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I play Battletech on occasion, just this year at "Hot Lead" this insane fellow did a Battletech scaled map of Quebec City with a little over 100 buildings. See pics:
It was really insane...

Genosaurer wrote:I'm a longtime fan of the BattleTech setting, but I didn't really like the recent massive rules overhaul...

I have to argue this one. In the history of the GAME there hasn't been a massive rules overhaul. Total Warfare is MOSTLY streamling play for combined arms. INfantry changed more than anything else, and how other unit s interact with infantry. You could pull out the 2nd Edition rules for 'Mech vs. 'Mechs and there are only a few very small differences between the 20 year old version and the most recent version.

CitizenPrime wrote:My girlfriend's parents live in Houston... Perhaps next holiday season I could come and investigate further.

Investigate what? Where your girlfriend's parents live? Is her mom hawt?

kronk wrote:

CitizenPrime wrote:My girlfriend's parents live in Houston... Perhaps next holiday season I could come and investigate further.

Investigate what? Where your girlfriend's parents live? Is her mom hawt?

The Houston gaming scene. Maybe try to round up a Battletech game.

In Copperfield in Northwest Houston, apparently 2 minutes from a GW store (never been to one in the US)

No. Not. No. Not even if you had on a seriously strong pair O' beer goggles.

They used to have battletech tournaments at OwlCon at Rice university (Convention held in January or February).

There are a number of games stores in Houston. Another one on the North West side is Azgard Games (spelling?). It's near Rice Village.

I've never played battletech at a game store, though. Only with my friends.

Ya know, I would be willing to drive the 4 hours to Houston to play some Battletech.

The gaming scene in this city really sucks donkey balls.

There is no gaming scene here. And Houston is 6 hours for me.

If I had the start up cast I'd open a store.

Thanks for the info Kronk, I'm certain I'll be there in the next 6 months.

Here is a crappy cell phone picture of a recent campaign battle we had. the units on the far left had already been destroyed or left the fight. We lost 4 mechs in the fight, but killed all but one of the bad guys. Curse that evil boss man. We'll get him, yet.

I printed a bunch of battle mech scaled building and put them together for this campaign. Also has a radio tower and the airport control tower. These were simple to put together and adds realism to the game, I think.

Nice I think my Epic 40K buildings would work with this.

Genosaurer wrote:I'm a longtime fan of the BattleTech setting, but I didn't really like the recent massive rules overhaul or the direction the storyline has taken post-3067.

Mattlov beat me to it but he's absolutely right. There hasn't been a rules overhaul since the game started. The mechs you were playing with in 1986 are still perfectly valid today. The rules have been expanded, options added, thing clarified, but the closest you'd get to an "overhaul" would be then they changed hits against a target in partial cover to being legs hits are misses instead of just using the old head capper punch table. That's why I love CBT. While it's gotten more interesting, expanded, gotten more in depth, but at its core its still the same game its always been so you're not having to relearn the rules every few years.

Now I do agree with the storyline. My loathing of the Twilight of the Clans and the Jihad cannot be captured in mere words.

Don't foreget those who play MegaMek online. It is still a fun game but sometimes it simply takes too long. Sometimes, it may even takes up to 1 1/2 hours for a lance vs lance online.

I haven't played battle tech since school days at the gaming club. It just takes way to long.

Haven't played B-tech is over 10 years. I Used to play with a group in northern NY state. We played 4-5 lance forces each. Unfortunately I have no clue what happened to my old mechs, though some bits have found their way onto my 40k models.

Kirika wrote:I haven't played battle tech since school days at the gaming club. It just takes way to long.

Nonsense. I can get a good Lance vs. Lance battle done in less time than it takes for a game of 40K.

Mattlov wrote:

Kirika wrote:I haven't played battle tech since school days at the gaming club. It just takes way to long.

Nonsense. I can get a good Lance vs. Lance battle done in less time than it takes for a game of 40K.

I agree.... a nice 2-light, 1-medium, 1-heavy, lance on lance match can take less than an hour.

helgrenze wrote:I agree.... a nice 2-light, 1-medium, 1-heavy, lance on lance match can take less than an hour.

That really depends on who you play with, what type of map you use and which era. Using 3025 tech, you'll be lucky if you finish the game in one and a half hour. Not uncommonly, there was not even a single mech destroyed after 2 hours even with veteran players.

wildger wrote:

helgrenze wrote:I agree.... a nice 2-light, 1-medium, 1-heavy, lance on lance match can take less than an hour.

That really depends on who you play with, what type of map you use and which era. Using 3025 tech, you'll be lucky if you finish the game in one and a half hour. Not uncommonly, there was not even a single mech destroyed after 2 hours even with veteran players.

3050 was our era.... and I tend to play agressively.

The biggest factor in the time taken was how well do you know the rules. If you have to spend all your time consulting the book and tables its going to drag on a lot longer than someone who knows them by heart.

We played the Minature Rules, 1 hex = 3" on a table top. Distance for everything was tripled; range, move..... But it was fun. The group allowed self mods for mechs. My favorite mixed lance was a erppc Panther mated with a srm6/large laser Valkyrie, standard Shadowhawk, and a twin LRM15 thunder Stalker. It helped that I got at least one high damage head shot per game.

A standard Shad? Why didn't you just take three mechs and save yourself the book keeping? Same difference.

The Shad was to protect the Stalker. The Panther and Valk were my hunters/drovers.

Yeah, if I see a Shad and a Stalker I ignore the Shad and just kill the Stalker.

Tyyr wrote:Yeah, if I see a Shad and a Stalker I ignore the Shad and just kill the Stalker.

At which time the Shad moves around behind you and ventilates your rear armor.

A Shad doesn't have the firepower to ventilate any armor...Even rear armor.

Kirika wrote:I haven't played battle tech since school days at the gaming club. It just takes way to long.

I agree. I like larger games (8v8 or 12v12) and it takes forever. I got some inspiration last night and I believe I found a system to convert Battletech a bit to streamline play.

Heres a very brief overview of my ideas:

Armor and weapons:

Armor: Add up the armor values for a mechs legs, arms and front (center, left & right) torsos. Divide by 10 (round to nearest whole number), with a max of 20. That is your new armor rating. Your side rating is 1 less, rear 2 less.

Weapons: A weapons new strength rating is its old damage rating plus a D6 rolled after a successful hit. LRMs have a strength rating equal to their number, IE LRM-10 is strength 10 (+D6). This reflects the fact that the larger the volley gets the more likely a missile will find a weak spot. SRMs are equal to 2x their number, IE SRM-4 is strength 8 (+D6). Gauss rifle also gets a D6+2 instead of the D6 all other weapons get. This represents its great armor piercing ability.

If a weapons strength plus the D6 roll exceeds the mechs armor rating then it takes a critical hit. Ill be making up a universal (as opposed to location specific) critical hit chart.

Firing weapons:

New modifiers...modifiers concerning movement of target and firing unit are gone, with the exception of jumping. Jumping adds +1 to hit, for both firing unit and target. IE: Target or firing unit jumps thats +1, both jumped thats +2. Range modifiers are...Short +0, Medium +1, Long +2.

There will no longer be rolls for hit location.

Movement: So far unchanged.

Heat: Unchanged.

Thats all Ive got so far. I need to playtest it a bit and Im sure do some refining. It looks like those changes should speed up play a good bit while still retaining most of the Battletech flavor.

It's a lot easier to grab Strategic Operations and use Quick Strike rules.

Similar to the old BattleForce rules, but instead of each mini representing a lance, it is just a single unit.

After getting the rules down, I did a company vs. company in about 40 minutes.

Mattlov wrote:It's a lot easier to grab Strategic Operations and use Quick Strike rules.

Similar to the old BattleForce rules, but instead of each mini representing a lance, it is just a single unit.

After getting the rules down, I did a company vs. company in about 40 minutes.

Ive seen it and plan on trying it. Might be cool when I get a pretty good amount of mechs, right now I only have 4. Unfortunatley Im on a real tight budget right now, and Ive got the itch for some 40K Necrons too.


Ive wanted to mod the regular Battletech rules for a while now...get a bit quicker play but not lose too much detail.

Mad4Minis wrote:

Mattlov wrote:It's a lot easier to grab Strategic Operations and use Quick Strike rules.

Similar to the old BattleForce rules, but instead of each mini representing a lance, it is just a single unit.

After getting the rules down, I did a company vs. company in about 40 minutes.

Ive seen it and plan on trying it. Might be cool when I get a pretty good amount of mechs, right now I only have 4. Unfortunatley Im on a real tight budget right now, and Ive got the itch for some 40K Necrons too.


Ive wanted to mod the regular Battletech rules for a while now...get a bit quicker play but not lose too much detail.

Just remember: Battletech doesn't need minis. If you have a counter with a facing, that's good enough for hex play.

Mattlov wrote:

Just remember: Battletech doesn't need minis. If you have a counter with a facing, that's good enough for hex play.

Very true. Would be nice if the new box set came out soon too.

Im kinda torn on what version to play however. I have a big stack of terrain for regular tabletop games Im not using, as Im not active in anything else at the moment, so mini rules are tempting. However, I have a ton of heroscape terrain as well, which makes excellent 3d hex terrain for battletech. Ill probably use the heroscape terrain while I refine my new rules. One thing I dont have is Battletech scale buildings, Im thinking of picking up some Monsterpocalypse buildings.

Mattlov wrote:

Just remember: Battletech doesn't need minis. If you have a counter with a facing, that's good enough for hex play.

For the longest time, I just played with the cardboard standups that came in the boxed set