mine with the encyclopedic knowledge of the sourcebooks (not to mention the hard copies of them) has moved 3 hours south...

UCPesmerga wrote:Glad to know that they're moving away from the click tech stuff. It's too bad I no longer have anyone to play Battletech with, as the friend of mine with the encyclopedic knowledge of the sourcebooks (not to mention the hard copies of them) has moved 3 hours south...

I think that Classic BT and Clickytech have always been separate product lines, albeit based in the same greater setting. Clickytech seemed more like a 'Necromunda' to Battletech's '40k' by focusing on a lower 'middle point' for the game (lots of work mechs, etc.) while Battletech focuses more on military units and bigger units. Of course the big difference is that Necromunda is a great game (as is Battletech, even if it's not a favorite of mine).