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 Charistoph wrote:
It will be available soon. In the short term, if you want free rules, there is the Quick Start Rules that's available for free (though not nearly as robust as the Commander's Edition), and the cards can be downloaded from the MUL Online.

That's enough to get my feet wet.. Thanks for the link.

 Flinty wrote:
You can still appear to get horizon wars on Kindle through Amazon.

I'm old fashioned. I still prefer books, especially if I have to pay for them.

 Eilif wrote:
Hope Mech Attack works out for you, but nice that is free anyway since you've already got it. We never bothered with the paper Mecha.

My gaming group gets snobby when it comes to print and play games, but I will give it a try. I remember really liking it when I read it years ago.

 LunarSol wrote:
Personally, I keep hoping for something between Classic and Alpha Strike. Classic is a little clunky to me. I'm not sure if over detailed is the right description so much as I think its rules could be resolved quicker with some modern ideas. Alpha Strike goes too far the other direction and gets so simple it doesn't really interest me and really doesn't have the mech flavor I want.

I'm in the same boat as you I think. I like the hit boxes and degrading stats, there are just more elegant ways of employing rules for it.

I was acutally big into play Mechwarrior Clix competitively in the local scene, while it lasted.

 adamsouza wrote:
Don't get me wrong, I have a lot of warm and fuzzy nostalgia for Battletech, and even the Clix version MechWarrior, but the game is clunky and needlessly slow to play by modern standards and there has to be something better out there.

What game or games do you know of that let you build custom giant robots and do battle with them that any good that would scratch the itch for an old time Battletech enthusiast?

The safe choice is Alph Strike but OnePageRules keeps it straightforward. Custom, balanced army lists exist for various mecha-like.

However, Lancer, the RPG, is everything 4th edition D&D wanted to be: a miniatures heavy wargame with cool weaponry and frames, variable cooldowns on abilities, heat mechanics, and some of the best digital tools to customize encounters. It’s also a breeze to play. It can be as gritty or as space opera as you like too.

The really nice thing about Alpha Strike is that it has probably one of the best starter sets out right now. It's a really good deal for something that literally comes with everything you need other than a surface to play on and a measuring device (and the minis need painted, obviously).

The other best thing it has going for it is that Battletech is releasing new Force Packs with vehicles, as Alpha Strike really feels "best" (at least to me) when it's being used for combined-arms.

I really hate that my local Battletech players think it's a horribly simplistic game, but they won't play it at anything other than basic face value of mech v. mech. I keep telling them that it's got more of the meat that they want when you add in Battlefield Support, Vehicles and VTOLs, Infantry mounted into APCs, weather, special ammo, pilot skills, etc.

Too many of our games of Classic take 4-5 hours to find out that you lost the game, and even then both players may only see one or two mechs even get destroyed from both forces involved.

Classic has it's place for a detailed skirmish, but sometimes......sometimes I just. don't. care. if a mech needs to take into account the effects of having a foot actuator damaged versus a damaged hip, or that I can't punch with one of my arms because I fired the gun that's mounted on it. Or that firing all the guns on a mech could result in god-knows how many consecutive dice rolls, especially if using a large suite of SRMs that might even need a dice rolling app to handle all the hit locations easier.

Please dont necro old threads.