We’re taking a look at the three current boxed products (the Beginner Box, A Game of Armored Combat, and Clan Invasion), what’s included in each, and which ones you need to play.Ī good cheap first taste of the game. The fourth, Alpha Strike, adds to the confusion as its a different set of game rules that are cross-compatible with the same models. There are currently three different box sets commonly available, with a fourth coming later this fall. You’ll see these throughout the Battletech articles, because who wants to write out Short Range Missile 15 times in an article.īattletech has existed since the 1980s, and unlike Warhammer hasn’t had repeated new editions changing the rules, so there’s a colossal pile of confusing books and supplements for a player getting started. I use some acronyms in this article, so SRM – Short Range Missile (a shorter ranged missile with a bigger warhead), LRM – Long Ranged Missile (longer range, less punch), AC is Autocannon, and the number is the amount of damage they do and PPC is Particle Projector Cannons, which is like a more damaging, hotter laser. If a model goes from having all guns with a max range of 9 to being able to hit things 21 hexes away, then it makes a big difference to performance on the table.
Variants, given they normally change the armament, can completely change the battlefield role. This means it is very common in Battletech (and seen in all of these products) to have a base model and a variant included for variety (so there is a Griffin N and a Griffin R in A Game of Armoured Combat, even though there is no Griffin miniature as they assume you’ll have one from the Beginner box). This leads to there being hundreds of mech record sheets out there and creating variants is a fan favourite activity with this sort of game design. Mech record sheets provide you with the information you need to use that particular mech, and you get variations of the same mech chassis, which can be as simple as having a different gun, to as much as having different armour, weapons and systems. Needless to say a lot of these 80s games featured a character sheet mechanic, and Mech Record Sheets are a fixture of Battletech. Modern audiences who didn’t grow up when tabletop wargaming was becoming popular don’t remember the growing pains when non-historical wargaming was working out whether it was an rpg combat system with miniatures or a wargame (see also Warhammer Fantasy Battle 1st edition, Rogue Trader, Laser Burn, Chainmail, Star Fleet Battles, etc). I could talk for a long time about 80s wargame design, and to a large extent Battletech is unchanged from when I first played it (though the miniatures are much better). This was so long ago I remember the short lived cartoon, and I was definitely a 3025 era player. I took a long break from it, but I’m starting to get back in. This was back in the 90s, shortly before the introduction of the clans, and gave me my first experiences with the system. Many many years ago I played Battletech on the kitchen table.
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