Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

Why does the thought of a Battletech Blood Bowl team suddenly spring to mind?

Thanks DarkTraveler for the clarification. With a decent paint scheme It looks pretty darn good. I may pick one up.

Also, nice one Infinite_array, I almost sprayed coffee on my computer at your comment! Battletech Bowl!

So, assuming the new "edition" is not a polar-shift, how difficult should I expect learning Battletech to be?

Everyone on the outside just hears how famously crunchy it is, but man... the idea of building my own mechs and stuff seems amazing (and I bet is conducive to campaign play).

I don't mean Alpha Strike, rather proper, complicated... a couple models-per-player Battletech.

How long do individual games tend to be?

Have you looked at the BattleTech Quick Start Rules? That should give you an idea of how the game plays.

 Ghaz wrote:
Have you looked at the BattleTech Quick Start Rules? That should give you an idea of how the game plays.

I have. Am I right in thinking that Alpha-Strike is played like a conventional table-top game, whereas Battletech proper always prefers the Hex-board? Is there a way to get all of the crunch, with the freedom of a table-top experience?

The old Rules Compendium had tabletop-from-hex rules, and I THINK, think, that the new core stuff does as well, that said, they were pretty basic: 1 hex=1", hex bases to measure hex turns, or 60 degree marks. Can't remember if height/terrain was TLOS or had fixed sizes, probably something like 1"=1 level. Basic level isn't that hard, its just very tableriffic and slow until you've got the tables memorized through repeated use (and even then tends towards the slow side.)

Edit: game length. probably a couple hours for a 1-2 mech per person duel, 3-4 IIRC for lance-on-lance. Had an RPG group for the MWRPG for a while, and combat ate up most of a session in sessions it happened in. Granted, that was with a certain amount of faffing about, and people still learning the game to an extent,

Edit to the edit: Also try looking up Megamek--its basically a program to play the hex version on line, though there's no matchmaking, pure IP/server connections.

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:

 Ghaz wrote:
Have you looked at the BattleTech Quick Start Rules? That should give you an idea of how the game plays.

I have. Am I right in thinking that Alpha-Strike is played like a conventional table-top game, whereas Battletech proper always prefers the Hex-board? Is there a way to get all of the crunch, with the freedom of a table-top experience?

BattleTech is a board game, with the a lot of the players using miniatures in place of the card tokens. Alpha Strike is the expanded version of the miniatures rules that were always just sort of tacked on to the BattleTech rules.

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:
So, assuming the new "edition" is not a polar-shift, how difficult should I expect learning Battletech to be?

Everyone on the outside just hears how famously crunchy it is, but man... the idea of building my own mechs and stuff seems amazing (and I bet is conducive to campaign play).

I don't mean Alpha Strike, rather proper, complicated... a couple models-per-player Battletech.

How long do individual games tend to be?

Battletech isn't just conductive to campaign play, it's almost EXPECTED.

Getting into it well.. the basic core rules I think are simple, but you do have a fair number of charts, but once you have those down (and it's all fairly simple numbers) you'll be ok, there's a LOT of room for added complexity with optional rules and the like, tanks and infantry, artillery etc. that said if you're one of those people who considers 40k too complex... Battletech won't be to your liking AT ALL. (40k, even 7th edition at it's bloatiest wasn't that complex compared to Battletech with all the bells and whistle optional rules) the game might seem intimidating but it's suprisingly elegant. having not changed much in 30 odd years. you could pick up battletech third edition used and pretty much play the same game as the latest rules. (IIRC the only thing that changed where partial cover)

building your own mechs is great fun but a LOT of math if you do it manually, luckly there are mech design software out there that does it for you. The most up to date one last I checked was Solaris Skunk Works.

There's also a digital option for battletech called MegaMek that is worth checking into.

I love math, and I love crunchy, complex, minutia. :-) It sounds like it won't be a problem... but I do need to get the wife and/or some friends interested.

Any fun ways to bling out the board? I'm guessing a lot of folks play it on say, Heroscape tiles?

 infinite_array wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

Why does the thought of a Battletech Blood Bowl team suddenly spring to mind?

I got Atlas Hamlet


Automatically Appended Next Post:

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:
I love math, and I love crunchy, complex, minutia. :-) It sounds like it won't be a problem... but I do need to get the wife and/or some friends interested.

Any fun ways to bling out the board? I'm guessing a lot of folks play it on say, Heroscape tiles?

My FLGS uses heroscape for many of their games. Seems to have worked well.

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:
I love math, and I love crunchy, complex, minutia. :-) It sounds like it won't be a problem... but I do need to get the wife and/or some friends interested.

Any fun ways to bling out the board? I'm guessing a lot of folks play it on say, Heroscape tiles?

Most people play it on mapsheets. There are conversion rules to make it a full scale mini game, but yeah, I've never played that way

Why can't they sell these. In this day and age where GW gets $167 US for a mass produced acceptable Knight Titan, and $240 for a nicer FW kit. You would think Catalyst would recognize there is a market for these and sell them.

I'd put a 9" tall Battlemaster on my mantle.

I wouldn't. I'd play it and the others on the tabletop alongside some 25mm figures.

They have trouble producing enough core sets, I don’t think toddler-sized models should be high on their priority list.

Leave that to CMON...

I think they could farm it out to parties who have experience with Resin models.

So there are new boxed sets already showing up on eBay.

So that's nice.

 infinite_array wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

Why does the thought of a Battletech Blood Bowl team suddenly spring to mind?

This needs to be brought to Solaris VII arenas!

And yeah, I'd totally buy a 9" Warhammer & Battlemaster!

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
So there are new boxed sets already showing up on eBay.

So that's nice.

the real irriating thing with their pre-release at gencon is when they put out story supplements, half the time they don't put even the PDFs up until after gencon so all us "non con plebs" got spoiled.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
So there are new boxed sets already showing up on eBay.

So that's nice.

Saw someone say that they were trying to sell it for $500 or more.

 Mattlov wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
So there are new boxed sets already showing up on eBay.

So that's nice.

Saw someone say that they were trying to sell it for $500 or more.

I bet there are people willing to pay that, the Battletech fanbase is smallish but it's got some pretty hard core fanatics.

 Mattlov wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
So there are new boxed sets already showing up on eBay.

So that's nice.

Saw someone say that they were trying to sell it for $500 or more.

This is Mad Dok Grotsnik's fault. Somehow.

I want that Union Dropship. My wife will kill me afterwards but I want at least 3 dropships to carry my old merc batallion.

M.

She should not get that mad... It's fairly cheap.
http://ironwindmetals.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=4025

 Nicorex wrote:
She should not get that mad... It's fairly cheap.
http://ironwindmetals.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=4025

Just for clarification that drop ship is not the same type seen at Gen Con. The one linked from IWM is a much smaller model (about 4"-6" tall) and is a "Map Scale" model versus a "Mech Scale" model.

The difference is Map Scale conforms to the map sheets with each hex measuring 30 meters across. A Dropship's foot print is about 4 hexes and the Map Scale drop ship matches that foot print.

A Mech Scale model would be in scale with the actual Battlemech models and is the type seen in the Gen Con diorama. That was custom printed.

IIRC, going back to 3rd and 4th edition, the wargames rules conversions basically made 1MP = 3" of movement and fudged a few other things to get all the MP ratings to match up, and changed the cover rules (in the basic rules, a 'Mech is 2 levels tall; a 'Mech behind 1-level-tall cover has a to-hit penalty when firing at it, but if you do hit, you roll on a reduced hit chart that only included the locations on the top half of the 'Mech (and made it much more likely to shoot it in the head if you did hit). In the miniatures rules, you just used the standard firing rules with no to-hit penalties, but if you roll a hit location that's obscured by cover, then you miss.

I always just used to play using 1 MP = 1" move. It made the movement rules conversion much simpler, and meant you didn't need as much space. I also made some 3D add-ons for the map sheets in the starter box to make it 3D, just for the visual appeal.

I have seen some stunning 3D custom tables for BattleTech. One used dots of flock to delineate the hexes without having to draw an obvious grid over it, and one stunning one that was a coastline area, with buildings, beaches, cliffs and sea stacks. Can't find them now. :(

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
IIRC, going back to 3rd and 4th edition, the wargames rules conversions basically made 1MP = 3" of movement and fudged a few other things to get all the MP ratings to match up, and changed the cover rules (in the basic rules, a 'Mech is 2 levels tall; a 'Mech behind 1-level-tall cover has a to-hit penalty when firing at it, but if you do hit, you roll on a reduced hit chart that only included the locations on the top half of the 'Mech (and made it much more likely to shoot it in the head if you did hit). In the miniatures rules, you just used the standard firing rules with no to-hit penalties, but if you roll a hit location that's obscured by cover, then you miss.

That's thankfully no longer true, one of the few rules changes Catalyst made when the Total Warfare rulebook came out in 2007ish was they reduced the partial cover mod from -3 to -1, but you don't roll on the punch table anymore, instead you roll on the normal hit location and if you get an obscured result then it hits the intervening terrain instead of the mech. It's more like the miniature rules now, and is a tremendous improvement over the original rule, where hiding behind a hill was actually riskier than standing out in the open

Not technically a Battletech question but rather about another line from the same company/booth...Shadowrun. If anyone knows of news for the Shadowrun rpg, feel free to pm me with the info and/or links so as not to derail the thread.

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:

 Ghaz wrote:
Have you looked at the BattleTech Quick Start Rules? That should give you an idea of how the game plays.

I have. Am I right in thinking that Alpha-Strike is played like a conventional table-top game, whereas Battletech proper always prefers the Hex-board? Is there a way to get all of the crunch, with the freedom of a table-top experience?

You can play either way. After the third or fourth iteration, we were playing Hex optional printed on the board, because of people using scale scenery, and home made terraign, but the hex system were still in play as far as your movements/ shooting, and measuring.(If that makes sense...) Basically, the cardstock maps were interchangeable with home made terrain board, you just had to measure using the hex system.

 Nicorex wrote:
She should not get that mad... It's fairly cheap.
http://ironwindmetals.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=4025

What DarkTraveller said. The IWM is the small one you can store anywhere, but I want the mech scale ones that it's like ten times the size

I think there was a limited Union or Leopard mech scale run some years back. Resin with metal legs.

M.