Battletech Classic 25th anniversary introductory box set

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**NecronLord3**

What an incredible let down. This is just a rehash of the last box set with very little in the way of new and interesting product. Catalyst is really doing very little to gain market share in the mini wargaming community. A intro box set that basically only caters to the existing player base is kind pointless, IMO. How about more of those new premium mechs, not just a repackaging of the 2 that are already available. Catalyst has had 2 years to make a decent 8-10 pack set of the new Premium Plastic mechs and they have done nothing with it. To top it of IWM is archiving more models and making very little in the way of new mech. Battletech is really showing its age, and don't expect to ever see a 30 year anniversary for the game.

**NecronLord3**

Mattlov wrote:
megatrons2nd wrote:I was hoping for a bit of new in the release as well. As a intro it is great. As a 20th anniversary must have(for me anyway) a pass. Battletech is pretty dead in Necronlord3 and My area. I can't seem to get any interest.

Have you checked the Demo Agent site just to be sure it's dead?

http://www.catalystdemos.com

Might have to sign up, but you can then search for players and Agents (like me) nearby.

Yeah woo-hoo maximum search of 150 miles and we get a whopping 2 events.

**NecronLord3**

kronk wrote:I'm holding off until I see pictures of the mechs. But I am excited about the news.

This is a pretty good review of the original box set and the new one is nearly identical: http://www.tabletopgamingnews.com/2008/01/02/11742

**NecronLord3**

olympia wrote:All these posters hating on non-GW products! What is this, warseer? Personally I can't wait to get my hands on this thing.

There is no hate for Battletech from me. There is just disappointment from a good majority of the product releases that Catalyst puts out. I want to give them money and I want Battletech to grow. But putting out crap products like the 25th anniversary box set gives me no incentive to buy their products. They need to concentrate on growing a quality product line such as miniatures that are able to keep up with the releases of each Technical readout. And/or producing quality miniatures products like the Premium Mechs in addition to or as a replacement for the existing miniatures available.

**NecronLord3**

aka_mythos wrote:While I agree with the sentiment its better than cardstock minis that the original was reissued with and this helps to break down the biggest barrier for new people getting into the game.

We'be been spoiled and the reality is simply Catalyst, unlike other miniature game companies doesn't have the resources to capatilize by internally producing a miniature range.

That is true. Having one of their owners embezzle 3 million dollars probably did put a dent in their miniatures producing ability.

**NecronLord3**

H.B.M.C. wrote:They've never had an in-house miniature producing capability, nor have they ever tried to have such a thing. They are not a miniature war-gaming company.

No one ever said they did but the premium mechs were produced under the direction of Catalyst and then very shortly after the finical troubles came to light.

Catalyst isn't a miniatures, that is true and that is also much of the problem.

**NecronLord3**

Mattlov wrote:
Puscifer wrote:No Madcat for the premiums??? Strange, that is like the most recognisable mech.

I still have all my books from when I played, but no models as some bastard stole them all.

Anyone know where I can get models in the UK???

Ral Partha UK. Licensed BT producer across the pond. They don't have some of the super newest stuff, but they don't have an archiving fee either, IIRC.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

NecronLord3 wrote:
H.B.M.C. wrote:They've never had an in-house miniature producing capability, nor have they ever tried to have such a thing. They are not a miniature war-gaming company.
No one ever said they did but the premium mechs were produced under the direction of Catalyst and then very shortly after the finical troubles came to light.

Catalyst isn't a miniatures, that is true and that is also much of the problem.

Not a problem. They are a bunch of writers. Battletech is a simulation board game more than a minis game. The people in charge know that. They stick to what works. The Battletech people make sure the universe, game, and minis all stay in conjunction with each other for the utmost consistency. IIRC there are only MAYBE a dozen full time Catalyst employees. The rest are freelancers who happen to spend a lot of time doing Battletech and Shadowrun.

They know their limits. Imagine if GW had truly separate departments for rules and miniatures. Don't you think the quality would go up for both?

Obviously not. Battle tech is a prime example of how NOT having all your eggs in one basket leads to financial instability, poor coordination, and stagnation. Catalyst needs to concentrate on one thing growing it's consumer base. The box set is a good attempt at doing just that, however it could be done in such a better way that it would grow the consumer base, attract players from other games, bring old players back AND have something for the existing player base. 10 high quality plastic minis would do just that instead of 24 rereleased poor quality miniatures. Or they simply could have labeled this set a second printing of the box set and not have undue expectations for an anniversary boxed set.

**NecronLord3**

JOHIRA wrote:
yeenoghu wrote:
JOHIRA wrote:I played a couple of games of someone's Battletech set once. I remember really enjoying it, despite thinking the plastic minis were really, well, pants. About half of the problem was just bad robot design and the other half was just sloppy execution. But for that price I think I can live with that.

In fact, Battletech may be pretty much what I'm looking for at the moment. A small, fun, very detailed game that would allow future expansion but doesn't require hundreds or even thousands of dollars to get a decent starting force.

Part of the charm of 3025 was that all the designs had flaws. Not to go into detail, but 2 tons on a Stinger or Locust taken up for a machinegun system? mechs with crippling heat problems all over the place, ammo in the CT on many mechs just begging for a crit? The existance of the Jagermech?

I'm not talking about technical design flaws, I'm talking about visual design flaws. Some of them just plain look ridiculous (see the photo in pombe's post, the 'mech with long, spindly legs on tiny hip joints that pop outside its torso and a freaking helmet.)

But then as I understand things I can just not use that mech in most games, right? How does choosing a force work for Battletech anyway? Is it possible to assemble a collection of all the mechs you like and only use those mechs for every battle?

There are no restrictions on what you can take. Players generally will get together and come up with a limit. So some groups will play an era specific battle, for example you will only play mechs from 3050 or earlier. Some groups will play a tonnage level, for example any units you want with a total tonnage not to exceed 1000 tons. But the most common way to play is based on battle value, for example any units you want not to exceed 8,000 BV points. And there are many combinations and limitations that are used as well.

Now visually there are allot of very cool and very exciting designs as well as allot of outdated visually unappealing designs. IMO, what Dark Ages brought to the battletech universe was a change in the aesthetic appeal of mech designs. More and more mechs have more visually appealing designs while possibly having lack luster weapons and armor layouts or simply just being repackaged designs of older units.

**NecronLord3**

kronk wrote:I'm holding off until I see pictures of the mechs. But I am excited about the news.

Here is a better link to a higher quality pic of the 24 sub-par mechs from Boardgamegeek.com: http://cf.geekdo-images.com/images/pic247121_lg.jpg

**NecronLord3**

I think you guys are bringing up some good points. The sum of which is that Battletech needs some stream lining and I for one would like to see an updated version of the game that is more balanced and runs faster and smoother. There is never a game of CBT when you don't end up page flipping for 15min to an half hour just trying to work out how to do some simple maneuvers. To top it off the core rule books are poorly organized and often pages are mismarked. I'm glad to have PDFs of all the books now so that I can do key word searches using my iPad but the game design can be a major turn off for new players.

Battletech really has not changed in 25 years which is a plus and a minus as they have generally just added more and more to the game making it more and more complicated without doing much in the way of fixing problem areas or streamlining the existing system. One member of the CBT forums had brought up a really good point about how Total Warfare does in almost 400pages what the previous edition of the rule book did in like 70 pages or something to that effect but Total Warfare does it even more poorly. More is not always better.

**NecronLord3**

Mattlov wrote:
H.B.M.C. wrote:Wow. Whole lotta hate going on this this thread. If you don't like BattleTech, that's cool. But please, let you're opinion-as-fact bull-gak at the door.

I know. Especially the "OMG it is so hard to play!" people.

It is simple math. Can you add from 0-14? And read a page of charts? That is really all Battletech takes. It isn't hard.

Many aspects of Battletech are hardly 'simple math'. The math may be easy but making sure you are doing it correctly, can be tricky. Not to mention if you actually wanted to build a mech using the Tech manual. There is so much errata on that book that is pretty much impossible for the average person to every think about doing themselves.

**NecronLord3**

Mad4Minis wrote:
NecronLord3 wrote: Not to mention if you actually wanted to build a mech using the Tech manual. There is so much errata on that book that is pretty much impossible for the average person to every think about doing themselves.

There is a program called Heavy Metal Pro. Its an offical licensed product for BT so everything is 100% rules proper. It is a complete mech design workshop. You can choose tech base (IS or clan), tech level by year (3025, 3055, etc), and also by game play level (1,2,3). You have complete control of tonnage, weapons, crit locations, armor, everything. It can be expanded to add in vehicles, battle armor, and infantry. You can print the record sheet right from the program, and they look exactly like Battletech sheets. As a bonus it comes with 500 standard mech designs already loaded.

The base program CD is a whopping $22, so not much excuse for at least 1 person in any BT group to have it.

Heres a link: http://www.heavymetalpro.com/index.html

Which hasn't been updated since BV2 was designed so the new equipment is incompatible with the program. Rick Raisley and his HM programs is one the biggest problems with Battletech to date. He hasn't come out with a fully updated program in 6 years. Hence why Solaris Skunk Works was developed by fans because Heavy Metal is so worthless and Raisley completely dropped the ball.

HBMC you still fail to realize that it is a big problem when you have to use an unofficial product just to use one element of the game. Mech design is one major element of the game that if it wasn't done for you by other people the game would be pretty screwed.

Balance wrote:
That still seems a bit awkward. When I played BT many years ago the BV system was either unavailable or not used: everyone seemed to go by raw tonnage. As such, there was no real balancing for the Clan vs. IS stuff. Every time I look in on the BT community, the Clans seem to be a very divisive issue. It's not Codex Creep in the way GW does it, and not quite in the way Warmachine gets complaints about (new books favoring new unit types, but it's a little better since generally everyone gets new stuff), but there is a lot of evidence that it is a very big divisive junction for the community.

The game is still horribly unbalanced. Just play a Hellion C(light) Vs a Sagittarire(Assault), both have damn near the same BV and the Hellion will lose everytime. And on the flip side if you play tonnage a Hellion will usually beat another light mech everytime.

**NecronLord3**

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**

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**

aka_mythos wrote:Its been said that all but two of the minis are a reissue of the old plastics... which looked like these:

This is is not true. These are the crappy plastic mechs that are being reissued:

The Unseen you picture where a much higher quality plastic miniature than Catalyst has ever produced.

aka_mythos wrote:The thing about battletech is there are so many diverse designs it is easy enough to avoid the ones you don't like. For every humanoid design there are almost as many chicken-legged and four-legged designs.

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BrookM wrote:Okay, newbie question: If I want to field a Madcat or Timberwolf or whatever you grognards call it, besides owning the proper mini, do I need a source book or something to field it in games?
Just to come back to your question in a more helpful way...
Look into one of these:
Technical Readout 3039:
http://www.battlecorps.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=27_176_207&products_id=2037

Technical Readout 3050 Upgrade:
http://www.battlecorps.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=27_176_181&products_id=1916

Technical Readout 3060:
http://www.battlecorps.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=27_176_181&products_id=2380

The later period of the Jihad isn't as interesting (my opinion), and the stuff from the earliest books that preceeded these were included into the 3050 book as an update... which unfortunately is sold out from Catalyst. The 3039 book is what Catalyst recommends for getting started, beyond the core rulebook and starter set... but it doesn't have the Clan mechs you want, nor would anything preceeding it.

So in summary... the "Technical Readout 3050 Upgrade" book. They sell the PDF for $25: http://www.battlecorps.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=1915
Or you can get a paper copy off amazon "new" for ~$30.

Also entirely unnecessary. To answer BrookM's question, to field a Madcat mini you need only a counter(any) to represent the Madcat(preferably a Madcat mini) and the record sheet for the design you wish to use. Technical readouts are loads of fun and I recommend them over buying any other battletech product, however they basically are the fluff of the Battletech universe except that you can make designs yourself when a Record sheet is unavailable but exact cannonzied placement of equipment requires an official record sheet to be 100% accurate.

You also do not need to spend a dime to field the Madcat as you can download the program to print the record sheet for FREE from here: http://www.solarisskunkwerks.com/

**NecronLord3**

aka_mythos wrote:
NecronLord3 wrote:
Also entirely unnecessary. To answer BrookM's question, to field a Madcat mini you need only a counter(any) to represent the Madcat(preferably a Madcat mini) and the record sheet for the design you wish to use. Technical readouts are loads of fun and I recommend them over buying any other battletech product, however they basically are the fluff of the Battletech universe except that you can make designs yourself when a Record sheet is unavailable but exact cannonzied placement of equipment requires an official record sheet to be 100% accurate.

You also do not need to spend a dime to field the Madcat as you can download the program to print the record sheet for FREE from here:.../

I'd be careful with that. By virtue of the old game not being available for some time people have been kinda lax about Battletech source material, but they have as much right to protect theirs as GW. While not all companies are tyrants like GW, yes, you can find all the things needed to play, floating around online for no cost, but Catalyst is not as large a company, so it hurts them disproportionately more to take liberties with their copywritten material. But yes you can play with just the Record sheets which are also sold by Catalyst in their webstore in a PDF format, with rights to print yourself as many duplicates for personal use as you like.

Solaris is an approved program for Battletech. Though HMpro has the license to design the official record sheet software, that license is with the Battletech license owner Topps and not Catalyst. Considering HMpro is so out of date and Rick Raisley has done such a pointless job on that project Catalyst sanctions Solaris Skunk Works by featuring a forum on their own official Classic Battletech website and the free computer program MegaMek for playing Battletech by yourself or with others on your PC.

However if you want pirated PDF's those are readily available as well though I'm not going to instruct you on how to obtain those either.

**NecronLord3**

Actually I am very well aware of Rick Raisleys problems. And I'm quite up to date on his excuses. Everyone has given him more than his fair share of slack regarding those personal issues and enough is enough.

As has been mentioned before, if I was to take as long doing my job and giving excuses, my employer would have found someone else to do it for me long ago. Regardless of anything I have going on in my personal life. Its business not personal and when confronted with a reasonable request that was posed to Rick, he became a beligerent A-hole and was entirely rude and unprofessional. So you can tell him again from me exactly what he can do with himself and HMworthless.